San Diego Objectivist Study Group

It is an incontestable fact that we human beings sometimes decide wrongly. Regret is the emotion accompanied by such evaluations. Some people decide wrongly on a career, on marrying or divorcing someone, on having children, on buying or selling a car or house, on investing or divesting a stock or bond, and so on. A wrong decision affects adversely the decision maker’s well-being. So it is in his interest to try to prevent wrong decisions from occurring.

Supposing someone made a wrong decision. How would he or anyone else be able to locate the mistake? After introspecting and identifying in oneself the emotion of regret, the following questions can guide one’s assessment to reveal the point(s) at which a decision went wrong: 1) Is the deliberative process adequate? 2) Is the content of deliberation correct? 2a) Is the stated purpose in accord with one’s values? 2b) are there at least two alternatives being considered? 2c) Is there a standard of evaluation? These are practical questions about process and content, and since similar questions work well for evaluating logical arguments, these should work well for evaluating decisions.

During a deliberative process, there are many ways the thinking can go wrong: One can make thinking mistakes; the process may be incomplete; it may be interrupted; it may be rushed; it may inadvertently admit irrational elements.

Just as consequential, the deliberative content may be incorrect: The purpose may fail to fit within the overall hierarchy of values; it may turn out to be whimsical; it may be too vague or nonspecific; the alternatives are false; they include impossible, unrealistic options; they bear hidden assumptions; the standard of evaluation may not be derived from personal values and reflective knowledge of constraints, limits, capacities; it may not even be derived from the stated purpose.

Negatively, where there is free will, there is fallibility. But positively, the source of free will is reason, and reasoning can be self-correcting. To prevent or at least minimize wrong decisions, the key recommendation is to acquire virtues—both intellectual and moral—to aid in streamlining the process of decision making. A streamlined deliberative process requires the intellectual virtue of objectivity. And the correct deliberative content requires the moral virtues of independence and honesty. As Aristotle reminds us, “[A] decision requires understanding and thought, and also a state of character.” Needless to say, the architectonic state of character is rationality.

How did I do relative to the general prescription of decision making?

Relative to the prescription, I identified and formulated the purpose by first attending to my desire, which arose spontaneously from attending to the facts about my current physical condition. In other words, chronologically speaking, 1) my observation of facts led me to 2) make an evaluation, 3) which led to an automatic desire, 4) which led me to a rational check on the desire, 5) which, being rational, led me to formulate a purpose. Steps 1 and 3 were automatic. Steps 2, 4, 5 were volitional. Step 2 was deductive; 4 was inductive; and 5 was creative.

I quickly related the purpose to my overall purpose to live a good life, found it pretty high on the hierarchy, and proceeded to list alternatives. (I skipped prescription-steps 2 and 3 and worked on step 4.) I listed them in no particular order, disregarding hierarchical context, but staying within the realm of possibility.

Then I went back to finish prescription-step 2, working on refining the purpose. Using knowledge already possessed, I then specified the standard for evaluating the alternatives, a standard of deliberation. This was p-s 3. Finally (p-s 5), I made the decision, choosing an alternative and integrating and subsuming in the process many of the others as subcomponents of the chosen alternative.

So I did not follow the prescription in the specified order, but more importantly, all the elements of the decision-making process were addressed.

The prescription is general enough to accommodate variations in practice, as long as all the requisite elements are accounted for. Indeed the prescription is nothing more than an application of a theory of decision making along Aristotelian-Objectivist ethics. To the extent the theory is adequate with true hypothesis, the practical prescription is in accord with reality.

The three main requirements for rational decision making are an acquired ability to reason logically, a code of values volitionally adopted and well integrated, and the cognitive content of the decision. The first I got from TAOR; the second I got from Objectivism; the third I got from today’s thinking effort. I think I did it right.

Overall, I am satisfied with the decision-making process. It may need occasional refinements, but it should work for individuals. Moreover, it should also work for business organizations in making business decisions. (Only individuals can think; so the first requirement will always stay with the business manager. The second requirement can be translated to mission statements and general business policies. The third requirement comes from economic conditions, market opportunities, available resources, and customer requirements.)

Let’s concretize and put my understanding of decision making to the test with an example. Let’s say I am in relative good health. My body mass index (BMI) is still within the good range but is slowly creeping toward the overweight range. I identify my desire as stabilizing in the healthy zone, which is a good thing for health, for living. Staying preferrably at 22.5 for a guy is optimal. (A BMI of 25 is overweight, 30 is fat, 40 is morbidly obese.)

So I come up with the idea, hey, let’s train for a marathon; a local one is coming up in eight months; another one in the next town is in three months. This is one alternative. Another alternative is to eat less every day. Another is to go to the gym more every week. Another is to bike more around town in the evenings. Another is to invest in a wet suit to surf the waves more often during the fall and winter. All these ideas come up. What to do?

The purpose is the maintenance of physical health, and one measurable is the BMI. Another measure is the percentage of body fat in terms of underwater immersion, skin-fold calibration, and bioelectrical impedance. Another is the waist-to-hip ratio. Another is the degree of fitness in terms of skeleto-muscular strength, cardio-vascular endurance, and flexibility. Still another is dietary consumption in terms of caloric intake and nutritional balance.

I have to concretize and quantify this purpose to suit me. To be my value, I have to personalize it uniquely to my constraints, priorities, and conditions. Since I am young and in my prime, I need to keep up my health not just at a minimal level but at the optimal that befits my physical maturity. I want to keep my body lean and muscular, with six-pack abs and toned muscles. Even though my daily activities are primarily sedentary office work, my body still needs rigorous activities, healthful nutrients, and plenty of rest to maintain vigor and vitality. And it doesn’t hurt to look handsome and attractive in social settings. So, given the musculature requirement and about two hours daily during weekdays for the project, I can discount the BMI and focus instead on the percentage of body fat, getting it down to between 10 and 12 percent. (The average American man is 22 percent fat; I am right now at 16, using a Tanita weight scale. The body floats at 15 in fresh water, at 13 in salt. Visible abdominal muscles begin to appear at 12; those on magazine covers are at 10 or less. [Covert Bailey, Fit or Fat])

Balancing everything together with the alternatives, a regimen of training for the June marathon is a pretty good 26.2-milestone for staying healthy. Incorporated into the regimen are the calibrated and planned meals, daily ab exercises, alternating speed-runs and strength trainings, weekend activities (e.g., dancing, biking, surfing, rollerblading, distance-running, and some tennis), and a regular sleeping schedule (except during travel). In striving toward the optimal level of good health, I will want to highlight speed training, refining the expectation from the previous marathon, and aiming to trim the finish time by at least half an hour.

There, I’ve made a decision about my physical health. Many more need to be made before the purpose is realistically grounded to everyday activities—before it becomes my motive force.

Theory:

Choice making is one of the most generic of mental activities. You, the choice-maker, find yourself with two or more alternatives, and you choose among them. Henceforth, you become the cause for the consequences of the choice.

The concept “choice” is contrasted against “reflex.” While human beings may have some vestigial physical reflexes, we do not have any innate mental ones. The consciousness of an animal operates on reflex. The conceptual consciousness of a man operates on and by choice. Human beings can choose. Thus, while animals can only react in the world, we can originate action to change the world. We are potentially prime movers.

Within the human realm, the concept “choice” is also contrasted against “coercion.” The choice-maker makes a choice among alternatives only when he is free. Where there is no freedom for him to think, there is no choice. Coercion is the use of physical force against the choice-maker, to force him to suspend his own mental activity. In which case, morally speaking, he becomes merely an acting agent, not a causal agent. A coerced choice is a contradiction in terms.

A decision is a choice made with deliberation. This is opposed to a whim, which is a choice made without any deliberation. According to Aristotle, a decision is a “deliberative desire.” It is a desire weighed against the choice-maker’s purpose and standard of values. Given two or more alternatives, the choice-maker decides on the best one that, if acted on, will achieve his purpose, with “best” being gauged by his standard of values. By contrast, a whim, according to Ayn Rand, is “a desire experienced by a person who does not know and does not care to discover its cause.”

Making a decision, as any reasoning, can be rational or irrational—rational if the standards of objectivity are respected, irrational if ad hoc standards (e.g., emotion, faith) are admixed.

animating force
    coercive force
    motive force
        animal reflex {reactive force}
        human choice {active force}
            whim
            decision
                irrational decision <nonobjective>
                rational decision <objective>

A choice then is a basic mental activity to initiate action in the world. Only human beings can make choices, can make them cognitively, and only when they are free to think. A decision is a species of choice, categorized on the basis of deliberation, the exercise of reason.

Practice:

To become proficient at decision making, one first needs to know how to think well, because decision making is a cognitive process, specifically, a deliberative process. One deliberates to arrive at a conclusion over which one is the best among the alternatives, e.g., a course of action among possibilities.

Secondly, one needs to acquire a state of character, an integrated and automated standard of values rationally adopted. Having a standard of values is prerequisite to determining one’s own values and purposes, independent of any particular decision.

Thirdly, and more particularly, as good arguments must be valid and have true premises, so right decisions must be well deliberated and with correct desires. Here the issue is not over the process of the decision but over its content. The content of any decision comprises [1] a purpose, [2] a disjunction of two or more alternatives to achieving it, and [3] a standard for deliberation.

1. Identify the purpose.
2. Relate it to one’s standard of values to determine its desirability.
3. Derive a standard of deliberation in accordance to desire.
4. Discover genuine alternatives to achieve it.
5. Deliberate on alternatives from the standard of action to achieve the purpose.

1.  In daily living, or in a professional job, having a purpose is paramount for acting. Before there can be a need for decision making, there must already be a purpose. Typically, one finds the everyday kind of purpose in the form of problems. Or one can and ought to create problems for oneself to achieve.

2.  One determines if the problem should be adopted as one’s purpose by relating it to one’s hierarchy of values. If it can help achieve a long-term value, then one should adopt it as a purpose. The more refined and determinate one can identify a problem, the clearer it becomes in terms of its relative value in one’s hierarchy, and the better one can prioritize to solve or achieve it.

3.  In order to set a purpose, one needs to identify the elements that will yield success. One needs to quantify the goal internally in order to establish the standard of deliberation, the criteria of success.

4.  Next, one initiates an inductive reasoning process systematically to discover and identify genuine alternatives that will satisfy the purpose, given the constraints of the acting agent. One owes it to oneself to look objectively for counterevidence. In the process, one identifies the assumptions, contingencies, and potential obstacles (subproblems) for each alternative.

5.  Finally, one deliberates on the available alternatives to select the best one from the standard of deliberation. The best one becomes the object of desire, the goal or action, that, if obtained, will achieve one’s purpose.

A decision is a momentous event in one’s life. One honors or dishonors oneself in deciding. This, too, is a choice.

It usually begins with Aristotle. As a matter of curiosity, I had been perplexed to distinguish between making a choice and making a decision. What is the difference between the two? On what basis can someone say he is choosing something over another in contradistinction to his deciding something over another? What makes the two mental activities different, if at all? Well, it so happens that Aristotle has something to say about this and more:

There are three capacities in the soul—sense perception, understanding, desire—that control action and truth. Of these three, sense perception is clearly not the principle of any action, since beasts have perception, but no share in action.

As assertion and denial are to thought, so pursuit and avoidance are to desire. Now virtue of character is a state that decides, and decision is a deliberative desire. If, then, the decision is excellent, the reason must be true and the desire correct, so that what reason asserts is what desire pursues. This, then, is thought and truth concerned with action. The thought concerned with study, not with action or production, has its good or bad state in being true or false; for truth is the function of whatever thinks. But the function of what thinks about action is truth agreeing with correct desire.

The principle of an action—the source of motion, not the goal—is decision; the principle of decision is desire and goal-directed reason. That is why decision requires understanding and thought, and also a state of character; for acting well or badly requires both thought and character.

Thought by itself moves nothing; what moves us is goal-directed thought concerned with action. For this thought is also the principle of productive thought; for every producer in his production aims at some further goal, and the unqualified goal is not the product, which is only the qualified goal of some production, and aims at some further goal. An unqualified goal is what we achieve in action, since acting well is the goal, and desire is for the goal. That is why decision is either understanding combined with desire or desire combined with thought; and this is the sort of principle that a human being is.

We do not decide to do what is already past; no one decides, for instance, to have sacked Troy. For neither do we deliberate about what is past, but only about what will be and admits of being or not being; and what is past does not admit of not having happened. That is why Agathon is correct to say ‘Of this alone even a god is deprived—to make what is all done to have never happened’.

[Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics VI.2, 1139a18-1139b11, translator Terence Irwin, 2000, p. 87]

To interpret this passage correctly, one has to recognize that for Aristotle moral action is always volitional action. Beasts therefore cannot act. They react. Action has to do with motivation or affection, while truth has to do with cognition. For Aristotle, cognition is prior to motivation, both temporally and logically. Virtue of character is a self-made state of the soul, made through the automatization of past thoughts and actions. A decision can only be made by a man of character, while a choice is the generic process abstracted of the aid of moral habitude. Given this, Aristotle defines a decision to be a deliberative desire.

Integrating in Objectivist concepts, this means that just as beasts react automatically, human beings emote and desire automatically (on account of their automated value-premises). A decision is contrasted with a whim. A decision is a deliberative desire; a whim is “a desire experienced by a person who does not know and does not care to discover its cause.” (TVOS “The Objectivist Ethics” 14b) A decisive man is a man of character who knows which of his desires are rational (and thus to be acted on) and which are whimsically spurious. An indecisive man is one undisciplined in character who cannot identify his desires and who can only “react” on whim, if he even acts. Either man can choose, but only the self-disciplined man can decide. Moreover, a self-made man of character makes quick virtuous decisions during emergency situations which afford him little time to choose a course of action.

In evaluating a decision, two things have to be considered: the correctness of the thinking process, and the rightness of the goal. The input to the decision process is a value to gain; the output, a goal to pursue, projecting backward. Thus, what is deliberatively true with respect to one’s purpose (the value) ought to be pursued (the goal).

An action is motivated internally by a decision. (By contrast, a reaction is triggered by whim.) A decision is originated in the soul on the parts of “desire and goal-directed reason.” Existentially, an action is aimed at a goal, which is the output of the decision. The decision is made logically by understanding one’s desire in relation to one’s value (purpose) and thinking about its practical fulfillment with the aid of a state of character, which is either morally virtuous or vicious.

A producer acts for a series of means and ends. The immediate (unqualified) goal is not the final product. At each stage of the series of means and ends, the producer needs to make a decision. In deciding, he starts by understanding his purpose and attending to the desire, moving backward, getting a goal-directed thought and attending to its corresponding desire, continuing until he reaches the immediate (unqualified) goal that has no more dependency, a strict means that is not an intermediate end to any other means. At which time, he reaches a “goal-directed thought concerned with action”; and this is what moves him to act.

As to what is “deliberation” in this context, that is another perplexity.

In reading the works of ethics by Objectivist writers, foremost Ayn Rand’s, I have noticed recurring pairings of certain terms along certain dimensions. It would be beneficial to understand the meanings of the pairings and then apply them consistently in one’s own normative thinking.

I think “purpose” connotes multiple steps or intermediate stages—at least one middle step—in acquiring a value. A “goal” is more generic and connotes any value one seeks to gain, whether immediately, at an intermediate stage, or at a final stage. An end is abstractly broad in connotation and is in no danger of being confused when used teleologically to refer to a value.

A metaphor of a hierarchical directory structure in a computer’s operating system may help. Suppose you are using a text-based shell to access files in various folders. You are in some current directory at the leaf end of the structure. The root directory is your central purpose. Since you can go to any folder, any folder can be a goal or purpose; and you can change directory or navigate to it either by an absolute reference or by a reference relative to where you are. An absolute reference is your purpose in the resting, because by the time you are done navigating, that’s what you want the shell prompt to show you. But you can also get there by traversing through multiple hops in the directory, using relative references; these references are goals in the doing.

So, while a goal may be used more generically any time to refer to a value in the hierarchical structure, there is a special connotation to “goal”: that it is something just ahead relative to where one is. A “purpose” is a value, as connoted from a global, absolute perspective—at least from the perspective of the ultimate goal, which is one’s whole life. It is in the bird’s-eye view that people ask about one’s purpose in life, because they want to see its inner, dependent structure; while at the day-to-day ground level, people ask about one’s short-term or long-range goals from one’s current situation, as a value one wants to gain, without their needing to know its dependencies or its place in one’s over-all hierarchy. “Purpose” takes the future-oriented perspective and projects a backward path. “Goal” takes the present- or past-oriented perspective and projects a forward path.

Since one’s action takes place in the present, it naturally aims to achieve a goal. The purpose of an action is to attain some goal. And just as one chooses the action from a set of alternatives, one also chooses the things one wishes to achieve in the future; those things are purposes. To bind the future to the present, one first needs to choose a central purpose. Then one needs to project the structure of means and ends to achieve it. These ends become the integrated values in the hierarchy, to be aimed as goals for the purpose of action, or to be weighed as purposes for the goal of decision. And everything that may potentially satisfy a goal—including actions and intermediate goals—constitutes one’s “interests” in the context of that goal.

As I read through Onkar Ghate’s introductory series of posts on Objectivism for the uninitiates, I cannot but conclude about the simplicity at the root of the philosophy. His final post has a conditional prescription: Think.

I take this recommendation seriously. Thinking is intellectual work. It requires [1] the proper use of logical methods and [2] the awareness of one’s conscious contents. The first part of the requirements can be further subdivided as the requirements [1a] to know—not just kinda know or be vaguely familiar with, but really know—logical methods, and [1b] to know how to use—and how not to misuse—them for any situation in daily life. The second part of the requirements of thinking is to be aware of one’s thoughts and thought processes. It means first [2a] devoting time to observe, introspect, reflect, identify, organize, classify, define, and integrate one’s contents: ideas, values, desires, goals, and interests. And second, it means [2b] wrestling, testing, bouncing, formulating, concretizing, and writing down one’s thoughts in a logical, grammatical, and concise way.

As intellectual work is a type of work, and since any work must bear some result, so a piece of writing is the resulting product of that work—the concrete evidence of having expended effort to an activity. Thus, as a precursor to one’s rational action, including any major decision in life, thinking needs to be done, and a piece of focused writing is evidence of a rational guide to that action.

(It is in this regard that I like this study group. It allows for local Objectivists to practice and hone their thinking skills, and it provides a forum for them to present the products of their intellectual work toward understanding Objectivism systematically. Under this friendly and benevolent setting, if they think they know Objectivism, they can demonstrate that they know it by their writing. And as with any skill, the more they do, the more they improve.)

The practical meaning of thinking comes down to this: The product of mental thinking is mental thought, and the physical expression of mental thought is some writing that can be read back for reflection or that can be discussed by anyone else. The practical consequence of thinking, as every Objectivist knows, comes down negatively as this: Whoever says that philosophy is impractical does not know its intellectual power. As a mere example, if wealth is a store of material values, and a material value is a property, and property is a product of human thought and action; then a piece of writing is the first step to creating material values for living on earth. Intellectual power is the fountainhead of economic power.

God knows where I would be now without Aristotle’s writings on the law of identity! For sure I would not be who I am today had it not been for Ayn Rand’s writings on a rational philosophy. I have been the beneficiary of the thinking of countless others. So are we all. But as thinking is an individual activity and an individual’s responsibility, it is up to us individually to do our own thinking for the sake of living. Let us each continue writing.

But it is not in the USA though. Here is the news link.

The Universidad Francisco Marroquín (UFM) in Guatemala City, Guatemala will be the global meeting place to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. It will be exactly 50 years on October 12th that the book has been published. And on that day, the major stars of the Objectivist philosophical movements will converge for the occasion.

Dr. Yaron Brook of the Ayn Rand Institute will give a conference there. As well, Dr. David Kelley of The Objectivist Center will lead a conference.

UFM will also unveil a new, permanent wall sculpture of Atlas holding up the universe, called Atlas Libertas. There will also be a Socratic discussion on Rand’s theme of enjoying life.

Committing to the spirit of the producer from this day on, UFM will give a yearly “Outstanding Entrepreneur” award to a Guatemalan businessman.

Check out the British New Statesman blog this week. It is featuring ARI Onkar Ghate, ironically under “The Faith Column.” Two of the four planned posts are here and here. They are concise summaries of the Objectivist philosophy.

Update: Here are the third and fourth posts.

I am often amazed at the number of things one can do in a lifetime. This article by Nicola Clark in the International Herald Tribune points to the next frontier in personal living: tourism in space.

Granted that this is pretty much a puff piece on the nascent space tourism industry, it is a positive reminder that a life of purpose can include such triumphant moments as fulfilling a dream to reach orbit, to see the “curved blue line of Earth’s atmosphere against the black sky of space,” and to experience weightlessness but for a brief five minutes—all for a price of $200k.

It is appropriately a reminder also that a life of purpose is more than just fighting for liberty, opposing against injustice, promoting capitalism, or advocating some social cause. These are all worthy goals, and they can be structured, prioritized, and scheduled into a textured life, but they ultimately can only be instrumental goals to a life of happiness. The goals really worthy in themselves are those that bring fulfillment and enjoyment in living: graduations, weddings, parenthood, roadtrips, picnics, feasts, marathons, arts, professional achievements, discoveries, inventions, and, yes, going into space.

The world is awashed with irrational philosophies, but it has room for space travelling. Imagine what a rational philosophy can bring about. But, while understanding a rational philosophy is a prerequisite for living an integrated, fulfilling life on earth, one must remember that understanding is simply not an end in itself—knowledge is for doing. It is thus up to each of us to apply however much we understand of a philosophy to make for each a life worth living.

“Man has a single basic choice: to think or not, and that is the gauge of his virtue. Moral perfection is an unbreached rationality—not the degree of your intelligence, but the full and relentless use of your mind, not the extent of your knowledge, but the acceptance of reason as an absolute.
…
“Accept the fact that the achievement of your happiness is the only moral purpose of your life, and that happiness—not pain or mindless self-indulgence—is the proof of your moral integrity, since it is the proof and the result of your loyalty to the achievement of your values.” (FTNI 178d-179c)

What is my dream? What is my theme? What do I want out of life? These are the questions that should be foremost on the mind of a rational egoist. Find your purpose and live it.