humanities.philosophy.objectivism

Gordon Sollars wrote:
> In article <47C7D52E.30402@cox.net>, vonvegas@cox.net says...
>> Charles Bell wrote:
>> > On Feb 28, 8:36 am, Gordon Sollars wrote:
>> >> In article <47C65E93.3070...@cox.net>, vonve...@cox.net says...
>>

>> Charles Bell to Gordon Sollars:
>> > All you have said is that based on the premise that someone says
there
>> > is a duty to pray to God, this person who prays to God is doing his
>> > duty. I ask what about this premise there is a duty to pray to God,
>> > let alone the premise of God? To you, I guess none of that matters.
>>
>> Precisely, to him and his fellow Pooperites it doesn't matter that his
>> premises are ungrounded in reality.

Gordon:
>
> This is just silly.



I agree but suspect we may differ wherein the silliness resides.


> I do not have any premise that there is a duty to
> pray to God; but it it obvious that many people do.




This is a complete
> side show. Nothing in my argument that Rand accepted that rights entail
> negative obligations is affected by this in any way.
>

I was being responsive to Charles (not you and your specific arguments)
and his "wonderment", if that's the right word, as to your seeming lack
of concern about your premises. As to whether any of your arguments are
affected by your premises being grounded or not, that is obviously
relevant. Or would you contrariwise like to state that your premises,
whether grounded in reality or not, are of equal value to you?


> Charles said that a person could not hold to a duty that did not exist.
> I pointed out a sense in which he can be said to do so.


No, you only thot you did. There can be no duty relation to a
nonexistent (see my other post).


> I did not claim
> that this sense created a duty out of nothing; indeed, the premise was
> that there was no duty. When you can explain how this affects the
> argument in any way, let me know.

See my other post.

>
>> A normal man of science will look to
>> experience to tell him about the world in which he lives, but to
Gordon,
>> experience can *never* justify a basic statement (premise).
>
> None of this has anything to do with the argument in this sub-thread.
> If you want to rehash other matters, find an old post of mine that is on
> the topic.

Well, I can see where you have a point that this (the role of
experience) is getting somewhat far afield. All I can say is that I was
explicating my take on your attitude toward premises in general, but
perhaps experiential premises were not specifically at issue between you
and Charles. Frankly, you guys write so much, I'm having trouble keeping
up.

Vonvegas