roberts_c ([info]roberts_c) wrote in [info]aynrandforum,
@ 2007-11-28 21:55:00
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Current mood: confused

Question On Man's Free Choice to Use his own Mind
I don't quite understand what this quote means:


"A social environment can neither force a man to think nor prevent him from thinking. But a social environment can offer incentives or impediments; it can make the exercise of one's rational faculty easier or harder; it can encourage thinking and penalize evasion or vice versa." - Our Cultural Value-Deprivation

My question with regard to this quote is:

DO these impediments and incentives affect or ignite man to make choices? If yes, is it the same to say that these impediments cause man to make choices?


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[info]contrariandoer
2007-11-28 03:33 pm UTC (link)
Thinking is volitional, and it is a choice ultimately made by
an individual. Societal impediments and incentives
are simply factors that favor or threaten the choice to
think.

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[info]glenniebun
2007-11-28 05:16 pm UTC (link)
"Cause" would be too strong a word, I think--the individual always has the actual choice, but social conditions can influence many of the factors that go into making that choice. The reward/punishment paradigm is just one of these factors; the context of knowledge the person is using to decide is another.

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[info]russj
2007-11-28 05:25 pm UTC (link)
Our society sometimes encourages us to think, using informational food labels, with signs warning us of hazards, and with safety tags on products.

Our society also discourages us from thinking, by taking away or preempting our choices. For example, some political leaders choose for us: not to consume trans-fats, not to explode fireworks, to use ethanol in our gasoline, etc. etc.

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[info]ragnarpirate
2008-01-18 08:20 pm UTC (link)
except that government mandated "safety tags" and "warning labels" often cause us NOT to think...they foster an expectation of government regulatory protection.

Likewise, FDIC insurance of the first 100k in bank accounts dulls our attention to the activities of our banks.

FDA oversight of the pharmaceutical industry tends to make individuals complacent about the safety and efficacy of powerful drugs that could either save your life or cause your death.

Increasing levels of statist regulaion both contribute to and result in increasing levels of dependent behavior. It is a self-fulfilling cycle: the more society choses not to think, the more the state "has to" think for them. Every government regulation or distortion of the market demands many more to correct to "unintended" consequence.

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[info]fixnwrtr
2008-04-13 03:54 pm UTC (link)
And conversely, the more the state "thinks" for us, the less we think. After all, doesn't the state have our best interests at heart?

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[info]roberts_c
2007-11-29 06:32 am UTC (link)
So it means that the society somehow influences us but the sole choice would still come from us as rational and volitional individuals.

*****

As i understood it, Objectivism also holds that the fundamental choice man faces is whether to focus or not, and that we have no choice with regard to these primary alternatives presented to man. Is this a case of determinism?... Because Man has no choice about these alternatives presented to him.




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[info]fixnwrtr
2008-04-13 03:55 pm UTC (link)
Man always has a choice, whether to accept or reject the alternatives. Even making no choice is still a choice, a choice not to act, not to be involved, not to choose.

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[info]roberts_c
2007-12-24 02:50 pm UTC (link)
does anybody possess a copy of these essays by Nathaniel Branden?

1. Volition and the Law of Causality
2. The Contradiction of Determinism
3. The Objectivist Theory of Volition

They are found in The Objectivist Newsletter, if i am not mistaken.

Thank You.

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