Friday, January 6, 2012

Problems Solved

   The aforesaid problems have solutions and these solutions lie in the idea of moderation. If for instance, the intellectual does not want to become a fanatic, he must moderate his zeal for truth, and the same holds for the other personalities.
  This solution however seems to shed light on morality itself and what it means to be "moderate".  Moderation is not just the mean between two extremes but it is primarily the degree that one holds a personality trait, such that following it doesn't lead one to betray that personality. And here it is important to say that "betray" means "logically contradict"; for all morality is reasonable, so if an action is unreasonable, then neither can it be moral.
  It may be advanced as a theorem of praexology that no one wants to betray their personality. I suppose that this may be proved by the fact that the personality is often confounded with that which the person values most; a sexual man is called sensual, and such. However, it often happens that a personality can be betrayed, so that "no one wants to betray their personality" is not a mere tautology. Usually, it appears that some value, which is necessary for other values, has all or the lion's share of the personality imputed to it since it is a means that is useful for attaining the end or "that which the person values most". In this instance, it is the this former value which receives the name of "personality" and gives it its name; the love of freedom makes a man value power and therefore is he named "a freedom lover", or a man who lets the love of logic lead him to a certain philosophy is more a lover of logic than a lover of philosophy. The rule that "no one wants to betray their own personality" is especially applicable to this construction of "personality".And praxeologically, this construction is the most convenient since it is stated in terms of the means-ends framework of the science of action.
  So I believe that it is as evident that people don't want to betray their personalities as it is to say that people don't want to to have the cost of their means increased; no one wants the value of their tractors or capital inflated if they want to make use of them -the market abhors a spread between the future and present value of a good and it abhors it even more when this spread is increased. Similarly so when the personality is betrayed. Therefore, the same law that makes a necessary rise in interest rates painful and an unnecessary rise in the same unbearable, also guarantees that a personality trait that leads to its own betrayal and downfall is no trait worth keeping (ceteris paribus).
  And this leads to the final implication, that moderating a personality means to find a trait that most easily serves your highest values.

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Other Problems Considered

  To continue my previous theme, the next several problems I want to investigate are called the problems of the investigator, the intellectual, and the loyal man.
  The investigator is a person who enjoys trying to solve puzzles. Assume that he wants to gather as much information as possible about a certain puzzle. But due to some external factors, he never collects enough information. Assuming that he must make a decision the investigator must then due the exact opposite of what a careful researcher should, and draw conclusions from his insufficient evidence. So we see that the researcher must become a loud-mouth. But one could object that this is per accident and not per se. But even per se the investigator can become a loud-mouth. For instance, after a review of the Cuban health statistics, such a person could become an outspoken opponent of capitalistic health service. The investigative personality easily transforms from the realm of unbiased observation to the realm of polemical action.
 The intellectual is simply someone who prides himself on living and acting in accord with what he thinks is correct. But the intellectual may easily discover theorems and conclusions that go beyond the understandings of his fellows. If that happens, then the intellectual who acts in accord with these conclusions must act in an unusual way; he will be a radical to his friends and a monster to his enemies. As such, then, the radical intellectual is seen as a strange fanatic and his fanaticism may do damage to himself and others. As such then, the quest for truth per se, the calm and level-headed analysis and synthesis of propositions, can lead to wide-eyed fanaticism.
  The loyal man, must be considered as a man who does anything for his friends. Yet this loyal man, can become the biggest backstabber. For instance, in politics, if a man loves his friends then he can very well act against the interests of his other constituents or aquaintances that he meets in the other party. If he will do anything for his friends, then he can certainly go so far as to use the confidence entrusted to him by anyone less than his friends, to gain political office and as soon as he gains that office so soon will he retract the lukewarm promises that he had made. So out of loyalty a man can appear to be conniving and false in his relations with others.
  The great riddle continues, if you don't want to have a bad reputation then you must cultivate a lack of loyalty, and if you want to avoid rash judgment then you must forget cool-headed inquiry. How do we solve the problem? I'll leave that for another post though I already have a hypothesis.