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A Critique of Zero-Sum Emotions

Lately I've been engaging in discussions with a friend whose personal philosophy is very different from my own. One of the topics we've discussed is his "zero-sum theory of emotions," which proposes that human emotions arise from changes in motivation and cancel out in the long run. I disagree with his model for several key reasons, which I will now discuss. I'll start by giving an overview of my friend's system, but in case you want a more detailed look, a post from his blog where he introduces his theory can be found  here . My goal is to highlight the major flaws of zero-sum emotions (ZSE) that can be induced from common experience, its inability to explain our higher-level emotions, and its ultimate flaw of leading to a contradiction. An Overview of Zero-Sum Emotions Zero-sum emotions attempts to model human emotion in terms of pain and motivation, viewing the former as the experience of a change in the latter. This model has some utility in describing som...
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The Objectivity of Rational Eudaimonic Survivalism

The task of discovering an objective system of ethics has been undertaken by philosophers since the beginning of civilization. Aristotle came the closest to uncovering the roots of morality in human life, but his mind was limited by the era in which he lived, as he lacked the wealth of historical knowledge that is now enjoyed. His ethical philosophy was continued in the 20th century by prominent novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand, who developed the philosophy of Objectivism. A fitting name for the ethical perspective forming the genus of the Objectivist ethics is "rational eudaimonic survivalism," highlighting the essential concepts of life, happiness, and rationality present in both Aristotle's and Rand's works. It is this perspective, carefully constructed from an examination of the nature of life and values, that provides the only ethical system in history to be justified in an objective manner, i.e. in full adherence to the facts of reality and human life. The cont...
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In Defense of Truth

Throughout the history of philosophy, truth has been strongly contested. Thinkers from various schools have been skeptical of objectivity, postulating the inaccessibility of reality and the impossibility of knowledge. The validity of foundationalism and the self-evidence of axiomatic propositions have been wrongly rejected, leading to the gradual degeneration of philosophy into dogmatic breeds of skepticism, rationalism, and subjectivism. In order to correct this mistake and free epistemology from the clutches of doubt, we must embark upon a construction of the correspondence model of truth, a validation of the necessity and self-evidence of axiomatic concepts, and an exposition of the fundamental flaws that undermine the opponents of truth.   Truth as Correspondence to Reality Everyone has an intuitive conception of truth. Colloquially speaking, a proposition is true if it corresponds to a fact of reality, and it is false if its negation is true. This definition is obvious enoug...
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