Ask An Objectivist

[marplots]

The thing to remember is that Rand is speaking of philosophical skeptics, not necessarily Skeptics; she had a habit of refering to the origional definitions, which sometimes causes confusion. So this statement may not apply to you. The philosophy of skepticism is different from the social construct built around the name by folks like Sagan, Randi, and the like.

I think that's why philosophers generally dislike her. Not because she sticks to philosophical concepts, but because she doesn't. For example, in that quote I posted from the Atlas Society, the apparent contradiction only appears for a very shallow idea of what skepticism entails.

This is the same way I generally view Objectivism when presented as a type of philosophical theory - it doesn't seem to meet academic standards and consists of a cartoonish, dumbed-down, hodge podge. It strikes me as a kind of "everyman" philosophy or a "philosophy lite."

That's probably harsher than it deserves, since I understand the political philosophy (at least) has been reconditioned by some skilled thinkers and I'm not up to date. Still, it's hard to get past some of what is still published.

 

[Spindrift]

I wouldn't think it would be that hard to find out the basics. The Atlas Society and The Ayn Rand Institute both have descriptions. You are correct that it's necessary for there to be a definition; however, I don't believe I need to be the one to provide it.

But for this thread you wanted us to assume that you are the expert. What others have to say may not be what you have to say. So yes you are the one to provide it.

A fair question. The thing is, the concept of rights being paramount and inviolable define what rights are--as does the fact that all humans have them. If something violates the rights of another, it is not a right. How can it be? It contradicts its own definition.

In practice, this should, in my opinion, be the government's primary role--not defining laws, but rather defining rights. Defining laws inherently assumes that the government has the right--and even obligation--to restrict the activities of its citizens. This more or less inevitably leads to viewing the population as cattle (some economists explicitely made that comparison in the past) or as children (some supporters of Obama that I know have explicitely made that comparison [the blame lies with them, not Obama, and the Republicans are no better]). Defining rights, on the other hand, would start with the assumption that the citizens should not be constrained, and rather that the government should protect the citizens. The police would still have the same job, for the most part, but it would be a very significant shift in how the government interacts with the population on a larger scale.

Not constrained? What does that mean? Not constrained to do what? The population are not cattle or children, they are worse, they are human beings. Human beings have seemingly infinite capacity for wanting to cause harm to other human beings whenever given the opportunity.

I'm not a political philosopher, so I can't go into detail about how that would work.

Of course you can't go into detail how it would work simply because it wouldn't.

The obvious solution is discussion. They should be mature enough to actually discuss why they disagree, and to determine who is right.

And that is why objectivism will never be viable. There are too many who aren't mature or don't want to be mature or have other reasons for not wanting to discuss disagreements or will do whatever is necessary to be 'right'. Some people want what they want and the ends justify the means for them. That's the real world, you have to deal with them. I don't say those people are right, but they exist and they aren't going away.

 

[Dinwar]

I think that's why philosophers generally dislike her. Not because she sticks to philosophical concepts, but because she doesn't. For example, in that quote I posted from the Atlas Society, the apparent contradiction only appears for a very shallow idea of what skepticism entails.

Accusing Rand of the actions of TAS is a bit of an error; she's been dead a while. The original quote was something along the lines of "We know that we know nothing, they prattle, blanking-out the fact that they express knowledge." And it was intended to be taken as a part of a larger description of irrational philosophy. It was never intended to be an in-depth criticism. The reason is simple: in the book, everyone knew what that stance was, but not what Galt's morality was, so he merely had to say something to let them know he was addressing the generally-accepted views of the culture and that he was going to disagree with them. It was intended to illustrate the disagreement, NOT to define it. Galt's Speach was part of a novel, and many people forget that.

That's probably harsher than it deserves, since I understand the political philosophy (at least) has been reconditioned by some skilled thinkers and I'm not up to date. Still, it's hard to get past some of what is still published.

Ironically, I agree. A LOT of trash has been published under the guise of Objectivism (TAS has a nasty history of it--just see the movie "Atlas Shrugged"....~shudder~). And that's one reason I put the target on my back--I'd like to show that we're not all like that.

 

[Dinwar]

But for this thread you wanted us to assume that you are the expert.

If you got that out of my statement, I mis-stated my intent. I don't intend to present myself as an expert. I merely am asking to be allowed to state my beliefs, rather than being expected to defend beliefs I've never held. For example, I've never held that we should go back to the 19th century version of economics--yet one poster basically demanded I accept that as my stance.

I don't think asking people not to put words in my mouth is unreasonble, nor worthy of hostility. For that matter, I don't think I should have to ask it. But I know this forum, and was proven right already.

The population are not cattle or children, they are worse, they are human beings. Human beings have seemingly infinite capacity for wanting to cause harm to other human beings whenever given the opportunity.

Yeah--that's why I'm not an anarcho-capitalist. Government is a GOOD THING--in so far as it protects individual rights. Leaving that up to individuals results in vendetas a la Sicily and Germania; not good situations. But there's a huge difference between "you can't bash people on the head for disagreeing with you" and "You must ask permission before painting your house a new color".

Of course you can't go into detail how it would work simply because it wouldn't.

No. I can't go into detail because I haven't put sufficient thought into it. I don't know if it would work or not. I'm not a political theorist.

Some people want what they want and the ends justify the means for them. That's the real world, you have to deal with them. I don't say those people are right, but they exist and they aren't going away.

Again, not an anarcho-capitalist. I believe government is good, provided it limits itself to protecting rights. So long as they don't violate anyone's rights, I have no right to dictate what they do; as soon as they do violate anyone's rights, the police and courts should step in.

 

[MG1962]

THAT is what I have no patience for. People demanding I support my beliefs? Perfectly fine; I wouldn't hold them if I didn't think they were supported by reason and logic. But there's a difference between that, and merely making baseles attacks at the slightest excuse.

Then please, go ahead and defend the benefits of a completely de-regulated economic and labor system. Use logic and reason to defend what happened in places like the Hoover Dam construction process. Show me the reason and logic behind why the introduction of the Plimsoll line was so bad. Or 600 deaths in Spain in 1981 can be justified by objectisim.

I really am all ears........as ignorant as I appear to be

 

[Dani]

I do believe it leads to LFC, however, because only LFC fully accepts that each person is an end unto themselves. Collectivism and rational egoism are incompatable.

It looks like I could be a rational egotist and still vote for a left leaning party that wants to increase taxes on high incomes within a capitalist system. After all, it's about my individual preference. Do you agree?

This is the easiest: perception is what you do when you percieve things. Abstraction is what you do when you put together precepts and concepts to make a more generalized statement. A good example is taxonomy--the traits of a species are the equivalent of perception. The concepts of speceis, order, genus, domain, etc., are more abstract concepts (remember, taxonomy was invented prior to evolution and, strictly speaking, did not make any assumptions about relatedness). One can make generalized statements about things one experiences directly, or about generalized statements.

Oh, obviously! Yeah, I see it as the bridge between perception and reason. I think of these concepts as axioms. They're there.

I wasn't using them so formally. I used the grouping to mean the whole of rational thought. That's the important bit--what each individual component means wasn't really important to my statement. Logic and reason are, to the best I've been able to determine, interchangeable. They refer to the construction of chains of reasoning--or, to put it another way, the construction of valid arguments to support some conclusion. There are various methods for doing so, but I don't see any reason to divide some into "logic" and some into 'reason". Sorry; that was a bit sloppy on my part.

Ok. I just wanted to know what you meant specifically, because these concepts can have different meanings, some of them more restrictive than the ones you used. For example, I give "reason" a broader meaning than "logic", but that's the mental construct I like to work with.

Is there a principle or some type of heuristic specific to Objectivism that you find relevant or inspiring, regarding reason and logic?

 

[arthwollipot]

...rational egoism is the foundation of valid ethical philosophy...

Could you go into a little more detail regarding the definition of this term?

 

[Craig24]

It looks like I could be a rational egotist and still vote for a left leaning party that wants to increase taxes on high incomes within a capitalist system. After all, it's about my individual preference. Do you agree?

I'll take a stab at it without trying to speak for Dinwar. I think what you are doing here is applying a double standard. You wish to exercise your preference (that's what a rational egoist would do) while denying to certain others (in this case the rich) the freedom to do the same with whatever income they might prefer to keep. How do you justify that?

 

[MG1962]

I'll take a stab at it without trying to speak for Dinwar. I think what you are doing here is applying a double standard. You wish to exercise your preference (that's what a rational egoist would do) while denying to certain others (in this case the rich) the freedom to do the same with whatever income they might prefer to keep. How do you justify that?

How did they gain that income (wealth)

 

[ThunderChunky]

1) Can you explain why selling snake oil is or is not ethical? Let's assume it's in one's selfish interests to the best of their knowledge.
2) How about exploiting addicts?
3) How does objectivism deal with tragedy of the commons situations?
4) Does Objectivism require free will? If so, how does it deal with the inconsistency of free will and modern science?

 

[annnnoid]

How did they gain that income (wealth)

…by exercising their instinctive rational egoism…perhaps?

I think the following political analogy may speak to the acquisition of wealth by the implicitly undeserving!

King Arthur: I am your king.
Peasant Woman: Well, I didn't vote for you.
King Arthur: You don't vote for kings.
Peasant Woman: Well, how'd you become king, then?
[Angelic music plays... ]
King Arthur: The Lady of the Lake, her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite, held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water, signifying by divine providence that I, Arthur, was to carry Excalibur. That is why I am your king.
Dennis the Peasant: Listen. Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
Arthur: Be quiet!
Dennis the Peasant: You can't expect to wield supreme power just 'cause some watery tart threw a sword at you!
Arthur: [grabs Dennis] Shut up! Will you shut up?!
Dennis: Ah, now we see the violence inherent in the system!
Arthur: [shakes Dennis] Shut up!
Dennis: Oh! Come and see the violence inherent in the system! Help, help, I'm being repressed!
Arthur: Bloody Peasant!
Dennis: Ooh, what a giveaway!

Dennis the peasant speaks truth to power!

…and so…like Arthur the king do those with great wealth unjustly acquire its acquisition thereof….thus…sic!

Otherwise the discussion proceeds splendidly. Am hoping to see the feet of the objectivist cause held to the fire of truth. Will the great and worthy Dinwar emerge unscathed…or will he find his philosophy transformed…and himself thus forsooth becometh moreso untowards heaven ( …????????????).

…alright then. Apologize for the derail. A tipple of levity midst the seething thunderheads of doom!

 

[PixyMisa]

It would seem odd to me that someone supports a philosophy that encompasses a Laissez-faire economic system, but be unaware of the destructive history of such an economic system.

Xmpl pls.

 

[PixyMisa]

Thanks for the nuances. I never liked it. Mereological nihilism attacks it directly.

When the argument against something is mereological nihilism, that counts as confirmation.

 

[Pixel42]

You say "rights are paramount and inviolable". Who gets to define what those rights are? What if one group thinks something is a right and another group disagrees?

Also: what happens when rights conflict?

Person A's right to freedom of speech may conflict with person B's right not to live in fear. Person A's right to buy the cheapest products available may conflict with person B's right not to have their land poisoned by the stream that runs through it. Person A's right to burn fossil fuel to enhance their lifestyle may conflict with person B's right to farm their land without it disappearing beneath the waves. Person A's right to maximise their wealth may conflict with person B's right to a fair wage.

Is there any, seemingly reasonable, right which doesn't potentially conflict with another equally reasonable one?

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

Before I continue, this is not about you, Dinwar. It is about the cornerstone in Objectivism, rational egoism.

Rand did a "bad" job of understanding how ethical values come about in reality, because she overlooked the effect of biological evolution. All ethical values are emergent properties of in the end the replication of the fittest genome. There are no individuals in evolution as individuals, rather all life forms are expressions of and replicators of genomes. It goes to this:

In answer to those philosophers who claim that no relation can be established between ultimate ends or values and the facts of reality, let me stress that the fact that living entities exist and function necessitates the existence of values and of an ultimate value which for any given living entity is its own life. Thus the validation of value judgments is to be achieved by reference to the facts of reality. The fact that a living entity is, determines what it ought to do. So much for the issue of the relation between “is” and “ought.”

It is "wrong", "not correct" and all that jazz to claim that for any given living entity the ultimate value is its own life. That is not how reality works. Values are physical causation tied to genomes or if you like physical processes, which are biological. That is the cornerstone between objective and subjective. An objective physical process does not involve causation based on biology, subjective does. That is the root of values.
But biology is not an ultimate value for the individual; i.e. it is not survival of the best organism. Biology is the replication of the fittest genome and in practice it means that is possible for a human for at least some contexts to hold another value than her/his own life as the highest.

That is it. It involves in logical terms that values are never A is A, but rather A is B/not C OR A is C/not B, but you can't decide with logic between these. Logic only tells you that it is either one or the other. It goes back to Aristotle as in:
"No one can believe that the same thing can (at the same time) be and not be."
Then add in Protagoras:
"Man is the measure of all things: of the things that are, that they are, of the things that are not, that they are not."

My highest value (for a given context, but necessarily not another) is a case of A is B/not C, but that doesn't rule out for another context that it is A is C/not B. To claim that is a contradiction is over-reductive logic, because it reduces "away" time and space. There is no contradiction between 2 different cases of values, because values are not at the same time and place. They always happen localized in time and space as concrete process in an organism.

With regards

 

[PixyMisa]

Also: what happens when rights conflict?

Then one of them isn't a right. A right is something inherent.

Person A's right to freedom of speech may conflict with person B's right not to live in fear.

There's no right not to live in fear. It's a big scary world.

Person A's right to buy the cheapest products available may conflict with person B's right not to have their land poisoned by the stream that runs through it.

Nope. That does touch on property "rights", though, which are a social construct. We have found that protecting property makes societies stronger and more stable, and we have made the bargain to voluntarily surrender some minor rights for this benefit.

Person A's right to burn fossil fuel to enhance their lifestyle may conflict with person B's right to farm their land without it disappearing beneath the waves.

Same thing. Person A has that right - if they have the fossil fuel, they can burn it. But sometimes land disappears beneath the waves, and there is no right for that not to happen.

But as a societal bargain, it's a worthwhile tradeoff.

Person A's right to maximise their wealth may conflict with person B's right to a fair wage.

Again, the first is a right, the latter a societal bargain. Everyone is inherently entitled to choose whether or not to make any particular trade of goods or services. Sometimes circumstances make all choices bad. That doesn't change the fact that you still have the right.

But you have no right to dictate the other side of the deal. You can bargain for it; as a society, we can create rules that we think will benefit us all (or most of us). But those are not rights.

Is there any, seemingly reasonable, right which doesn't potentially conflict with another equally reasonable one?

All of them.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

Then one of them isn't a right. A right is something inherent.

Could you stop taking your own computation/cognition for granted and for once get out of your comfort zone? Inherent rights are as true/right as the concept of God. There are no inherent rights, that is bad philosophy.

You will if you track your own computation/cognition realize that you only think that there are inherent rights. All rights are (inter-)subjective and dependent on the actual cognition of the person claiming them.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

If all force is verboten under and and all circumstances, then how could the police arrest someone who doesn't want to be arrested?

 

[Craig24]

It is "wrong", "not correct" and all that jazz to claim that for any given living entity the ultimate value is its own life. That is not how reality works.

No, Tommy, Rand understood that this is how reality works. What you did is attack a straw man. Ethics as a system of correct values is formulated precisely because of the very phenomenon you identify. Men act irrationally (in other words they pursue a course of self destruction) all the time and, therefore, are said to need guidance concerning what values to pursue. What you just described is covered by Rand's definition of a value:

“Value” is that which one acts to gain and/or keep. The concept “value” is not a primary; it presupposes an answer to the question: of value to whom and for what? It presupposes an entity capable of acting to achieve a goal in the face of an alternative. Where no alternative exists, no goals and no values are possible.

The definition given above covers the actions of living entities in general but since ethics wouldn't apply to the non human (such as birds or cows) or to automated functions (that of the heart and lungs for example), then we need not concern ourselves with what biology in general deals with. My cat wouldn't have a clue what to do with philosophy and doesn't need it to function so in the end we are dealing only with humans and their choices.

 

[Craig24]

If all force is verboten under and and all circumstances, then how could the police arrest someone who doesn't want to be arrested?

Force is not verboten. The initiation of force is. Self defense and regulated retaliatory force is justified. A criminal's actions are wrong but the actions of the police and courts to identify, pursue, apprehend and prosecute are proper.