RuleofLaw

You've been so very helpful, thank you. I'm going to look into this more and see what I can come up with; I'm thankful for having a place to start!

You're touching on exactly what the problem is...you see, Hayek was skeptical in whether or not reason could formulate/maintain society deliberately...I'm not entirely sure if he was skeptical of a rational ethics. Nonetheless, he held that individuals were ends in themselves as if that were a self-evident fact; he doesn't figure morality into his argument. I should say, rather, that the practical is his moral argument i.e. because liberty is beneficial to everyone it is good (a very utilitarian/pragmatist grounding). I want to provide a different justification for his conclusions, one that I think he assumes i.e. the meta-ethical justification that Rand/Aristotle give. If they both have a meta-ethical stance, then they must have a metaphysical premise(s) in order to get the ethical conclusions they draw. I see how Aristotle's conception of eudaimonia is assumed on the individual level since it is the good which individuals seek...but if that is grounded in 'human nature' then it has to be metaphysical since human nature is a metaphysical idea. The reason that I am trying to find this meta-ethical grounding is to respond to a class of objections to Hayek's argument for liberty i.e. the moral objection (most notably advanced by Rawls). People object to Hayek on moral grounds; stating that it is 'just' and 'fair' to have redistributive justice. Hayek's only response to that kind of argument is that we cannot know the possible effects of such measures and that such measures ultimately go against the intended objectives...but do you see how vulnerable that leaves the argument for liberty? It's also odd that Rand and Aristotle could hold true to the idea of eudaimonia as the human good, but that Aristotle tended more toward a more statist/communitarian politcs while Rand went toward liberty. Aristotle held that the basic element of society was the family...very anti-individualistic. He also held firm to the master-slave relationship. To a large extent, Aristotle did not hold individuals as ends in themselves when it came to politics because he did not think slaves were capable of morality...it's an odd conflict for me to grasp. In that sense, Aristotle held that some individuals were means to the ends of others so that those others could be ends in themselves. This is why I don't think his morality necessarily entails autonomous individuals; but I think his metaphysics/categories/logic does... Anyway, thank you for your thoughts and the authors I could look into, I very much appreciate it!

Don't get discouraged...there are objectivist-anarchists which is just f***ing stupid. Kidding aside, Rand herself thought homosexuality was "disgusting"...personally, I'm not a fan of my own sex (sexually). But objectivism isn't supposed to be about adopting Rand's beliefs and holding them as inviolate...it's about using reason to guide your life as an individual. You have preferences, you have habits, you have customs, you have thoughts, you have reason...make the most of it and achieve your happiness by your own effort. F**k the rest, right?

I was always dead-set against theism because I found it to be the antithesis of a reasonable view of reality. That being said, I have recently become friends with a woman who is very intelligent, but a theist!?!?!? Joking aside, we have discussed this very issue on countless occasions. I do not wish to marginalize her viewpoint, but she did make many compelling arguments. Most of our discussion was related to the faith/reason dichotomy...terms which she holds to not be mutually exclusive. In terms of Rand's arguments, my friend analyzed the three axioms which Rand used to begin her philosophy: existence, identity, consciousness. The fact that Rand holds existence as a primary/self-evident is the reason she rejects faith/mysticism/God. She holds that existence exists; that it always was and will always be. This does not necessarily say anything about God, only that existence is. Rand rejects God because He is considered to be the first cause i.e. the cause of existence. Rand's metaphysics discounts this possibility...remember, existence has always been and always will be (This is very Aristotle, though he posited that there was an unmoved mover who was the first cause of motion...this conception is quite different than the modern notion of God. The unmoved mover isn't a bodily thing, it is a 'thought which thinks itself'. It is not quite the modern conception of God because the unmoved mover does only one thing, thinks, concerning one object, itself). But, notice that Rand's axioms do nothing to disprove the existence or God...in essence, she doesn't even comment on the possibility. Rand rejects faith as the antithesis of reason, but my friend makes the argument that Rand's adherence to reason does not necessarily preclude faith. Consider that, in a way, Rand has a certain 'faith' in reason...one cannot know what results reason will bring; one cannot always predict the course that reason will lead or the ends that reason may achieve. In a way, we trust that reason, for better or for worse, will take us forward...even when we are uncertain of where it will go and how far it will take us. This isn't a 'blind-faith', if you'll grant me such a term...we do have some reasons to believe that Reason will perform in such-and-such way. But, in the end, we put a certain kind of faith in the human mind even though we know that human cognition has limits. We trust, sometimes without real knowledge, that reason is more right than wrong and more good than evil. Perhaps most objectivists will disagree with this interpretation, but I find it to be compelling--if only in part. My friend could say much more about it and it really is an interesting perspective to think over

Hey all, I'm currently doing research for an undergraduate philosophy paper. The paper is for an independent study course on Friedrich Hayek's Liberalism (he is considered to be a classical liberal philosopher). My paper centers on Hayek's argument for liberty as a value--an argument which has a dual-point on epistemological and practical grounds. What I want to do is develop a meta-ethical justification for his treatment of individuals as ends in themselves i.e. I want to argue that, because individuals are metaphysically autonomous/ends in themselves, they OUGHT to be ends in themselves. This sort of characterization is an attempt to undo Hume's is-ought dichotomy as well as finding a meta-ethical justification for liberty. I know a lot about Rand's treatment of the subject, but I was hoping to get some outside-perspectives to help me focus on the issue. It would also be helpful for people with particular experience with Aristotle's philosophy to lend their thoughts on this subject. I was looking into Aristotle's Categories wherein I found some glimpses of a metaphysical/ethical bridge...his treatment of primary substances as being neither predicable of a subject nor present in a subject is in some ways a metaphysical statement...since 'an individual' would be a subject and a primary substance, I could argue that that is a metaphysical grounding for the ethical claim that individuals are ends in themselves. Thoughts? -CMH