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sjw

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Everything posted by sjw

  1. I think you're probably on the right track, but I don't think this makes any sense (grammatical or philosophical) as written.
  2. I thought Rand's meaning was clear, but you're certainly welcome to accuse her of being vague! In any case, this is a side issue to the original point.
  3. Defenders of Rand are certainly welcome to 1) provide the philosophically correct (i.e. morally principled, non-consequentialist) answer to the question "Why be rational?"; 2) provide a citation of Rand's that suggests she actually believed the correct answer. But I think the interpretations so far are indeed correct, that her answer is "Well, if you want the consequences that flow from being rational, go ahead and be rational, if not, then reap the consequences of irrationality." Metaethically speaking, she was completely morally agnostic and a thoroughgoing subjectivist/consequentialist. (Obviously she wasn't consistent in her consequentalism/agnosticism elsewhere.)
  4. Yes, she literally said "His", ergo I wrote "[My]" (note the brackets) since she was referring to her own view. Don't be ironic.
  5. I'm definitely not accusing her of being consistent! On the contrary, I think her formal metaethical theory is quite inconsistent with those elements of her philosophy you reference. "Take what you want" has a clear meaning, and no merely hypothetical morality has an answer to it. This is pretty obvious.
  6. Thanks. The answers so far are consistent with my own interpretation of Rand, I was curious whether I'd missed something. I think "2046" sums it up well. Rand also wrote: To my metaethical ear, this is pretty depraved. It gives moral license to all kinds of wicked behavior, so long as it's what someone really "wants."
  7. (In other terms: Why be rational?) What is the "official" Objectivist answer to this question? One supportable by the works Ayn Rand wrote or sanctioned in her lifetime? To be clear, I'm not asking what is the correct answer to this question, but rather the more academic question of what is the answer Ayn Rand actually gave?
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