knast

You're asking the wrong question. Your question assumes that there is a reason why we have reproductive organs. There isn't.

There is a cause, but the correct way to ask for the cause of something is "How did it come to be?", not "Why did it come to be?".

The answer to How? is pretty simple: all the lifeforms without reproductive organs died without passing on their genetic material. It stands to reason that, therefor, such lifeforms exist very rarely, compared to lifeforms with reproductive organs.

I defended the statement, and the person who was being attacked over it, because it was a throwaway line that any rational observer would choose to look at in the context of Dr. Peikoff's obvious and highly publicized beliefs against any use of force, and interpret accordingly.

I don't know what you think it "clearly meant", but I know exactly what was meant by it. I know that because I used judgement, not an emotional reaction to the word rape, to make up my mind about it. The meaning of a statement is dependent on the speaker's definitions and context. Plucking a quote out of any context, ignoring any kind of reasonable assumptions about the speaker's true intentions, and instead using your own definitions for what was meant, is fallacious. Doing that about an emotional subject like rape is clearly just people pandering to their emotions instead of bothering to think.

It is so clear and obvious that Peikoff doesn't support rape, that I am ashamed that I ever even tried to argue with people who don't realize that. I guess on March 4th you will be told what everyone with judgement already knows: that Leonard Peikoff in no way advocates for the use of force, to have sex with a woman. Although I doubt that will stop most of you from ignoring that explanation too, just like you're ignoring the entire body of his work now, and continue to use the out of context quote to attack Peikoff as the number one fan of rape.

Peikoff was using the Kobe Bryant case as his prime example. So yes this would probably give us the best idea of what he was talking about. What he said was honestly too vague to gleam any "principle" out of. Considering that he just said that it is immoral to lie to someone in order to have sex with them, I doubt that he meant that you could force someone to have sex with them after they tell you that they don't want to.

It sounds as though his recollection of the Kobe case was that a woman gave Kobe every signal that she wanted to have sex with him, she told him that she didn't want to when they went up to his room, they ended up having sex anyways (without the use of force), and then she later claimed that her earlier comment made their sexual activity rape on the part of Kobe.

By "frees the man to have sex" he means that he shouldn't have to worry about prosecution later. Not permission to force women in his house to have sex with him.

In this I would have to agree.

In that part, since clearly a woman can say, "No, I do not consent" I took him to mean she could not give "every evidence" that she wanted to have sex with a man, then say she does not consent and still be moral or honest. In other words, in that case she is not a victim of fraud where he tricked her into his bedroom, but rather a perpetrator of fraud, herself, who communicated one message to a man very clearly with the intention of pretending to be misunderstood in order that she can accuse him of rape later, as has been known to happen to celebrities on occasion.

Again, I think he chose a poor way to phrase it, but holding the question in mind and his whole(somewhat convoluted)answer, I think this interpretation makes more sense, since it is connected to the original question. Otherwise, throwing in a, "oh by the way, it's ok to rape some bitches" has very little connection to whether or not a man who pretends to love a woman to sleep with her has committed fraud which is on par with rape.

Incidentally, his answer was that a man who used fraud to get a woman to sleep with him was morally equivalent to a rapist so I have to think that someone who did commit rape would also be a rapist in his mind.

I agree that that is the right place to start.

Starting from the assumption the LP would not endorse rape, because he probably wouldn't, I notice that the section in question is immediately followed by "So, we're assuming it's not that type of case and you actually have created some kind of false identity; she falls for it and she never would have otherwise." The "So" implies that this sentence follows from the point made in the previous example. The false identity a guy in the actual question he is answering, would be using, was not used in the case of Kobe Bryant. He invited her up to his bedroom to have sex. She agreed and then changed her mind at some point in the encounter. I take it to mean that a woman in that position could not claim that she was defrauded into going up to his room.
,Since the Kobe case was dismissed and charges dropped, he may have, rightly or wrongly, been thinking of that as one of those cases where a woman goes to a man's bedroom and consents to have sex, does so, and then remembers being raped the next day, either for money or to protect her opinion of her own chastity. To which he is saying, "you cannot do that." You cannot have your cake and eat to.

edit: I agree, btw, that it wasn't clearly said, but having listened to most of his podcasts, read his books and having met him personally I can't imagine for a second that anyone similarly familiar with his writing and being honest about it would think he was actually, or would ever endorse rape.

He didn't say anything about sex. All he said was that consent is not the equivalent of just saying "Yes" or "No". He said nothing else. There is nothing there.

I would love to identify some mistakes in some inferences. But there aren't any inferences. There is nothing in the quote about sex. That long list of sexual/violent acts has nothing to do with the quote. What processes?

Jesus Christ, stop already. Peikoff's comment was a throwaway line on the nature of consent, not the morality of sex. At worst, he's wrong about the Kobe Bryant case. Stop acting like you guys never said anything based on insufficient information.

He did not say it's moral to have sex with a woman even if "the parts don't fit", he didn't even say it's moral to have sex with her if she's doesn't like it. He didn't say it was OK to choke her even though she's not into that, he didn't say it was OK to twist her arm behind her back to cause pain, but making sure you leave no physical mark, he didn't say it's OK to anally rape a man.

And yet, all those lovely images somehow made it into people's arguments on how he is wrong. I guess what he actually said isn't all that egregious. Why else would you feel the need to spice it up like that?


I do not wish to continue this post. I want to stop. Hope that's clear, I want this to be the end of my post. I don't want to write this next part. I don't wanna. No. (this last No. should be read in a forceful tone, please)

Anyways: sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. Obviously. If there is no fraud or force involved (which, incidentally, Peikoff made sure to specify), then that person is free to leave at any time. Their declarations really don't mean as much as their actions. The owner of this site has no reason to feel bad about me continuing this post despite my declaration that I don't want to. The declaration was pretty meaningless. They often are.

Rape means having sex with a woman against her will, not without her explicit consent. In Peikoff's example (though I have no idea if also in the actual case he cited, because, like I said, I don't keep up with celebrity news), the woman is clearly there by choice, and free to leave at any time. Unless next you guys are planning to also add kidnapping to the list of stuff Peikoff never said but somehow found their way into this thread anyway.

The book he wrote suggests he doesn't. You're gonna go with the pointless speculation off of the throwaway line in a podcast though, huh?

Hi Jake,

1. You don't lose your free will when you take drugs that make you "addicted". People can stop using them and they do. With or with the help from others. (Also, even if that were the case: So what? It's not your problem.)

2. Leonard Peikoff is against circumcisions. He thinks it's immoral and a violation of rights. It should be illegal. I agree and so does most Objectivists. I think it is the only position consistent with Objectivism.

Peikoff on circumcision: http://www.peikoff.com/2011/04/25/do-you-think-the-legal-guardians-of-a-male-child-have-the-right-to-circumcise-him-before-he-is-old-enough-to-refuse/

3. Peikoff has also made some comments on vegantarianism which you may find useful: http://www.peikoff.com/2011/09/05/what-is-your-opinion-of-vegetarianism/

4. I think the possibility of subliminal messaging has been conclusively refuted. See here:

http://www.skepdic.com/subliminal.html

And here:

http://www.csicop.org/si/show/cargo-cult_science_of_subliminal_persuasion

As for Derren Brown, he does not use "subliminal messaging", he is just confusing the hell out of people, using techniques magicians always have been using. See more here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derren_Brown#Criticism

I think that confusing people to buy things, by various means, could arguably be considered a form of fraud and should therefore be illegal.

5. "I wanted to know if it's still your [Dr Peikoff] position"

Leonard Peikoff does not participate on this forum, so you can't expect an answer from him here. But if you have a question to Dr Peikoff, then I would advice you to ask him directly. Visit his site here: www.peikoff.com and submit a question.

Objectivism says: There should not be a law against this. You have a right to decide who you want to deal with or not. We discriminate all the time. Sometimes on rational grounds, sometimes on irrational grounds.

The government should not step in when it believes you have discriminated on irrational grounds. If the government starts doing that, then it would violate your right to decide who you want to deal with.

What to do about discrimination? We let them taste their own medicine. That is, we discriminate them, i.e., we boycott their business and we ostracize them in public, refuse to deal with them, invite them, say hello to them, etc.

Furthermore, the market doesn't reward businesses who engage in irrational discrimination. If there is real talent here, other more rational employers will hire them instead and reap the benefits.

One more thing, why do many women get into trouble? Because of government regulations forcing employers to keep them hired, to pay for their maternity leave, to pay for their vacation once they get back, etc. The government is the source of their trouble.

6. Why do you assume that a selfish person can't be interested in giving to charity or running a charity? Normal, happy, selfish people, who value human life, don't want to see people dying in the streets, due to factors beyond their own control. And we have, as rational egoists, many good reasons to value human life in general. To the extent other people, including strangers, are or can be good and rational, they are actually or potentially of a great value to egoists. (Remember that every friend was originally a stranger.)

7. "What is the place of goverment, dealing with environmental issues, like pollution, or companies that are subjecting the close environment to gases that level up the rates of cancer, or radioactivity and so forth?"

The government's role is to protect rights. If you can prove that a factory is causing some real damage or real harm to your health, then you can sue the factory owner. The answer is, in other words, property rights. (There is more to this issue. More complications that I could go into, if you want to.)

8. I agree with Dr Peikoff that it was the wrong war for the wrong reasons. See his comments here:

http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=reg_ls_america

"Non-interventionism" is irrational, if it means appeasement and pacifism, which is the logical implication of Ron Paul's foreign policy.

Carl

I'm gonna break down the way this conversation has progressed, tell me if it's accurate:
1. You read a couple of out of context quotes from a press conference, a few posts on the Internet from people you know nothing about, and concluded that X is true.
2. I (and others) read most of the relevant literature on the subject, and concluded that the opposite of X is true.
3. We told you our conclusions.
4. You decided that you were right to begin with, because "conservatives" told you so.

And, finally:
5. The proper, rational way to go about this would instead be to just stop taking everyone's word for what the answer is, and instead read all the same literature I have read (the literature Objectivism consists of), understand it, and then see if you can debate us on what specifically makes Objectivism pro or anti gay, by relying on facts instead of hearsay.

That would of course require a great deal of intellectual effort. Objectivism is not an easy subject to master. Are you up for that, or are you just going to continue trolling with this nonsense?

Concepts are formed in a context of differences. Example: We would never be able to form the concept of blue if everything was blue. The concept of contradiction presuppose a reality of noncontradictions as the contrast. You would, therefore, never be able to form the concept of contradiction by merely looking at reality. Because in reality there are no contradictions. (How do we know this? The same way we know the grass is green. Through direct observation: there are no things out there which are both red and blue, at the same time and in the same respect.) No, the concept of "contradiction" is and was, as matter of historical fact, formed by observing how ideas (concepts, propositions, arguments, etc.) clash with each other and/or clash with reality.

It's sort of circular.

Nonsense.

Brown is brown universally because if it isn't we are seeing something new (or just different) and a new (or just different) word is used.

That's an important point. There's a flip side to this issue as well. Ultimately, Objectivism, as a whole, stands or falls as a totality.


From Dr. Peikoff's 1985 lecture, "Philosophy of Education," during the last (sixth) lecture, a Q&A session:


Q: In your disclaimer at the beginning of your first lecture you said that Ayn Rand has not reviewed all of what you would present, and also reminded us of your fallibility. Do you mean to imply that she was infallible?

A: No. But some people think so, so I was putting them on notice, that if they think she is, they surely don't think I am. No, she was not infallible. Nobody is infallible.

Q: Did I mean to imply that Objectivism is, as she defined it, right or wrong?

A: What do you think about that question? Is Objectivism as she defined it right or wrong?

Absolutely!

Objectivism is the name of her philosophy, so if you think it's right or wrong, it's exactly what she said it was. If you have a different philosophy, you call it "gloopism" or whatever you want, and then that's your philosophy, right or wrong.

Now the thing that this questioner fails to grasp is that a philosophy is not an eclectic congerie of ideas. It is not like four ideas on reality and six ideas on knowledge and three on ethics and eight or nine on politics, and, you know, you could be right on A3 but not B4 and C7. That is not a philosophy.

From what we've already said just about integration, you should know that a proper philosophy is one totality, and it's an issue of basic principles and their consequences. So it's either all right or it's all wrong, if it's an integrated system. And therefore, depending one your viewpoint, either Objectivism is all right or it's all wrong, but either way it is what she defined it as, one consistent whole.

Q: I view you and others as having the duty (let's say you don't mean that in the strong sense) of adding to and if necessary correcting the existing ideas of Objectivism. Do you agree?

A; Well, I agree that anybody interested in it who is a professional philosopher and so on - that's his field - should, if he can - it would be nice to come up with something more than just reiterating what was already stated. Sure. But nobody has the duty to discover something new. You can't have a duty to discover the new. It's the same reason why you can't teach how to discover the new. You either do it or you don't.

Now, what about, do we have a duty in correcting the existing ideas?

If anything is wrong anywhere, anybody who is interested in the truth should correct it. Does that mean that I concede that maybe there is an essential principle of Objectivism that is wrong? No, because by my understanding for the reason I just told you, it's one totality. So if any one principle is wrong, the whole thing is collapsed. In which case it doesn't make any sense to correct it. You then should start with Hegel or Marx or whoever you can find and do what you can within that framework.

Q: Can you say anything...

A: The problem is, you see, that people that ask these questions don't distinguish a principle from a concrete application and invariably have in mind, "If I disagree about a woman president, shouldn't I correct Objectivism?" That is not Objectivist.

Someday we'll have to have a whole course on "What is a principle?," and that will clarify these questions, cause there is really some things that are important, but it doesn't mean they are principles.

----

It's true, Objectivism is not to be accepted on faith, but it stands or falls as a whole.

And of course, the same applies to religions.

As to a course on what a principle is, Dr. Peikoff did give a speech on the subject, "Why Should One Act on Principle?," which, for any who do not know about it, can be listened to on one's "Registered User Page" at the Ayn Rand Institute's web site. (Registration is free.)

The lecture is about one hour long, and there's a second audio, about 30 minutes long, of the Q&A session following that lecture.

(If you're already registered, the link, "Registered User Page" is on the upper left of the ARI home page. If you're not already registered, once you do register, you'll automatically be taken to your "Registered User Page.")


*** Mod's note: Some discussion regarding Objectivism standing or falling as a whole has been split into a separate topic. - sN ***

The easiest way to challenge the "cult" accusation is to point out that in a cult, people must accept conclusions on faith, whereas in Objectivism, to accept anything on faith would be contrary to the philosophy.

Insofar as its members are truly practicing Objectivism, the movement is cult-proof.

Obviously there will be people in any movement - including the Objectivist movement - who accept conclusions on faith. Such individuals are not following Objectivism.

Hmm. Maybe I misjudged you at first. This makes me think that you simply hold the analytic-synthetic dichotomy.

Take two statements.
A: Ice is solid water.
B: Ice floats on water.

Do you believe that A is a necessary truth, and that B is only a coincidentally true observation? In other words: Do you believe that A will always be true universally? Can you never be sure that unobserved instances of B will be true?

If so, you have accepted the analytic-synthetic dichotomy. You're working with a theory of concepts where the meaning of a concept is its definition. You think A is universally true because it's true by definition, and B is always uncertain because it only happens to be true by the observation of the moment. The reason A is certain is because being solid water is in the definition of "ice". The reason B is uncertain is because floating on water isn't in the definition of "ice".

If so, the cure is Ayn Rand's theory of concepts, where the meaning of a concept is its referents. When the meaning of a concept is what it refers to, then being solid water and floating on water are both necessary properties of "ice", and you can be absolutely certain that all instances of "ice" will both be solid water and will float on water.

This is Objectivism Online. Objectivism was derived from and grounded in reality. You display a blatant contradiction of and misunderstanding and seemingly explicit disagreement with Objectivism, Avila.

Science and religion are mutually exclusive, because they start from contradictory epistemologies. Religious epistemology takes faith as the proper source of knowledge. Objectivism takes observation and reason together as a valid source of knowledge. The dichotomy between faith and reason upheld by Objectivism is a principle firmly grounded in, and therefore applicable to, reality.

What are you doing here? What interest do you have in convincing us that religion supports science? Probably the same interest that religious people have in convincing others that religion and science are compatible. Either that or you're simply unaware of the religions' ulterior motive whenever they claim this compatibility. They're trying to give their irrationality an equal validity to science, and you are in effect doing the same thing.

The reason sNerd is saying what he is saying is because there is a causal connection between rationality and scientific progress that he is isolating. A person can be religious and a scientist, but once you isolate the causal connection between rationality and progress, you can see that their faith had nothing to do with their progress. (And in many cases, held back their progress.)

This is something I've had trouble with before too. Not just with history, but with general facts about other things, such as the history of our economy.

I've seen a Christian blog that depicts the dark ages as a period of happiness and enlightenment, and I've seen people attribute the Great Depression to factors of the free market.

Without knowing the facts first-hand, all I can say is that if it contradicts what you already know to be true, it probably isn't true. For example, I know that freedom and respect for individual rights is good for humans and consequently humanity. The idea that the free market caused the great depression contradicts that, so all I can do is just say "I don't know the facts about that issue, but I reject that claim because it contradicts what I do know." And if the dark ages was dominated by religion, then I can only assume that the religious take on it being a period of sunshine and roses is a lie. Because I know that when religion rules, everything goes to hell.

Reality is non-contradictory. IE, logically consistent. So if you have already proved to yourself something that contradicts a historical claim, then chances are the historical claim somehow contradicts reality.

Oh hey. Johnathan13's post that I downvoted got voted back up to 0, and my post got downvoted to -3. Someone who insults expert Objectivists has his comment upvoted, while my post is downvoted by three separate individuals. A person cannot vote on their own posts, so someone besides Johnathan13 thought his post was good, and a minimum of two people besides him thought my post was bad enough to vote down.

Which proves the point I was making when I made my post. Why should a major Objectivist subject himself to coming here when a culture like this has taken root? When a user on this site disagrees with an expert on how to apply Objectivism, they don't try to understand their mistake. They just insult the expert, who knows more than them, for calling them out on it. Peikoff-bashing has become a semi-common pastime in the chat now, because heaven forbid Objectivism have identity and an expert dare tell someone that their conclusions contradict Objectivism.

The chatroom (not the forum) of this site was the last bastion of reason (that I know of) for online Objectivist social sites. Why? Because we were allowed to pass harsh judgment on people who insulted the experts we look to for guidance. When it was shown that you can get into trouble with the administration for passing harsh, deserved judgment on people like that, it set a precedent. The more consistent of an Objectivist you are, the more you have to keep your judgments to yourself in the face of people like that, and the more common they become on this site.

The rule on this site about not coming here to insult Objectivism is what preserved this site for so long. Insulting Objectivism's experts is basically a loophole to that rule. If you're going to allow people to insult the experts, at least allow the better, more consistent Objectivists on this site to stand up for them.

Why don't any Major Objectivists participate in online forums? Observe the cultural state of this and the other online forums for a potential answer.