noumenalself

Yes, but you made the point about the ocean naturally cleaning up the spill in connection with the political question, presumably to say that there is no problem in need of being solved. The material you just posted does describe a mechanism for the gradual disappearance of the oil, but it doesn't specify the time frame. How many months or years of fishing will have to be destroyed before the ocean takes care of this naturally? In any case, I agree that in a free society, there would be no collective government response to this problem. But you're still maintaining an unrealistic stance about whether or not this will affect you. You don't have to eat seafood to be affected economically by a disaster for this many other people.

Do you have any scientific evidence to back up the claim that it will reabsorb the oil in a timely manner? In months, years, decades? OK, but this disaster is big enough that it will affect many of us, whether or not we directly benefit from the gulf. The price of seafood will increase. The price of oil may increase. If the economy of Louisiana tanks (further), this will hurt people in other states who trade with Louisiana, etc. This isn't a rationale for any special collective government action with respect to the Gulf, but the situation is not as easy to isolate oneself from as you project.

That's just bananas. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qff098NCNDE...feature=related

I disagree. Many Christians are good people, or at least not evil. Sure. The same is true of many Muslims (though perhaps not as many). But the ideas of both Christianity and Islam are fundamentally the same: fundamentally mystical, anti-happiness, and anti-freedom. The extent to which many Christians fail to embrace these ideas is a consequence of the fact that they live in a culture that has been influenced by the Enlightenment and has caused the separation of religion from secular affairs. Muslims who have lived in a America for a generation or two are the same way. Had history been different, and had an Enlightenment occurred and been sustained in the Muslim world instead of in the West, Christians would be the ones launching terrorist attacks against the Middle East. Islam and the other threats you mention are indeed great threats to freedom today. But what is the greater threat: a threat we're faced with immediately, or the threat that makes a whole series of threats possible? If the good Christians you mention were to abandon Christianity and embrace reason, they would immediately deprive our enemies of their greatest weapons: the Christian altruist code of morality. It's this code that makes possible the pacifism that weakens us against Islam and emboldens the terrorists. It's this code that makes Republicans weak-kneed in their opposition against socialism. This, after all, is the lesson of Atlas Shrugged. The greatest threat is the man who sanctions his own destroyers. Evil by its nature is impotent, and cannot challenge the good unless the good gives over to the evil its own power. Think of Islam 100 years ago. The Ottoman Empire was in decline, it was the "sick man of Europe." No one would have thought that pathetic Muslim kingdoms could ever pose a threat to the civilized, industrialized Western superpowers. It was not until the 20th century, when Western powers abdicated their moral certainty and declared that they bore the guilt for the problems of the third world that Islamic totalitarianism became a live political option, and its terrorists became genuine threats. Had Western powers refused to permit the nationalization of their oil fields, the long, drawn-out hostage crises involving their citizens, and the long trains of terrorist attacks without retaliation, the likes of bin Laden would never have dared to take us on.

I don't want to undercut your question about finding the things that are still great about America. But as a sidebar, I just want to point out that there's something bizarre about saying that most of our problems are caused by "socialism and Islam." If you're looking for religions to blame, Christianity has wrought far more damage, including but not limited to motivating the moral argument for socialism, and underpinning pacifism in response to Islamic terrorists.

See here: http://www.the-undercurrent.com/blog/campu...-campus-revival

Ellen Kenner, who is an Objectivist therapist, recommends finding a certified cognitive therapist: http://www.drkenner.com/how2choose.htm Cognitive therapy is the very successful modern approach to therapy which approximates most closely the Objectivist approach to the emotions: the view that our emotions are products of our thinking, and that we can solve emotional problems by solving thinking problems: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_therapy Kenner links to the Academy of Cognitive Therapy web site, which includes a searchable database of locally certified therapists: http://is.gd/6qvFy If you search by Colorado, there is one listed in Denver, one in Castle Rock, and one in Boulder. I don't know anything about these individuals so please don't take this as a recommendation. There are many other therapists who follow a cognitive-based approach who are not necessarily certified through this particular academy. I don't know if Kenner thinks that only those so certified are reliable. To your health!

You have a lot of freedom, but it's freedom you properly should use sparingly. The department is not hiring you to teach your own ideas. They're hiring you to teach about a variety of views on a given subject. You often can't help but slant things, but if you're just using the course as a platform for your own views, you're not doing your job and not giving the students what they paid for.

Be honest, but be careful. If you want to make reference to an idea that is Rand's, not yours, then you should acknowledge it, at the very least in a footnote. But be careful, because you don't want to make a paper *about* Rand when that's not the assignment (if it's not). That's important both because you don't want to drown the paper with irrelevancies, and also because you don't want to turn off your professor unnecessarily. I wrote too many philosophy papers as an undergraduate which featured Rand prominently, when this was not the assignment and not necessary for what I wanted to say. Usually all you need is footnotes, for the sake of avoiding plagiarism. And you should think about whether you need to refer to Ayn Rand's ideas as much as you might otherwise want to. Usually a professor is looking for you to give your own thoughts on a question. Sometimes you may agree with Rand on matters that are directly relevant to the question, in which case your thoughts are her thoughts. But you should think about whether there are ways to answer the assigned question that don't involve stating an alternative philosophical position. You may be able to answer the question just by raising critical questions about another view, pointing out logical gaps and overlooked facts, etc. Generally, I would say, use Rand in your paper only when it is necessary, only when you don't have original thoughts of your own on the assigned question--and when you are able to present her ideas in a way that looks intelligent, not slavish.

It doesn't say "because." It says that Descartes theory involves a form of misintegration, *and* that concepts apply to percepts. You would read this better as involving a form of misintegration *even though* he thinks concepts apply to percepts. Notice the contrast with the M2, according to which "percepts are in conflict with concepts." The part about concepts actually applying to percepts is what makes M1 better than M2. But it's not a fully "integrated" theory, because concepts only apply to percepts--they don't also derive from them.

Here's the way it's done. http://www.noumenalself.com/capitalism.jpeg http://www.noumenalself.com/capitalism-original.jpeg

Whatever you do, don't call them "rants." It's a cute combination, but a "rant" is generally pejorative.

There's about a zillion sites run by amateur Objectivists, which make even more amateur errors and omissions. If you worry about this one, you'll have a zillion more worries.

Though I think you're exaggerating the ARI position, it's noteworthy that it's not just ARI that disagrees with you. It's also Ayn Rand: http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pag...lian_casualties And there are *philosophical reasons* for this position. You should think about them: http://www.aynrand.org/site/News2?page=New...cle&id=6418

Darren quotes Michael Huemer: Huemer is using a timeworn, standard method of philosophical argumentation here: reductio ad absurdum. This method involves noting that an idea has absurd consequences, and then rejecting the idea because of those consequences. We Objectivists use the same method all the time. We say, for example, that environmentalism logically implies that man should commit suicide for the "interest" of nature. Environmentalists will then always get offended and say, "But we don't think we should commit suicide!" And then we have to explain that we are talking about the essence of the idea of environmentalism, which most environmentalists hold inconsistently, because they do not grasp its meaning or implications. Huemer is doing exactly the same thing. He's saying that Ayn Rand is wrong to advocate egoism, because the *idea* of egoism *logically* implies exploiting other people even if Ayn Rand doesn't recognize that it does. Of course I think he's wrong that it implies this, but no where here does he say anything like the following: "Ayn Rand says we should hurt, exploit, or ignore the needs of others. She is wrong to say this." If he had said anything like this, then there would be a problem. But he doesn't. The simplest explanation of what he's doing here is giving a reductio ad absurdum style of argument.

OK, that could be grounds for being evil if someone does something that one should know not to do. So the question is, what did Huemer do that he should have known not to do? I've argued he didn't misrepresent Objectivism, but that he did disagree with us. Should he have known better not to disagree? That's very hard to say. Learning and understanding philosophy is hard. Where's the evidence for this claim, though? Just because he disagrees with ethical egoism doesn't mean he preaches altruism like Toohey. If you recall from the debate, what he said is that he rejects killing people for money and neglecting to save drowning babies. So what he advocates is not killing innocent people and saving drowning babies. What most people on this forum have been saying is that these actions are actually egoistic, even though Huemer didn't acknowledge that. So the most we know is that he advocates some actions which are egoistic, but which he mistakenly thinks to be non-egoistic. And as I've argued, this is an entirely understandable mistake, given the difficulty of proving otherwise. You'll remember that in the debate, he even said that he thought that a great deal of self-interest was permissible, but that some non-egoistic actions (like the two examples above) were also obligatory. This is hardly Toohey. See above. This is a false alternative. There's definitely a distinction between an immoral act and an immoral person, and I don't think we have any evidence of the first possibility, anyway.

Everyone can now go back and listen to whatever either of the debaters did or did not say: http://www.colorado.edu/philosophy/center/selfish.mp3

Onkar did a great job responding to Huemer. Rather than dwelling on the details of the example, he gave the audience an overview of the general principles they would need to analyze the examples for themselves. First he told us that ethics is for guiding everyday life, not life in a lifeboat. Second, he said that in everyday life, we value people as creative producers, not as fodder for exploitation. Once you establish that general principle, you can come to see why any alleged benefits of predation on others cannot count as real values. You have to do more work on your own to see this--Onkar couldn't have done all of the work in the time that was allotted. That was why it was also useful to point to the readings. This is an unfair calumny against Professor Huemer. Do you really mean to say that just because he disagrees with you on something, therefore he must not have any serious qualifications in philosophy? Many of us may disagree with things he said, but he did far better than most other academics who try to analyze and critique Objectivism. Just open most any of the secondary literature on Rand written more than five years ago and you'll see what I mean. I went up after the debate and extended him my thanks. I think others should do so, as well, perhaps by sending him emails thanking him for his participation. Huemer did not misrepresent the Objectivist position once in the entire debate, and displayed a genuine understanding of its basic principles. That is rare and commendable. Huemer is in the unique position of being a professional philosopher who takes Objectivism seriously, even though he disagrees with it. From what I've seen so far, we need *more* critics of Objectivism like Huemer. We really, really shouldn't establish a precedent of calling someone evil just because he disagrees with us. Some ideas are inherently evil and their serious advocates must be evil. I didn't hear Huemer arguing for anything inherently evil last night. Even if he did misrepresent Objectivism (which I don't think he did), that doesn't mean he did so maliciously.

I think you've misinterpreted Huemer's point. It's easy to say in response to his examples that we think we shouldn't shoot the fellow because it would violate his rights. He knows that Ayn Rand and Objectivists don't *think* rights-violation is consistent with Objectivism. He made it very clear that he knew this, and so he was not misrepresenting what we think. His point was that we are *wrong* to think of this as a logical implication of egoism: if self-interest is our standard, then he doesn't see how, logically speaking, our self-interest *alone* could rule out exploiting/killing other people. That's not a misrepresentation, but a disagreement about whether our view has a particular logical implication. And, it's a hard point to establish that egoism doesn't have this implication. Huemer's response (along with many other philosophers) to you would be: why should we care about whether we violate his rights? Why is it in our self-interest not to violate rights, or even to assist someone in an emergency? Huemer is *correct* that the answer to that question is not obvious. Indeed this was part of Onkar's point: because what's in our self-interest is not obvious, we need a science of ethics to help us discover it. The burden of proof *is* on Objectivists to show whether or why these examples illustrate implications of self-interest. And I also think Huemer is correct that we have to have an answer to his admittedly unlikely hypothetical examples. We need to be able to explain why we think such cases are impossible, when and if they are impossible. That is, we need to explain why it would never be in our interest to kill someone for a dollar. Or, if it ever is in our interest, we need to explain why such killing would be outside the scope of morality (as in emergency situations). Onkar did a good job explaining the fundamental principles we need to provide these explanations: he noted the general value we derive from other people (we value them as creative producers, not as material to be exploited), and the general conditions for the applicability of moral advice (it's for guidance in non-emergency situations). But he didn't draw out all of the implications from those two points that are needed to provide the full Objectivist answer here (and given his time limits, he couldn't). To give one last point of credit to Huemer: the problem of accounting for how the interests of others fit into our self-interest is probably the hardest problem for the Objectivist ethics. To the extent that he focused his criticisms on this issue, he did an honest job of focusing on a legitimate problem that Objectivist philosophers have to address. I'm not saying it can't be addressed. I think Ayn Rand has already done all of the important work to do so. But it's difficult to synthesize everything she said on the matter, so much so that I've been grappling with it for years and still don't quite have it organized in my mind in terms of essentials. If we were wrong about anything, this is where we would be wrong, and thinking honestly about whether Objectivism is true means examining this question carefully.

Was yours the question about infallibility? I think the question misinterpreted Huemer's position. In response to Onkar's contention that an ethics based on intuitions would entrench status quo opinions, Huemer responded that ethical intuitions are not infallible, i.e., that they're not guaranteed to be correct. If an ethical intuition is just a common sense belief, then this is correct. Our beliefs are not infallible--because *we* are not infallible. Note that this is not the same question as whether or not we can achieve certainty. "Infallibility" is the state of being metaphysically incapable of error. You'll note that Ayn Rand reiterates throughout her epistemology that "man is neither omniscient nor infallible"--and this is the primary reason we need epistemology. This was, in fact, Onkar's point: because our beliefs are not infallible, they need to be based on observable evidence to be justified. Huemer just happens to think that there's no observable evidence that can play the role of justifying ethical beliefs, and so thinks that the only way they can be justified is to be systematized in a coherent way. We may question whether this strategy is sufficient to yield justified ethical beliefs, and perhaps in that sense, Huemer's moral epistemology has skeptical implications (about *ethics*) which he does not fully grasp. But you should know that when it comes to the rest of his epistemology, he's a committed anti-skeptic. He's written a whole book on this topic (*Skepticism and the Veil of Perception*), in which he argues for a view according to which our beliefs about the world ultimately derive their justification from sensory observation. I think there are errors in this book, and that he doesn't fully succeed in explaining how our beliefs get justified by the senses. But it's important to note that he is *trying* to show how justification and knowledge are possible, at least for non-ethical beliefs. In this respect, he is an enemy of skepticism and postmodernism and relativism, and as such, an ally.

http://www.aynrandbookstore2.com/prodinfo.asp?number=CK58E

http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/2009/01/2009013001c.htm

Run, don't walk, to your closest bookstore and pick up a copy of Ayn Rand's *The Voice of Reason.* There you'll find an article called "The Question of Scholarships." Reading it, you'll find that you are dropping the context of the principle that forbids taking the unearned. That's a principle that applies only to those who are not already operating under force. When you take government grants and scholarships, you are justly compensating yourself for the taxes that have already been expropriated from either you or your parents, or for those that will be in the future. This consideration of context does not justify taking anything, only what is necessary to accomplish the goals you would have pursued in the absence of government force. So if you take it for a legitimate purpose, especially in a market you would otherwise not be able to enter on account of government-inflated tuition, you are justified. The proviso is that you commit yourself to fighting the very system that made this necessary, but standing up for laissez-faire capitalism. Please read the AR article above; I often wish I'd read it before I made a rationalistic decision to drop out of a good school for similar reasons.

Usually, I think, the violent sex is a dramatic device, nothing more. The couples you're thinking of are in conflict with each other in spite of their love--the violent sex dramatizes this. This is true of both Roark and Dominique, and Galt and Dagny. It's probably also true of Kira with Leo and Andrei (though I haven't read WTL in a while). Interesting observation: once Roark and Dominique resolve their conflict at the end of The Fountainhead (once Dominique leaves Wynand), the last love scene that's portrayed is not violent. Look:

It's not second-handed to want to represent a philosophy honestly in the public sphere, if what you want to do is to spread that philosophy successfully. Look at seehafer's point: the problem is not spreading awareness of Ayn Rand, but establishing her credibility. If it really is in your self-interest, fine. That's why a spontaneous spike in sales is noteworthy and interesting, something worth writing about. Suddenly lots of people realize on their own that they want to read the book: that's news worthy. But why would anyone write about the book being in a top slot if it's just because of an organized campaign? Note: if no one wrote about the spontaneous spike (which I think is true), no one will write about an organized one--unless they discover it's just a result of a campaign (which they can find out about if the campaign is announced on the internet!). In that case, the angle would be that the spike was just a stunt. I agree with seehafer. There are many better, more productive forms of Objectivist activism out there. I participate in them actively. I recommend that others do, too. This will be my last word on this topic--too many other better things to do!