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it can sound like Objectivism is positive utilitarianism from some of the quotes that have been referenced here: "We exist for the sake of earning rewards", "live for the sake of such exalted moments as one may be able to achieve or experience", "basic motive is the desire to achieve values". these have plural terms: "rewards", "moments", "values", that can seem to suggest a mere collection of disconnected pleasures. Objectivism goes beyond basic utilitarianism though and sees them as having an integration to them, there being a "one in the many" (Peikoff's I-type in DIM Hypothesis). i think SL was getting at what unites them in talking about the experience of joy being tied to the flourishing *of a Man*. that's where these concepts of identity and integrity come into morality. it's expressed really well here (from Atlas Shrugged):

I wanted to start a thread just for general discussion of a benevolent or malevolent sense of life, and in particular, the concepts of a benevolent universe premise (BUP), malevolent universe premise (MUP), benevolent people premise (BPP), and malevolent people premise (MPP). Which of these do you identify with personally, and why? And do you have any reservations or disclaimers you want to add? In general, one can have a benevolent or malevolent sense of life. A "sense of life" is the basic emotional stance one has on life that comes from one's implicit metaphysical value judgments. Metaphysical value judgments are one's overall value judgments or feelings about the essential nature of existence, of man, and of man's relationship to existence.1 If one has an overall positive judgment about the metaphysical nature of reality and of man, then one's basic emotional stance on life will be positive. One will have a benevolent sense of life. Likewise, if one has an overall negative judgment about the metaphysical nature of reality and of man, then one's basic emotional stance on life will be negative; one will have a malevolent sense of life. Someone with an overall benevolent sense of life has a philosophical conviction that their life and the universe are good and valuable, a conviction that is not shaken simply by going through trying circumstances. They have a conviction that joy, exaltation, beauty, greatness, and heroism are the meaning of life, and not any pain or ugliness that they may encounter. They believe that happiness is what matters in life, but suffering does not, and that the essence of life is the achievement of joy, not the escape from pain. Pain, fear, and guilt are inessential and are not to be taken seriously as a scar across one's view of existence. Their basic stance when it comes to any question is that they love being alive, and they love the universe in which they live. "We exist and we know that we exist, and we love that fact and our knowledge of it" (Augustine). One's sense of life can be further analyzed into two basic categories: one's judgment of the universe, and one's judgment of man. An overall positive or negative judgment about the nature of the universe is what Rand calls the "Benevolent Universe Premise" (BUP) or "Malevolent Universe Premise" (MUP), respectively; a positive or negative judgment about the nature of man is the "Benevolent People Premise" (BPP) or "Malevolent People Premise" (MPP)2. A fully benevolent sense of life will combine a benevolent judgment of the universe and a benevolent judgment of man: both BUP and BPP. One may have a characteristically mixed sense of life, with a benevolent universe premise but a malevolent people premise (BUP/MPP), or a malevolent universe premise but a benevolent people premise (MUP/BPP).3 A benevolent universe premise (BUP) is characterized by a reverence for the Universe, and the belief that the universe, by nature, is intelligible to man, and that his happiness is possible in a place such as this. It's the belief that the things around you are real and ruled by natural laws, and that reality is stable, firm, absolute, and knowable. Tragedy is the exception in life, not the rule. Success, not failure, is the to-be-expected. It's the conviction that man is not ultimately doomed in this universe, but rather that a human way of life is possible. A benevolent people premise (BPP) is characterized by a reverence for Man, and the belief that man, by nature, is to be regarded as rational and valued as good. It's the belief that man has the power of choice, the power to choose his goals and to achieve them, and the power to direct the course of his life. It is the conviction that ideas matter, that knowledge matters, that truth matters, that one's mind matters. It's this conviction that leads to a respect and goodwill toward men, and an attitude, in individual encounters, of treating men as rational beings, on the premise that a man is innocent until proven guilty. One is unable to believe in the power or triumph of evil; evil is regarded as impotent and unreal, and injustice is the exception in life, not the rule. Consequently one has confidence in one's ability to judge others, to communicate with others, and to persuade them by rational argument, and a belief that the great potential value of men is the to-be-expected. The rationality in others is what matters, not their irrationality, and in essence they are a potential source of value, not a potential threat of dis-value. 1. For more on "sense of life", see the chapter "Philosophy and Sense of Life" in The Romantic Manifesto, by Ayn Rand 2. "Benevolent People Premise" is a term coined by Objectivist Dan Edge in blog posts back in 2007. You can find them here and here. Also see his thread here on Objectivism Online here. 3. See how Ayn Rand applies the BUP/MPP and MUP/BPP mixtures to the field of literature in her chapter "What is Romanticism?" in The Romantic Manifesto, where she discusses "volition in regard to existence, but not to consciousness" and "volition in regard to consciousness, but not to existence".

We have a duty to reality, truth, and principles? I don't see how this differs from "living in service to" reality, truth, or principles. Or are you trying to convey: Saying that one "lives in service to principles" is no different than saying one "lives in service to truth" or "lives in service to reality". It's just another way of saying that it's just a fact that you are beholden to reality, to truth, and to principles.

I do know that Piekoff devotes attention to proof in OPAR. I also know that math is generally considered as an epitome of proof. I don't know much about Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems (or, more extensively, their proofs), but enough to recognize that proof has to be about substantiating what is posited by his Incompleteness Theorems, much as proof in Objectivism is about identifying the logical relationship(s) between a proposition and its corresponding evidence of the senses. Here I would want to restate your specific question: How does the proof of the Incompleteness Theorems bolster as additional evidence or serve to contradict logical positivism? (This does presume that the proof of the Incompleteness Theorems has unimpeachable veracity, to which I cannot attest.) The deeper question, still then, lies in asking: Does philosophy derive the methodology of proof from mathematics, or does mathematics derive its methodology of proof from philosophy? If the latter, where would this place the status of the veracity identified as being pivotal (presumed unimpeachable) earlier?

World history verifies that terrible things happen; it also informs us of incredible discoveries in medicine, science, human behavior, to say nothing of the creation of wealth through industrialization. While terrible things may be the result of both nature and human effort, the incredible advances in human progress may be almost entirely credited to human resourcefulness,i.e. benevolent people. Your debunking is anything but thorough, however, you may try to make a more convincing argument to support your claim.

This is a false dichotomy you're making between "intention" and "competence". The issue isn't a division between whether you desire something vs. whether you act to achieve it; it's between whether you desire something and act to achieve it vs. whether you actually achieve it. It's action vs. outcome. Virtue and morality pertain to the action itself, not to whether or not you happen to achieve the effects that you desire, which can depend on other factors. Roark acted with integrity despite not achieving the effect he desired, to build the building the way he wanted, because actually achieving that effect depended also on the actions of others. If you're not sure whether rights enter into tragic situations, what about rationality, justice, or integrity? Individual rights are the application of moral principles to a social context. Whether or not the situation is tragic is irrelevant, the question of context pertains to whether or not the situation is social: if it is, then individual rights apply, for the same reason that rationality, justice, and integrity apply.

i agree that "more strangers" existing is better than "less strangers". thought experiments that isolate the position that in general having more/less people in the world is valuable could be constructed. but the trolley problem is not one of them. too much context is unavoidably included. by the nature of the question itself, the trolley problem simply doesn't get as far abstracted as "5>1", and the fact that people jump there, or interpret it as a choice between "a group" vs "an individual", or whatever else, is not the fault of the question. the threat involved is a train. trains run on fixed schedules that are knowable. usually the question has the 5 people tied down (presumably by some villain, as Nicky said: "those people didn't get tied to the tracks by the wind") who would have done that at the time they did because they knew a train would be approaching then. by this device that context is explicitly preserved. we know that the train is supposed to be in this place at this time, it is part of the scenario that it is justifiably expected by all that the train will run just this course. we also know and should have in mind unless anything is said to adjust it, that trains are owned and run by companies, so this is private property you'd be interfering with. when the questioner includes that the person who is at the switch is not an operator, not an associated employee at all, but just a bystander, this context is also reinforced in the storytelling itself. so the question can also be an exercise in retention of context, or attachment to reality, and reveal peoples' readiness to move away from it. SL had the right standpoint in his conversation with the imaginary professor: context should have to be explicitly removed through some story device, otherwise it's fair game, since the correct method of thinking is to hold concepts in a full way, as representing all of their content and detail. the person who is posing the question is aiming at a specific variable, and is attempting to tailor the question in such a way that they've covered all the other bases. the questioner may be successful or unsuccessful at getting to their target. Peikoff makes some of these points about the trolley question in his answer here, along with the idea that individualists do not consider people interchangeable (or as SL said earlier, rejects that "people and their lives can be reduced to arithmetic"): http://www.peikoff.com/2008/05/26/if-five-people-are-in-an-emergency-room-dying-and-one-healthy-person-in-the-waiting-room-could-save-them-all-if-we-used-his-organs-is-it-morally-permissible-to-do-this-even-though-hell-die/