merjet

I could but I choose not to. I don't forsee enough value in it for me. If she had not said it, we could discard most of this thread. Thank you, Stephen B.

Really? Ayn Rand gave the following advice about reading philosophers. "You must attach clear, specific meanings to words, i.e., be able to identify their referents in reality. This is a precondition, without which neither critical judgment nor thinking of any kind is possible. [...] You must not take a catch phrase -- or any abstract statement -- as if it were approximate. Take it literally. Don’t translate it, don’t glamorize it, don’t make the mistake of thinking, as many people do: “Oh, nobody could possibly mean this!” and then proceed to endow it with some whitewashed meaning of your own." (“Philosophical Detection”, Philosophy: Who Needs It, p. 18-19; my bold)

Fair enough. Yet: The Objectivist virtues are rationality, independence, integrity, honesty, justice, productiveness, and pride. Are trust and cooperation not broad or fundamental enough to any of those virtues? I think they are -- at least to integrity, honesty, justice, and productiveness. Note that my abstract ties trust and cooperation to living a productive life.

It isn't. But I'm (contractually) obliged to not do that (for the entire article). JARS is a paid subscription journal. If you want to read my article for free, then you will need to find another way, e.g. waiting 5 years and reading it at www.JSTOR.org.

I much agree. It was refreshing to read that Rand was capable of making a mistake amid her monumental achievement. First, that's something rarely heard from her fans. Second, it isn't merely me misunderstanding what she wrote, which has too often been explicit or implicit in this thread. Another possibility to consider is that she was capable of ambiguity. For example, does the passage I quoted from VOS silently assume a third party or not? Does it silently assume force or not? That passage sparked much discussion, maybe too much. There is very little in my article about the passage. If you read Stephen Boydstun's post at the start, he didn't refer to it and his comments were generally favorable. My article addresses mostly (what one might call) gaps or things missing rather than errors. The following is the abstract. Ayn Rand was a strong and influential advocate of self-interest, of ethical egoism. What does her version of egoism mean in practical terms pertaining to interactions with other people generally other than not violating their rights and not committing fraud? This article explores that question with special attention to trust and cooperation. Ayn Rand said little about trust and cooperation in her ethics, but these are important aspects of living a productive life.

If there is a premise in Ayn Rand's statement in VoS that I quoted, it is: "Since all values have to be gained and/or kept by men's actions". That's clearly very different from what you assert. After repeated attempts, have you not understood my simple premise? I asked for literal interpretations of Ayn Rand's statement in VoS. You have not even come close. I'm not worried any, but your interpretation of what Ayn Rand wrote about "breach" is nowhere close to literal. She said absolutely nothing about force regarding "breach." Also, why couldn't a breach be voluntary or forced by a non-altruist thug?

Oh, my. What a poor attempt at ad hominem ridicule. I hope Hamming it up made you feel good. How do you know what Ayn Rand's thoughts were when she wrote that passage? How do you know Ayn Rand wanted your non-literal interpretations put into her "dishwasher," i.e. her literal words? My Google search for "mutual benefit" on the site http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/ showed five hits. That's "over and over again"? Also, all five pertained to trade. Sorry, but the range of human action is far greater than only trade.

I acknowledge your opinion and respectfully disagree. How is a reader suppose to know what a legitimate literal interpretation is, according to you, when you haven't supplied one? What constitutes a breach between actor and beneficiary according to you? A number of examples might help.

What of it? Are you trying to trivialize the difference between acting for the benefit of (a) oneself solely, and (b) oneself and one or more family members or friends, or oneself and co-workers or other organization, or oneself and community? Let's see. Is it your belief that such implication is merely my unbridled imagination and it has no basis whatever in what Ayn Rand literally wrote? If yes, then I foresee nothing to gain continuing this dialogue with you. If no, please explain why your opening a door for some frail person, or slowing down your car to let another driver merge, is selfish, not even partly "other-ish" and not a breach.

"Carefully read the last sentence of what I quoted from VOS. It says "the beneficiary", which is singular and therefore excludes any beneficiary other than the actor. The part in the quote preceding the last sentence about any breach reinforces that" (link). I strongly disagree with your last sentence. Like I said earlier (link), Rand's statement is about both. It is against any breech (between actor and beneficiary), which is essential to altruism, and advocates no breech, which is essential to egoism.

How do you reconcile "not for the egoist ...." with the last sentence I quoted from VOS. That is: "The Objectivist ethics holds that the actor must always be the beneficiary of his action[.]"

Whose interpretation do you mean? Your own? I much disagree with "Rand delivered ... lifetime."

Objectivist Living: anthony

For a moment I thought you finally had grasped the implications of the passage from VOS cited in the third post in this thread. Then I read your latest post, which negated that thought. Then I saw your real name. Now I have a better understanding of what you have said, and may later say, in this thread.

A funny segment is 30:20 to 30:58. At the end Jordan Peterson says, "The rumor is that finance guys have no soul." That reminded me of an actuarial joke: What is an actuary? A mathematician without a personality. 😊

Our ideas of what is a literal interpretation of the quote from Rand's VOS are very different. See the post I made moments ago for mine. I agree with much of what you say, but don't regard it as a literal interpretation of said quote. You say little about the actor benefiting anybody besides himself/herself. You don't use "breach" any, whereas Rand did, and she did not use "interloper", whereas you did. I'm also perplexed about your phrase "while not only [ ] beneficiary."

Silly? Carefully read the last sentence of what I quoted from VOS. It says "the beneficiary", which is singular and therefore excludes any beneficiary other than the actor. The part in the quote preceding the last sentence about any breach reinforces that. So I don't agree that your #2 fits a literal interpretation of the quote from VOS. Only your #1 does. So the problem is for your non-literal interpretation. You might believe that Ayn Rand did not intend my literal interpretation and your #2 fits Objectivism more broadly. I can buy that. Her fictional heroes and she herself at times acted in accordance with #2. To what extent she really meant what I quoted is debatable, but I think my literal interpretation is spot on.* Maybe she got careless in a polemical mood, since what I quoted is an attack on Comtean altruism (self-sacrifice) as much as it is a positive statement about egoism. Maybe an error was made getting the essay into print. Later in VOS she did approve of an actor benefiting others the actor values in emergencies. However, it did not include non-emergencies. * The following is Rand's advice about reading philosophers. "You must attach clear, specific meanings to words, i.e., be able to identify their referents in reality. This is a precondition, without which neither critical judgment nor thinking of any kind is possible. [...] You must not take a catch phrase -- or any abstract statement -- as if it were approximate. Take it literally. Don’t translate it, don’t glamorize it, don’t make the mistake of thinking, as many people do: “Oh, nobody could possibly mean this!” and then proceed to endow it with some whitewashed meaning of your own." (“Philosophical Detection”, Philosophy: Who Needs It, p. 18-19)

Thank you. I will post again on the other thread when I have more time at my computer in a few days.

The following are Rand's own words from VOS. "Since all values have to be gained and/or kept by men's actions, any breach between actor and beneficiary necessitates an injustice: the sacrifice of some men to others, of the actors to the nonactors, of the moral to the immoral. Nothing could ever justify such a breach, and no one ever has. ... The Objectivist ethics holds that the actor must always be the beneficiary of his action" (Rand 1964, ix-x).

Replying to the initial question, Binswanger's How We Know says: Self-evident means "available to direct awareness. "Self-evident" is not a synonym for "obvious." To one who has learned arithmetic, it is obvious that two plus two is four, but that truth is not self-evident; it is inferred by a process of comparison and counting. But that the page you are reading exists is not an inference; it is self-evident. The data of sensory perception are self-evident." More can be seen on Amazon's "Look Inside" feature on pages 22-3 (link).

The following is a time-line of what Rand thought were virtues, the dated ones from Journals of Ayn Rand. September 18, 1943: Per the editor she presents independence as a primary virtue, but later identifies independence as derivative, an aspect of the primary virtue of rationality. September 29, 1943: She names integrity as the first, greatest, and noblest virtue. She also writes about the virtues of courage, honesty, sense of honor (a selfish virtue by definition), self-confidence, strength (of character, will, and wisdom). All these virtues are contained in, enhanced by, based upon the fundamental virtue of self-respect. July 19, 1945: Her chief virtues: self-reverence, self-sufficiency, worship of the ideal. July 29, 1953: The virtues of the Life Morality - thinking (rationality), independence, honesty, purposefulness, happiness, self-esteem. Galt's speech in Atlas Shrugged: Adds integrity and justice to the July 29, 1953 list. Happiness is dropped. Pride replaces self-esteem. Productivity replaces purposefulness.

Galt's speech lists 7 virtues (link).

It isn't only the quantity of money; it's also the velocity of money. http://finance.yahoo.com/news/velocity-money-elephant-room-180802951.html The graph missing from that page is here: http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?id=M2V You can change the date range if you want. The velocity of money will rise when banks start lending more. Banks are the "engines" of inflation. The Fed controls the "gas tank."

George Reisman says leftist fanatics are responsible (link).

Who Shut Down the Government? by Thomas Sowell.