Evangelical Capitalist

My response would probably be something to the effect of, "If you're unhappy with your life, that's your problem, not mine. Maybe you've been looking for happiness in the wrong places."

Every "argument from creation" for the exitence of a God, or creator, suffers from the argumentum ad ignorantiam fallacy, literally "agument according to ignorance." They all have the form of the following: "The world/universe/creation as we know it could not have arisen naturally according to known laws of science. Therefore, there must have been a supernatural creator." This consists merely of substituting the unknowable (as all supernatural phenomena must be; if their nature was knowable, they wouldn't be considered supernatural) for the unknown. Another version of the above argues that the existence of life, or any other natural fact, while not impossible, should have been ridiculously improbable without a creator. Probability, however, doesn't apply to past events. They happened. To say that they were improbable in light of known factors is to simply ignore that fact. We may not know what caused them to happen, but to attribute that cause to some supernatural entity is to commit the fallacy described above.

Under the assumption that the moral choice would be to help the man (i.e. that his situation is temporary and no fault of his own, that he is not an enemy, that such help would be for the selfish value of life as such, etc.) the second option is clearly the worse choice. It adds to the sin of not helping the man that of initiating force. By initiating force against one's companion, one asserts the notion that his life is not his own, to do with as he sees fit. That one's initiation of force resulted in the man receiving unwilling help from one's companion doesn't confer any moral uprightness on one's actions. Morality is a matter of choice, and choice is an individual concern. Since neither person chose to help the man, neither can claim any moral rectitude. For the same reasons, the situation is not changed if one is unable to help the man while one's companion is able, but unwilling. I'm going to make a presumption, perhaps unwarranted, that your discussion was in relation to welfare, that your friend was arguing that the government is justified in forcing some people to help others, because it's less bad than doing nothing. This adds another wrong to the situation in that it confers upon those in need a "right to be helped." That one's help should be of value to them is undeniable; if they value their life, they should value that which sustains it. (It may be observed that chronic welfare cases, in fact, do not value that which sustains their life, and thus that they can not value their own life.) Values must be created, however, and the mere value of something does not confer upon one a right to it. The only values one has a right to are the ones created or otherwise earned by one's own thought and effort. This right is by virtue of the fact that one holds soverignty over one's mind and body and thus over the product thereof. As soon as one resorts to an initiation of force, one denies that very right.

Is that a dictionary definition? If so, it's not even a very good one. Here's one (from m-w.com) that's closer to what we're talking about here: induction: inference of a generalized conclusion from particular instances Deduction is the opposite process: deriving a particular conclusion from generalizations. Those generalizations are the result of inductive reasoning. The process of conceptualization, on which your mathematics is based, is an inductive process, i.e. it generalizes from particulars. That is why induction is more important that deduction.

To shamelessly plagarize Scott Adams, "When did ignorance become a point of view?"

Actually, it's at Rockefeller Center. Atlas @ Rockefeller Center

So, I was sitting at a traffic light the other day. (Bear with me, this does get around to the point, eventually.) Approaching the light I saw a bus trying to squeeze past stopped traffic to get into the left-turn lane. We've all been in that situation, right? The traffic in the through lane is backed up, but the left-turn lane is more or less empty. There's just enough room to get between that last car and the median, so we squeeze through, right? That's all well and good when you're driving a little sports car, or even a moderately-sized SUV. Even a big SUV if the space is big enough. When you're driving a bus (remember the bus?) the situation is a bit different. Your front end might squeeze through, but the back end may have other plans. Well, that's what happened. The front end of the bus squeezed into the left-turn lane with maybe 4 inches to spare between its front bumper and the car. Seeing this, I was pretty sure the back end of the bus wasn't going to make it. I was right. The back of the bus grated heavily against the car. As the bus proceeded forward I could see a fairly long scratch on the side. I can only guess at the damage to the car, since it was on the other side. Here's the point. My first thought concerning the bus driver was that he must not hold much as being of value. (By the way, this would never have occurred to me 18 months ago, before I started making an effort to learn about Objectivism.) To be that careless about the values of others, even if it's just a few scratches on someone's car, says something about the meaning of our own values, not to mention any sense of pride and self-esteem we might feel. How much worse, then, is the murderer who shows not merely a careless disregard, but an active disdain for life, which is the standard of value? How can he hold his own life as being of any value? And if his own life is of no particular value, then he cannot hold any values at all, life being the standard of human values. For the murderer, acting "selfishly" becomes meaningless. A murderer, almost by definition, does not value himself, he has no self-esteem, no sense of efficacy; he is self-less. The motive of the murderer doesn't matter. There is no value to be gained in the destruction of value, i.e. the victim's life.

I just finished listening to the lecture and most of the Q&A. I found the discussion interesting, informative and, for the most part, I am unable to disagree with it. The one point that Dr. Brook made that I'm having serious trouble with is the notion that all civilians are morally legitimate targets in war. The justification for this, if I understood it correctly, was that since the government, any government, is the representative of all its people, its actions reflect, morally, on each individual person under its jurisdiction. Each individual, therefore, is morally culpable and therefore open to attack when their government precipitates an otherwise just war/invasion. (By "just war" in this case, I mean objectively justified, not the kind of war Dr. Brook described as consistent with so-called "just war theory.") The problem is that this seems to contradict everything Ayn Rand had to say about the moral standing of an individual. Morality is a matter of choice. There are no collective choices or actions, only the choices and actions of individuals. The moral choice of any individual has no impact on the moral standing of any other individual. Why does this change when the individuals in question are those in charge of governing, whether put there by legitimate means or otherwise? Are the victims of oppression to be held morally responsible for the actions of their oppressors? I'm not saying that we should be concerned with the lives of their civilians at the expense of the lives of our own troops, just that I don't find this particular argument tenable. Am I just missing something something here? I know Dr. Brook quoted Miss Rand on this point, though I don't remember exactly where it was from; if anybody knows and can point me to the original source, I'd appreciate it.

These questions more properly apply to condition 3, which is the most ambiguous of the conditions for "justified true belief." Condition 1 merely states that one cannot claim knowledge of fact A if one believes not-A. Yes. This is the most useless of the three condidtions, for precisely the reasons you point out, in addition to those objections you raised to condition 1. Namely, what constitutes justification?

Programmer. Mostly ASP right now; could be GIS soon.

Since the assignment asked for an article, maybe we should stick to that. I'm guessing that the scope of your project (I'm assuming that, as with my speech class in college, you have time limitations for your presentation) probably isn't broad enough to take on the entire Bible. Or even the Gospels for that matter. If your looking for something, or someone, that most people consider evil, find something on Michael Milken. Most people think he's the lowest form of human being in existence. Here are a couple of articles, but they're both old. You may need to find something more current. Guilty of Success and Victim of Non-Objective Reporting Did Michael Milken Deserve a Pardon? Hope this helps. Good luck.

No, I can't enumerate everything that's implied in "valuing others." I think where your confusion is arising, or perhaps mine, is the use of "friendships as primary." When I see that phrase, it means "as an end in themselves," rather than as means to an end. Each person is an end in themselves, and they engage in relationships with others as means to those ends. The realtionship can not become an end in itself. If that happens, one has become Peter Keating. From Merriam-Webster Online: longing: a strong desire especially for something unattainable. (Yes, I'm aware that quoting the dictionary in a philosophical discussion is treading on dangerous ground.) I suspect this is not the meaning you intend when you use the term "longing". To value the unattainable, or that which is beyond one's power to attain, is irrational. Recall Rand's conccept of value: "Where no alternative exists, no values are possible." We benefit greatly from interaction with others. So does Roark. But is the "need" for interaction a basic need, like food or shelter, or is it a means to supplying other, more basic needs? (I'll admit I don't fully know the answer to this question, but I suspect it is the latter.) The very quote you offer from Rand notes undercuts the interpretation you seem to want to give to "in every possible way" as absolute. Roark does value others "as a matter of form and necessity on the way, as one meets fellow travelers." As far as his concern for the lives of others, Rand never argued that independence means disregarding the lives of others, but in fact the opposite. To value one's own life requires a respect and value for the lives of others, to the extent that they earn such respect. As an example, take Hank Rearden risking his life to save Francisco D'Anconia in AS. Again, if by "purpose" you mean "as an end in itself" then I can't agree with you. To have as one's "purpose" finding others of like mind makes one Peter Keating. I think I've addressed the issue of saving another's life. I can't speak for others, but I've never taken anything you've said that way. i hope I haven't given the impression that I did. Again, I think it's important to distinguish between "one's purpose" and "purposeful action," i.e. the pursuit of values. The quote you cite above does not claim that finding others should ever be one's purpose. To value others is perfectly acceptable, but only insofar as such relationships serve one's own purposes, as they ought to serve the purposes of those others involved as well.

I'm sure Stephen will weigh in on this before long (which I look forward to,) but before he does I wanted to add another question. Wouldn't this result be consistent with TEW for essentially the same reasons that the author outlines for his own "backward-in-time-wave" interpretation?

I'm gonna have to enter an apology to Annalouise. Whatever rudeness was in my post above (namely the "troll" comment) was based on the fact that I misread one of your earlier posts. I skipped the sentence, "I find it interesting for my theoryies to be tested and hopefully you will too." Without that it sounded like you were questioning for its own sake, as I implied above. I was wrong to say that. I apologize. That said, I stand by the rest of the substance of my earlier post. I was going to respond to this, but since she's not reading this anymore, what's the point?

To exapnd on Bowzer's point, debating, if it is to be productive, must assume at least some basic shared premises on the part of those participating. The identity of the question under debate, for instance, as well as rules of logic and what constitutes a proved statement versus an unproved assertion. There is no point in an Objectivist attempting to "debate" someone who declares that A is non-A, since that position rules out all possibility of debate. What possible benefit can there be to entertaining arbitrary objections to the validity of principles of which most on this board have long since satisfied themselves? Particularly when those objections have been dealt with time and time again here and elsewhere. If you're interested in learning something about Objectivism, then you'll be welcome here. If all you care to do is "question absolutes" for the sake of questioning, debate for the sake of debating, you'll continnue to encounter hostility. I dare say you're already treading dangerously close to the textbook definition of a "troll". Since "questioning" seems to be an end in itself for you, you probably won't be interested in actually getting answers, but I'll try anyway. Living requires dealing with reality. Perpetuating a self-delusion is the evasion of reality. Deliberately undercutting one's own consciousness, one's awareness of reality, destroys one's ability to deal with reality and consequently destroys one's self-esteem. If Pi truly believed the delusion, was it really "his life" that he was living, or was it a fairy tale life with no more reality than the delusion? If he truly believed the delusion, does that not in itself constitute insanity, being out-of-touch with reality? If the lines appear to be different lengths, how do you know it's an optical illusion? How is it that you know that they are, in fact, the same length? The answer is reason. Perception tells us that something is; our reason, the use of which requires an act of will, must discover what it is. You correctly point out that our perceptions are affected by the context of what we perceive. If you see a car dealer with a whole line of gray sedans with one red sports car in the middle, you'll notice the sports car. That does not alter the identity of the sedans, or the knowability of such identity. If, on the following day, the same sports car is in a line of similar red sports cars, you won't notice that particular car. Again, this alters neither the identity of that car nor its "knowability". None of these scenarios, by any means, invalidates one's perceptions. They are what they are. Our sensory apparati, including the automatic integration of sensations in to perceptions, are of a particular nature and thus interact with reality in a particular way. Kant's ideal "objective" consciousness, i.e. a consciousness without a particular nature which perceives by no particular means, would be totally unreliable since its behavior would be unpredictable. What may be valid or invalid is the interpretation of those perceptions, the "what" behind the "something", the identity of the object of perception. That interpretation cannot be declared invalid arbitrarily, and certainly not merely on the grounds that it is based on perception.

"Whole Language" education seems to consist of learning without teaching, and of using skills that haven't been learned. It consists, in other words, of A being non-A and the reversal of cause and effect.

I hope you're not suggesting that the war on terror is a trivial matter. All the points you make a very valid. I too see the events of Atlas Shrugged, and the motivation behind them, played out in the newspaper almost daily. (If I read the paper more carefully, I'm sure I could remove the "almost".) However, as in AS, the proliferation of an omnipresent government is a symptom, not a primary cause, of our problems. So long as we maintain a collectivist mentality, rather than the individualism and ethics of "self-interest, properly understood" on which this country was founded, we must inevitably go where that path leads, which was so forcefully demonstrated to anyone who cared to see it throughout the 20th century. As to the Islamists becoming to America what the Germanic tribes were to the Roman Empire, it is certainly not unthinkable, though I consider it very unlikely. I think what we're seeing is the last desperate flailing of the elements that have taken a culture from the forefront of intellectual development to trailing the western world by 500 years or more. If, however, we abondon what lies at the root of the advancement of western civilization, we merely level the playing field. That root, of course, is reason.

There was a bill introduced in Congress at some point (it may still be alive, I don't know for sure) that would have legalized drug reimportation. At the same time it would have prohibited drug manufacturers from reducing their shipments to Canada. That isn't "free trade," it's "forced trade." Remind anyone of directive 10-289? I have not claimed that Canada has refused to enforce any patent, much less that it arbitrarily or comprehensively ignores such patents. However, I'm not inventing the fact that Canada does impose price-controls on prescription drugs. What means have they, ultimately, of enforcing those controls except by the withdrawl of patent protection? They could start seizing the company's products, or forbid them to conduct business at all, but that would hurt their own citizens who wish to purchase those drugs more than the companies themselves. The companies can sell their product elsewhere. The patients have no alternate source of medication... unless the government withdraws patent protection. Regardless of whether the patent is enforced or not, the enforcement of price-controls by any means constitutes a substantial violation of property rights. You are correct in that the price controls would reduce the incentive for other generic manufacturers to move into a market and begin producing a product in the event the original manufacturer was prohibited from selling or refused to sell their product. The drug companies ought to figure out that the Canadian government needs them a lot more than they need Canada and pull a Galt: withdraw the sanction of the victim. For the record, I'll repeat again: I don't like the FDA for a host of reasons, and I certainly can't support the prohibition of drug importation on supposed "safety" grounds, or really on any grounds for that matter. (Isn't that kind of insulting to the Canadians? Like they're a third-world country or something.) However, neither can I support those who wish to gain unearned benefits by taking advantage of the price-controls imposed by the Canadian government. The problem is not importation, per se, it's price-controls.

First, please learn to use the quote feature. It'll make reading these replies a lot easier for the rest of us. I don't see how this follows. "Longing for" others is not the same as valuing others. The latter does not imply the former. Correct. I'm here in aid of my study of Objectivism. I value those who post on this board because they share my values. That is primary. Whatever relationship exists is based on that. Would you want just anyone there on the island with you or someone whom you value as a friend or loved one? Would social contact, for the sake of social contact, with a lying thief be of any value to you on a desert island? I think not. My interpretation was that by "suffering" Rand meant the sort of limitless, pointless pain experienced when pain is given equal footing with pleasure. This is what Roark doesn't believe in, and therefore doesn't experience, for the reasons I explained above. Actually, it was the other way around: that the looters would use Dagny to reach Galt, that they would torture her to make him give in to whatever they demand of him. In such a case, there would in fact be no values left for him, regardless of whether Dagny lives or dies. If he cannot act on his own judgement, on his own choice, the concept of value becomes irrelevant. "Where no alternative exists, no values are possible." ("The Objectivist Ethics," VOS) The only thing left to Galt in that case would be the ability, at least, to spare Dagny's life. See my answer above. As I said before, I don't really understand Roark's motivation in relationship to Dominique, whether in the "rape scene" or anywhere else. (It's the one thing that puzzles me even more than Dominique's thinking in the first place.) So, I'm probably not the best person to try to answer this question. Again, the relationship between Roark and Dominique never made much sense to me. In a general sense, I doubt very much that Rand meant to suggest that the loss of a valued friend or loved-one should be met with indifference. I believe Rand once said in an interview that if her husband died she would commit suicide. (She didn't, but she died only three years later.) Why she said this about Roark, I do not know. If by "have an interest in what your friends think of you" you mean that one is willing to change to suit their opinions, then it is absolutely immoral. That's the essence of Peter Keating: be everything to everybody at the price of abandoning one's self. If your friendship is based on mutually shared, rational values, then you won't have to worry about being independent. Your friends will respect you precisely for that reason, among others.

From what I've seen, and that's very little, the LP is just a bunch of anarcho-pragmatists, who scoff at the notion of any definite principles in politics just as the other major parties do. Libertarianism, on the other hand, is so broad a term that it has nearly become meaningless, as has already been pointed out. It becomes all the more necessary, in such cases, not to paint with a broad brush, but to examine the particular virtues and vices in each case. There are some very good people who describe themselves as "libertarian," and to fail to distinguish the good from the bad and the right from the wrong in this issue is just as bad as anywhere else. As an example, I have more respect for John Stossel than for anyone else in the national media, and while he certainly isn't an Objectivist, he does openly admire Rand's work. He often gets vilified as conservative, but he's quick to point out that his views are better described as libertarian, though he's far from being an anarchist. If anyone has read David Boaz's book, "Libertarianism: A Primer," they'll know that he approaches political issues from a natural rights perspective, not a utilitarian or pragmatist perspective as many libertarians do. The book offers an excellent history of the philosophy behind natural rights up to the American Revolution, an explanation of how libertarianism relates to the traditional "left-right" political spectrum, an account of the growth of government to its present bloated state, and a number of concrete examples of limited-government solutions to problems created by unlimited government. Again, it wouldn't be mistaken for Objectivist literature, but it does an excellent job of "selling" limited government to the average reader. These are just two examples, but I'm sure there are others.

To quote George Templeton Strong, a New York lawyer, at the beginning of the Civil War: "We may take consolation in as much as the self-amputated members were diseased beyond the hope of immediate cure."

The best way I can think of to put this, and it applies to your other questions as well, is that Roark's values are self-contained. Note that he does not eschew friendships altogether. In fact he carries on several friendships: with Austen Heller, Mike the Electrician, Steven Mallory and Gail Wynand. He enjoys these kind of friendships because they are like himself (possessed of a "self-sufficient ego" in Roark's words,) but he doesn't seek out people like himself; he doesn't make finding them his purpose. He is his own purpose. Such a purpose doesn't involve others in any way whatever. Pain is a reality. Rand never denies that. But for Roark, all pain is merely superficial. It was "suffering that went down only to a certain point." The reason for this is how Roark regards pain vs. pleasure. Both are real, but only pleasure has significance in itself. Pain, as you point out, is a means to an end, not an end in itself. If one regards pain as significant in itself, then there's no limit to the depth of suffering one may feel. But if the pain is merely part of the battle to achieve one's values, then it becomes a superficial obstacle to conquered, part of the price of achievement. Again, this is a question of what is primary. The benefit of others, even of his friends, is not of primary value to Roark. His primary value is his own life, and it is to that end that his productive effort is focused. The benefit of others, whether of clients or of friends, is incidental, merely a means to an end. Yes, you're correct: it's a trade. But the trade is not the end, it's the means. This reinforces what I've been saying above. It's not a question of not considering others. It's not considering others as primary. That they or their values are not, in themselves, apart from one's own values, the goal of one's actions. For the reasons you state, that sex is a expression of love for another person, it is not primary for Roark for the same reason that his friendships are not primary. Before you can say, "I love you," one must first be able to pronounce the "I". I'm honestly not quite sure what to make of the "rape" comment, except that it depends largely on Dominique's psychology: she wanted the pleasure of having Roark, but couldn't allow it to herself unless it was forced on her. "Rape" was the only way she could have sex. How this relates to Roark's motivation, I'm not sure. Ask yourself why you you admired Roark and whether any of the abouve, properly understood, really prevents you from admiring him still. What Roark embodies is the essence of egoism: that one's highest value is one's own life, and that one needs no external, "higher" values to justify one's existence. If that is what you cannot accept, I would suggest taking a look at the underlying causes of that view. While the ethics of egoism is one of the most distictive aspects of Objectivism, it is not an irreducible fundamental. As Rand put it, "I am not primarily an advocate of egoism, but of reason."

And they find this surprising when morality is defined as suffering?

Price-fixing is fine. No problem there. The difference is whether the price is set by the mutual, uncoerced agreement of buyer and seller, or whether it is dictated by the government. The conditions you cite are all perfectly legitimate. And jrshep is absolutely right about the "subsidizing" of the drug industry. I'll go one step further and point out that for precisely that reason the government shouldn't be funding any scientific research. The same principle applies to art or any other activity that the government subsidizes.

You mean Rand allowed herself to have a professional relationship with [gasp] an irrationalist? Sorry, couldn't help it.