DonAthos

As "this 'discussion'" initially referred to a thread in which I had been participating, and perhaps as the driving force, I have reason to believe that some of your complaints were aimed at me personally.

Why is "discussion" in quotes? Do you believe that what's taking place in that thread, or in this thread, or on this board generally isn't actual discussion? What's the implication exactly?

As for it going on for seven years (is that a long time, btw, for people to be chewing on philosophical topics?), do you think that I have been talking about this for seven years? These topics don't simply exist as threads in a forum -- they're reflective of the thinking that people do, actual people in the context of their specific lives. And speaking for myself, I've found that it's often helpful to have other people to discuss ideas with in the course of my thinking. It's helped me at every level of education, and while I guess students could simply be given textbooks with no instructor, no classmates, and etc., to learn as they may, if I were running a school that's not how I'd go about it.

Where this board is concerned, I'd sought it out specifically to have people to discuss these sorts of ideas with, which shouldn't be too surprising since I think that this is a discussion board. If the point of this board is just to direct people to Rand's books, then I don't see the point in participating.

So yeah, "ad infinitum" about sums it up, because there will always be new people encountering these ideas for the first time, and if they're at all like me, they'll want to hash them out for themselves. And yes, there will continue to be discussions about matters you consider settled, because what is settled for you is not necessarily settled for others.



I wonder at the phrase "attack the validity of a certain Objectivist position." Are we talking about something like "A is A"? Capitalism? Or are we still talking about how to interpret a sex scene in a novel? Does that count as "an Objectivist position"? If I conclude that the scene in question portrays rape, should I no longer call myself an Objectivist? And what's with "attack," anyways? Is there no room in the world for argumentative discussion which is not simultaneously some sort of antagonistic battle? Can it not take place in a friendly manner? I'd say, rather, that with respect to the relevant thread that I disagree with the conclusions which others have reached, and that I question the arguments they've used to arrive at those conclusions. But I consider those who engage me in discussion as my partners in trying to sort these matters out; that is, I'm grateful to them, and eager to either make my points successfully or see where I'm wrong. Am I looking at this cockeyed? Is everyone who disagrees with me simultaneously my enemy? Should I hate you, EC, because I think you're wrong? (And I do think you're wrong.)

And furthermore, you think that anyone who disagrees with an "Objectivist position" should feel that they "probably are wrong"? Really? How does that work?

You form concepts based on what you perceive, and as you perceive more referents of your concepts, you learn that the things you learned before apply to new things.

As you explore the world, you find that the world is bigger than you thought it was when you only knew the inside of your house. And you find that certain things you've learned apply to everything you've seen so far. Implicitly, at first. Then explicitly if/when you develop a conscious recognition of it. It all exists. (Existence.) Everything is something specific. (Identity.) You know of these things by perceiving them. (Consciousness is to be conscious of something.) But it was there before you perceived it, it remains there when you're not perceiving it, and you can't affect it unless you act on it physically. (Primacy of Existence.)

Applying what you've learned about the world so far, you can conclude that those three axioms apply to everything that exists, even if you haven't perceived it yet. Everything that exists, exists. Everything that exists, is something specific. And in order to know about anything, you have to be conscious of it.

Everything you've ever encountered in your life was there. It existed. Even when you weren't looking at it, it was still there acting according to its nature. Everything you've ever encountered in your life was something specific. It had certain properties. It had an identity. Everything you've ever (truly) known, had to be justified by perception at some point. Anything not conceptually traceable back to perception is a floating abstraction with no connection to reality.

Is it really that difficult to understand? Or are you going to continue to complain about the law of identity and the contextual nature of knowledge applying to your senses/mind because you can't know the whole universe?

I find myself a little bit staggered looking through the history of this thread. The initial consensus appeared to be that this was not at all a rape:







This is the first reply in the thread:



It's been a very long while since reading The Fountainhead, so I'm relying on the material I've found throughout this thread, but apparently Dominique "fought like an animal." Apparently she thought to herself thereafter that she had been raped... and then told another character that she had been raped.

I don't know. That sounds very similar to rape to me. And perhaps I'm one of those men "like Peter Keating," but I guess that if a woman was trying to physically fight me off, that might discourage me from engaging in intercourse with her.

But then, I don't suppose I'm Howard Roark, and I don't have his particular powers of observation. My ability to divine a woman's true wishes as against her trying to resist me physically, and then describing our congress as rape, is limited. Do we suppose, if I was arrested and brought before a jury of Objectivists (perhaps the ones I've quoted who do not regard this scene as "rape," for convenience), that I could convince them otherwise? Do we think that I could successfully argue that she'd given me significant glances, and contrived to put us in situations that assured me that she wanted me to force her down? That deep down inside, she really actually wanted it? Or do we think that they would pronounce me a rapist and put me in prison?

I get that this is fiction. But even within that context, I'd prefer to call a spade a spade. And this does seem like a rape.

In reading Dante's post and your response, I have to wonder... do you think that there's nothing about music which a person could learn with regard to the typical effects of one musical choice or another?

All I read Dante as saying (though maybe there's more) is that certain music will generally produce certain effects in the listener; a musician who strives to express himself to others -- to reproduce in them the sensations or what-have-you which he feels and seeks to share -- must take that into consideration, in order to attain his goals. He must consider the audience.

Though it's been a while since I've read The Fountainhead, I seem to recall Roark designing a temple such that man would feel grand inside of it. Well, to accomplish such a thing, Roark couldn't simply throw anything up as it came to him -- he would have to give lengthy consideration to what would produce the effects he was after in those who would enter the temple. When Greek architects wanted their columns to appear straight from a distance, they had to make mathematical calculations in order to produce the desired visual effects. And aren't there parallels to this sort of thing in music? Aren't there considerations given to thematic variations and resolutions, etc., depending on what musicians think those will "communicate"? Aren't there different emotions associated (for instance) with major or minor chords, or fast or slow tempos? (Or the timbre of various instruments?)

I don't know. I'm flailing in that I don't really know much about music or architecture (as I'm sure is obvious). But while I don't believe that architecture or music can convey stories in the manner that a film or novel can, I have to believe that there are still lessons in craft that an aspiring artist in either genre could learn. And where artistic expression is concerned, that craft would have to take into consideration the audience; the recognition that certain architectural or musical choices produce certain predictable effects in a typical observer/listener.

Yes, that doesn't change the point at all. He's saying that "we would have to rely on men's rationality, or good-will, or good intentions to secure legal objectivity" under market defense, and since he thinks we cannot (or should not) rely on that, then instead we need a single monopoly agency for a government. And so the counter-argument goes that we do already in fact rely on that now, and having a government does not remove you from having to rely on that. Indeed this is the case in any legal system, including limited government, so this argument fails.

Yes, so this is another bad argument against market provision of defense, I think. This is kind of the "chicken or the egg" argument reformulated. What Binswanger is referencing is the argument made by David Kelley in his 1974 essay "The Necessity of Government." So the argument basically goes like this: Look, you libertarians say that you want to provide defense services through the market, but what market? A functioning market presupposes that force has been excluded, and so this presupposes that there has been a functioning legal order already in place. A market presupposes that there are stable titles to property that are exchanged, and that can't be the case unless property rights are already generally protected, and that can't be the case unless you've already got a functioning legal order, and therefore before you can have a free market, you already need to have a legal order in place, and therefore a legal order can't be produced through the market.
But the problem with this argument is that the reverse argument would also work on the same grounds, that you can't have a functioning legal order without a functioning economic order. Where is the legal order going to get the money and the resources to do its thing? A government requires resources, after all, so there already has to be people growing food, clothing, shelter, making tools, and producing various kinds of economic goods and services in order for you to even have a legal order. The actual people resolving disputes and producing and enforcing the law can't be spending all their time in agriculture and hunting, so there must be some existing thing already going on.

So what is the problem here then? There is a mistake in thinking that "requiring" and "presupposing" mean that "something has to be there already" in a temporal sense. It is certainly true, the anarchist could say, that you can't have a functioning market without a functioning legal order of some kind, and also that you can't have a functioning legal order without a functioning market of some kind. But it's an equivocation to then ask "well, which one came first, or has to come first?" It is the same kind of rationalistic nonsense implied in the "chicken or the egg" question. I think the solution to the paradox is that a functioning market and a functioning legal order arise together. Certainly this would make historical sense. If we look at primitive societies, there is some primitive market order and some primitive legal order there at the same time. People are growing things, hunting things, exchanging, and at the same time there is always a way of resolving disputes. You can't really imagine a society without one thing or the other, and they just kind of evolve simultaneously and go through various iterations throughout history. So you can see that we don't need one or the other in order to get to the fully free society. We don't need a fully-formed free market to burst onto the scene right at the same time as a capitalist limited government, nor one to come before the other; they evolve from more primitive stages bit by bit.

The Neo-Aristotelian libertarian philosopher Roderick Long points this out, and reminds us of the question that vexed some 17th century philosophers of "Which do you need first, intelligence or language?" If we had intelligence first, we could develop language, but you might think we need language in order to have intelligence (in order to think in terms of concepts.) And so you were either committed to believing that both burst onto the scene fully formed simultaneously (as if created by God), or that there was some sort of infinite past where humans always sort of existed as intelligent and linguistic beings. Of course that is just rationalistic nonsense. Intelligence and language-speaking aren't "all or nothing" kind of things. Biologically, we tend to think that hominids have done a little bit of one, a little bit of the other, and just gradually built up to the present form.


Well, on this, I don't think this line of Socratic questioning gets us anywhere new. Since I answered the "what market" question earlier, it seems here like you think I was claiming that gang warfare only exists because we lack anarchy, but I don't know how you would get that. We have government now, we have gang warfare now. Did government get rid of gang warfare? No, of course not. At the same time, if we had a market for defense services, could there be gang warfare? Well, certainly so, we would have to grant that it's possible. The question is then what social framework, institutions, and incentives would there be that best provide legal objectivity and effectiveness in protecting individual rights? I don't think there would be any argument that drug cartels, organized crime during prohibition (or even now), and so forth were created precisely by the government, due to the incentives and frameworks it imposed on society. Now, I don't think this is a strike against limited government, since it would not have such prohibitions, but it can't really be considered a strike against market defense services either.

Now you are just arguing against libertarianism’s lack of philosophic basis, or libertarianism in general, but since no one suggested anything about this, I don't know why you bring this up. We are just critiquing Thomas' essay in the OP.

Not presuming to speak for Mr. Miovas, but he said that one cannot rely on "men's rationality, or good-will, or good intentions to secure legal objectivity" (as you put it). Instead we need a government of objectively defined laws protecting rights, objectively identified, a government delimited to its proper function.


[my bold]
What market? You're implying that there's a market prior to the existence of government. Is there? (And what makes you think that at least some anarcho-capitalists "wouldn't necessarily disagree with this desired goal"? What is their desired goal?)

"Anarchism vs. Objectivism" by Harry Binswanger


The most twisted evasion of the "libertarian" anarchists in this context is their view that disputes concerning rights could be settled by "competition" among private force-wielders on the "free market." This claim represents a staggering stolen concept: there is no free market until after force has been excluded. Their approach cannot be applied even to a baseball game, where it would mean that the rules of the game will be defined by whoever wins it. This has not prevented the "libertarian" anarchists from speaking of "the market for liberty" (i.e., the market for the market).

[my bold]
Again, what market?

Why are there warring gangs now, such as with drug dealers or cartels? Why were there the turf wars in Chicago, for instance, during prohibition? Because the government does not or would not recognize the legitimacy of competing governments?



True.

"It's the Spending, Stupid" by Dr. Hurd:


In the end, politicians are evading what Americans by and large don’t want to face. It’s easy to blame and condemn politicians. But the politicians who know it’s career suicide to address spending are right. This wouldn’t be true if the majority of Americans were willing to face the truth.
The government we have is a reflection of the philosophy dominating our culture. A government cannot stand in opposition to the dominant philosophy of the culture. There is no way to design one that can do so. This is the fundamental flaw of Libertarianism, of taking Rand's non-initiation of force principle as some self-evident axiom (i.e., "most [even if not all] people agree that initiating force is wrong") as the only basis required for a proper government, denying the need of moral philosophy (which rests on metaphysics and epistemology) in order to have a proper government and society. (See Peter Schwartz's "Libertarianism: The Perversion of Liberty")

In my life, I've found that a person grows more (or less) attractive to me based on what I know about them -- what is true more fundamentally about their character -- and less based on simply their physical appearance.

I'm not Avila, and don't mean to speak for him in response, but I can't imagine a woman so beautiful that I would want to be with her if I simultaneously considered her to be stupid, immature, manipulative, deceptive, etc. I can't imagine that I would continue to find her attractive (which, to stress, is more than simply "good looking"). When I think about the costs that being around such a person would entail -- the stress of it, the uncertainty, etc., -- it makes my blood run cold.

Does this relationship make you happy? When you describe your confusion, your frustration, it doesn't sound like it... but you'll know better than anyone. Anyways, if it doesn't make you happy, then what purpose is it serving your life?

Yes, there were loopholes in this particular question, but exploiting them misses the point. Someone asking you this question will respond to every answer you give with: "Ok, but imagine that that's not possible in that situation for reason X."

The goal of the question is to present you with a situation in which every action you can take is associated with something terrible, to get you to give one of those terrible answers as the correct one, and then to drop context and imply that Objectivism is bad because it supports the terrible action you chose, or that it's bad because you couldn't give an answer.

The problem is not with Objectivism's answer to any question of this type, but with the expectation of the person who's asking it, which is that a good philosophy will be able to make a really bad hypothetical situation seem awesome.

Please tell me that you realize the irony of judging the whole group of South Africans as one unit, in light of the title of this thread?

I *think* that I've already expressed my sentiments as well as I'm able in this thread, so I'll simply acknowledge my continued disagreement.

However, with respect to this reply to 2046 and the metaphorical "law of the jungle," I'd just like to observe: if "civilization," as opposed to the jungle, exists only when that civilization is respected by all -- if it is at the mercy of anyone who would choose to act as though it is a jungle, and disappears when those who disrespect our notions of what it is to be civil choose to act -- then we have surrendered civilization altogether.

If you suggest that we act according to the law of the jungle when our enemies drag us into it, then it is always the law of the jungle and nothing but. Objectivism has no place there.

At risk of being accused of not properly responding to this topic, I have a question in response to this summation you've provided.

Are you saying that, should you feel threatened by some third party, you would have the right to point your gun at me and demand that I rescue you?

How do you think I ought respond to such a thing?

The "house" that is mainly built upon the foundation of philosophy -- and Objectivism in specific -- is a life-well-lived. To that end, we can expect that most people will have a need for certain basic understandings of sciences, like nutrition and health, household chemistry, and the physics of making their car brake on time. Some people, primarily those who choose to follow a career path which depends on a more intensive study of one or more branches of science, will need to know more.

But it is not required for an Objectivist, as such, to be a master of all branches of science. An Objectivist could be, for instance, a plumber, and doubtless that would make many demands on certain areas of his scientific knowledge. But there are also several areas of science that he will not necessarily need, and the time he would otherwise have spent gaining that knowledge might be better spent in a variety of ways that will more directly impact his individual affairs.

The "house" that is mainly built upon the foundation of philosophy -- and Objectivism in specific -- is a life-well-lived. To that end, we can expect that most people will have a need for certain basic understandings of sciences, like nutrition and health, household chemistry, and the physics of making their car brake on time. Some people, primarily those who choose to follow a career path which depends on a more intensive study of one or more branches of science, will need to know more.

But it is not required for an Objectivist, as such, to be a master of all branches of science. An Objectivist could be, for instance, a plumber, and doubtless that would make many demands on certain areas of his scientific knowledge. But there are also several areas of science that he will not necessarily need, and the time he would otherwise have spent gaining that knowledge might be better spent in a variety of ways that will more directly impact his individual affairs.

If you like each other so much, having patience over philosophic differences should be easier than just between two friends, or two people who are just dating and aren't very sure of their feelings yet. In my opinion, the "like each other so much" is the most important part. It's mostly subconscious and means that in a way you've already evaluated each other in a positive light -- even if there are otherwise disagreements when discussing philosophy explicitly. Yes, it's true that philosophy is at the base of all thought and action. So, a disagreement over, say, whether someone should spend his life helping the poor versus helping himself, ie. altruism versus egoism, would be a major problem. However, if he really lives by Objectivist principles and still has strong feelings for you, it is likely that your character has those principles and the values that match. Even if you haven't given as much thought to the nitty gritty reasons behind those principles, you may still be more or less living by them -- hence, he is attracted to you.

If you really are open to new ideas, and he already likes you, he should consider himself lucky. A question you might ask him is, "Have you always held these Objectivist principles for yourself?" It's likely he had a period, maybe a long period, where he had to learn them and start using them. I know I did -- I started out Christian. It would be unfair for me to meet a new friend and expect her to already know about and use these principles which took so long for me to adopt. But, I may still get along with the person, for good reasons. It would then be up to me to be patient with the new friend while she "caught up," or just to be OK with her remaining the same, if she wasn't so interested in philosophy. In your case, if philosophy is a big interest of your boyfriend's, it may be worth it for you to try to better learn the "deepness" of the principles he talks to you about.

Exactly.. ... well said! One has to study the similarities and differences between various religions, between various denominations within Christianity or Islam etc., between various individual people within those movements, various points of time when different aspects of the religion were held to be more important than others.
Let's take the discussion away from religious topics. Instead, consider the question posed by the OP, using an example that has nothing to do with religion:

Consider some modern "feet of clay" histories. An old, conventional history might portray George Washington as a great hero, scarcely mentioning his failures. Some older commentary lionized leaders, making them out to be more than human. Then, some modern historian comes along and decides to tell us all about Washington's failures: not merely about his insecurities as a man, but even about his military blunders. We see a young Washington building his "Fort Necessity" as if he had no clue on the topic of the location of forts, we see Washington's early campaigns and find that it is not too far-fetched to describe them as months of running away from an overwhelmingly superior British army, we see that French assistance played an important role at Yorktown. In the end, we might even be left thinking: "Wow! that Washington was a clown who got lucky!"

Of course, that would be the wrong conclusion to draw. The lionizing was wrong in portraying man as super-man, and the "feet-of-clay" view is wrong by thinking that having flaws is inconsistent with greatness. If a businessman had some business failure along the way, would we would not conclude that he is a bad businessman. A history that lionizes him and only shows his success is incomplete. However, a history that shows all his mistakes can also be wrong in concluding that he just got lucky.

As archetypes, both types of history -- the lionizers and the demonizers -- share an underlying faulty standard of human behavior where one has to be super-human in order to be judged great. The truth is that human beings are often great, with all their faults and often because of their many mistakes and how they dealt with those mistakes. (Similarly, a historical figure does not have to be an all-out demon, consciously plotting the downfall of humanity, in order to judge him as evil.)

To answer the question in post #1: a thoughtful modern reader can read "both sides" thoughtfully. He can be careful about accepting the conclusions of historians. He should always question what the right standard of judgement ought to be. he should try to dis-aggregate (aka analyse) causes within the people he studies. Men can be bundles of right and wrong premises. A thoughtful reader can focus on analyzing which premises are at work in a particular case, so that he can accept the right premises and reject the wrong premises. And, if men are mixed, how much more mixed are organizations ... particularly when they stretch across countries and centuries.

With time, a thoughtful reader will be able to judge some historians to be more objective than others. He can then pick his reading a bit better, and avoid both the lionizers and the demonizers. One might actually agree with the conclusions of one or the other. For instance, one might conclude that Washington was a great general after all, so -- in that limited sense -- the lionizers had the conclusion right.

There appears to be a modern re-writing by Christian apologists which ridicules claims by people like Voltaire as being (at least) over the top satirical demonization. They point to facts that show progress during the time that the church was powerful, and also to progress sponsored by the church. However, that is like a communist apologist showing how the U.S.S.R. won so many Olympic medals, got the first man into space and so on, without analyzing what aspects and components worked and why. The only useful reason to study history is to understand causation, and that does not come unless one dis-aggregates (i.e. analyzes).

I think you and I are talking at cross purposes at the moment. The "great religions of the world" typically encompass hundreds of years of history, dense books and treatises attempting to explain their ideas, multiple conflicting sects, and a vast multitude of diverse individuals who each put some spin unique to themselves on the way that they present their faith. There's no question that among religions, and then among sects within any given religion, and then among individuals within any given sect, that some people will be more rational than others, or more disposed to science than others, or etc. If you say that Islam has a certain relationship to science, pretty good during the Middle Ages but not so much recently, I won't argue the point; if you'd like to insist that Catholics have it over Protestants, or that Thomas Aquinas had it over Augustine, that's fine, too.

The central question we're considering, however, is whether there is anything characteristic of religion qua religion when it comes to an overall attitude towards science. To answer such a question, we must have an understanding of what religions have in common with respect to their understanding of the world. I would say that, fundamentally, to be religious means to ascribe supernatural causes to observed phenomena. And since science is concerned with determining the natural causes of observed phenomena, science and religion are necessarily at loggerheads.

Perhaps you're right in that Thomas Aquinas didn't see it that way? Maybe he felt that his views in divinity were perfectly compatible with his scientific views. I would guess, however (pulling this speculation strictly from out of you-know-where), that he found frustrating some earlier thinkers and some of his contemporaries who too quickly would resort to supernatural causes as an explanation for the natural world. Perhaps he removed God as a cause for that which he could find a natural explanation, but reserved God for that which he could not...? I'm sure you're familiar with the "God of the gaps" argument, and that's really what we're facing here. The final expression of this sort is probably deism: God made the world and its natural laws, sure, but he has nothing to do with anything which goes on today. It's a belief system I find pretty unnecessary and arbitrary, but I imagine that I'd generally get along with Aquinas better than Augustine, the Founding Fathers better than Loyola or Francis, and possibly Catholics better than Fundamentalists. I don't hold all religions as equivalent, nor all religious people, but these religions do have some things in common. And where science is concerned, religion is fundamentally opposed to it by the nature of what religion is, and quite apart from its individual (and varying) expression.

The point of contention here is what Ayn Rand was referring to when she used the term 'tabula rasa.' Thus, it doesn't help at all to show how other people use the term. Rand made her claim concerning tabula rasa very clear: people are not born with any conceptual knowledge. To saddle her with some other claim just because other people use the same term to refer to different things is equivocation.



The point here is that if we have been successful in identifying true moral principles, then they apply whenever their context obtains. They are absolute within that context, like scientific principles. If you find yourself defying one, you know that you're harming your own life in the long run. 'Adapting yourself to Objectivism' in this case means taking those moral principles seriously and attempting to use them to better your own life, rather than pretending they aren't true when you don't feel like following them. Of course, applying these principles to concretes often involves a lot of individual context, so it is also true that concrete applications of principles are highly individualized.



I disagree. Biological altruism, to the extent it is true, is a fact about human nature. It cannot be wished away by any philosophy, including Objectivism, and no philosophy should seek to. It must be taken as given when constructing a moral system. Philosophical altruism, on the other hand, is a man-made position on the fundamental nature of morality, one that should be rejected in the strongest terms. Objectivism is a fact-based philosophy, and biological altruism is a fact. There is no conflict there. Philosophical altruism, on the other hand, is in direct conflict with Objectivist moral philosophy. Any 'reinforcement' that occurs between different usages of the term altruism is only due to confusion about the issues and unclear thinking.

I do not know either where the idea of Objectivism upholding taxation came from this time (I've still not read the entire thread through), but it is not an uncommon question for people to ask whether or not Objectivism supports taxation, or to suggest and argue that it does and even requires taxation.

I had quoted Dr. Peikoff: "A closed system is a philosophy which is an interconnected system of principles which are immutable, which cannot tolerate any contradiction, otherwise the whole system is collapsed. That would be a closed system. If it is just a collection of different ideas that can stand or fall on their own, then it's "open," meaning it's not a system."

Ninth Doctor asked: "Just what does “collapse the system” mean, anyway? Reason and Egoism are toast if it turns out that Government can’t be financed by voluntary means?"

I replied: "f government cannot be financed voluntarily, if some initiation of the use of force by the government is required for its existence, then yes, Reason and Egoism are toast and Objectivism fails as a philosophy, as a system of system of interconnected, immutable, non-contradictory principles."

You then said: "For instance, I read earlier a poster say that if there could be found no moral way for a limited gonernment to tax its citizens , then Objectivism as a complete entity will have failed!
An obvious fallacy - taxation is simply a peripheral matter that hinges on core principles, but does not affect them in return. A one-way street."

I then said: "I'm the poster who stated that "if there could be found no moral way for a limited gonernment to tax its citizens , then Objectivism as a complete entity will have failed!" although I didn't put it in those terms. I stand by what I said. A philosophy is a system of integrated (non-contradictory) principles, and, as Dr. Peikoff said, it "cannot tolerate any contradiction, otherwise the whole system is collapsed."

Here's how I put it and what you're remembering: "And yes, if government cannot be financed voluntarily, if some initiation of the use of force by the government is required for its existence, then yes, Reason and Egoism are toast and Objectivism fails as a philosophy, as a system of system of interconnected, immutable, non-contradictory principles."

To which you said: "However is the financing of a government actually an integrated principle of Objectivism?

I agree that the principle of individual rights in society would depend on it, but if the finance is not forthcoming, it is the government that fails - not the philosophy. Surely?
That is why I view it as peripheral - a practical problem with solutions."

To which I replied: "In principle, yes, I would say that the financing of government is actually an integrated principle of Objectivism in as much as all philosophy has to say [on financing the government], or Objectivism at least, is that government is properly financed only by voluntarily means. If the finance is not forthcoming, voluntarily, then yes the government would fail, not the philosophy. My point was that if Objectivism were to hold that taxation is a or the proper means of financing the government, Objectivism would contain an egregious contradiction, collapsing it as an integrated system, as a philosophy.

I do not see it, taxation, as a peripheral issue philosophically, but only as a practical issue in transitioning from a mixed economy to a free society. Given where we are, it is going to be one of the last problems to resolve - there's no way to support our government as it is without taxation. But our government as it is, is corrupt."

And lastly, you've replied: "You are missing my point - in a non-taxed society, the rational citizens would voluntarily support minimal g'ment , for the value of having Law, policing, and national defence.
Willingly, by the principle of mutual trade.
If you don't accept Objectivism as being hierarchical, then I can understand how lesser, peripheral, practical issues would trouble you."

My turn again:

But I do in fact accept, and understand, that Objectivism is hierarchical. There are fundamental ideas and there are less fundamental, derivative, ideas in a structure of non-contradictory dependence and interdependence, the fundamentals requiring that the ideas that depend upon them be consistent with them.

Slavery in America was not consistent with the fundamental idea of individual rights (of the U.S. Constitution). Individual rights is the fundamental. Slavery, although it would be compatible with certain fundamental ideas, is not compatible with individual rights. Something had to give in the face of such a contradiction. Either slavery had to be rejected, or the idea of individual rights had to be rejected. The two ideas are contradictory.

So too are the ideas of taxation and individual rights contradictory. A philosophy that embraced individual rights as well as taxation holds a contradiction. Either individual rights must be rejected or taxation has to be rejected.

Typically, fundamental ideas are the last to be challenged or rejected. Regardless, as long as there's a contradiction, one or the other has to go. If taxation is embraced as a proper means of supporting the government, then the principle of individual rights has been rejected entirely, if not explicitly, then implicitly, and the arguments become not on whether taxation is proper, but on how much taxation there should be. Regardless, individual rights has been rejected completely. What's left from individual rights is the influence it had had previously, but given its rejection, slowly but surely, until and unless it is embraced again, not only will taxation grow, but so too will other attacks on individual rights. There's no principle to stand in the way.

The fact that a derivative depends upon a fundamental idea does not mean that one can embrace ideas that contradict fundamental ideas with impunity.

This applies to a government, and it applies to Objectivism or any other philosophy.

If Objectivism embraced taxation as moral, it has rejected, implicitly, its fundamental ideas. It would be a contradiction. Either the contradiction is resolved, or either the fundamentals are rejected and taxation supported, or the fundamentals are re-embraced and taxation is rejected.

So, I disagree with you, it's not a one-way street where although derivatives (as you put it: "taxation is simply a peripheral matter that hinges on core principles, but does not affect them in return. A one-way street.") depend upon fundamentals, they have no impact on fundamentals. They do. It is a two-way street.

There will always be stupid and bigoted people doing stupid and bigoted things.
It is very important when one gets angry at such as this that you can't just be against something.. it is much more powerful to be for something.

If you're looking to counteract or negate the effects of people like this, I'd say the first step to take is to stop thinking in terms of fighting against religion and to begin thinking in terms of being for individual rights and reason.

You misunderstand. I was not making an argument against self-interest, I am not against self-interest. It is the objectivist who claims to be against selfless acts. I am arguing agaisnt the false dichotomy that objectivists promote. It is the objectivist, who claims that rational self interest is the correct state of man. However I am argiung that rational selflessness is a part of that concept and thus must also be a correct state of man. One cannot speak of selfish without indavertently referring to selflessness. Half of the argument promoting rational selfishness is an argument denouncing selflessness. Objecivism is an anti/pro philisophy. It is just as equally concerned with selflessness as it is with selfishness, therefore selflessness is half of your philosophy. Withouth your false dichotomy, you would not have a philosophy at all, therefore your whole state of being an objectivist depends on the very existence of that which you denounce. Objectivism is the act of distinguishing between, therefore you are inadvertently emphazing both, though you claim to be against one. "AGAINST" is a tricky concept to use as a foundation because come to rely on that which you are against. Selflessness is irnonically a part of you, more than it is a par of any other philosophy. Funny how that works.

Do you understand how that works?

I promote the idea that selflishness and selflessness are spectral...and exist in degree. I was trying to pose an example of how one interdependent micro-concept dies with out it's other. If the world suddenly stopped being selfless all together, we would no longer know of the concept of either selfishness or selflessnes. Objectivism is the act of distinguishing between. The only way for use to understand the both concepts is to accepts that it is a singularity. An act of selflessness can be a selfish act, niether side of the coin crushes the other into oblivion. Showing "heads," only reminds us there is a "tails."

"Real Life" is another concept you use. This idea of "Real." Do you claim that my story is somehow not possibe? Do you claim that this can only happen in fiction? Do you think that similar things cannot happen? Do you claim that people do not die alone in the woods more often than groups do? This summer 15 people died in just Yosemite, but explaining this to you is not really my goal. The fact is that people's way of life in Alaska is far different than yours. I can tell you about things I experienced in Italy, Germany, France, Japan, Norway, Greece, Spain that wouldn't even imagined in your "reality." From the way you speak, I am willing to bet I have seem more of reality thant you have. People's way of life in Africa is far different from yours as well. Is it irrational to think that? There are people getting lined up and shot against walls, as we speak in some third world countries. More people are starving around the world right now, then their are American Citizens. To them, your way of life is a dream. If it happens in real life, it is real life. The fact that you would judge the rest of the world from your little microchism only tells me that you havent experienced the world at all. I have. There is no way you could travel like I have and still believe as you do. Sorry....its a hard truth.

"Open" and "closed" are redundant in this paragraph. If the meaning of open is that there is no system, then the only real distinction to be made is that there are systems and non-systems. Systems are composed of tightly interrelated parts and non-systems are composed of parts not tightly interrelated or not related at all.

Getting back to basics, the reason the word "open" came to be used in relation to Objectivism is by regarding Objectivism as a concept, and concepts are open-ended in referencing to yet unknown particulars as instances of the concept. By implication, "closed" would not refer to any additional particulars.

If Peikoff himself refers to his own particular work on induction as Objectivism, then he is implicitly regarding Objectivism as an open-ended concept. Attempting to "close" Objectivism (or any concept) against only contradictory additions is redundant to the roles of the definition and essence as described in ITOE.

The open vs. closed debate is just so much obscuring fog. The real dispute is over whether or not Kelley contradicts Objectivism in some way in his work on benevolence. Identifying that contradiction is enough to defend the integrity of Objectivism as a system. By the same standard, if there is no identifiable contradiction and there is implication then the integration into the system ought to be made. The complete the analysis, the last possibility is that there is no contradiction and no implication. Then we would have a potentially valuable work of philosophy by an Objectivist philosopher which is not part of Objectivism. Even merely making the case that Kelley's work is nonessential to and not implied by Rand's Objectivism would be enough to keep it outside of that system without appealing to any "closure" argument.

Regarding Objectivism as the fixed set of principles enumerated by Ayn Rand (and other authors in periodicals edited by her) makes the author the essential rather than the inter-relatedness of the system's principles and the logic of implication. There are contexts (citations in academic work) wherein that is the proper essential. The system context is how Ayn Rand herself thought of it and by naming her system she objectified it, she separated it and made it distinct from her person and her other thoughts. Objectivity with all that presupposes and implies is the essence of Objectivism and it ought to be treated differently, more objectively, than we treat the work of other philosophers.

I guess not all of us would wish to possibly alienate a newcomer with terse response to "go look it up" than give a simple answer.

If you don't want to participate then don't.

I'm not sure what you're describing is incompatible with the axiomatic view of a volitional consciousness. Again, I don't really see how that "hand on the stove" example differs from my "not in my nature to murder someone" example. Perhaps you are, as oft are most objections to free will, taking as your understanding of volition as something conceived of before-hand, then comparing it to reality and seeing that it doesn't live up to this expectation.

So we observe that we are not free to do literally "whatever we want," which free will is defined as, therefore there must be no free will. Why must every alternative be equivalent? Why is that the standard? But this definition is arbitrary and context-less. We mustn't start with a conception of volition or a standard of what volition should have to be, then observe what we can do. Rather, we just observe what we can do and see that we can make choices, that we can control and direct our focus, that we can select our attention to things, that we can move our body, that we can make evaluations, and choose between alternative courses, and so forth.

The point is that free will isn't some thing that is magical or the limitless ability to "do whatever I want" or to "make any choice." Nothing is limitless, everything is bound by the law of identity, and is thus something very specific with specific limitations and boundaries. Keeping this context, it is improper to conceive of free will as something which is our power to defy our nature or the nature of entities in reality. This includes keeping in mind that previous choices and acts of will that condition our character and values, and thus influence the kind of choices we will make in the future.

Surgery is like that. You're put to sleep and some doctor rips your body open with knives, moves some things around, sometimes putting metal objects inside your body, to make it all better.

As a minor note, I'm not here referring to the irreason of being a Full Altruist. After all, you're right; peoples be trippin'.

But what I mean is that, if the motivation for your every action was to benefit others, without regard to whether those actions also benefited yourself, I think you'd find it difficult to stay alive very long. I don't believe that altruism is conducive to human survival (or happiness, which is how I'd answer the thread's central query), and so I don't expect that a Full Altruist would live long or be happy for the duration.

Happiness and survival both have requirements, per their nature, and in reality. To achieve either for the self requires a particular plan of action; selfishness -- as opposed to altruism -- greenlights their direct pursuit. Any success outside of selfish activity, where life or happiness are concerned, are therefore incidental. And since I'd suspect that it's hard to luck into survival and happiness, I just can't rate the prospects of an Altruist very highly.

Now when we're talking about specific people (or even systems, like Christianity), we're again talking about mixed bags. A person -- even one who thinks of himself as "altruistic" or "Christian" -- will often be acting out of selfish motives. To suss out their specific motivations in any given instance, and to relate those to the outcomes where the quality of their life is concerned, is a horrendously difficult project.

This is why we must approach this topic via principles. It isn't that a given "altruist" cannot be happy at a given moment in their life; it's that altruism does not lead to happiness.



Welllllll... I agree that what you've said above is a Christian sentiment, but we ultimately run into walls where Christianity is concerned, because God doesn't exist and so forth, and as I've said, there are a ton of inconsistencies. Anyways, I'd argue that the business of the Christian -- really -- is whatever God says it is. Christianity requires of the Christian that he surrender his own mind, judgment and will; that he turn them all over to a "higher power."

And, once again, there's no such thing as the direct pursuit of salvation. Salvation is triggered through Grace, which is divine, unearned charity. So if anyone's business is salvation, it can only be God's. Which falls in line with the greater Judeo-Christian message; what counts, really, is God's glorification. If a man could earn his own salvation, then he could take credit for it. But this would be Pride; taking credit for that which came from God. A "Christian" who took credit for his soul's salvation would be branded a heretic. He must instead repeat the litany that man is a worthless sinner, and that God deserves all of the credit and all of the gratitude for saving his soul.




"Like to believe"? This has nothing to do with what I'd "like to believe." If I could magic wand the universe, it'd all be unicorns and rainbows, I assure you. And further, if Christianity were less toxic than I've otherwise concluded, I would count that a good thing. But I'm afraid that the fact that you've not seen these types of behaviors don't demonstrate that Christianity doesn't lead to them.

We're agreed that people are mixed bags, right? Christians come from all sorts of backgrounds and accept strains of all kinds of different (conflicting and inconsistent) philosophical beliefs and tenets. There are "Christians" who never read the Bible or go to church. There are New Age Christians who argue that all religious traditions are ultimately equal. Even a fundamentalist, who are typically thought of as being "extreme" in their faith, when we meet them in modern Western society will have been raised in an environment of relative political liberty and a tradition of tolerance for other creeds, etc.

Why don't the Christians on Main Street, USA whip themselves? I think it's less to do with Christianity and more to do with Main Street, USA.

After all, how "serious" are the Christians you've met about their faith? As serious as Torquemada? As serious as the Flagellants of the late Middle Ages Europe? What I'd argue is that the "more Christian" a man becomes, the closer he comes to these sorts of mindsets. Fortunately for us all, 21st Century Christianity is regularly tempered by a more-enlightened environment, which does not allow Christianity's full "fruits" to manifest, either in society or in an individual man's soul. That said, Christianity preserves its tendency, which is precisely what we must determine -- not the behaviors any one or handful of particulars -- if we want to examine Christianity, as such.



Whether "meaning" and "purpose" contribute to a man's happiness is utterly contingent on the content of that meaning and purpose. If my meaning and purpose involve the wholesale destruction of others, I will not have lived a "well-lived life."

So we can't abstract meaning and purpose and say, in isolation, that they are "important ingredients." If religion provides "meaning" and "purpose," that doesn't mean that religion thereby contributes to man's happiness. A religion that provides the meaning of "you are God's pawn" and the purpose of "bow down and worship your master" will not lead men to happiness.



I'm neither equipped nor inclined to discuss the particulars of your decision at present. Suffice it to say that, if you're prepared to abandon whatever religion *should* it be shown to lead to your personal pain and ruin, that's enough for me for now. To tie it back to the main theme of the thread, that's the very standard -- your happiness and life versus your pain and ruin -- that should apply. Altruism, contrarily, would hold that your personal happiness versus pain, is immaterial; that instead, you should do whatever is best for others.