danielshrugged

If that were actually the end, I would be upset, too. But I watched the end with the assumption that there would be a T4 to make things all better.

I don't think so. I'm playing devil's advocate to make sure I really understand this. The problem is that I would like to understand better WHY if one agrees to it it would still be taking away one's rights rather than an affirmation of them. Once again, I am in complete agreement, and only want to understand why the protection of the right to life does not include the right to this specific contract. So suppose the contract says you offer your services for one year? For five years? Ten years? A lifetime? Are any of these valid? More importantly, my counterargument is that one already made the choice, at the time of the contract, to offer one's services for a lifetime. Only if the doctor were quite the sadist, I suppose. But it's not the concretes that are important, it's the meaning of rights.

I maintain that T3 was somewhat entertaining.

How does this differ from something like a will, which IS enforced after a person's death? It seems the government is enforcing the contract of the person who had rights, with the consequence that his future rights are taken away. Hmmm. I think I get the general argument, and this is along the lines of what I thought would be the argument in the beginning; however, I find it unconvincing. Perhaps I need a concretization. But this way of putting it does make some sense. I'm going to go back and look at your post about contracts.

First of all, each person would have to agree to have the dictator. Whether they would be able to remove the dictator would depend on the terms of the agreement. If they signed a contract with the dictator saying, "Anyone who agrees to live under this dictator may not change his mind," then they could not remove him. In reality, however, not everybody agrees to the dictator, and the ones who remove him are the ones who didn't want him to begin with.

Unfortunately, this does not help. It merely shifts the argument to another level. Before, I wanted to know why one man cannot give his life to another. Now, you answer: because many men cannot give their lives to another. This is not an answer. Nobody has given me a reason yet. Okay, this is good in that it is an attempt at providing such a reason. However, I don't understand why or how the relationship "violates the very principle of rights". If did, then of course there would be no right to set up the relationship. So why, exactly, does it violates the principle of rights? Once again, one can become a slave because one own's one life. And one who owns one's life has the right to give it up. (Clearly, your deductive arguments aren't helping me. How about some reality?) I could imagine some situations. Suppose a man is dying and needs an expensive new operation. A doctor is willing to perform it on him if he becomes his slave. I could come up with more of these. I know it's not a major problem, but I suspect this issue can shed some more light on the nature of rights in general.

Now that is complete rationalism. The man is NOT forced to be a slave. It is a voluntary, contractual agreement. The man later would like to end the agreement, but it is voluntary, since he agreed to it in the first place. Thus, the man is not forced to be a slave, and no force is being initiated against him. Once again, what I'm asking for is the argument, preferably an inductive one, to the contrary. More rationalism. Man's nature is given, and as a result, if man wants to live, he must act a certain way. Rights are derived from the nature of man in that man cannot function under force. But this means precisely that man DOES have the right to act contrary to his own nature. Man DOES have the right to starve himself. Man DOES have the right to be irrational. Man DOES have the right put food in his ear rather than his mouth. If, as you say, man had no right to act in opposition to his nature, then selfishness would have to be forced onto people (which would be impossible). I'm arguing not that to agree to be a slave, if you permit the loose language, isn't self-destructive or contrary to man's nature. I'm arguing that there is no initation of force, and thus one has the right to do it, and the owner of the slave has the right to treat the person, for as long as the owner chooses, as a slave.

That's the claim. What I'm looking for is an argument for the claim.

Well, it isn't really an initiation of force if a person agrees to the conditions.

Then I'm using the word slave loosely, if you like. What I mean by it, and what I think Dr. Binswanger meant by it, is indentured servitude. However, Dr. Binswanger did call it slavery, even though he was only referring to such a contractual agreement. I will look for the relevant part of the tape later today and get you some quotes and context. That's precisely what I'm talking about. I don't understand why Dr. Binswanger would say such a contractual agreement is not a valid one. Your meaning here isn't clear. You are claiming that if the person changes his mind about such a contractual agreement, it becomes slavery? That would be along the lines of Dr. Binswanger's claim. But, according to the contract, the person is willing to be forced, should his will change in the future.

No, it would be an affirmation of the person's rights. I have the right to do with my own body and life what I want, even to give my life to someone else. I own my body NOW. Since I own it, why can't it do what I want with it, if that means to become a slave?

That's what I would have thought. But Dr. Binswanger argued that there is no right to such a contract.

Harry Binswanger, in his Harvard debate about selfishness, stated that there is no right to be a slave. Even if a person signed a contract with another making himself a slave, that contract would be void whenever that person wanted to end his slavery. I don't understand this. Doesn't the right to one's life mean one has the right to do with one's own life what one pleases. If one wants to commit suicide, one has that right. If one wants to destroy one's own property, one has that right. If one wants to be a slave, one has that right. If I sign a contract to be a slave, what exactly is politically wrong with that contract?

I agree with everything Matt said.

I do agree with both of you that such an institution can have some benefits. David has taken care of one of my major concerns, by recognizing that the institution must respect the hierarchy of knowledge. So as long as the lectures are well-reasoned and well-communicated, I'm okay with the idea. What I disagree with is your ideas about education. You distinguish between pure studies and applied studies, and argue that the average person only needs the application. Twentieth century progressive educators gave your very same arguments. A farmer, they said, should study biology only as it applies to farming. A cashier should study math only as it applies to being a cashier. There are a number of problems with this, but the major one is this: The purpose of studying pure biology is neither to apply it to such things as farming or medicine, nor just to become a biologist. Consider what else people learn from studying biology. They learn taxonomy, which introduces them to concept-formation. They learn how to think scientifically, which is necessary in all aspects of life, not just in science. They observe the contextuality of knowledge, as they study how Darwin's followers built on Darwin. Only by studying biology in all its theoretical goodness can one gain such things. Were one instead to study it merely as it applied to farming, one would miss out on them. (I recommend an article I wrote that will appear in Toronto's New Intellectual, if you can get your hands on it. I might some day write a larger version for TIA; we'll see.) I reject your distinction between pure and applied studies, on the grounds that what you would call applied I would say has the least application to life, and what might be called pure has the most application to life. I am also an advocate of a liberal education, even in college.

David, I see now that there are two crucial points of disagreement between us. 1.) The Nature of the debated institution: You advocate something like a church; I would advocate something more along the lines of OCON. I'd like to know more concretely just how such a church would work, what the lectures would consist of. But if the means of instruction is like how they are in today's churches, I think that would be disastrous. Mere inspriational speeches will not help people to think rationally. And certainly I wouldn't want Atlas Shrugged to turn into a Bible. Such a church would lead to the type of rationalism we had during the dark ages, where scholars' concocted whatever arguments would lead to the predetermined conclusions. 2.) The purpose and means of education: You seem to conveive of education as primarily vocational in nature, which would leave people with a gap in abstact knowledge after school. (You've used the word technical to describe education.) This is Pragmatism on your part. Abstract knowledge is the most practical of knowledge. Abstract knowledge is what must be communicated in one's education. (See Philosophy: Who Needs It) So-called technical education should be left for training after school or for college. People should get their philosophy through induction, not through indoctrination in a church. School provides them with what they need to induce a proper philosophy. (And I guarantee that if children were introduced to Objectivism in such a church, they would rebel just as so many children of religious parents rebel).

There's a lot in your post I disagree with. First, I'll take care of the most important issue, which is most likely something you do not intend. It is unclear from your description exactly what this church would be like. Is it like the Objectivist Conference we went to? Do the lectures give the reasoning behind the ideas? Or are they merely inspirational sermons? (I don't mean to imply that the well-reasoned lecture can't also be inspirational.) I doubt you could mean more sermons, and yet what you wrote could easily be read that way. If you don't mean mere sermons, I would oppose calling such a thing a church, on the grounds that it would lump two radically different concepts together. Assuming you are referring to something more along the lines of the Objectivist Conference with a few additions, I still disagree with a lot. You say this is necessary even in a rational society. I'm not sure I agree. I think that in a rational society, one would not have to go out of one's way to get the values of this church. Like-minded people would be everywhere. The right ideas would be everywhere. There would be no need to seek those values "artificially". I don't understand the marriage thing either. How would a church help with that sort of thing, as opposed to just renting a place, inviting people, and getting the marriage contract? More importantly, I disagree with the reasons you give for this church. The purpose of education is to provide man with what he needs to live, i.e., to train his conceptual faculty. The purpose is to enable him to succeed in practice; for this end, he needs theoretical training. You argue that only intellectuals should study philosophy on an abstract level. I would argue that a properly educated student would leave school with the ability to think independently and abstractly, and that that ability is necessary for a successful life. Basically, I think you give the average person too little credit. In fact, I would consider making use of "Biological Basis of Teleological Concepts" in, if not in a senior science class in high school, then in a freshman science class in college, were I to teach them. That said, I agree with your conclusion, assuming you mean by church something like the Objectivist Conference. What I disagree with is only your reasons for it. I think the average person can and should do quite a bit of abstract study, and would leave a proper school a better intellectual than most we have today, even if that isn't his chosen field. My reasons for having such a thing would be more along the lines of: a means of continuing abstract study after school, rather than, as you seem to claim, substituting for a lack of it in school. My arguments aren't formulated as well as I'd like them to be, but this is the first time I gave this much thought, so this will have to do.

The calendar feature is great, but I tried to post an event and got this message: Sorry, but you do not have permission to use this feature. If you are not logged in, you may do so using the form below. And I most definitely was logged in.

With St. John's College being an exception. St. John's is small, 470 students or so, but it is, I'm sure, the most intellectual college in the country. And I must point out that our Objectivist club, with six members, has over one percent of the students. If an Objectivist club at the larger universities had that much success, they would have over 500 members!!!

Welcome! No university has much of an Ayn Rand presence, but if you know what you're looking for, you can find some good ones. But it very much depends on what you're looking for. If you're studying philosophy, I would recommend either the University of Texas at Austin, which is good for philosophy AND has an Objectivist (or, next year, a couple of them) working there; or I would also recommend my own school, St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland. Our curriculum is centered on reading primary sources, the Great Books. It has its problems, so if you consider it I would do plenty of research and consider whether it's right for you. If your interest is in the sciences, you are usually safer with most universities. Beyond that, I can't give many more suggestions. Perhaps others can add some more.

It's about the decline of the academic curriculum. The title, at least for now, is: Dancing Idiots: How Elective Courses Destroy Man's Mind. I go into how Pragmatism is responsible, and I present the Objectivist alternative.

While I thought the rest of your post was very well said, I must object to this rather rationalistic argument. The fact that men and women are different physically in no way implies any significant mental difference (and certainly doesn't make it obvious what that mental difference would be). Allow me to use a reductio: A tall man and a short man are DIFFERENT physically and therefore are correspondingly DIFFERENT mentally. or A red-haired man and a blonde-haired man are DIFFERENT physically and therefore are correspondingly DIFFERENT mentally. If you'd be willing to expand on your rationale in a new thread, it would be very helpful.

Everything's great! I've been working on an article for The New Intellectual, and on my club. And I've also been missing logic classes due to working too much on an article and my club. Aside from that, college will be starting up again quite soon. I'm looking forward to it, but I could still use some more time for things like writing an Atlas essay and refreshing my memory of Greek.

Many of you already know me from the conference and/or the OAC. Just thought I'd announce my presence to this forum. And I simply must congratulate David on his websites. Fancy stuff! For those who do not know me, I will be going into my second year at the OAC, and I run the St. John's College Objectivist Club in Annapolis, Maryland. --Daniel Schwartz