Trebor

"Feds shut down file-sharing giant over piracy violations" (Chicago Tribune, January 19, 2012):

Okay, thank you, Jonathan, for the information.

If I have transcribed it correctly, Miss Rand said (in that video clip which Erik Christensen posted, above): "If by natural sex acts you mean homosexual, I would say that all laws of that kind should certainly be repealed, which, but I do not mean that I approve of such practices or regard them as necessarily moral, but it is totally improper for the law to interfere in the personal relationship between two adults. So long as it is done adults with mutual consent, it is not the province of the law." "but I do not mean that I approve of such practices or regard them as necessarily moral...." [my bold] That "necessarily" seems relevant and significant. If I remember correctly, somewhere Miss Rand did say that she thought that homosexuality was disgusting (toward which "approve" is relevant, but not morality, not necessarily), but even that is not the same as saying that it's necessarily immoral. Also, if I remember correctly, she had friends who were homosexuals. As others have pointed out, importantly, she thought that the government had no business getting involved in personal relations between consenting adults.

Yes, and fighting collectivism with collectivism will come back to haunt those who do so.

Notice how they view the significance of their findings, in terms of altruism and sacrifice for the common good:

In the long run, in a free (capitalist) society, yes, the best product (quality and price, etc.) wins. There's that saying: "In the short run, the market is a voting machine but in the long run it is a weighing machine." -- Benjamin Graham

Yes, I agree. There are two different issues or aspects of morality involved. So, yes, one has the moral right to lie to protect oneself against anyone acting to violate one's rights, but one has to consider the context. This would be the same were one in Nazi Germany, to use the common example, and hiding some Jews in one's attic (the Frank family for example). One has the moral right to hide them, but it is dangerous.

It is illegal to advise someone to break the law, so I can't answer that directly, in the sense of saying that one should lie to avoid taxes. That said, one could make a case that it is moral to lie through one's teeth to the IRS. Moral? Yes. Legal? No.

Honesty (Lexicon): "Honesty is the recognition of the fact that the unreal is unreal and can have no value, that neither love nor fame nor cash is a value if obtained by fraud—that an attempt to gain a value by deceiving the mind of others is an act of raising your victims to a position higher than reality, where you become a pawn of their blindness, a slave of their non-thinking and their evasions, while their intelligence, their rationality, their perceptiveness become the enemies you have to dread and flee—that you do not care to live as a dependent, least of all a dependent on the stupidity of others, or as a fool whose source of values is the fools he succeeds in fooling—that honesty is not a social duty, not a sacrifice for the sake of others, but the most profoundly selfish virtue man can practice: his refusal to sacrifice the reality of his own existence to the deluded consciousness of others." Galt's Speech In reality, one has a right to one's life and therefore a right to self-defense. If one is confronted with someone initiating force in violation of one's (or other's) rights, one is perfectly moral to use force, even deadly force, in self-defense. One is being true to reality, specifically one is being true to the fact that one does in fact have rights and that someone acting to violate one's rights is wrong - they are not offering you a value, and your self-defense is in defense of a value. One is protecting rights. Lying in such a context, to protect one's values against an initiator of force, is not an attempt to defraud someone of a value, but to protect a value. The distinction is the same as that between the initiation of the use of force and the use of force in self-defense. It would be a strange code of morality that held that using force, including deadly force, in self-defense is moral, but lying in self-defense is immoral.

I believe, hernan, after a quick look at Viable Values, that you are equivocating between "dishonesty" and "lying." In some contexts, one can lie and yet be perfectly honest - true to reality. I was going to say more, but Steve D'Ippolito has basically said what I was going to say [well, maybe not exactly the same thing]. [One should always be honest, but in being honest, one may properly lie in certain contexts. One would be lying, but one would be honest because honesty is about being true to reality, all of reality. If someone is acting to violate one's rights, in being true to one's rights, one may well need to lie.]

And here is Mr. Dennis' point with respect to Aidan Dwyer: The point is that what is considered to be significant scientific advancement is in large part driven by politics (which is driven by fundamental philosophical ideas).

I do not get your criticism. From Mr. Dennis' article: You say: "The explanation given is that the optimal angle is known and set in stone, implicitly assuming any change from that idea has to be sub-optimal." I'm no expert on solar energy or solar panels, but it makes sense that they be maximally exposed to (oriented towards) the sun's rays. In other words, a vast flat field of solar panels whose angles (faces) track the angle of the sun, always facing the sun, would maximize their efficiency, where as building a tree-like structure with an array of panels mounted on "branches" in the form of a tree, with some "leaves" blocking the sun's rays for other "leaves" would be "far from optimal." And, if the panels do not track the sun, then having them angled (fixed) in such a way as to maximize their total exposure to the sun, as opposed to being blocked or shaded out by other panels, still makes more sense than a tree-like structure and array of panels like leaves. Seems obvious to me, but you seem to think it "makes no sense." Why?

Alex Epstein mentioned this article at MasterResource ("A free-market energy blog") today: How Bad Science Becomes Common Knowledge: Two Case Studies (solar and climate change) by Eric Dennis January 17, 2012 Accusations of conspiracies or conspiracy theories often miss the point that fundamental ideas, philosophy, account for dominant trends. Mr. Dennis demonstrates how the process works.

No, "we" don't know any such thing. You claim to know such a thing. This is the Kantianism I referred to. You are saying that because it is incomprehensible to consciousness (God's or our own) that the laws of logic are not universally true, therefore reality conforms to the requirements of consciousness and everything that exists is what it is, not what it is not, and one can confidently say that "A is A" is universally true. That's primacy of consciousness. But then so is your argument for the existence of God, so it's of little surprise. What makes you think that "A is A" is an induction? So, according to you the Objectivist metaphysics and epistemology are fundamentally flawed and soon you'll be presenting the valid, Christian (presumably) ethics, on a forum for Objectivism no less, showing us, I assume, the logical necessity of the trinity, of Jesus as our personal savior, of the afterlife, of the fundamental virtue of obedience to the will of God and of faith as a valid means of knowledge ("I believe it because it's absurd."), etc. I'm sure that I can't wait.

"Well, there may be...." If you think that there are errors in Objectivism, then you should reject Objectivism as a philosophy. You're not a hypothetical supporter of "anarcho-capitalism," you're quite committed and passionate about it. "If you want to call recognizing this...." No, the clinging to "someone's" skirt is the rejection of Objectivism while claiming to be an Objectivist - you used the phrase "we Objectivists" (and stated that you were but playing the devil's advocate) a few times in the thread on so-called "anarcho-capitalism." There's nothing dishonest about disagreeing with Objectivism per se, but there is in disagreeing with it while claiming to be in agreement with it. That's the skirt-clinging. So, you go from being "willing to bet" that I hold similar positions in regards to many things to concluding that I therefore do and then ask what does that make me. Given how you have argued for "anarcho-capitalism," I'm not surprised. Like I said, if pig could fly, they would...therefore they can.

In select theaters January 17 and 26 only.

Hypothetical? Like hell! Why is it that the religious and anarchists (or "anarcho-capatilists") cling to Objectivism and Ayn Rand's skirt?

Jacob's metaphysics: God exists because he is the logically necessary Prime Mover-Consciousness who created existence. Jacob's epistemology: The laws of logic are universally true because it would be illogical were they not. A is A, A thing is itself, due to our (or God's) awareness of the laws of logic, not because Existence is Identity. Although we can perceive an A, and our perception of that A is self-evident, we cannot say that any (and all) A is A without a prior acceptance of the laws of logic. The laws of logic do not rest upon the axiomatic concepts of "Existence," "Identity" and "Consciousness," not on the basis of perception, on the evidence of perception (from which we form the concepts "Existence," "Identity," and "Consciousness"), as that would be an induction and could only be validated by omniscient awareness of all things that have ever been, that are, and that will ever be. Thank God for existence and logic! I'm certainly looking forward to Jacob's ethics. God knows that we need morality. Edit: clarity

Reading Dr. Hurd's latest "Daily Dose of Reason," I thought that the question he was responding to seemed familiar. "Lying On a Resume--Justified or Not?" by Michael J. Hurd, Ph.D. Monday, 09 January 2012

I don't agree with any of this, and I stand by my comments to Jacob. I may say more later, but I don't have time now.

From nonsense to insanity, but not at all surprising. You, Jacob, seem to hold the view that the "Existence," "Identity" and "Consciousness" are dubious and tenuous inductions which can only be validated by gross enumeration, by perceiving everything that exists, has ever existed or will ever exist. However: Axiomatic Concepts (Lexicon): And: You, Jacob, are caught in your own Primacy of Consciousness premise, now demanding proof of the self-evident because you have divorced your own mind from reality. Yet you dare to say that you "believe that Objectivist Epistemology undermines the validity of logic and, in due time, will cause people to doubt it"! Primacy of Existence vs. Primacy of Consciousness (Lexicon): You, Jacob, are a few centuries too late to be the savior of God from Reason. Immanuel Kant beat you to it. We live is a Kantian world, a world dominated by Kant's philosophy, and you are one proof.

Nonsense.

Jacob, you're asking, "How do we know that we won't discover an existent that doesn't exist, something that is, but is not what it is, an A that is non-A?"

Sure, anyone can accept anything. But the thing is that anything that one accepts as true has implications, ultimately implications about everything. (As you said, more or less, reality is a non-contradictory whole.) I think you agree that any philosophy, assuming that it is an integrated whole, stands or falls as a whole. But I assume that you do not agree that if one principle of an integrated philosophical system falls, then all of it's principles fall. Correct? Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems so obvious to me that it is the case that if one principle of an integrated system of philosophy falls, then all of it's principles fall. It doesn't matter whether the principle is fundamental or higher up in the hierarchy. Kick one over and the rest fall, and the whole thing collapses in a heap. If one falls, it implies that one has accepting a contrary principle. In that case, that principle has implications for all the other principles, backwards and forwards. For example, if one accepts that reason is our only means of knowledge, then ultimately one will accept the political principle of individual rights. If one rejects the principle of individual rights, then, by implication and at least implicitly, one has accepted that reason is not our only means of knowledge. In principle, I think one could go though any two randomly selected principles of any integrated philosophy and see their inevitable, logical, relationship, and see that they either stand together or they fall together. But again, perhaps I'm missing something, either something in what you think or mean, or elsewhere.

I have gone though the rest of my notes (from Dr. Peikoff's "History of Philosophy") on Aristotle, and given that I posted what I already have, I thought I would post the rest. What I posted previously was in order, but I skipped over certain parts. The same applies with these parts. I don't think it will be too confusing. (There are some good questions and answers on Aristotle following the lecture, but I've not included them. Maybe another time.) Aristotle's teleology kept him from identifying the rule of Causality in the universe - nature sets a living entity in a manner in which it acts to sustain its life. He held that such-n-such happens always or most always (an acorn becoming and oak tree) and the exceptions are just brute force. (He accepted a form of the Analytic-Synthetic dichotomy.) Immana - the view that all things are egoistic, each striving to realize itself, to develop and reach its actuality. Objections to Aristotle's Universal Teleology What keeps the universe going? Why are things moving toward their ends? An infinite regress is impossible, so what is the primary cause of motion, the primary mover? It would have to be immovable (it is primary, and if it moved what would cause its motion?), without potentiality; it must be pure actuality, pure form, not material (physical). It must be perfect, with no unrealized potentialities. It is the one exception to Aristotle's metaphysics (of the duality of things, part universal and part material.) It is Aristotle's Prime Mover, an absolute motionless awareness, Aristotle's "God." For Aristotle, the universe is composed of concentric spheres on a common axis, and the motion of the outermost sphere is commuted via the common axis to the inner spheres, thus causing their motion. What causes the outer sphere to move? Aristotle's spheres were each a divine, intelligible thing. The outer most sphere, as intelligence, seeks to emulate the Prime Mover, which it knows to be perfect - aware of only itself; thought thinking about itself. It is this desire to emulate the Prime Mover which causes the outer spheres to move. ("Love makes the world go round.") In Aristotle's Prime Mover there is a strong element of Plato (Primacy of Consciousness). This pure consciousness by its awareness alone causes motion. However, Aristotle is Aristotle. He held that his Prime Mover was no Good. It had no function; it did not create the universe. For Aristotle, motion has always existed because time is the measure of motion, and to speak of a time when there was no motion is a contradiction. Any particular motion can be explained by an earlier motion. But what of motion itself? The Prime Mover, the immoveable mover of the universe. The fact of motion (like existence) is an irreducible primary. Any particular motion can be explained (as can any parta of existence). But to require proof of motion as such, one would be reduced to a reductio ad infinitum or a non-moveable mover, such as Aristotle's Prime Mover. This is sometimes called the Cosmological Argument for God. Aristotle's Answer to Zeno (the paradox of motion, for example, crossing a room) 1. Nothing can actually be infinite (a potentiality). A quantity without limit is limitless and therefore lacks identity. All that exists is finite. Infinity is forbidden as an actuality by the Law of Identity. 2. Potentially - a line is infinitely divisible, yet no matter how many times one divides a line (a distance), one will at any point have only a finite number of parts. There is no such thing as actual infinity. Aristotle's Psychology, as affected by his metaphysics: Psyche - for the average Greek, psyche was the life stuff. In Latin, animate means "with soul." It is the principle of life. Plato viewed man as a being of duality, of body and soul actually separable. Soul is the livingness of a living thing; it is the form of a living thing, and the body is the matter. (According to Objectivism, soul and body are two integrated aspects of one entity.) What distinguishes a living entity from an inanimate one? Certain vital capacities, i.e., reproduction, growth, nutrition. Therefore, there is no soul without a body, no form without matter. As for reincarnation, Aristotle thought the idea bizarre. There is no such thing as personal immortality. Aristotle's Three Types of Souls 1. Vegetative Soul - responsible for nutrition, growth and reproduction. 2. Animal Soul - the sensitive soul, it presupposes the Vegetative Soul (it's made possible by the Vegetative Soul); it also has the senses and some locomotion 3. Rational Soul - the highest form; presupposed by bot the Vegetative and the Sensitive souls. Senses Aristotle's answer to the Sophists. He was the first to define five senses. He held that the senses involve a dual change from potential to actual, one in the sensory organs and one in the object perceived. The Sophists held that because the senses have a nature and contribute to sensation of things, we don't actually know reality via them. For Aristotle, the senses change to acquire a potential. As for the object, it doesn't actually have the qualities of sensation ("red" for example), which are functions of the senses, yet it has the potential of being perceived in a certain way (not in infinite or indefinite ways; it has a nature). In sensation this potential is actualized. We see the object as it actually is because when the senses and the object unite, the potentials become actualized. Aristotle on Reason He used sensations as the model to describe the mind. In nutrition, one consumes matter, and the form, being irrelevant, is not used. In thinking, one consumes the form and disregards the matter. One becomes in form "informed." If the mind had a nature, how could we know whether we know reality or only our view of it? Aristotle held that mind therefore had no identity, no structure or nature of its own. Before it starts to think, it is nothing actually. It is Aristotle's place of the Forms. Not their metaphysical place. Plato's cosmology became Aristotle's psychology. Mind is sheer potentiality, yet potentiality cannot actualize itself - it requires an efficient cause. Therefore, he held, there must be an aspect of mind capable of causing actualization. Two aspects of mind: 1. Active Mind - Active reason. Actualization 2. Passive Mind - immortal, non-material element of the soul For Aristotle, what we know is form, not matter. We cannot know the individuality of something. Matter is the source of "this" not "such." (For Objectivism, to be is to be particular, and this is an irreducible fact.) Universe as seen by Aristotle It is a series of rising hierarchies, from pure matter (without form) to pure form (without matter), i.e., Prime Matter gives rise to entities (living and inanimate) which give rise to the vegetative which give rise to animals which give rise to man with gives rise to intelligences which move the spheres which give rise to pure form, the Prime Mover. Each of these hierarchies is related as form and matter, actuality and potentiality. There are metaphysical degrees of perfection. Form is the good aspect, and matter is the deficient aspect. (This view is inherited from Plato.) Form is the good; matter is the evil, metaphysically. Problem: If Prime Matter has no identity (no form), then ultimately all that can be known are universals. The principle of individualism is unknowable. Objectivism holds that it is an error to seek an element of individuation, a principle of individuation. Individuation (particularity) is an irreducible primary inherent in the fact of existence. Universals are on issue of epistemology, not metaphysics. They are the human form of grasping reality (particulars). Everything we know is particular. We relate particulars to grasp universals. [Again: Aristotle never freed himself from Plato. He never full actualized his reason and Earth orientation. Christianity cashed in on this.] [One other thing that Dr. Peikoff said somewhere in the same course, I believe, which I've always found to be memorable: The Christians took Plato's Form of the Good, dropped an "o," added a personality and came up with God.]