MinorityOfOne

Letters of Ayn Rand, May 27, 1960 "Dear Miss Sachs: I appreciate your interest in the philosophy of Atlas Shrugged, and your perceptive understanding of its application to modern problems. You are right in your interpretation of Dr. Stadler's fate, but not of Eddie Willers's. Eddie Willers is not necessarily destined to die; in a free society, he will live happily and productively; in a collectivist society he will be the first to perish. He does not have the ability to create a new society of his own, but he is much too able and too honest ever to adjust himself to collectivism. You are mistaken when you say: 'It is for the Eddies and Dr. Stadlers that we must right the wrong and again teach man to be 'his own keeper.'' I am not quite certain of what you meant, but this sentence sounds like some form of altruism. If by 'righting the wrong,' you meant the acceptance of the right philosophy and the creation of a proper society, then one must do it for oneself and for those who are one's highest values—which means, in effect, for the John Galts, not the Eddies nor the Stadlers. The Eddies and all rational men will also profit in a proper society—but that is a secondary consequence, not one's primary goal."

Rand says that in one of her letters. I can find the reference, if anybody is interested.

WGD, your posts are increasingly irrelevant. I'm done with responding to you.

He doesn't start every press conference with "Hi, I'm Dick Cheney. I have oil connections." Why should Shawn be expected to do so?

I'm leaving this one post by Pogma up, temporarily, as evidence of his misbehavior. I had to delete at least half a dozen new threads he started this morning for the purpose of spamming the forum and abusing the moderators. His posting access has been removed, and I expect his IP will be banned.

WGD, Atlas is right, it's not a reasonable argument. In fact, I was going to post about that myself. "You're paid by x, therefore you're biased" is the same line used by leftists against, for example, Cheney and non-environmentalist scientists. Shawn probably works for TOC because he thinks they're right, not the other way around. Once again, the calibur of arguments on this thread is pathetic. Compare the posts here to Diana's recent posts on her blog, which are just a preview of the criticism she's writing, and you'll see the difference between a reasoned critique and the random flinging of insults which this thread has been full of. "Meltdown"? What the hell does that refer to?

Richard, "as is" just means that the usual assumption that a product is in working condition doesn't necessarily apply. It doesn't give the seller license to lie about the condition of the product. If I offer my car "as is", and it has no muffler and the steering wheel doesn't work, that's ok -- "as is" implies that it's the buyer's responsibility to determine for himself the condition of the product. However, part of the way he may attempt to determine that condition is by asking questions of the seller. I might refuse to answer questions about my muffler, but I couldn't morally (or legally, I think -- if it could be proved) claim that the muffler works and then later hide behind the "as is" status of the sale. Granted, if I post a sign that says "this car is offered as is, and I'm going to lie about its condition", there wouldn't be an implicit agreement that I'd tell the truth about it. But that would be absurd, and I'm sure it's not what you had in mind.

Halley, I haven't read Aquinas's proofs for a while, so I'm just going by what you wrote. It sounds like what he's doing in the first two is showing that the view he opposes leads to a contradiction. In other words: if we assume that nothing may move itself, we reach the conclusion that nothing moves. But since that conclusion is wrong, the premise must be wrong. So he's not really asserting the original premises, except as a rhetorical point. (Aristotle used this method sometimes too.)

I'm bumping this back onto the "new posts" list. If somebody has an answer, I'd like to hear it too...

That's awesome, JC. Thanks for the link.

No, I doubt that he'll be returning. I'm not going to try to convince him to, at any rate.

1. Not by the trader principle, since there's no trade involved. But if there's no risk to you, you probably should help the baby. I wouldn't state it as a moral requirement, but I'd be very suspicious of a person who could just walk by a dying innocent. 2. The ability to use sign language at a very rudimentary level doesn't imply an actual conceptual faculty. I'd have to read up on those studies to give you a satisfactory answer here, so I'll leave it at that. If you think the rights come from the fact of being alive, though, you should read more of Rand's works. That's not correct. Rights come from the fact of being alive as a human, i.e. as one with the rational/conceptual faculty. Check out Rand's book "Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal" (or "The Nature of Government" in the back of Virtue of Selfishness) for more details on her actual theory of rights. 3. What Daniel said. Also, I also don't think Pascal's wager works psychologically. Believing in God requires believing, not just acting as though one believes. But suppose I offer you a 50/50 shot at a billion dollars if you come to believe that I have an invisible, intangible monkey living in my refrigerator. You have nothing to lose by not believing it (who cares what's in my fridge?), and you potentially have a lot to gain. Could you actually do it? I don't think so. You could try to trick me into believing that you did, and you might even get the billion dollars if you were tricky enough. So that's point one: you couldn't satisfy Pascal's demand even if you tried. Second, you couldn't even get the benefits of pretending you did, because if it turned out that there was a God, he'd presumably be omniscient -- and probably a little pissed off at you for trying to fool him. Third, like Daniel said, it's not the case that you have nothing to lose by believing in God. If you believe there's a God, your view on the world is radically different than if you don't. If you're wrong, you misunderstand the universe at a very basic level -- and this will have implications through your entire life.

David, Awesome idea. Two things: first, I don't like being able to see my password as I type it. Second: I kept hearing a clicking noise. Any idea what that was? Looking forward to the moderated discussions. Now THAT'S an idea with potential!

For the record, I emailed him Vernunft, and he seems to be genuinely interested in discussing ideas. I get the impression he's had some bad experiences with hostile Objectivists in the past, and he was quite disappointed when this forum was not an exception. I'm looking forward to discussing Kant with him. Hopefully, we'll both learn something in the process.

Exactly what I've been waiting to hear. You rule

Most fascinating character: Probably Roark, though Ragnar, Dominique, and Wyatt are very strong contenders too. (In very different ways.) Favorite character: definitely Francisco.

My foot has the property of being a foot. My foot is part of me. Therefore, obviously, I have the property of being a collection of feet?

An atom in my big toe has the property of being an atom. It is part of me. Therefore, I have the property of being an atom?

Immensely, and for a ton of reasons. Top values: my studies in philosophy (I plan to be a professor, so this isn't just a hobby), spending time with my wonderful girlfriend, enjoying good literature/art/music, finding ways to improve myself & my life every day. And then there are all the little daily joys which I won't bother to list. Life is good. Absolutely I experience emotions! Life would be meaningless and dull without them. See above. Why would there be a conflict? I value some other people: my girlfriend, my friends, my mother. If something great happens to them, it makes me happy. If something bad happens to them, I get upset/angry. It's precisely because of their value-relationship to me that I'm able to have such reactions. If somebody I don't know breaks their arm, I'll feel a little bit of sympathy just because I generally like humans and don't like to see bad things happen to them. If Osama Bin Laden breaks his arm, I'll give a standing ovation. No, but remarkably close to it.

Yeah, Halley, your first posts were totally appropriate, which is why I was surprised to see you say Vernunft was a troll. I just looked back at it, and when I first went back and reread the thread, I must have overlooked the following paragraph: Vernunft says to Halley: I can certainly see why you were offended by that. You were right to be, and you responded quite civilly. I think if others hadn't jumped in and started flinging insults, there might have been an interesting and possibly productive discussion about Rand and Kant. Anyway, sorry if it seemed like I was supporting what he said in that paragraph. I don't.

I give up. Eesh.

Heh, it actually wasn't, now that I look at it again. I should try to remember to save that terminology for my professors. To put it more clearly: Objectivism rejects acontextual commandments in favor of causal identifications. Life is the end, morality is the means. Life requires specific values, and there are specific virtues which constitute means of achieving those values. So Objectivism says: "If you want to live, you must be rational, be honest, be productive... etc." Now, somebody will respond to this by asking why you ought to want to live -- and whether morality simply doesn't apply to somebody who doesn't accept life as their ultimate end. They'll say: "That's fine, if you're a person whose goal is life. But what if you're not? Can you rape, murder, and plunder?" This question tends to be a pretty explosive can of worms -- lots of Objectivists disagree about the answer. My opinion is that, to give a pretty brief answer, either life is your ultimate goal, or nothing is. Since value depends upon life, if you aren't at least implicitly working toward your own life (however screwed up your conception of how to do so might be), there's nothing to work toward whatsoever. The question then is what a proper life is and how is it to be achieved -- and that's where Objectivism has a lot of answers.

The movie was awful as a depiction of Rand. Unfortunately, as a movie, it was quite well done: the casting was excellent and the acting was often very impressive. There's an old bio of Rand written by the Brandens when they were still associated with her, "Who is Ayn Rand?" You can still often find used copies of it for sale online at a reasonable price. As I recall, most of the biographical info in the newer book is in that one as well. Since it was put out under Rand's auspices, it's more factually reliable. Jeff Britting is coming out with a new biography of Rand soon, though from the description it sounds more like a scrapbook. (Maybe not, though. Hard to say.) You can preorder it on the Ayn Rand Bookstore website: http://www.aynrandbookstore2.com/store/pro...aitem=2&mitem=2

Halley, he didn't accuse anyone here of being a dogmatist in his first post. He said he had ran into people who held Objectivism as a dogma before, and that he disliked it. That's perfectly reasonable; as I said, there certainly are such people, and they tend to be a real pain. And I don't see any reason to think Vernunft rejects reason. Maybe he does, but there's nothing in his posts to indicate it. (For the record: if it's possible for somebody to be mistaken about free will - a topic we've discussed at length on the forums without this sort of personal attack - it's certainly possible for somebody to be honestly mistaken about Kant.) Joe, I wish I could remember where I heard that. I poked around for a while but I couldn't find it... I think it might have been in some lecture I listened to a long time ago, but I have no clue which one it might have been. I know I heard it, but since I don't know what the source was, I can't vouch for its reliability... so probably best to pretend I didn't say anything. ;-)

The short answer: Objectivism rejects the "categorical imperative" in favor of the "hypothetical imperative." For instance, rather than "You must eat", "If you wish to acquire nutrition, you must eat." Morality is not an end in itself, but a means to an end: life. So the form of moral principles is ultimately: "If you wish to live, you must x." The specific content is filled out by observations of human nature and its requirements in the world.