MinorityOfOne

If Bush ignored or glossed over the importance of 9/11, THEN we would really have something to worry about. (Fortunately, he doesn't; unfortunately, he still gives us plenty of other headaches.)

The difference is: Rand was honest about it. Branden was not. He admits as much in his own book, regardless of how much he may try to blame Rand for everything.

Well, it sounds like you need to work toward understanding Objectivism more clearly. Rand was always adamant about the distinction between errors of knowledge and immorality. One can come to the wrong conclusion while being totally honest -- people are, after all, fallible. There does come a point where you just can't give somebody the benefit of the doubt. That's something you have to judge, generally, on a case-by-case basis. You have to consider how much they know, how much thought they've given it (or ought to have given it), what they *really* believe as against what they *claim* to believe... there are a ton of issues involved, and evaluating intellectual honesty is usually not at all easy. If you want to see how Rand dealt with disagreement, check out her published letters. (Available from aynrandbookstore.com.) You seem to think she would have jumped on anyone who disagreed with her and beat them over the head with a copy of Atlas Shrugged, but that's not at all the case.

If you're banned, it'll be because you called the participants in this forum Nazis, and not because you "didn't toe a party line". (Which phrase, incidentally, is another gratuitous insult.)

Sure, but it's not self-evident that you are the moral beneficiary of your own actions.

Whoa.

Diana, I think a lot of the cases you bring up amount to "acceptible shorthand." When the audience understands Objectivism, there's no need to go through a whole song-and-dance about what is & isn't. It's still worth taking note of it briefly, though; for instance, many Objectivist intellectuals point out at the beginnings of their lectures that they'll be mixing Objectivist points with their own work. I want to reply to various points in your post, but it'd be nuts to quote it paragraph-by-paragraph. So I'll just quote the beginning of the section I'm referring to; it should be understood that I'm addressing the whole section, though, not just what I quote. I agree with most of this, Diana. Certainly the principles espoused in Peikoff's original lecture course can be considered as part of Objectivism, and this is true, I think, of any philosophical material put out by NBI. (However, most of what's still available is on non-philosophical topics, as I understand. I haven't heard any of it.) Using informal discussions, Q&A sessions, etc., is really more of a spiral issue. As you say, they can be used to improve one's understanding of principles set forth elsewhere, to make new integrations, and so forth. I'd say, though, that if there are any new principles expressed in such informal modes, they shouldn't be counted as part of Objectivism. They may be true and important, but it can't be assumed that they reflected Rand's final thinking on a subject. I think we're in agreement here, too, but I'm not entirely sure. I think this falls into the category of acceptable shorthand. Strictly speaking, they should say: "Objectivists commonly hold view X regarding Y." In the case you mention, I think what they're getting at is this: "The analytic philosopher's view implies X, which directly contradicts Objectivist principle Y." So there are two issues: the objectivist principle and the thing which contradicts it. Once you've established that, say, the analytic philosopher's view implies primacy of consciousness, of course you can say it's contrary to Objectivism. But the identification of his view as implying the primacy of consciousness is equally clearly not part of Objectivism. The main issue here is new integrations. I'm inclined to think that integrations among the principles of Objectivism are implicit within the system; they don't really constitute a new item of knowledge, but rather a better understanding of an old one. This applies too to your question about Peikoff's lectures on "Objectivism: The State of The Art." As I recall, he regarded that course as largely presenting his latest formulations of Objectivist principles, as well as discussing aspects of Objectivism he didn't really understand before writing the book. Now, I haven't heard it for a while, so maybe he does give some genuinely new material. If so, he should have said as much (and maybe he did). But if it's just an issue of integrations and formulations, it comes back to the spiral issue -- and the validity of the integrations and formulations themselves, as well as their coherence with Rand's actual ideas, is (of course) up to the listener to judge. Hmm... one thing that just occurred to me as evidence for this: definitions. Definitions are highly contextual and may change over time. As such, it's unlikely that all of Rand's definitions are "final". By the nature of her own theory, they may need to be modified in the light of new knowledge. Is this a contradiction? I don't think so. So long as we think of Objectivism as the body of principles expressed by Rand, the specific formulations are secondary. One could memorize every word in everything that Rand ever wrote and still have more to learn, ones understanding of Objectivism would still have much room to increase. So to regard the definitions, formulations, and integrations set forth in Rand's works as being the only ones which can be regarded as Objectivist is a concrete-bound approach; rather, it's the principles themselves which constitute Objectivism. (This implies that there can be debate about what, exactly, Objectivism is. Contra ssome supporters of the open-system idea, this doesn't imply that Objectivism isn't anything in particular.) You give good reasons for not regarding Objectivism as a proper noun. I'm looking forward to the responses, too.

The problem with the first point is that it disregards principles in ethics. It presents the situation as though the context matters: as though the ethical egoist necessarily thinks that one can say whether or not they ought to confess without knowing whether they actually have anything to confess to. You hit the nail on the head about the second one. Each individual car won't matter much, but there will come a point when people will reconsider. Actually, there's probably a parallel to economics here: there's some equilibrium state that people will tend to center around. If traffic gets worse than that state, more people will tend to take public transportation, thus bringing it back toward equilibrium; if traffic lessens significantly, more people will drive.

You did pretty well, then. I first picked up Rand about 6 or 7 years ago, and I've still got a lot of work to do. (More than I would have admitted a couple of years ago.) ;-)

I have been listening to a lot of rockabilly lately. Stray Cats make the best driving music ever!

You know, some of the parts of that essay puzzled me the last time I read them, which was probably about four years ago. (I don't know if they would now.) The part on ethics as a priori, though, is pretty bad. From what I've heard of him, Huemer should know better than to make an argument like that. He talks as though the choice to live is no different in principle than the choice to go to the movies. Could anything be more obviously wrong? Though, skimming through the rest of it, I suspect that his knowledge of Objectivism is far slimmer than I had suspected. He writes: "If egoism is self-evident, that would be a reason for egoists' not offering any argument in favor of it... I am not saying an Objectivist egoist would appeal to self-evidence; I am just considering the possibility." If he knew anything substantial about Objectivism, he'd know that no Objectivist considers egoism to be self-evident. Wow... Incidentally, what's his moral theory? I'll translate for you. Translation: "My moral theory is known as 'ethical intuitionism'. When I say 'intuition', I mean magic, but I don't want to tell you that. I'll tell you it's a technical term so I don't have to explain it." Translation: "In my view, values are intrinsic. They'd exist even if there were no valuers. Since my theory is lame, I can't define normative terms and I don't care. I am very confused." Translation: "I don't understand how concepts differ from percepts. I don't think ethics has anything to do with facts. I also don't understand math, logic, or metaphysics." Translation: "If, as I believe, I know about moral principles through magic, I don't have to think very hard or come up with good arguments."

Ok, that makes sense, Betsy. Thanks.

Betsy Speicher wrote: I agree with this, but I wonder... how could the fact that emotions are not proper objects of moral judgment cohere with this quote from Fact & Value? "Now take the case of Ayn Rand, who discovered true ideas on a virtually unprecedented scale. Do any of you who agree with her philosophy respond to it by saying 'Yeah, it’s true' — without evaluation, emotion, passion? Not if you are moral."

Yes, you got it right, Don. Good to see you here. EVERYBODY should read Don's blog, by the way -- it's linked at the bottom of his post. One of the best Objectivist blogs on the net!

I didn't think Pillars of Creation was very good either - it seemed really irrelevant to the rest of the books. I'm told that some of the stuff that happens in that book will become very important in the later books, though. (Not that that excuses a good writer putting out a mediocre book, but it does mean it's probably not one to skip if you're reading the whole series.)

Hmm. One thing I disagree with in HB's definition of Objectivism: when he says that it includes the articles in Rand's anthologies, he should point out that this means the articles which were in the anthologies published during her lifetime. Both Why Businessmen Need Philosophy and Return of The Primitive include articles which Rand never endorsed, yet they still have her name listed as author. I don't have Why Businessmen Need Philosophy, but I just checked Return of The Primitive. Schwartz doesn't point out that his articles are not part of Objectivism. He should have.

Bearster, Intellectual debate is fine for this forum, but contentless attacks are not. You and Stephen have made it clear that you don't like each other. If you can keep it on topic, feel free to hash it out here; but if it's going to be personal, I'm sure you have each other's email addresses.

Joerj11 said: Why not? It sounds like she thinks there are more views one might take, and she's right. If all that "open system" meant was "not closed system", you'd be correct; but there's more to it than that. Kelley has given a list of things he thinks are essential to Objectivism, and he thinks it's open to debate whether anything else counts as part of Objectivism. The closed system view says that "Objectivism" is a proper noun referring to the body of philosophical principles espoused in certain books & publications by or under the auspices of Ayn Rand. It should be pretty clear that there are other positions one might take. A few examples, off the top of my head: 1. One might believe that Objectivism is a proper noun, but that it refers to everything Rand ever wrote. (This is the version that's often used as a straw man against the closed system view.) 2. One might agree broadly with Kelley's view, but disagree about what's essential to Objectivism. 3. One might believe that Objectivism is a sort of "family resemblance" concept which groups views in the "Objectivist tradition", thus perhaps making it even more inclusive than Kelley thinks it is. None of those are right. But the list is not exhaustive. The point should be clear, anyway: when Diana says she doesn't agree with either the closed system view or the open system view, she's not rejecting the law of identity. She's just rejecting two particular views. The interesting question is what she thinks is the proper view. Like I said, I'm looking forward to hearing it.

I love Goodkind's books. I started rereading the series recently, and it's even better the second time around. (I have yet to read Naked Empire, though.)

Well, I don't know what Navy Seal training involves (though I do plan to watch G.I. Jane soon), but there are female martial artists, swordfighters, and boxers. Of course the best female boxer isn't going to beat the best male boxer, but depending on what martial art or sort of swordfighting you're talking about, the same may not be true there. Insofar as something relies on strength, the woman will be disadvantaged; but if the emphasis is on agility and general control over one's body, I don't see why a woman would be at a disadvantage. If anything, in my experience, men tend to be far more clumsy. (Though perhaps I'm biased by my personal skill at tripping over everything which gets in my way.) In short: I don't think there's anything particularly insidious about women in video games. The motivation, I think, isn't feminism; it's marketing through sex appeal. As evidence, rent a martial arts game with female characters, and count the number of times you get a "panty shot". It's really pretty absurd.

Joe, You're not being fair to Diana. Saying that Objectivism is Ayn Rand's philosophy still leaves a lot of questions open. What parts of her writing qualify as philosophical? Is her view on a woman president part of the philosophy, or is it primarily psychological? How about homosexuality? Which applications of the philosophy, if any, count as part of the philosophy? Etc. We've debated these on here repeatedly. They're real questions, and I'm looking forward to her attempt to answer them.

Off the top of my head, courage is acting with integrity when a major value is at stake or at risk.

Sure, Halley, but all the virtues are just applications of rationality. There's a use for identifying more specific applications. The list of *all* virtues (not just the central ones) would be incredibly long: diligence, benevolence, prudence, etc... the list would be gigantic. Incidentally, there are terms for the sort of "bad courage" you mentioned. Rashness, foolhardiness, etc.

Ultimately, I agree with you. But casting unknowns makes for a pretty crappy parlor game. ;-)

Watched Identity last night... I never would have said this before, but I think John Cusack could actually do a pretty decent Hank Rearden.