2046

You seem to think that the "Objectivist method" is some thing, like an actual sui generis "method," apart from a philosophic explanation of the scientific method of observation and experimentation and why it works. In a sense, we start out from knowing that we have knowledge, we know that we have useful ideas, epistemology is then going back and saying "what was the method that I used and how does that work?" And yeah like Eiuol said, I'm not sure how formal logic and probability theory are opposed to, say, the world of Bacon or Mill or a Rand.

Also, in Rand's epistemology, it's not the sensations that are being conceptually united by the process of reason, one does not experience sensations in most normal circumstances (ie., unless you have diminished mental capacity, are in a sensory deprivation experiment, etc.) The process of integrating sensations into perception is physiological, not rational (as in Kant), one experiences a united perceptual field, rather than sensations. The process of reason proceeds, under this theory, by abstracting from the field of perception, and then integrating the units conceptually as you described.

You seem to think that the "Objectivist method" is some thing, like an actual sui generis "method," apart from a philosophic explanation of the scientific method of observation and experimentation and why it works. In a sense, we start out from knowing that we have knowledge, we know that we have useful ideas, epistemology is then going back and saying "what was the method that I used and how does that work?" And yeah like Eiuol said, I'm not sure how formal logic and probability theory are opposed to, say, the world of Bacon or Mill or a Rand.

“The process of a child’s development consists of acquiring knowledge, which requires the development of his capacity to grasp and deal with an ever-widening range of abstractions. This involves the growth of two interrelated but different chains of abstractions, two hierarchical structures of concepts, which should be integrated, but seldom are: the cognitive and the normative. The first deals with knowledge of the facts of reality—the second, with the evaluation of these facts. The first forms the epistemological foundation of science—the second, of morality and art.” (Rand 1965a, 10) --quote in my From Integrity to Calculus
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Rand tells the religionist: “Whenever you committed the evil of refusing to think and to see, of exempting from the absolute of reality some one small wish of yours, whenever you chose to say: Let me withdraw from the judgment of reason . . . the existence of God, let me have my one irrational whim and I will be a man of reason about all else—that was the act of subverting your consciousness, the act of corrupting your mind” (1037).
Rand was not opposed to feelings. She was not against the idea of the human soul, provided it is thought of as naturally part of one’s living body and mortal as one’s body. In Fountainhead she has dialogue between Keating and his wife Dominique in which soul is given the expressly nonreligious meaning: that in one that is one’s genuine person—not only one’s body—one’s will and meaning, that in one which independently thinks, values, decides, and feels (GW II 454–55; cf. 1957, 1057). -- from my Mysticism - Kant and Rand (Part 1 -Reason)
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When philosophers lay out theories of good definition, they are theories of an explicative kind of definition (see David Kelley’s Art of Reasoning, chapter 3). Consider Rand’s definition of reason as the faculty that identifies and integrates the evidence of the senses. In my dictionary, I find reason defined as the capacity for rational thought, rational inference, or rational discrimination. The terms rational and thought go to already familiar synonymies with reason. The differentia within the rational, in this dictionary definition, are the discriminatory and the inferential.
Rand’s definition stays close to the common usage reflected by the dictionary, but it replaces discrimination and inference by their kin identification and integration, it eliminates the non-explicative rational, and it adds a base for the activities of reason, specifically, deliverances of the senses. Rand’s definition is explanatory of the common usage found in the dictionary, and it is tailored to tie neatly to a particular wider philosophical view.
Quine could say this is a fine explicative type of definition. Rand has given the term reason a new synonymy. The various contexts in which reason under the dictionary definition is properly used remain contexts in which reason under the new, explicative definition is properly used. The new definition covers the processes of drawing distinctions and making inferences. The new definition also applies to the wider processes of identification and integration of sensory evidence, processes in which the narrower processes are embedded. --from my On Quine's "Two Dogmas"
PS - Welcome to Objectivism Online.

Let us review the Rand quotation again:
"Objectivist ethics holds that the actor must always be the beneficiary of his action " (Rand 1964, ix-x).
If we're going to take the Randian "literalness" approach, where one does not "translate it" nor "endow it" with some "meaning of your own," then it seems neither necessarily follows.
My (1) would be something like:
[T]he actor must always be the beneficiary of his action, and no one else.
My (2) would be something like:
[T]he actor must always be the beneficiary of his action, and others can too.
Both add a predicate that is not literally present and endow it with meaning that is not literally present in the original single quotation. So if we're going on the literalness approach alone, you can't say only (1) follows. Strictly speaking, we don't know if others are allowed to benefit, based singularly on the literalness of the quotation. We don't know that they are or aren't. It is neither logically excluded or entailed.
Suppose in some cave somewhere, a long lost scroll of Socrates' writings were found. The scroll contained the following passage:
Scroll 1
Socrates: S must always P.
Suppose Scholar A had the following interpretation:
Scholar A: What Socrates means is S and only S must always P, and no one else. It's the only literal interpretation!
Suppose Scholar B had the following objection:
Scholar B: Well that's not literally what Socrates says here, clearly not the only interpretation. I assume Socrates means S must always P, and sometimes Q as well.
Strictly speaking, based on the Scroll 1 alone, both interpretations are "live options" as academics say, we can't infer one or the other just on the literal words of Socrates. Suppose then a second scroll is uncovered:
Scroll 2
Socrates: Men trade their goods or services by mutual consent to mutual advantage, according to their own independent, uncoerced judgment.
Every agreement is delimited, specified and subject to certain conditions, that is, dependent upon a mutual trade to mutual benefit.
In a free society, men deal with one another by voluntary, uncoerced exchange, by mutual consent to mutual profit...
Men trade their goods or services by mutual consent to mutual advantage...
It is a system where men deal with one another, not as victims and executioners, nor as masters and slaves, but as traders, by free, voluntary exchange to mutual benefit...
The deserved belongs in the selfish, commercial realm of mutual profit; it is only the undeserved that calls for that moral transaction which consists of profit to one at the price of disaster to the other.
(And I know I'm shifting from symbols to text here, but bear with me.) What would we then say about Scholar A's interpretation? Perhaps in the days when all we had was Scroll 1, it was a viable option. Even then, it wasn't the only option, because the predicate "and no one else" was added, that is, not literal, an endowment, if you will, like the character from the Chris Rock movie "Head of State," whose campaign slogan was "God bless America... and no place else!" It was an interpretation that wasn't logically incompatible, if not logically entailed. But now that we have Scroll 2, what would we say if Scholar A persisted that his interpretation of Socrates was the only one true logical interpretation? We might say that's just silly.
 
 

I don't get how "one can benefit others without self-sacrifice” isn't compatible with the above? It doesn't seem to follow, from the above quote, "another can never benefit from one's actions." I mean if you categorized it thusly:
(1) actions which benefit myself and not others
(2) actions which benefit both myself and others
(3) actions which benefit others and not myself
 
It seems 1 and 2 are entailed by Rand's quotation. And why would you always want to be the beneficiary? If "benefit" in this taxonomy is defined as that which contributes to my survival and flourishing, then you just wouldn't want to be going around doing 3 all the time. Even on the margins, time is scarce and life is short, if the standard of ethics is that which contributes to your survival and flourishing, doing 3 is ultimately a drain on your resources and harmful in that sense.
Also, as most economical analysis of positive externalities will tell you, most human action lies in 2. Suppose I enjoy gardening and have a rose garden outside, well you can enjoy my garden by looking at it. Is this a 1 or a 2? I work out and educate myself in manners and etiquette, you too can then enjoy my attractiveness and good manners as a little bonus. The point here is, most action is 2, the human race would have died out long ago if only 1 was allowed.
 Of course, I haven't read the paper in question, and you could break the categories down a lot more, so I shall reserve my judgment, but it just seems silly to interpret that as "no one else can ever benefit from my actions." The scope of actions that fall under 2 that Rand does recommend, friendship, love, commerce, living in a human society, if all of these things seem squarely under 2, then it seems a big problem for merjets interpretation.

***** Split from Objectivism in Academia *****
The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies is in its eighteenth year of publication (Penn State University Press). It issues twice a year, July and December. I have all its issues, hardcopy, from its beginning. I’ve mentioned elsewhere on Objectivism Online an extensive review, in the July 2018 issue, of Harry Binswanger’s book How We Know. I notice also in this issue a paper “Egoism and Others” by Merlin Jetton, a long-time friend of mine.
In his contribution “Egoism and Others,” Jetton draws Rand’s ethical egoism as an extreme position, polar opposite the extreme altruistic ethics of Comte. That sketch seems right. But Jetton writes “Contra Rand, one can benefit others without self-sacrifice” (85). I don’t think that statement in itself is an exact representation of Rand. She characterizes voluntary productive, romantic, and esthetic relationships as benefitting both self and others. Jetton later tempers that statement on Rand, thankfully, in his addressing for example her ambitious essay “The Conflict of Mens’ Interests.”
Jetton conveys altruism as taking various forms. Rand’s notion of altruism, he correctly takes as entailing self-sacrifice. He maintains that Rand disdained altruism in any form and that this stance “may actually detract from a person’s self-interest” (85).
“Rand advocated self-interest all the time and typically treated acting for the interest of others as equivalent to self-sacrifice” (86). Correct.
Jetton concurs with Rand’s stance that one should not live for the sake of another. Contra Rand, he writes: “Acting for the sake of another is sometimes the rational thing to do” (87). I concur, and I concur that this is contra Rand (notwithstanding denials or fogging of this ascription to Rand by some sympathizers with Rand’s egoism).
Jetton observes that among our choices of action, there are ones “you might agree that anyone similarly disposed would have in such circumstances” (87). He dips into a work by Charles Larmore, a former professor of mine, in filling out this idea. From the reflective plane of regarding ourselves as responding to reasons and binding ourselves to reasons, Jetton goes on to gauge the morality of benefitting others in business, familial, fiduciary, governmental, and charitable relationships, marking up Rand’s pertinent words all along the way.
An additional basic frame of Rand’s ethical egoism I think would be worth examining in future examinations and assessments along the lines of Jetton’s present study is her proposition “Life is an end in itself.” This is a basic frame not only for her ethical egoism, but for her case for universal individual rights. And the latter, with their justification, could have fertile ramifications for treatment of others, even going beyond scope of the law.

This thread has covered a lot of ground, which unfortunately makes it a bit incoherent. I suggest focusing on a specific issue of substance that is repeatedly raised, having to do with the government’s use of force to enforce proper law. I would set aside questions about social contracts, fraud, breach of contract, the nature of force and its relationship to consent, and inalienability of rights; I would also set aside the titular question of NAP qua primary principle in Objectivism (there is no denying that it is the fundamental principle of libertarianism). The issue requiring focus is this paraphrase of what Rand has said: “force in society may only be used in response to the initiation of physical force and only against the person who initiates the force”. Some version of this is said in nearly a dozen points in Rand’s writing, for example “Men have the right to use physical force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use” (The Objectivist Ethics). She is consistent in saying “against those”. The question is, what are the practical consequences of this principle?
In connection with a crime involving the police and courts, there are at least 8 ways in which force is actually used in response to the initiation of force. Assume that the act is a theft, and the police are not witnesses to the act.
Questioning: The police may stop and detain a person because they have a reasonable suspicion that he committed a crime. Arrest: The police may take a person into custody because they have evidence that he probably he committed a crime. Appearance: A person will be required to appear in court, and be identified as the criminal actor. Search: A person’s property may be searched and seized, and used as evidence pertaining to whether he committed the crime. Testimony: A person may be compelled to appear in court and testify as to relevant knowledge. Truth: A person who testifies will be forced to tell the truth (perjury is a crime, punishable by imprisonment). Jury service: A person (not the accused: having no relationship to the case) will be compelled to serve on a panel of jurors who decide facts and determine guilt. Courtroom conduct: A person who testifies or argues on either side of the question will be compelled to follow the lawful instructions of the judge.

The issue, as I see it, is whether any of these 8 forms of force would be prohibited under the principles of Objectivism. If all of these forms of force were prohibited, protection of rights by the government (thus, man’s survival qua man) would not be possible, and since Objectivism is all about man’s survival, there would be something amiss. The main lacuna that needs to be filled is the epistemological one. Although proper force is to be limited to those who initiate it, it is not self-evident who those people are. Some force must be available to the government prior to the lawful determination of guilt.  An arrest is predicated on the belief that a person has initiated force, but that belief may be mistaken. Moral responsibility for such uses of force rests with the person who did in fact initiate force. A system of objective law would allow use of force when, in a certain context, there is reason to believe that a person has initiated force. The nature of that reason relates to the legally allowed level of force. When there is just a reasonable suspicion, a limited degree of force is proper; when it is probable that the person committed the act, more force is proper; proof of the act results in the highest degree of force allowed under the law (the actual punishment). The possibility of error in the use of force does not mean that government cannot be allowed to fulfill its function. In short, and in the context of the legal determination of guilt, force is to be used against those whom the evidence indicates have initiated force (this is not limited to the officially indicted). Questioning, arrest, required appearance and search are all actions directed against persons whom we reasonably conclude initiated force: this includes all of the agents who acted to bring about force, including those not prosecuted.
The use of force in connection with truthful testimony and enforcing courtroom conduct is not necessarily aimed against the rights-violator; it is, however, not improper initiation of force, rather it is a consequence which you accept to, when you appear in court. The one area of possible complication regards compelled testimony.


As for compulsory jury duty, I see no possibility of reconciling that with Objectivism: see Rand’s position on taxation and the military draft. In discussing how a government based on Objectivist principles would operate, we must assume that some people will be irrational (will refuse to act in their own self-interest), but we cannot assume that most people are irrational – if they were, we’d have the kind of government we have now. Compulsion would not be necessary, and is hardly necessary now.
This leaves the question of when it is permissible to seize property to be used as evidence, and to compel a person to testify (compelled action). In the case of a person with no culpability for the act, the choice to uphold the virtue of justice must remain the choice of the individual, to be made according to their hierarchy of values. “A right is the moral sanction of a positive—of his freedom to act on his own judgment, for his own goals, by his own voluntary, uncoerced choice”. A man has the right to keep his property even when the government has a deep desire for it and perhaps a very compelling reason to want to take it, even just temporarily.
It has been claimed above

that a legal system cannot be objective if it is arbitrarily deprived of information: a person may not refuse to provide information arbitrarily. But contained within that argument, I find two very troubling suppositions. One is the premise that the government may rightly determine what a man’s hierarchy of values should be – if your hierarchy is not “right”, and you place your values above the interests of another, your values will be set aside. Second, the supposedly objective inquisition into a man’s motivations for a choice means that a man must be able to articulately argue for and thus defend his rights against government intrusion, in order to enjoy those rights. An objective legal system, in its procedural aspect, means that the rules which it uses are objectively stated, so that any man can know what is required of him. What that would entail, in evaluating the acceptability of a rationale for not testifying, is that the system must state which values of an individual can override the government’s interest in finding facts, and which values of an individual are found to be unimportant. I presume it is clear why this contradicts the basic political ideas of Objectivism.

Dave Rubin was recently featured on Rogan's podcast, which Yaron has expressed that he wants to go on. Rogan, if you don't know, has one of the highest rated podcasts out there. 
Rogan has also stated that (1) he doesn't like it when people suggest to him about having someone on, if people keep asking it annoys him and he doesn't want to have that person on, and (2) he doesn't like anyone who is too doctrinaire about anything. When I suggested this to Yaron (in chat) his response was "well I'm not doctrinaire." I'm positive Joe will not see it that way. Joe is really averse to principles, I have a feeling he equates "nuance" with concrete-boundness. But apparently Joe enjoys Peter Schiff and has had him on multiple times. (If you watch those you'll see what I'm talking about.) Anyways:
Relevant part is at about 2:05:00 ish. The background is Rogan saying that we have to have government regulation because people won't build houses correctly. Rubin suggests that he doesn't think that implies government regulation, but Rogan is having none of it. People aren't inherently benevolent and so will try to bilk as much as possible out of the next guy, so there will be much more hazardous construction without regulation. Rubin suggests this isn't the only way to organize things, but admits he doesn't really have a good argument.
[My transcript guaranteed to not be 100% accurate]
Rubin: You know who should have on to talk about this, and I know people have looped you in before, is Yaron Brook from Ayn Rand Institute cause he's really good on this.
Rogan: No one's looped me in with him. Maybe they have, but I haven't paid attention to that.
Rubin: I'll hook you up, I'll be happy to do that, he's a really interesting guy that has moved my thinking a little bit on this.
Rogan: Those Ayn Rand people, they're really fucking harsh.
Rubin: They like ideas, man.
Rogan: Those are... They're.... Pssssss.....[shakes head] yeah.
Rubin: They're not the most fun people on the planet, but I generally like them, cause they just want, they're kind of live and let live. That's really it, that's really the crux of it. Pretty much.
Rogan: Is that really the crux of it though?
Rubin: Yeah.
Rogan: People think that there's like a cruelty aspect to it, though, the Ayn Rand philosophy.
Rubin: Well, they believe in rational self-interest. Which, if you say "self," people think you're evil. But we all basically operate in rational self-interest all the time.
Rogan: Right, but espousing it, that's the thing. It's like proclaiming it, that's what makes people go "ohhhh," you're essentially setting up the Gordon Gekko idea, that "greed is good."
Rubin: Yeah, I kinda buy into that idea.
Rogan: Do you buy into "greed is good"?
Rubin: Yeah, basically. Not greed to destroy the word, but if you, Joe, do what is good for you, by extension...
Rogan: Right but is that greed? Or is that ambition?
Rubin: Right, exactly, that's my point.
Rogan: That's where it gets conflated, isn't it?
Rubin: Right, so without whittling it to the definition of greed versus ambition, it's like you do what is good for you, but it doesn't mean you're just running this rampaging program to destroy the world in the name of Joe Rogan, you're doing what's good for you because you actually like your audience and you want them to learn, you want to have money so that your family can live in a house that you can afford, so that you can send your kids to good schools and all of those things. That's all rational self-interest. If, at the same time, you're running a nuclear power plant, and you're Mr Burns, and you're dumping in the river, well no, that's actually no longer rational self-interest because you're polluting the very environment you live in.
Rogan: Who takes care of that, who regulates that? Is that where government comes in? Who gets you in trouble, in your opinion, if you're this deregulation guy, who goes after you when you dump shit into the river?
Rubin: I'm not saying there should be no regulation, I'm just saying I generally like this line of thinking.
[...they discuss how there's ways to may money through green entrepreneurship]
Rogan: What's the solution if someone pollutes? If you're not gonna have regulation, what is the solution when someone does something that's illegal?
Rubin replies basically that it's not as if you get rid of regulations and then every businessmen everywhere just goes, "ah finally, let's dump into the rivers!" and that if someone did, it's easy to catch, and that there are more market-friendly ways of doing things. Rogan remains unconvinced and just thinks not having laws wouldn't stop people (which he equates to Rubin's position.)
 
Anyways, comments, deconstructions, analysis?

Rand differentiates between the metaphysical and the man-made (Philosophy: Who Needs It, chapter 3.) Metaphysical facts are not expressible by the concept of justice (fair, unfair, right, wrong, etc.), they just are. Justice comes from appraising the chosen aspects of other people in relation to you.

Excessive wealth can't come from anti-life activities, because, at the root, wealth can only come from virtuous action (production.) If you mean having a person with wealth that did not earn it, i.e. that acquired it by looting, in short, that did not merit it, then the law should do something about that, but then that would rule out the inheritance tax. Rand (PWNI, pp. 140-141) criticizes meritocracy on the grounds that it is a self-contradictory concept. To "merit" something is a matter of justice, and "-ocracy" refers to rulers, then "meritocracy" seeks to create a "tyranny of justice," thus collapsing into conceptual incoherency, and blanking out the different between might and right that justice seeks to create.

As far as this author's idea of a meritocracy, it is problematic to say the least. From an economic standpoint, "what alone can improve [material] conditions is more and better production. And this can only be brought about by increased saving and capital accumulation" (Mises, Planning for Freedom, pp. 92-93.) The inheritance tax is particularly damaging to capital accumulation. The prospect of an inheritance tax destroys the incentive and the power to save and build up accumulations of capital. Rothbard calls inheritance taxes "perhaps the most devastating example of a pure tax on capital" (Rothbard, Power and Market, p.1185.) It's impact will be devastating because of the far-reaching nature of the argument. The argument conceives "that everyone should line up at the same starting line," but regardless of where we start off, within a few generations every piece of property must pass to heirs, and continue in such a manner indefinitely.

Thus we can see that the difficulty with this argument is that it proves far too much than perhaps it wanted to. For which one of us would earn anything like our present real income or enjoy anything near our present standard of living were it not for inherited benefits that we derive from the actions of our predecessors (in accumulation capital stock)? Specifically, the modern standard of living resulting from the accumulation of capital goods is an inheritance from all the net savings of our ancestors. If the argument wants to be consistent, then we will have to remove all these "unfair advantages." Without them, we would, regardless of the quality of our own moral character, be living in a primitive jungle. If everyone were prevented from passing on accumulated wealth to the next generation, the result would be drastic impoverishment and mass starvation of the majority of the human race, a decidedly anti-life conclusion, would result. So if the grounds are pro-life, then this argument fails. Simply stating "but this is the logical, rational, enlightened thing to do" is of no avail.

The author states that the living do not experience the inheritance tax because the person who is being taxed is dead. But the dead are not the ones that own the property, the heir is the living owner who is taxed. Such a tax necessarily violates property rights, which contradicts the stated desire of not taking the unearned from anyone.

The meritocrat might reply that the heir didn't earn it because he didn't produce it himself, but technological production is not the only way to earn wealth. Exchange also is one way to earn wealth, and the heir acquired the property in question through the objective link of contractual exchange. Whatever he did, even if just being in the right place at the right time, caused him to earn the property in the eyes of the previous owner passing it on to the later owner. The socialist government (or society at large, or whoever is claiming the right to tax it) has established no link whatsoever with the property, has done nothing to it, so it's difficult to see why a contractually designated owner, the heir, who has an objective link to the property (earned it via contractual exchange from a previous to a later owner) should be denied ownership in favor of a non-producer, non-contractor who has no link whatsoever with the property, if the grounds specified is "he who earned it." Thus the meritocracy argument for inheritance taxation fails on its own grounds.

Branden (in Rand, ed., Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, pp.96-99) recognizes that there is a contradiction in the contention that only those who produce wealth should control it, and the inheritance tax. For if we recognized the right of those who originally produce the wealth as the legitimate right, then this also implies the right to give it away to an heir through gift. Therefore, the alleged worthiness or unworthiness of the heir is logically irrelevant.

That section is particularly instructive, because Branden also explains how inheritance does not contribute to economic instability, that one's place on the unhampered market has to continually be earned, and how the inheritance tax tends to aid the second and third generation welfare statists by keeping out rivals, thus hampering the natural market "circulation of elites."

1. Reason is a method, not an argument. If I said "how do you prove the law of gravity?" And I said "reason," I'm talking about a methodology, not a specific argument. In natural rights theory, saying they "are justified by reason" just points to the methodology employed. We reason from man's life as the standard of value to what are the requirements for survival and flourishing in a political society. 
2. The end is not mere survival, it is a rich conception of a flourishing life. Food, water, shelter, of course but also learning, development of skills, career pursuit, self acceptance  and personal growth, social relationships, love, sense of purpose in life, etc. None of this can be provided at the point of a gun, it has to be achieved, and again according to the natural rights folks, that requires a sphere of independence in which we are free to act and pursue our ends.
Secondly, because someone has a right to or needs some ends it doesn't follow they have a right to be provided said end. That's just a non sequitur. Thirdly, if someone is forcibly provided some end, someone else is therefore forced to labor for someone else's ends, and that introduces a contradiction. Welfare rights are accordingly incompatible with individual rights. In short: you don't own anyone.
3. There are some serious logical leaps being taken here. I need food, corn is food, therefore I have a right to force you to labor in a cornfield for me? Doesn't follow. I have a right to this specific river, let's say, because I labored on it, I built a fishery or a mill. I don't own "water" in the abstract, I own this specific water. You don't have rights to abstract classes, just specific things you either homesteaded or traded for.

Gio,
Do you hear in France today anything of the French philosopher Jean-Marie Guyau? Especially, do you know anything of his book Esquisse d'une Morale sans Obligation, ni Sanction? Nietzsche got the first edition hot off the press in 1885. I like some of Guyau's ideas in that book. Nietzsche, Guyau, and Rand all made moral theories based on biological human nature, they were all moral individualists, opposed to utilitarianism and to Kantian ethics and to Schopenhauer's pessimism. All three were completely secular, not theistic. The three had different conceptions of what was the basic nature of life per se, and this was harmonious with their three different moral conceptions. Guyau's moral theory was not an egoistic  one. I like his theory better than Nietzsche's predominant congealing view from about 1883 forward. Rand's moral view is more developed and systematic than either of those other two. Guyau was more friendly towards modern capitalistic society than was Nietzsche.
Rand had read some Nietzsche in Russia before coming to the US, but those were not good translations into Russian. One of her biographers here has mentioned to me that a course on Guyau was offered at Rand's university in Russia during her college years, but that she did not take that course.
This book of Guyau's was translated into English by an American near the end of the 19th Century. Guyau died young. As I recall, he had some influence on Bergson (and perhaps a bit on Nietzsche), but my impression has been that he was known best in late 19th and early 20th century. There is an American philosopher of that era named Josiah Royce who had some appreciation of Guyau. --S

AJ, what's up. Unfortunately you're going to find a lot of nit pickers and Randroids on this forums, but alas there are many good posters. Whilst it is true Rand used her own terminology, most people recognize the resemblance of the non aggression principle with Rand's non initiation of force principle, and Rands right to life with the Lockean phrasing of self ownership and property rights. I think these are literally the same thing.
I also think that she is right, along with Rothbard and others, to criticize many other libertarians because they do not ground the axioms of libertarianism in a rational ethics. And many are just plain kooky and weird, but hey that applies doubly to many objectivists.
So I celebrate Rand's unique achievement in her melding of a neo-Aristotelian ethics of virtue with libertarian political philosophy.  I think these two both jointly supplement each other, and provide the best case for either.
Also note that Rand didn't have one argument for an NAP, one for self ownership, one for propert rights, etc, but since she believed in the Greek "unity of virtue" concept, her argument for one constitutes her argument for all.
And there's not just one single arguement for grounding the principle of rights, it is more a web of arguments, different strands depending on how you analyze different aspects of man's nature. 
There is the aforementioned aspect of her philosophical psychology, that she often posits that reason has to be an independent judgment, and that one cannot act on the basis of reason to the extent one is subjected to force, and that one needs moral autonomy to think and act independently. 
There is the trader principle, that is that living in a society can be of advantage to you, but only on certain conditions, eg., that you have the opportunity to trade, and that aggression is not a dependable and reliable means of obtaining values and so forth.
There is her observation that sustaining human life is impossible without appropriating and producing material values and one cannot reliably acquire or produce values for exclusive control under the threat of coercion, and that leads to homesteading and contractual trade and so forth.
She gives an argument based on the metaphysical equality of all men, eg., that after we have established a substantive ethics of long term happiness and well being, that if you recognize the requirements of yourself being free to act on your own reason and values, and that is a constitutive part of your own flourishing, then that commits you to valuing the same right of others to promote their well being (and this is part of her argument for the virtue of justice.)
It is in this sense a type of natural law argument, that reason shows us various aspects of man's nature has certain requirements for being able to achieve happiness and success in a social context, and that all of these things point to a thoroughly robust non aggression principle on egoistic grounds.

The Virtue of Selfishness is a 173 page book.  According to me... It means self esteem, self respect, trusting myself, introspection, keeping my own counsel, doing the best I can, calling myself out on my own BS, learning.  I don't always know if I made an irrational decision, when I notice or when someone I respect points it out, and I agree, then I correct it.  
Your self is your body/consciousness/memories, a sum total of everything you are and have been.  I believe I am a Self first, the -ish follows.  If I want to value rational values it is my self that chooses, and I gain confidence on that path.  
I don't agree with mullahs.  Every woman I know has had their body trespassed upon by a man at some point.  Having been inappropriately touched by strange men several times in my life brings painful clarity.  In theory it is true that it is the man who needs to correct his behavior, not the woman who needs to cover up.  But I won't risk my body to prove that point.  I choose the level of protection I need for a given situation.  Sometimes a bikini, sometimes layers and a weapon.  A woman wearing a Burqa believes it is a symbol of honor, it ought to be her own choice, I wouldn't force her to wear it, nor tear it off of her.  
I believe in this world, as an objective reality, an orange is an orange and not my imagination.  This reality contains irrational people and mystics who believe in other worlds. An Objectivist forces no one, but if forced, will respond with force.  
http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/selfishness.html

Actually, it is about a group of anti-establishment dreamers who form a commune of their own, and start to write their own constitution: it is the end predicted by John Steinbeck in "Grapes of Wrath", where the good people rise up and rebel against evil big businessmen, symbolized by Orren Boyle.

Most people do or believe something that I wish they wouldn’t do or believe, and this includes being irrational even when it doesn’t directly affect me (e.g. people who just can’t stand the color yellow). I would like to live in a world where everybody is as rational as I am. Most of the time, however, it would be irrational for me to rant about other people’s irrationality, primarily because most people don’t actually have the rational response “Oh my God, was I really that irrational!? I’ve gotta change my ways”, when confronted with their irrationality. In other words, getting up in people’s face about their irrationality as a way of encouraging rationality is itself irrational.
I am not suggesting that irrationality should be tolerated, instead, particular instances of irrationality have to be judged on their demerits, so you have to decide whether it’s worth getting a divorce because your spouse doesn’t like your favorite musician. “Tolerance” implies a complete lack of judgment, whereas “temperance” means that you have judged and decided that the costs outweigh the benefit (“breaking point” likewise implies a judgment, and in this case the benefit outweighs the cost).
Let’s take a clearer case, such as a person publically advocating a racist and statist Nazi agenda: it would be well worth countering this person. How can you counter them? Shooting them, for one: but that’s clearly irrational; so is throwing rotten tomatoes, or threatening their life. So is trying to shout them down. In fact, prancing around with counter-protest signs saying “Say No To Nazis!” is at best a minimally rational response.
The rational response is to argue against them, perhaps in the hopes of changing their mind (as though they had somehow been misled by some factual error), or more likely, to persuade someone in the audience who is undecided. Throwing tomatoes might “persuade” a member of the audience, and you don’t want to appeal to such irrrational low-lives, so always take the high road.
Strolling in public in the nude, in the hope of offending some person, is not a rational response. It does not appeal to reason, it appeals to emotion, and what you will most likely do is simply anger the anti-nudity person, and possibly embarrass others who might be more or less on your side. It is actually perfectly reasonable to have an ideology about nudity where it is a highly personal and intimate thing, as sex is. If your goal is to educate society, use your mind, and not your naked butt.
There is zero debate among Objectivists over whether it is okay to be naked at home (it is), or to be naked at someone else’s home (it is not unless you have permission). The only discussion is over the problematic notion of public nudity, that is, projecting your nakedity at others, against their will, when (a) you’re on a dispassionate third party’s property – a business – and that property owner sets the rules; or (b) when you’re on government property, e.g. a government park. But as you know, the government shouldn’t be running a park service. There is one final problem area, namely the case where A and B have adjacent lots, and A like to prance nude on his property, where B can see him from his porch while enjoying the sunset. If B is offended at seeing A, does B’s interest (in not seeing A nude) create a duty for A to erect a screen? Or should B erect a screen on his property, to shield himself from seeing A. Indeed, what if A is offended at B seeing him? Does A’s offendedness impose a duty on B?
Let he who is offended build the screen on his property, in conformity with his values.

From Hellenistic History and Culture:
The reapers in Idyll 10 are a gruff, perhaps elderly workman called Milon, given to coarse rustic proverbs, and a lovestruck young man, Boukaïos, whose name suggests a cowman and his song: in the Iliad Hector uses it as an insult to Ajax, as Antinoös does to Iros in the Odyssey. Homer says βουγάïος, not βουκάïος, and the two citations confirm one another, but the difference of spelling is nothing. It is typical of the freakish pedantry of the Alexandrians to use a Homeric word in a corrected form. Bougaïos or Boukaïos has fallen for the girl from Hippokion's farm, the daughter of Polybotas, who must be a farm slave if not a wage laborer. She plays the flute for the reapers, and Milon's advice about her is “Take what you want and pay for it.” Boukaïos sings a song about love:
If the translation of Milon's advice is accurate, it provides a source of the citation of greater antiquity than the 1920's. To know how or why, or even if, this is true, is hardly axiomatic. As was pointed out in Introduction To Objectivist Epistemology "reason" is "a complex, derivative concept." This translation of the Tenth Idyll of The Idylls of Theokritus provides Milon as having said: "God finds out the guilty. You've been asking for it."

Wow that is really weird, as I've just started a class on Thomas Reid and the Scottish common sense school today. It's quite true that Reid and his followers have some very proto Randian ideas.
First, it is important to understand Reid was a contemporary of David Hume and his writings were basically a response to Hume's skepticism. Reid basically says if this is where your philosophy ends up, then that's a prima facie reason for your philosophy being wrong. When we reach a conclusion that was inferred from premises, if the conclusion is plainly false, such as we can't know anything or reality isn't real, etc., then we must reject the entire line of reasoning as absurd and start over. 
Reid reinstated foundationalism, that is, there must be noninferential justification. This is quite similar to Rand's conception of "verification," which is a wider genus to which "proof" belongs. The epistemologist doesn't start out by saying "prove existence and logic and consciousness, etc.," as in Descartes, rather the epistemologist starts out "we have knowledge, we know existence exists, we need to find the proper method." 
He also argues against representationalism in Locke, and although he doesn't have a theory of perception of his own, he takes for granted the validity of the senses. Perception is not of ideas, but direct perception of objects. I don't need a "proof" for why my hand is in front of my face currently, I just point to it. There is no propositional justification necessary. He would've likely foubd much to enjoy of Kelley's Evidence of the Senses. Once we perceive objects, we can abstract our ideas from their similarities and differences, building more complex ideas upon less complex ones. A remarkably proto Randian view, although he holds to some older distinctions like primary vs secondary qualities that Rand rejects.
Although he holds to a mind-body dichotomy, he does not draw inferences from it. There are minds and consciousness, we study the former with natural science and the latter with psychology, they are whatever they are.
I don't know about his ethics yet, be he was a religious man, and seems he was an ethical intuitionist applying his common sense view to morality. And therein lies probably Rand's major difference, that sometimes Reid seems to be saying there are innate beliefs about the foundations of reason. Although he does say that "morality can be demonstrated as of mathematics." He also believes free will is among his self evident principles.
All in all, his major influence seems to be saying most of modern philosophy is absurd and abstruse gibberish. There is a certain framework that must be within which an investigation can take place. Reality is real, existence exists, there are objects we are directly aware of, the senses are valid, reason is valid, yes believe your hand in front of your face, and if you doubt any of these things then throw your philosophy away or check your premises.
http://www.earlymoderntexts.com/authors/reid
"For, before men can reason together, they must agree in first principles; and it is impossible to reason with a man who has no principles in common with you." One of the first principles he goes on to list is that "qualities must necessarily be in something that is figured, coloured, hard or soft, that moves or resists. It is not to these qualities, but to that which is the subject of them, that we give the name body. If any man should think fit to deny that these things are qualities, or that they require any subject, I leave him to enjoy his opinion as a man who denies first principles, and is not fit to be reasoned with." (Cf. Wikipedia) 
"It is useless to reason with someone who denies the first principles on which the reasoning is based. Thus it would be useless to try to prove a proposition in Euclid to someone who denies Euclid’s axioms. Indeed we ought never to reason with men who deny first principles because they are obstinate and unwilling to yield to reason." (Essay on the Intellectual Powers of Man)
 

NY times had a surprisingly good op-ed by Harvard geneticist David Reich, researcher on "ancient DNA" wherein he makes several points that sound downright Rand-tastic. Some snippets:
institutional discrimination also has a negative impact on I.Q. of populations, which when those factors are controlled (education, economic upbringing, even being adopted and raised by parents who are of a different race), leads to even less substantial difference in even the average I.Q. of populations.
Differences in individuals vary far more widely than populations. Especially with intelligence. 
The key point is that whatever science finds should not affect the way we behave toward one another. Whatever small average differences across groups might exist (and genetic studies have already made it clear that average differences across populations are much less than those between individuals), we are members of a single species, all of whom must be given every opportunity to flourish in every realm.
 “Race” is fundamentally a social category — not a biological one — as anthropologists have shown.
As a society, we are already committed to giving everyone a full opportunity for self-realization — regardless of the particular hand each person is dealt from the deck of life.

https://nyti.ms/2GmRY2n
Of course the mainstream right and left want to "provide opportunity" by coercive legislation, and the postmodern leftists want to provide it by tearing everything down, but ah, we can't have everything can we.

But what's the point of your argument? Let's put aside the data, because none of us are going to agree with the validity of it, there has been enough scholarly criticisms of your viewpoint no one is going to agree with whatever links you're posting.
Suppose there are two people, A and B. A tests a IQ of 120, B tests an IQ of 119. Ergo what? What inferences, in terms of political philosophy, follow from this?

There's a bunch of odd similarities between them, for one they were both in open relationships, the both wrote novels to convey philosophy, they both used amphetamines, were heavy smokers and died of lung disease.
According to Nathaniel Branden, early in her career (perhaps owing to her earlier Nietzchean influences) she one considered naming her philosophy existentialism, but decided against it.
They both have a very minimalist ontology, limited to a few broad descriptive categories. They both uphold the primacy of existence and a kind of conscious intentionality, that is, that consciousness is awareness of objects, and not simply awareness of itself, and both reject the prior certainty of consciousness and the cogito.
Sartre, however, is a phenomenalist in the tradition of Hegel and Heusserl and so upholds a kind of Kantian thing vs thing in itself distinction, though he does believe in the validity of sense perception, although sorta kinda, because the fact that sense perception is limited and fallible counts against them for him and not for Rand. Plus Sartre days a bunch of incomprehensible gibberish like, "consciousness is nothingness," which Rand denies the possibility of.
Apart from that they both stridently believe in free will, but Sartre's is a kind of indeterminist and acausal agency that overrides and literally cancels out the causal reality that underlies it("nihilation".) Rand's is compatible with the law of causality and is a naturalistic faculty at one with biological identity. They both also draw different conclusions, for Rand volition is the startig point of human value achievement, and so undergirds her heroic and optimistic ethical egoism, whereas Sartre pessimistically laments free will, which "condemns" us to make choices and face suffering and failure and navigate a nauseous array of subjective values.
Sartre, in general agrees that reason and science are valid and efficacious, but are cold impersonal, only giving us formal knowledge, but not meaning and purpose in life. But they're both atheists and are searching for meaning and purpose and want to substitute a kind of secular humanism in the place of religion.
Sartre has a lot (more) to say about psychology as well, but I'll cut it short there.
 

There's a bunch of odd similarities between them, for one they were both in open relationships, the both wrote novels to convey philosophy, they both used amphetamines, were heavy smokers and died of lung disease.
According to Nathaniel Branden, early in her career (perhaps owing to her earlier Nietzchean influences) she one considered naming her philosophy existentialism, but decided against it.
They both have a very minimalist ontology, limited to a few broad descriptive categories. They both uphold the primacy of existence and a kind of conscious intentionality, that is, that consciousness is awareness of objects, and not simply awareness of itself, and both reject the prior certainty of consciousness and the cogito.
Sartre, however, is a phenomenalist in the tradition of Hegel and Heusserl and so upholds a kind of Kantian thing vs thing in itself distinction, though he does believe in the validity of sense perception, although sorta kinda, because the fact that sense perception is limited and fallible counts against them for him and not for Rand. Plus Sartre days a bunch of incomprehensible gibberish like, "consciousness is nothingness," which Rand denies the possibility of.
Apart from that they both stridently believe in free will, but Sartre's is a kind of indeterminist and acausal agency that overrides and literally cancels out the causal reality that underlies it("nihilation".) Rand's is compatible with the law of causality and is a naturalistic faculty at one with biological identity. They both also draw different conclusions, for Rand volition is the startig point of human value achievement, and so undergirds her heroic and optimistic ethical egoism, whereas Sartre pessimistically laments free will, which "condemns" us to make choices and face suffering and failure and navigate a nauseous array of subjective values.
Sartre, in general agrees that reason and science are valid and efficacious, but are cold impersonal, only giving us formal knowledge, but not meaning and purpose in life. But they're both atheists and are searching for meaning and purpose and want to substitute a kind of secular humanism in the place of religion.
Sartre has a lot (more) to say about psychology as well, but I'll cut it short there.
 

As you think about this topic, I suggest that you keep in mind the possibility that “race” is simply a mistaken concept, a mis-identification. It’s not like “gremlin”, “unicorn” of “free lunch”, being purely fictitious, but is is sufficiently detached from reality that it needs to be consigned to the intellectual trash heap that also contains phlogiston and epicycles. In its place would be some concept pertaining to human evolution and genetics.
The genetic concept of “haplogroup” is based in objectively measurable fact, and the study of Y-DNA and mtDNA haplogroups has produced some interesting results pertaining to population genetics. (The reason for these 2 groups is that they do not recombine, so Y-DNA gives you good information about the patrilineal line and mtDNA is about the maternal line). In tracing shared mutations, you can come up with something resembling a “family tree” of humans.
There are geographical correlates of haplogroups, where for example haplogroup A appears in parts of Africa especially among the San, who have probably been hanging on in the same spot for tens of thousands of years. Haplogroup A represents the “original situation”, lacking any of the subsequent Y-DNA mutations. And then you start adding mutations, and you check the geographical distribution of that mutation. (Geographical distributions have to be controlled by knowledge of history, for example the Siddi in India were transported from East Africa about 1500 years ago; obviously, Europeans only appeared in the New World a few hundred years ago). There are some surprises there, for example haplogroup B is high frequency in Africa, but also among the Hazaras of Afghanistan, which is surprising since usual racial classifications would have them be Mongoloid. Eventually you will get to haplogroup L-M20 which has high frequency among Tamils and I assume Malayali. It is also frequent (though not as frequent) among Pashtuns. Again, Dravidians can be racially classified in lots of ways, depending on what morphological features you’re attending to; Pashtuns are pretty much standardly classified as Caucasian.
So the problem is that there is a physical reality (a genetic fact, which refers to your ancestry) which however doesn’t match well with any extant theory of “race”. The reason is, simply, that the theory of “race” is based on a false premise of absolute and instantaneous separation of humans – as though God split the human race into 6? groups and instantly transported them to their ancestoral homelands. Instead of race, we have a better concept of haplogroup, which is actually related to genetics. There are very many haplogrops: it is a hierarchical concept.

I am skipping over the various implicit or explicit claims about animal cognition, because they are irrelevant unless the claim is that animals are cognitively the same as humans (a sufficiently ludicrous proposition that I doubt the OP intended that). Instead, I will focus on the problem of the concept “animal rights”. I start by summarizing the nature of and justification for the concept of “rights”, plagiarising in presumably obvious ways from The Virtue of Selfishness, but also from Schwartz’s essay “Free minds and free markets”.
A code of morality is a system of concepts guiding man in pursuit of his values. A right is a moral concept that links legal and moral codes – rights are the means of subordinating spciety to moral law. Evasiveness is immoral, but it is not a violation of rights. A “right” is a focused moral principle which defines and sanctions a man's freedom of action in a social context. The fundamental right is a man's right to his own life, being free to act on his own judgment, by his own uncoerced choice. A man’s rights impose no obligations on others, except to abstain from violating his rights. Where rights come from is important: they are the conditions required by man's nature to survive qua man. Violation of rights would require a man to exist contrary to his nature. How does man survive? Not by strength, camouflage or instinct, but by his cognitive nature – free will (the necessity of choosing), aided by his conceptual faculty and his ability to discover and follow logic. When man lives in a social context (in a rational society), his rights are recognized via legal prohibitions against certain actions by others: the initiation of force. Force refers to physical actions taken by a volitional being to neutralize the choice of another volitional being.
Given this, and since no animal’s nature demands the concept of rights for its survival, the concept of rights is inapplicable to animals. The proffered principle “animals shouldn't be harmed by humans” is not a restatement of the concept of rights, it is a different concept. It may be related in some way to the concept of rights, but it is not rights (just as a cat is not a dog, even though they are related in some ways). To avoid confusion, this concept needs to be clearly identified as a different thing: “animal protection” seems appropriate.
If we are to believe in this moral concept, there needs to be a statement of what the concept objectively is. The most prominent question is, whose standard is applied in judging whether an action harms an animal? Does collecting eggs, milk or wool harm the animal? Is it proper to restrain an animal which intends to leap in front of a car? Does owning an animal harm it? Must an animal consent to being petted? Insofar as animals are utterly incapable of articulating their own judgment on these issues, men must decide on the standard – what is ‘in the interest of the interest of the animal’? What things are to be so protected (and what things do not deserve that protection)? Is it only mammals? Mammals and birds? Does it include fish, insects; plants, bacteria, fungi? If not, why not: that is, what is the essential property of these beings that creates this special relationship with man – imposing certain restrictions on moral actions.
There is no conflict of man’s rights, but there is a conflict between man’s rights and the special privilege “animal protection”. Because men are able to grasp moral concepts and can act in a principled manner, man is capable of respecting the rights of others. When a man does not respect the rights of others, he cannot claim rights for himself. Animals cannot grasp moral codes and cannot be expected to respect the rights of men; when may a man morally defend himself against a violation of his rights by an animal?
If you try to conceptualize moral actions towards animals in terms of “rights”, all you will do is confuse yourself and degrade the concept of “rights”. Let me repeat a point that I made earlier: you have the right to be evasive – and you should not do exercise that right. Every question that I raised above is free of the taint of legal enforcement – I am asking, should I beat my dog, should I kill a rat, should I swat a fly, should I let my dog kill a rabbit, or dig up the neighbor’s yard? These are simple moral questions.
I propose that, for anyone who wants to live the vegan life, that they develop and justify answers to these kinds of questions. If there is a case to be made for overriding man’s nature (to act free from compulsion), then surely the seeds of that argument will be found in a fuller articulation of the vegan moral credo.

Running naked through the park:
Yes you've identified a crucial problem with "public property," that is, property that has no clear owner, there is no way to regulate conflicts regarding its use without resort to arbitrary solutions. Now, Rand describes a free society in which all property is privately owned. But let's make an allowance here for some sort of land as you stipulate.
Private property has its foundations in the Lockean homesteading principle, that which is unowned and I mix my labor with becomes my private property. Note that this doesn't mean all property has one single individual owner, that would be the fallacy of composition. There are of course "group owned" properties and corporate entities allow for a legal method to deal with this.
Legal doctrine has traditionally allowed for some sort of "commons" area or such associated with small towns or villages. A village is built, and there is a small space in the center reserved as a "town square" that people agree is available for general use. Or consider a fishing village near a lake, in the early days of the community it was hard to get to the lake because of all the brush and debris, but the path was slowly cleared over the years and not by any one single effort, but by the combined effort of walking through the path over time. I think there's also records in England of private roads that were built during the 19th Century and then donated to public use (the builders had businesses alongside.)
So there's a public space in each of these, but what is the sense in which it is "public?" Surely it isn't truly "unowned," the village or townsfolk own it. And surely it isn't "government owned," or "owned collectively by the human race" or some such nonsense. It would simply be corporately owned by the actual village and they can set the community standards for their space. Surely I, as an outsider, cannot just come to their square or path and block it off for my own personal use, nor can I start streaking. As to how they go about decision making? They can vote, they can set up a board, they can have meetings, they can take disputes to arbitrators, they can form a homeowners association. They can leave rules real loose, or they can really get down and dirty and decide who the real owners are: Sam, he didn't really clear any brush, and Jones, he was lifting fallen branches every day, Sam gets a single share, but Jones gets a 20% share, whatever. You get the point.
On the last point, pollution: certainly you have to provide proof of harm. And certainly our understanding of what is harmful changes over time. That's why issues are solved through tort law, not legislative law. This specific person harmed this specific person. And multiply it many times for class action suit, even for hypothetical massive cases. Objectivists accordingly view these issues like climate change as scientific issues, not political ones. One looks at scientific evidence, in a court of law, and if the plaintiff proves their case, then the court stops the pollution. Environmental crusaders are always looking for problems to solve, instead of becoming lobbyists and trying to buy influence from politicians, their efforts would be better served in a more Randian society as litigators for the aggrieved. But what Rand was truly opposed to was the ones that claim humanity must subordinate itself to instrinsic value of nature, or that civilization's progress must be stopped.