Dante

I would argue that they did not. Under a complete account of well-being, including psychological health, a healthy moral character, and material wealth, the only way to achieve "the good life" is by treating others as individuals to be traded with, rather than subjects to be ruled. The paranoia and psychosis alone, which is run-of-the-mill for "successful" dictators, should give one pause in saying that they lived well. It's not a question of whether the ruler or the subjects lives better in a dictatorship, but whether either of those lives can truly compete with the life of a free man who interacts with others as equals, as trading partners, as independent valuers. In truth, they cannot.

Yes, that is incorrect. Ayn Rand's moral philosophy is focused around the task of providing a moral code appropriate to helping individuals fully and consistently pursue their own lives. As such, many of the virtues in her moral philosophy are not primarily about relations with others at all (e.g. rationality, productiveness, pride). Those virtues that are only important in a social context (e.g. justice) are still valid by virtue of the fact that they play an essential role in an individual achieving his or her own well-being. There is no role for 'collective well being' in the Objectivist ethics. Now, rights are certainly a political concept, and Rand's politics is focused on the question of what sort of social system allows individuals to achieve their own well-being, so in that sense rights are part of a moral code that a society should implement for the sake of the people in that society. However, if we're talking about individual moral decision-making, for Rand that is always focused on the well-being of the individual doing the choosing.

My point is that the term "Muslim leader" can be used in several different ways, and I think it's pretty clear from the context of Obama's statement that he meant that Osama was not a mainstream leader in the Islamic religion. I do not know, but I see no reason to play the no-true-Scotsman game with Osama's Islam creds. The point is that this question is irrelevant to the issue of whether he is widely regarded by Muslims as a leader of their faith in general.

The claim in the Obama quote you object to is that he was not a leader of Muslims in general, in the same way that Jim Jones (from your above comparison) was not a leader of Christians in general, but rather a leader of a Christian cult which most other Christians would recoil from. EDIT: Hmm, apparently, although Jim Jones claimed to be the reincarnation of Jesus, he also claimed to be the reincarnation of Gandhi, Buddha, and Lenin. Even so, a hypothetical leader of a Christian cult could not be honestly construed as a "Christian leader" in a general sense.

It's true that if you're looking for principles and values with no reference to context, you won't find them in Objectivism. However, there is a huge difference between the Objectivist view and the pragmatic view that there are no absolutes in morality, that rules are just guidelines, and in any particular case we might well find that the rule or principle doesn't work. Objectivists view moral principles as contextually absolute. This means that, in order to form principles, we look at the fundamental facts about certain contexts. The principles that we draw from those fundamental facts apply in an absolute sense whenever that context obtains. We might draw an analogy between the scientific principle that water boils at 100oC. This principle depends on certain conditions being true: we are in Earth's atmosphere at 1 atm of pressure. However, if these conditions are met, we do not have any doubt about whether the principle holds true. Within that context (Earth's atmosphere, 1 atm of pressure), the principle is absolute. This view is certainly an unusual alternative to most common ways of thinking about morals and principles, and it takes some familiarizing, but I believe it is the correct view to take.

Okay, but we need to add a bit more context to this question to have an intelligible answer. First of all, in a truly emergency situation, one can be justified in violating property rights. For instance, if I find myself lost and alone in the wilderness with no food, and I come across a vacant cabin with food and shelter, I should not allow myself to starve to death on the principle of property rights (although I would be obligated to make restitution for what I took when I get out of the emergency). In that sort of context, one should take the food. However, if we're talking about someone who lives their life this way, living hand-to-mouth through thievery, then they have many more alternatives than simply perpetuating this lifestyle or dying. In that context, this question poses a false alternative. Ultimately, they will be much better off either standing on their own two feet or even depending upon voluntary charity. An act of theft that they commit in this state is simply a perpetuation of an immoral lifestyle, one which the individual should change as soon as possible. In this kind of situation, where one is stealing in the normal course of life, outside of a true emergency scenario, this violation of others' property rights is most certainly wrong, and also a bad mode of living for the thief.

It is indeed not a literal contradiction to sacrifice others while refusing to sacrifice yourself, and that is not the correct reasoning to support the notion that we should not sacrifice others. The basis of that notion is the contention that no good can come from human sacrifices for anyone, that predation does not work to advance the predator's life in the long term. "Rational self-interest" is actually a much more complicated animal than most people suppose, and often the course of action which seems to be "obviously" self-interested is actually self-destructive. That is the case with taking advantage of other people. This principle is known as the "harmony of rational interests" in Objectivism. For more of the reasoning behind why predation is self-destructive and self-defeating, you should check out the threads that softwareNerd linked above.

Here's another predation thread I just came across (21 pages long, I'm sure there's some good stuff in there): http://forum.ObjectivismOnline.com/index.php?showtopic=1204

I love John Allison. I've seen him speak twice now; he's a great speaker and has an amazing ability to convey Objectivist ideas accurately and positively. He's also crazy smart and very knowledgeable. I can't wait.

I'd also like to add some additional clarification to that last paragraph you quoted. The "with no cost to himself" was absolutely essential to that hypothetical. In reality, there is never no cost to oneself, and the task of balancing the cost of helping and the benefit from being benevolent is a matter of the individual examining his own hierarchy of values. Because of this, it is not generally possible to determine whether the rich person's spending and giving decisions are virtuous without knowing more of his personal value context; whether he is sacrificing his values or adhering to them.

In a world where "helping the underprivileged" is synonymous with simply giving to others on the basis of how much they need it, I'm not surprised that he explicitly rejects that as a valid concern. Giving with reference to desert (for example, giving only to those who genuinely intend to get to a position of standing on their own two feet) is the only form of giving that actually helps anyone. I wouldn't interpret his worded rejection of helping the underprivileged with an absolute indifference to the welfare of others in general. Simply stating that "needless suffering of innocents should be alleviated," is not an accurate characterization of Rand's views. She was always very careful to consider the subject of any proposed moral duty; should be alleviated by whom? The point is that figuring out the best way to help others is not the primary concern of morality at all; figuring out how to live our own lives to the fullest is. To the extent that you want to help others, you should be deliberate and conscientious in doing so, but you should not take all the suffering out there in the world as imposing a moral duty on you; you should feel comfortable with asserting the importance of your own desires. Thinking of every moment you spend doing things that make you happy as a moment you could be spending helping others is no way to live life. Again, matters to whom? We all want to live in a more prosperous, freer world, but this does not mean that we should take the misfortunes of the world as moral impositions on our own lives. Life should be primarily about pursuing one's own personal values. Also, welcome to the forum.

It's not about overcoming empathy, but about recognizing which actions will actually serve to achieve the goal of helping others and fulfilling one's empathetic desires. Oftentimes the actions which seem obvious to take to help someone are not genuinely helpful; the challenge is not to crush one's desire to help them, but to conceptually identify what will actually help them and what will not, and to act through on that judgment. For instance, when Francisco decides to allow Rearden to buy copper from his company, we can see his struggle to tell Rearden that he should not (because there actually is no copper in the San Sebastian minds). That struggle occurs because he wants to spare Rearden the pain of taking major losses for his company, but Francisco is able to keep in mind the fact that ultimately, helping Rearden means letting Rearden's company collapse. He doesn't crush his empathy, he simply channels it into the correct actions. This is the part that you're reading wrong; see my post above. In this hypothetical, where he has a sure way to genuinely help others with no cost to himself, he would not be virtuous if he did not take it (either he doesn't have the right attitude towards others, vis a vis the harmony of rational interests, or he is failing to act on his values, vis a vis integrity). However, your second paragraph more accurately reflects reality, although I certainly wouldn't argue that every single instance of helping others that's not done through promoting a free society is doomed to fail. That's overgeneralizing a bit, but the fundamental point is that charity is not a proper way to support another's life over the long term; charity should primarily be about helping people who are in some sort of extraordinary or emergency situation, who will be able to support themselves if they are helped out of their immediate emergency situation. A sort of "helping others help themselves" applied consistently.

First of all, you have bought into a misinterpretation of what Rand meant by the lack of an ability to consider others. In short, Roark is unable to consider the judgments of others, not the welfare of others. A major theme of the book is second-handedness, which essentially means living one's life according to the opinions and judgments of others. Keating, the ultimate incarnation of this phenomenon, makes all his decisions based on currying the favor of others or fulfilling their expectations, and finds that his life is empty and meaningless, because it is fundamentally selfless. Roark, on the other hand, is the antithesis of this, because he doesn't have "the ability to consider others," meaning he is unable to consider the judgments or opinions of others in living his life. Magazine reviews of his buildings have absolutely no impact on his opinion of his own work; he is completely secure in his own decisions. It is in this way that he is unable to consider others. It is demonstrably false that he is unable to consider the welfare of others, as shown by any number of actions that he takes (involving the woman he loves in his detonation of Cortlandt for the sake of saving the night watchman, for example). In every one of Rand's admirable characters, we see instances of benevolence and concern for the welfare of others; this is a result of their moral egoism. By contrast, the villains who practice altruism explicitly find that as a result they do not care for the welfare of others. Also, for the Hickman thing, if you carefully read that journal entry, you can see that she never refers to the adult, psychopathic Hickman as a "beautiful soul;" rather, she calls him a "degenerate" and a "monster." What's happening in that journal entry is that she is fantasizing a possible backstory for Hickman (as part of thinking about a short story) where a young Hickman comes into the world as a proud, independent, individualistic person who encounters a society completely inimical to these characteristics. This kind of society plays a major role in his becoming a monster, in her theoretical history. Look carefully; all positive references to Hickman are actually to this hypothetical young Hickman, pre-psychopath. References to the actual adult serial-killer Hickman are strongly negative. She would not commend an attitude of complete indifference towards the welfare of others, but she would certainly commend someone who defended the view that they can be a moral person without giving to charity. Giving to charity is a matter of personal values, and people can vary a great deal in those. Every time she addresses the subject of charity, you can see that her primary concern is not judging the act of charity itself but emphasizing that it is not the core of morality, that it is a matter of personal values, which must be laid upon a solid foundation of egoism. She was concerned with this issue of guilt as a symptom of the altruist ethics which pervades our modern world. It is this same altruistic ethics which acts to mire major regions of the world in poverty. The solution to poverty and suffering is not charity, but egoism, production, capitalism. The rich man's guilt for not helping others and poverty and suffering are not opposing concerns, but symptoms of the same phenomenon.

http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/definitions.html Go to the third to last entry, from ITOE p.52, for a bit more on the subject.

Welcome to OO.net, Jeff. I hope this site helps you to better understand those beliefs and what Objectivism has to say on the matter.

Well, it is a dictatorship that executes drug traffickers, so there is that. Criticism aside, it's obvious you've given this a lot of thought, and I wish you luck with it.

Well, just a note on that, that rule is meant to prevent people coming to this site simply to proselytize those kinds of viewpoints. You don't have anything to worry about from stating (or defending) some view that contradicts Objectivism. I was just relating your ideas to Objectivism, should you be interested in looking into that further, and I hope this site helps you in further understanding Objectivism

Man, that F.A. Hayek. He just loved the mathematical economics.

Your ideas have some similarity to Objectivist ideas about perception and concept formation, but you're leaving significant parts out. In short, differentiating objects from one another is not enough. Perception gives us discriminated entities, and we need to use both differentiation (between different objects) and integration (between similar objects) in order to form concepts from our perceptions. It is important not to focus exclusively on just differentiating objects from one another, because that is only half of the picture. Things come to us already discriminated as distinct objects in perception, and we use both their similarities and their differences in grouping them into concepts.

Precisely. The phenomenon of people moving away from regions with high taxes or cumbersome regulations is quite different from the phenomenon in Atlas Shrugged of philosophers giving up and becoming fry cooks. In any society short of outright socialism, doing that is going to actually be a sacrifice for most people.

There are plenty of smart people out there who write on Objectivism. Other than publicizing these works as much as possible, which is something ARI should already be doing, there's not much more they could or should be doing to sell Objectivism to other smart people. Objectivism should stand or fall on its arguments and reasoning, not on who is presenting them.

It's sad to see Bayes' Theorem misunderstood and abused in this way.

Ron Paul Announces Presidential Run If nothing else, him running again will bring the issue of the Federal Reserve's interference in the economy more to the forefront. That was probably the most beneficial result of his last run, in my mind at least.

There is a difference between optimism and utopianism. Objectivism as a philosophy gives compelling reasons for optimism and excitement for the future, because it is indeed a reason-based, life-affirming philosophy which explicitly identifies the type of morality and government under which men can flourish. It also maintains that the universe is generally hospitable and open to value achievement a la the benevolent universe premise. Objectivism thus has reality on its side and I do believe this is cause for a great deal of optimism. However, there is a stark difference between this form of optimism, which is based in the facts of reality and the features of the Objectivist philosophy, and a utopianism which neglects the facts of reality. The factual basis for optimism that I have outlined only goes so far. Despite the positive features of Objectivism, it is still not widely accepted or even widely known, and the political views of the average person are pretty bad. There is no widespread recognition of the importance of absolute individual rights, or the moral sovereignty of the individual over his or her own life. In order to act effectively to achieve our values in the world, we need to acknowledge these facts and also which courses of action they render ineffective. If we do this, our optimism will be inspiring and beneficial because it results from a realistic look at the world. If we fail to do this, utopianism will cripple us, rendering our attempts to change the world ineffective. I think that the fundamentals of a rational philosophy based on moral individualism need to permeate our culture to a much greater extent before significant and lasting political change can arrive. Eventually, this will happen, because these ideas are correct and valuable, but we are not at that point yet, and we need to recognize that in charting a course forward.