G.L. Coddington

I'm sorry, but I don't see how. It's not self-evident, and no argument or reasons for why I should accept this have been given; only so much bald assertion. By "direct democracy," I mean "a form of government where law and decision making power are held by all citizens who wish to participate". I contrast this with a "republic," or "representative democracy," where such power is held by a political class. I take it that Rand herself advocated the latter, as someone earlier opined: "A voluntarily-financed constitutional republic, ideally based on Objectivist principles is definitely something Rand advocated." Now, the only difference in principle between a republic and a democracy (as I have defined them) is the number of people who vote on or who have direct power over the making of law. In the former, any citizen who wishes to vote on a matter may do so. In the latter, only a small elite political class may do so. If you believe that the former (but not the latter) "precludes the protection of individual rights," then this certainly requires an argument, because there is no obvious reason why decentralizing voting power should suddenly cause such an effect. All of the predicates which you add to the concept "republic" (e.g., "constitutional," "voluntarily financed," etc.) may just as easily apply to a democracy.

Professor Oden, I have a question about another comment you made. You write: Only a system which necessarily respects individual rights is consistent with Objectivism. It's not clear to me what this means. I don't think you mean that the only form of government which is consistent with Objectivism is one where it would be logically (or nomologically) impossible for that government to ever commit a rights violation. What do you mean by "necessarily"? If you just mean that it is required that the system itself not have rights violations built into the concept as a matter of logical necessity, then I think democracy can get a pass on that one. There is nothing contained within the concept of "some political system where the citizens of a polity directly vote on issues of concern to that polity, rather than relinquishing this decision-making authority to representatives," which seems to logically entail lack of respect for individual rights. I don't think this is what you mean either. I could keep speculating, but maybe you would clear this up for me.

Professor Odden, My symbolic logic is not good at this point. I am familiar with basic concepts of modal and truth-functional logic, however. My understanding from truth-functional logic is that two statements are consistent if it is possible for both to be true at the same time. So, (1) "Smith is a boy" and (2) "Smith is a male" are consistent statements. Additionally, (1) "Smith is a child" and (2) "Smith is a male" are also consistent; there is no logical contradiction in these two statements, and they could both be true at the same time. This seems to be how you're using "consistent" when you write, "Democracy is consistent with fascism: it entails the possibility of fascism. Objectivism is fully inconsistent with fascism, and entails non-fascism." Of course, in this sense, Democracy is also consistent with non-fascism: it entails the possibility of non-fascism. You lose me a little bit on the next part. Are you saying that if concept p is consistent with anything which contradicts concept q, then p is not consistent with q?

Jake_Ellison: I hope that you will understand that, to the lay reader such as myself, your reply seems as wholly inadequate and unworthy of serious response as my naive questions appear to scholars such as yourself. While I do not doubt that I am missing abounding profundities in your replies, and that—contrary to what appears to be your own inability to understand or read my own lengthy points on these matters, some of which seem to bear directly on your claims and concerns—increased time spent in contemplation of your short responses could yield much fruit, I believe that my best course of option is to wait and hope for an exegesis on your work which is accessible to the extreme layman.

This is indeed an interesting question, but note that it has no bearing on whether or not we ought to prefer republicanism or democracy. If neither political system under consideration is incapable of instilling such genuine virtue, and no other known system could accomplish this, then this cannot count for or against either system. We are still left with the question: going by the facts of reality, which system would offer us the most liberty and prosperity? I think that the answer to this question is far less clear than is commonly supposed by many libertarians and Objectivists, and that positions in favor of republicanism often rest on unquestioned, out-dated, and falsified 18th century assumptions.

The above posts can be boiled down to the last posted argument: I don't agree with this. It seems to me that we might rationally reject a logically sound conclusion through understandable ignorance. A belief is rational if it is justified, but justified beliefs are not always true. In some cases, an argument might be logically sound, but we could lack definitive evidence for the truth of one of the premisses. In such a case, a person could still rationally support other logically possible and plausible conclusions which would later turn out to be false.

Re: Steve- Your comments are interesting. I am skeptical that a consistent argument could be put forward showing that democracy (but not a republic) is "inconsistent" with Objectivist principles. I am astonished that you seem to have missed the very next part of my post: In order to avoid equivocation or confusion, when I say "democracy," I mean some political system where the citizens of a polity directly vote on issues, rather than delegating such responsibility to representatives. If by "democracy" you mean specifically a system where 51% of the population has complete tyrannical power over 49%, then I would agree with Objectivist rejection of this concept. However, there are many other forms of direct democracy (consensus democracy, for example), and it's a rather crude straw man to dismiss the entire field by using one absurd conception which none of its advocates support. If you are merely opposed to any system of government by which the majority of the votes in some political body may enact legislation, then I'm afraid that you would also be required to oppose republican forms of government. If you have something else in mind which you believe distinguishes republicanism from democracy (given my loose definition), then you may always produce a post with some actual meaningful (non-glib) content. There are plenty of directly democratic systems which seek to reduce this worry. Consensus democracy is one example. Switzerland provides us with empirical data on this subject; it is probably the most directly democratic system in the world, yet it ranks above more republican systems (such as the United States) in terms of economic liberty (according to the Economic Freedom Index). One common concern is that the poor will vote themselves largess at the expense of the wealthy. While this is possible, we have considerable evidence that republicanism is a failure in preventing construction of safety net programs. If this is one of our concerns, it does not seem to be a concern for which republicanism may claim any significant advantage. Furthermore, the reverse concern (that the wealthy will corrupt the system to create a socialist nanny state for the rich) seems far less likely under a direct democracy. Can there be any doubt that, were it left to the public, the bailouts and nationalizations would never have happened? This particular corruption seems peculiar to republicanism, a concern for which democracy appears to compare favorably. Moreover, the advantages democracy could have in this respect for capitalism seem considerable, and I take it that most of us agree that a more free and laissez faire capitalism is not only more just, but will also lead to greater prosperity. Checks and balances which exist in current republican forms of government may also exist in democratic governments. A study of Switzerland's system can provide you with ideas of some of the many ways this could be accomplished. Another argument for democracy which I find compelling is concerned with the ineptitude, corruption, and uselessness of the political class. I am really uncertain what good they do us, or why we actually need them. That the political class is inept seems obvious. That it is corrupt goes without saying. That it is useless is not a burden of proof which rests on the supporter of democracy; the political class should demonstrate or provide arguments for why we need to give those individuals such extraordinary power and influence over our property and other liberties. If they cannot provide convincing evidence or arguments, then getting rid of them could be a fruitful social experiment. A critical premise in Madison's argument in favor of republicanism (Federalist 10) rested on the assumption that elected representatives would be enlightened and moral individuals who would guide the country with wisdom and objective clarity. Looking at the evidence from the last 200 years of republicanism around the world, I think it's safe to say that this premiss has been thoroughly falsified. All-in-all, I remain unconvinced that republicanism offers any real advantages over democracy when it comes to the concerns of libertarians and Objectivists, and would indeed argue that certain systems of democracy (through decentralization of power and abolition of instruments of federal force), can plausibly be said to offer distinct theoretical advantages.

Searle is another noteworthy moral realist. Like Rand, Searle has a novel and interesting approach for getting around the is/ought dichotomy.

This is not very helpful, I'm afraid. What prevents a democracy from being "organized around the principle of defending individual rights"? By what virtue does a republican form of government offer superior organization in this respect? In order to avoid equivocation or confusion, when I say "democracy," I mean some political system where the citizens of a polity directly vote on issues, rather than delegating such responsibility to representatives. If by "democracy" you mean specifically a system where 51% of the population has complete tyrannical power over 49%, then I would agree with Objectivist rejection of this concept. However, there are many other forms of direct democracy (consensus democracy, for example), and it's a rather crude straw man to dismiss the entire field by using one absurd conception which none of its advocates support.

Re: Jake Ellision, I'm not really sure what you mean. Objectivists could have many "reasons" (if we are using this word in a non-idiosyncratic way) for rejecting logically sound conclusions, and some could even be rational. Again, unless you (and he) are using the word "reasons" in some idiosyncratic or technical sense, your statement suggests that whenever Objectivists are in error regarding the correctness of a logically sound conclusion, the error is brought on by arbitrary and thoughtless grounds (without reasons). It seems very unlikely to me that this is what you mean, given the value Objectivists place on using reason (which entails having reasons) to determine their positions. I really can't think of a way to interpret your comments in a way which doesn't seem obviously false. In fact, Objectivists almost certainly sometimes do reject logically sound conclusions (even the best of them), and they almost certainly have reasons (which I'm sure they consider valid) for doing so. I think that the possibility of Objectivist error quite plainly relates to the subject of how disagreements between Objectivists and scientists might come about, which I take to be the subject of his post. Re: Greebo Everything in your post seems reasonable to me. As I said in my previous post, I already assumed that CMac accepts Objectivist fallibility. I just found it curious that this possibility was not listed for instances of disagreement between Objectivists and non-Objectivist scientists.

Why is Objectivism "incompatible with Democracy"?

Harris does believes that there are objective moral truths which can be known, but his primary value seems to be utilitarian in nature. Moral objectivism is quite common in academic philosophy. A survey of philosophers by PhilPapers found that a majority (56%) describe themselves as "moral realists". The figure is even higher (62%) among specialists in normative ethics. It is not the case that Randians are the only moral objectivists; indeed, it can be safely assumed that they make up only a very small percentage of the academic philosophers who hold the position.

This seems to presuppose Objectivist logical infallibility. While it is clear that such disagreements come about due to the acceptance of "faulty premises or invalid logical conclusions" of scientists, it seems equally possible that this could sometimes be due to the same errors on the part of Objectivists. While I'm sure you accept this, I do find it curious that this obvious possibility is completely absent from your post.