How evil is Toohey compared to Gail Wynand?

[JMeganSnow]

If you're looking for real-world examples of power-lusters reversing their decisions, read Ominous Parallels by Dr. Leonard Peikoff. He quotes and cites a lot of material written by such historical power-lusters as Hitler where Hitler explicitly detailed that it was necessary to always keep changing the rules in order to maintain authority. It's really quite horrible to read.

It's not a baseless assertion--the examples are many and varied.

[Dante]

I was wondering how your description of your concept formation that leads to your assertion of a generalization about power seekers squares with Objectivist epistemology. And, of course, this is a question that may be addressed by whomever wishes to address it.

According to my understanding of Objectivist epistemology, it squares. Every logical step in the formation and elucidation of concepts does not need to be related back to percepts (let alone sensory information); one must just be sure that the first step originates in sensory information and that logic is applied correctly from there. Thus, taking a higher-level concept (such as a power-seeking individual) and applying logic to it (what the possible motivations could be, and what the outcome of an individual acting on those motivations would be) is perfectly acceptable. If I've always only seen people eat food on tables, and then I wonder whether one could also play poker on a table, I can determine that directly from the concept of "table," without thinking about the specific tables I observed to form the concept.

Edited August 2, 2009 by Dante