Greetings, I'm new. Why is there this hatred towards Objectivism?

[TheFerr]

I've been part of the Ayn Rand Society for about a year, now. However, I'm very much interested in hearing the various forms of philosophy.

I never really discovered that Objectivism was correct and that I had a wrong world view. I started thinking many years ago, and came to certain conclusions about egoism what drives decision making, and someone pointed to Objectivism, and it just agreed with everything I was thinking. However, I will be asking many questions, here.

I am also a bit distraught at the prevalence of postmodernism, and how so many philosophy students are difficult to talk to, because they encrypt their speech in this erudite language that's impossible for anyone outside of their school of thought (and, thus, outside their realm of agreement) to debate.

So, I conclude this summary with a final question: Why is there such virulent hatred towards Objectivism and Ayn Rand? I don't hear that many decent debates against it, and more this general consensus among philosophy students and armchair philosophers to silently agree that the whole philosophy isn't a "real" philosophy, that it somehow lacks rigor, and, in some extreme cases I've heard, that it's outdated and disproven. I see many laypeople understanding Objectivism, while most philosophy students scoff at it as being childish and lacking profundity. It would be easy for a layperson to look at philosophy students and say "Hey, they're probably right, because they've spent years studying the complex issues of epistemology and deontoloy in well-respected universities that are rigorous and have established curricula, while laypeople reading Ayn Rand have not. I only think Objectivism is correct because I have not had time to delve into the deep and sagacious world of philosophy as much as these students and professors have."

I can see that argument making more sense among a scientific profession, whereby the experiments conducted really do require a set of derived skills that have been learned over many years, but I fail to see how this applies 1:1 with philosophy.

Could someone please address my concerns with this? Of course, this is an Objectivist forum, so it might not be entirely unbiased, but if you could be as much of an outsider to it all as you could, it would help me greatly to provide some understanding to this huge antipathy between Objectivism and non-Objectivism.

[softwareNerd]

Welcome to OO.net

As to your question, my guess is that there are two things about Objectivism that trigger the antagonism you describe. Firstly, to most people altruism is morality. Many people will readily agree that one has to be practical and look out for oneself, but they do not identify this as "moral". Many people will also readily agree that not helping people too much actually helps them stand on their own feet: but, here too, the ultimate moral question is "how does this help or hurt other people?" So, when Objectivism comes along saying that selfishness is good, these folks think it is some teaching that helps people rationalize their selfishness (since the idea that selfishness can be moral is viewed the way one would view the flat-earth society).

Secondly, until recently Objectivist writings were almost exclusively addressed to a lay-audience, not to professional philosophers. I assume that many professional philosophers assume it is a shallow pop-philosophy which tries to tackle a few aspects of philosophy without really going too deep.

Edited December 20, 2010 by softwareNerd

[Weston]

I assume that many professional philosophers assume it is a shallow pop-philosophy which tries to tackle a few aspects of philosophy without really going too deep.

Sorry to post my own question, but it's been my (admittedly limited) understanding that Ayn Rand's philosophy stands out among the other philosophies in the fact that it is fully integrated in many various areas of human thought, whereas the philosophical contributions of other notable philosophers have been comparatively limited, i.e. dealing only with metaphysics, or ethics, or epistemology.

An example of this would be Hobbes' materialist philosophy, which as far as I have read is only significantly applicable to metaphysics or possibly also epistemology.

I would argue that Objectivism is the philosophy that deals with all of the aspects of philosophy most concisely and that this is what most "high-brow" philosophers hate about it -- that they consider it an attempt to answer too many things too easily. Am I wrong?

[khaight]

An example of this would be Hobbes' materialist philosophy, which as far as I have read is only significantly applicable to metaphysics or possibly also epistemology.

I would argue that Objectivism is the philosophy that deals with all of the aspects of philosophy most concisely and that this is what most "high-brow" philosophers hate about it -- that they consider it an attempt to answer too many things too easily. Am I wrong?

While it is true that integration across philosophic branches is a strength of Rand's philosophy, and that such 'system-building' is viewed with suspicion by many modern philosophers, I have to take issue with your characterization of Hobbes. Hobbes staked out positions in all the major philosophical branches and tied them together. He is known for materialism (metaphysics), nominalism (epistemology), psychological egoism (ethics) and his support of absolute monarchy (politics).

[khaight]

So, I conclude this summary with a final question: Why is there such virulent hatred towards Objectivism and Ayn Rand? I don't hear that many decent debates against it, and more this general consensus among philosophy students and armchair philosophers to silently agree that the whole philosophy isn't a "real" philosophy, that it somehow lacks rigor, and, in some extreme cases I've heard, that it's outdated and disproven.

I think part of this is simple credentialism. Rand was an outsider claiming to have resolved a number of long-standing philosophical problems -- and her solutions were often radically different from the ideas held by the intellectual establishment. She constructed her philosophy using her own terminology, which can create a problem of translation. And some of her positions, taken on their own, just don't seem to make any sense when transplanted into a more mainstream philosophical context.

Here's an example of what I'm talking about. Rand advocates egoism in ethics -- the view that each individual should pursue his own interests. But mainstream philosophy tends to equate interests with desires, and desires conflict. This means the advocacy of egoism is often taken by mainstream philosophers as the advocacy of doing whatever you want, and that isn't an ethics. It's an abdication of ethics. Rand has a different concept of what a person's interests are, and argues that interests properly understood do not conflict, but without that context her advocacy of egoism just doesn't seem to make sense.

Someone who discovers Objectivism while holding a detailed foreign philosophical context is likely to misunderstand it in ways that make it look simplistic, wrongheaded or even absurd. It probably doesn't help that many college professors encounter Objectivism in the mouths of overconfident freshmen acting like disruptive know-it-alls in introductory philosophy courses. So what you have, from their point of view, is a hash of contradictory and absurd ideas written by an academic outsider, not peer-reviewed, not published in the 'accepted' journals, mouthed by the undereducated and not going away. From that mindset I'm almost surprised they aren't more hostile than they are.

Social reinforcement plays a role here too. With such a poor first impression, why dig deeper when the only immediate reward will be your colleagues making fun of you for your interest in 'that Rand cult stuff'? Better to ignore it and write something you can get published in time for your tenure review.

Objectivists hold some responsibility for this state of affairs too. Attempts to bridge the contextual gap between Objectivism and mainstream philosophy are a relatively recent phenomenon, being driven by the handful of Objectivists holding academic positions. Allan Gotthelf, Tara Smith, Ben Bayer and Greg Salmieri are good examples here. It's a learning process on both sides. Geoff Sayre-McCord, the chairman of the philosophy department at UNC Chapel Hill, is an example of a non-Objectivist philosopher who seems to take Objectivism as a serious intellectual phenomenon, so they do exist.

Finally, from what I hear, things are getting better than they were. Time was that an interest in Ayn Rand was an absolute career-killer anywhere in academia. You had to hide it if you wanted to get a job. That's no longer true.

[Wotan]

Objectivist ideas constitute a radical challenge to current world philosophy and culture. People naturally fear the new and unknown -- especially when it's radical.

[Weston]

While it is true that integration across philosophic branches is a strength of Rand's philosophy, and that such 'system-building' is viewed with suspicion by many modern philosophers, I have to take issue with your characterization of Hobbes. Hobbes staked out positions in all the major philosophical branches and tied them together. He is known for materialism (metaphysics), nominalism (epistemology), psychological egoism (ethics) and his support of absolute monarchy (politics).

I had no intention of denying Hobbes any credit, I'm just severely limited in what I know about philosophy at the moment, so materialism was the only idea of Hobbes' that I'd read of up to yesterday. Thanks for calling me out on that, now Hobbes' philosophy is back on my list of things I should read more on before I talk about!