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Roark the dynamiter

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intellectualammo

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Roark the liar tells Wynand "Peter Keating designed it, Gail"

But he couldn't fool him, nor Dominique in that scene.

That's lying and committing fraud.

When Keating went to Toohey about getting Cortlandt initially, Toohey says "Think you can do it?" "If you can, it's yours."

He couldn't. Roark could. Neither would have gotten it without committing fraud.

Keating the liar lied to Toohey and said he designed it, he lied three times to Toohey when Toohey confronted him about it after cortlandt was dynamited by Roark.

That's lying and committing fraud.

So I'm not making it up, Marc K.

It's evidenced in the book. It's indisputable. Both lied and committed fraud.

 

Roark the liar tells Wynand "Peter Keating designed it, Gail"

But he couldn't fool him, nor Dominique in that scene.

That's lying and committing fraud.

When Keating went to Toohey about getting Cortlandt initially, Toohey says "Think you can do it?" "If you can, it's yours."

He couldn't. Roark could. Neither would have gotten it without committing fraud.

Keating the liar lied to Toohey and said he designed it, he lied three times to Toohey when Toohey confronted him about it after cortlandt was dynamited by Roark.

That's lying and committing fraud.

So I'm not making it up, Marc K.

It's evidenced in the book. It's indisputable. Both lied and committed fraud.

If it's in the book, it must be indisputable, and there goes the central principle of Objectivism.

Rand obviously contradicted herself. Who'd have thought?

 

As general principle seeking truth is the most selfish of any pursuits. Honesty is what one knows at any one stage - integrity,

is living in accordance with that in thought, word and deed.

It can't be done by anyone except oneself, so it follows, FOR oneself.

(Just to get the obvious established.)

 

There is a massive gap, perhaps a spectrum, between truth as you know it to be, and which you live by - and the 'duty' to share any arbitrary 'truths' with all and sundry.

At that far end lies self-sacrifice, and ultimately altruism - I think.

The primary, before all other consideration, is to not fake existence to oneself.

The secondary is to not fake existence to another person. "The only moral crime that one man can commit against another,,,and thus shake the concept of rationality in his victim."[AR]

To repeat, one is truthful, foremost as an ongoing commitment to reality's for its own sake, and for one's own sake.

Additionally, being forthright, benevolent and proud of one's knowledge, to share it with interested parties fearlessly.(And very much standing uncompromisingly for one's 'unpopular' principles against possible opposition.)

Unless or until it becomes clear that their queries have the intent of being cynically used against one. Then they deserve nothing but silence in reply.

 

Honesty or dishonesty is not simply a one-off thing. Also, it has context: Eg. Does one answer honestly to a co-worker's questions of your sexual relations with your wife? Do you divulge info about your finances to a casual acquaintance or stranger?

Merely because he or she asked? To do so, sacrifices your main values of wife and finances to the dis-value of someone's prurient inquisitiveness, or harm.

I think Peikoff is spot-on with his privacy argument. Without "faking reality" to them, nobody has "the right to know" what you know. Honesty is not an obligation to others, as much as an obligation to yourself. That the benefit to others of one's virtues automatically follows, is not justification for duty to them.

 

I don't recall all the doings of Howard Roark, but I am left remembering the principle he stood for - which is truth, in his work and in himself. If he lied to defend a greater value, his creation, against a lesser value, the people who he had no respect for - and would destroy him for his selfishness -  I somehow won't be shocked. As some here are.

(Fraud? Was there in existence a rational society of individual rights and objective rule of law in The Fountainhead? No. You are conflating Rand's complete philosophy with one art-work of hers. TF is an end in itself.)

Edited by whYNOT
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That's false. Objectivism does not hold that it is acceptable to lie for the mere sake of privacy. That's not an Objectivist position, but a Peikovian one. Peikoff's views on the subject do not represent the closed-system Objectivist views on the subject.

This is typical of the scum that come from OL: “Nothing Peikoff says represents Objectivism”. Well, to the contrary, nothing I have ever heard Peikoff say has contradicted Objectivism and he is right on this issue too.

More important is your argument style though. Knowing who you affiliate with and sanction at OL I’m sure you advocate the “open-system”. Therefore, you are arguing using a position you don’t actually accept as true. You know what this means right? It means that if you ever had any integrity it is gone now. Not surprising -- when you affiliate with and sanction dishonest, intentionally misleading scum, you become what you admire.

 

 

The only circumstances under which Rand's actual Objectivism accepts lying is when one is being faced with the threat of initiation of force (for example, someone wielding a gun breaks into your house and ask where the children are, and you lie to him that they're not home when in fact they're hiding in the next room).

You’ll excuse me if I don’t take your word for it. Provide a quote.

 

 

Roark and Keating were not being threatened with the initiation of force when being asked which of them designed Cortland.

Of course they were, look what happened: Roark’s designs were stolen.

 

 

And not only that, but lying to members of the press (Wynand and Toohey) about one's involvement in a publicly-funded work of art-architecture doesn't qualify as the type of situation that Peikoff was talking about when promoting his idea of acceptable "privacy lies." Being asked by a prominent publisher or cultural critic if one is the creator of a publicly funded project is nothing like being asked by an office gossip if one is sleeping with Suzi.

Wrong. Roark is not required by any rational principle to participate in his own destruction. One of the main plot-themes of the book is that Toohey is out to destroy Roark (you remember that part of the book don’t you?) and by the end so was Wynand. Neither was a party to the contract and so had no standing to be given an answer.

 

 

False. Roark and Keating intentionally and actively hid Roark's involvement in the project from everyone, including the owners.

Again, provide a quote referencing the owners; Toohey doesn’t count.

 

 

The fact that the owners received value has no relevance to whether or not Roark's actions were immoral. The same is true of any other example of fraud: People received value when purchasing Van Meegeren's paintings which they thought were Vermeer's, and people who purchased Milli Vanilli albums got more value from them than they would have gotten if Rob and Fab had actually sung on them instead. None of which changes the fact that putting forth one's own work as someone else's is fraudulent.

Every time I mentioned fraud I was talking in the legal sense. If you now want to switch contexts to the colloquial sense in which lying to the office gossip or those out to destroy you counts as fraud, then that is a different discussion.

In the legal sense harm or damage is required to prove fraud. Roark provided an invaluable service to the owners of Cortlandt and got nothing in return. There is no fraud.

 

 

False. People have the right to associate with whomever they choose, and to not associate with whomever they choose. They have the right to hire a Howard Roark, and they have the right to not hire a Howard Roark.

You are wrong. This is a bit of a technical issue but very important to the understanding of Rights. Fundamentally, Rights are about protecting actions proper to life; life requires action, not inaction. Inaction is the anti-life, inaction is the essence of death. In thinking about and enumerating what is right it is crucial that Rights be described as Rights to action. There is no such right as the right NOT to take action, this is a contradiction and defeats the very principle of Rights.

I know though that libertarians don’t care about fundamentals so I guess you’ll just have to resign yourself to remaining ignorant on this issue.

On the “Question of Scholarships” I would suggest that you reread Rand's views on the subject more carefully because you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. Every sentence you have written on the subject directly contradicts what Rand said. For instance, you say:

Additionally, Rand's view was that one cannot aid an improper government action, either in thought or in action, when recuperating one's stolen wealth. In other words, it would be immoral for, say, a writer to take a position with government in which she is required to use her writing and marketing talents to promote government projects which should not exist. The same is true of an architect using his talents to provide solutions to public housing projects which should not exist.

This is NOT Rand’s view. She said: “The principle here is as follows: it is proper to take the kind of work which is not wrong per se, except that the government should not be doing it, such as medical services; it is improper to take the kind of work that nobody should be doing, such as is done by the F.T.C., the F.C.C., etc.”

Another requirement of working on an improper government project or accepting a scholarship is that: “Those who advocate public scholarships have no right to them; those who oppose them have.”

This is quite clear and yet you use it to bash Roark:

He also explicitly states his moral objections to the existence of such government projects, but then proceeds to act against his own stated morality by working on it.

If this isn’t lying it most certainly is intentional mischaracterization (which, of course, is lying). I suppose it could be ignorance and you haven’t actually read the article but then you’d be lying about that.

I suppose you think we shouldn’t drive on the roads, use the public schools, collect social security, use money, etc. What you are espousing above might be the libertarian view but it is not Rand’s.

 

 

Roark was not recuperating anything that was stolen from him.

Of course he was. Are you saying Roark paid no taxes? How could you know that?

 

They did not get what they wanted. They wanted a building designed by Keating and not by Roark. Additionally, Roark did not have a contract with them which stipulated that he would get what he wanted, […]

They wanted a building “designed” by Keating (wink, wink, we know how architecture firms work); they got what they wanted. Roark had a contract with Keating. Again, it is done all the time.

 

 

No, it's not a lie. Are you claiming to know my mind better than I do? In order to call my statement a lie, you would have to be claiming to know that I am intentionally telling a falsehood. Do you think that Objectivism holds that you can know such things about my state of mind?

You are a liar. How do I know? Your history. Yes, Objectivism holds such things, read “Night of January 16th”. People in the real world do it all the time, in court even.

 

 

Anyway, the fact that Keating approached Roark for help is irrelevant.

It is only relevant to establish that you are a liar and will lie if it supports your version.

 

Roark himself states that he is aware that no committee, public or private, will hire him. Therefore they have made it clear to him that they will not hire him.

No, that does not follow. All the owners had to do, if they were so concerned (which they weren’t) was put it in their contract with Keating.

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That's lying and committing fraud.

So I'm not making it up, Marc K.

It's evidenced in the book. It's indisputable. Both lied and committed fraud.

You had acquiesced on this subject previously. You agreed that neither Wynand or Toohey were parties to the contract and thus lying to them didn't constitute fraud in the legal sense.

I guess after reading Jonathan's further mischaracterizations you have changed your mind again. Have you done any of your own thinking on the subject?

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No need for all that. We simply have to value what we're after enough that we're willing to "do the time" if caught, that's all. Then it's moral egoism.

I find it reprehensible for a moderator to participate in the kinds of tee-hee, second grade, back and forth, bullying tactics used by Jonathan. By participating in them, you are endorsing them. You should be ashamed of yourself.

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My inclination is that Marc is right (though I'm unfamiliar with Peikoff's arguments) that a person may be morally deceptive in service to some sort of privacy -- though I've never really thought deeply about the subject, let alone argued it, so I'm open to debate on that score.

 

Peikoff's position is that it is moral to lie to protect one's privacy from "snoopers." In other words, it's acceptable to lie when one is merely uncomfortable with the nature of the question, such as an office gossip asking, "Are you sleeping with Suzi?" It is a category of lying in which the threat of the intition of force is not present.

Lying for the sake of privacy -- rather than answering with statements like, "That's none of your business," "How rude of you to ask me such a personal question," or, "I'm not going to contribute to your desire to gossip by dignifying your tasteless question with a response one way or the other" -- can only be based in valuing what the questioner will think of you. If you look up Rand's thoughts on honesty, and the passion with which she expressed them, you'll see that her philosophy of Objectivism rejects the mindset of valuing others' opinions and judgments so much that one is willing to fake reality to either gain their approval or avoid their condemnation. Nowhere does she advocate what Peikoff advocates in regard to "privacy lies."

I agree with Marc on the one point that there is a condition under which lying is acceptable according to Objectivism: when one is being threatened with the initiation of physical force. And only then. But Marc also added the mere protecting of one's privacy as a condition under which it is acceptable to lie, and that is not the Objectivist position, but a Peikovian departure from Objectivism. Marc was defending the notion of having a right to lie in the absence of the threat of the initiation of force (since he was applying his concept of privacy lies to Roark, who was not facing threats of the initiation of force). If Marc or anyone else wishes to put forth the positive claim that Rand held the belief that Objectivism holds that it is acceptable to lie for the sake of one's privacy in the absence of threats of physical force, then let them support their position with quotes from Rand. I cannot prove a negative.

 

But let's say that Roark and Keating were fraudulent in dealing with Cortlandt, and not merely protecting Roark's privacy, however we'd otherwise regard that. Would it still be possible that such fraudulent dealings might be morally justified?

 

No, at least not in the context of the novel. Roark was not being threatened with the initiation of force, and his dishonest actions were not committted to subvert any threats, but for the purpose of gaining access to a project that he wanted to work on despite knowing that he wouldn't be hired.

 

If a Nazi came to one's door, demanding information on whether Anne Frank was in the attic, of course it would be moral to lie. But if one was living in a Nazi state, would one ever be under a moral obligation to tell the truth to the government?

 

Of course not. In living in a Nazi state, one would be constantly facing the threat of the initiation of force, and therefore Rand's concept of moral lying would apply.

 

Would defrauding the Nazis not generally be a response of force, rather than an initiation? And if that's the case, could that same sort of rationale possibly apply to Cortlandt?

If Roark had lived in a Nazi-like state, then I would say that, yes, defrauding the government would be acceptable, but only if Roark went into the project with the intention of giving them an inefficient design which ran over budget and drained their resouces (or something to that effect). But Roark wasn't living in a Nazi-like state, and he gave the govenment his best, and he was motivated by the personal enjoyment of the challenge, not by a desire to relatiate against initiators of force. His reason for hiding his involvement from the owners of the project was not to protect himself from having force intitiated against him, but to deny them their right to not hire him.

Roark was not facing a persecatory government. Throughout the novel, the evil that he was dealing with came from private (non-government) sources. He was being smeared and toyed with by Toohey and the Banner. He didn't take advantage of the justice system. When sued for his design of the Stoddard Temple, the plaintiff offered detailed arguments and called multiple expert witnesses to testify that Roark was incompetent, that he had been expelled from school, that he was arrogant beyond his abilities, and that his temple was not a temple by any definition of the term, but an insult to God and man. Roark, on the other hand, made no statements, questioned no witnesses, raised no objections, countered no arguments, and, when the verdict went against him, he made no attempt to appeal. He chose not to take advantage of the justice system.

The only thing he did at that trial was to present the judge with photos of the temple. Unfortunately, photos of a work art are not an argument. An artwork is open to different interpretations. Based only on the objectively observable content of a work of architecture, different people can come to different judgments of its meaning. A tall, narrow building could be seen by one person as representing an invitation to mankind to rise, another viewer could see it as an intimidating mass designed to make mankind feel small and powerless, and another could see it as a vulgar phallic symbol representing a misogynist mindset. Purely objectively speaking, none of them would be wrong to hold those views.

In doing nothing but presenting the judge with photos of the building, Roark was apparently unrealistically expecting that any rational judge must interpret the temple's design as Roark interpreted it. He was mistaken. Architecure is an abstract art form, and cannot be treated as if it presents a single, self-evident meaning. That which "does not re-create reality," as Rand said about architecture, cannot be expected to take the place of a well-reasoned argument in a court of law.

In short, Roark neglected to make use of justice. The justice system had no option but to rule against him. And it -- the government -- cannot be said to have been persecuting Roark by ruling against him in the Stoddard case.

J

 

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The primary, before all other consideration, is to not fake existence to oneself.

The secondary is to not fake existence to another person. "The only moral crime that one man can commit against another,,,and thus shake the concept of rationality in his victim."[AR]

 

Okay, so here we have you saying that it is a "moral crime" to "fake existence to another person." But that is the very contention with regards to Roark and Cortlandt, is it not? That he hid his involvement purposefully, so that they would believe something false, and do things they otherwise would not do on that basis -- i.e. believe that Keating was the architect responsible, and select his plans.

 

I find it reprehensible for a moderator to participate in the kinds of tee-hee, second grade, back and forth, bullying tactics used by Jonathan. By participating in them, you are endorsing them. You should be ashamed of yourself.

 

I disagree. I have argued against whYNOT's "version" of moral egoism at some length, in this very thread, and now I feel free to address it satirically, just as I have.

And let's please not indulge in the "endorsing" game? I "endorse" things, when I do, in a straightforward manner. Or, if we'd like to play (for, again -- it is a game, and beneath us), I guess my comeback would be something like... in arguing against my use of humor at the expense of whYNOT's arguments, you are endorsing his arguments. You are claiming along with whYNOT that the Objectivist Politics are simply "man-made rules" that may be morally ignored at the discretion of a "moral egoist." You are also defending the claim -- and the target of my satire -- that whYNOT has made, that an action is moral (even when an initiation of force) if the agent values the result of that action strongly enough that he's willing to suffer the retaliation of force. (I know you haven't read the thread thoroughly, but such are the claims that have been made, and against which I continue to respond. I can provide the references, if you need them.)

But except for playing that game, I wouldn't hold you responsible for whYNOT's claims, despite your taking up his standard in the manner that you have.  Neither do I consider myself responsible for Jonathan's claims -- as I've already told you -- despite the fact that, yes, we are all here talking.  (And I'll note here that you initially claimed that you wouldn't be dealing with Jonathan -- perhaps to avoid "endorsing" him as a person worth talking to? -- and then immediately started dealing with Jonathan.)

 

In any event, I'll only hold you responsible for the claims that you actually make. And in this case, I believe that you're wrong, and no, I'll not feel shame for mocking that which both bears it and needs it.

 

Peikoff's position is that it is moral to lie to protect one's privacy from "snoopers." In other words, it's acceptable to lie when one is merely uncomfortable with the nature of the question, such as an office gossip asking, "Are you sleeping with Suzi?" It is a category of lying in which the threat of the intition of force is not present.

Lying for the sake of privacy -- rather than answering with statements like, "That's none of your business," "How rude of you to ask me such a personal question," or, "I'm not going to contribute to your desire to gossip by dignifying your tasteless question with a response one way or the other" -- can only be based in valuing what the questioner will think of you. If you look up Rand's thoughts on honesty, and the passion with which she expressed them, you'll see that her philosophy of Objectivism rejects the mindset of valuing others' opinions and judgments so much that one is willing to fake reality to either gain their approval or avoid their condemnation. Nowhere does she advocate what Peikoff advocates in regard to "privacy lies."

 

I'm not advocating lying to gain approval or avoid condemnation, but I still think there might be...

Suppose someone at the office asks whether I'm sleeping with Suzi, and I don't want to respond with something like "none of your business," because I know that kind of response will not end the conversation, but will provoke further conversation? Suppose I don't particularly care about my coworkers' moral judgement of me, but I simply don't want to participate in that sort of intimate conversation with them -- and I know that to answer in any way other than a simple denial will be received as an invitation to harass me further? Suppose I just want to get on with my work?

 

If Roark had lived in a Nazi-like state, then I would say that, yes, defrauding the government would be acceptable, but only if Roark went into the project with the intention of giving them an inefficient design which ran over budget and drained their resouces (or something to that effect). But Roark wasn't living in a Nazi-like state, and he gave the govenment his best, and he was motivated by the personal enjoyment of the challenge, not by a desire to relatiate against initiators of force.

 

That's interesting.

You know, your response here reminds me strongly of "The Bridge on the River Kwai," which, if I recall correctly, also ended in dynamite...

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This is typical of the scum that come from OL...

 

Have you ever watched old 70s episodes of professional wrestling? When one of the wrestlers would just barely committ a very minor infraction, the referee would scold him mercilessly and penalize him, but whenever the other wrestler would blatantly break a major rule, the ref would always just happen to be looking away? I still enjoy laughing at that kind of thing.

 

“Nothing Peikoff says represents Objectivism”.

 

I know of no one at OL who has said that nothing that Peikoff says represent Objectivism. I certainly haven't taken that position.

 

Well, to the contrary, nothing I have ever heard Peikoff say has contradicted Objectivism and he is right on this issue too.

 

I'm very open to changing my mind on the subject, to admitting to any errors that I may have made, and to apologizing for any mistakes. If you or anyone else will provide quotes from Rand in which she accepts "privacy lies" as morally acceptable in the absence of threats of the initiation of force, I will be more than happy to alter my views on the subject.

 

More important is your argument style though. Knowing who you affiliate with and sanction at OL I’m sure you advocate the “open-system”.

Guilt by association?

 

Therefore, you are arguing using a position you don’t actually accept as true. You know what this means right? It means that if you ever had any integrity it is gone now. Not surprising -- when you affiliate with and sanction dishonest, intentionally misleading scum, you become what you admire.

 

That's false. Your conclusion doesn't logically follow, and for several reasons. First of all, you don't actually know my position on the open versus closed debate. Second, even if I didn't accept closed-system Objectivism, it doesn't logcically follow that I'm being dishonest in challenging your interpretation of it. I could be saying that even by closed-system standards, Peikoff's views do not represent Rand's version of Objectivism. Third, you can't condemn me as being dishonest when you accept privacy lies as morally acceptable. You haven't proven that any dishonesty that you're accusing me of is not moral due to its being committed for the sake of protecting my privacy.

 

You’ll excuse me if I don’t take your word for it. Provide a quote.

As is true of all other people, due to the nature of logic, I cannot prove a negative. Rather, the burden is on you to prove that Rand accepted privacy lies as morally valid in the absence of threat of the initiation of physical force.

 

Of course they were, look what happened: Roark’s designs were stolen.

 

That's not what happened in the novel. It is an objective fact that Roark's designs were not "stolen." He submitted them willingly and eagerly though his co-conspirator in fraud.

 

Wrong. Roark is not required by any rational principle to participate in his own destruction. One of the main plot-themes of the book is that Toohey is out to destroy Roark (you remember that part of the book don’t you?) and by the end so was Wynand. Neither was a party to the contract and so had no standing to be given an answer.

 

But they were parties to the contract. They were taxpayers, and the taxpayers were funding the project. They were the owners. Apparently you've taken the mistaken position that the board which represented the owners were the only people who were a party to the contract? If so, you're in error.

 

Again, provide a quote referencing the owners; Toohey doesn’t count.

 

Do you understand how the building process works? Architects present their drawings to the owners of project. When Roark told Keating to redraw Roark's drawings so that no one would recognize Roark's drawing style, his purpose was to prevent those who would see the drawings -- the owners -- from identifying Roark's drawing style. His purpose was specifically to hide his involvement from the owners.

 

Every time I mentioned fraud I was talking in the legal sense. If you now want to switch contexts to the colloquial sense in which lying to the office gossip or those out to destroy you counts as fraud, then that is a different discussion.

 

I didn't switch context. In my comment directly above to which you're responding, I made no mention of office gossips, but only to fraud in the legal and moral sense. I referred to the cases of Van Meegeren's forgeries and Milli Vanilli's scam.

 

This is NOT Rand’s view. She said: “The principle here is as follows: it is proper to take the kind of work which is not wrong per se, except that the government should not be doing it, such as medical services; it is improper to take the kind of work that nobody should be doing, such as is done by the F.T.C., the F.C.C., etc.”

 

Nobody should be providing government housing to the poor. Forcing people to pay for others' housing is just as wrong "per se" as forcibly regulating the airwaves.

As for the rest of your comments, they've either already been addressed and refuted completely, or they're nothing but personal attacks based on your emotion-based false assumptions about me, and therefore not worthy of my response.

J

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Jonathan, that is an error concerning the Objectivist ethics. Rand's discussion of the virtue of honesty in Galt's speech and in "The Objectivist Ethics" does not oppose lying for reasons of privacy. In Peikoff's 1976 lectures The Philosophy of Objectivism, with which Rand concurred, Peikoff noted that (i) deception to protect one's own values is consistent with not gaining values by deception and (ii) not volunteering the entire truth is not a lie. Rand was sitting right there and added a caveat to (ii) which had arisen in the Q&A. Perhaps Rand took a view in contradiction with the rightness of lying to protect one's privacy (in the sense of shielding the intimacies of personal identity from knowledge of others) earlier in her development of Objectivism; as I recall, there is a somewhat more simple-minded (more Kant-like) view of lying proclaimed in N. Branden's The Basic Principles of Objectivism. Certainly, her final, most mature position was better tuned to a morality of rational self-interest. At no time in the years before '76 did I construe Rand's discussions of honesty to entail that were I to lie or be ambiguous about particulars of my romantic life to an employer I would be placing the consciousness of the person to whom I was lying above the judgment of my own mind. That would have been a reading of Rand not mine, but one by fools or by her detractors idling on the shallow end of the pool. (As you may recall, I am myself a critic of Rand's theory of honesty, but giving her a charitable reading and getting to genuine problems, in deeper waters.)

 

If Peikoff's view that it can be right to lie to protect one's privacy were an innovation in the Objectivist theory of the virtue of honesty, then it would be a good one.

 

 

As I said to Marc in my last post, "I'm very open to changing my mind on the subject, to admitting to any errors that I may have made, and to apologizing for any mistakes. If you or anyone else will provide quotes from Rand in which she accepts 'privacy lies' as morally acceptable in the absence of threats of the initiation of force, I will be more than happy to alter my views on the subject."

 

J

 

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.

Telling the truth in post-revolutionary Russia about the identity of your parents was not necessarily in one's self-interest; no school, no job, no ration. And fifty years ago, answering an employer's query "Do you have a girlfriend?" in a gender-truthful way or answering "It's none of your business" would rarely, if ever, have been in my self-interest.

 

 

Post-revolutionary Russia would qualify as a context in which the threat of the initiation of force was present.

 

As for not answering the question about having a girlfriend, Objectivism holds that an employer may refuse to hire anyone for any reason. Objectivism holds that an employer even has the right to be irrational in his hiring choices: He may be a Christian and a racist who refuses to hire atheists, people of certain skin colors, and homosexuals, and even those who just slighly disagree with him on any subject. According to Objectivism, one has the right to not work for him, or to go into business for oneself and to compete with him. One does not have the right to lie to him and knowingly deny him his right to hire or not hire whomever he wishes for whatever reasons he wishes.

 

J

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Lying for the sake of privacy -- rather than answering with statements like, "That's none of your business," "How rude of you to ask me such a personal question," or, "I'm not going to contribute to your desire to gossip by dignifying your tasteless question with a response one way or the other" -- can only be based in valuing what the questioner will think of you.

J

This is simply false. I am constantly asked questions by representatives of the government and I assure you that if my response was "how rude" or "none of your business" things would not go well for me. I tell them what I know the "right" answer is. Not because I care about what they think of me but because declining to answer is not an option and the truth is truly none of their business. Most people I know who are business for themselves feel the same. You should be wary of such sweeping generalizations.

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Suppose someone at the office asks whether I'm sleeping with Suzi, and I don't want to respond with something like "none of your business," because I know that kind of response will not end the conversation, but will provoke further conversation? Suppose I don't particularly care about my coworkers' moral judgement of me, but I simply don't want to participate in that sort of intimate conversation with them -- and I know that to answer in any way other than a simple denial will be received as an invitation to harass me further? Suppose I just want to get on with my work?.)

There are other options. Tell them to F**k off. Report them to your employer for wasting company time gossiping and harrassing you, and preventing you from doing your work. Honestly, when someone is being a prying pain in the ass to me, I can't imagine what it would be like to feel the need to lie to them to get off my back. And I would say, with all due respect and politeness, that if you're the type of person who needs to lie in such cases, you probably need to work of communicating to people what your personal boundaries are, and to educate them on the type of very unwanted response they'll get from you if they intrude past those boundaries. The fact that lying is easier than establishing those boundaries doesn't make it moral by Objectivist standards.

 

J

Edited by Jonathan13
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This is simply false. I am constantly asked questions by representatives of the government and I assure you that if my response was "how rude" or "none of your business" things would not go well for me.

 

That would qualify as an example of lying in the face of threats of initiation of force. What I'm opposing -- what I'm saying is not a tenet of Objectivism -- is lying for the sake of privacy in the absence of threats of the intiation of physical force.

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That would qualify as an example of lying in the face of threats of initiation of force. What I'm opposing -- what I'm saying is not a tenet of Objectivism -- is lying for the sake of privacy in the absence of threats of the intiation of physical force.

I can still think of tons of examples where one might lie for privacy, not a desire to please, rather tell someone to fuck off absent threats of physical force.

A lot depends on how much time you spend around people you'd rather not be around.

If your work has you in constant contact with the public you'd be amazed how many strange personal questions you get asked where it is simply less stressful to state a simple untruth than to infuriate someone.

So looking at rational self interest I would say that if the thing you are lying about was none of the persons' business to begin with their imposition on you gives you the moral highground in diffusing the situation in whatever way is most convenient for you.

That said, I still rarely would lie for this reason for the simple fact that I find it unpleasant, but I would feel morally justified in doing so.

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So Jonathan (#185), we should not seriously weigh whether, as David Kelley has argued, benevolence should be a major virtue of the Objectivist ethics, unless we first find Rand saying it is?

 

I'm saying that by closed-system Objectivist standards, Rand must have said something in order for it to qualify as Objectivism. But I'm also saying that by both open and closed-system Objectivism, my view is that "privacy lies," in the absence of threats of physical force, are not moral.

 

#186: Revealing to the employer that you were not straight in the State I lived in those days would have you in trouble with the law.

Then that would be an example of lying in the context of facing the threat of the initiation of force.

 

Overwhelmingly the employers and others in positions of power in those days were bigots.

 

Private employers have the right to be bigots. You don't have the right to use force to prevent them from being bigots.

 

Gradually we fixed that. The idea that I denied a bigoted employer his right to hire whom he pleased, then the next bigoted employer his right to hire whom he pleased, then . . . may be your understanding of rights and their violation (really?), but it is not the view of Objectivism on violation of rights nor on the morality of honesty.

 

Actually, I've quite accurately represented the Objectivist view here. Objectivism holds that private individuals have the right to hire and fire based on any reason, most definitely including irrational reasons like race, sexual preference and beliefs.

 

J

Edited by Jonathan13
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I can still think of tons of examples where one might lie for privacy, not a desire to please, rather tell someone to fuck off absent threats of physical force.

A lot depends on how much time you spend around people you'd rather not be around.

If your work has you in constant contact with the public you'd be amazed how many strange personal questions you get asked where it is simply less stressful to state a simple untruth than to infuriate someone.

 

I guess that's what the issue comes down to: Why avoid infuriating someone who is being an intrusive jackass? Why fake reality rather than anger a pest?

 

J

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That would qualify as an example of lying in the face of threats of initiation of force. What I'm opposing -- what I'm saying is not a tenet of Objectivism -- is lying for the sake of privacy in the absence of threats of the intiation of physical force.

With this answer you have conceded the point about Roark since as you say the owners of Cortlandt were the government. Thus he could lie to them (not that I'm convinced he did but according to you). Does that end this discussion?

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I am thinking the issue of whether Roark committed fraud comes down to this:
Cortlandt was a government housing project.
It would seem that Objectivism in most cases would argue that a government that is a rights violator as opposed to a rights protector need not be obeyed.
That the project was a forcible government redistribution program would seem to make fraud against it impossible as it was the original initiator of force.
This seems to be to be a logical justification for Roark's "fraud" to build the project.

Where romanticism vs naturalism comes in is in the over the top nature of blowing it up.
That Rand finds a moral justification in Roark's taking the work through dishonesty no more means that she think blowing up buildings is the first course of action than she would say breaking in to a woman's bedroom and smacking her around is the best way to get sex.

 

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With this answer you have conceded the point about Roark since as you say the owners of Cortlandt were the government. Thus he could lie to them (not that I'm convinced he did but according to you). Does that end this discussion?

 

 Actually, as I stated earlier, the taxpayers were the owners of Cortlandt. The taxpayers were not initiating force against Roark. They were not threatening him in any way. His lying to them was not motivated by the purpose of using the lie to avoid their use of intiatory force. He lied to them for the sole purpose of not allowing them the right to not hire him.

 

J

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No, Jonathan (last paragraph of #192), you have not accurately represented the Objectivist view of the morality of honesty. And the proposition of the second sentence in that paragraph is not in dispute nor what is novel in your view: that by withholding any personal information about yourself on which an employer might like to discriminate, you violate his right to discriminate. 

 

But I haven't taken the position that withholding information is immoral, but only that lying in answer to an employer's questions is immoral. One is pefectly free to say, "I won't answer that question. It's personal."

 

J

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 Actually, as I stated earlier, the taxpayers were the owners of Cortlandt. The taxpayers were not initiating force against Roark. They were not threatening him in any way. His lying to them was not motivated by the purpose of using the lie to avoid their use of intiatory force. He lied to them for the sole purpose of not allowing them the right to not hire him.

 

J

I think you just got caught in your own net Jonathan.

If "the taxpayers" owned the building and the jury was made up of by his "peers" (fellow taxpayers) and they then found him innocent of blame then you have to admit that "the taxpayers" who owned the building agreed with what he did, hence no victim.

Edited by SapereAude
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Actually, as I stated earlier, the taxpayers were the owners of Cortlandt. The taxpayers were not initiating force against Roark. They were not threatening him in any way. His lying to them was not motivated by the purpose of using the lie to avoid their use of intiatory force. He lied to them for the sole purpose of not allowing them the right to not hire him.

What a joke this answer is, you can't actually believe that it represents the truth and that is why it is useless to talk to you: you lie.

"The taxpayers" didn't come to Keating, a committee of government officials did (are you sure you've read the book?). In this country the taxpayers qua taxpayers are represented by the government.

But, OK, let's say "the taxpayers" are the ones who came to Keating. If so then "the taxpayers" as represented by the jury acquitted Roark. Thus they didn't think he did anything wrong. Checkmate. Are we done yet?

 

 

 

Edit: Yes SapereAude it seems we are duplicating our efforts. That's OK it will probably be required.

Edited by Marc K.
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I find it reprehensible for a moderator to participate in the kinds of tee-hee, second grade, back and forth, bullying tactics used by Jonathan. By participating in them, you are endorsing them. You should be ashamed of yourself.

 

I wasn't talking about you and whYNOT. I was talking about your little tete a' tete with Jonathan in which I was mentioned and derided, which is what I quoted last time. I expect it from Jonathan but not from you and certainly not from a moderator.

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I think you just got caught in your own net Jonathan.

If "the taxpayers" owned the building and the jury was made up of by his "peers" (fellow taxpayers) and they then found him innocent of blame then you have to admit that "the taxpayers" who owned the building agreed with what he did, hence no victim.

 

No, twelve individuals which made up the jury found him to be not guilty. First of all, we don't know that all twelve of them had paid taxes to support the project. Secondly, even if all of them had paid taxes, they, as twelve individuals, do not have the right to speak for all other taxpayers. When I mentioned that the taxpayers were the owners of Cortlandt, I was identifying them as a group of individuals. As such, they are not a fungible collectivized entity whose judgment and rights are represented by any random fraction of its members. In other words, if you and I are both taxpayers, and you, as a jury member, vote to acquit a Howard Roark, it does not logically follow that there was no victim, because you do not speak for all other taxpayers, including those like me whose property he destroyed. The fact that you may be willing to forgive his destruction of your forced contribution to the project does not give you the right to forgive his destruction of my and others' forced contributions to the project.

J

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