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Roark the dynamiter

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intellectualammo

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I would have made a legally binding contract and if the building was not built the way seemed in said contract, I would seek restitution, resolution in court. Not blow it up. If I could not obtain a legally binding contract, I would then rethink doing it altogether.

There is no dichotomy between what he did in the novel or if someone did the same thing in our own world,in that it is both legally and morally WRONG.

What were the charges brought against him? It doesn't say. That he blew it up? He did. He said so. He should have been convicted, but the jury let him walk (note: I am not criticizing the jury) None of it makes sense inside the story, or if someone were to do the same thing outside of it, like IRL.

Edited by intellectualammo
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I would have made a legally binding contract and if the building was not built the way seemed in said contract, I would seek restitution, resolution in court. Not blow it up. If I could not obtain a legally binding contract, I would then rethink doing it altogether.
Wouldn't have made much of a story though.
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It doesn't make much of a story to me, since he did.

I'm very glad I reread it recently. I have only read it once in my early twenties, I'm in my early thirties now. I'm doing a lot more critical thinking about her works, I didn't think anything of the like before, in regards to this particular book.

Edited by intellectualammo
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A legally binding contract, if such were possible, would have had to be with the building's owners, not with Keating. He is in no position to make committments for his clients. Suing a government agency is notoriously difficult.

 

My informal but extensive study of architecture makes me skeptical that such a contract could even make sense. I can't help thinking that this is why nobody makes them. The architect sells a service. The notion that he can set the terms on which a paying client may accept this service is hard to credit, although we read in the closing pages of the novel that Roark is making such deals. Methinks it was wishful thinking left over from Rand's unfortunate experiences on Broadway a few years earlier.

 

The posters here have missed a lot by not sitting back and letting Rand's stories take them where the stories will.

Edited by Reidy
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And, I suppose Clint Eastwood should be trying to start a dialog with the bad guys, or -- at the very least -- trying to bring them in without injuring them!

 

Why would you suppose that? Intellectualammo isn't taking the position that the Objectivist Ethics is wrong, that bad guys aren't bad, or that we should be all touchy-feely-kumbaya towards evil people, but that the character of Howard Roark, as presented in The Fountainhead ultimately behaves immorally. That he does so is an objective fact of reality, and the Objectivist Esthetics demands that Intellectualammo make the judgments that he's making. He is dealing with the conundrum of ethical and aesthetic clashes within the novel, and navigating those waters is complex enough without people being sarcastic in response to his questions and explorations.

 

SoftwareNerd, do you take the position that Roark behaved morally in blowing up the building project? Do you think that he was practicing the Objectivist Ethics when conspiring to commit the fraud of passing off his work as someone else's, to actively hide his involvement in the project from its owners because he knew that they did not want to hire him, and to work on a government-funded project which he felt was morally improper in the first place?

 

J

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So...you're a dog breeder who sells a man a dog, to find out that he's severely starving and beating it.

But he refuses to sell it back to you - you break in one day and steal the dog. You know the penalty for theft,

and suffer the consequences.

 

So, you're an artist of high integrity, who receives a large commission for a sculpture for a new building.

You design a work, the finest of your life, representing an ideal you esteem.

After it's erected, you discover it's being violated - desecrated - by, dunno, having been turned into a

monkey enclosure or something. The corporation's lawyers claim they can do what thay wish with it.

Would you destroy the sculpture, and face the consequences?

 

What i'm seeing here is the attempt to squeeze a normative, conventional morality into rational selfishness.

It cannot be done. Also, something illegal may be moral.

Edited by whYNOT
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The posters here have missed a lot by not sitting back and letting Rand's stories take them where the stories will

I did that apparently in my first read as I did not look at it as critically.

And he could still of have some contract with Keating that could be legally binding. Keating of course would probably or should have legally binding contracts with the others. Roark could have insisted upon that even, if Keating was not willing to, then no designing it, or letting Keating put his name on it. Etc.

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So, you're an artist of high integrity, who receives a large commission for a sculpture for a new building.

You design a work, the finest of your life, representing an ideal you esteem.

After it's erected, you discover it's being violated - desecrated - by, dunno, having been turned into a

monkey enclosure or something. The corporation's lawyers claim they can do what thay wish with it.

Would you destroy the sculpture, and face the consequences?

Fuck no!

I wouldn't get into a violent rage over it, be angered by it, or mad, or even upset. It became their property. They have the right to do what they want to to it. That all presupposes that I would have even of done the commission though.

And in your other example, if I knew about what was happening to the dog, no fucking way would I break and enter and take dog. I'm not going to prison for that. Some things may be worth doing time for, that however to me, is not worth it. This presupposes that I'd even be a dog breeder, which I wouldn't be.

Edited by intellectualammo
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Well The Fountainhead obviously sank like a lead balloon in your view.

 

It is nothing, if not an accolade to a man's integrity to his self and to his creations - and you invoke property

rights?!

 

How do you think Objectivist property rights are derived?

What is their sole purpose, if not to defend "man's integrity to his self and to his creations"?

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Again, there are things worth doing time over. Destroying a sculpture that is no longer my property, or breaking and entering to rescue/steal a starving dog, are definitely not worth me doing time over.

You gave me two examples involving a decision of whether or not to violate property rights and I choose not to. It is not in my rational self-interest to and its also unlawful to do so. Do you think I in any way misapplied Objectivism in my decision? That my decision is immoral?

Intellectualammo isn't taking the position that the Objectivist Ethics is wrong

Correct. Edited by intellectualammo
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:


 

 


 "That all presupposes that I would have even of done the commission though."

[...]

"This presupposes that I'd even be a dog breeder, which I wouldn't be."

:)

D'ya think maybe you suffer from a surfeit of literalism? (Do you read much fiction?)

 

You could PM me all your details:  profession, etc - and I will design specially for you a tailor-made,

custom-built scenario you CAN relate to. At no charge.

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Again, there are things worth doing time over. Destroying a sculpture that is no longer my property, or breaking and entering to rescue/steal a starving dog, are definitely not worth me doing time over.

You gave me two examples involving a decision of whether or not to violate property rights and I choose not to. It is not in my rational self-interest to and its also unlawful to do so. Do you think I in any way misapplied Objectivism in my decision? That my decision is immoral?Correct.

 

Again, there are things worth doing time over. Destroying a sculpture that is no longer my property, or breaking and entering to rescue/steal a starving dog, are definitely not worth me doing time over.

You gave me two examples involving a decision of whether or not to violate property rights and I choose not to. It is not in my rational self-interest to and its also unlawful to do so. Do you think I in any way misapplied Objectivism in my decision? That my decision is immoral?Correct.

Nope, I suspend judgment on your decision because I don't know where your values lie.

Can you not suspend judgment on Roark - i.e. Ayn Rand - as well?

(Even given that you do know where his - her- values lie?)

 

Self-sacrifice is giving up a higher value for a lesser, or no value. I don't know what your values are, so I can't

know what you should do. What would you willingly go to prison for? Non-sacrificially?

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If you can't answer my last question (even privately to yourself) concerning

your own highest values, and to what extent and extreme you would go to protect them, then you are always going to misunderstand Howard Roark and TF.

Then I agree, it is going nowhere I'm sorry to say.

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Nope, I suspend judgment on your decision because I don't know where your values lie.

Can you not suspend judgment on Roark - i.e. Ayn Rand - as well?

(Even given that you do know where his - her- values lie?)

 

Self-sacrifice is giving up a higher value for a lesser, or no value. I don't know what your values are, so I can't

know what you should do. What would you willingly go to prison for? Non-sacrificially?

 

Tony,

In your most recent posts, you seem to be taking the position that if a person is willing to do the time, then his crime wasn't immoral. If I sell a work of art to someone who then alters it (since it's his property and he can do with it what he chooses), and then I break into his house and destroy the defaced artwork, you appear to believe that I would be behaving morally because I value the artwork in its original state and oppose its alteration so much that I am willing to go to prison over it. Is that your position?

 

If so, should we also apply the same principle to all other choices? For example, if a person values the act of sexually dominating other people so much that he is willing to go to prison for raping them, wouldn't you say that rape to him is therefore a high value, and it is therefore moral?

 

J

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Tony,

In your most recent posts, you seem to be taking the position that if a person is willing to do the time, then his crime wasn't immoral. If I sell a work of art to someone who then alters it (since it's his property and he can do with it what he chooses), and then I break into his house and destroy the defaced artwork, you appear to believe that I would be behaving morally because I value the artwork in its original state and oppose its alteration so much that I am willing to go to prison over it. Is that your position?

 

If so, should we also apply the same principle to all other choices? For example, if a person values the act of sexually dominating other people so much that he is willing to go to prison for raping them, wouldn't you say that rape to him is therefore a high value, and it is therefore moral?

 

J

Jonathan: To your first paragraph - definitely! IF that's your higher value.

(Actually, you beat me to it, since I was considering formulating a speculative 'scenario' directed at you: artist with integrity, and so on...) How would you respond to your own scenario, I'm interested to know?

Just so we're clear, is there any doubt now what Rand deliberately demonstrated with

Roark? A man not above the law, by any means, but answerable only to himself as individual.

I agree with her fundamental moral intent.

Moving away from romantic fiction, I have some values I'd protect or sustain to extremes, despite the uncomfortable probability of punishment.

Don't we all?

Professional integrity - or family and friends - or you name it.

Individual rights are derived from morality - not, morality from the Law.

Your next question about a rapist might not deserve to be treated as "arbitrary", or a non-sequitur.

But its premise is arbitrary - that the subjective whim of a violent rapist is comparable with the objective values of a rational egoist. There's more, but I'll have to think on it.

Edited by whYNOT
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Jonathan: To your first paragraph - definitely! IF that's your higher value.(Actually, you beat me to it, since I was considering formulating a speculative 'scenario' directed at you: artist with integrity, and so on...) How would you respond to your own scenario, I'm interested to know?Just so we're clear, is there any doubt now what Rand deliberately demonstrated withRoark? A man not above the law, by any means, but answerable only to himself as individual.I agree with her fundamental moral intent.Moving away from romantic fiction, I have some values I'd protect or sustain to extremes, despite the uncomfortable probability of punishment.Don't we all?Professional integrity - or family and friends - or you name it.Individual rights are derived from morality - not, morality from the Law.

You're advocating the initiation of force. The issue isn't one of taking a moral action "despite the uncomfortable probability of punishment." The issue is that you are proposing taking immoral actions despite the uncomfortable probability of just and deserved punishment. Contrary to what you say, Roark was indeed a man above the law. He perpetrated fraud and then initiated force when he didn't acquire the value that he had hoped to gain by perpetrating the fraud.

Your next question about a rapist might not deserve to be treated as "arbitrary", or a non-sequitur.But its premise is arbitrary - that the subjective whim of a violent rapist is comparable with the objective values of a rational egoist. There's more, but I'll have to think on it.

Well then let's construct the scenario more to your liking. Let's say that your rational objective standards and judgements have led you to fall in love with a woman, and you want to experience the ultimate joy and value of having sex with her. She doesn't want to have sex with you, so, according to your theory of answering only to the individual rather than silly laws, you would have the right to rape her if you were willing to do the time for the crime.

You appear to have completely misunderstood the Objectivist Ethics. It seems that you've very unsuccessfully tried to derive an Objectivist Ethics from the events in The Fountainhead rather than from reality or from Rand's non-fictional writings on the subject.

J

Edited by Jonathan13
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You're advocating the initiation of force. The issue isn't one of taking a moral action "despite the uncomfortable probability of punishment." The issue is that you are proposing taking immoral actions despite the uncomfortable probability of just and deserved punishment. Contrary to what you say, Roark was indeed a man above the law. He perpetrated fraud and then initiated force when he didn't acquire the value that he had hoped to gain by perpetrating the fraud.

Well then let's construct the scenario more to your liking. Let's say that your rational objective standards and judgements have led you to fall in love with a woman, and you want to experience the ultimate joy and value of having sex with her. She doesn't want to have sex with you, so, according to your theory of answering only to the individual rather than silly laws, you would have the right to rape her if you were willing to do the time for the crime.

You appear to have completely misunderstood the Objectivist Ethics. It seems that you've very unsuccessfully tried to derive an Objectivist Ethics from the events in The Fountainhead rather than from reality or from Rand's non-fictional writings on the subject.

J

You're advocating the initiation of force. The issue isn't one of taking a moral action "despite the uncomfortable probability of punishment." The issue is that you are proposing taking immoral actions despite the uncomfortable probability of just and deserved punishment. Contrary to what you say, Roark was indeed a man above the law. He perpetrated fraud and then initiated force when he didn't acquire the value that he had hoped to gain by perpetrating the fraud.

Well then let's construct the scenario more to your liking. Let's say that your rational objective standards and judgements have led you to fall in love with a woman, and you want to experience the ultimate joy and value of having sex with her. She doesn't want to have sex with you, so, according to your theory of answering only to the individual rather than silly laws, you would have the right to rape her if you were willing to do the time for the crime.

You appear to have completely misunderstood the Objectivist Ethics. It seems that you've very unsuccessfully tried to derive an Objectivist Ethics from the events in The Fountainhead rather than from reality or from Rand's non-fictional writings on the subject.

J

You're advocating the initiation of force. The issue isn't one of taking a moral action "despite the uncomfortable probability of punishment." The issue is that you are proposing taking immoral actions despite the uncomfortable probability of just and deserved punishment. Contrary to what you say, Roark was indeed a man above the law. He perpetrated fraud and then initiated force when he didn't acquire the value that he had hoped to gain by perpetrating the fraud.

Well then let's construct the scenario more to your liking. Let's say that your rational objective standards and judgements have led you to fall in love with a woman, and you want to experience the ultimate joy and value of having sex with her. She doesn't want to have sex with you, so, according to your theory of answering only to the individual rather than silly laws, you would have the right to rape her if you were willing to do the time for the crime.

You appear to have completely misunderstood the Objectivist Ethics. It seems that you've very unsuccessfully tried to derive an Objectivist Ethics from the events in The Fountainhead rather than from reality or from Rand's non-fictional writings on the subject.

J

"Initiation of force", is not a moral argument: that's libertarian.

The NIOF principle is a derivation of ethics, not a morality in and of itself.

Otherwise, it's a floating abstraction.

You may read countless threads here on: Is it moral for a shipwreck survivor to come ashore

on a private island against the owner's resistance, using force if necessary?

Is it moral to break into a closed pharmacy for medicine for your desperately sick child?

Anyone who claims they wouldn't is advocating self-sacrifice ...if they value their and their

child's life, that is. And if they don't, if they fear (value) the repercussions greater, it is not self-sacrifice. Just immense immorality.

Do you know Rand's principles of rational selfishness? That man is an end in himself?

If you do, frankly, I find it disingenuous to take my examples of a rational egoist's

highest values - and the (non-violent, non-sacrificial) extent he might go to uphold and protect them - and make comparisons with a rapist. Come on! You know better.

"A value", Objectively, has a distinct identity.

It is not what anyone feels like, a subjective wish or desire.

Edited by whYNOT
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Tony,

In your most recent posts, you seem to be taking the position that if a person is willing to do the time, then his crime wasn't immoral. If I sell a work of art to someone who then alters it (since it's his property and he can do with it what he chooses), and then I break into his house and destroy the defaced artwork, you appear to believe that I would be behaving morally because I value the artwork in its original state and oppose its alteration so much that I am willing to go to prison over it. Is that your position?

 

If so, should we also apply the same principle to all other choices? For example, if a person values the act of sexually dominating other people so much that he is willing to go to prison for raping them, wouldn't you say that rape to him is therefore a high value, and it is therefore moral?

 

J

Are you here addressing whether all laws are inherently moral?

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You're advocating the initiation of force. The issue isn't one of taking a moral action "despite the uncomfortable probability of punishment." The issue is that you are proposing taking immoral actions despite the uncomfortable probability of just and deserved punishment. Contrary to what you say, Roark was indeed a man above the law. He perpetrated fraud and then initiated force when he didn't acquire the value that he had hoped to gain by perpetrating the fraud.

Well then let's construct the scenario more to your liking. Let's say that your rational objective standards and judgements have led you to fall in love with a woman, and you want to experience the ultimate joy and value of having sex with her. She doesn't want to have sex with you, so, according to your theory of answering only to the individual rather than silly laws, you would have the right to rape her if you were willing to do the time for the crime.

You appear to have completely misunderstood the Objectivist Ethics. It seems that you've very unsuccessfully tried to derive an Objectivist Ethics from the events in The Fountainhead rather than from reality or from Rand's non-fictional writings on the subject.

J

do you actually equate the current understanding of the idiom"having sex with.." to rape?

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"Initiation of force", is not a moral argument: that's libertarian.The NIOF principle is a derivation of ethics, not a morality in and of itself.



Who said that the NIOF principle was a morality in and of itself? I certainly didn't.

Otherwise, it's a floating abstraction.



Um, are you saying that any time that anyone brings up the idea that it is immoral to initiate force, they must formally present philosophical justification of the NIOF principle, otherwise they are libertarians who believe that NIOF is not derived from ethics but is a morality in and of itself? I don't think that Rand was that tedious. She often referred to the NIOF principle without feeling the necessity to recite its entire philosophical basis.

You may read countless threads here on: Is it moral for a shipwreck survivor to come ashore on a private island against the owner's resistance, using force if necessary?



No, it is not moral. It is never moral to violate someone else's rights. Regardless of the situation or the emergency, you never acquire the right to another's property. You may find yourself in the unfortunate circumstance of needing to violate someone's rights in order to save your own life, but doing so never becomes your right, and you are morally obliged to make amends for violating others' rights.

Is it moral to break into a closed pharmacy for medicine for your desperately sick child?.



No. See above.

Anyone who claims they wouldn't is advocating self-sacrifice ...if they value their and their child's life, that is. And if they don't, if they fear (value) the repercussions greater, it is not self-sacrifice. Just immense immorality.

 

You're confused. Your needs or desires don't give you the right to others' property. My recongition that others don't owe me anything just because I value it and need it is not an example of my advocating "self-sacrifice."

Do you know Rand's principles of rational selfishness? That man is an end in himself??


I think the problem is that you're trying to expand the ethics of emergencies to non-emergency situations. You're equating emergency situations in which people's lives are in immediate danger with situations in which they are not. You are treating Roark's destruction of others' property as if it is the same thing as saving a sick child's life. Clearly, Roark's life was not at stake. He wasn't saving himself or a sick child by destroying the building project. He did it for mere aesthetic reasons. And he wasn't planning on making amends for his violations of others' rights.

If you do, frankly, I find it disingenuous to take my examples of a rational egoist's highest values - and the (non-violent, non-sacrificial) extent he might go to uphold and protect them - and make comparisons with a rapist. Come on! You know better.



Look, you've been rather whimsically and selectively trying to apply the ethics of emergencies to non-emergency stituations, so there's not an actual principle guiding your position, and therefore it could just as whimsically be applied to the rape scenario. The rapist desperately wants or needs the sex, just as Howard Roark desperately wanted and needed to work on the building project despite the fact that he was opposed its having been funded by government, despite the fact that he knew that the projects owners did not want to hire him, and despite the fact that he was not in an emergency situation.

If an artist values his work, he has several options to guard it against destruction or defacement. He can keep it to himself. He can can enter into a contract with those who wish to purchase it which stipulates what they may or may not do to it (Roark did not have such a contract with Cortland's owners), etc.

If an artist sells his work, those who purchase it become its owners, and they can do whatever they wish with it that they are contractually allowed to do. It's their property, and the money that they paid to acquire it is the artist's property. He has no more right to destroy the artwork as they have to destroy the money that they paid him.

"A value", Objectively, has a distinct identity. It is not what anyone feels like, a subjective wish or desire.



I agree, which is why the subjective wish or desire to control what happens to a work of art after one has sold it to someone else is irrational. Wishing or desiring to use someone else's property because one needs it, or because one's child needs it, doesn't make it right. Whimsically feeling that one wants to experience the fun of the challenge of working on a government building project without the owners' knowledge of one's involvement, and then wishing to blow it up for purely aesthetic reasons, is not the act of objectively pursuing objective values.

J

 

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