A Short Drive From Contradiction To Morality

[dream_weaver]

Listening to the ’76 lectures, Ayn Rand was answering a question on contradiction (Lecture 6: 2h:23m:40s) where she made the distinction on the fact that they do not occur in reality, rather they occur in the mind. She offered the oft’ cited two objects cannot occupy the same place at the same time, following up immediately with the consideration of two automobiles heading toward each other at a high rate of speed. What results is an accident, that is, destruction. At the beginning, she addressed the question of a mind attempting to hold a contradiction as a state of mental deterioration. (Paragraph paraphrased.)

But my thoughts soon started wandering the way they often do
While I drove on down the highway with not much else to do
 
The onus of proof principle bubbled to the forefront, perhaps from trying to integrate the earlier question on focus and concentration (2h:09m:45s) and the devil’s advocate question (2h:15m:20s) with contradiction.

One of the tenants we are losing in America is the notion of “innocent until proven guilty”.  The “onus of proof” here, rests on the bedrock that a man is innocent until proven guilty (proof that a crime [assertion of the positive] has been committed.)  (Recently touched upon in Reblogged:A Setback for the Merry Men of the IRS?)

Karl Poppers theory of falsification is one contribution that plays a role in this inversion of justice. It takes the eye off the ball of “how do we know this is true”, and supplants it with “we can use it for now since it hasn’t been proven false yet.”

Periodically, I do a Google search on “Ayn Rand” selecting “News” in the result page. It no longer astounds me that articles from Salon.com appear within the results claiming how Ayn Rand was wrong regarding this, that, or the other thing.

These have not been proof that an error has been committed. Proof, as Dr. Peikoff has elaborated in Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, is the process of adhering to providing evidence for a positive. In fact, trying to provide “proof” for a negative (X is not true) tries to subvert the rules of proof, by demanding evidence for that which, in fact, does not exist.

Evidence, as I am to understand it, is provided by the senses, and can only be derived from that which is indeed factual, that which exists, which is to say: that which is right.

To assert Miss Rand is wrong, the “onus of proof” principle lay on “he who asserts the positive”, which would be to provide proof that something other than what Ayn Rand had asserted was right. This would proceed from providing a clear, correct evidentiary conclusion which could then be shown to be a contradiction when contrasted against something she had written.

Error is not the primary. Error presupposes non-error. Understanding what is right provides the ability to recognize when something is not right. Miss Rand did this brilliantly in Atlas Shrugged. She identified a proper morality. She then used it to contrast with improper morality. In so doing, she also established a great pattern for distinguishing right from wrong. In this sense, it was a profoundly moral thing for her to have done.

Thank-you.