Ayn Rand was a moral absolutist
What is a moral absolutist and why do you say Rand was one?
What is a moral absolutist and why do you say Rand was one?
That jumped out at me too. I am not sure I would describe her this way. If I understand it correctly (and further if I can explain my understanding correctly without accidentally using words that will make me sound like an intrinsicist), Ayn Rand (hence Objectivism) holds that morality is objective, i.e., tied to the facts of reality via the standard of values. It is the full situation you are in that will tell you whether an action is moral or not, and simple rules will tend to have the problem of any “one size fits all” pronouncment–they will lead to absurd results if the situation is slightly unusual (example below if you have the patience to read that far). “Absolutist” usually implies (if not means outright) requiring adherence to a one-size-fits-all rule, like “It is wrong to lie, therefore never lie.” Ayn Rand was not an “absolutist” in this sense of the word.
The Objectivist position regarding honesty is a bit more subtle. When dealing with other people on a free and rational basis, one indeed should not lie. When one is simply going to use your honesty to attack you and your values through force or fraud, then lie, and lie proudly (paraphrase of Leondard Peikoff in OPAR). For example if someone sticks a gun to your head and demands to know where your wife and daughter went for the weekend, you do NOT tell him the truth! An absolutist might very well maintain that you must tell the truth even in this circumstance.
About the only short, unambiguous statement I have seen her make that could be taken as a commandment (except that no “commandment” ever has as solid a justification behind it) if you were the sort to do so, was not to _ initiate _ force against another man [i.e., person]. That rule seems to have no exceptions based on context/circumstances, at least not that I have seen. Though a more experienced Objectivist might very well come along and correct me on this and earn my thanks for the education.
… was not to _ initiate _ force against another man [i.e., person]. That rule seems to have no exceptions based on context/circumstances, at least not that I have seen. Though a more experienced Objectivist might very well come along and correct me on this and earn my thanks for the education.
I don’t mean to initiate another discussion on collateral damage, but circumstances of war might cause an exception. Not so much with attacking known enemies since that would be a form of self-defense but more similar to the rangers that died in Afghanistan because they let the herders go-who of course warned the enemy. I would argue that in a war with vaguely identifiable enemies it would have been proper to shoot them to preserve their own lives and successfully complete the mission. To what extent that is initiation of force, I am not certain yet.
One extremely dire reason is that anarchism is against objectivist ethics. Anarchism is a trend that would only appeal to moral relativists, people who think that law is arbitrary and all it takes is a majority to declare rape a perfectly legal function. Ayn Rand was a moral absolutist and like any moral absolutist would say: we need government to be monopolised and law to be objective, otherwise your left at the mercy of the majority of incompetent fools. You should probably click the link for more specifics.
http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pag…us_libertarians
As far as Galt’s Gulch goes, that was a very small population of brilliant inovative individuals and, by the way, they wern’t in anarchy because they had objective law. Remember, everybody had to swear an oath before entrance. They didn’t have a free market of competing courts, they had one court and judge Narragansett was the only judge to enforce the only law of the land. People in Galts Gulch were not allowed to buy law like they would in anarchy.
That brings up a good point.
But if the state is the only legal beholder of force, and all relations with the state are voluntary (meaning, no forced taxation or draft), what distinguishes it from any other corporation?
Why would it be inconceivable to have the law established by oath: for citizenship, you must vow not to initiate force on others; and then have it enforced by private agents?
You raise up “buying the law” in the market anarchist idea, but in an Objectivist, minarchist setting, the same can happen with “who gives more to the police station” or “who builds the best army base”.
Why would the market anarchist (MA) society have more corruption then the minarchist one, if both inhabited with rational people.
But if the state is the only legal beholder of force, and all relations with the state are voluntary (meaning, no forced taxation or draft), what distinguishes it from any other corporation?
You’ve named a sufficient difference. Another is, of course, that the state may not compete with private business for other purposes, such as manufacturing gasoline.
Why would it be inconceivable to have the law established by oath: for citizenship, you must vow not to initiate force on others; and then have it enforced by private agents?
The function of the state is not just enforcement of law, but creation of law. Laws are much more specific than “I will not initiate force” – they say in detail what that means. Laws protecting intellectual property and governing torts can’t be left to the vagarities of “whoever you might argue initiated force”; anarcho-law enforcement will devolve into “whoever has the biggest gun” tyranny when explicit objective laws are sacrificed in favor of a vague credo. In a rational society, a man must know what the law is, and there must be non-contradictory requirements of him. There is no such guarantee is every person is allowed to hire their own enforcement squad to enforce their interpretation of “protecting my rights”.
The Objectivist position regarding honesty is a bit more subtle. When dealing with other people on a free and rational basis, one indeed should not lie. When one is simply going to use your honesty to attack you and your values through force or fraud, then lie, and lie proudly (paraphrase of Leondard Peikoff in OPAR). For example if someone sticks a gun to your head and demands to know where your wife and daughter went for the weekend, you do NOT tell him the truth! An absolutist might very well maintain that you must tell the truth even in this circumstance.
Kant would too…but more: in any or all circumstances you do not tell a lie via his categorical imperatives. That is why in OPAR we learn that honesty is an "absolute contextually." We also learn from Rand that “morailty ends where the barrel of a gun begins.” You’d lie, I’d lie, but Kant wouldn’t.
About the only short, unambiguous statement I have seen her make that could be taken as a commandment (except that no “commandment” ever has as solid a justification behind it) if you were the sort to do so, was not to _ initiate _ force against another man [i.e., person]. That rule seems to have no exceptions based on context/circumstances, at least not that I have seen. Though a more experienced Objectivist might very well come along and correct me on this and earn my thanks for the education.
Here:
If I were to speak your kind of language, I would say that man’s only moral commandment is: Thou shalt think. But a ‘moral commandment’ is a contradiction in terms. The moral is the chosen, not the forced; the understood, not the obeyed. The moral is the rational, and reason accepts no commandments.
Thanks for the last quote.
I would have been better served by simply stating that non-initiation of force is the only ethical/moral absolute (in the sense I discussed above, with no contextual apparent “exception”) I’ve ever spotted. To Think would be more basic than that of course–so much more so it slipped my mind.
What is a moral absolutist and why do you say Rand was one?
I do remember hearing in an interview whether she was a believer in absolutes and she said yes, but perhaps it was referring to somthing else. A better term to use would probably be rights theorist, I ment to say that Ayn Rand was a rights theorist as opposed to a consequentialist and only a consequentialist type of person could support somthing as unrealistic as anarchism so long as the ends justified the means and they really wanted it to work.
You’ve named a sufficient difference. Another is, of course, that the state may not compete with private business for other purposes, such as manufacturing gasoline.The function of the state is not just enforcement of law, but creation of law. Laws are much more specific than “I will not initiate force” – they say in detail what that means. Laws protecting intellectual property and governing torts can’t be left to the vagarities of “whoever you might argue initiated force”; anarcho-law enforcement will devolve into “whoever has the biggest gun” tyranny when explicit objective laws are sacrificed in favor of a vague credo. In a rational society, a man must know what the law is, and there must be non-contradictory requirements of him. There is no such guarantee is every person is allowed to hire their own enforcement squad to enforce their interpretation of “protecting my rights”.
Your point is well founded.
However, in an irrational statist-type setting, the same “who has the bigger gun” still applies.
Remember, I am referring to a rational, egoistic group of captialists. This “anarchism” is based around the marketplace, not communal self-sacrifice.
However, in an irrational statist-type setting, the same “who has the bigger gun” still applies.
Remember, I am referring to a rational, egoistic group of captialists. This “anarchism” is based around the marketplace, not communal self-sacrifice.
The problem with the assumption of anarchism in a perfect society is the requirement of a perfect society. There would be no need for law enforcement if every member of society were a rational egoist, but bring in a handful of barbarians and yer scrod. With minimal government, it is simply necessary that enough people be rational egoists that the law and their enforcement be rights respecting. In such a society, the majority does indeed get to tell the minority “Thou shalt not steal, and we’ll enforce that commandment”: minimal government works even in lieu of universal human perfection.
One extremely dire reason is that anarchism is against objectivist ethics.
I am beginning to see the reason why the board rules insist on the capitalization of “Objectivism.”
If you mean that anarchism is against the Objectivist Ethics–that is, Objectivist philosophers are against anarchism–then this is true. But if you mean that anarchism is against objective or absolute ethics, that an anarchist is necessarily a moral relativist, then this is false. Consider, for example, Murray Rothbard, who was a consistent proponent of anarchism and objective natural law-based ethics.
Ayn Rand was a moral absolutist and like any moral absolutist would say: we need government to be monopolised and law to be objective, otherwise your left at the mercy of the majority of incompetent fools.
I think Rothbard would reply that with government, you are guaranteed to be at the mercy of the majority of incompetent fools, whereas with anarchism you at least have a chance of objective ethics being encoded in law. Or alternately, that anarchism is more likely to supply an objective-ethics-based law, even though it is possible for it to fail to do so. But inasmuch as minarchism can fail too, the fact that anarchism might fail is not a compelling reason *by itself* to oppose anarchism.
In addition, the idea that under anarchism, we are at the mercy of whoever has the biggest gun, but under monopoly government we are not, is mistaken. Even if the monopoly government were a just one, if some group has bigger guns than the monopoly govenment, we are at their mercy whether they are enjoined from competing with the monopoly government or not.
However, I think that Galt’s Gulch illustrates an overlap between minarchism and anarchism in the following way: if I am a developer building a community, I can sell all the rights to the land on which the homes are built to the buyers except the right to choice of a protection and law agency, and then say that anyone who buys into the community must select an agency from an approved list. A market anarchist might say that this is precisely what happened in Galt’s Gulch: a condition for aquiring land in Galt’s Gulch was signing up with Judge Narragansett’s “agency” in the sense of agreeing to treat the decisions of his court as binding and final.
With minimal government, it is simply necessary that enough people be rational egoists that the law and their enforcement be rights respecting.
Similarly, the anarchist argues that under anarchism, it is simply necessary that enough people be rational egoists to ensure that the agencies founded in support of rational egoism be the strongest and able to both enforce objective law and take out any bands of objective-law-violating thugs who aspired to the title of a protection agency.
Note: I continually refer to what the anarchist argues, rather than what I argue, because I am in the process of evaluating the positions.
Consider, for example, Murray Rothbard, who was a consistent proponent of anarchism and objective natural law-based ethics.
Well, it has been decades since I’ve read anything by Rothbard, but I don’t believe that his view of law and rights provides a definitive determination of what the law is. That means that Rothbardian law is the epitome of subjective law. Under objective law, a man would know exactly what is prohibited, and what the consequences of violating the law would be. This cannot be known before the fact under anarchism.
I think Rothbard would reply that with government, you are guaranteed to be at the mercy of the majority of incompetent fools, whereas with anarchism you at least have a chance of objective ethics being encoded in law.
Except that with anarchism, the idea of “encoding” the laws in a unique and authoritative manner is the antithesis of anarchy.
if I am a developer building a community, I can sell all the rights to the land on which the homes are built to the buyers except the right to choice of a protection and law agency, and then say that anyone who buys into the community must select an agency from an approved list.
Such a system could only bind the man who buys from the developer. The only way to enforce such an “agreement” in lieu of actual agreement would be to encode it as a condition that runs with the land (hence the annoying conditions and covenants), which require the intervention of a government. If Smith owns the land, he can sell it to Jones with no such condition, and Jones has no obligation to pick from the selected list.
The problem with the assumption of anarchism in a perfect society is the requirement of a perfect society. There would be no need for law enforcement if every member of society were a rational egoist, but bring in a handful of barbarians and yer scrod. With minimal government, it is simply necessary that enough people be rational egoists that the law and their enforcement be rights respecting. In such a society, the majority does indeed get to tell the minority “Thou shalt not steal, and we’ll enforce that commandment”: minimal government works even in lieu of universal human perfection.
If enough rational egoists exist, why is the state the necessary official in courts, police, and military?
If these actions are already used in a mixed-market economy (such as arbitration functioning like courts, and private security firms function similar to a police or military force), why not implement this system for the society as a whole?
It would agree completely with the principle of non-aggression.
As far as I can tell, the state is always the initator of force, and thus violates this rule of non-aggression.
Is this a contradiction of principles?
Well, it has been decades since I’ve read anything by Rothbard, but I don’t believe that his view of law and rights provides a definitive determination of what the law is.
Actually they do, or at least as definitive a determination as can reasonably be expected from any work on political philosophy. Rothbard would say that his philosophy determines, for instance, what sort of protection agencies people should form, but it’s up to those people to either recognize that fact and form such agencies or not.
Under objective law, a man would know exactly what is prohibited, and what the consequences of violating the law would be. This cannot be known before the fact under anarchism.
Right now, you are probably in violation of a great many tenents of Sharia law. You don’t worry about it, but that’s only because you are confident in the ability of the US government to protect you from those who would impose Sharia law on you by force. Your level of certainty of what is prohibited is bounded above by your level of certainty that you will be protected. The same is true of protection agencies under market anarchism, so long as we assume that you can trust your own agency, which seems reasonable since for the corresponding minarchist answer, we have to assume you can trust your government.
If enough rational egoists exist, why is the state the necessary official in courts, police, and military?
What is necessary is a single, objectively stated and enforced set of laws. Such a situation might exist with a perfect society of rational egoists and no state, because there simply would be no violations of rights. The problem arises when there are rights violators; then there is no definitive statement of what is a “wrong” or what the consequences of the wrong are. With a sufficiently large body of rational egoists, a rational government can be created which will protect the rights of all, against the predators that exist. Thus with minarchy, social perfection is not a prerequisite for objetive law.
Such a system could only bind the man who buys from the developer. The only way to enforce such an “agreement” in lieu of actual agreement would be to encode it as a condition that runs with the land (hence the annoying conditions and covenants), which require the intervention of a government.
Nevertheless, does this not demolish the anarchists’ argument that any government must necessarily initiate force to form or maintain itself? (i.e. the idea that the government’s monopoly on force could be established non-coercively by a contract which binds the land permanently to it)
Nevertheless, does this not demolish the anarchists’ argument that any government must necessarily initiate force to form or maintain itself? (i.e. the idea that the government’s monopoly on force could be established non-coercively by a contract which binds the land permanently to it)
I think it more shows that they fail to understand how agreements can’t bind a third party, so concept-stealing is necessary to cook up a pretense that uniform law could be achieved via contract.
Similarly, the anarchist argues that under anarchism, it is simply necessary that enough people be rational egoists to ensure that the agencies founded in support of rational egoism be the strongest and able to both enforce objective law and take out any bands of objective-law-violating thugs who aspired to the title of a protection agency.
Do you know if intellectuals who advance market anarchism offer any guiding principles to determine what “rational egoism” is? I suspect that Murray Rothbard and David Friedman do not endorse the Objectivist metaphysics, epistemology, ethics but then merely want to replace its politics with market anarchism.
In other words, how would a market anarchist determine what protective agencies should be? Do they even agree on any general principles? My perception has always been that in addition to claiming that anarchist markets are the best mechanism for constructing protective agencies, they claim that protective agencies should be whatever the market wants. This is just another form of Subjectivism.
Do you know if intellectuals who advance market anarchism offer any guiding principles to determine what “rational egoism” is? I suspect that Murray Rothbard and David Friedman do not endorse the Objectivist metaphysics, epistemology, ethics but then merely want to replace its politics with market anarchism.
I choose Murray Rothbard as an example precisely because he does provide a guide to rational egoism. As I mentioned before, he was a staunch advocate of natural-law-based ethics, and his political theory flows straight out of that. I don’t know much about David Friedman, but if I recall correctly he was among the Utilitarian libertarians of whom Rothbard was harshly critical.
In other words, how would a market anarchist determine what protective agencies should be? Do they even agree on any general principles?
It depends what you mean by “market anarchists.” If you mean “Rothbardian market anarchists” then yes, they do. Refer to, e.g., Rothbard’s “Ethics of Liberty” to find out what they are. If you mean “all market anarchists” then probably not.
My perception has always been that in addition to claiming that anarchist markets are the best mechanism for constructing protective agencies, they claim that protective agencies should be whatever the market wants. This is just another form of Subjectivism.
This perception is probably right for some market anarchists, but not for all. Of course, market anarchists probably agree that on the question of “Should protection agencies bill by the month or by the protective action,” they should be whatever the market wants, but I don’t think this is the sort of issue on which Objectivists proclaim “Gahh! Subjectivism!” Market anarchists in the Rothbardian tradition do in fact have principled answers to which sorts of rights protection agencies ought to protect, although whether Objectivists agree 100% with those rights is another question.
I think it more shows that they fail to understand how agreements can’t bind a third party, so concept-stealing is necessary to cook up a pretense that uniform law could be achieved via contract.
First, are you saying that the idea of a contractually formed government is untenable? Because I don’t see that. If Smith bought the land under the condition that he would only sell it to Jones on the same conditions he bought it, then where’s the trouble?
But then if you think that is untenable, how do you answer their idea that a government must initiate force to exist? I’ve found the above stops them in their tracks but if you have a clearer argument I’d like to hear it.