Does Howard Roark’s initiation of force against property owned by others conform to Ayn Rand’s philosophy?

Ethics
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I. FACTS

Howard Roark used dynamite to destroy the Corland building, which was entirely owned by other parties. Roark did not have permission for this act of destruction from the owners of the Cortland building or from the government agencies that, in the interests of public safety, regulate the use of dynamite in an urban setting. No one connected with the Cortland building had ever used physical force or threatened physical force against Howard Roark’s person or against his property. Before destroying the Cortland building, Howard Roark made no attempt to seek redress of his grievances in a court of law or in the state legislature, the city council, or the U.S. Congress. 

 

II. AYN RAND ON USE OF PHYSICAL FORCE

“The basic political principle of the Objectivist ethics is: no man may initiate the use of physical force against others. No man—or group or society or government—has the right to assume the role of a criminal and initiate the use of physical compulsion against any man. Men have the right to use physical force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use. The ethical principle involved is simple and clear-cut: it is the difference between murder and self-defense. A holdup man seeks to gain a value, wealth, by killing his victim; the victim does not grow richer by killing a holdup man. The principle is: no man may obtain any values from others by resorting to physical force.” --“The Objectivist Ethics,” _ The Virtue of Selfishness _, 32

 

“The use of physical force—even its retaliatory use—cannot be left at the discretion of individual citizens. Peaceful coexistence is impossible if a man has to live under the constant threat of force to be unleashed against him by any of his neighbors at any moment. Whether his neighbors’ intentions are good or bad, whether their judgment is rational or irrational, whether they are motivated by a sense of justice or by ignorance or by prejudice or by malice—the use of force against one man cannot be left to the arbitrary decision of another.” – “The Nature of Government,” _ The Virtue of Selfishness _, 108

 

“In a free society, men are not forced to deal with one another. They do so only by voluntary agreement and, when a time element is involved, by contract. If a contract is broken by the arbitrary decision of one man, it may cause a disastrous financial injury to the other—and the victim would have no recourse except to seize the offender’s property as compensation. But here again, the use of force cannot be left to the decision of private individuals.” ----“Man’s Rights,” _ The Virtue of Selfishness _.

 

III. AYN RAND ON PROPERTY RIGHTS

“The right to life is the source of all rights—and the right to property is their only implementation. Without property rights, no other rights are possible.” --“Man’s Rights,” _ The Virtue of Selfishness _, 94

 

“Any alleged ‘right’ of one man, which necessitates the violation of the rights of another, is not and cannot be a right.” – “Man’s Rights,” _ The Virtue of Selfishness _, 96

 

“It is only on the basis of property rights that the sphere and application of individual rights can be defined in any given social situation. Without property rights, there is no way to solve or to avoid a hopeless chaos of clashing views, interests, demands, desires, and whims.” – “The Cashing-In: The Student ‘Rebellion,” _ Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal _, 259

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I think we are supposed to take the action of blowing up the Cortland building as a retaliatory act. And I would say that the fictional action of the character predated Rand’s philosophy as a formalized system. I think the first near comprehensive exposition of her system was in a fictional setting also, eg Galt’s Speech.

Can you really find fault in Rand for / by Rand?

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Howard Roark Blowing Up Cortlandt Was Not Objectivist . . .

Test out key words in your questions such as “Roark, dynamite” on the search function on this site using the Search Everywhere to see if the issue has been discussed before. If so, and you have some further angle on it to explore, add it to the old thread, helping to created a many-faceted exploration and not just more words to be buried again in another year and not advancing understanding of current readers. 

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12 minutes ago, Boydstun said:

Howard Roark Blowing Up Cortlandt Was Not Objectivist . . .

Test out key words in your questions such as “Roark, dynamite” on the search function on this site using the Search Everywhere to see if the issue has been discussed before. If so, and you have some further angle on it to explore, add it to the old thread, helping to created a many-faceted exploration and not just more words to be buried again in another year and not advancing understanding of current readers. 

  1. Before posting this question, I did indeed do a search on this website for relevant discussions. I did not find any question or thread in which the actions and philosophy of the fictional character Howard Roark are held up against, and judged by, the nonfiction philosophical writings of Ayn Rand.
  2. I also searched the whole Internet, using Google, for discussions along these lines, but could find none.
  3. Therefore, my best guess is that the precise issue I am raising has not be raised before, or, at least, has not been widely discussed or examined.
  4. Of course, I could be wrong, and perhaps there are many other discussions of the precise issue I’m raising in this thread. But it is hard to be perfect, and I make no claims to that.
  5. Perhaps others here in this benevolent universe will kindly point me to prior relevant discussions that I failed to find.  
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1 hour ago, The Laws of Biology said:

  1. Before posting this question, I did indeed do a search on this website for relevant discussions. I did not find any question or thread in which the actions and philosophy of the fictional character Howard Roark are held up against, and judged by, the nonfiction philosophical writings of Ayn Rand.
  2. I also searched the whole Internet, using Google, for discussions along these lines, but could find none.
  3. Therefore, my best guess is that the precise issue I am raising has not be raised before, or, at least, has not been widely discussed or examined.
  4. Of course, I could be wrong, and perhaps there are many other discussions of the precise issue I’m raising in this thread. But it is hard to be perfect, and I make no claims to that.
  5. Perhaps others here in this benevolent universe will kindly point me to prior relevant discussions that I failed to find.  

Roark exists in a world without John Galt, in a world without Ayn Rand, in a world which had not discovered Objectivism, and also Rand had not completed her philosophy to the point one could call it Objectivism… that likely happened during the writing of Atlas.  It would be unlikely then that Roark would know Objectivism or act completely in accordance therewith.  He does at least in some respects have a sense of life akin to an Objectivist, at least in some realms of action and thought.

That said, even IF Rand had completed her philosophy beforehand, say had written The Fountainhead after Atlas, there would be little reason to write another character who was a perfect Objectivist and in fact one might argue, it would be inappropriate to the vision and purpose of that new work, while John Galt is the appropriate character for Atlas any other work requires some different character.

An artist creates admirable and unadmirable characters with strengths, quirks, and shortcomings which may change over time, but focuses primarily on a plot which illustrates the person’s character in action and the consequences of those actions i.e. illustrates relationships between a person’s identity and his actions, and his actions and reality.  There is no need for any protagonist in any book outside of Atlas to perfectly exemplify the entirety of Rand’s philosophical and moral framework… that would be another book with a John Galt…  what her aim would have been (I conjecture) is to write a different story in which a different protagonist is simply someone different, and the actions and events flow from the virtues and vices of the characters in a way which is compelling and meaningful, and hopefully he learns something along the way (or at least the reader does).

 

EDIT:  I am of the view that Roark did not act rationally in that moment but acted passionately.  It was more than punching a man in the face for insulting one’s wife… but I take it in that vein.  He is not a perfect Objectivist, but he is a great character… a pattern which I find very true in the real world as well.

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I direct your attention to this thread which bears on your question. Let me also remind you that while we tend to take all of Rand’s writings as interchangeable without regard for time context, Rand started writing The Fountainhead in the mid-30’s whereas her non-fiction works built on Atlas Shrugged decades later. The question of what you call the act is irrelevant, the right question is “Was the act morally proper?”. Rand is very clear in her later philosophical writings that in a civilized society, man cedes his right to defensive force to the government, and a government holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force. Roark should have sought forceful government intervention, as required by law.

There are numerous imaginary scenarios that could be applied to the effect that this principle does not apply. For instance, one could conclude that Roark was not living in a civilized society, he was living in the wild, wild west of Medieval Mongolia where dog eats dog. The same can be said about all stages in US history, that we are not and have not ever been an Objectivist utopia, yet it remains invalid to argue “Because society is imperfect, all forms of force are sanctioned”. A more realistic argument would be based on the reality of civil judgments and breach of contract – I pointed this out earlier. A money judgment would not result in justice, only removal of the offending object would.

It is not obvious to me whose property rights were violated, since we are dealing with a subcontract. Keating breached his contract with Roark, as well as with Cortland (the contract was for a building, not a pile of rubble). Roark’s action was against Keating, who remains responsible for the creation of the final building. If we take Cortland out of the picture, Keating had to right to the building that he created, but this is an extrajudicial act of force, of taking the law into your own hands. The law is not a suicide pact. My opinion is that the trial outcome is as implausible, in the real world, as the alternative where the court orders the demolition of the building.

The issue that is not clearly worked out in Rand’s philosophy is under what circumstances may we properly assume that we are not living in a civilized society – when is it proper to ignore the law?

The public safety regulation argument is a red herring. There is no evdence that blowing up the building threatened anyone’s safety. FYI, no legislative solution would have been valid (it would have at most created an avenue for blowing up future buildings). The courts could have insisted on specific performance, but that is a purely surreal legal possibility, not one that actually exists. Also, “rights” and “force” are not the same thing (or, exact opposites), your argument should be focused on what Rand said about an individual using force. Roark’s rights were patently violated. Roark used force in response to Keating forcefully violating his rights. It is correct that individuals do not have the right to retaliatory force.

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@DavidOdden “It is correct that individuals do not have the right to retaliatory force.”

What if the government refuses to respond to dozens of reports of countless crimes of every type including federal crimes hacking and fraud from that hacking and identity theft, mass collusion of a very large criminal organization, and attempted murder over a period longer than a year, especially in the last case?

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An individual “uses retaliatory force” when he calls the police, does he not?

Saying an individual has no right to retaliatory force is saying that an individual has no right to self-defense. Also, it means that nobody has the right to create or maintain a government.

What Ayn Rand held was that retaliatory force must not be left to the arbitrary discretion of a person, i.e., it cannot be used whimsically, but must be kept under objective rational control. A rights-respecting government of laws is a means toward that end.

3 hours ago, DavidOdden said:

when is it proper to ignore the law?

Objectivism is a life-affirming philosophy but there are some (hopefully rare) situations where a rational person would choose to commit suicide. Peikoff says this is not a rejection of the value of life but “a tragic re-affirmation of it.”

Analogously, there are some rare situations where a rational person would choose to break the law – and these would be cases where the person was actually upholding the principles that law as such is supposed to serve (and where the government is not).

I figure these would be situations like in Nazi Germany, where for example you might choose to harbor Jews in your attic, in violation of the law.

There are also cases like the “Underground Railroad” which helped slaves to escape the American South.

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When the government willfully refuses to perform its proper rights-protecting function and flagrantly tolerates the initiation of force against individuals, the government has lost its legitimacy. In that case, the society has slipped back to its primitive pre-civilization state. This occurred in Somalia, Central Africa, South Sudan, Libya, Yemen. When the fundamental premise of “civilized society” is false, Rand’s moral prescriptions are different, because they are predicated on a society where man acts according to his proper nature, not a society where men act like savage beats. One cannot morally condemn a man for using whatever means necessary to survive, in such a society.

However, we are referring here to objective facts – willfully refusing to function, flagrantly tolerating initiation of force. A government may also fail in an instance to punish an initiation of force, for example because there was insufficient evidence to objectively establish that there was a crime (dispute over the actual property owner) or to establish beyond reasonable doubt that the accused did the deed. To be concrete, we can know for certain that Smith did the deed, but because the evidence against him was secured by beating a witness, Smith cannot be convicted: we say that Smith “got off on a technicality”. In that case, is vigilante justice against Smith morally proper? Following Rand’s statements on the matter, it is not, because in a civilized society we cede the right to use retaliatory force to objective law, and the objective law says that a man cannot be convicted by evidence illegally and immorally obtained by governmental initiation of force.

Depolicing is, in fact, sort of legal, which is in my opinion a huge problem. The courts have deemed that the government is never compelled to enforce the law, though if some action of depolicing were to systematically run afoul of the 14th Amendment – i.e. refusing to investigate crimes against black people – that action would be deemed illegal. To the extent that the circumstances are the same, the government must treat all people the same way. This does mean that the government can refuse to investigate property crimes involving less than a $500 loss, since that defines an objective “circumstance”. Police discretion to ignore crimes is, frankly, egregious, and it is a substantial political issue in some places. At the same time, some $%(*#@ hacked my credit card, and the police have not done anything about it because, realistically, there is nothing they can do, this was not a willful and flagrant refusal to protect my rights.

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39 minutes ago, necrovore said:

An individual “uses retaliatory force” when he calls the police, does he not?

I cannot even begin to imagine how you reach that conclusion. Retaliatory force is where you beat someone as punishment for having violated your rights. Self defense is different from retaliation. Self defense is force that is immediately necessary to terminate an act of violence, retaliation is post-hoc and applied when the threat of continued force no longer exists.

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In the case of Cortlandt, the “owner” was the government, which already complicates the issue.  Also, it was not possible to sue the government, so the normal recourse for enforcing a contract was not available to Keating and Roark.  I’m not sure how this should affect the matter; that might require another discussion.  But it at least complicates the moral issues involved.

 

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Retaliatory force is the only moral use of force in O’ism, I can’t even begin to imagine an objectivist equating the only principled use of force with vigilantism.

The thrust of this thread is odd, Roark did what ‘he’ did in the story the idea a character in a work of fiction could have /would have acted differently than the action in the story is ‘worse’ than arbitrary assertion. 
 

The motive for Roark’s actions were firmly rooted in his passions for living without contradiction to ‘his’ individualism . He ‘was’ a whim worshipping emotional reactionary that disregarded the norms of the society in which he was situated ( a fictional universe), what a great literary character. 

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1 minute ago, tadmjones said:

Retaliatory force is the only moral use of force in O’ism, I can’t even begin to imagine an objectivist equating the only principled use force with vigilantism.

Exactly. But what if a group of evil vigilantes are fed false information about an individual via the government because the government doesn’t like them being an Objectivist/Capitalist and they are a relatively unknown person with extremely advanced knowledge and that government then continues its crime and support of evil vigilante criminals by not taking down the criminals when reported over and over and allowing that person to have mass crimes committed against him including a daylight attempted murder where one of the criminals drives up on the sidewalk and through front yards in an attempt to run them down?

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If you want to cite Randian authority, the place to look is The Cashing-in: the Student ‘Rebellion’. There she writes about the situations where one can properly break the law. One of these, she says (and tradition agrees), is to bring a test-case. He waited to be arrested. He never denied his part. He was willing to go to jail if the verdict didn’t go his way. His case is more broadly symbolic than a challenge to a single law would have been, but it counts just the same.

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  • I just remembered that Ayn Rand wrote, in 1968, a new Introduction to _ The Fountainhead  _that was printed in the edition of that book that was published in that year, 25 years after the original publishing in 1943.
  • I just re-read Ayn Rand’s 1968 introduction, and here are some things I noticed:
  • “Are there any substantial changes I would want to make in _ The Fountainhead _? No–and, therefore, I have left its text untouched. I want it to stand as it was written.”
  • “I have been asked whether I have changed in these past twenty-five years. No, I am the same–only more so. Have my ideas changed? No, my fundamental convictions, my view of life and of man, have never changed, from as far back as I can remember, but my knowledge of their applications has grown, in scope and in precision.”
  • “What is my present evaluation of _ The Fountainhead _? I am as proud of it as I was on the day when I finished writing it.”
  • “Since my purpose is the presentation of an ideal man,…Since man’s character is the product of his premises, I had to define and present the kinds of premises and values that create the character of an ideal man and motivate his actions; which means that I had to define and present a rational code of ethics.”
  • “This is especially true of the quotation I had chosen…that quotation communicates the inner state of an exalted self-esteem–and sums up the emotional consequences for which _ The Fountainhead _ provides the rational, philosophical base:…‘The noble soul has reverence for itself,’ Friedrich Nietzsche, _ Beyond Good and Evil _.”
  • In light of those statements above from Ayn Rand in 1968, I am reluctant to conclude that Ayn Rand’s philosophy evolved or changed in any significant way in the years following the 1943 publication of The Fountainhead.
  • As far as I know, Ayn Rand herself never said that there was anything in The Fountainhead with which she ultimately came to disagree.
  • Ayn Rand was a full-fledged genius all of her adult life (probably from age 8 or so), and so I think she always knew exactly what she was doing.
  • As such, I am reluctant to view The Fountainhead as expressing a primitive version of the philosophy that is later expressed in Atlas Shrugged (1957) or in her later nonfiction philosophical writings.
  • I think going forward I shall try to understand and apply what Ayn Rand wrote in the following quote from the aforementioned 1968 Introduction:
  • “Let me stress this: my purpose is not the philosophical enlightenment of my readers.”
  • I readily admit that there’s a lot I don’t know and a lot of Ayn Rand’s writings that I have not yet read. So, the journey and the adventure continue. Come, Sancho, let us sally forth, me thinks there be giants ahead.
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17 hours ago, Doug Morris said:

In the case of Cortlandt, the “owner” was the government, which already complicates the issue.  Also, it was not possible to sue the government, so the normal recourse for enforcing a contract was not available to Keating and Roark.  I’m not sure how this should affect the matter; that might require another discussion.  But it at least complicates the moral issues involved.

 

  1. Yes, this is an interesting factor, which could be important.
  2. Does _ The Fountainhead _ identify what government owned the Cortlandt building? Is it the city, the county, the state, or the federal government?
  3. In New York City, during the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, many similar housing buildings for low- and middle-income workers were built with very low interest gov’t loans (e.g. FHA; Mitchell–Lama Housing Program), and sometimes with huge tax abatements, but the buildings were actually owned by private developers or owned by a “cooperative” that made all of the residents co-owners of the building. Is it possible that the Cortlandt was built under such arrangements?
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At one point Cortlandt is referred to as a Federal Housing Project, so presumably it was the federal government.

Also, it was made clear that suing to enforce the contract would mean suing the government.

 

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2 hours ago, Doug Morris said:

At one point Cortlandt is referred to as a Federal Housing Project, so presumably it was the federal government.

Also, it was made clear that suing to enforce the contract would mean suing the government.

 

  1. So, do some people think that Roark wouldn’t have bombed the Cortlandt building if the Cortlandt building had been privately owned by a capitalist businessman, even if all the other factors, that moved Roark to carry out the bombing, had still been present?
  2. In other words, is there some thought out there that part of Roark’s reasoning, in justifying the bombing, was that federal government’s involvement in areas of the economy, such as housing, is inherently illegitimate, and so Roark was not transgressing on any legitimate rights when carrying out the bombing, since the federal government has no right or power to build or own such property?
  3. To put it another way, do some people think that Roark’s bombing of the Cortlandt building was, in part, at least implicitly, symbolically, or philosophically, a political protest against illegitimate big government intrusion into the free economy?
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1 hour ago, The Laws of Biology said:

  1. So, do some people think that Roark wouldn’t have bombed the Cortlandt building if the Cortlandt building had been privately owned by a capitalist businessman, even if all the other factors, that moved Roark to carry out the bombing, had still been present?
  2. In other words, is there some thought out there that part of Roark’s reasoning, in justifying the bombing, was that federal government’s involvement in areas of the economy, such as housing, is inherently illegitimate, and so Roark was not transgressing on any legitimate rights when carrying out the bombing, since the federal government has no right or power to build or own such property?
  3. To put it another way, do some people think that Roark’s bombing of the Cortlandt building was, in part, at least implicitly, a political protest against illegitimate government intrusion into the free economy?

No.

No.

No.

The theme of The Fountainhead is not political. Roark’s dynamiting of Cortlandt is in the name of all creators and all real integrity. The fiction rolls on to its purpose and experience, details of law at the time brushed aside with little diligence or care by a writer’s keeping focus of tuned readers on her concern in the fictional work, which is not law. In real cases, juries sift matters of fact and their fit or misfit with acts addressed in law. This jury in the Cortland case is deciding between an alternative of moral ideals. It is Man on trial. That is the significance of Wynand at the back of the courtroom. Such stuff, fictions and moved readers are made of. 

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On 9/6/2024 at 5:48 AM, Reidy said:

 He was willing to go to jail if the verdict didn’t go his way. His case is more broadly symbolic than a challenge to a single law would have been, but it counts just the same.

I have gained this from philosophy: that I do without being commanded what others do only from fear of the law. Aristotle

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