A Philosophy Professor Discusses Ayn Rand in his Ethics Class

[Dinwar]

As Earthborn has already pointed out, the foundations of Rand's philosophy are silly to begin with. The rest of their philosophy is a set of elaborations on, or defences of, that silly foundation.

Earthborn demonstrated she's never read Rand's essays on the topic. If she had, she'd at least know where to find the answers--Rand specifically addressed those issues in multiple essays. So you're saying the foundations are silly because you're too ignorant of the philosophy to understand them. I'll admit, such a method is much easier than actually learning the issues; but it's not very effective.

You're also begging the question. You're starting with the premise that O'ism is silly, and using it to prove that O'ism is silly. When you can show me actual elements of O'ism--not your ignorance thereof, but the parts of the philosophy itself--that are silly, we can have a descent conversation even if you disagree with us. As long as your reasoning is running in circles, and as long as you choose to insult the other participants rather than engage with them, it's pointless.

 

[Sword of Apollo]

Wow. Okay, I'm finally back.

Thank you for a clear explanation. I clipped just this first part to address what I see as a fundamental problem. You might be able to clear it up.

When we are talking about "rational self interest" I thought I knew what that meant in measurable terms. But now, it seems as if you are saying that internally generated values can set the meter for the self-interest payoff. Which makes me think that underlying the rational bit is an irrational value setting exercise.

Even when (in the part I clipped) you distinguish between needs and wants, I am left wondering why, if self-generated values are the standard, an appeal to life itself isn't merely to a common value and one which I very well may not think much of? Are you claiming there are rationally generated universals hidden somewhere in there that I can base the rational part of my rational self interest on?

The meta exercise here for me is whether or not objectivism can be communicated to another (me) since it is, well, an appeal to an objective standard -- or do I have that wrong?

Rational values are constrained by certain principles. Multiple choices that are consistent with the broad, rational principles are called "optional values."

Optional values in Objectivism (such as the particular choice of a productive career) should reflect material considerations, what other things one wants to achieve, and one's own subconscious psychological make-up (as observed through one's own emotions.) Even optional values should be chosen with reference to certain facts, rather than picked at a momentary whim.

I think you'll find this post interesting: Values Are Relational But Not Subjective.

 

[TubbaBlubba]

Earthborn demonstrated she's never read Rand's essays on the topic. If she had, she'd at least know where to find the answers--Rand specifically addressed those issues in multiple essays. So you're saying the foundations are silly because you're too ignorant of the philosophy to understand them. I'll admit, such a method is much easier than actually learning the issues; but it's not very effective.

I know many Marxists who argue the exact same way. The thing is, like Rand, nearly no-one who isn't a devout follower actually spends their time reading every single one of Marx's essays, as they are horribly dull, so very few people can call you on it when you pull this card.

Better to post the argument, or at least link to someone explaining it.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

I know many Marxists who argue the exact same way. The thing is, like Rand, nearly no-one who isn't a devout follower actually spends their time reading every single one of Marx's essays, as they are horribly dull, so very few people can call you on it when you pull this card.

Better to post the argument, or at least link to someone explaining it.

Also, much as the Catholic church has all sorts of arguments for Papal infallibility, Mary being without sin, confession to a Catholic priest being necessary for salvation and so on, Objectivists have a canned supply of arguments for their ideas.

If you tell a sophisticated Catholic that their ideas are massively dumb, they'll try to argue that unless you are familiar with their entire corpus of apologetics you are not entitled to an opinion on whether or not it's dumb to think the Pope is infallible (when he wants to be).

Similarly a Rand follower will try to argue that unless you are familiar with their entire corpus of Rand apologetics you're not entitled to an opinion on whether Objectivism is massively dumb.

For the slow out there, please note that the above is a statement, not an argument. So any attempt to respond by saying "But... but... this is just an appeal to thingy argument! It's that whatsit fallacy! No fair!" is inherently embarrassing for you, because I am not presenting an argument for why Objectivism is stupid. I am merely explaining the nature of Objectivism's stupidity.

If you think Objectivism is non-stupid, you are not my target audience.

 

[Roboramma]

Here's an example of a public good brought about by government intervention:

http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpres...f8ad3485e788be5a8525784600540649!OpenDocument

A report released today by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that the benefits of reducing fine particle and ground level ozone pollution under the 1990 Clean Air Act amendments will reach approximately $2 trillion in 2020 while saving 230,000 people from early death in that year alone. The report studied the effects of the Clean Air Act updates on the economy, public health and the environment between 1990 and 2020.

On the other hand, look at the city that I live in, where there isn't similar legislation in effect:
http://shanghai.usembassy-china.org.cn/airmonitor.html

SHANGHAI AIR QUALITY

3/4/2013 3:00:00 PM
03-04-2013 15:00; PM2.5; 76.0; 157; Unhealthy (at 24-hour exposure at this level)
3/4/2013 2:00:00 PM
03-04-2013 14:00; PM2.5; 89.0; 165; Unhealthy (at 24-hour exposure at this level)
3/4/2013 1:00:00 PM
03-04-2013 13:00; PM2.5; 92.0; 166; Unhealthy (at 24-hour exposure at this level)
3/4/2013 12:00:00 PM
03-04-2013 12:00; PM2.5; 90.0; 165; Unhealthy (at 24-hour exposure at this level)

The clean air act was a solution to the problem of urban air population (and the linked health problems) that worked. I'm curious if anyone has any examples of Objectivist solutions to this problem that have been put in to practice and shown results.

Thanks.

 

[Roboramma]

Dinwar, I was looking forward to reading your response to this post (myraid sums up much of what I would have liked to have said better than I could have said it), I may have missed it (if so could someone link it?), but if not any chance of a response?

Thanks.

Ah. Sorry, my post took some time to write; when I began composing it, your answer that commons would not exist in an Objectivist system was not yet posted.

So, now that that answer is on the table, perhaps you could explain how it would work for the examples of commons issues I listed. For instance, who would privately own "the general benefit to society of handicapped people having the right of general access to all public facilities instead of such access being at the whim of individual proprietors" so that he or she could sue for "destruction" of that "property" when individual businesses choose not to provide it.

Respectfully,
Myriad

 

[Akri]

I know many Marxists who argue the exact same way. The thing is, like Rand, nearly no-one who isn't a devout follower actually spends their time reading every single one of Marx's essays, as they are horribly dull, so very few people can call you on it when you pull this card.

Better to post the argument, or at least link to someone explaining it.

As a quick example, I recall Earthborn used the fact that Objectivism assumed a persistent, knowable reality as part of the argument against Objectivism being a practical philosophy. However I'm fairly certain Rand acknowledges that this is an assumption, but argues that it's a necessary one. If reality isn't knowable then there's nothing for us to base any of our decisions on, and it doesn't matter what we do. However if reality is knowable and we act as though it isn't, then a wrong decision can be deadly. Thus it's more practical to assume a knowable reality.

 

[Beelzebuddy]

Having considered my position for a few days, I was willing to let this thread die a natural death and post in the next completely identical one a few months from now, but as it's getting bumped anyway...

I'd been trying to better elucidate what rubbed me wrongly about Objectivism, when I realized a line from the spam solutions file sums it up nicely:

[Your spam-fighting solution will not work because]
(X) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once

See, there's no place for one single Objectivist in society. No working within the system. In Atlas Shrugged, in The Fountainhead, even in Anthem, there's a clear message that Objectivists trying to cooperate with the real world are only contributing to the problem. They get taken advantage of by the parasites over and over until they finally learn that the only thing they can do is secret themselves away, deny the swine their pearls, until the world begs for the return of their genius with the wailing and the crying and flayvin.*

Meanwhile, an Objectivist world is Objectivist all the way down. Society will have to be dismantled, totally, and rebuilt into a bizarro version of itself where everything is almost exactly the same except Objectivism! And everything works just fine because everyone in it is a true Objectivist. Earlier Akri couldn't even conceive of a situation where someone in this society would abuse their power or take advantage of another, because that isn't what Objectivists do.

I could write more, but meh, you get the point.

As a quick example, I recall Earthborn used the fact that Objectivism assumed a persistent, knowable reality as part of the argument against Objectivism being a practical philosophy.

Not in this thread she didn't. Which I think is part of the problem here: you and Dinwar are so interested in deflecting criticisms that you aren't digesting them as they pass by.

What Tubba was criticizing was Dinwar's use of The Courtier's Reply.


*A tangential point, but srsly, the only way it could be more of a masturbatory nerd fantasy is if Galt got himself a smokin' hot cheerleader instead of the blatant author self-insert.

 

[marplots]

I'm reading on general semantics (science and sanity), which attacks Rand's (and others) A is A. Don't expect that would go well with Objectivists, would it?

 

[Akri]

Not in this thread she didn't.

It's on page 2. She used the word "useful" rather than "practical", but my response still fits.

 

[nelsondogg]

I just don't see how privatizing all land / water / air solves the pollution problem. It assumes people who own the property care about pollution. Say in objective-topia, I own a stretch of the ocean adjacent to a beach. Its my property, and I rationally decided to purchase it because I can sell water to the nearby nuclear power plant for cooling or whatever. It makes me a good living... Enough for my ambitions. Not that I'd be against making easy extra cash. One way is to allow the nuke plant to dump drums of nuclear waste in my ocean. I don't care about stupid fish or ocean life so easy money for me. I also allow people to sail my waters to hunt the endangered whales for fun and sport. I couldn't care less about whales and if they go extinct, big woop. Its my property and no one can tell me what to do with it.

What is objectivism's solution to this? Try to buy me out? Not interested... I like my life just fine and would love to see my children take over the business some day if they want. Meanwhile, nuclear waste builds up, no leaks so far, but who knows what will happen to that stuff years from now after I'm dead.

 

[remirol]

I just don't see how privatizing all land / water / air solves the pollution problem. It assumes people who own the property care about pollution. Say in objective-topia, I own a stretch of the ocean adjacent to a beach. Its my property, and I rationally decided to purchase it because I can sell water to the nearby nuclear power plant for cooling or whatever. It makes me a good living... Enough for my ambitions. Not that I'd be against making easy extra cash. One way is to allow the nuke plant to dump drums of nuclear waste in my ocean. I don't care about stupid fish or ocean life so easy money for me. I also allow people to sail my waters to hunt the endangered whales for fun and sport. I couldn't care less about whales and if they go extinct, big woop. Its my property and no one can tell me what to do with it.

What is objectivism's solution to this? Try to buy me out? Not interested... I like my life just fine and would love to see my children take over the business some day if they want. Meanwhile, nuclear waste builds up, no leaks so far, but who knows what will happen to that stuff years from now after I'm dead.

It also assumes that correct answers to the questions of "Is $ACTIVITY that I'm doing rationally 'good' in both the short and long term?" will always be arrived at by the actor -- or failing that, by some independent entity who has the power to be always right.

Details of such an exercise will be left to the reader, but it should be obvious that the primary weak point in this is that it's only necessary to find a way to fool the independent entity in order to do all sorts of crazy stuff that violates the principles of Objectivism.

 

[Myriad]

Dinwar, I was looking forward to reading your response to this post (myraid sums up much of what I would have liked to have said better than I could have said it), I may have missed it (if so could someone link it?), but if not any chance of a response?

Thanks.

It appears my question contains assumptions that make it unanswerable. Specifically, focusing on disability rights of access might have been a mistake, since there are some people who do not need to worry about ever being disabled and would therefore find disability rights of no possible benefit to them. (Specifically, those are: people who are magically invulnerable to harm, and people who find the prospect of living with compromised mobility so appalling that they are certain they would commit suicide instead.)

So let me try a simpler question. Roark the architect decides his true incorruptible artistic vision is to create a building that's 120 stories tall and shaped like Ronald McDonald. (Okay, that might be out of character for Roark. So let's say it's some other architect with different tastes than Roark, who naturally demands the same rights Roark does because that's only fair, right?) His client, the CEO of a certain fast food corporation, enthusiastically agrees with the design and provides the construction funding and a plot of land in a location that guarantees the Ronossus will dominate the view for miles around.

Who, in Objectivist World, gets to tell them they can't build it, and on what basis?

Respectfully,
Myriad

 

[Mister Agenda]

Who, in Objectivist World, gets to tell them they can't build it, and on what basis?

Respectfully,
Myriad

In the real world, if it doesn't violate zoning or present some sort of hazard, who gets to tell them they can't build it, and why?

 

[remirol]

In the real world, if it doesn't violate zoning or present some sort of hazard, who gets to tell them they can't build it, and why?

What if that "who" is wrong?

 

[Mister Agenda]

What if that "who" is wrong?

I think we're still at the point of trying to figure out who the 'who' is. If no one has the right (in our present reality) to keep people from building a giant Ronald McDonald on their own property if it meets the codes and zoning, how does the 'who' being 'wrong' apply? In that situation, there is no 'who'.

 

[remirol]

I think we're still at the point of trying to figure out who the 'who' is.

I don't see why the "who" in current reality would necessarily be the same as the "who" in Objectivist World. If it matters, though, who would it be in OW?

ETA: With regard to the underlying premise: few want to live within sight of to a 120 foot Ronald McDonald, and as such this architect's action has caused harm to those who already have houses nearby; their property value has been sharply decreased, causing them to lose money. So it's clear that definitely someone should be "who", and as such: what if that who is wrong?

 

[Buckaroo]

I think we're still at the point of trying to figure out who the 'who' is. If no one has the right (in our present reality) to keep people from building a giant Ronald McDonald on their own property if it meets the codes and zoning, how does the 'who' being 'wrong' apply? In that situation, there is no 'who'.

Your question seems ill-posed, in the sense that it will most likely be precisely these codes and zoning regulations that preclude the building of a 120 ft Ronald McDonald. But more to the point, these codes and zoning regulations would not exist in OblectivistLand. So what are you asking?

 

[Earthborn]

As a quick example, I recall Earthborn used the fact that Objectivism assumed a persistent, knowable reality as part of the argument against Objectivism being a practical philosophy.

Sort of. Here's what I actually wrote: "If a philosophy has "central tenets" that are provably untrue (such as "human beings have direct contact with reality through sense perception, that one can attain objective knowledge from perception through the process of concept formation and inductive logic"), then it fails almost immediately." I expected someone to respond to it a bit sooner.

It is provably untrue that human beings have direct contact with reality through sense perception. Every optical illusion shows this: our contact with reality is rather indirect, filtered and distorted by our senses, coloured by our biases and earlier perceptions. No amount of "concept formation" or "inductive logic" can change this into "objective knowledge".

However I'm fairly certain Rand acknowledges that this is an assumption, but argues that it's a necessary one.

Other philosophers before her (Kuhn, Popper, etc) have argued quite convincingly that it isn't a necessary assumption. Objective reality does not need to be truly knowable even to make scientific progress. Instead of trying to prove what ideas about reality are true, one can also make progress by showing how some ideas are more difficult to prove untrue than others even if they are falsifiable.

I would argue that the assumption is even a dangerous one. If one assumes that reality is knowable, and it turns out that it isn't, then one is further away from reality then when one assumes it isn't knowable and it turns out that it is. The former assumption made one believe in a lie, the latter makes one humbly admit that one didn't know everything.

If reality isn't knowable then there's nothing for us to base any of our decisions on, and it doesn't matter what we do.

If reality isn't knowable, it can still matter a lot what we do. Maybe not to the universe as a whole, maybe not to God, but it may still matter to ourselves.

I don't think humans have access to "objective reality", but just because there is no ultimate truth, does not mean every untruth is equal. Some untruths are untruer than others. Just look at the Asimov quote in Roboramma's sig.

We will never know the true objective shape of the Earth. What shape we imagine it to be is even dependent on subjective preferences, such as how we choose to measure it, or how precise we want our calculations to be. It still matters what we do, and just because we can't prove some answers be right, we can still say with some confidence that some answers are wrong. The Earth is for example not a cube (no one ever says the Earth has 8 corners, people from all 4 corners of the Earth agree it is a tetrahedron.)

 

[Myriad]

In the real world, if it doesn't violate zoning or present some sort of hazard, who gets to tell them they can't build it, and why?

In the real world, it does violate zoning laws just about everywhere in the U.S. Most towns have building height limits, and zoning rules contain discretionary and sometimes vague terms such as "consistent with the character of the neighborhood." Permission must be obtained from the EPA and many other bureaucratic entities, and the builder has the burden of proof that all the requirements of each one are met. In theory, the appearance of the building should have no effect on most of them, but in practice, an unpopular design that raises community and public opposition will result in potentially insurmountable delays and obstacles. Laws concerning public advertising displays, air navigation hazards, movement of heavy equipment on local roads, noise, and a hundred other matters could end up in play.

Now, my impression has been that Objectivists oppose some of those laws and processes, because they impede the free use of one's own private property. If I was wrong about that, and Objectivists are actually quite happy with the way things currently are, then never mind (except, to avoid further confusion, let's rename them Ayokayists or something).

Respectfully,
Myriad