A Philosophy Professor Discusses Ayn Rand in his Ethics Class

[Foster Zygote]

Altruism done voluntarily, rather than by force. Many creatures evolved to want to help others, but I don't know of cases where animals evolved to force other animals to help each other.

Who is forcing you to help others?

 

[Dinwar]

Who is forcing you to help others?

Everyone who advocates taxing me to pay someone else is advocating forcing me to help others. The fact that they are required to ignore in their thought process is that they have no right to decide what's done with the money I earn, any more htan they have the right to decide what to do with my body.

This is a standard answer in Objectivism; asking the question is the equivalent of asking "Who's sexually harassing workers?" to a femanist. Either you're being intentionally obtuse by asking the question, or you're completely unaware of the field you're discussing.

 

[Akri]

Who is forcing you to help others?

I didn't say anyone was. I sad that was the form of altruism which Objectivism opposes. If that's not the form of altruism which resulted from evolution then I don't see where the irony is.

 

[remirol]

Everyone who advocates taxing me to pay someone else is advocating forcing me to help others.

Anyone else get Bingo on this one?

 

[Merton]

Rational self-interest is derived from the metaphysical view of all humans as equal in Objectivism. Note that this is metaphysical, not existential--meaning that we're all CREATED equal, and there's no human INHERENTLY superior to others.

In what way are we all created equal? And by what standard are you judging superiority? I have a feeling I would contest these claims, but I'd like to get more information first.

That said, rational self-interest demands we respect one another's rights. After all, if we don't it becomes a free-for-all, and even the victors in such a situation suffer horribly.

I don't think this is as cut-and-dry as you're presenting it: there are plenty of relatively stable societies in which power structures abuse the rights of their citizens, to the benefit of those who hold power.

Merton, the flaw in your reasoning is that you assume a philosophy must be either utilitarian or deontological--ie, it must either allow anything that works, or forbid everything but a (necessarily short) list of activities. Objectivism doesn't fall into either category, and the confusion you're having stems from the breakdown of your taxonomy.

I'm only assuming it's deontological because you folks are telling me there's a duty to respect human rights. I'm just trying to figure out where these rights originate.

 

[Dinwar]

In what way are we all created equal?

Metaphysically.

What that means is, we have the same potential. This is in contrast to the Chain of Being, which asserts that kings are metaphysically superior to others, the Ubermench concept, and alturism (both of which say some people are destined to serve, and others to be served).

I don't think this is as cut-and-dry as you're presenting it: there are plenty of relatively stable societies in which power structures abuse the rights of their citizens, to the benefit of those who hold power.

Just as therre are plenty of societies that exist via slave labor. Does that mean that you don't object to slavery?

I'm only assuming it's deontological because you folks are telling me there's a duty to respect human rights.

You're twisting our words. To call respecting rights a duty is a perversion of both concepts. Before you ask, the perversion is this: in a deontological ethical theory you are obligated to do your duty even if you are utterly alone. Rights, in contrast, are only applicable when you interact with others. And as for the perversion of rights, to say you have rights but that other people aren't obligated to respect them is to say, in fact, that you do not have those rights. A right that need not be respected isn't a right at all.

I'm just trying to figure out where these rights originate.

I told you: They originate from the fact that you're interacting with equals. If you're not interacting the concept of rights doesn't exist, and if humans weren't metaphysically equal they wouldn't be what they are.

 

[Merton]

Metaphysically.

What that means is, we have the same potential. This is in contrast to the Chain of Being, which asserts that kings are metaphysically superior to others, the Ubermench concept, and alturism (both of which say some people are destined to serve, and others to be served).

That's where I thought you were going with it, and that's obviously false. Not everyone has the same potential or abilities; that's just genetics.

Just as therre are plenty of societies that exist via slave labor. Does that mean that you don't object to slavery?

I really have no clue where you're trying to go with this. I was merely illustrating that your metric is invalid.

You're twisting our words. To call respecting rights a duty is a perversion of both concepts. Before you ask, the perversion is this: in a deontological ethical theory you are obligated to do your duty even if you are utterly alone. Rights, in contrast, are only applicable when you interact with others. And as for the perversion of rights, to say you have rights but that other people aren't obligated to respect them is to say, in fact, that you do not have those rights. A right that need not be respected isn't a right at all.

Rights are inherently dutiful, but they don't comprise the totality of deontological ethics.

 

[jimbob]

I'm curious--if someone was complaining about how Evolution is often "mean", and the response was "yes, we know, nobody is trying to say otherwise" would you be responding the same way? The people arguing for Objectivism aren't doing so on the grounds that it's nice, but on the grounds that it's right (that is, on the grounds that it's internally-consistent and consistent with reality). If that's the truth--if Objectivism is correct--then it being mean is completely irrelevant.

I'm not sure what this means.

I'm willing to accept internal consistency. It is the "consistent with reality" bit that is confusing me.

Are you saying that people are acting as objectivists now? Or that they could? Or that objectivism describes human behaviour? Or What?

Either way I think it is pretty pointless and a better question is "What sort of society do I want to live in, and what would the consequences of trying a particular approach be?"

Objectivist society would lead to an unpleasant world, and reward antisocial behaviour. To say nothing about how vulnerable people would be cared for.

ETA: Or this, especially the last paragraph:

I guess I might, if we had a superior system to evolution already in place and someone was arguing that we should go back to doing things the old, nasty way.



There are lots of internally consistent moral philosophies, so being internally consistent doesn't win you any prizes. Similarly Objectivism has no special claim to be "consistent with reality" more so than any other non-theistic moral philosophy. The opposite, in fact, because in its original form Objectivism makes spurious claims to knowing the true nature of reality which it can't back up.

The very idea that a moral philosophy could be objectively correct is pretty weird though. Anyone who has that idea really needs to catch up on Hume and the is/ought problem.

 

[jimbob]

Often the option is pay, or starve.

And where would one go where there would be no cartels? They'd be everywhere.

Since you used the term 'often', would you be kind enough to point to a real-world example of this actually happening? It would be very helpful to not be working completely on speculation, and I confess my Google-fu has not been up to the task of finding a strongly analogous situation: a merchant or company buying up all the food in the region and turning their customers into indentured servants.

I conflated two bits - the often pay or starve I was thinking about debt bondage in India, or payment in company scrip in the UK during the industrial revolution, where the people were tied to a single company shop. Not monopolies in food except in a very local level.

 

[Buckaroo]

Ironically, altruism is a product of evolution.

Yeah, I already tried this track a goods ways upthread. The Randoids just define the problem away by coming up with novel definitions of "morality" and "altruism" that bear little resemblance to what real human beings mean when they use these words.

 

[jimbob]

Yeah, I already tried this track a goods ways upthread. The Randoids just define the problem away by coming up with novel definitions of "morality" and "altruism" that bear little resemblance to what real human beings mean when they use these words.

But the main problem is the conflating "is" with "ought".

In addition, the "is" is also inaccurate (but to me that is only secondary).

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Metaphysically.

What that means is, we have the same potential. This is in contrast to the Chain of Being, which asserts that kings are metaphysically superior to others, the Ubermench concept, and alturism (both of which say some people are destined to serve, and others to be served).

Two problems here.

One, this isn't a metaphysical claim, it's a physical claim. Two, it's also wrong. I don't have the potential to win footraces that Usain Bolt has. Someone with Down Syndrome doesn't have the potential to win medals in gymnastics at the Olympics.

What you're actually trying to express is an ethical or meta-ethical claim that all people ought to be treated equally.

Just as therre are plenty of societies that exist via slave labor. Does that mean that you don't object to slavery?

No, it means that your empirical claim that there is something wrong with such societies is unsupported.

Once again you are trying to justify what needs to be an ethical claim with a spurious and also incorrect empirical claim.

You're twisting our words. To call respecting rights a duty is a perversion of both concepts. Before you ask, the perversion is this: in a deontological ethical theory you are obligated to do your duty even if you are utterly alone. Rights, in contrast, are only applicable when you interact with others.

You don't actually know anything about this at all, do you?

Some deontological moral systems prescribe that you do your duty even if you are utterly alone, like Kant's, but there is absolutely nothing inherent to deontological systems that requires this. An entirely rights-based moral philosophy is perfectly possible and would be deontological.

Further, the proposal that it's a perversion of the idea of duty to call respecting rights a duty is completely daffy. The mere existence of a right implies the existence of a corresponding duty to respect that right.

And as for the perversion of rights, to say you have rights but that other people aren't obligated to respect them is to say, in fact, that you do not have those rights. A right that need not be respected isn't a right at all.

Well yes, but a right that need not be respected is a right which doesn't imply a corresponding duty to respect it. You can't have rights without duties, because a right to X is a duty that others not stop you from getting or having X. Hence it's nonsensical to claim that it's a perversion of the ideas of duty and rights to say that you have a duty to respect rights.

I told you: They originate from the fact that you're interacting with equals. If you're not interacting the concept of rights doesn't exist, and if humans weren't metaphysically equal they wouldn't be what they are.

I don't expect you to actually take any of this on board, because you're an Objectivist.

I just want to make it clear to bystanders that in terms of actual moral philosophy, this guy Dinwar is babbling word salad. He's using the terms philosophers use but he doesn't understand what they mean and what he's saying makes no actual sense.

It's possible that in Objectivist-land the words he is using mean something totally different ("metaphysical" means "meta-ethical", "duty" means "poo-poo head talk" and so on) but inventing your own special, incompatible meanings for what is already specialised jargon would be incredibly perverse.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Altruism done voluntarily, rather than by force. Many creatures evolved to want to help others, but I don't know of cases where animals evolved to force other animals to help each other.

Thought experiment: Two genetic groups of human ancestors are competing for reproductive success and long-term survival.

Group one is the Defector Punishing group. They expect people to behave altruistically towards other in-group members, and they socially pressure people who don't behave altruistically. If you come home with an antelope and you eat it all yourself while others go hungry everyone throws dirt at you, even the people who also brought home an antelope.

Group two is the Defector Non-Punishing group. Some of them behave altruistically because they've evolved to do so or because they just feel like it, but there is no social pressure to be altruistic or punishment for not being altruistic. If you come home with an antelope and eat it all yourself while others go hungry everyone says "I/they should have been more bootstrappy, I/they don't deserve to eat tonight".

Which group do you think will be more successful in propagating its genes? What does this imply about the possibility of cases where animals evolved to force other animals to help each other?

 

[Brainache]

Everyone who advocates taxing me to pay someone else is advocating forcing me to help others. The fact that they are required to ignore in their thought process is that they have no right to decide what's done with the money I earn, any more htan they have the right to decide what to do with my body.

This is a standard answer in Objectivism; asking the question is the equivalent of asking "Who's sexually harassing workers?" to a femanist. Either you're being intentionally obtuse by asking the question, or you're completely unaware of the field you're discussing.

But paying taxes that go towards something like Universal Health Care is actually helping yourself. It is in your own self interest to live in a system where you don't have to mortgage all your property to pay for emergency surgery or treatments for snake-bite or something.

Maybe in Objectivist world everyone can pay for MRI machines and Surgical Lasers etc anytime they need them, but that **** is expensive in the real world.

 

[aceboy71214]

Are you going to address the thread topic, the arguments made by the philosophy professor, at some point?

Also the reason Rand isn't normally discussed in philosophy courses is that her ideas are, philosophically speaking, juvenile and not worth engaging with. It's the same reason nobody talks about the Eye of Argon in English literature classes.

I agree. Her ideas were juvenile. In many ways, they are also non-scientific. "Man is a selfish" animal is not something that evolutionary psychologists would exclusively agree on.

 

[aceboy71214]

Everyone who advocates taxing me to pay someone else is advocating forcing me to help others. The fact that they are required to ignore in their thought process is that they have no right to decide what's done with the money I earn, any more htan they have the right to decide what to do with my body.

This is a standard answer in Objectivism; asking the question is the equivalent of asking "Who's sexually harassing workers?" to a femanist. Either you're being intentionally obtuse by asking the question, or you're completely unaware of the field you're discussing.

Interesting. So you do agree that you do not have the right to decide the fate of any "body" but your own?

 

[Cain]

Two problems here.

One, this isn't a metaphysical claim, it's a physical claim. Two, it's also wrong.

But A = A !!! What's incredible to me is that some woman could type this dumb **** and then find people foolish enough to believe it.

The more faithful believers will insist on arguing metaphysics and epistemology, even though nobody gets into Rand's writings for her "contributions" in those fields. They get into "Objectivism" for the politics and the so-called ethics, usually through the emotionally charged rhetoric found in the novels, then retroactively justify their more narcissistic teenage impulses with the guru's more technical writings which, not coincidentally, were also published ass-backwards, starting with ethics and politics and then moving on to epistemology. But whatev.

Selfishness = benevolence
Kant = evil incarnate
Ignorance is strength, slavery is freedom, and war is peace.

 

[Zelenius]

I've been following this thread from the beginning, but I've had little to say. Say what you will about most mainstream religion, but at least they have some seductive selling points, like "heaven", or "comfort". Of course these don't exist, but many religious people just assume heaven and the supernatural exists. As a skeptic, I assume nothing and question everything. I can't be religious because religion requires me to make too many assumptions.

It seems that Objectivism also requires me to make many assumptions for which there is no evidence. These types of assumptions seem to appeal to very narcissistic people("My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being").

The biggest assumption seems to be that society would be so much better if only it were run on Objectivist principles. Or just a little better. Or maybe just the same or possibly worse based on my readings and discussions with Objectivists.

An Objectivist society has never existed, but late 19th century America, the era of the Robber Barons comes closest in my opinion. Now Objectivists may quibble over a few, mostly minor details, but in essence it seems that their ideal society would look like late 19th century America with its unfettered capitalism. No welfare state, no social security, no federal income tax and very low taxes generally. Very few environmental regulations(except very localized ones).

An Objectivist might say in response to the impracticality of ending income taxes, the welfare state, the EPA, the Labor Department, the Department of the Interior, etc that they are not actually trying to change society, they just want to live their lives based on Objectivist principles. Which to me, sounds like a prostitute working in a brothel claiming she believes in and practices sexual abstinence. In short, it is beyond laughable. So much government spending works its way through the economy creating jobs, subsidies keep prices on many common goods low enough for most people to afford, not to mention the infrastructure the government maintains for people to live as "Objectivists". So they benefit from "stolen"(in their philosophy) money.

Above all, virtually all Objectivists, similar to right-wing Christians who preach against homosexuality but practice it in secret, don't take their life philosophy seriously enough. And if they don't take it seriously, why should we?

 

[Mister Agenda]

No worries, that clarifies your position, thanks.

 

[Mister Agenda]

But the main problem is the conflating "is" with "ought".

In addition, the "is" is also inaccurate (but to me that is only secondary).

It might be fair to say that one of Rand's mistakes was in thinking she had successfully bridged 'is' to 'ought'.