h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

These are various philosophical objections to Objectivism. I have borrowed the arguments mostly from Robert Bass and Kevin Bywater. They focus on her ethical theory. I am assuming that the reader has some understanding of the Objectivist position.

Objectivism claims material reality as it's metaphysical basis. It maintains a strict belief in the law of cause and effect and specifically denies anything spiritual. Since human beings are also physical, including their brains, they must also be subject to cause and effect. If this is true our decisions are caused rather than chosen. Yet Rand maintains that choice is essential to ethics, so her metaphysical position undercuts her ethics.

Rand makes a bold claim when she says she has derived ethical truth from objective fact. Philosophers since Kant (I think it is) have been wary of such a move. This claim rests on the supposed objective value of life which she simply stipulates. In other words she offers no objective reason why life must be the primary value. She weakens her position further by qualifying that life does not mean mere survival but survival as a rational being. She has presupposed what kind of a life is valuable without any justification; this sort of judgment must be subjective not objective.

The most likely defense for this view would be that life is a prerequisite for having any values, but it does not follow that life must be the highest value. This is especially true when we remember that Rand is talking about the individual’s life, not the collective’s. By her rational it would be immoral for a parent to risk her life for her child, yet without this kind of self-sacrifice (which Rand believes is evil) humanity would long ago have faced extinction. Her defense of individualism is so fanatical that it would not only undermine collectivism, but eventually the entire human race. This would leave no one at all to hold any values, since everyone eventually dies no matter how selfish.

Rand’s attacks on Altruism are some of her most famous and fallacious. She warps the definition of Altruism beyond recognition, claiming that it means sacrificing one’s self, which is synonymous with death. In very harsh terms she accuses Altruists of being harbingers of death and Altruism of being the philosophy of suicide. She then offers her version of Selfishness as the alternative. She has presented a false dichotomy here. Clearly there is a great deal of middle ground between suicide and selfishness, furthermore she has mischaracterized her altruist opponents who do not believe in the absurd notion that she calls Altruism.

In general I think it’s safe to say that philosophers find Objectivism to be unimpressive and unsystematic. It exists more as a justification for Rand’s extremist social/political views, so it is built from the top down rather than the ground up. This can be seen by the attempt to build the primacy of reason and economic self-interest into her “foundations.”

Your arguments against Objectivism demonstrate that your knowledge of the philosophy has gaping holes. Your arguments can only have any weight among those who are equally illinformed. I hereunder elaborate:

1)"Since human beings are also physical, including their brains, they must also be subject to cause and effect. If this is true our decisions are caused rather than chosen. Yet Rand maintains that choice is essential to ethics, so her metaphysical position undercuts her ethics." No, it does not. To quote Leonard Peikoff from his book OBJECTIVISM: THE PHIOLOSPHY OF AYN RAND: "Man's actions do have causes; he does choose a course of behaviour for a reason - but this does not make the course determined or the choice unreal. It does not, because man himself decides what are to be the governing reasons. Man chooses the causes that shape his actions." (p.65)

2) "By her rational it would be immoral for a parent to risk her life for her child", wrong again. Objectivism's ethics of rational self-interest maintain that man's ultimate goal is happiness. This necessitates a hierarchy of values. Sacrifice means sacrificing a value to a lesser or a non-value - that is immoral. In the senario in question, the parent would probably be willing to jeapordise her own life to save her child because she would not be able to live happily without it, i.e., the child represents a greater value to her than her own life. The parent would not be making a sacrifice.

3) Now we come to the spurious and falacious claim with which you end your piece: "In general I think it’s safe to say that philosophers find Objectivism to be unimpressive and unsystematic. It exists more as a justification for Rand’s extremist social/political views, so it is built from the top down rather than the ground up. This can be seen by the attempt to build the primacy of reason and economic self-interest into her 'foundations.'" Hah! Take a look at OBJECTIVISM: THE PHILOSOPHY OF AYN RAND by Leonard Peikoff, it is the only systematic and completely comprehensive statement of Objectivism. The book is brilliantly concieved and organized, and builds FROM THE GROUND UP beginning with axiomatic primaries. You will have nothing left to say once you have read it (which I doubt you will).

Sorry, but it's absolutely true to say that "philosophers find Objectivism to be unimpressive and unsystematic". That's why it's not taught in UK universities (nor in respectable US universities as far as I'm aware of), nor the subject of much (if any) serious and credible academic research from professional philosophers.

The respected proponent of libertarian views is Robert Nozick, who I think puts forward the most persausive case possible for libertarianism, but which still has a large number of very serious flaws and hidden assumptions. It's still a very valuable work of philosophy, though.

Otto

Ayn Rand is not a libertarian, she is an Objectivist.

As far as Objectivism not being taught in "respectable" US or UK universities, that says something about the so-called "respectable" universities - NOT Objectivism.

I am not aware of a single real argument that refutes any aspect of Objectivism, because it is impossible. Objectivism is based on reality.

Well, if the finest philosophical minds don't take it seriously, that seems to me to be a good reason to approach with caution, wouldn't you say?

So what is objectivism, in a nutshell? From what I understand with previous conversations with various disciples of Rand, it seems to involve trying to build some moral claims on objective claims about the way the world is. Yet David Hume argues that it's not possible to build an normative (ought) statement on an empirical (is) statement without some other normative premise. This is controversial, but I've found no counterexamples so far.

What, in a nutshell, is Rand's claim? I'll see if I can give you some good reasons to be suspicious of it....

Oh, and welcome to H2G2!

Otto

-Thanks.

After having read almost all of Ayn Rand's books as well as Leonard Peikoff's _Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand_ and finding absolutely nothing to dispute, I became an Objectivist. I do not care what the "finest [conventional] philosophical minds" have to say about it.

Here is Objectivism in a nutshell, it comes from the Ayn Rand Institute at www.aynrand.org.

ESSENTIALS OF OBJECTIVISM
Ayn Rand named her philosophy “Objectivism” and described it as a philosophy for living on earth. Objectivism is an integrated system of thought that defines the abstract principles by which a man must think and act if he is to live the life proper to man. Ayn Rand first portrayed her philosophy in the form of the heroes of her best-selling novels, The Fountainhead (1943) and Atlas Shrugged (1957). She later expressed her philosophy in nonfiction form.
Ayn Rand was once asked if she could present the essence of Objectivism while standing on one foot. Her answer was:

Metaphysics: Objective Reality
Epistemology: Reason
Ethics: Self-interest
Politics: Capitalism

She then translated those terms into familiar language:

“Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed.”
“You can’t eat your cake and have it, too.”
“Man is an end in himself.”
“Give me liberty or give me death.”

The basic principles of Objectivism can be summarized as follows:

Metaphysics
“Reality, the external world, exists independent of man’s consciousness, independent of any observer’s knowledge, beliefs, feelings, desires or fears. This means that A is A, that facts are facts, that things are what they are — and that the task of man’s consciousness is to perceive reality, not to create or invent it.” Thus Objectivism rejects any belief in the supernatural — and any claim that individuals or groups create their own reality.

Epistemology
“Man’s reason is fully competent to know the facts of reality. Reason, the conceptual faculty, is the faculty that identifies and integrates the material provided by man’s senses. Reason is man’s only means of acquiring knowledge.” Thus Objectivism rejects mysticism (any acceptance of faith or feeling as a means of knowledge), and it rejects skepticism (the claim that certainty or knowledge is impossible).

Human Nature
Man is a rational being. Reason, as man’s only means of knowledge, is his basic means of survival. But the exercise of reason depends on each individual’s choice. “Man is a being of volitional consciousness.” “That which you call your soul or spirit is your consciousness, and that which you call ‘free will’ is your mind’s freedom to think or not, the only will you have, your only freedom. This is the choice that controls all the choices you make and determines your life and character.”Thus Objectivism rejects any form of determinism, the belief that man is a victim of forces beyond his control (such as God, fate, upbringing, genes, or economic conditions).

Ethics
“Reason is man’s only proper judge of values and his only proper guide to action. The proper standard of ethics is: man’s survival qua man — i.e., that which is required by man’s nature for his survival as a rational being (not his momentary physical survival as a mindless brute). Rationality is man’s basic virtue, and his three fundamental values are: reason, purpose, self-esteem. Man — every man — is an end in himself, not a means to the ends of others; he must live for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself; he must work for his rational self-interest, with the achievement of his own happiness as the highest moral purpose of his life.” Thus Objectivism rejects any form of altruism — the claim that morality consists in living for others or for society.

Politics
“The basic social principle of the Objectivist ethics is that no man has the right to seek values from others by means of physical force — i.e., no man or group has the right to initiate the use of physical force against others. Men have the right to use force only in self-defense and only against those who initiate its use. Men must deal with one another as traders, giving value for value, by free, mutual consent to mutual benefit. The only social system that bars physical force from human relationships is laissez-faire capitalism. Capitalism is a system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which the only function of the government is to protect individual rights, i.e., to protect men from those who initiate the use of physical force.” Thus Objectivism rejects any form of collectivism, such as fascism or socialism. It also rejects the current “mixed economy” notion that the government should regulate the economy and redistribute wealth.

Esthetics
“Art is a selective re-creation of reality according to an artist’s metaphysical value-judgments.” The purpose of art is to concretize the artist’s fundamental view of existence. Ayn Rand described her own approach to art as “Romantic Realism”: “I am a Romantic in the sense that I present men as they ought to be. I am Realistic in the sense that I place them here and now and on this earth.” The goal of Ayn Rand’s novels is not didactic but artistic: the projection of an ideal man: “My purpose, first cause and prime mover is the portrayal of Howard Roark or John Galt or Hank Rearden or Francisco d’Anconia as an end in himself — not as a means to any further end.”

Thanks for the summary. It's late here, so just a preliminary response for now.

Metaphysics:
Isn't there an argument for thinking that what we see is coloured in some way by what we know? If I look at an x-ray of an arm, I see a very different thing from a first year medical student, who sees a different thing from a junior doctor, who in turn sees a different thing from a consultant or specialist, who sees a different thing to someone from the Amazonian rainforest who doesn't know what an x-ray is. There may be something that lies behind people's different perceptions, but we can't get at it (Thomas Nagel called this "the view from nowhere") - we're just left with what we see plus what we know about it inexorably combined. It's not that we create our own reality, (ie that we have a choice) but that what we perceive is determined in part by what we know and what we believe.

Epistemology: It's not enough to just "reject" mysticism and skepticism. An argument is needed, otherwise it's not a philosophy but dogmatism.

Human nature:
I find this view extraordinary. I accept that people do have some measure of free will, but surely what X wants to do is heavily influenced by those factors that you list. Why else would people's upbringing have such an impact on their lives?

Ethics and Politics:
This is a really odd set of views. I really don't see why people should be entitled to whatever they can get through capitalism without any regard to the well-being of others. Why is it okay to have people starve while others have plenty? Why is it okay for one person to claim the only well and charge extortionate prices for water? Why does a person's property "rights" trump another person's claim to food and water that they need to survive?

I also don't see why the individual is the starting point. When people say "tell me about yourself", the response is a list of how that person is related to others. Name is about family, hobbies are what you enjoy doing (usually with others), work is about role in society. What is a person without society? How can people be happy without any reference at all to the well-being of others, of the community of which they're part?

A system which properly respects individuals and individual rights, and respects people as autonomous rational individuals, surely cannot allow people to starve or to live in poverty? How is this showing respect for others?

I've got more to say about this, but that's enough for now. What you've posted is a useful summary, but it's a list of beliefs which can all be challenged. I don't see what is objective about any of them, and I can't see any actual *arguments* for them.

Otto.

RE: YOUR PARAGRAPH ON ALTRUISM

The Oxford English Dictionary (2nd Edition) defines "altruism" as:
"...to be unselfish".

The same dictionary defines "selfishness" as:
"...concerned chiefly with one's own personal profit".

Any transaction conducted with beneficial results for all parties involved is known as a "trade".

A transaction which is conducted in such a way that one party trades a value in return for a lesser or non-value is a "sacrifice".

Altruism - the opposite of selfishness - holds that any non-sacrifical action is immoral. This theory is fundementally evil because it implies that one man is morally required to sacrifice himself and his values for another man; and, as man's life is the moral standard of value, this in itself is immoral.

For example: altruism would have you sacrafice your life for an ennemy - a person inimical to your values. This illustrates how anti-life, anti-man, anti-mind altruism really is. It holds the individual's life as being worth nothing.

Hey Bro! Nice post...

Perhaps this is just semantics, but....

"Altruism - the opposite of selfishness - holds that any non-sacrifical action is immoral. This theory is fundementally evil because it implies that one man is morally required to sacrifice himself and his values for another man; and, as man's life is the moral standard of value, this in itself is immoral. "

Altruism does not hold that any non-sacrifical ation is immoral. At least, not any any sensible definition of altruism. It's not even usually thought of as being a moral doctrine at all, but a description of a motivation for an action. An altruistic action is one that I undertake for the benefit of others which will not benefit me (and may even cost me) - it's a property of moral motivation, not a moral theory in itself.

Philosophers differentiate the moral status that actions are said to have. Actions can be compulsary (saving the life of a child at no risk to yourself), forbidden (torturing an innocent for pleasure), neutral (brushing my teeth), or superogatory (diving on a live hand grenade to save others).

Superogatory actions are actions which have moral value, but which demand so much of us (in the case of a hand grenade, sacrificing your own life) that most people don't think that they are compulsary.

John, it seems to me that you think that the moral code of "altruism" holds that there are no superogatory actions, and that if something has moral value, it is compulsary. I agree that this is absurd, but I don't know anyone who has ever seriously put this view forward - not even Immanuel Kant, who was pretty hard core about moral duties. So I'm not sure what this argument is supposed to achieve. It's attacking a straw target.

It's a very different argument (and to me, a plausible one) to say that there is a general moral requirement to help others and not to behave exclusively selfishly at all times. This is very different from saying that we ought always and everywhere to sacrifice our interests for anyone else, even our mortal enemy. In fact, it seems to me that to *never* help others - to watch others suffer and do nothing - is also "anti-man" and "holds that the individual's life is worth nothing". If I spend *all* my money on myself and can't even spare the price of an expensive meal to save a starving person, doesn't that show that I think "the individual's life is worth nothing"? Isn't there a moral requirement to help others where it won't benefit ourselves (which is the more usual definition of altruism)?

Metaphysics: No matter how different individuals percieve reality or what they infer, it is all the same reality. Everything rests on this axiomatic concept. Even those who try to prove that it is not true rely on it because the concepts of arguments and proof rely on it (like any concept).

Epistemology: Reason is man's only means of knowledge. To quote Leonard Peikoff from OBJECTIVISM: THE PHILOSOPHY OF AYN RAND: "Some men who propose an alternative to reason are explicit emotionalists. Others, however, seeming to eschew reason AND emotion, uphold the cognitive efficacy of a variety of candidates, such as intuition, revelation, dialectic inference, Aryan instinct, extrasensory perception, or drug-induced trances...

"When a person declares that reason is not man's only means of knowledge, he ends up, admittedly or not, counting on emotion as his means of knowledge. Emotion is the only function left to guide human conciousness once one sets aside the mind's sensory and conceptual activities.

"The conclusion is clear: there is no alternative or supplement to reason as a means of knowledge. If one attempts to give emotions such a role, then he has ceased to engage in the activity of cognition. Instead, he is subverting the integrity of his mental processes and invalidating them - by introducing as their guide non-objective elements. An unanalyzed emotion, an emotion whose intellectual roots one has not identified and validated by a process of reason, is merely a subjective event of one's conciousness. It may be compared to a floating abstraction, or to a higher-level proposition that one has not reduced to perceptual data. It is a mental state disconnected from reality, a state whose relation to fact one does not know." (p.161)

I will reply to your points regarding human nature, ethics, and politics later in the day. I have to go to school now.

This, basically, is your response:

"-It's a very different argument (and to me, a plausible one) to say that there is a general moral requirement to help others and not to behave exclusively selfishly at all times.
-This is very different from saying that we ought always and everywhere to sacrifice our interests for anyone else, even our mortal enemy.
-In fact, it seems to me that to *never* help others - to watch others suffer and do nothing - is also "anti-man" and "holds that the individual's life is worth nothing".
-If I spend *all* my money on myself and can't even spare the price of an expensive meal to save a starving person, doesn't that show that I think "the individual's life is worth nothing"?
-Isn't there a moral requirement to help others where it won't benefit ourselves (which is the more usual definition of altruism)?"

1.) If one does not behave "exclusively selfishly at all times", then necessarily, that means sometimes, one must behave in a sacraficial manner which is itself immoral because the moral standard of man is his life, and following reason, one cannot behave in a sacraficial behaviour and at the same time believe in the supremacy of life because sacrafice is fundementally anti-life.

2.) Quote: "This is very different from saying that we ought always and everywhere to sacrifice our interests for anyone else, even our mortal enemy." Let me once again define altruism: "...to be unselfish". Note that the definition does NOT say: "to sometimes be unselfish". The definition specifies that altruism means to be unselfish - all the time.
This means behaving in a sacraficial manner - all the time.

3.) Quote: "In fact, it seems to me that to *never* help others - to watch others suffer and do nothing - is also "anti-man" and "holds that the individual's life is worth nothing". You obviously don't understand my argument. One can help others - but in context. If those who you are helping are people so important to you that live would be unbearable and not worth living without them - then it is not immoral to sacrafice one self. You could argue that because life is the moral standard of value, you could not sacrafice one self at any time. But since life is the moral standard of value, and life would be unbearable without that person, one is still acting in a moral manner. But it is immoral to sacrafice your own life to save someone who means nothing to you i.e a stranger.

4.) Quote: "If I spend *all* my money on myself and can't even spare the price of an expensive meal to save a starving person, doesn't that show that I think "the individual's life is worth nothing"?"
When I refer to the individual, I am refering to one self, not some completely unrelated, stranger of a starving person who will do nothing for you in return for your meal.

5.) Quote: "Isn't there a moral requirement to help others where it won't benefit ourselves (which is the more usual definition of altruism)?"
No, there is no moral requirment to sacrafice one self (which is what helping others without a benefit to ourselves is).

Good post, but I would like to add something.

Behaving selfishly sometimes and unselfishly at other times is a compromise. In any compromise between good (selfishness) and evil (altruism), as in a compromise between food and poison, evil always wins.

Hi LDT,

Thanks for your response. There's no hurry in discussing these issues - they're not going to go away any time soon.

In response to your response on metaphysics and epistemology.

Metaphysics:
I think I agree in principle that it is the same physical objects that everyone percieves, but interpretation of the data varies so widely from person to person depending upon what they know. Look around the room now - I see a telephone, a lamp, a plant, a plastic chair, an opened envelope.

Actually, I don't *see* any of those things at all - that's what my brain tells me that I'm seeing. It interprets and categorises the data, and I don't think that there's any way around this. It may be that it's the same set of things that is causing everyone to see what they see, but it's filtered through what they know and what they have experienced. So we can't get at the "thing itself".

It's true that communities have shared understandings and shared knowledge which can be the basis for discussion. But the ontology - what things exist - can't be the foundation for any ethical arguments because it's interpreted by everyone in a different way. What exists cannot be a basis for any kind of argument because everyone experiences reality differently. But even if there was agreement, I can't see how we could move from what things exist to any other kind of conclusion without a moral premise creeping in.

It's also not true that concepts of argument (logic etc) rely on the real world. Maths and part of logic are true or false independently of what exists. 1 plus 1 equals 2 is said to be "a priori" true. Even if nothings existed, it would still be true.

However, I suppose my real interest is seeing how claims about what realy exists can be used as a basis for other kinds of arguments.


Epistemology:

The problem, I think, is in this section:
"When a person declares that reason is not man's only means of knowledge, he ends up, admittedly or not, counting on emotion as his means of knowledge"

This misses out a step. Reason is a process involving moving from evidence and arguments to a conclusion. It's a process with an input and an output. Is knowledge the input or the output? For now, I'm going to assume that it's the output. We'll call the input "information".

My means of knowledge, then, is information with reason applied to it. But emotions (mine and others, predicted and real) are part of that information. My knowledge (output) is only as good as the information I'm getting in, and my process of reasoning. So my means of knowledge must be my reason and my information. Emotion is part of that information. Therefore information is part of my means of knowledge. But I don't "count on it" to the exclusion of other sources of information, nor do I leave it unsubjected to reason. This account to me seems over-simplistic and wrong.

Emotions are a sign that we feel a certain way about something - they're evidence, if you like. And this can be processed by reason, I think, in the same was as other information and evidence through other senses. I'm not sure that Rand would disagree -what you post seems to indicate that emotions can be "analysed", "identified" and "validated".
But this seems to contradict what was said earlier. Here, it seems, emotions *can* be part of the information and therefore part of the reasoning process which produces knowledge.

I think that the real disagreement may come over which emotions Rand things are "valid" and which not.

That's a response to post 11, obviously. I'll respond to your points, John, in detail later. I think your summary of my argument is basically a fair one, but I think that your responses contain some pretty major assumptions that I don't think can be justified. Your definition of altruism in particular is one that I've never heard used elsewhere, and doesn't fit with common useage. But more later....

What is your definition of altruism?

Altruism is usually defined as an action that is performed with the aim of helping others at no benefit (and usually at some loss) to the agent. There's a lot of argument about whether there's any such thing as altruism, as some philosophers think that people actually get a lot out of such acts in that they get a "warm glow" from doing the right thing, or they avoid damaging feelings of guilt. Sometimes, as you say, actions that appear altruistic aren't because of the nature of the relationship between the agent and the person to be benefited.

We are in agreement, I think, that it is not possible for a person to be altruistic all the time. You call it "immoral", I'd just call it "impossible" - people can't behave like that. But, as I said, no-one thinks that this is so.

In 2, you say:
"Let me once again define altruism: "...to be unselfish". Note that the definition does NOT say: "to sometimes be unselfish". The definition specifies that altruism means to be unselfish - all the time."

I should say that no-one but Rand uses altruism to mean that. It's not what philosophers mean and I don't think it's what people mean in everyday conversation. As I said before, "altruism" is a motivation for an action, not a moral code. It's not a moral code because it's not possible for people to act like that (or at least not for very long). But I'm less interested in semantics and more interested in trying to work out what the argument is supposed to be.

Why would it be immoral for me to spend some of my money on helping a complete stranger by giving to a charity? From what you say, Rand calls this a "sacrifice", which is rather loaded language. But if it's my money, why shouldn't I dispose of it as I see fit? Why shouldn't I sacrifice my life to save strangers, if I so wish? It's my life.

I can see that there are some good arguments to say that I am not morally required to give up my sandwich or my life, but I can't see why I should think that it would be downright immoral for me to do so.

Suppose someone has the following moral code. "As long as there are people in the world who are starving, thirsty, or lack basic shelter, I will give 5% of my income to various charities. However, I like pizza, soccer, and internet access, so I'm going to spend my money on those things, even though I know that this money could go to others who need it more".

Now why is it "immoral" to act in this way? Some of my actions - but by no means all - are motivated by altruism.

Why should I think that people I have never met have no moral value? What would such a society where everyone thought that look like ?

Otto

Objectivism is an intricate and logically built philosophy, I find it very hard to succinctly explain certain points to someone without a grounding in it. Also, remember that I am a student of Objectivism, not an expert, so I might not be as clear in some of my explanations as I would like to be. I will write brief responses to all of your points, but for a full explanation that will completely prove itself, I refer you too OBJECTIVISM: THE PHILOSOPHY OF AYN RAND by Leonard Peikoff. It is a very worthwhile read.

Metaphysics:
"Sensory experience is a form of awareness produced by physical entities (the external stimuli) acting on physical instrumentalities (the sense organs) which respond automatically as a link in a causally determined chain. Obeying inexorable natural laws the organs transmit a message to the nervous system and the brain. Such organs have no power of choice, no power to invent, distort, or deceive. They do not respond to a zero, only to a something, something real, some existential object which acts upon them.

"The senses do not interpret their own reactions; they do not identify the objects that inpinge on them. They merely respond to stimuli, thereby making us aware of the fact that some kinds of objects exist. We do not become aware of what the objects are, but merely THAT they are. 'The task of man's senses,' writes Ayn Rand, 'is to give him evidence of existence, but the task of identifying it belongs to his reason, his senses tell him only that something IS, but WHAT it is must be learned by the mind.' It is only in regard to the 'what' - only on the conceptual level of conciousness - that the possibility of error arises. If a boy sees a jolly bearded man in a red suit and infers that Santa Claus has come down from the North Pole, his senses have made no error; it is his conclusion that is mistaken." (Peikoff; Pp.49-50)

The concept of 1+1=2 is not independent of what exists. It depends on the axiomatic concepts of the law of identity and the law of cause & effect.

Epistemology:
You say that emotions are part of what you term "the information"; this is not so. "Emotions are automatic consequences of a mind's past conclusions" (Ibid. p.159).

Human nature:
"Man's actions do have causes; he does choose a course of behavior for a reason - but this does not make the course dtermined or the choice unreal. It does not, because man himslef decides what are to be the governing reasons. MAN CHOOSES THE CAUSES THAT SHAPE HIS ACTIONS" (Ibid. p.65).

Ethics and politics:
Some notes on capitalism:
-Capitalism: is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned.

-In capitalism, men act and interact voluntarily, by individual choice and free trade.

-Since rights are the means of subordinating society to moral law, capitalism is the only moral social system.

-Intellectually, independence requires that one form’s one’s own judgments. In a paternalistic society, the government “does the thinking for you” and forces you to practice what they preach, whether it be completely irrational (the moon is made out of green cheese), or completely rational (the initiation of force is evil). This in itself is evil however because the government is initiating the use of force against individuals.

-Since an individual under freedom chooses his own actions, he can be held responsible for them. If man acts under compulsion he cannot be held responsible for his actions.

-Productiveness is the virtue of creating material values. Capitalism is a system for producers.

-Because capitalism is geared to the requirements of the creative process, capitalism is the system of wealth.

-Capitalism counts on the profit motive. The profit motive is man’s incentive to work in order to gain something- most commonly, money. Such a motive, being entirely just, is profoundly moral.

-The amount of a business man’s profit indicates how much consumers value his product over the factors constituting the input of the enterprise. Profit therefore measures the creation of wealth by the profit maker.

Answer to Paragraph 1:
You state that sometimes people perform altruistic actions to avoid "damaging" feelings of guilt. The moral standard of man (you, for example) is his own life. Why would a man have "damaging feelings of guilt" for behaving in a moral way? They only have guilt in the first place because they accept the theory of altruism, which is impossible to live up too.

Answer to Paragraph 2 and 3:
"We are in agreement, I think, that it is not possible for a person to be altruistic all the time. You call it "immoral", I'd just call it "impossible" - people can't behave like that. But, as I said, no-one thinks that this is so." Otto, the Oxford English Reference Dictionary specifies that to be morally correct in altruist terms means to be altruistic at ALL times.

Answer to Paragraph 4:
"hy would it be immoral for me to spend some of my money on helping a complete stranger by giving to a charity? From what you say, Rand calls this a "sacrifice", which is rather loaded language. But if it's my money, why shouldn't I dispose of it as I see fit? Why shouldn't I sacrifice my life to save strangers, if I so wish? It's my life.'

Otto, there is no doubt that it is your life to do with as you please, but that his little or nothing to do with the present discussion. You should not sacrafice yourself to a complete stranger because helping that man and losing your own value(s) in the process is fundementally immoral (I repeat). You would gain nothing and lose value for no gain (this would be a sacrafice - I repeat). That is completely illogical.

Answer to Paragraph 5:
Otto, it would be immoral for you to give up your sandwich or your life for a completely unrelated stranger because in doing that you are supporting the fundementally anti-life principle that one man is required to give up and/or surrender his values to another.

Answer to Paragraph 6 and 7:
It is immoral to act in this way for the same reasons stated above.

Answer to Paragraph 8:
If you would sacrifice your life for stranger, it would demonstrate that you have no self-esteem because you value your own life as less than a stranger's. The same applies - to a lesser extent, of course - for all sacrifices.

I'm going to separate out replies now....


LDT, in your response about epistemology (which you're calling metaphysics), all you've done is to give some more quotes which put forward the same point of view without engaging at all with any of the arguments that I've put forward.

"If a boy sees a jolly bearded man in a red suit and infers that Santa Claus has come down from the North Pole, his senses have made no error; it is his conclusion that is mistaken."

A boy doesn't see a jolly bearded man and then infer that it's Santa. He sees *something* which he infers as being a man, as having a beard, and being jolly. All these depend on knowing what these things are and being to identify them. For instance, what if you've never seen a beard before? Or what if you can't gauge people's emotions from looking at them, like people with autism or asperger's syndrome. It's not just the "Santa" that's the inference. It's the whole lot. The second I try to categorise or communicate what I see, I interpret. When I interpret, I'm prone to error and to subjective judgement based upon what I know. All that I can say is that I can see "that". Anything else is an interpretation.

Your comments on epistemology and human nature are just assertions, and not arguments. They don't engage with any of the arguments that I've put forward. I've put forward quite a detailed argument as to why this kind of view is wrong - you can't just deny it without an argument