Objectivism

sarkozy

This whole discussion presupposes the fact of a self-contained individual subject. I don't find that a tenable position.

The first philosophical question to ask, therefore, is "can a human being be entirely separate from all other beings?" This question is ontological.

For Objectivism, the next question is: "can human beings be entirely rational?" This question is epistemological. To be specific: in the ways that Rand, her accolyte Alan Greenspan, and game theorists like John Nash saw it, all self-maximising choices/actions are rational. This is a funny kind of rationality because, using a strict interpretation as Rand did, 'rationalism' can lead to very self-destructive outcomes. Even Kant, a founder of rationalism, accepted that rationalism can descend into incoherence, hence his belief that where that happens, something is 'immoral' (the Categorical Imperative).

And this leads me on to the final question of ethics. If all self-maximising choices/actions are rational, therefore they are good. But if, rationally, this can lead to rational incoherence, and even self-destructive outcomes, how can that be good? For what else do self-contained, self-maximising, immoral human beings live?

Here, the Randian argument is revealed: it's an argument of circular logic which appears self-supporting but is based on false premises. I do not believe that Objectivism can stand up to scrutiny and even in Rand's own life, her commitment to her selfish worldview was torn asunder.

I would have a different proposition, but I'm first inviting discussion on these points. It's an interesting debate.

RussellTuring

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

More on Objectivism can be found in this recent NPR piece on Ayn Rand.

I could be described as an objectivist. I believe fully and completely in a world of reason, in which the right to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness are paramount. Like Rand, I see that collectivist movements such as religion and socialism exist to convince us that we should live our lives in a self-sacrificing, supplicatory way, ultimately for the benefit of a self-appointed and self-serving elite, whether it be the government or the Vatican.

Reading Atlas Shrugged today, for those who haven't done so, is a revelatory experience, as much for its character portrayals of politicians as anything else. Just read about Wesley Mouch and then listen to Eamon Gilmore speak.[/QUOTE]

I found myself increasingly at odds with Rand's points as I went through them. How she got from the first three to her final conclusion is a mystery to me; it's a bit of a leap, to say the least.

Madd Finn

Christopher Hitchens gives objectivism and Ayn Rand an amusing bitch slap

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7c-Ei7btbI

RichieC

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

Even more so capitalism, ads every 5 minutes on the telly, ads on bus stops... is the world not pure enough for you, Permabear?

Perhaps if we taxed selfless deeds to prevent the cancer of altruism from spreading..

Valmont

oscarBravo wrote: »

This is what bugs the crap out of me about Ayn Rand. She is seemingly incapable of distinguishing any shades of grey in her philosophy at all.

I have great admiration for Ayn Rand because she was always ten steps ahead of her opposition:

Ayn Rand wrote:

One of the most eloquent symptoms of the moral bankruptcy of today's culture, is a certain fashionable attitude toward moral issues, best summarized as: "There are no blacks and whites; there are only grays."

This is asserted in regard to persons, actions, principles of conduct, and morality in general. "Black and white," in this context, means "good and evil." (The reverse order used in that catch phrase is interesting psychologically.)

In any respect one cares to examine, that notion is full of contradictions (foremost among them is the fallacy of "the stolen concept"). If there is no black and white, there can be no gray -- since gray is merely a mixture of the two.

Before anyone can identify anything as "gray," one has to know what is black and what is white. In the field of morality, this means that one must first identify what is good and what is evil. And when a man has ascertained that one alternative is good and the other is evil, he has no justification for choosing a mixture. There can be no justification for choosing any part of that which one knows to be evil.

If a moral code (such as altruism) is, in fact, impossible to practice, it is the code that must be condemned as "black," not its victims evaluated as "gray." If a moral code prescribes irreconcilable contradictions -- so that by choosing the good in one resspect, a man becomes evil in another -- it is the code that must be rejected as "black." If a moral code is inapplicable to reality -- if it offers no guidance except a series of arbitrary, groundless, out-of-context injunctions and commandments, to be accepted on faith and practiced automatically, as blind dogma -- its practitioners cannot properly be classified as "white" or "black" or "gray": a moral code that forbids and paralyzes moral judgment is a contradiction in terms.

Full essay.

RichieC

Rand had no problem claiming her social security in her later years.

hypocrite.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

RichieC

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

have you read about the history of PR? obviously not if you don't think it's coercive force.

why do you think they hire psychologists in PR firms?

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

RichieC

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

yea, perhaps you should just read up on it so.

matthew8

RichieC wrote: »

Rand had no problem claiming her social security in her later years.

hypocrite.

If you pay into social security you should get your money back when you grow old, regardless of political opinions.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

RichieC

She was nothing but a schlock novelist and fantasist anyway. and an awful human by most accounts.

I find it rather ridiculous she's even mentioned in a political theory forum.

It's funny how low libertarians go to find people that agree with their ideological illness.

Joe1919

2. Reason (the faculty which identifies and integrates the material provided by man’s senses) is man’s only means of perceiving reality, his only source of knowledge, his ONLY guide to action, and his basic means of survival.

The above argument is very weak and has been traditionally attacked by the likes of David Hume and Immanuel Kant e.g. 'The critique of pure reason'. It can be argued that our pre-conceptions, emotions, customs etc. are also important guides to action and to the perception of reality. It can also be argued that the view of reality that we have is not a 'true' view but the view thats most useful to us (pragmatism) and has the greatest survival value to us or perhaps the dominant culture.(a sort of survival of the fittest or 'might is right' )

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

oscarBravo

Valmont wrote: »

I have great admiration for Ayn Rand because she was always ten steps ahead of her opposition:

Ayn Rand wrote:

One of the most eloquent symptoms of the moral bankruptcy of today's culture, is a certain fashionable attitude toward moral issues, best summarized as: "There are no blacks and whites; there are only grays."

It's a veritable straw man army around here today.

I didn't say there were no blacks and whites, and I'm unaware of anyone who has said that other than Rand.

In fact, it would be pretty difficult for me to continue to consistently argue against extremists of all stripes if I were to assert that extremes don't exist.

karma_

Another thing that gets to me about Rand was that she didn't even believe in her own philosophy, evidenced by her exclusion of the Brandens from her inner circle after she learned of their affair, when all they were doing was following their own selfish, as Rand would describe it, desires.

nesf

RichieC wrote: »

It's funny how low libertarians go to find people that agree with their ideological illness.

Less of the usual attacks and generalisations and more of the discussion about the actual philosophy please.

Madd Finn

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

.....and Beckenbauer is appealing for offside!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2F4hONEAkk

RichieC

nesf wrote: »

Less of the usual attacks and generalisations and more of the discussion about the actual philosophy please.

I would if it was an actual philosophy, but it isn't.

It's not taken seriously by philosophical scholars at all. More the realm of self styled entrepreneurs and 'business leaders'..

An excuse for greed and selfishness does not a philosophy make.

nesf

RichieC wrote: »

I would if it was an actual philosophy, but it isn't.

It's not taken seriously by philosophical scholars at all. More the realm of self styled entrepreneurs and 'business leaders'..

An excuse for greed and selfishness does not a philosophy make.

Sure but attack it on philosophical grounds. There are plenty of ways to attack this without resorting to generalisations about libertarians and similar.

Speaking as someone with no time for Objectivism at all really. That and some philosophical scholars are still dualists, which really underlines that they're not always that sensible so an argument from authority here doesn't really work.

SupaNova

Valmont wrote: »

I just very recently finished reading The Fountainhead for the second time and to be honest, I found it much more gripping and inspirational than Atlas Shrugged. However it's been four years since I read Atlas Shrugged I intend to read it again during the coming year.

Sorry only got back to this thread again now. I enjoyed the battle against collectivist thought that played out through the book, and while i despised the collectivist Ellsworth Toohey, I didn't see Howard Roark as much of a hero as he could have been. As a capitalist he was close to a complete failure. In capitalism you are forced to produce what other people want, to consume what you want. Roark's extreme stubbornness and refusal to ever produce what other people wanted made him a caricature. If he had some of Keating's compromise to get to the top and then do what he wanted while there, i could have liked him a lot more, and it would have made him more believable as a character. Rand for someone who advocated laissez faire capitalism, gave a story not of a heroic capitalist, but a man's stubborn rebellion against collective conformity, which was a bit of a let down for me.

Ayn Rand and the World She Made is a fascinating biography by Anne Heller--amazingly objective too considering the subject matter. I'd recommend any Rand fans not familiar with her life and the origins of both the objectivist and libertarian movements to give it a read. It details an encounter she had with Mises which I found quite funny (Rothbard's brief involvement in the movement was also very funny).

Thanks, will have to check it out.

Lockstep

Link

I found this an interesting read. It seems to show the downsides that a rigid application of obectivist principles can have on kids the same way as rigid application of religion does.


Was the father applying legit objectivism there (Not asking as an attack, genuinely curious)

silverharp

I'll throw it out as a question? where would Rothbard have disagreed with Rand? there would be a general overlap of the view that people should not be coerced by that state and that private property was a fundamental right.
I've only read Atlas Shrugged which is a book which has come of age but didnt feel the need to delve any more into her particular take on things.

Eliot Rosewater

Lockstep wrote: »

Link

I found this an interesting read. It seems to show the downsides that a rigid application of obectivist principles can have on kids the same way as rigid application of religion does.

Was the father applying legit objectivism there (Not asking as an attack, genuinely curious)

The religious comparison is pertinent. I was brought up in a religious Catholic household. My parents primarily stressed that one should "love your neighbour", and would criticise much of what happened around us - such as kids fighting - in a kind of religious way. The Catholic thing seemed to make them "nice". On the other hand there exists religious families who bring up their children in very strange and destructive ways. Militant Islamists serve as an extreme example, but there are many other casual examples such as children "merely" being locked into a dogma for a lot of their lives.

The question is the role of religion in this. Are the latter instances examples of families just being more religious than my parents and thus damaging their children? I would say no. And many people would agree. Many people would say that an Irish family who bring up their children like my parents did were living more in the "spirit of God" than than the extremists. They were being more religious, in a certain sense. So it would seem incorrect to blame religion, at least solely, for the latter families' behaviour.

I think that this might be comparable to the article. You could say that the father was being a strict objectivist, or you could say that he was in some ways just a "bad man" and that objectivism served as a cloak for that - a justification of his pre-defined thought patterns. Certainly the anecdote about sharing food would support that. I find it hard to believe that any point of view would praise two Western children selfishly fighting over food at the dinner table.

Valmont

oscarBravo wrote: »

It's a veritable straw man army around here today.

I didn't say there were no blacks and whites, and I'm unaware of anyone who has said that other than Rand.

In fact, it would be pretty difficult for me to continue to consistently argue against extremists of all stripes if I were to assert that extremes don't exist.

Taking the first sentence of the excerpt I posted of the not very long essay I linked to and then making accusations of straw men based on the information contained within that one sentence, well, it's a bit rich.

Considering you don't appear to see the distinction between altruism and selfishness as a moral issue in the first instance means that this point of contention was a non-starter. An ethical distinction is obviously necessary in order to have a debate about two extremes of morality. But it's always easier to accuse people of erecting barley homunculi than to dig a little deeper eh?

nesf

Valmont wrote: »

Taking the first sentence of the excerpt I posted of the not very long essay I linked to and then making accusations of straw men based on the information contained within that one sentence, well, it's a bit rich.

Even a first year philosophy essay would be ripped apart by correctors for such a straw man in the opening sentence. To be fair. Your first paragraph frames the essay's context, if it's a straw man then this is a serious problem.

Suryavarman

silverharp wrote: »

I'll throw it out as a question? where would Rothbard have disagreed with Rand? there would be a general overlap of the view that people should not be coerced by that state and that private property was a fundamental right.
I've only read Atlas Shrugged which is a book which has come of age but didnt feel the need to delve any more into her particular take on things.

I don't think Rothbard disagreed with Objectivism, it was more that he came to dislike Rand herself. For many years Rothbard was a member of Rand's inner circle. He once said that Atlas Shrugged was "not merely the greatest novel ever written, it is one of the very greatest books ever written, fiction or nonfiction." I believe they had a falling out after Rothbard introduced his wife to Rand one night. Upon finding that his wife believed in religion Rand encouraged Rothbard to divorce her as she "lacked reason". Of course this wasn't going to happen and as far as I know Rothbard never talked to Rand again. This falling out eventually resulted in the short play "Mozart was a Red". I'm open to correction on any of this but I'm pretty sure that's the story.

Valmont

oscarBravo wrote: »

It's a veritable straw man army around here today.

I didn't say there were no blacks and whites, and I'm unaware of anyone who has said that other than Rand.

In fact, it would be pretty difficult for me to continue to consistently argue against extremists of all stripes if I were to assert that extremes don't exist.

This is why I dislike the prevalence on boards of the term straw man; apart from being used lazily, it invariably involves the invocation of larger and more annoying ones like the above.

Rand is referring to the negation of blacks and whites in the name of a compromise between the two (i.e. grey). In fact, your post above belies the implicit assumption that there shouldn't be blacks or whites solely because they represent 'extremes'. You argue against a black or a white on the basis that it isn't a grey which by implication is an attempt to stamp out both black and white; which, if you read past the first sentence, is exactly the tomfoolery the essay is trying to address. Straw man, me arse.

Manco

‘From almost every page of Atlas Shrugged a voice can be heard, from painful necessity, commanding: “To a gas chamber go!"' http://bit.ly/abF96X

Actually, it's a bit unfair for me to criticise it when I haven't read it; I'll do so over Christmas. I've heard it's hilariously bad, like Planet 9 From Outer Space as re-imagined by some fascist teenage loner.