Brett Bellmore: Ah, yes, this would be why so few copies of her books sold…

As the bible is the best-selling book of all time, I don’t think Ayn herself would agree with you that a book sells in proportion to the validity of its content.

sbw: Then I think it is all clear:Common fallacy is not common sense.
Self-interest’s preference for community does not enthrone community.
Altruism is community’s fiction to try to enthrone itself.
Self-interest does not mean selfish.
Self-interest can be compassionate.
People could do a lot worse than read Ayn Rand. and (Heh!)
Fatheads should stop misrepresenting what they care not to understand.

exactly

Common fallacy is not common sense.
Self-interest’s preference for community does not enthrone community.
Altruism is community’s fiction to try to enthrone itself.
Self-interest does not mean selfish.
Self-interest can be compassionate.
People could do a lot worse than read Ayn Rand.
and (Heh!)
Fatheads should stop misrepresenting what they care not to understand.

Alone together.

sbw: I’m not sure we are saying anything different. One might call it logic, Thomas Reid, philosopher from Scotland in the 1700s would call it common sense from experience.

Perhaps what “we” are saying is not too far apart, but when words like “common sense” are used one runs into a bit of trouble. Common sense however is too often in opposition to good sense and is always altruistic in its standard. The common sense standard is the standard of “what would the common man consider good”. Since we can have no direct knowledge of who this “common man” is and what would be in his interest, we are left to first draw the sketch of this man then speculate as to what would be good in his estimation.” Fortunately for you you’ve had the good sense to reject that rubbish and you’ve based your standard on the evidence provided by your senses.

I went back to my yellowed, marked up copy of Rand’s “Virtue of Selfishness” and prefer just the underlined passages I made to her philosopher’s jargon aimed at academically credentialed morons. Rand has meat to offer: “It it is true that what I mean by ‘selfishness’ is not what is meant conventionally, then this is one of the worst indictments of altruism: it means that altruism permits no concept of a self-respecting, self-supporting man–a man who supports his life by his own effort and neither sacrifices himself nor others.”

sbw: I’d be delighted to see the explanation how the proof of that lies in logic, or, failing that, how it doesn’t lie in personal experience projected into the future.

I’ll have to defer to the post by RL just above this one. I could not have said it more eloquently.

The self-sacrificial person upholds the absurd notion of what I’d call the “leaky bucket” ethics–that the bigger the hole and the more you lose the more you gain. (Not unlike Keynesian economics and deficit financing by the government.) It’s so absurd that they have to place their reward in the Twilight Zones of Heaven or Social Approval, because no one can act without a personal reward of some kind. The true self-sacrificer is borderline psychotic (psychosis: out of touch with reality): he needs the delusion of a chimera.

The self-interested individual wants to live, here and now. He simply wants his reward in reality and he’ll fight to the death, if necessary, to preserve his right to his reward. He’ll fight for everyone and everything he holds dear, because to betray or lose those things would make his life–and by implication, all life–impossible and meaningless. Only self-interested individuals who passionately pursue their own happiness can create or preserve values, create or preserve happiness on Earth.

Happiness on Earth is not created by “do-gooders” who sacrifice to “help” others. It is simply what you have when every individual is happily pursuing their own self-interest and achieving their own values. The self-sacrificer thinks happiness can be caused by short-circuiting the means to happiness and taking away the preconditions for it. The truly selfish individual blows no fuses: he electrifies his life with values (to pursue this metaphor) and the effect is to light the world.

For my case, early on, to make my case accessible to others, I did try to lay out the case that ethics and morality follow from personal experience projected in the future.

I’d be delighted to see the explanation how the proof of that lies in logic, or, failing that, how it doesn’t lie in personal experience projected into the future.

In particular, Objectivism does not hold that “although it would be praiseworthy to use others for one’s own advantage if one should get the chance, opportunities are peculiarly scarce.” Rather, it says that the self-interested individual must also principled; he must think long-range and not be narrow or short-sighted.

There are plenty of opportunities to take a short-term advantage over others. Any con man or thief knows that. But Objectivism says that you don’t survive, thrive, and become happy and healthy in the long term by becoming a criminal. You build a successful, stable life for yourself through honesty and hard work.

Similarly, someone risking his life to fight a dictatorship is acting on self-interest, on the grounds that he doesn’t want to live as a slave. Now, it’s not egoistic to become a martyr, and if you have no hope of succeeding, then sure—hide or keep quiet instead of just getting yourself killed. But if one has the slightest hope, then to me it’s worth it to fight. And our Founding Fathers thought the same.

Javert: Actually, not. You and others are misclassifying Kant as an altruist. He’s a deontologist, i.e., he completely removes ends from morality — whether those ends are for oneself or for others. He believes in duty and sacrifice as ends-in-themselves.

Actually that would be a closer representation of Nietzche’s morality, however I would argue it’s just repackaged altruism. Weather the “other” is another individual, society at large, god, state, or the will of the dialectic, it’s just altruism in one of it’s many variants. Remember terms like “duty” and “sacrifice” requires the questions “to whom?” and “to what ends?”.

You are right that Kantian morality is always in reference to others.

Actually, not. You and others are misclassifying Kant as an altruist. He’s a deontologist, i.e., he completely removes ends from morality — whether those ends are for oneself or for others. He believes in duty and sacrifice as ends-in-themselves.

sbw:
Correct impression, which, from your comment that follows, you seem to agree with.

No, I’m saying the proof lies in logic. It lies in non-contradictory identification.

The impression I got from your statement was neither are relevant since neither can prove their positions.

Correct impression, which, from your comment that follows, you seem to agree with.

sbw: Neither can point to a natural law, neither can produce a geometric-type theorem to “prove” it.

The impression I got from your statement was neither are relevant since neither can prove their positions. While morality is ultimately an abstraction from abstractions (abstracted from the abstracts of metaphysics and epistemology) it requires quite a lot of focused thinking to remain rooted in concretes. Objectivism holds that if any theory violates the axioms of existence, identity and consciousness, then that theory is incorrect. Kant however will claim that ultimate truths can only be derived apriori. It is the Kantian theory of the apriori that allows his followers to detatch themselves from reality so that they are not contradicted by it. However, in doing such, they lack any standards by which to be measured or which they can use to measure the predicate moral value of any thing, person, action or concept.

If what you seek is a mathematical proof, that proof is logic and it works much more like algebra than geometry.

If what you seek are a set of commandments that must be followed unthinkingly, then what you seek is religion not philosophy.

Not me. Kant.

sbw: Neither can point to a natural law

Haven’t you been following the posts? The natural law the Objectivists refer to in any context are the axioms of existence, identity, and consciousness. It is true that the objectivist ethics does not offer a set of commandments to live by, but offers you the tools by which to achieve certainty in your judgments and if found to be in error, how to correct them. If what you seek are a set of commandments that must be followed unthinkingly, then what you seek is religion not philosophy.

Chris: “But they also undermined their own egoistic interests. Sakharov especially would have been better off had he remained a loyal member of the privileged Soviet elite.”

Let’s say this is true for argument’s sake.

Your granting too much perhaps because you have no first hand experience with communism.

mattski:
Hoo Boy.Thanks to CB for pointing out the unregulated sectors of the financial industry.Jorge, maybe you can offer a theory as to why the financial crisis has had only marginal effects on our neighbor to the north.But I’m not holding my breath.

Because they did not engage in sub-prime lending.

Ricardo: The study of psychopaths shows that there are some people who feel no guilt about lying (or anything else, really) and may even take pleasure in the fact that they are getting away with it and outsmarting others.

This “pleasure” they get is the fleeting type that evaporates when it comes in conflict with reality. Once again though we see that reason and morality are volitional, but reality is not. They may lack the proper moral/ethical code that tell them what is good and how to achieve it, thus they may not feel the guilt (emotions are after all shaped by our values) but are guilty all the same.

From your personal experience, not mine, you can recall instances when you thought you were correct, were mistaken, and were hurt by it. Making your mental map as accurate as possible is in your own self-interest. When you lie to others and when others lie to you, it creates defects in one’s mental map of reality. That is anti-social. Each generation–each person–gets to figure that out for himself or herself.

Fight over Kant or Rand if you want, but nudged by their writings the useful principle–the lesson extracted from experience–belongs to you, but is accessible to everyone.

Ricardo: Objectivists have a way of insisting that morality applies even when you are by yourself on a deserted island. I don’t find that a plausible or useful assertion.

Even if you are alone you must determine what is good for your life.

Ricardo: Of course there is a definable standard.

What other works as the standard. What standard does this other have as his standard of good and how is that standard verifiable. The standard is irreducible to any single “other” by which a criterion for the good to be judged.

JorgeShrugged: Actually empirical evidence suggest the contrary. Banking and real estate are the most regulated industries in America. The real root of this lies with the CRA, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Reserve.

Hoo Boy.

Thanks to CB for pointing out the unregulated sectors of the financial industry.

Jorge, maybe you can offer a theory as to why the financial crisis has had only marginal effects on our neighbor to the north.

But I’m not holding my breath.

Let’s say this is true for argument’s sake.

Have you ever been in a position where you were punished or even tortured for doing what you think is good? I think eventually your psychology would break down and you would stop doing what you think is good. And that’s because there is no good apart from the good that you feel in yourself. Or if there is, I’d like someone to show it to me. The fact that you have intuitions that something is good or bad regardless of the consequences for you doesn’t mean anything. The fact that I’d be happier following one course of action than another does.

It’s counterintuitive to say that such matyrs are bad because what they did was good for us. But that doesn’t prove that there is some metaphysical goodness floating outside of us in the universe.

JorgeShrugged: They differ in that for Kant, the moral standard is the “other”. In fact when it comes to morality, any other will do so long as ones standard is not one’s self. This fails because the individual is left with no definable standard.

Of course there is a definable standard. You are right that Kantian morality is always in reference to others. Objectivists have a way of insisting that morality applies even when you are by yourself on a deserted island. I don’t find that a plausible or useful assertion. It is mixing moral philosophy up with self-help.

A man will never achieve real happiness (joy w/o guilt) by attempting to do so in a manner that violates his nature.

The problem is that this an empirical claim that turns out to be wrong unless it, also, is true by definition. The study of psychopaths shows that there are some people who feel no guilt about lying (or anything else, really) and may even take pleasure in the fact that they are getting away with it and outsmarting others. This claim that guilt inevitably follows a lie is armchair psychology, not philosophy.

Ricardo: I really don’t see how Rand’s view of honesty, as recounted by JorgeShrugged, is superior to this. Maybe that is part of the reason Objectivists have to tear down Kantian morals so much.

They differ in that for Kant, the moral standard is the “other”. In fact when it comes to morality, any other will do so long as ones standard is not one’s self. This fails because the individual is left with no definable standard. Marry this concept of morality with Kant’s epistemology and you will not even so much have the means of developing any standards or any concepts at all.

For the Objectivist, the standard is always one’s own life qua man. Lying is not absolutely immoral however it is in most contexts. Honesty is a virtue not just because other people are rational animals as well and fraud is a means of violating these rights, but because of the adverse affect it has on the liar. A man will never achieve real happiness (joy w/o guilt) by attempting to do so in a manner that violates his nature. Conversely there are contexts in which it is perfectly moral to lie. That being in the case of self-defense.

Ricardo: This rather obvious point seems to be what brings out the invective. But Objectivists don’t seem to have any substantive rebuttal to this. Instead, they simply assert that by definition self-interest and living a good and virtuous life are the same. Simply redefine self-interest and the problem is solved.

A redefinition is necessary when the term being used is taken as a contradiction to itself. That is what I was referring to. That the moral predicate on the virtue of selfishness can’t be both good and evil at the same time.

byomtov: This is a perfect example of what I described as the shell game.

Here’s a suggestion: before anyone tries to defend Rand they should be required to provide a glossary of terms, because it’s obvious that they are speaking a different language than the rest of us.

And I notice you didn’t address the issue of my telling someone the food at a particular restaurant was bad. Too tough, or still trying to figure out the best redefinitions of plain English words?

Anyway, I’m done. Your whole scheme is idiotic, and if that’s what Objectivism is all about it’s idiotic too. Not that that surprises me.

Thank you for the concession. It’s been my experience that when someone runs out of ideas they resort to insults and willful ignorance. Perhaps I was speaking the language of logic to technically, but since you don’t care to be enlightened I shall reserve my comments.

Kant’s justification for the immorality of lying, if you recall, is that lying is a form of exploitation. To lie is to convince someone of something that you yourself know to be false for personal benefit. When I do this, I am taking someone’s tendency to trust me and using it against their own interests for my own benefit. In other words, I’m using that person as a means to an end rather than an end in him or herself.

I really don’t see how Rand’s view of honesty, as recounted by JorgeShrugged, is superior to this. Maybe that is part of the reason Objectivists have to tear down Kantian morals so much.

But the thing about Kant that seems to rile up Objectivists is he states at the outset that being a good person is not always fun or easy. Being good means sometimes setting your own interests aside. Those people who appear to be good in their day-to-day lives are not necessarily actually good: they simply have not been challenged by difficult circumstances that put their own interests in opposition to the obligations of moral behavior.

This rather obvious point seems to be what brings out the invective. But Objectivists don’t seem to have any substantive rebuttal to this. Instead, they simply assert that by definition self-interest and living a good and virtuous life are the same. Simply redefine self-interest and the problem is solved.

What???

This is a perfect example of what I described as the shell game.

Here’s a suggestion: before anyone tries to defend Rand they should be required to provide a glossary of terms, because it’s obvious that they are speaking a different language than the rest of us.

And I notice you didn’t address the issue of my telling someone the food at a particular restaurant was bad. Too tough, or still trying to figure out the best redefinitions of plain English words?

Anyway, I’m done. Your whole scheme is idiotic, and if that’s what Objectivism is all about it’s idiotic too. Not that that surprises me.