Sexual Ethics


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On ‎1‎/‎27‎/‎2017 at 10:42 AM, KorbenDallas said:

Correct, in a discussion of business ethics I would not have opened with an assertion that businesses routinely use false accusations of fraud as a competitive strategy.  This is because I have a degree in business and there were discussions of business ethics, so I do know what I would actually do in those situations---not some strawman setup like you tried here.

Your comment alludes to an interesting question, Korben...

Are there any ethical businesses which don't use false accusations?

I also have a degree in business. It's from the University of American Capitalism and I got it by running my own businesses for 37 years. This is the axiom I found to be true from decades of business experience.

People will treat you as decent as you are...

... and even if they aren't...

... they treat you as if they were.

I don't do business with unethical people. But rarely because I don't choose to... but because they don't. 

There is a principle in contract law called "a meeting of the minds". It's the common understanding between two parties which makes a business interaction possible. But it's actually more than just minds meeting... It's also matching values. It's impossible for a business transaction to take place without shared values.

Here's an example... I banked with United California Bank which became First Interstate Bank which merged with Wells Fargo Bank. The service I've received for many years has been uniformly excellent even though the banks have changed over the decades. Lately Wells Fargo has been involved in some really unethical business practices that have affected thousands of customers. But none of this has affected me, because... "even if they're not... they treat me as if they were".

Every time I have felt that I was not treated fairly and honestly examined the situation, I found a flaw in my own ethics which made it possible. I had granted my sanction to become a victim of unfair treatment. This puts all of the personal responsibilitiy to set the moral tone in business interactions where it belongs...on me.

This is the true purpose of business... to learn how to become a better person. And if you do, you will be consistently successful... regardless of any business or political cycles. By serving others who match your values, you will live a good life...

...and I also discovered that axiom applies to EVERYTHING. nodder.gif

 

Greg

 

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6 hours ago, moralist said:

Your comment alludes to an interesting question, Korben...

Are there any ethical businesses which don't use false accusations?

I also have a degree in business. It's from the University of American Capitalism and I got it by running my own businesses for 37 years. This is the axiom I found to be true from decades of business experience.

People will treat you as decent as you are...

... and even if they aren't...

... they treat you as if they were.

I don't do business with unethical people. But rarely because I don't choose to... but because they don't. 

There is a principle in contract law called "a meeting of the minds". It's the common understanding between two parties which makes a business interaction possible. But it's actually more than just minds meeting... It's also matching values. It's impossible for a business transaction to take place without shared values.

Here's an example... I banked with United California Bank which became First Interstate Bank which merged with Wells Fargo Bank. The service I've received for many years has been uniformly excellent even though the banks have changed over the decades. Lately Wells Fargo has been involved in some really unethical business practices that have affected thousands of customers. But none of this has affected me, because... "even if they're not... they treat me as if they were".

Every time I have felt that I was not treated fairly and honestly examined the situation, I found a flaw in my own ethics which made it possible. I had granted my sanction to become a victim of unfair treatment. This puts all of the personal responsibilitiy to set the moral tone in business interactions where it belongs...on me.

This is the true purpose of business... to learn how to become a better person. And if you do, you will be consistently successful... regardless of any business or political cycles. By serving others who match your values, you will live a good life...

...and I also discovered that axiom applies to EVERYTHING. nodder.gif

 

Greg

 

Thanks Greg, this is good advice!

 

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1 hour ago, KorbenDallas said:

Thanks Greg, this is good advice!

 

No matter what happens to you,  you are getting what you deserve. 

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Wells Fargo boned a few people, but they didn't bone me, so I must be Moral.  Those bonees got what they deserved, by not being aware of the boning they were getting.

Works for me.  Especially if I get to cash refund cheques resultant from Rogue Wells Fargo de-boning operations.

Lesson: don't presume that a bank's employees won't open ghost accounts and lines of credit and invent credit cards in your name without mentioning the rogue action to you, and check your credit score twice a year. 

Think like a detective or a besieged villager!  Be alert to rogue banking outlaws, hackers, phishers, sleazeballs, mortgage brokers, Tijuana tummy tuckers, unlicensed electricians, etc.  Or not. It's probably your fault anyway.

How this relates to the lesser trivia of sexual ethics, not a clue.  I know The Moral has a bone to pick with The Homo.  Something something the Homo was not manly enough to take his own childhood sexual abuse with Christophile understanding. Stupidly insisting on anger at the Homo who abused him, the up-till-that-point non-Homo turns Homo.  Generation after generation.

I think I got it right. 

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52 minutes ago, william.scherk said:

Wells Fargo boned a few people, but they didn't bone me, so I must be Moral.

William, you can easily and accurately asses the quality of your own moral values, simply by observing how well they protect you from the evil in this world...

...or you can angrily blame (unjustly accuse) others for the consequences of your own values. The choice is yours and yours alone, William... whether you choose to assume personal responsibility for the results of your own behavior... or to take on the role of the angry offended blaming victim like the liberals do.

...and I couldn't care less what you chose because you're the one who gets what you deserve just like I do.

"In conclusion, draw your strength from the Lord and be empowered through your union with Him and in the power of His boundless might.

Put on the full armor of God for His precepts are like the splendid armor of a heavily-armed soldier, so that you may be able to successfully stand up against all the schemes and the strategies and the deceits of the devil.

For our struggle is not contending only with physical opponents, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in supernatural places."

This bit of good advice actually works for me, as I tested its validity for myself by my own personal experience.

 

Greg

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2 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

No matter what happens to you,  you are getting what you deserve. 

It's an axiom or tautology. Greg says it's an axiom.

Unfortunately I don't see that 6 million Jews got what they deserved from the Nazis. I only mention the Hitler meme to illustrate it's no axiom--leaving a tautology, leaving a fallacy.

It's an apt generalization for the American context with myriad exceptions. Greg claims the American context and goes not to foreign shores--so far.

--Brant

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3 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:
4 hours ago, KorbenDallas said:

Thanks Greg, this is good advice!

 

No matter what happens to you,  you are getting what you deserve. 

What I quoted upthread was good advice, it had more to do with self-responsibility.  For the latter here, I tend use the Oist concept justice, but Rand's notion that evil requires a sanction is bogus to me.  In my personal experience evil isn't impotent regardless of sanction/no-sanction.  Seems Rand relied too much on rights with this one, where rights are a psychological function, to regulate a person's action/inaction, but if someone doesn't care about rights it doesn't matter how much sanctioning does or doesn't go on.  Her notion of the impotence of evil has blame the victim written all over it.  I read somewhere (I believe it was Peikoff who said it it was Andrew Bernstein, here) that in The Fountainhead it was Rand's intention to blame Catherine for what happened to her mind, that it was her own fault because she wasn't being individualistic enough---the problem is, Catherine didn't even know about individualism, so how can she be blamed for it?  So I think Rand got this one wrong, and I wouldn't agree with Greg on the latter, either.

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If good puts up with (sanctions) evil, evil is empowered. If evil puts up with (sanctions) good, good is not empowered. It doesn't matter regardless for evil sanctions nothing.

Sanction is a virtue if properly used. Evil cannot use virtue except to feed on it. This is also the wrong kind of selfishness.

Rand believed in denying evil food.

The problem is the complexity of a self. Rand engaged in gross human simplification. Good vs, evil became perfection vs, imperfection. Her fiction thoroughly corrupted her philosophy. To harvest Objectivism one needs a gin.

--Brant

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11 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

If good puts up with (sanctions) evil, evil is empowered. If evil puts up with (sanctions) good, good is not empowered. It doesn't matter regardless for evil sanctions nothing.

Sanction is a virtue if properly used. Evil cannot use virtue except to feed on it. This is also the wrong kind of selfishness.

Rand believed in denying evil food.

The problem is the complexity of a self. Rand engaged in gross human simplification. Good vs, evil became perfection vs, imperfection. Her fiction thoroughly corrupted her philosophy. To harvest Objectivism one needs a gin.

--Brant

Yes to the first. The "evil-sanction" happens in two parts I'd think, passive and active. One, is in "good men doing nothing", the other is in weak and ignorant men abetting it. "Evil" - the anti-mind and -life ideas of one or several enacted in reality - hasn't a chance to survive long if not supported and followed by a larger mass of people. Evil-doers feed off influence over others' subservient minds, and clearly need their bodies to carry it out. That is, simple sacrificial "altruism".

Morally speaking, I think the good, do-nothings deserve most blame because they know better and earlier (at the ideas stage) and don't speak up but turn a blind eye to events. Later nobody is innocent, when the results of evil become plain to see, physically at human cost.

Well pointed out that sanction will be "virtuous", in completely other circumstances (which Objectivists would call giving "justice").

The fiction is the explicit portrayal of her ideas made "real", Brant. "...the re-creation of reality according to ... " etc. My feeling is one oughtn't 'over-deduce' from any fiction - in Rand's case, in spades! Fiction rather more serves the purpose for one's induction. Have you wondered what the philosophy (and its followers) would be like if there weren't her novels, and all we knew about her thinking was limited to only her body of non-fiction? Or, the reverse..? Interesting. But instead she wore two caps.

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10 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

It's an axiom or tautology. Greg says it's an axiom.

Unfortunately I don't see that 6 million Jews got what they deserved from the Nazis. I only mention the Hitler meme to illustrate it's no axiom--leaving a tautology, leaving a fallacy.

It was their fault.  They chose to be born in Germany..........

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16 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

Unfortunately I don't see that 6 million Jews got what they deserved from the Nazis.

Of course I'm referring to America today, Brant...

...and not to Europe in the dead past.

America is an anomaly in this world because of its Judeo Christian values and culture. Almost everywhere else is dime a dozen dictators, lunatic Islamists, and liberal socialist government parasites.

 

Greg 

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10 hours ago, anthony said:
17 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

If good puts up with (sanctions) evil, evil is empowered. If evil puts up with (sanctions) good, good is not empowered. It doesn't matter regardless for evil sanctions nothing.

Sanction is a virtue if properly used. Evil cannot use virtue except to feed on it. This is also the wrong kind of selfishness.

Rand believed in denying evil food.

The problem is the complexity of a self. Rand engaged in gross human simplification. Good vs, evil became perfection vs, imperfection. Her fiction thoroughly corrupted her philosophy. To harvest Objectivism one needs a gin.

--Brant

Yes to the first. The "evil-sanction" happens in two parts I'd think, passive and active. One, is in "good men doing nothing", the other is in weak and ignorant men abetting it. "Evil" - the anti-mind and -life ideas of one or several enacted in reality - hasn't a chance to survive long if not supported and followed by a larger mass of people. Evil-doers feed off influence over others' subservient minds, and clearly need their bodies to carry it out. That is, simple sacrificial "altruism".

Morally speaking, I think the good, do-nothings deserve most blame because they know better and earlier (at the ideas stage) and don't speak up but turn a blind eye to events. Later nobody is innocent, when the results of evil become plain to see, physically at human cost.

Well pointed out that sanction will be "virtuous", in completely other circumstances (which Objectivists would call giving "justice").

The fiction is the explicit portrayal of her ideas made "real", Brant. "...the re-creation of reality according to ... " etc. My feeling is one oughtn't 'over-deduce' from any fiction - in Rand's case, in spades! Fiction rather more serves the purpose for one's induction. Have you wondered what the philosophy (and its followers) would be like if there weren't her novels, and all we knew about her thinking was limited to only her body of non-fiction? Or, the reverse..? Interesting. But instead she wore two caps.

I take issue where Rand calls a 'sanction'.  If a good moral person is ignorant in a situation and has evil done to them, it's a 'sanction'.  If a good moral person gets manipulated, exploited, tricked, etc. and has evil done to them, it's a 'sanction'---but how can these be 'sanctions' if a person never actually performed the action of sanctioning?  It can't.  It's blaming the victim, and contrary to Rand's intention, it actually empowers evil.  In my own thinking I throw out 'sanction by the victim' and the 'impotence of evil', because evil isn't impotent.  Evil people think, take action, they figure out how to come after the good, exploit them without knowing, and efficate.  In my own thinking Justice is blaming the evil for doing evil, not blaming the good for someone else's evil.  Moral accountability rests on the person doing the evil, not on the good who didn't do the action---the person doing the evil didn't have to do the action, and shouldn't have.

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2 hours ago, KorbenDallas said:

I take issue where Rand calls a 'sanction'.  If a good moral person is ignorant in a situation and has evil done to them, it's a 'sanction'.  If a good moral person gets manipulated, exploited, tricked, etc. and has evil done to them, it's a 'sanction'---but how can these be 'sanctions' if a person never actually performed the action of sanctioning?  It can't.  It's blaming the victim, and contrary to Rand's intention, it actually empowers evil.  In my own thinking I throw out 'sanction by the victim' and the 'impotence of evil', because evil isn't impotent.  Evil people think, take action, they figure out how to come after the good, exploit them without knowing, and efficate.  In my own thinking Justice is blaming the evil for doing evil, not blaming the good for someone else's evil.  Moral accountability rests on the person doing the evil, not on the good who didn't do the action---the person doing the evil didn't have to do the action, and shouldn't have.

I know there was a passage somewhere in which Rand addressed sanction of the victim, it was specifically aimed at businessmen who, for instance, funded Universities where professors taught contempt for Capitalism in favour of Socialism. For that support, they must partially blame themselves when Gvment policies against business eventually follow. I.o.w, they are not ignorant, they're evasively self-sacrificial and can hardly be considered 'good' any further.

SOV is obvious too, I think, when national leaders try to appease the threat of Fundamentalism by enforcing harsher laws of 'hate speech' at the expense of their citizens' liberty. One can be imprisoned in Germany today for being 'too' critical of Islam.

You could see sov in more personal situations, as I have often. Anywhere someone excuses or apologises for (or "forgives") the bully who's victimizing him, is sanctioning him. It never ends there, any moral support empowers him to continue oppressing others in future, and prolongs the wrong.

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1 hour ago, anthony said:

I know there was a passage somewhere in which Rand addressed sanction of the victim, it was specifically aimed at businessmen who, for instance, funded Universities where professors taught contempt for Capitalism in favour of Socialism. For that support, they must partially blame themselves when Gvment policies against business eventually follow. I.o.w, they are not ignorant, they're evasively self-sacrificial and can hardly be considered 'good' any further.

SOV is obvious too, I think, when national leaders try to appease the threat of Fundamentalism by enforcing harsher laws of 'hate speech' at the expense of liberty. One can be imprisoned in Germany today for being 'too' critical of Islam.

You could see sov in more personal situations, as I have often. Anywhere someone excuses or apologises for (or "forgives") the bully who's victimizing him, is sanctioning him. It never ends there, any moral support empowers him to continue oppressing others in future, and prolongs the wrong.

In the bully example, I don't see how the victim bears any responsibility for the bully's future actions when the victim isn't around.

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3 hours ago, KorbenDallas said:

In the bully example, I don't see how the victim bears any responsibility for the bully's future actions when the victim isn't around.

I didn't actually specify a future responsibility on the victim's part, it was an afterthought about the secondary consequences which may go on to affect many (and a society). But anyway, for bad ideas to spread and turn into evil acts, it meant nobody firmly stood up against them, or went along with them like sheep, and/or appeased and excused them. You don't agree?

Simply, as you know a person is innocent as long he's ignorant, only for as long as he hasn't seen, and has no knowledge of the wrongs committed. Comes a point he discovers he's been tacitly giving his weight to something he morally opposes, then he must withdraw his sanction or consider himself an enabler of such "evil".

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4 hours ago, anthony said:

I didn't actually specify a future responsibility on the victim's part, it was an afterthought of the secondary consequences which can affect many (and a society). But anyway, for bad ideas to spread and turn into evil acts, it meant nobody firmly stood up against them, or went along with them like sheep, and/or appeased and excused them. You don't agree?

Yea I agree those are current truths, but I'd say that I don't feel I'm obligated to correct it.  In the bully example, if I had to apologize or forgive a bully to get him to go away, I'm not going to feel guilt when he does it to someone else.  Rand would say I 'sanctioned' him and I'm guilty, and now I'm partially guilty for him bullying other people in society.  That's a lot of guilt.

4 hours ago, anthony said:

Simply, as you know a person is innocent as long he's ignorant, only for as long as he hasn't seen and has no knowledge of the wrongs committed. Comes the point he discovers he's been tacitly giving his weight to something he morally opposes, then he must withdraw his sanction or consider himself an enabler of such "evil".

If this person is innocent and ignorant, has no knowledge of the wrongs he committed, he's giving his weight to something wrong---why is that called a 'sanction'?  To this individual he never performed the act called 'sanction', it's Rand who calls it that.  So I'm not seeing anything that must be withdrawn, no 'sanction' exists, he never drew upon the wrongs in the first place.  What he could do is recognize the contradiction, realize knowledge is contextual, correct his errors, disintegrate / reintegrate, then move along and be happy :).  No 'sanctioning' business, no Randian drama.  Tony I'm arguing against Rand's sanctioning not you specifically, and I'm sure you already knew that but I figured I'd say it.  Personally, I don't condone evil or support it, I'm guessing Rand would call that not sanctioning but I wouldn't :)

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8 hours ago, KorbenDallas said:

If a good moral person gets manipulated, exploited, tricked, etc. and has evil done to them, it's a 'sanction'...

 

To the degree a person is good...

...to that same degree they cannot be manipulated expolited, tricked, etc.

 

"You can't cheat an honest man."   nodder.gif

 

Greg

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2 hours ago, KorbenDallas said:

If this person is innocent and ignorant, has no knowledge of the wrongs he committed, he's giving his weight to something wrong---why is that called a 'sanction'?  To this individual he never performed the act called 'sanction', it's Rand who calls it that.

What's your understanding of Rand's meaning of "sanction"?

The word has two meanings which are opposite - oxforddictionaries.com link:

1. a threatened penalty for disobeying a law or rule.
"a range of sanctions aimed at deterring insider abuse"
synonyms:    penalty, punishment, deterrent; More


2. official permission or approval for an action.
"he appealed to the bishop for his sanction"
synonyms:    authorization, consent, leave, permission, authority, warrant, license, dispensation, assent, acquiescence, agreement, approval, approbation, endorsement, accreditation, ratification, validation, blessing, imprimatur; More

I wonder if you're thinking of the first meaning whereas Rand meant the second in "sanction of the victim."

Edit:  On second reading, you do seem to be thinking of the second meaning, but I'm not sure.

Ellen

 

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That's all well and good, but the word "sex" has been dropped from the conversation. Beyond NOIF, what does it mean to be treated "fairly" in sexual encounters. Ethics vary with social context. Can sexual ethics be different for different genders?  I assume not, as my primary. But it is easy to come up with social situations in which ethics depend on context. Good ethics are objective, but they are not all the same for everyone in every case. 

In business, if I am paid by the hour, and it is time to go home, and if I have a family waiting, then punching the time clock and leaving is ethical. If I am on salary and live alone, then leaving when the work is done - not when the clock says 5 - is ethical.  

I have worked in a lot of places because I am a contractor. So, I know a lot of ways that people get along ethically in business. I do not have much experience in sexual encounters with others. One ethical rule I have is "ladies before gentlemen." 

 

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2 hours ago, syrakusos said:

That's all well and good, but the word "sex" has been dropped from the conversation. Beyond NOIF, what does it mean to be treated "fairly" in sexual encounters. Ethics vary with social context. Can sexual ethics be different for different genders?  

 

It is possible.  "Sexual Ethics"  may reflect objectives.  For the woman, having babies and being a mother.  For the man, having a Good Time with a woman. Wham! Bam! Thank you Ma'am!. Such a difference in objective could affect ethics.

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9 hours ago, KorbenDallas said:

Yea I agree those are current truths, but I'd say that I don't feel I'm obligated to correct it.  In the bully example, if I had to apologize or forgive a bully to get him to go away, I'm not going to feel guilt when he does it to someone else.  Rand would say I 'sanctioned' him and I'm guilty, and now I'm partially guilty for him bullying other people in society.  That's a lot of guilt.

If this person is innocent and ignorant, has no knowledge of the wrongs he committed, he's giving his weight to something wrong---why is that called a 'sanction'?  To this individual he never performed the act called 'sanction', it's Rand who calls it that.  So I'm not seeing anything that must be withdrawn, no 'sanction' exists, he never drew upon the wrongs in the first place. 

Sorry, I wasn't clear. Maybe "the bully" threw things off course - when Rand's example was businessmen being party to their own victimhood and demise by permitting, acquiescing to (thanks, Ellen) and effectively condoning actions, supported with their own money, which were antagonistic to the ideas of capitalism. Actions they HAD to know about, or certainly make it their business to find out, initially. Therefore, they couldn't have been innocent victims.

I don't think at all then that it's one's moral obligation to correct every wrong one sees (e.g. the socialist university professors), especially not to take on the guilt when one doesn't.

But: In the first place it is essential to not aid - to give succor to - your foe, and if truly ignorant of others' motives and acts, to remove one's "endorsement" when you do know. Continuing, would be immoral, sacrificing rational values for a disvalue.

It's not about penalising and punishing those immoral, if perhaps the sanction definition has been confusing, the only concern is to not help them in any way, from the get-go.

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Thanks merjet, nothing better than to hear it in the original. It's a good discussion which makes one question further - ta, Korben - what one took at face value and to learn in the process. It's plainer to me now than before that Sanction of the Victim is directly part and parcel of altruistic sacrifice, in this case, self-sacrifice - the *willing* surrender of values - but worse, helping to light the fire under one's sacrificial altar.

And one can expand the principle and on Rand's example. E.g. I think President Trump (and the electorate he appealed to) has a grasp of sanction of the victim. His push back has been singularly against it. No longer, he's saying and implying by his actions, do Americans have to accept and condone (in guilt) their own downfall, by any people and nations who might - and some, definitely - have motives costly or inimical to the USA's interests. (Enough, wrong place for that. ;))

Another example, on a micro scale. I remember a young woman I knew way back, who took up with a guy I heard was a boxer. I later met her by chance, and saw bruises on her face. She didn't demur when I put two and two together and asked her how she could put up with this, and told her to get away from him. But he needs me, I know he loves me: she said. Words which have for always excused many bad things. In that way too have victims sanctioned their abuse, even on this psychological level.

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13 hours ago, Ellen Stuttle said:
15 hours ago, KorbenDallas said:

If this person is innocent and ignorant, has no knowledge of the wrongs he committed, he's giving his weight to something wrong---why is that called a 'sanction'?  To this individual he never performed the act called 'sanction', it's Rand who calls it that.

What's your understanding of Rand's meaning of "sanction"?

The word has two meanings which are opposite - oxforddictionaries.com link:

1. a threatened penalty for disobeying a law or rule.
"a range of sanctions aimed at deterring insider abuse"
synonyms:    penalty, punishment, deterrent; More


2. official permission or approval for an action.
"he appealed to the bishop for his sanction"
synonyms:    authorization, consent, leave, permission, authority, warrant, license, dispensation, assent, acquiescence, agreement, approval, approbation, endorsement, accreditation, ratification, validation, blessing, imprimatur; More

I wonder if you're thinking of the first meaning whereas Rand meant the second in "sanction of the victim."

Edit:  On second reading, you do seem to be thinking of the second meaning, but I'm not sure.

Ellen

I checked my 1828 Webster, 1966 Random House Unabridged, and my OED before posting about it earlier.  Sanction is a positive, conscious action, Rand doesn't always use it that way.   edit:  by positive, I mean philosophical positive, existence/non-existence

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