Christianity and Liberty


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Needless to say, I am not defending faith. My point, again, is that one needn't be a atheistic egoistic to understand and appreciate the value of individual freedom, or to offer sound arguments in its defense.

The fact that people with different belief systems have offered different justifications for freedom does not necessarily mean that those defenses are incompatible. Rand's argument, quoted above, applies to all values, not merely to secular egoistic values. It applies as much to Christian values as it does to atheistic values. And it applies as much to the values of benevolence as it does to strictly self-interested values.

I do understand you defending indivdual freedom, but what are "Christian values"?

My question to you and Objectivists: isn't this a classic case of context-dropping, speaking of "Christian values" while severing them from their context, like the notion of original sin, which led an omnipotent god to "sacrifice" his son?

There even exist groups calling themselves "Christian Objectivists"; they too practise context-dropping, only in the other direction: by ignoring that Rand's atheism is fundamental to her philosophy. "Christian Objectivist" is a contradiction in terms.

Jennifer Burns said in an interview that she has no explanation for why people often don't seem to be aware that Rand was an atheist.

What individual freedom does there really exist for a Christian who was born a sinner and who needed to be baptized inorder to be purged of it? Who trembles at the prospect of eternal hellfire awating him in case he does not to act like god wishes him to? Even if he does try, a biblical god behaving that erratically, bestowing both grace and wrath at will, the Christian can have no guarantee that his soul is going to be saved. All he can hope for is "mercy". As you make clear in your ingenious "Smith's Wager" that the possibility of an "unjust god" can't be excluded.

And that biblical god mostly does behave like a cruel potentate in ancient Orient.

I find the following article very interesting: Christian ideologists propagating their morality to be - guess what - 'objective':

http://nov55.com/rel/objt.html

From the article:

1. If someone says you can't jump off a cliff, it's not one person dominating another person; it's objective reality. Similarly, ..... are not a whim ...... they describe objective requirements for life.

....... taught the objective origins of morality. He taught how to determine morality from the objective lessons of life (like studying science).....

Objective reality creates and defines life—material and spiritual. Therefore, it defines the morality that sustains life." (end quote)

Do these arguments look familiar? Let's look at them in the original with the spaces filled in:

"What Objective Morality Means

Objective — originating outside of a mind.

Subjective — originating within a mind.

1. If someone says you can't jump off a cliff, it's not one person dominating another person; it's objective reality. Similarly, the Ten Commandments are not a whim of God's; they describe objective requirements for life.

2. Christ taught morality as a relationship to objective reality. Only an objective medium creates proper relationships between persons. Honesty and truth is a concern for that medium......

Thirty thousand years of demon worship taught humans to subjectivize everything, because sin is a conflict with objective reality. Later, when God started creating religion, humans assumed he too was subjectively synthesizing morality. Not so.

Christ taught the objective origins of morality. He taught how to determine morality from the objective lessons of life (like studying science).....

Objective reality creates and defines life—material and spiritual. Therefore, it defines the morality that sustains life....

The result is a rational analysis of morality and proper relationship to God." (end quote)

http://nov55.com/rel/objt.html

Well, how about that? There's even the "rational" bit with "proper relationship to God" being replaced by Rand with "life proper to man."

Change the word, God, to "Man" with a few other words substituted as well and "Objectivism" looks like a perfect philosophical, epistemological and linguistic overlay of the Christian ideology.

It looks like "discovering" "objective morality" and "life as a standard" is not restricted to Objectvism.

The writer, at least, claims a volitional source for the alleged "objective values".

I will also state that, by speaking of my UU affiliation

I'm quite surprised at the number of believers here at OL. :)

Edited by Xray
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Needless to say, I am not defending faith. My point, again, is that one needn't be a atheistic egoistic to understand and appreciate the value of individual freedom, or to offer sound arguments in its defense.

The fact that people with different belief systems have offered different justifications for freedom does not necessarily mean that those defenses are incompatible. Rand's argument, quoted above, applies to all values, not merely to secular egoistic values. It applies as much to Christian values as it does to atheistic values. And it applies as much to the values of benevolence as it does to strictly self-interested values.

I do understand you defending indivdual freedom, but what are "Christian values"?

Either you haven't been following this thread very closely, or every time you blink it's a new day.

Ghs

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Despite their secular advances in ethical thinking, Jefferson and other thinkers of his day did not know how to develop a foundation for ethics without religion and God.

Here are some remarks by Jefferson in a letter to Thomas Law in June,1814:

"If we did a good act merely from the love of God and a belief that it is pleasing to Him, whence arises the morality of the Atheist? It is idle to say, as some do, that no such being exists. We have the same evidence of the fact as of most of those we act on, to wit: their own affirmations, and their reasonings in support of them. I have observed, indeed, generally, that while in protestant countries the defections from the Platonic Christianity of the priests is to Deism, in catholic countries they are to Atheism. Diderot, D'Alembert, D'Holbach, Condorcet, are known to have been among the most virtuous of men. Their virtue, then, must have had some other foundation than the love of God."

This is a strange passage to quote in support of your contention that "Jefferson and other thinkers of his day did not know how to develop a foundation for ethics without religion and God." The point of Jefferson's remarks is that moral virtue does not presuppose belief in God. Jefferson and many of his contemporaries certainly believed that they had grounded ethics solely in reason by appealing to human nature and natural law instead of to faith and revelation. You may believe that they failed. but that's a different matter -- and if they did fail, their failure had little to do with Christianity or God.

But Jefferson and other ethical thinkers of his day never discovered such a foundation—at least not one that was truly derived from reason. In addition, they explicitly discounted egoism as a reliable guide. Without a rational foundation, the benevolent “moral sense” reasoning of Jefferson and others was unlikely to have a strong cultural impact. Jefferson credited reason as the final arbiter of truth, but could not find a way to extend reason into the ethical sphere.

No offense, Dennis, but your analysis is all screwed up. Rational self-interest -- or "cool self-love," as Bishop Butler called it -- was the paradigm in 18th century social thought. It was frequently described as the social equivalent of gravitation, i.e., as the basic force that holds society together.

Rational self-interest, which was regarded as fully compatible with the rules of justice, was typically contrasted with "selfishness," whereby the "selfish passions" cause men to act without regard for the rights of others. Hence the basic problem was this: How can the selfish passions be restrained and exercised in a manner compatible with individual rights?

Various answers were given to this question, of which moral sense philosophy was one. I don't want to get into the details of those solutions here, but for an excellent overview see Albert O. Hirschman, The Passions and the Interests: Political Arguments for Capitalism Before Its Triumph (Princeton, 1977). For now, suffice it to say that moral sense philosophers did not deny the importance of reason. Nor did they in any way denigrate the pursuit of rational self-interest.

To appreciate what is going on here, you need to understand the enormous impact of Stoicism, especially as presented by Cicero, on post-Renaissance moral philosophy. In particular, Cicero's On Duties expressed ideas that were cited again and again, and none of the philosophers we are talking about would have disagreed with this passage from Cicero:

That does not mean that we are bound to sacrifice our own vital interests to other people. On the contrary, in so far as we can serve our own interests without harming anyone else, we should do so. Chrysippus puts the point with his usual aptness: "A man running a race in the stadium ought to try his best and exert himself to the utmost in order to win. In no circumstances, however, should he trip up his competitors or impede them with his hand." The same applies to the struggle of life. Anyone may fairly seek his own advantage, but no one has a right to do so at another's expense. (Cicero: Selected Works, Penguin Classics, trans. Michael Grant, p. 174.)

In calling moral rightness the "indispensable prerequisite" of rational self-interest, Cicero articulated a fundamental principle that became a truism in 17th and 18th century political thought.

As far as I can tell, emotion played a similar role in much of the secular ethical thinking of the day, comparable to the role it plays in religious teachings, making it impossible for such ideas to mount a serious challenge to religion. Such a rational foundation for validating ethics was essential to the task of discarding thousands of years of the kind of religious, feeling-based ethics described above. An emotion-based ethics almost always ends up embracing some form of altruism. The upshot of all this is that the Lockean-Jefferson (and quintessentially American) idea that men own their own lives was left without an ethical foundation in reason.

This is incorrect through and through, but I don't know how much more time I want to spend on this. I've spent decades reading this material, but if you don't want to take my word for it, then you will need to read the original sources for yourself.

Ghs

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In recent posts I have explained some ideas of 18th century "moral sense" philosophers. But my own sympathies lie with the other major current of ethical theory, i.e., moral "rationalism."

In 1978, I published an article in JLS, William Wollaston On Property Rights. Although his name is virtually unknown today, Wollaston published one of the best-selling books of the early 18th century, and his unique approach -- which has some significant similarities to Rand's -- is a good example of moral rationalism.

Go here to read the article.

Ghs

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Needless to say, I am not defending faith. My point, again, is that one needn't be a atheistic egoistic to understand and appreciate the value of individual freedom, or to offer sound arguments in its defense.

The fact that people with different belief systems have offered different justifications for freedom does not necessarily mean that those defenses are incompatible. Rand's argument, quoted above, applies to all values, not merely to secular egoistic values. It applies as much to Christian values as it does to atheistic values. And it applies as much to the values of benevolence as it does to strictly self-interested values.

I do understand you defending indivdual freedom, but what are "Christian values"?

Either you haven't been following this thread very closely, or every time you blink it's a new day.

Ghs

Each time I blink your post still remains the same: an evasion of my question.

When minorities demand the freedom to practise their belief or ideology, this does not automatically make them advocates of freedom as such.

A democratic state granting freedom to minorities can be faced with the problem that some of these minorities would be the first to abolish freedom and human rights if they had the political power to do so. For example, some Islamic groups are currently trying to introduce the Sharia law in some European countries.

The history of Christianity is for the most part a history of suppression of freedom. Just think of the Crusades or the Inquisition. K-H. Deschner's "Christianity's Criminal History" comprises several volumes.

http://www.deschner.info/index.htm?/en/work/kg/criminalhistory.htm

This brings us to Christianity’s first major contribution to liberty. The early Christians, a despised and sometimes persecuted minority, fashioned a pro-freedom philosophy that (in Acton’s words) “was really subversive of the fundamental institutions of the Roman Empire.”

Early Christians–those “enemies of mankind,” as Tacitus called them – confronted a variety of allegations, including incest, cannibalism, atheism, and sedition. Christian apologists (from the Greek, meaning “speech for the defense”) successfully refuted these charges, and they repeatedly affirmed the loyalty of Christians to the state. But this was a troublesome issue because Christian obedience was always conditional.

The apologist Origen put the matter well. The Christian will “never consent to obey the laws of sin.” His first allegiance is to “the law of nature, that is, the law of God.” The Christian will submit to secular punishment rather than transgress a divine law.

What did the Christian "pro-freedom philosophy" consist of? It was still submission to a ruler, an omnipotent god.

Edited by Xray
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Either you haven't been following this thread very closely, or every time you blink it's a new day.

Ghs

Each time I blink your post still remains the same: an evasion of my question.

There was a time -- not long ago, in fact -- when I took your questions seriously. I learned my lesson the hard way, and, after many hours of wasted effort, I'm not about to repeat that mistake.

Ghs

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Either you haven't been following this thread very closely, or every time you blink it's a new day.

Ghs

Each time I blink your post still remains the same: an evasion of my question.

There was a time -- not long ago, in fact -- when I took your questions seriously. I learned my lesson the hard way, and, after many hours of wasted effort, I'm not about to repeat that mistake.

Ghs

Socratic pedantry instead of Socratic investigation and rigor, but it must and will be the man behind the curtain?

--Brant

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How do any of these precepts [e.g., Love God, Love your enemies, etc.] conflict with a theory of individual rights?

A free society is a pluralistic society; it is a society where people can pursue their own values and act on their own beliefs, so long as they respect the equal rights of others.

Will you say that the moral defense of a free society should be based on self-interest? Fine, but surely you don't believe that only the interests of atheistic egoists will be maximized in a free society. Many Christians have argued that Christianity will fare best in a free society, and that coercion destroys the moral value of faith.

I am saying that a moral defense of a free society must be based on a comprehensive philosophy of reason—beginning with a metaphysics of objective reality, an epistemology which holds reason as an absolute, and an ethics which recognizes that values derive from the requirements of human life. And I am saying that a religious ethics founded on faith, emotion and universal love will undermine freedom as it is used to justify ever-increasing interference with individual freedom based on sacrifice in the name of such undefined ‘love.” The fact that many advocates of religion advocate “voluntaryism” and oppose the use of force to achieve such ethical ends will not matter one twit, because politics inevitably ends up getting trumped by the dictates of a culture’s prevailing ethical code.

I know that is shocking to hear someone say such a thing. I agree with the fundamental tenets of Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand. I feel sure you have heard of it.

The arguments by Tertullian and Lactantius that I quoted in my last post, to the effect that the value of faith is destroyed by force, bear a striking resemblance to this passage by Ayn Rand in "What is Capitalism?"….

Needless to say, I am not defending faith. My point, again, is that one needn't be a atheistic egoistic to understand and appreciate the value of individual freedom, or to offer sound arguments in its defense.

You like to quote Rand? Well, here are some more quotes from this philosopher named Rand:

The political philosophy of America’s Founding Fathers…was only a magnificent beginning, not a completed job, it was only a political philosophy without a full philosophical and moral foundation…

The power that determines the establishment, the changes, the evolution, and the destruction of social systems is philosophy…

Capitalism is perishing for lack of a moral base and of a full, philosophical defense…

The point is simply that an isolated, out-of-context quotation regarding the importance of freedom which happens to bear a similarity to Rand means very little without the comprehensive foundation she provided.

DH: The only way for the founders to have made any substantial headway with challenging the prevailing influence of Christianity was to have challenged it head on—and they did not.

Ghs: Many Enlightenment thinkers challenged Christianity in no uncertain terms. For one thing, they rejected the Bible as a source of divine revelation, and that's about as "head-on" as it gets.

That’s true. Enlightenment thinkers did challenge religion head-on. The Founding Fathers, as I said, did not.

DH: Despite their secular advances in ethical thinking, Jefferson and other thinkers of his day did not know how to develop a foundation for ethics without religion and God.

And you respond:

This is just flat wrong. In The Law of War and Peace (1625), a massive work on moral and political theory that exerted an incalculable influence on subsequent thinkers, Hugo Grotius wrote that the moral precepts of natural law, which are knowable through reason, would be valid "even if we should concede...that there is no God." And this wasn't even a novel view. Some earlier Catholic philosophers, especially Thomists, had said virtually the same thing.

In the latter part of the 17th century, John Locke stated that the Bible is not a proper foundation for political theory, and by the time the 18th century Enlightenment got underway, the influence of the Bible on the mainstream of political thought was virtually nil. Virtually every major philosopher appealed only to reason and natural law.

Natural Law is such a broad abstraction that, by itself, it cannot possibly provide an objective foundation for ethics (and, by extension, political thought). Although often linked to notions of God, it did constitute a major advance over divine revelation as a foundation for jurisprudence. To that extent, it served an invaluable historical role. At the same time, despite some common principles, there are as many versions of Natural Law as there are Natural Law theorists. The inherent subjectivism in much of Natural Law theory was one of the chief targets of Hume’s attack on rationalism and the “is-ought” dichotomy. He called it “ the illogical attempt to establish the objective character of what is necessarily normative.” (Obviously I am not agreeing with Hume on his conclusion.) Both Aquinas and Locke, by the way, retained a strong connection between their views of Natural Law and their belief in God.

In ethical theory, Natural Law is such a vague standard and can be interpreted in so many ways that it inevitably collapses into subjectivism. The industrial revolution provided Ayn Rand with a way to refine Natural Law into an objective theory of human nature, making it possible to establish a direct connection between the mind, the application of thought to productivity and human survival. Without that crucial step, an objective approach to morality was impossible.

From your last post, it appears that you believe that William Wollaston made the connection between value and life in 1722. Perhaps he did. Mankind has been around for a few million years now. I doubt he (or Rand) was the first to stumble across that insight in some formulation. What he did not do—indeed, what he could not have done—was grasp the connection between rationality and human survival without the background of the industrial revolution. Rand not only identified the connection between values and life but understood that one value in particular—reason—was the fundamental value underlying all others. If you want to contend that “the conformity of action to truth” can work just as well as “reason is man’s basic tool of survival” as the basis of the virtue of rationality—well, good luck.

It is woth noting that William Wollaston’s rationalism was also a favorite target of Hume. And, of course, Wollaston’s natural law theory rested squarely on his “rational” belief in God.

DH: Jefferson and other thinkers of his day did not know how to develop a foundation for ethics without religion and God.

And you respond:

Jefferson and many of his contemporaries certainly believed that they had grounded ethics solely in reason by appealing to human nature and natural law instead of to faith and revelation. You may believe that they failed. but that's a different matter -- and if they did fail, their failure had little to do with Christianity or God.

Jefferson’s claim that his approach to ethics seemed consonant with human nature did not constitute a foundation. To repeat, he (along with other thinkers of his day] did not know how to demonstrate a clear connection between the two. For that matter, neither did Aristotle. But he was operating under an historical handicap.

DH: But Jefferson and other ethical thinkers of his day never discovered such a foundation—at least not one that was truly derived from reason. In addition, they explicitly discounted egoism as a reliable guide. Without a rational foundation, the benevolent “moral sense” reasoning of Jefferson and others was unlikely to have a strong cultural impact. Jefferson credited reason as the final arbiter of truth, but could not find a way to extend reason into the ethical sphere.

Your response to this addresses a general tendency of 18th century philosophers’ to differentiate between “selfishness” and delimited self-interest. I was using the term egoism in the strict sense of a moral view which sanctioned focusing only on one’s self-interest. The term did not come into existence until 1800 (according to the Oxford English Dictionary). The first exponent of a strict egoism was Max Stirner (1805-1856), although he was more of an amoralist than anything else, and egoism has generally been viewed in that light. It is no headline story that there were advocates for some limited form of self-interest in the 18th century—including John Locke--but the general perspective on it echoed Jefferson, as we discussed earlier: “Self-love… is no part of morality. Indeed, it is exactly its counterpart.”

By the way, there is a fascinating work on Locke by historian Jerome Huyler—Locke in America—in which he attempts to piece together Locke’s writings into a comprehensive philosophy which he compares favorably with Objectivism. He analyzes Locke in the context of other 18th century thinkers, particularly with respect to their treatment of self-interest. Huyler also recognizes that there were significant deficits in Locke’s system which served to mitigate it’s influence.

The quotation from Cicero is interesting and valid as far as it goes. Here is an interesting comment by Huyler regarding the influence of Aristotle and Cicero through Cato’s Letters:

By the 1960s, American historians came to appreciate that the 145 letters published between 1720 and 1723 by two Englishmen [John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon], under the name of "Cato," exerted a far greater influence on colonial opinion than did Locke's body of work. Those essays were predominantly concerned with classical republican themes that dated back to antiquity-to Aristotle, Cicero, and Polybius in the ancient world; and to such modern writers as Machiavelli, James Harrington, and Montesquieu. But by Cato's time, a Hobbesian influence also entered into the mix. It saw individuals as aggressive, obsessed with gaining power, and ruling others for their benefit and pleasure….

I am making this reference, in part, based on your obvous disdain for the lack of historical sophistication among Objectivists. Objectivists do not claim that there was a total absence of regard for self-interest in the history of philosophy prior to Rand. But the level of philosophical confusion which existed at the time of America’s founding in regard to how to justify self-interest helps to explain why the influence of religion remained dominant.

I wonder, parenthetically: Are you seriously going to claim that egoism has not traditionally been regarded by mainstream philosophers as tantamount to amorality, or that Ayn Rand did not represent a radical challenge to that perspective—a challenge that was necessary to complete the work of the Founding Fathers?

DH: As far as I can tell, emotion played a similar role in much of the secular ethical thinking of the day, comparable to the role it plays in religious teachings, making it impossible for such ideas to mount a serious challenge to religion. Such a rational foundation for validating ethics was essential to the task of discarding thousands of years of the kind of religious, feeling-based ethics described above. An emotion-based ethics almost always ends up embracing some form of altruism. The upshot of all this is that the Lockean-Jefferson (and quintessentially American) idea that men own their own lives was left without an ethical foundation in reason.

Ghs: This is incorrect through and through, but I don't know how much more time I want to spend on this. I've spent decades reading this material, but if you don't want to take my word for it, then you will need to read the original sources for yourself.

Isn’t this the argument from authority—one of the fallacies you covered so well in “principles of reasoning” all those years ago? “It will take decades for you to understand my position.” I have done quite a bit of reading over the past several decades, although I will readily admit not nearly as much as you. Your scholarship is impeccable. Your logic—well, I will let others be the judge of that.

I am willing to stand by my statement above. If you want to leave it here—along with your claim that the premise of the “consent of the governed” is destroying America rather than the lack of a fully developed philosophical foundation—that’s your choice.

Edited by Dennis Hardin
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Dennis and Xray:

I think you're both falling into the same "trap". George has tried to piece together an accurate, objective, account of what was actually happening in the given historical period, to include: what people where reading, what people did, what people wrote/ said, who people interacted with, etc. He has obviously, necessarily, made some "subjective" leaps, but they are based on the facts that he has gathered through his reasearch. On one hand we have George who is trying to show what did happen through "objective" research and on the other hand we have Dennis and Xray telling him/us how it should have happened based on their own preconceived beliefs. In my opinion, despite claims that George is not being logical or that he is somehow going against Objectivism - he is the only one that is actually attempting to be objective in his analysis. What Dennis and Xray are saying could surely have happened, but George is showing us that they, in objective reality, did not actually happen that way.

We can either sit here and continue to debate what religion should have or could have done or, like George, try to get at what it did do. From my reading I think George is showing us that the standard Objectivist interpretation of religion/Christianity was not the interpretation used by the Founding Fathers. It is therefore wrong to assume that they considered or interpreted religion/Christianity in the same way Objectivists do today or that they followed religious doctrine in the stereotypical way that Objectivists assume people do.

Ian

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Dennis, Objectivism cannot break the man-God link with official atheism and replace it with itself no matter how strong and rigorous the critical thinking and reason. Objectivism needs to embrace the idea of God and use it while rejecting the metaphysical reality of a Supreme Being. The idea of God is psychological genius reflecting a human need taken over and monopolized by controlling priests. The priests need to be displaced.

Everybody believes in the existence of the idea of God (or Gods) and therefore God exists within each person, but it's the person who is supreme, not the idea. God's attributes are whatever a person dresses him up with and can call it philosophy if he wishes, but Rand replacing God with Man only works metaphysically and results in many Objectivists trying to unauthentically act out being Man a la Ayn Rand. This is like those Protestants acting in a certain way to show they are amongst the few that will be saved and explains how official Objectivism actually ends up attacking individualism with the cult-like behavior of many Objectivists.

The bottom line is the existence of two people in one person with God not dominant. If God were dominant that would be contra individualism, which is where religion takes us. The virtue of reason and critical thinking in all this is not going crazy and properly honoring the nature of the relationship. Why is Man dominant, properly speaking, and not God? Because a man has metaphysical reality too, God doesn't.

--Brant

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How do any of these precepts [e.g., Love God, Love your enemies, etc.] conflict with a theory of individual rights?

A free society is a pluralistic society; it is a society where people can pursue their own values and act on their own beliefs, so long as they respect the equal rights of others.

Will you say that the moral defense of a free society should be based on self-interest? Fine, but surely you don't believe that only the interests of atheistic egoists will be maximized in a free society. Many Christians have argued that Christianity will fare best in a free society, and that coercion destroys the moral value of faith.

I am saying that a moral defense of a free society must be based on a comprehensive philosophy of reason—beginning with a metaphysics of objective reality, an epistemology which holds reason as an absolute, and an ethics which recognizes that values derive from the requirements of human life.

Many 18th century philosophers fulfilled your three conditions. It appears that you have a fourth condition, viz, that a defense of a free society must conform in every particular to Ayn Rand's defense, and therefore with yours. In short, if John Locke or Adam Smith or Thomas Jefferson didn't agree with you, then his defense of freedom was inadequate.

And I am saying that a religious ethics founded on faith, emotion and universal love will undermine freedom as it is used to justify ever-increasing interference with individual freedom based on sacrifice in the name of such undefined ‘love.”

None of the philosophers I have discussed based his defense of freedom on faith, emotion, or universal love. So whom, specifically, are you talking about?

The fact that many advocates of religion advocate “voluntaryism” and oppose the use of force to achieve such ethical ends will not matter one twit, because politics inevitably ends up getting trumped by the dictates of a culture’s prevailing ethical code.

If voluntaryist principles become part of a prevailing ethical code -- as they have from time to time -- then they will matter a great deal. They will result in a good deal of individual freedom. Does this not matter to you? Will a person be any less free because his neighbors may not agree with Ayn Rand's egoism, however fervently they believe in individual rights?

I know that is shocking to hear someone say such a thing. I agree with the fundamental tenets of Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand. I feel sure you have heard of it.

The philosophy of Ayn Rand will not tell you about the ideas of John Locke, Francis Hutcheson, Adam Smith, or any other 17th or 18th century philosopher. The latter is what we are talking about here. Moreover, particular historical interpretations are not part of a person's philosophy per se. A person can change his mind about historical events without altering his philosophy one bit.

You like to quote Rand? Well, here are some more quotes from this philosopher named Rand:

The political philosophy of America’s Founding Fathers…was only a magnificent beginning, not a completed job, it was only a political philosophy without a full philosophical and moral foundation…

It's easy to generalize about history; anyone can do it. The pertinent question is: How did Rand know this? Did she actually read 18th century political philosophers first hand? Or did she accept, more or less uncritically, what she heard from Isabel Paterson?

The power that determines the establishment, the changes, the evolution, and the destruction of social systems is philosophy…

I basically agree with this, though I would say "ideas" instead of "philosophy." Many ideas with cultural impact do not come from formal systems of philosophy.

Capitalism is perishing for lack of a moral base and of a full, philosophical defense…

I agree with this completely, and this is one reason why I encourage Randians to read those 17th and 18th century philosophers who provided excellent defenses of a free society. Their ideas were destroyed not by some quasi-Marxian inner contradictions but by opposing ideological currents, such as historicism, social organicism, Comtean positivism, the "positive" conception of freedom pushed by T.H. Green (the founder of the "new" liberalism) and other Hegelians, Benthamite utilitarianism, Burkean conservatism, Marxism, and so forth.

Historical events also played a major role. For instance, the doctrine of natural rights, owing to its revolutionary implications, suffered a serious setback in Britain after the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. The American Civil War had a similar effect; it pretty much sealed the fate of natural rights thinking in the United States.

The rise of militarism and imperialism in late 19th century Europe also had a dramatic impact. Herbert Spencer called this development the "new barbarism," and it shredded his earlier optimistic outlook for the future of freedom. As he lay on his deathbed in 1903, Spencer was asked if he was now a pessimist. He replied, "If being a pessimist means wishing you had never been born, then I am a pessimist." Similarly, when the liberal historian John Morley learned that Britain had entered WWI, he said to a friend, with tears in his eyes, "Liberalism is dead."

No doubt you will tell me that none of this would have happened if only classical liberals had been atheists and Randian egoists.

To be continued....

Ghs

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This is a continuation of my last post.

Natural Law is such a broad abstraction that, by itself, it cannot possibly provide an objective foundation for ethics (and, by extension, political thought).

"Natural law" is simply another name for what Randians would call "objective moral principles." In the realm of ethics, natural laws were principles of conduct, knowable to reason, that were grounded in the nature of human beings.

Is this a "broad abstraction?" Yes, of course it is. So is the notion of "objective" moral principles knowable to reason. Did philosophers sometimes disagree about the specific content of natural laws? Yes, just as philosophers who have defended objective moral principles knowable to reason have often disagreed with Rand about what those principles are. So what?

Would you claim that Rand's notion of objective moral principles "cannot possibly provide an objective foundation for ethics (and, by extension, political thought)." Of course not. Natural law thinking was a foundation, a general perspective, not a full-blown philosophy of ethics and politics.

Although often linked to notions of God, it did constitute a major advance over divine revelation as a foundation for jurisprudence. To that extent, it served an invaluable historical role. At the same time, despite some common principles, there are as many versions of Natural Law as there are Natural Law theorists.

We find the same diversity in philosophers who have appealed to "reason" and "objective" moral principles. Should we therefore discard these notions?

The inherent subjectivism in much of Natural Law theory was one of the chief targets of Hume’s attack on rationalism and the “is-ought” dichotomy. He called it “ the illogical attempt to establish the objective character of what is necessarily normative.”

This is not what Hume "called it." The line you quoted is not from Hume; it is from Dennis (Lord) Lloyd's book Introduction to Jurisprudence.

In any case, Hume was not attacking the "subjectivism" of natural law thinking; far from it. He was specifically criticizing the rationalistic wing of natural law thinking, such as found in Samuel Clarke and William Wollaston. In his own mind, Hume was not an opponent of the natural law approach. As he explained in A Treatise of Human Nature (Bk. III. sec. 1; Selby-Bigge ed., p. 484):

To avoid giving offence, I must here observe, that when I deny justice to be a natural virtue, I make use of the word, natural, only as oppos'd to artificial. In another sense of the word; as no principle of the human mind is more natural than a sense of justice; so no virtue is more natural than justice. Mankind is an inventive species; and where an invention is obvious and absolutely necessary, it may a properly be said to be natural as any thing that proceeds immediately from original principles, without the intervention of thought or reflexion. Tho' the rules of justice be artificial, they are not arbitrary. Nor is the expression improper to call them Laws of Nature; if by natural we understand what is common to any species, or even if we confine it to mean what is inseparable from the species.

Although Hume was a moral sense philosopher, he disagreed with Francis Hutcheson about the status of justice. Hume, unlike Hutcheson, did not believe that there exists in human beings a natural sentiment of justice. Rather, he believed that our ideas about justice evolved over time, as people came to understand their social utility. Hume therefore called justice an "artificial" rather than a "natural" virtue, but this use of "artificial" proved so misleading that he didn't use the word in his later writings. For an excellent treatment that places Hume in the natural law tradition, see Stephen Buckle, Natural Law and the Theory of Property: Grotius to Hume (Oxford, 1991). This is the best book of its kind, in my opinion.

(Obviously I am not agreeing with Hume on his conclusion.) Both Aquinas and Locke, by the way, retained a strong connection between their views of Natural Law and their belief in God.

For Aquinas, natural law is that part of God's eternal law which is knowable to reason, without the aid of faith or revelation. Locke's views were somewhat more complicated and not entirely clear. But as Rand stated in "Man's Rights":

The Declaration of Independence stated that men "are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights." Whether one believes that man is the product of a Creator or of nature, the issue of man's origin does not alter the fact that he is an entity of a specific kind—a rational being—that he cannot function successfully under coercion, and that rights are a necessary condition of his particular mode of survival.

Rand had a much higher opinion of the philosophy of America's Founders than you do. She wrote:

The most profoundly revolutionary achievement of the United States of America was the subordination of society to moral law.

The principle of man's individual rights represented the extension of morality into the social system—as a limitation on the power of the state, as man's protection against the brute force of the collective, as the subordination of might to right. The United States was the first moral society in history.

The United States regarded man as an end in himself, and society as a means to the peaceful, orderly, voluntary coexistence of individuals....The United States held that man's life is his by right (which means: by moral principle and by his nature), that a right is the property of an individual, that society as such has no rights, and that the only moral purpose of a government is the protection of individual rights.

This is an excellent summary of the political philosophy of America's Founders (or at least many of them). I couldn't have put it better myself.

To be continued....

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As rights are a human invention they might be described as "artificial," but as they are validated by reference to the human organism they are also "natural." One informs the other and it's a two-way street.

As it's impossible not to have a theory of natural rights not inextricably bound up in morality, it's desirable to know what that morality is. To wit: Man is a reasoning, seeking, productive creature and it's hard or impossible to be such if his rights are violated, if he is subject to the initiation of physical force. It's moral therefore for him to seek to master his circumstances without initiating force and immoral to initiate force. The rest of morality and ethics is what an individual might make of it sans the societal linkage reflected in various institutions and law. An Objectivist might say one thing and a libertarian quite another, but they have to share the linkage if they both want freedom--or liberty so-called.

--Brant

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Another continuation....

In ethical theory, Natural Law is such a vague standard and can be interpreted in so many ways that it inevitably collapses into subjectivism.

First, natural law per se was never used as a "standard." It was a general approach to moral and political theory, one that stood in direct opposition to theories that appealed to divine law, faith, and supernatural revelation.

Second. as I pointed out in my last post, "reason" has also been interpreted in myriad ways, so, by your reasoning, it "inevitably collapses into subjectivism" as well. But that didn't stop Ayn Rand from appealing to reason, did it?

The industrial revolution provided Ayn Rand with a way to refine Natural Law into an objective theory of human nature, making it possible to establish a direct connection between the mind, the application of thought to productivity and human survival. Without that crucial step, an objective approach to morality was impossible.

Well, that is certainly a novel theory, even for a Randian. Do you think that no one understood the "direct connection between the mind, the application of thought to productivity and human survival" prior to the Industrial Revolution? Are you serious?

From your last post, it appears that you believe that William Wollaston made the connection between value and life in 1722. Perhaps he did. Mankind has been around for a few million years now. I doubt he (or Rand) was the first to stumble across that insight in some formulation. What he did not do—indeed, what he could not have done—was grasp the connection between rationality and human survival without the background of the industrial revolution. Rand not only identified the connection between values and life but understood that one value in particular—reason—was the fundamental value underlying all others. If you want to contend that “the conformity of action to truth” can work just as well as “reason is man’s basic tool of survival” as the basis of the virtue of rationality—well, good luck.

It's too bad that Wollaston and other philosophers didn't use exactly the same words as Rand. That was a fatal flaw, one that doubtless led to the evils of altruism and statism.

It is worth noting that William Wollaston’s rationalism was also a favorite target of Hume. And, of course, Wollaston’s natural law theory rested squarely on his “rational” belief in God.

I mention Hume's attack on Wollaston in my article, and I also mentioned it in my last post. So your point is....?

Wollaston was a borderline Deist -- horror of horrors! I explain in my article what Wollaston meant by the "religion of nature," but you prefer to ignore that part. The fact that Deistic types often referred to "natural religion" in a positive sense is, it seems, enough to consign them to the lowest rung of Rand's Inferno. Never mind that there was a context for this usage. Never mind that advocates of natural religion were combating the prevailing notion of supernatural religion, often at considerable personal risk. (It was not uncommon for Deists to have their books burned; and some, such as Thomas Woolston, served time in prison for blasphemy.)

No, never mind any of this. A theist is a theist, and religion is religion. It is all one big, indiscriminate lump of irrationalism. For all of Rand's stress on "contextualism," few Randians actually practice this in matters of history.

Jefferson’s claim that his approach to ethics seemed consonant with human nature did not constitute a foundation. To repeat, he (along with other thinkers of his day] did not know how to demonstrate a clear connection between the two. For that matter, neither did Aristotle. But he was operating under an historical handicap.

I can't take any more of this, at least for now, so I will press on.

By the way, there is a fascinating work on Locke by historian Jerome Huyler—Locke in America—in which he attempts to piece together Locke’s writings into a comprehensive philosophy which he compares favorably with Objectivism. He analyzes Locke in the context of other 18th century thinkers, particularly with respect to their treatment of self-interest. Huyler also recognizes that there were significant deficits in Locke’s system which served to mitigate it’s influence.

Huyler's book is excellent. I cite it a number of times in my forthcoming book, Themes in the History of Classical Liberalism, and I highly recommend it. There is little in the book that I disagree with, and my disagreements revolve around some relatively inconsequential technical matters. I don't think you will find anything in Huyler's book that contradicts any of my major claims.

The quotation from Cicero is interesting and valid as far as it goes. Here is an interesting comment by Huyler regarding the influence of Aristotle and Cicero through Cato’s Letters:

By the 1960s, American historians came to appreciate that the 145 letters published between 1720 and 1723 by two Englishmen [John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon], under the name of "Cato," exerted a far greater influence on colonial opinion than did Locke's body of work. Those essays were predominantly concerned with classical republican themes that dated back to antiquity-to Aristotle, Cicero, and Polybius in the ancient world; and to such modern writers as Machiavelli, James Harrington, and Montesquieu. But by Cato's time, a Hobbesian influence also entered into the mix. It saw individuals as aggressive, obsessed with gaining power, and ruling others for their benefit and pleasure….

I am making this reference, in part, based on your obvious disdain for the lack of historical sophistication among Objectivists.

I never said all Objectivists (or Randians). For example, Chris Sciabarra is a Randian, if not an orthodox Objectivist, and his understanding of history is extremely sophisticated. So is Huyler's. Huyler's basic task -- namely, to restore Locke to his rightful position in 18th century American ideology, in opposition to historians such as Gordon Wood and John Pocock -- has been undertaken before, e.g., in the excellent work by Michael Zuckert. But this doesn't diminish the value of Huyler's book.

I don't quite get the point of your reference to Cato's Letters, by the Radical Whigs John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon. Their influence has been widely discussed for decades, e.g., by Clinton Rossiter, Caroline Robbins, and Bernard Bailyn. I discussed Cato's Letters at some length in the manuscripts I wrote on the American Revolution for Knowledge Products in the 1980s. I also discussed them in my lectures on America history that I gave for many years at Cato summer seminars, beginning in the late 1970s.

Have you ever read Cato's Letters? If not, you may be unaware that they present a thoroughly self-interested approach to moral and political theory.

To be continued, maybe....

Ghs

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My final installment....

I wonder, parenthetically: Are you seriously going to claim that egoism has not traditionally been regarded by mainstream philosophers as tantamount to amorality, or that Ayn Rand did not represent a radical challenge to that perspective—a challenge that was necessary to complete the work of the Founding Fathers?

Yes, this is exactly what I am claiming, at least in regard to a good deal of 18th century moral philosophy.

As I have said several times before, the pursuit of rational self-interest was held in very high esteem by many 18th century moral philosophers. I have also mentioned Vattel before, whose writings were frequently cited by Americans. Vattel called self-interest "the first principle of obligation." There is "no inclination, desire, or affection more essential to us, or more basic and general, than self-love, which causes us to desire and seek for our happiness or the perfection of our condition, whether internal and external, i.e., the perfection of our soul, the well-being of our body, and the prosperity of our fortune."

In accordance with many other natural-law philosophers, Vattel justified rights by claiming that they are necessary conditions for social existence and therefore serve the interests of "each individual." He wrote:

f society is useful and even necessary to [each individual], and if this society is unable to subsist without laws or general rules observed by all its members, he is obliged, by virtue of his own expediency, to follow them. He ought not even consider sacrificing them to an immediate advantage, because they are what guarantee him peaceful enjoyment of all his other goods. (My italics.) Essay on the Foundation of Natural Law and on the First Principle of the Obligation Men Find Themselves Under to Observe Laws, 1747, reprinted in Vattel's The Law of Nations, Liberty Fund, pp. 754-755.

Vattel is appealing to man's long-range (rational) interests, in contrast to rights-violating activities that some may regard as serving their short-term (and irrational) "immediate advantage." His point is that the principles of justice serve man's long-range interests, and that this is why we should observe them. This theme reverberates throughout individualistic natural law thinking of the 18th century -- and even earlier, as we see in Hugo Grotius' The Rights of War and Peace (1625). And this argument is essentially identical to Rand's contention that rights are necessary conditions of man's survival in a social context.

Please don't point out the differences in language. I would rather not explode today. <_<

Ghs: This is incorrect through and through, but I don't know how much more time I want to spend on this. I've spent decades reading this material, but if you don't want to take my word for it, then you will need to read the original sources for yourself.

DH: Isn’t this the argument from authority—one of the fallacies you covered so well in “principles of reasoning” all those years ago? “It will take decades for you to understand my position.” I have done quite a bit of reading over the past several decades, although I will readily admit not nearly as much as you. Your scholarship is impeccable. Your logic—well, I will let others be the judge of that.

I have no problem with differing interpretations of 17th and 18th century political philosophers, so long as my adversary shows some knowledge of the material. But I do have a problem with people who are unfamiliar with the sources but who nevertheless make grand pronouncements about them, based on little more than a few inaccurate generalizations by Ayn Rand.

None of my historical claims has been controversial; on the contrary, you can find similar observations in many reliable secondary sources.

A is A. A historical fact is a historical fact, regardless of what Ayn Rand may have believed.

Ghs

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What did the Christian "pro-freedom philosophy" consist of? It was still submission to a ruler, an omnipotent god.

Suppose a government demands that you pay taxes while stipulating that any and all punishment for noncompliance will be entirely in God's hands and will not occur until the afterlife. Would you obey?

I wouldn't. That's a kind of "submission" that I can happily live with.

It's only when people claim to act on God's behalf that we have a real problem. And it was precisely this claim to divine authority, supposedly based on "special revelation" (most notably the Bible), that 17th and 18th century Deists and rationalistic Christians (such as Locke) pounded into oblivion. so far as political philosophy was concerned. In the process, they destroyed the doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings and its attendant theory of political absolutism.

We owe more to those heroic figures than most people -- including you, apparently -- will ever know.

One more point: Our libertarian forefathers, including many Christians, fiercely defended the rights of resistance and revolution against oppressive governments, and many went so far as to defend tyrannicide. This was an age, remember, when kings were widely regarded as ruling with God's sanction, so this defense of tyrannicide was far more radical than the same doctrine applied to purely secular rulers.

These people had great courage. In 1683, Algernon Sidney -- a hero to Jefferson and many of his contemporaries -- was executed by the English government for treason. During Sidney's trial, his as yet unpublished manuscript, Discourses Concerning Government, was presented as the principal evidence against him. (The Discourses was published posthumously, in 1698.)

Would you like to know the manner of Sidney's execution? Watch the gruesome conclusion of "Braveheart." That is exactly how Sidney died for writing a book that you can now purchase for less than fifteen bucks from Liberty Fund .

Oh, but I almost forgot -- Sidney was not an atheist. He even cited the Bible in his Discourses in the course of rebutting Sir Robert Filmer's arguments for the Divine Right of Kings. So never mind. Let's only give credit for our freedoms to "rational" people, such as atheists and egoists.

So how do Objectivists deal with the tricky and extremely sensitive issues of resistance, revolution, and tyrannicide? Do they dare discuss, even on a purely theoretical level, under what conditions, if any, it would be morally proper, say, to kill a despotic president or use violence to resist an unjust law? Nope, all we hear is the deafening silence of moral cowardice, as O'ists preen themselves on their superior rationality.

Ghs

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Oh, but I almost forgot -- Sidney was not an atheist. He even cited the Bible in his Discourses in the course of rebutting Sir Robert Filmer's arguments for the Divine Rights of Kings. So never mind. Let's only give credit for our freedoms to "rational" people, such as atheists and egoists.

So how do Objectivists deal with the tricky and extremely sensitive issues of resistance, revolution, and tyrannicide? Do they dare discuss, even on a purely theoretical level, under what conditions, if any, it would be morally proper, say, to kill a despotic president or use violence to resist an unjust law? Nope, all we hear is the deafening silence of moral cowardice, as O'ists preen themselves on their superior rationality.

Ghs

This is a little unfair, George. Rand did state when it was proper to take up arms against tyranny--no free speech, something that's more than a little being toyed with. The Brits started off with tyranny. From Magna Carta to Sidney's execution was almost 650 years. To the United States, 750. I'm sure many examples of moral cowardice existed during those years while the extroardinary heroes were very few and far between. In these times of mediocre tyranny, the heroes are not going to be getting medals for valor. They may get several years of IRS audits.

It is interesting that the heroes in Atlas Shrugged fought tyranny passively, no manning the barricades. (Ragnar was hero filler.) Whatever happened to Enjoles in her cosmology?

One can read about Sidney et. al in my grandfather's book, The Bill of Rights: Its Origin and Meaning (Irving Brant, 1965), available on Questia. My Mother is still getting royaties from Questia from this book. They peaked during the Bush years and now run about 1/3 that.

--Brant

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Oh, but I almost forgot -- Sidney was not an atheist. He even cited the Bible in his Discourses in the course of rebutting Sir Robert Filmer's arguments for the Divine Rights of Kings. So never mind. Let's only give credit for our freedoms to "rational" people, such as atheists and egoists.

So how do Objectivists deal with the tricky and extremely sensitive issues of resistance, revolution, and tyrannicide? Do they dare discuss, even on a purely theoretical level, under what conditions, if any, it would be morally proper, say, to kill a despotic president or use violence to resist an unjust law? Nope, all we hear is the deafening silence of moral cowardice, as O'ists preen themselves on their superior rationality.

Ghs

This is a little unfair, George. Rand did state when it was proper to take up arms against tyranny--no free speech, something that's more than a little being toyed with.

Perhaps I should be more clear in the future that when I speak of "O'ists," I am thinking of Rand's followers, not Rand herself.

Rand made a number of comments that are relevant to this discussion, including her four criteria of a "dictatorship" in "Collectivized Rights." I also recall that she somewhere claims that violence against a government is unjustified so long as we have free speech. I don't recall where this discussion appears, however, so please cite the essay, if you know what it is.

The problem is that Rand doesn't really argue for her positions, nor does she attempt to link her positions to the implications of natural rights and political legitimacy, nor does she discuss the significance of inalienable rights versus alienable rights, nor (as I recall) does she distinguish the right of resistance from the right of revolution -- a distinction that was crucial to the Lockean theory that inspired the American Revolution.

18th century Americans (and Radical Whigs generally) explored this issue in meticulous detail. (For an excellent treatment, see Pauline Maier, From Resistance to Revolution: Colonial Radicals and the Development of American Opposition to Britain, 1765-1776.) I mentioned this topic because of all the blustering from O'ists about how much more advanced their theory of rights is than the theories of earlier philosophers. In many cases, Randians simply ignore the more difficult problems associated with natural rights, or they dispose of those problems by citing an oracular declaration or two from Rand.

I've had many discussions with O'ists about this topic over the years, and all they do is repeat Rand's assertions, while showing no awareness of the radical implications of the moral theory they profess to hold. With no knowledge of history and little interest in theory, they quote Ayn Rand and consider the subject closed.

The Brits started off with tyranny....

No, not really. At the very least, this isn't how British revolutionaries viewed their own history. They considered British tyranny to be a relatively recent development. The Divine Right of Kings, for example, was a modern development, one that began to take hold during the 16th century. It is not something found in medieval political thought. But I don't want to get into any more lengthy historical digressions that few people will read.

As I said, if you know where that passage is where Rand specifically addresses the issue of when it is proper to use violence against a government, please let me know. I've read it many times, but I'm hesitant to comment without reading it again, and I cannot recall where it appears. Thanks.

Ghs

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McCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS

WASHINGTON -- The Spreme Court ruled Monday that human-rights advocates ... could be prosecuted if they offer advice to a foreign terrorist group, even if the advice is to settle disputes peacefully.

--Brant

behind the times

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Dennis and Xray:

I think you're both falling into the same "trap". George has tried to piece together an accurate, objective, account of what was actually happening in the given historical period, to include: what people where reading, what people did, what people wrote/ said, who people interacted with, etc. He has obviously, necessarily, made some "subjective" leaps, but they are based on the facts that he has gathered through his reasearch. On one hand we have George who is trying to show what did happen through "objective" research and on the other hand we have Dennis and Xray telling him/us how it should have happened based on their own preconceived beliefs. In my opinion, despite claims that George is not being logical or that he is somehow going against Objectivism - he is the only one that is actually attempting to be objective in his analysis. What Dennis and Xray are saying could surely have happened, but George is showing us that they, in objective reality, did not actually happen that way.

Panoptic,

I can't see any evidence of either Dennis H. or me telling George/others "what should have happened" (?). Can you quote an example of our posts and explain exactly what you mean?

I mentioned this topic because of all the blustering from O'ists about how much more advanced their theory of rights is than the theories of earlier philosophers. In many cases, Randians simply ignore the more difficult problems associated with natural rights, or they dispose of those problems by citing an oracular declaration or two from Rand.

Can you give an example of a difficult problem associated with natural rights ignored by Randians you have discussed with?

Ghs: I've had many discussions with O'ists about this topic over the years, and all they do is repeat Rand's assertions, while showing no awareness of the radical implications of the moral theory they profess to hold. With no knowledge of history and little interest in theory, they quote Ayn Rand and consider the subject closed.

Do you have an example of a "radical" implication of the moral theory O'ists profess to hold?

Brant Gaede: Rand did state when it was proper to take up arms against tyranny

Tyranny

"Tyranny is any political system (whether absolute monarchy or fascism or communism) that does not recognize individual rights (which necessarily include property rights). The overthrow of a political system by force is justified only when it is directed against tyranny: it is an act of self-defense against those who rule by force. For example, the American Revolution."

“From a Symposium" Return of the Primitive: The Anti-Industrial Revolution, 173.

http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/tyranny.html

"Dictatorship nations are outlaws. Any free nation had the right to invade Nazi Germany and, today, has the right to invade Soviet Russia, Cuba or any other slave pen. Whether a free nation chooses to do so or not is a matter of its own self-interest, not of respect for the non-existent “rights” of gang rulers. It is not a free nation’s duty to liberate other nations at the price of self-sacrifice, but a free nation has the right to do it, when and if it so chooses." "Collectivized Rights", TVOS, p. 122

As for government having the right to execute "retaliatory" physical force:

"A government is the means of placing the retaliatory use of physical force under objective control—i.e., under objectively defined laws." "The Nature of Government" TVOS, p. 128.

What did the Christian "pro-freedom philosophy" consist of? It was still submission to a ruler, an omnipotent god.

Suppose a government demands that you pay taxes while stipulating that any and all punishment for noncompliance will be entirely in God's hands and will not occur until the afterlife. Would you obey?

I wouldn't. That's a kind of "submission" that I can happily live with.

Almost as happily as with Rand's concept of "voluntary" taxation I suppose. Would you pay? ;)

Our libertarian forefathers, including many Christians, fiercely defended the rights of resistance and revolution against oppressive governments, and many went so far as to defend tyrannicide.

When religious individuals (or groups) stand up against oppressive governments, this basically says little about how they deal with freedom of opinion within their own organization, or if they would grant others freedom should they come into political power.

Believers often see oppressive governments as sinners who violate God's law.

As for freedom within the belief system itself, I can see none in e. g. Christianity which is based on the premise of humans being already being born as sinners. This is as far removed from freedom as it can get.

Dennis, Objectivism cannot break the man-God link with official atheism and replace it with itself no matter how strong and rigorous the critical thinking and reason. Objectivism needs to embrace the idea of God and use it while rejecting the metaphysical reality of a Supreme Being. The idea of God is psychological genius reflecting a human need taken over and monopolized by controlling priests. The priests need to be displaced.

You mean Rand replaced "God" by "Man"?

Edited by Xray
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Panoptic,

I can't see any evidence of either Dennis H. or me telling George/others "what should have happened" (?). Can you quote an example of our posts and explain exactly what you mean?

I'd be happy to. You just did it again:

Believers often see oppressive governments as sinners who violate God's law When religious individuals (or groups) stand up against oppressive governments, this basically says little about how they deal with freedom of opinion within their own organization, or if they would grant others freedom should they come into political power.

This is your opinion of how believers think and how they behave. It is not based on what actually happened (i.e., supported by rigorous research of historical events), instead it is based on what you think should happen if believers behave and think the way you say they do - your whole argument is a tautology. George is dealing with real people and real historical artifacts, not theorizing off the top of head or fitting historical events to his own way of thinking.

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When religious individuals (or groups) stand up against oppressive governments, this basically says little about how they deal with freedom of opinion within their own organization, or if they would grant others freedom should they come into political power.

In 1560, while France was in the midst of violent conflicts between Catholics and Huguenots (i.e., French Calvinists). France's Chancellor, Michel de l'Hopital. said the following during his address before the opening session of the States-General:

The Christian religion is to suffer violence, not to create it, and those who wish to establish it with the help of arms, swords and pistols, act against what they profess. As Chrysostom said, we differ from the heathen who use force and compulsion, whereas Christians use only words and persuasion.

They argue in vain that they take up arms for God's cause, because God's cause does not need to be defended by arms....Our religion was neither started, nor maintained, nor preserved by the force of arms.

In 1561, at a session of the States-General of Orleans, Jacques Bienassis, vicar-general of Tours and abbot of Bois-Aubry, said:

ince the ignorance of man is such that people reach different conclusions, and that each one believes and has special reasons for believing that he possesses the true religion, we are bound in this entanglement to wait until God in His goodness takes a hand and dispels that ignorance from whatever source it arises, in order to bring us all together in the union of His own pure truth: there is indeed no sense in wanting to use force in matters of conscience and religion, because conscience is like the palm of the hand; the more it is pressed, the more it resists, and lets itself be ordered only by reason and good advice.

During the 1570s, under Catholic rule, Poland became the first country in the modern era to establish a policy of religious toleration. In defense of this policy, Poland's grand chancellor, John Zamoyski, said: "I would give half my life to bring back to Catholicism those who have abandoned it, but I would give my whole life to prevent them from being brought back by violence."

All these statements (I could provide many more) were given by prominent Catholics while they were in positions of power, not while they were being persecuted. But don't we all somehow "know" that Catholics always favored religious persecution in this situation?

So how would you explain all this?

Ghs

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X-Ray over-radiates the flock:

When religious individuals (or groups) stand up against oppressive governments, this basically says little about how they deal with freedom of opinion within their own organization, or if they would grant others freedom should they come into political power.

Sometimes yes, often no. This is an extremely sweeping generalization about religious organizations--ignoring the fundamental difference between them, that being that some of them are creed-based, and others (like the Unitarian Universalists/ www.uua.org) are covenant-based. The latter groups usually lie within a larger group commonly referred to as the "free" church. The covenants employed in the latter vary slightly, of course, but there are essential aspects that appear over and over again--many of which are democratic- and humanist-based ideas. Ours, for instance, is based on 7 principles:

The inherent worth and dignity of every person.

Justice, equity, and compassion in human relations.

Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations.

A free and responsible search for truth and meaning.

The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations, and in society at large.

The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all.

Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.

This is one reason why it is not possible to make the kind of generalization that X-ray did here.

In Christianity, the uber-mysticism was perpetuated greatly by who won out what at the Council of Nicea. For instance, if you are familiar with the Nicene Creed, you know that "begotten not made" won out. This is not suprising, considering that Constantine believed in rule through absolutism.

But again--my basic point: you can't say what X-Ray said because it is a sweeping generalization.

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