In his 2000 essay of this name, first published on the web site of The Daily Objectivist, and later republished on his own web site, Nathaniel Branden wrote:

...[T]he evidence makes clear, that Ayn Rand herself saw Objectivism as an open system in the sense that it was open to new identifications, new discoveries, new principles, providing, of course, this new material did not stand in contradiction to what had already been established...[M]y purpose is to draw attention to the historical evidence that lends support to the claim of David Kelley and others that Objectivism is and must be “an open system.” Were Ayn Rand alive, obviously she would have the right to say, “Do not describe as ‘Objectivism’ any viewpoint I disagree with.” But when her agreement or disagreement is no longer possible, we are on our own to judge what is or is not compatible with Objectivism … and that could include even challenging some position of Ayn Rand’s which we believe to be in conflict with her more fundamental premises.

That says it very well.

I certainly ~have~ challenged some of Rand's positions, but ~never~ on the basis of anything other than widely known facts and/or more basic views Rand herself firmly espoused.

Some examples:

1. Rand claimed in the first chapter of Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology that babies are incapable of perception. Most reasonably alert parents of newborns know this is not so. She also claimed in "Art and Cognition" (chapter 4 of The Romantic Manifesto) that we adults are like babies in being aware of musical tones as "sensations" (uncritically accepting this usage of the term from Helmholtz' famous book, On the Sensations of Tone, which obviously described a form of awareness that fits her own definition of "perception"). I challenged this in my essay, "Music and Perceptual Cognition," which was published in 1999, in the very first issue of Journal of Ayn Rand Studies.

2. Rand argued in "Art and Cognition" that architecture is a form of art, that art re-creates reality, but that architecture does not re-create reality. Come again? Logically, if you accept any ~two~ of these positions, you ~must~ reject the third. I accept her basic premise (art re-creates reality), and I also have argued contra Rand at length (in my JARS essay "Art as Microcosm") that architecture re-creates reality, so I have no qualms with accepting architecture as a form of art. Yet, Rand must have had some serious misgivings, since she (reportedly) told Harry Binswanger to omit the entry for "architecture" from The Ayn Rand Lexicon. (Astonishingly, architecture was ~still~ stealthily ~included~ as a form of art in the Lexicon's entry for "visual art." Naughty Harry!)

3. Although it is not fully clear what Rand's position was toward late-term abortion, it seems obvious that the orthodox position is that up until birth, it's deuces wild (i.e., abortion-on-demand, without legal restriction). Since I hold that there is no essential difference between newborn infants and third-trimester fetuses (the latter begin perceiving in the womb around the 26th week of pregnancy, and they are usually viable, i.e., separable from the mother's body, by that point also), I also hold that any right to life possessed by a newborn and protectable by law also attached to a third-trimester fetus. In her essay "Man's Rights," Rand says that "rights" means the right to take every action necessary for the survival of a rational being. Newborns, being avid perceivers with the presumed ability to integrate those percepts into concepts, are thus already engaged in a process of "reason," by Rand's own definition, and are thus rational beings. (Note that the definition does not say: the act of integrating what you once perceived days or months earlier. It says: the act of perceiving and integrating. Once you are perceiving, and have the ability to integrate ~even at some later point~, you are engaging in reason!) Since fetuses are also perceiving in the womb, they too are engaging in reason. And if newborn premature babies are recognized as having the same right to life as full-term newborn babies, then fetuses ~even better developed~ than the preemies logically ought to be recognized as having the same right to life as the preemies. (If the mother's life is in jeopardy from carrying the fetus to term ~and~ from early induced labor, then it is certainly her choice to abort, however grisly the procedure may be to some.) These views were published in Reason magazine in September 1981 and republished in the 25th anniversary compilation, Free Minds and Free Markets. I have had no reason to revise or repudiate them since. I believe that a few Objectivists and Libertarians have found themselves in agreement with my reasoning, but it's ~still~ a minority opinion. (Nor do Fundamentalist Christians and Right-to-Lifers seem very happy with what must to them seem to be a one-third-of-a-loaf argument.) But that deters me not. I believe it to be the only position consistent with more basic Objectivist principles and the known medical and neurological facts.

4. Finally, I'll just state for the record that I disagree with the (apparent) orthodox view that free will is the quasi-Kantian ~categorical~ freedom to have chosen other than one did in a given situation, PERIOD, and instead that free will is the ~conditional~ freedom to have chosen other than one did in a given situation IF ONE HAD WANTED TO DO SO MORE THAN ONE WANTED TO DO WHAT ONE DID. This applies across the board, to choices by whim and to choices from extended rational deliberation. It is an axiom of human life. We CANNOT do other than that which we most want to do. (Please email anything you think might count as a counter-example to me at rebissell(AT)aol(DOT)com. I will be delighted to extend to it my tender analytical mercies. ;) ) I also argue that this "conditional free will" aka "value determinism" position is more in accord with Rand's basic premises than the Peikoffian argument for quasi-Kantian, categorical free will, and my argument will be published soon (perhaps in 2012) in JARS and republished at a later date in Volume 2 of my True Alternatives volumes.

That should suffice to show that I really ~do~ regard myself as an Objectivist, as Nathaniel characterizes it in the above quotation. I am challenging some of Rand's conclusions, while also ~basing~ those challenges on the logical and factual incompatibility of those conclusions with her more basic premises (which I accept). I may be incorrect in one or more (or all) of my challenges, and people are welcome to put them to rational test. But ~dis-establishing~ ANY of her erroneous claims is NOT a ~rejection~ of Objectivism, but instead a ~purging of error~ from it. Unlike Peikoff, I do not see the entire edifice of her philosophy as a one-piece structure that will collapse if any one piece of it, however cherished, is rejected -- so long as the ~basic~, ~foundational~ parts of the structure remain intact and, in fact, are the basis for any challenges to the more derivative parts of that structure.

Roger Bissell, Objectivist

July 9, 2011