Tibor Machan

"Many people would sooner die than think. In fact they do." Bertrand Russell (From THE WEEK, 4-22-06, p. 21)

The defense of ethics being necessarily egoistic is just the topic of "The Objectivist Ethics." Those who hold to a contrary idea, or think there can be various bona fide ethics, are wrong. Just consider medicine (or any other discipline)--whatever is the science and practice of medicine is medicine proper--for example, wholistic or pluralistic or whatever. There can be different schools of medicine in the sense that different propositions or theories are advanced as to what medicine is. But only one will turn out to be medicine proper. So with ethics--all those schools, such as util

Respecting opponets and their ideas really amounts mostly to respecting their right to be opponents and to have even the nuttiest ideas, if they so choose. It doesn't really have to mean respecting them or their ideas.

Tolerance even suggests "putting up with," as when one tolerates a headache or sore foot. But it also means not making much of it.

Regarding the Objectivist ethics of rational self-interest, it is vital to remember that in "The Objectivist Ethics" Rand is advancing the view that ethics is by its very nature egoistic. That is to say, if one wants to understand the nature of ethics, one needs to acknowledge that such a set of guidelines is required by human beings so as to live right, to flourish. Instead of instincts, which guide other animals automatically because they have them, as it were, hard wired, human beings require or need ethics, which, however, they need to choose to be guided by. One vital implication of this