Alfonso Jones

That is an often repeated mantra, but is it always true? I don't think so. There are situations in which it may be more practical to be immoral. In AS the good guys win, but real life is different. Many Objectivists turn this argument around: if it is practical, it must be moral, which leads them to conclude that for example the most succesful enterprise must be a very moral enterprise. A good example is the uncritical attitude towards Microsoft among Objectivists, it is so enormously succesful that it must be a prime example of moral behavior. Well, I beg to disagree. Dragonfly - Could you outline the basic ways in which you believe Microsoft to have behaved immorally? Not at great length, just briefly? I gather from your wording that you mean you disagree that Microsoft's behavior has been, broadly, moral, not just that you assert that "success" over a certain period of time does not IMPLY morality (I agree with the latter and doubt that you would find many who disagree.). ALfonso

Roger - Of course, when you say "you are being immoral" above you mean "you are being moral." Alfonso

Unfortunately, he's using a banana. REB No, it looks like a hammer. But, he hit the wrong nail. Alfonso Jones

A brief thought: The difference here is very wide. If one does not see the need for morality on a desert island, then one probably began with a very different sense of "need" than I (and Rand) do. Somehow, I suspect that smuggled into "need" you have an obligation to some other entity --- God, Society, . . . Ask the more fundamental question - why does a man need morals. There will admittedly be some situations which are more complex in a society than on a desert island, but as Rand committed forcefully and eloquently, the NEED for morality is actually greater on the desert island - no other party exists to pay the bill (in some fashion) for one's lapses. Alfonso

Great post, Roger. You got the essential references here. Alfonso

Exactly. I love the way she often responds to questions by going to the root issue. Either revealing the implicit assumption ("we OUGHT to behave in some ways - it's an obligation placed on us by God or by other people"), by revealing the question steals concepts fomr what it desires to question (using reason to question reason), etc.. Branden's essay "The Stolen Concept" from The Objectivist Newsletter (January 1963) is also brilliant and relates to this - even if it is not included in the Objectivism Research CD-ROM!!! Alfonso

In the course of some reading, I just read (again) "The Objectivist Ethics" from The Virtue of Selfishness. I love this passage: "The first question that has to be answered, as a precondition of any attempt to define, to judge or to accept any specific system of ethics, is: Why does man need a code of values? Let me stress this: The first question is not: What particular code of values should man accept? The first question is: Does man need values at all - and why?" I have always viewed this as an excellent example of Rand's insight into the assumptions behind questions, and into her rhetorical skill. Note that in the alternative formulation ("what particular code of values SHOULD man accept?") the SHOULD can be used to smuggle in the notion of an obligation to some (unnamed) entity. Rand's radical rephrasing turns the question on its head, and refocuses on why MAN needs ethics - ethics are to serve man, not the basis for finding out how man servers ANOTHER entity. Beautiful, Alfonso

Instead we (USA) look at our own House of Representatives - and note a chaplain... Alfonso

You can insist on your theory if you like about Rand's theory of concepts being essentialism, but it is dead wrong. I certainly will not take it seriously and I doubt many others will either, at least not those who actually understand Objectivist concept formation. The manner Rand was using the word essential as in "essential characteristic" was a LOT different than the essence embodied in a thing as given in the ancients. The difference between Popper and Rand in regard to definitions isn't of either of the types Daniel talked about in his initial post. It isn't a case of (1) two different processes (or at least two superficially different processes -- I still think Peikoff's theory might amount to "enumeration") being described by the same term ("induction") or of (2) the same lack of being sure what tomorrow's evidence will bring being described by diametrically opposed terms ("certainty"/"uncertainty"). This one is a case of a REAL difference. If you still think this, you really have more than Leonard Peikoff (and Ayn Rand) to content with. You are really bucking the entire tradition of Aristotelian logic and philosophy of science. 1. I assume that motivated readers and Rand fans have or have access to H. W. B. Joseph's An Introduction to Logic (1906), so I'll just recommend that they read (or re-read) pages 177-180 and chapter 18 "Of Induction" and chapter 19 "Of the Presuppositions of Inductive Reasoning: The Law of Causation." But one brief quote from pp. 400-401: 2. A less widely known Aristotelian logician, and currently out of print, is Peter Coffey, The Science of Logic, An Inquiry into the Principles of Accurate Thought and Scientific Method (1912), volume 2: page 27 page 29-30 page 33 (my favorite passage from Coffey) Coffey continues on pp. 33-34: So, can we please have an end to this myopic focus on how Peikoff must be (or should be suspected of being) confused between enumeration and true induction? And how Objectivists are the ones who are trying to distort the traditional usages of concepts and terms? If you must tar and feather anyone on this issue, at least have the courtesy and accuracy to smear the entire Aristotelian establishment. And realize also that the genesis of the modern tendency to saddle Aristotelians with induction as essentially a process of enumeration is itself...an over-generalization by those in a bit much of a hurry to discard the supposed strait-jacket of Aristotelian logic and philosophy of science. REB Thanks for a splendid and substantial post! Now, back to reread it to make certain I understood it. Alfonso

I was just looking something up in My Years with Ayn Rand, and found the following on page 227, regarding Rand's new introduction (in 1958) to We the Living: "It's basic theme," she wrote, "is the sanity of human life." Read it again.... Sanity. Of course, the original is "sanctity." Alfonso (smiling)

If you are looking for a quote using the exact words "first-rate mind" I'm not certain you will find it. I have not attempted. But I think that it is clear from the provided quotes (and the broader discussion in Passion of Ayn Rand and My Years with Ayn Rand that is what Rand was longing to have - is such a person commenting on Atlas Shrugged. Alfonso More relevant quotes from My Years with Ayn Rand include: page 210 - "The question is: What of the people I am defending, the men ofr ability? Where are they? Why don't they come forward? Why don't they speak up?" And if we can settle for "first-class brain" we find, on page 211: "The problem is that not one first-class brain has stood up in public to defend me - to give me some sense that there's a human race out there and that the struggle is worth it." Of course, we all understand the nature of quotes in a memoir written long after the events - Branden acknowledged in the Author's Note in the front that "I am not suggesting that all the words have been reported verbatim, but I am confident they are faithful to the essence of what was said and to the spirit and mood of the occasion." Alfonso

If you are looking for a quote using the exact words "first-rate mind" I'm not certain you will find it. I have not attempted. But I think that it is clear from the provided quotes (and the broader discussion in Passion of Ayn Rand and My Years with Ayn Rand that is what Rand was longing to have - is such a person commenting on Atlas Shrugged. Alfonso

Michael - Economics BORING? Have you ever read Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt? A brilliant book, written with flair and clarity. Or for the moral basis of Capitalism: "The Objectivist Ethics." (found in The Virtue of Selfishness, or Or the book "Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal." I'm not mentioning this for you, Michael, but just for completeness in case someone finds it helpful. Alfonso

Do you have a reference? I've never came across anything like this. --Brant Now, here (in addition to the Nathaniel Branden quotes above) I cite Barbara Branden from The Passion of Ayn Rand: page 301 -- "It was not the bad reviews, she said. 'I had told Bennett not to expect a single good review. If there were any, fine, but we couldn't count on it -although I did think I'd get more intelligent smears, I didn't expect them to be such abysmal, stupid hooliganism, to contain such self contradictions and such total distortions of what I'd said.' It was not the outpuroing of hatred directed against her, she said. It was not the initial slow sales of Atlas. It was that there was no one to object to the attacks, no one to oppose them, no one with a public name, a public reputation, a public voice, to speak for her in that world which was villifying her, to defend her, to fight for her, to name the nature and the stature of her accomplishment." page 302 -- (Branden writing, not a quote from Rand) "Since her achievement was beyond question, what was wrong with a world in which there was no one of stature to announce it from the rooftops?" Reading the following pages in Passion of Ayn Rand will further inform on this issue. Alfonso

Do you have a reference? I've never came across anything like this. --Brant Brant - Try Nathaniel Branden's "My years with Ayn Rand" for some examples: page 203 --- (speaking of the attacks, negative reviews of Atlas Shrugged, etc.) "It's not the attacks that are depressing - I expected that. It's the absence of any good mind with a significant reputation who has come forward to say publicly what Atlas actually is. Someone with the power to make himself heard. I had counted on some kind of better understanding." page 204 --- "What Ayn wanted most of all was to find minds - men and women of the kind she wrote about. She had imagined, when she sent Atlas Shrugged out into the world, that she would find them. In a twist on George Washington's famous statement, 'Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair,' she said, 'I have raised a standard, but the wise and honest have not repaired to it.'" page 205 - "What she longed for now was an outsider, someone she had not educated, a contempotary with eyes that could see and a voice that could speak. No such person appeared." I recommend reading page 200 and following of My Years with Ayn Rand in this regard. Alfonso

Still waiting for my copy to arrive in Shanghai. Alfonso

I guess those tears made Dagny Taggart a second-hander social metaphysician, too. Here's the way I see it. Greenspan analyzed the world and what his real possibility to work in it was, and he used his own mind to decide and do, not the mind of anyone else. He also gathered information like crazy from the best sources he could tap. By doing so, he got to be Alan Greenspan, the man who changed the world for the better. In compensation, our young Roarks and Galts who condemn him and feel sorry for him get to be little nobodies who bitch on Internet forums. Michael Not just Dagny Taggart. Consider Ayn Rand's expressed disappointment that not one first-rate mind had emerged to comment on Atlas Shrugged. Alfonso

I just saw Greenspan on The Daily Show (Jon Stewart). Stewart led off asking why the Fed is needed in a free market. Alfonso

Welcome to Objectivist Living. Join us, ask questions, interact. Don't check your premises at the door, but bring them in, state them, discuss them. I think you'll find it a stimulating and friendly environment. Alfonso

Yes Chris, we should be thankful that Ayn Rand escaped to the United States and was able to add her voice to the cause of individualism and liberty. Mick Breaking news: Stalin was a bad guy!!! The naivete! The naivete! (Spoken in the tone of Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now, when he said "The horror! The horror!") Alfonso

Thanks for pointing this one out! Alfonso

Good deal, Alfonso

Greenspan should know. He was on the inside. Michael I'm not arguing a position on the motivations of the Iraq war - whether motivated by oil or by something else. But it's not at all clear to me that Greenspan would have been an insider with special knowledge of Bush's motivations. Alfonso

Meanwhile I wait for Amazon to get my copy to me. Shipments to Shanghai take a bit longer unless I want to pay more for shipping than for the book. Alfonso

Daniel, This is one example of misrepresenting Rand's thoughts. She did not claim "that words must not be considered mere conventions." On the contrary, she actually claimed that they were "merely symbols." But the real issue is knowledge. She claimed that those who postulated that words have no referents in reality and that words are merely "arbitrary social conventions" are wrong. To clarify this further, she did not claim that convention did not play a role in formulating the "visual-auditory symbols." (She said nothing about the role of convention, to be exact.) She claimed that this was not knowledge. Here it is a bit clearer (ITOE, 2nd, p. 40): Michael Reading this thread thus far leads me to suggest a change in name from: SCORECARD! Can't tell the players without a scorecard! to ALERT! Familiarity with ITOE at some level (perhaps reading it!) will be necessary to understand or comment meaningfully on this thread! Alfonso