Dennis Hardin

Peikoff was clearly relying on his claim to the status of "intellectual heir" when he declared, in "Fact and Value," that Objectivism was now a closed system. I can't see how anyone would have taken such a ridiculous pronouncement seriously unless the person making it had some special authority to speak for Ayn Rand. If Binswanger or Schwartz had said this, it would have been regarded as simply their opinion and little else would have been made of it. Because it came from Rand's supposed "intellectual heir," it became a cause celebre and a phony test of Randian fidelity. If, because of Heller, Peikoff loses all legitimate claim to this status, the "closed Objectivism" school loses any waning legitimacy as well.

I came across considerable material relevant to this discussion in The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies and Literature of Liberty, and I cannot resist the temptation to add it here as a postscript to yesterday’s entry. It relates directly to the differences between Mises and Hayek in general and, more specifically, to the assertion that my view of Hayek’s "all-out assault on reason" is “absurd.” Another way to highlight the difference between Hayek and Mises is with respect to the influence of Kant in their respective approaches to value theory. Both endorsed a subjectivist value theory, but Hayek was considerably more skeptical than was Mises. This appears to have been his basis for describing mankind as “very irrational” and for emphasizing the limited role of reason in human life. (See the specific quotations below.) In The Sensory Order, Hayek dispenses with all concern with “how things really are in the world.” [The above quotes are from "F.A. Hayek and the Rebirth of Classical Liberalism," by John N. Gray, in Literature of Liberty, Winter, 1982] Quoting John Gray: Here are two quotes which I cited earlier in this thread reflecting Hayek’s appraisal of the role of reason in mans’ life: Hayek’s overall purpose seems to be that of demolishing Cartesian rationalism, minimizing the role of reason in human valuation and social order in general as a way of showing the impracticality of all social planning. This played an important role in the development of his theory of the “Spontaneous Order” in economic life. Mises was also influenced by Kant with respect to his view of praxeology as an a priori science of human action. Mises’ view is subjective insofar as it posits man’s reliance on an innate frame of value reference unrelated to an objective reality. But there are crucial respects in which Mises and Hayek differ. First of all, Mises’ seems to have taken away radically different conclusions about the nature and limits of reason. In Human Action, in the chapter entitled "Economics and The Revolt Against Reason," following a discussion of the ways in which thinkers like Hegel and Comte used a fallacious concept of human reason, Mises says: Here and elsewhere in Human Action, Mises unfortunately describes reason as limited in its capacity to provide “perfect cognition of all things” and “ultimate knowledge” [p. 25], but, unlike Hayek, these conclusions by Mises do not play a central role in his value theory. In an issue of The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies devoted to the topic of “Ayn Rand Among the Austrians” (Volume 6, Number 2, Spring 2005), there are numerous articles discussing similarities in the theories of Mises and Rand. George Reisman, for instance, considers that Mises was led to a belief in the subjectivism of values by a misunderstanding of the concept of objectivity. Reisman states: Another article by Edward Younkins in the same issue of JARS—“Menger, Mises, Rand and Beyond”—recounts the following explanation by Hans-Herman Hoppe regarding the manner in which Mises’ praxeology resolves the Kantian disconnect between the human mind and reality: Again, it is clear to me that Mises and Hayek are worlds apart in their approaches to defending the free market, and that Hayek’s writings and theories, in contrast to his mentor, reflect a fundamental disrespect for reason and human cognition.

You could just as well argue that Rand's "man qua man" justifications for rights and freedom are implicitly collectivistic. As I pointed out in an earlier post, by MQM Rand doesn't mean you or me or any other particular individual. Rather, MQM refers to all individuals, collectively considered. By using MQM arguments, Rand appears to avoid the notion of the common good, public good, etc. But this is only an appearance. MQM, despite presenting "himself" as an individual, does not denote any particular concrete individual to the exclusion of others. Rather, MQM is an abstract individual -- and this abstraction, when concretized, denotes all individuals, in virtue of their common characteristics. When Rand speaks of the good of MQM, she is simply expressing in different terms what has traditionally been called the "common good." Thus, if you wish to brand appeals to the common good (as we find in find in Hayek and other rule utilitarians) implicitly collectivistic ("tacit" is not the best word here), then the same reasoning would apply to Rand, after we have unpacked the meaning of MQM. Ghs Here is Rand's reference to man qua man in “The Objectivist Ethics”: Here is what she has to say about the “common good:” Man qua man means and can only mean: a standard applicable to each and every individual man. “Common good” typically refers to the good of some or most men. When we are discussing some goal or plan which is beneficial to man qua man, we must include all individual men. Because the term “common good” is inherently elastic, it can either mean all individual men or only some men, leaving out some others. When it is used to justify a plan or policy that benefits some men at the expense of others, it is collectivist. As Rand says, the term ‘common good’ is used precisely because of its elasticity. Man qua man does not lend itself to a collectivist interpretation. Try using man qua man to justify Obamacare in a way that would be plausible to anyone with half a brain. Go ahead. Make my day. Curious as to why I’m not responding to your other two posts? Try using a snotty, disrespectful tone in your response to this one.

I doubt there would be much of a market for it. After the first reading, most people rip the binding apart and toss out everything but Rand's diary entries anyway. Who wants to waste perfectly good bookshelf space for the worthless, tiresome speculations of a blind, vituperative fool?

Ghs: No, I am not aware of any "initial skepticism" by Mises. Here is the history of Mises’ initial resistance to the Mont Pelerin Society, from The Ludwig von Mises Institute: I don’t mean to make a big deal out of this, but to me it highlights how concerned Mises was about the need for total consistency in the ideological battle for laissez-faire principles. Statist premise #1: Reason plays a minimal role in human affairs. Or, to put it another way, people are too dumb to know what's good for them. (I know, I know. Hayek never said that. The point is that he implied it. And not just once or twice.) Statist premise #2: The proper role of government is to induce men “to contribute as much as possible to the need of all others..” Statists frequently use both premises to justify government intervention. For evidence, please tune in to the evening news. Both ideas serve as the leitmotif of the Obama administration. Again, I am not denying that Hayek may well have had the best of intentions, that he undoubtedly saw himself as an individualist, that his contributions to economics were valuable, that many of his writings and theories were terrific. But his gross inconsistencies served to strengthen the arguments of his enemies. Regarding the views of Mises, you say the following in your last post: The quotations I cited suggest that the experts at the Mises Institute would disagree with you. But I don’t want to launch into a whole separate debate on that issue; frankly, I just don’t have the expertise for it. I don’t think Mises was a utilitarian, but he certainly made his share of philosophical errors. You are quite right about that. Since I don’t want to be unfair to Hayek, I will hereby proceed to amend my own "absurd" viewpoint (while leaving the essential elements of my "absurdity" intact). Much of Hayek’s writing portrays man as weak and malleable--like a clump of clay that can be molded by social institutions into a tool to serve "the need of all others.” On the other hand, much of his writing does clearly support liberty and individualism. No doubt Kukathas was right in saying that he wanted a “society in which the protection of individual domains by rules of just conduct leaves them free to use their knowledge to pursue those purposes.” To that extent, Hayek was definitely not a collectivist. So I will revise my position to the point of calling Hayek a “tacit collectivist”—the way he went about arguing for individualism often tended to smuggle in a lot of unspoken collectivist ideas. And a lot of what he wrote was very probably free of such implications. And I will concede that this would apply to most free market economists in varying degrees. Henry Hazlitt was certainly not a collectivist, yet (like Hayek) he was also a utilitarian. But I would give Hazlitt enormous credit for at least trying to make his ethical utilitarianism compatible with individual self-interest. In Foundations of Morality, he argued for what he called “rule-utilitarianism”—a code for gauging individual conduct--apparently because he realized that the macro perspective of “the greatest good for the greatest number” alone was potentially an extremely disastrous principle. It isn’t absurd at all. One glance at the various quotations I cited earlier in this thread shows how they could very easily lead “the average reader” to conclude that Hayek held these premises. In a way, that is really the whole point. Most people are not going to take the time to analyze Hayek enough to see that he may have meant something very different from what was implied and, as a result, take away some potentially very destructive ideas. It is very likely that he did not mean to leave those implications, but most people are not going to see that. That’s why I think it is important to point those premises out and show how they differ from excellent passages such as this one (which you cite): No doubt there is much in Hayek I could wholeheartedly endorse. But then, I have never really denied that. It is interesting that you add this final quote from Hayek: …but that is a matter for another thread. I think it’s called “Christianity and Liberty.” I am planning another visit there sometime soon.

Well, Michael, you may not admit it, but I can tell how enamored you are of the Peikoff podcast, so I thought I would brighten your day with a few more samples of the kind of ground-breaking Q & A that Scrooge McDuck typically offers to his little ducklings. The first thing you will ask yourself is, of course, 'how did I ever get through life without answers to these questions?' The second question will be: WTF?! "'Women generally wear make-up, and men don't. Is this just an arbitrary social convention, or does it have an objective basis?” [Asked by a gentleman in a sleeveless dress with exceptionally well-defined eyes.] “'When I checked into a hotel in California, I was starving, so I ate the six dollar box of Oreos from the mini bar. Later that day, I replenished the mini bar with an identical box of Oreos before the hotel had a chance to restock it. Was this proper? My view is, no harm, no foul. In fact, my box was fresher -- the Oreos I ate were going to expire three months before the box that replaced them.'" "'What is wrong with "swinging" at parties? Isn't this only an expansion, an augmentation of sexual activities and the pursuit of the pleasure that sex brings?'" [Absolutely untrue that Peikoff told the guy to leave his address and phone number.] "'Is professional comedy a rational undertaking that would be proper in a society composed of reverent, serious men such as Objectivists?'" “Would it be immoral to wear an Ayn Rand tee-shirt?” [Follow-up question: "Well, then, what about a tank-top?"] Hmmmm… Isn't this the same dude who said he was much too busy to ever read David Kelley’s response to “Fact and Value”?

I'm sorry, but I don't get the comparison. Peikoff isn't claiming he was misunderstood. And he isn't backpedaling. He continues to claim that Rand made him her "intellectual heir." "Peikoff's explication would be a sound one...?" Really? What in the world is sound about it? Someone else has verified that this is not in Rand's will? Out of curiosity, who?

My girlfriend and I were among the many who attended George's lectures at FPS. It was a long drive from our home in Woodland Hills to the lecture hall in Hollywood, but well worth it. It was like the reincarnation of NBI in many ways. I still have a library of those tapes. They are high quality productions complete with musical soundtracks and dramatic voice-overs by actors imitating the various historical thinkers. Enjoyable as well as informative. The late, great Charlton Heston was one of the narrators. But my favorite tapes were always the ones that said: "written by George H. Smith." If the CDs are available from Blackstone, buy a few of them. You will learn a lot and be entertained at the same time.

I had heard this podcast prior to starting this thread. Peikoff does not address Heller’s claim that he is only pretending to have Rand’s endorsement as her “intellectual heir.” The questioner repeats the unchallenged assumption that Rand gave him such status, and this is what LP says in response: It sounds as though he may be trying to downplay the significance of the title in order to defuse any possible flack that may come his way as a result of Heller’s discovery. Obviously, it was a big deal to Ayn Rand, who first awarded that designation to Nathaniel Branden in the original "Afterword" to Atlas Shrugged. And the importance of the title is underscored once again by her apparent refusal to give it to Peikoff. She probably figured that the first thing he would do is go out and declare that Objectivism was now a frozen corpse, and that he had taken full custody of the tomb. ("As of now, I am in control here in the cemetery." Like Haig he was!) I just wonder how she could have known that so many fledgling philosophical wizards with unborrowed vision would buy into that crap.

George, I read the passages you quoted above, and I understand Mises to mean the following: Of course everyone wants to see as many people happy as possible, but we cannot use that as a way to justify economic policy. In economics and social theory—where the goal is improving social welfare—the concept is “void of significance.” And then he gives the examples of slavery and Nazism. Utilitarianism is useless because it “can be invoked for the justification of every variety of social organization.” In this passage from Human Action, I don’t see where Mises endorses "the teachings of utilitarian philosophy and classical economics.” He speaks of “the utilitarians” without endorsing them or claiming to be one of them. He describes utilitarian doctrines in more or less favorable terms, but stops short of any explicit agreement with them. In your quote from Theory and History, he speaks of the values of “social cooperation” and the “preservation of society,” both of which are values I would endorse, as would any sane person. Obviously I do not agree that “social utility” is a proper standard of justice, but I would not say this makes him a “collectivist.” We can speak in a general way about the importance of social utility without implying that maximizing such utility is a moral criterion for the organization of society. (Unfortunately, my copy of Theory and History is still in one of the dozens of boxes that appear to be taking on the status of furniture following my recent move. So all I have to go on here is your brief excerpt.) Also, as I understand it, Mises’ theory of praxeology presumes that value judgments are irrelevant. Such a value-free approach is applied consistently by Mises. Again, he often analyzes the utilitarian approaches of others, but without ever endorsing that ethical premise. In any case, I have encountered others much more knowledgeable than myself who consider his writings on economics as neutral with respect to any particular value system. This is how your quote regarding Mises’ sanction of coercion reads in my version: The other passage regarding conscription is totally missing from my copy. In the introduction to the version I have (the “scholars edition” published in 1998), the editor states the following: Finally, I certainly agree that Mises’ view of values in general as subjective was highly objectionable. No question about that. Philosophically, he left a lot to be desired. But what I don’t find are frequent passages where he seems to endorse the premises so common to Hayek’s writings that (a) capitalism works because mankind is basically irrational, and (b ) that our principal aim should be that every man “contribute as much as possible to the needs of other men.” I think the average reader could read Mises without feeling subjected to an all-out assault on reason and individualism, and I consider that a very significant difference. Incidentally, I’m delighted that you don’t see me as one of those Objectivists with an “insular perspective.” That’s good to know. I will try to respond to your other posts soon. Right now, I am exhausted.

This may have been mentioned on the rather extensive thread regarding Heller’s book. However, I did not see any reference to it, and I think the topic is worthy of it’s own thread. If I have my mud-throwing Objectivist history correct, Peikoff condemns the Brandens for deception and lying in their relationship with Ayn Rand. In large measure, Peikoff’s moral indignation over the Brandens supposedly derives from his steadfast devotion to the moral purity of Ayn Rand’s name. He represents himself as her self-appointed posthumous guardian. Objectivists on both sides of the issue seem to take that much for granted. I came across this passage in Anne Heller’s Ayn Rand and the World She Made: Following the publication of Heller’s biography, has Peikoff offered any evidence that she is wrong? Because if Heller is right about Rand’s will—and I want to stress the fact that I don’t know whether she is or not--it looks as though her self-appointed “guardian” may be the one who is actively defiling Rand’s legacy and honor. Only, in his case, Ayn Rand cannot be accused of creating an impossible situation or participating in the deception---and Peikoff’s personal campaign of lies and outright fraud continues until this day.

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. You like to quote Rand? Well, here are some more quotes from this philosopher named Rand: 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. That’s true. Enlightenment thinkers did challenge religion head-on. The Founding Fathers, as I said, did not. And you respond: 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. And you respond: 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. 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: 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? 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.

The danger here, George, is making the case for freedom in terms that concede statist premises and thereby undercut that same cause. You acknowledge elsewhere on this thread that Hayek (specifically his Constitution of Liberty) can be read as endorsing plans as nefarious as Obamacare. Yet you insist that “some Objectivists” (like me, no doubt) do reprehensible harm by refusing to credit Hayek. No one is denying that Hayek may have made some valuable contributions to economic theory. But to embrace him without spelling out how many of his formulations can be used by enemies of freedom is, in my view, much more destructive to the cause of freedom. From a cultural-historical perspective, I consider philosophy immensely more influential than economics. The reason Objectivists typically prefer Mises is that he was much more of a radical advocate for laissez faire capitalism. Of course, he also had strong misgivings about Hayek. Here’s an interesting quote regarding Mises reaction to The Road to Serfdom: No doubt you are aware of Mises’ initial skepticism regarding the Mont Pelerin society because of the potential for promoting interventionism, as well as the incident in which he stormed out of one of their meetings, saying, "You're all a bunch of socialists.” Frankly, I wish Mises had been even more consistent, but he was definitely far superior to any of his peers. (BTW, I do not mean to downplay the importance of the Mont Pelerin Society. I’m just using that example to underscore Mises’ particular uniqueness.) Objectivists don’t recognize any dichotomy between the moral and the practical. There is no reason you can’t describe something as practical which also happens to be good. To justify freedom only because it benefits everyone leads to disaster politically. Any system which demands of the individual that he subordinate his interests to that of the majority is essentially collectivist, including utilitarianism. By the way, I disagree that Mises was a utilitarian, although I know Rothbard and others think he was. The fact that Mises discusses utilitarian arguments and praises some of those who made such arguments does not imply that he endorses those arguments. His approach to economics was rather, value-free, i.e., he was exclusively focused on whether specific policies would achieve their purported goals. In fact, in Chapter 35 of Human Action, he rejects utilitarian arguments per se as “void of significance.: “It can be invoked for the justification of every variety of social organization…” He shows how it may have been applied to such abhorrent human outrages as slavery and Nazism. “A principle that is broad enough to cover all doctrines, however conflicting with one another, is of no use at all.” So is that your takeway from this discussion? That it demonstrates the “insular perspective of some Randians ”? I frequently read authors who are both collectivist and altruistic and find a great deal of value in what they have to say. I wouldn’t waste my time if the point was to “focus on points of disagreement.” I don’t care to read much of Hayek, but then I am not particularly interested in economics, either. And I don’t proclaim an author as unqualifiedly brilliant when I know that some of their thinking is seriously flawed and fraught with disastrous implications. I make an effort to clarify a writer’s contradictions before I endorse them. Well, your arguments have not succeeded in persuading me to your view, but I certainly don’t want to be obscene. I’m sorry. I’ll try my best to reform. I have always had the highest respect for you, George. And I have learned a great deal from your writings over the years. But logic is the only thing that’s going to change my mind about Hayek.

I don't know DIM jargon, but since Ayn Rand and Sarah Palin both rank way up near the top of Beck's most adored women list, I'm not sure integration is his strongsuit. Rowan Atkinson? Is that the best image you could find to symbolize your brilliance? Personally, I preferred the screamer. At least he appeared to be passionate about his blurts. And he was intimidating. Now I’m going to imagine each of your wonderful insights as preceding an impending pratfall. Ever consider using your own countenance to grace your posts? It’s the only way to quash all the Freddy Krueger rumors.

In social affairs (including politics) humans do tend to be "very irrational" and "more often stupid." This is very different from claiming that man, according to Hayek, is "fundamentally irrational," as you claimed in an earlier post. There's a premise here I want to check. Why is it an either-or proposition? That man is "fundamentally rational" or "fundamentally irrational"? Isn't he both? I see evidence of both all the time, everywhere. If man is fundamentally one to the exclusion of the other (on a fundamental level, that is), how can there be choice? And without volition, how can there be ethics--on a fundamental level? I believe this dichotomy is a good example of an oversimplification of a premise. It doesn't matter what you build on it, it will be flawed. For the record, man is fundamentally a being with conceptual awareness and conceptual self-awareness. And he is also a being with a hell of a lot of fundamental prewired stuff in his mind that can be called anything but rational. And he fundamentally has volition. Those are three fundamentals in man's nature I understand. Not one of them excludes the other. Ironically, man has no choice over having any of these capacities. They are "the given." The fundamenal choice he can make is to engage his conceptual awareness (rational faculty) by wanting to at specific moments. Some of that rational faculty will run whether he wants it to or not, but he can use it to get a lot more done when it is engaged under conscious choice. Michael For the record, I agree with your conclusion, but not with the implication that anyone has been arguing for the view that man is "fundamentally rational." Over and over again, Hayek implies that man is "very irrational" and that reason plays a minimal role in human life. To disagree with that is not to say that he is "fundamentally rational." Man is a rational being by nature, but exercising such rationality is volitional. Each individual man must make the choice to be rational (i.e., to think) in every hour and every day of his life. People make a similar error when they say that man is fundamentally good or fundamentally bad. He is neither. The evaluation of "good" and "bad" only applies to individual men, and it is also obviously an issue of choice.

I will repeat one of the Hayek quotes I referred to previously: Once again, I am willing to concede that Hayek may simply have made an unfortunate choice of phrasing here. Maybe he distanced himself from the obvious implications of this elsewhere. But saying that our goal ("chief concern") is “to find a set of institutions by which man could be induced… to contribute as much as possible to the need of all others,” is very different from saying that a particular economic system, as a matter of fact, works out to everyone’s benefit. That’s true. Instead, they show that there is no conflict between the moral (i.e., self-interest) and the practical (i.e., an outcome which, in the long term, favors everyone.) When Hayek says that our goal is to develop a system in which everyone “contributes to the needs of others,” he is elevating that end to a moral standard. On that premise, individualism is expendable at whatever point we can find a better way to achieve that goal. That’s very different from showing, theoretically, how individualism works out to the “common good.” Offering that practical defense as an argument is radically different from elevating it to our chosen goal. If that is our goal, we will get lost in an endless debate on the practical aspects of means and ends while all other moral considerations are cast aside—which is exactly the state-of-affairs where such bone-headed “reasoning” has led us to today.

Your post seems to suggest that I am drawing wrong conclusions from Hayek's remarks, when all I am doing is quoting him. Yes, you are quoting Hayek, but you are quoting him selectively and then drawing conclusions from the quotations that he did endorse. In social affairs (including politics) humans do tend to be "very irrational" and "more often stupid." This is very different from claiming that man, according to Hayek, is "fundamentally irrational," as you claimed in an earlier post. Hayek is not discussing how people use reason in their personal lives to further their own interests. He thinks reason is very well suited to this task, which is why he thinks people should be left free to make their own decisions, instead of having a central planner make such decisions for them. You need to keep in mind that Hayek is talking about what he sometimes called the social use of reason, i.e., reason as it pertains to designing complex institutions. Unfortunately, this is fairly typical of how you are snipping passages and making them appear to mean things that Hayek did not intend. I think you are reading Hayek with certain preconceptions of what you expect to find and then fastening on certain words and passages that appear to support those preconceptions. Again, Hayek's point is that human reason plays a minimal role in the development of complex spontaneous orders. For example, no single person or group of people designed language or the price mechanism of free markets. Hayek never denies that people use their reason, and very effectively so, to employ these spontaneous orders for their own interests. He never denies the efficacy of reason in that sense. Thus Hayek was not tap dancing at all when he denied that he was attacking reason per se. He was merely clarifying a theme that runs throughout his writings. None of the passages you quoted above is inconsistent with this position. When I get the time, I will see if I can comment on them in more detail. Where exactly does Hayek say that man is "irrational" by nature? When we say that man is a rational animal, we mean he has the capacity to reason (Hayek agreed with this), not that he always or even mostly behaves rationally. Even Rand didn't believe the latter. In any case, I have my own problems with the way that Hayek sometimes expresses his arguments. It's as if he chose words that he knew would annoy Randian types, including me. I prefer Mises, who often presented the same arguments as Hayek but in more "rationalistic" language. But Hayek was no more of an irrationalist than Mises was, nor was either of them a "collectivist" --even though both were utilitarians. As I said, I will try to explain more of this later.... Ghs I am willing to concede that, since I have no inclination to study Hayek to the degree that you have, there may well be passages where he takes positions that are inconsistent with the above quotations. But within the context of what I have read, I think my conclusions are perfectly logical. The fault is with him, not with any effort on my part to misrepresent him by selectively quoting him. I think anyone with a limited knowledge of Hayek who read those quotations would take away the same conclusions about Hayek's view of man's fundamental nature. I do not wish to belabor the point, but I am also not about to accept the premise that I am being unfair. I'm sure you are correct when you say that there is much of value in Hayek. There is also a great deal of ghastly, disastrous philosophical nonsense. I think I will leave it at that.

Again, I don't know what you mean by the "conventional altruistic ethic." The Founders believed that man is naturally a social animal and that we can live happy, fulfilling lives only by interacting with others. They also believed that the voluntary virtue of benevolence greatly enhances the quality of our social interactions, making them more pleasant and enjoyable. They often cited some version of the Golden Rule to indicate that we should treat others as we would like to be treated ourselves. The Golden Rule served as a maxim of social reciprocity, one that even non-Christians, such as Thomas Paine, frequently cited. It took two forms. In its negative form ("Do not unto others...), the Golden Rule conveyed the principle of justice, i.e., the "perfect" (enforceable) obligation to leave others alone to pursue their own happiness in their own ways, so long as they respect the equal rights of others. In its positive form ("Do unto others..."), the Golden Rule conveyed the "imperfect" (voluntary) obligation of benevolence. It was commonly argued that if you are benevolent to others, you will find that others are more likely to treat you benevolently. Hence the standard argument that there is no conflict between benevolence and self-interest; each reinforces the other. Is this what you mean by "the conventional altruistic ethic"? If so, I'm glad that the Founders didn't challenge it. The remainder of your post delves into a number of different issues, most of which have nothing to do with altruism. I'm still trying to figure out how to break them down to a manageable level. Ghs George, Since you say that you don’t understand what I mean when I describe the ‘conventional altruist ethic,’ I will elaborate. Your prior two posts provide interesting insights into some of the more sophisticated ethical teachings in Jefferson’s day, but you don’t seem to be addressing the more obvious point—that Christianity then and now remains the strongest influence on what most people regard as ethical. As you know, the Bible is rife with proclamations about the glory of laying down your life for others. But beyond that, since many Christians never read the Bible, let’s consider what someone might typically say if you asked them how to be a good Christian. I found the following guidelines on a Christian website: Love God completely and everybody even if they treat you badly. Try to look at the world through the eyes of others. Love your enemies. Say farewell to selective loving. Love everyone just like God does. Volunteer to help people. Remain modest as pride suggests you are judging others. Remember that the heart of your faith should be love. Christianity does not always openly say that you must sacrifice—but it does say that you must be guided by your heart and not your mind, which has the same effect. In this way, the ethical teachings of Christianity are insidious but also extremely powerful. In fact and in practice, Christians are moral to the extent that they abandon their brains and indulge their feelings of love for others. Self-sacrifice really amounts to mind-sacrifice: follow your heart and not your brain. And in practice that translates to altruism. This was as true in Jefferson’s time as it is today. 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. As I indicated, the founders often gave lip service to Christianity, even as they might have personally been drawn to Enlightenment sources on the best way to live morally. Their failure to use their secular moral ideas to openly challenge Christianity was their great failing. But it was also completely understandable. 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." 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. 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. By default, the task of embedding ethics in an elaborate tapestry of pseudo-rationality was left to the founders’ German contemporaries Kant and Hegel, whose ideas corrupted Western philosophy and eventually infiltrated American thinking, paving the way for the Progressive movement a century later. Kant rescued religion (and altruism) from the Enlightenment challenge, and Hegel cleverly secularized God into the almighty state. The rest, unfortunately, is history.

We appear to be in complete agreement here, both about the crucial historical significance of the Bill of Rights and the anti-libertarian influence of the monarchist sympathizer Hamilton. Thanks for explaining it so much more clearly than I ever could. It's too bad Hamilton couldn't have insulted Aaron Burr's honor twenty years earlier. We would all be that much better off.

Thank you very much for your exposition on Henry George and the historical basis for his views. Clearly I was mistaken to include him. I also had no idea that there were “Georgist ‘single-tax’ libertarians around even today.” A cliché about horse races would probably be appropriate here. I did not understand that your question specifically addressed the altruism of America’s founders. I thought you were talking about altruism in general. In regard to the founders, I would argue that their sin was one of omission; i.e., they did not offer an adequate moral defense of individual rights. You have clearly explained that Jefferson did at least make some strides in that direction, but, as I think I said before, he did not do nearly enough to distance himself from traditional views of Christ, Christianity and the Bible, which most people then and now continue to associate with self-sacrifice. The founders contributed to the eventual decline of freedom in America by leaving the conventional altruist ethic largely unchallenged. As evidence of that, I would cite the prevalence of Christianity in the culture at the time. In varying degrees, Franklin, Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison and Hamilton all had significant misgivings about religion and Christianity. However, almost without exception, they all gave lip service to Christian beliefs at one time or another. Washington, for instance, felt that religion was an important element in motivating his troops. Hamilton was probably the Founding Father who was most open about the need for “public expressions of piety” to retain control over “the masses.” Of the key founders, John Adams may have been the most religious, although he seems to have gradually moved away from religion in his later years. Because they were outwardly ambivalent about religion, regardless of their personal beliefs, they did not, for the most part, openly attack it or the Bible. So religion (and specifically Christianity) remained very influential throughout the colonies. Brooke Allen, in Moral Minority, writes: “Of the thirteen states represented at the Constitutional Convention, all had established religions written into their state constitutions except for Virginia and New York.” She also writes: “The Second Great Awakening, which began at the close of the eighteenth century…would change the climate of the country for at least the next century. A new religiosity swept the nation, bringing the American Enlightenment to an abrupt end…” Christianity and the Christian Bible are imbued with the moral principle of self-sacrifice, Jefferson’s unique perspective notwithstanding. It is the failure of founders and other intellectuals at the time to adequately address the conflict between Christian ideals and a country founded on the right to “the pursuit of happiness” that eventually led to America’s decline.

I liked the fact that Beck began the program by talking about how certain works of fiction can do an amazing job of showing the connections between a wide array of seemingly unrelated concrete events. And that he derided media for doing everything possible to make the public myopic, calling people “paranoid” who claim to see connections. He said it was his explicit goal to tie separate issues together in order to make sense of them, and that he liked fiction writers because they do the same thing when they tell a story. Needless to say, that was a big part of Ayn Rand’s purpose in writing Atlas. So at least Beck grasped that much. Did anyone notice that one of the book reviews which Beck mocked—where the reviewer called Atlas “remarkably silly” and “preposterous”—was the despicable Whittaker Chamber’s review in National Review? I thought conservative quasi-libertarians like Beck considered National Review sacrosanct. Wow! Slamming National Review in front of miilions of viewers. I found that little tidbit encouraging. Brook presents himself well. Rather than angry and moralistic, he comes across as smiling, cheerful and benevolent, which is exactly how someone representing a philosophy of reason should come across. That factor alone will help to make people want to check out Rand’s books. It was amusing that Beck described the bureaucrats in Atlas as, in effect, Barney Frank clones. Obviously he did read the book—or at least parts of it. But then he made the comment that, if Ayn Rand were there, he would tell her that the book’s message to him was simply that common sense was missing in today’s society. That struck me as odd, since earlier in the program he had agreed with his daughter when she told him that Atlas made her "rethink everything" in her life. Brook took issue with Beck’s statement, saying that Rand went much deeper than common sense to address “fundamental foundational ideas.” He then made reference to Beck’s earlier point about the importance of grasping how disparate events and “data points” were related, and said one theme of Atlas was the causal connection between modern education’s assault on thinking and integration and the rise of statism. Beck seemed to ignore Brook’s key insight. Rather than pick up on it, he went to a question from the audience. I have my doubts as to whether Beck really understands Atlas if he thinks Galt’s Speech was just common sense. But at least he shut up long enough for Brook to make that crucial point. (On the other hand, Beck's earlier remarks suggest that he does appreciate the importance of thinking and making abstract connections.) Just like the film version of Atlas, Beck's show—despite its obvious flaws--will definitely help more people discover the philosophy of Ayn Rand. And for that we are in his debt.

While some healthy skepticism is always warranted where Hollywood is involved, I don’t know why some people are assuming that the movie will be a straight-to-video disaster because it is being shot on a limited budget. That could actually be a good thing, forcing Aglialoro to focus more on story and substance and less on flashy bells and whistles. Look at all the megabuck travesties [e.g., Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever, Gigli, ad nauseum] that emerge from mindless fatcats who think the secret to success is big star name recognition and lots of T & A, flying bullets and car chases. Stars like Brangelina often become the focus of attention instead of the movie’s story line (recall the banal yawner Mr. and Mrs. Smith)—and in the case of Atlas Shrugged, the story line (i.e., the meaning of the unfolding events) is everything. Some of the most interesting and successful films are independent productions that don’t have the luxury of an easy cash flow from a major studio. Without a big studio or a major star, the producers know they have to create something of genuine artistic merit. James Cameron’s original Terminator film—hastily written and shot on a shoestring budget in 1984--is one example. We need to take a ‘wait-and-see’ attitude and not act like a bunch of hand-wringing crepe hangers.

As for your claim that socialism, according to Hayek, would work "just fine" if reason were "more reliable," this is like saying that Rand would not have objected to socialism if it were based on rational egoism and didn't violate individual rights. Okay, maybe, but that's not the way things are. Although Hayek frequently characterized himself as an anti-Rationalist, he was thinking of philosophical or Cartesian Rationalism, a school of thought that he associated with Descartes. Rand rejected this kind of Rationalism as well. None of this committed Hayek to the position that man is "fundamentally irrational." He never believed any such thing, As for whether Hayek believed that reason is "deficient," here we need to ask the quasi-Randian question: Deficient in what respect? I don't believe that reason enables us to predict the future, so does this mean that I think reason is "deficient"? Well, I suppose a self-proclaimed rational fortune teller might level this charge, but so what? In his arguments about the impossibility of economic calculation under socialism, and in other arguments about the "fatal conceit" of central planning, Hayek isn't saying that reason is "unreliable," as you characterized his position. Rather, he is saying that central planning will generate unintended and unforeseen social and economic consequences with variables so complex that human reason cannot possibly predict or control them. Hayek, in effect, is rebutting the grandiose claims of social and economic fortune tellers. Ghs Here, once again, are some quotes from Hayek's article: Your post seems to suggest that I am drawing wrong conclusions from Hayek's remarks, when all I am doing is quoting him. He is the one calling man "very irrational" and at another point "more often stupid." Earlier in the same essay he describes man as fundamentally indolent. The quote from Hayek in which he denies that he is attacking reason sounds more like tap-dancing to me. I am taking him at his word. If he did not mean to imply that man is irrational and that reason plays a minimal role in human life, he should not have repeated it over and over again. At the very least, he is guilty of an appalling lack of clarity and precision in his words. Why say that man is irrational when all you want to say is that his knowledge is necessarily limited? I understand that Hayek was trying to differentiate his view from one which held reason to be infallible and omniscient--which he took to be the perspective of socialists--but he went much further than that. He portrays man as weak and malleable--like a clump of clay that can be molded by social institutions into a tool to serve "the need of all others" (as the last quote above suggests). Yes, he threw in a lot of interesting arguments about economic calculation being impossible in a controlled economy, and such reasoning was valid by itself. But he buried that under so much other crap about man's inherent weakness and the lofty ideals of serving the needs of others as to make his purely economic reasoning trivial by comparison.

You make a convincing case for indictment of the Founders as much more statist than is typically believed, but how do you reconcile this with the history behind the Bill of Rights, or more specifically the Ninth Amendment? The Federalists argued against a Bill of Rights because specifying certain individual rights could, by implication, significantly enhance the powers enumerated in the Constitution. In the Federalist Papers, Hamilton asked, "Why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do?" And Madison told Jefferson: "I conceive that in a certain degree ... the rights in question are reserved by the manner in which the federal powers are granted.” The result of all this debate was, of course, the Ninth Amendment, which Madison characterized as follows: “It has been objected also against a Bill of Rights, that, by enumerating particular exceptions to the grant of power, it would disparage those rights which were not placed in that enumeration; and it might follow by implication, that those rights which were not singled out, were intended to be assigned into the hands of the General Government, and were consequently insecure.” The history of how the Courts have interpreted the amendment has clearly been problematic, but the framers’ intent was respected in Griswold v. Connecticut and later in Roe v Wade. Bernard Bailyn certainly seems to think it represented a bona fide effort to preserve individual liberty. Doesn’t the Ninth Amendment provide some evidence that the founders’ intentions were not quite as pernicious as you charge?

I read the article, and my views remain unchanged. Hayek’s approach to defending freedom is inherently anti-individualistic and fundamentally collectivist. The quotes above strike me as fundamental to an understanding of Hayek’s views as represented in this article. He starts with the premise that human reason is inherently deficient; i.e., that socialists have too high an opinion of man’s rationality. If reason were more reliable, in Hayek’s view, socialism would work just fine. So, his individualism is based on a view of man as fundamentally irrational and reason as basically defective. Then he goes on to conclude that capitalism is better because it allows men “to contribute as much as possible to the needs of other men..” Once again, I do not buy that Hayek is a true advocate of individualism. I don’t think individualism can be based on a view of reason as inherently inadequate. If reason is as weak as Hayek says it is, then the only valid basis for individualism—that man’s nature requires that he should use his mind for his own survival to pursue his own ends—collapses. On his view, man is inherently weak and dependent. No wonder he ends up justifying all manner of social welfare. And the fact that he justifies “freedom” on the basis of “the utility of [our] efforts to others” makes him a collectivist, because he regards the group—not the individual—as the source of moral standards.