John Day

On last night's Stossel, the Branden affair was alluded to by an audience member although he was never mentioned by name. Yaron Brook said that we should focus on issues not personalities, but he still admitted that Rand had made mistakes in her private life. As the Objectivist movement is now led by people who've never met Ayn Rand, Objectivists are now beginning to have a more analytical view of Rand, at least outside the realm of philosophy. In that sense, I believe that the bulk of Objectivists are now "Open Objectivsts." There are still going to be tremendous philosophic disputes among Objectivist camps, but I don't believe any serious person currently holds up Rand as a perfect paragon of rationality.

One man's self defense is another man's Lebensraum. Hitler only claimed that the survival of the German people depended on the creation of eastern estates. These other peoples threatened the existence of the Aryan race (or so it was claimed). Thus, the war was entirely defensive, as so many wars are.

Also, would you hang George Washington and the Declaration Gang? How do you imagine the Native Americans viewed the conflict between the colonies and Britain?

Well, that claim was obviously not true because the history of Germany over the last 65 years has shown that the German people (at least those in West Germany) did just fine with their current space. But even if that claim was true, it would still be immoral to invade a country on such grounds because a need is not a claim. A country is not free to invade another country for the purpose of gaining resources. Poland had not initiated force against Germany or any other country, therefore, their sovereignty was in tact.

As for the Founding Fathers, the Revolutionary War was retaliation for force that had been initiated against the colonialists. The Founders sought to achieve their ends through peaceful, political means, but they were blocked at every turn and they came to the conclusion that the only way to exist as a free people was to declare independence from Great Britain. This was not a move that was taken lightly. As Jefferson wrote in the Declaration:

..."That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

..."Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends."

My questions are:

At what point in his life would he have deserved that punishment?

What did he do to earn it?

I look to the Toland biography. Hitler was the same person at 45 that he was at 14 or 7. Should he have been killed while in Landsberg writing Mein Kampf? After Munich? Rheinland? If invading Poland was wrong, what about invading the USSR? (Poland, by the way, was a military dictatorship. You know that, right?)

Then, like all second-handers, Adolph Hitler did not actually do anything himself. He "ordered" other people to do it, but he did not threaten them. He was powerless. He was only the highest expression of the Historical Idea of the Moment. Other people voluntarily did the things he suggested. In fact, if you read what he demanded and commanded, he was never very specific. "We must destroy our enemies!" is not a plan of action. The Wahnsee Conference was a plan of action. Operation Sea Lion was a plan of action. Hitler just ranted on stage and other people took that as their cue. Without followers, leaders are helpless. If you want to punish anyone, punish the millions of Germans.

Draw and quarter six million Nazis and what have you become?

Objectivists who think that retribution is justice are committing errors of social metaphysics and altruism by making the other person the object of justice. When you inflict suffering on another person, the harm is not just to them (though there is that), but the harm that you do to yourself.

I'm not in favor of draw-and-quartering anyone, but I would support hanging him as was done with the ten men convicted at Nuremberg and like the State of Israel did with Adolf Eichmann.

"Should he have been killed while in Landsberg writing Mein Kampf?" Perhaps, but not for his propagandizing, but for having attempted to overthrow the Bavarian Government by force. The argument has often been made that Hitler came to power through legal and democratic means, but that was only after he tried to come to power through illegal and violent means. In my mind, anyone who tries to obtain power through physical force is a person who must be wiped out, not so much for retributive justice, but for one's own defense. Certainly, by the time Hitler initiated force against the Republic of Poland, he was worthy of execution. The use of warfare for expansionist purposes, as opposed to self-defense, is completely unacceptable and that's why the United Kingdom and France went to war with Germany.

Ayn Rand very aptly called religion "a primitive form of philosophy." As she explains it, it was "the first attempts to explain the universe, to give a coherent frame of reference to man’s life and a code of moral values, were made by religion, before men graduated or developed enough to have philosophy." I would disagree with atheists such as Christopher Hitchens who assert that religion poisons everything. Over the centuries, it's given people a moral code to live their lives and has built civilization. Obviously, it's also done great harm to humanity (and I would argue has outlived its purpose) but the positive contributions do have to be recognized.

Dennis Prager once posed a question to Christopher Hitchens: "If you were in an American city that you were not familiar with, alone, late at night, and you couldn't find your car, in a bad neighborhood, and you saw 10 men walking toward you, would you or would you not be relieved to know that they had just attended a Bible class?" Hitchens responded, "Not really." I would say that I would feel relieved because it meant that I was dealing with a group of men who were committed to morality, even if I disagreed with certain aspects of their morality.

Mr. Thompson: Barack Obama (Obviously)

Wesley Mouch: Larry Summers (Hank Paulson under Bush)

Orrin Boyle: Lloyd Blankfein, Chairman of Goldman Sachs (You may be noticing a trend here)

Dr. Floyd Ferris: John Holdren

Fred Kinnan: Andy Stern

I regularly see OPAR in the Philosophy section of major book chains, I have never seen a copy of "The Ominous Parallels" in person. Take that for what it's worth.

Why not? He does achieve his purpose, doesn't he? It may not be good for his health, but was Rational Rand's heavy smoking good for her health?

Rand quit smoking when she was confronted with objective evidence that smoking was damaging her health. You can make the argument that she was guilty of evasion for many years, but she eventually came to the rational conclusion.

And who decides what are the "proper" ends? Are these the ends you happen to agree with?

Reality decides. The rational man survives and flourishes. The irrational man is wiped out, unless he receives assistance from the rational man (or steals from him).

That we may loathe the purpose of a suicide bomber doesn't make him irrational. His goal is to destruct others and to die for his purpose. If he succeeds, it is thanks to his rationality. He would be irrational if he prayed to his God and expected that thereby he could destruct others - that method doesn't work. That's one of the typical errors in Objectivism: the fact that rationality is desirable doesn't imply that someone who does things that we detest cannot be rational (with the fallacious conclusion that "evil" is impotent). The two concepts are certainly not equivalent. Being rational makes us efficient in what we want to achieve, but we may disagree strongly with what some people want to achieve.

If a mentally ill man wishes to inflict pain upon himself and bangs his head against the wall to achieve that end, is he behaving rationally? Rationality is not just used to decide how to achieve an end, a rational man has to determine what the proper ends are to begin with.

2) Your proposed argument fails to take into account the possibility that people will choose goals that are directly in conflict with living (suicide bombers, for instance) or choose goals which are attainable only at direct risk to themselves (climbing Mt. Everest, for example). It also does not take into account goals which emphasize quality. If my goal is to produce tasty croissants every time I bake a batch of croissants, keeping myself alive is not really relevant--as long as I have produced tasty croissants each time I bake, the goal will be attained, whether I live one year or one century. Furthermore, you apparently are trying to claim that maintaining life is the primary goal, even when it is cleary subordinated--in other words, trying to have your cake and eat it too.

The suicide bomber is clearly irrational, he is working for his own destruction and the destruction of others. The case of a man wishing to climb Mount Everest is more complex. He's not actively working for his destruction, but he engaging in a potentially deadly activity. To him, the feeling the achievement and/or exhilaration that he will find on the top of mountain is worth the potential risk of losing his life. My uncle, who has climbed Mt. McKinley, has said that he would never climb Everest because it's too dangerous (and too expensive). His life was more valuable than the feeling that would be achieved by climbing Everest.

As is noted in Galt's speech, "achieving life is not the equivalent of avoiding death." To achieve life, we must be happy, and in order for us to be happy, we may have engage in activities that have some risk to them. One must carefully analyze the risks and then decide whether it's worth it.

Sure. But do these people then just wait until the food falls miraculously into their laps (that was the straw man part in your description of the Uga Uga man)? I don't think so. And would those people necessarily be worse survivors on a desert island than, say, Leonard Peikoff?

To the extent that those cultures are able to survive, it's because they perform rational acts. (Hunting and gathering, and perhaps even a limited form of agriculture.) I'll admit that people from a primitive culture would be more likely to survive on a desert island because they come from a culture that rewards people with survivor skills, whereas modern civilization reward people of more abstract abilities. Peikoff probably wouldn't not survive in the savage's civilization, but I would venture that the savage would not survive in Peikoff's civilization (except through the generosity of the productive). Different societies value different things. It is not until the basic means of survival are met that civilization is possible. For example, things like philosophy and literature weren't possible until agriculture freed up people's time and allowed them to focus on questions other than "Where's my next meal coming from?"

Holiday themed articles certainly aren't new for ARI writers, but Onkar Ghate wrote a very fine piece for US News and World Report that avoided some of the banality and redundancy of past pieces and gives a little bit more of a personal touch. Check it out:

http://www.usnews.com/articles/opinion/2009/12/18/commercialism-only-adds-to-joy-of-the-holidays.html

Commercialism Only Adds to Joy of the Holidays

It's the season for earthly pleasures, and embracing the spectacle is no sin

By Onkar Ghate

Posted December 18, 2009

Onkar Ghate is a senior fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute in Irvine, Calif.

I'm an atheist, and I love Christmas. If you think that's a contradiction, think again.

Do you remember as a child composing wish lists of things you genuinely valued, thought you deserved, and knew would bring you pleasure? Do you remember eagerly awaiting the arrival of Christmas morning and the new bike, book, or chemistry set you were hoping for? That childhood feeling captures the spirit of Christmas and explains why so many of us look forward to the season each year.

You may no longer anticipate Christmas morning with that same childhood excitement. After all, even if you still make a wish list, couldn't you just go out and buy the items yourself? Yet the pleasure of exchanging gifts as a token of friendship and love remains. Particularly when you receive (or purchase) a gift that could come only from someone who knows you well—say, a shirt that broadens your style or a new wine that becomes one of your favorites—it serves as a material reminder of a spiritual bond.

More widely, through cards, telephone calls, parties, long-distance travel, and vacation, Christmas serves as a time to reconnect with cherished family and friends, to share important events of the past year, and to look forward to the next. It's a time to enjoy delectable chocolates, spiced eggnog, four-course meals, festive music, and party games.

Christmas is a spiritual holi­day whose leitmotif is personal, selfish plea­sure and joy. The season's commercialism, far from detracting from this celebration, as we're often told, is integral to it.

"The best aspect of Christmas," Ayn Rand once observed, is "that Christmas has been commercialized." The gift buying "stimulates an enormous outpouring of ingenuity in the creation of products devoted to a single purpose: to give men pleasure. And the street decorations put up by departments stores and other institutions—the Christmas trees, the winking lights, the glittering colors—provide the city with a spectacular display, which only 'commercial greed' could afford to give us. One would have to be terribly depressed to resist the wonderful gaiety of that spectacle."

Before Christians co-opted the holiday in the fourth century (there is no reason to believe Jesus was born in December), it was a pagan celebration of the winter solstice, of the days beginning to grow longer. The Northern European tradition of bringing evergreens indoors, for instance, was a reminder that life and production were soon to return to the now frozen earth.

This focus on earthly joy is the actual source of the emotion most commonly identified with Christmas: goodwill. When you genuinely feel good about your own life and when you're allowed to acknowledge and celebrate that joy, you come to wish the same happiness for others. It is those who despise their own lives who lash out at and make life miserable for the rest of us.

The commercialism of Christmas reinforces our goodwill. When you scour the malls in search of the perfect gift for a loved one and witness the cornucopia of goods and lights and decorations, you can't help but feel that your fellow human beings are not enemies to be feared or fools to be avoided but fellow travelers and potential allies in the quest for joy. It's no accident that America, the world's most productive country, is also its most benevolent.

Christmas's relation to goodwill leads many to believe the holiday is inseparable from Christianity, allegedly the religion of goodwill. But the connection is tenuous. A doctrine that tells you that you're a sinner—that you must seek redemption but cannot earn it yourself and that Jesus, sinless, has endured an excruciating death to redeem you, who doesn't deserve his sacrifice but who should accept it anyway—can hardly be characterized as expressing a benevolent view of man.

Christianity from the outset has been suspicious of human, earthly pleasure and joy. At best, these are seen as unbecoming a sinner, who should be busy repenting and fretting over his fate in an imagined next life. There once existed a war against Christmas—when religionists held sway in America. The Puritans canceled Christmas; in Boston from 1659 to 1681, the fine for exhibiting Christmas merriment was 5 shillings.

Christmas as we know it, with its twinkling lights, flying reindeer, and dancing snowmen, is largely a creation of 19th-century America. One of the most un-Christian periods in Western history, it was a time of worldly invention, industrialization, and profit. Only such an era would think of a holiday dominated by commercialism and joy and sense the connection between the two.

Christmas in America is not a Christian holiday. And besides, in a country that separates church from state, no national holiday can be regarded as the purview of a religion.

But any celebration can be corrupted. It's not uncommon today to hear people say Christmas is their most stressful period. Pressed for time (and this year probably for money, too), they feel there are just too many lights to put up, meals to cook, and gifts to buy. Seeking something to blame, they blame the commercialism of the season. But there is no commandment, "Thou shall buy a present for every­one you know." This is the religious mentality of duty rearing its ugly head again. Do and buy only that which you can truly afford and enjoy; there are myriad ways to celebrate with loved ones without spending a cent.

But whatever you do end up doing, don't let the state of the economy rob you of the gaiety of the season. Perhaps now more than ever, we all need to remind ourselves that reaching joy on this Earth is the meaning of life.

Merry Christmas!

One a desert island knowing how to get food and avoiding injury is a lot more important than morality. Can morality guide you in making a fire or spearing a fish or snaring an animal? I have thought for some time now the morality and $2.67 will get you a small coffee and an Old Fashioned donut at the local Dunkin' Donut ™ shop.

I can understand moral and ethical considerations when interacting with other folks, but what relevance do they have in isolation?

Ba'al Chatzaf

"You who prattle that morality is social and that man would need no morality on a desert island—it is on a desert island that he would need it most. Let him try to claim, when there are no victims to pay for it, that a rock is a house, that sand is clothing, that food will drop into his mouth without cause or effort, that he will collect a harvest tomorrow by devouring his stock seed today—and reality will wipe him out, as he deserves; reality will show him that life is a value to be bought and that thinking is the only coin noble enough to buy it." - Atlas Shrugged, page 1018

More simply, a man's code of values and rationality will determine his survival.

Yet I can't call any story that portrays the genocide of several billion sentient beings — and, even worse, has the event matter very little to the central characters — "very good fun."

You could make the same argument with the first Star Wars. Luke seems to be more distraught over the death of Obi-Wan than Leia is over the destruction of her planet. But properly mourning a loss like that would seriously detract from a film's plot.

While I disagree with the pro-redistribution positions King took late in his life, "Letter From Birmingham Jail" is a incredible piece of work showing King as a rigorous philosophic thinker.

You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court's decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, it is rather strange and paradoxical to find us consciously breaking laws. One may well ask, "How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?" The answer is found in the fact that there are two types of laws: there are just laws, and there are unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "An unjust law is no law at all."

Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine when a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law, or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas, an unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality ...

My guess would be somewhere around 1973. Abortion was becoming much more prevalent of a political issue because of Roe vs. Wade. Before Roe, abortion was an issue for the states and not something would receive much attention in a presidential race. Rand's primary objection to Reagan in the 1976 primaries was based on Reagan's anti-abortion views and that Ford was vaguely pro-choice.

I'll probably find the film's message to be overbearing, but I'm still very interested in the film from a technical standpoint and I very much enjoy big action movies. I'm not sure if I'll see it yet.

Spirited but good-natured discussions are practically an institution in my family‘s Thanksgiving and Christmas parties. My family isn’t crazy religious but the altruistic tenants of Catholicism has a major impact on their thinking. I’m certainly the most ardent defender of individualism and capitalism in the room.

I always enjoy my conversations with my very altruistic college professor aunt who for instance, supports mandatory national service for those in their early 20s. We both have a respect for each other’s intellect and that allows us to have a more fruitful exchange of ideas. There are some family friends who occasionally show up at these functions who are obnoxious in their leftist views, but I don’t think they’ll be there this year. One didn't like me referring to Cornel West as a "celebrity professor" and me defending Larry Summers actions toward him.

I hope everyone on the board has a fantastic Thanksgiving!

The Weekly Standard isn't as inherently mystical as the National Review, so editorially, they would be more inclined to review Rand on her merits. Interestingly, neoconservatives could almost be seen as secular defenders of the religious right. (Examples include Bill Kristol's early advocacy of Sarah Palin and the Standard's frequent defense of "intelligent design.") They know that the particulars of religion are nonsense, but they don't trust the people to hold a morality based in reason and instead must have a morality based in faith. Consider Irving Kristol's famous quotation:

"There are different kinds of truths for different kinds of people. There are truths appropriate for children; truths that are appropriate for students; truths that are appropriate for educated adults; and truths that are appropriate for highly educated adults, and the notion that there should be one set of truths available to everyone is a modern democratic fallacy. It doesn't work."

The SEPTA strike here in Philadelphia is entering its second week. Suburban Station has filled with long queues during the morning and evening rush hours because the subway lines and buses have been closed down and only the Regional Rail is still operating. The Inquirer told a story of a man in New Jersey whose commute to the King of Prussia Mall went from an hour and a half to over three hours. There was another story of a high school student who walked eight miles to maintain his perfect attendance record. It’s not often that a major newspaper reports on the triumph of the human spirit in everyday life, but there is was in full glory.

Over the course of the week, I've been thinking about what the proper ethics of going on strike are, particularly for public employees. I've thought about the Calvin Coolidge quote: "There is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, any time." But the strike that Coolidge was talking about was a police strike, and the police department is the important and most legitimate service a government provides. Transportation is a secondary service, and in an ideal society, all transportation would be privately-owned. Despite that, the realities of life present a situation in which thousands of productive workers are dependent on using SEPTA to get to their job in a reasonable length of time. This strike has made harder for them to live up to their full productivity.

There are obviously situations in which going on strike is moral, that's what the whole plot of Atlas Shrugged was about. An individual has the right to fight for his interests even if it is detrimental to the society around him. As the men of the mind withdrew from society, society completely broke down and many innocent people suffered greatly. If John Galt’s goal was to stop the motor of the world, than Transport Workers Union Local 234 President Willie Brown’s goal is to stop the motor of Philadelphia.

So then why is John Galt a hero and Willie Brown a villain? One difference is that a union that goes on strike denies its individual members of their freedom to work while the strike is ongoing. In contrast, every striker in Atlas Shrugged was on strike on his own accord. The other difference is a public’s expectation of services. If individuals are to coerced into paying for public services, they should at least have the confidence that those services will always be available. In his radio address, Galt tells the world, "We have no demands to present to you, no terms to bargain about, no compromise to reach. You have nothing to offer us. We do not need you." [emphasis original] This certainly is not the case for the transport workers. SEPTA receives a great deal of funding of the city and state and would not be able to survive as a private institution.

If Michael Nutter wants to win over the appreciation to the people of Philadelphia, he should do what Ronald Reagan did in response to the Air Traffic Controllers’ strike. With unemployment at over 10%, there are thousands of competent people who would be willing and able to do the job.

House's facial expressions make the whole scene. Perhaps the endless promos during the World Series will have sufficiently brainwashed me into watching House and Bones.

My reaction: The Republican Party can still be the party of suburbanites if they stay off the social issues and focus on jobs and economic recovery. Christie didn't run a great campaign, but he didn't need to, Corzine was such a horrible governor that he was never going to get re-elected. The polls high showing for Daggett was just the voters expressing frustration about a horrible field, but in the end, the anybody-but-Corzine vote was going to win out. In Virginia, McDonnell ran a fantastic campaign by promoting himself as the "jobs governor" and steering clear of his social conservative past. He avoided all the mistakes Jerry Kilgore made against Tim Kaine in 2005.

As for NY-23, the national conservatives overplayed their hand. Sarah Palin and the like should have never gotten involved, and the Republican establishment lining up behind Hoffman took away from his independent credentials. The 23rd seems like a pretty independent minded area and they didn't react well to having a bunch of people come in and tell them how to vote. That said, I'm glad that Hoffman ran and that the Republican caucus won't have to deal with someone like Dede Scozzafava, a supporter of card-check and the Obama stimulus. It just goes to show the importance of primaries and that the voters, not party bosses, should decide who a party's nominee is going to be.

Kirsch claims that Rand's source of popularity was her ability "to convince so many people, especially young people, that they could be geniuses without being in any concrete way distinguished." If that was the message her readers took away, they must not have reading her very closely. Productive achievement, according to Rand, is man's noblest activity and she would have little time for a "you're perfect just the way you are" mindset. There is a tremendous difference with Rand's rational selfishness and the amoral narcissism that is seen so much today. See Rand's essay: "Selfishness Without A Self." http://freedomkeys.com/withoutaself.htm

It appears the virtues of Kant's position above Objectivism are the recognition of volitional reason over impulse, namely:

1. Kant considers volition far more in-depth than Rand. Whereas Kant asserts that reducing hunger for the sake of reducing hunger is not moral, he would consider reducing hunger for the survival of man (a reasoning animal) as moral provided it is reasoned and motivated as such. Conversely, Rand would likely assert that man reducing hunger, whether by impulse or reasoning about life, are of equal moral weight provided the behaviors man engages in to reduce hunger do not infringe on the rights of others. ... basically, Rand never addresses the fact that to be guided by impulse is to infringe on one's own volitional capabilities precisely because impulses violate one's ability to take fully conscious action... the force of the action is not will, it is other than will, other than volition, and will is only partially along for the ride.

Christopher,

Rand did not believe that man possesses any form of instinct. She believed that all of man’s knowledge is obtained through consciousness and understanding of abstractions. While I would agree with her that that is the fundamental difference between humans and animals, I would add that humans still possess a limited sense of instinct. The refusal of Rand to admit to the existence of human instinct is one of biggest flaws of her philosophy and largely the reason why she dismissed evolution as “just a theory.”

But regardless of her lack of understanding biology (and arguably human nature), she still wrote the best one sentence summary of morality I have ever encountered: “All that which is proper to the life of a rational being is the good; all that which destroys it is the evil.” As I apply that to my understanding, I would say that an instinctual act, so long as it’s “proper to the life of a rational being” is moral; but one should never abdicate his rational faculties in favor of instinct.

I have only one last thing: I wish that these biographies of her—if I could have one wish granted, it would be that they would not pose as being balanced and impartial and so on, that they identified their venomous hatred in the preface, and then you could judge accordingly. Unfortunately, the dishonesty, ehh, would prevent that, that’s all I can say.

Did Barbara Branden ever make the claim that her book was "balanced and impartial"? Peikoff's disdain aside, I would say that is very difficult for someone who knew Ayn Rand for as long as Mrs. Branden did. It's certainly very interesting to hear someone's inside account, but emotions, whether positive or negative are going to color that account in some fashion. I haven't read The Passion of Ayn Rand, so I can't say to what extent it's "impartial."

Michael Sandel's course simply called “ Justice” is one of the most popular courses at Harvard. So popular that WGBH Boston has created a series based on his lectures entitled Justice: What‘s the Right Thing to Do?. I was first made aware of the series when I saw Sandel interviewed by Charlie Rose. While I disagreed with Sandel’s leftist conclusions on redistribution of wealth and other issues, I was intrigued by a series that discusses the philosophic roots of morality and what past philosophers have contributed to society’s notions of it.

An episode of particular interest to me was Episode Six entitled Mind Your Motive, in which Sandel introduces his students to the moral philosophy of Immanuel Kant. Sandel does an impressive job of explaining Kant in easy-to-understand language and I was actually interested enough to take some notes to summarize his lecture, or you can watch the whole thing here: http://justiceharvard.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=43&Itemid=13 (55:14 in length)

Sandel starts off by explaining that according to Kant, the source of rights comes from being a rational being and autonomous. (I found this interesting because it’s not far off from Rand’s view of the source of rights) In contrast to Jeremy Batham, Kant does not view pain and pleasure as the "sovereign master" of man, instead our rationality puts us above animals. Kant believes that freedom is when we act against our nature. If a man eats food to satisfy hunger, he is not acting freely, because of his natural inclination to desire food. To be free or autonomous is to act according to a law I give myself. (I.E., not inclination). Freedom is to chose the end for its own sakes, not for means.

Shifting to Kant’s view of morality, Kant believes that it’s wrong to use humans as means. Rather, we should respect them as ends. So what gives an act moral worth according to Kant? Motive and intention; good will is good in itself. Kant presents a struggle between duty and inclination. For example, if a shopkeeper gives a customer exact change he believes it to be in his self-interest rather than out of a sense of duty, is he acting morally? Kant says no, his act is only moral if duty is his motive.

At around this time, one of Sandel’s students asks a very perceptive question. If being autonomous means acting according to a law I give myself, then what stops morality from being completely subjective? The Kantian response is that the universal rationality of man makes for a universal morality. (An answer which I find very unconvincing) Sandel then gets into an explanation of Kant’s formulations of categorical imperative such as the Formula of Universal Law and the Formula of Humanity as an End.

Obviously, as an Objectivist, I disagree strongly with Kant’s notions of morality (for Ayn Rand and myself, self-interest is the very essence and purpose of morality); but I always appreciate the chance to get a better understanding of philosophic ideas. One cannot fully debate an idea until one understands it.