Please rationally support this decision

[Brant Gaede]

Brant writes:

That's just your subjective opinion.

Of course it is Brant... and I have never referenced my view as anything else.

You two actually have a lot in common

Yes. We are both equally subjective. I've affirmed that truth more than once.

but not the morality.

Another understatement.

In the world in which I live, sick people like Frank who believe they can do evil without consequence are pariahs because they cannot be trusted.

Greg

Alternatively we can say he doesn't know evil so he doesn't think in terms of doing it, just doing, as in it's all determined and there's really no free will. No free will makes morality an illusion. Mao was just some one who came along and did the determined things. No sweat, no muss--for Mao. While we can't say the same for the victims, all the crap they suffered from was determined too, so they are only the victims of a determined fate and Mao was simply a "gentleman" wearing a Mao suit. If Francisco manages to incorporate morality into his musings, he will have to disown if not rewrite all his previous postings--or ignore them. All he's been saying here is he has no free will and hence no morality and hence no one else does either. The last "hence" is a non sequitur.

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I'm going to give this another try by analogy.

Rand used "entity thinking" for her principles. She talked about entity thinking in a few places and I can dig up some quotes if need be. Basically, this means to discover what an entity is about by observation, notice what seems to be the essential characteristics of that entity, verify by observation over time, then state it as a principle.

A good example is to notice that humans have two arms and two legs (one of the essential characteristics of primates). Rand would notice that this is how humans are, keep looking for a while (say, since childhood ), point to a few of them, then state something like, "all humans have two arms and two legs." But notice that--in this context--she is talking about the entity human being, not how all the specific individuals turned out.

Then along comes someone like FF who says some humans have had a member blown off or amputated, others were born without one or more, etc., thus Rand did not provide evidence. Her reasoning is flawed. Why did she point to some humans if she were not interested in evidence? And so on.

But here comes the sleight of hand: the inevitable conclusion from this kind of thinking that humans don't have arms or legs. They may have, but this is not really part of what a human is.

If that sounds goofy, that's because it is.

Back to Rand. Notice that even in human individuals who do not have two arms and legs, to be human still means having two arms and legs as the norm.

That's what she means by ALL.

That's why these handicapped people are called exceptions, defective, handicapped, etc.

Rand is not defending a deductive proposition. She is observing essential characteristics of an entity through observation and stating this "essentialness" as a principle. This is called induction.

Michael

[Francisco Ferrer]

Since Rand does not qualify "men" with the words "some" or "many" or "in most cases," it would follow that she means all men.

You're starting to get it.

In support of the claim of destruction as the price of looting, she offers "any criminal or any dictatorship." Yet, dictator António de Oliveira Salazar was not destroyed for having ruled Portugal for 36 years. He died of natural causes at age 81. Nor did destruction fall upon Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, who died of natural causes at 82 after ruling Spain for 35 years.

And here you leave out the victims in "all men" as a universal. For Salazar and Franco to prosper, others had to perish. There goes "all men" down the toilet for the standard in those particular dictatorships.

It is not clear that Salazar and Franco's standard of value had anything to do with all men. Indeed each dictator's standard might have centered on the dictator himself and included perhaps only a few beyond that. To paraphrase Rand, the standard was "my life, or: that which is required for my survival."

It's simple, really.

For you, Rand has to follow the standard of "all men" when you want to critique, but you do not have to use it.

In the beginning of her argument, the most persuasive part, Rand advances a fairly straight-forward egoism:

• "What is that standard? His life."
• "Its life is the standard of value directing its actions."
• Whether a man "will love or hate, desire or fear, depends on his standard of value."

Her argument becomes vaguer once she introduces the qualifier "qua" into the picture, and thus a potential conflict arises between living with one's life as the standard of value and living as man qua man.

If I have not put forth a standard for all men it due to the absence of evidence for the existence of a universal standard of value.

Maybe you are not critiquing the universal, but then you would not be critiquing what Rand was talking about.

Which is exactly what I have been saying.

Once a principle means that some men have to be destroyed for it to work, that is no longer a standard that can apply to all men. The parasite principle needs some men to be sacrificed by definition. So the concept of "all men" does not exist in a bloody dictatorship for such a principle.

That universality is what gets destroyed along with the victims.

And this is true for all criminals and dictatorships.

A goal might be met for this or that individual, but no parasite principle (as a universal standard) can operate for all within an environment where it operates for one. By definition, a parasite needs hosts. Once you have a host for a parasite, you have destruction.

This only works logically as a standard if you leave out the victims in the concept of "all men." And then it becomes a contradiction, so it doesn't really work.

The question is: can looters "achieve their goals for the range of a moment" without the "price of destruction: the destruction of their victims and their own"?

It does not follow that dictators must necessarily incorporate all men into their standard of value, and thus when "others had to perish," the predator may not have regarded it as a loss but as a gain.

The destruction of the criminal or dictator is far from a certainty.

Francisco Ferrer, on 16 Mar 2015 - 04:40 AM, said:

The assertion that I have ignored those who perished is false.

I just gave you a perfect example above. But then, we are talking in conceptual terms, not concrete-bound ones.

In your thirst to prove a proposition wrong, you missed Rand's meaning completely. Conceptually, you use double-standards. And that's OK for your position.

It's just a misrepresentation to attribute your double standards to Rand.

Michael

It is not a double-standard to recognize that two men may have adopted different standards. It is not a double-standard, for example, to acknowledge that in this world there may be both altruists and egoists.

Does Rand have a double-standard? Rand says, "The standard of value of the Objectivist ethics—the standard by which one judges what is good or evil—is man’s life, or: that which is required for man’s survival qua man."

One of the problems is that this comes after Rand in the first part of her essay has argued for an egoism derived from life as the ultimate value:

"The standard is the organism’s life, or: that which is required for the organism’s survival."

"An organism’s life is its standard of value: that which furthers its life is the good, that which threatens it is the evil."

"Metaphysically, life is the only phenomenon that is an end in itself: a value gained and kept by a constant process of action. Epistemologically, the concept of “value” is genetically dependent upon and derived from the antecedent concept of 'life.' To speak of “value” as apart from “life” is worse than a contradiction in terms. It is only the concept of ‘Life’ that makes the concept of ‘Value’ possible.”

"The fact that living entities exist and function necessitates the existence of values and of an ultimate value which for any given living entity is its own life."

"The ultimate value which, to be kept, must be gained through its every moment, is the organism’s life."

Now, suddenly, it's "man’s survival qua man." For Rand at mid-point to insert a different criterion in her ethics, not life but "man’s survival qua man," is to turn her back on what has already been established in her theory. We have now a separate premise sneaking in and Rand says nothing to defend it. It's a statement that she treats as self-evident, unlike the work she put into developing life as the ultimate value. We cannot, consequently, treat "man’s survival qua man" as a logically developed conclusion.

More importantly, while "life" and "survival" are readily understood, "qua man" is an altogether different animal. When she suggests that she means "that which is proper to the life of a rational being," there may be no internal conflict--provided that we are not talking about something separate from an organism’s life as its standard of value or its ultimate value.

However, simply declaring that "counting on productive men to serve as their prey" is irrational behavior is a non-sequitur. If in some cases predatory behavior successfully promotes the life or survival of the predator, it cannot in that context be considered contrary to exercising reason and sound judgment, given "his own life as the ethical purpose of every individual man."

Rand does say it is a virtue to live "by the work of one’s own mind." But she does not say why that virtue must necessarily follow from man setting "his own life as the ethical purpose of every individual man."

With "man's survival" and "man's survival qua man" both in play, we have potential conflicts. This is why Rand's system is not completely coherent.

I will close by saying that I am categorically opposed to the initiation of force. However, I could not have used Rand's thought as the means for arriving at such a principle.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

He does that with every attempt to show him how to integrate the damn concept of man's life in Rand's essay--within the context she was discussing it.

"I did not..."

"I have not..."

"I am not..."

If I had a dollar for every time he says this as a kneejerk, rather than trying to understand what is being said, I would be able to buy a crapload of stuff.

Rand did not mean what FF says she meant.

He got it wrong.

Let's wait for it, because it's coming a surely as the sun will rise. FF (in the near future): "I did not get Rand's meaning wrong."

Man, did the door slam shut with this last post by FF.

It did not close, it slammed with a bang.

To paraphrase what they say in Brazil, he does not know what Rand is talking about, he does not want to know, and he doesn't like people who do know.

Check this out:

It is not clear that Salazar and Franco's standard of value had anything to do with all men...

No, I never said that Rand...

It is not a double-standard...

Then a lot of quacking after each time...

Quack quack quack...

Ignoring what Rand meant, outright denying it, and just repeating oneself is not the same thing as understanding what Rand meant.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

"Man's survival" is base. "Man's survival qua man" is civilization from the inside out. The first is what is. The second is what should be. Rand is mostly about the second.

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

You know something?

I hate being the spokesperson for what Rand meant.

I have my own problems and this is getting silly. Besides, I am not ARI-certified.

But I hate it even more when someone insists she meant things she did not (even in places when she was not artful in her expression) and tries to play gotcha with the misattributed meaning.

Like I keep saying, I don't mind someone disagreeing with Rand. I do mind someone claiming she meant what she clearly did not.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

A good example is to notice that humans have two arms and two legs (one of the essential characteristics of primates). Rand would notice that this is how humans are, keep looking for a while (say, since childhood ), point to a few of them, then state something like, "all humans have two arms and two legs." But notice that--in this context--she is talking about the entity human being, not how all the specific individuals turned out.

Then along comes someone like FF who says some humans have had a member blown off or amputated, others were born without one or more, etc., thus Rand did not provide evidence. Her reasoning is flawed. Why did she point to some humans if she were not interested in evidence? And so on.

But here comes the sleight of hand: the inevitable conclusion from this kind of thinking that humans don't have arms or legs. They may have, but this is not really part of what a human is.

If that sounds goofy, that's because it is.

This is hurtful, Michael, because I was born without any arms or legs. In fact it got worse in grade school when the kids used me as third base and I got my head kicked off.

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

It is not clear that Salazar and Franco's standard of value had anything to do with all men.

What on earth does that have to do with the topic?

We were talking about the standard of "all men."

(Not the goal for all men. The standard.)

What these dictators held as a personal standard of behavior is irrelevant to our discussion. Their personal perspective is irrelevant to our discussion. Besides, they obviously had no universal standards for humans--not logically valid ones--because they sacrificed some humans to their ends.

What a perfect example of concrete-bound thinking...

I honestly can't tell if this example is due to lack of ability or lack of will.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

"Man's survival" is base. "Man's survival qua man" is civilization from the inside out. The first is what is. The second is what should be. Rand is mostly about the second.

--Brant

Brant,

I would not just say "should be" because that--to certain kinds of minds--could include humans growing biological wings and flying like birds. I would put it something like "what is ideal for all according to a rational standard."

Clunky, but accurate.

Michael

[Darrell Hougen]

Not true. Mao Tse-tung killed millions and lived comfortably into his eighties.

Again, you're trying to use a specific example and not looking at the expected payoff. For every Mao, there were 100 would-be Mao's that failed.

You wrote, "I will simply assert, without proof at this point, that cheating, lying, stealing, murdering, etc., are never in a person's self interest."

I cited Mao as a disproof.

You responded with irrelevant statements about expected payoffs and failed would-be Maos.

Yet Mao's life shows, among many other things, that at least one person in history did advance his career and build wealth and power through cheating, lying, stealing, murdering. It upends your bald assertion about crime never paying. And as for payoffs, for every successful actress in Hollywood there are a thousand would-be stars. But the existence of overwhelming numbers of failed hopefuls does nothing to prove the claim that being a successful actress is never in one's interest.

Mao's life doesn't show anything. I don't know that much about Communist China, so let's talk about Stalin instead. Stalin lived well, but what happened to Lenin? What if Stalin had been Lenin? Lenin succumbed to his injuries after he was shot. What happened to Trotsky? He was murdered with an axe. What happened to Zinoviev? He was executed? What happened to Kamenev? He was executed too. What happened to Bukharin? He was executed.

Most of the original members of Politburo and more than half of the members of the Central Committee were eventually executed or murdered. Most of them probably thought that they were important, just like Stalin. They probably thought they were little kings or nobles, just like Stalin. In the fight for power, someone is going to come out on top, but Stalin had no realistic way of knowing he would win, though he undoubtedly thought he would.

History is replete with similar examples. Half the emperors of Rome died violent deaths. Half the emperors of the Eastern Roman empire met a similar fate. Many of the Merovingian rulers died violent deaths. I could go on. Between Hitler, Stalin, and Mao, Hitler met a violent end, so looked at that way, the odds of survival would only be 2/3 and I'm only counting people who already made it to the top. I'm sure Stalin's odds were much lower when he was first attempting to gain power. If Lenin (or any number of others) had realized what a power-hungry SOB Stalin was, they could have had him removed and possibly shot much sooner.

Many people believe that Arron Burr was a power-hungry SOB. If he hadn't been widely discredited by killing Hamilton in a duel, he might have become President. As it was, the odds were against him and he never achieved power.

Expected payoff absolutely is the issue. Individual examples of people that got lucky mean very little. People have survived going over Niagara Falls in a barrel, but I wouldn't recommend it.

.

Francisco Ferrer, on 07 Mar 2015 - 11:29 AM, said:

Politicians do it all the time, and there is no evidence that they live abbreviated lives or suffer mental anguish.

Same problem. For every person that succeeds as a sleazy politician, there are 100 that don't. And, even politicians have their limits. A lot of them end up going to jail. Look at the recent history of governors of Illinois.

Me: Bill Clinton cheated, lied and stole, and now lives a comfortable life.

You: There's a problem with your example because the governor of Illinois went to jail.

Me: ???

You're giving examples of people that got lucky. I'm giving examples of people that didn't.

Francisco Ferrer, on 07 Mar 2015 - 11:29 AM, said:

If the principle is that one self-interest must be subordinated to another's property rights, then stealing is unprincipled. If the principle is that one's self-interest is always primary, then there is nothing necessarily unprincipled about stealing a necklace.

The whole argument is over whether violating other people's rights is in a person's self interest, so you can't use that as a point of argument. I disagree that stealing a necklace is in a person's self interest.

You described the prudent predator's behavior as unprincipled. I merely pointed out that the principles she adhered to happen not to be your particular principles.

Something can't be a principle unless it is practiced virtually all the time. A person that stole constantly would soon be caught. Being honest doesn't require calculating the odds. Lying does.

Francisco Ferrer, on 07 Mar 2015 - 11:29 AM, said:

This is twaddle. If she were handed the necklace as a gift, would it make any sense for her to refuse it on the grounds that, "Sorry, this bangle is only worth 12.5% of my lifetime earnings"? Of course not. Thus, there is no good reason from the standpoint of pure self-interest for her not to steal it given the near 0% likelihood of the crime being traced to her.

$100,000 or $10,000, the effort needed to take the item was no greater than to bend down and pick up a quarter from the sidewalk. Should we advise one not to pick up coins because they represent only a fraction of one's lifetime income?

"Twaddle" being defined as any argument that you disagree with.

Again, the issue is expected payoff, not the payoff in one instance. Hindsight is 20/20. (I guess, as a determinist, you know the outcome before there is one.)

You wrote, "I will simply assert, without proof at this point, that cheating, lying, stealing, murdering, etc., are never in a person's self interest."

If a person manages to increase her wealth and advance her self-interest through stealing, the expected payoff is irrelevant. It is the actual payoff that matters in my example of a successful thief. That example directly contradicts the claim that stealing is never in one's self-interest.

Furthermore, it wasn't hindsight that told the thief that the owner of the necklace was demented, that there were no other witnesses in the house, that no one regularly checked on the contents of the jewelry box, or that other caregivers visited on other days of the week and thus obscured any particular leads for detectives.

Your post is an example of a person clinging to a failed theory by claiming that reality must be in error.

I'm afraid you're the one clinging to a failed theory.

Actually, it might be instructive to look at the stock market. There are plenty of money managers out there trying to predict whether the market will go up or down. Some of them do quite well, but on average, they under perform the market averages. So, a better strategy is to buy and hold an index fund.

The thief is like the money manager, trying to guess what will happen but under performing the average honest person. So, a better strategy is to be honest.

Of course, there are exceptions to every rule, but personal gain is not a good reason to be dishonest. People who are dishonest or violate people's rights in other ways tend, on average, to do less well in the long run.

I know several investors who have done extremely well by picking winners and not blindly following the choices of a major fund. In any case it is the exceptions I'm talking about, and your claim did not admit exceptions: "I will simply assert, without proof at this point, that cheating, lying, stealing, murdering, etc., are never in a person's self interest." [my emphasis]

Yes. The odds are against the liar, cheater, or thief. Would you assert that it is a good idea to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel because some people have done it successfully? What if someone offered a million dollars to anyone who was successful?

Darrell

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Being honest doesn't require calculating the odds. Lying does.

Darrell,

I like that.

Michael

[moralist]

Brant writes:

Alternatively we can say he doesn't know evil so he doesn't think in terms of doing it, just doing, as in it's all determined and there's really no free will. No free will makes morality an illusion.

And it is precisely that quality of denying the objective reality of evil which makes Frank unworthy of trust. In immoral people their intelligence becomes perverted into cunning.

If Francisco manages to incorporate morality into his musings, he will have to disown if not rewrite all his previous postings--or ignore them.

He never will. Frank will take what he chose and all of its just and deserved consequences with him to his grave as he deserves. For once a view has been chosen, only the objective reality of life has the power to change it.

All he's been saying here is he has no free will and hence no morality and hence no one else does either. The last "hence" is a non sequitur.

He's definitely affirmed that he has no morality... and that's why he's sick.

Greg

[Francisco Ferrer]

It is not clear that Salazar and Franco's standard of value had anything to do with all men.

What on earth does that have to do with the topic?

Response to your statement in Post #250: "And here you leave out the victims in 'all men' as a universal. For Salazar and Franco to prosper, others had to perish. There goes 'all men' down the toilet for the standard in those particular dictatorships."

We were talking about the standard of "all men."

(Not the goal for all men. The standard.)

Rand: "What standard determines what is proper in this context? The standard is the organism’s life, or: that which is required for the organism’s survival . . . An organism’s life is its standard of value: that which furthers its life is the good, that which threatens it is the evil."

Not: the standard is "all organisms."

What these dictators held as a personal standard of behavior is irrelevant to our discussion. Their personal perspective is irrelevant to our discussion. Besides, they obviously had no universal standards for humans--not logically valid ones--because they sacrificed some humans to their ends.

They focused on the singular, not the plural, as in: "The capacity to experience pleasure or pain is innate in a man’s body; it is part of his nature, part of the kind of entity he is. He has no choice about it, and he has no choice about the standard that determines what will make him experience the physical sensation of pleasure or of pain. What is that standard? His life."

Not "their lives."

What a perfect example of concrete-bound thinking...

I honestly can't tell if this example is due to lack of ability or lack of will.

Michael

Perhaps John Galt committed the sin of "concrete-boundness" by beginning his oath, "I swear by my life . . ."

Perhaps it should have been, "I swear by the lives of all men as a universal . . ."

[Francisco Ferrer]

You wrote, "I will simply assert, without proof at this point, that cheating, lying, stealing, murdering, etc., are never in a person's self interest."

I cited Mao as a disproof.

You responded with irrelevant statements about expected payoffs and failed would-be Maos.

Yet Mao's life shows, among many other things, that at least one person in history did advance his career and build wealth and power through cheating, lying, stealing, murdering. It upends your bald assertion about crime never paying. And as for payoffs, for every successful actress in Hollywood there are a thousand would-be stars. But the existence of overwhelming numbers of failed hopefuls does nothing to prove the claim that being a successful actress is never in one's interest.

Mao's life doesn't show anything. I don't know that much about Communist China, so let's talk about Stalin instead. Stalin lived well, but what happened to Lenin? What if Stalin had been Lenin? Lenin succumbed to his injuries after he was shot. What happened to Trotsky? He was murdered with an axe. What happened to Zinoviev? He was executed? What happened to Kamenev? He was executed too. What happened to Bukharin? He was executed.

Most of the original members of Politburo and more than half of the members of the Central Committee were eventually executed or murdered. Most of them probably thought that they were important, just like Stalin. They probably thought they were little kings or nobles, just like Stalin. In the fight for power, someone is going to come out on top, but Stalin had no realistic way of knowing he would win, though he undoubtedly thought he would.

Therefore Stalin must have been destroyed as the price of his destruction, right?

History is replete with similar examples. Half the emperors of Rome died violent deaths. Half the emperors of the Eastern Roman empire met a similar fate. Many of the Merovingian rulers died violent deaths. I could go on. Between Hitler, Stalin, and Mao, Hitler met a violent end, so looked at that way, the odds of survival would only be 2/3 and I'm only counting people who already made it to the top. I'm sure Stalin's odds were much lower when he was first attempting to gain power. If Lenin (or any number of others) had realized what a power-hungry SOB Stalin was, they could have had him removed and possibly shot much sooner.

Many people believe that Arron Burr was a power-hungry SOB. If he hadn't been widely discredited by killing Hamilton in a duel, he might have become President. As it was, the odds were against him and he never achieved power.

Expected payoff absolutely is the issue. Individual examples of people that got lucky mean very little. People have survived going over Niagara Falls in a barrel, but I wouldn't recommend it.

That would only mean that the likely price of being a dictator is the destruction of the dictator, not that "the price of destruction [is] the destruction of their victims and their own."

Furthermore, there are opportunities to survive by looting others that afford a much lower risk than what Stalin experienced. How likely is it that an IRS employee is going to be destroyed for the price of his looting?

Me: Bill Clinton cheated, lied and stole, and now lives a comfortable life.

You: There's a problem with your example because the governor of Illinois went to jail.

Me: ???

You're giving examples of people that got lucky. I'm giving examples of people that didn't.

Rand's claim does not include the variable of probability. It is a blanket statement: "Looters may achieve their goals for the range of a moment, at the price of destruction: the destruction of their victims and their own."

You described the prudent predator's behavior as unprincipled. I merely pointed out that the principles she adhered to happen not to be your particular principles.

Something can't be a principle unless it is practiced virtually all the time. A person that stole constantly would soon be caught. Being honest doesn't require calculating the odds. Lying does.

The principle may be to loot only when the gains are high and the risks are low. This is what the necklace thief did. This is what the person who stole my Mustang did. This is what IRS employees do.

You wrote, "I will simply assert, without proof at this point, that cheating, lying, stealing, murdering, etc., are never in a person's self interest."

If a person manages to increase her wealth and advance her self-interest through stealing, the expected payoff is irrelevant. It is the actual payoff that matters in my example of a successful thief. That example directly contradicts the claim that stealing is never in one's self-interest.

Furthermore, it wasn't hindsight that told the thief that the owner of the necklace was demented, that there were no other witnesses in the house, that no one regularly checked on the contents of the jewelry box, or that other caregivers visited on other days of the week and thus obscured any particular leads for detectives.

Your post is an example of a person clinging to a failed theory by claiming that reality must be in error.

I'm afraid you're the one clinging to a failed theory.

If it is not true that looters do not always get destroyed, when were the men who founded the inflationary and therefore looting Federal Reserve destroyed?

Francisco Ferrer, on 09 Mar 2015 - 8:27 PM, said:

I know several investors who have done extremely well by picking winners and not blindly following the choices of a major fund. In any case it is the exceptions I'm talking about, and your claim did not admit exceptions: "I will simply assert, without proof at this point, that cheating, lying, stealing, murdering, etc., are never in a person's self interest." [my emphasis]

Yes. The odds are against the liar, cheater, or thief. Would you assert that it is a good idea to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel because some people have done it successfully? What if someone offered a million dollars to anyone who was successful?

Darrell

The odds are not against liars at all. Every president of the U.S. has sworn to uphold the Constitution and very few did. Yet the liars were not destroyed as the price of their lying. Yes, we have had a couple of assassinations, but the assassins were hardly avengers of Constitutional government, exacting the "price" of unconstitutional government.

And occasionally lying presidents get turned out of office. To face what? Nowadays a very lucrative second career with round the clock Secret Service protection.

As for Niagara Falls, I understand that with improving technology and changing water conditions, a barrel jump today would not be nearly as dangerous as fifty years ago. If a person's life would be miserable or in great danger without a quick million dollars, a barrel jump might be a rational choice,

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Perhaps John Galt committed the sin of "concrete-boundness" by beginning his oath, "I swear by my life . . ."

Perhaps it should have been, "I swear by the lives of all men as a universal . . ."

FF,

Actually, Galt's statement is how a universal is applied to a single life. But you have to look at the rest of the statement for the universal part instead of the opening, which you just did.

"I commit to a universal even when I can fudge" is the essence of his message.

Talk about concrete-bound!

As to the rest of your post, I submit you are stuck in non-understanding. I prefer not to untangle the hash as your hash seems to be eternal and I am not.

For now, I believe the reader has enough back-and-forth to neutralize the drip drip drip persuasion by repetition technique.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

Rand did have a problem with the particular to universal or vice versa. The bad guys in her novels had to get their just desserts and in real life the likes of Stalin and Hitler had to end up as rug chewers. There are many stories of seemingly good people going nutso after getting run over by existential circumstances, however, and bad people comfortable with their ill gotten gains. In primitive tribes one might conquer the other, rape, kill and steal. Then go home and celebrate, maybe by skinning alive a captive or two. Even eat some.

--Brant

man!--that "long pig" sure hits the spot!

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Rand did have a problem with the particular to universal or vice versa.

Brant,

I agree. But this is a bad habit in her expression, not a flaw in a reasoning chain.

For instance, she will claim there is a universal category of philosophy called morality, but then call certain schools of morality immoral or not moral. Ditto for art.

But this is a long way from claiming she made no connection at all between axiomatic concepts (including existence for the living) and morality other than FF's charge of "wish-fulfillment."

I disagree with Rand on a few premises about human nature, but I do not agree she only connected her premises to her most important conclusions by wishing.

Michael

[anthony]

No, rather than being concrete-bound, my approach is to require that ideas be derived from actual data rather than exist, in Rand's words, as "floating abstractions" or in another writer's words "a theory in search of a reality."

----

I have never trivialized evil. Rather, my position is that opposition to evil does not follow logically from the basic premises of Rand's ethics.

----

I agree that a "principle is integrated from many observations," and accordingly it is not from a few but many observations that I've concluded that Rand is in error in saying that the predator's "price of destruction [is] the destruction of their victims and their own."

----

Of course, there is a connection between fact and value. However, the existence of that connection does not form a bridge from Rand's egoistic premises to her position on respecting rights.

----

There has been no misrepresentation of Ayn Rand. I never claimed that she endorses a prudent predator. All along my position has been that the rights-respecting conclusions she reaches (and that I concur with) do not follow seamlessly from her early premises.

Your puzzled misinterpretation will continue as long as you begin with 'ownership' (of self and property) as the justification for rights. As I said, that's the end of the process, not the start. The 'start' is that a man is fundamentally solitary, a single organism; with no instincts, he must select what is good for his existence; with a non-automated mind he must volitionally bring it to bear on reality to accomplsh it; with a consciousness which is not transferable or supernaturally advised, it is his entire efforts of mind and body that lead him to live and thrive and gain values and ownership. Property, iow.

The predator or tyrant comes along and interrupts that independent process (of "self-sustaining and self-generating action") taking for himself the individual's products or his freedom to act - metaphorically, the equivalent of pinning the wings of an eagle, or crippling a gazelle.

As for your doubt of "...a bridge from Rand's egoistic premises to her position on respecting rights" - she explained:

"Rights are a moral concept--the concept that provides a logical transition from the principles guiding an individual's actions to the principles guiding his relationships with others--the concept that preserves and protects individual morality in a social context--the link between the moral code of a man and the legal code of society, between ethics and politics.

*Individual rights are the means of subordinating society to moral law*.

...

[Appendix, Man's Rights]

------

Using the same term as you, rights are "the bridge" between a moral code and a moral society , Rand also reiterated somewhere.

For you, FF, the middle of 'the bridge' is your 'launch pad', it seems. However, rights aren't a code of morailty. Rights, simply, enforce your freedom to act, they don't guide you to which acts, and why.

[Mark]

...

Most of the original members of Politburo and more than half of the members of the Central Committee were eventually executed or murdered. ...

History is replete with similar examples.

Many examples as there are of evil men getting destroyed the counter-examples remain, enough of them to make history replete all over again. One more counter-example to add to those already mentioned would be Nguyen Van Thieu. From ARI Watch's review of Andrew Bernstein's essay "Honoring Virtue":

"Before and during the Vietnam War the U.S. supported South Vietnam’s dictator Nguyen Van Thieu, just because he was nominally anti-Communist. ... [He] fled Vietnam when the U.S. pulled out, and moved to a mansion in Surrey, England, living in luxury until his [natural] death in 2001. The main source of his multi-millions in wealth was undoubtedly U.S. foreign aid. His heirs now possess that money."

The last part of post 253 by "Franciso Ferrer" is an excellent summary of his position.

Perhaps Rand's less than clear account explains how Harry Binswanger and Yaron Brook can turn her "selfishness" into subjective hedonism when they promote open immigration.

Mark

ARI Watch

[Francisco Ferrer]

No, rather than being concrete-bound, my approach is to require that ideas be derived from actual data rather than exist, in Rand's words, as "floating abstractions" or in another writer's words "a theory in search of a reality."

----

I have never trivialized evil. Rather, my position is that opposition to evil does not follow logically from the basic premises of Rand's ethics.

----

I agree that a "principle is integrated from many observations," and accordingly it is not from a few but many observations that I've concluded that Rand is in error in saying that the predator's "price of destruction [is] the destruction of their victims and their own."

----

Of course, there is a connection between fact and value. However, the existence of that connection does not form a bridge from Rand's egoistic premises to her position on respecting rights.

----

There has been no misrepresentation of Ayn Rand. I never claimed that she endorses a prudent predator. All along my position has been that the rights-respecting conclusions she reaches (and that I concur with) do not follow seamlessly from her early premises.

Your puzzled misinterpretation will continue as long as you begin with 'ownership' (of self and property) as the justification for rights. As I said, that's the end of the process, not the start. The 'start' is that a man is fundamentally solitary, a single organism; with no instincts, he must select what is good for his existence; with a non-automated mind he must volitionally bring it to bear on reality to accomplsh it; with a consciousness which is not transferable or supernaturally advised, it is his entire efforts of mind and body that lead him to live and thrive and gain values and ownership. Property, iow.

The predator or tyrant comes along and interrupts that independent process (of "self-sustaining and self-generating action") taking for himself the individual's products or his freedom to act - metaphorically, the equivalent of pinning the wings of an eagle, or crippling a gazelle.

Being a "fundamentally solitary," "organism; with no instincts" with "a non-automated mind" and a "consciousness which is not transferable" does not provide a set of reasons why any man must regard another man's life and property as off limits. It doesn't move us from egoism to constrained egoism.

If a hungry man may roast the leg of a lamb, why may he not pin the wings of an eagle or cripple a gazelle?

As for your doubt of "...a bridge from Rand's egoistic premises to her position on respecting rights" - she explained:

"Rights are a moral concept--the concept that provides a logical transition from the principles guiding an individual's actions to the principles guiding his relationships with others--the concept that preserves and protects individual morality in a social context--the link between the moral code of a man and the legal code of society, between ethics and politics.

In other words, Rand provided the logical transition by simply saying there is a logical transition rather than showing it.

[Brant Gaede]

As for your doubt of "...a bridge from Rand's egoistic premises to her position on respecting rights" - she explained:

"Rights are a moral concept--the concept that provides a logical transition from the principles guiding an individual's actions to the principles guiding his relationships with others--the concept that preserves and protects individual morality in a social context--the link between the moral code of a man and the legal code of society, between ethics and politics.

In other words, Rand provided the logical transition by simply saying there is a logical transition rather than showing it.

What you do respecting other people--respect their rights--they do respecting you--respect your rights. This is the basic social contract*. Rights are individual rights and it is individualism that unites and integrates the Objectivist philosophical and moral construct from metaphysics--the nature of man--to epistemology--the atomistic brain--to ethics--rational self interest--to politics--individual rights in law. I don't think any Objectivist, including Rand--ever quite explained it this way. There is way too much "What did Rand say?" in Objectivism and not enough thinking, as if there was no difference between what she said and truth incarnate.

Her weak explanation of the bridge between ethics and politics is at least better than her no explanation--if I remember right--between epistemology and ethics. (Epistemology always comes with metaphysics, basically for axiomatic reasons.) The social aspects of human moral existence are layered on top of individualism and to get from one basic aspect of the philosophy to the next requires getting on the intellectual elevator and going down to the ground floor (individualism) of, in this case the ethical building, and walking over as an individual as in one's individual mind, to the politics building and taking its elevator back up to the social existence floor. The door opens and voila!--the wonderful world of individual rights! Paradise!

--Brant

*imposed by way of moral reason by rights' respecters upon rights' violators or would be rights' violators and if those guys don't like it they can take a long walk off the philosophical boats' short plank or just yammer in their private corner about how they didn't "consent" to not having their rights violated in the name of "voluntarianism" (as if everybody could or ever would volunteer for voluntarianism): they should make love and money--make happy!--and stop pissing in their watering hole (so much for the anarchists anarchy!)

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Your puzzled misinterpretation will continue as long as you begin with 'ownership' (of self and property) as the justification for rights. As I said, that's the end of the process, not the start. The 'start' is that a man is fundamentally solitary, a single organism; with no instincts, he must select what is good for his existence; with a non-automated mind...

Tony,

If one wanted to question Rand's premises, here, in my view, is the place to start.

Man does have instincts and a largely automated mind. He also has conceptual volition sitting on top of them. It's not either-or.

I think the confusion in philosophy (Rand actually got her tabula rasa idea from Locke and maybe some others) comes from an evolutionary thing. A fully developed brain does not come out of the vagina at birth. If it were fully developed (as in other species), it would be too large to pass through.

This is the main reason a human infant has such a long dependency stage. Its brain is literally growing. The gradual growth of the cortex only stops in the early 20's.

This gives an impression that man has no instincts, but brain growth happens irrespective of experience. And with growth some instincts emerge along with modifications from experience and volition. You simply cannot stop growing to fit an assumption.

By analogy, one can look at a tree seed and say it has no branches or leaves. But plant the seed and let it grow and there is no way to stop branches and leaves from appearing. Or one can look at the sprout and say there is no fruit. But let it grow and there is no way to stop the fruit from appearing. It does not matter which direction the tree grows to get the most sunlight and rain, or how many or few leaves develop. They will appear.

As to the automated part of the brain, the prefrontal neocortex (which holds the volition part of the mind) can process about 40 sensory inputs per second. The rest of the brain does between 11 million and 19 million depending on who you read. That's a hell of a disparity for the non-automation argument.

I believe Rand overreached on the either-or front. It's not either-or. It's both volition and instincts.

But once again, I do not agree she developed her reasoning from the survival premise by "wish fulfillment." In fact, if you remove the either-or scope issue, her reasoning for a more restricted application is not only sound, it is insightful.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

Tabula rasa can only mean conceptual knowledge. The infant starts out with zip. The brain grows aided by the nature/nurture ratio. "Instinct" is a label used for knowledge place holding, aka ignorance--or, if you will, a shortcut to a more fruitful discussion about something else. You can talk about instinct until the cows come home, then through the night, then the cows go out again and end up every time where you started, in Erewhon.

--Brant

moo!

[anthony]

Right, MSK. The tendency is always to over-state and simplify an argument, ignoring exceptions, or our biological nature, when meeting opposing opinions. I can be guilty too...:-}

This is one of those areas I think must have been self-evident (to Rand) - and a whole book could be written on 'the self-evident' in Objectivism - implicit in the term "rational animal". Some instincts and some automation survived in us, but nothing like animals have, I suspect.

I echo Brant, conceptual knowledge was THE difference in her scheme of things.

I saw once the behavior of several species of animal in the veld during a heavy downpour of rain. Many headed for the highest terrain, indicating that flood danger was an instinct to them. Humans without the experience or lacking the concept of gravity, might not have survived.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

If you want to know the truth, the process of forming concepts is an instinct in itself. It's an automatic survival behavior. Try to get a child to develop without forming any concepts. He can't not do it.

The thing is, forming concepts is like breathing. It is both instinctual and voluntary. To do it optimally and without crazy crossovers, superstitions, etc., you have to voluntarily discipline it. But if you don't, your brain will still get by integrating a crapload of concepts automatically. And these concepts will be mostly correct in terms of survival.

The point about instinct and tabula rasa with the growing brain is an insinuation in the manner Rand presents it. She outright stated that forming concepts is voluntary, even learning to see is voluntary if I remember the passage in ITOE correctly.

This implies that the only reason higher-level concepts are not available to an infant is because it has not learned the lower level concepts (and percepts), yet.

And that sounds good on the surface, but it is not accurate. An infant is physically incapable of integrating higher levels of abstraction. Why? There is no material to do it with. The physical neurons are not there. That's the point. These neurons appear over time like the branches and leaves of a tree.

So it's a false dichotomy to claim tabula rasa vs. instinct. The growth factor needs to be present.

As to knowledge, to the degree an infant can integrate, it has already done a lot of that in the womb. It comes with a lot of innate knowledge.

And there is a lot of evidence that children have innate value judgments of external things (based on what? hmmmm? ) For example, lots of infants are automatically afraid of snakes and snake-like things. Where did they learn to be afraid of that? They didn't. It just came as they grew and learned to see.

Michael