The Rise of the Global South

[Dragonfly]

Ellen, on a desert island there are NO ethical questions. Only survival. Who can one wrong on a desert island? Only one's self and that is more like making an arithmetical error than commiting a sin. If I hit my thumb with a hammer that is not an ethical defect, it is just bad aim. Anything one does to himself that harms no one else is not an ethical breach. It may be a silly act, it may be a self harmful act, it may even be fatal but it is never a morally or ethically wrong act. One has a right to do anything to himself that does not harm another. One of the benefits of self-ownership.

I completely agree.

[Chris Grieb]

Ba'al and Dragonfly; You both might want to look at pages 1018 in Galt's speech in Atlas Shrugged. Miss Rand had discussed the issue far better than I could.

[BaalChatzaf]

Ba'al and Dragonfly; You both might want to look at pages 1018 in Galt's speech in Atlas Shrugged. Miss Rand had discussed the issue far better than I could.

I am underwhelmed. She conflates morally right/wrong with factually right/wrong. Thinking/not-Thinking is NOT a moral choice. It is an operative choice. Refusal to think is not a moral issue, unless it impinges on fiduciary responsibility where the interests of other folks may be negatively impacted. A doctor who refuses to think is a danger to his patients. The sole resident of a desert island refusal to think is only a danger to himself. Since he owns himself, he has a right to do or not do anything whatsoever to himself. One of the benefits of self ownership.

On a desert island one needs the wits to survive and to use those wits if survival is the goal. That is not a moral issue. It is an operative issue. Does one wish to keep on living? That is an alternative. It has no more moral import than choosing which flavor of ice cream to have for dessert. One has no duty to keep on living. One has no duty to flourish. Failure or refusal to flourish is not a moral defect. To whom (besides oneself) does one have the obligation to flourish? Answer: no one. Live or Die. Vanilla or Strawberry. Right or Left (at a cross road). Simply alternatives. There is no inherent morality to the choice.

Rand's thinking is muddled. She confuses different senses of right/wrong. There is factually correct or incorrect. There is logically correct or incorrect. There is ethically correct or incorrect. These are separate senses of correct/incorrect. I respectfully differ with John Galt (who is Ayn Rand's idea puppet). Making an arithmetic error (unintentionally with no intent to deceive) is not a moral defect. It is just a mistake. It happens all the time. The only thing to do is detect the error and correct it (assuming one wants the correct answer). She does the same thing with Francisco's discourse with Reardon. Francisco likens correct metalurgy to correct morality. He equates using the correct mix of alloys with correct moral choices. I consider this conflation of meaning a -categorical error-.. There or two kinds of "oughts" (at least). One is a moral ought and the other is the ought of matching means with ends. In a chess game in which there is only one move to avoid checkmate one -ought- to make that move if one wishes to keep on playing. But suppose one wishes to lose? Or does not care if he wins or not? Then what? It is not a moral issue. It is a tactical issue.

I do not share her premise nor is her premise axiomatic or self evident. It can be denied without producing a logical contradiction. The problem with Objectivists is they believe every one of Rand's assumptions are axiomatic and necessarily correct. It just is not so.

I guess this is one of the places I part company with the Objectivists. Rand is a compulsive Pro Flourisher. I am not. I flourish because I choose to and I choose to just because. There is no external obligation for me to be as good at my favorite activities as I try to be. I do so just because I feel like doing so and for no other reason. And if I chose to vegetate and go to rust and rot, that is my right. It so happens I choose not to.

Another place where I part company with the Objectivists is that I believe some facts are contingent. The laws of physics do not require all facts to be as they are (I speak here of natural facts, not man made facts). Some electrons spin up in Stern-Gerlach magnetic fields, some spin down (half and half). Electrons do not carry a sign saying I am an up (or down) spinning electron. There is no evidence for hidden causative variables. In fact such variables would contradict the experiments that have falsified the Bell Inequalities.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Edited October 31, 2007 by BaalChatzaf

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I am underwhelmed. She conflates morally right/wrong with factually right/wrong.

Bob,

Be underwhelmed if you like, disagree if you like, but please do a better job of representing Rand's ideas. You've got them all muddled up. The error starts with this sentence and what follows simply compounds one error on top of another.

Rand does not "conflate morally right/wrong with factually right/wrong" as if they were synonyms or parts of the same whole and indivisible from each other. (She has gone to great lengths to show how a person can be mistaken but not morally wrong.) Sorry, but you are disagreeing with something in your head, not in Rand's writing.

Michael

[BaalChatzaf]

I am underwhelmed. She conflates morally right/wrong with factually right/wrong.

Bob,

Be underwhelmed if you like, disagree if you like, but please do a better job of representing Rand's ideas. You've got them all muddled up. The error starts with this sentence and what follows simply compounds one error on top of another.

Rand does not "conflate morally right/wrong with factually right/wrong" as if they were synonyms or parts of the same whole indivisible from each other. Sorry, but you are disagreeing with something in your head, not in Rand's writing.

Michael

I gave a specific example right from Atlas Shrugged, to wit, Francisco equating good metal working with moral correctness. I stand on my assertion and I have the text of Atlas Shrugged to back me up. I do not make up stuff out of whole cloth (as the proverb goes). I generally base my conclusions on either logic or fact. This time I have the text that Rand wrote to back me up. Do you claim my cite (a bit paraphrased) is incorrect? You see, I read the book. Unlike many Objectivists I read it first when I was 24 years old (and at least ten times since) and had already formulated my metaphysics -- Reality Lite. I appreciated (and still do) Rand's position on Capitalism and government. But I do not buy either her metaphysical or epistemological package in the entirety. I concur with the parts that fit with my system -- Reality Lite. I do not accept the other stuff.

I did the work when I was younger. I went though my Korzybski General Semantics phase and came out the other end with my wits intact. The rest I did with no help from a guru. The problem is that many Objectivists become Objectivists when they are too young. They take up the philosophy more as a religion than as a mode of dealing with facts and ideas. Philosophy is a tool, not a sacrament. Anyone who worships a hammer, a screwdriver or even a computer or a philosophical system is an idol worshiper. Anyone who regards philosophy as a religion is committing a troublesome and potentially serious error. How many would-be wanna-be Objectivists do you know who have fucked up their feelings and thoughts? Hard repression is not always a healthy thing, nor is being ueber judgmental. We may not be sinners, but we are error prone from birth. We should learn to live with that. I see some Objectivsts striving to be Perfect. They are doomed to failure.

You see, Nature does not give one good god damn what you or I think. We, in the cosmic sense, are little or nothing. We are dust in the wind. We live a short time (by cosmic standards). We are here for an eye blink. In the long run none of us matter. Given our cosmic triviality we should be modest about attaching importance to our ideas. As intelligent primates we should regard our ideas as Monkey Business, quite literally. At most we are the baddest, smartest apes in The Monkey House.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Selene]

I am underwhelmed. She conflates morally right/wrong with factually right/wrong.

Bob,

Be underwhelmed if you like, disagree if you like, but please do a better job of representing Rand's ideas. You've got them all muddled up. The error starts with this sentence and what follows simply compounds one error on top of another.

Rand does not "conflate morally right/wrong with factually right/wrong" as if they were synonyms or parts of the same whole and indivisible from each other. (She has gone to great lengths to show how a person can be mistaken but not morally wrong.) Sorry, but you are disagreeing with something in your head, not in Rand's writing.

Michael

Nice! Michael you "nailed" the logical error of the "Straw Man", essentially, Ba'al equate's another person's actual words or statements as being the way he selectively distorted or selectively "retained" and then you attack the selectively distorted statement and refute the statements that the person did not say and does not mean.

Too many people fall into this "comfortable" trap. Ninety percent [90%] of current main stream media cover political discourse exactly this way. Compare it to the C-Span debate between Christopher Hitchens and Dinesh D'Souza on the existence of God.

[BaalChatzaf]

Nice! Michael you "nailed" the logical error of the "Straw Man", essentially, Ba'al equate's another person's actual words or statements as being the way he selectively distorted or selectively "retained" and then you attack the selectively distorted statement and refute the statements that the person did not say and does not mean.

Too many people fall into this "comfortable" trap. Ninety percent [90%] of current main stream media cover political discourse exactly this way. Compare it to the C-Span debate between Christopher Hitchens and Dinesh D'Souza on the existence of God.

Look at page 451 of hard cover edition of AS and tell me how mistaken I am.

Francisco says Rearden "You are one of the last moral men". Rearden asks why that was said. Francisco points to the steel mills.

I stand on what I said.

Making steel is a technical issue, not a moral issue. Making steel well (which requires difficult technical decisions) is not different in the essence than playing chess well. One selects a goal (the ends) and then selects the best means for achieving the goal. Where is the moral import? If one wishes to succeed in selling steel in a competitive market one must make a good* (i.e. high quality) product.

Ba'al Chataf

*notice how our language almost forces conflation of moral and non-moral matters upon us. What does "good" mean. It could mean morally sound. It could also mean in conformance with a standard as "this is a good fit" or "that is a bad move". Language is a tricky beast and we must not let it sneak up on us.

Edited October 31, 2007 by BaalChatzaf

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Bob,

I am hopeful that one day you finally understand what the word "context" means in Objectivism.

Michael

[BaalChatzaf]

Bob,

I am hopeful that one day you finally understand what the word "context" means in Objectivism.

Michael

I already know the context and better than you. Rand operates within the Eudaimian context of Aristotle's Ethics. I have spent half a semester sweating out -The Nichomachean Ethics- by Aristotle. Aristotle formulates ethics in terms of the intrinsics of virtue (among which is justice the temperance). He concludes that those who possess these virtues will behave well in society and in fact he uses the ultimate happiness of the Polis as his standard of goodness for ethics. Like Plato, Aristotle equates the goods of the Polis with goodness of the individual Soul. So Aristotle was not all that far from Plato's position as set out in -The Republic-. Aristotle does not define virtue in terms of how well A treats B. He concludes that if A is virtuous, then A will treat B well and not basely.

Have you read -The Nichomachean Ethics-? Try it, you might learn something. Aristotle was a Statist for starters. His main measure of goodness was the health and good of the Polis, not the individual within it. Aristotle did not object to slavery either. Are you surprised? He was also an elitist. He contrasted the opinions of the wise with the opinions of the many.

That having been said, I do not buy Aristotle's ethical package any more than I buy Rand's, but I understand what the issues are. There is nothing self evident or axiomatic about Aristotle's approach any more than Rand's approach. They have a position, with which one can agree or disagree.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Edited October 31, 2007 by BaalChatzaf

[Selene]

Bob,

I am hopeful that one day you finally understand what the word "context" means in Objectivism.

Michael

Michael you evil hope monger!

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Nice! Michael you "nailed" the logical error of the "Straw Man", essentially, Ba'al equate's another person's actual words or statements as being the way he selectively distorted or selectively "retained" and then you attack the selectively distorted statement and refute the statements that the person did not say and does not mean.

Selene,

I am sorry. I did not understand this. Are you saying that I am refuting statements that Rand did not say and did not mean?

My second paragraph was merely to show Bob where he got Rand's ideas wrong at the outset, by illustrating with the first idea. So I stated what he claimed, then stated what Rand actually said (and meant). Of course, she did not say that an error of judgment is not necessarily a breach of morality in the section that was referenced (p. 1018 of AS), except implicitly by hammering on the theme that the moral is the chosen, but she did say that many times throughout her writings. Those familiar with her writings know this. Maybe she did not say it as much as "A is A," but she did say it quite often. Still, maybe this was not a good presumption to make. Was this the lack of clarity you are objecting to? If so, I agree that I should have qualified that. I sometimes write too fast.

Michael

[Selene]

Nice! Michael you "nailed" the logical error of the "Straw Man", essentially, Ba'al equate's another person's actual words or statements as being the way he selectively distorted or selectively "retained" and then you attack the selectively distorted statement and refute the statements that the person did not say and does not mean.

Selene,

I am sorry. I did not understand this. Are you saying that I am refuting statements that Rand did not say and did not mean?

My second paragraph was merely to show Bob where he got Rand's ideas wrong at the outset, by illustrating with the first idea. So I stated what he claimed, then stated what Rand actually said (and meant). Of course, she did not say that an error of judgment is not necessarily a breach of morality in the section that was referenced (p. 1018 of AS), except implicitly by hammering on the theme that the moral is the chosen, but she did say that many times throughout her writings. Those familiar with her writings know this. Maybe she did not say it as much as "A is A," but she did say it quite often. Still, maybe this was not a good presumption to make. Was this the lack of clarity you are objecting to? If so, I agree that I should have qualified that. I sometimes write too fast.

Michael

Not at all. The Straw Man argument about what Rand allegedly meant was not accurate. It was Ba'al's Straw Man which you refuted by stating what she actually meant when she said those words and you put them in the broader scope of her thought.

I thought it was a perfect refutation. It reminds me of a question that was raised out of the audience at one of the hugely attended first sessions of the NBI - Objectivisms 1st grade class on the "ABC's of Objectivism" is my name for the Intro Course. I would attend the first sessions each year to recruit people for politics.

I young wide-eyed boy, raised his hand and got called on by Ayn. He tremblingly asked her a hypothetical about a town with only one pharmacy that is closed on Sunday and a woman's baby is very ill and the Dr. gives her a perscription and she knocks on the pharmacy[conveniantly, the pharmacist lived on the premises] and he refuses to open the door because it is Sunday and he is closed. And the student said, but Ms. Rand he has no right to deny that medicine to the child!

I cringed and covered my mouth because I knew I was about to start to laugh because I knew how she would answer.

She of course said, in her throaty cigarette enhanced voice, something to the effect that the poor patsy had mixed premises, etc., [we've all heard the tape if we ever went to NBI in the early years].

And, essentially, she was right in stating that yes the man did have the "right" to refuse to open the door and use the time she spent berating the poor fool[suffer fools wisely does make sense to me] to place it in context.

My statement on the Straw Man was a complement. Maybe I should learn to type faster! LOL

[Dragonfly]

Sometimes Bob says weird things, but this time he's right on the money.

Rand:

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.

Claiming (when you are alone on a desert island) that a rock is a house and that sand is clothing is not immoral, it's just very bad science. Bad ideas may be dumb, but they are not immoral as long as they don't harm anyone else.

There or two kinds of "oughts" (at least). One is a moral ought and the other is the ought of matching means with ends.

Exactly, and here you see an example of the latter: if you want to survive on that island you "ought" to have better science than the example given above, but this is a very different "ought" from "you ought not to murder your neighbor just while you don't like his face".

[tjohnson]

Rand:

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.

This passage is bewildering to me - I cannot even begin to imagine what she is talking about.

[merjet]

Here is the first meaning of "moral" from here and my Webster's New World Dictionary:

moral -- relating to, dealing with, or capable of making the distinction between right and wrong in conduct

Note there is no qualifier "toward other people" or similar one. Rand clearly used it in that sense. Such use is not uncommon. See here for the goal-seeking framework and the juridical framework.

If somebody chooses to use "moral" in only the "judicial framework" (or social context), it's understandable and common. But it doesn't make the other usage wrong.

Carry on.

[Selene]

Rand:

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.

This passage is bewildering to me - I cannot even begin to imagine what she is talking about.

Rand was not a competent forensic persuader. She was a romantic novelist with a semi-fleshed out philosophy that I believe is true, to a high degree.

I will hazard a guess, and it is a guess, about what she was attempting to assert as an axiom. I am doing this in the crystal of my official Ayn Rand Crystal Ball which is like a decoder ring you used to buy from Madison Avenue commercials in the 1950's.

I think she was making a reference to her "question" what is the nature of man? His "nature" which separates him from all other creatures is his ability to think and act in his own self-preservation. Then there are about another 20 proofs and examples that she has used, but I don't have the time now to even attempt it.

I can totally understand everyones confusion with some of her leaps, but they are the result of insight and she did a poor job in this quote, if that was the point she was making.

However, the Official Ayn Rand Crystal Ball is very misty on some days. LOL

[tjohnson]

Maybe she meant you would need morale the most - sort of makes sense.

Edited October 31, 2007 by general semanticist

[BaalChatzaf]

Rand was not a competent forensic persuader. She was a romantic novelist with a semi-fleshed out philosophy that I believe is true, to a high degree.

I will hazard a guess, and it is a guess, about what she was attempting to assert as an axiom. I am doing this in the crystal of my official Ayn Rand Crystal Ball which is like a decoder ring you used to buy from Madison Avenue commercials in the 1950's.

I think she was making a reference to her "question" what is the nature of man? His "nature" which separates him from all other creatures is his ability to think and act in his own self-preservation. Then there are about another 20 proofs and examples that she has used, but I don't have the time now to even attempt it.

I can totally understand everyones confusion with some of her leaps, but they are the result of insight and she did a poor job in this quote, if that was the point she was making.

However, the Official Ayn Rand Crystal Ball is very misty on some days. LOL

Rand was saying that one needs his wits to survive when one is the only agent around. Doh! I never would have known if she hadn't said. What this has to do with morality is beyond me. Moral or not, one needs someone who can think in order to survive. If not one's self then someone else. On a desert island there is no one else, hence one either uses his wits (if he has them) or he dies. It is rather sample.

The connection with ethics and morality eludes me.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Selene]

Rand was not a competent forensic persuader. She was a romantic novelist with a semi-fleshed out philosophy that I believe is true, to a high degree.

I will hazard a guess, and it is a guess, about what she was attempting to assert as an axiom. I am doing this in the crystal of my official Ayn Rand Crystal Ball which is like a decoder ring you used to buy from Madison Avenue commercials in the 1950's.

I think she was making a reference to her "question" what is the nature of man? His "nature" which separates him from all other creatures is his ability to think and act in his own self-preservation. Then there are about another 20 proofs and examples that she has used, but I don't have the time now to even attempt it.

I can totally understand everyones confusion with some of her leaps, but they are the result of insight and she did a poor job in this quote, if that was the point she was making.

However, the Official Ayn Rand Crystal Ball is very misty on some days. LOL

Rand was saying that one needs his wits to survive when one is the only agent around. Doh! I never would have known if she hadn't said. What this has to do with morality is beyond me. Moral or not, one needs someone who can think in order to survive. If not one's self then someone else. On a desert island there is no one else, hence one either uses his wits (if he has them) or he dies. It is rather sample.

The connection with ethics and morality eludes me.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Ba'al, do yourself a favor and try not to understand her, it is way below your pay grade.

[Selene]

Maybe she meant you would need morale the most - sort of makes sense.

Good one! LOL

[merjet]

Have you read -The Nichomachean Ethics-? Try it, you might learn something. Aristotle was a Statist for starters. His main measure of goodness was the health and good of the Polis, not the individual within it.

I haven't read Nichomachean Ethics in a long time, but this seems quite a stretch. Much of the book is about virtues and eudaimonia, which apply more to an individual person than a polity. Then there is part of Chap. 2, italics mine: "For even if the end is the same for a single man and for the state, that of the state seems at all events something greater and more complete whether to attain or to preserve; though it is worth while to attain the end merely for one man, it is finer and more godlike to attain it for a nation or city-states."

[Selene]

Have you read -The Nichomachean Ethics-? Try it, you might learn something. Aristotle was a Statist for starters. His main measure of goodness was the health and good of the Polis, not the individual within it.

I haven't read Nichomachean Ethics in a long time, but this seems quite a stretch. Much of the book is about virtues and eudaimonia, which apply more to an individual person than a polity. Then there is part of Chap. 2, italics mine: "For even if the end is the same for a single man and for the state, that of the state seems at all events something greater and more complete whether to attain or to preserve; though it is worth while to attain the end merely for one man, it is finer and more godlike to attain it for a nation or city-states."

It's not a stretch for Ba'al the rubber band man.

[BaalChatzaf]

Have you read -The Nichomachean Ethics-? Try it, you might learn something. Aristotle was a Statist for starters. His main measure of goodness was the health and good of the Polis, not the individual within it.

I haven't read Nichomachean Ethics in a long time, but this seems quite a stretch. Much of the book is about virtues and eudaimonia, which apply more to an individual person than a polity. Then there is part of Chap. 2, italics mine: "For even if the end is the same for a single man and for the state, that of the state seems at all events something greater and more complete whether to attain or to preserve; though it is worth while to attain the end merely for one man, it is finer and more godlike to attain it for a nation or city-states."

That is the very quote I was going to give. It is finer and more godlike to attain it for a nation or a city-state.

Aristotle is a statist, straight up and plain as day. He considers the polis greater than the individual.

Also read the end of Book 10 where he connects the Nichomachean Ethics to his book on Politics.

This is not a stretch. Both Aristotle and Plato considered the State (Polis) greater than the individual person. Aristotle is neither democratic nor libertarian. He is just less blatant a statist than is Plato. There was no John Lock in ancient Greece.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Selene]

Have you read -The Nichomachean Ethics-? Try it, you might learn something. Aristotle was a Statist for starters. His main measure of goodness was the health and good of the Polis, not the individual within it.

I haven't read Nichomachean Ethics in a long time, but this seems quite a stretch. Much of the book is about virtues and eudaimonia, which apply more to an individual person than a polity. Then there is part of Chap. 2, italics mine: "For even if the end is the same for a single man and for the state, that of the state seems at all events something greater and more complete whether to attain or to preserve; though it is worth while to attain the end merely for one man, it is finer and more godlike to attain it for a nation or city-states."

That is the very quote I was going to give. It is finer and more godlike to attain it for a nation or a city-state.

Aristotle is a statist, straight up and plain as day. He considers the polis greater than the individual.

Also read the end of Book 10 where he connects the Nichomachean Ethics to his book on Politics.

This is not a stretch. Both Aristotle and Plato considered the State (Polis) greater than the individual person. Aristotle is neither democratic nor libertarian. He is just less blatant a statist than is Plato. There was no John Lock in ancient Greece.

Ba'al Chatzaf

And presuming that I stipulate that that is true, the connection to Rand is ?????????.

[BaalChatzaf]

And presuming that I stipulate that that is true, the connection to Rand is ?????????.

Rand is in Aristotle's camp. She conveniently ignored Aristotle's statist position in order to embrace other of his doctrines. In particular Rand is an Eudaimonian from start to finish. She is pro-flourishing and she presents this in the guise (but not the words) of a duty. Read page 100 of the hard cover edition of AS. That is why her notion of ethics (and morality) is not predicated on how party A relates to party B.

"No matter how good you are I will expect you to wring everything you've got trying still to be better". That is what Francisco said to Dagny. Of course that is Rand talking (or writing). Eudaimonian clean through and down to the molecular level. It is one thing to use this measure as a personal standard, it is quite another to lay this trip on another human being. WTF does Francisco think he is? That requires more chutzpah than even I have and that is going some.

Ba'al Chatzaf