Plato and Kant

[Ellen Stuttle]

I would be interested if someone could find her first wording in which she said (I'm almost sure) "in terms of his effect" without the ad hominem. I think it is in Galt's Speech. There's lots in the Lexicon from Leonard Peikoff, along with AR's vitriol on the subject, but the only quote from the Speech I see in the Lexicon (maybe I'm not looking closely enough; several pages of quotes) pertains to "sacrifice" and doesn't mention Kant by name.

Ellen -

I do not recall Kant's name coming up in Galt's speech, or elsewhere in Atlas Shrugged. And I just did an electronic search, and did not find it there.

Alfonso

Te-he, I just signed back on to say, on second thought, no, I don't think it was in Galt's Speech; late night, fuggy head. The style isn't right for the Speech. "For the New Intellectual" is by far the more likely original statement.

Ellen

___

[Alfonso Jones]

I would be interested if someone could find her first wording in which she said (I'm almost sure) "in terms of his effect" without the ad hominem. I think it is in Galt's Speech. There's lots in the Lexicon from Leonard Peikoff, along with AR's vitriol on the subject, but the only quote from the Speech I see in the Lexicon (maybe I'm not looking closely enough; several pages of quotes) pertains to "sacrifice" and doesn't mention Kant by name.

Ellen -

I do not recall Kant's name coming up in Galt's speech, or elsewhere in Atlas Shrugged. And I just did an electronic search, and did not find it there.

Alfonso

Te-he, I just signed back on to say, on second thought, no, I don't think it was in Galt's Speech; late night, fuggy head. The style isn't right for the Speech. "For the New Intellectual" is by far the more likely original statement.

Ellen

___

Ellen -

I tried all of For The New Intellectual, in particularly the introductory essay, and didn't find anything either. Quite a few Kant mentions, but nothing deat on target with your specifics. She does blame Kant for "closing the door of philosophy on reason." Now, she does not (that I have noticed) EXPLICITLy call Kant evil in that document (published 1961, I think). She does indicate that he closed the door to reason, attempted to save altruist morality, etc...

By the way - I notice her footnote on her indebtedness to NB for the Attila and Witch Doctor images remains in the current edition!

Alfonso

[studiodekadent]

Why the emphasis on Kant by Rand and followers? Rand abhorred Kant as defender of altruism and Christian ethics, and as being willing to sacrifice reason to save altruism. Again, rightly so.

I disagree here. I do not believe Kant defended Altruism. It is true Kant defended a selfless ethic (i.e. one could not live for oneself), but he did not advocate that people live for the sake of others. Altruism is a theory about what you should live for (you should live for others, according to altruism), selflessness is a proposition of what you should not live for (i.e. the self, according to this proposition).

Kant stated that an action is good if it is done out of a motive of duty towards one's principles, and that these principles are developed independently (3rd formulation of the categorical imperative), and these principles are logically universalizable (1st formulation). So yes, it is a selfless ethic, but not one of "live for others." Rather, it is an ethic of "live for the sake of logically universalizable principles."

Needless to say, I still disagree with Kant's ethics. However, he is not an altruist in the Comtean sense.

[Alfonso Jones]

Why the emphasis on Kant by Rand and followers? Rand abhorred Kant as defender of altruism and Christian ethics, and as being willing to sacrifice reason to save altruism. Again, rightly so.

I disagree here. I do not believe Kant defended Altruism. It is true Kant defended a selfless ethic (i.e. one could not live for oneself), but he did not advocate that people live for the sake of others. Altruism is a theory about what you should live for (you should live for others, according to altruism), selflessness is a proposition of what you should not live for (i.e. the self, according to this proposition).

Kant stated that an action is good if it is done out of a motive of duty towards one's principles, and that these principles are developed independently (3rd formulation of the categorical imperative), and these principles are logically universalizable (1st formulation). So yes, it is a selfless ethic, but not one of "live for others." Rather, it is an ethic of "live for the sake of logically universalizable principles."

Needless to say, I still disagree with Kant's ethics. However, he is not an altruist in the Comtean sense.

Here is the relevant quote from Rand in her essay at the front of "For The New Intellectual"

"As to Kant's version of morality, it was appropriate to the kind of zombies that would inhabit that kind of universe: it consisted of total, abject selflessness. An action is moral, said Kant, only if one has no desire to perform it, but performs it out of a sense of duty and derives no benefit from it of any sort, neither material nor spiritual; a benefit destroys the moral value of an action. (Thus, if one has no desire to be evil, one cannot be good; if one has, one can.)

Those who accept any part of Kant's philosophy—metaphysical, epistemological or moral—deserve it."

I offer this to clarify what Rand said. What Kant said - I'll be happy to see others post quotes from Kant on the subject. That part of my library is half the way around the world right now.

Alfonso

[Ross Barlow]

Jesus H. Christ, Ellen, don’t you ever sleep?? You posted at (my) Indo-China Time of 3:21PM, which must be about your 4:21AM in the USA. All decent folks in America are asleep now. And I thought I was a night-hawk. What kind of person are you? Damn!

Anyway, Ellen [at a hideously indecent hour] writes, in her postscript:

<snip> ... Btw, ... "For the New Intellectual" is one of the two items I most wish Rand had never published. ... FNI, although it's a tour-de-force of writing which sweeps along like a tornado, is so incredibly simplistic as to amount to a sheer caricature of intellectual history.

I agree in the most part with you here, Ellen. It has taken me a long time to come to the same realization that Rand was presenting such a “simplistic” view of philosophy’s history. However, that being said, FNI really ignited my curiosity about intellectual history, basically converting me from a former student of comparative religious history to a student of the evolution of the secular Western philosophical tradition. My method has always been historical, so FNI was a great discovery for me. I still have a copy of FNI that I carried in the bush in Vietnam in my pants cargo pocket. It is filthy with sweat and mud – barely readable – but it meant a lot to me.

Although I appreciate Rand’s original point, only later did I see that Hume had great value in his attacks on religion and his part in the Scottish Enlightenment, where he traced the evolution of language and common law from what Hayek would later call a “spontaneous order.” Hume’s skepticism is often a refreshing antidote to religious faith. Hume probably helped contributed to his friend Adam Smith’s views on evolved order, aka, the “invisible hand.” Perhaps Hume was a difficult prick personally, but he really could write.

On Kant, I must confess that I have not studied him much, most likely because of Rand’s demonization of him early in my own intellectual development. He also, as has been pointed out in this thread, wrote very difficult and convoluted stuff. Rand planted such negative impressions of him – before I even tried to read him – that I could not muster up the strength and integrity of mind to look at him *objectively*.

(As a side-note, I tried reading commentary about Kant once before having any good philosophical training besides Rand’s basic outlines. It was my 20th birthday in Vietnam, and my dear mother had mailed a box of books to me, including Wilhelm Windelband’s *A History of Philosophy* in two volumes. This is a difficult and very abstract work by a Hegelian historian of ideas, and a student really should have some background in philosophy before diving into this masterful work. But I tried to wade right in and start in Volume Two about Kant. As we had celebrated my birthday earlier, I was quite stoned, and I preceded to get a horrible headache from straining my brain in this way. Eventually, it later took three attempts and five years before I was able to read Windelband’s *History* all the way through, but I will say that it is worth the trouble because of the wild intellectual ride he gives you through philosophy’s long career. A damn good book.)

Rand’s views on other aspects of the history of philosophy in FNI have retarded my understanding of many thinkers. I see her extreme and shrill moralizing about “evil” thinkers as pushing me into a non-objective attitude toward them. Because she was my first philosophy teacher when I was so young, and because she gave me so many very good and valuable foundational intellectual teachings and aesthetic joys, I accepted her authority. On faith, you could say. Shame on me. I should have asserted my intellectual independence and commitment to objectivity by questioning my Teacher earlier.

Don’t get me wrong: I have the greatest of respect and gratitude to Ayn Rand for her immeasurable contributions to my education and to the great and necessary shaking-up she applied to 20th century thought. But the fuller history of, and the evaluation of, world philosophical thinking will have to be worked out by going beyond the Master’s work while at the same time using her principles of commitment to reasoning.

.

-Ross Barlow.

[Alfonso Jones]

<snip> ... Btw, ... "For the New Intellectual" is one of the two items I most wish Rand had never published. ... FNI, although it's a tour-de-force of writing which sweeps along like a tornado, is so incredibly simplistic as to amount to a sheer caricature of intellectual history.

I agree in the most part with you here, Ellen. It has taken me a long time to come to the same realization that Rand was presenting such a "simplistic" view of philosophy's history. However, that being said, FNI really ignited my curiosity about intellectual history, basically converting me from a former student of comparative religious history to a student of the evolution of the secular Western philosophical tradition. My method has always been historical, so FNI was a great discovery for me. I still have a copy of FNI that I carried in the bush in Vietnam in my pants cargo pocket. It is filthy with sweat and mud – barely readable – but it meant a lot to me.

Rand was a quick study, and would read a paragraph or two from a philosopher and extrapolate quickly to what their thinking would be on a wide variety of subjects, its consequences, etc. Sometimes, by the accounts, from only a paraphrase from one of her followers.

The problem here of course is that such an extrapolation rests any possibility of validity on the philsopher being very consistent. In the absence of that, Rand could be saying in effect that Philosopher A SHOULD THINK THIS, GIVEN WHAT HE HAS SAID ON SOME OTHER TOPIC.

That said, I agree with Ellen - the writing in the introductory essay to For The New Intellectual is amazingly foreceful and persuasive.

Alfonso

[Daniel Barnes]

Rand was a quick study, and would read a paragraph or two from a philosopher and extrapolate quickly to what their thinking would be on a wide variety of subjects, its consequences, etc. Sometimes, by the accounts, from only a paraphrase from one of her followers.

The problem here of course is that such an extrapolation rests any possibility of validity on the philsopher being very consistent. In the absence of that, Rand could be saying in effect that Philosopher A SHOULD THINK THIS, GIVEN WHAT HE HAS SAID ON SOME OTHER TOPIC.

This is a rather amazing passage. Do you argue we should apply the same kind of critical standards to assessing Rand's own work, Alfonso?

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Rand was a quick study, and would read a paragraph or two from a philosopher and extrapolate quickly to what their thinking would be on a wide variety of subjects, its consequences, etc. Sometimes, by the accounts, from only a paraphrase from one of her followers.

The problem here of course is that such an extrapolation rests any possibility of validity on the philsopher being very consistent. In the absence of that, Rand could be saying in effect that Philosopher A SHOULD THINK THIS, GIVEN WHAT HE HAS SAID ON SOME OTHER TOPIC.

This is a rather amazing passage. Do you argue we should apply the same kind of critical standards to assessing Rand's own work, Alfonso?

Daniel,

Rand was extremely perceptive, but I will agree with you fully here. There is no excuse for anyone to emulate Rand's oversimplifications about several philosophers and thinkers. They are blemishes on her work and they should be treated as such.

Michael

[Alfonso Jones]

Rand was a quick study, and would read a paragraph or two from a philosopher and extrapolate quickly to what their thinking would be on a wide variety of subjects, its consequences, etc. Sometimes, by the accounts, from only a paraphrase from one of her followers.

The problem here of course is that such an extrapolation rests any possibility of validity on the philsopher being very consistent. In the absence of that, Rand could be saying in effect that Philosopher A SHOULD THINK THIS, GIVEN WHAT HE HAS SAID ON SOME OTHER TOPIC.

This is a rather amazing passage. Do you argue we should apply the same kind of critical standards to assessing Rand's own work, Alfonso?

I think the fact that I see the difficulty with this --- see that I term it a PROBLEM in the second paragraph --- shows that I see it as a dangerous practice.

Why would you want to consciously do less well than you know how to?

Alfonso

[Alfonso Jones]

Rand was a quick study, and would read a paragraph or two from a philosopher and extrapolate quickly to what their thinking would be on a wide variety of subjects, its consequences, etc. Sometimes, by the accounts, from only a paraphrase from one of her followers.

The problem here of course is that such an extrapolation rests any possibility of validity on the philsopher being very consistent. In the absence of that, Rand could be saying in effect that Philosopher A SHOULD THINK THIS, GIVEN WHAT HE HAS SAID ON SOME OTHER TOPIC.

This is a rather amazing passage. Do you argue we should apply the same kind of critical standards to assessing Rand's own work, Alfonso?

Daniel,

Rand was extremely perceptive, but I will agree with you fully here. There is no excuse for anyone to emulate Rand's oversimplifications about several philosophers and thinkers. They are blemishes on her work and they should be treated as such.

Michael

Of course. It should be obvious from what I wrote - when I referred to the PROBLEM with this - that I do not approve. I do not know why anyone would want to regard it as an endorsement. I have noted Rand's behavior. I have stated how it leads to a problem. If someone regards this as an endorsement of the behavior . . . I really do not know how to further communicate.

Alfonso

[Selene]

Rand was a quick study, and would read a paragraph or two from a philosopher and extrapolate quickly to what their thinking would be on a wide variety of subjects, its consequences, etc. Sometimes, by the accounts, from only a paraphrase from one of her followers.

The problem here of course is that such an extrapolation rests any possibility of validity on the philsopher being very consistent. In the absence of that, Rand could be saying in effect that Philosopher A SHOULD THINK THIS, GIVEN WHAT HE HAS SAID ON SOME OTHER TOPIC.

This is a rather amazing passage. Do you argue we should apply the same kind of critical standards to assessing Rand's own work, Alfonso?

Daniel,

Rand was extremely perceptive, but I will agree with you fully here. There is no excuse for anyone to emulate Rand's oversimplifications about several philosophers and thinkers. They are blemishes on her work and they should be treated as such.

Michael

Exactly, I used to get into major problems with the new crop of neophyites at NBI when I openly criticized her when she would do that. The atmosphere at the lectures was becoming toxic, so I left.

I have never been able to tolerate that kind of intellectual repression in any movement that I have worked with politically or socially.

[Reidy]

A point worth noting is that while Rand's ideas have gotten respect in recent years, her writings as historian and critic of philosophy have not attracted much attention from working academics, even the ones who admire her in other respects. She's in a long tradition here; interesting, original philosophers as far back as Plato have not been at their best when doing this. They tell us more about their own ideas than about the ones they are nominally talking about.

[Selene]

A point worth noting is that while Rand's ideas have gotten respect in recent years, her writings as historian and critic of philosophy have not attracted much attention from working academics, even the ones who admire her in other respects. She's in a long tradition here; interesting, original philosophers as far back as Plato have not been at their best when doing this. They tell us more about their own ideas than about the ones they are nominally talking about.

Thank you. You put into precise words what has always troubled me about the "great" philosophers, including Rand.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I do not know why anyone would want to regard it as an endorsement.

Alfonso,

I certainly do not think you are endorsing anything like that. I was writing strictly to Daniel in my post. I merely included yours because when I deleted it to shorten the quote, Daniel's post was left hanging meaning-wise. So I put yours back in as a reference.

Michael

[Ellen Stuttle]

Question re Plato and Korzybski:

If Plato's philosophy is Bad because it says that we don't perceive the real reality but instead a world of shadows, with the real reality being a world of Forms (that casts a dim light into our "cave"), isn't Korzybski's philosophy in the same Bad boat, with its claim that we don't perceive That Which We Abstract From (TWWAF), but we somehow know (how? answer still came there none) that the Formal language of mathematics is more "structurally similar" to TWWAF?

Ellen

PS: The query is posed "acontextually," by which I mean that I haven't yet read posts which have accumulated today. It's a thought which occurred as I was going about my chores.

___

[Selene]

I do not know why anyone would want to regard it as an endorsement.

Alfonso,

I certainly do not think you are endorsing anything like that. I was writing strictly to Daniel in my post. I merely included yours because when I deleted it to shorten the quote, Daniel's post was left hanging meaning-wise. So I put yours back in as a reference.

Michael

Nor did I. You were quite clear in your post.

[tjohnson]

Question re Plato and Korzybski:

If Plato's philosophy is Bad because it says that we don't perceive the real reality but instead a world of shadows, with the real reality being a world of Forms (that casts a dim light into our "cave"), isn't Korzybski's philosophy in the same Bad boat, with its claim that we don't perceive That Which We Abstract From (TWWAF), but we somehow know (how? answer still came there none) that the Formal language of mathematics is more "structurally similar" to TWWAF?

Ellen

PS: The query is posed "acontextually," by which I mean that I haven't yet read posts which have accumulated today. It's a thought which occurred as I was going about my chores.

___

Let me summarize my view of Korzybski's ideas;

1. TWWAF has some structure

2. We can perceive structure with our nervous system from TWWAF

3. We can create languages with structure based on perceived structure

4. We can test the linguistic structure empirically through experiments and modify it when required

We never "know" the absolute structure of TWWAF, all we can do is produce "maps" of it and compare "maps" of it. I have never read Plato so I can't comment on what he said.

Edited November 2, 2007 by general semanticist

[Ellen Stuttle]

Another Plato/Korzybski comparison:

I've long thought that something Plato was getting at with his world of Forms was the relative permanence, the "timelessness," of Ideas by contrast to the changingness of the flow of ongoing experience. Korzybski's idea of man-the-"time-binder" seems similar (from what I've picked up about it reading GS's posts; I've never read Korzybski). I'm not knocking this idea; I find it metaphorically powerful. I suspect, too, that it has similarities to Popper's "World Three" (still haven't gotten very far reading Objective Knowledge though I've started it; I want to finish Dawkins' The God Delusion first so I can talk about/argue about that with Lee Pierson at Thanksgiving).

Ellen

___

Edited November 2, 2007 by Ellen Stuttle

[Ellen Stuttle]

Jesus H. Christ, Ellen, don’t you ever sleep?? You posted at (my) Indo-China Time of 3:21PM, which must be about your 4:21AM in the USA. All decent folks in America are asleep now. And I thought I was a night-hawk. What kind of person are you? Damn!

Anyway, Ellen [at a hideously indecent hour] writes, in her postscript:

Ross,

Hi! I blipped in basically just to say "hi" to you. Surely you know I'm no more a "decent folk" than you are! ;-) As to night-hawk hours -- unregenerate. "Creatures of the night...Such music they make."

Re FNI, you write:

[....] It has taken me a long time to come to the same realization that Rand was presenting such a “simplistic” view of philosophy’s history. However, that being said, FNI really ignited my curiosity about intellectual history, basically converting me from a former student of comparative religious history to a student of the evolution of the secular Western philosophical tradition. My method has always been historical, so FNI was a great discovery for me. I still have a copy of FNI that I carried in the bush in Vietnam in my pants cargo pocket. It is filthy with sweat and mud – barely readable – but it meant a lot to me.

I'm happy to hear that it was a great discovery for you -- even if it was a somewhat mixed great discovery, because of the off-putting effect of her negative assessments.

I think your experience wasn't what happened with most of her admirers. Instead of their curiosity about intellectual history being ignited, I think the usual result was to give them the idea that there wasn't anything worth looking into.

I hope to say more later about other of your remarks. Have to scoot now, but wanted to say "hi."

Ellen

___

[Daniel Barnes]

Alfonso:

I think the fact that I see the difficulty with this --- see that I term it a PROBLEM in the second paragraph --- shows that I see it as a dangerous practice.

OK, thank you for clarifying. It seemed to me however that you were saying it wasn't problem for Rand.

Rand was a quick study, and would read a paragraph or two from a philosopher and extrapolate quickly to what their thinking would be on a wide variety of subjects, its consequences, etc. Sometimes, by the accounts, from only a paraphrase from one of her followers.

The problem here of course is that such an extrapolation rests any possibility of validity on the philsopher being very consistent. In the absence of that, Rand could be saying in effect that Philosopher A SHOULD THINK THIS, GIVEN WHAT HE HAS SAID ON SOME OTHER TOPIC.

You seemed to be saying that the problem with such a practice is not that Rand might make incorrect guesses given such scanty study, but that other philosophers might be insufficiently consistent! In other words, if Rand is wrong about a philosopher, this is due to the philosopher.

But it seems is not what you meant, so thank you for clearing that up.

(Incidentally, I agree with Mike that Rand could be extremely perceptive.)

Edited November 2, 2007 by Daniel Barnes

[studiodekadent]

Here is the relevant quote from Rand in her essay at the front of "For The New Intellectual"

"As to Kant's version of morality, it was appropriate to the kind of zombies that would inhabit that kind of universe: it consisted of total, abject selflessness. An action is moral, said Kant, only if one has no desire to perform it, but performs it out of a sense of duty and derives no benefit from it of any sort, neither material nor spiritual; a benefit destroys the moral value of an action. (Thus, if one has no desire to be evil, one cannot be good; if one has, one can.)

I dont care what Rand wrote in For The New Intellectual. FTNI as an essay oversimplified and strawmanned a hell of a lot of philosophers. Regardless of the fact that I agree with the essentials of Rand's positive philosophy (i.e. what she said was true), I do not agree with a substantial amount of her rebukes to other philosophers. For one, she interprets Kant as a hyper-skeptic. Kant scholars have debated over this for years, and although Kant's intellectual heirs (the German Idealists, then Nietzsche, then the Postmodernists) certainly have influenced academia towards Kant-derived skepticism, it is arguable whether Kant himself was a skeptic. Rand may have been correct about the consequences of Kant, she was incorrect about Kant himself.

I also think Rand treated the British Empiricists far too harshly.

Regardless, Kant's morality did not say that benefitting from doing an action makes it worthless. Kant was a Deontologist, he cared nothing for the consequences. Kant said "To be beneficient where one can is duty; and besides this, there are many persons so sympathetically constituted that without any motive of vanity or self-interest they find a pleasure in spreading joy around them, and can take delight in the satisfaction of others so far as it is their own work. But I maintain that in such a case an action of this kind, however amiable and proper it may be, has nevertheless no true moral worth, but is on a level with other inclinations"

In other words, the only relevant factor to Kant is the motivation. Rand was correct that according to Kant, if one wants to do good then one cannot (this is indicated by the Kant quote), since that would be acting out of inclination rather than duty. But this is not about actual consequences but about motivations. According to Kant, the only proper motivation is duty towards logically-universalizable principles.

This is selflessness, but it is not altruism. Indeed, Kant's ethical theory includes "self-improvement" as a prima-facie duty, which seems compatible with self-interest consequentially-speaking, but is not compatible when we are talking about motives. In order to sneak self-interest in, one cannot do it out of self-interest (i.e. one must do it out of duty).

I disagree with Kant's morality, but Rand's characterization of it is incorrect and strawmannish. It would be better for her to have trained her guns on Comte, whose ethic truly is the opposite to Rand's.

Edited November 3, 2007 by studiodekadent

[Alfonso Jones]

Alfonso:

I think the fact that I see the difficulty with this --- see that I term it a PROBLEM in the second paragraph --- shows that I see it as a dangerous practice.

OK, thank you for clarifying. It seemed to me however that you were saying it wasn't problem for Rand.

Rand was a quick study, and would read a paragraph or two from a philosopher and extrapolate quickly to what their thinking would be on a wide variety of subjects, its consequences, etc. Sometimes, by the accounts, from only a paraphrase from one of her followers.

The problem here of course is that such an extrapolation rests any possibility of validity on the philsopher being very consistent. In the absence of that, Rand could be saying in effect that Philosopher A SHOULD THINK THIS, GIVEN WHAT HE HAS SAID ON SOME OTHER TOPIC.

You seemed to be saying that the problem with such a practice is not that Rand might make incorrect guesses given such scanty study, but that other philosophers might be insufficiently consistent! In other words, if Rand is wrong about a philosopher, this is due to the philosopher.

But it seems is not what you meant, so thank you for clearing that up.

(Incidentally, I agree with Mike that Rand could be extremely perceptive.)

Actually, both of the points are valid, I think.

1) When Rand extrapolated from a scant reading of a thinker, Rand could be making an error of extrapolation - even if the thinker were perfectly consistent. Extrapolation on minimal data is always risky.

2) When Rand extrapolated from a scant reading of a thinker's writing on topics A and B what that thinker should, to be consistent, think about C and D, then the extrapolation could be wrong due to the philosopher being inconsistent.

I don't know how to avoid noting that BOTH of these are possibilities. (In addition to the possibility that the extrapolation could be spot on!)

I wouldn't want someone to do that sort of extrapolation with me, and think it very risky. When I look at the things Rand wrote that are worrisome, many of them are of the form of either this sort of extrapolation or are of the form of imputing motives to someone (we can perhaps call the practice "psychologizing"!) for which there is no evidence. The latter error led, through the thinking of LP, to "Fact and Value." And I think we are all aware of how badly reasoned that piece was.

When someone says that they never had an emotion they couldn't explain - I wonder if they were either repressing a lot of emotions or constructing explanations which seemed to explain, but really were not explanatory. I remember a professor I had in graduate school who liked to say "Give me any phenomonen and I can explain it. It may be the wrong explanation, but I will have an explanation."

Alfonso

[Selene]

Here is the relevant quote from Rand in her essay at the front of "For The New Intellectual"

"As to Kant's version of morality, it was appropriate to the kind of zombies that would inhabit that kind of universe: it consisted of total, abject selflessness. An action is moral, said Kant, only if one has no desire to perform it, but performs it out of a sense of duty and derives no benefit from it of any sort, neither material nor spiritual; a benefit destroys the moral value of an action. (Thus, if one has no desire to be evil, one cannot be good; if one has, one can.)

I dont care what Rand wrote in For The New Intellectual. FTNI as an essay oversimplified and strawmanned a hell of a lot of philosophers. Regardless of the fact that I agree with the essentials of Rand's positive philosophy (i.e. what she said was true), I do not agree with a substantial amount of her rebukes to other philosophers. For one, she interprets Kant as a hyper-skeptic. Kant scholars have debated over this for years, and although Kant's intellectual heirs (the German Idealists, then Nietzsche, then the Postmodernists) certainly have influenced academia towards Kant-derived skepticism, it is arguable whether Kant himself was a skeptic. Rand may have been correct about the consequences of Kant, she was incorrect about Kant himself.

I also think Rand treated the British Empiricists far too harshly.

Regardless, Kant's morality did not say that benefitting from doing an action makes it worthless. Kant was a Deontologist, he cared nothing for the consequences. Kant said "To be beneficient where one can is duty; and besides this, there are many persons so sympathetically constituted that without any motive of vanity or self-interest they find a pleasure in spreading joy around them, and can take delight in the satisfaction of others so far as it is their own work. But I maintain that in such a case an action of this kind, however amiable and proper it may be, has nevertheless no true moral worth, but is on a level with other inclinations"

In other words, the only relevant factor to Kant is the motivation. Rand was correct that according to Kant, if one wants to do good then one cannot (this is indicated by the Kant quote), since that would be acting out of inclination rather than duty. But this is not about actual consequences but about motivations. According to Kant, the only proper motivation is duty towards logically-universalizable principles.

This is selflessness, but it is not altruism. Indeed, Kant's ethical theory includes "self-improvement" as a prima-facie duty, which seems compatible with self-interest consequentially-speaking, but is not compatible when we are talking about motives. In order to sneak self-interest in, one cannot do it out of self-interest (i.e. one must do it out of duty).

I disagree with Kant's morality, but Rand's characterization of it is incorrect and strawmannish. It would be better for her to have trained her guns on Comte, whose ethic truly is the opposite to Rand's.

"Kant was a Deontologist, he cared nothing for the consequences." My understanding is that Deontology's fundamental assumption is that no single idea captures all of the features in virtue of which an ethical theory may deserve to be called a deontology.

If the answer is in the affirmative, your quote makes my blood run cold.

[Brant Gaede]

Here is the relevant quote from Rand in her essay at the front of "For The New Intellectual"

"As to Kant's version of morality, it was appropriate to the kind of zombies that would inhabit that kind of universe: it consisted of total, abject selflessness. An action is moral, said Kant, only if one has no desire to perform it, but performs it out of a sense of duty and derives no benefit from it of any sort, neither material nor spiritual; a benefit destroys the moral value of an action. (Thus, if one has no desire to be evil, one cannot be good; if one has, one can.)

I dont care what Rand wrote in For The New Intellectual. FTNI as an essay oversimplified and strawmanned a hell of a lot of philosophers. Regardless of the fact that I agree with the essentials of Rand's positive philosophy (i.e. what she said was true), I do not agree with a substantial amount of her rebukes to other philosophers. For one, she interprets Kant as a hyper-skeptic. Kant scholars have debated over this for years, and although Kant's intellectual heirs (the German Idealists, then Nietzsche, then the Postmodernists) certainly have influenced academia towards Kant-derived skepticism, it is arguable whether Kant himself was a skeptic. Rand may have been correct about the consequences of Kant, she was incorrect about Kant himself.

I also think Rand treated the British Empiricists far too harshly.

Regardless, Kant's morality did not say that benefitting from doing an action makes it worthless. Kant was a Deontologist, he cared nothing for the consequences. Kant said "To be beneficient where one can is duty; and besides this, there are many persons so sympathetically constituted that without any motive of vanity or self-interest they find a pleasure in spreading joy around them, and can take delight in the satisfaction of others so far as it is their own work. But I maintain that in such a case an action of this kind, however amiable and proper it may be, has nevertheless no true moral worth, but is on a level with other inclinations"

In other words, the only relevant factor to Kant is the motivation. Rand was correct that according to Kant, if one wants to do good then one cannot (this is indicated by the Kant quote), since that would be acting out of inclination rather than duty. But this is not about actual consequences but about motivations. According to Kant, the only proper motivation is duty towards logically-universalizable principles.

This is selflessness, but it is not altruism. Indeed, Kant's ethical theory includes "self-improvement" as a prima-facie duty, which seems compatible with self-interest consequentially-speaking, but is not compatible when we are talking about motives. In order to sneak self-interest in, one cannot do it out of self-interest (i.e. one must do it out of duty).

I disagree with Kant's morality, but Rand's characterization of it is incorrect and strawmannish. It would be better for her to have trained her guns on Comte, whose ethic truly is the opposite to Rand's.

"Kant was a Deontologist, he cared nothing for the consequences." My understanding is that Deontology's fundamental assumption is that no single idea captures all of the features in virtue of which an ethical theory may deserve to be called a deontology.

If the answer is in the affirmative, your quote makes my blood run cold.

Why?

--Brant