Yaron Brook and Christianity debate

[Christopher]

On February 2nd, Yaron Brook and Jennifer Roback Morse debated the question "Is Christianity Compatible with Capitalism?"

Dr. Morse argued as follows:

Catholicism supports the following:

1. Private Property

2. Free-market Labor

3. Investment and Profit-seeking

Additionally, Catholicism is explicitly anti-socialism.

To support these points, Dr. Morse quoted numerous papal authorities. She argued that while the Church condemns excess, it still affirms the basic structure of capitalism (profit-seeking, private property, free-association)

Dr. Brook argued as follows:

1. The notion of self-sacrifice is antagonistic to self-interest, and self-interest is necessary for Capitalism

2. The self is the ultimate authority of choice, whereas Catholicism requires the acceptance of teachings by others

3. Faith is an emotion that is unreasonable

Morse rebutted the issue of self-sacrifice, arguing instead that self-sacrifice in Catholicism was representative of sacrificing a lesser virtue for a greater and therefore was not truly a "sacrifice."

Overall opinions:

I believe Morse structured a more effective set of arguments than Brook and she won the debate.

I felt that Brook was a lot more passionate and very interesting, but did not adequately address the incompatibilities.

I have also decided to join Yaron Brook's fan club. I love the guy!

During the Q&A period in response to a question (mine!), Brook brought up what I believe was his ultimate strong point for incompatibility: the methodology for determining truth is different between Catholicism and Objectivism... that Objectivism ultimately bases truth on reason, whereas Catholicism bases truth on faith. Had he pursued this point more vehemently in his closing arguments, he would have won. Instead, he only mentioned that faith was emotional and therefore not necessarily reasonable without pursuing the point further

My final take:

Catholicism offers a value-system that may or may not be healthy. Many of these values are based on experiences that include faith. If faith provides a valid ontological perspective on understanding human needs, then conclusions based on the faith experience can be reasonably accepted as healthy and Objective. Reason alone does not suffice to help man understand the proper values required to live a healthy life. However, reason must be the final arbiter of truth. It is potentially reasonable to accept conclusions based on faith, but does faith necessarily accept reason? This is key. It may be that Catholicism accepts reason within its system, but does Catholicism uphold reason as the arbiter of truth (a requirement to ensure that faith-based experiences are indeed authentic and universalizable)? Additionally, while Catholicism upholds that individuals should be individual thinkers about how to live life, does Catholicism demand allegiance to the scripture even when one does not believe in the scripture (an example of self-sacrifice to a higher authority)? These are the weak points of Morse's arguments.

Christopher

[Dragonfly]

Morse rebutted the issue of self-sacrifice, arguing instead that self-sacrifice in Catholicism was representative of sacrificing a lesser virtue for a greater and therefore was not truly a "sacrifice."

Ha ha ha, now that is funny!

[Guyau]

Thanks for the followup, Christopher.

[BaalChatzaf]

........

During the Q&A period in response to a question (mine!), Brook brought up what I believe was his ultimate strong point for incompatibility: the methodology for determining truth is different between Catholicism and Objectivism... that Objectivism ultimately bases truth on reason, whereas Catholicism bases truth on faith. Had he pursued this point more vehemently in his closing arguments, he would have won. Instead, he only mentioned that faith was emotional and therefore not necessarily reasonable without pursuing the point further

............

Christopher

Both wrong. Truth is based on fact as revealed to one's intellect through sensory input. So called reason based is apriori thinking. Faith based means truth based on hope. Neither is the case. Truth is fact revealed by the senses to the intellect. Reason is second in line, not first.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[studiodekadent]

Morse rebutted the issue of self-sacrifice, arguing instead that self-sacrifice in Catholicism was representative of sacrificing a lesser virtue for a greater and therefore was not truly a "sacrifice."

Ha ha ha, now that is funny!

Actually, one can read St. Thomas Aquinas as arguing rational self-interest is part of human nature and hence defensible via natural law.

We are dealing with Catholicism here. You have a lot of competing ideas within the same religion, and you have a religion that has at least some level of "the faithful can disagree and still be Catholics" depending on who you ask. In short, the set of assertions and all their implications that is considered necessary to the religion is still a debated question. Certainly some things are agreed upon by all, but moral philosophy? Very much an area of significant disagreement.

I agree that Christian ethics taken to their logical extreme without any input from reason will naturally end up as altruistic in the sense we Objectivists use the term, and that these ethics are truly incompatible with market economics. But Catholicism is not pure fideism-altruism (at least in its philosophical form) by any stretch and we can't see it as such.

[Guyau]

Helpful perspective, Andrew (#5).

Bob, Rand’s definition of reason is what Objectivists mean when they use the term reason. On this view, reason is defined as the faculty that identifies and integrates the material provided by the senses. In your remarks in #4, are you forgetting that that is what they mean? Are you disagreeing with their usage of the word reason?* While being in agreement with their view that knowledge of the world is based only on sensory experience?

*Further

When philosophers lay out theories of good definition, they are theories of an explicative kind of definition (see David Kelley’s Art of Reasoning, chapter 3). Consider Rand’s definition of reason as the faculty that identifies and integrates the evidence of the senses. In my dictionary, I find reason defined as the capacity for rational thought, rational inference, or rational discrimination. The terms rational and thought go to already familiar synonymies with reason. The differentia within the rational, in this dictionary definition, are the discriminatory and the inferential.

Rand’s definition stays close to the common usage reflected by the dictionary, but it replaces discrimination and inference by their kin identification and integration, it eliminates the non-explicative rational, and it adds a base for the activities of reason, specifically, deliverances of the senses. Rand’s definition is explanatory of the common usage found in the dictionary, and it is tailored to tie neatly to a particular wider philosophical view.

Quine could say this is a fine explicative type of definition. Rand has given the term reason a new synonymy. The various contexts in which reason under the dictionary definition is properly used remain contexts in which reason under the new, explicative definition is properly used. The new definition covers the processes of drawing distinctions and making inferences. The new definition also applies to the wider processes of identification and integration of sensory evidence, processes in which the narrower processes are embedded. Quine would stress that, nonetheless, . . .

Edited February 4, 2010 by Stephen Boydstun

[Robert Campbell]

Christopher,

Most interesting.

Jenny Roback Morse, before her religious conversion, was an atheistic libertarian. I don't think she ever called herself an Objectivist, but in her earlier days she acknowledged Rand as an influence. I wonder how much Yaron Brook knew about all of this before the debate.

I'm not surprised to hear about her comeback to Dr. Brook on the issue of self-sacrifice. How credible it might be would depend in part on her construal of Catholic ethics.

Robert Campbell

[Neil Parille]

There was an interesting section in Jennifer Burns' bio in which she talked about (I think) Rose Wilder Lane. Lane grew up in the Mid West and related how people in the community would get together to help others build barns and the like. Lane could never understand Rand's jeremaid against self-sacrifice and altruism.

A couple of years ago I read a story about Polish nuns who live in Siberia and take care of children with AIDS. It certianly isn't how I would live my life, but I don't see anything immoral about it (or what the Mid Westerners do).

The Catholic Church doesn't say that everyone should live like these nuns, but if you are called to that life, it's fine by me.

I recall Murray Rothbard writing after his split with Rand that for all the supposed individualism in Objectivism, when you come down to it it's rather destructive of individualism. I believe he was correct.

-Neil Parille

[Selene]

Good point Neil:

The lock step purity tests that became ingrained into "O"bjectivism was certainly counter individualistic by its' very existence.

It is consistently surprising how many "intelligent" people fall into the power of personality.

The global warming movements unfolding is apocryphal. The same with big "O"bjectivism. Has something to due with objective reality.

Nice conclusion Niel.

Adam

[Guyau]

Neil,

Do you think that thinking for oneself and living according to one’s own judgment of what is right is some sort of basic egoism? I do. (I call it agency egoism, as distinct from beneficiary egoism.) Is that sort of agency egoism something you judge to be a good thing? Do you think that thinking for oneself and living according to one’s own judgment of what is right is a practice commendable for everyone or only for those who do hold it as a value?

That practice is at odds with religiosity staked on receptivity, the suspension of critical reason for external direction, for divine calling. I’m not talking about the regular receptivity we have for the moral pull that other people have for us—our responsiveness to them as value-seeking selves. I’m talking about the real religious coin. Augustine said that turning to God was a turning away from self. He was right even at the level of agency, and that goes not only for those called to enter holy orders, but for anyone who suspends their critical reason to make room for the supernatural.

[Philip Coates]

> Lane grew up in the Mid West and related how people in the community would get together to help others build barns and the like...A couple of years ago I read a story about Polish nuns who live in Siberia and take care of children with AIDS. It certianly isn't how I would live my life, but I don't see anything immoral about it (or what the Mid Westerners do). [Neil]

Niether do I, and I'm an Objectivist. A great part of selfish pleasure in a healthy person comes from seeing others happy, prospering. And that's not just immediate family. As a teacher, I take pleasure in seeing the light flick on in students' eyes. After the Berlin Wall fell, I got great pleasure volunteering to help the Peace Corps and AERI central offices provide resources to the Eastern European countries emerging from communism. As a person, I enjoy helping people whenever I can do it non-sacrificially (and it very regularly isn't a sacrifice.)

Not everyone has to be a teacher or a social worker, but they are valid professions. And volunteering for a cause is equally valid.

Note: Everything I said above is in the Objectivist literature.

Except perhaps for this point: If you -always- find lifting a finger to help someone to be sacrificial or don't -ever- enjoy that across a lifetime, then you are not actually a healthy egoist. [Phil's Psychological Codicil to Objectivism.]

The "barn-raising" example is slightly different, because you know that when and if you need help (your house burns down or whatever), you'll be able to call on your neighbors. In the other cases, you're not necessarily getting anything tangible or immediate back.

> I recall Murray Rothbard writing after his split with Rand that for all the supposed individualism in Objectivism, when you come down to it it's rather destructive of individualism. I believe he was correct. [Neil]

I'm struck how often people who didn't practice or fully understand Objectivism violated key principles of Objectivism (were sycophants, swallowed everything the cult said for a time like sheep, practiced dishonesty, were afraid to question -- the list is endless). Yet they are often first in line to loudly, bitterly blame Objectivism for whatever the hell lifestyle they were practicing.

Edited February 4, 2010 by Philip Coates

[Christopher]

There was an interesting section in Jennifer Burns' bio in which she talked about (I think) Rose Wilder Lane. Lane grew up in the Mid West and related how people in the community would get together to help others build barns and the like. Lane could never understand Rand's jeremaid against self-sacrifice and altruism.

A couple of years ago I read a story about Polish nuns who live in Siberia and take care of children with AIDS. It certianly isn't how I would live my life, but I don't see anything immoral about it (or what the Mid Westerners do).

The Catholic Church doesn't say that everyone should live like these nuns, but if you are called to that life, it's fine by me.

I recall Murray Rothbard writing after his split with Rand that for all the supposed individualism in Objectivism, when you come down to it it's rather destructive of individualism. I believe he was correct.

-Neil Parille

Different hermeneutical structures. Ton of psychology research on this. Different parts of the brain feel and respond quite differently to different events.

Rand was strongly agentic. Sounds like Rose is strongly communal. Communal is human, is self-related, but I wouldn't necesarily call it egoic. A "sense of sacrifice" to an agentic personality is exactly as Rand portrayed it. A "sense of sacrifice" to a communal personality is considered a strong value-action. It is experienced as sacrifice but is deeply personal, highly evaluative of the self, and deeply related to a sense of internal fulfillment. A sense of sacrifice to a communal person can be quite healthy because it is just an experience, it is not necessarily a sacrifice of a higher value for lesser value. Must divide phenomenal event with objectivity of event.

Christopher

[Selene]

This is in the wiki on hermeneutical <was not familiar with this

"Aristotle strikes a chord in his treatise De Interpretatione that reverberates through the intervening ages and supplies the key note for many contemporary theories of interpretation. His overture is here:

Words spoken are symbols or signs (

symbola

) of affections or impressions (

pathemata

) of the

soul

(

psyche

); written words are the signs of words spoken. As writing, so also is speech not the same for all races of men.

But the

mental affections themselves, of which these words are primarily signs (

semeia

), are the same for the whole of

mankind

, as are also the objects (

pragmata

) of which those affections are representations or likenesses, images, copies (

homoiomata

).

—Aristotle ,

On Interpretation

, 1.16

a

4"

Great mind.

Your thoughts on this Chris.

Adam

Edited February 5, 2010 by Selene

[Christopher]

This is in the wiki on hermeneutical <was not familiar with this

"Aristotle strikes a chord in his treatise De Interpretatione that reverberates through the intervening ages and supplies the key note for many contemporary theories of interpretation. His overture is here:

Words spoken are symbols or signs (

symbola

) of affections or impressions (

pathemata

) of the

soul

(

psyche

); written words are the signs of words spoken. As writing, so also is speech not the same for all races of men.

But the

mental affections themselves, of which these words are primarily signs (

semeia

), are the same for the whole of

mankind

, as are also the objects (

pragmata

) of which those affections are representations or likenesses, images, copies (

homoiomata

).

—Aristotle ,

On Interpretation

, 1.16

a

4"

Great mind.

Your thoughts on this Chris.

Adam

I totally agree, and I believe the word "self-sacrifice" denotes different phenomenal events in the consciousness of an agentic individual versus a communal individual.

* Aristotle's quote is sort of the reverse of what I'm saying: he's asserting that even if words are different, the experience can be the same. But context gives rise to the words, and I'm saying the context is different, hence we have the same word different experience. In both cases, it's a matter of interpretation - hence, hermeneutics.

Edited February 5, 2010 by Christopher

[Selene]

Chris:

agentic

1. Social cognition theory perspective in which people are producers as well as products of social systems.
2. Milgram's theory about the agentic state which is the psychological state the obedient subject is in when he or she is obeying authority.

You see Rand as an agentic type, you see her in the second definition??

Adam

confused by certain semantics

[Christopher]

Ahh, hermeneutics.

I will quote from a psych article:

Agentic refers to the need for autonomy, instrumentality, and dominance in relation to others.

Communion refers to the need for relationship, interdependence, and conection to others.

In fact, these needs create different internal phenomena to arise in conscious, and those phenomena are organized in relationship to the motivation for either of the two needs. This organization takes place almost entirely at the unconscious level since it pertains to the structure of consciousness and not the content of consciousness. It is quite normal that both agentic and communal individuals value relationships (and instrumentality). What differs is the experience.

Christopher

* sigh, I am clicking submit too quickly. To expand on this point, often qualitative data is required to identify agentic or communal individuals because analysis must take place at the structural level of narrative and not the content of narrative.

Edited February 5, 2010 by Christopher

[Christopher]

Adam, think men are from mars, women are from Venus

[Selene]

Ahh, hermeneutics.

I will quote from a psych article:

Agentic refers to the need for autonomy, instrumentality, and dominance in relation to others.

Communion refers to the need for relationship, interdependence, and conection to others.

In fact, these needs create different internal phenomena to arise in conscious, and those phenomena are organized in relationship to the motivation for either of the two needs. This organization takes place almost entirely at the unconscious level since it pertains to the structure of consciousness and not the content of consciousness. It is quite normal that both agentic and communal individuals value relationships (and instrumentality). What differs is the experience.

Christopher

* sigh, I am clicking submit too quickly. To expand on this point, often qualitative data is required to identify agentic or communal individuals because analysis must take place at the structural level of narrative and not the content of narrative.

Thanks. I have to look into this more. Kenneth Burke was a big influence on literary criticism and rhetoric as I was learning Rhetoric - the blue highlighted book was a biggee for us. What I just found out is that Harry Chapin was his grandson!

Narrative was a critical aspect of rhetorical analysis.

"Burke resisted being pigeonholed as a follower of any philosophical or political school of thought, and had a notable and very public break with the Marxists who dominated the literary criticism set in the 1930s. The political and social power of symbols was central to Burke's scholarship throughout his career. His political engagement is evident, for example, at the outset of A Grammar of Motives in its epigraph, ad bellum purificandum -- toward the purification of war, with "pure" war implying its elimination. Burke felt that the study of rhetoric would help human beings understand "what is involved when we say what people are doing and why they are doing it." Burke called such analysis "dramatism" and believed that such an approach to language analysis and use could help us understand the basis of conflict, the virtues and dangers of cooperation, and the opportunities of identification and consubstantiality."

"Burke defined the rhetorical function of language as "a symbolic means of inducing cooperation in beings that by nature respond to symbols." He defined "man" as "the symbol using, making, and mis-using animal, inventor of the negative, separated from his natural condition by instruments of his own making, goaded by the spirit of hierarchy, and rotten with perfection." For Burke, some of the most significant problems in human behavior resulted from instances of symbols using human beings rather than human beings using symbols."

You are bringing back a lot of "stuff" from grad school Chris, lol.

Adam

Edited February 5, 2010 by Selene

[Philip Coates]

Ahh, hermeneutics!

Ahh, "agentic".

Ahh, communion.

Ahh, instrumentality,

Ahh, pretentious and junk concepts.

Ahh, grad school!

[Selene]

Ahh, hermeneutics!

Ahh, "agentic".

Ahh, communion.

Ahh, instrumentality,

Ahh, pretentious and junk concepts.

Ahh, grad school!

God bless you!

Do you need a tissue?

Adam

a snarky poster

[Philip Coates]

Yes, I do. Pretentious and unnecessary 'academic' jargon makes me sneeze or upchuck.

Edited February 5, 2010 by Philip Coates

[Christopher]

Yes, I do. Pretentious and unnecessary 'academic' jargon makes me sneeze or upchuck.

I once walked into Starbucks holding a book titled Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology. I received this same reaction.

[Jerry Biggers]

There was an interesting section in Jennifer Burns' bio in which she talked about (I think) Rose Wilder Lane. Lane grew up in the Mid West and related how people in the community would get together to help others build barns and the like. Lane could never understand Rand's jeremaid against self-sacrifice and altruism.

A couple of years ago I read a story about Polish nuns who live in Siberia and take care of children with AIDS. It certianly isn't how I would live my life, but I don't see anything immoral about it (or what the Mid Westerners do).

The Catholic Church doesn't say that everyone should live like these nuns, but if you are called to that life, it's fine by me.

I recall Murray Rothbard writing after his split with Rand that for all the supposed individualism in Objectivism, when you come down to it it's rather destructive of individualism. I believe he was correct.

-Neil Parille

Neil -

re: Rothbard

In the sense that he was describing attempts from or within The Collective to eliminate diagreement with Rand's positions on everything, he may be right. But back then, Rand (and virtually all her opinions) were defined, operationally, as Objectivism, even though that interpretation does not follow from what she wrote in T.F., A.S., V.O.S., and elsewhere.

This is why today's opponents of Rand are reveling in details of her behavior that are described in Burns and Heller that appear to show hypocrisy. But showing that Rand did not practice (consistently) what she preached, does not invalidate her philosophy. That can only be shown by demonstrating inconsistencies within the philosophy, itself. And, in fact, Rand, herself, commented to her associates that she knew that she could not always practice in reality what she preached. For example, the Brandens and the other biographers have recounted her anguish that she could not respond to the hostile criticism that Atlas Shrugged received upon its publication, in the manner that Rourk responded to Ellsworth Toohey: "But I don't think of you."

However, the same criticism could be directed toward Rothbard, who also had a small group of devotees around him. Rothbard, also, was anything but consistent in his various attempts to form an alliances by flitting from one political faction to another, all the while disregarding how little in common his newly-embraced friends of the moment had with his core philosophy.

At various times he embraced Objectivism, then went over to Rand's enemies at the National Review, them jumped in bed with Ramparts and other New Left groups, then left to join Lew Rockwell and his strange combination of traditionalism and anarcho-libertarianism, "paleo-libertarianism" (did I leave any group out? Probably.). At each jump, he usually wrote an article castigating his last group of friends and justifying his newest alliance (his article, "Sociology of the Ayn Rand Cult," is an example).

Does Rothbard's serial and chaotic journeys across the political spectrum negate the value of the many scholarly books that he also wrote, such as Man, Economy and State, The Ethics of Liberty, etc? No, it does not. But it does show that he had difficulty in being true to his own philosophy.

Some critics have maintained that there are elements within the philosophy of Objectivism, which will predispose one to embrace cultish behavior. I don't think that they have proved their case, but after observing the same authoritarian cultish behavior displayed in the actions and writings of the ARIan/Peikovians, forty-plus years after the disolution of NBI, it sometimes gives me pause to wonder.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I'm glad that bit about "junk concepts" was removed.

I was having a hell of a time wrapping my mind around that one.

All concepts have referents. And I know the deleted reference to "junk concepts" was not with junkyard kind of junk in mind.

But other than junk, what--in reality--is a junk referent?

Now here I go... I just can't help it... This stuff just pops up in my mind without me wanting it to.

What do high finance, advertising and nourishment have in common that can be used as a referent?

It's an odd question, I know. But I wonder how it works--how a "junk concept" is the conceptual foundation of "junk bond," "junk mail," or "junk food."

Is one of the referents of a "junk concept" a boat design (as in Chinese Junk)?

Is heroin a referent for a "junk concept"?

All right.

Enough.

Michael

[Philip Coates]

Michael,

Rand made the little understood and not very well-elaborated point that 'concepts should not be multiplied beyond necessity'. In certain fields and professions (law, medicine, science), there is a need for technical or specialized concepts not understood by laymen to identify new phenomena. This has often been imitated in the humanities, especially the academic humanities, in fields such as psychology, literary criticism, history to distinguish their practitioners and give them the aura of language which the hoi polloi can't follow.

The difference is that in many of these fields, the academic-sounding jargon is both unnecessary (simpler, easier to understand equivalents already exist) and ambiguous (multiple conflicting or slightly varying meanings are warred over in learned journals, or at least a wide range of definitions exists.)

Junk concepts (my language, not Rand's) is a term of contempt for such 'big words' which fall into one of these categories and thus obfuscate rather than clarify.

Edited February 6, 2010 by Philip Coates