Objectivism: my fall from reason
Hello,
Over the past 5 days I have lost my entire philosophical framework which was Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand. I have come to realize huge issues with the ethics, and now the rest is also starting to unravel. I have spent a great deal of time researching other philosophy, and I feel somewhat ashamed at how ignorant I was.
I feel human again, it's hard to explain. I feel almost like I had abandoned myself. Trying to use reason to justify every desire is not only impossible but it slowly destroys your capacity to desire anything. I could never figure out what I wanted, or how to justify it, when I had a sudden realization precipitated by a single comment from a PhD philosopher friend of mine when discussing 'life as the standard of value'. I had desires, but I wasn't listening. All I had to do was listen.
I was warned by Objectivists that pursuing things for their own sake, for the enjoyment in itself, would come at a price. That is the hell to which you are cast. You may enjoy yourself, only if permitted .Only if it is incidental to the pursuit of 'rational values' that are 'proper for man's life'. Rational values... whatever is for your life. Apparently enjoying yourself is not enough.
I have spent hundreds of hours studying Objectivism. I feel I know it inside and out. And now, I am on the other side, so I can at least critique with a deep knowledge. Perhaps that is the only good thing about this. Objectivism gave me the vision of happiness being important, for which I will forever be grateful, and it also made me interested in deep questions, which is a gift as well. But in a sense, it has stolen years of my youth with its moralization. A deep sense of guilt whenever I could not identify a reason behind a desire, and a stiffling of any natural ambition, natural pleasures of life, in the name of reason and not living irrationally. Whim worship, I feared it like the plague.
I do think Rand had a point about some things, but her ethics is a linguistic bait and switch. She sets up a good case for some basic ground rules for how a human may better survive, but that is all. She gives you no reason for living, and all her ethical values, are in fact, only instrumental values for life-as-survival. She soon linguistically bait and switches that for a life-as-experienced which she calles 'life qua man' and then she ossiclates between the two as it is convenient.
That is just one of the problems.
I'm anxious to discover other answers to life's questions. So here I am. I may have a lot of silly questions in the future. Bare with me.
(Of course the title is tongue in cheek)
Over the past 5 days I have lost my entire philosophical framework which was Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand. I have come to realize huge issues with the ethics, and now the rest is also starting to unravel. I have spent a great deal of time researching other philosophy, and I feel somewhat ashamed at how ignorant I was.
I feel human again, it's hard to explain. I feel almost like I had abandoned myself. Trying to use reason to justify every desire is not only impossible but it slowly destroys your capacity to desire anything. I could never figure out what I wanted, or how to justify it, when I had a sudden realization precipitated by a single comment from a PhD philosopher friend of mine when discussing 'life as the standard of value'. I had desires, but I wasn't listening. All I had to do was listen.
I was warned by Objectivists that pursuing things for their own sake, for the enjoyment in itself, would come at a price. That is the hell to which you are cast. You may enjoy yourself, only if permitted .Only if it is incidental to the pursuit of 'rational values' that are 'proper for man's life'. Rational values... whatever is for your life. Apparently enjoying yourself is not enough.
I have spent hundreds of hours studying Objectivism. I feel I know it inside and out. And now, I am on the other side, so I can at least critique with a deep knowledge. Perhaps that is the only good thing about this. Objectivism gave me the vision of happiness being important, for which I will forever be grateful, and it also made me interested in deep questions, which is a gift as well. But in a sense, it has stolen years of my youth with its moralization. A deep sense of guilt whenever I could not identify a reason behind a desire, and a stiffling of any natural ambition, natural pleasures of life, in the name of reason and not living irrationally. Whim worship, I feared it like the plague.
I do think Rand had a point about some things, but her ethics is a linguistic bait and switch. She sets up a good case for some basic ground rules for how a human may better survive, but that is all. She gives you no reason for living, and all her ethical values, are in fact, only instrumental values for life-as-survival. She soon linguistically bait and switches that for a life-as-experienced which she calles 'life qua man' and then she ossiclates between the two as it is convenient.
That is just one of the problems.
I'm anxious to discover other answers to life's questions. So here I am. I may have a lot of silly questions in the future. Bare with me.
(Of course the title is tongue in cheek)
Comments (54)
Also, good luck finding answers, cause we humans have only been trying since the dawn of our times.
I think becoming disillusioned with Ayn Rand is probably a healthy thing. I haven't taken the time to study her, but her reputation is terrible on philosophy forums, and I don't think she is (or ought to be) taken seriously in academia. The problem I have with Rand is that it seems totally materialist and ego-centred.
Myself, I have always had a kind of spiritual yearning, but I turned away from 'Churchianity' at a young age and then focused more on philosophy (Eastern and traditional), comparative religion and anthropology. I have come to the view that there is a real domain of values, which is expressed in various ways by different philosophical and religious traditions. This is not to say that 'all religions are the same' or anything of that kind, but I believe the convergences and similarities between them are indicative of a domain of real values. So if that is something of interest, more than happy to discuss.
And welcome to the Forum.
I have not read anything in terms of full tracts beyond an excerpt about her arguing against having to pay for public schools. All I can think about is how when discussing epistemological systems, every single short summary acts as if it is some cutting insight that we should base our epistemological systems and collection of knowledge on reason. Because, you know, no philosopher thought of that one before.
I read a couple of Rands novels a long time ago... they were OK -- not great, like a lot of things.
Don't beat yourself over the head too long for having a love affair with Ms. Rand. Quite a few people have patronized her establishment. And others of us have patronized other establishments which we heartily regret. Mea Culpa. Mea Culpa. Mea Culpa.
Quoting Sylar
Of course you feel better. It always feels good to shed the filthy clothing of a recent enthusiasm, take a long hot shower, and get into something new and different. It sometimes happens that we hearken back to our former enthusiasms, like the Children of Israel, wandering around in the desert, hearkened back to the flesh pots of Egypt. Again, normal human behavior. Don't feel guilty about it. Just resist the temptation to crawl back to whatever it was.
And welcome to THE Philosophy Forum.
I'm forming concrete goals that actually excite and inspire me for the first time in years. It is amazing.
I wouldn't look at it that way. It was just part of a journey that you're on. You're continuing the journey, moving on to another destination now.
Yeah, it definitely strikes me as cult-like. I don't do well with anything that has that mentality. At least not unless I'm the cult leader. ;-) I'm not following anyone else, conforming to someone else's whims, etc. People can form a cult around me if they want to, though.
Ayn Rand is to philosophy what L. Ron Hubbard is to religion.
An every time Rand is mentioned, I expect slurs and misrepresentations, and am never disappointed.
You're a Rand fan? Rand and Deutsch seems like an odd combination.
Well, come now. How is the comparison a slur or misrepresentation? Both were writers of preposterous fiction and little-known screenplays, both were contributors to pulp magazines, both sought and achieved cult status and founded what may be called cults, one by creating a hodgepodge called Objectivism by paraphrasing Aristotle, Mencken, Hazlitt, classical liberalism, with a dash of Nietzsche and the Stoics thrown in for good measure; the other by combining occult views derived primarily from Aleister Crowley with various psychological theories to create something called Dianetics, later transformed into a religion.
Regardless of whether you agree with those characterizations of Objectivism and Dianetics/Scientology, Rand was a writer of screenplays and fiction who created a supposedly "new" philosophy, and Hubbard was a writer of screenplays and fiction who created a supposedly new "religion."
Sylar, some of my favourite books dealing with ethics is On Justice by Rawls and Nozick's reply to that.
I think the problem isn't objectivism per se - though I myself am not keen on the subject - but rather your absolutist need to follow the philosophy. Though admirable, such inflexibility is paradoxically devoid of the very thing that you sought; reason, since it is unreasonable to ignore qualities that may well perhaps be subjective or elusive but nevertheless real and what makes us human. There may be aspects of Satre' philosophy that I appreciate, for instance, but if he partially makes sense it does not suddenly mean I am required to adhere to all that he writes. I think the best way to approach life and philosophy itself is through experience and that is what you have done. You now understand the subject intellectually, but you are applying the 'you' in the algorithm - that is, initially you used the philosophy, just like how others use beliefs in general from religion to even atheism, as a structure to hold the edifice of your identity because you were perhaps too afraid to think independently. Now you can appreciate what is sensible based on both reason and intuition.
The way that I see it, you have transcended to become the very individual you initially sought and in my opinion it is only when we reach this capacity to use our free-will independent of any beliefs that we truly become capable of moral consciousness; it is in this consciousness that we become happy because, as you say, we start to allow natural pleasures and ambitions rather than artificial ones. It is the difference between genuine love and artificial love; the former I am sure we would all agree would feel a great deal better, whilst the latter - though it will suffice sexually and materially - will never attain the same depth of feeling. Why would you opt for latter?
I second that. L Ron was more successful, though. But I hadn't noticed the resemblances before, thanks for pointing those out.
Most people only discuss social aspects of what we do in life, with no real discussion of how to live well yourself, and that's a mistake to me. I still agree with a base of egoism in a sense, but exactly how one does that I'm now uncertain. I've swung over to a sort of enlightened hedonism à la Mill's qualitative hedonism (but egoistic not collective), but with my own thoughts on the matter, and in terms of social morality I suppose I am on the fence about it. I'm somewhat ethical nihilist at the moment, or emotivist, in a meta-ethical stance, but it's clear that we need some pro-social behaviours to hold our society together which is in the end good for me.
Doing good for others has always been something I looked down on, but now I'm more open to the idea, but it has to be a luxury, ultimately. I'm reading widely on ethical theories so I may change my mind radically in the future. My current views are clearly very influenced by Objectivism, but the idea that all our values can be decided on by reason is just not cogent. I'm not exactly throwing out Objectivist ethics, but I reject it as the whole story, and I reject it as a motive force in my life. My life's value comes from the enjoyment of things in it, and I do not think what I enjoy was chosen, or chould be chosen, by reason. Given that there is some objective standard for that which is pro-survival for me, and that which is against it, if I decide I want to live, then any principles that help in that endeveour are useful, but they are not mroal obligations in my mind anymore. I can basically do whatever the hell I want, and at root all desires are biological and sometimes arbitrary artifacts of our individual natures. Some people dont like music, and it has nothing to do with their view of reality or their subconscious beliefs as Rand would assert. It's because their brains work that way.
It's hard to explain why I am harping on about what we like by nature if you haven't come from the Objectivist ethics that completely denies any human nature and asserts that we like what we value and we choose our values by reason. But as David Hume pointed out:
Over time, my own frustrations and discussions with a friend who is an effective altruist, lead me to accept pleasure as inherently good. He then pointed out some inconsistencies in what Rand said, and the threads started to unravel very quickly. Everything came to a crisis point in my mind and I could almost feel my belief system rewiring. Since I have always held truth and my own judgement as supreme over any particular belief, I will ruthlessly discard any idea, however strongly held in the past, as soon as I see clear reason to do so. Reason is the ultimate arbiter of my beliefs, and I am proud to have proven to myself once again that given evidence and reason, I will change my mind. Though it was somewhat psychologically uncomfortable, truth prevails.
I understand that you initially thought it was spot-on but an Islamic fundamentalist believes it is spot-on to kill in the name of religion so that he can get shacked up with a bunch of ladies in heaven and what gives life to the hatred that ultranationalists promote. The point being is that now that you are aware that objectivism is flawed in some ways, what you should question is why you had believed it to be entirely correct in the first place; the flaw must be in you since you believed it. What I think you will causally find is that your decision may have stemmed from your doubts in yourself, of being capable of undertaking philosophical and moral decisions independently. The risk here is that if you don't abandon the idea that any system of belief - be it religious, cultural or philosophical - can ever adequately explain existence, all you will be doing is simply rearranging your prejudices, adopting and changing.
Good question. I don't think believing a philosophy or a claim in its entirety is prima facie always wrong, but I do agree that if I was convinced by faulty arguments or convinced with insufficient evidence, the problem is within me for doing so, and I can learn from that mistake in future.
Quoting TimeLine
Perhaps, but I do not attempt to determine everything in any field, philosophy or otherwise, entirely on my own. I listen to a view and evaluate the reasoning and evidence.
Quoting TimeLine
I think it's possible that someone has it all correct, but I do not expect it. I was never 100% convinced of everything Ayn Rand said. I disagreed on points, so it was not as you may have thought, me simply taking everything Objectivism said as undeniable truth.
Furthermore, my moral system, if I have one, is no doubt going to be influenced by my readings. I don't consider it prudent to just introspect and expect what comes to my mind to be truth. More than likely, I will find a great deal of wisdom from others.
In the past, I had been an ethical nihilist, until I found Rand. I suppose I was excited to find what I thought was an objective realist morality. The argument is quite convincing if you do not spot the linguistic slight of hand which I simply failed to spot.
In fact, up to a point, the ethics makes only reasonable statements of facts. The is-ought gap is by passed by the following:
Her ethics is technically not a non-categorical imperative since it merely states:
If you choose to live
then you must adopt and practice these values
because these values are required for your survival
Now, most of her claims about what man needs for survival have some merit. Certainly, rationality, I agree with. Keeping your mind in contact with reality.
But you are left pondering what you should actually do in life. It's merely a guide to surivval, and it also doesn't tell why you shoudl want to live. or what the point of living is. The values of her ethics are egoist survival values. Some of which are valid as such, but that is all.
But to exist to exist... what's the point?
There is a scene in the movie "Equilibrium" that perfectly illustrates this point:
Also there's just the problem of 'values are chosen'. It's true in the abstract, but we never chose to enjoy chocolate, or to enjoy music, or to enjoy snowboarding, etc. We discover these values, because they give us pleasure, and why they give us pleasure is not chosen by reason.
I also realize now my failing to investigate evidence of human nature. Even though I sort of always had a belief that we had a nature, I still considered it reasonable that our desires are the result of our premises. What I failed realize was that I had already rejected Rand's view of sex for this reason, and that is a contradiction. I didn't spot that contradiction in my own thought. I didn't make the connection there in my belief. I suppose I am only human.
It was, in the end, me who spotted my own errors. It just took a long time, and a fair bit of mental suffering.
"Not really"
As she states:
and then
So apparently Gengis Khan who had all the women and the power in the world, with no consequences ever for the killing and raping he did... was not really happy. Not really.
So your definition of happiness is killing and raping without consequence?
In a reciprocal fashion to your previous post, one of my favourite movies V for Vendetta perfectly illustrates this when Evie reaches the point where she says 'no'. I can't really show you a clip of it, you just have to watch the movie, but the process is clear and something Heidegger discusses in his phenomenology; fear distracts our capacity to genuinely love and only the idea of our own deaths eliminates the very angst that initially compels us to conform.
Without love, without anger, without passion there is nothing to our existence; but love, anger and passion without authenticity is the same thing, nothing. It is the same emptiness and we find some sense of unity and wholeness because others are doing the same thing and so that must make it real. Consciousness is this very authenticity.
So, comparatively, it is like being in a romantic relationship with someone that you do not genuinely love, but you 'love' because of the utility and pleasure that it gives you; you have regular sex, you save money, you are socially accepted into a group, perhaps even your partner is attractive enough which would be good for sex over the long-term, perhaps wealthy, perhaps you can get away with things because he/she in intellectually idiotic etc. There is no feeling; the actions are merely an example of this attempt to alleviate the angst.
"To judge by their lives, the masses and the most vulgar seem - not unreasonably - to believe that the good or happiness is pleasure. Accordingly, they ask for nothing better than the life of enjoyment (broadly speaking, there are three main types of life: the one just mentioned, the political, and thirdly the contemplative)." Aristotle also describes three types of friendship, which essentially fall under the same broader categories and I believe friendship - our capacity to be a friend and thus our capacity to give love - is the most important step towards a good life.
Quoting Sylar
There are some that believe the picture of Genghis Khan as a brutal and ruthless leader is historically inaccurate. Vlad the Impaler developed an image of himself as a sadistic, blood-drinking Dr?culea as a strategy to keep the Ottomans away when he probably drank prune juice before bed to keep himself regular. :-O
In the pursuit of happiness, there is no need to compare yourself to others since you will never find satisfaction that way; our imagination is rather infinite and though we may initially require a mirror in philosophy, religion, politics, even people to bounce our identity off, ultimately one needs to transcend and find the will to consciousness independently. In the end, the pursuit of virtue by finding the mean toward the highest good will lead to happiness; happiness is personal, individual. Objectivism failed to understand the importance of virtue and the interconnection of all things in consciousness.
If I don't know someone I just assume they are generally rational and are thinking honestly for themselves. Why do you entertain a strange story about how I might be an irrational dope who can't think for himself? :P
Quoting TimeLine
Really? He took over half the world by force. I don't think you do that by being a nice guy. Rape and pillage was their modus operandi. The mongols were stone cold savages on horse back. Some people gave into them rather than fighting that's how feared they were.
Quoting TimeLine
What is virtue and how do you prove it to be good? Objectivism has virtues.
What is the highest good? How do you prove it? Why will it make me happy?
I have looked into some virue ethics, but I'm interested to know your version. So far, I find it unconvincing.
Probably because I have been entertained by so many irrational dopes as you call them :D and though the predictability of such characters eventually leaves me rather bored since traits like genuine honesty and perhaps a ‘masculine’ [by masculine, I do not mean the sex of a person but rather gendered nouns that describe a firm dedication to principles - I am a woman and have intellectually masculine qualities] commitment to honour are really what I admire. I nonetheless find concepts like gas-lighting, cowardice or projection rather fascinating, more so from a phenomenological point of view rather than a sociological one.
To say that generally most people are rational and think honestly is no different to saying that philosophers know the ‘truth’ but because I am focused rather intently on authenticity since I myself want to reach that state – even I admit that I failed as I was dishonest to myself without being aware of it and it took a breakdown to find the courage to face it, hence Evie from V for Vendetta – I screen the behaviours of others for the purpose of mirroring my own flaws. There is no hatred involved though I can beat people with a rod of iron [with my words] but really I am only doing this as a way of encouraging myself to never fail myself again; experience has taught me that any attempt to help people is futile unless someone wants to better themselves, so it’s just me talking out loud as though my subjective self is developing a language that I can understand at conscious level; not that I am a solipsist. :P
Quoting Sylar
As I work rather hard and often spend free time reading at the beach or the park until my eyes are on fire, and since I am rather enjoying your approachable tone, how about I explain – albeit briefly – my personal view on the subject; I am aware of some of the gaps that I am still searching for so your input would be interesting.
I often use pieces from philosophers such as Heidegger, Nietzsche, Plato, Schopenhauer, Satre and Kant as well as Jesus to justify my own interpretation of virtue; and that is the way that it should be, so whilst I wont get into geworfenheit or dasein etc, I believe that we should learn and study as much as we can and as broadly as possible. I have read the Bible and the Qu’ran but I do not identify myself as either a Jew, Christian or Muslim; I read in order to increase my vocabulary for the sole purpose of improving my understanding of myself, using intuition [subjective knowledge we cannot articulate] to feel whether I agree or not without belonging to a theory or institution or anything. I follow me. I simply pursue a study of myself with the sole desire of improving and improving implies consciousness and consciousness implies authenticity. When I become aware or conscious of a flaw, I improve and experience authentic happiness because the experience is both beneficial – and thus good for me – as well as real or genuine. This purpose provides an eternal cycle of happiness because we never stop learning, whereby we can never stop improving. As the aim is happiness and that our aim of improvement is Good [in the Platonic sense], this purpose or eternal cycle of self-improvement is love; love is moral consciousness and consciousness is authentic awareness, so the pursuit of morality or virtue is the step toward this transcendence.
So, we need to understand the reasons why we overlook or never achieve this. Existentially, we need to confront our separateness, or our free-will, by transcending the preconditioned structure of a shared social history and articulate a conscious discourse authentically about the state of our existence or being. This very separateness produces an angst that compels conformity; it is the emptiness we feel that Aristophanes conveys as being filled when we find our other half [romantic love]. Fromm’ approach on love is great in that – utilising Spinoza – states that while there are various forms of love, our ultimate aim should be the love of God. God is infinite, Good and aspiring toward him is finding that cycle and purpose [hence why God is not a figure, or Jesus, or something worldly] but rather singular and unknown, just as we are. It is finding the Aristophanes’ wholeness but within ourselves. A life of pleasure or utility fails to attain this eternal arrangement due to the fleeting, material and artificial approach that confronts the separateness irrationally, the objectivist take on existence.
We alienate ourselves from our genuine state of mind and by inflating our egos [to hide our cowardice] or abandon feeling, overcome any exposure that may enable us to be self-reflective; we deceive ourselves into believing in an artificial happiness and use one another solidify the emptiness. This initial anxiety is an emotional response caused by the realisation that one is drawing away from everything that they assumed was real and where their sense of significance becomes thoroughly unfamiliar. Fear in the material world is usually directed to something in particular, however this anxiety is produced within the person and thus the person encounters the ‘nothingness’ of freedom. The come face to face with the dark 'sphere' within. I believe that to overcome this is only possible when we confront our own death or the finitude of our existence and by acknowledging our individual death, we come to terms with our individuality. The structure of our existence changes where we no longer care about the dictates of society or following people for approval because we are no longer afraid.
Only those who have attained this are capable of understanding authentic love or moral consciousness and it is only between people who have achieved this are able to love one another genuinely.
One of my good friends is very similar to me in that he really challenges himself by challenging society; his girlfriend of many years is twice his size, unattractive by social standards and has not achieved much professionally or academically while he is attractive and a successful artist because – just like me – he believes in genuine love, that the concept of beauty is a social construct and so he chooses to follow his heart and not the herd.
In the end it is not about what we do and how the world responds to this but rather who we are and how we respond to the world. It is not a competition between people or society and I constantly push myself to challenge my own perceptions until I realise that the discomfort that I feel for breaking the rules is false, a type of subjective fear or coercion and each step I take I find myself more and more empowered because I care less for the false things that I have been trained to care for. I am un-doctrinating – deconstructing – myself piece by piece of all the bullshit.
Step by step.
Quoting TimeLine
To be honest, that sort of thing makes me sick. If he loves her genuinely, that's cool, but if he's dating someone just to go against mainstream expectations, he's still a slave to their expectations but in the reverse. He shouldn't even consider what others will think, that'd be genuine independence.
I do not think that beauty is a social construct, even if it is personally subjective. If I had to guess, I'd say it's 80% biologically innate, and 20% influenced by environment with in constraints. In my view, beauty is generally based on some kind of perceived harmony.
In my own case, I've always found certain things beautiful in a girl, even though oftentimes my friends disagree
Yes. It was pretty clear.
Quoting Sylar
He loves her genuinely, that was the point. He defies the "80% biological and 20% environmental" insipidness by following his heart. Ah well, I thought you were interesting but clearly you just touch the surface.
Quoting Sylar
When a man loves a woman, she actually is the most beautiful woman on Earth, in the most real of senses. It's the love that makes her beautiful. I think you two shouldn't confuse beauty for "hotness", or the "ooh what I'd do to grab that" kind of second-rate copy of it. That's lust, not beauty. Lust very often manifests in the desire to possess what others want to possess, by virtue of mimesis - you want it for the sole reason that others want it. Hence the trophy wife. Or the guy with lots of money, driving a fast car, and carrying big muscles.
My belief is that only through self-reflection and the attainment of an authentic, moral consciousness are we able to understand how to love. You quoted Kierkegaard in a previous post; people are capable of thwarting, ignoring or turning their backs on love because they sacrifice their feelings for the sake of other, perhaps more social or economic benefits. I want to know what compels a person to do that and why self-reflection and virtue will break that barrier.
Quoting TimeLine
Quoting Agustino
I realize that this thread is a couple of years old, and I understand your interest in Ayn Rand's philosophy has probably pasted you by since. I discovered her ideas over 30 years ago and view myself as an Objectivist. I'm not going to moralize or attempt to proselytize, but I came here to this forum looking for something not related to your subject and felt compelled to answer you as a man who has lived and studied Objectivism all of his life...even before I knew who Ayn Rand was or that her ideas were actually "out there" in the world. I thought maybe it might be useful for you to learn my story; how I lived before learning Ayn's ideas, and the life I've lived after becoming aware of Objectivism.
I grew up on a farm in a backwater of Oregon, USA. I could tell you the name of the township, but it wouldn't get you any closer to knowing where I grew up than if I didn't. Take a map of Oregon, find the emptiest space and put your finger right square in the middle of it. That's where I'm from. : ) I think its important to mention this, because out there in this backwater there was no organized religion. There were Baptists and Catholics and Mormans who were neighbors, but the nearest church for any of them was roughly 35 miles away. If there were churches for them at all. I couldn't tell you what my mother or my father thought about the subject of religion, but my personal experience with those who outwardly professed religious beliefs was not entirely good. Without going into much detail, I'll simply say that I grew up in an environment void of that kind of indoctrination.If you've studied Ayn's non-fiction writings you will know that the indoctrination I'm talking about is that of Original Sin, delivered as a righteous moral standard. I attended a church service once, when I was in my early teens, but the experience shook my confidence in my fellow man as being...predictable. That was strike one against religion! There were other experiences, mostly disputes about property boundaries and money, that provided additional feelings of distrust and caution in my judgement toward them. Keep in mind, my judgement was about the people, not the ideas, that religion produced. This, my disappointment in these people, along with a burning desire to see the world, prompted me to go immediately to college after high school. I left the farm with no desire to go back.
At the time (mid-1980's) college was a sink or swim proposition. I look back at my experience in college from the prospective of a college professor now: it certainly was a different environment back then! BTW, I do not profess philosophy; I teach the sciences of thermodynamics, hydrodynamics, other kinematic theories and some technologies based on these sciences.
OK, back to college and the experience that led me to Ayn Rand's ideas. Spring of '87 in an anthropology class (it was an elective that I though was interesting) I was shocked to hear the professor confess that he thought perhaps Reason was not able to solve the major societal problems we view as responsible for the demise of past cultures. That Reason might be impotent in guiding us out of the current crisis, which at the time was Peak Oil and the depletion of natural resources, and I think global Cooling was being bandied about as a threat, too. It was predicted that earths natural resources would be depleted in about 20 years and we would be freezing in a global ice age by guys who - obviously - had no idea what they were talking about. I say obviously because...well, take a look out of your window or at the crude oil market. :)
My reaction to this proclamation was genuine shock. I asked him: if not Reason, then what? His answer was a shrug. At this point in my life I had completely given up on religion and its shameful lack of answers, so I headed to the campus library. It was a technical college, so the tiny philosophy section was soon depleted of useful resources. :) I then headed for one of the downtown book stores looking for the author of a book that I had read for a literature class during my freshman year: the book was "The Last Days of Socrates," by Plato. I had enjoyed the book and thought Socrates to be a rather interesting character. Personally, I think Plato took some "artistic" liberties regarding the charges leveled against Socrates, and I suspect the vote to seal his fate was not unanimous! Of course, Socrates didn't do himself any favors by representing himself, and the horse analogy probably earned him his sentence. Anyway, I found a nice copy of The Republic in the philosophy section of the bookstore...right next to "Philosophy: Who Needs It", by Ayn Rand. A good question...one I hadn't thought to ask during my frantic search for the answer to the question my teacher shrugged at. That's were it started...my relationship with the ideas of Ayn Rand. Ideas which are based on the ideas of Aristotle, whom I've also studied during the last 30 years.
Before this becomes a rambling life story, I'll leave you with a single thought: if you don't appreciate Aristotle - his "passionate pursuit of passionless truth" - you haven't a chance of appreciating Ayn Rand. For me, Rand was an introduction to Aristotle and a testimony to the power of his thoughts, of his views, and of his humor...that is, what little humor comes out in the fragments of his writings that survive today.
Yes, I admire Ayn Rand and what she's done for mankind in this day in age, and I am confident to my core that the seeds that are her ideas have yet to bear fruit. But she is standing on the shoulders of a giant...perhaps the greatest mind to have ever lived. The man who taught Mankind how to think...the FIRST man to ever think about thinking: Aristotle.
I hope you find what you're looking for, and I'm genuinely sorry Ayn Rand failed to help you find it. My only advise is to keep your mind clear, and keep it active.
Sincerely,
TS Phillis
Maybe the science can help...
We will be hard pressed to remember what we had for lunch last Monday - unless that was an emotional event or completely habitual - i.e. we can reconstruct what we had for lunch. Emotions enhance the transition from short-term memory into long-term memory. (Some will admit that and then turn to weed out all emotions from their speculations...)
Intelligence without emotions is not possible either. We now speak of emotional intelligence.
So, get rid of "Objectivism" and enjoy life...
Hearty,
just had to :) its a Rush song called resist. I think it might(somehow) be about this subject,...
"the proper moral purpose of one's life is the pursuit of one's own happiness" and I see nothing wrong with it, as long as it dosent cause harm to other in anyway.
I'd like to cast a vote for this suggestion.
It doesn't seem wise to get too wound up in any philosophy. It's perhaps helpful to recall that all philosophy, any philosophy, is just a pile of symbols which point to the real world, and not the real world itself. Consider the relationship between your name and you. The name is a useful convention, but because it is merely a symbol it will always be incurably limited in nature. So it is with all philosophies.
Except for this one, which is THE ONE TRUE WAY!!!! :smile:
The founder of LaVeyan Satanism did say that his Satanism was "just Ayn Rand's philosophy with ceremony and ritual added".
Everything is subjective.
Yeah environmental devastation and global warming, Paul Ryan tax cuts, worker exploitation and wage stagnation, etc. etc. have totally been a blessing for the world.
It's unfortunate that someone whose thought was so derivative of Aristotle so entirely misunderstood or disregarded his ethics. The good man, according to Aristotle, would be one who would do many things for the sake of his friends or country, even die for them, and throw away money and all other "good things" for which men compete in order to do so. His good man is noble and virtuous. Rand's good man is not, necessarily (I can't help but think of John Oliver's show where it was once said, if I recall correctly, that Rand's ideal person was "an asshole").
The question is: Does the object out there have our emotions?
Hearty,
Aristotle never made that claim, either. You seem to recognize his influence as beneficial; would it trouble you to know that Ayn Rand was a huge admirer of him, too? In fact, she stated herself that she considered Aristotle the greatest of all minds and had the most influence on her ideas.
Personally, I have grown deeply suspicious of people who explicitly state that their goal is to benefit others, either as individuals or as groups. This isn't so much my ethical or political view, or my knowledge of history, as it is my personal experience. My admiration for Ayn Rand's contributions to mankind's advancement are deeply personal and radiate from my own recognition of people who share her view of life WITHOUT explicitly stating so. Because I share her views, and because I do not wear my heart on my sleeve, I have an advantage over you in recognizing her influence in this world. I'm not sure how to communicate this to you as anything other than the ability to sense a person's "sense of life." I will say that it pleases me more to recognize her influence in other people if those values are not stilted statements recited from memory. Honest and impassioned expressions of truths derived from reasoned and principled thought ARE objective. Lately I've noticed that the process - reasoned and principled thought - is making its way into popular political thought. That's an extraordinary thing to see...and something I will admit isn't entirely Ayn Rand's doing. Some are being expressed out of necessity without the influence of Objectivism. I recognize such things as victories for mankind, not for Objectivism or for Ayn Rand. In either case, those victories are leading man toward the Objectivist goals of political and economic Liberty.
I will say that its a life-giving thing to experience...kind of like what a cool drink of water does for a thirsty body. To hear someone speak in such a manner that leaves no doubt in my mind that they are speaking honestly, truthfully, objectively. The modern vernacular is called being "Red Pilled." Taking the "Red Pill" reveals the truths hidden to a mind clouded by lies and undisciplined emotions. I got "Red Pilled" 30 years ago. 30 years of conscious contact with my surroundings; thinking, building relationships, exploring the world, living life...and drawing conclusions about it that are constantly being tested, adjusted or abandoned *by me* with input from this world, and from other people. Life is a process...thinking is a process...both are things that I wish - for me - would never end. That's kind of selfish, isn't it! :)
Ah. I see. You admire Ayn Rand for her contributions to mankind because you believe other people share her views, although they don't say they do. That seems a less than well-founded inference. But, it doesn't explain why you admire Ayn Rand for her contributions to mankind. If she made contributions to mankind without saying she wanted to do so, or even without intending to do so, she nonetheless made contributions to mankind and you think her admirable because she did. Why is contributing to mankind admirable?
As to Aristotle, I'm well aware of Rand's admiration for him, and also that she does little more than parrot him for the most part (i.e. her work is derivative of Aristotle, as I said). Except, I think, she fails to understand, or disregards, his ethics. See Books VIII and IX of the Nicomachean Ethics.
Ayn Rand did not ignore Aristotle's ethics, nor did she ignore his politics. She rejected them. If you're familiar with Aristotle, you should know of his association with Plato. Plato's influence went deep and my thoughts are that Aristotle began doubting his mentor's ideas during the last part of his stay at the Academy. Aristotle's main contributions to Objectivism are in epistemology and metaphysics, in that order, and stand diametrically opposed to Plato. His ethics are a muddle, his politics even more so. I think that if he had lived longer he would have revised these, too. Perhaps he became too distracted with other things to get to it, there's no way for us to know. Whatever the reason, both his ethics and his politics reveal a heavy Platonic influence...and if you knew anything at all about Ayn's motives you would know that she viewed Plato in a very dim light.
Anyway, its been a nice little distraction chatting with you. I did mention in my first post to Sylar that I came to these forums for an entirely different reason, which was not to chat it up with those uninterested in my reason. I need to get back to the task at hand. Good luck to you.
For me, Aristotle's views on ethics are far more sophisticated than Rand's. She took a much too doctrinaire and simple-minded approach to morality.
You're right in a sense that I'm being evasive, but the purpose is honest and its a tactic that I've seen excellent results with when teaching. Someone both capable of and interested in learning will focus their mental efforts on finding the conclusions I speak "around", not the fact that I'm speaking around them. This is how thinkers own knowledge; they draw the conclusions on their own with the help of a guide. You've chosen to focus on the object, not the subject...which tells me you're not interested in the subject. I'm not interested in "telling" you anything...you get to think for yourself. I teach people to think, and this is how I do it.
As to what you are: its now obvious and I'm going to speak plainly and directly since inference doesn't work with you. You are a poser as evidenced by two facts: one that shows itself to everyone who reads your posts, and one that shows up in your thoughts about Objectivism and Aristotle.
That which shows up to everyone is your name; one you've chosen probably for the same two reasons other people choose pseudonyms. Anonymity and self-identity. The former is perfectly rational, given the threats we all face online. The latter, if pursued as a pseudo-self, can lead to problems, both personal and public. You pursue your online self-identity as a pseudo-self, not as who you really are.
You are not what you want me (or others) to think you are. This fact - the one only me or another Objectivist or student of Aristotle would recognize - is evidenced by your surface familiarity on both subjects. So far you've demonstrated that you know Ayn Rand formulated the Objectivist ethics, and you know that she called it Selfishness. That, apparently, is all you think you need to know to draw all necessary conclusions and argue any point. What you know can be found quickly using Google.
Regarding Aristotle, your conclusion that his ethics are "far more sophisticated" than Objectivist ethics is laughable, mostly for the above reason. Aristotle's primary contribution to mankind's knowledge in general lays exclusively with the disciplines of metaphysics and epistemology. His ethics are a combination of Platonic precepts and colloquial values...there's nothing remarkable about this because the same thing can be said about almost EVERY philosopher since Plato. You can't compare the two ethos because you know nothing useful about one, and know only what's common about the other.
There's some saying about teaching and doing...I can't quite remember it, but it came to mind when you mentioned you teach people to think. You should consider teaching them evasion as well. But if one teaches by example, perhaps you already do.
Tit for tat; ad hominem for ad hominem.
But there's no need to manufacture an elaborate and self-serving rationale for avoiding what seems a simple enough question. If you prefer not to answer it, so be it.
Anyone who takes on the pretence of doing philosophy, but has not felt this, is no philosopher.
Welcome to the fraternity.
By writing long empty posts full of nothing but ad homs, generalizations and your boring autobiography, apparently. You're not going to get away with that here. You're nothing to anyone unless you can show at least a basic level of knowledge and analysis. And make it concise. Or try reddit.