In preparation for my article on Objectivism that is appearing in today’s issue of The Stanford Review, I exchanged emails with Dakin Sloss ’12, the founder and president of the Objectivists of Stanford. The entire transcript of that exchange presented as follows with only minor edits for grammar, and reordering of some of the questions and answers. The views presented here are Mr. Sloss’ and Mr. Sloss’ alone and do not reflect those of Fiat Lux or The Stanford Review.
What is Objectivism?
Objectivism is the philosophy of Ayn Rand that she presented in her bestselling novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged and in non-fiction works such as Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology and The Virtue of Selfishness. It is a complete philosophical system with answers to questions in metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and politics. In essence, Objectivism holds that there is an objective reality that man can know using reason, man’s highest moral purpose is the pursuit of his rational self-interest, and laissez-faire capitalism is the proper political system for man.
Why are you an Objectivist?
I am an Objectivist because I think that Objectivism is the correct philosophy. It properly identifies the facts of reality, the nature of man, and the proper course of action to live by.
What about the state of current affairs is favorable to Objectivism, and what is unfavorable (basically, what is the outlook for Objectivism going forward)?
The outlook for Objectivism is in general always favorable because it is correct. When people take the time to read Atlas Shrugged or other works by Rand, many agree with her ideas to whatever extent they understand them. Any philosophy that demands a person’s willingness to listen to rational argument and use his or her own judgment to determine whether or not such reasoning is correct will succeed as long as men use rational judgment. This is a particularly positive time for Objectivism because people recognize that something has gone wrong culturally and politically, but do not know why. Objectivism has answers to the questions sparked by the financial crisis and other political debates that are currently happening. I think that Objectivism will become a dominant cultural and philosophical influence over the next generation or our society will continue to decay and perhaps reach a point of no return.
When you say “something has gone wrong culturally and politically,” what do you mean by that? What has gone wrong that was going right and what prompted that change?
America has historically been a country that politically focused on the protection of individual rights. Throughout the 19th century this led to the development of the most prosperous nation on earth. But these political ideas were not thoroughly defended philosophically. The ethics of altruism was accepted in direct contradiction to the politics of capitalism. This contradiction has slowly wrought havoc on the course of American culture and politics. What was once a truly free and great country has continuously shifted toward statism (particularly during the last 100 years). This is a product of the influence of European philosophy, particularly German idealists such as Kant, Hegel, and Marx. In essence, America was founded on the basis of the principle of individual rights. We have departed from that view of government because Americans have accepted the ethics of altruism and its inevitable political corollary: statism. The philosophical lineage beginning with Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason is responsible for this cultural change.
Is Objectivism compatible with organized religion? Christianity? Judaism? Islam? Believing in God?
Objectivism is not compatible with any religion because religion and the belief in god are inherently opposed to man’s mind and man’s pursuit of his rational self-interest. Religion urges man to give up his rational judgment and blindly accept the existence and decrees of a mystical being. Religion also urges man to sacrifice his interests on this earth to obtain rewards in a supernatural and non-existent mystical afterlife. Religion is like a poison for man’s life on earth.
What is the biggest draw to objectivism?
It is correct. It appeals to the best within man: his self-esteem, pride, confidence, and the belief that he is able to forge a life of happiness in this world by following his rational judgment and pursuing values.
What is the biggest drawback to objectivism?
The pervasive influence that Kant has had on the culture including the undermining of objectivity and rationality.
What is the history of Objectivism at Stanford? (e.g. when was your particular group founded, and do you know of any Objectivist presence at Stanford prior to that?)
Approximately 10 years ago a student named Jason Rheins started a club at Stanford to explore and promote Objectivism. His club brought in guest speakers from the Ayn Rand Institute to present Objectivist views on various political, ethical, religious, and artistic issues. The club also met to read and discuss Rand’s philosophy. Jason also taught a student-initiated course about Objectivism to introduce interested students to the philosophy. After he graduated, the club’s presence diminished and it actually ceased to exist. Last year as a freshman, I decided to restart the club (without actually knowing that it had existed previously) and we have been rebuilding for the last year.
What accounts for the rise of the Objectivist presence at Stanford?
I do not think that the Objectivist presence at Stanford has necessarily increased, but this club definitely increases our community’s role in the political discourse on campus and the visibility of such a presence. I think that ever since the publication of Atlas Shrugged, college students have read Rand’s work and become interested in her philosophy. I suspect that there have always been Objectivists at Stanford during the last 50 years, but they have had no venue for meeting other Objectivists, further learning about Objectivism, or promoting Objectivism. Because I restarted the club, Objectivists now have an opportunity to be a more noticed and influential presence at Stanford.
How many members do you have?
We have 10 students who regularly attend meetings and another 40 people who have attended either a single speaker event or club meeting.
What have been some events you have held, and how have you attempted to grow the Objectivists of Stanford?
Last year we hosted two guest speakers from the Ayn Rand Institute. In the winter, Elan Journo spoke about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and how it is in America’s self-interest to support Israel. In the spring, Yaron Brook spoke about how government caused the financial crisis and how capitalism is actually a moral system for rewarding the selfishness inherent in the profit motive. This year we have hosted Andrew Bernstein to speak about religion’s destructive influence on man’s mind and life. On February 5 at 7:30pm in building 320, room 105, Yaron Brook will debate Jennifer Morse of the Acton Institute about the compatibility of Christianity and capitalism. We also meet every week on the first floor of Old Union to discuss a different essay by Ayn Rand on Tuesdays at 7:00pm. I have attempted to grow the Objectivists of Stanford by hosting guest speakers, putting up fliers to advertise meetings and events, participating in campus debates, writing editorials, and distributing copies of Atlas Shrugged at the activities fair. I think that it is working and within the last year Objectivism has gone from a relatively unknown and under-discussed philosophy across campus to a major player in political and philosophical discourse. Many students know of our club’s existence and what we stand for roughly because we have worked very hard to advertise over the last year.
How are the Objectivists of Stanford funded?
We are funded by the ASSU Senate and private donors.
How many hours per week do you spend in activities directly related to the Objectivists of Stanford (by which I mean the organization, not the philosophy)?
1 hr/wk at meeting, 2 hrs/wk preparing for meeting, 1 hr/wk with administrative stuff, 1hr/wk miscellaneous stuff so probably 5 hrs/wk on a normal week but in weeks preceding speaking events (such as the one in February) it can become much more because I will spend 15 or 20 hrs putting up fliers for the week or two before the event.
What happens at a typical Objectivists of Stanford meeting (or has happened at past meetings)?
We arrive, chat, wait for at least 5 people to show up and then begin. One person leads discussion each week and prepares questions for us to talk about in order to better understand the content of the essay we read before meeting. Each person is assumed to have spent time reading and thinking about the essay previous to discussion time. We discuss for an hour and then people leave, some of us stay and talk about other issues.
How much money do you receive from the ASSU, and how much from private donors?
[Note: Sloss declined to answer, but ASSU Undergraduate Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Anton Zietsman had this to say: “The Objectivists of Stanford are registered as a programming group with SAL which means that they have a $6,000 yearly cap. As of now, they have been allocated $3,352 to cover the costs of three speaker events, general marketing, and meetings. So far, they have used $1,445 of the allocated funds.”]
Is Objectivism the best philosophy for everyone? Why or why not? If not, what types of people should be Objectivists?
The purpose of a philosophy is to guide man’s life and Objectivism is a philosophy that provides every man with the principles required to successfully achieve one’s long term self-interest and earn happiness throughout a lifetime. Because Objectivism best identifies the proper goals and means to achieving them, it is the best philosophy.
What has the role of Objectivists in American politics traditionally been?
Objectivists have not played a significant role in American politics. The Objectivist movement is a philosophical movement. As an Objectivist, I think that the course of society is affected by the dissemination of ideas. Intellectuals shape a culture and the intellectuals spread ideas originating from philosophers. Therefore, sharing philosophical ideas is the best way to influence a country’s political development. Objectivists focus on spreading Objectivism as a philosophy, because once the philosophy takes root in our culture, electing better politicians and implementing better policies will follow naturally.
What historical figure would you describe as an Objectivist? Why?
In the literal sense, Ayn Rand was the first Objectivist because she originated the philosophy and no one could possibly subscribe to a philosophy that did not exist. In a metaphorical sense, there have been many Objectivists who implicitly lived by the philosophy of Objectivism without ever fully identifying such a philosophy. Aristotle, Newton, and Bacon are the philosophical precursors of Objectivism. Great businessmen and innovators such as Cornelius Vanderbilt, John Rockefeller, Steve Jobs and John Allison are Objectivists implicitly because they produced material values in order to pursue their self-interest (Allison is also an Objectivist explicitly).
Who are the most important figures in objectivism’s history?
Ayn Rand, Leonard Peikoff, Harry Binswanger, John Allison
Why did Ayn Rand write philosophical novels rather than sticking to essays and other non-fiction writing?
She was primarily a novelist and secondarily a philosopher. In order to create a novel she had to identify what ideas she wished to communicate. In order to identify these ideas, she looked to other philosophers but found no one that had presented her philosophical views adequately (Aristotle was the closest) so she created the philosophy of Objectivism. She later worked to spread this philosophy by writing essays and non-fiction, but she began as a novelist and only turned to philosophy for the sake of understanding and developing the themes of her novels.
Are there any misconceptions about Objectivists and Objectivism at Stanford that you would like to correct?
Most people think of Objectivism as some sort of brute hedonism in which a man pursues his momentary whims without thinking. This is not rational egoism, which actually denounces such whim worshipping. Instead, a rational egoist identifies what is in his long-term self-interest by using a process of rational judgment and then pursues it.
What do you see as Objectivism’s relationship with conservatism? Is it a symbiotic one, one of shared interests (or enemies) and different philosophies or are they fundamentally distinct?
Conservativism is not a coherent political philosophy. It is a jumble of political ideas that are largely incompatible with the ethical background that most conservatives bring to the table. For the most part, conservatives are altruists who support the sacrifice of man, yet still support capitalism in name. As a consequence, conservatives do not end up defending capitalism but instead a mixed economy. They constantly backslide and allow government to violate individual rights. A conservative cannot actually defend laissez-faire capitalism until he recognizes, accepts, and defends its philosophical roots that Objectivism identifies: reason and selfishness. Until then, conservatives and Objectivists may appear to share common interests, but they remain ideological enemies.
What are the Objectivist critiques of conservatism? What are the conservative critiques of objectivism?
I think I just provided a critique of conservatives. On the other side, conservatives criticize Objectivists for being extremists.
Why do you care whether Objectivism spreads or not? If we assume it doesn’t benefit you for Objectivism to become more popular, then you’re not acting in your own self-interest, which would seem to be in violation of one of Objectivism’s key tenets. If it benefits you for it to spread, aren’t you then leeching off of others? Or is it more of a matter of keeping others from leeching off of you?
It benefits me to spread Objectivism. If Objectivism becomes a dominant cultural influence, people around me will act more rationally throughout their daily lives and in their political decisions. For example, if taxation was abolished and I was permitted to voluntarily choose how much money to provide the government with, my spendable income would increase by 50 percent. I would basically gain a third of my life back via the end of taxes. I also enjoy discussing and thinking about philosophy so that even if I do not bring about massive political change it is in my self-interest to spend time sharing Objectivism with those around me. It is both a matter of keeping others from leeching off me and the intellectual benefit that I accrue from spending time discussing Objectivism and gaining a deeper understanding. Finally, I intend to be a professor and leading this club’s discussions is an excellent way to prepare for such a career.
Does Objectivism have any flaws as a philosophy?
I personally disagree with some of Rand’s views about sexuality, but I also agree with some of them. I do not think that this is an essential component of the philosophy and therefore not a fatal flaw for Objectivism. I think that Objectivism is correct about the fundamental issues in metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and politics. She also wrote a considerable amount about esthetics that I have spent much less time thinking about and I cannot say that I fully agree with her theories about art even though she has very interesting ideas. Objectivism provides a comprehensive and accurate view of reality, knowledge, morality, and government that suffices for helping me to live my life.
What are the parallels between Objectivism and Nietzschean ethics (particularly the idea of the übermensch/superman)? Is that an overdrawn comparison, or is it a fair one? Why / why not?
It is an overdrawn comparison. Nietzsche’s view of selfishness does not exclude violence. He urges the superman to sacrifice others and brute force in order to pursue his self-interest. Rand does not think that it is one’s self-interest or even ethically permissible to initiate physical force against others. This is in direct contrast to Nietzsche’s view of the übermensch. Furthermore, he does not advocate rational egoism but hedonism. The übermensch simply knows what to do in his blood and follows his ‘will’ or some sort of primal instinct. Objectivism does not accept this position. I think that it is in man’s self-interest to only act based on rational deliberation, not emotions or Nietszchean whims.
Are there ever circumstances where true capitalism is not the best system, and what would they be?
Capitalism is the best systems for civilized human beings. It is not appropriate for lower animals or human beings who live like lower animals and have not yet emerged from the primal swamp of prehistory.
And of course… Who is John Galt?
John Galt represents the part of every individual that urges him to do better. He is the voice inside you that says ‘I am capable of knowing and doing the good’. He is the man who swore to “never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for the sake of mine.” John Galt is the heroic man who identifies and pursues values.
{ 38 comments… read them below or add one }
The only person missing from your list of important figures would be Dr John Ridpath. To me he is a giant in the movement! If anyone has never heard of him, check out his debate on Socialism VS Capitalism when he joined w/ Dr Leonard Peikoff in debating a couple of Canadians.
Of course Nathaniel Branded should also be included if you are talking about the history of Objectivism, but he has been demonized so much, I am sure that no Objectivist that is “officially part of the movement” would ever mention him without fear of reprisals.
Dakin,
Since you’ve been willing to put yourself in the spotlight, can I ask a few more questions than were covered here and in Jordan’s Review article?
How old were you when you first read Rand’s work? I’m curious about when you realized/decided you were an Objectivist. How do your parents feel about it? Do they consider themselves Objectivists? Do you think Objectivists can have children?
How did you find the two recent biographies of Ayn Rand, Anne Heller’s “Ayn Rand and the World She Made” and Jennifer Burns’s “Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right”?
–Sylvie
To turn our country around, we must focus on individual interests and not community interests. Obama, Democrats, socialists, liberals and everyone on the left wants to share the booty from America saying community is most important. A new book, SAVE THE PEBBLE DROPPERS & PROSPERITY, is on claysamerica.com, about how America did it in the first place and shows us how to repeat the process of regaining our prosperity. America has drifted into meaningless altruism to the point we cannot earn our way back without being accused of insensitive greed. There is a big difference between the results of focusing on community or individual interests as described so well by Ayn Rand. We are past the crossroads of understanding. Claysamerica.com
I would also add Dr. John David Lewis to the list of Objectivist giants.
All these great names of popular Objectivist giants, and no mention of Yaron Brook? I don’t think there’s a single Objectivist out there today who can lay claim to the amount of great work he is doing, single-handedly pushing Objectivism into mainstream thought in a way that nobody else has previously been able to achieve. Definitely deserves to be mentioned as one of Objectivism’s most important figures.
Our interviewee reveals his ignorance by claiming that Nietzsche’s “will to power” entails violence and following a primal brutishness. Are we supposed to take this person seriously when he has clearly never bothered to read Nietzsche and accepts the superficial caricature drawn out by Nazism? His claim that Kant has had a popular influence in undermining objectivity and rationality is patently absurd. Reading any introductory book on Kant (or bothering to read the Critique of Pure Reason) would make it clear that his goal was to provide a foundation for natural science, not disprove or discredit it. Rather than blindly adopting the readings put future by his idol Rand, Sloss should take some time to accurately study the history of philosophy and, for example, realize that Kant was one of the first philosophers to attempt to ground ethics in the self consistency of rational autonomy itself, and not the backward mystic that Rand suggests.
This might be inappropriate to say, but I do happen to find it very amusing that he refused to comment on how the “I’m entirely self-sufficient club” stooped to “leeching” funds from others rather than pay for it out of pocket.
Mr. Rorke: I’m puzzled by your reply. Why so nasty? I thought Mr. Sloss’s answers were very respectful and professional, surprisingly so, really.
(I’m no student of Stanford, Mr. Sloss, but if this is the level of discourse one can expect from your fellow students, then good luck to you. And good luck to Stanford.)
One would think that attending a major university with a lot of extremely intelligent and educated people would be humbling, but the dogmatic vehemence displayed by Objectivism completely spits in the face of this. Anyone who has spent a decent amount of time studying philosophy realizes that it is extremely shallow and has many problems with it. I am not claiming that every conclusion it reaches is wrong, but as intellectual discourse, it makes massive jumps and misapprehends the nature of philosophical argumentation and misrepresents its history. When Objectivists make claims like “It’s the best philosophy because it is true” and belittle more careful and deliberate thinkers by claiming that they were against reason or were for violence, it is insulting. Sloss was the same person who claimed at the Healthcare debate that being born into poverty has no effect on a person after the age of 16. This closemindedness and lack of willingness to recognize poor reasoning and obvious facts (like being born into poverty has a huge affect on your education), combined with its arrogance, makes it hard for me to discuss it with any degree of respect.
I offer the following as an explanation of my disgust:
A security guard is left in a no-win situation and does not know whose orders to follow. The appropriate response is, of course, to shoot him before he is less than human.
“Calmly and impersonally, she, who would have hesitated to fire at an animal, pulled the trigger and fired straight at the heart of a man who had wanted to exist without the responsibility of consciousness.”
http://attitudeadjustment.tripod.com/Speeches/IR-01-01.htm
But, yes, of course, this is a rational philosophy whose merits should be discussed and promoted at one of the premiere intellectual establishments in the world, while the president of its club makes false claims about the history of philosophy.
I can tolerate people making mistakes about philosophy, I can tolerate people dogmatically believing that certain ideological systems are undoubtably proven, and I can even tolerate people being unsympathetic and thinking that if someone is born into poverty it is their fault alone and if they really worked they could pull themselves out
However, I cannot tolerate someone claiming that if someone else is born into poverty that they are at no real disadvantage, and to then go on to claim to have a fully objective proof that any ideological system that claims that we ought to help those people is based in a lack of rationality, and to misrepresent the history intellectual history of people who dedicated their lives to trying to come to terms with both the rational nature of ethics and the misery that so many people are born into without any fault of their own, and to claim that, if it is of no advantage to us to help them, it is ethical for us to simply let them die, and irrational for people to claim otherwise, this I cannot stand.
I am a serious Objectivist. I know, personally, that properly representing the philosophy is difficult, and that fully understanding it is difficult too. The fundamentals may be easy to summarize (reality is real and miracles aren’t; man’s mind can know reality; man should be selfish, for the sake of his own life and happiness; laissez-faire capitalism is the only moral political system) but the actual implications of these are hard to project, and often very controversial.
I understand that even though Objectivism is correct, and is the best philosophy, to say those things generally angers people who hold a philosophy which demands epistemological humbleness, i.e. self-doubt.
Chris Rorke says: “One would think that attending a major university with a lot of extremely intelligent and educated people would be humbling, but the dogmatic vehemence displayed by Objectivism completely spits in the face of this.”
I’d think that attending a prestigious major university would be something to be proud about, rather than humble. Perhaps Mr. Rorke should consider why he considers it so obviously proper to humble himself.
Objectivism holds self-esteem as a high value. Mr. Rorke sees it as an affront.
Being humble and being proud are not antithetical. It is true that one ought to be proud of attending Stanford, as it is a very prestigious university, but this does not remove the humility that one ought to also feel. In high school, reading 5 or 10 book and being able to run around quoting Rand or referring to Nietzsche’s ubermensch as a man who is allowed to follow violent whims is enough to earn you a reputation as an intellectual, as is saying that quantum mechanics is about a wave function collapsing and involves randomness. When you get to college, it changes completely. In a situation with world class scholars, you ought to have read literally thousands of books before you pretend to be an expert and know things that noone else knows. If you are going to make claims about Kant and Nietzsche, that had better be accurate, because it is trivial to go to talk to a professor. Any cursory discussion with a member of the philosophy faculty would have shown that the claims about Kant and Nietzsche are at best simple-minded. This is not to say that Kant or Nietzsche were “right,” only that it is a misrepresentation of what they actually said.
Regardless of how proud you are about being admitted to Stanford, one ought to be humble about what one does not know. After four years of undergraduate, you kind of know a little bit about one area of study. Then you go on to grad school and know a lot about a tiny area of specialization. Being proud about being at Stanford does not entail pretending to know things that you do not know. It does not say that one is justified about making claims that are untrue, or feeling superior to people who know a lot more about other subjects. In the case of this interview, it is obvious that he has not bothered to actually study The Critique of Pure Reason or Beyond Good and Evil. Even an understanding rivaling a Spark Notes summary shows this:
“With Nietzsche’s denigration of Christianity and democracy, and his ardent praise of strife and violence, it is important to note that he is not the warmongering brute that the Nazi party, among others, proclaimed him to be. Nietzsche does not so much promote physical violence as he admires the vigor of those who are capable of it. He thinks it hypocritical that people who lack the vigor to be violent condemn violence. However, physical violence is usually destructive and hardly ever useful. What Nietzsche admires most is the person who is capable of physical violence but sublimates this will to destroy others, directing it instead at himself or herself. Better than being ruthless with others is being ruthless with oneself and attacking all the petty beliefs and assumptions one clings to for a feeling of safety and stability. A free spirit is free by having won an inner struggle, not an outer one. When Nietzsche writes approvingly of violence, it is not so much that he thinks of war as inherently good but rather that he thinks anything is preferable to the mediocrity of our cloistered modern lives. Better to suffer hardship, he believes, than lead a safe and unadventurous life.”
Yes, be proud of being at Stanford. If people accidentally make mistaken claims, that’s fine too. But do not arrogantly make mistaken claims about very easy to check facts, and then try to stand from a high ground of certainty and say “I’m rational and I can understand Rand, but it’s too complicated for the feeble irrational masses to, they need to cling to altruism.”
I will dignify Mr. Rorke’s comments that are worthy of an answer by prying a question out of his snarling lips: Have you ever read any Nietzsche or Kant? Is it possible to read these authors and reach different conclusions about their projects than the mainstream dogma taught in Stanford’s philosophy department? Is it possible to read these authors and agree with Rand’s assessment of their fundamental philosophy?
Yes. On The Genealogy of Morals. Beyond Good and Evil. The Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics. Yes. That is precisely what I have done.
I will not stoop to dealing with the rest of your false, libelous, and pitiful tirade.
Dear Ms. Greenberg,
How old were you when you first read Rand’s work?
Sophomore year of high school.
I’m curious about when you realized/decided you were an Objectivist.
By the end of high school.
How do your parents feel about it? Do they consider themselves Objectivists?
They despise it. My father is a Buddhist so we disagree on every fundamental philosophical point. He is a law professor and also largely responsible for my philosophical prowess because we have spent so much time debating all sorts of arguments, that I rarely hear new criticisms now. They definitely are not Objectivists.
Do you think Objectivists can have children?
As a matter of experience, lots of Objectivists have children and raise them well. If you google Objectivism and children I think there is a lot of information out there about this particular subject. I think that you can definitely have a selfish interest in having children, but it is a decision every individual must make (with his or her spouse).
How did you find the two recent biographies of Ayn Rand, Anne Heller’s “Ayn Rand and the World She Made” and Jennifer Burns’s “Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right”?
They were smear jobs in my opinion. They made the same fundamental article that this one did (not the interview but the article in the review based on it). They present a few facts about the philosophy, then they present every negative possible fact about Ayn Rand’s personal life (neglecting her massive achievements as much as possible). They see that she had a weird and at times unsuccessful personal life and then conclude: Objectivism sucks. They never once stop to think “could it possibly be that she sometimes did not properly apply her philosophy to her life”? The answer is that she obviously did not do that consistently and made errors of a significant scale. Somehow, the biographies read more as criticisms of Rand’s sexual exploits and therefore the rest of her life and philosophy is dismissed.
“I will dignify Mr. Rorke’s comments that are worthy of an answer by prying a question out of his snarling lips: Have you ever read any Nietzsche or Kant? Is it possible to read these authors and reach different conclusions about their projects than the mainstream dogma taught in Stanford’s philosophy department? Is it possible to read these authors and agree with Rand’s assessment of their fundamental philosophy?
Yes. On The Genealogy of Morals. Beyond Good and Evil. The Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics. Yes. That is precisely what I have done.
I will not stoop to dealing with the rest of your false, libelous, and pitiful tirade.”
So….you’re answering a question with a question?
It would have made more sense to just not say anything.
Yes, I’ve read The Critique of Pure Reason, The Critique of Practical Reason, The Critique of the Power of Judgment, Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics, Beyond Good and Evil, The Gay Science, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, The Will to Power, and major commentaries on both authors by Schopenhauer, Hegel, Heidegger, Allen Wood, Lanier Anderson, Frederick Beiser, Robert Pippin, Terry Pinkard, and Henry Allison.
So you admit to having read Nietzsche and felt yourself qualified enough to say that he thought that everyone should use violence against whoever they wanted for their random whims, despite this being a clearly wrong misreading of Nietzsche?
I’ll also point out that Kant is hardly a dominant force in American philosophy, which is rooted more strongly in the logical positivism and subsequent linguistic turn of the early twentieth century. If you have an issue with philosophy at Stanford, take issue with Frege, Russell, and Wittgenstein, not Kant. The analytic/synthetic distinction that Kant uses is different superficial from that used by philosophy of language. American philosophy has traditionally rejected Kant’s distinction as resting on an ambiguity, and even philosophy of language post-Quine (“Two Dogmas of Empiricism”) has been iffy on the concept.
Also, you have not addressed the fact that you have claimed that being born into poverty has no affect on someone after the age of 16. Being able to find exceptions does not disprove the empirical fact that being born in a poor city means that your education will suffer (schools with no books, etc.) I commend the spirit that one should attempt to take full responsibility for oneself and pull oneself through, but it is disgusting to claim that people who remain impoverished are so only because they did not work, and people who earn a lot do so only because they worked hard. Yes, everyone should work as hard as they can, but this does not make it just for a person born into poverty to remain poor and a person born into wealth to remain wealthy even though they have put forth the same effort. One would have to be extremely delusional to hold such a belief.
To clarify: My “libel” consists in:
Claiming that you are arrogant.
Pointing out that, in your arrogance, you made several elementary mistakes about Kant and Nietzsche, whom you presume to be knowledgeable enough about to comment.
Critiquing your claim that people born into poverty are at no real disadvantage, and critiquing your ethical view that we are in no way obligated to help people if we expect no benefit for ourselves.
Dakin Sloss,
I am writing, not necessarily to argue philosophy with you, as you seem to have your hands full debating (or blatantly avoiding discussion) with my brother, but to present a more humane response. I work as the financial officer of Stanford’s Autism Awareness Association, a group that proudly attempts to raise general public awareness of the growing threat of Autism within the United States. We are currently in the process of arranging a program that will hopefully raise thousands of dollars for child developmental research at Lucile Packard Children’s hospital. This money will, of course, come from donations from citizens and students who find our cause to be a noble one.
Now, if I understand the Objectivist theory correctly, I will be told that I am losing my time and energy in a process that does not help me in any way. I will be told that I am therefore irrational. Your “philosophical prowess”, as you put it, will remind me that, in spending my energy and time to help those who, in the end, will return nothing, I am wasting myself away. My own benefit and well being is jeopardized in helping those children.
Of course, I am making the assumption (based on my own research and knowledge of autism) that these children who I am currently striving to help will in no way improve in such a sufficient manner as to become so productive in society that I will, later in my life, benefit from their productivity.
So a question for you Dakin Sloss:
Am I truly jeopardizing my own well being by spending my time helping these children? Should I, instead, celebrate my non-autistic self as some sort of achievement? Objectivism is simply an over-exaggerated, misguided existentialism. You have replaced “Existence precedes essence” with “Existence, only existence”. You fail to understand that you are lucky to have been born into good health. There is absolutely no reason that you are not one of those autistic children. It is not a matter of “pulling yourself up by your bootstraps.” You won a lottery. You got lucky. Since I have, also, been so lucky to be born very healthy and into a family that can provide for me – helping those children, and helping those who are less fortunate than I, is my way of giving thanks to my fortune and good luck.
I will probably be visiting Lucile Packard Children’s hospital soon. When I do, I will extend my invitation to you to come.
But I am certain you will reject my invitation, as spending your time in that manner will simply impede your progress to philosophical transcendency over all your fellow students. Of course, you will “rationalize” this by stating that your ascension into supremacy, someway, helps all of us.
For hey, a rising tide floats all boats.
Right?
I’m surprised no one responded to Chris Rorke’s non-tolerance statement:
“However, I cannot tolerate someone claiming that if someone else is born into poverty that they are at no real disadvantage, and to then go on to claim to have a fully objective proof that any ideological system that claims that we ought to help those people is based in a lack of rationality, and to misrepresent the history intellectual history of people who dedicated their lives to trying to come to terms with both the rational nature of ethics and the misery that so many people are born into without any fault of their own, and to claim that, if it is of no advantage to us to help them, it is ethical for us to simply let them die, and irrational for people to claim otherwise, this I cannot stand.”
…because he could be relieved of some stress by a simple correction.
Ayn Rand and Objectivism are not thus to be so characterized.
There is no claim that birth circumstances and metaphysically given facts have no effect on advantage or disadvantage. Circumstances are circumstances. However, some sort of ‘tier valuation’ for one’s given circumstances that thereby impose a moral or political claim on others is rejected. While it is true that you did not get to chose your birth circumstances, the guy next door did not chose them for you either. He is not responsible for changing them. You are.
Ethically, there is no claim that helping others is immoral or irrational. Rand would claim that voluntary sacrifice — true sacrifice — is unethical for the person “helping”, as in when one’s obsession with helping (or appearing to help) becomes to the detriment of moving forward with one’s own life. Modern medicine actually has a name for that: “co-dependance.” She would not have a problem with individuals helping others, deserving others, when so motivated and when there is a mutual trade of value (not necessarily money).
However, with politics we have a different story. If the vehemence of your statement carries an implication that citizens ought to be compelled to “help” by force, through taxation or regulations of the ‘equalization of results/opportunity’ variety, Objectivists will stand in the doorway of that with a big stick. Self defense.
I will add (since autism has been brought up) that the specific case of human beings actually born with physical or mental impairment who have limited, very limited, means of changing their circumstances is a specific case. It does not alter the ethical or political principle I cited above, however. Such people of course need considerable help.
1) regardless of that, don’t come at me with a guilt trip or force. Persuade me.
2) given the existence of impairment, it is better to have a culture full of productive, self-focused individuals who then have time or money to spare as opposed to a culture of legal or moral compulsion to put aside or damage one’s own life in the name of “helping.”
John, by what right do people lay entire claim to the advantages of their birth situation? I do not think that we should entirely level the playing field, because this would require a complete redistribution of wealth and would in fact entirely contradict the idea of private property and enjoying the profits of your own labor. Yet, almost noone who suggests that altruism is not entirely evil feels that all money should be redistributed. I do recognize the vital important of the free market. It is not entirely fair that certain people are born into poverty, illness, abusive families, etc., and it is not entirely fair to tax people who have earned their own money. The first is unfair because it puts certain groups at a disadvantage and makes them liable to be exploited by others (e.g., factory workers in third world countries), and the second is unfair because there are people who are born into poverty who rise to success and become wealthy, so we cannot assume they started with an advantage that ought to in some way be “equalized.” I do not think that either evil can be fully justified, and a mixed economy attempts to steer a path between the two. Yes, people ought to work hard for themselves and try to succeed (to that extent Rand is good at pointing out, although her point is hardly original), but they also ought to feel sympathy for others who were less fortunate. Rand’s attempt at a proof that ethics are based on values that boil down to preserving your own existence founders horribly, as many people have pointed out in the past. If the defenses that claim that Rand’s argument about self-preservation (being alive is a precondition for having values) still allow one to adopt a value that is detrimental to one’s own existence, which there doesn’t seem to be any room for, then she has still ignored the question: “Ought I to hold the welfare of others as a value?” The response that most people would give is: “Yes, I ought to value my own welfare primarily, but I ought to also value the welfare of others when I can afford to.”
Autism is an extreme case, but it is clearly not a discontinuous divide, with mental impairment on one side and being born with abusive parents on the other. The effects of the environment are very real. If you are born in certain areas, it is likely that by eighth grade you will have the reading level of a first grader. Regarding autism, you are somewhat beating around the busy. Is your second point “It is better to let them die than exist in a culture where people whose life is no way in threat try to help others?”
As a person who has worked damn hard to create his character, under very adverse conditions, I reject the notion that I’ve won some lottery.
Joseph–That’s because you’re only thinking in terms of absolutes: either you entirely created yourself, or your environment entirely created you. You can be relatively lucky and still work really hard. Would you be the same person if you had been born with in IQ of 70 or if you were born with AIDS? If your answer is no, then, yes, you were much luckier than some people.
Here’s a paper regarding Rand’s failure to resolve the is-ought problem (for some reason Objectivists seem to refuse to be averse to conversation in published journals). The problem with Rand’s argument is not an invention of Kant’s analytic/synthetic distinction, arguments from philosophy of language, or any such nonsense that I’ve read suggested online. Ironically, Rand falters when applying the ideas of one of her idols: Aristotle. A syllogism cannot reach a conclusion involving normative claims unless it has a normative premise.
mises.org/journals/jls/7_1/7_1_4.pdf
The reason that I am avoiding discussion with your brother is that he has clearly decided that he does not wish to have a discussion. A discussion does not involve explicitly lying about what another individual has said. He has done this. I see no value in partaking in a discussion with him or you.
So you’re claiming that you did not say in front of a room full of people after the Healthcare debate that being born into poverty has no effect on someone after the age of 16, and when people, after laughing about the insanity of the claim, challenged you on it, you responded by referring to “any biography of a tycoon from the nineteenth century”, and then, when people tried to discuss it further, you stated “I’m tired of this conversation and refuse to talk about it anymore” and ignored further discussion?
Or were you referring to the what you said in writing and is plainly written above, which is factually false claims about intellectual history?
Also, I see no reason to refuse to talk to Dan. All he did was extend an invitation to come with him the next time he goes to the hospital. Is seeing children with a crippling condition that you quite possibly could have been born with so traumatic to your worldview that you refuse to even have a conversation with someone who makes such an invitation?
For the moment I will assume there was a misunderstanding about my second point.
me: “2) given the existence of impairment, it is better to have a culture full of productive, self-focused individuals who then have time or money to spare as opposed to a culture of legal or moral compulsion to put aside or damage one’s own life in the name of “helping.””
I will paraphrase: in a free country, people are not being forced through taxes, regulation and command/control by government into “helping” to the tune of trillions — trillions. People are consequently very productive and have time and money to contribute once persuaded or self-motivated to do so. In the case of semi-collectivist systems, as we have everywhere in the world today, there is less wealth and ease, so it is more difficult for people to be forthcoming. If you wish to continue this point I would be directing attention to the net efficiency of a dollar put to use for ‘caring’ in freedom compared to a dollar put to use for caring in a social democracy. That is, after reiterating the moral point.
I suggest you drop the repeated attribution of “letting people die” to Objectivism. You have not risen to the suggestion of agreeing that “helping” should always be voluntary, so you are the one threatening producers, if not with death than with slavery.
I will also correct this because your formulation is filled with disapproval:
“Rand’s attempt at a proof that ethics are based on values that boil down to preserving your own existence ….”
Not ‘boils down to’ but rather sine qua non. Rational self-interest is at the root and cannot be compromised. But from there on out the individual points his own magnanimity in whatever direction he wants. The introduction to Rand’s book “The Virtue of selfishness” is a good place to look further into this. Your attacks have the feeling of paucity, zero sum. Just because an Objectivist will not permit others to infringe on freedoms, including property, and rejects attempts to control by involuntary agency, does not mean there is no vision or attention outside the self and no vision for the impaired.
Chris Roark, you are sending us to a paper at von Mises Institute to demonstrate Rand’s failings on the is/ought illusion?
That once important and worthy name has now become overrun with anarchists and anti-capitalists and no-morality libertarians. Disgusting that you would think any Objectivist would read something from them.
The problem with the cooked-up so called IsOught schism is that Platonist presupposition assumes “Ought” cannot be simply a man’s cognitive identification of reality in service to his own existence, with voilitional choice for his own happiness after that and mutual celebration and adventure with others after that. Such an ought is so back-of-the-cave. So Bourgeois.
We reject the lingo of Hume/Kant and disciples. There is no justification for it.
Is/Ought, necessary/contingent, synthetic/analytic — these schisms are only a problem for Platonism. Ayn Rand is not a Platonist. We don’t mind if Platonists don’t see the light (irony intended), we will just watch them wither away while young minds light up with fire over Objectivism. They have not been fully indoctrinated into Primacy of Consciousness yet and we love inoculating them from it.
In that case, Rand would have to make a distinction between duties of virtue and duties of right, to use Kant’s terminology, where the former are not enforceable by coercion but the latter are. Even if it is unjust to mandate aid to the poor in the form of taxation, it may still be ethically required. Rand’s claims tend to be not only that is it unjust to forcibly tax people, but it is actually not ethically required to choose to do so. As I have stated, her attempts at a proof that ethical self-interest is the entire foundation of value fail. It is possible for us to have a duty to ourselves to survive and be as successful as possible, but once we are successful, that does not mean that we are not ethically required to help others who have been unlucky. Saying that we must act in our rational self-interest to survive and therefore make values possible means that we should not expect a poor man to donate or a rich man to give all of his money away. However, it is not contradictory for a man whose life is not at stake to be bound by an additional ethical imperative to help others.
I don’t know anything about the institution, but that in no way affects the arguments of the paper. As I said, the problem is failed logical inference, not a choice of using a scheme of analytic/synthetic. Read the paper rather than make ad homonim dismissals.
I think you calling him “Roark” is my favorite Freudian slip evar. Thanks for all the comments and interesting ideas everyone. I’d also like to provide a gentle reminder to try to keep it civil; people get very upset when their worldviews are challenged, but that doesn’t mean we can’t do so respectfully.
Have a party.
That is not an ad hominem, just a non-disclosure of my justified excoriation of anything coming from that place. I have a history with them.
And there is no failure on Rand’s part. My answer above stands. Let all others justify Plato/Kant/Humes’ schisms; Ayn Rand did not invent them.
You are correct that Rand recognizes no moral imperative (to use Kantian language!) for a duty to help others. However, Rand also recognizes exactly zero duties* of any kind that ought be enforceable by coercion either.
Where did you get the idea that ethics is somehow concerned with “duties” as in something one does not wish to do? Why didn’t you invent a morality that is proactively designed to give a person more, not less freedom, success and joy than if it were not voluntarily adopted?
* be careful: I said “duties.” Ayn Rand is very specific about the role of coercion. Except for emergencies like self-defense in the moment, it is the province of government only, and then only in the rectification of initiation of force. In no case are there any “duties.” Ethical positions are taken out of desire and conviction for the good of oneself. In Politics, any coercion as stated, such as the moment a killer is apprehended or killed, has nothing of “duty” surrounding it on the part of the killer.
Where did you get the idea that morality is about being able to exercise as much power over people who are less fortunate as long as it does not involve physically assaulting them? I used this example under the comments for the actual Review article: Suppose I receive a net benefit by opening a plant that dumps toxic waste into the water and causes citizens in the area to get leukemia. I save money by not disposing of the waste properly and am not using coercive force against the people who are harmed. Is this really supposed to be ethical?
I don’t care if it is ethical or not because it is not politic.
And it is not objectivism. You DID violate the property of others. Clean it up.
I’d suggest a more pure example, which you almost started to do there…just a comparison of a powerful person against an honest worker. But don’t make the powerful person someone who is getting away with violations or using pull with the government to block competition with force. In return, the honest working person is not a whiner who wants something for nothing.
Ok, what is the relationship here. Do you see that it does not matter what their origins are? the powerful person, say an owner of a restaurant that might go syndicate and the guy who delivers the bread for one of the vendors. The driver might be from middle circumstances and just not ambitious or driven or blocked by limited thinking. The owner might be an imegrant from some repressed country on any continent or an up-from-the-streets
IGNORE PRIOR POST, upload clumsiness with touchy computer. Here is the final:
I don’t care if it is ethical or not because it is not politic.
And it is not Objectivism. You DID violate the property of others. Clean it up.
I’d counter with a more pure example, which you almost started to do there…just a comparison of a powerful person against an honest worker. But don’t make the powerful person someone who is getting away with violations or using pull with the government to block competition with force. In return, the honest working person is not a whiner who wants something for nothing and/or cheating/stealing from the company.
Ok, what is the relationship here. Do you see that it does not matter what their origins are? the powerful person, say an owner of a restaurant that might go syndicate and the guy who delivers the bread for one of the vendors. The driver might be from middle circumstances and just not ambitious or driven or blocked by limited thinking. The owner might be an immigrant from some repressed country on any continent or an up-from-the-streets phenom. Or reverse it.
My point is that this is far, far more common than victims and oppressors. I would suggest that this natural, voluntary offset contains no violence.
I don’t see how that is not Objectivism. It was in your rational self-interest to dump the chemicals. Egoist theories run aground because they attempt to claim that everyone’s self-interest should be the goal for themself, but they fail to account for how their egoist actions contradict the interests of others who pursue their own interests. What if it’s not in my self-interest to respect the property rights of others? Objectivists try to defend the theory from objections like “Then it’s okay to lie” by claiming “It’s actually not in your interest because then you get a reputation as a liar, which is harmful,” but, if Objectivism is to be convincing as a theory, it must at least prove that acting always in my own self-interest, which is an undisputed claim of the position, is never harmful to others.
I recognized previously that people can climb up from lower social statuses and earn money in fair trade. But, as I said, the ability to find counterexamples or paint a romantic portrait of an equal playing field does not discredit the fact that the waiter earning minimum wage is more likely to have had parents who never went to college then the engineer who visits to eat, even if they had the same potential were their situations reversed.
Your position is very Rawlsian, but depends on a false method: you are crossing over from ethics to politics and back. Philosophers recognize them as separate normative sciences. Rand is powerful in this. The shorthand is: not everything that must be legal is moral, not everything that is immoral should be illegal.
It is possible in Political Science to paint the line that separates my person and property from yours. Is that process perfect? No. Is it imperative that a nation attempt it? Without question. I believe they have a law school there at Stanford, of some fame. I sincerely hope the intellectuals there still believe in objective law, in a government of laws not subjective drives of men.
If we have a contract and I lie, that is fraud, damage to the value that you bargained for legally. It is actionable through coercion of a rectifying government. If we are simply fellow travelers in the world and I lie, I will discover it is not in my interest because then I get a reputation as a liar, which is harmful to my reputation and detrimental to my standing as someone with whom it is safe to contract. My Ethical standing has been damaged. It is not actionable because your person/property were not damaged.
So on a practical level that responds to your objection. There is something larger, however. Any philosophy holding itself out as a candidate for its normative branches to be adopted must make the case that this is a universally just Politics and a healthy Ethics. The two cannot contradict each other. If Objectivism were to be written up as a candidate, or better encoded in a Constitution, with the Political Science core premise was “grab whatever you can, do whatever you want regardless of other people’s rights”, how would that ever get adopted, administered, adjudicated and rectified? Who would go for it? Instead, Rand endorsed a Politics not very different than the original American idea. Every person with absolute right to their person and property and a government given limited power strictly to protect those rights. All with equal standing before the law.
“…the waiter earning minimum wage is more likely to have had parents who never went to college then the engineer who visits to eat, even if they had the same potential were their situations reversed.”
Life is unfair. Don’t try to legislate a Platonic Ideal: it will require force on free people to egalitarianize all such misfortune.
{ 2 trackbacks }