I'm an Objectivist. Debate me.

You don't have a right to other people's money nor the right to tell them what they can and can't buy.

 

I am glad to see you corrected your claim. Socialism and Communism both suck.

 

Well, I see that you are not interested in a real conversation. Where is that button...i..g..n..o..r..

 

LOL! I am interested in a conversation with someone who gets the facts straight.....adios....

 

So what? Hitler was popular with Germans at one time.

 

This is pure gold, and the response you get is a quote from Rand, a poor, sodden author with atrocious prose.

SSI IS AN EARNED BENEFIT AND THE PEOPLE ARGUING AGAINST IT NEED TO DO SO WITH "REASON."

 

I don't really believe in God or religion or spirituality, so this Universalism idea isn't really working for me.

I think people will be saved when they choose capitalism and reason over socialism and religion. The world is collapsing because people believe in stuff that isn't real, and believe in poor economics because they are afraid to be independent and free.

 

I believe that our positive choices can bring in a vastly more positive future........
many people might tend to find the following information rather inspiring........

Many of us religious types are far too pessimistic......... which tends to push us toward short term.... and unwise decisions and behaviour patterns ...

https://www.near-death.com/experiences/notable/howard-storm.html#a04

 

bump

 

I am left to believe that there are only two perspectives: necessary and contingent. I do not believe that there is an objective perspective.

An author of a novel work has a necessary perspective of his novel work. His characters have contingent perspectives. Creator and creature, author and character, necessary and contingent, that's all there is. At least that's all that I can currently affirm.

 

Hey, thanks for the belly laugh, man


… In 2008, Sears CEO Eddie Lampert decided to restructure the company according to Rand’s principles. …

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/column-this-is-what-happens-when-you-take-ayn-rand-seriously


Needless to say, things didn't turn out well for Eddie...

https://www.businessinsider.com/sears-files-for-bankruptcy-empty-store-photos-2018-10



Ayn Rand

 

A wise man does not parade his disassociations.

 

That from an Ayn Rand fanboy … LOL



Ayn Rand

 

I don't understand what makes her so funny.

 

The characters in Rand's books tend to be very stubborn and insensitive to the feelings of others to the point that they make a lot of enemies. This often doesn't work in real life and can result in a very lonely life with big problems. Its great to have those people skills and communicate well with others, even if you want to chart your own path. Her characters don't really try to sell their products and will just make them and expect that people will eventually want them. If you are starting a business, you definitely want to sell products and gear your products to what customers really want.

 

When you reach the point in life where you want to ask "is this all there is" the answer is No. You are still enamored on materialism. When you look at what's behind objective physical reality, you won't be so pessimistic about afterlife and spirituality, things you dismiss as unreal.

 

Another objectivist here. I'm older than you, apparently, but also single. It seems Objectivism is mainly popular with single males for some reason. I see Objectivism as being similar to Machiavelli's The Prince, in that it doesn't describe the world as it should be but as it really is. Selfishness is everyone's main drive, even for altruists, who sacrifice themselves not out of a sense of duty or nobility but so that everyone will love them or think highly of them, a profoundly selfish goal when you think about it. So when you admit that you're selfish, you're suddenly free of all those demands that society makes on you, because you realize that you aren't beholden to society. "You have to do X!" society screams. "No, I really don't," the objectivist says.

 

Sometimes none of the italicized above. If they reach a point where their pursuit and achievement of wealth & gain no longer gives them purpose/meaning/goal, then they start giving back, probably because they realize that so much focus on self-serving interests is another dead end.

 

Her characters are utterly responsible and independent and that's what I love about them.

Single males are looking for something to guide them, I guess? And what better guide than Objectivism.

But interesting, I haven't thought of Objectivism in that way before. I guess everyone is ultimately selfish, but not rationally self-interested.

 

There is no evidence or proof of the afterlife or some kind of higher transcendental world. Therefore, there is no reason to believe these things, nor to worry about these things.

 

I'm not really fond of the expression, "giving back," since in the US, most people make their money honestly, not dishonestly, so most people don't have to give anything back because they haven't stolen anything. But look at the reality behind your statement. People start "giving back" because the pursuit of wealth and gain no longer gives THEM purpose, meaning, etc., so they do something else to give THEM purpose. It's still all about them, not others. I'm a good man, but why am I a good man? Because I obey the law and help others. But why do I obey the law and help others? I do it solely for what I get out of it, i.e., staying out of jail and feeling or looking good. I don't do it for them or society, I do it for me. Joel Osteen wrote a book called, It's Not About You, in which he argued that our lives' purpose is to do what God wants of us, not what we want. And he gave multiple example stories of people who had switched their thinking based on this idea of it not being about them, and the remarkable commonality to all their stories was how it affected them, not God, not church, not society, but how it was such a relief and a source of pleasure and joy to surrender to God's purpose, not realizing the whole time that they were still expressing what it did for them. Take the most extreme example of self-sacrifice, a soldier jumping on a grenade to save his buddies. Why does he do it? What motivates him to kill himself to save others? It's all about his own internal self-definition, his own sense of morality, his own sense of identity. He sees himself as a noble person who sacrifices himself for the sake of others, so when the opportunity comes, he jumps on it, literally. He doesn't do it for them, he does it for himself, as ironical as that sounds. Because if he didn't jump on that grenade, he couldn't live with himself, he wouldn't have lived up to his own self-definition, his own identity. So we're all 100% motivated by selfishness, even the most altruistic of us.

 

But Objectivism/Rand doesn't proclaim psychological egoism -- that everyone acts out of selfishness. Objectivism/Rand proclaims ethical egoism -- that everyone *should* act in their own interests (which she rather poorly defines). She clearly believed that people were *capable* of acting selflessly and condemned them for it. As for your own claim of psychological egoism (which, again, stands apart from Objectivism and Rand), you've just brought up one of its primary faults: it is nonfalsifiable and often circular. Where is the evidence that no one is ever willing to sacrifice for any reason other than notoriety? Where is the evidence that no one would ever willingly sacrifice themselves out of a sense of duty or nobility? There is no such evidence. Only circular and unsupported claims that it simply can't happen.

Meanwhile, there are people who have done generous things, sometimes at risk to their own life, and who did not seek fame for it. This, by any reasonable measure, would seem to go against the theory of psychological egoism. But if such things can't be counted as evidence against psychological egoism, we only get further clarification that it is an unfalsifiable theory, rendering it useless as an explanation.

And that's something I touched on earlier in the thread as a weakness in Rand's Objectivism. She talks about self interest but had very little interest in what science had to say about human nature, and she frequently expressed contradictory accounts of the concept of self. During those few times when she was being precise about this, she defined self interest as one's biological survival. Objectivism defines one's own life as the only thing with intrinsic value. But, as you and I have both pointed out at this point, self-conception (identity) involves far more than just survival. I think the example I used earlier was of a firefighter, but it is a similar concept to your soldier.

If Objectivism were to take into account evolution and psychology, and of man's identity as a social species, it could correct much of its problems. Rand never saw the point and saw social behaviors as tangential -- she tried to base a moral philosophy on human nature and completely failed to come to grips with human nature. This is part of why her ethical theories lead to all sorts of absurd conclusions that she was only able to dodge by refusing to consider any kind of thought experiment (the core of philosophical inquiry) of any kind.

Let's say you see an abandoned child on a subway platform. It is just you and this child, no one else is there and there are signs everywhere that say the security cameras are out of order. The child falls onto the train tracks. She isn't able to climb up, and a train is due in the next three minutes. You estimate that you would easily be able to pick the kid up and rescue her at no real risk to yourself. Now, I'm not going to ask you if you are morally obligated to help her; all I'm asking is if it would be morally praiseworthy of you to do so. In pure Objectivism, this action would have absolutely no moral value of any kind, unless you think you can be sure to get a reward for your efforts or you think you will somehow be caught if you don't help and punished for it. You'd be hard pressed to find anyone but a complete psychopath (one of whom Rand admired and hero-worshipped) who doesn't feel some compulsion to help. Objectivism, however, doesn't account for such a compulsion as being part of human nature, and it sees any such compulsion as one of entirely neutral value; in fact, the act would become evil if some sort of risk to yourself were involved. Moreover, taken to its logical conclusion, Objectivism has no means of ethically condemning the parent who abandoned the child.

I'm glad to see self-described Objectivists abandon the core of Objectivism to begin developing their own theories to begin correcting some of Rand's errors, though.

 

Because we have a compulsion to sacrifice ourselves that makes it right even if it's a danger to ourselves? Objectivism isn't wrong. It's telling you how to live your life if you value your life. If someone has a compulsion to jump off a building that doesn't mean they should do it. If someone has a compulsion to die for the people around them that doesn't mean they should do it. That's stupid. You're sacrificing yourself like an animal. To be used and discarded.

However, in objectivism, dying for someone you love is considered moral. Because you value your life, you value things that add value to your life. Dying or risking your life for for something you value greatly like a friend or family member isn't a sacrifice.

 

I didn't argue that.

I've shown several weaknesses it has that haven't been addressed. Rationally, I have to conclude it is wrong, based on these inconsistencies and shortcomings.

No, it says that one's life is the only thing with objective, intrinsic value.

No one here has argued that.

Our life comes to an end at some point. If I were to choose the path of a heroic death, why would that be bad? Hell, even Rand is inconsistent on this point if you've read The Fountainhead. Also, you've just argued against anyone ever being, say, a solider, firefighter, or police officer, all of which involve risking your life for strangers -- once again, Objectivism attempts to create an ethics based on human nature . . . and completely fails at understanding some of the most basic aspects of human nature.

Only if Objectivism is inconsistent, which I agree, it most certainly is. And what if I love the rest of humanity? You just got through saying I shouldn't ever risk my life to save someone else's.

Not in Objectivism. In Objectivism, one's life is the only thing with intrinsic value. All other things only gain value through their relation to your life. This is an inconsistency I pointed out earlier. You can either argue that one's life is of intrinsic value or you can argue that things like loved one's give it value. You can't have it both ways. Your argument that it is okay to sacrifice your life in the name of something you value is complete nonsense unless that value would persist apart from your life.

Yes, it is if it involves giving up your life. Why are you now okay with "sacrificing yourself like an animal"?

 

This reminds me of another thought experiment that shows a fundamental flaw in Objectivism. According to Rand, values only exist because there is an alternative to life: death. Life is the only thing that has real value (all other things derive value from life), but even life only have value because it has limits. She mentions that an immortal being would have no values because there would be no alternative to life. Death is the greatest evil, but without it there would be no value. Paradoxical, to be sure, but it brings me to the thought experiment: according to Objectivism, if you were offered the opportunity to become immortal, should you take it? If you don't take it, you are passing up on more life, and therefore abandoning value. But if you did take it you would also be taking all value from your life.