“one CANNOT justify the sacrifice and effort required to raise a family from reason alone”
Sorry, I do not agree with you, and either did Ayn Rand. I rationally justified all that had to be done to raise a family, and did it. It was NO sacrifice.
If you think the time and effort, the tears and torment, and there is that, is a sacrifice, if your wife and children aren’t worth ten times the cost, if you consider those things a “sacrifice,” you should not have children.
I find those people who believe they’re doing something noble and sacrificial to raise a family (and frequently they are the kind who throw it up in their children’s faces) are despicable. Your love for you wife and family make no price too high to have, to nourish, to enjoy, to tend their every need. What kind of parent considers that a sacrifice?
I pity your family.
I’m not an Objectivist, by the way, but I do get tired of all the lies told about Rand.
For example: “Rand’s novels contain no CHILDREN! And no mention of family life.”
You apparently have never read Rand, or you are a very poor reader. Atlas Shrugged discusses two families, and one family with children, boys, 4 and 7, lived in Galt’s gulch. Dagny talks to the mother, who also happens to own a bakery, about raising and teaching her children. Her husband is a lineman.
What kind of “family” man are you, who repeats lies like that? Do you teach your children to do that too.
Hank
You write:
I rationally justified all that had to be done to raise a family, and did it. It was NO sacrifice.
My point is, you would have done it anyway, even if you had never studied philosophy, science or logic. You would have done it out of LOVE, a natural aspect of your soul. The rational justification you tout came after the fact. Apart from love of others, romantic, familial and philanthropic, the world would indeed be a much worse place. We have enough social psychopaths as it is. But fortunately, we have a Divine heritage that is active in most people. The manifestation of that love is what is commonly called 'decency'. Blaise Pascal wrote, "The heart hath reasons that reason knows not of."
And so does yours, Hank, whether you want to acknowledge it or not.
To look into one's heart and understand that force and fraud are not acceptable ways of getting by is to acknowledge the existence of a Moral Whole of which each of us are parts. The fact that this is perfectly compatible with reason is no criticism of moral obligation, and does not prove that it is derived solely from reason.
I still invite you to demonstrate how love is derived from reason alone, or reason supplemented by empirical observation. On the contrary, we come to this life fully equipped with a conscience and an ability to love that is limited only by our preoccupation with trivial pursuits. I am not holding myself up as a moral paragon, we all have our limitations. Nor do I doubt in any way your moral sincerity about your family. However, that was not the question I posed.