Posted on 04/22/2003 5:25:25 PM PDT by RJCogburn
My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute. — Ayn Rand, Appendix to Atlas Shrugged
In her novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, and in nonfiction works such as Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, Ayn Rand forged a systematic philosophy of reason and freedom.
Rand was a passionate individualist. She wrote in praise of "the men of unborrowed vision," who live by the judgment of their own minds, willing to stand alone against tradition and popular opinion.
Her philosophy of Objectivism rejects the ethics of self-sacrifice and renunciation. She urged men to hold themselves and their lives as their highest values, and to live by the code of the free individual: self-reliance, integrity, rationality, productive effort.
Objectivism celebrates the power of man's mind, defending reason and science against every form of irrationalism. It provides an intellectual foundation for objective standards of truth and value.
Upholding the use of reason to transform nature and create wealth, Objectivism honors the businessman and the banker, no less than the philosopher and artist, as creators and as benefactors of mankind.
Ayn Rand was a champion of individual rights, which protect the sovereignty of the individual as an end in himself; and of capitalism, which is the only social system that allows people to live together peaceably, by voluntary trade, as independent equals.
Millions of readers have been inspired by the vision of life in Ayn Rand's novels. Scholars are exploring the trails she blazed in philosophy and other fields. Her principled defense of capitalism has drawn new adherents to the cause of economic and political liberty.
You left out money. Women like money -- for the same set of reasons that sort'a include what you've mentioned. And that gets us back to the many elements of agreement we have regarding what I've heard of Rand's politico-economic philosophy (notwithstanding her errors of omission of source and well, gender, and what errors derive from them).
Loyalty and responsibility are "traits" passed to offspring? Oh, I get it - a morality gene! B-A-L-O-N-E-Y.
If it's a trait, it's passed on to your offspring. The question worth asking is, how strongly? Emotional predilictions can be traced to about 6 enzymes your body produces, triggered by various external events, it quite obviously is, in fact, the case that any strong drives are going to be heritable to some degree. Just like taste preferences or male pattern baldness.
I have said no such thing. Not even remotely.
Woman like any suggestion, in any form, that their offpring will have resources. This manifests in lots of ways, including money, which, tepid Randite that I am, I take, often as not, as a sign of virtue in its possessors.
They also all believed in bloodletting, which makes them numbskulls on that subject as well. Even numbskulls can come through, from time to time, with the goods. That doesn't make reasoning to discover the truth a popularity contest.
I am afraid I'm still not honed in on this argument. Being a "big fan of free will" ought to be an argument in favor of leaving man free to figure out his best moral code, just as it leaves him free to figure out how to gather food and water.
That can be explained by the fact that humans, as a species, have certain universal problems whose amelioration invokes the exact same moral laws everywhere. No culture will survive long without certain ancient inbuilt restraints--those against murder, stealing, and false witness come to mind readily.
I've been flinging the accusation "post hoc, ergo propter hoc" around with abandon on this thread, and now I'se be flangin' it again: if you assume transcendental sources of absolute morality, than, naturally, you see a big transcendental barrier to attaining morality. If you assume that unless you see perfect morality being implemented everywhere, than natural morality has failed, then, naturally, you don't find the argument from nature pursuasive. If you don't, then you don't. Morality isn't obviously transcendental, isn't guaranteed to be infallible, isn't obviously going to ever be prefectly attainable, and isn't rocket science, such that humans can't achieve it on their own, or such that that achievement isn't going to be worth the cost.
Reasoning is not a history lesson, a popularity contest, or a bow to august authority figures. Our founding fathers were raised christians, and would not have risen to high esteem such as to be posted to the Continental Congress, if they had espoused any but christian rhetoric in the framing of our country. It does not follow from this that you have demonstrated that God's behind-the-scenes moral authority must have been the causitive factor in the success of the United States.
yours is not an offering of reasons, it is an appeal to authority. Christians have done all manner of good things in the world, this in no manner excuses them from having contributed to the genocide of jews, witches and anabaptists, and this in no way makes their reasoning sacrosanct, or their transcendental moral absolutes provably existent entities.
Which in no manner suggests that having morals instilled in it's members is not advantageous for the moral community. This is just another in your endlessly repeated theme that, because morals aren't perfectly universal, or perfectly perfectabled, they can't exist. Of course they can. Look around. We couldn't run our daily affairs without it. Is your local PTA meeting a cachophony of unbridled egos? Even in Sikh, Druid, Moslem, or athiest regions of the world?
That is, as usual, not true. I have talked myself blue in the face on this subject. "We" is parents and teachers and school adminstrators and all who come in contact with the young who might teach them, particularly by example and explanation thereof, the selfish value to a person of being a member in good standing. I have, in fact, provided a moral standard--the good of the moral community. Is it a fallible standard that requires thought and monitoring to see that it doesn't go astray? Yes--that does not demonstrate that it does not exist, your repeated ad nauseum blovations to contrary notwithstanding.
Whose version of morals is correct? I have asked it 10 times now. Whose? All? One? Tell me.
Reasoning is not a history lesson, a popularity contest, or a bow to august authority figures. Our founding fathers were raised christians, and would not have risen to high esteem such as to be posted to the Continental Congress, if they had espoused any but christian rhetoric in the framing of our country. It does not follow from this that you have demonstrated that God's behind-the-scenes moral authority must have been the causitive factor in the success of the United States.
What I have shown is that your recipe for morals is a bunch of baloney - the founders DIDN'T FOLLOW IT. They followed MORAL ABSOLUTISM. You deny moral absolutism. Get it? Our founding documents declare the transcendancy of morals and rights. You deny this. So are both you and the founders right even though the law of contradiction disallows it? Or are both of you right? Both cannot logically be right unless you want to toss out logic. You or the founders? Which?
We do it in america--it's called prison and capital punishment.
"We" are the teachers, parents huh? Which teacher and which parent? Are all correct even if their moral teachings contradict one another? You need to address the logical contradiction that is inherent in your morality. Logic will not allow this ontological contradiction - it demands that one set of morals be correct and another be false. The only way out of it for you is to declare that there are no morals at all and what is is right, but you cannot declare that morals exist without dilineating which morals are correct, otherwise you have coexisting contradictory moral systems. Your morals are totally incoherent.
Hahaha. Criminals are locked up and criminals are executed. What you suggested was intended for people who have committed no crimes. You are showing your true Margaret Sanger colors now.
which community? Your standard is far from universal. HOw do you decide which community is right? How do you settle disputes between communities? War? Might makes right.
Which, of course, isn't going to stop you from posting the exact same argument over and over, while refusing to even acknowledge your deponents counterarguments, is it?
- your arguments have no foundation whatsoever - they are from your head.
Oh,...as opposed to transcendental absolute morality, for which you proudly claim no directly tangible evidence whatsoever? Can you tell me how much one of God's moral absolutes weighs on a laboratory scale?
I have said all along that individuals are the ones who make moral decisions.
So you have. Which in no way demonstrates what the source of the moral inclination in humans might be, or that morals necessarily arise from supernatural causes.
You are the one who has totally ignored the sense of "ought".
Indeed I have, as it doesn't mean much of anything at all, except as yet another less-than-subtle way to promote an ergo-propter-hoc-argument by asserting without proof that some vague thing like a moral "ought" bump exists in humans that couldn't possibly have arisen from natural causes.
Since you have not even attempted to demonstrate this exclusionary nature of the "ought" bump, I'll continue to ignore it.
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