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About Objectivism
Objectivist Center ^ | 2/2002

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.


TOPICS: Philosophy
KEYWORDS: aynrand; objectivism
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To: tpaine
Let me know if you ever want to get out of denial, tpaine.
861 posted on 04/26/2003 11:52:48 AM PDT by unspun (What did it profit Ayn Rand, if she'd gained the whole world, but forfeited her soul?)
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To: unspun
"inalienable rights"

There is no such thing as truly "inaliable" rights. That is a polite fiction for the purpose of producing orotund documents of political significance. What the founding documents establish, insofar as any actual manifest law is concerned, is really important rights--trump rights. Your "inalienable" right to life, for example, does not demolish our right to safeguard the republic by terminating the lives of killers and traitors. Your "inalienable" right to liberty does not entitle you you to spread typhoid in New York restaurants, go faster than the posted speed limit, or make movies of underage children having sex. Just to cite a few obvious examples.

That being said, I submit that your alarm about state devolving into tyranny and chaos any second now because God's absolutely 100% rights warranty is fragile as a cobweb is, to my mind, an oddly incongruous conviction. You, like exmarine, appear to me to think that God, who is omnipotent, and all-loving, granted us a shoddy, worn out set of rights that can be torn down by any passing anarchist/athiest who looks cross at them.

I would suggest, on the basis of the evidence available, that rights, being as precious as they are, ought to be subject to critical analysis, so that they remain worthy of safeguarding. And then they ought to be safeguarded with continuous vigilance, because the exigencies of the world are ever ready to blow rights away. For that purpose, God's guarantee seems to be pretty toothless, upon historical analysis.

If you think "inalienable" rights exist outside their creation by humans in the human sphere, could you suggest to me an existing example I can expose to scientific analysis?

862 posted on 04/26/2003 12:16:38 PM PDT by donh
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To: unspun
individual rights in their proper context

uh huh. Cite me the case of an "absolute" right in "proper context" such that no other right or difficulty can overcome it for any reason whatsoever.

863 posted on 04/26/2003 12:23:36 PM PDT by donh
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To: Hank Kerchief
The concept of "rights" is very confused. If men are endowed by their Creator with rights, why do we need a government to make sure we get them? We are endowed by our Creator with ears for hearing, and eyes for seeing, and legs for walking, and no government agency is required to make sure we get them. I guess our Creator intended to endow us with rights, but somehow got sidetracked, so now it is up to the government.

What moron wrote this? A right, like your right to life, is yours to protect. That's why we have the concept of self-defense. Governments are instituted to secure rights because, like many things, it is more efficient to engage someone to perform certain activies for you than to perform all necessary activities yourself. It is more efficient to have a police force proctecting the lives of every one in the community than for each of us to constantly undertake our self protection. We choose to cede the power reserved by each of us to protect our rights to the government. That is how government obtains its powers.

864 posted on 04/26/2003 12:29:48 PM PDT by laredo44
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To: donh
God, who is omnipotent

Bottom line: God is omniscient, not omnipotent.

865 posted on 04/26/2003 12:34:00 PM PDT by laredo44
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To: laredo44
Bottom line: God is omniscient, not omnipotent.

Really? You have an affidavit to submit to the court about this? How impotent is God, exactly? Sufficiently impotent that there's not point in praying to Him--everything is out of his hands?

Or is God just a wee bit impotent?

866 posted on 04/26/2003 12:41:30 PM PDT by donh
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To: donh
Impotent is the sense of performing the impossible. E.g., can God make a boulder so big he can't lift it?
867 posted on 04/26/2003 12:44:53 PM PDT by laredo44
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To: B-Chan
i did not say that there was no basis for belief - basis can be retionalized in many ways - there are still people who believe the earth is round - there are still people who believe that women can get pregnant from a public toilet seat - i'm sure you have rationalized your belief in whichever of the plethera of gods to choose from that you believe in
868 posted on 04/26/2003 12:52:49 PM PDT by ThinkLikeWaterAndReeds
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To: donh
To those who recognize in every individual the same inalienable rights of life, liberty in property, "people" means: individuals, all of whom have the same natural rights. Thus, to logical advocates of individual freedom, democracy means "rule by individuals having the same natural rights as everyone else".

We commonly hear that "equality" is a value treasured in a "democracy". I submit that it is not merely a value in a democracy, but that equality - the sameness of every person's rights - is the defining feature of "democracy". In any society that recognizes all individuals to have only certain rights, "rule by people" necessarily implies "rule by equals".

The significance of this is, of course, tremendous. When the rights of our governors are the same as the rights of the governed, governors - even when they act in concert and call themselves “the government” - can take no action that cannot morally be taken by one of the governed. The governed, lacking the right to violate another person's liberty, cannot have their liberty violated even by individuals in government. The governed, lacking the right to take another's property against their will, cannot have their property taken from them against their will even by individuals in government. Whereas governed individuals may not morally initiate the coercive use of physical force against others, they have the moral authority to use force in defence of their life, their liberty and their property. Thus, in a society that recognizes individual rights, democracy can mean only: a society in which the government lacks the authority to violate any individual's rights of life, liberty or property, but is charged with the responsibility of protecting those rights for every individual.
Now, of course, the advocate of Marxism would say: but individuals don't have rights". But that defence only points to the logical flaw underlying the Marxist’s claim to democracy. It could hardly be denied that a government is a thing with the right to use force. However, in a Marxist society, the individual has no rights. It follows that, in a Marxist society, the term "democracy" would refer to a society ruled by people having no rights. At this point, you must yourself: how can people lacking rights logically have the right to rule? The answer, of course is: they cannot. Denying that individuals have individual rights, a truly Marxist society can have a government only if the government is comprised of individuals having rights the governed lack. In other words, Marxism, though completely compatible with voting, and though completely capable of having a ruler, is logically and utterly opposed to a government comprised of the people: it is an enemy of democracy (and, I might add, of equality).

869 posted on 04/26/2003 12:55:16 PM PDT by freeforall
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To: unspun
Replies
Address:http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/898307/replies?comment=856
870 posted on 04/26/2003 12:58:42 PM PDT by tpaine (Really, I'm trying to be a 'decent human being', but me flesh is weak.)
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To: Cultural Jihad
i am a taoist, not believing in god, and i have an abundance of nature to guide my life - compassion, careing, respect, honor, supportiveness, sharing, and cooperativeness are all lessions that i learn through observation every day - most god fearing people i know could vastly improve on their lives and interaction with others if they learned their lessons from nature as opposed as the religeous mythology that guides their lives
871 posted on 04/26/2003 1:08:07 PM PDT by ThinkLikeWaterAndReeds
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To: freeforall
We commonly hear that "equality" is a value treasured in a "democracy". I submit that it is not merely a value in a democracy, but that equality - the sameness of every person's rights - is the defining feature of "democracy". In any society that recognizes all individuals to have only certain rights, "rule by people" necessarily implies "rule by equals".

This is another motherpie and applehood theory that doesn't seem to have much impactful meaning. Lots of things cause the rights landscape to vary. I'll cite a few examples: certain indian tribes have treaty rights that grant their members, who are US citizens, rights to build gambling casinos where white-eyed citizens can't. Felony convictions deprive one of certain licensing, educational, and civil rights. 17 year olds lack certain rights 18 or 21 year olds possess. Are you opposed to any of these on the basis that "all men stand equal before the law?".

I submit that equality before the law, while an important concept, is not much of a safeguard, compared to specific consitutional limitations on governments respecting their behavior toward individual citizens, as for example, in the Bill of Rights. Equality before the law doesn't really seriously creep into the picture until the post Civil War amendments were written in, and, in my opinion, the moral jury is still out on this. I think those who laid their lives on the line to defend our country, for example, ought to have stronger civil rights than those who have not.

872 posted on 04/26/2003 1:10:54 PM PDT by donh
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To: freeforall
Now, of course, the advocate of Marxism would say: but individuals don't have rights".

I am not a marxist, and that is not my argument, but if I were a marxist, I'd tell you that individual rights cannot be respected in a world that's organized to give more political power to richer people, and that our Soviet Constitution, modeled after yours, does, in fact, grant us rights, since there is no Reynolds Tobacco and Shell Oil to usurp them here, while yours is a fiction that allows Reynolds and Shell to decide what laws you will have, and who will be in jail because of them.

Whether you are a Soviet or an American you cannot get rights by pretending they exist--you have to work for them without let up.

873 posted on 04/26/2003 1:16:54 PM PDT by donh
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To: laredo44
Impotent is the sense of performing the impossible. E.g., can God make a boulder so big he can't lift it?

If God is not capable of material manifestation, than all things God might do are, in like manner as you have described, impossible. Does God have a capacity for material manifestation, or not? If not, then he is impotent. If so, than how much?

874 posted on 04/26/2003 1:21:55 PM PDT by donh
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To: donh
How, in a nutshell, should we comprehend democracy? I submit that to know what democracy is, we must first remember what it is not. Remember that democracy is neither the process by which a society’s laws are made, nor a society whose laws are made in a certain way. Remember that only a society with a government whose authority to use force is the same as that held by the individuals it governs, may rightly be called a democracy.

Those who recognize that the action of individuals acting in concert as a government are subject to the same moral yardstick as the action of those individuals acting alone. Those who believe that “every individual, in the peaceful pursuit of personal fulfilment, has an absolute right to his or her own life, liberty and property.”

875 posted on 04/26/2003 1:22:49 PM PDT by freeforall
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To: freeforall
How, in a nutshell, should we comprehend democracy? I submit that to know what democracy is, we must first remember what it is not. Remember that democracy is neither the process by which a society’s laws are made, nor a society whose laws are made in a certain way.

I have a better way to comprehend democracy. Hold firmly in mind a picture of Socraties being forced to drink hemlock, and his star student being hedgehogged with spears. Contrary to your contention, democracy is, indeed, by definition, a way to make laws, and constitututional limitations granting individuals rights-claims against this process putting them before a jury and subsequently in jail, are our best hope of restraining this process from devolving into out and out thuggery by those in the majority.

Remember that only a society with a government whose authority to use force is the same as that held by the individuals it governs, may rightly be called a democracy.

More of the same confusion. Democracy is not a synonym for rights. It is an antonym. It is from democracy that rights most urgently need defending. And, at any rate, states usurp the right of individuals to press their claims of justice against others through coercive means, and for good reasons. We call the alternative anarchy. Perhaps you are arguing source-of-rights, rather than about our present state of affairs?

Those who recognize that the action of individuals acting in concert as a government are subject to the same moral yardstick as the action of those individuals acting alone.

Individuals have no rights to hang traitors. States do, and should.

Those who believe that “every individual, in the peaceful pursuit of personal fulfilment, has an absolute right to his or her own life, liberty and property.”

In the face of a SARS epidemic? In the face of a flood in your community, where you own the only boat that can take your neighbor's to safety? In the face of an invasion of our country requiring the conscription of able bodied men? In the face of your ownership, by some incredible stroke of luck, of virtually all property in the country?

Just because a document, no matter how revered, says you have "inalienable" rights, doesn't make it literally possible. This is magical thinking.

876 posted on 04/26/2003 1:49:49 PM PDT by donh
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To: donh
The word is Greek, but translated literally means "people power” or “rule by people". Since the word was first used, but perhaps most frequently in the past century or two, the natural question asked by those who study government and society is: How do people rule in a democracy? How.
There have been many answers. Marxists, holding the decisions of the collective to be more important that the desires of the individual, have argued that, in a true democracy, the machinery of production - capital - should be owned by people collectively. According to the Marxists, the majority of people then decide how to use the capital for the benefit of the collective. This model of government, they call "social democracy".
Individualists, who hold the peaceful decisions of the individual to be more important than the desires of the collective have rejected democracy outright, on the ground that majority rule is logically inconsistent with individual freedom. Other individualists have nonetheless embraced democracy, but have instead argued that, in a real democracy, there are limits on the power of the majority. Those limits are typically cited to be individual rights or freedoms. In some cases, the limits are said to relate to an individual's rights of life, liberty and property. We typically find these advocates of democracy championing court-enforced bills of rights as limits on the law-making powers of legislatures. Such people sometimes call this understanding of democracy "liberal democracy".
I will have more later, must go for now.
877 posted on 04/26/2003 1:58:02 PM PDT by freeforall
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To: donh; Anybody
u: "...individual rights in their proper context..."


uh huh. Cite me the case of an "absolute" right in "proper context" such that no other right or difficulty can overcome it for any reason whatsoever.


u: I don't cite any human right in the absolute, only in terms of how man should regard one another and what we should or should not do with each other. In each case, there are limits to our rights. For one example: society needn't allow a serial killer to live (and his execution takes away all the rights of his earthly rights).

God is the absolute. He calls for our regard for Him to be both our highest regard and to permeate all aspects of our lives. In His honesty, integrity, and consistency, He provides us the way to live, even though He has had to separate Himself from Himself for a time, suffering pain we will never comprehend, in order to do so. He has related thusly to man throughout our history and we have recorded it.

Since He has continued to be willing to suffer our earthly lives, whether or not we accept Him, he gives us the grace and mercy of instructing us in how He regards us, how we are to regard Him, and how we are to regard each other. The thematic allowances we receive from Him teach us how we are to treat each other and are what we tend to call "rights." That is not to be confused with our being entitled to anything, in and of ourselves.

The inspired text that God provides us (the Bible, not others) tells us that toward the beginning of creation, sinners have been veiled by a powerful fallen spirit who has seen to our corruption, so that unless we accept God (through the Way, Truth, and Life He offers, in order to know Himself) we do not perceive enough to relationally know God. "Objectivists" use this veil as the material they clutch for a security blanket, covering their eyes so that they can ignore God's moral authority and man's utter unrighteousness without accepting His fullest mercy and grace.

All can turn to God, though, for as long as they live on earth anyway, but only if they are willing to turn to Him in need.

What can you say is absolute? On what grounds?
878 posted on 04/26/2003 1:59:41 PM PDT by unspun (What did it profit Ayn Rand, if she'd gained the whole world, but forfeited her soul?)
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To: unspun
...his execution takes away all the rights of his earthly life).
879 posted on 04/26/2003 2:01:16 PM PDT by unspun (What did it profit Ayn Rand, if she'd gained the whole world, but forfeited her soul?)
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To: unspun
What can you say is absolute? On what grounds?

Well, that post made my head spin. A little more concrete, and little less nebulous scattergunning, if you don't mind.

I got sensory impressions, I got numbers out of my oscilloscope, and I have a means of working out what they probably imply through sharing data with others and reaching conclusions others can verify.

This seems to be sufficient to get bread on the table, juice moving through the circuits, and me down to the courthouse when jury duty comes up. The need for an "absolute", whatever that means in the abstract, about anything doesn't seem to arise. The numbers and my senses tell me as much as I need to know to get around without bruising myself, and taking Wittgenstein's advice, about that which I know nothing, having detected nothing with my senses or my oscilloscope, I intend to remain mute.

880 posted on 04/26/2003 2:11:07 PM PDT by donh
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