So I'm not an end in myself after all. My self-interest is not absolute, but subject to the existence of others. So Ayn's got herself a bit of a problem.
What it suggests, then, is that rights are in some sense a "law of nature." But as we've already seen, observation of nature does not support Rand's claims to have discovered those rules.
The foundation isn't the nature of the interests, it's the nature of man himself. He is an individual with certain characteristics.
But in Rand's formulation, man would have to be a product of evolution -- the basis of which is the passing along of genes by whatever means, and "survival of the fittest," which in practice appears to favor the strong and/or the sneaky.
The source of the concept, or thing is irrelevant to whether it is subjective, or objective.
Objectivists claim that their ideas can be proved through application of reason alone. That is untrue. What are we to make of a philosophy whose fundamental claims are false?
The proof lies in examining the opposite principle and comparing it to the noninitiation principle. The opposite principle is any principle, simple, or complex, that allows for the initiation of force for some individual interest.
OK, I'll bite. The scientific evidence strongly suggests that biological evolution is a real phenomenon. As we can easily observe, one of the primary drivers in biological evolution is the initiation of force. Success in initiating force leads to better predators. Success in avoiding extinction at the hands of predators -- by a variety of methods -- leads to better prey. Note that the "goal" of this process is not so much the good of the individual, but instead passing along successful genes to subsequent generations -- the good of the species, in other words.
If we were to follow Rand's recommendation, we would have to conclude that man's highest moral goal would be some version of Social Darwinism.
If that principle is held as the guiding foundation in a moral code that governs the interaction of men, some men will be redefined and forced to take on an artificial essential nature. Their real nature though, will still be intact.
Well yes... but you've begged the question of what that essential nature is in the first place. In Rand's atheist conception we, as products of evolution, have no logical basis for setting ourselves above the evolutionary principles that guide the rest of nature. Yet that is precisely what objectivism does -- and it does so by violating its own basic premises.
IF we are say that man is set apart from the rest of nature, we cannot do it by applying reason to what we see around us. Our reason for doing so HAS to come from some other source.
Well yes, it is absolute, self interests are a characteristic of individual humans. Whether, or not any other human is present doesn't change the fact that a man has self interests. The self interests are observable as a universal characteristic of men. The method of preserving those self interests is the moral code and it's guiding principles.
" The scientific evidence strongly suggests that biological evolution is a real phenomenon. As we can easily observe, one of the primary drivers in biological evolution is the initiation of force. Success in initiating force leads to better predators. Success in avoiding extinction at the hands of predators -- by a variety of methods -- leads to better prey. Note that the "goal" of this process is not so much the good of the individual, but instead passing along successful genes to subsequent generations -- the good of the species, in other words. If we were to follow Rand's recommendation, we would have to conclude that man's highest moral goal would be some version of Social Darwinism."
Evolution, Darwinism and nature has no moral guide. It is morally neutral. It's rules are fundamentally those of physics. Moral codes and the principles they are founded on are created by rational beings. Social Darwinism is not Randian and definitely does not preserve the nature of man. It creates an artificial order in the world of men, where one , or a small group of men impose their will and promote their own interests and subvert the others by coercion. Rand's code disallows that fundamentally.
The use of coercion to promote one's interests at the expense of others does not promote any interest of mankind, but the interests of the particular men that weild the most effective forms of coercion. Rand pointed out that this is wrong. She wasn't the first; she just elaborated on it.