To life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness

What is Objectivism?

2007-12-07T12:20:00.000-08:00

The following by Lindsay Perigo.

What is Objectivism?
Let its founder speak first. Asked to specify Objectivism's essentials standing on one foot, Ayn Rand, standing on one foot, said:
Metaphysics: Objective Reality
Epistemology: Reason
Ethics: Self-interest
Politics: Capitalism
Writing about this episode later, she went on to say:

If you want this translated into simple language, it would read:
'Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed' or 'Wishing won't make it so.'
'You can't eat your cake & have it too.'
'Man is an end in himself.'
'Give me liberty or give me death.' If you held these concepts with total consistency, you would have a full philosophical system to guide the course of your life. But to hold them with total consistency - to understand, to define, to prove & to apply them - requires volumes of thought. Which is why philosophy cannot be discussed while standing on one foot - nor while standing on two feet on both sides of every fence. This last is the predominant philosophical position today, particularly in the field of politics.

Neither it can, & so it is.

Ayn Rand herself, relative to other philosophers, didn't write "volumes." In terms of quality & import, however, she out-wrote most of them combined & multiplied. Some philosophers (not many) had argued discretely for one or more of the above; she integrated ALL of it & brought esthetics into the mix as well. She argued that facts are facts; that reality is what it is, independent of our feelings or wishes; that human reason is able to grasp what it is; that reason's tools - sense-perception, concept-formation & logic - are, contrary to many philosophers, valid; that these facts have irresistible & demonstrable implications for ethics, politics, economics & art: they enjoin rational self-interest, individual liberty, capitalism & what she called "romantic realism" as part of "man's proper estate" - an "upright posture."

Along the way, she demolished several age-old dilemmas & dichotomies. She disposed of the "is/ought" dichotomy - that you can't derive values from facts - by pointing out that an entity's actions are determined by that entity's nature & that a volitional, conceptual entity such as man can derive values, by thought & choice, ONLY from facts. She pointed out that trying to derive values from OTHER sources - such as "divine revelation" or range-of-the-moment whims can lead only to disaster, & in so doing busted the intrinsicist/subjectivist dichotomy.

She pointed out that volition is a causal agent, & so resolved the free will/determinism controversy.

She pointed out that facts without logic are as useless as logic without facts, & so busted the rationalist/empiricist dichotomy.

She pointed out that consciousness is not rendered invalid by the fact that it has organs - that we are not deaf BECAUSE we have ears that can hear - & so busted Kant's noumenal/phenomenal dichotomy.

She exposed the lethal incoherence of requiring that we must know EVERYTHING in order to know ANYTHING (see modern physics).

She pointed out the logical absurdity of the traditional ethic of self-sacrifice for the sake of others - if I am here to sacrifice for you, & you are here to sacrifice for me, what good does that do either of us? What is the point? She highlighted its logical/practical effect, all too eloquently exemplified during the twentieth century in which she lived: humanity's being divided up into those who make sacrifices & those who receive them; thence, bloodbaths & concentration camps.

She pointed out the existential monstrosity of an ethic that says we should act from duty & eschew happiness. "The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer & die, but to enjoy yourself & live." With that, she launched a revolution.

Ayn Rand showed that we can not only contemplate the stars, but we can also reach them - in part by dispensing with the notion that we'll find a "God" there. "My philosophy, in essence" she said, "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, & reason as his only absolute."

This site, SOLO HQ - Sense of Life Objectivists Headquarters - is a passionate "Amen!" to that.
Lindsay Perigo

For more information Solo HQ for more of these articles can be found http://solohq.solopassion.com/ also now an updated version which is presently used http://www.solopassion.com/. The updated version is a huge online community of objectivists and people interested in discussing objectivism. Lindsay Perigo, founder and principle, is uncompromisingly as pationate than ever in his new website broadcasting these ideas.

Libertarianism. Is it left? Or right?

2007-11-30T15:48:00.000-08:00

An interesting comment I hear from people commonly is that libertarianism is right wing. They probably conclude this due to comments of abolishing all welfare policies, promoting tax cuts and libertarians ranting for increased privatization. In New Zealand we have a Labor party considered to be 'left' and a National party considered to be 'right', consequently the people who accuse libertarianism to be 'right' are among the many illiterate, philosophically inept, ignoramuses who think along this linear axis.

If one were to consider the two extremes: communism to be the extreme 'left' and fascism to be the extreme 'right', although appearing at polar opposites these two political views unite into one common denominator: coercion. This was seen in WW2 where fascist Italy allied with communist Russia in the fight to proliferate and defeat the globe. Libertarianism is about the system of individual rights whereby people in society ascribed rights to freedom and property. This of course means free-markets and a government who’s role is to protect the rights of every citizen. So whether it is society which rules or a dictator which ever policies one chooses, one must appreciate that their views cannot be conducted without the use of force to their neighbor, pissing on their individual rights to property and freedom.

Anarchy still does not have a system in place whereby equal rights under a law are granted and defended competently, therefore allowing for coercion to take place without legal restraint.

“If you really must simplify everything in this fashion, then a more meaningful arrangement is to make the traditional spectrum two-dimensional rather then one-dimensional by placing another line across the existing one facing north-south, with freedom and libertarianism to the north and authoritarianism at the opposite pole to the south. At the four points of the compass then you would have Lenin, Mussolini and Winston Peters to the south; left-liberals like Gandhi, Ralph Nader and Nandor Tanczos to the west; conservatives such as Margaret Thatcher, Rush Limbaugh and Ian Wishart to the east. Libertarians of course join Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and P.J. O'Rourke at the top of the world.” Peter Cresswell.

“However and all in all, to paraphrase W.C. Fields, libertarians would rather be in Philadelphia. In 1776. And since the view of the state-citizen relationship expressed in the US Declaration of Independence doesn’t seem to have a comfortable place anywhere on the conventional Left-Right spectrum, it behoves us to leave those on it to quibble over who is to coerce whom, to what extent and why, while we get on with the business of promoting freedom – accepting with reluctance that in the meantime we shall undoubtedly have to put up with ignoramuses calling us “right wing.” By their ignorance may ye know them.” Peter Cresswell.

The reason that god does not exist

2007-11-28T21:38:00.000-08:00

The God concept. The following will be explored using some Christian definition as this is where my 20 year background comes from.

Let us start with what does it mean by definition to think there is a god, to have faith as a concept in ones life and try to measure up how reasonable it would be to have that frame of mind. I will briefly look at Faith, Creation, Universe, and then God.

“Faith designates blind acceptance of a certain ideational content, acceptance induced by feeling in the absence of evidence of proof.” (Professor Leonard Peikoff).

“The alleged shortcut to knowledge which is faith, is only a short-circuit destroying the mind.” (Ibid; 157 pb 128)

“Faith as being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see, this is what the ancients were commended for. By Faith we understand the universe was created at Gods command. Without Faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.” Hebrews 11:1

You will see here that the bibles concept of faith aligns with the other two definitions above. People must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who seek him, and is pleased by this, is something that cannot be proven, but simply must be believed blindly. This is mysticism.

Mysticism means the acceptance of allegations without evidence or proof, either apart from or against the evidence of one’s senses and one’s reason. Mysticism is the claim to some non-sensory, non-rational, non-identifiable means of knowledge, such as “instinct”, “intuition”, “revelation”, or any form of “just knowing”.

Creation – the power to arrange the combination of natural elements is the only creative power that man possesses “creation” does not (and metaphysically cannot) mean the power to bring something into existence out of nothing. It means the power to bring into existence a rearrangement of natural elements that had not existed before.

Universe- the universe is the total of that which exists-not merely the earth and stars or galaxies but everything. Obviously then there can be no such thing as the “cause” of the universe…….

Is the universe then unlimited in size? No. Everything which exists is finite, including the universe. What then is outside the universe, if it is finite? This question is invalid. The phrase “outside the universe” has no referent. The universe is everything. Outside the universe stands for “that which is where everything isn’t”. There is no such place. There isn’t even nothing out there. “There is no out there”.

To grasp the axiom that existence exists, means to grasp the fact that nature ie, the universe as a whole cannot be created or annihilated, that it cannot come into or go out of existence. Whether its basic constituent elements are atoms, or subatomic particles, or some yet undiscovered form of energy, it is not ruled by a consciousness or by will or by chance, but by the law of identity. All the countless forms, motions, combinations, and dissolutions of elements within the universe from a floating speck of dust to the formation of a galaxy to the emergence of life - are caused and determined by the identities of the elements involved. Nature is the metaphysically given ie, the nature of nature is outside the power of any volition.

If your asking at this point where did all those come from?

God.

They claim that they perceive a mode of being superiour to your existence on this earth. The mystics of spirit call it “another dimension”, which consists of denying dimensions. The mystics of muscle call it “the future”, which consists of denying the present. To exist is to possess identity. What identity are they able to give to their superior realm? They keep telling you what it is not, but never tell you what it is. All their identifications consist of negating: God is that which no human mind can know, they say-and proceed to demand that you consider it knowledge-God is non-man, heaven is non-earth, Soul is non-body, virtue is non-profit. A is non-A, perception is non sensory, knowledge is non-reason. Their definitions are non acts of defining, but of wiping out.

Every argument for God and every attribute ascribed to him rests on a false metaphysical premise. None can survive for a moment on a correct metaphysics.

For instance God is infinite. Nothing can be infinite, according to the law of identity. Everything is what it is, and nothing else. It is limited in its qualities and in its quantity: it is this much and no more. Infinite as applied to quantity does not mean very large, it means, “larger than any specific quantity”. That means, no specific quantity ie, a quantity without identity. This is prohibited by the law of identity.

Is God the creator of the universe? There can be no creation of something out of nothing. There is no nothing. Is God omnipotent? Can he do anything? Entities can act only in accordance with their natures; nothing can make them violate their natures…. If they could, then the obvious show of a question which would be self contradictory would be “could God build a rock so big he wouldn’t be able to lift it”? The question clearly demonstrates the absurdity of the omnipotent god.

“God” as traditionally defined is a systematic contradiction of every valid metaphysical principle. The point is wider than just the Judaeo-Christian concept of God. No argument will get you from this world to a supernatural world. No reason will lead you to a world contradicting this one. No method of inference will enable you to leap from existence to a “super existence”.

Therefore, to fully accept the theological arguments as being superior to reason does not only require to put theology above logic and reason in the hierarchical chain of thinking but to actually deny it.

Metaphysical in objectivist terms means – that which pertains to reality, to the nature of things, to existence.

Atheism is this…. Existence exists. Existence is a primary; it is uncreated, indestructible, and eternal. So if you are to postulate something beyond existence-some supernatural realm-you must do it by openly denying reason, dispensing with definitions, proofs, arguments, and saying flatly,” to hell with argument, I have faith.” That, of course, is a wilful rejection of reason.

Objectivism advocates reason as man’s sole means of knowledge, and therefore, for the reasons I have already given, it is atheist. It denies any supernatural dimension presented as a contradiction of nature, of existence. This applies not only to God, but also to every variant of the supernatural ever advocated or to be advocated. In other words, we accept reality, and that’s all.

These are some of the view points presented by objectivism, we have looked at Thomas Aquinas’s arguments for the existence of God, and have found all five of them to be refuted as well. C.S Lewis is probably the worst reasoning serious theological philosopher however he was very good at reasoning with a person ready to accept some of his faulty premises. If there is a Christian out there who would like to try to argue the point of a created universe, or a God that exists, or why someone should hold a faith you are welcome to do so. Your thoughts are welcome. I hope you find this enlightening, even if it’s just to broaden your view on why atheists believe what they believe.

Are ethics Subjective or Objective?

2007-11-28T21:25:00.000-08:00

Right folks. Thats it! The intellectuals have done it again. This is the big MAMA! of all arguements in our stupid intellectual society of today regarding the field of ethics.
Often it is heard by these pomo-wanking lefties, these infantile subjectivist scum that ethics are subjective and whimsical. An interesting debate on solopassion.com will put more light on the issue.

Here it goes: The following is an example of the attack on the use of objective scientific thought on studying behaviour, ethics, politics, religion, esthetics etc etc....

PhD philosopher Richard Goorde agrees and quotes:

The first firebrand is lobbed into the audience by Edward Slingerland, an expert on ancient Chinese thought and human cognition at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. "Religion is not going away," he announced. Even those of us who fancy ourselves rationalists and scientists, he said, rely on moral values - a set of distinctly unscientific beliefs.

Where, for instance, does our conviction that human rights are universal come from? "Humans' rights to me are as mysterious as the holy trinity," he told the audience at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. "You can't do a CT scan to show where humans' rights are, you can't cut someone open and show us their human rights," he pointed out. "It's not an empirical thing, it's just something we strongly believe. It's a purely metaphysical entity."
New Scientist, 10 November 2007.

James Vallient a man with commonsense refutes:

With all due respect to Hume, values are not a species of mythological beast, arbitrary, whimsical or some kind of religious invention. They are a fact about life itself.

"Good" is a teleological concept. It implies an answer to the questions: "Good to whom and for what?"

Teleology is a phenomenon of biology: since only a living being acts in order to survive, only to such a being can something be "good for" it or "bad for" it. As all of our observations show, life is value-pursuit and only living things pursue values. A plant will act to reach the sunlight, but, if it cannot, it will die. For it, sunlight is good -- failing to reach it is bad. Life is the ultimate end of all of its value-pursuing, the only standard by which we can evaluate what is "good" or "bad" for the plant.
The same is true for people -- but only humans can and must choose the values they will pursue. We can act perversely -- in opposition to our health and life. We must select our values carefully. That's why only human beings have or need ethics.

It might be helpful to add something that was only before implicit. Rand believed that most ethical thinking started "in the middle." She believed that the question "What are the values that we should pursue?" could not be answered without first answering the questions, "What are values -- and why do we need values at all?"

Early on, I had written:

"If a value is the object of my action -- something I act to obtain or keep -- then they are very real, indeed. Every living organism I have ever observed pursues certain ends. Survival requires this. Even you [Richard Goode] have goals, I suspect.

"For human beings, who can and must choose the values they pursue, the only question is: are the values I am pursuing actually going to achieve my survival, health and prosperity. Humans, unfortunately, can act, and have acted, self-destructively.

"At the physical level, something is either nutritious for me to eat or it is not. It may even be poison. My nature dictates the range of healthy values open to me. IF I want to live, I must eat within this range of items. Period.

"Thus it is for all values.

"The 'good' is an aspect of reality in relation to human survival and well-being.

"My well-being cannot be achieved arbitrarily. As a human being, I must discover those principles, not just of proper nutrition, but of proper living in general.

"A wildfire in my neighborhood is bad thing by this standard. Running from one, if it got too close, would be a good thing by this standard. Such an evaluation is a purely factual one. IF I want to live, condition X is bad, action Y is good.

"The fact that I am alive and that my life has certain (very empirical) conditions attached to its continuation and prosperity is what makes this relationship a perfectly objective one.

"For example, I have already alluded to the virtue of rationality. As a human being, this is my most basic tool of survival. As such, let me suggest, its exercise is my most basic virtue.

"This relationship to reality exists for all objective virtues. There is only price that can buy the values of credibility and trust -- in reality -- and that is honesty. So, too, a life of initiating violence is dangerous and self-defeating and unproductive. Etc.

"That Hitler was evil is not subjective at all. It is as OBJECTIVE as math."

You questioned whether even cabbages pursued values. I answered:

"Not consciously, of course, Richard, but all living organisms pursue their values. Plants pursue sunlight through phototropism, absorb the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, etc. They do act in order to survive. Even a modest single-cell organism is a complex machine of value-pursuit, with an entire architecture for survival, thriving, and reproduction. In mobile animals, this pursuit has the added help of consciousness (indeed, that's the function of consciousness). In humans, this value-pursuit becomes self-conscious, a deliberate purpose. That is why only humans, who consciously select the values they pursue, have or need a science of ethics.

"Life can be defined as just that: the process of self-generated, self-sustaining activity."

I also wrote:

"Value-pursuit is simply a fact about living organisms. It makes life possible. The relationship of my subjective values to my actual survival is an objective one. Since this is ~ why ~ living organisms pursue values in the first place, this is what makes them objective or not. If one were to pursue the subjective values of, say, Nazism, this relationship between fact and value would be otherwise."

It is a matter of fact that Nazism (or poison) is bad for my survival and, indeed, for all human life. It is a matter of fact (see below) that freedom is good for my survival and, indeed, for all human life.

My objective values are the necessary (and very real and empirically determined) requirements and conditions of my life.

Thus, under any given set of circumstances, and assuming it has a choice of actions, what a living being is determines what it ought to do.