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You misunderstand Rand. The important thing about her philosophy is her ethics, her epistemology and her metaphysics. My opinion is that once this is understood

You misunderstand Rand. The important thing about her philosophy is her ethics, her epistemology and her metaphysics. My opinion is that once this is understood, the contradictions you see cease to exist. (Specifically, non-aggression is a conclusion, and is not axiomatic.) The political stuff is just a downstream consequence of a much deeper set of ideas. It's important, but politics is at the periphery of Objectivism (in that Objectivism has political implications, just like any other philosophy), far from the core.

philwelch 17y ago
No, I understand Rand pretty well, though admittedly not as well as I used to. Her ethics comes to a conclusion--non-aggression--that contradicts with her political conclusion--government. Axiomatic logical systems don't mean you can derive contradictory conclusions as long as one is further downstream than the other. (If you do, you have chosen contradictory axioms, which has problems, especially if you explicitly choose non-contradiction as an axiom!) Not to mention, the logical path between Rand's axioms and the rest of Rand's philosophy goes through a thick layer of vague handwaving and unjustified assumptions.
- Semiapies 17y ago
  Agreed, though the NAP is actually pretty good if you consider it more of a strategy, with consensuality being the thing you're trying to optimize for in human interactions.
jbooth 17y ago
Ethics? Deliberate life-long selfishness isn't ethical. Regardless of the window dressing. Every villain in history has had moral window dressing that claimed they were really good guys.
- Semiapies 17y ago
  Trust me, unless you've got your asbestos longjohns on, this is not something you want to get into with Objectivists around. Especially so if you don't happen to be versed in Rand's particular redefinition of the word "selfish".
  - jbooth 17y ago
    Don't even get me started on redefining words in order to make your argument. :)
    - Semiapies 17y ago
      Agreed. Though Rand's interest in the-thing-that-she-should-have-just-made-up-a-word-for actually makes aspects of her philosophy appealing to me. I just tend to think more in the terms of the everyman who shouldn't be crushed in the name of The People, rather than the Great Man. Great Men tend to fend for themselves very well...
- maxharris 17y ago
  "The meaning ascribed in popular usage to the word “selfishness” is not merely wrong: it represents a devastating intellectual “package-deal,” which is responsible, more than any other single factor, for the arrested moral development of mankind. In popular usage, the word “selfishness” is a synonym of evil; the image it conjures is of a murderous brute who tramples over piles of corpses to achieve his own ends, who cares for no living being and pursues nothing but the gratification of the mindless whims of any immediate moment. Yet the exact meaning and dictionary definition of the word “selfishness” is: concern with one’s own interests. This concept does not include a moral evaluation; it does not tell us whether concern with one’s own interests is good or evil; nor does it tell us what constitutes man’s actual interests. It is the task of ethics to answer such questions." "There is a fundamental moral difference between a man who sees his self-interest in production and a man who sees it in robbery. The evil of a robber does not lie in the fact that he pursues his own interests, but in what he regards as to his own interest; not in the fact that he pursues his values, but in what he chose to value; not in the fact that he wants to live, but in the fact that he wants to live on a subhuman level (see “The Objectivist Ethics”). If it is true that what I mean by “selfishness” is not what is meant conventionally, then this is one of the worst indictments of altruism: it means that altruism permits no concept of a self-respecting, self-supporting man—a man who supports his life by his own effort and neither sacrifices himself nor others. It means that altruism permits no view of men except as sacrificial animals and profiteers-on-sacrifice, as victims and parasites—that it permits no concept of a benevolent co-existence among men—that it permits no concept of justice."
  - jbooth 17y ago
    Yeah, and if you ever wake up, you'll realize that your own interests are enormously bound up with the interests of society at large. You drove to work today on a public road or public transit, were kept safe by publicly funded police departments and most likely hold a knowledge-worker job that you're capable of doing in large part because of public education (probably). But, yeah, you're a self-reliant rugged individualist. I get it.
    - maxharris 17y ago

philwelch 17y ago

No, I understand Rand pretty well, though admittedly not as well as I used to. Her ethics comes to a conclusion--non-aggression--that contradicts with her political conclusion--government. Axiomatic logical systems don't mean you can derive contradictory conclusions as long as one is further downstream than the other. (If you do, you have chosen contradictory axioms, which has problems, especially if you explicitly choose non-contradiction as an axiom!) Not to mention, the logical path between Rand's axioms and the rest of Rand's philosophy goes through a thick layer of vague handwaving and unjustified assumptions.

Semiapies 17y ago
Agreed, though the NAP is actually pretty good if you consider it more of a strategy, with consensuality being the thing you're trying to optimize for in human interactions.

jbooth 17y ago

Ethics? Deliberate life-long selfishness isn't ethical. Regardless of the window dressing. Every villain in history has had moral window dressing that claimed they were really good guys.

Semiapies 17y ago
Trust me, unless you've got your asbestos longjohns on, this is not something you want to get into with Objectivists around. Especially so if you don't happen to be versed in Rand's particular redefinition of the word "selfish".
- jbooth 17y ago
  Don't even get me started on redefining words in order to make your argument. :)
  - Semiapies 17y ago
    Agreed. Though Rand's interest in the-thing-that-she-should-have-just-made-up-a-word-for actually makes aspects of her philosophy appealing to me. I just tend to think more in the terms of the everyman who shouldn't be crushed in the name of The People, rather than the Great Man. Great Men tend to fend for themselves very well...
maxharris 17y ago
"The meaning ascribed in popular usage to the word “selfishness” is not merely wrong: it represents a devastating intellectual “package-deal,” which is responsible, more than any other single factor, for the arrested moral development of mankind. In popular usage, the word “selfishness” is a synonym of evil; the image it conjures is of a murderous brute who tramples over piles of corpses to achieve his own ends, who cares for no living being and pursues nothing but the gratification of the mindless whims of any immediate moment. Yet the exact meaning and dictionary definition of the word “selfishness” is: concern with one’s own interests. This concept does not include a moral evaluation; it does not tell us whether concern with one’s own interests is good or evil; nor does it tell us what constitutes man’s actual interests. It is the task of ethics to answer such questions." "There is a fundamental moral difference between a man who sees his self-interest in production and a man who sees it in robbery. The evil of a robber does not lie in the fact that he pursues his own interests, but in what he regards as to his own interest; not in the fact that he pursues his values, but in what he chose to value; not in the fact that he wants to live, but in the fact that he wants to live on a subhuman level (see “The Objectivist Ethics”). If it is true that what I mean by “selfishness” is not what is meant conventionally, then this is one of the worst indictments of altruism: it means that altruism permits no concept of a self-respecting, self-supporting man—a man who supports his life by his own effort and neither sacrifices himself nor others. It means that altruism permits no view of men except as sacrificial animals and profiteers-on-sacrifice, as victims and parasites—that it permits no concept of a benevolent co-existence among men—that it permits no concept of justice."
- jbooth 17y ago
  Yeah, and if you ever wake up, you'll realize that your own interests are enormously bound up with the interests of society at large. You drove to work today on a public road or public transit, were kept safe by publicly funded police departments and most likely hold a knowledge-worker job that you're capable of doing in large part because of public education (probably). But, yeah, you're a self-reliant rugged individualist. I get it.
  - maxharris 17y ago