Thanks for this. I was curious what they said in this show after I happened across their website, but didn’t feel like taking the time to watch the whole thing. It is clear that they should have had an Objectivist to argue with.

I actually went through this before when discussing that show on the AE blog. When I said “there is no context” I don’t mean that Ayn Rand neglected to explain her context elsewhere. What I meant is that Rand presumes to make a blanket statement about what is best for everyone, regardless of context.

I think it’s a little facile to dismiss my comment about kings by saying that the king MIGHT not benefit from living in a monarchy. My point is obviously that what is “the greatest good for the greatest number” is not always the best possible outcome for every individual. To illustrate this, consider a simple situation where there are ten people in a society, one of whom is named “Bob.” There are two possible economic systems being considered: 1. everyone keep their own wealth; 2. everyone give 10% of their wealth to Bob.

Clearly everybody but Bob would see (1) as better, but Bob would see (2) as better — you can make up a mitigating story where everyone else conspires to kill Bob, but unless you are sure this is the result most of the time, I’m pretty sure that Bob would pick system #2 if offered the choice. Hence my point about context: an economic system is better or worse TO INDIVIDUALS, not as a universal truth. Hence, it’s subjective: it’s different for each person.

Russell,

Like I wrote above, all humans — whether they’re kings, peasants, Bobs, or regular people — still need the same basic things to survive: The ability to exercise their reason and act accordingly. Monarchy removes that ability for everyone, including the king. It pits man versus man, and that’s not a sustainable or successful system if one uses man’s life as the standard. I don’t think it’s valid to narrow your focus and judge the system by a temporary outcome that it might have on one person out of millions.

To put it another way, let’s say that we wanted to judge whether the act of robbery is good or bad for an individual. I see two approaches:

1.) You look at the nature of man and see what he needs to survive. Some study will show that man needs to use his mind to judge his situation, see what’s around him, figure out how he can sustain his life, and then act according to his reason. or,

2.) You ask, “Can you get away with it?” You can see that robbery might allow one individual to steal what another has produces, which might provide the robbery with some sustinence temporarily, but how long can that work? What if the victim tries to defend himself? What if potential victims learn to avoid the robber? What if nobody’s around to rob? What if another robber wants to take your turf?

A king might be in a more stable position than a common thief, but the nature of his actions are not different. He might be able to get away with it, but that doesn’t change the nature of what he’s doing and it doesn’t change his nature as a human being. And when “man’s life” is plugged in as the standard of judging whether it’s good or bad, it has to be bad.

If you discussed how and why Ayn Rand believes that these types of values are objective — by looking at reality and seeing what man requires to live — then that’s great, but I think that belonged in your television presentation. This issue is just one of many where I think you misrepresented what Ayn Rand’s position. Misrepresentated by omission, sometimes, but still misrepresentated.

And when “man’s life” is plugged in as the standard of judging whether it’s good or bad, it has to be bad.

And I will just continue to say that you claim about whether a man’s life is “good or bad” is entirely subjective. When I say subjective, I’m using the Merriam Webster definition:
“Characteristic of or belonging to reality as perceived rather than as independent of mind.”

As I said before, the state of being “good” or “bad” is a value that is entirely perceived by minds. If no one were around to observe a rock, the rock would still exist; but if you want to superimpose a label like “that is a bad rock” it implies some kind of value system that takes place in people’s minds.

I’m sorry that you feel the need to accuse me of deliberately misrepresenting through omission. We do an hour and a half show every week, of which only 30-45 minutes are typically devoted to a topic rather than calls. In that time I wanted to cram in a broad overview of Rand’s philosophy and her major works of fiction, and outline some major points where I disagree with her. We did that. You want a longer, more exhaustive discussion of Rand, you can follow the links I included at the blog after doing the show. We dedicate various episodes to capsule discussions of all kinds of beliefs, but we don’t do hours long documentaries on any of them.

I certainly don’t expect you, or even most Objectivists, to be able to present a deep look into Objectivism in the allotted time for one television show. But I still think there some very simple changes or additions you could have made to give the average listener a much better understanding of what Rand actually said.

For example, instead of criticizing Rand for think that values can be objective, and just leaving it there, you could have thrown in that Ayn Rand used man’s life as the standard to judging what’s good or bad. That’s a huge point in Objectivism, and it’s one of the biggest things that distinguishes itself from other philosophies. Even the biggest Objectivist critics that I’ve read still include that fact when presenting Objectivist ethics, so why would you not even mention it? You didn’t have enough time to do a full presentation of Objectivist ethics, but you had enough time to say “man’s life as the standard.”

It doesn’t much matter to me which subjective value Ayn Rand chose as her standard for judging things. Sure, if you begin with the axiom that value X is “correct” then you can follow that up with a bunch of inferences saying that it follows that Y is good. But that doesn’t change the fact that picking one X in the first place is pretty much the definition of subjectivity.

Not that there’s anything wrong with being subjective — I ALSO subjectively prefer human life and quality of living as something to be upheld. But when you have to entirely redefine the word “objective” so as to entrench your position is a position of universal truth comparable to what actually exists in the physical world, it’s really no more than sleight-of-hand, and trivializes the extent to which people legitimately disagree over their values system.

That goes double for Rand’s efforts to prove that one system is right for everyone. A friend of mine read this thread and advised me not to bother continuing further with it. He pointed out, perhaps rightly, that if I can’t even make you agree that monarchy is a pretty sweet setup when you happen to be the king (or as Mel Brooks put it, “It’s good to be da king!”) then there’s not even enough common ground for a rudimentary meaningful dialogue.

The way I see it, objectivists in general go out of their way to shoehorn every possible scenario into their preconceptions, and thereby “prove” that one system is somehow ideal for not the majority but for everybody without exception. Then you go about redefining the word “good” such that these preconceptions cannot be challenged — such as in that later thread, where you blame rampant corruption on too much oversight. It amounts to a gross oversimplification that is just tedious to correct. I think I’m done here.

I don’t have my Ayn Rand books on me right now so I can’t provide a source, but I believe Ayn Rand both wrote about how the choice between life and death are, to put it in my own words, “pre-value.” She also wrote about the relationship between values and the fact that we are living creatures that must do certain things in order to maintain our status as “living.” I don’t think we agree on this issue and I don’t think that my looking up the arguments will probably change anything, so I’ll just say that if you read Ayn Rand’s works you’ll find her answer to precisely what you’re stating. It’s fine if you disagree, but if you had read them I think you’d include them in your response to her specific works.

Now that I think about it, that might be the biggest disagreement between you and I. Yeah, I’m an Objectivist and you’re not, but I’ve read a ton of criticisms of Ayn Rand’s works without feeling a need to respond. Rarely have I seen Objectivism presented as inaccurately as you did. Most people at least give Ayn Rand the benefit of citing her own works when making arguments against her writing, but not you. A few quick examples: She gave a precise, short definition of what she thought a “second-hander” was, but you didn’t include that statement when saying what she thought a “second-hander” was. You talk about her views on ethics without mentioning choosing man’s life as the standard (nor many other things, like we started to discuss). You even made up a new ending to Atlas Shrugged!

If we’re done here, I’d say it’s because we can’t agree on how one should gather facts and make judgments. I think if one wants to judge something they should include all of the relevant facts, and apparently you don’t. I think one should look at the facts objectively (in this sense, I mean without including one’s emotions or biases), and you don’t. Another quick example: You say that it doesn’t matter *to you* what standard Ayn Rand used, but you’re presenting Ayn Rand’s ethics and that’s an essential part of her position. If you’re going to argue against something you should state what that something *is* before you bash it. If you were arguing against Christian ethics, would you throw out the crucifixion because *you* don’t think that it actually happened? Not if you want to present it accurately and fairly.

Take the hypothetical situation of setting up a society where everyone gives 10% of their money to “Bob”: pretty sweet, huh? Sure, if everyone is voluntarily cooperating because Bob is such a great guy- if they’re supporting him because he is the town philosopher or artist- but in that situation it’s payment not a tax. A tax is collected by force- ok- lets say its a 10% tax. We’ve established force as an acceptable element in human interaction. Well, what happens when someone decides he wants 10% of Bob’s wealth? By treating his fellow men as slaves, Bob has defaulted on the principle of property rights and has no moral leg to stand on to defend his own property peaceably. He must, as all dictators do, resort to additional force to keep the system in place and benefiting only himself. Force begets force, and he ends up living as most kings do- shut in a castle behind a moat trying to outdo his neighbors in brutality. This is destructive to human life- and Bob will get the worst of it when the people revolt (which is thier right) and behead him.

Richard, that is a good point. Respecting people’s individual rights (including property rights) isn’t just a neat idea — it’s a necessity for survival. And when Bob gives up on that idea and decides to live by force, it’s like he’s trading his tools for survival for some easy money — but only so long as he can get away with it. Thank you for your comment.