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From: mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: Objectivism
Message-ID: <625@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 2-Jul-85 12:12:08 EDT
Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.625
Posted: Tue Jul  2 12:12:08 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 5-Jul-85 04:31:18 EDT
References: <-615700@umcp-cs.UUCP> <13300002@hpfclp.UUCP>
Organization: U of Maryland, Computer Science Dept., College Park, MD
Lines: 32

In article <13300002@hpfclp.UUCP> mike@hpfclp.UUCP (mike) writes:

>Rand's argument is that ethics can be derived  objectively  based on the
>axiom  that  reality  is  objective.  If you do not  believe  that it is
>possible to derive ethics objectively, then the ONLY alternative is that
>ethics are subjective.  Subjective ethics (and subjective  morality) are
>tantamount to "Anything Goes".  If you can't deduce an objective code by
>which people can live with each other, then there is no code.  In such a
>world,   the   only   ethics   possible   would  be  a   collection   of
>range-of-the-moment  rules;  rules not  validated  by reason,  rules not
>validated by an  understanding  or respect for man's  nature,  rules not
>validated  by the  knowledge  required  for  the  proper  survival  of a
>rational being.

This argument has a number of obvious holes in it.  First of all, it
erroneously assumes that reason can in fact validate a code of ethics.  I
agree that reason is a necessary tool.  Since reason cannot tell you
anything about value, and especially about the value of a system of values,
there is always some subjective component which must be dealt with.

Secondly, it fails to treat a third possibility: that there is in fact a
code, but that the code is (for one reason or another) at least partly
obscured.  Suppose, for instance, you could sit in the Great White Throne
and look down on all of history at once.  Presumably, one could then figure
out what the right thing to do for every dilemma was.  This would form a 
code of ethics; the problem from the human point of view is that such a code
would be very difficult to see, and perhaps also very difficult to
systematize.  This gives us an objective code, but one which can only be
seen subjectively.  This is the platonic sort of view which (for instance)
Christianity takes.

Charley Wingate   umcp-cs!mangoe