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From: flink@umcp-cs.UUCP (Paul V. Torek)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy,net.politics.theory
Subject: Ayn Rand's derivation of her ethics
Message-ID: <787@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 9-Jul-85 19:24:25 EDT
Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.787
Posted: Tue Jul  9 19:24:25 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 10-Jul-85 19:15:19 EDT
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Organization: U of Maryland, Computer Science Dept., College Park, MD
Lines: 63

I still haven't gotten (and would like) a copy of the article that
asked me what I found wrong with Rand's argument.  I also don't
have my copy of *Atlas Shrugged* with me (I seem to have left it
in my future residence at U of MI), but here goes anyway.

Rand's arguments seemed to me to have more holes than swiss cheese,
but since an argument is only as strong as its weakest step, I'll
concentrate on one point.  Rand states (not an exact quote) that her 
ethics follows from the law of non-contradiction plus a choice:  the
choice of life over death.  Apparently she thinks that the rest,
including the non-initiation of force/fraud principle (NIFFP for
short), follows logically from the choice of life.  The problem
right away is that this represents as binary a choice that in truth
is multiple:  there are many ways to live and many ways to die.  It
is true that AT ANY ONE TIME one is either alive or not, but there
are many possible futures open to a person.  Unless we are given
some reason to suppose that one should always strive to stay alive
no matter what, there is no reason to take staying alive as the
be-all and end-all.  Indeed, the fact that one must be alive to
enjoy any benefits whatsoever says NOTHING about the relative
merits of, for example, living by force or fraud.

A person could reply, without logical error, to Rand's argument:
"I choose to live for now, but only as long as it takes to kill
743 people at random, because I like the number 743, so much so
that any other goal is meaningless to me."  I am not saying that
such a person would be rational -- he wouldn't -- or that he is
in touch with reality -- he isn't -- BUT NOTHING IN RAND'S ARGUMENT
shows what is wrong with such logic.  The only argument against
his screwed up values is experience, which shows that life is or
can be worth very much and that killing people deprives them of
that as well as inspiring them to deprive you...

More to the point of arguing against so-called "Objectivist"
ethics, a person might rationally say "my brother's life is
worth enhancing independently of the effect on myself, and there
is some level of benefit for him such that, to achieve it, I would
forgo all future benefits to myself".   Call it altruism (def.?) or 
humanitarianism or whatever, when this kind of thinking is applied
to all people (not just one's relations) it seems to bother Rand
et. al. a great deal.  (Actually, Rand's villains (try to?) care 
ONLY about others and NOT about themselves; she never considers
the possibility that one might care about both -- again Rand 
represents as binary a choice that is multiple.)

Rand gives no solid reason for following the non-initiation of force/
fraud principle.  She claims that initiating force will cause others
to retaliate, but that's not always true, nor is it always impossible
to tell when one could "get away with it".  Nor does she demonstrate
that people have an absolute right to be free from such initiation
of force or fraud, since this is just the other side of the coin of
an obligation not to initiate force/fraud, and from whence comes this
obligation?  Not from an agreement, because such an agreement binds
only if there is ALREADY an obligation not to initiate fraud.  And
if the word "obligation" is DEFINED by fiat to be implied by agreements,
then it remains to be shown that people have a REASON TO CARE about
their obligations.

By the way, I don't disagree with Rand's contention that there is an
objective fact of the matter about ethical questions; it's just that
she hasn't demonstrated the correctness of HER views.

Paul V Torek, umcp-cs!flink