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Virtue and Morals and Ethics and Ayn Rand

Sunstone

De Diablo Del Fora
Premium Member
doppelgänger;2626274 said:
To claim to be a philosopher and mis-read another philosopher's work that badly is embarrassing, and a sign of just how crappy a "philosopher" she was.

I think that's one of the reasons why for years Rand was not taken seriously by professional philosophers (one of the first college level courses on Rand was at an Ohio university, and it didn't happen until the 70s). Another reason was she tended to sue anyone who was critical of her ideas.
 

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
doppelgänger;2626274 said:
She was also a crappy novelist. Her dialogue is awful. Her characters one dimensional, unsubtle and usually meant just to deliver speeches for her. Everything is black and white.
Finally! Someone delivers an unassailable critique of Rand.
Someone else should've written her books for her. I nominate Tom Wolfe.

If you want to read real philosophical novelists, stick with Dostoevsky, Orwell, Conrad and Hesse.
What? No Mark Twain, Kurt Vonnegut or Douglas Adams?
 

Penumbra

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Sam Harris somewhere describes Rand's philosophy as "autism recast". I think that's being charitable. There's evidence she was a sociopath. Her philosophy reflects that.
The link. Great article, imo. I think it's funny that he points out that his statements against a laissez faire system elicit more backlash than his combined statements against religion or free will.

Sam Harris said:
As someone who has written and spoken at length about how we might develop a truly “objective” morality, I am often told by followers of Rand that their beloved guru accomplished this task long ago. The result was Objectivism—a view that makes a religious fetish of selfishness and disposes of altruism and compassion as character flaws. If nothing else, this approach to ethics was a triumph of marketing, as Objectivism is basically autism rebranded.
 

Dipintus

Member
A fun fact: did you know that Jimbo Whales, the creator of wikipedia, is an objectivist?
I think it's hilarious that one of the most successful projects started by an objectivist is completely based on people's goodwill.

Also, I luaghed at Sam Harris article:
"I often get emails from people who insist that Rand was a genius—and one who has been unfairly neglected by writers like myself."
Unfairly neglected? More like mercifully ignored.
 
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wmjbyatt

Lunatic from birth
Ayn Rand, I totally dislike her and her philosophy even more. Not only do I disagree with it, but it stresses so much narcissism, or so it seems, even though it does not admit it.
Yes it does. I don't know how much Rand you've rad, but she explicitly says, more than once, that all of our actions should stem from our love for ourselves. That is explicit narcissism. She knows she is narcissistic, and loves it.

First on what she done is flat said out, in different words, that reason isn't the best way to go for ethics and morals, which I don't think is wrong. But then she goes and says what we should and should not do, and gives her reason on it!

You're completely mistaken here. She DOES think that reason is the best way to go for ethics and morals. As a matter of fact, she thinks reason is the ONLY valuable pathway, and she believes that her entire philosophy stems from reason and reason alone (along with her axioms of Consciousness, Existence, and Identity). She drew very heavily and very freely from Aristotle, who was also a deeply avowed rationalist.

1) She thinks there are 'Absolute Morals' that we have to follow. Hell, I doubt it so much, but I guess it is possible. But when she listed them out, I was thinking, "Who is she to give out the morals? Certainly not God."

2) Thanks to Debater Slater for telling me a quote from her today, "Altruism is the greatest evil." It proves she is selfish completely.
[/QUOTE]

Yes. She is. She wrote a book called "The Virtue of Selfishness." Saying she's selfish isn't really a critique of her philosophy: it's a salient hallmark.

Again, I don't know how much Rand you've read, but your criticism here is completely useless. She was a crappy philosopher, and an even worse novelist and social theorist, but a philosophically valid criticism of her views requires a much stronger analysis than what you're presenting.
 

Trey of Diamonds

Well-Known Member
Basically, Rand is a cult figure. No matter what the evidence is, her defenders and groupies will never wake up from her kool-aid.

Not true. I've studied her and her philosophy and often defend her. But I'm not a groupie and found her kool-aid bitter-sweet.

Understanding Ayn Rand requires an understanding of the environment that created her. Her Philosophy isn't bad, it just doesn't hold up to human nature any more than Communism does. I think her biggest mistake was in deciding that human emotions were bi-products of the intellect and as such, controllable. Hers is a philosophy with a mind but no soul. There is much that can be taken from Objectivism, but over indulging in any philosophy is dangerous. IMHO
 

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
Not true. I've studied her and her philosophy and often defend her. But I'm not a groupie and found her kool-aid bitter-sweet.
Understanding Ayn Rand requires an understanding of the environment that created her. Her Philosophy isn't bad, it just doesn't hold up to human nature any more than Communism does. I think her biggest mistake was in deciding that human emotions were bi-products of the intellect and as such, controllable. Hers is a philosophy with a mind but no soul. There is much that can be taken from Objectivism, but over indulging in any philosophy is dangerous. IMHO
Makes sense to me.
I see 99.9% of philosophy as bunk.
But at times, it's illuminating & useful for us to read such bunk.
It isn't as simple as one is right & the other is wrong, but rather whether we find merit in it.
 

Alceste

Vagabond
For my money, the most hilarious critique of Rand and her philosophy was written by Michael Caigoy. Here's an except in which Caigoy sums up Rand's criticisms of ideologies other than her own:

"Listening to her impatience at other ideologies reminds me of a five year-old considering the world’s problems. Can’t get the Chilean miners out? “Why not just build a robot?” she’d say, handing over a sketch; herself pictured overseeing the operation from a unicorn. When kids do it, it’s cute (theoretically), but seeing a brusque Russian author do it — not so much."
You can read the rest of Caigoy's critique here. But strap yourself to your seat -- you'll be laughing so hard you might fall out.

That is hilarious. Bang on, too! His description of her "dialogue" (in the second installment) is particularly good. Atlas Shrugged was the first novel I ever read in which I skipped over dozens and dozens of pages because they were simply unbearable to read. All of them were "dialogue" (IOW, repetitive monologues by insufferable idealogues, sparsely punctuated by the weakest and briefest of objections, delivered in utterly implausible circumstances, such as a cocktail party).

If Ayn Rand did one positive thing for me, it was to break me of the habit of reading every word of every book I ever pick up from start to finish. I get through a lot more books now than I ever did before. :D
 

Sunstone

De Diablo Del Fora
Premium Member
Not true. I've studied her and her philosophy and often defend her. But I'm not a groupie and found her kool-aid bitter-sweet.

Understanding Ayn Rand requires an understanding of the environment that created her. Her Philosophy isn't bad, it just doesn't hold up to human nature any more than Communism does. I think her biggest mistake was in deciding that human emotions were bi-products of the intellect and as such, controllable. Hers is a philosophy with a mind but no soul. There is much that can be taken from Objectivism, but over indulging in any philosophy is dangerous. IMHO

Americans are notoriously deficient when it comes to knowing much of anything about philosophy. That's why Rand is respected as a philosopher in America while laughed at for being a poser in other countries.
 

Alceste

Vagabond
Americans are notoriously deficient when it comes to knowing much of anything about philosophy. That's why Rand is respected as a philosopher in America while laughed at for being a poser in other countries.

As a Canadian, I can vouch for this. I just checked The Philosophy Book I keep in the library of my porcelain university and Rand is not listed.

Also, my fancy man read Philosophy at Lancaster University and assures me Rand is not considered a philosopher in the UK either. Primarily this is because she didn't come up with anything new, not because of her objectionable world view.
 
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wmjbyatt

Lunatic from birth
As a philosophy student in the US, I can assure you that Rand is not taken as a philosopher by the academic philosophical institution in the States, either.

In her defense, though, she was once asked if she considered herself a philosopher or a novelist, and she said she considered herself a novelist who only philosophized enough to build her fictional worlds. On the other hand, she did write about twice as many philosophical texts as she did novelists, so that may just be another place where she's wrong.
 

Otherright

Otherright
Ayn Rand, I totally dislike her and her philosophy even more. Not only do I disagree with it, but it stresses so much narcissism, or so it seems, even though it does not admit it.

1) She thinks there are 'Absolute Morals' that we have to follow. Hell, I doubt it so much, but I guess it is possible. But when she listed them out, I was thinking, "Who is she to give out the morals? Certainly not God."

First on what she done is flat said out, in different words, that reason isn't the best way to go for ethics and morals, which I don't think is wrong. But then she goes and says what we should and should not do, and gives her reason on it!

2) Thanks to Debater Slater for telling me a quote from her today, "Altruism is the greatest evil." It proves she is selfish completely.

Rand was a humanist. When she said that "Altruism is the greatest evil," her point was that we have motivation for everything that we do and that we do nothing without some form of reward, even if that reward was only to make ourselves feel good, or to placate our current ethical/moral structure.
From this we can derive, in Rand's mind, that altruism is a lie, ergo "the greatest evil." I would implore you to read a bit on Rand's life, you'll quickly understand what made her a humanist and the conclusions she drew for her experiences.
 

Otherright

Otherright
As a philosophy student in the US, I can assure you that Rand is not taken as a philosopher by the academic philosophical institution in the States, either.

In her defense, though, she was once asked if she considered herself a philosopher or a novelist, and she said she considered herself a novelist who only philosophized enough to build her fictional worlds. On the other hand, she did write about twice as many philosophical texts as she did novelists, so that may just be another place where she's wrong.

She was in our curriculum. We did a segment on Objectivism.
 

Sunstone

De Diablo Del Fora
Premium Member
Rand was a humanist. When she said that "Altruism is the greatest evil," her point was that we have motivation for everything that we do and that we do nothing without some form of reward, even if that reward was only to make ourselves feel good, or to placate our current ethical/moral structure.
From this we can derive, in Rand's mind, that altruism is a lie, ergo "the greatest evil." I would implore you to read a bit on Rand's life, you'll quickly understand what made her a humanist and the conclusions she drew for her experiences.

That's hilarious! You should sue your teacher.
 
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