Objectivism is not sound

The Final Defence Burden of Proof: Pro's analysis of the BoP is sound. A1: A reason to live; purpose in happiness “Is it not philosophical to ask: why should I live my life?” I have specifically laid out a logical argument showing that it is utterly impossible to ask this question without already valuing life. My opponent has done nothing to address this except for saying “but it must be philosophical!”, which is not an argument. “My opponent never contests these impacts, thus they are legitimate, in this debate.” I never contested them because I showed that they were completely and totally irrelevant. I've argued time and time again that, regardless of how nice a “perfect” world would be, if such a world is not reality you cannot gain anything from pretending that it is. Objectivism, if it is right on this point (and it is, as I have shown previously), would be merely RECOGNIZING the reality that cannot be changed; the reality is that Objectivism doesn't answer the question Pro is asking because nothing can answer it. My opponent has never argued against this point – she has never showed that it would be even possible to non-contradictorily hold that there is a philosophical answer to “why live”, and, as such, Objectivism cannot be criticized for not doing the impossible. “Part of the concept of man is to act “volitionally” or “rationally”, meaning that things that have chosen life are acting rationally.” I NEVER made this claim. I specifically said that Rand only talked about VOLITIONAL entities, NOT rational entities. They are not equivalent terms. As such, the supposed “contradiction” in my argument simply does not exist – NOWHERE did I advocate that entities that chose to live were rational in doing so, ONLY that they made the choice volitionally. There is no philosophical basis for such a choice and there is no rationality involved, which is why I didn't say that there was at any point in the debate. I have no idea where my opponent got this from. “babies do not have rights yet they have rights.” This is not what I said. I said that babies, by virtue of being babies, do not have rights. Rational and volitional men have rights, and babies only have rights insofar as they are guaranteed to grow into one such man. A baby is equivalent to a rock on its own. The end product of a baby, however, is an entity that will be able to reason and will be able to choose life, etc. It is the rights of that potential man that are extending over the baby, not any rights inherent in the baby itself. Therefore, there is no contradiction – the source of the rights of babies is the same as the source of the rights of adults, since it is only from the potential adults that the babies get their rights. Alphabetical points: “Even if there were no better alternatives, Objectivism would still be unsound” Objectivism wouldn't be unsound for both valuing life and espousing the belief that there is no “reason” to live because doing so causes the harms listed for the very reason that there is not an alternative that is any better. If Objectivism's position is the ONLY rational one, then it must be the most life-affirming philosophy. My opponent's argument is equivalent to saying that nutritionists are “anti-life” because they recommend food rather than starving to death – she would say that, since life would be so much easier if food wasn't needed, any person who tries to deal with the reality in the best way possible is failing because they do not try to achieve that impossible ideal. The fact of the matter is that we DO need food, and Objectivism is the best nutritionist around when you eliminate prayer and supplication, so it can't be said to be failing or self-contradictory on this basis. Pursuing happiness (II.) IF happiness is your goal, and IF happiness is achieved when it is not pursued, then the way to pursue happiness, BY DEFINITION, would be to not pursue it. This is clearly an absurdity – I have shown EXACTLY how the conclusions of the study dissolve into nonsense, so I did not need to do anything else to completely neutralize this point. Again, if happiness is caused by the pursuit of values, then the pursuit of happiness is the pursuit of values. If the pursuit of happiness is bad, so is the pursuit of values, since the pursuit of values logically leads to happiness, and is, as such, the pursuit of happiness itself. Therefore, my opponent IS advocating that values should not be pursued, which is a contradiction in terms, given that any “ought” statement depends on values being valuable in the first place (else why would any course of action be better than another?). My opponent has not offered any legitimate defences of her arguments here, and instead has opted to just repeat that she has “studies” and that she “didn't mean what I say she means”, which isn't enough to win a debate when I have clearly showed that her argument is fundamentally illogical and absurd, regardless of how many PhDs agree with it (A is A no matter who says otherwise). A3: Rand’s Conception of Man A is A; three-sided triangle is a three-sided triangle My stance is VERY easy to defend here – all I have to do is show that the concepts are absolutely infallible and apply only to those things they apply to. To do this, let us examine “reason”. My opponent claims that this cannot be properly conceptualized because it is “too complex” and it cannot be said that it “means one thing for ALL people.” The simplest counter is also the best: Reason is Reason. Reason is just what Reason is defined as. It is nothing more, nothing less, lest my opponent wants to argue that a tautology is false. IF Reason = Reason, then that's an entirely valid proposition – Reason is what Reason is, and whatever Reason applies to is whatever Reason applies to. That is ABSOLUTE. That is unable to be debated. It is entirely tautological in nature. Given this, there CAN be no problem with it being something different for different people or whatever else – Reason is, BY DEFINITION and BY NECESSITY, Reason, and can be nothing else. My opponent is effectively saying that Reason can be Not-Reason, which is patently absurd. Reason = Reason is objectively true no matter your cultural background, your predispositions, etc. As such, I have shown that concepts formed through induction (just the identification of particulars and the extrapolation of broader statements – for instance, seeing a quality, calling it “Rationality”, and then making the generalized claim that anything with the qualities that he saw has Rationality – A is A, so this cannot ever be incorrect) can be absolutely valid, neutering my opponent's objections to Objectivism. Metaphors and Induction: My previous arguments can just be extended here – if X is defined as X, then saying that X = X is “incomplete” because of the limitations of language is absurd. X was defined a certain way, so trying to force it to have meaning outside of that original context is futile. Zarroette is essentially saying that X = X is invalid because she defines X differently than Rand does and this causes the proposition to “lose out” on meaning. She is arguing that X = X is “inexact”. All should hopefully see why this does not make a compelling case. In closing… Thanks to Cassie as well – I had a lot of fun with this. This was probably the hardest debate I've done on this site – props. Also, thanks to any voters brave enough to wade through this incredibly dense debate – Godspeed!