Objectivism is not sound

Thank you, Shabshoral. Affirmative Case: Defence A1: A reason to live; purpose in happiness I. Quoting David Kelley: “A perennial question in O’ism is whether (1) life is a value because one chooses to live, or (2) one should choose to live because life is a value. When the question is posed in this form, (1) is the correct answer.” This is an inductive argument, of which is logically fallacious, in this context. There is also the baby issue. I will deconstruct both: Inductive argument: My opponent assumes that people live because they choose to live, as indicated by them living, then my opponent concludes that life must be valuable. However, how is it possible to know that this choice has been made, rather than absent minded automation? What of the mentally retarded, people with lowly I.Q. or people too busy with life to consider whether they should be living it? We see amoebas continuing to live. According to the logic of Objectivism, they are choosing to live because they are living! You see, it *could* be true, but Objectivism *never shows* it to be true, and instead uses inductive logic and presents it as deductive, thus making it logically fallacious. Baby issue: Obviously, one cannot choose to live before one lives, so does a baby choose to live? If not, that would mean that the baby’s life is valueless (according to Kelley’s logic). If the baby’s life does have value, then this must mean that the baby chooses to live, yet we know that the baby comes into this world due to external reasons beyond its choice. So, either: 1) Baby lives have no value, which means the philosophy for living on Earth has no qualms with killing babies, which contradicts the philosophy’s intentions 2) The baby chooses to live, yet really does not, meaning that this line of argument is internally contradictory "If one is to live, then one must live according to O’ism. Rand never tried to answer why that initial choice to live should be made…The decision to live is pre-moral and pre-philosophical… The philosophy is aimed at preserving life." This would be like a hospital ringing you to say, with no prior call, that ‘this is how we perform a brain-transplant’ (parallel: this is how you should live), and then continuing to detail the brain-transplant operation (parallel: Rand writing 50000000000000000 pages on how to live). In response, you ask ‘why should I get a brain-transplant?’ (parallel: why should I live?), to which the hospital replies ‘that is a pre-hospital question, and so we are not required to answer it’ (parallel: that is a pre-philosophical question). Would you not expect the hospital to be able to answer that question? What good is a philosophy for living on Earth when people are not given answers to some of the most integral questions to life? Objectivism attempts to preserve life, but why should it? Con admits that Objectivism cannot and does not answer this question! Also, as I showed, people *struggle* to cope with life without a purpose in their lives. So, in effect, because Objectivism effectively weasels out of answering the tougher philosophical question of: why live?-, this causes people a stark lack of purpose in life, which leads anti-life affect, such as increases in depression, suicide and hopelessness. The contradiction occurs when you consider, and I quote my opponent, that Objectivism aims to “preserve life”. Further illogic occurs when you consider that “why live?” is an integral premise to argue “how you should live”, hence the question begging charge still applies to Objectivism. Have a look for yourself: “[Rand] never assumed that one should value life. All of philosophy is only relevant if one already value life, making the question of “why” you should value life unanswerable.” 1) “All philosophy is only relevant if one already values life” 2) “Rand never assumed that one should value life” 3) Rand builds a philosophy (something that assumes “one already values life”) whilst never assuming that one should value life C) My opponent’s argument is now explicitly contradictory and obviously does require the initial premise of “why live?” to be answered, and since Objectivism does not answer the question in the initial premise, it begs the question Counter-responses to Con’s two alphabetical points: A.) This is not a debate about whether Objectivism should be accepted due to lack of alternatives, but rather about whether it is sound. Even if there are no better alternatives, that does not mean that this makes Objectivism sound. B.) For this impact argument, I assumed Objectivism’s premise of ‘life has value’. So, in effect, if we are to hypothetically assume that life has value, Objectivism is still internally contradictory because, as argued earlier, the philosophy for living on Earth encourages people, in a way, to not live on Earth. If I do not assume that life has value, I merely cannot run this impact argument, yet my other objections stand. There is also the choosing to live issue which is deconstructed earlier. II. In reality, my opponent argues that values should be pursued, AND THEN happiness will result. In order: 1) Pursue values 2) Obtain happiness However, Rand herself, as I quoted in the first round, said that: “[Man’s] highest moral purpose is the achievement of his own happiness”. Pursuing value is, ultimately, pursuing happiness, as happiness is the end that is sought. My opponent elaborates to say that Rand’s conception of happiness, by definition, should be pursued. Happiness is being pursued. However, my opponent then conflates the terms by arguing that it is a contradiction to not pursue values, BUT I argued that *happiness* should not be pursued, which means my opponent’s counter-argument is a straw-man. “If “pursuing happiness decreases happiness”, then it’s obvious that the person isn’t really pursuing happiness – if they were, they wouldn’t allow the pursuit to get in the way of the attainment of happiness.” If a person thinks that the way to get happiness is to pursue it, then why would they stop pursuing? Have you ever heard someone say, “I am going to stop pursuing happiness because I’ve had enough of being happy”? Besides, I have the scientific study to show that pursuing happiness does decrease happiness, whilst my opponent only has hypothetical rhetoric. A2: Altruism as undesirable Instead of arguing half-truths with dodgy definitions, and thereby wasting people’s time, I am going to be a big girl and admit that I cannot affirm this contention. Well argued, Shabshoral. A3: Rand’s conception of Man I. Method to determine absolute qualities: My opponent’s opening sentence is all the concession I need: “every concept has its basis in the perception of reality”. How do we know that Rand's upbringing, her surrounding culture, her feelings etc. were whisked aside in ALL her moments of constructing a completely objective, “concrete” conception of Man? How could she know that people whom she has never met (hermits in secluded areas), and cultures that she has never experienced (small tribal culture), fall within Objectivist theory, despite her method of induction never accounting for these things? How does she know that the alignment of concept and reality are 100% accurate for everyone, and not just the people who she has met? Again, her method of verification is induction, which as we now know, means that she used her perception of reality to create what she thinks is an accurate reality. Therefore, she could *never* be quite sure if her philosophy was, in reality, correct, but rather could only tell, at best, that her philosophy could be 100% consistent for a limited length of time or a particular group. So, to conclude with absolute certainty that Man has certain values will be logically fallacious, in that it will be assuming that an inductive argument (which can never be certain) is certain. In other words, it is not that the concepts are necessarily wrong, but concluding that they are certainly right, which Objectivism does, is wrong. Via formal logic, I can conclude, without delving into specific content, that the method in which Rand determined her conclusions is flawed, and therefore her philosophy (which includes the method of determining its conclusions) is not sound. A is A; three-sided triangle is a three-sided triangle: The problem with my opponent’s argument is not that concept = concept, but rather how do we know we have correctly attributed real value to the concept? You know how? It is through induction, and I have repeatedly describe the problems with this method of argumentation. There is no way in which you can determine that that A is A without filtering A through your subjective experience. Again, it is the method of determination which is problematic, not necessarily the concept. Metaphors and induction: To put this in terms of the debate, I will show you an analogy with water. Now, someone could look at water and say ‘water is a liquid’ (Rand looks at Man and sees Him as a rational being). Now, knowing that water is a liquid helps us understand water to some degree, but as we know, in some scenarios, water changes to being a gas or solid (Man can change to being irrational when emotional). Water can also bubble at higher temperatures. Water is also capable of mixing with other liquids (Man has emotions. Man can move). Now it should be obvious that to simply label water as a liquid (Man as a rational being) is not only inductive, but clearly missing a lot of meaning in the term Man. This was the point I was making with reference to metaphors: the more precise your definition of Man becomes, the more information you leave out. Saying that something is something else in a metaphorical way, avoids having to be specific with meaning and thus leaving out important meaning.