Objectivism is not sound

Summarising Points Burden of Proof: Since I am Pro, my burden of proof is to show that Objectivism is not sound, meaning that I need to argue an aspect of Objectivism being unsound. In other words, all I need to do, at any point, is to show Objectivism is illogical. Even if I have dropped sections and arguments, my burden of proof only requires me to affirm an instance of Objectivism being unsound. ****If at any stage you find Objectivism unsound, you should vote for me.**** A1: A reason to live; purpose in happiness Under this heading, a central question to this debate was: why should we value/live life? In response, my opponent argues that this is a “pre-philosophical” question, one that Rand intentionally does not answer. I ask you, the voter: could this not be classified as a philosophical question? Is it not philosophical to ask: why should I live my life? Furthermore, is it not logical to ask why you are doing something before you ask how to do it? Do you ever ring a hospital to ask how to have an operation (with the implications being that you will have one) before you have reason for one? I offer you the idea that this is a classic example of begging the question (thus Objectivism is not sound). Let us explore it… <impact> I covered the impacts of living life without a purpose, of which these are increases in: (1) depression, (2) suicide and (3) hopelessness, as was found in my research. My opponent never contests these impacts, thus they are legitimate, in this debate. So, the question of “why live” becomes quite an important one. Does it make logical sense that Rand would want to ignore such an important question when constructing a philosophy for “living on Earth?” The raw fact is that ignoring such an important question, given the context of the debate, does not make sense, and thus is not logically sound. <1> There was the explicit exposure of the internal contradiction. This so clearly shows that my opponent’s argument is internally contradictory. I quote my opponent: “[Rand] never assumed that one should value life. All of philosophy is only relevant if one already values life, making the question of “why” you should value life unanswerable.” Now, the form interpretation: 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 <2> Another feature of this sub-point was the idea that “people have already chosen to live”. This “pre-moral/pre-philosophical idea” incurred the problems of (1) the Inductive argument and (2) the Baby Issue. (1) Whilst, in my opinion, my opponent adequately addresses the problem of induction, in regards to choosing to live (by saying that this philosophy only applies to those who have already chosen life, rather than trying to say that everyone has chosen life), my opponent contradicts himself again, with regards to “pre-philosophy”. I quote my opponent: “Rand specifically chose to talk only about those things that can and have chosen life” Part of the concept of man is to act “volitionally” or “rationally”, meaning that things that have chosen life are acting rationally. HOWEVER, as you may remember, my opponent said previously that choosing life was “pre-philosophical!” BUT, as you can clearly see, my opponent argues here that those who are living (according to Rand’s definition) are acting rationally (and thus are being philosophical, which he earlier said that they were not). To summarise this point, either: 1) My opponent successfully counters my Inductive argument point but concedes that choosing to live is philosophical (and not “pre-philosophical”), and thus fall under all the logical fallacies found up until my <2> argument 2) My opponent retracts his contradiction, and so my inductive argument stands Either way, my opponent’s ultimate argument here is unsound. (2) In the end, my opponent’s counter-argument to the baby issue surmounts to equivocation (and is therefore unsound, due to the faulty semantics), wherein he, in reality, argues that babies do not have rights yet they have rights. This answer is inspired by the fact that the conception of rights comes from requiring and exercising reason. Babies quite clearly cannot do this. So, my opponent begins to equivocate in arguing that babies have rights because they can become adults, yet Rand’s conception of choosing to live is what creates value (according to the philosophy). In form: 1) Babies cannot reason 2) Reason is required to be considered Man C) Therefore, in saying that babies have rights, this "special case" counter-argument my opponent makes is equivocation Alphabetical points: My opponent’s objection basically came down to this: is there a rational alternative to Objectivism that does not have these detriments (the detriments being the negative affect that comes from not having a purpose in life). To this, I still maintain that this is irrelevant. Even if there were no better alternatives, Objectivism could still be unsound. In reality, there is no mutual exclusion in my opponent’s false dichotomy. Pursuing happiness (II.) Under this section, I have a serious advantage over my opponent, in that I have provided a study showing that the pursuit of happiness leads to unhappiness, hence Objectivism’s championing of happiness is ultimately contradictory, thus unsound. Throughout the debate, one of my opponent’s responses to this is essentially a No True Scotsman fallacy, in that he argues that the pursuit of happiness is not a real type of pursuing happiness. There is no talk of the methodology, nor attempt at exposing the limitations of the study. Just a simple: that is not real pursuit in happiness. The other attempt at counter-argument, from my opponent, was semantics to twist my words in order to make it appear that I wrote: you pursue happiness by not pursuing happiness. I will clarify the meaning of what I actually wrote. The meaning involved rejects the idea of pursuing happiness because it leads to not pursuing happiness. At no stage do I advocate on how to pursue happiness. I merely rejected Objectivism’s apparently sound model for pursuing happiness. Finally, I do not abandon pursuing values, but rather I abandon Rand’s specific conception of pursuing value, of which is intertwined with pursuing happiness. Again, my study explicitly shows how Rand advocating pursuing happiness is contradictory, hence Objectivism being unsound. A3: Rand’s Conception of Man Under this contention, I argue that the conception of Man is not necessarily grounded in reality, and my opponent essentially responds by saying that Rand’s Man is constructed via common elements found in adult humans (and is not necessarily all encompassing). I think my objections stand. Let me show you why. A is A; three-sided triangle is a three-sided triangle Let us get this fact straight: humans are far more complex than triangles. Furthermore, the element Objectivism tries to extract from humans (reason) is far more elaborate than the element of the triangle (three-sidedness). So, as I have been arguing all the debate, since Rand’s method of inference is induction (which is a separate instance of induction to the previous one), then Rand starts to run into problems when she attempts to confirm that something as complex as the capacity to reason, despite layered in cultural, Rand’s perception and individual differences, means one thing for ALL people. If it were a *physical* element of humans (rather than the *metaphysical* ‘reason’), such as all of them having a heart, then this physical trait is much more of a given, much like the three-sidedness. In summary, this point explored how Rand’s limited method of induction still fails to provide objectivity, despite only trying to describe a certain characteristics humans have (reason). You cannot point to the capacity to reason; its conception is abstract (unlike the three-sidedness). Metaphors and induction: Similarly to the above problem, my metaphorical counter-point shows how condensing information into short phrases creates problems. The study I highlighted showed how metaphor should be used to construct abstractions, due to the limitations of language. Con does briefly mention this point in the second round, but it seems, as far as I can tell, to be dropped. In other words, my uncontested point of language is limited in terms of scope, therefore shows using language and purporting it to be exact creates the same problem induction does, in that the method of information gathering is not capable of being precise. Con’s rejection of my argument attempts to show how I have used the wrong definition of Man, yet the construction of identifying the definition to exist in reality is where my objection lies here. I understand fully that not every man is a Man, but this does not counter my argument, as a critique of language would apply to both arguments (the one my opponent thinks I am arguing and the one I am arguing in reality). So, the conception of reason is a metaphysical construct which is constructed via induction, and thus cannot ever be as objective as Rand tries to make it seem. Therefore, Rand arguing that an estimate (induction) is an exact, is not logically sound. In closing… Thank you to Shabshoral for providing great opposition. I was humbled when I had to admit that my A2 was completely countered, so even if you do not win, you can take pride in forcing me to abandon that contention. Thank you for reading this debate; I hope it was worth your while =)