HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: siphon@momad.li.ny.us (Stimpson J. Katz)
Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.objectivism
Subject: Re: Unbreached Rationality
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 93 00:43:36 EST
Reply-To: siphon@Momad.LI.NY.US (Stimpson J. Katz)
Organization: Modem Madness BBS    1+516-295-9435

smith@sctc.com (Rick Smith) writes:

> In Rand's writings, both fiction and nonfiction, she said that one's
> every act should be consistent with their philosophy. If one claims to
> be a rational person, then their every act should be justifiable
> through an appropriate process of reason following from their personal
> premises.  She claimed that no excuses should be made for "human
> weakness" or weariness or anything else. This style of "unbreached
> rationality" was the ideal to which all rational people should aspire.
> Anything less was a moral lapse.
> 
> Is there a consensus on whether this is a key part of objectivism, or
> simply a peculiarity of Rand's personality?


        One's every action should be rationally defensible. This does
not mean one need consciously form the rational defense before performing
the action. A moral/rational person does not behave irrationally
automatically; rational actions become a learned response.

        As far as excuses for "human weakness" or whatever, to the extent
that one makes irrational/immoral decisions due to one's own weakness,
it is not a defense to argue that other humans are similarly weak.
Perfection is neither expected nor demanded. The closer one gets to
perfection, however, the better.

        Regarding whether love is logical and whether, somehow, the
requirement that one be logical, moral, and rational somehow prevents
one from doing something one would otherwise find appropriate and
beneficial to do, I am not sure if I have a sufficient base of understand 
with each of you out there to discuss this issue directly. Rest assured,
one will not find the requirements of rational/moral/logical action
limiting. In fact, it is enabling.

SJK

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Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.objectivism
From: pmetzger@snark.shearson.com (Perry E. Metzger)
Subject: Anarchy in Iceland and elsewhere
Organization: Partnership for an America Free Drug
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 17:14:37 GMT

seth@mivax.mc.duke.edu (SETH) writes:
>But seriously, be careful when using the word anarchy...in it's purest
>dictionary sense, anarchy only means NO GOVERNMENT.  Anarchy can be
>utopian or chaotic.  99% of the time when the media defines a situation
>as anarchy, they really mean chaos due to the conflicts between various
>groups trying to usurp power and BECOME THE GOVERNMENT.
>
>Viking Iceland was an effective anarchist society.  Somewhat violent,
>but much less so than other medieval societies.   And Viking Iceland
>had freedom, unlike the church-king dictatorships.

Indeed, Medieval Iceland lasted quite a long time as an anarchy, from
900AD to 1252AD when it was effectively taken over thanks to outside
agitation from a much more powerful adversary, Norway. Iceland
possessed a functioning legal system, courts, economy, etc, all
without any sort of taxation or centralized authority of any sort.

We can go further, of course.  Most modern commercial law is a direct
descendant of the Lex Mercator (I think I have my latin right there,
pardon if its wrong), developed in the merchant courts of medieval
europe. Merchants at trade fairs couldn't count on the local lords to
enforce contracts, so they came up with their own system -- voluntary
arbitration courts. Failing to obey the court's judgement led to
nothing worse than ostracism. However, remember that if no one would
deal with you ever again, you were pretty much up the creek and would
have to go back to subsistance farming in some backwater as no
merchant would ever sign a trading agreement with you again. The Law
Merchant, developed in a completely acoercive and non-governmental
context, is responsible for an astoundingly large fraction of the
legal actions you take every day. Ever endorse a check? Well, that
practice dates back to the merchant courts, when drafts were used as
negotiable instruments far more than they are now.

In any case, I find it amusing that captial O Objectivists seem to be
able to figure out without any trouble how a supermarket might manage
to get enough food in it without the need for a central authority
allocating produce, and yet not understand how a free market might
successfully sell security and contract enforcement services.

References for the readers among you: "The Enterprise of Law" by Bruce
Benson, and David Friedman's "The Machinery of Freedom".


--
Perry Metzger		pmetzger@shearson.com
--
Laissez faire, laissez passer. Le monde va de lui meme.
Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.objectivism
From: rcoenen@phonon.uwaterloo.ca (Rob Coenen)
Subject: RE: A=A -> objectivism; Where's the beef?
Keywords: objectivism
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 19:30:20 GMT


Mark Hayes writes,

>I'm obviously being sarcastic, here, but it is not inappropriate,
>given the kind of purple rhetoric we've seen over and over again
>alluding to the logical indisputability of "objectivism".

I think we're obviously dealing with someone here who wouldn't 
accept a proof if it jumped on his head.

>Can you provide a set of axioms, a set of tranformation rules,
>a set of definitions (no cheating, now!), and a set of valid
>inferences showing how to get from premises like "A=A" to
>conclusions like "I have no responsibility to help a little old
>lady who just fell down in front of an oncoming truck", or whatever
>your favorite illustration of the glory of selfishness is? (This
>particular example comes from an actual conversation I once had
>with a Net-Randroid, who admitted, however, that she might help
>the little old lady on the off-chance that she was rich).

Oh, so you want in a 40 line news article, the total framework of
objectivism to save you the effort of having to look it up yourself?

The fact is that this is not a small request and I doubt anyone will
feel like humoring you in it.

It's already been written up quite well in books on the subject
so go read them.  A good place to start would be 
Leonard Peikoff's "Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand"
It is more of a textbook style and will save your the huge effort
of having to think too much.

>We're waiting............

What?  Who's we?  Do you represent some sort of group or
were you using the royal we?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rob Coenen - rcoenen@phonon.uwaterloo.ca    * "It seems ironic that the
Dept. of Electrical & Computer Engineering  *  fatal flaw of Communism is
University Of Waterloo                      *  that there's no money in it."
Waterloo, Ontario.   Canada                 *        - A. Witney Brown
Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.objectivism
From: lewchuk@cs.UAlberta.CA (Michael Lewchuk)
Subject: Re: godel theorem and godel theorm ....(Re: Where's
Organization: University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 00:54:54 GMT

torkel@sics.se (Torkel Franzen) writes:
>In article <lewchuk.726691282@therien> lewchuk@cs.UAlberta.CA 
>(Michael Lewchuk) writes:
>   >Goedel's theorem implies that the incompleteness theorem is a provable
>   >theorem of predicate logic, by our definition of predicate logic.
>  What do you mean by this?

Geodel's theorem implies incompleteness is a provable consequence of predicate
logic.  The original question was "what does Goedel's theorem have to say about
itself" and my answer should have been "nothing".

To explain by analogy, say we translate Goedel's theorem to something like
"not all different cars produceable are produceable at any assembly plant".
What does this have to say about a Toyota?  Relatively little since it
deals with the notion of all different cars, and proves that it is NOT true.
This implies it has nothing to say about any particular car.

					Michael Lewchuk
					lewchuk@cs.UAlberta.CA
From: cl836@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Geoff Stark)
Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.objectivism
Subject: Re: Failure of Objectivism(8)
Date: 5 Jan 1993 07:30:23 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH (USA)
Reply-To: cl836@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Geoff Stark)
NNTP-Posting-Host: thor.ins.cwru.edu


In a previous article, mward@netcom.com (Michael Ward) says:

>On a personal note: Ayn Rand was a consummate coward.  She tolerated
>no opposition to her own ideas.  She dismissed all but her most rigid
>True Believers.  She betrayed her chief collaborator after years of
>intense work together.  She refused to give credit to her
>contributors.  Ultimately, she failed herself, trading self interest
>for self indulgence as she evolved into a cantankerous and vindictive
>old woman.

It has been made clear in earlier postings that you are not able
to refute Rand's Objectivist concepts.  I wondered how long it
would take for the personal attacks and slander to start.
Cowardly indeed!

By the way, I find your personal judgement of Ayn Rand highly inaccurate.

- Geoff
From: cmk@athena.mit.edu (Charles M Kozierok)
Subject: Re: The fundamental question
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1993 02:56:41 GMT

In article <106648@bu.edu> ccmlh@buitc.bu.edu (Mark Hayes) writes:
>In article <1993Jan9.201046.21236@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> rad2r@uvacs.cs.Virginia.EDU (Robert DeLine) writes:
>->In article <106616@bu.edu>, ccmlh@buitc.bu.edu (Mark Hayes) writes:
>->> as I recall from my last night's viewing of the movie "The Fountainhead",
>->> slavery includes any instance of work without pay, including work
>->> done for charitable causes.
>->
>->The difference between charity and slavery is quite simple: the former is
>->voluntary, the latter is coerced... Love (charity, benevolence, kindness)
>->is one of the best reflections of an objectivist's values -- when given
>->voluntarily.
>
>Not according to Howard Roark, whose spoken words come straight from
>the pen of Ayn Rand. His statement that "work without pay is slavery"
>is made in response to a colleague's trying to give him a reason why
>he should *voluntarily* design a low-cost housing project.

it may be the case that Rand considers all uncompensated work to be slavery.
however, there may also be a subtle distinction here. Rand objected to
altruism because she felt that altruists tried to impose an *obligation* to
behave voluntarily. perhaps that is what she meant in this case. 
if the convincing was based on some implied obligation upon Roark,
that is to what she would take offence.

--
charles
From: ccmlh@buitc.bu.edu (Mark Hayes)
Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.objectivism
Subject: Re: Rational Debate, Axioms, and Arguments
Date: 7 Jan 93 04:30:37 GMT
Organization: Boston University, Boston, MA, USA

In article <C0GnBF.1y7@SSD.intel.com> pandit@ssd.intel.com (Milind Pandit) writes:
>In article <106229@bu.edu> ccmlh@buitc.bu.edu (Mark Hayes) writes:
>>What excrement!

>Hilarious!  If you are not being sarcastic, then have the intellectual
>integrity to admit that your reply is pure rhetoric.  I base my claim
>on the reasoning presented in "Atlas Shrugged."  If you wish to refute
>my claim, refute this reasoning.

If you're serious about this "challenge", then please do what I have
requested - quite reasonably, I believe:

(1) PRESENT THE "AXIOMS", well-defined, and unambiguously worded

(2) PRESENT THE CONCLUSIONS in a similar manner

(3) PRESENT THE "LOGICAL" ARGUMENTS that get us from (1) to (2)
From: cmk@athena.mit.edu (Charles M Kozierok)
Subject: Re: Rand's Personality vs Objectivism
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 02:48:13 GMT

In article <1993Jan11.225609.12088@sctc.com> smith@sctc.com (Rick Smith) writes:
>cmk@athena.mit.edu (Charles M Kozierok) writes:
>
>>btw, i don't believe a small-O objectivist like myself would really
>>care about how Rand lived her life. i am interested in basing my life
>>upon theories which are reasonable.
>
>One can't effectively evaluate a theory without looking at how it
>works in practice. Rand created fictional characters to illustrate how
>she thought her philosophical viewpoint would play out. There's
>something irrational about basing one's actions on the behavior of
>fictional characters.
>
>Fortunately, Rand also made a strong personal commitment to herself
>live by her philosophical principles.  Rand liked to point to herself
>and to her followers as examples that objectivism _could_ be used as
>one's guide to behavior.  Thus, her life (and possibly those of her
>followers) should serve as a source of information about the practical
>application of her ideas.

please refer to my other post on this.

>> i consider the philosophy, not
>>any particular implementation. and if rand was unable to live her
>>life according to the ideals she believed in, that doesn't change necessarily
>>the value of the ideals. many people strive for ideals and fail
>>to achieve them. or have weaknesses and therefore fail to live
>>up to their potential.
>
>Rand expressed profound contempt for philosophical systems that were
>impossible for people to live by. She considered it a mark of failure
>if the philosophy wasn't practicable. In particular, she objected to
>the fact that such philosophies set people up for lives of misery and
>failure, since they're constantly challenged by the unachievable.
>
>If Ayn Rand, the acknowledged patron saint (godhead?) of Objectivism,
>was unable to live up to the standards of Objectivism, then perhaps
>the standards are unrealistic, and thus inappropriate.

perhaps. but her failure does not definitely prove it to be so.

>[the open question is _Which_ objectivist standards of behavior
> are unrealistic? I'm open to suggestions..]
>
>> example: how many doctors smoke? plenty. 
>>does that mean a doctor who advocates non-smoking for his patients
>>but who smokes himself is incorrect? i don't think so.
>
>A false analogy.

perhaps it was a bit of a stretch.

>Anyway, I don't see anything positive about the
>doctor's moral stature. "Do as I say, not as I do" is a dubious
>argument in the realm of ethics, especially in a libertarian crowd.

true. but then that's the point: the individual is flawed, not
the philosophy. and i do understand the difference between the doctor,
who doesn't claim to be living out his philosophy, and Rand; please
refer to my other post, where you may or may not find a valid point.

--
charles
Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.objectivism
From: pandit@ssd.intel.com (Milind Pandit)
Subject: Re: Rational Debate, Axioms, and Arguments
Organization: Supercomputer Systems Division (SSD), Intel
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 01:23:44 GMT

In article <TORKEL.93Jan6004257@bast.sics.se> torkel@sics.se (Torkel Franzen) writes:
>First,
>the idea that philosophy consists of "philosophies" resting on
>"axioms" has very little to do with how philosophy is understood
>outside Objectivism and similar sects.

This is just semantics.  If conclusions regarding human behavior, good
and evil, morality and values, based on certain assumptions, do not
constitute a "philosophy," then what do they constitute?  Certainly
not a religion, not without a notion of a deity.  A "belief system" or
"code," perhaps...What difference does it make?

>Second, philosophers are
>normally inclined neither to accept nor to reject Objectivist "axioms"
>such as "A is A", simply because these much-touted formulas appear to
>to be slogans into which the enthusiastic Objectivist inserts
>whatever Randian wisdom seems appropriate on a particular occasion.
>
>Third, the supposed logical reasoning from the supposed axioms is
>pathetic by any ordinary philosophical standards, both as regards
>rigor and content.

You seem to be denying that any conclusions can be logically drawn
from the Objectivist axioms.  If so, please take a moment to point out
a failure in Rand's logic, and give an example of correct logic
producing conclusions regarding human behavior, good and evil,
morality and values.  I would reproduce Rand's reasoning from "Atlas
Shrugged," but I don't have it with me.

>  All of this, of course, is no big deal. It merely means that Ayn Rand
>was a fifth-rate philosopher, and that her followers emulate her as best
>they can. It would be a great favor to the ideals of capitalism, romanticism,
>and selfishness (as these ideals are understood by those who find
>Rand's novels gripping and persuasive) to quietly drop the Randian
>philosophizing. And of course there are those who argue for such ideals
>in much more reasonable terms.

As I have been under the impression that Rand's arguments for
capitalism and selfishness are in as reasonable terms as is possible,
I would sincerely be interested in more reasonable arguments.  Please
point us to them.


-- 
Milind S. Pandit			| pandit@ssd.intel.com
Operating Systems Engineer		|
Intel Supercomputer Systems Division	| Standard Disclaimers Apply
From: choy@skorpio.usask.ca (I am a terminator.)
Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.objectivism
Subject: Re: Premises of "objectivism?"
Date: 5 Jan 1993 17:55:58 GMT
Organization: University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: skorpio.usask.ca

In article <C0CB8s.8Jz@SSD.intel.com>, pandit@ssd.intel.com (Milind Pandit) writes:
|> In article <1992Dec31.211808.15982@news.nd.edu> fdeck@vyasa.helios.nd.edu (francis deck) writes:

|> I believe from "Atlas Shrugged" that the fundamental axiom of
|> Objectivism is Aristotle's statement, "Existence exists."  In other
|> words, there is an objective reality independent of human perceptions
|> of it.

Is this just a tautology? Or is it an axiom?

-- 

Henry Choy
choy@cs.usask.ca

  What rolls down stairs alone or in pairs
  Rolls over your neighbor's dog?
  What's great for a snack and fits on your back?
  It's Log, Log, Log!      -- "The Log Song", from Ren & Stimpy

  Math is tough!           -- Barbie
Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.objectivism
From: johnhall@microsoft.com (John Hall)
Subject: Re: Objectivism vs Libertarianism vs Anarchism
Date: 08 Jan 93 21:08:39 GMT
Organization: Microsoft Corporation

| In article <C0CFHn.315@tss.com>, burke@tss.com (Jim Burke) writes:
| |> The thing that many Objectivists have trouble with is the fact that our
| |> government does in fact act as the servant of our population.  

A study of pressure group politics and Public Choice models of 
goverment makes this question (govt serves the people) not nearly
as clear as you indicate.


It does this
| |> The Objectivist view tends to be embraced by those who would prosper under
| |> "_full_ capitalism".  In other words, those with greater natural in-born
| |> intelligence and ability, as well as access to capital, know that they would
| |> prosper to a greater extent than those who are less intelligent or capable, or
| |> who were not born with access to capital.  

Well, yes.  If the playing field is even, I win. :)

America has two central conflicting drives in its body politic --
Freedom and Equality.  Unfortuneately, Equality as in equality
of results is not compatible with freedom -- they are mutually
exclusive.

Traditionally Americans came down on the side of freedom, and
equality meant equality before the law.  To some extent,
public schools are justified on the grounds of equality of
opportunity.

That traditional primacy of freedom has been declining.
So to, the US.

-- 
-------------------------
My comments are my own.  They are independent and unrelated to the
views of my company , relatives or elected representatives.
From: Chris.Holt@newcastle.ac.uk (Chris Holt)
Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.objectivism
Subject: Re: On the subject of Kant..
Date: 8 Jan 93 15:46:48 GMT
Organization: University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, NE1 7RU

leon@cs.weber.edu (Leon D. Atkinson) writes:
>rob@dexter.psych.umn.edu (Robert Stephens) writes:
[about Kant]
>|> I am curious as to exactly where he contradicts Objectivism.

>Well, I'd say first and foremost, Kant refutes the idea of objective reality.

I don't think this is strictly true.  He does say that we can have
no direct perception of such a reality if it exists, since all
perception is moderated by our senses.  Actually, I'm surprised that
this annoys objectivists, since they are perfectly happy with
perceptual errors (optical illusions, hallucinations).  If you
can't get a direct handle on reality, and you know you can't, why
bother insisting that it must exist?  It smacks of multiplying
objects unnecessarily.

>He suggests that reality is shaped by our perceptions, thus if we imagined that
>an apple were an orange, it would become so, for the perceiver that is.

If the perceiver has no mechanism for determining otherwise, does
it matter?  Back to Descartes' evil demon...

> This
>goes back to what everyone is yelling about lately here because it contradicts
>the Law of Identity.  Based upon Kant's work, many philosophers created some
>extremely mind-numbing work of their own.  Examples would be Hegel and Nietzche.

Hegel's pretty bad, certainly; but Nietzsche's a romp in the snow:
invigorating and lots of fun, as long as you don't have to stay
out too long.

>In any event, I suggest reading The Ominous Parallels by Leonard Peikoff.  It's
>a wonderful study of German history and concentrates on the philosophical
>progression there.  The book discusses in detail the philosophies of Kant and
>his epistomological children.

You'd be better off with Russell's (?) History of Western Philosophy;
not as misleading, and sets the overall context better.  But if
you've got time, go to the primary sources.  There is more
misinterpretation of what was meant than you'd like to believe.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Chris.Holt@newcastle.ac.uk      Computing Lab, U of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Some ideas are frost giants: pouring cold water on them helps them to grow.
Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.objectivism
From: pandit@ssd.intel.com (Milind Pandit)
Subject: Re: Rational Debate, Axioms, and Arguments
Organization: Supercomputer Systems Division (SSD), Intel
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 01:40:27 GMT

In article <106229@bu.edu> ccmlh@buitc.bu.edu (Mark Hayes) writes:
>In article <C0EL60.6E3@SSD.intel.com> pandit@ssd.intel.com (Milind Pandit) writes:
>
>>Objectivism is the only philosophy that rests on
>>axioms which we must all accept...
>>and draws its conclusions logically from them.
>
>God, sometimes I forget why Randroids piss me off so much,
>and then I read something like this and remember.
>
>If I'm not mistaken, this person is claiming that "objectivism"
>follows LOGICALLY from a small set of indisputable logical axioms,
>implying, reasonably enough (*if* it were true) that disputing
>"objectivism" would be as stupid and/or insane as disputing
>the principle of self-identity.
>
>What excrement!  Do you *really* believe this???
>
>At least have the intellectual integrity to admit that you're
>endorsing an ethical theory (of sorts) that clearly is based
>on considerations and attitudes going far beyond stuff like "A=A".
>The claim that "objectivism" "follows logically" from logic
>is pure rhetoric, and come on, we all know that, don't we?

Hilarious!  If you are not being sarcastic, then have the intellectual
integrity to admit that your reply is pure rhetoric.  I base my claim
on the reasoning presented in "Atlas Shrugged."  If you wish to refute
my claim, refute this reasoning.

-- 
Milind S. Pandit			| pandit@ssd.intel.com
Operating Systems Engineer		|
Intel Supercomputer Systems Division	| Standard Disclaimers Apply