On Objectivism
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I am going to make a topic while I'm in the mood tonight, as to why I view Randiam Objectivism as silly.
The main contested premises and indeed the foundation of Randian objectivism go as follows:
1.Reality is objective
2.One should always follow reason and never think or act contrary to reason
3.Moral principles are also objective and can be known through reason
4.Every person should always be selfish
5.Capitalism is the only just system.
What’s interesting about these premises is that, at first glance, most of them seem pretty reasonable, and indeed without further scrutiny and understanding, it’s easy to accept them without a second thought. Before investigating myself, I found at the very least premises 1-3 to be reasonable enough. But when you get into the details and the rhetoric of objectivism, they start to fall apart. It’s a fine example of how someone can get so close, yet still be totally wrong.
First let’s go over premise 1. Reality is objective. Sure, that sounds ok…but…what exactly does that mean? I’ve seen videos of Objectivists explaining that what they’re saying is that an external reality is simply an axiom of thought. But that’s not the case. Epistemologists have been trying for years to establish what is meant by an objective reality and so far no really clear cut explanation has been established. Rand herself, to the best of my knowledge, never really goes into deep detail about this premise, appearing to, as stated before, simply take it as an axiom. A quote I’ve found of the Objectivist philosophy is “the meaning of a concept is all of the concretes it subsumes, past, present, and future, including ones that we will never know about.” But that’s not exactly true. Take Oedipus for instance. Premise 1. Oedipus marries Jocaste. This is what Oedipus believed, this is what he wanted to be true. And it was true. However, at the same time Premise 2. Oedipus marries Oedipus’ mother is also true, yet he didn’t want that to be true, nor did he believe it to be the case. But, don’t they mean the same thing? If Oedipus’ mother and Jocaste mean the same thing…then…how could Oedipus believe one premise, be correct in his belief, yet not believe the second premise? You could say it wasn’t illogical for him to believe premise one without accepting premise 2 because he wasn’t aware of premise 2 but that doesn’t answer the problem. According to the Objectivist, Jocaste means the exact same thing as “Oedipus’ mother” despite being able to logically accept one premise and not the other. So of COURSE these don’t mean the same thing. Oedipus wasn’t ignorant that Jocaste was Jocaste, he was ignorant that Jocaste was Oedipus’ mother.
Put simply, where a Randian might say, “A concept MEANS all the concretes it subsumes” it is more reasonable and logical to say, “A concept REFERS to all the concretes it subsumes.” Reference, being, referring to the Subject in physical space. Thus “Jocaste” and “Oedipus’ mother” do not mean the same thing, but REFER to the same thing. Thus, premise 1 is thrown out as being too vague, and nondescript.
Onto premise 2. So…what exactly does it mean to act contrary to reason? I had a conversation with afriend on Skype about this and after some thought he began to think about the early fascists. Fascism, as a political theory, is INTENTIONALLY vague. That is, it’s essentially a dictatorship, that promotes…whatever…you want it to promote. I feel that’s what Rand is doing here. Reason means whatever she wants it to mean, allowing her to freely dismiss those that disagree with her as being “unreasonable” without sufficiently defining what reason means, and what acting contrary to reason means. Presumably the Objectivist might feel that if everyone acted in accordance to reason there’d be no dispute, no problems, no conflict, but this is simply not the case. Say I and someone else both owned shops across the street from each other. Say a customer starts walking in between our shops and decides he wants to stop to buy something. Now only I or my opponent will get this customer, and it is REASONABLE for both of us to desire this customer. Thus, even though we’re both acting perfectly reasonable, conflict is created. People come to mutually exclusive reasonable conclusions all the time, and the only people I would think could sufficiently be said to “act contrary to reason” are people who have severe mental disorders where they literally do only what they in reality don’t want to do. But…who does that?
Thus, premise 2 is also thrown out for being vague, nondescript, and really? Useless.
On to premise 3. I for one am a Moral Realist, and a naturalist, so I believe in objective morality. The difference between me and an Objectivist. Here I’ll be explaining why the Objectivist view of Objective Morality is flawed, specifically. To clarify, I believe that objective morality is NECESSARILY incomplete and kind of messy to make a distinction from subjectivity. Yet, it appears the objectivist has claimed to discover that elusive completeness and distinctness. What fun. Through what? Well, reason. Which is funny because I’m fairly certain Immanuel Kant attempted to do the same thing, yet Rand herself wasn’t a huge Kant fan to say the least. Just like in the last premise what exactly is being defined as †˜reason’ in this context? Neither Rand nor any Objectivist really explains what is meant by †˜determining through reason’ means in this context. And, to be honest, I’m not sure if they can. Going back to Thomas Nagal, his point that I made in my last video is that you cannot give an instance where something is objectively, in all circumstances, wrong, or good. So therefore there’s that †˜incompleteness’. Until this is solved I’m rejecting this third premise as well for being just as the others, vague, nondescript, and useless, and in this case, going against the academic mainstream.
Premise 4. Almost done folks. This is the biggy. This is one of the main reasons people reject objectivism flat out. Everyone should be selfish? Firstly, at first glance it’s just as vague as the others, but Rand DOES have a book expanding on this issue called “The Virtue of Selfishness”. As a Virtue Ethicist, it pains me to see someone establishing a patently false virtue, as being virtuous. How can Selfishness be a virtue? Rand tends to argue this by arguing that the opposite of selfishness – Altruism, is irrational. “Altruism, as an ethical theory, says that I should sometimes sacrifice my own good for the sake of something else. This means that I should sacrifice my own values for the sake of something else. That is, I should give up something I value, for the sake of something I do not value. That is, I should give up something I believe to be good, to achieve something I do not believe to be good. But this is obviously irrational.” Now, Rand doesn’t make that EXACT argument, but it’ something like that when she discusses †˜sacrifice’ and by the by, tends to use a bad sense of the word to do so.
The problem here is that "my good" does not mean the same as "my values". "My good" means that which benefits me. "My values" means that which I believe to be good. Put simply, the difference between altruism and egoism is that altruism says you should value the life and well being of others, while egoism says you should only value your own happiness and well being(and subsequently others so long as it benefits you). There’s no…preference made towards either one. And altruism certainly seems more intuitionally preferable. So…why egoism? One might re define egoism as being anything that promotes one’s own values, but then that pretty much turns every altruist in history into an egoist, including Jesus, Kant, Buddha, and Mother Theresa. You could also redefine altruism as being, ultimately, egoism, but at that point you’ve rendered egoism completely useless as a moral theory, as egoism would simply be reduced to ,”Doing what one thinks is good.” And a goo action would be, “Whatever you think is good.”
Another problem with it is the hard distinction Rand’s particular brand of egoism puts on the Self over the Other. This seems inconsistent with Rand’s first premise that reality is objective. Because presuming an external world and a reductionist materialist kind of world(which empiricists like Objectivists tend to believe anyway) I, and “We” are not separate. “I” is a PART of “We”. There is a distinction in that I can talk about myself without referencing “we” but it’s not a hard one, and “I”can, and regularly is, a part of “we”. I challenge you to find a single person in the world who is 100% completely alone in the entirety of their philosophy. You can’t. It’s an illusion to presume as much.
Thus, I reject Premise 4 as being valid or sound. Selfishness isn’t a virtue, no matter how much Rand wishes it to be.
I wont’ go into detail on Premise 5 but it’s about as vague as the rest. Fortunately Rand is happy to expound that she believes in, specifically, Laissez Faire capitalism. I’m not well versed on political theory and CardinalVirtues or SkepticalHeretic could do a far better video than I could about why a Laissez Faire society isn’t a utopia of fairness and justice. As for me? I’m glad to disregard this premise if only for the simple reason that it appears to be a conclusion one comes to only after accepting all the other premises which I’ve already rejected. So. In the trash it goes.
Thank you for reading.
Edit: I love when I get a neg rep and nobody actually argues with me. Personally I take it as a concession. "I can't argue your points, but fuck you anyway."
The main contested premises and indeed the foundation of Randian objectivism go as follows:
1.Reality is objective
2.One should always follow reason and never think or act contrary to reason
3.Moral principles are also objective and can be known through reason
4.Every person should always be selfish
5.Capitalism is the only just system.
What’s interesting about these premises is that, at first glance, most of them seem pretty reasonable, and indeed without further scrutiny and understanding, it’s easy to accept them without a second thought. Before investigating myself, I found at the very least premises 1-3 to be reasonable enough. But when you get into the details and the rhetoric of objectivism, they start to fall apart. It’s a fine example of how someone can get so close, yet still be totally wrong.
First let’s go over premise 1. Reality is objective. Sure, that sounds ok…but…what exactly does that mean? I’ve seen videos of Objectivists explaining that what they’re saying is that an external reality is simply an axiom of thought. But that’s not the case. Epistemologists have been trying for years to establish what is meant by an objective reality and so far no really clear cut explanation has been established. Rand herself, to the best of my knowledge, never really goes into deep detail about this premise, appearing to, as stated before, simply take it as an axiom. A quote I’ve found of the Objectivist philosophy is “the meaning of a concept is all of the concretes it subsumes, past, present, and future, including ones that we will never know about.” But that’s not exactly true. Take Oedipus for instance. Premise 1. Oedipus marries Jocaste. This is what Oedipus believed, this is what he wanted to be true. And it was true. However, at the same time Premise 2. Oedipus marries Oedipus’ mother is also true, yet he didn’t want that to be true, nor did he believe it to be the case. But, don’t they mean the same thing? If Oedipus’ mother and Jocaste mean the same thing…then…how could Oedipus believe one premise, be correct in his belief, yet not believe the second premise? You could say it wasn’t illogical for him to believe premise one without accepting premise 2 because he wasn’t aware of premise 2 but that doesn’t answer the problem. According to the Objectivist, Jocaste means the exact same thing as “Oedipus’ mother” despite being able to logically accept one premise and not the other. So of COURSE these don’t mean the same thing. Oedipus wasn’t ignorant that Jocaste was Jocaste, he was ignorant that Jocaste was Oedipus’ mother.
Put simply, where a Randian might say, “A concept MEANS all the concretes it subsumes” it is more reasonable and logical to say, “A concept REFERS to all the concretes it subsumes.” Reference, being, referring to the Subject in physical space. Thus “Jocaste” and “Oedipus’ mother” do not mean the same thing, but REFER to the same thing. Thus, premise 1 is thrown out as being too vague, and nondescript.
Onto premise 2. So…what exactly does it mean to act contrary to reason? I had a conversation with afriend on Skype about this and after some thought he began to think about the early fascists. Fascism, as a political theory, is INTENTIONALLY vague. That is, it’s essentially a dictatorship, that promotes…whatever…you want it to promote. I feel that’s what Rand is doing here. Reason means whatever she wants it to mean, allowing her to freely dismiss those that disagree with her as being “unreasonable” without sufficiently defining what reason means, and what acting contrary to reason means. Presumably the Objectivist might feel that if everyone acted in accordance to reason there’d be no dispute, no problems, no conflict, but this is simply not the case. Say I and someone else both owned shops across the street from each other. Say a customer starts walking in between our shops and decides he wants to stop to buy something. Now only I or my opponent will get this customer, and it is REASONABLE for both of us to desire this customer. Thus, even though we’re both acting perfectly reasonable, conflict is created. People come to mutually exclusive reasonable conclusions all the time, and the only people I would think could sufficiently be said to “act contrary to reason” are people who have severe mental disorders where they literally do only what they in reality don’t want to do. But…who does that?
Thus, premise 2 is also thrown out for being vague, nondescript, and really? Useless.
On to premise 3. I for one am a Moral Realist, and a naturalist, so I believe in objective morality. The difference between me and an Objectivist. Here I’ll be explaining why the Objectivist view of Objective Morality is flawed, specifically. To clarify, I believe that objective morality is NECESSARILY incomplete and kind of messy to make a distinction from subjectivity. Yet, it appears the objectivist has claimed to discover that elusive completeness and distinctness. What fun. Through what? Well, reason. Which is funny because I’m fairly certain Immanuel Kant attempted to do the same thing, yet Rand herself wasn’t a huge Kant fan to say the least. Just like in the last premise what exactly is being defined as †˜reason’ in this context? Neither Rand nor any Objectivist really explains what is meant by †˜determining through reason’ means in this context. And, to be honest, I’m not sure if they can. Going back to Thomas Nagal, his point that I made in my last video is that you cannot give an instance where something is objectively, in all circumstances, wrong, or good. So therefore there’s that †˜incompleteness’. Until this is solved I’m rejecting this third premise as well for being just as the others, vague, nondescript, and useless, and in this case, going against the academic mainstream.
Premise 4. Almost done folks. This is the biggy. This is one of the main reasons people reject objectivism flat out. Everyone should be selfish? Firstly, at first glance it’s just as vague as the others, but Rand DOES have a book expanding on this issue called “The Virtue of Selfishness”. As a Virtue Ethicist, it pains me to see someone establishing a patently false virtue, as being virtuous. How can Selfishness be a virtue? Rand tends to argue this by arguing that the opposite of selfishness – Altruism, is irrational. “Altruism, as an ethical theory, says that I should sometimes sacrifice my own good for the sake of something else. This means that I should sacrifice my own values for the sake of something else. That is, I should give up something I value, for the sake of something I do not value. That is, I should give up something I believe to be good, to achieve something I do not believe to be good. But this is obviously irrational.” Now, Rand doesn’t make that EXACT argument, but it’ something like that when she discusses †˜sacrifice’ and by the by, tends to use a bad sense of the word to do so.
The problem here is that "my good" does not mean the same as "my values". "My good" means that which benefits me. "My values" means that which I believe to be good. Put simply, the difference between altruism and egoism is that altruism says you should value the life and well being of others, while egoism says you should only value your own happiness and well being(and subsequently others so long as it benefits you). There’s no…preference made towards either one. And altruism certainly seems more intuitionally preferable. So…why egoism? One might re define egoism as being anything that promotes one’s own values, but then that pretty much turns every altruist in history into an egoist, including Jesus, Kant, Buddha, and Mother Theresa. You could also redefine altruism as being, ultimately, egoism, but at that point you’ve rendered egoism completely useless as a moral theory, as egoism would simply be reduced to ,”Doing what one thinks is good.” And a goo action would be, “Whatever you think is good.”
Another problem with it is the hard distinction Rand’s particular brand of egoism puts on the Self over the Other. This seems inconsistent with Rand’s first premise that reality is objective. Because presuming an external world and a reductionist materialist kind of world(which empiricists like Objectivists tend to believe anyway) I, and “We” are not separate. “I” is a PART of “We”. There is a distinction in that I can talk about myself without referencing “we” but it’s not a hard one, and “I”can, and regularly is, a part of “we”. I challenge you to find a single person in the world who is 100% completely alone in the entirety of their philosophy. You can’t. It’s an illusion to presume as much.
Thus, I reject Premise 4 as being valid or sound. Selfishness isn’t a virtue, no matter how much Rand wishes it to be.
I wont’ go into detail on Premise 5 but it’s about as vague as the rest. Fortunately Rand is happy to expound that she believes in, specifically, Laissez Faire capitalism. I’m not well versed on political theory and CardinalVirtues or SkepticalHeretic could do a far better video than I could about why a Laissez Faire society isn’t a utopia of fairness and justice. As for me? I’m glad to disregard this premise if only for the simple reason that it appears to be a conclusion one comes to only after accepting all the other premises which I’ve already rejected. So. In the trash it goes.
Thank you for reading.
Edit: I love when I get a neg rep and nobody actually argues with me. Personally I take it as a concession. "I can't argue your points, but fuck you anyway."
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Truthfully I escaped having to read through your post but just on the topic of objectivism
-Rand's indestructible robot is actually quite destructible if one has the incentive to look within and self destruct after understanding the being has drifted into the waters of reality and one actually can't ebb the flow of it leading to destruction
-Although its probably just a lack of understanding, if there are two separate bodies, those being the environmental reality and the vector or person, what exactly is the connecting factor of the two and the distance of both? Is affection reciprocital in the way that the environment can effect the person as the person shifts the reality?
-How do I evaluate my ontology under Ayn's purpose if I want to reject my existence or connection with the plot of the world or simply derivé from the utopic status of being by not following in line but evaluating life under objectivism?
-How does Rand interpret the value of opinion, specifically on morals
On another note, please choose different post-modernist philosophies and authors. I'm quite sure discussion would be fun if I wasn't limited to cliché works.
-Rand's indestructible robot is actually quite destructible if one has the incentive to look within and self destruct after understanding the being has drifted into the waters of reality and one actually can't ebb the flow of it leading to destruction
-Although its probably just a lack of understanding, if there are two separate bodies, those being the environmental reality and the vector or person, what exactly is the connecting factor of the two and the distance of both? Is affection reciprocital in the way that the environment can effect the person as the person shifts the reality?
-How do I evaluate my ontology under Ayn's purpose if I want to reject my existence or connection with the plot of the world or simply derivé from the utopic status of being by not following in line but evaluating life under objectivism?
-How does Rand interpret the value of opinion, specifically on morals
On another note, please choose different post-modernist philosophies and authors. I'm quite sure discussion would be fun if I wasn't limited to cliché works.
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1.Reality is objective
Okay, this first premise I already have issue with. Reality is not objective. I'm sorry to say but it's not. That would require one to literally know anything. Our reality could be an infinite number of possible things and without infinite knowledge premise one is impossible to say.
2.One should always follow reason and never think or act contrary to reason
Okay the issue here harkens back to the issue with 1. the only way for this to be followed properly is to have a mind which can think in an entirely subjective manner, which is not only impossible to do within an inherently bias mind, but also would require infinite knowledge to be agreed upon as what is reason.
3.Moral principles are also objective and can be known through reason
Sam Harris has outlined a scientific basis for objective morality in which can be done by viewing morals and looking at the ones that maximize the human condition and minimize suffering. This is literally the only argument for objective morality I can think of that was even somewhat convincing, but here's the issue with even that. What if maximizing the human condition minimizes it for every other species. Do animals and plants get included in this? Are they important? My point is objective morality, in whatever way you look at it, is subjectively objective. Also the whole being arrived at through reason argument...well I already addressed that.
4.Every person should always be selfish
This one seems to contradict 2 and 3. What if the reasoniable thing is to not be selfish? Society requires non selfish action for stablity. Even if one's reason leads to this conclusion we once again run into the problems already brought up in 1 and 2.
Another thing, if one should always be selfish then is the an objective conclusion based upon reason? Once again look at the above issues mentioned. How can something be just if it requires one to in some cases treat others in an unjust manner?
5.Capitalism is the only just system.
Okay, that's bullshit. Before capitalism dominated the world many societies worked off other systems and they were doing fine, and even ignoring that as society has progressed socialism, even in small elements, is necessary for a country not to become a plutocracy like it has been in the past.
Okay, this first premise I already have issue with. Reality is not objective. I'm sorry to say but it's not. That would require one to literally know anything. Our reality could be an infinite number of possible things and without infinite knowledge premise one is impossible to say.
2.One should always follow reason and never think or act contrary to reason
Okay the issue here harkens back to the issue with 1. the only way for this to be followed properly is to have a mind which can think in an entirely subjective manner, which is not only impossible to do within an inherently bias mind, but also would require infinite knowledge to be agreed upon as what is reason.
3.Moral principles are also objective and can be known through reason
Sam Harris has outlined a scientific basis for objective morality in which can be done by viewing morals and looking at the ones that maximize the human condition and minimize suffering. This is literally the only argument for objective morality I can think of that was even somewhat convincing, but here's the issue with even that. What if maximizing the human condition minimizes it for every other species. Do animals and plants get included in this? Are they important? My point is objective morality, in whatever way you look at it, is subjectively objective. Also the whole being arrived at through reason argument...well I already addressed that.
4.Every person should always be selfish
This one seems to contradict 2 and 3. What if the reasoniable thing is to not be selfish? Society requires non selfish action for stablity. Even if one's reason leads to this conclusion we once again run into the problems already brought up in 1 and 2.
Another thing, if one should always be selfish then is the an objective conclusion based upon reason? Once again look at the above issues mentioned. How can something be just if it requires one to in some cases treat others in an unjust manner?
5.Capitalism is the only just system.
Okay, that's bullshit. Before capitalism dominated the world many societies worked off other systems and they were doing fine, and even ignoring that as society has progressed socialism, even in small elements, is necessary for a country not to become a plutocracy like it has been in the past.
