My time is quite limited as it is, so if I'm not getting a sense that it's high priority to respond, I'll act accordingly.

Gosh, I hope I did not "open us up to the false alternative of either committing a naturalistic fallacy or of resorting to Moorean intuition by which we observe some act and simply 'see' that the act is good or bad."

I have a vast context with Dr. Goode, Chris, and as much as I wish you well, I doubt that your calm, rational argumentation will have any impact on getting him to understand your interpretation of Rand, or, at least, to acknowledge an understanding of it. Even when you get to the epistemic base and think that you are merely pointing.

I would love to be proven wrong.

I should also throw into all this the issue of how you derive an "ought." An ought is an imperative, and to say that someone ought to do something is to say that they have a reason to do something. This is where Kant can be useful. His model of practical reason is a reaction to David Hume's. Hume, the empiricist, doesn't observe any "oughts," just that we have these passions (Kant called them inclinations) and reason is merely in a subservient role of discovering the causal means (putting aside for the moment the Humean problem that "cause" is merely a habit of thought) by which our passions can be satisfied. So the hypothetical-imperative you get from this - "If you want X, do Y" is empty, morally speaking. It speaks not at all to the rightness of X, even as it purports to give us a reason to do Y. So it's not an "ought" that informs us morally, and, operating on the Humean level, we're still without a concept of "ought," morally speaking, that avoids the naturalistic fallacy. Kant, transcending the rationalist-empiricist dichotomy in his own way, says that we can make sense of moral "ought" but not by pointing to this or that concrete object or fact and saying, "There it is, an ought!" Rather, the role of reason as a conceptual faculty is essential to making sense of a moral ought-claim. The thing with Kant is that he takes the form of reasoning to be the seat of "ought," since our being embodied, needs-having beings - crucial to an Aristotelian ethics - is taken to be an empirical and contingent fact that only gives us hypothetical imperatives. A moral imperative has to have a necessity, a "must" about it, that is independent of what contingently is or what contingently is sought. On that, Kant is right. The form of reason that we bring to experience is essential to grounding a moral ought-claim. Rand's task was to cast "form of reason" and "experience" in (neo-)Aristotelian terms. But you need to look at her epistemology in ITOE to get the specifics.

You write:

What type of inductive argument is Rand's derivation? What are Rand's premises? What is Rand's conclusion? According to Rand, my life is my ultimate value, and the fact that I am determines what I ought to do. So, what ought I to do? Live? None of the answers to these questions is clear to me. Are they clear to you?

I have been uncomfortable with the use of the term "induction" to describe Rand's meta-ethical approach. Her meta-ethical approach has to do with identification, using reason as the faculty of identifying and integrating sense data. So it does, ultimately, come back to sensory observation and an integration of those observations into a hierarchy of conceptual knowledge. In that regard, yes, we can use the term "induction" but there also needs to be that hierarchy of conceptual knowledge into which these observations are integrated. So it thereby presupposes some conceptual knowledge as well as induction. Do you see, then, how she doesn't buy into either of the one-sided empiricist or rationalist approaches? With empiricism alone, as David Hume pointed out, you don't get inductive certainty. With rationalism, this conceptual hierarchy is floating, or resting at best on stilts (see: Bentham, "Nonsense on stilts").

So what is her approach, specifically? Via a process of reasoning based on observation, we identify value-laden facts. Hume is absolutely correct that you cannot derive normative conclusions from non-normative premises. But that is also not all that interesting an observation. The more interesting issue is how we come to identify some facts as already being value-laden and thereby supplying the normative premises from which we deduce normative conclusions. And it's more than a process of simply "looking and seeing" - opening us up to the false alternative of either committing a naturalistic fallacy or of resorting to Moorean intuition by which we observe some act and simply "see" that the act is good or bad.

Now, it would perhaps be of use if you refer to the chapter in ITOE where Rand goes through how the concept of "justice" is validated. I simply don't have the time or the inclination to go through it here. But we validate the concept of "goodness" in a similar fashion. We end up with a naturalistic understanding of goodness that avoids the naturalistic fallacy, accounts for all our so-called "moral intuitions," and is validated through a conceptual process. What is goodness in this account? Flourishing. A naturalistic description of flourishing: the proper functioning of a valuing, goal-seeking entity. The goal of ethics itself? As the goal of epistemology is knowledge (i.e., a process of validating our concepts), so the goal of ethics is happiness (i.e., a process of achieving that: virtue).

DEWEY:

I am still at a loss in trying to formulate the exact importance of the communistic formulæ and the Bolshevist ideals in the present life of the country; but I am in-

[8]
clined to think that not only the present state of Communism (that of non-existence in any literal sense), but even its future is of less account than is the fact of this achieved revolution of heart and mind, this liberation of a people to consciousness of themselves as a determining power in the shaping of their ultimate fate.
Such a conclusion may seem absurd. It will certainly be as offensive to those to whom Marxian orthodoxy constitutes the whole significance of the Russian Revolution as to those who have imbibed the conventional notion of Bolshevist Russia. Yet with no desire to minimize the import of the fate of Bolshevist Marxianism for Russia and for the whole world, my conviction is unshaken that this phase of affairs is secondary in importance to something else that can only be termed a revolution. That the existing state of affairs is not Communism but a transition to it; that in the

[9]
dialectic of history the function of Bolshevism is to annul itself; that the dictatorship of the proletariat is but an aspect of class-war, the antithesis to the thesis of the dictatorship of bourgeois capitalism existing in other countries; that it is destined to disappear in a new synthesis, are things the Communists themselves tell us. The present state is one of transition; that fact is so obvious that one has no difficulty in accepting it. That it is necessarily a state of transition to the exact goal prescribed by the Marxian philosophy of history is a tenet that, in face of the new energies that have been aroused, smells of outworn absolutistic metaphysics and bygone theories of straight-line, one-way “evolution.” But there is one impression more vivid than this one. It is, of course, conceivable that Communism in some form may be the issue of the present “transition,” slight as are the evi-

[10]
dences of its present existence. But the feeling is forced upon one that, if it does finally emerge, it will not be because of the elaborate and now stereotyped formulæ of Marxian philosophy, but because something of that sort is congenial to a people that a revolution has awakened to themselves, and that it will emerge in a form dictated by their own desires. If it fails, it will fail because energies the Revolution has aroused are too spontaneous to accommodate themselves to formulæ framed on the basis of conditions that are irrelevant—except on the supposition of a single and necessary “law” of historical change.
In any case, Communism, if one judges from impressions that lie on the surface of Leningrad, lies in some remote future. It is not merely that even the leaders regard the present status as only an initial step, hardly complete even as a first step, but that the prevailing

[11]
economy is so distinctly a money economy to all outward appearances. [THAT'S THE PROBLEM, RIGHT...]
...

THIS IS SOME OF THE OPENING STUFF IN DEWEY'S REPORT ON SOVIET EDUCATION:

... This consideration is equivalent to saying that the import of all institutions is educational in the broad sense—that of their effects upon disposition and attitude. Their function is to create habits so that persons will act coöperatively and collectively as readily as now in capitalistic countries they act “individualistically.” The same consideration defines the importance and the purpose of the narrower educational agencies, the schools. They represent a direct and concentrated effort to obtain the effect which other institutions develop in a diffused and roundabout manner. The schools are, in current phrase, the “ideological arm of the Revolution.” In consequence, the activities of the schools dovetail in the most extraordinary way, both in administrative organization and in aim and spirit, into all other social agencies and interests.

And I imagine there are many who, while they are aware in a general way of the repressive and despotic character of the Tsar’s government, unconsciously form their appraisal of the present Russian system by putting it in contrast with an imaginary democratic system. * They forget that for the Russian millions the contrast is with the system of which alone they have had actual experience. The Russian system of government at the present time is like that to which the population has been accustomed for centuries, namely, a personal system; like the old system, it has many repressive traits. But viewed in the only way which the experience of the masses makes possible for them, it is one that has opened to them doors that were formerly shut and bolted; it is as

* Because the Czarist monarchy had a repressive and despotic character, that same character in the Soviet communists is familiar and unobjectionable to the people. – Editor.[!!!]
...

[68]
interested in giving them access to sources of happiness as the only other government with which they have any acquaintance was to keep them in misery. This fact, and not that of espionage and police restriction, however excessive the latter may be, explains the stability of the present government, in spite of the comparatively small number of communists in the country. It relegates to the realm of pure fantasy those policies for dealing with Russia that are based on the notion that the present government is bound to fall from internal causes if only it can be sufficiently boycotted and isolated externally. ...

I have become involved in a diversion,

[69]
though one naturally suggested by the marvelous development of progressive educational ideas and practices under the fostering care of the Bolshevist government—and I am speaking of what I have seen and not just been told about.
...

There are many elements of propaganda connected with this policy, and many of them obnoxious to me personally. But the broad effort to employ the education of the young as means of realizing

[82]
certain social purposes cannot be dismissed as propaganda without relegating to that category all endeavor at deliberate social control...

[He does say. almost at the conclusion:]

The phase of Bolshevism with which one

[131]
cannot feel sympathy is its emphasis upon the necessity of class war and of world revolution by violence. These features of Soviet Russia tend to recede into the background because of the pressure the authorities are under to do a vastly difficult constructive work in Russia itself. But the spirit that produces them is fed by the belief that the rest of the world are enemies of Soviet Russia; that it must be constantly on the defensive and that the best defense is aggressive attack. I do not think that free intercourse with the rest of the world would cause an immediate disappearance of the idea of stirring up civil war in capitalistic countries. But I am confident that such intercourse would gradually deprive the flame of its fuel and that it would die down. One derives the impression that the Third International is Russia’s own worst enemy, doing harm to it by alienating other peoples’ sympathy. Its

[132]
chief asset, however, is non-recognition. The withdrawal of recognition by Great Britain has done more than any other one thing to stimulate the extremists and fanatics of the Bolshevist faith, and to encourage militarism and hatred of bourgeois nations.

FEED THE BEAST, IT WON'T BITE!!

Slavish, I guess, is in the eye of the beholder.

We report, you decide.

Those involved in the use, or lack of use, of your mind.

Labels? Really? Sorry, no dice. No formulae, symbols or diagrams, either. You can do it, I'm confident.

there will always be those individuals, like you, who give free will a bad name.

Which actual choices of mine did you have in mind?

Any chance of a link to where you presented Rand's derivation of an "ought" from an "is" formally (i.e., with clearly labeled premises and a clearly labeled conclusion)?

I knew that a proper Objectivist will abhor Dewey, and so was not surprised to see Doctor B tell us about the man here:

The American philosopher, John Dewey, admired the moral
code of the Soviet Union (which he visited in 1928),
especially its effect on education. Unlike American
educators, Dewey believed, their Soviet counterparts
were not hampered in the quest for social change by
“the egoistic and private ideals and methods inculcated
by the institution of private property, profit and
acquisitive possession.”

In the dim, distant reaches of my unregulated mind, I seemed to recall that Dewey wasn't quite a full-on Commie, though dire as dire gets as a 20th century Comprachico. So I wondered why Bernstein didn't include the parts of the quote where Dewey spelled out his admiration for the moral code.

I looked up the text of Dewey's reports (published in New Republic and in book form) of Dewey's tour of the Soviet Union in 1928. What I found was that Bernstein had actually quoated poorly -- Dewey was reporting on what a Soviet educrat believed, the quoat was actually the words of the other man. Sloppy Bernstein, I thought. Why not just quote Dewey slavishly praising the Soviet educational system?

Well, because he didn't slavishly praise the Soviet educational system in the chapter cited by Bernstein, as I found out by reading the whole dang thing.

Is Bernstein known for this kind of quoating of the Enemy?

In any case, the rest of the essay had a funny clang to it. I took a stab at random to follow up on another statements. I picked the line about the great Scottish engineers Rennie, Stephenson and Telford. Each had "endured unimaginable hardships to achieve his education and his success," according to the good Doctor.

But, on examination, nope, there was no unimaginable hardship for each man. Their achievements were remarkable, and their use in an argument for egoism is good practice, but the exaggeration clangs.

A disappointment. I had though he was one of the fair shooters of the ARIans.

WSS

There is no derivation of an "ought" from an "is" in the paragraphs above.

Only if you don't consider your life to be a value.

I'm trying to keep this discussion focused on Rand's derivation of an "ought" from an "is", supposedly contained in the paragraphs below.

It is only an ultimate goal, an end in itself, that makes the existence of values possible. Metaphysically, life is the only phenomenon that is an end in itself: a value gained and kept by a constant process of action. Epistemologically, the concept of "value" is genetically dependent upon and derived from the antecedent concept of "life." To speak of "value" as apart from "life" is worse than a contradiction in terms. "It is only the concept of 'Life' that makes the concept of 'Value' possible."

In answer to those philosophers who claim that no relation can be established between ultimate ends or values and the facts of reality, let me stress that the fact that living entities exist and function necessitates the existence of values and of an ultimate value which for any given living entity is its own life. Thus the validation of value judgments is to be achieved by reference to the facts of reality. The fact that a living entity is, determines what it ought to do. So much for the issue of the relation between "is" and "ought."

My position is that Rand didn't derive an "ought" from an "is". That's a pretty big point of disagreement with Rand, obviously.

There is no derivation of an "ought" from an "is" in the paragraphs above.

....When you haven't even come out and described your position or your point of disagreement with Rand? In light of your total lack of input in this discussion why should anyone continue to explain or point you in the right direction of ethical theory at all?

I Have Done That

You have? I must have missed it. Please provide a link to where you presented Rand's derivation of an "ought" from an "is" formally, with clearly labeled premises and a clearly labeled conclusion.

So has Rand. So has Prof. Tara Smith.

But you don't seem able to recognize the observable facts at the base of this inductive inference. Yes, the argument can also be stated deductively, as well. But if you insist that the sun still moves about the earth even after the evidence is presented to you, turned upside down, reconsidered from sixteen vantage-points, then the problem is yours, and no one else's.

The good is an aspect of reality in relation to human life. In this sense, earthquakes are bad. It is not a mystical command from on high, a Platonic Form of unattainable perfection, not a social construct, not an emotional preference, but the pressing and urgent human need for survival and, ultimately, happiness, plus the fact of human choice. Success in pursuing our values cannot be achieved randomly, and such success is the important condition for happiness. Thus, these two issues are inseparable.

This means that the theoretically "good" and the real-world practical are on the same side, wholly and completely. And this understanding of what ethics is all about has direct implications as to how I should act. Since my self-interest is in fact only achieved by reason, not evasion, by production, not looting, by a respect for the equal right of everyone else to pursue his or her own happiness rather than the life of a parasite or thug, this understanding of ethics manifests itself in a necessary program of action: rationality, honesty, productiveness, integrity, justice, independence and a firm respect for the rights of other individuals.

But go ahead, deny that human beings need reason to achieve their ends, and tell yourself that you can rely on some mystical alternative instead -- that consistent honesty doesn't increase your well-being -- that respecting the rights of others doesn't make you safer and your society much more prosperous. The disaster, pain, misery and death that will surely follow, as it follows any such approach or alternative program, and always will, cannot and will not make its point known to you by osmosis or revelation if you refuse to consider the evidence before your eyes.

An argument can be fool proof, but, as Rand said, it can never be "damn fool proof." We do indeed each possess volition, and, so, there will always be those individuals, like you, who give free will a bad name.

"A good inductive argument differs from a good deductive argument in that the premises of the argument merely support rather than compel the conclusion."

This line illuminates that you have your finger on the issue but also that you are not "of" the solution. It also feels as if you are looking at reason through Popper's eyes.

The long answer is: 'the entire scope of Objectivist epistemology." Really, that is the answer. This is an ongoing exploration; Dr. Leonard Peikoff is currently authoring a significant work on it. This is not by way of suggesting one "swallow it whole," but rather that there is a doorway one goes through to arrive in a room where it is wholly satisfactory to accept that all investigation requires a setting of context, an acceptance of the 'inside set' of applicability for the project. In this room the validation and truth test revolves around the identification of the existents that will be called out in subsequent deductions, through the induction engine that science deploys but that never has gotten the press it deserves, and which Ayn Rand explicitly championed.

The philosophic world has gone centuries with the fait accompli of Hume's denial of induction in its pocket. If I may be so bold to say, Ayn Rand simply rejected the rejection.

You're so concrete bound that you've failed to grasp the context of the discussion at hand to see further below where my post resides requesting for you to front up with your discription of where you stand and what your point of disagreement with Rand is.

It is visible to anyone looking at this thread that you haven't come up with a counter argument to Rands, that you haven't answered the questions put to you and that you have continued with your bad faith tactics.

Bernstein has answered the questions concerning Rand's premises and he also has come up with the substantiated link between the is and the ought concerning the appropriate morality for human beings.

Also what you fail to understand is that Hume originated the sceptical approach toward ethical conclusions being derived from an is.... The cautious (skeptical) approach of deriving an ought from an is, is a problem that originated with him. This is/ought phenomena has been considered a problem, and even a dichotomy, in modern times since. Any idiot could grasp this.

Humes actual ethical theory disputed that reason was capable of formulating an objective ethical theory and argued that ethics were emotionally or culturally derived.... The conclucion that anyone else (not Hume) would have to make is that ethics, whether it be of religious or cultural practices, are arbitrary as 'good' or 'bad' cannot be demonstrably proven to be necessary either way. "because someone says so doesn't cut it"....

Rand in stark contrast didn't just "say so" she argued, demonstrated and proved that "life being the standard of value," is the necessary standard by which good or bad should be derived by identifying the nature of man as per Bernstein's description above.

You're one of the world's top Objectivist scholars. Can you help, by presenting Rand's derivation of an "ought" from an "is" formally, with clearly labeled premises and a clearly labeled conclusion? Can you lay bare, as it were, the flesh and bones of Rand's derivation? I look forward to your response.

I'm still waiting!

For what?

Hume said you can't deduce an "ought" from an "is". Rand never said you could. Rand said you can nonetheless derive an "ought" from an "is" non-deductively. Hume (contra Bernstein) never said you couldn't. So much for the case against Hume.

Rand supposedly derives an "ought" from an "is" in the passages quoted below by Kasper (and by John). But if she doesn't do it deductively, how does she do it? Inductively? A good inductive argument differs from a good deductive argument in that the premises of the argument merely support rather than compel the conclusion. A good inductive argument resembles a good deductive argument in that it has clearly identifiable premises and a conclusion, and instantiates a recognisable argument schema.

What type of inductive argument is Rand's derivation? What are Rand's premises? What is Rand's conclusion? According to Rand, my life is my ultimate value, and the fact that I am determines what I ought to do. So, what ought I to do? Live? None of the answers to these questions is clear to me. Are they clear to you?

Why bother waiting, Kasper???

I'm still waiting!

I was not slighting or diminishing what you wrote; I meant actual respect! My intent was this: first let him refute the source quotation, and even if others writing about it are correct, he has to get by Rand first. That's all.

I was trying to point out that by going after you he was evading.

Meanwhile, even if he is obsessed with actual deductive syllogisms, that does not address the Rand foundational quote.

Good cheer.

I'm not sure whom you mean by "other writers on Objectivism" but since you were responding to a post by Goode in which he cited me I should make it clear that I don't posit a deductive link between is and ought any more than Rand does. To say something is derived from something else does not necessarily mean syllogistically derived. (In previous discussions Goode has been fixated on syllogisms.) In any event, Goode is simply attempting to play his adversaries off against each other - anything to evade the matters at hand - and I should avoid being similarly sidetracked if I were you.

Let us see if Dr. Goode responds directly to the Rand quote. The God in whom Goode believes (I think) knows (or would, if He existed) he (Goode, not God) has been given enough opportunity in the past. None of this is happening here for the first time, you know.

According to Rand the life of a living rational being is a value unto itself.

But what on Earth makes you think that you qualify?

With all due respect to any other writers on Objectivism, Rand simply demonstrates that this ghost of a problem, upon which so many depend to destroy objectivity in morality, is only a problem for Platonists, radical dualists and skeptics, etc., and/or any others who deny induction.

I repeat: Ayn Rand would never claim to have deducted the basis of a moral philosophy from the facts of existence. That formulation is null. Ethics is a normative science. Science can deduce what is or is not part of a particular moral code, but only after the base of that code has been found true by a means other than deduction.

So Miss Rand just ignores your noise. I'm sure you've had your nose pointed at the following quote many times, but the rejection of your objection resides in it and nothing else needed:

"It is only an ultimate goal, and end in itself, that makes the existence of values possible. Metaphysically, life is the only phenomenon that is an end in itself: a value gained and kept by a constant process of action. Epistemologically, the concept of “value” is genetically dependent upon and derived from the antecedent concept of “life.” To speak of “value” as apart from “life” is worse than a contradiction in terms. “It is only the concept of ‘Life’ that makes the concept of ‘Value’ possible.”

In answer to those philosophers who claim that no relation can be established between ultimate ends or values and the facts of reality, let me stress that the fact that living entities exist and function necessitates the existence of values and of an ultimate value which for any given living entity is its own life. Thus the validation of value judgments is to be achieved by reference to the facts of reality. The fact that a living entity is, determines what it ought to do. So much for the issue of the relation between “is” and “ought.”" -- Ayn Rand

[EDIT: Whoops! Already cited by Kasper below. ]

Saying "I disagree," over and over, and providing nothing by way of substance, is pure evasion. You appear to be a stranger to any standards of intelligent discourse or engagement, reason or critical analysis. From what can be detected from your posts, you seem lack any capacity to think at all, only to make meaningless and useless noise. You have no more epistemological right to your opinions than does a reader of horoscopes and star charts, or some grunting primitive seeking to appease the gods by slaughtering animals.

Thanks for quoting the passages from Rand where she derives an "ought" from an "is".

According to Rand, my life is my ultimate value, and the fact that I am determines what I ought to do. So, what ought I to do? Live?

... and you have no answer for any of it.

So what's your problem? Ayn Rand never said she could do it either.

But, John, I have it on good authority that

She disposed of the "is/ought" dichotomy—that you can't derive values from facts—by pointing out that an entity's actions are determined by that entity's nature and that a volitional, conceptual entity such as man can appropriately derive values, by thought and choice, only from facts.

Furthermore, she

busted the intrinsicist/subjectivist dichotomy... resolved the free will/determinism controversy... busted the rationalist/empiricist dichotomy... [and] busted Kant's noumenal/phenomenal dichotomy.

Phew!

you agreed to would enter this discussion on good faith grounds.

So, as I have asked many times before, describe your point of disagreement with Rand and describe your actual position.

--
It is only an ultimate goal, and end in itself, that makes the existence of values possible. Metaphysically, life is the only phenomenon that is an end in itself: a value gained and kept by a constant process of action. Epistemologically, the concept of “value” is genetically dependent upon and derived from the antecedent concept of “life.” To speak of “value” as apart from “life” is worse than a contradiction in terms. “It is only the concept of ‘Life’ that makes the concept of ‘Value’ possible.”

In answer to those philosophers who claim that no relation can be established between ultimate ends or values and the facts of reality, let me stress that the fact that living entities exist and function necessitates the existence of values and of an ultimate value which for any given living entity is its own life. Thus the validation of value judgments is to be achieved by reference to the facts of reality. The fact that a living entity is, determines what it ought to do. So much for the issue of the relation between “is” and “ought.” VOS

... and Hume is correct. It is not possible to deduce (his usage) a moral philosophy from the facts of the metaphysically given objective reality.

So what's your problem? Ayn Rand never said she could do it either.

P.S. I think it hilarious that Hume has no quarrel with those who deduce the existence of God cited in that passage.

Let's agree to disagree about whether Rand based her moral system on reason, and what it even means to say that.

The Scottish philosopher, David Hume, in a famous passage, inquired if an "ought" proposition could be derived from an "is" proposition, i.e., if judgements of good and evil, of what men ought and ought not to do, could be based on matters of fact. His answer was an unqualified "no."

Wrong. Hume's famous passage, to which Bernstein refers, is here. Hume does not say that "ought" propositions cannot be derived from "is" propositions. He does not say that morality cannot be based on matters of fact.

With all the explanations of Rand’s moral philosophy that have been put forward making her case on how she derived her moral (ought) conclusions based on life as the standard of value (on an "is" ).

Please quote the actual passages from Rand where she derives an "ought" from an "is".

With all the explanations of Rand’s moral philosophy that have been put forward making her case on how she derived her moral (ought) conclusions based on life as the standard of value (on an "is" ). You have yet to demonstrate the flaw in her argument where her case would fall down. Her argument stands to reason and remains upheld. You have done nothing to undermine her argument or demonstrate an error despite having been asked several times to come up with your point of disagreement and to state your case.

You have simply said that you disagreed and have thrown some false syllogisms fraught with A-S dichotomies in the way. You have then proceeded to dismiss her argument out of hand. Quite frankly it is you that is found wanting rather than Rand at this point in time.

This dancing around the edges by withholding your actual case comes across as very wimpy Richard. It is an incredibly limp approach to discussing points of disagreement with an intellectual opponent. It really is of little wonder why you inherit so much abuse on this site.

I have simply further explained what is meant when I, and others, say Rand based her morality on reason.

Yes. You've explained that when you say, "Rand based her morality on reason," you don't mean Rand based her morality on reason. You mean that Rand based her morality on something else, e.g., "man's life as the standard of value." Instead of saying something but meaning something else, why don't you just say what you mean, and mean what you say? You can't make 'reason' mean so many different things. (There's glory for you!)

Rand based her moral system on "man's life as the standard of value" and used (or, in Rand's cased, misused) reason to derive conclusions such as the NIOF principle. Rand is not unique in using reason to derive moral conclusions from moral premises. In fact, all moral philosophers use reason to derive moral conclusions from moral premises, even those whose moral premises are "cultural and mystical edicts".

I have simply further explained what is meant when I, and others, say Rand based her morality on reason. I don't believe I've changed my position thus far. I can see you want to keep this focused thus omiting other things such as the A-S dichotomy and bakers. Fine.

In order to acheive this focus properly, I still need you to volunteer your point of disagreement in discriptive form with Rand.

Your position as to what you actually think on this subject matter of morality and its source.

If you can induce Goode to make a clear, coherent and complete statement as to where he stands, I'll buy you a case of your favourite red.

Kasper didn't ask me to make a clear statement as to where I stand. He asked me to make a clear statement as to where I disagree with where he stands.

Could you now please DESCRIBE your point of disagreement.

You said that Rand based a moral system on reason. I disagreed.

Now you say

She based her morality on identifying the essential requirements of man based on his nature. She did this using reason... Logic is an epistemological method. Put simply it is a method of reasoning - that's all... So it is still my position that Rand... based a moral system on reality by a process of reason... It is 'based' on reason in that it is derived using it...

so I guess you concede my point.

Let's focus on what you now say Rand based her morality on, viz., "the essential requirements of man based on his nature." What are these essential requirements? And what are the "essential characteristics" of man you refer to?

(BTW, I never said that freedom for bakers is no good. But let's leave that to one side for now.)

***Could you now please DESCRIBE your point of disagreement. Where does this all crumble for you? I can't read your mind so if you could make it all explicitly clear that would be helpful.

Goode luck with that!

If you can induce Goode to make a clear, coherent and complete statement as to where he stands, I'll buy you a case of your favourite red.

I do understand that. She based her morality on identifying the essential requirements of man based on his nature. She did this using reason which employs the system of logic being the "non-contradictory identification" of the material provided my man's senses. I'm not sure we can discuss this without addressing the A-S dichotomy but since you insist on this for now we can try.

Logic, like mathematics, is a system used to identify and integrate the information being provided into the brain by man's senses. You can use logic on its own jumping from abstraction to abstraction or mathematics on its own to 'create' things such as the concept infinity, however, the error would lye in the fact that you'd be operating from an abstraction rather than from reality. In other words to divorce the system of logic from reality and to use its own without reference to reality is to cut its utility at its root.

Logic is an epistemological method. Put simply it is a method of reasoning - that's all.

Now you asked me how one derives morality based on that? Well, I would have thought that to be quite simple. If you identify the essential characteristics and omit the non-essential ones when examining any entity whether it be man, or inanimate matter or life and further you understand that what you have identified corresponds demonstrably to reality then you have a valid concept. When you have multiple valid concepts the point is to integrate them and grow one's knowledge, surely.

The example you gave earlier that freedom for bakers is no good because people miss a nutrient they 'need' omits other essential data which demonstrates the necessity for freedom to begin with. To fold the principle of freedom for one individual by trumping it with the needs of other individuals shows a lacking understanding of freedom as such. In fact it makes freedom impossible because needs in every sphere of life other than just bakery could be used as an excuse for compulsion. The freedom of the baker is good for the baker. His freedom has no responsibility nor any debt to the well-being of his fellow man. The only way it is good for his fellow man is that he has the freedom and that it is defended for him, ensuring that his fellow man will also have his.

So it is still my position that Rand and Bernstein (who as you say regurgitated it) have based a moral system on reality by a process of reason... It is 'based' on reason in that it is derived using it as opposed to cultural or mystical edicts.

***Could you now please DESCRIBE your point of disagreement. Where does this all crumble for you? I can't read your mind so if you could make it all explicitly clear that would be helpful.

She never tried to base a moral system on logic alone.

I know that. But does Kasper?

Have you read Rand?

She never tried to base a moral system on logic alone.

Logic (according to Merriam Webster) is "a science that deals with the principles and criteria of validity of inference and demonstration : the science of the formal principles of reasoning." How do you base a moral system on that?

Yes.

what is your point of disagreement?

I have multiple points of disagreement with Rand and her regurgitators.

You say that Rand based a moral system on reason. I disagree.

What do you mean by 'reason', Kasper? Logic?

(Let's leave the analytic-synthetic dichotomy to one side for now.)

I'll read the Kant thing. In the mean time what is your point of disagreement? Here we're dealing with Rand who's based a moral system on reason, not Kant.
Do you agree that the analytic-synthetic dichotomy is a legitamate dichotomy or do you agree that Rand managed to disprove its validity?

What do you mean by 'reason', Kasper? Logic?

Kant tried to base a moral system on reason, and failed.

Will you take this up and will you commit to this:

"to an honest and good faith discourse... Put your photo up and proceed with your case of disagreement. Be clear also about whether your problem is that you find the conclusions unpalatable or with the actual epistemology." ??

Richard the summary of Bernstein’s chapter should already indicate what’s in it for you.

Basically enlightenment… If you are wrong, which I think you are, then you will be enlightened. If I am wrong then obviously the tables would turn on me.

What’s in it for you to know that ethics could be based on reason? The knowledge that ethical conduct and the discovery of it can be rational and therefore things can be said to be objectively wrong or right. Of course this would invalidate all claims that morality is totally arbitrary, that saying things such as “my religion says so” or “it’s my culture” or “it makes me feel good” or “someone simply said so (without verification)” an inadequate defence of their morality especially in light of a logical argument to the contrary.

What’s in it for you if Rand demolished the “is/ought” dichotomy? The discovery that the process undertaken to determine what is good for individuals and what is bad for them in the material sense is the same process used in the spiritual sense. That what you choose to grace your soul with can also be determined as good or bad.

If the view on metaphysics is that reality is what it is, indifferent to human consciousness, that reason is a valid form of epistemology able to apprehend reality correctly and that ethics can be based on reason making them rational, then you have a philosophy which is consistent and allows you to integrate intellectually, spiritually, emotionally and materially….. A stark contrast to the alternative philosophies of our day including religion that preaches a polarisation or renunciation of one sphere in order to gain fulfilment in another.

This of course leads to your intellectual confidence in your mind to deal with all things in life both ‘out there’ in reality and those matters of an introspective nature the ‘in here’.

Come on, Richard, bring it on then... proceed with your case of disagreement.

What's in it for me?

... it appears RG may have gone feral after all. What's the matter Goode, don't want to play?

...Richard's gone feral.

Thanks for the whole chapter Kasper.

Come on, Richard, bring it on then... I'm happy to pick this debate up again as long as you commit to an honest and good faith discourse... Put your photo up and proceed with your case of disagreement.

Be clear also about whether your problem is that you find the conclusions unpalatable or with the actual epistemology.

It's still a steaming pile of sick, Kasper.

Since egoism is the striving by a man for the ends that factually promote his life as a human being, a secondary but important consequence is that other human beings are benefited by his attainment of his values, not by his sacrifice of them.

So well put.

Great post Kasper.

bought me the Capitalist Manifesto book for Christmas in 2006. It is a fantastic read. Bernstein's research is impeccable. The book discusses the historical, philosophical, polemical and economic spheres of capitalism. Bernstein's ability to simplify and put into layman's terms sometimes quite highly complicated ideas is impressive. The book flows with such simplicity that I found myself just smiling getting through it. It is so refreshing to read someone who actually gets Rand fully and has processed her philosophy with such intelligence and scope.

I highly recommend those that are interested to purchase a copy…The three chapters covering philosophy: The Nature of the Good, The Mind as Man’s Instrument of Survival and Capitalism as the Embodiment of Rational Philosophical Principles are remarkable.

About that "special lens" that keeps lefties oblivious to the murderous results of their fantasy?

Yesterday on CSpan BookTV I caught part of a talk by an author of a book on the good that resulted from the Chinese Cultural Revolution.
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/pro...

This guy teaches at a college in North Carolina.

The evil perpetrated in those times by Mao etc., not just in outright killing but in displacement, cannot be grasped by a normal healthy mind. Mao had no less intention than to root out human rational self interest and burn it in the town square. That's why he humiliated his victims before blowing their brains out.

I could go on. I have rage on this.

I did not watch this (can I say asshole on this blog?) into the Q and A period. I hope someone reamed him a new one. Since the talk was at Berkeley the chance of that is less then likely.

Mr. Dong justifies the whole thing as "learning to work together."

I am telling you I could slap his face.

This is indeed a powerful chapter. The explication of Rand's ethics in intelligent and clear simplicity, yet drawing a bead on Hume, takes response to the fatal IsOught construct into a realm that can be understood by any thinking person. Bernstein slides up and down the chain of logic from root to tip expertly and deftly. That sits well.

... a well-written manifesto to excite the moral passions. From what we see here, this one is brilliantly written.

Many of the points here were made by me and James to the unreachable Richard Goode in the course of his incoherent and bad-faith efforts to discredit Objectivism. Perhaps Bernstein will succeed with him where we failed. I won't hold my breath.

The clarity of that text is breathtaking, the equal of Rand herself.