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Objectivism is the antidote

Rand's objectivism, you mean? That's a lie, too, and a far more pernicious one than Plato's -- the latter at least had the honesty to admit his lie, but Rand insists that she's got the real goods.

Rand demanded that you accept her premises as correct -- but here's the test. Try to arrive at Rand's premises through logic and reason, applied to the evidence gathered by your senses -- just as she says you should. You very quickly end up stuck in the mud.

Here's the killer: consider Rand's statement that "man—every man—is an end in himself, not the means to the ends of others. He must exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself."

Now consider the moral responsibilities inherent in something so natural as parenthood -- we are morally required to be the means to our children's ends. Objectivism cannot even contend with the propagation of the species: it's a damned fraud.

I'm pretty sure Rand started with atheism and a desire to define an "absolute" moral system, and she fiddled with the logic to make it all work.

Try to arrive at your premises through logic and reason, applied to the evidence gathered by your senses: Please show how you thus derive:

“we are morally required to be the means to our children’s ends”

Think you better think this one through a little more.

Hank

" I'm pretty sure Rand started with atheism and a desire to define an "absolute" moral system, and she fiddled with the logic to make it all work. "

I know folks who on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays think Ayn Rand is just the bee's knees. The other days of the week they're devout, professing Christians.

I've never read Rand myself but I've heard all that I care to. I figure it's just all about the money.

I disagree. Our children are ours by choice and what we do for them is likewise voluntary. But it is also informed by moral values, which dictate responsibility for those who we bring into being until they are able to care for themselves. It is also informed by love, which Ms. Rand did not deny as a human value; she only insisted that it be guided by a rational basis other than pity or guilt.

Unlike her, however, I am a religious Objectivist and not an atheist. Her mistake in that regard was to mistake all faith for mindless mysticism. I believe that faith can sometimes be informed by reason and the evidence of one's senses as well. That belief does not invalidate the fundamental epistemology of Objectivism which holds that reality exists and that a thing is itself regardless of our perception.

I'm pretty sure Rand started with atheism and a desire to define an "absolute" moral system, and she fiddled with the logic to make it all work.

That is the great weakness of all rationalist philosophy. Pure deductive logic needs premises, and without empirical evidence, those premises must be unproven assumptions. Thus, you either agree or don't agree with the dogma, which morphs into a quasi-religious doctrine based on the charisma and assumed infallibility of one particular person. And if you study the history of Rand's Objectivist group, this is exactly what you find.

Your point about the family is spot on. Rand says that life, to be lived fully, must be lived free of obligations to others, but without families, there would be no life, and nothing in Rand's writings indicate why one should not abandon one's family if it becomes a burden. She would definitely be pro-abortion, though I don't recall any specific statements to that effect made by her. But it does explain one curious detail. In her novels, the leading characters never have CHILDREN! No mention of family life, no recognition of natural love (an irrational emotion-based motive). Her world is as artificial as that of Plato.