Ayn Rand's Birthday: Ideas Have Consequences

Forbes Magazine ^ | February 1, 2019 | Art Carden

[MrEdd]

Absolutel.
Especially her free love shtick. We see just how that ideology of which she was a champion has played out over time.

She was a mixed bag, with some ideas that were good and others which were loony.

[wideminded]

[wideminded]

[MrEdd]

No she would not.

She was a sexual hedonist, and the responsibility of child rearing would have harshed her buzz.

[papertyger]

you can’t imagine a situation in which ethical behavior is possible without reference to sourcing from an unknowable entity which is postulated to exist outside of time and space restraints...?

Predicated on what?

I've no interest in getting into an epistemological pissing contest, but it seems to me that the closest philosophical hook you have to hang your hat on is evolutionary, which is self-refuting as damn near all moral behavior is contrary to Darwinian objectives.

[papertyger]

‘If there is no God, then nothing matters.’

that’s an opinion you have no empirical nor epistemological basis for making...

I disagree, and am prepared to defend my stance. But even so, I'm interested in hearing on what materialist grounds you assign moral value: particularly in the case of absolutes?

[Yaelle]

Her arguments about politics and society and economics are powerful. I don’t think we need to throw the baby out with the bathwater. There is objective morality (I like Judaism but one’s mileage can vary).

[JayGalt]

Sorry, unaware of free love shtick. Not really part of books.

[Manuel OKelley]

To the contrary, if there is no god than everything matters so much more and moral truths are the only thing that will keep us as more than animal and it qould be our ultimate responsibility to adhere to them even more closely

[avenir]

Atheist intellectuals strangely make some really sound observations. Ayn Rand, Thomas Szasz, Hitchens, Camille Paglia, etc. have all cut through so much of the dung in modern life.

In the end they are severely hamstrung by unbelief.

[Clinging Bitterly]

Ah well, I'm not sure how one could fully embrace objectivism and not be atheist. And indeed, it is not strictly to accommodate religion but I don't buy the full line. It really chaffs people in some o’ist circles but I'm not afraid to say I don't believe modern society can survive and prosper adhering strictly to that philosophy. America is a great case in point because we have collectivism and initiation of force built in to the US constitution in limited, measured and purposeful fashion, and here we stand with arguably the highest standard of living ever at any time or place. O’ists’ counterpoint is that “real” o’ism has never been tried. An argument I believe I have heard somewhere else, okay.

[Clinging Bitterly]

Funny, I was muted on an o’ist board just yesterday for (among other things) besmirching the name of Leonard Piekoff by making note of his recent struggles with that very issue, the diminishing deniability of the notion that personhood occurs before birth. But IMO the potential vs. actualized argument is weak (the biological function of procreation and its purpose, and nature's intended destiny of the human embryo is axiomatic, so by what principle does that unique yet dependent individual not have the right to see that nature fulfill that destiny unhindered by the force of man?). So the issue really boils down to competing rights and the capacity of the respective adversaries to possess and exercise them. While they hang on to the claim that the “critical event” of birth is the point at which rightful personhood occurs, it disagrees with other o’ist principles related to rights and how they apply to different individuals with different capacities. The capacity of a normal healthy near term unborn person exceeds that of other more mature individuals in certain circumstances where they would claim those people have an undeniable right to life, at least.

[Clinging Bitterly]

Absolutely right. Religion is not the only (and perhaps not even the best) platform from which righteous moral principles can arise. Though I am a believer I do not equate atheism with lack of virtue in any way. Though excess zealotry on either side of the fence diminishes the virtue of both IMO.