Principles in Practice: The Blog of the Objective Standard

Thursday, April 17, 2008

On April 22, Celebrate Exploit-the-Earth Day

Posted by Craig Biddle at 12:58 PM

Because Earth Day is intended to further the cause of environmentalism—and because environmentalism is an anti-human ideology—on April 22, those who care about human life should not celebrate Earth Day; they should celebrate Exploit-the-Earth Day.

As I wrote for The Objective Standard’s “Exploit the Earth or Die” campaign:

Either man takes the Earth’s raw materials—such as trees, petroleum, aluminum, and atoms—and transforms them into the requirements of his life, or he dies. To live, man must produce the goods on which his life depends; he must produce homes, automobiles, computers, electricity, and the like; he must seize nature and use it to his advantage. There is no escaping this fact. Even the allegedly “noble” savage must pick or perish. Indeed, even if a person produces nothing, insofar as he remains alive he indirectly exploits the Earth by parasitically surviving off the exploitative efforts of others.

Exploiting the Earth—using the raw materials of nature for one’s life-serving purposes—is a basic requirement of human life. According to environmentalism, however, man should not use nature for his needs; he should keep his hands off “the goods”; he should leave nature alone, come what may.

Environmentalism is not concerned with human health and wellbeing—neither ours nor that of generations to come. If it were, it would advocate the one social system that ensures that the Earth and its elements are used in the most productive, life-serving manner possible: capitalism.

Capitalism is the only social system that recognizes and protects each individual’s right to act in accordance with his basic means of living: the judgment of his mind. Environmentalism, of course, does not and cannot advocate capitalism, because if people are free to act on their judgment, they will strive to produce and prosper; they will transform the raw materials of nature onto the requirements of human life; they will exploit the Earth and live.

Environmentalism rejects the basic moral premise of capitalism—the idea that people should be free to act on their judgment—because it rejects a more fundamental idea on which capitalism rests: the idea that the requirements of human life constitute the standard of moral value. While the standard of value underlying capitalism is human life (meaning, that which is necessary for human beings to live and prosper), the standard of value underlying environmentalism is nature untouched by man.

The basic principle of environmentalism is that nature (i.e., “the environment”) has intrinsic value—value in and of itself, value apart from and irrespective of the requirements of human life—and that this value must be protected from its only adversary: man. Rivers must be left free to flow unimpeded by human dams, which divert natural flows, alter natural landscapes, and disrupt wildlife habitats. Glaciers must be left free to grow or shrink according to natural causes, but any human activity that might affect their size must be prohibited. Naturally generated carbon dioxide (such as that emitted by oceans and volcanoes) and naturally generated methane (such as that emitted by swamps and termites) may contribute to the greenhouse effect, but such gasses must not be produced by man. The globe may warm or cool naturally (e.g., via increases or decreases in sunspot activity), but man must not do anything to affect its temperature. And so on.

In short, according to environmentalism, if nature affects nature, the effect is good; if man affects nature, the effect is evil.

Stating the essence of environmentalism in such stark terms raises some illuminating questions: If the good is nature untouched by man, how is man to live? What is he to eat? What is he to wear? Where is he to reside? How can man do anything his life requires without altering, harming, or destroying some aspect of nature? In order to nourish himself, man must consume meats, vegetables, fruits, and the like. In order to make clothing, he must skin animals, pick cotton, manufacture polyester, and the like. In order to build a house—or even a hut—he must cut down trees, dig up clay, make fires, bake bricks, and so forth. Each and every action man takes to support or sustain his life entails the exploitation of nature. Thus, on the premise of environmentalism, man has no right to exist.

It comes down to this: Each of us has a choice to make. Will I recognize that man’s life is the standard of moral value—that the good is that which sustains and furthers human life—and thus that people have a moral right to use the Earth and its elements for their life-serving needs? Or will I accept the notion that nature has “intrinsic” value—value in and of itself, value apart from and irrespective of human needs—and thus that people have no right to exist?

There is no middle ground here. Either human life is the standard of moral value, or it is not. Either nature has intrinsic value, or it does not.

On April 22, let the world know where you stand. Don’t celebrate Earth Day; celebrate Exploit-the-Earth Day—and let your friends, family, and associates know why.

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Saturday, April 12, 2008

Heidi Moore's Argument from Intimidation

Posted by Craig Biddle at 4:25 PM

On the website of the Wall Street Journal, under the heading “Capitalism Shrugged: Should Ayn Rand Be Required Reading?”—and after stating a few uncontroversial facts, several inaccuracies, and some inconsequential fluff—Heidi Moore gets to her point:

Rand has a bit of a reputation problem among those who have not drunk the Kool-Aid. . . . Deal Journal readers, we put the question to you: Should there be more Ayn Rand to instruct young, impressionable minds? Or is the problem with capitalism today too much Rand already?

Gosh, Ms. Moore, since you put it that way, how could readers of the Wall Street Journal possibly answer in the affirmative? How could self-respecting, independent thinkers bear the prospect of being regarded as Kool-Aid–drinking cultists for holding that reality, reason, self-interest, individual rights, freedom, and the like deserve the attention of college students?

I’ve said enough here and here about the absurdity of the ongoing attacks against John Allison and BB&T for taking a rationally principled approach to educational grants, so I won’t address that issue again here. But I cannot resist pointing out that if Heidi Moore had read and understood Ayn Rand’s works, she might have thought twice about so brazenly and publicly engaging in one of the irrational tactics identified by Ayn Rand: The Argument from Intimidation.

The Argument from Intimidation is the attempt to substitute psychological pressure for rational argument. In Rand’s words:

It is a method of bypassing logic by means of psychological pressure . . . [It] consists of threatening to impeach an opponent’s character by means of his argument, thus impeaching the argument without debate. Example: “Only the immoral can fail to see that Candidate X’s argument is false.” . . . The falsehood of his argument is asserted arbitrarily and offered as proof of his immorality.

In today’s epistemological jungle, [this] method is used more frequently than any other type of irrational argument. It should be classified as a logical fallacy and may be designated as “The Argument from Intimidation.”

The essential characteristic of the Argument from Intimidation is its appeal to moral self-doubt and its reliance on the fear, guilt or ignorance of the victim. It is used in the form of an ultimatum demanding that the victim renounce a given idea without discussion, under threat of being considered morally unworthy. The pattern is always: “Only those who are evil (dishonest, heartless, insensitive, ignorant, etc.) can hold such an idea.”

God forbid that college students encounter such ideas; they might commit suicide and catch a comet.

If Ms. Moore has a rational argument against Rand’s ideas—whether against the importance of recognizing facts, or against the principle that reason is man’s means of knowledge, or against the principle that acting in one’s best interest is in one’s best interest, or against the principle that initiating force or committing fraud is immoral, or against the principle that freedom is a requirement of a proper human life, or against the principle that one should think for oneself—Ms. Moore should set forth her argument. If not, she should consider actually reading and understanding Ayn Rand. Philosophic education is more fruitful, and less embarrassing, than journalistic intimidation.

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Wednesday, April 09, 2008

Ayn Rand's Normative Ethics: The Virtuous Egoist

Posted by ARI Media at 1:52 PM

Who: Dr. Tara Smith, professor of philosophy at the University of Texas and speaker for the Ayn Rand Institute.

What: A talk and Q & A examining Ayn Rand's view of egoism and how it can enable each of us to live more successful, happy lives.

Where: University of Chicago, Harper Memorial Library, Room 140, Chicago, Illinois

When: Wednesday, April 16, 2008, at 7 PM

Admission is FREE.

Summary: Ayn Rand is well known for advocating selfishness, yet the substance of that selfishness is rarely understood. This lecture presents Rand's ideal: a virtuous egoist.

Dr. Smith explains why a person should be an egoist, the kind of egoism that Rand does and doesn't commend, and the kinds of virtues that a person must exercise in order to actually advance his self-interest. Along the way, Dr. Smith differentiates Rand's rational egoism from hedonism, materialism, and predation, and sketches Rand's egoistic account of two vital but widely misunderstood virtues: honesty and justice.

Bio: Tara Smith is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Texas, where she currently holds the Anthem Foundation Fellowship for the Study of Objectivism. She is the author of the books Moral Rights & Political Freedom, Viable Values: A Study of Life as the Root & Reward of Morality, and Ayn Rand's Normative Ethics: The Virtuous Egoist, as well as numerous articles.

###  ### ###

Dr. Tara Smith is available for interviews now and after her talk.
Contact: Larry Benson          
E-mail: media@aynrand.org          
Phone: (949) 222-6550, ext. 213

For more information on this event and on Objectivism's unique point of view, go to ARI's Web site at www.aynrand.org. Founded in 1985, the Ayn Rand Institute promotes the philosophy of Ayn Rand, author of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead.

Please note: The above event is organized, hosted and sponsored by an individual campus club. Although ARI provides financial support, educational materials and speakers for eligible student clubs, campus clubs are organizations independent of ARI. ARI does not necessarily endorse the content of the lectures and sessions offered.

Copyright © 2008 Ayn Rand® Institute. All rights reserved.

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Tuesday, April 08, 2008

Religion vs. Morality

Posted by ARI Media at 10:22 AM

Who: Dr. Andrew Bernstein, professor of philosophy and speaker for the Ayn Rand Institute

What: A talk arguing for a secular, rational basis for morality. A Q&A will follow.

Where: University of Colorado, Boulder, Wolf Law Building, Room 207

When: Thursday, April 10, 2008, at 7 pm

Description: Conventionally, most people believe that morality can only be based in religious faith that in a world without God no principles of right and wrong could exist. Related to this, philosophers have long held that no objective, fact-based, rational code of values is possible.

Regarding both points, this talk shows that the exact opposite is true. The purpose of morality is to guide human life on earth and religion is utterly incapable of it. Flourishing life requires a code of secularism, rationality, egoism and freedom. Religious faith clashes with every principle of a proper moral code, and, as such, has led, and can only lead to, hell on earth.

Bio: Dr. Bernstein is a Visiting Professor of Philosophy at Marist College; he also teaches at SUNY Purchase. Dr. Bernstein lectures regularly at American universities and appears frequently on radio talk shows. His op-eds have been published in The San Francisco Chronicle, The Chicago Tribune, The Baltimore Sun, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Washington Times, The Los Angeles Daily News, and The Houston Chronicle. Dr. Bernstein is the author of three Ayn Rand titles for CliffsNotes: Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead, and Anthem. He also authored The Capitalist Manifesto: The Historic, Economic and Philosophic Case for Laissez-Faire.

For more information on this talk, please e-mail media@aynrand.org

###  ### ###

Andrew Bernstein is available for interviews now and after his talk.
Contact: Larry Benson          
E-mail: larryb@aynrand.org          
Phone: (949) 222-6550, ext. 213


Please Note: The above event is organized, hosted and sponsored by an individual campus club. Although ARI provides financial support, educational materials and speakers for eligible student clubs, campus clubs are organizations independent of ARI. ARI does not necessarily endorse the content of the lectures and sessions offered.

Copyright © 2008 Ayn Rand® Institute. All rights reserved.

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Friday, February 01, 2008

Hippies + Guns = Banned Marines

Posted by Craig Biddle at 12:07 PM

Nick Provenzo of the Center for the Advancement of Capitalism reports that members of the City Council of Berkeley have decided to use their guns to keep U.S. Marine Corps recruiters out of the commune. Would that the U.S. military could cease defending Berkeley. It would make for a great reality TV show: “Hippies vs. Jihadis.” I’d watch.

While we probably can’t do that, we can make the commune more authentic, and thus let its members feel some just pain. Sign the petition at CMDC, and help isolate the commies from the vices of capitalism. Here’s the post from Mr. Provenzo:

Sign the Anti-Berkeley City Council Petition and Defend the Marines!

::Posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 9:48 AM

I've created an online petition in defense of the Marines against the resolutions of the City Council of Berkeley which declare that United States Marine Corps recruiters are "uninvited and unwelcome intruders" within Berkeley city limits and applaud those who choose to "impede" the Marines in their recruiting mission.

If you support holding the City Council accountable for its resolutions, you pledge not to conduct any business within the Berkeley city limits or patronize any company which has its headquarters within Berkeley. Furthermore, you signal your desire that the U.S. Congress and the California State Legislature suspend all federal and state payments that support any activity conducted by the Berkeley City Council until such time as the Council chooses to rescind its anti-Marine resolutions.

To sign the petition, click here.

Lastly, these things work best when they go viral. If you support the petition enough to add your name, don't hesitate to share it with your friends.

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Thursday, January 31, 2008

Religion vs. Morality

Posted by ARI Media at 10:33 PM

Who: Dr. Andrew Bernstein, professor of philosophy and speaker for the Ayn Rand Institute

What: A talk arguing for a secular, rational basis for morality. A Q&A will follow.

Where: Rice University, Sewall Hall, Room 309, Houston, TX

When: Thursday, February 7, 2008, at 7:30 pm

Description: Conventionally, most people believe that morality can only be based in religious faith that in a world without God no principles of right and wrong could exist. Related to this, philosophers have long held that no objective, fact-based, rational code of values is possible.  Regarding both points, this talk shows that the exact opposite is true. The purpose of morality is to guide human life on earth and religion is utterly incapable of it. Flourishing life requires a code of secularism, rationality, egoism and freedom. Religious faith clashes with every principle of a proper moral code, and, as such, has led, and can only lead to, hell on earth.

Bio: Dr. Bernstein is a Visiting Professor of Philosophy at Marist College; he also teaches at SUNY Purchase. Dr. Bernstein lectures regularly at American universities and appears frequently on radio talk shows. His op-eds have been published in The San Francisco Chronicle, The Chicago Tribune, The Baltimore Sun, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Washington Times, The Los Angeles Daily News, and The Houston Chronicle. Dr. Bernstein is the author of three Ayn Rand titles for CliffsNotes: Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead, and Anthem. He also authored The Capitalist Manifesto: The Historic, Economic and Philosophic Case for Laissez-Faire.

For more information on this talk, please e-mail media@aynrand.org

Copyright © 2008 Ayn Rand® Institute. All rights reserved.

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Wednesday, January 09, 2008

Health Care, Moral Rights, and Selfish Action

Posted by Craig Biddle at 10:29 PM

Yaron Brook has an excellent article in Forbes titled “The Right Vision of Health Care.” Here’s an excerpt:

Prior to the government's entrance into the medical field, health care was regarded as a product to be traded voluntarily on a free market—no different from food, clothing, or any other important good or service. Medical providers competed to provide the best quality services at the lowest possible prices. Virtually all Americans could afford basic health care, while those few who could not were able to rely on abundant private charity.

Had this freedom been allowed to endure, Americans' rising productivity would have allowed them to buy better and better health care, just as, today, we buy better and more varied food and clothing than people did a century ago. There would be no crisis of affordability, as there isn't for food or clothing.

But by the time Medicare and Medicaid were enacted in 1965, this view of health care as an economic product—for which each individual must assume responsibility—had given way to a view of health care as a "right," an unearned "entitlement," to be provided at others' expense.

This entitlement mentality fueled the rise of our current third-party-payer system, a blend of government programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid, together with government-controlled employer-based health insurance (itself spawned by perverse tax incentives during the wage and price controls of World War II).

Today, what we have is not a system grounded in American individualism, but a collectivist system that aims to relieve the individual of the "burden" of paying for his own health care by coercively imposing its costs on his neighbors. For every dollar's worth of hospital care a patient consumes, that patient pays only about 3 cents out-of-pocket; the rest is paid by third-party coverage. And for the health care system as a whole, patients pay only about 14%.

The result of shifting the responsibility for health care costs away from the individuals who accrue them was an explosion in spending.

In a system in which someone else is footing the bill, consumers, encouraged to regard health care as a "right," demand medical services without having to consider their real price. When, through the 1970s and 1980s, this artificially inflated consumer demand sent expenditures soaring out of control, the government cracked down by enacting further coercive measures: price controls on medical services, cuts to medical benefits, and a crushing burden of regulations on every aspect of the health care system.

As each new intervention further distorted the health care market, driving up costs and lowering quality, belligerent voices demanded still further interventions to preserve the "right" to health care. And Republican politicians—not daring to challenge the notion of such a "right"—have, like Romney, Schwarzenegger and Bush, outdone even the Democrats in expanding government health care.

The solution to this ongoing crisis is to recognize that the very idea of a "right" to health care is a perversion. There can be no such thing as a "right" to products or services created by the effort of others, and this most definitely includes medical products and services. Rights, as our founding fathers conceived them, are not claims to economic goods, but freedoms of action.

You are free to see a doctor and pay him for his services—no one may forcibly prevent you from doing so. But you do not have a "right" to force the doctor to treat you without charge or to force others to pay for your treatment. The rights of some cannot require the coercion and sacrifice of others.

So long as Republicans fail to challenge the concept of a "right" to health care, their appeals to "market-based" solutions are worse than empty words. They will continue to abet the Democrats' expansion of government interference in medicine, right up to the dead end of a completely socialized system.

By contrast, the rejection of the entitlement mentality in favor of a proper conception of rights would provide the moral basis for real and lasting solutions to our health care problems—for breaking the regulatory chains stifling the medical industry; for lifting the government incentives that created our dysfunctional, employer-based insurance system; for inaugurating a gradual phase-out of all government health care programs, especially Medicare and Medicaid; and for restoring a true free market in medical care.

Read it all.

Brook here focuses primarily on the impracticality of socialized medicine and on the fact that no one has a right to the commodity that is health care, and he addresses these points soundly. I’d like to add that the producers of medicine and the providers of health care and health insurance have an absolute moral right to trade their products according to their own judgment. The reason why no one has a right to health care or health insurance is that these things morally belong to those who produced them—those who did the thinking and exerted the effort to get through medical school, to start a medical practice, to develop an insurance business, to create products that enhance and often save human lives. Their efforts do not render them slaves of the needy; rather, their efforts render them the rightful owners of the products of their efforts. So says the law of causality—and so says a proper morality.

The moral is the practical; respecting the rights of producers makes possible their productivity and thus our ability to trade the products of our efforts for the products of theirs. Violating the rights of the producers of health care and health insurance is not a way to acquire these goods and services; it is a way to diminish and eliminate them.

For more on this pressing issue, read “Moral Health Care vs. ‘Universal Health Care’” in the Winter issue of TOS—and pass the URL along to every active-minded person you know. With the exclusively statist field of candidates running for office in the coming elections, the only way to stop health care and health insurance from becoming fully socialized—and the only way to begin moving in the direction of a rights-respecting, flourishing, free market in these industries—is to generate sufficient principled advocacy of capitalism and opposition to socialism among the active-minded public.

These two articles—“The Right Vision of Health Care” and “Moral Health Care vs. ‘Universal Health Care’” are excellent tools for introducing people to the moral and practical nature of genuinely free markets. It takes only a few minutes to email a URL or two to all your thinking friends. Take action now. You may need a good doctor some day.

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Thursday, December 20, 2007

Why Christmas Should Be More Commercial by Dr. Leonard Peikoff

Posted by ARI Media at 11:31 PM

Christmas in America is an exuberant display of human ingenuity, capitalist productivity, and the enjoyment of life. Yet all of these are castigated as "materialistic"; the real meaning of the holiday, we are told, is assorted Nativity tales and altruist injunctions (e.g., love thy neighbor) that no one takes seriously.

In fact, Christmas as we celebrate it today is a 19th-century American invention. The freedom and prosperity of post Civil War America created the happiest nation in history. The result was the desire to celebrate, to revel in the goods and pleasures of life on earth. Christmas (which was not a federal holiday until 1870) became the leading American outlet for this feeling.

Historically, people have always celebrated the winter solstice as the time when the days begin to lengthen, indicating the earth's return to life. Ancient Romans feasted and reveled during the festival of Saturnalia. Early Christians condemned these Roman celebrations—they were waiting for the end of the world and had only scorn for earthly pleasures. By the fourth century the pagans were worshipping the god of the sun on December 25, and the Christians came to a decision: if you can't stop 'em, join 'em. They claimed (contrary to known fact) that the date was Jesus' birthday, and usurped the solstice holiday for their Church.

Even after the Christians stole Christmas, they were ambivalent about it. The holiday was inherently a pro-life festival of earthly renewal, but the Christians preached renunciation, sacrifice, and concern for the next world, not this one. As Cotton Mather, an 18th-century clergyman, put it: "Can you in your consciences think that our Holy Savior is honored by mirth? . . . Shall it be said that at the birth of our Savior . . . we take time . . . to do actions that have much more of hell than of heaven in them?"

Then came the major developments of 19th-century capitalism: industrialization, urbanization, the triumph of science—all of it leading to easy transportation, efficient mail delivery, the widespread publishing of books and magazines, new inventions making life comfortable and exciting, and the rise of entrepreneurs who understood that the way to make a profit was to produce something good and sell it to a mass market.

For the first time, the giving of gifts became a major feature of Christmas. Early Christians denounced gift-giving as a Roman practice, and Puritans called it diabolical. But Americans were not to be deterred. Thanks to capitalism, there was enough wealth to make gifts possible, a great productive apparatus to advertise them and make them available cheaply, and a country so content that men wanted to reach out to their friends and express their enjoyment of life. The whole country took with glee to giving gifts on an unprecedented scale.

Santa Claus is a thoroughly American invention. There was a St. Nicholas long ago and a feeble holiday connected with him (on December 5). In 1822, an American named Clement Clarke Moore wrote a poem about a visit from St. Nick. It was Moore (and a few other New Yorkers) who invented St. Nick's physical appearance and personality, came up with the idea that Santa travels on Christmas Eve in a sleigh pulled by reindeer, comes down the chimney, stuffs toys in the kids' stockings, then goes back to the North Pole.

Of course, the Puritans denounced Santa as the Anti-Christ, because he pushed Jesus to the background. Furthermore, Santa implicitly rejected the whole Christian ethics. He did not denounce the rich and demand that they give everything to the poor; on the contrary, he gave gifts to rich and poor children alike. Nor is Santa a champion of Christian mercy or unconditional love. On the contrary, he is for justice—Santa gives only to good children, not to bad ones.

All the best customs of Christmas, from carols to trees to spectacular decorations, have their root in pagan ideas and practices. These customs were greatly amplified by American culture, as the product of reason, science, business, worldliness, and egoism, i.e., the pursuit of happiness.

America's tragedy is that its intellectual leaders have typically tried to replace happiness with guilt by insisting that the spiritual meaning of Christmas is religion and self-sacrifice for Tiny Tim or his equivalent. But the spiritual must start with recognizing reality. Life requires reason, selfishness, capitalism; that is what Christmas should celebrate—and really, underneath all the pretense, that is what it does celebrate. It is time to take the Christ out of Christmas, and turn the holiday into a guiltlessly egoistic, pro-reason, this-worldly, commercial celebration.

Dr. Leonard Peikoff, who founded the Ayn Rand Institute, is the foremost authority on Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand. The Ayn Rand Institute in Irvine, California promotes the philosophy of Ayn Rand, author of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead.

Copyright © 2007 Ayn Rand® Institute. All rights reserved.

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Monday, November 12, 2007

Don't Say Grace, Say Justice

Posted by Craig Biddle at 11:39 AM

The religious tradition of saying grace before meals becomes especially popular around the holidays, when we all are reminded of how fortunate we are to have an abundance of life-sustaining goods and services at our disposal. But there is a grave injustice involved in this tradition. It is the injustice of thanking an alleged “God” for the productive accomplishments of actual men.

Where do the ideas, principles, constitutions, governments, and laws that protect our rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness come from? What is the source of the meals, medicines, homes, automobiles, and fighter jets that keep us alive and enable us to flourish? Who is responsible for our freedom, prosperity, and well-being?

Is freedom a gift from God? It is not. Freedom, the absence of physical coercion, is a political condition resulting from the rational, principled thought and action of men—men such as Aristotle, John Locke, the Founding Fathers, Frederick Douglass, and American soldiers.

Did God make the ambrosia that melts in your mouth, or the asthma medicine that keeps your child alive, or the plush recliner in which you relax, or the big-screen TV on which you watch your favorite show? Did God create the jetliners that bring friends and family from afar, or the stealth bombers that keep the barbarians at bay, or the music that warms your heart and fuels your soul?

Since God is responsible for none of the goods on which human life and happiness depend, why thank him for any such goods? More to the point: Why not thank those who actually are responsible for them? What would a just man do?

Justice is the virtue of judging people rationally—according to what they say, do, and produce—and treating them accordingly, granting to each man that which he deserves. If someone spends the day preparing a wonderful meal, justice demands that he, not God, be thanked for doing so. If someone provides his family with a warm, safe, comfortable home, justice demands that he, not God, be thanked for providing it. If a policeman or fireman or doctor saves someone’s life, justice demands that he, not God, be thanked. If a loving spouse or child or parent or friend provides you with great joy, justice demands that he, not God, be acknowledged accordingly. If a philosopher discovers the principles on which freedom depends—and if others put those principles into practice—justice demands that they, not God, be given credit.

To say grace is to give credit where none is due—and, worse, it is to withhold credit where it is due. To say grace is to commit an act of injustice.

Rational, productive people—whether philosophers, scientists, inventors, artists, businessmen, military strategists, friends, family, or yourself—are who deserve to be thanked for the goods on which your life, liberty, and happiness depend. This holiday season—and from now on—don’t say grace; say justice. Thank or acknowledge the people who actually provide the goods. Some of them may be sitting right there at the table with you. And if you find yourself at a table where people insist on saying grace, politely insist on saying justice when they’re through. It’s the right thing to do.

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Monday, November 05, 2007

Mere Atheism

Posted by Craig Biddle at 9:54 AM

During the question period of the otherwise unremarkable debate between Christopher Hitchens and Dinesh D’Souza on the question of “Is Christianity the Problem?” the following two questions were posed to Hitchens: 1) “What [does atheism] have to offer us as an ethics?” and 2) “What standard [of value] can you appeal to?” Although any objective approach to debating a theist on this subject would involve answering these two questions in the main course of the debate, Hitchens had not addressed either of them there and was unable to answer either when asked. Instead, he went off on tangents about such things as the absurdity of a God who would permit cannibalism and suffering, man’s oversized adrenal glands (which supposedly explain why people do bad things), and the alleged value of “human solidarity” (a euphemism for altruism and collectivism).

This is yet another example of the feckless nature of mere atheism. While religion holds that morality comes from God via faith and revelation—and while religion posits all sorts of divine laws that are supposed to provide people with moral guidance (e.g., the Ten Commandments and the Beatitudes)—atheism provides no moral guidance at all. Atheism says nothing about what is good or bad, right or wrong; nothing about how people should live; nothing about what we should and shouldn’t do. All atheism says is: “There is no god.” It is true that there is no god, but that truth alone is of no value to anyone.

If religion is wrong, then what is right? It is not enough to say “Go by reason, not faith.” What does it mean to go by reason? To what moral principles does reason lead? How are those principles validated? And what do they mean in practice?

Until atheists come to understand and embrace a positive, rational moral philosophy, they will continue to default to the ethics of religion (i.e., altruism and collectivism); consequently, they will continue to accomplish nothing of significance in the battle against religion. And in order to understand and embrace a positive, rational moral philosophy, they will have to find the courage not only to be atheists but also to be egoists—because egoism is the only morality supported by observation and logic.

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Saturday, November 03, 2007

Scrutinizing Scruton's Scrutinizing

Posted by Craig Biddle at 7:50 PM

In an article titled “Altruism and Selfishness,” Roger Scruton challenges Ayn Rand’s concept of selfishness—by committing the very fallacy that Rand identified as the cause of all the confusion on this issue. (There are many problems with Scruton’s article; I’ll address only the most egregious of them.)

Scruton attributes to Rand the notion that being selfish consists in taking whatever action one wants to take or in taking whatever action one has a motive to take. Scruton writes that according to Rand:

When a father works to provide for his children; when a woman spends her money on a person she loves; even when a man lays down his life for his friend—all this is selfishness, doing what one wants to do, because one has the motive to do it, because that is what the I requires.

Not only did Rand not accept the idea that a motivated action is thereby a selfish action; she explicitly rejected it. Rand held that whether an action is selfish or unselfish depends on two things: the standard by reference to which the action is motivated, and whether or not the action is rational. If a person is motivated by the idea that the standard of morality is self-sacrifice—if he holds that being good consists in selflessly serving others—and if he therefore quits his cherished career, say, making music, in order to serve others by doing something he loathes, say, changing bedpans, then, if words have meaning, he is not being selfish; he is being unselfish.

Although Scruton somehow missed this, Rand demonstrated in several books and essays that the objective standard of moral value is man’s life—meaning, all that which is required for man to live and flourish materially and spiritually. She further demonstrated that the objective purpose of morality is to guide the individual in choosing and pursuing the values that will fill his days and years with meaning and joy. Correspondingly, on her view, for a person to be genuinely selfish, he must do more than take action “directed at the self”; he must also be guided exclusively by reason, because only reason can account for the long-range and wide-range requirements of his life and happiness.

Acting on the principle that one should selflessly serve others is not the same thing as acting on the principle that one should rationally pursue one’s own life-serving values. To treat these essentially different things as though they are essentially the same is to commit the fallacy that Rand called “package-dealing.”

Scruton commits the fallacy again here:

Learning to love your neighbor as yourself is learning to take pleasure in the things that please him, as a mother takes pleasure in the pleasures of her child. To call this "selfishness" is to abuse the language. A selfish act is one directed at the self; an unselfish act is one directed at others. And the truly unselfish person is the one who wants to perform unselfish acts, who takes pleasure in giving, and who enjoys the prospect of another's success. This is not, as Rand would have us believe, just another form of selfishness. It is an altogether higher motive, one in which the other has replaced the self as the object of concern.

Who is abusing language?

The characteristic that makes an action selfish or unselfish is not whether it is directed at the self or whether one wants to take it or whether one takes pleasure in it or whether one enjoys it. If it were any of these, then junkies, rapists, welfare bums, and bank robbers would have to be considered “selfish” along with people who, on principle, take care of themselves, enjoy exclusively consensual sex, produce goods or services, and respect property rights. To say that it is illogical to treat these two radically different kinds of people as though they are essentially the same would be to understate the case.

For a person to be genuinely selfish, he must not only hold his own life as his ultimate value; he must also recognize and accept the principle that his only means of knowledge and his basic means of living is his faculty of reason; he must commit himself to being guided only by his rational judgment—because only it can account for the long-range and wide-range requirements of his life and happiness.

If one loves one’s neighbor because one judges him to be rational, honest, just, and of great importance to one’s life and happiness, then appreciating or taking pleasure in the things that please him can be selfish. If, however, one loves one’s neighbor not because one judges him to be rational and valuable to one’s life, but because one has accepted the religious dogma that one should “love one’s neighbor,” then doing so is unselfish. What could be more selfless than forgoing one’s own rational judgment and obeying religious dogma?

The only thing Scruton gets right in this regard is his recognition of the fact that a person who wants to forgo his own rational judgment—a person who wants to obey dogma in service to some “higher motive”—and therefore does so, is wholly unselfish.

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Monday, October 08, 2007

Lecture: 'Atlas Shrugged and Ayn Rand's Morality of Egoism'

Posted by Craig Biddle at 3:22 PM

In celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of Atlas Shrugged, I’ll be speaking at UCLA this Thursday, October 11.

What: A talk on “Atlas Shrugged and Ayn Rand’s Morality of Egoism” by Craig Biddle

Where: UCLA - Los Angeles, California: Kinsey Pavillion (Knudsen) 1220B

When: Thursday, October 11, 2007, 7:00pm–9:00pm

Admission is FREE.

Description: In her novel Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand set forth a new morality, which she called rational egoism. In contrast to altruism—the idea that one should self-sacrificially serve others—rational egoism holds that one should selfishly pursue one’s own life-serving values. Against predation—the practice of sacrificing others for one’s own ends—Rand’s egoism holds that sacrificing others is immoral and impractical. In contrast to hedonism—the idea that pleasure is the standard of value—Rand’s egoism holds that the long-range requirements of one’s life and happiness constitute the standard of value. And against moral relativism—the notion that “anything goes”—Rand’s egoism holds that morality is absolute: Nothing “goes” except that which promotes one’s life while respecting the rights of others.

Rand’s egoism is a system of observation-based principles regarding the requirements of human life, personal happiness, social harmony, and political freedom. In this talk, celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of Atlas Shrugged, Craig Biddle presents the basic principles of rational egoism, contrasts them with the alternatives, and shows why everyone who wants to live happily and freely needs to understand and embrace them.

Craig Biddle is the editor and publisher of The Objective Standard and the author of Loving Life: The Morality of Self-Interest and the Facts that Support It. He is currently writing a book on the principles of rational thinking and the fallacies that are violations of those principles. In addition to writing, he lectures and teaches workshops on ethical and epistemological issues from an Objectivist perspective. He has spoken at Tufts, Johns Hopkins, NYU, and Lawrence University, among others.

If you’re in the area, I hope to see you there!

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Friday, October 05, 2007

The Influence of Atlas Shrugged by Yaron Brook

Posted by ARI Media at 11:32 AM

On the 50th anniversary of its publication, Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand's epic about a group of businessmen who rebel against a society that shackles and condemns them, is everywhere. Hardly a day goes by without a mention of the novel in the media or by some prominent celebrity or businessman as the most significant book he's read. Meanwhile, Ayn Rand's novels, including Atlas Shrugged, are being taught in tens of thousands of high schools. And last year sales of the novel in bookstores topped an astonishing 130,000 copies—more than when it was first published.

As executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute, I see the impact of Atlas Shrugged on a daily basis. I'm continually amazed by how many people, from every walk of life and every part of the planet, from high school students to political activists in countries from Hong Kong to Belarus to Ghana, eagerly tell me: " Atlas Shrugged changed my life."

Scores of business leaders, from CEOs of Fortune 500 companies to young entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley, say they have derived great spiritual fuel from Atlas Shrugged. Many tell me that the novel has motivated them to make the most of their lives, inspiring them to be more ambitious, more productive, and more successful in their work. And many of America's politicians and intellectuals who claim to fight for economic freedom name Atlas Shrugged as the book that has most inspired them. I have no doubt that the novel has played a considerable role in discrediting socialism as an ideal and in making discussion of capitalism intellectually legitimate.

If you have read Atlas Shrugged and entered the universe of Dagny Taggart, Hank Rearden, and John Galt, you can understand why the novel has inspired so many in this way. Atlas Shrugged portrays great businessmen as heroic, productive thinkers, and it venerates capitalism as the only social system that leaves such minds free to create and produce the material values on which all of our lives depend. It gives philosophic and esthetic expression to the uniquely American spirit of individualism, of self-reliance, of entrepreneurship, of free markets.

But while many people appreciate these elements of Atlas Shrugged on a personal, emotional level, they are often uncomfortable on a moral level with the novel's arguments in support of business and capitalism.

Ayn Rand's ethical philosophy of rational selfishness—on which her admiration for successful businessmen and her impassioned defense of capitalism rest—constitutes a radical challenge to the dominant beliefs of our culture. Rejecting the prevailing ideas that morality comes from a supernatural being or from a societal decree, Rand holds that morality is a science that can be proved by reason. Rejecting the altruistic idea that morality consists of selflessly serving something "higher"—whether the Judeo-Christian God or a collectivist society—she maintains that the height of moral virtue is to rationally pursue your own selfish ends.

Socialism as a political ideal is dead. But the morality that spawned it—from each according to his ability, to each according to his need—still haunts us. So long as need and the "public interest" are regarded as moral claim checks on the ability of the productive, the continued growth of the government's control over the economy and our lives is inevitable.

Those who have read Atlas Shrugged are often struck by the similarity of the events in the novel to the disastrous events reported in the daily news—from the government's attempt to take over medicine to decaying infrastructure and collapsing bridges to the shackles on businessmen inflicted by Sarbanes-Oxley. The similarity is no accident: the justification for these government programs is the needs of the uninsured, the so-called public interest, and the necessity to curb the selfishness of businessmen. Without a moral revolution, we cannot win true economic or political freedom.

So while Atlas Shrugged has provided millions with inspiration and with some level of appreciation for the virtues of capitalism and the evils of statism, it has not had nearly the influence it could have had, had its underlying ideas gained wider understanding. Though it has changed individual lives, it has not changed the world. But I believe it could—and should.

Imagine a future America guided by the principles found in Atlas Shrugged—a culture of reason, where science is cherished and respected, not banished from biology classrooms and stem-cell research labs—a culture of individualism, in which government is the protector of individual rights, not its primary violator—a culture in which markets are not just regarded as the most effective option of an imperfect lot, but in which laissez-faire capitalism is recognized and venerated as the only moral social system—a culture in which business innovators understand that ambition, productive effort, and wealth creation are not just practical necessities, but moral virtues—a culture in which such innovators, proudly asserting their right to their work, are fully liberated and their productive genius fully applied to the generation of unimaginable economic progress.

This is the world that Atlas Shrugged challenges us to strive for. But in order to get there, the novel's full philosophic meaning must be grasped. This is precisely why the Ayn Rand Institute exists: to convey Rand's profound message. And her message is getting out, all the way to professional intellectuals, on campuses and elsewhere across America, who are taking up Ayn Rand's ideas with a seriousness that they never have shown before.

With more and more thinkers giving it the attention it merits, I am confident that the real influence of Atlas Shrugged has yet to be felt.

Yaron Brook is executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute in Irvine, CA. The Institute promotes Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand.

Copyright © 2007 Ayn Rand® Institute. All rights reserved.

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