The Philosopher's Stoned

A Brief Encounter With Mr. Buencamino

2012-05-02T22:42:00.002-07:00

So after a little commotion at this article of mine, I felt obliged to settle what remains of the slight misunderstanding between Mr. Joe America and me, and proceeded to explain the situation. As I was about to leave, though, what should stop me in my tracks, but Mr. Manuel Buencamino himself?

For those who do not know, Mr. Manuel Buencamino is one of the most notable apologists of the Aquino administration in the cyberspace. He also has some issues with Get Real Philippines (GRP), a blog I write for. Well, as far as this article is concerned, these are the only things you should know. Feel free to search some stuff about him, though. For the time being, let's move on.

He then came up with a very lengthy, erm, critique of my statements. Of course, I felt tempted to retaliate, but I am on treading on someone else’s property, so I bit my lip and respectfully bid my thanks and goodbyes.

Still, I feel responsible for my actions, so here is my little rebuttal to Mr. Buencamino. If you want to check the actual incident, visit this article of Joe America’s.

(The slanted paragraphs are words from Mr. Buencamino.)

Arche wrote: "Did people love or adore the political dynasties you mentioned in your posts in the course of their terms? Yes, these dynasties incurred the wrath of the people in their conquest for power. Meanwhile, the Aquino-Cojuangco clan… how long did it take for people to start realizing their wrongs? Not to mention not everyone knows of it yet. This is my major point. What sets Noynoy and his lot apart from other dynasties is that they more or less won the hearts of the people for so long. Even now, Ninoy and Cory remain untouchable, because they are paragons of democracy… supposedly. Was this answer sufficient? ^^"

1. Shouldn't Arche have prefaced the answer to his question - "Did people love or adore the political dynasties you mentioned in your posts in the course of their terms?" - with a "Yes in the beginning of their terms they were adored and loved but then they incurred ....etc. etc." ?

I don’t quite understand why he had to do this; whether this will help his case is, frankly, beyond me. But I am willing to tag along.

2. Arche wrote further: "Meanwhile, the Aquino-Cojuangco clan… how long did it take for people to start realizing their wrongs? Not to mention not everyone knows of it yet."

i. Isn't it a bit premature to use "DID" when the question is actually "how long WILL it take..." because "Ninoy and Cory remain untouchable" ?

Sigh, semantics, semantics. Ninoy and Cory remain untouchable, not in a sense that criticisms are forcefully being silenced for the sake of their reputation, but in virtue of the technical and widely recognized definition of the word:

“Being beyond the reach of criticism, impeachment, or attack.” – TheFreeDictionary

The technical definition of “untouchable” does not necessitate the nonexistence of criticism. Criticisms may exist, but they are not enough to deal a lasting blow to one’s reputation or image. This holds true to Ninoy and Cory; critics do exist, but given the faith invested in them by the Filipino people, their images remain quasi-impervious to the growing skepticism from the rational community.

ii. And what is the "IT" in "not everyone knows of it yet"? Fer crissakes are critics being gagged, has there not been enough criticism in tri-media, social networks, and blogs for everyone to have heard of "IT"? Is arche frustrated that all those people who have been barraged with reports of "IT" have not reacted in the way that he hoped they would?

The above explanation addresses the majority of this part of his, um… critique. Anyway, by “it,” I meant the wrongs perpetrated by the Aquino-Cojuangco clan. Be it intentional or not, a wrong is a wrong if it concerns the welfare and rights of other people. And yes, I am most certainly referring to the incidents at Hacienda Luisita.

And no, I am not in the least frustrated. I was not even expecting a specific reaction whatsoever. Of course, he is entitled to what he wants to believe, although I have but one question; why did he have to bring this up in the first place? What does this have to do with the issue he intends to raise?

3. As to arche's major point: "This is my major point. What sets Noynoy and his lot apart from other dynasties is that they more or less won the hearts of the people for so long. "

Well yes, to their credit Noynoy and his lot have done just that. And what's wrong with achieving that, isn't democracy about winning and keeping the hearts of the people for as long as possible? Besides you don't win hearts by being undemocratic. You can win grudging obedience through tyranny but you cannot win hearts. Is arche faulting Noynoy or the people or both for the romance? Is he also criticizing democracy?

By the way, this is my answer to Joe America’s question regarding what sets the Aquino-Cojuangco clan apart from the other political dynasties.

Am I faulting Noynoy and his lot for his romanticist approach? Perhaps I am; I don’t buy it. And I have a perfectly logical reason to be so, since democracy has nothing to do with romance.

“a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections” – Merriam Webster

I don’t see any allusion to “winning hearts” in the technical definition. Criticizing Noynoy’s propaganda is certainly not equal to criticizing democracy. By the way, I am more interested in winning “minds” than “hearts.” Heh heh.

4. "Even now, Ninoy and Cory remain untouchable, because they are paragons of democracy… supposedly"

To many Filipinos, Ninoy and Cory ARE the paragons of democracy, that's why they remain untouchable. "SUPPOSEDLY" is arche's conclusion, one that is shared by an underwhelming minority who believe in the "IT" being peddled by Aquino bashers.

Yes, Ninoy and Cory do serve as democratic paragons to many Filipinos; in this respect only. However, the issue I want to raise is… are they really, in an objective perspective? This demands a separate debate, but I do not intend to press further, for the sake of brevity.

PART TWO.

II. Arche added:

"The same answer was repeated by GRP visitor "dude," albeit more concise: 'That is easy. The Aquinos pretend to be good and saintly whereas the others do not pretend to be anything they are not. This makes them better than the Aquinos.'"

1. The first part of dude's sentence -"The Aquinos pretend to be good and saintly..." - is an interesting proposition because he has not offered any facts to support his contention that the Aquino's are pretending to be what they are not. Thus, dude is simply expressing his perception/opinion.

If we consider things strictly in the semantic context of dude’s statement, then you can say that it’s not substantiated. However, if we are to expand our domains and take into account the entirety of the context upon which dude formulates his arguments, the same assertion cannot be said. After all, our website has published proof after proof; establishing links regarding the Hacienda Luisita case, the lousy prosecution in Corona’s impeachment trial, etc. I am not here to debate the legitimacy of those; I am here to disprove this particular claim of Mr. Buencamino.

To simply take dude’s argument at face value betrays one’s lack of foresight. After all, it is an “excerpt.” To make a viable case, you have to consider the background of this statement; how he exactly came up with this statement, which is generously given, if you know where to look.

Since we are dealing with mere perception and not facts then the perception of the overwhelming majority becomes the reality that arche and dude have to live with. And, as far as the majority of Filipinos are concerned, the reality is the Aquino's are not pretending to be good and saintly, they ARE good and saintly. That's why they remain untouchable!

My previous statement disproves the first sentence of this paragraph. Meanwhile… I don’t see any proof that the Aquino-Cojuangco clan folks are good and saintly as he claims. Oh my, what does this mean?

2. The second part of dude's sentence - "whereas the others do not pretend to be anything they are not. This makes them better than the Aquinos" - brings up the question: Did "the others" admit to the allegations against them or did they protest their innocence?

While it may very well raise that question, what dude says does not necessitate that question. Perhaps the other parties are not exerting any effort to flatter themselves in front of the searching eyes of the media. Perhaps they are mum about the issue. That is not the same as admitting their guilt, but they certainly aren’t pretending what they are not… because they are hardly doing anything. It will not hurt to consider other possibilities.

a. If they admitted that they were a bunch of power hungry politicians as arche characterized them -"Yes, these dynasties incurred the wrath of the people in their conquest for power" - then how does that qualify them to be included in the "good-better-best" spectrum? Shouldn't they belong to the "bad-worse-worst" spectrum?

Since when have I established such moral spectrum? This is nothing but a straw-man argument. What I only did was to answer Joe Am’s question; what sets Noynoy’s clan apart?

b. If they protested their innocence despite what arche wrote regarding why they incurred the people's wrath then aren't they guilty of pretending to be what they are not?

Dude and arche can't have it both ways.

Okay, first, for the sake of formality; where is your proof? You could at least type it here; again, for the sake of formality. Second, you have not considered the third option… the third possibility; other dynasties remaining silent about the issue, which conveys an air of neutrality. Oh, and I am not obliged to substantiate the third option, as it is, as I’ve said, a possibility. You substantiate statements offered as facts.

3. Finally, to admit, for example, that one is an asshole does not make one better or less of an asshole. As a matter of fact it reveals that one is not only resigned to being an asshole but he is also telling you to get used to it. And that makes him an even bigger asshole.

If this is an all-encompassing explanation, then honesty is indeed not the best policy. This explanation encourages assholes to hide their asshole-ness. Hm, not bad, Mr. Buencamino.

On the other hand, an asshole who pretends not to be an asshole can be called a hypocritical asshole which is high up there in the spectrum of assholes because of the added quality of hypocrisy.

However there is a redeeming value to hypocrisy. One who pretends not to be an asshole shows not only an ability to discern good from bad but also a desire to turn one's life around, to be among the good as opposed to being one of the assholes.

Heh heh, but what if the asshole in question is only interested in preserving his public image while is still into illegal business and political transactions? This argument is too presumptuous.

Furthermore, on the other hand, you say that hypocritical assholes are more asshole-ish, but you also say that there is a redeeming value to hypocrisy. Where are they, really, in your moral spectrum, Mr. Buencamino? It is you who is obliged to answer this, since I did not even allude to a “moral spectrum” to begin with.

Lastly, with this kind of viewpoint, aren’t you inadvertently encouraging crooks to keep their true identities hidden, because, as you said so yourself, there is a redeeming value to hypocrisy?

So I don't get dude's point and why arche endorses it.

This is an easy one. Maybe, just maybe, it’s because Mr. Buencamino over-inflated the significance of my statements, when I simply intended to settle an account with Mr. Joe America.

Basically, the GRP crowd has never gotten over the fact that the people did not vote for their candidate in 2010 and now they want Aquino to fail so they can be proven right, so they can crow "I told you so".

Before I departed from Mr. Joe America’s website, I left a few words.

“Mr. manuelbuencamino, I do not know what beef you have with GRP, but this has nothing to do with that. After all, I am but a new contributor.”

Still, despite being new, I can certainly detect a tinge of bitterness in these words—but who am I to talk? I’m just a newbie, after all. Anyway, to “dude,” please forgive me for causing your name to be involved in this debate. I’m truly sorry.

All in all, I am thankful for visiting Joe America’s website. I got the chance to meet one of the staunchest defenders of Noynoy and his family’s legacy. I had the golden opportunity to gauge his argumentative skill. What I think of it is, well, I prefer to keep it a secret.

(EDIT: Alright, I'll spill it. It's at the comments section.)

Rights: Ayn Rand Got It Wrong

2012-04-29T10:22:00.000-07:00

For those who feel nauseated by my articles criticizing the dubious Objectivist philosophy, you have my sincerest apologies. It's just that I feel compelled to expose the blatant fallacies that somehow made their way to Ayn Rand's psyche and constituted a substantial portion of her philosophy. Such fallacies manifest themselves most obviously on Ayn Rand's argument about the concept of human rights.

“The source of man’s rights is not divine law or congressional law, but the law of identity. A is A—and Man is Man. Rights are conditions of existence required by man’s nature for his proper survival. If man is to live on earth, it is right for him to use his mind, it is right to act on his own free judgment, it is right to work for his values and to keep the product of his work. If life on earth is his purpose, he has a right to live as a rational being: nature forbids him the irrational.”

This is an excerpt, and the heart of Ayn Rand's argument regarding rights. You can find the entirety of her take here. As soon as my eyes read this paragraph, I knew I got another philosophical critique article in my hands, albeit it might be a little short, given the shortness of the excerpt in question. But it doesn't matter.

Let's now begin inspecting Ayn Rand's argument. Of course, for those who have read my extensive critique of Ayn Rand's philosophical structure, they will know that Ayn Rand's claim that rights (which are moral concepts) are derived from the law of identity (a tautology that has no meaning) is fallacious, just like how fallacious it is to recklessly derive an ought from an is. To know more about how I disproved Rand's "solution" to the is-ought problem, feel free to read this article.

Rights did not come from the observable universe, or from man's nature, or from any fact. It is the consequence of human cognition; the mind alone conceived the notion of rights. Since the assertion that reality is related to rights is invalid, this seems to be the only plausible conclusion. The concept of rights was born with the creation of the Declaration of Independence. The concept of rights was born alongside the early stages of the Constitution and the State. It is the government (specifically the individuals that constitute it) that created the concept of rights. I do not claim to know what was running in the minds of the Founding Fathers when they laid down the foundations of the early government, but as far as logic is concerned, it seems that the only possible sources of the notion of rights, is the sophisticated mental acuity of man, as well as his emotions; the Fathers' compassion for man and the desire for equality not under a monarch or dictator but the law. Yes, Objectivists can hate on the fact that rights, a moral concept, a topic covered by ethics, may be determined by human emotions, but no amount of is-ought fallacies can override that fact.

Objectivists can hate on the fact that the government is the one that creates and validates rights (as shown by how countries have differing Bill of Rights in terms of number and precision), but no amount of is-ought fallacies can deny this one. In the case of rights, Ayn Rand herself is denying reality.

Perhaps Objectivists can loosen up a bit, provide a viable case for the brand of ethics--rights by extension--by considering that there are actually two major branches of ethics; descriptive and prescriptive.

A typical philosophy student would know what these two branches mean. Descriptive ethics simply describe how people viewed ethics through out time. This branch of ethics merely chronicle how the human perception of morality evolved through the ages; simply put, descriptive ethics is a study of how people think morality is.

Meanwhile, prescriptive ethics, as the name suggests, is the study of how morality should be. It is the more spontaneous branch of ethics, since it aims to answer the important ethical question; how should people act? Descriptive ethics merely narrate how people act; prescriptive ethics study how people should act. Perhaps this is where Objectivists should invest their energies, to stand a chance at being taken seriously by the academic world. Perhaps Objectivists should stop insisting their flawed causal argument that the universe gave birth to rights, and accept the fact that:

1. In terms of descriptive ethics, their concept of rights is merely how they think of rights.

2. In terms of prescriptive ethics, their concept of rights is merely how they think rights should be.

The first one would be quite disadvantageous to the Objectivist movement, since their ethical grounds are flawed to begin with. Now, if they can just cut off the "rights are the results of reality" part and argue solely based on how they think rights should be (which means incorporating their moral view in prescriptive ethics), they might have the opportunity of officially being in the fray of the philosophical realm. Maybe, just maybe, they should accept that their morality is at the same level as any morality conceived by man's mind throughout the eons. Maybe, just maybe, instead of arguing that Objectivism is the proper moral code, they should argue that Objectivism is the best moral code. This will make things more logical somehow.

The rest of the paragraph need not much scrutiny.

Ayn Rand's definition of rights is sloppy and vague, not to mention that it is founded on severely fallacious grounds. The following sentences hardly help at all, since they scream "equivocation" all over the place. First, Ayn Rand used "right" to mean "correct," and then proceeded to mean the same word as the "right" we discussed earlier. If Ayn Rand's intention was not to equivocate, why in the dazes did she spout all those stuff about the right (correct) things man does as far as his life is concerned?

Also, I do not quite understand the "nature forbids him the irrational" part. Does this mean man is not allowed to be irrational? Then all of us might be rational, but of course this notion is extremely disputable. Perhaps Ayn Rand meant that being irrational is against nature, and that irrational people will die. Well, so far, I have not come across any statistical research that has established an irrefutable correlation between mortality and stupidity. What did Ayn Rand mean by that?

Oh, and just to add; why can't animals have rights too? There is no logical barrier that separates animals and the concept of rights. After all, rights are the creation of man's mind. Perhaps Objectivists would counter; because they're non-sentient beings. This goes against substantial scientific research findings, but they can choose to assert this idea all the same, and admit that the concept of "rights" is indeed a product of man's mind, not of the observable reality.

To be fair, I can agree with how Ayn Rand views the nature of rights (not their origins). I believe that rights should be aimed at an action, not at the goal or the object. Rights should allow man to pursue goals, not to readily have the goals. I agree that rights should not violate other rights, which means no one can enslave another for his personal goals. More importantly, while the concept of rights came with the concept of the law and state, I believe that the government should not just arbitrarily revoke rights, but seek to protect them through the rule of law. And finally, I can agree that the idea of animal rights is absurd and impractical. To this extent, I can agree with the Objectivists. If only they will heed my advice about the prescriptive ethics thing, I would have supported them... somewhat.

I remember John Galt saying that some philosophies of old brought chaos to this world. Some philosophies brought out the worst in man, threatening to plunge civilization into darkness. Perhaps it is true; just ask the Maoists who starved China until Deng Xiaoping came along. But it is not through logical fallacies that we can override the destructive effects of some philosophies. It is not through falsely bridging the is-ought gap, claiming that reality can give us morality, that we can solve the moral issues of our world. As Isaac Asimov once stated:

"If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them."

Argentina, a Classic

2012-04-19T10:21:00.002-07:00

Argentina continues its nose-dive towards economic distress as its president, Cristina Fernandez, stretched its hand on the YPF, which was sold to Spanish firm Repsol in the past.

Argentines have wondered for years which kitty Cristina Fernández, the president, would grab next in order to satisfy her government’s voracious appetite for cash. On April 16th they got their answer, when she announced that Argentina would expropriate and nationalise 51% of YPF, the former state oil company, which had been sold to Repsol, a Spanish firm, in 1999.

(Source: Link)

Furthermore, Fernandez resorted to what seems like demagoguery to justify her actions.

“We are the only country in America, and basically in the whole world, that doesn’t control its own natural resources,” she declared—a puzzling assertion, since foreign companies own resource assets in every oil-producing country in the Americas save Mexico.

Meanwhile, economy minister Hernan Lorenzino alluded to autarkic notions that would make communists very proud; no offense intended.

Hernán Lorenzino, the economy minister, claims Argentina’s only goal is “energy self-sufficiency”.

Furthermore, the Argentine government and the YPF clash as to the reasons behind the partial nationalization of the said company, although the YPF seems to gain the upper hand.

The government says it has been forced to import because Repsol has failed to invest in domestic production. In recent months, six provinces confiscated oil concessions from YPF on that basis. But YPF counters that it has invested $11 billion in its Argentine operations over the past five years, and only distributed $3.5 billion in dividends—many of which have gone to pay the loans that Petersen, an Argentine company, took out to buy a share of the company with the support of Néstor Kirchner, Ms Fernández’s husband and predecessor as president. Moreover, Repsol says that the real cause of Argentina’s declining energy trade balance is its maze of price controls and subsidies, which makes investment unprofitable and encourages excess consumption. Most independent energy analysts agree with this analysis.

Repsol pretty much dropped the bomb on the government by pointing out the classic problems caused by irrational government intervention; subsidies which stagnate growth and drive away other producers and would-be investors, as well as price controls which grotesquely distort market signals. Energy analysts seem to be on the right track with this.

The article then proceeded to discuss the benefits of nationalizing a substantial fraction of YPF for the government, and the government alone, possibly at the expense of the people and the business cycle.

Taking over YPF offers Ms Fernández both financial and political benefits. She can now use it to conduct the government’s money-losing energy imports and have its minority shareholders suffer 49% of the losses. At a time of high oil prices, she could also use the company’s profits to finance public spending, since Argentina cannot borrow money because it faces punitively high interest rates and legal threats from holders of its defaulted debt. Politically, after failing to convince the rest of the countries at the Summit of the Americas last weekend to support Argentina’s claim to the British-controlled Falkland Islands, the decision provides her a new foreign scapegoat to distract attention from a slowing economy. On the day of the announcement, posters went up around Buenos Aires reading “True sovereignty means taking back what is ours” above the YPF logo.

The article has divulged on the effects of this action of the state, and it pretty much nailed it. Nationalizing YPF will inevitably drive away investors, as the government imposes itself on the company, which will just aggravate the fact that Fernandez made things a whole lot worse for Argentina from the very beginning.

As of now, Argentina has managed to keep itself afloat, and that is certainly not thanks to the government.

And the economy has remained buoyant for nearly a decade in spite of such policies, because of ever-rising soyabean prices and economic growth in neighboring Brazil.

To make things worse for Argentina, the Spanish government through its foreign minister, Jose Manuel Garcia Margallo, has stated that it will defend Repsol's shareholders, and that it will cut diplomatic ties with Argentina should something really nasty happen.

The article ended with the critical move that must be done if Argentina is to remain in relatively good terms with the Spanish; by paying a big sum for 51% of YPF. In effect, Fernandez's foolishly selfish decision of taking YPF for herself put her entire country in jeopardy, both economic and political.

What the world has witnessed is but a classic example of the ills of excessive government intervention, as discussed by several Austrian economists like Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich von Hayek. Too much meddling from the state, specifically nationalization, is harmful because;

1. It undermines trade and private investment. In nationalizing a company, fully or partially, it renders that fraction immune from local and foreign investors who through their collective effort have much to offer than government bureaucracy. Too much nationalization narrows down the spots where investors can, well, invest, which stagnates economic activity.

2. It usually leads to more taxes. The government inherently has no money. A money-generating mechanism innate to businesses is not possessed by the government. And then the government announces that it will own more than half of a crucial oil company in Argentina. Where will the government get its money? From the people via taxation. People are forced to give up a large part of their income to satiate the state's hunger for nationalizing.

3. Nationalization is supposed to be an emergency safety net, and a temporary one. In times of deep economic crises that threaten key economic institutions (the loss of which can deal a lasting blow to national economy), it is a justified action to have the government soften the blow through its accumulated tax revenue and contain the shock until things settle down and investors start pouring again. By that time, the government is obliged to let go of the company and let the private sector finish the job. Nationalization is a social safety net in extreme situations, and is not meant to be perpetuated, as far as economic progress is concerned.

Argentina is in a lot of trouble should this horrible governance persist. After all, Greece was involved in the euro crisis due to astounding sovereign debt, and Argentina is well headed that way, too. Perhaps the people can demand a re-election and legally oust Fernandez for good. Or they can start a revolution or something; although I don't really fancy bloody uprisings. But if economic progress is the topic, Fernandez's administration is, in all likelihood, not part of the equation.

Link: An in-depth scrutiny of the German economy

2012-04-19T00:16:00.000-07:00

I've come across a very interesting article about the economic history of Germany, which is slowly becoming the main powerhouse of Europe. Visit this link to know more.

The Need for Sensitivity

2012-04-16T00:21:00.002-07:00

North Korea recently became the laughing stock of the world after its failed rocket launch. I must admit, I even giggled a bit about the news. Despite this, I know that we should remain serious about this old international feud.

North Korea purposefully sensationalized its plan of launching a rocket in order to have their satellite orbit in space, eliciting suspicion from the rest of the world. People accused North Korea of conducting a ballistics test under the guise of releasing a harmless satellite. North Korea staunchly denied this, and gained some support from some leftist activists in the process. In effect, this controversial nation managed to stir the world's curiosity on its capabilities.

However, the widespread poverty North Korea desperately tries to hide is taking its toll on them. North Korea failed in almost every respect, as far as the rocket is concerned; they failed to launch a satellite into space, assuming that that's their original plan. If it's a power play, then they also failed, since they instead turned into some sort of a joke the world could laugh at. But what if this is a blind? What if North Korea has something up its sleeve that one could consider the real deal? Call me paranoid if you want, but as far as national security is concerned, we must by no means allow humor get the better of us. A dose of political humor is perfectly fine, but we must not dwell on such superficial comedy and remain focused on more pressing issues; the persistent tensions between the communists and the rest of humanity.

I'd like to share something to think about from the 48 Laws of Power, one of the books in my possession. I intend to discuss a specific law written on the said book; the 47th.

"Do not go past the mark you aimed for; in victory, learn when to stop."

The world was prepared for whatever might happen should North Korea's plan about the rocket succeeds. Several countries even prepared anti-missiles should anything unpleasant happen. But then, the world succeeded, without even lifting a finger; the rocket failed, and the world rejoiced and laughed at the same time. Given the dynamism of the Internet, it was only a matter of time before North Korea's image devolved into nothing more but pastime jokes.

However, this is beginning to be a sign of insensitivity. We gradually become too complacent with the recent events. Fear is slowly being diluted to become comedy. And this is a big no-no. Someday, the humor should fade, to be replaced with seriousness and vigilance. Do not forget that the country we laugh at today caused all sorts of trouble to our world. North Korea constantly unsettled many countries, and that's no laughing matter. While we join in the humor bandwagon, let's not forget that North Korea won't just fade into the shadows, not showing its face ever again.

It is in these times of light-hearted humor that the world should practice more vigilance as to what North Korea will do next. As a reminder, I'd like to share the entirety of the 47th law for my esteemed readers (if there are any). Check this link, if you please.

It is logical to say, given North Korea's apparent negligence of citizen welfare and its internal economy, preferring to immerse itself in weapons testing, that this country is becoming more and more suicidal. It is only a matter of time before North Korea collapses on itself, unless it changes its ways. However, our utmost concern at the moment is not to get caught up in North Korea's suicide.

For another commentary regarding the aftermath of the failed rocket launch, you can check this link, too.

New Look

2012-04-15T21:17:00.004-07:00

So finally, after a few tweaks and mess-ups, my blog finally donned a new, minimalist look. For those who unluckily witnessed the pandemonium in this blog as I attempted to renovate it, you have my sincerest apologies. I'm an amateur coder; please cut yours truly some slack. Have a good day.

Examining Ayn Rand's Paper: Part 4

2012-04-15T04:01:00.001-07:00

Continuation:

As Ayn Rand started to explain the three virtues of her philosophy, I realized that they can be now taken into isolation; while it can be argued that the virtue of rationality is connected to Ayn Rand's espousal of reason, this particular virtue can hold up without having to invoke Ayn Rand's faulty analysis of the is-ought gap, her dubious assessment of animal psychology, among other things. In other words, these virtues can be said to be independent ideas; even if Objectivism doesn't exist, it is still possible for these ideas to make sense. Now, I will worry less about the logical coherence of the upcoming paragraphs, and instead focus on the desirability of these ideas; after all, ethics are intended to cater to the nature of man.

The virtue of Rationality means the recognition and acceptance of reason as one’s only source of knowledge, one’s only judge of values and one’s only guide to action. It means one’s total commitment to a state of full, conscious awareness, to the maintenance of a full mental focus in all issues, in all choices, in all of one’s waking hours. It means a commitment to the fullest perception of reality within one’s power and to the constant, active expansion of one’s perception, i.e., of one’s knowledge. It means a commitment to the reality of one’s own existence, i.e., to the principle that all of one’s goals, values and actions take place in reality and, therefore, that one must never place any value or consideration whatsoever above one’s perception of reality. It means a commitment to the principle that all of one’s convictions, values, goals, desires and actions must be based on, derived from, chosen and validated by a process of thought—as precise and scrupulous a process of thought, directed by as ruthlessly strict an application of logic, as one’s fullest capacity permits. It means one’s acceptance of the responsibility of forming one’s own judgments and of living by the work of one’s own mind (which is the virtue of Independence). It means that one must never sacrifice one’s convictions to the opinions or wishes of others (which is the virtue of Integrity)-that one must never attempt to fake reality in any manner (which is the virtue of Honesty)-that one must never seek or grant the unearned and undeserved, neither in matter nor in spirit (which is the virtue of Justice). It means that one must never desire effects without causes, and that one must never enact a cause without assuming full responsibility for its effects—that one must never act like a zombie, i.e., without knowing one’s own purposes and motives—that one must never make any decisions, form any convictions or seek any values out of context, i.e., apart from or against the total, integrated sum of one’s knowledge—and, above all, that one must never seek to get away with contradictions. It means the rejection of any form of mysticism, i.e., any claim to some nonsensory, nonrational, nondefinable, supernatural source of knowledge. It means a commitment to reason, not in sporadic fits or on selected issues or in special emergencies, but as a permanent way of life.

You might look very awesome if you manage to pull this off, although won't it be quite exhausting if you force yourself to focus every waking hour? Won't it be tiring to consciously adhere to the provisions of the rational virtue? Most of all, won't this compromise your relationships with friends and loved ones if you remain preoccupied with adhering to this virtue? Do the benefits, if there are any, outweigh the costs? I do not intend to demean Ayn Rand's virtues; I'm merely considering whether such virtues are practical, not to mention doable, especially when Ayn Rand implies that Objectivist ethics is in accordance with human nature.

The virtue of Productiveness is the recognition of the fact that productive work is the process by which man’s mind sustains his life, the process that sets man free of the necessity to adjust himself to his background, as all animals do, and gives him the power to adjust his background to himself. Productive work is the road of man’s unlimited achievement and calls upon the highest attributes of his character: his creative ability, his ambitiousness, his self-assertiveness, his refusal to bear uncontested disasters, his dedication to the goal of reshaping the earth in the image of his values. “Productive work” does not mean the unfocused performance of the motions of some job. It means the consciously chosen pursuit of a productive career, in any line of rational endeavor, great or modest, on any level of ability. It is not the degree of a man’s ability nor the scale of his work that is ethically relevant here, but the fullest and most purposeful use of his mind.

I can agree to this virtue Ayn Rand espouses. However, I must clarify this part.

Productive work is the road of man’s unlimited achievement and calls upon the highest attributes of his character: his creative ability, his ambitiousness, his self-assertiveness, his refusal to bear uncontested disasters, his dedication to the goal of reshaping the earth in the image of his values, provided that such values will not interfere with other people's lives, and will not compromise nature itself.

The virtue of Pride is the recognition of the fact “that as man must produce the physical values he needs to sustain his life, so he must acquire the values of character that make his life worth sustaining—that as man is a being of self-made wealth, so he is a being of self-made soul.” (Atlas Shrugged.) The virtue of Pride can best be described by the term: “moral ambitiousness.” It means that one must earn the right to hold oneself as one’s own highest value by achieving one’s own moral perfection—which one achieves by never accepting any code of irrational virtues impossible to practice and by never failing to practice the virtues one knows to be rational—by never accepting an unearned guilt and never earning any, or, if one has earned it, never leaving it uncorrected—by never resigning oneself passively to any flaws in one’s character—by never placing any concern, wish, fear or mood of the moment above the reality of one’s own self-esteem. And, above all, it means one’s rejection of the role of a sacrificial animal, the rejection of any doctrine that preaches self-immolation as a moral virtue or duty.

The more proper term to be used for this virtue is "assertiveness," but whatever; who am I to talk? Although I must point out how amusing this part is: "by never accepting any code of irrational virtues impossible to practice" when adhering to the Virtue of Rationality alone can be a herculean task.

The basic social principle of the Objectivist ethics is that just as life is an end in itself, so every living human being is an end in himself, not the means to the ends or the welfare of others—and, therefore, that man must live for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself. To live for his own sake means that the achievement of his own happiness is man’s highest moral purpose.

While Ayn Rand never proved the notion of life as an end in itself, it is a pretty good foundation to establish one's ethics; life as an end in itself as your axiom ensures that your ethics is life-oriented. However, this part does not logically follow: that man must live for his own sake.

One can remain alive but dedicate his life to charitable work without killing himself, out of his own volition, setting this course of action as his happiness. No life is lost, and the doer of the action is happy. How can Ayn Rand explain this phenomenon?

In psychological terms, the issue of man’s survival does not confront his consciousness as an issue of “life or death,” but as an issue of “happiness or suffering.” Happiness is the successful state of life, suffering is the warning signal of failure, of death. Just as the pleasure-pain mechanism of man’s body is an automatic indicator of his body’s welfare or injury, a barometer of its basic alternative, life or death—so the emotional mechanism of man’s consciousness is geared to perform the same function, as a barometer that registers the same alternative by means of two basic emotions: joy or suffering. Emotions are the automatic results of man’s value judgments integrated by his subconscious; emotions are estimates of that which furthers man’s values or threatens them, that which is for him or against him—lightning calculators giving him the sum of his profit or loss.

I see that Ayn Rand still recognizes the philosophy of hedonism. Anyway, the truth of this paragraph is contingent. What if a man is a psychopath and enjoys killing people? He feels happy, so he must be furthering his values. But not the Randian values, unless Ayn Rand means just the values of the man in question. However, in this scenario, emotions fail to calculate the psychopath's net profit/loss. He feels happy, so in his perspective, he had a moral profit. But in reality, he suffered a heavy moral loss; the law is on his tail and people hate him and want him dead. He actually put his own life in danger.

This is a counter-instance to the effectiveness of emotions as a moral barometer, making the truth of the hedonist philosophy contingent at best. Perhaps this is why Ayn Rand specified that emotions are estimates of whether you're on the right track. Precision is sacrificed, but at least she's safe from scrutiny. Nice save.

Man is born with an emotional mechanism, just as he is born with a cognitive mechanism; but, at birth, both are “tabula rasa.” It is man’s cognitive faculty, his mind, that determines the content of both. Man’s emotional mechanism is like an electronic computer, which his mind has to program—and the programming consists of the values his mind chooses.

I have not extensively studied the concept of tabula rasa, but, given its basic definition, I guess I can agree with Rand on this one. Know that tabula rasa won't be derived from her earlier arguments. Tabula rasa is an isolated concept.

But since the work of man’s mind is not automatic, his values, like all his premises, are the product either of his thinking or of his evasions: man chooses his values by a conscious process of thought—or accepts them by default, by subconscious associations, on faith, on someone’s authority, by some form of social osmosis or blind imitation. Emotions are produced by man’s premises, held consciously or subconsciously, explicitly or implicitly.

I agree with what this paragraph has to say.

Man has no choice about his capacity to feel that something is good for him or evil, but what he will consider good or evil, what will give him joy or pain, what he will love or hate, desire or fear, depends on his standard of value. If he chooses irrational values, he switches his emotional mechanism from the role of his guardian to the role of his destroyer. The irrational is the impossible; it is that which contradicts the facts of reality; facts cannot be altered by a wish, but they can destroy the wisher. If a man desires and pursues contradictions—if he wants to have his cake and eat it, too—he disintegrates his consciousness; he turns his inner life into a civil war of blind forces engaged in dark, incoherent, pointless, meaningless conflicts (which, incidentally, is the inner state of most people today).

I can agree that being irrational can hurt you as a human being, but how is being irrational "impossible"? Does Ayn Rand mean one cannot actually be irrational, because that would result to a contradiction? If that's the case, then all of us are actually rational beings! Perhaps this is vague word usage, but in philosophy, words matter largely.

Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one’s values. If a man values productive work, his happiness is the measure of his success in the service of his life. But if a man values destruction, like a sadist—or self-torture, like a masochist—or life beyond the grave, like a mystic—or mindless “kicks,” like the driver of a hotrod car—his alleged happiness is the measure of his success in the service of his own destruction. It must be added that the emotional state of all those irrationalists cannot be properly designated as happiness or even as pleasure: it is merely a moment’s relief from their chronic state of terror.

How can you say that happiness follows from a man who values productive work? It would help if you could provide an explanation; it isn't my job to do so. Moreover, note that a man who values productive work, one who values hard work can also be a sadist or masochist. Also, how can you say that irrationalists can't feel happiness or pleasure? What basis do you have?

I quote from Galt’s speech: “Happiness is a state of non-contradictory joy—a joy without penalty or guilt, a joy that does not clash with any of your values and does not work for your own destruction. . . . Happiness is possible only to a rational man, the man who desires nothing but rational goals, seeks nothing but rational values and finds his joy in nothing but rational actions.”

If you put it that way, then John Galt is right. However, know that that is not the official definition of happiness.

The maintenance of life and the pursuit of happiness are not two separate issues. To hold one’s own life as one’s ultimate value, and one’s own happiness as one’s highest purpose are two aspects of the same achievement. Existentially, the activity of pursuing rational goals is the activity of maintaining one’s life; psychologically, its result, reward and concomitant is an emotional state of happiness. It is by experiencing happiness that one lives one’s life, in any hour, year or the whole of it. And when one experiences the kind of pure happiness that is an end in itself—the kind that makes one think: “This is worth living for”—what one is greeting and affirming in emotional terms is the metaphysical fact that life is an end in itself.

The first sentence is false. You breathe to maintain your life, but breathing is hardly a source of happiness. One can maintain his life without being happy, and one can be happy even in the verge of death (note that we use "happy" in the standard sense, not on Ayn Rand's perspective). The rest of the paragraph is up to psychologists; I don't claim to be one.

But the relationship of cause to effect cannot be reversed. It is only by accepting “man’s life” as one’s primary and by pursuing the rational values it requires that one can achieve happiness—not by taking “happiness” as some undefined, irreducible primary and then attempting to live by its guidance. If you achieve that which is the good by a rational standard of value, it will necessarily make you happy; but that which makes you happy, by some undefined emotional standard, is not necessarily the good. To take “whatever makes one happy” as a guide to action means: to be guided by nothing but one’s emotional whims. Emotions are not tools of cognition; to be guided by whims—by desires whose source, nature and meaning one does not know—is to turn oneself into a blind robot, operated by unknowable demons (by one’s stale evasions), a robot knocking its stagnant brains out against the walls of reality which it refuses to see.

So let me get this straight. One should treat his life as his primary and be rational if he is to be truly happy. The other instance cited in this paragraph is someone who set happiness as his primary then pursues an arbitrary goal. By Rand's argument, the second instance does not necessarily end up to a "good," which is a sound argument, but it also disproves her former statement, since a person (her own example) was able to become happy without setting his life as his primary and without being rational. Perhaps a clarification in word usage is in order. I do have to agree with her in saying that emotions are unreliable tools of cognition.

This is the fallacy inherent in hedonism—in any variant of ethical hedonism, personal or social, individual or collective. “Happiness” can properly be the purpose of ethics, but not the standard. The task of ethics is to define man’s proper code of values and thus to give him the means of achieving happiness. To declare, as the ethical hedonists do, that “the proper value is whatever gives you pleasure” is to declare that “the proper value is whatever you happen to value”—which is an act of intellectual and philosophical abdication, an act which merely proclaims the futility of ethics and invites all men to play it deuces wild.

Huh? But haven't you been using hedonistic philosophy to explain your own? Whatever happened to the pleasure-pain mechanism as a gauge of good and evil? This is what hedonism is all about; pleasure is a standard of good, while pain is a standard of evil. One can argue that Ayn Rand stressed that such mechanism can only know good and evil in their simplest forms; if that's the case, hedonist philosophy is still not fallacious, but incomplete. Ethical hedonists declare that you should value whatever gives you pleasure, yes, but isn't that what Ayn Rand is also saying a while back?

Ayn Rand argued that a value should be something that further's one's life. By her pleasure-pain mechanism argument, pleasure indicates what is good in its simple form; something that is good for our bodies.

The physical sensation of pleasure is a signal indicating that the organism is pursuing the right course of action. The physical sensation of pain is a warning signal of danger, indicating that the organism is pursuing the wrong course of action, that something is impairing the proper function of its body, which requires action to correct it.

Since pleasure tells us what's good for our bodies and hence our lives, isn't it good to value what gives us pleasure? This is the consequence of her argument, and this is what ethical hedonists tell us. Ayn Rand, could you have contradicted yourself once again?

The philosophers who attempted to devise an allegedly rational code of ethics gave mankind nothing but a choice of whims: the “selfish” pursuit of one’s own whims (such as the ethics of Nietzsche)—or “selfless” service to the whims of others (such as the ethics of Bentham, Mill, Comte and of all social hedonists, whether they allowed man to include his own whims among the millions of others or advised him to turn himself into a totally selfless “shmoo” that seeks to be eaten by others).

Ayn Rand can trash-talk all she wants, but she's just the same as everybody else; offering her subjective brand of ethics. This is because so far, it is shown that ethics can't be bound to facts of reality and can therefore never be objective. I find her usage of "allegedly rational code of ethics" in her rant, when philosophers already said that ethics is beyond reason, which is by itself an open admission that their ethics is not rational.

When a “desire,” regardless of its nature or cause, is taken as an ethical primary, and the gratification of any and all desires is taken as an ethical goal (such as “the greatest happiness of the greatest number”)—men have no choice but to hate, fear and fight one another, because their desires and their interests will necessarily clash. If “desire” is the ethical standard, then one man’s desire to produce and another man’s desire to rob him have equal ethical validity; one man’s desire to be free and another man’s desire to enslave him have equal ethical validity; one man’s desire to be loved and admired for his virtues and another man’s desire for undeserved love and unearned admiration have equal ethical validity. And if the frustration of any desire constitutes a sacrifice, then a man who owns an automobile and is robbed of it, is being sacrificed, but so is the man who wants or “aspires to” an automobile which the owner refuses to give him—and these two “sacrifices” have equal ethical status. If so, then man’s only choice is to rob or be robbed, to destroy or be destroyed, to sacrifice others to any desire of his own or to sacrifice himself to any desire of others; then man’s only ethical alternative is to be a sadist or a masochist.

This paragraph is agreeable, except for the part where Ayn Rand cited the tenet of utilitarianism (the greatest happiness for the greatest number) as an example of setting a desire as a primary. Nowhere in that concept says something about putting happiness as a primary; in fact, that concept is about setting happiness as a goal. I thought happiness is a sound goal?

The moral cannibalism of all hedonist and altruist doctrines lies in the premise that the happiness of one man necessitates the injury of another.

Not necessarily.

Today, most people hold this premise as an absolute not to be questioned. And when one speaks of man’s right to exist for his own sake, for his own rational self-interest, most people assume automatically that this means his right to sacrifice others. Such an assumption is a confession of their own belief that to injure, enslave, rob or murder others is in man’s self-interest—which he must selflessly renounce. The idea that man’s self-interest can be served only by a non-sacrificial relationship with others has never occurred to those humanitarian apostles of unselfishness, who proclaim their desire to achieve the brotherhood of men. And it will not occur to them, or to anyone, so long as the concept “rational” is omitted from the context of “values,” “desires,” “self-interest” and ethics.

Well, I can't verify nor falsify this bold claim; that people are beset with a crappy morality. I am not at liberty to confirm or reject this assertion. However, I stand by my conclusion; the formulation of an ethical code cannot have a rational basis. You can choose your ethics to have a rational nature, but the fact that you chose it cannot be supported by any rational means.

The Objectivist ethics proudly advocates and upholds rational selfishness—which means: the values required for man’s survival qua man—which means: the values required for human survival—not the values produced by the desires, the emotions, the “aspirations,” the feelings, the whims or the needs of irrational brutes, who have never outgrown the primordial practice of human sacrifices, have never discovered an industrial society and can conceive of no self-interest but that of grabbing the loot of the moment.

I'm quite irked by the way Ayn Rand uses "selfishness." Such a word has a negative ring to it, something supported by the English syntax. She could have just used the word "self-interest" and be more precise, rather than use a dubious word that will just elicit irritation and suspicion.

The Objectivist ethics holds that human good does not require human sacrifices and cannot be achieved by the sacrifice of anyone to anyone. It holds that the rational interests of men do not clash—that there is no conflict of interests among men who do not desire the unearned, who do not make sacrifices nor accept them, who deal with one another as traders, giving value for value.

The second sentence is ridiculously false. Simply consider two rational men selling the same product. They both desire having their products sold, which is rational, considering their profession. Since they sell the same product, people only need to buy from one of them; the customer which one seller desires can be taken away by the other seller. This example alone demonstrates that there can be conflict between the interests of rational men.

The principle of trade is the only rational ethical principle for all human relationships, personal and social, private and public, spiritual and material. It is the principle of justice.

A trader is a man who earns what he gets and does not give or take the undeserved. He does not treat men as masters or slaves, but as independent equals. He deals with men by means of a free, voluntary, unforced, uncoerced exchange—an exchange which benefits both parties by their own independent judgment. A trader does not expect to be paid for his defaults, only for his achievements. He does not switch to others the burden of his failures, and he does not mortgage his life into bondage to the failures of others.

Hm, looks pretty good. As an economics enthusiast, I like how Ayn Rand used the trader analogy to promote equality in society, while the soundness is not sacrificed. However, Ayn Rand must know that economics is not just about trading things of equal value. Sometimes, a rational trader will temporarily give more than the immediate expected returns. This is because sometimes, the mood of the market is good, and the returns from your investment will get better in the years to come.

In spiritual issues—(by “spiritual” I mean: “pertaining to man’s consciousness”)—the currency or medium of exchange is different, but the principle is the same. Love, friendship, respect, admiration are the emotional response of one man to the virtues of another, the spiritual payment given in exchange for the personal, selfish pleasure which one man derives from the virtues of another man’s character. Only a brute or an altruist would claim that the appreciation of another person’s virtues is an act of selflessness, that as far as one’s own selfish interest and pleasure are concerned, it makes no difference whether one deals with a genius or a fool, whether one meets a hero or a thug, whether one marries an ideal woman or a slut. In spiritual issues, a trader is a man who does not seek to be loved for his weaknesses or flaws, only for his virtues, and who does not grant his love to the weaknesses or the flaws of others, only to their virtues.

One can put it that way; I will just ignore how Ayn Rand makes her assertions look bad to read and cut to what she wants to say; we love people because we see the good in them; however, it also involves accepting their weaknesses and flaws. It doesn't mean we'll love them for their flaws; we're merely accepting them for who they are. I'm also starting to get irritated by how Ayn Rand uses the word "altruist."

To love is to value. Only a rationally selfish man, a man of self-esteem, is capable of love—because he is the only man capable of holding firm, consistent, uncompromising, unbetrayed values. The man who does not value himself, cannot value anything or anyone.

It is only on the basis of rational selfishness—on the basis of justice—that men can be fit to live together in a free, peaceful, prosperous, benevolent, rational society.

Let's recall the definition of rational selfishness.

"The Objectivist ethics proudly advocates and upholds rational selfishness—which means: the values required for man’s survival qua man—which means: the values required for human survival—not the values produced by the desires, the emotions, the “aspirations,” the feelings, the whims or the needs of irrational brutes, who have never outgrown the primordial practice of human sacrifices, have never discovered an industrial society and can conceive of no self-interest but that of grabbing the loot of the moment."

"Value" here is taken to mean "something or someone to be treasured." Earlier examinations will attest to this; after all, Ayn Rand was not able to prove any moral values from the facts of reality-- wait, if that is so... if "value" in this definition of rational selfishness is only "something or someone to be treasured," how can Ayn Rand insist that only a rationally selfish man can hold good moral values? You can tell that Rand is talking about "values" as "manners" there because of the words "firm," "consistent," "uncompromising," and "unbetrayed." How can Ayn Rand insist such a thing without a firm basis?

The same goes with the second part; how can Ayn Rand insist that only in a rationally selfish society can have good moral values (you can tell that by the adjectives used), when Ayn Rand has no firm basis?

The latter part of Ayn Rand's paper is mainly about the politics of Objectivism, which is capitalism; something I advocate. To this extent, I can agree with most of Ayn Rand's views. However, I support capitalism not because of Ayn Rand (whose faulty reasoning I shall explain later), but because of economists like Adam Smith, Friedrich von Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, Frédéric Bastiat, Milton Friedman, among others.

Can man derive any personal benefit from living in a human society? Yes—if it is a human society. The two great values to be gained from social existence are: knowledge and trade. Man is the only species that can transmit and expand his store of knowledge from generation to generation; the knowledge potentially available to man is greater than any one man could begin to acquire in his own lifespan; every man gains an incalculable benefit from the knowledge discovered by others. The second great benefit is the division of labor: it enables a man to devote his effort to a particular field of work and to trade with others who specialize in other fields. This form of cooperation allows all men who take part in it to achieve a greater knowledge, skill and productive return on their effort than they could achieve if each had to produce everything he needs, on a desert island or on a self-sustaining farm.

But these very benefits indicate, delimit and define what kind of men can be of value to one another and in what kind of society: only rational, productive, independent men in a rational, productive, free society. Parasites, moochers, looters, brutes and thugs can be of no value to a human being—nor can he gain any benefit from living in a society geared to their needs, demands and protection, a society that treats him as a sacrificial animal and penalizes him for his virtues in order to reward them for their vices, which means: a society based on the ethics of altruism. No society can be of value to man’s life if the price is the surrender of his right to his life.

The basic political principle of the Objectivist ethics is: no man may initiate the use of physical force against others. No man—or group or society or government—has the right to assume the role of a criminal and initiate the use of physical compulsion against any man. Men have the right to use physical force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use. The ethical principle involved is simple and clear-cut: it is the difference between murder and self-defense. A holdup man seeks to gain a value, wealth, by killing his victim; the victim does not grow richer by killing a holdup man. The principle is: no man may obtain any values from others by resorting to physical force.

I agree with most of what these paragraphs has to say. However, I must clarify two important things.

1. Ayn Rand used the concept of altruism to initiate a false dichotomy. I shall explain this later.
2. One must recognize the necessity of government taxation to a certain extent in the maintenance of crucial but unprofitable components of society (public roads, traffic lights, prisons, courts, space exploration, etc.) This is a basic economic principle. This must be clarified because Ayn Rand makes it look like absolutely everything must be done according to choice; in specific cases, it is more practical and cost-efficient to implement taxation at just the right degree.

The only proper, moral purpose of a government is to protect man’s rights, which means: to protect him from physical violence—to protect his right to his own life, to his own liberty, to his own property and to the pursuit of his own happiness. Without property rights, no other rights are possible.

Refer to number 2 above.

I will not attempt, in a brief lecture, to discuss the political theory of Objectivism. Those who are interested will find it presented in full detail in Atlas Shrugged. I will say only that every political system is based on and derived from a theory of ethics—and that the Objectivist ethics is the moral base needed by that politico-economic system which, today, is being destroyed all over the world, destroyed precisely for lack of a moral, philosophical defense and validation: the original American system, Capitalism. If it perishes, it will perish by default, undiscovered and unidentified: no other subject has ever been hidden by so many distortions, misconceptions and misrepresentations. Today, few people know what capitalism is, how it works and what was its actual history.

It is quite pompous of Ayn Rand to claim that Objectivism is the moral base needed by an ideal political system, when its principles aren't exactly original; several economists have already thought of the concept of free markets and minimal government. That is my only issue here.

When I say “capitalism,” I mean a full, pure, uncontrolled, unregulated laissez-faire capitalism—with a separation of state and economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as the separation of state and church. A pure system of capitalism has never yet existed, not even in America; various degrees of government control had been undercutting and distorting it from the start. Capitalism is not the system of the past; it is the system of the future—if mankind is to have a future.

Refer to my comment before this, as well as number 2 from a while back.

Ayn Rand then made a little advertisement for her book, For the New Intellectual, before proceeding to her ending statements. Not that I find any issues with it.

The present discussion has to be confined to the subject of ethics. I have presented the barest essentials of my system, but they are sufficient to indicate in what manner the Objectivist ethics is the morality of life—as against the three major schools of ethical theory, the mystic, the social, the subjective, which have brought the world to its present state and which represent the morality of death.

These three schools differ only in their method of approach, not in their content. In content, they are merely variants of altruism, the ethical theory which regards man as a sacrificial animal, which holds that man has no right to exist for his own sake, that service to others is the only justification of his existence, and that self-sacrifice is his highest moral duty, virtue and value. The differences occur only over the question of who is to be sacrificed to whom. Altruism holds death as its ultimate goal and standard of value—and it is logical that renunciation, resignation, self-denial, and every other form of suffering, including self-destruction, are the virtues it advocates. And, logically, these are the only things that the practitioners of altruism have achieved and are achieving now.

Observe that these three schools of ethical theory are anti-life, not merely in content, but also in their method of approach.

Here comes the gist of Ayn Rand's clever use of the false dichotomy fallacy. Hold your horses, Objectivists (if you're reading this). I'm getting to it.

The mystic theory of ethics is explicitly based on the premise that the standard of value of man’s ethics is set beyond the grave, by the laws or requirements of another, supernatural dimension, that ethics is impossible for man to practice, that it is unsuited for and opposed to man’s life on earth, and that man must take the blame for it and suffer through the whole of his earthly existence, to atone for the guilt of being unable to practice the impracticable. The Dark Ages and the Middle Ages are the existential monument to this theory of ethics.

I'm not an expert in theology or the doctrine of Christianity, but the majority of Christian teachings reject the necessity of man to suffer, but only to confess his sins and try to live a happy but godly life. I do not intend to defend the merits of Christianity here; I just want to show that Ayn Rand needlessly put this kind of ethics in an unreasonably negative light by the usage of heavy words.

The social theory of ethics substitutes “society” for God—and although it claims that its chief concern is life on earth, it is not the life of man, not the life of an individual, but the life of a disembodied entity, the collective, which, in relation to every individual, consists of everybody except himself. As far as the individual is concerned, his ethical duty is to be the selfless, voiceless, rightless slave of any need, claim or demand asserted by others. The motto “dog eat dog”—which is not applicable to capitalism nor to dogs—is applicable to the social theory of ethics. The existential monuments to this theory are Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia.

Ayn Rand is wrong about "dog eat dog;" this adage means everyone is forced to fight one another for survival; meanwhile, her definition of social theory of ethics involves people willingly sacrificing themselves for the greater good; there's a stark difference between the two. Although I guess I can agree with her here; after all, I reject communism.

The subjectivist theory of ethics is, strictly speaking, not a theory, but a negation of ethics. And more: it is a negation of reality, a negation not merely of man’s existence, but of all existence. Only the concept of a fluid, plastic, indeterminate, Heraclitean universe could permit anyone to think or to preach that man needs no objective principles of action—that reality gives him a blank check on values—that anything he cares to pick as the good or the evil, will do—that a man’s whim is a valid moral standard, and that the only question is how to get away with it. The existential monument to this theory is the present state of our culture.

Ayn Rand, as was shown earlier, did nothing to prove that adopting a subjective perspective of morality is logically fallacious, that it rejects reality, that it rejects man's existence and stuff like that. In fact, she herself became subjective in the course of her discussion of her philosophy. She can call it bad all she wants (and become somewhat of a hypocrite), but that's it.

It is not men’s immorality that is responsible for the collapse now threatening to destroy the civilized world, but the kind of moralities men have been asked to practice. The responsibility belongs to the philosophers of altruism. They have no cause to be shocked by the spectacle of their own success, and no right to damn human nature: men have obeyed them and have brought their moral ideals into full reality.

It is philosophy that sets men’s goals and determines their course; it is only philosophy that can save them now. Today, the world is facing a choice: if civilization is to survive, it is the altruist morality that men have to reject.

I will close with the words of John Galt, which I address, as he did, to all the moralists of altruism, past or present: “You have been using fear as your weapon and have been bringing death to man as his punishment for rejecting your morality. We offer him life as his reward for accepting ours.”

Many Objectivists claim that Ayn Rand is the best champion of capitalism because she allegedly defended it on moral grounds. I dissent; yes, she praised capitalism by linking it to her philosophy (note that capitalism does not need Objectivism to be legitimate), calling the most just system, which is true, but what really substantiates her defense of capitalism is not how good capitalism is, but how bad the philosophy of altruism is, whatever she meant by "altruism." Altruism looks so bad, it makes capitalism look better by comparison. But what does altruism really mean?

Oxford dictionary defines altruism as follows:

1. disinterested and selfless concern for the well-being of others:

2. (Zoology) behaviour of an animal that benefits another at its own expense:

reciprocal altruism

(Source: Link)

It's a no-brainer that the second definition smacks of Objectivism. Ayn Rand says that altruism is a moral code where you sacrifice yourself for the good of others. But the second definition is in the context of zoology; does Ayn Rand consider us animals? But Objectivists can't assert that; Ayn Rand clearly distinguished man apart from animals in the earlier part of her paper.

Now, let's consider the first definition. Does the first definition logically imply that the altruist will sacrifice himself for the good of others? Perhaps... or perhaps not. It depends on the degree of selflessness. The only remaining thing that can settle remaining contentions is to inspect whether the philosophers Ayn Rand accuses of causing the gradual decay of our civilization do support altruism as Ayn Rand defined.

Auguste Comte who coined the term "altruism" did seem pretty extreme with his "selfless" morality.

[The] social point of view cannot tolerate the notion of rights, for such notion rests on individualism. We are born under a load of obligations of every kind, to our predecessors, to our successors, to our contemporaries. After our birth these obligations increase or accumulate, for it is some time before we can return any service.... This ["to live for others"], the definitive formula of human morality, gives a direct sanction exclusively to our instincts of benevolence, the common source of happiness and duty. [Man must serve] Humanity, whose we are entirely."

So Ayn Rand was right about the altruism part? Not really. Yes, Comte was the one who coined the term "altruism," but the following must be considered:

1. Comte is not just the only proponent of altruism. Besides, Ayn Rand said "philosophers of altruism," so she must have known about this. However, the known philosophers who advocate altruism at a certain extent does not even adhere to Ayn Rand's version of altruism.

The central point of Kantian ethics is duty, not altruism. According to Immanuel Kant, morality is present when you do things out of duty (e.g., a mother takes care of children because it's her job to do so), which clearly does not imply the necessity of self-sacrifice. Furthermore, he argues that man should be considered an end, not merely a means to the ends of others. (Third Formulation, Categorical Imperative)

Meanwhile, utilitarians like Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill merely promote the good for the greatest number; nothing more. Such a concept does not necessitate self-sacrifice. The fact that Ayn Rand associated her version of altruism with all the philosophers who advocate altruism to a certain degree is a crime against logic; this is hasty generalization, a strong misinterpretation of facts. But the chain of fallacies do not stop here.

Ayn Rand committed the fallacy of false dichotomy. Implying that man has to choose between the philosophy of altruism and her own philosophy, Objectivism, when a good number of in-between philosophies exist, is a vivid example of such a fallacy. Not only this misinforms the people, Ayn Rand also betrays the virtue of Honesty (which she herself advocates), and slanders the reputation of other philosophers as well. Ayn Rand has committed a grave mistake as a philosopher.

---

So I guess this is where my little philosophical scrutiny ends, since Ayn Rand's paper ends here. As you can see, I don't consider Ayn Rand as entirely bad; I agree with some of her points, I mostly agree with her politics, but what irks me is the way she derides other philosophers of being evil and irrational without logical proof. What irks me is her arrogant display of "objectivity," when she is as subjective as the philosophers she accuses of being so; at least the other philosophers acknowledge the limits of their reasoning.

If Ayn Rand did one good thing, perhaps it's that she helped renew humanity's interest in philosophy, which is usually dismissed as a boring subject. However, as far as her actual philosophy is concerned, well, it has a substantial amount of ambiguities, inconsistencies, incoherence, and even actual fallacies. Ayn Rand did help develop the realm of philosophy in her own way, but to deify her and treat her as if she is the best philosopher in the world, that she is the philosophical messiah or something, that is something I simply cannot accept. As an enthusiast of philosophy, I will do my best to expose injustices being perpetrated in the subject that I love.

Examining Ayn Rand's Paper: Part 3

2012-04-14T04:53:00.003-07:00

Continuing the scrutiny of Ayn Rand's paper:

But man’s responsibility goes still further: a process of thought is not automatic nor “instinctive” nor involuntary—nor infallible. Man has to initiate it, to sustain it and to bear responsibility for its results. He has to discover how to tell what is true or false and hfow to correct his own errors; he has to discover how to validate his concepts, his conclusions, his knowledge; he has to discover the rules of thought, the laws of logic, to direct his thinking. Nature gives him no automatic guarantee of the efficacy of his mental effort.

Who or what gave man this responsibility? I just would like to know, just to be sure Ayn Rand truly knew what she was talking about. What makes the process of validating one's concepts, conclusions and knowledge necessary? I'm not being anti-intellectual, I am simply being curious as to how Ayn Rand came up with the notion that such things are absolutely important. What makes them important? Because you will die unless you do otherwise? That's not true; otherwise, we'll all be rational scientists. How would you explain the existence of people who are considered as "dumb"?

Also, Ayn Rand is giving humanity too much credit. Just when did humanity take the concept of truth very seriously? Since when did humanity become systematic with its scientific research; when did humanity adopt the scientific method? Since when did humanity discover the rules of mathematical logic and the concept of "philosophy"? It's true that nature didn't readily give us the mindset necessary to obtain all of this knowledge, but early mankind didn't actually need such advanced knowledge to get by in the beginning! Man in his early years relied heavily on intuitive thinking, even luck to survive (testing edible plants, the accidental discovery of cooking, etc.). If what Ayn Rand said is true, that the systematic assessment of knowledge and concepts is absolutely important for survival, then we shouldn't even exist in the first place.

Let me lend Ayn Rand a hand here. Reason is important; reason is important for us to advance as a civilization, to improve our lifestyles and to know more about reality. However, as far as prehistoric times are concerned, mankind hardly used reason as Ayn Rand envisioned.

Nothing is given to man on earth except a potential and the material on which to actualize it. The potential is a superlative machine: his consciousness; but it is a machine without a spark plug, a machine of which his own will has to be the spark plug, the self-starter and the driver; he has to discover how to use it and he has to keep it in constant action. The material is the whole of the universe, with no limits set to the knowledge he can acquire and to the enjoyment of life he can achieve. But everything he needs or desires has to be learned, discovered and produced by him—by his own choice, by his own effort, by his own mind.

I agree with this paragraph, although Gödel's theorem demonstrates that there is always a limit to what we can know. To know more about this theorem, you can visit this article of mine. Also, I find the last sentence to be quite problematic.

But everything he needs or desires has to be learned, discovered and produced by him—by his own choice, by his own effort, by his own mind.

If Ayn Rand meant this so that man can rationally and properly deduce its needs and desires for his self-preservation, then she's right; however, this is not absolutely necessary; people can have irrational desires and needs and still survive.

A being who does not know automatically what is true or false, cannot know automatically what is right or wrong, what is good for him or evil. Yet he needs that knowledge in order to live. He is not exempt from the laws of reality, he is a specific organism of a specific nature that requires specific actions to sustain his life. He cannot achieve his survival by arbitrary means nor by random motions nor by blind urges nor by chance nor by whim. That which his survival requires is set by his nature and is not open to his choice. What is open to his choice is only whether he will discover it or not, whether he will choose the right goals and values or not. He is free to make the wrong choice, but not free to succeed with it. He is free to evade reality, he is free to unfocus his mind and stumble blindly down any road he pleases, but not free to avoid the abyss he refuses to see. Knowledge, for any conscious organism, is the means of survival; to a living consciousness, every “is” implies an “ought.” Man is free to choose not to be conscious, but not free to escape the penalty of unconsciousness: destruction. Man is the only living species that has the power to act as his own destroyer—and that is the way he has acted through most of his history.

The first sentence, I suspect, is the consequence of Ayn Rand's fallacious refutation of the is-ought problem. Plain truth can't give you the knowledge of right and wrong; an is cannot give you an ought. Meanwhile, as to good and evil, it depends; if we're talking about good and evil in terms of self-preservation, then the truth can provide you with the ought to meet the good in terms of self-preservation.

It is true that cows are herbivores. Therefore, grass is good for their self-preservation. However, that's it. You can't produce any moral output from the truth. Anyway, I agree with this part of the paragraph:

He cannot achieve his survival by arbitrary means nor by random motions nor by blind urges nor by chance nor by whim. That which his survival requires is set by his nature and is not open to his choice. What is open to his choice is only whether he will discover it or not, whether he will choose the right goals and values or not. He is free to make the wrong choice, but not free to succeed with it. He is free to evade reality, he is free to unfocus his mind and stumble blindly down any road he pleases, but not free to avoid the abyss he refuses to see.

It's true that man cannot survive by being random and stuff, without a definite goal, but it must be stressed that it does not necessitate that man needs to meet Rand's vision of reason. Remember; early mankind survived mostly by intuition, even luck, as well as his bodily resistance. I have no problems with the rest of this paragraph.

Knowledge, for any conscious organism, is the means of survival; to a living consciousness, every “is” implies an “ought.” Man is free to choose not to be conscious, but not free to escape the penalty of unconsciousness: destruction.

Just take note that when it comes to knowledge; an is will give you an "ought" strictly in relation with the is; no moral output is produced. Only facts are derived from facts. Theobromine is poisonous to dogs; therefore, dogs ought not to eat chocolate if it wants to live. No morality is derived from a fact.

I'll just leave the second sentence alone. It's probable that Ayn Rand meant "unconsciousness" to be "mental lethargy" or something.

Man is the only living species that has the power to act as his own destroyer—and that is the way he has acted through most of his history.

Contentious. Scientific evidence shows that some animals are also capable of suicide, although this phenomenon is yet to be confirmed.

What, then, are the right goals for man to pursue? What are the values his survival requires? That is the question to be answered by the science of ethics. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why man needs a code of ethics.

Ladies and gentlemen, this bold declaration is actually fallacious. Ethics deals with "values," taken to mean "manners." However, all Ayn Rand did was to discuss "value," taken to mean "something or someone to be treasured." There is an equivocation here. Suddenly, without warning, Ayn Rand meant values to mean manners, when it was originally taken to mean otherwise. This argument of hers does not hold up, if her previous arguments are to be considered. Ayn Rand proved that man, in surviving, obtains a set of "values;" things to be treasured. However, nowhere did Ayn Rand prove that man, in surviving, obtains a set of "values," or proper manners. Ayn Rand did not prove that man needs ethics.

Now you can assess the meaning of the doctrines which tell you that ethics is the province of the irrational, that reason cannot guide man’s life, that his goals and values should be chosen by vote or by whim—that ethics has nothing to do with reality, with existence, with one’s practical actions and concerns—or that the goal of ethics is beyond the grave, that the dead need ethics, not the living.

Yes, I can assess it just fine, and I can also assess one thing; Ayn Rand didn't prove that a logical connection between morality and reality exists.

Ethics is not a mystic fantasy—nor a social convention—nor a dispensable, subjective luxury, to be switched or discarded in any emergency. Ethics is an objective, metaphysical necessity of man’s survival—not by the grace of the supernatural nor of your neighbors nor of your whims, but by the grace of reality and the nature of life.

I quote from Galt’s speech: “Man has been called a rational being, but rationality is a matter of choice—and the alternative his nature offers him is: rational being or suicidal animal. Man has to be man—by choice; he has to hold his life as a value—by choice; he has to learn to sustain it—by choice; he has to discover the values it requires and practice his virtues—by choice. A code of values accepted by choice is a code of morality.”

I spy... a contradiction. First, Ayn Rand declared that ethics is an objective, metaphysical necessity of man's survival. Let's just set aside the fact that Ayn Rand didn't even prove that man actually needs ethics. Focus on the the word "objective."

Meanwhile, according to John Galt, man can actually choose a code of values based on his decisions. Why, this simply proves that there is no absolute moral code that can completely define ethics; Ayn Rand actually contradicted herself. Of course, Objectivists can assert that Ayn Rand's brand of ethics is objective; but that's exactly the point. It means that there are other brands of ethics out there, even if they're not objective. It's possible that Objectivism is objective (although this objectivity is increasingly dubious as my scrutiny progresses), but Ayn Rand wasn't able to prove that ethics itself is objective.

The standard of value of the Objectivist ethics—the standard by which one judges what is good or evil—is man’s life, or: that which is required for man’s survival qua man.

Now I guess we have an official change in the meaning of value; value now means "proper manners." Also, Ayn Rand seems to stick to her faulty logic that a moral ought can derived from an is.

Since reason is man’s basic means of survival, that which is proper to the life of a rational being is the good; that which negates, opposes or destroys it is the evil.

Non-sequitur.

Since everything man needs has to be discovered by his own mind and produced by his own effort, the two essentials of the method of survival proper to a rational being are: thinking and productive work.

It is not necessary that man discover what he needs by rational thinking; after all, man discovered many things by intuition or accidents. However, I can agree to the latter part of this sentence: the two essentials of the method of survival proper to a rational being are: thinking and productive work.

If some men do not choose to think, but survive by imitating and repeating, like trained animals, the routine of sounds and motions they learned from others, never making an effort to understand their own work, it still remains true that their survival is made possible only by those who did choose to think and to discover the motions they are repeating. The survival of such mental parasites depends on blind chance; their unfocused minds are unable to know whom to imitate, whose motions it is safe to follow. They are the men who march into the abyss, trailing after any destroyer who promises them to assume the responsibility they evade: the responsibility of being conscious.

But what if the imitator is imitating another imitator, who in turn, imitates the actual rational man? But still, I get Ayn Rand's point. A man who blindly imitates someone is left at that someone's mercy, and their well-being depends on that someone, which, by extension, means that their well-being depends on chance.

The men who attempt to survive, not by means of reason, but by means of force, are attempting to survive by the method of animals. But just as animals would not be able to survive by attempting the method of plants, by rejecting locomotion and waiting for the soil to feed them—so men cannot survive by attempting the method of animals, by rejecting reason and counting on productive men to serve as their prey. Such looters may achieve their goals for the range of a moment, at the price of destruction: the destruction of their victims and their own. As evidence, I offer you any criminal or any dictatorship.

So men cannot survive by attempting the method of animals? Not true, because in a biological sense, we're also animals. Of course we'll be primitive creatures, but as far as actual "living" is concerned, Ayn Rand's assertion is false. Also, I find the last part of the paragraph quite problematic. How exactly does looting destroy oneself? Does he actually die the moment he loots? And what kind of evidence is any criminal or any dictatorship? Criminals died at the hands of the law, not because of the actual act of committing a crime.

Man cannot survive, like an animal, by acting on the range of the moment. An animal’s life consists of a series of separate cycles, repeated over and over again, such as the cycle of breeding its young, or of storing food for the winter; an animal’s consciousness cannot integrate its entire lifespan; it can carry just so far, then the animal has to begin the cycle all over again, with no connection to the past. Man’s life is a continuous whole: for good or evil, every day, year and decade of his life holds the sum of all the days behind him. He can alter his choices, he is free to change the direction of his course, he is even free, in many cases, to atone for the consequences of his past—but he is not free to escape them, nor to live his life with impunity on the range of the moment, like an animal, a playboy or a thug. If he is to succeed at the task of survival, if his actions are not to be aimed at his own destruction, man has to choose his course, his goals, his values in the context and terms of a lifetime. No sensations, percepts, urges or “instincts” can do it; only a mind can.

Ayn Rand should stop with the "not surviving" thing. Man can survive like an animal, it's just that our utterly sophisticated minds enable us to transcend the monotony of animal lifestyle.

Such is the meaning of the definition: that which is required for man’s survival qua man. It does not mean a momentary or a merely physical survival. It does not mean the momentary physical survival of a mindless brute, waiting for another brute to crush his skull. It does not mean the momentary physical survival of a crawling aggregate of muscles who is willing to accept any terms, obey any thug and surrender any values, for the sake of what is known as “survival at any price,” which may or may not last a week or a year. “Man’s survival qua man” means the terms, methods, conditions and goals required for the survival of a rational being through the whole of his lifespan—in all those aspects of existence which are open to his choice.

I only have one question about this paragraph; John Galt demonstrated that man has a choice to be rational. Therefore, rationality does not encompass the entirety of mankind. Also, man is capable of being a brute or a thug or whatever. Furthermore, Ayn Rand didn't show any proof that being a brute or a thug is not in accordance with being human... well, in any case, she can't, since rationality by her own argument is a choice; the other choice, inevitably, is irrationality. Well, what's stopping someone from logically assuming that brutishness is in accordance with man's survival qua man?

Man cannot survive as anything but man. He can abandon his means of survival, his mind, he can turn himself into a subhuman creature and he can turn his life into a brief span of agony—just as his body can exist for a while in the process of disintegration by disease. But he cannot succeed, as a subhuman, in achieving anything but the subhuman—as the ugly horror of the antirational periods of mankind’s history can demonstrate. Man has to be man by choice—and it is the task of ethics to teach him how to live like man.

This paragraph can be understood if Ayn Rand would be so kind as to define what the standard of "man" is; what makes a man, well, a "man"? Rationality is a choice, therefore, man can be rational, but not absolutely rational. The same principle goes with irrationality. What then, is an objective standard of being a man? Whatever Ayn Rand's answer is, it does not help the case of her philosophy's "objective" nature. She's starting to be subjective.

The Objectivist ethics holds man’s life as the standard of value—and his own life as the ethical purpose of every individual man.

The difference between “standard” and “purpose” in this context is as follows: a “standard” is an abstract principle that serves as a measurement or gauge to guide a man’s choices in the achievement of a concrete, specific purpose. “That which is required for the survival of man qua man” is an abstract principle that applies to every individual man. The task of applying this principle to a concrete, specific purpose—the purpose of living a life proper to a rational being—belongs to every individual man, and the life he has to live is his own.

Man must choose his actions, values and goals by the standard of that which is proper to man—in order to achieve, maintain, fulfill and enjoy that ultimate value, that end in itself, which is his own life.

First sentence; Ayn Rand can of course assume it, that life is the ethical purpose of man, that life is the standard of value of Objectivism, but know that she didn't provide any proof that will attribute objectivity to her advocacy, which only increases the subjectivity of her philosophy.

I have no problems with the second part, although keep in mind what I've said about her not being objective anymore. The same thing goes with the last part.

Value is that which one acts to gain and/or keep—virtue is the act by which one gains and/or keeps it. The three cardinal values of the Objectivist ethics—the three values which, together, are the means to and the realization of one’s ultimate value, one’s own life—are: Reason, Purpose, Self-Esteem, with their three corresponding virtues: Rationality, Productiveness, Pride.

There is once again a shift in meaning in the word "value." Value is once again taken to mean "something or someone to be treasured." Meanwhile, the definition of virtue is fine. Thankfully, new terms were introduced, making things a little more interesting. Let's press on with the scrutiny.

Productive work is the central purpose of a rational man’s life, the central value that integrates and determines the hierarchy of all his other values. Reason is the source, the precondition of his productive work—pride is the result.

Rationality is man’s basic virtue, the source of all his other virtues. Man’s basic vice, the source of all his evils, is the act of unfocusing his mind, the suspension of his consciousness, which is not blindness, but the refusal to see, not ignorance, but the refusal to know. Irrationality is the rejection of man’s means of survival and, therefore, a commitment to a course of blind destruction; that which is anti-mind, is anti-life.

First paragraph: Non-sequitur. It's plausible to think that reason leads to productive work, but pride most certainly does not follow from reason and productive work. What if diligence resulted to humility instead?

Second paragraph: Ayn Rand can assume that rationality is man's basic virtue (which is consistent given how she defined virtue), but know that this does not necessarily follow from what she has said previously. Meanwhile, I challenge the notion that irrationality rejects man's means of survival; as I've said a while back, early mankind made use of his intuition, even dumb luck, to survive, both of which can hardly be classified as rational.

--To be continued--

Examining Ayn Rand's Paper: Part 2

2012-04-14T01:40:00.006-07:00

Now, let's continue dissecting Ayn Rand's paper regarding her philosophy. We pick up the pace starting from my refutation of her solving the is-ought problem.

Now in what manner does a human being discover the concept of “value”? By what means does he first become aware of the issue of “good or evil” in its simplest form? By means of the physical sensations of pleasure or pain. Just as sensations are the first step of the development of a human consciousness in the realm of cognition, so they are its first step in the realm of evaluation.

Oh, I see Ayn Rand acknowledges the philosophy of hedonism, which determines good and evil through pleasure and pain. I'm willing to tag along for the time being.

The capacity to experience pleasure or pain is innate in a man’s body; it is part of his nature, part of the kind of entity he is. He has no choice about it, and he has no choice about the standard that determines what will make him experience the physical sensation of pleasure or of pain. What is that standard? His life.

Okay, I agree. The ability to experience pleasure and pain is innate in our physiology; there is nothing we can do about it. Although what confuses me is how Ayn Rand suddenly inserted the notion of life as a standard. What did she exactly mean by that? All I can say for sure that life is a prerequisite for the experience of pleasure and pain, Perhaps this is what she meant.

The pleasure-pain mechanism in the body of man—and in the bodies of all the living organisms that possess the faculty of consciousness—serves as an automatic guardian of the organism’s life. The physical sensation of pleasure is a signal indicating that the organism is pursuing the right course of action. The physical sensation of pain is a warning signal of danger, indicating that the organism is pursuing the wrong course of action, that something is impairing the proper function of its body, which requires action to correct it. The best illustration of this can be seen in the rare, freak cases of children who are born without the capacity to experience physical pain; such children do not survive for long; they have no means of discovering what can injure them, no warning signals, and thus a minor cut can develop into a deadly infection, or a major illness can remain undetected until it is too late to fight it.

I agree that the pleasure-pain mechanism serves as a signal that can help an organism preserve its own life (biological existence). Although I must clarify that feeling pleasure does not necessitate that you're pursuing the right course of action (it must be specified that this action is aimed towards self-preservation). Same goes with feeling pain. An example of pleasure which does not help self-preservation is getting high from drugs. Meanwhile, receiving booster shots can be painful, but they're good for you. I agree with her illustration; not being able to feel pain does not help you survive; in fact, it puts your life in constant danger.

Consciousness—for those living organisms which possess it—is the basic means of survival.

This is a pretty problematic statement. Simply staying awake... staying conscious, won't ensure your survival. You can say that consciousness for those--living organisms which possess it-- is the prerequisite for survival. A conscious organism must be, well, conscious for it to start surviving, but that is also not true. After all, we need to sleep, which is a state of unconsciousness. Does this mean we're killing ourselves when we sleep?

The simpler organisms, such as plants, can survive by means of their automatic physical functions. The higher organisms, such as animals and man, cannot: their needs are more complex and the range of their actions is wider. The physical functions of their bodies can perform automatically only the task of using fuel, but cannot obtain that fuel. To obtain it, the higher organisms need the faculty of consciousness. A plant can obtain its food from the soil in which it grows. An animal has to hunt for it. Man has to produce it.

I'll be lenient with this paragraph and let this slide. It seems pretty okay, anyway.

A plant has no choice of action; the goals it pursues are automatic and innate, determined by its nature. Nourishment, water, sunlight are the values its nature has set it to seek. Its life is the standard of value directing its actions. There are alternatives in the conditions it encounters in its physical background—such as heat or frost, drought or flood—and there are certain actions which it is able to perform to combat adverse conditions, such as the ability of some plants to grow and crawl from under a rock to reach the sunlight. But whatever the conditions, there is no alternative in a plant’s function: it acts automatically to further its life, it cannot act for its own destruction.

Given the fact that plants have no brains, we can safely assume that they are incapable of making conscious decisions; actions which require the existence of a mind. Thus, it can also be said that its physiology only acts for its self-preservation, without being conscious of such an act.

The range of actions required for the survival of the higher organisms is wider: it is proportionate to the range of their consciousness. The lower of the conscious species possess only the faculty of sensation, which is sufficient to direct their actions and provide for their needs. A sensation is produced by the automatic reaction of a sense organ to a stimulus from the outside world; it lasts for the duration of the immediate moment, as long as the stimulus lasts and no longer. Sensations are an automatic response, an automatic form of knowledge, which a consciousness can neither seek nor evade. An organism that possesses only the faculty of sensation is guided by the pleasure-pain mechanism of its body, that is: by an automatic knowledge and an automatic code of values. Its life is the standard of value directing its actions. Within the range of action possible to it, it acts automatically to further its life and cannot act for its own destruction.

I can agree to this paragraph, although counter-instances might exist, which I have no knowledge of. Feel free to share me some if you have them.

The higher organisms possess a much more potent form of consciousness: they possess the faculty of retaining sensations, which is the faculty of perception. A “perception” is a group of sensations automatically retained and integrated by the brain of a living organism, which gives it the ability to be aware, not of single stimuli, but of entities, of things. An animal is guided, not merely by immediate sensations, but by percepts. Its actions are not single, discrete responses to single, separate stimuli, but are directed by an integrated awareness of the perceptual reality confronting it. It is able to grasp the perceptual concretes immediately present and it is able to form automatic perceptual associations, but it can go no further. It is able to learn certain skills to deal with specific situations, such as hunting or hiding, which the parents of the higher animals teach their young. But an animal has no choice in the knowledge and the skills that it acquires; it can only repeat them generation after generation. And an animal has no choice in the standard of value directing its actions: its senses provide it with an automatic code of values, an automatic knowledge of what is good for it or evil, what benefits or endangers its life. An animal has no power to extend its knowledge or to evade it. In situations for which its knowledge is inadequate, it perishes—as, for instance, an animal that stands paralyzed on the track of a railroad in the path of a speeding train. But so long as it lives, an animal acts on its knowledge, with automatic safety and no power of choice: it cannot suspend its own consciousness—it cannot choose not to perceive—it cannot evade its own perceptions—it cannot ignore its own good, it cannot decide to choose the evil and act as its own destroyer.

I'll leave the majority of this paragraph to the scrutiny of zoologists, but I must object to this sentence:

But an animal has no choice in the knowledge and the skills that it acquires; it can only repeat them generation after generation.

Not all animals learn to survive by rote. Countless scientific experiments demonstrated that some animals actually think of something new. They can use their memory to suit their purposes. They can devise new ways of catching food, given specific parameters and obstacles. Experiments showed that some animals, to some degree, are capable of reason.

Objectivists can check out Kanzi, the bonobo. I have also watched documentaries in my philosophy class about dolphins who can follow commands even if the order's been jumbled up; they followed the commands in a different order, without learning it by rote. Science has shown that, while not as sophisticated as humans, some animals are also capable of analysis.

Man has no automatic code of survival. He has no automatic course of action, no automatic set of values. His senses do not tell him automatically what is good for him or evil, what will benefit his life or endanger it, what goals he should pursue and what means will achieve them, what values his life depends on, what course of action it requires. His own consciousness has to discover the answers to all these questions—but his consciousness will not function automatically. Man, the highest living species on this earth—the being whose consciousness has a limitless capacity for gaining knowledge—man is the only living entity born without any guarantee of remaining conscious at all. Man’s particular distinction from all other living species is the fact that his consciousness is volitional.

Huh? But a while ago Ayn Rand said that man can know good and evil in their simplest forms through pleasure and pain? The pleasure-pain mechanism is innate in us humans. What does Ayn Rand mean when she said that man's senses do not automatically tell him what will benefit his life or endanger it? What about a newborn who instinctively looks for his or her mother's breast for milk? We humans, like animals, also have built-in survival mechanisms. What I also don't understand is the last part of this paragraph.

"...man is the only living entity born without any guarantee of remaining conscious at all. Man’s particular distinction from all other living species is the fact that his consciousness is volitional."

What does she exactly mean by man being the only organism born without the guarantee of being conscious? Well, maybe a human baby might die while a mother is giving birth, but this also happens to animals. But that's also the cornerstone of my other objection; a baby, just like any human being, has no choice of living or dying. We all die. We have a choice of speeding up our deaths or slowing them down. That's all. Consciousness isn't entirely volitional; it's true we can choose to sleep and be unconscious, wake up and be conscious, but we can't choose to be conscious when we die. This is a major hole in Ayn Rand's epistemology.

Just as the automatic values directing the functions of a plant’s body are sufficient for its survival, but are not sufficient for an animal’s—so the automatic values provided by the sensory-perceptual mechanism of its consciousness are sufficient to guide an animal, but are not sufficient for man. Man’s actions and survival require the guidance of conceptual values derived from conceptual knowledge. But conceptual knowledge cannot be acquired automatically.

This is not true. While we're higher than animals in terms of mental acuity, there is a choice for us to live like animals and still survive, although the effectiveness is dramatically lower. But we didn't do such a thing; why? Is it because we inevitably need a higher form of knowledge to survive? Not really; we can just imitate the animals and live in the woods or something, although, as I've said before, the effectiveness is lower. We progressed to become more intelligent because we can; our physiology provided us with the opportunity to become what we are today.

A “concept” is a mental integration of two or more perceptual concretes, which are isolated by a process of abstraction and united by means of a specific definition. Every word of man’s language, with the exception of proper names, denotes a concept, an abstraction that stands for an unlimited number of concretes of a specific kind. It is by organizing his perceptual material into concepts, and his concepts into wider and still wider concepts that man is able to grasp and retain, to identify and integrate an unlimited amount of knowledge, a knowledge extending beyond the immediate perceptions of any given, immediate moment. Man’s sense organs function automatically; man’s brain integrates his sense data into percepts automatically; but the process of integrating percepts into concepts—the process of abstraction and of concept-formation—is not automatic.

Goodness, too much jargon. Anyway, as I understand it, a "concept" according to Ayn Rand is putting together a bunch of concrete things (things observable in one's surroundings), analyzing them with your mind and coming up with a united set of ideas based on existing definitions. For example, you can formulate your concept of beauty by observing a bunch of ladies and analyzing whether they are viable mates. In the process, you come up via analysis that you consider specific characteristics as "beautiful," and so you end up with a set of ideas, or characteristics that satisfies your concept of "beauty." Although it's obvious that not everyone gets the same sample of ladies, which is why the concept of "beauty" differs from culture to culture.

Ayn Rand says that it is through the formation of concepts that man is able to acquire knowledge. She also emphasizes that concept-formation is not automatic.

The process of concept-formation does not consist merely of grasping a few simple abstractions, such as “chair,” “table,” “hot,” “cold,” and of learning to speak. It consists of a method of using one’s consciousness, best designated by the term “conceptualizing.” It is not a passive state of registering random impressions. It is an actively sustained process of identifying one’s impressions in conceptual terms, of integrating every event and every observation into a conceptual context, of grasping relationships, differences, similarities in one’s perceptual material and of abstracting them into new concepts, of drawing inferences, of making deductions, of reaching conclusions, of asking new questions and discovering new answers and expanding one’s knowledge into an ever-growing sum. The faculty that directs this process, the faculty that works by means of concepts, is: reason. The process is thinking.

I guess I can agree with this. Seeking knowledge is an active action. You must be aware of what you are doing when seeking knowledge. And the faculty that is responsible for seeking knowledge via analysis and concept-formation is reason.

Reason is the faculty that identifies and integrates the material provided by man’s senses. It is a faculty that man has to exercise by choice. Thinking is not an automatic function. In any hour and issue of his life, man is free to think or to evade that effort. Thinking requires a state of full, focused awareness. The act of focusing one’s consciousness is volitional. Man can focus his mind to a full, active, purposefully directed awareness of reality—or he can unfocus it and let himself drift in a semiconscious daze, merely reacting to any chance stimulus of the immediate moment, at the mercy of his undirected sensory-perceptual mechanism and of any random, associational connections it might happen to make.

I guess this is where Ayn Rand begins to divulge on her so-called epistemology, which is reason. Her definition of reason is acceptable. Rational thinking is indeed not automatic. You have a choice to think things through or just stay dumb at your own risk. So far, so good.

When man unfocuses his mind, he may be said to be conscious in a subhuman sense of the word, since he experiences sensations and perceptions. But in the sense of the word applicable to man—in the sense of a consciousness which is aware of reality and able to deal with it, a consciousness able to direct the actions and provide for the survival of a human being—an unfocused mind is not conscious.

I must stress that reason, as shown earlier, is not exclusive to man. This is to challenge this part of the paragraph: "But in the sense of the word applicable to man—in the sense of a consciousness which is aware of reality and able to deal with it, a consciousness able to direct the actions and provide for the survival of a human being--"

The rest, I suspect, is a matter of semantics. An unfocused mind is not conscious? It depends on what Ayn Rand meant by "unfocused" and/or "conscious."

Psychologically, the choice “to think or not” is the choice “to focus or not.” Existentially, the choice “to focus or not” is the choice “to be conscious or not.” Metaphysically, the choice “to be conscious or not” is the choice of life or death.

My comment is best demonstrated by mathematical logic.

~ = Not

⊃ = Implies

T = Thinking

F = Focusing

C = Conscious

L = Life

D = Death

Premises:

(T v ~T)⊃(F v ~F)

(F v ~F)⊃(C v ~C)

(C v ~C)⊃(L v D)

Applying the principle of hypothetical syllogism to the first and second premise, I can conclude that (T v ~T)⊃(C v ~C); thinking or not thinking implies being conscious or not conscious. Applying this principle again to my new information with the last premise, I can conclude that (T v ~T)⊃(L v D); thinking or not thinking implies life or death. Given how Ayn Rand worded her paragraphs, I can say that she meant this; thinking means life; not thinking means death. Therefore, by Ayn Rand's argument, you die when you sleep. (Note that Ayn Rand meant thinking in a volitional sense, not the constant brain activity).

I just wanted to point out the absurdity that arose from this particular argument.

Consciousness—for those living organisms which possess it—is the basic means of survival. For man, the basic means of survival is reason. Man cannot survive, as animals do, by the guidance of mere percepts. A sensation of hunger will tell him that he needs food (if he has learned to identify it as “hunger”), but it will not tell him how to obtain his food and it will not tell him what food is good for him or poisonous. He cannot provide for his simplest physical needs without a process of thought. He needs a process of thought to discover how to plant and grow his food or how to make weapons for hunting. His percepts might lead him to a cave, if one is available—but to build the simplest shelter, he needs a process of thought. No percepts and no “instincts” will tell him how to light a fire, how to weave cloth, how to forge tools, how to make a wheel, how to make an airplane, how to perform an appendectomy, how to produce an electric light bulb or an electronic tube or a cyclotron or a box of matches. Yet his life depends on such knowledge—and only a volitional act of his consciousness, a process of thought, can provide it.

I have contested the first sentence in the earlier part of this article. I also challenge the sentences that followed. Man can survive by imitating animals, because we're also animals in a biological sense. Also, man does not need to identify the concept of "hunger" to do something about hunger. We living organisms have a built-in survival mechanism that addresses discomfort. Moreover, it's true that man cannot survive without thinking, but this is the same for animals. They are not programmed to automatically find food regardless of environmental conditions. They are also capable of cutting back on food should the need to do so arise, looking after their young, and hunting.

Also, Ayn Rand makes it look like our progression as a civilization is solely born out of a necessity to survive. I'm not a primitivist, mind you, but while there was a need for creativity for man to better adapt to nature, much of our technology today has been driven by curiosity and scientific accomplishment, not just the desire to survive, rendering Ayn Rand's argument contingent; it may be true in some cases, but not true in all cases. Was the invention of the wheel a matter of life and death? Not really, ancient people can suck it up and withstand the hardships of having no wheels. Yet we invented the wheel, and this is because our physiology provided us with the chance to become smarter creatures, and the chance to discover things not just to survive but simply for the sake of discovery. We can live without computers, although we'll be more primitive beings; but we'll still be able to live. Then why invent the computer? Perhaps money, but there is an element of the pure desire to discover.

--To be continued--

Examining Ayn Rand's Paper: Part 1

2012-04-13T10:46:00.005-07:00

I've come across a pretty interesting letter delivered by Ayn Rand at the University of Wisconsin Symposium. The talk was entitled "Ethics in Our Time," held at Madison, Wisconsin in February 9, 1961.

As we all know, Ayn Rand is the founder of the Objectivist philosophy, which espouses the morality of rational self-interest and free market capitalism. This paper is interesting, in a sense that this details quite succinctly (although the paper itself is miserably long) how Ayn Rand managed to come up with Objectivism in the first place. As a skeptic of this controversial philosopher, I found it imperative to scrutinize this paper, in hopes of digging some dirt or something.

Check this link to read the whole thing without my comments. I'll just proceed to contentious parts. Basically, the paper argues that the world is corrupt because of the wrong moral code, and that an objective and rational moral code must be pursued; Objectivism. The paper criticizes that the world's philosophers weren't able to define an objective and rational moral code, and instead concluded that morality is beyond the reach of logic, and that it is governed by human whims. Ayn Rand begs to differ.

Scrutinizing Rand's philosophy

To challenge the basic premise of any discipline, one must begin at the beginning. In ethics, one must begin by asking: What are values? Why does man need them?

I'll reserve my judgment for later, but... what did Ayn Rand mean by "values"? We'll see later.

“Value” is that which one acts to gain and/or keep. The concept “value” is not a primary; it presupposes an answer to the question: of value to whom and for what? It presupposes an entity capable of acting to achieve a goal in the face of an alternative. Where no alternative exists, no goals and no values are possible.

Okay, so Ayn Rand meant "value" as something or someone to be treasured. So far, so good; without a valuer, no one can treat anything as a "value": thus, a sentient being is required for values to technically exist.

I quote from Galt’s speech: “There is only one fundamental alternative in the universe: existence or nonexistence—and it pertains to a single class of entities: to living organisms. The existence of inanimate matter is unconditional, the existence of life is not: it depends on a specific course of action. Matter is indestructible, it changes its forms, but it cannot cease to exist. It is only a living organism that faces a constant alternative: the issue of life or death. Life is a process of self-sustaining and self-generated action. If an organism fails in that action, it dies; its chemical elements remain, but its life goes out of existence. It is only the concept of ‘Life’ that makes the concept of ‘Value’ possible. It is only to a living entity that things can be good or evil.”

Precision is important in philosophy, so I think I'll nitpick a little here. I think it's okay to leave the "existence or nonexistence" part alone, but what I don't quite understand is the part that this principle only applies to living entities. How can John Galt (Ayn Rand) say that the existence of inanimate matter is unconditional? They are un-caused? We can cause an inanimate matter to exist; we humans make toasters. Rain erodes soil, which is carried into the river to settle down and become sedimentary rocks. Inanimate matter is caused. The laws of nature caused inanimate matter to exist.

Furthermore, it is equally fallacious to bluntly assert that a living organism has a choice between life and death. This is because we will all die. It's an inevitable consequence. So technically, a living organism has no choice but to die. But it does have a choice of speeding up its death or slowing it down. This is the precise choice of an organism. But a crucial assumption must be made; that organism must have a brain. The human cell has no brain, but it is an organism. Yet I haven't seen a cell that only divides when it feels like doing it.

Furthermore, I suspect an equivocation in the word "life." On this sentence:

The existence of inanimate matter is unconditional, the existence of life is not:

Life is used to simply mean "biological existence." However, at the latter part of the paragraph:

Life is a process of self-sustaining and self-generated action.

Life is used as the word "living" or "surviving." The consequences of equivocation in this part is most probably minimal, but it does make things a bit confusing. Then again, I agree with the last two sentences. Life must exist for values to exist. Only a living being can discern good or evil. However, if we are talking about moral good or evil, an assumption must be made; that living being must be intelligent enough to even recognize such a thing; like humans. However if we're talking about carnal good or evil, then animals and even some primitive life forms count.

To make this point fully clear, try to imagine an immortal, indestructible robot, an entity which moves and acts, but which cannot be affected by anything, which cannot be changed in any respect, which cannot be damaged, injured or destroyed. Such an entity would not be able to have any values; it would have nothing to gain or to lose; it could not regard anything as for or against it, as serving or threatening its welfare, as fulfilling or frustrating its interests. It could have no interests and no goals.

Only a living entity can have goals or can originate them. And it is only a living organism that has the capacity for self-generated, goal-directed action. On the physical level, the functions of all living organisms, from the simplest to the most complex—from the nutritive function in the single cell of an amoeba to the blood circulation in the body of a man—are actions generated by the organism itself and directed to a single goal: the maintenance of the organism’s life.

I completely agree.

An organism’s life depends on two factors: the material or fuel which it needs from the outside, from its physical background, and the action of its own body, the action of using that fuel properly. What standard determines what is proper in this context? The standard is the organism’s life, or: that which is required for the organism’s survival.

A more precise term for that standard is the physiology of the organism, but okay. We're good.

No choice is open to an organism in this issue: that which is required for its survival is determined by its nature, by the kind of entity it is. Many variations, many forms of adaptation to its background are possible to an organism, including the possibility of existing for a while in a crippled, disabled or diseased condition, but the fundamental alternative of its existence remains the same: if an organism fails in the basic functions required by its nature—if an amoeba’s protoplasm stops assimilating food, or if a man’s heart stops beating—the organism dies. In a fundamental sense, stillness is the antithesis of life. Life can be kept in existence only by a constant process of self-sustaining action. The goal of that action, the ultimate value which, to be kept, must be gained through its every moment, is the organism’s life.

Okay, I agree with what this paragraph has to say until the last sentence. Note that the world "value" is used to mean "something to be treasured," and that life is used to mean "biological existence."

The word "action" must be clarified, because not every self-sustaining action is volitional. You don't will to keep your heart beating; it just happens. While you must eat healthy stuff to keep your heart beating which will keep you alive (that is a willed action), it must be clarified that not every self-sustaining action in an organism is willed. An action that is not willed cannot value something. Heartbeat is a self-sustaining action, and it occurs in an organism; but it does not value anything.

An ultimate value is that final goal or end to which all lesser goals are the means—and it sets the standard by which all lesser goals are evaluated. An organism’s life is its standard of value: that which furthers its life is the good, that which threatens it is the evil.

I'm okay with how Ayn Rand defined "ultimate value," although I must ask; what is the moral attribute of something that neither furthers nor threatens an organism's life? My hunch is that it's amoral. I do have a more pressing inquiry though; what makes Ayn Rand say that an organism's life is its standard of value? If value in terms of self-preservation, then she is correct; however, she has not in any way provided any argument to support life as the absolute standard of value.

Without an ultimate goal or end, there can be no lesser goals or means: a series of means going off into an infinite progression toward a nonexistent end is a metaphysical and epistemological impossibility. 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.”

First sentence: It's true that you can't have lesser goals without an ultimate goal, but only in an absolute sense. You can compare goals relative to each other. Take the number system. We can't say that 3 is absolutely the least number, since there are numbers that stretch to negative infinity, but 3 is a lesser number relative to 4 and above.

Second sentence: Ayn Rand has not shown any proof that life is the ultimate value, or an end in itself; simply saying that life is a value kept by a constant process of action is not proof.

Third and fourth sentence: Sound. Although I must clarify that while you can't discuss values as separate from life, its inverse does not follow; it's not necessarily true that you can't discuss life as separate from values.

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.”

This is a major point of dissent on my part, since Ayn Rand claims to have bridged the is-ought gap... without proof. It's true that since living beings function and require sustenance, they should have something to treasure (under aforementioned assumptions); they should have "values." However, Ayn Rand has not in any way provided any concrete proof that life is the ultimate value, let alone a standard of morality. This is being subjective.

"The fact that a living entity is, determines what it ought to do... to live."

Ayn Rand forgot that part. Ayn Rand hasn't bridged the is-ought gap. In fact she did nothing of the sort. The is-ought problem is concerned in determining whether there is a way to bridge facts to morality. Ayn Rand's musings logically led to the above statement; the nature of a living entity determines how it can preserve itself... that's it. Ayn Rand did not solve the is-ought problem.

The paper is pretty lengthy, so I'll come up with another article (as a continuation) as soon as I have free time.

Euro Crisis Haunts Spain and the World

2012-04-13T07:16:00.000-07:00

The recent euro crisis that shook the international community, of which Greece arguably gained the most attention, seemed like a distant, yet, horrifying memory. However, it looks like the haunting is just getting started, and is sure to bring more shivers down economists' spines.

In order to partially mitigate the full effects of the monetary crisis, the European Central Bank (ECB) has decided to lend as much as it can to the affected countries in, well, Europe. The ECB flooded borrowers quite literally with money to withstand the blow of the crisis, conducting what could be the most massive money-lending spree to date. It was so massive, some analysts consider it massive to a fault; after all, too much lending is risky business; what if the ECB runs out? This is pure and unadulterated doom to our European friends.

Still, the ECB couldn't stand idly while debt-stricken countries teeter on the edge of bankruptcy. the central bank boldly conducted two long-term refinancing operations to support the ailing nations. However, the future seems bleaker and bleaker.

THE high is over. The European Central Bank’s two long-term refinancing operations (LTROs) in December and February saw commercial banks borrow over €1 trillion ($1.3 trillion) of three-year money at the ECB’s main interest rate, which it had cut to 1%. Ostensibly a scheme to keep euro-area banks afloat, the LTROs also boosted flagging public-debt markets in the zone’s southern periphery, as banks used some of the cash to buy high-yielding bonds. That effect has faded.

(Source: Link)

The good news; the European bonds are steadily yielding. We turn our attention to how Spain is holding up.

Spain’s ten-year government-bond yield has been rising since the second tranche of three-year ECB cash was doled out. This week it reached almost 6%, the highest level since November (see chart 1). The U-turn owes a lot to the shifting dynamics of the euro-zone bond markets, which have also affected Italy.

The bad news; time is running out. First, we have the delicate bond market:

Start with the bond-market dynamics. With tacit support from regulators, the stock of government bonds held by Spanish and Italian banks rose by €122 billion between November and February. Prices surged and yields fell. Hedge funds which had sold borrowed bonds in the hope that prices would fall were forced to buy them back. The rally lured others in.

Coupled with the futile attempts of hedge fund managers to mitigate inflation in bonds is a horrific revelation; the ECB may not be able to lend again.

“The minute the ECB says ‘no more,’ the bank bidder is lost,” says a hedge-fund manager.

So far, the bond market is riddled with anxieties about buying and selling.

Brokers are less willing to take bonds off sellers’ hands in the hope that buyers eventually turn up, says Andrew Balls of PIMCO, a fund manager. In thinly traded markets, bond prices can suddenly shoot up if only a few investors take fright and start selling.

Despite the possibility of salvaging the bond markets in a quicker time, brokers, bond sellers and buyers, as well as investors are afraid to take the risk in fear of losing more than what they can afford. This does not help the case of Spain, especially when Spain is so dependent on bond yielding to get by its huge debt. To make things worse, however, the government isn't exactly up to the task of keeping Spain together.

The clumsy handling of Spain’s 2012 budget may have persuaded some to sell. The newish Spanish government delayed it until after local elections in March; it also announced that its deficit target would be 5.8% of GDP, not the 4.4% agreed with European leaders (the compromise was a goal of 5.3%). The budget minister, Cristóbal Montoro, and the economy minister, Luis de Guindos, “contradict each other all the time”, complains a Spanish economist.

Yet Spain has deeper problems than muddled messages. The 2011 budget deficit was 8.5% of GDP, not the goal of 6%, in large part because of overspending by Spain’s autonomous regions. The economy is in recession—industry shrank by 5.1% in the year to February according to figures released on April 11th. Attempts to cut the deficit by 3.2% of GDP in a year will make things worse. Reforms to the jobs market, making it cheaper to fire workers and easier to set pay locally, will benefit Spain’s economy in time but not now.

The Spanish government just can't stop overspending which adds extra debt on the huge one they owe already. Aside from internal conflicts between politicians, the key sectors in the Spanish economy are starting to dwindle, with the hopes of reaching the target deficit percentage getting slimmer and slimmer. It can be argued that the government might be responsible for wasting the money lent by the ECB, forcing the Spanish economy to race against time; bond yields versus increasing debt, with the possible inclusion of interest rates from creditors.

As if things couldn't get any worse, it was discovered that Spain's net investment deficit, comprises 93% of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

To complicate matters, much of Spain’s huge private debt is owed indirectly to foreigners via its banks. Spain’s net investment deficit—the sums owed to foreigners by firms, householders and the government, less the foreign assets they own—comes to 93% of GDP, the cumulation of a long series of current-account deficits.

This seems to be a perfect storm of debt for Spain, something that can seriously hurt the credibility of the said country in repaying what is due. In all likelihood, Spain couldn't hold up on its own, and so several economic figures came up with suggestions.

Spain and Italy could not live with today’s borrowing costs for long unless the outlook for their economies were to improve dramatically. So they may have to look to outside help. But it would be hard for the ECB to sanction another LTRO so soon, reckons Laurence Boone of Bank of America. The ECB could restart direct bond purchases: Benoît Cœuré, a member of the bank’s six-strong executive board, suggested on April 11th that it might, which helped push Spain’s bond yields down a bit. But that would make existing investors worry more about subordination to the ECB in the event of a restructuring. In any case Mario Draghi, the bank’s president, has recently said high yields are the bond markets’ way of asking governments to implement promised reforms.

The Economist speculated that Spain can turn to the benefits the other affected countries receive, but the bailouts might not able to cover another ailing country. The article ended with an ominous prediction.

A more likely outcome is that Spain is eventually forced to draw on the shared rescue fund to recapitalise its banks, which might in turn take pressure off its sovereign-borrowing costs. Meanwhile, some have turned to the next trouble spot. “France is our cheapest and biggest short,” says one hedge-fund manager.

The way I see it, the efforts of the government and key investors might not be enough; otherwise, it might take a long while for Spain to get back on its feet. The plausible choices of actions are quite limited, given the possible consequences of reckless decisions.

Perhaps it's time to let out the daredevil in the private sector. Right now, the best bet Spain has to stay upright is the yields from government bonds. However, the bond market isn't looking so pretty because people are afraid to take risks. However, if people just sit still, then Spain is left at the mercy of altruists willing to lend a hand. I believe the Spanish people can make a difference here. They can try purchasing bonds and holding on to them. The last thing the bond market needs is stagnancy. Even small bonds count; as long as many citizens are willing to participate. Make the bond market look healthy, and maybe, just maybe, more foreign investors might gain the incentive to join the fray.

I won't recommend that ECB conduct another LTRO. They should maintain their reputation as lender of last resort and so must recover for the time being. It can also participate in direct bond purchasing to pump oxygen to the gasping bond market. The private sector, with rational risk-taking, can turn out to be Spain's savior, and who knows, the rest of Europe.

Meanwhile, the Spanish government must ensure one thing, and it's quite obvious; they must do something about their overspending habits. There is a need to implement stricter auditing and sound fiscal policies to maximize what remains of the government funds while keeping borrowing at minimum. If the government is feeling up to it, it can apply its diplomatic skills and ask creditors to temporarily freeze the accumulation of interest rates as they accelerate the accumulation of bond yields. They can even go so far as to ask some creditors to cancel debt, but, given the dismal state of the affected parties, this scenario isn't likely to happen.

Undoubtedly, Spain, together with the rest of the world, is being haunted by the euro crisis. However, just like how lore has come up with weapons against ghosts and creepy crawlies, there are always solutions available if countries are willing to withstand this economic crisis, provided that they are willing to take a few risks every now and then.

Hot Springs: Paving Way For New Energy

2012-04-13T03:44:00.001-07:00

Ever since I was a kid, I've admired Japanese culture. The well-preserved temples, colorful kimonos, unique celebrations, ghost stories, a lively economy, advanced technology, the girls, perhaps even anime; these are some of the factors that got me interested in the Land of the Rising Sun. I made it a point to do my best to give the country a visit before I die. Oh, and there's another thing that made me want to go to Japan.

Hot springs. Referred to as onsen in Japanese, hot springs constitute the distinct image of Japan to the rest of the world. When asked about Japan, most people tend to picture steaming hot springs with Japanese people chest-deep in the water. My grandmother says hot springs can be really hot; one can even die of heat stroke if he stayed on the spring for too long. Still, my desire to give hot springs a try cannot be deterred by heat strokes and similar things.

And now, recent events showed that hot springs can be used beyond the common purposes of relaxation of death by heat stroke. Japan, which is still recovering from the nuclear tragedy at Fukushima, considers tapping on the hidden energy stored in these waters.

It's almost a no-brainer for engineers that hot springs are potential sources of geothermal energy, which, given enough time, can gradually replace the staples in our energy industry; coal, fossil fuel, and nuclear energy. However, onsen owners expressed concern about the side effects of using hot springs as energy sources. But then, the need for alternative energy becomes more and more urgent as time passes.

For decades, onsen owners have stifled development of a huge potential source of clean energy: geothermal power. They argue that the tapping of heated aquifers in volcanic Japan will drain the onsen dry, increase pollution and ruin a cherished form of relaxation. With Japan on the verge of running out of nuclear power, however, the demand for new sources of energy is becoming harder to resist.

Three Japanese companies—Toshiba, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Fuji Electric—control more than half of the global market for geothermal turbines, yet Japan itself gets a mere 0.3% of its energy, or 537 megawatts, from its own steam. The industry’s promoters say that Japan sits on about 20,000 MW of geothermal energy, or the equivalent of 20 nuclear reactors, though not all of this could be developed. Since the disaster at Fukushima last year, all but one of the nation’s 54 nuclear reactors are now temporarily suspended, reducing Japan’s power-generating capacity by about a third. That has accelerated the search for alternatives.

(Source: Link)

The Japanese government announced that its electricity companies are set to purchase renewable energy at certain prices, which are yet to be determined. Meanwhile, the environment ministry confirmed that it will now allow projects for the development of geothermal energy in national parks.

The need for a persuasive government to convince the hot spring owners to step aside has been raised, given the close-to-nature disposition of the locals. This issue was raised by Tetsunari Iida, head of Institute for Sustainable Energy Policies, who also emphasized the need to go beyond what Japan's geothermal turbines can provide, hinting on the necessity to use the springs. Meanwhile, companies plan to construct a geothermal plant on Fukushima, which also has hot springs.

Cultural tensions might arise from this revolutionary project, but at least a friend can lend a hand. For instance, Iceland is also leading the march towards the utilization of geothermal energy.

To speed things up, Japan could also look overseas for help. Iceland, for instance, generates the same amount of geothermal energy as Japan, though Japan has 400 times more people. A Japanese expert, Hirofumi Muraoka, calculates that one mid-sized northern city, Aomori, with a population about the size of Iceland’s 318,000, could save enormously on imported fuel bills and heating costs by tapping geothermal springs nearby. Besides generating electricity, it could use the hot water from the springs to heat houses, as Iceland does.

Furthermore, Ambassador Stefan Stefansson stated that Japan can handle geothermal energy without government subsidies; all it needs is proper management. Finally, as a counter to protesting hot spring owners from Japan, Stefansson argued:

“Go to your computer and type in “Blue Lagoon”. There you will find the biggest onsen in the world and we have them all over Iceland. How’s that for pollution?”

Given the facts, there is hope for the rise of clean energy from our favorite hot springs. However, the issue is still riddled with government bureaucracy and cultural barriers. Although Iceland is eager to cooperate with Japanese efforts to pursue alternative energy sources, to get rid of every obstacle can prove to be quite a challenge.

I must agree with Stefansson in saying that Japan can succeed without state subsidies. After all, subsidization is a dubious source of funding, especially when Japan is pursuing a terra incognita; a new project to be tested (not to mention subsidies bear bureaucratic implications). It can be argued that the government ought to keep its funds safe while the private sector works it out. Of course the state can subsidize a fraction of the project just to absorb possible screw-ups, but I firmly believe that this project shouldn't solely depend on the government.

I laud the decision of the environment ministry's decision of opening up the parks as possible sources of geothermal energy. Of course, to preserve the beauty of the parks (which also serve as income for tourism), it is advisable that environmental compensation contracts be signed, although I'm confident Japan has this covered.

The onsen owners won't be left our in this. Given the fact that their springs are potential energy sources, it is possible that they will find another source of income; they can opt to be shareholders of companies that will utilize their springs and have a say on the matter. After all, it's their springs that will be put into use.

In the midst of these events that inspire optimism, it's quite safe to say that we might be closer to finally utilizing clean energy on larger scales. Before I end this article, I'd like a separate endeavor of South Korea to pursue the widespread usage of clean energy. It's old news, but still worth mentioning.

My sincerest thanks to Nikola Tesla for this one.

I might sound cheesy for saying this but, onward the march for clean energy!

P.S: My engineering senses are tingling.

Winter in Chinese Real Estate

2012-04-12T08:27:00.004-07:00

China has made quite a name for itself these past few years by coming up with some sort of an economic "miracle"; from being in shambles during the end of Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution (which also ended the reign of Chinese communism), China rose from the ashes and became one of the most promising economies to date, providing the world with cheap products by maximizing its export industry. Almost every individual in the world has handled or used at least one Chinese product; this is how influential China has become.

However, despite China wooing the world with its staggering volume of exports, several economists are highly skeptical regarding the sustainability of China's major economic boom. Some of them speculated that it's only a matter of time before this boom turns against the Chinese people, immersing them in an economic slump for an indefinite amount of time. For a while these pessimistic remarks generally went unnoticed as the world continued to shower praise on China for bringing itself back on track, and even managing to surpass the performance of most export-oriented countries.

Unfortunately, the economists' doubts about China weren't without merit. In fact, in all probability, they nailed it, because China is currently finding itself in a tough situation; something that can sabotage the rapidly rising Chinese economy; the cooling of its housing market.

Signs of the wintry real estate in China become more and more pronounced, as shown by Also Sprach Analyst Founder and Managing Editor "Zarathustra" in his articles.

The cooling real estate market are not only making previous home buyers unhappy. Agencies who are probably more concerned about transaction volume than prices have been struggling with the collapse of transaction volume. Centaline (whose boss is a completely incompetent man as far as property market forecast is concerned) China division has closed 60 branches (or 15% of all branches) in Shenzhen according to Mingpao and fired about 1,000 employees, and 40 branches in Beijing according cnyes.com. Again, this is not new, as Midland (1200.HK) has closed all their Shanghai branches in May, even though they bizarrely opened 11 new branches in Nanshan district of Shenzhen according to Sina News. We wish them best of luck.

(Source: Link)

FT Beyond Brics flagged a report from Bloomberg Businessweek on the rather pessimistic outlook from Zoomlion Heavy Industry Science and Technology’s (1157.HK) boss Zhan Chunxin, saying that “Demand for construction machinery has shrunk drastically and growth will no doubt continue to slow next year”.

(Source: Link)

Finally, Bei Fu from Standard and Poor's explained in her March 7, 2012 report how developers are forced to significantly drive prices down to attract buyers.

More price cuts are likely, even for top developers

We expect property prices to decline by 10% between June 2011 and June 2012. According to the National Statistics Bureau, average selling prices fell by 3.5% across the country from July to December 2011. Sales volume is likely to remain flat or slip in full-year 2012. Discounting is becoming increasingly common, even among leading developers. For some developers and in some cities, prices have already slumped–particularly for new launches.

(Source: Link)

As of today, the general protocol of the Chinese government is convincing developers to keep housing prices at minimum in hopes of countering the looming real estate winter. Several developers disagree with the proposition, and a couple of them raised interest rates to compensate for diminishing profits. However, the central government's tactics are well likely to be futile, as one real estate company actually went bankrupt.

Apparently, one unknown real estate developer in Hangzhou has just gone bust. Hangzhou Jinxing Property's (some sources translated its name as Venus real estate company) application for bankruptcy protection has been accepted by the court, according to sources including ifeng.com. Jinxing Property is owned by Zhejiang Zhongjiang Holdings, which is also in the process of going bust now, apparently.

(Source: Link)

Although it shouldn't come as a surprise that the government's actions hardly touch the center of the issue. In the process, all the government does is fight with the real estate developers. The government wants prices down and wait out the winter; the developers do not in fear of going bust like the one in Hangzhou. If this is the case, then why exactly is there a real estate winter in China in the first place?

This brings us back to why the economists doubted China's boom in the beginning.

China's boom is miraculous, in a sense that it was rapid, and that the whole world cooperated with China's export-oriented stratagem to rake in the dollars. How did China do this? If you think about it, it should be quite simple; China devalued its currency, the yuan.

In the abandonment of the gold standard, the world's currencies are now, essentially, fiat currencies; meaning the value of money is practically determined by government caprice. The Chinese central bank, as a part of China's goal to make a quick economic boom, proceeded to drive down the price of the yuan, making it cheaper relative to the US dollar. China then maximized the efficiency of its export industry, essentially flooding the world with Chinese products.

With so many Chinese products to choose from at a very cheap price (due to the devalued yuan), the world was more than willing to tag along. And so the historic boom was born. China stimulated global economic activity like never before. However, beneath this seemingly utopian trading spree, lies at least two dark factors; one of which is purely theoretical.

1. Devaluation, then inflation

China has indeed produced an impressive economic boom for the world to enjoy. However, this doesn't automatically mean prosperity for the locals. In fact, as recent events demonstrated, the "miracle" of China is slowly proving itself to be a "curse" for the Chinese people.

This is because of the inevitable consequence of currency devaluation. Since the yuan is cheaper than before, it would require more yuan to purchase stuff in China. Therefore, the Chinese actually had less purchasing power in the onset of the boom, and now need more bills to cope up with the devaluation. In effect, China has triggered its own inflation. But then, not only Chinese consumers are affected.

Real estate developers are affected as well. And since the housing market of China is relatively new, its far more susceptible to economic imbalances than the other markets. Developers, faced with less valuable yuan, had to raise their prices to cope up with the expenses. The purchasing power of the Chinese consumer went down, while the young housing market prices went up; the worst of both worlds, all in the name of the Chinese boom.

Needless to say, people cut back on buying houses. At the same time, real estate developers are going nuts because nobody's buying their products. This brings us back to the current situation at China. The government is forcing the developers to cut down prices in hopes of winning customers back; however, developers are also afraid of incurring losses, so some of them are adamant in keeping prices high, while some of them actually increase their interest rates. The dollars received from exporting yield less value than the value of the products exported; China is selling at a loss.

To add insult to injury, it would seem that the foreigners take the bacon for the Chinese boom, while the locals take the trash. The importers had more products to choose from, and at a very cheap price to boot, while the locals have to deal with low income and high prices. This is nothing short of a tragedy.

Here we stand witness to a roller-coaster of economic mess-ups of China, which, ironically, seems to stem from the boom that made it the talk of the town in the first place. At least we know something; in all likelihood, the Chinese government holds the blame for this colossal mess.

(To know more about the yuan devaluation, you can check this link.)

2. A subtle US-China beef?

We know how China flooded US with Chinese products. Also, the world knows how scared US is of a phenomenon called "trade deficit," where the amount of imports exceed the amount of exports (a trade surplus is the other way around; exports exceed imports). Steve Forbes, among others stressed that US shouldn't worry itself over trade deficits, since they are a natural part of the international business cycle. However, the US is still skeptical; professor Paul Krugman even suggested that US adopt protectionist policies against Chinese goods via quotas and tariffs.

Is China, somehow, for some reason, bent on scaring the US into triggering its own imbalance? Whatever the answer is, it must have failed to consider the implications of this export-oriented boom on its own economy, as shown by its clumsy responses to the cooling real estate market. Furthermore, it must have failed to consider that the importers are the actual winners in this unsound boom. Or China might just be going berserk or something. This whole proposition of course, is highly theoretical, but not without merit; after all, political tensions between US and China is but common knowledge to the global community.

So what can be done to put an end to China's real estate winter? Given how the government became a crucial factor to the onset of the crisis, it is a plausible solution to relax its grip on the yuan; let its value be more determined by the law of supply and demand; in other words, let foreign exchange do its job. Also, it would be wise for China to put less pressure on its export industry and start working on its internal economy.

China can also manage its liquidity to temporarily convert cash into tangible assets. Moreover, it can convince foreigners to hold yuan bonds for future use; right now, an important goal of China is to stabilize its inflated money supply. China must contract it at just the right level.

However, there is a fair chance that China might not have the time to pull all of these off before undergoing a slump of some sort. This turns our attention to possible long-term solutions.

I might write an article that will extensively tackle this issue, but, given the series of troubles fiat currency has caused the world, it might be time to revisit the past; China, together with the rest of the world, might have to anchor their currencies not to the whims of the government, but to something of intrinsic economic value. Perhaps, the world should go back to pegging paper money to an actual treasure. Perhaps, for the sake of monetary stability, the world should reconsider the gold standard.

Objectivism in Boromir's Words

2012-04-11T10:25:00.001-07:00

It seems my personal tirade against Objectivism is becoming more and more pronounced, but trust me when I say that this is nothing personal. I am merely flexing my rusty philosophical muscles to address the problems I find in the philosophy books that I read. It's just that most of these problems are found in Objectivism.

I'd like to say a few more words, but Boromir from Lord of the Rings summed everything up quite nicely for me.

Addressing the way Objectivists essentially

establish their ethics on the phrase "man is man."

Refuting the notion that Ayn Rand resolved David

Hume's dilemma. Treating life as a standard of value

from which you can derive oughts isn't being objective; on

the contrary, it's still subjectivist thinking.

This is to question Ayn Rand's ethics of ethical egoism. Philosopher

G.E. Moore in his Principia Ethica described the contradiction of ethical egoism.

"What egoism holds, therefore, is that each man's happiness is the sole good -

that a number of different things are each of them the only good

thing there is - an absolute contradiction!"

This is to summarize my previous article, "Life and Value in Objectivism"

where Ayn Rand and the Objectivists may have committed the fallacy

of equivocation in relating life to value.

Finally, we have this:

This is to summarize my sentiments regarding the Objectivists'

contempt of a priori knowledge, when they themselves are

guilty of applying it.

Of course I'm nowhere near covering the entirety of Ayn Rand's works, which contend the Bible in terms of utter thickness. So I guess people can expect more philosophical memes in the future. In the meantime, I intend to temporarily abstain from posting more anti-Objectivist logic, lest I risk accusations of being too monotonous. I might come up with an economics article or two. Stay tuned, I guess.

A Priori: Peikoff's Misconception

2012-04-10T22:27:00.005-07:00

Classical philosopher Immanuel Kant theorized two types of knowledge; a priori and a posteriori knowledge. Basically, a priori knowledge is something that we can know intuitively, one that does not require experience. Meanwhile, a posteriori knowledge is something we can obtain by observing reality with our senses. A pretty harmless conjecture, but then, the rise of the Objectivist movement, eager to prove itself in the philosophical realm, boldly challenged the philosophies of old. Leonard Peikoff, the so-called intellectual heir of Ayn Rand, contested Kant's theory about the nature of knowledge.

In the Ayn Rand Lexicon, a priori knowledge as explained by Peikoff is as follows:

Any theory that propounds an opposition between the logical and the empirical, represents a failure to grasp the nature of logic and its role in human cognition. Man’s knowledge is not acquired by logic apart from experience or by experience apart from logic, but by the application of logic to experience. All truths are the product of a logical identification of the facts of experience.

Peikoff claims that logic cannot be separated from experience, and that truth can only be attained by applying logic to experience. A bold assertion, but a dangerously flawed one.

Yes, knowledge can be gained by applying logic to experience. This is called induction. Scientists have applied induction in their scientific research. Thanks to Francis Bacon and Galileo Galilei, induction from its primitive form (applied by Ancient Greeks like Aristotle) developed into a highly systematic methodology, something we now call the scientific method.

But Peikoff's argument fails to acknowledge another manner of acquiring knowledge; deduction. And as most philosophers would know, knowledge (or truth) from induction is probabilistic, while the knowledge (or truth) acquired from deduction is necessary. Take the mathematical form of modus ponens for starters.

P ⊃ Q

∴ Q

This is read as: P implies Q; P, therefore Q.

This is a standard logical syllogism in mathematical logic. But how did we come to know this? How do we know it's valid? By Peikoff's argument, we knew this because we applied logic to experience.

But then proving this by induction would be a heavily arduous task, since deduction is known to produce necessary truths. This means that modus ponens must be true for anything, and must have no counter-instance. So, should we examine every causal relationship that occurs in this universe? Can you even do that? If we can't do this, then we fail to establish Peikoff's argument that knowledge is attained only by applying logic to experience.

So what becomes of Peikoff's definition?

Well, how about we disregard deduction altogether, since it doesn't fit with Objectivism? Why, that would be disastrous. Recall that inductive reasoning is obtaining a generalization from a specific data. Meanwhile, deduction is defined as obtaining a specific data from a generalization. If we disregard deduction as a body of knowledge, then what would become of all the scientific predictions our civilization has come up throughout the years?

To illustrate this cataclysm, consider this simple scientific knowledge we have gathered from our early years. This is one of my professor's favorite examples.

So a caveman observed the sun every morning, and noticed that every time he sees the sun rise, it rises from the east. Months have passed and he sees the same thing; the sun always rises from the east. The caveman then made a leap of faith (or reason), and asserted this thing; the sun always rises from the east. He has successfully applied inductive reasoning; from a set of specific data (he sees that the sun rises from the east everyday), he was able to formulate a generalization (the sun always rises from the east).

However, another thing can be done from this generalization; prediction. The caveman can assert that tomorrow, if the sun rises, it will rise from the east. This is deductive reasoning; from a generalization, he was able to formulate a specific data; a prediction. We also know that mankind has been able to predict countless things by deductive reasoning.

However, by Peikoff's definition, what the caveman did is wrong. He hasn't experienced tomorrow yet, therefore his prediction is not true knowledge. He was able to relate an unseen to the seen, an immaterial to the material, a potential to the actual; this is intuitive knowledge at work... an a priori knowledge, but then Objectivism asserts that a priori is not true. So how do we settle this dilemma?

How about we assert that knowledge from deduction is not necessary, but probabilistic, just like induction? Since knowledge is either inductive or deductive, such an assertion gives us an interesting conclusion; all knowledge is probabilistic. What then, becomes of arithmetic?

I'd love to have Objectivists say that 1 + 1 = 2 is probabilistic.

Oh, and besides that, I'd love to have them assert that man is man is probabilistic. Oh, but they can't; man is man, that is their ethical axiom!

Perhaps, in the Objectivists' zeal to demolish Kant's philosophy (they seem to hate Kant very much), they have walked into a subtle trap; self-contradiction. They themselves are guilty of using necessary truths and knowledge to prove their points, but then they accuse someone who points that out of being evil and dishonest.

Perhaps the administrators of Ayn Rand Lexicon should take a look at how they define Kant's theory of knowledge. After all, for a group who claims to despise intellectual dishonesty, for a group who claims to uphold objectivity, such an action is, needless to say, expected.

Life and Value in Objectivism

2012-04-10T09:34:00.005-07:00

I came across a sample argument which allegedly constitutes the foundation of Ayn Rand's Objectivist ethics. I found this argument from a draft of The Logical Structure of Objectivism by William Thomas and David Kelley. However, I find this argument to be a little problematic, casting more doubt in the "philosophy" I've already doubted from the very beginning.

For any living thing, its life is its ultimate value.

A need is a condition the fulfillment of which significantly contributes

to an organism’s ability to preserve itself.

Therefore, anything that satisfies a need, is a value.

This is a very questionable syllogism. First of all, the major premise (For any living thing, its life is its ultimate value), is already false. Simply consider the male praying mantis which is eaten by his mate as soon as they're done mating. Here we have an example of a living thing which does not treat life as its ultimate value.

Still, for the sake of scrutinizing the validity of this argument, suppose the major premise is true. Also, let the second premise be true, although the second premise, by semantic standards, is too simplistic. A battery is needed to make a car run. A car needs a battery to run. This is a valid sentence which properly observed the English syntax. The word "need" isn't limited to living beings. The most general definition of a "need" is as follows:

"a thing that is wanted or required:" (Source: Link)

"A car requires a battery to run" is the same as "a car needs a battery to run." But of course, people might accuse me of being too grumpy, so let's just assume that the premises hold. We now turn our attention to the conclusion.

Therefore, anything that satisfies a need, is a value.

I find at least one problem in this conclusion. What kind of "value" is the "value" at the conclusion? The first premise states that any living being upholds its own life. We can restate that this way: the life of a being is important... a value, to that being. However, the conclusion treats "value" in an absolute sense. Anything that satisfies a need is important... a value.

But what if something that satisfies the need of one, can dissatisfy another? Consider the situation of a man and a dog, about to eat chocolate (assume that the chocolate is dark and is eaten in moderation). For the man and the dog, their respective lives are their ultimate values. Let's consider surviving as a "need," the fulfillment of which significantly contributes to an organism’s ability to preserve itself.

However, chocolates are poisonous to dogs. A chemical in chocolate, theobromine, can be fatal to our canine friends.

If the man eats the chocolate, well, he gets health benefits from it (for proof, here's the link); in the process, he preserves himself; chocolate, then, must be a value, because it satisfied a need; survival.

But this is not the same for the dog. It actually died from eating the chocolate. So what becomes of the chocolate? It helped a living being preserve itself; it satisfied a need, making it a value, but it also ended another's life at the same time, making it a non-value.

How can something be a value and a non-value at the same time? A contradiction like this can only arise if there has been a confusion between relatives and absolutes. The first premise treated "value" in a relative sense, while the conclusion treated "value" in an absolute sense. There has been a shift of meaning; an equivocation, one might say.

Perhaps Objectivists can look into this matter (since Ayn Rand's already dead), but then they might dismiss this point as trivial. I hope that they're right, as I'm about to read more about the so-called logical structure of Objectivism, with fear in my heart that this little logical mess-up might have done more harm than I could have expected.

Bridging the Gap: Happiness and Economics

2012-04-09T09:07:00.000-07:00

Economics has been regarded as a "dismal" science. While this is more or less a misnomer that stuck to the said field of study (for the origins of economics being referred to as a "dismal science," check this link), economists hope to understand more about the human psyche in order for them to incorporate the concept of "happiness" to their economic policies.

And recently, things seemed more... "blissful."

A recent article at The Economist documented the apparent successes of the economists' circle in bridging the gap between the colorful world of happiness and the cold science of economics.

No longer the dismal science?

One of the more surprising growth industries to have taken off during the current period of economic downturn and austerity has been “the happiness industry”—the increasing activity of economists (not philosophers) who study what constitutes happiness and make recommendations to governments about how best to increase it. This industry has recently achieved an early pinnacle of success with the publication of the first World Happiness Report. Commissioned for a United Nations Conference on Happiness, under the auspices of the UN General Assembly, it bears the imprimatur of Columbia University’s Earth Institute and is edited by the institute’s director, Jeffrey Sachs, and two happiness experts, Richard Layard of the London School of Economics and John Helliwell of the University of British Columbia. The report unmemorably finds that the world’s happiest countries world are in northern Europe (Denmark, Norway, Finland, Netherlands) and the most miserable are in Africa (Togo, Benin, Central African Republic, and Sierra Leone).

(Source: Link)

The "happiness" trend seemed to catch up fast on the big countries of the world.

According to the Washington Post, a group of experts including Daniel Kahneman, a psychologist who won the Nobel Prize in economics, met in December to draw up measures of “subjective well-being”. The group is financed by the American administration, and if its measures are deemed reliable they could become official statistics. If so, America would become the latest country to clamber aboard a happiness bandwagon.

Moreover, the article details the methodology of the "happiness indicators" employed by several countries to gauge the net satisfaction of its citizens.

Researchers break down people’s feelings into “affective happiness” (everyday ups and downs) and “evaluative happiness” (a person’s overall assessment of his or her life). They have constructed indicators that look at happiness from different vantage points, using questions such as “How happy were you yesterday?” (that is what Britain’s ONS asks); “All things considered, how satisfied are you with your life as a whole nowadays?” (from the European Social Survey); and “Taking all things together, would you say you are: very happy, quite happy, not very happy or not at all happy?” (the World Values Survey). The different answers give economists plenty to argue about.

The article states that the science of happiness (if it is indeed a science) is gradually being recognized by the world. The economists, meanwhile, want to go so far as to somehow "mathematicize" happiness.

They argue that happiness can be measured objectively; that it differs systematically across societies and over time; that happiness has predictable causes and is correlated to specific things (such as wealth, income distribution, health and political institutions); and that therefore it should be possible for the government to create the right conditions for happiness to flourish. The authors want governments to use happiness as a guide to public policy, rather as they use gross national product (GNP) now. But given governments’ (and economists’) recent record in managing GNP, it is not clear whether it really would be such a good idea for the government to decide it knows better than individuals do what constitutes their happiness and how they can best pursue it.

It would seem that the world's economists are optimistic about this new direction in their studies. However, while it pains me to be the party pooper, I am obligated to discuss the problems I perceive in what seems to be a new branch of economics.

1. Happiness is a profoundly abstract concept, and is therefore easily exploitable.

No matter how economists try to persuade me as to the merits of happiness as an economic barometer, I must point out the unbridgeable gap between abstracts and concretes. Happiness is a tricky word to be of use to an analytical science like economics, and is highly relative, depending on the frame of reference.

The questions used in the mentioned social surveys hardly poke the economic side of society. When faced with such questions, what guarantee do we have that the people will base their answers purely from the economic side of life? In all likelihood, they will also base their answers on their personal lives; relationships between families, self-esteem, etc. This will contaminate the statistics.

Perhaps a lack of clarity in the questionnaire can be brought up. However, should we attempt to clarify it, more problems might appear. Should the economists affirm that the surveys be answered purely from the economic side of life, human bias in terms of an ideal society will come in. Some people would prefer more government welfare, while some might be libertarians at heart. The survey will degenerate into nothing more than a political power play, something that is easily exploited by politicians.

Meanwhile, if we stick to the initial impression of the surveys, we'll have to deal with contaminated data samples. But what if the economists say that it is of crucial importance that people answer these surveys based from their personal lives?

The question now, is this? Of what purpose will it serve them? What does inquiring upon an individual's personal life possibly imply? That the economists intend to "help" the people change the life they're living? That they're willing to meddle with people's personal affairs, that they're willing to impose on their personal decisions? If not for these reasons, why would the intellectuals even want to know about these sensitive information?

Either interpretation gives us a series of profound problems that defeats the purpose of using happiness as an economic standard in the first place. Skewed statistics that can misinform the public, possibilities of political influence, possibilities of privacy invasions, using a highly abstract concept to judge an economy can even be dangerous, let alone highly impractical.

2. It diverts attention away from the real economic barometers.

I don't want to be labelled as "regressive," but I highly doubt the validity of happiness as a determinant of a healthy economy. On the other hand, we have objective standards of a good economy; Gross Domestic Product (GDP), Gross National Product (GNP), Consumer Price Index (CPI), the stock market, foreign exchange, among others. They are determined by mathematics and is therefore devoid of human bias, unlike "happiness." To effectively judge something, it is imperative that we make use of a standard that transcends human prejudice, which is why we have a set of criteria in talent shows and stuff.

Happiness is defined solely by human bias. It hardly projects any sign of objectivity whatsoever. This makes me all the more skeptical of using happiness as an "objective" determinant of economic prosperity.

The view that happiness is correlated to economic factors is too simplistic in my opinion. After all, human life is not just finance or entrepreneurship; it's a hodge-podge of a plethora of factors, like personal relationships, cultural upbringing, mental stability, among others.

---

Perhaps happiness should be left in the hands of individuals, rather than forcing it in a government's economic tools. An old adage once said that happiness is man's ultimate goal. Maybe it should stay that way; the result of economic policies judged by objective standards should be happiness, and no other causal relationship should exist, as far as these things are concerned.

Reflections on Truth

2012-04-08T09:47:00.004-07:00

For my first article, I'd like to share the article I wrote for a well-known political blog, Get Real Philippines. This philosophical article deals with the issue of truth. For the actual link, here it is. Have fun reading.