From: Valuemetaphysics@aol.com
Date: Fri Jun 11 2004 - 19:44:32 BST
[For the sake of accuracy this post is sent with one typographical correction
made to replace the previous post.]
Dear forum,
as many of you may know i have been trying to promote an intellectual
dialogue with Platt Holden regarding the work of Noam Chomsky, an MIT member and
acclaimed academic in linguistics.
The dialogue has been most difficult. After some persistence, Platt Holden
recommended two sources of Intellectual Quality: Ayn Rand and Rush Limbaugh.
R.L. cannot be regarded as an academic and must be dismissed almost immediately.
Ayn Rand deserves more consideration as a philosopher and thinker. My research
into Rand's philosophical position has indicated very clearly that her
Objectivism is totally incompatible with the MOQ.
Perhaps the most easily understood division between Objectivism and the MOQ
is the relationship between facts and values; Objectivism places facts before
value. In Objectivism, values are derived from facts:
"In THE VIRTUE OF SELFISHNESS Ayn Rand develops an argument to derive values
from facts (derive an "ought" from an "is"). And not simply values, but moral
values. As she expresses it, the science of ethics provides the values & goals
which human survival requires."
It must be understood and emphasised immediately that Ayn Rand is arguing for
this position herself. This is not an interpretation of Objectivist views;
value from facts is a fundamental position of Objectivism which Ayn Rand argues
for in THE VIRTUE OF SELFISHNESS.
Ayn Rand's Objectivism is totally incompatible with the MOQ. The MOQ
certainly does not argue that values are derived from facts. In the MOQ, values are
the primary empirical stuff of experience. Moral order is a matter of value
evolution.
I have already explored the fallout from Ayn Rand's basic values from facts
premise in earlier posts. One of the most damaging results of values from facts
is the exclusion of social values from Objectivist thinking. A more
fundamental result is the severe SOM structure of Objectivism; facts are generated from
man's 'rational faculty' of an analysis of an A=A external reality. Without a
SOM structure Objectivism falls apart.
To conclude, the structure of Objectivism may be presented in the following
way:
SOM ----> Rational faculty ----> Facts ----> Values
Objectivism cannot be reconciled with the MOQ.
Any Moral system derived from Objectivism cannot remove its SOM foundation
without destroying Objectivism itself by definition.
All the best,
Mark
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