History UsefulNotes / Objectivism

The idea she argued is the foundational cause of this belief is Original Sin. Original Sin is not merely the idea that HumansAreFlawed but that they are ''intrinsically'' flawed; to be evil is part of human nature. Objectivism rejects this idea because the nature of things is ''amoral''; morality applies only in situations where choice exists and because a thing is what it is, it cannot choose its nature. Objectivism also argues that Original Sin is a belief from Platonic Realism in epistemology.

Typically there are two types of theory about how reason operates. The first is called ''rationalism'', which states that people have in-born ideas within their minds (often called ''a priori'' or ''innate'' ideas) and reason works by making logical deductions from these two sources. In short, rationalism argues that human knowledge comes not from observation but from deducing everything from first principles. Philosophers that supported this position include Rene Descartes and Baruch Spinoza.

Rand identified many arguments that ''ignore'' this fact. For instance, the phrase "Reality is an illusion" ignores this fact when read literally in English; the concept 'illusion' refers to a ''falsification of reality'' and if there is no reality in the first place, there is nothing ''to'' falsify. The existence of reality is a ''prerequisite'' or ''assumption'' of the existence of illusions. This is a statement which, according to Rand, ''denies its own assumptions.'' She referred to this fallacy as ''[[StolenConcept The Fallacy of the Stolen Concept]]''.

{{Creator/Plato}} divided philosophy into four primary branches; Metaphysics, Epistemology, Ethics and Politics. Objectivism has positions in each of these areas:

A final important point to make about human nature is that human beings must operate through the use of their reason. And reason does not operate ''under violence, deception or threats thereof.'' This point is the foundation of Objectivist politics (see part 4). Force, Fraud and Coercion (Force being a person's use of violence against another, Fraud being a person's use of fraud against another, and Coercion being one person using threats of either against another) are absolute evils because they essentially 'paralyze' the victim's rationality. The victim thus is forced to a subhuman level. The perpetrator also is made subhuman; they are attempting to use methods other than their human reason to live. The point; Force, Fraud and Coercion are evil because they damage human life.

# Existence exists (there is something)

It is on the basis of these axioms that Objectivism embraces UsefulNotes/{{Atheism}}. According to Objectivism, reality must exist ''independently'' of consciousness. ''Any'' consciousness. This means the idea of Creation Ex Nihilo (that God created existence from ''nothing'' by sheer force of will) is a fallacy according to Objectivism. Additionally an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent God conflicts with the law of identity (i.e. if a thing is what it is, it is ''only'' what it is and not anything else, and thus must be specific and ''finite'').

Plato divided philosophy into four primary branches; Metaphysics, Epistemology, Ethics and Politics. Objectivism has positions in each of these areas:

Objectivism supports Classical Liberalism/Minarchism and argues that the role of the State should be restricted to defending negative liberty. This logically implies that the State should not interfere in any human actions that do ''not'' involve force, fraud or coercion. For example, voluntary economic activity conducted by fully informed, consenting individuals, should not be restricted in any way. The same applies to capitalist acts between ConsentingAdults ranging from voluntary prostitution to consumption of drugs. This is what Rand and other Libertarians mean by Laissez-Faire Capitalism. They are ''not'' defending {{Corrupt Corporate Executive}}s or PeaceAndLoveIncorporated. Also, they are not using the Marxist or anarchist meanings of the term "capitalism," they are referring to "free market economics" first and foremost.

It has to be emphasised again, however, that this is where most of the {{Flanderization}}/misrepresentation of Rand comes from; the fact that both CorruptCorporateExecutive types, *and* their critics, tend to believe that Rand was in support of amoral/destructive forms of Capitalism.

To most people, the charges she leveled at altruism wildly vary with what they have been told altruism actually means. To most people, altruism means (more or less) be kind to other people and refrain from being a {{jerkass}}.

-->-- '''Andrew Ryan''', ''VideoGame/BioShock2''

It is ''this'' definition of altruism that Rand was attacking, and Rand was not the only person to oppose it. John Stuart Mill, a Utilitarian philosopher (''not'' an ethical egoist like Rand), was quite shocked at the implications of Comte's definition. For more on this, please see Robert L. Campbell's [[http://hubcap.clemson.edu/~campber/altruismrandcomte.pdf ''Altruism in Comte and Rand'']], The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies 7, no. 2 (Spring 2006): 357 to 369.

Rand's case against altruism is composed of multiple arguments. The first is that altruism does not actually define "the good", what makes an action good is the intended beneficiary of it (i.e. other people). This in turn is the basis for her aforementioned political argument; that the doctrine can justify revoking individual rights "for the good of others."

Rand also saw Comte's Altruism not as a new idea, but as a variant of a long string of very old ideas that she opposed. Altruism argues that the self must serve others, but there are many ethical traditions that argue the self must also serve something ''other than itself'' in order to justify the self's existence. For instance, monotheistic religions generally argue that individuals must serve God. Feudalism argued that individuals must serve their Monarchs. The common thread is that the individual must ''forego'' being concerned with their own interests and instead live for something outside themself; they must ''sacrifice themself'' for something else.

Because, according to this idea, humans are intrinsically flawed, they have to ''justify their existence''. How? By sacrifice and service to something greater than themselves. Enter various codes of selfless morality, each promoting a different thing to serve; a tribe, a god, a king, a country... [[UsefulNotes/NaziGermany the Aryan race]], [[UsefulNotes/SovietRussiaUkraineAndSoOn the universal brotherhood of the proletariat]], the list goes on.

The third answer is Nominalism, which argues that the universal is merely a name that people assign to the object. As Roscelin (one of the theologians in the original theological wankfest) described Nominalism; these names are just 'the blowing of the voice' and are assigned for reasons that may have ''no'' relationship to external reality at all.

The key thing about Nominalism is that, wheras Realism makes the category exist independently of our consciousness, Nominalism makes the category exist independently of ''reality'' and dependent exclusively on our consciousness.

Note that Rand herself denied she was a Conceptualist. However, as Saint-Andre ((2002), ''Conceptualism in Abelard and Rand'', Journal of Ayn Rand Studies, Volume 4, Number 1 (Fall 2002), pp. 123-140) argues, this was because she misunderstood Conceptualism. Objectivist philosopher Dr. Carolyn Ray also identifies Objectivism as Conceptualist in her own doctoral dissertation (see chapter 3) (1998), [[http://enlightenment.supersaturated.com/essays/text/carolynray/diss ''Identity and Universals: a Conceptualist Approach'']], Electronically published by Enlightenment.

# Every thing that exists has a specific ''nature'' or ''identity'' ('A is A' or 'a thing is what it is'). A thing must be ''some''thing, otherwise it is ''no''thing.

Because, according to this idea, humans are intrinsically flawed, they have to ''justify their existence''. How? By sacrifice and service to something greater than themselves. Enter various codes of selfless morality, each promoting a different thing to serve; a tribe, a god, a king, a country... [[UsefulNotes/NaziGermany the Aryan race]], [[SovietRussia the universal brotherhood of the proletariat]], the list goes on.

Rand was an empiricist. She argued that ultimately all knowledge and deduction had to rest on empirical facts and that our senses were our point of contact with reality. She accepted that humans had no built-in ideas, and had to build their ideas from observations.

->''"What is the difference between a man and a parasite? A man builds. A parasite asks 'Where is my share?' A man creates. A parasite says, 'What will the neighbors think?' A man invents. A parasite says, 'Watch out, or you might tread on the toes of God...'"''