Galt's Gulch

Objectivist Scholar Claims "Common Good" a VIRTUE???

Posted by bryan_ogilvie 10 years, 11 months ago to Philosophy
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Dig this: I'm on the Atlas Society's newsletter, and Andrew Cohen (managing editor for their Business Rights Center), just published a quick blurb where he says:

"Ayn Rand failed to acknowledge the moral importance of the pursuit of the common good."

Excuse me, but...WTF?

"The moral importance of 'the common good'"??? I thought that's what she directly OPPOSED...in a way that's abundantly CLEAR.

See here:
http://www.atlassociety.org/as/blog/2014...

It's actually titled, "How John Galt Earned His Freedom." Even the verb in that titled sounds highly questionable (to me at least).
SOURCE URL: http://www.atlassociety.org/as/blog/2014/01/16/how-john-galt-earns-his-freedom

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  • Posted by ObjectiveAnalyst 10 years, 11 months ago
    Common good is a byproduct of virtuous activity, but that is just a happy coincidence. Just as selfishness as defined by Rand can be beneficial to others. It is the motivation behind it that makes a difference. "Because a genuinely selfish man chooses his goals by the guidance of reason---and because the interests of rational men do not clash---other men may often benefit from his actions." TVOS pg. 67
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  • Posted by dbhalling 10 years, 11 months ago
    Here is what Rand said

    The tribal notion of “the common good” has served as the moral justification of most social systems—and of all tyrannies—in history. The degree of a society’s enslavement or freedom corresponded to the degree to which that tribal slogan was invoked or ignored. (Ayn Rand lexicon from “What Is Capitalism?”
    Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, 20)

    Personally, I find the use of the phrase "common good" is always a philosophical short cut and used to hide a bunch of evil. Individual rights and capitalism lead to the best outcome for the most people, but that is not its justification
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  • Posted by mminnick 10 years, 11 months ago
    Clearly Mr. Cohen has never read or even heard of Fountainhead. The thought that Ayn Rand had not considered "The Common Good" is totally absurd. She delt with it in Fountainhead and clearly stated that the "Common Good" was not a virtue but t rather an abomination when anyone was forced to work for the common good rather than for his own individual good.
    I may not have stated it as elegantly as Ms. Rand would have, but I think I got her view on this correct.
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  • Posted by khalling 10 years, 11 months ago
    definitely provocative. I thumbs uped your comment. I wonder if he is trying to be provocative and commandeer the word "common" as used in the Constitution? Similar to Rand taking back the word "selfishness."
    hmmm-
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    • Posted by jrberts5 10 years, 11 months ago
      knaling, that would be the best face you could put on Cohen's statements. But it is not the case. This points to the true nature of and real problem with "open" objectivism: at some point it will ask for the abandonment and "sacrifice" of some virtue be it self-interest or rationality or whatever. An objectivist, real or fictional hero, acts for their own betterment for their own reasons be it in the personal, business, social, political, or whatever realm. If society or the culture around them benefits from it, that is just a consequence. Therefore, selfishness serves the "common good." Proposing some new virtue to achieve it can only mean something other than selfishness and therefore its sacrifice. Without selfishness, independence falls by the wayside and "blindly following" something is all that's left. And, I did not understand this fully about open objectivism till reading this article. Thank you bryan_oglivie for posting it.
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      • Posted by bryan_ogilvie 10 years, 11 months ago
        Yes!

        Open Objectivism sounds nice in theory, but think about it: if you don't have "closed" definitions of things, then we don't have concepts in principle.

        Something has to be "closed" in order to remain what it is, otherwise anything can become anything. A is A.

        (David Kelley also now calls "Benevolence" a virtue. I should of had my antennas up from there.)

        Seriously doubt you'd be seeing all this if Rand was still here. If Rand was still kicking, she'd be kicking some @$$!
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        • Posted by dbhalling 10 years, 11 months ago
          It depends on what you mean by open and closed. Is Euclidean geometry a closed system - yes in that it is a logical system and those things not consistent with its axioms are not part of the system. But it is open in the sense that anyone who proves a mathematical principle consistent with that logical system has added to Euclidean geometry. BTW some new proofs are still being added to Euclidean geometry. Unfortunately, the history of some objectivist organizations has been to limit objectivism to what Rand said, not to those ideas consistent with her philosophy.
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        • Posted by bryan_ogilvie 10 years, 11 months ago
          @jrberts5: See here for more...
          http://www.philosophyinaction.com/blog/?...

          I think kHalling was the one who intially showed me this. Thanks!
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          • Posted by jrberts5 10 years, 11 months ago
            Thx again. I was never fooled by Kelley, never really gave him much thought, but I never really understood the nature of his ideas and the consequences of them till now. I also now see that calling Ayn Rand's philosophy "closed" is nothing more than something akin to the Keynesians calling the gold standard "primitive." Identifying man's specific nature, Ayn Rand formulated a set of principles, virtues, broad enough to subsume all thoughts and actions possible to a human being past, present, and future. Barring some major evolutionary change resulting in a dramatic change in man's essential character and his means of survival, any new ideas introduced as principles for action intended to supplant the one's identified by Rand can only work toward man's destruction.
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  • Posted by khalling 10 years, 11 months ago
    here, to is Madison on point:
    "But what would have been thought of that assembly, if, attaching themselves to these general expressions, and disregarding the specifications which ascertain and limit their import, they had exercised an unlimited power of providing for the common defense and *general welfare*? "
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  • Posted by m082844 10 years, 11 months ago
    Why do you suppose open Objectivists wish to be associated with objectivism at all if they believe that it contradicts reality? Wouldn't you expect them to expose and distance themselves from the error and coin a new term for their new and improved Philosophical system? I suspect that since they are not distancing themselves -- like you would expect someone who knows themselves to be right and another to be wrong -- that perhaps they are seeking something unearned here.
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