Against Stefan Molyneux

[Hard_Money]

Molyneux’s atheism, similar to what I stated before, is something the libertarian movement as a whole must embrace. The metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics of religion have been completely refuted by Objectivists. They lay down the anti-religious foundation of laissez-faire capitalism. You cannot support anarcho-capitalism on a platform of supernaturalism (as opposed to reality), faith (as opposed to reason), and especially on the ethics of Jesus which promotes indiscriminate love to anyone regardless if they’re worthy of it and a completely selfless, suicidal altruism.

We cannot reconcile property rights and “do nothing out of selfish ambition.” We cannot integrate the right to self-defense, let alone competing protection agencies with “turning the other cheek.”

The Rothbardians further streamlined Objectivist politics pointing out that it should logically lead to anarcho-capitalism. But just read what philosopher Anton Thorn has written on the link above and its enough to “de-religionize” anyone who is honest with themselves.

[gplauche]

I have nothing personal against Stefan. I know little about him, have only seen a few of his podcasts, think he’s a good speaker and storyteller, and like him am both an anarchist and an atheist. I haven’t seen any of this anti-religion, psychologizing, cult-like stuff, but then I haven’t seen enough of him to say otherwise either. I’m only skeptical of his UPB theory of ethics, which he touts arrogantly as if he’s finally been able to solve what genius-level IQ philosophers (including The Philosopher, the great Aristotle) have been trying and failing to do for thousands of years. I haven’t had time to look at his argument in detail yet, as I’m busy with a dissertation that his theory isn’t very relevant to, but from what I’ve seen it likely suffers from many of the same weaknesses I’ve identified in Hoppe’s argumentation ethics.

[JohnDelano]

@Hard_Money

Molyneux’s atheism, similar to what I stated before, is something the libertarian movement as a whole must embrace. The metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics of religion have been completely refuted by Objectivists. They lay down the anti-religious foundation of laissez-faire capitalism. You cannot support anarcho-capitalism on a platform of supernaturalism (as opposed to reality), faith (as opposed to reason), and especially on the ethics of Jesus which promotes indiscriminate love to anyone regardless if they’re worthy of it and a completely selfless, suicidal altruism.

We cannot reconcile property rights and “do nothing out of selfish ambition.” We cannot integrate the right to self-defense, let alone competing protection agencies with “turning the other cheek.”

The Rothbardians further streamlined Objectivist politics pointing out that it should logically lead to anarcho-capitalism. But just read what philosopher Anton Thorn has written on the link above and its enough to “de-religionize” anyone who is honest with themselves.

Does altruism have to be selfless and suicidal? I tend to think everything that a person does involves sefishness, including all altruism.

[Brainpolice]

but from what I’ve seen it likely suffers from many of the same weaknesses I’ve identified in Hoppe’s argumentation ethics.

The UPB theory is somewhat similar to arguementation ethics in that a reoccuring theme is that you cannot argue against universally preferable behavior without using it. I’ve watched as all challenges to UPB theory brought up on the board have been responded to in this manner, by pointing out that the individual implicitly accepts it in their attempt to challenge it.

[Brainpolice]

Does altruism have to be selfless and suicidal? I tend to think everything that a person does involves sefishness, including all altruism.

The logical and consistant implication of altruism does lead to universal enslavement and universal suicide, since everyone has a positive obligation to serve everyone else and sacrifice their very lives for the other. But I agree that everything a person does involves self-interest on a fundamental level. However, you cannot have “selfish altruism” because the very definition of altruism is a lack of self. Altruism is a philosophy of sacrifice and selflessness; it should not be equated to the concept of gift giving or charity. In either case, the point is that altruism is impossible. It is impossible for someone to purposefully act as an altruist since they cannot avoid having a self and having incentives to do things for their own benefit. But a lot of damage can be done when working with the illusion that it is possible to be selfless. Like forcing people to sacrifice their time, labor, energy and their very lives in the name of such an ideal.

[JohnDelano]

@Brainpolice

Does altruism have to be selfless and suicidal? I tend to think everything that a person does involves sefishness, including all altruism.

The logical and consistant implication of altruism does lead to universal enslavement and universal suicide, since everyone has a positive obligation to serve everyone else and sacrifice their very lives for the other. But I agree that everything a person does involves self-interest on a fundamental level. However, you cannot have “selfish altruism” because the very definition of altruism is a lack of self. Altruism is a philosophy of sacrifice and selflessness; it should not be equated to the concept of gift giving or charity. In either case, the point is that altruism is impossible. It is impossible for someone to purposefully act as an altruist since they cannot avoid having a self and having incentives to do things for their own benefit. But a lot of damage can be done when working with the illusion that it is possible to be selfless. Like forcing people to sacrifice their time, labor, energy and their very lives in the name of such an ideal.

Yes, selfless action is impossible. It is just best for people to realize this. Even sacrificing one’s self may provide some utility to a masochist.

[gplauche]

It is interesting that modern ethics is almost without exception “designed” to be altruistic: moralit is limited to duties toward others, with one’s own interests or desires being at best of no moral import or only of moral import insofar as they can be universalized into duties toward others.

[libertarian]

I do not agree. Individuals are neither selfish nor altruistic at the fundamental level. There’s no seperation between mind and brain in decision, so every decision is neither selfish nor altruistic. There’s no such thing “temporal altruism” (sacrifice current pleasure to gain future pleasure) or “time preference” at the fundamental level. Everything in the brain is a series of deterministic interactions. Altruistic behavior can be considered selfish, as it is genetic and benefits one’s species or subspecies in the expense of other species. The definitions of selfism and altruism are abstract ideas, which cannot be reduced to the fundamental level.

Most people are altruistic. (i.e. do actions that gives satisfaction to other individuals) If you consider a nation and individual, then national defence is selfish, but if you consider a human an individual then nation defence is altruistic. If you consider a brain cell an individual, then thinking is altruistic (since thinking kills neurons at the expense of other neurons). Altruism and selfism can only be defined relatively via subjective abstraction. If you lose a game because you want the opponent to win, it is considered relatively altrustic, but in absolute terms, it may be selfish.

@Brainpolice

damage can be done when working with the illusion that it is possible to be selfless

The most harmful thing is not because of the illusion of “possible to be selfless”, but “possible to be selfish”. That motivates communists (e.g. selfish bourgeoisie).

[Niccolo]

@dAnconia

Don’t you guys find it a bit of a curious point that this thread has primarily been ad-hominems against Molyneux.

Yeah, it was purposely written to contrast between Molyneux’s own ad-hominems.

If you don’t think calling religion a form of child-abuse is an ad hominem, I’d like to know what you think an ad hominem is.

@dAnconia

As for his psychological themes his wife is a psychologist up in Canada

My mother is a doctor in Illinois.

I must be capable of performing surgery now.

@dAnconia

so it’s not like he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. I’ve even read some of the works of the psychologists he trusts the most and have found their books more than enlightening. None of the Freudian bullshit that pop culture seems to love so much.

Pop-Culture definitely does NOT love Freud. Talk to anyone about psychology and bring up Freud; the first thing you’ll here goes along the lines of, “what a quack.”

@dAnconia

There is a certain brand of atheism that looks upon a parent’s advocacy to their children of “faith” as a corruption of a child’s ability to reason.

When you enslave yourself to only doing what you think is “reasonable” you enslave yourself to a life of unhappiness and misery.

Success is not reasonable, there’s no rationality in revolution, and life is absurd. It’s only when you can act in virtue of the absurd that you’ll ever liberate yourself.

@dAnconia

To these atheists this corruption can be seen in a way as emotional or mental abuse and they have decided to treat it as such. Also the fact that many religions push the belief that non-believers should and will go to hell is one that doesn’t sit well with many atheists. The idea that we are supposed to be like brothers with someone who openly believes we should go to hell because we don’t believe what they believe in is both absurd and an offense to one’s being.

How? It’s a difference between descriptive and normative statements. Religious people believe that there are consequences to not having faith, acting a certain way, or doing certain things. They don’t want this, which explains why they desire for you to keep faith and act in a Godly manner, but Christians that adhere to the teachings of Christ will not force you into it.

@dAnconia

Here the guy has been primarily working toward proving a rational proof of secular ethics that basically proves the non-aggression principle and instead of praising him for his work as a libertarian you criticize his atheism…

I criticize his militant atheism and the way he acts towards Atheists. Please, don’t give me some stupid, sob story about feeling sorry for Stef, because you’ve obviously not listened to his podcasts on religion or heard him speak of the subject.

@dAnconia

I have a feeling most of you guys have not sat through his 900+ podcasting series, huh? It starts off as pure libertarianism stuff but eventually works its way into psychology and I personally think it’s way head of its time. He’s gotten plenty of listeners to jump off the religion bandwagon, which is always a frightening ordeal, and embrace their own perceptions.

Embrace their own perceptions?!? What?!? The entire purpose of freedomainradio.com, or any educational organization for that matter, is to get you to embrace the ORGANIZER’S IDEALS. This is why it’s a cult, because little faithfuls like you praise him as a “newman” and a type of “secular-deity.”

@dAnconia

I find it funny you guys call him a cult leader. Go over to his boards and just prove where he is wrong from a rational standpoint instead of ad-homineming him.

For Molyneux, the answer comes from a pedestrian view of illegitimate authority first and the appeal to his church of Atheism and “reason” second. To address the authority issue in the context of an existing Lord, assume the Lord exists. With the Lord established, one cannot possibly recognize the state, acting outside of God’s will as being synonymous with God’s authority the way Molyneux does – the details are simply contradictory. Furthermore, with the Christian Lord established one must remember God’s position on idolatry. In Jer 2:5, for example, the Lord says, “What fault did your fathers find in me, that they strayed so far from me? They followed worthless idols and became worthless themselves.” And in Isa 42:8 the Lord also professes, “I am the LORD: that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another.” Through deductive reasoning one can only come to the conclusion that as the only source of authority man ought to obey, no state can be suggested to possess legitimate authority as God does - as it is idolatry and the men that obey it shall become as worthless as the idol itself.

More to the point of God’s authority as legitimate for Anarchists to follow though, a common misconception on this subject comes from the misinterpretation of the concept of God’s authority and its relationship to other suggested forms of external commandment. Taking a viewpoint assuming man lies within the realm of the Lord’s existence and influence – this being the only realm in existence – it must be understood that the Lord’s authority does not share any of the same characteristics as the authority of governments. Whereas the Lord counts as an authority ab initio granting individual authority to all human beings from his creation through free-will, thus connecting to man’s authority ab intra ex Deo, a government or state can constitute no authority at all according to God’s provisions on man as equal and free with only natural law to dictate morality. Without granting divine rights to any government, as governments insist on adopting arbitrarily, it can not be said that any external authority contradicting the individual man’s authority exists; furthermore, with God’s authority relating to man’s authority as an individual, the Lord cannot be considered an ordinary, external force either, but rather must be considered a transcendent entity interlinking with individual sovereignty and divine governance of a solid and infinite law - nisi Dominus frustra.

Now, let Molyneux have his way and focus on the authority characteristics of the state in relation to God. Molyneux will certainly say, “yes, but humans obey the state because they learned to obey God as an invisible and non-existent authority.” First, as previously established the authority of God as inherent ab initio possesses no similarity at all to authority of governments granted by idolatry and force, to say such would be an incoherent lie from assumed positions that possess no merit. Second, Molyneux’s doctrine of children being accustomed to states through the presence of a taught God seems to me to be little more than a great cluster of meaningless phrases, as many of his ramblings are. If children are taught that the Lord commands authority as the initial entity of existence while also granting man an individual sovereignty via free-will, then keeping in mind that the Lord commands that His people reject all idols, a paradox arises for Molyneux. If men are taught that God is the only legitimate authority with all idolatry being ill-advised, then how can the state be legitimized without the rejection of God? Is Molyneux here claiming that the arrival of the state can be seen as a direct influence of the absence of God?

Third, and most importantly, Molyneux will no doubt bring out his most venomous attacks in his belief that no Lord exists anyways, and so if nothing else we’re all cultists and need to reject our cults in favor of… his. Here, I’m afraid Molyneux just falls into the modern, cutting-edge, cool-kid trap of rejecting faith as, “a synonym for prejudice - willed belief in the direct opposition of reason and evidence.” Like the resurrection of Ayn Rand, that butch, Russian lady serving as an example of what happens to women if they don’t get laid every so often, Molyneux regurgitates the atmosphere of the times where men in lab-coats and glasses assert themselves as the new preachers of ignorance and the rapists of man’s interior soul. As an avid fan and admirer of the great Søren Kierkegaard, I would have hoped that man could have found a way to move past the age of infinite resignation by now, but am disheartened to see my hopes unfulfilled. Molyneux apparently being a product of the modern mode of theological intuition, the current era of thought dictates an air of reliance on man’s pathetic capacity to “reason” his way out of impossible situations instead of succeeding in glory by virtue of the absurd, and so like all other preachers of “science” and “reason” he inevitably makes the mistake of relying on a flaccid, human mind to understand strong, metaphysical realities.

Find the errors in my logic without rejecting the premises.

@dAnconia

As long as you’re staying away from the ad hominems or trying to abuse the discussion board system then you are not going to get banned. Doesn’t sound like scientology garbage to me. Maybe you guys should think about why his podcasts strike an emotional cord in you. When a handicapped kid goes around saying stupid stuff it doesn’t bother you because you know it’s wrong, right? Then why do you guys care about this stuff?

Are you calling Molyneux handicapped now?

@dAnconia

PPS I am pretty sure he stopped writing for LewRockwell.com because of some of the anti-atheistic stuff that gets posted there. Most self-respecting atheists (as well as theists for that matter) would think twice before making a career out of writing for a publication that was openly condescending toward their core belief system (without ever rationally debating the topic, for that matter).

Evidence of divine occurences and phenomena exist, though specifics of which God - if God - can not be suggested yet, the proof of the Eucharist of Lanciano has been observed.

http://www.therealpresence.org/eucharst/mir/lanciano.html

The fact that Molyneux doesn’t pay even the slightest bit of attention to other religions other than Christianity, nor does he seem to even know of men like St. Aquinas or Anselm of Canterbury seems to indicate his extreme ignorance of the subject.

[Brainpolice]

@libertarian

I do not agree. Individuals are neither selfish nor altruistic at the fundamental level. There’s no seperation between mind and brain in decision, so every decision is neither selfish nor altruistic. There’s no such thing “temporal altruism” (sacrifice current pleasure to gain future pleasure) or “time preference” at the fundamental level. Everything in the brain is a series of deterministic interactions. Altruistic behavior can be considered selfish, as it is genetic and benefits one’s species or subspecies in the expense of other species. The definitions of selfism and altruism are abstract ideas, which cannot be reduced to the fundamental level. Most people are altruistic. (i.e. do actions that gives satisfaction to other individuals)

@Brainpolice

damage can be done when working with the illusion that it is possible to be selfless

The most harmful thing is not because of the illusion of “possible to be selfless”, but “possible to be selfish”. That motivates communists (e.g. selfish bourgeoisie).

You’re not working with the same definition of altruism as I am. You are equating altruism with actions that benefit others. But that is not what altruism means. The fact that social cooperation may benefit others does not make it altruistic. The concept of altruism is one of self-sacrifice for the purpose of benefiting others, not benefits towards others in general. So it is simply false to claim that most people are altruistic, since by definition noone can be altruistic. Doing things to benefit others would not make them altruists, acting in a manner that does not regaurd themselves at all would, and such a manner of acting simply contradicts the fundamentals of human behavior. It’s impossible. Individuals have selves at a fundamental level. They are concious and self-aware to some degree, otherwise they would not be human, let alone alive.

It is impossible for you to take any action at all without some capacity to be aware of yourself (even simple animals possess this capacity, although on a much lower level then humans). As soon as you are aware of yourself, you form an identity and desires. You simply cannot escape self-interest. You have motivations, and wether they are biologically predetermined or not is really irrelevant to the question at hand. An altruist is a human being with no self-awareness and no motivations, one who has no regaurd for themselves and simply acts on the behalf of others, which by all rational accounts is no human being at all. Such a being cannot possibly be human, they can only be an automaton that is programmed to serve others and must be maintained by others, since it does nothing to sustain itself. That’s why I say altruism is impossible.

As for the communists, they are motivated by the idea that it is possible to stomp out this “selfishness”, to create a society void of it.

[Grant]

@Brainpolice

I just think that Stefan’s “followers” tend to act a little too much like, well, “followers”. If he’s not deliberately trying to be a cult leader, he’s certainly being treated like one by at least some of the people on his board.

Well, he’s charismatic. Thats often enough to earn one followers, but doesn’t say anything about the worth of one’s opinions. I don’t think he’s a terribly good philosopher, as he doesn’t seem to rigorously defend his ideas at all (although this could be a straw man, since I simply don’t have the time to sit through many of his videos; at the least I could reach similar conclusions quicker on my own). However, I think he is very good at getting his ideas across to more normal people for precisely these reasons.

When arguments are so far divorced from the result’s they’d cause (such as happens in economics, sociology, or most anything political when compared to the natural sciences or engineering disciplines), I don’t think you can expect things to be much more than popularity contests.

[Niccolo]

@Hard_Money

Molyneux’s atheism, similar to what I stated before, is something the libertarian movement as a whole must embrace.

I disagree. Libertarians can embrace atheism, but they can also just as well embrace Christianity, if they could not, then they would not be libertarians - the concept of a libertarian rests on the assumption that they are individuals that can choose and do as they will.

@Hard_Money

The metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics of religion have been completely refuted by Objectivists.

People too often conflate rationalism with objectivism.

No, I have not yet seen an objectivist argument that can defeat religion in general.

I’ve seen a lot of heeing and hawing claiming to defeat religion, but outside of taking words out of context and conflating one point with another, I’ve yet to find any deduction that would suggest religion cannot be logically proven.

@Hard_Money

They lay down the anti-religious foundation of laissez-faire capitalism. You cannot support anarcho-capitalism on a platform of supernaturalism (as opposed to reality), faith (as opposed to reason), and especially on the ethics of Jesus which promotes indiscriminate love to anyone regardless if they’re worthy of it and a completely selfless, suicidal altruism.

You really don’t know what Christianity is about, do you?

A. Reality, to a Christian, encompasses the supernatural.

B. Reason and reason alone is true blindness. As life is an absurdity, it requires faith to actually live.

C. Objectivism is basically a form of radical empiricism on steroids.

D. The Church reconciles “altruism” with “egoism” by admitting that acts of self-love are qualifably virtuous, but that acts based on no other desire than the pleasure of others can be virtuous as well.

[libertarian]

Stefan Molyneux takes too long to explain things, improvises trashy aguments and analogies, and repetitive. Most writers are like that too. Some atheists like to scapegoat religion, but I don’t.

Rationalists or Objectivists often have “dirty little secrets” such as cognitive biases and irrational heuristics that they unconsciously assume. Their arguments often contain “hidden assumptions”. For example, their rational defence for murdering unborn children is flawed, because the argument contains dirty little heuristics. They often deny that they have blind faith or prejudice, even most of their arguments are based on them.

[libertarian]

@Brainpolice

It is impossible for you to take any action at all without some capacity to be aware of yourself (even simple animals possess this capacity, although on a much lower level then humans). As soon as you are aware of yourself, you form an identity and desires. You simply cannot escape self-interest. You have motivations, and wether they are biologically predetermined or not is really irrelevant to the question at hand. An altruist is a human being with no self-awareness and no motivations, one who has no regaurd for themselves and simply acts on the behalf of others, which by all rational accounts is no human being at all. Such a being cannot possibly be human, they can only be an automaton that is programmed to serve others and must be maintained by others, since it does nothing to sustain itself. That’s why I say altruism is impossible.

The brain can seperated (such as alien hand syndrome) and theoretically can be combined (such as telepathy). So I don’t believe that there is such thing as selfism and altruism. Humans are not atomic. My argument is based on the assumption that machines can behave like humans.

I used to assume that all human actions are fundamentally selfish, but now I assume neither.

[Hard_Money]

Altruism, applied consistently, is ultimately suicidal yes. Altruism is the doctrine that holds that one must sacrifice oneself to th intrests of othrs in ordr to be moral. To sacrifice, according to Ayn Rand in his case, is to surrender a higher value in favor of a lower value or of a non-value. the ultimate sacrifice would be to commit suicide in the act of saving another random person you hand no emotional relationshp with because it would invole surrendering life one’s greatest value, in favor of death, the ultimate non-value. Life is a rational person’s greatest value because without it, all other values are impossible. All values presuppose life and are sought as means to the ultimate end of preserving life. I, for instance, pursue education because it will enrich my life later on. I don’t pursue education just for the sake of education. Altruism is possible as well as very undesirable.

Most people exalt altruism, yet they cannot practice it consistently because to do so would result in death, eventually. Therefore, people trade consistent altruism and honesty for inconsistent altruism and hypocrisy. You can either praise altruism verbally, practice it miticulously, and off yourself or you can, like most people, praise altruism verbally, cheat on it in practice, and become a hypocrite. Now what does that do for you self-esteem. Under altruism, making yourself able to live eliminates your chance of being morally worthy and making yourself morally worthy abolishes your ability to live. So it screws you either way.

However, charity and generosity do not necessarily imply altruism. One may give to charity because one receives selfish satisfaction from assisting a friend in need, a person whom one admires.

[Hard_Money]

"You really don’t know what Christianity is about, do you?

A. Reality, to a Christian, encompasses the supernatural.

B. Reason and reason alone is true blindness. As life is an absurdity, it requires faith to actually live.

C. Objectivism is basically a form of radical empiricism on steroids.

D. The Church reconciles “altruism” with “egoism” by admitting that acts of self-love are qualifably virtuous, but that acts based on no other desire than the pleasure of others can be virtuous as well. " -Niccolo

I’m going to have some fum with this if thats ok.

“You really don’t know what Christianity is about, do you?” -Niccolo

Hurried oversimplification. I am a former Christian and was one until age 18. I went to both Catholic and Lutheran schools so I have a general knowledge of Christian.

"A. Reality, to a Christian, encompasses the supernatural" - Niccolo

Irrationalism holds that human thinking ought to be without reference to reality - faith. Reality is absolute - this is a fact. The axioms of existence, identity, consciousness, free-will, and the scientific laws of nature are all undeniable because to deny them is to simultaneously affirm their existence. Reality establishes impenetrable constraints. Existence is independent of consciousness yet consciousness is dependent upon existence. After all, consciousness, being the faculty of awareness of reality, is only valid when there exists something to be conscious of. One is not conscious when there exists nothing to be conscious of. Consciousness is consciousness of something. When there is no reality, there is nothing to be conscious of.

Also, consciousness is itself an existent - it is something that exists and it implies a means of consciousness: sense modalities or sense organs. Consciousness requires the existence of sense modalities or sense organs in order to operate. How can a being be conscious without a means of being conscious?

So consciousness is dependent upon existence - if there’s consciousness, there’s existence. Consciousness is simply a specific form of existence. Unfortunately, religionists believe a consciousness, specifically a divine one, created existence. So they believe that a consciousness preceeded existence, that an existent preceeded the existence of existence and that such a consciousness was conscious of existence before existence existed. Pure fallacies.

“B. Reason and reason alone is true blindness. As life is an absurdity, it requires faith to actually live.” - Niccolo

False. Faith, by definition, is true blindness. Faith is belief without reference to reality. Knowledge is recognition of reality. The only thing to recognize is reality because all that exists is reality - reality is the realm of all existence. How can someone live by faith, i.e., believe in statements about existence without reference to existence. How can one be assure of something in reality without evidence. How can we be so sure of anarcho-capitalism now without the works of past anarcho-capitalists affirming the possibility of such a social system. Evidence, facts of reality, give us the information we require in order to even make an assumption. One cannot make a claim about reality without reference to reality, i.e., claim that competition improves quality without observing and studying competition in action.

Reason is the ability to perceive, identify, and integrate the material provided by the senses. The senses provide perceptual information of reality and reason uses logic, the art of non-contradictory identification, to form conceptual knowledge and make inferences based on sensory perception of reality. Thats how I came to he conclusion that free-market anarchism was the most desirable social system. In order to come to the same conclusion based on faith, one would have to guess, literally. If Rothbard told me that anarcho-capitalism was the best social system because he simply believed it was without any deliberation or work, I would have told him to go to hell. Reason involves conclusions based on evidence. Faith involves only the conclusions.

Faith actually is a form of emotion because why else would one believe in something without reference to reality other than having an emotional attraction to it, i.e., evaluating it as a positive.

If you got passed the entire repertoire of social systems and picked anarcho-capitalism purely through faith, then you’d be excellent on Deal/No Deal.

Faith is to knowledge as command socialism is to setting prices.

"D. The Church reconciles “altruism” with “egoism” by admitting that acts of self-love are qualifably virtuous, but that acts based on no other desire than the pleasure of others can be virtuous as well. ’ - Niccolo

So the Church is hypocritical. The Church cannot have it both ways. It cannot advocate two contradictory moral doctrines. Which should have more weight? The altruism or the egoism. Should I be self-sacrifical from 12:00am to 12:00pm and then switch? Stop it. I quit Christianity because under intellectual scrutiny it wouldn’t last longer then a government commitment to a gold standard. Just reading the papal encyclicals illustrates the utter contempt the Vatican has for the free-market.

[Brainpolice]

Very good explaination of the problem. Existance precedes conciousness.

[Donny_with_an_A]

Incidentally, I’ve been working on a critique of Stefan’s latest book on my blog. If anyone’s interested, here’s the link.

[Donny_with_an_A]

As for the consciousness/existence debate, I’d refer you to Kant (or at least a decent summary) if you really want to get into all that.

[JohnDelano]

@Hard_Money

Altruism, applied consistently, is ultimately suicidal yes. Altruism is the doctrine that holds that one must sacrifice oneself to th intrests of othrs in ordr to be moral. To sacrifice, according to Ayn Rand in his case, is to surrender a higher value in favor of a lower value or of a non-value. the ultimate sacrifice would be to commit suicide in the act of saving another random person you hand no emotional relationshp with because it would invole surrendering life one’s greatest value, in favor of death, the ultimate non-value. Life is a rational person’s greatest value because without it, all other values are impossible. All values presuppose life and are sought as means to the ultimate end of preserving life. I, for instance, pursue education because it will enrich my life later on. I don’t pursue education just for the sake of education. Altruism is possible as well as very undesirable.

Most people exalt altruism, yet they cannot practice it consistently because to do so would result in death, eventually. Therefore, people trade consistent altruism and honesty for inconsistent altruism and hypocrisy. You can either praise altruism verbally, practice it miticulously, and off yourself or you can, like most people, praise altruism verbally, cheat on it in practice, and become a hypocrite. Now what does that do for you self-esteem. Under altruism, making yourself able to live eliminates your chance of being moral worthy and making yourself morally worthy abolishes your ability to live. So it screws you either way.

However, charity and generosity do not necessarily imply altruism. One may give to charity because one receives selfish satisfaction from a friend, a person whom one admires.

I don’t believe that type of altruism can exist. Even one who kills himself for a person to whom he has no emotional attachment does it for some reason he believes will benefit himself. What else would drive him to do so? Even if it is to satisfy a desire to do what he thinks he is suppoed to do, he gains some satisfaction.