It all comes down to whether or not you think the world we experience is in fact real. We can say we know certain things exist because of our senses. Again, there is literally no reason to doubt our senses. In this aspect, A is most certainly A, and not A is impossible. Only objective things exist, and concepts like nothingness and infinity and so forth are only subjective constructions certainly not based on anything empirical.
I’ll be sure to post again when I’ve read Ayn Rand’s Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology. I’ll have it here soon.
triknighted,
If you are seriously interested in Rand, check out the Journal of Ayn Rand Studies. Its a pretty good resource, and there are probably a dozen articles on her epistemology alone.
I never said that committing suicide is irrational, and I don’t think it is, so I have nothing to concede there.
Well exactly what inference were we to draw when you said:
We’re certainly capable of holding something other than “a rational life” as an ultimate end. As Exhibit A, I present people committing suicide.
When a person holds something as an end, then he will act in ways that he at least believes will attain that end for him. If the end in question is his ultimate end, then he will presumably seek to attain that end over all others. So if life (“rational” or not) is his ultimate end, then he will act in ways that he at least believes will attain life for him over everything else. Committing suicide does not do that. Hence I maintain that a person who commits suicide does not have any kind of life as his ultimate end.
So if life (“rational” or not) is his ultimate end, then he will act in ways that he at least believes will attain life for him over everything else. Committing suicide does not do that.
What if part of living a “rational life” is knowing when it’s your time to die?
There is no believing, unless you think the individual is incapable of deciding for themselves.
I was confused by your use of “knowing”, but it now seems to me that you’re using it as a synonym for “deciding”. So I think your question can be rephrased as “What if living “a rational life” involves deciding when it’s time to die?”
In that case, I think there’s a semantic issue about the meaning of “holding (a rational) life as an ultimate end”. It could refer to wanting to have lived a certain way, or it could refer to wanting to live a certain way. That is, it’s a question about looking back at the past or looking ahead to the future. What do you think about this distinction?
About Rand’s political philosophy: her endorsement of limited government glaringly contradicts the broader tenets of Objectivism. If she holds that the initiation of force is always immoral, then no state, no matter how limited, and regardless of whether or not it is funded by voluntary donations, is morally permissible. After all, government, by definition, is a monopoly power; even the ideal minarchist state maintains a coercive monopoly on the production of security (i.e. law and order). Any attempt to justifiy a monopoly of this sort (which is exactly what Rand sets out to do) is incompatible with the non-aggression principle - a principle Rand would argue must be adhered to if man is to be able to live a rational life.
To illustrate: imagine an individual decides he is unsatisfied with what he deems the unsatisfactory security service provided by the state in whose territory he resides. He is precluded, by law, from patronizing another security firm; or from establishing such a business himself. To prevent one from using their property in contractual exchange qualifies as aggression just as the uncontracted confiscation of that same property does. Even if this state doesn’t tax its citizens, but rather funds its operations with donations offered voluntarily, it is still interfering with the property of its citizens, at the very least the one who wishes to bring his patronage elsewhere.
In order to consistently project the broader philosophical ideas of Objectivism in the realm of politics, Rand would have had to advocate for pure capitalism - a private-law society.
And besides, “limited government” is a pipe dream.
Well said, Gman1944. If a state interferes with property owned by an individual who no longer wishes to patronize it, and considers itself justified in doing so, then either the state thinks the withdrawing individual has harmed it in some way, or the state thinks itself is the true owner of the property in question. Indeed, the state can think both of those things at the same time. In that case, the withdrawing individual is hurting the state by trying to take its property from it.
The kind of property where this is most often seen is property in land. A state claims that everyone living within its claimed boundaries must follow its rules - they are said to be under its jurisdiction. The establishment of such a jurisdiction is in fact an establishment of ownership.
However, the state seems to have its origin in communal (or joint) kinship-based land ownership. In such a situation, a single individual isn’t the sole owner of the land on which he resides. Depending on the decision-making procedures governing the land, he may not be allowed to stay on the part of the land he’s using, or even on any part of it, should he disagree with or disobey decisions made in accordance with the procedures. His only recourse then would be to physically remove himself from the land.
The problem today, as I see it, is that there are two systems of land ownership in conflict with one another. On one level, land is said to be ownable by private individuals or arbitrary groups thereof. On another (allegedly “higher”) level, land is said to be owned by certain organizations that call themselves “states”. A sort of Marxian materialist dialectic can be read into this, if one wishes. I’m not sure how the conflict will turn out - whether it will revert back to solely state ownership, or whether private ownership will win out. But I side with private ownership.