Will she make a difference between
i) “demanding” empathy
ii) finding people without empathy awkward, stupid, evil?
Short, normally empathy is not asked for. Either you have it or you don’t. And if you don’t, you are a jerk. By the standards of most people.
This is excellent news for people slandered as psychopaths for their utter lack of empathy! Turns out that they’re actually Objectivists!
‘Objectivism’ and ‘libertarianism’ have always been nothing but self-justifying ideologies for sociopaths. The rest are ‘I’ve got mine’ rabble looking for an intellectual fig-leaf.
Maybe you have a unorthodox definition of what “empathy” is.
In the links, “empathy” defined as, *“identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another.”
*or as Wiki page puts it, “the capability to share and understand another’s emotions and feelings”
A person can certainly hold the view that denying “self-sacrifice” is compatible with “identifying with others’ thoughts or understanding others’ emotions”. You can hold both thoughts at the same time. Believing in self-sacrifice is not a prerequisite for empathy.
What’s the confusion? Perhaps you meant to use a different word other than “empathy”?
And I think you added more confusion with your use of the word “empathy”.
So I can sympathize with a beggar, but if I actually give him a dollar, I am immoral. OK, now I see how it works.
I can write it here if you like.
I think we are all operating under a fundamental assumption that freedom is a good thing. And one of the most basic freedoms is the freedom to work as you see fit.
And now we get to it. “Your way of thinking” is the very thing that Rand (and really most rational hardworking people) are opposed to. Dictators and tyranical governments throughout history have attempted to convince their citizens that they are no more than agents of the State. Their labor should be for the good of the State and all it’s Citizens (Comrades, People, whathaveyou). All your possessions are yours only by the grace and the whim of the state. In what way is that not slavery?
Property rights are puny? Would you feel that way if I decide to take your car tomorrow morning and prevented you from getting to work because I need it more? How about if the government decided to evict you from your home and gave it to some homeless people who needed it more?
Why should I sacrifice myself for others? Which others should I sacrifice myself for? When would be enough? Should I be forced to sacrifice because you think it’s the “right thing to do”?
Most people just focus on the “stealing from the rich and giving to the poor” part, as if simply being poor was a virtue and being wealthy was a serious character flaw. That kind of thinking leads to the belief that it is ok to take from those who have to give it to those who don’t. Everyone thinks it’s perfectly acceptable for Jean Valjean to steal a loaf of bread to feed his family. What if the whole neighborhood steals a loaf of bread? How much bread will there be if the baker goes out of business because everyone is stealing his bread?
I guess if we are going to resort to namecalling as intelligent debate, socialism and communism are nothing but self-justifying idealogies for the lazy and incompetant to steal from the hard working and successful.
Let’s say the family next door is starving. Ayn Rand says it would be “immoral” for you to give them a can of beans from your pantry. Is that the philosophy you mean to defend?
Didn’t say that, said they were puny in comparison to the others on the short list of fundamental human rights. Taken alone, no such right is “puny”, compared to the others, likely so.
When you earned your money producing goods you depended on society through various ways:
The very least you should do is to give back a part of these costs to society. You didn’t earn this money by yourself alone.
Let’s make an experiment : we airlift a couple of entrepreneurs into the Sahara with no possibility to communicate or transport goods or capital. Let’s see how much they will produce.
You could, but you’d be wrong. There is nothing to ‘debate’ about Rand. She’s about as much a philosopher as L Ron Hubbard as has been amply demonstrated in this thread.
And my description amply fits the followers of the two pseudo-philosophies as they comport themselves on this board.
Why is that someone criticizing Rand needs to be a communist?
Yea - 'cos you’ve got yours.
I’ve read all your posts but to save you the trouble of having to read mine, here are a few thoughts.
I didn’t say I found her ideas to be immoral. I said (in response to someone asking why people were so down on Rand):
“I supect that if immoral people used Dan Browns work to justify their immorality, people would have problems with Dan Brown as well even if Dan brown never said anything that was actually immoral.”
If you meant to ask what immorality have other people used Rand’s philosophy to justify, then I guess I would point to the examples of my neighbor who argues that he shouldn’t have to pay real estate taxes because he sends his kids to private school. I guess I would point to everyone who uses Rand’s philosophy to justify whatever avarice they desired.
Didn’t the American Indiands have a diffgerent concept of property rights?
The US government is relatively unintrusive compared to Western European governments and yet the US doesn’t seem to be doing so hot.
Are France and Germany socialist governments?
Perhaps its because there are examples on the other side as well.
And if we were living in a society where we were actually in danger of abandoning the concept of property rights then I could see your point but we are living in a society where we are in danger of raising the top marginal tax rate from 35% to 39.6%. I guess my biggest problem with Rand is that so many people use her philosophy for the idea that we should get rid of taxation.
And you don’t think the social contract says anything else?
So you don’t think that members of society have any other duty to society other than to do their best to prosper? If I don’t particularly value national defense, is it immoral to tax me to pay for everyone else’s security?
I think a lot of this comes down to taxes. People use Rand to argue that taxation is theft and I find that immoral.
I didn’t think the previous poster was suggesting the cofiscation of all capital by the state but I may be wrong. If your premise is that any state demands on your proserty is slavery then I guess I would say that you have a very very broad definition of slavery.
Perhaps because we have an elected government and you can choose to participate in that government by voting or running for office. It is that government that chooses “how much is enough.” If you don’t like the system, you can do what Reardon did and leave all your worldly possession behind and drop out of society. Perhaps the world will beg for you to come back.
Because the people who like her work tend to see the world in absolutes. If you are not with us then you must be the polar opposite.
Well put.
There is a big difference between feeling empathy, helping someone out, and sacrificing oneself for another person.
The whole bit about giving a beggar a dollar is just a red herring. It all depends on the details of who the beggar is, what your own circumstances are, and whether you’re even able to know what the guy is going to do with the dollar.
So, when you said:
You meant that John Galt has a different philosophy than Ayn Rand?
Can you explain that difference?
No it doesn’t, at least it does not depend on “what the guy is going to do with the dollar.”
Giving a dollar to a beggar is not immoral even if you exactly know that the guy will spend the dollar on booze.
It’s funny how so many people criticize her for seeing everything in black and white and then criticize her for NOT seeing things in black and white.
It all depends on the details of the person for whom we’re suppose to feel empathy. If I guy loses his home because his neighbor set it on fire, then of course you’d feel empathy. If he loses his home because he set it on fire himself, then not so much.