What contribution, if any, did Ayn Rand make to philosophy?
Dunno about philosophy, but the Rush song “2112” was a major contribution to the world of art in general. 
Ayn Rand? shudder
dumb down Philosophy so that clueless college students across the globe can read it and feel mentally emboldened?
A bit of a hijack here…
I think it’s rather ironic that Ayn Rand describes her philosophy as “objectivism.” Objectivity means making judgments and decisions without regard for one’s personal desires. I think that Rand’s philosophy is anything but objective, as evidenced by such phrases as “the virtue of selfishness.”
Note that I’m not addressing the question of whether her philosophy is correct, or even reasonable. I’m merely pointing out that “objectivism” is a rather strange way to describe this worldview.
Maybe if “Objectivism” was a synonym for “objectivity,” you’d have a point, but it isn’t, so you don’t. She didn’t “describe” her philosophy as “objectivism” – she created the philosophy of Objectivism, which states among other things that the world and the universe exist independently of our perception of them. You know – objectively.
Yeah, it would help if the people who are criticizing her philosophy actually knew something about it.
Objectivism is a branch of Aristotilean logic. “A is A”. The universe is what it is. Reality is NOT in the eye of the beholder. Reality exists regardless of our desires or perceptions. Now, we may not be equipped to perceive it very well, and some people may have a better insight into what it is than others. This flew in the face of the rising tide of subjectivist thinking, in which all morals are relative, reality is relative to perception, etc. A viewpoint far more silly, in my book, but which grabbed on to a much larger percentage of academia for some reason.
From this, she attempts (with some success and some failures, IMO) to determine the ‘right’ way for man to live. She goes on to extrapolate morality from basic human nature, which is where the ‘selfishness’ part comes in. And you know, she was largely right about that. She was not against charity and being kind and helping your friends and neighbors, btw. What she opposed is “Altruism”, defined as the belief that it is moral to elevate the needs of other people above the needs of the self. And I think she’s right. If you apply that to all of humanity, you define ‘moral’ behaviour as everyone essentially being enslaved to the herd. You look out for others, and they look out for you. This is contrary to human nature, and it’s also inefficient, in that the best person to know what you need is you and not some guy in Washington or in the local co-op.
When codified into laws, the morality of selfishness leads to political systems such as the United States in its infancy. Remember the right to the pursuit of happiness? Altruism, on the other hand, leads to the horrors of the Gulag and Soviet collectivisation, in which your needs become subservient to the needs of the group, even if what the group needs is to have you killed and your stuff expropriated.
Ayn Rand went wrong when she tried to apply her philosophy to *everything. She thought Objectivism was the grand unifying principle of human behaviour. Hence, there was ‘proper’ art, ‘proper’ human relationships, etc. If she had stuck to the realm of political behaviour she would have been a lot better off.
What makes it all worse is that Ayn Rand as a person was actually quite illogical, and pretty much off the deep end. She had a poisonous personality, and ‘excommunicated’ people from her little band of followers based on trivial ‘failures’, while she herself screwed around with another married man in full view of their spouses, and managed to justify it on objectivist grounds.
In short, she had some brilliant insights to offer, but much of it was tainted and skewed by her personality failings.
She died.
Well, whoopee. That premise – that reality is separate from perception – is nothing new. While she may have articulated this viewpoint, I don’t think there’s any reasonable sense in which it originated with her.
Moreover, if that were the sum total of her philosophy, then the term “objectivism” might be valid. However, once one steps beyond that, and starts extolling “the virtue of selfishness,” then one has clearly stepped far beyond the premise that “the world and the universe exist independenlty of our perception of them.”
Uh, no, it originated with Aristotle. I guess you missed that point in your vast readings of Rand, huh? Especially since she credits him with it repeatedly throughout her works.
Look, you had better just read what she wrote. The virtue of selfishness is the end result of a derivation directly from A is A. There is NOTHING about being selfish which requires that you abandon objective reality.
Maybe someone with more free time than I’ve got today will bother to go through the whole derivation for you.
You know Sam, I think some of us would read what she wrote if it WEREN’T 9 MILLION PAGES LONG…hehehe.
Plus no pictures-I mean what gives? How am I supposed to grasp a concept if the only illustration I have is on the cover?
You’re talking about her fiction. Her philosophy is described in detail in her non-fiction works - which are quite easy to read, and quite short. Look up “The Virtue of Selfishness”, “Introduction the Objectivist Epistemology”, and “Capitalism - the Unknown Ideal”.
Please don’t confuse me with an apologist for Ayn Rand. I disagree with an awful lot of what she had to say. But it doesn’t serve anyone well to dismiss her philosophy based on sound bites or what you heard some college buddy say between bong hits. Rand’s philosophy is at least worthy of serious debate, and not offhand dismissal. Especially by those who haven’t read it.
I think she would like what Kenneth Lay did. Grrr.
Please give us a cite from her work that would support that. Ayn Rand was violently opposed to businessmen who take advantage of government. She would have been the first person to be screaming about some of the stuff going on today. Even in her fiction she saves her strongest vitriol for those who would claim to be capitalists while using the power of government to force the market in their direction or give them unfair advantage.
She was also violently opposed to fraud and deceit.
So, since you’ve apparently read enough of Ayn Rand to form that judgement, please give us a cite or a paragraph from her work that could be construed to be an endorsement.
Guys, this is Great Debates. You are supposed to SUPPORT your assertions. If you want to just kvetch about Ayn Rand, head off to IMHO. If you want to seriously discuss her philosophy, freaking read it first.
But that’s precisely my point. I’m not the one who said that it originated with Ayn Rand. In fact, I said the exact opposite.
No, it does not. It is not an automatic result from the claim that “reality does not equal perception.” Ayn Rand may believe it to be the logical result thereof, but that’s a serious stretch… and it is clearly based on far, far more than a mere objective distinction between reality and perception. In that, the term “objectivism” is misleading in the extreme.
I’m sorry, but any philosophy – valid or not – which extols the virtues of being selfish (i.e. making decisions based on personal desires) can not claim to be rooted in any form of objectivity. Making judgments based on personal desires is the OPPOSITE of objectivity.
NO it isn’t. Support that assertion.
I didn’t say that Rand’s derivation of Objectivism from Aristotle is correct. But you are making the claim that it isn’t, and you have offered ZERO evidence to back up that claim.
If you want to tear apart her derivation, do so. Quote some of her work that is flawed, and show us where. Just saying it’s so doesn’t cut it in Great Debates.
Oh, and she does not believe that ‘personal desires’ are the valid basis for decision-making. This idea is another misunderstanding of her work. She was opposed to anarchism, and she was opposed to hedonism. She even hated Libertarians. But you’d know that, since you’ve actually read what she has to say, right?
No-one outside the US pays any attention to Ayn Rand.
Another brilliant comment that does not belong in Great Debates. What is it with Ayn Rand that brings out the ignorant knee-jerk tendencies in people? Geez. Feel free to hate her, to disagree with every word she uttered. I don’t care. But this is supposed to be a DEBATE, not a bitch session.
JThunder:
I can understand not wanting to read her fiction, because it is really long, but even a short survey of her basic ideas would have told you that your current view of her philosophy is extremely inaccurate.
Your biggest mistake is that you are completely unaware of what Ayn Rand meant by “selfishness.” It does not mean “making decisions based on personal desires.” In fact, making decisions based on personal desires would not fit in her definition of selfish. It means “concern with one’s own interests.” She used the word selfishness to challenge the more common thinking about the word.
Ayn Rand believes human interests are objective. We each have objective biological and psychological needs. Each individual’s greatest interest, and therefore greatest moral value, is their own well-being. Therefore a concern with one’s own interests is a virtue, because it enables one to achieve well-being. If selfishness, a concern for one’s own interests, is helpful to leading a productive, happy life, then why wouldn’t it be a virtue?
Of course, many people think of selfish as meaning that one disregards the well-being of others. They may also think that being selfish means following your personal desires no matter what (which is what you seem to think). But Ayn Rand rejects these definitions. What does disregarding others’ well-being have to do with having concern for your own? Concern for your well-being can in fact coexist with concern for other people. What does following your personal desires have to do with concern for your own well-being? Clearly following your personal desires at all times will most likely be harmful, and not at all in your best interest. Recall that selfisness is concern with one’s best interest. Is following your every whim always beneficial to your biological and psychological needs? No. In a social world, is it in your best interest to disregard other people and treat them badly? No. So those things are not selfish.
In altruism, an action is considered good or bad depending on who it benefits. It is good if it benefits others and bad if it benefits you. Rand is saying that you actually have to look at the values of an action, not just who it will benefit. In other words, altruism provides for two types of actions:
- Sacrifice self for others. (good)
- Sacrifice others for self. (bad)
Rand’s philosophy has these possible actions:
- Sacrifice self for others. (bad)
- Sacrifice others for self. (bad)
- Sacrifice nobody for self. (good)
- Sacrifice nobody for others. (good)
I think it is very reasonable to say that it is good to act in your own best interest if it does not require you to sacrifice others. The alternative is to only act when it is in the best interest of others, and this makes you basically a slave. It would make it so instead of A = A (A acts in A’s best interest), A = B (A acts in B’s best interest). In a world with infinite people this turns out to be
A = not A, which is a very illogical system. Anyway, I read Ayn Rand in high school so I may be not be entirely accurate, but from what I read she seemed to make good points. Maybe I just didn’t get to the crazy stuff.