 The Individual and the General in Our Lives
by Tibor R. Machan
Often people who speak out on various issues will do so as if they knew what is true about all of us. This is the source of all the "we" talk in public discourse. "We have such and such rights," "We need this or that vitamin or exercise or educational program." Medical science certainly weighs in with such pronouncements all the time, claiming that coffee is or is not healthful, that cholesterol must be lowered or a certain ratio of age to height to weight is right for everyone. (Read more...)
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Wednesday
January 17, 2007 |
 Law of Identity
by Joseph Rowlands
The Law of Identify is one of those very simple ideas that is so universal, it's difficult to describe it in words. It is simply the fact that whatever exists, exists in a particular way. Everything that exists has identity. (Read more...)
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Very Soft on Islamic Terrorism
by Tibor R. Machan
The New York Times magazine has a feature called "QUESTIONS FOR," and the other day it was "the artist formerly known as Cat Stevens," now named Yusuf Islam (as of his conversion to Islam), who was being questioned by Deborah Solomon. (Read more...)
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Wednesday
January 10, 2007 |
The Anti-Imperialist League and the Battle Against Empire
by Thomas E. Woods
In April 1898 the United States went to war with Spain for the stated purpose of liberating Cuba from Spanish control. Several months later, when the war had ended, Cuba had been transformed into an American protectorate, and Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines had become American possessions. (Read more...)
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Assumptions of New Year's Resolutions
by Tibor R. Machan
So, often people think they are free of philosophical assumptions. Many think they are just practical people and look with some disparagement at the heavy thinkers, as if they were useless eggheads. Yet, all of us go around with various assumptions about the world which could use some exploration, analysis, and verification. (Read more...)
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Themes of Metaphysics
by Joseph Rowlands
We're going to take a break now from Epistemology, and go into Metaphysics a little. Some of the issues in Epistemology are so dependent on Metaphysics, it's important to get some of the background information. In this thread, I just want to talk about Metaphysics in general. What are the key issues? What kind of answers are we looking for? (Read more...)
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Another Crazy FDR "Right"
by Tibor R. Machan
Over the last couple of years I have explored FDR’s Second Bill of Rights because recently some heavy hitters in politics and legal theory (e.g., Cass Sunstein) have made a point of championing these ultimately phony rights. With the Democrats back in power in Washington, it is not unreasonable to suppose that securing and expanding FDR’s list of rights—as distinct from those laid out by the American founders in the Declaration of Independence—will once again dominate the federal government’s agenda. Not that Republicans put up much of a fight against the Democrats but the Republicans' version of statism focuses less on wealth redistribution and more on soul craft. (Read more...)
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Anti-Individualism, Conservative Style
by Tibor R. Machan
Just to keep matters in balance, let me point out that although it is mostly the Left that hates individualism—remember, socialism means that we, humanity, are all just one organism—the Right’s hostility toward it is no less virulent. Just recall that both Hitler and Stalin hated individualism, in any of its varieties. American individualism, one that stresses the independent judgment of human beings—not their alleged and, not surprisingly, ridiculous, fictional independent or self-sufficient existence—does not suit either the Left or the Right, including some fairly powerful voices among American conservatives. Just consider the blurb peddling one currently rising conservative’s recent book, Peter Augustine Lawler’s Stuck With Virtue, The American Individual and Our Biotechnological Future. “These insightful, provocative essays critique what the author sees as America’s ever-increasing individualistic habits and attitudes, centered on a view of the individual as self-sufficient and unencumbered.” As if that is what American individualism were about. (Read more...)
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 Socialist or Capitalist, What are You?
by Dean Michael Gores
Socialists: say producers must provide the bare necessities for Everyone (by forcing producers to give to others) Capitalists: say producers must have full control of their own products (and let less fortunate people die if no one is willing to help them using their own resources) Why do people choose... (Read more...)
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 Stifler of the Noble Soul
by Luke Setzer
Despite its rich content and often caustic analysis, Steve Salerno's SHAM fails in one fundamental respect. Objectivists will see this failure interspersed all through the book. What fully grounded, objective, integrated, rational moral code does Salerno advocate in place of the messages of these various gurus? Blank out. Rather, paleoconservative seems best to describe Salerno's working ethical philosophy as he snidely sneers at self-interest in favor of a number of supposedly "higher" values such as marriage and family. (Read more...)
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Wednesday
December 20, 2006 |
Bad Arguments For And Against Liberty
by Tibor R. Machan
In his December 18th guest column for The New York Times, Orlando Patterson of Harvard University lays in on George W. Bush and his neo-conservative pals for misguidedly pushing Western style liberalism on Iraqis. The gist of his point is that Bush believes that liberty is "written in our hearts," something supposedly learned from John Locke, and that simply is false. (Read more...)
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 Human Evil: The Only Kind There Is
by Ed Thompson
Author's note:
This is the first in a series subtitled: "The only kind there is." This specific subtitle is meant to call attention to the unique dynamics of living as a human being -- as opposed to living as another type of creature, or existing as a non-living entity. For example, rocks or stones aren't ever considered evil, and there is a good reason for that. Much of the past failure to adequately delineate such basic concepts as good, evil, happiness, virtue, beauty, and love stems from an inadequate conception of the unique nature of man. I am of the opinion that much of the philosophical indecisiveness regarding these basics concepts would be removed upon a prior and adequate understanding of man's nature. This series is my attempt to forward such an understanding of what it means to be human.
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General Pinochet-Some Lessons
by Tibor R. Machan
It is interesting just how real politics works. When the chips are down, we can often detect from little gestures and moves where people really stand on basic issues. When General Pinochet died the other day, there was not a great deal of discussion about him and those that did appear tended to make a lot out of his having been supported by the American CIA when he overthrew the regime of Salvador Allende. Now for my money if it took the CIA to do this, it could well be to its credit, even though technically Chile was a so called sovereign country and Allende a sovereign leader (or ruler!). (Read more...)
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Wednesday
December 13, 2006 |
 Frederic Bastiat on Self-Interest
by G. Stolyarov II
An intricate and multifaceted understanding of the role of self-interest in economic behavior underpins the economic writings of Claude Frédéric Bastiat (1801-1850), a French classical liberal thinker, free-trade activist, and delegate to the French National Assembly. Bastiat saw the self-interest motive as central to human nature but capable of leading to diametrically opposite consequences depending on whether this motive was employed in peaceful production and voluntary exchange or in the plundering of others through crime or through the enshrinement of plunder in the law. Mr. Stolyarov examines Bastiat’s view of self-interest’s dual tendencies and the societies each of them leads to. In free markets where property is secure, self-interest results in prosperity, peace, harmony, and morality. In a redistributive state, however, man is pitted against man in perpetually recurring “legal plunder,” which is reinforced by the self-interest of politicians, special interest groups (rent-seekers), and the plundered classes who wish to enter government and remake the law to make themselves the plunderers. (Read more...)
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Natural Rights as Derived from Ethical Egoism: Tibor R. Machan's Randian Approach
by Edward W. Younkins
Unlike Rasmussen and Den Uyl, prominent philosopher of human flourishing, Tibor R. Machan, approaches the derivation of natural rights by way of ethical egoism. For Machan, rights are a moral concept rather than a metanormative one. His strong case for natural rights and the legitimacy of the minimal state rests on a c... (Read more...)
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 From Objectivism to Neo-Tech and Back
by Luke Setzer
Disclaimer: I no longer have anything to do with Neo-Tech. I post this article only as a historical account of my past involvement with them and to enlighten those who may want to learn more about it. I confess some embarrassment at supporting them as long as I did but, as the saying goes, "Better late than never." (Read more...)
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Wednesday
December 6, 2006 |
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
by Ryan Brubaker
On a recent trip to Italy, I had the opportunity to reflect on Ayn Rand's philosophy of art while viewing many of the famous works displayed in Italy's major cities. I have very little, if any, expertise in the technical aspects of art or expertise in art history. I have also never read The Romantic Manifesto, so my ... (Read more...)
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Reductionism, Science and Reason
by Tibor R. Machan
Some natural scientists who like to philosophize prefer the doctrine of reductionism as their philosophical position. This view is that everything in reality is but one kind of thing—there are no real differences, only apparent ones. So, for example, even though it seems like music is different from airline travel, or mice are different from giraffes, or again that a Rembrandt painting is different from the contents of one's trash can, by the reductionist account all these things are the same—atoms, or strings or, to quote a famous passage from All the King's Men, dirt: (Read more...)
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The Rebirth of Benevolence
by Joseph Rowlands
Today is the first birthday of the Rebirth of Reason(TM) website. I thought it would be appropriate to mark this day by reviewing the first year, and describing the current state of affairs. We should be able to look back at our goals and see if we're moving in the right direction.
... (Read more...)
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Wednesday
November 29, 2006 |
Rand and Ethical Objectivity
by Tibor R. Machan
This is a short discussion of an issue that arises in Objectivist meta-ethics, that is to say, the foundation of ethics according to Ayn Rand. It is an attempt to quite briefly but accurately show why Rand believed that ethical knowledge is objective, that human beings can know what is morally right and wrong. (Read more...)
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Tough Storge
by Luke Setzer
Parents have a moral obligation to do their best to raise their offspring into fully functioning adults. This obligation comes as close to "duty" as one would ever come in the Objectivist ethics, but it still arises from causality, i.e. from the parents causing the effects of their children's very existence in the first place. The task of nurturing incapable infants into capable adults must include conditioning children to deal with the best and worst aspects of both the metaphysical and the man-made. Helping them to confront the very nature of self-responsibility and its difficult values choices becomes a necessary aspect of sound parenting. These three stories offer concrete, real life instances of such instruction. Objectivists would serve themselves well by learning from them. (Read more...)
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Wednesday
November 22, 2006 |
Human Flourishing and Natural Rights
by Edward W. Younkins
Natural law is an older concept than the idea of natural rights. John Locke and his predecessor, Hugo Grotius, are frequently credited with ushering in the modern concept of natural rights. Historically, the doctrine of natural rights appears to have developed either within, or at least consonant with, the framework of... (Read more...)
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The Temptation to Lie
by Tibor R. Machan
Have you noticed that when you ask someone on the street where the next post office or drug store or some other locally known place is, they usually tell you it's just a couple of blocks when in fact it is a lot farther than that? Or when someone tells you she will be there in a few minutes and then you wait for half an hour and she is still missing? Or when you are told on the phone 'May I put you on hold for a moment?' and you are still waiting ten minutes later? (Read more...)
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Electoral Rebuke
by Andre Zantonavitch
Thoughts on foreign policy and America's recent election. (Read more...)
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Wednesday
November 15, 2006 |
Two kinds of Stereotyping
by Tibor R. Machan
Now and then people will characterize groups in various ways. Some of this is clearly prejudice—as when one ascribes to blacks, whites, women, those from Poland, or Latin Americans certain moral attributes which some of those from these groups may exhibit but which are certainly not innate to all members of the group. Thinking that all Mexicans are lazy or that Germans are by nature methodical or, again, that Americans are phlegmatic would be such prejudice. These are traits of individuals and while some in these groups may have them, many clearly do not. One needs to see if the ascription is justified instead of making it just because someone is a member of the group. One is, to put it somewhat differently, not morally good or bad because one is born black or Australian or Chinese. One is good or bad as a result of one's own judgments and actions. (Read more...)
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