| | Let me answer these sequentially:
Michael Stuart Kelly: thanks again for your enthusiasm for this and other posts.
Linz: We're entirely on the same wavelength here. Excellent comment, and I didn't disagree with a word. I have no idea how fresh my post was in terms of content, but judging from the reactions, it appears to be fresh for at least a number of people. In any case, I haven't seen signs that the Platonic Virtue malady is going away any time soon, so if my essay was only a reminder, perhaps it's a needed one.
James K: Your post #2 was very funny! Thanks.
Ed Thompson: You write, "Unfortunately, you seem to have not yet met another who has an overriding passion for truth, understanding, and progress--or else, I suspect, you would be singing a different tune."
Actually, that's not true, Ed. I've had the pleasure of knowing some exemplary human beings. But even those folks have, at times -- often under some unusual emotional stresses in their lives -- been less than perfectly honest with themselves, or entirely just toward others. Their long-term commitment to truth usually reasserts itself very quickly; they make amends for any harmful consequences, if necessary, and return to reason. But I'd be less than honest myself if I didn't acknowledge their actions as moral failures, and not just "errors of knowledge."
However, there is a huge difference between an aberration and a habit. I believe that it's very important to distinguish between people whose failures, even moral ones, are temporary and rare, and those who are chronically immoral. Blanket condemnations and unqualified praise are rarely examples of "moral judgment." They are almost always examples of failing to put forth the diligent effort and contextual analysis that "moral judgment" requires.
Marcus: I think you're exactly right about the religious basis of a lot of this behavior. None of us sprang fully formed from the head of John Galt. Each of us has a personal non-Objectivist history, and often that history involved some exposure to religion. You said "old habits die hard," and that's all too true -- especially the duty-bound way of thinking about ethics. Again, I urge those who haven't done so to read Rand's "Causality Vs. Duty" essay. Many years ago it was enormously helpful to me in exorcising my own deontological demons.
Jason, you wrote, "any system of ideas can be turned into dogma – even those that explicitly reject duty and dogma." You remind me of a very funny Steve Martin comedy bit, which I've snitched as an intro gag at several public talks. He opens his bit by shouting, "Hi, individualists!" A murmur, then the crowd replies, "Hi, Steve!" He goes on: "Let's all take the Individualist's Oath! Repeat after me: I am an Individualist." The crowd, laughing: I am an Individualist. Steve: "I think for myself." I think for myself. "I speak only for myself." I speak only for myself. "And most of all..." And most of all... "I will never repeat what others tell me to say!" I will never repeat... and of course the audience breaks up laughing.
I also entirely agree with you, Jason, about cutting people some "slack," as you say, especially on matters that aren't all that big and important. Yes, if relevant, you point the wrongness out to them. But there are degrees of evil (and good) -- something no ethical intrinsicist is willing to acknowledge -- and again, there's a difference between an aberration and a habit. The intrinsicist wishes to automate moral judgment: he wishes to spare himself the burden of making fine discriminations by simply slinging moral labels around, sticking people into prefabricated ethical pigeonholes. But that's not "judgment" at all; it's the attempt to escape the responsibility of judging. In other words, moral intrinsicism itself is often a symptom of evasion.
Robert Malcolm: ethics is a guide vs. a "commandment." Bravo! Dead on, Robert.
In "The Value-Seeking Personality" and other talks, I've likened the Objectivist ethics to a road map. The subjectivist, eager to jump in his car and rush to some destination, is too impatient and lazy to consult the map. He throws the map out the window and just starts moving, turning at whim, cutting corners. And of course he never gets to his destination. The intrinsicist, by contrast, looks at the map as the key to all of reality. He parks the car, opens the map, tapes it across the windshield, and stares at it -- analyzing its grid structure, looking at each squiggly little line and where it goes, trying to memorize the whole thing in order to convince himself that in doing that, he is a competent driver. He worries whether he can "live up to" the demands of all those squiggly lines, fearing that if he doesn't memorize the whole thing, he's lost. But he rarely turns on the ignition and gets moving; and if he does, because he's staring at the map taped across the windshield rather than at the road, he quickly ends up off the road in some wreck.
The subjectivist thinks the map of moral principle is dispensable, that he needs no guide to the world. The intrinsicist thinks the ethical map IS the whole world, and lives within the abstract universe depicted on the map. Neither understands the proper use and purpose of an ethical guide, or roadmap to living on earth.
If you conceive of the Objectivist ethics as a map for your life, rather than either a dispensable distraction, or a platonic yardstick by which to measure the "worthiness" of your Self, you'll grasp what it is really all about.
Jeff: I'm grateful for your very kind comments. Thank you so much.
Shayne: I've been around in this movement quite a while, and alas, I don't think any Objectivist group, past or present, is free of its intrinsicists or its subjectivists. Happily, none of them are devoid of rational people, either. In assessing the competing groups, we can generalize about tendencies and emphases; but no blanket judgment (see my comment above about that) can apply universally to all members or participants. Within the Objectivist subculture, some of the finest people -- and some of the worst -- I have ever encountered are currently associated with ARI, TOC and SOLO; and the same goes for unaffiliated.
You may not know it, but I've been as outspoken about subjectivism as intrinsicism. In fact, I published my own critique of libertarianism, titled "Libertarianism: Fallacies and Follies," the same month that Peter Schwartz's (he was then an associate) first appeared in The Intellectual Activist. While encounters with better libertarians (and there are many of those) caused me to back off and try to influence the movement toward Objectivism for several years, I've now gone full circle and have now written off the libertarian movement as hopelessly mired in subjectivism. Lindsay can attest to this, as he shared with me a panel on libertarianism at the 2004 TOC Summer Seminar, where I took the position that since 9/11, the most prominent libertarian leaders and organs had collapsed completely into subjectivism. In addition, I have for years been the Objectivist who has most thoroughly taken on the anarchists -- in a series of publications that you can find archived here.
So, in short, I don't think I've been at all silent about subjectivism, and only attacking intrinsicism.
Adam: You make way too much of my colloquial use of "inexcusable" -- especially when the entire thrust of my piece was to deny that moral judgments should be made by the standard of platonic perfection. For the record, in context, what I meant in the passage you cite is this: that if I have done something immoral, I can make no excuses for it; I can only try to amend any harm I caused, and return to a course of morality. I don't see a thing controversial about that, and doubt you do, either.
Shayne, I hope you don't need heart medication, because I'm going to say something that will probably utterly shock you:
I don't disagree with a word you said in post #12.
Not one word.
That being the case, maybe you and I should start anew...perhaps even "cutting each other a little slack"? :^)
Finally, to the exchange between Linz and Shayne immediately preceding concerning SOLO: folks, I don't have a dog in that race, so I'm completely staying away from the track!
Thanks all for very thoughtful and often generous feedback. You make it fun and rewarding to be here.
(Edited by Robert Bidinotto on 4/17, 3:42pm)
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