| | Robert Bidinotto quoted from an interview with Ayn Rand by Raymond Newman:
NEWMAN: When do you classify someone as immoral?
RAND: Only when he has done...done, in fact, some immoral action... When someone in action [Rand's emphasis] does something which you know, can prove, is an immoral, vicious action -- a sin, not a value; or a vice (whichever you want to call it) -- then you have to judge him as he has proved.
You never judge a person on mere potentials, and you seldom judge him on what he says, because most people do not really speak very exactly; and on the basis of some one inadvertent remark you would not judge a person as immoral. If, however, he goes about the country preaching immoral ideas, then you would classify him as immoral.
...But the important thing here is the degree of knowledge a given person has.
If you do not know exactly the nature of what you are doing, then you can't be considered immoral -- particularly if it's a young person and it's correctable. A person can make a mistake and correct it. [emphasis added]
But it would have to be a major crime -- for instance, a person lying. Let's use that as an example. I would never forgive that at all. I would regard that as a top immorality, and regard that person as immoral, regardless of what kind of virtues he or she might have. Needless to say, if you have a robber or a murderer, or a person who is systematically breaking the rights of other people, you would call him immoral, no matter what lesser virtues he might have. [Note that these "evils" are all actions. -- RJB]
So you, in judging people of mixed premises, as most people are, you have to balance, in effect hierarchically, the seriousness of their virtues and of their vices, and see what you get in the net result.
Robert then commented, Try to square these statements with Peter Schwartz's and Leonard Peikoff's moral equations of libertarians with the Soviet regime, or David Kelley with late Soviet apologist Armand Hammer -- or with their view that Kant was morally worse than Hitler and Stalin. Recall Rand’s statement, “If, however, he goes about the country preaching immoral ideas, then you would classify him as immoral." Preaching is, of course, an action. So anyone who preaches immoral ideas, e.g., Kant, is immoral, according to Rand. You can correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t she call him “the most evil man in history” or words to that effect? Would she have said that Kant "knew exactly the nature of what he was doing" -- knew that what he was advocating was evil? Perhaps, she would, although I would not.
In any case, I don’t think that Rand’s remarks to Newman can be used as evidence against the views of Schwartz and Peikoff. Not that the latter's views are correct or that Rand would have agreed with them, but there is nothing in her remarks to Newman that directly contradicts the views of Schwartz and Peikoff. It cannot be argued that what Kelley is being condemned for is not an action, because Schwartz and Peikoff would say that, like Armand Hammer, his action consists of advocating morally corrupt ideas. It is a mistake, of course, to equate the degree of corruption, even if you disagree with the content of Kelley's position as expressed in "Truth and Toleration." The error made by Schwartz and Peikoff is to suggest that the ideas Kelley is advocating are just as bad as those advocated by Armand Hammer. It is a clear failure of reasonableness, proportion and perspective.
- Bill
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