|
|||
 |
|||
|
|
|
|
|
|||
 |
|||
|
|
|
|
 | Lack of Selfishness Regretted in an Emergency Posted by Michael E. Marotta on 6/19, 11:14pm | |
| "We had spent so much time building up the levee, and it didn't hold. We would have been better off getting stuff out of there," Sherburne, 29, said Thursday. Perhaps it might be better if private charity supplanted government welfare. It might be better if all nuclear weapons were privately owned. It certainly would be better if churches, synagogues, mosques, etc. were all taxed like any other business. Such questions suppress basic philosophical principles. The solutions to those problems in ethics, epistemology and metaphysics must be accepted by arbitrarily "many" individuals before "society" (so-called) can change. "I am not primarily an advocate of capitalism, but of egoism; I am not primarily an advocate of egoism, but of reason. If one recognizes the supremacy of reason and applies it consistently, all the rest follows. This – the supremacy of reason – was, is and will be the primary concern of my work, and the essence of Objectivism." ('Brief Summary', The Objectivist, Sept 1971)Few disasters are truly unexpectable. The Titanic was one. Popocateptl was another. Once such an event occurs, you have to ask yourself what you should do about it. Egoism says that you should do nothing. Altruism finds excuses for you to make this your responsibility. Cowardly compromisers fear the opinions of other people so they concoct pseudo-Objectivist spins for repaying other people for their bad choices and hard luck. | ||
|
 |
 |
|
 |
|
