Objectivism – Page 6

Gun Control: A State-Sponsored Initiation of Physical Force

On July 14, 2016 a terrorist drove a cargo truck into crowds of people celebrating Bastille Day in Nice, France, killing eighty-six people and injuring 458 others. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/14/84-killed-in-nice-by-lorry-during-bastille-day-celebrations—ho/

Mass-murders using a multi-ton vehicle are simply viewed as tragedies for the victims, and acts of viciousness by the perpetrators. Politicians and activists on the left do not attempt to change our attitudes towards trucks and automobiles. There are no calls for criminal background checks before owning a car, no calls for psychological screening before you can get your new Toyota, and anyone seriously suggesting that cargo trucks should be banned would be laughed at.

On the other hand, any time there is a mass-murder involving a firearm in “gun friendly” United States, and not in countries with massive firearms restrictions, like France or Belgium, it becomes time to trot out the “gun control” arguments. The latest mass-shooting in Florida has brought forth the left’s usual call for an “assault weapons” ban. As with any blanket governmental prohibition on the ownership of any device or substance, the problem with “gun control” is this: The only way to enforce it is to turn government into a force-initiator. Although, in our already very un-free society, it means turning our government into an even greater force-initiator.

I’ll start with a discussion of the difference between murder and self-defense. This is primarily a moral and philosophical discussion of the distinction, not a legal one. Laws are made by men, and can be changed or reformed to better reflect moral and philosophical truth, so keep that in mind as I go over this. I am speaking more as a political philosopher than as a lawyer.

First, the use of a weapon to commit murder is bad, while the use of a weapon to defend yourself from murder is good, if you value your life. I doubt there are many who will dispute the notion that you can rightly defend yourself, so I won’t discuss it any further. Most of us seem to understand it on a “gut level”, but what exactly is the difference between murder and killing someone in self-defense?

It’s not the mere use of force that distinguishes murder from self-defense. A murderer uses force, but so does the person who acts in self-defense. The difference lies in the fact that a murderer is the first to act, while a person acting in self-defense reacts to an articulable act of force by another. Another critical distinction between murder and self-defense is: the person who acts in self-defense is not attempting to gain another person’s values nor to deprive another person of their values. The robber starts the use of force against others to gain their property or money -to gain what they have produced through their thought and labor. The person who acts in self-defense is reacting to preserve his values. When someone tries to murder him, the man who acts in self-defense is attempting to preserve what can be considered an important value, and, I think, his ultimate value -the value that all his other values are aimed at achieving and maintaining. The murderer or the robber initiates physical force, while the person who acts in self-defense, or defense of others, uses force in reaction or retaliation to the initiation of physical force.

Next, what are “gun control laws”? They are “preventative law”. They attempt to prohibit a certain action that is innocuous in and of itself -the ownership of a gun. “Preventative law” prohibits actions that, standing alone, are not an initiation of physical force. The mere ownership of a gun doesn’t kill or injure anyone. This blanket prohibition is imposed in order to prevent some evil that can potentially be committed with the gun -murder, robbery, or rape. If everyone who owned a gun were to somehow magically loose the free will to choose to use a gun to commit crimes like murder, then there would be very little talk of “gun control laws”. This is because such laws would be unnecessary.

The problem with “preventative laws” is that they: (1) Legally prohibit actions that are good if you value your life -the ownership of a gun for purposes of self-defense; and (2) They turn government agents into force-initiators. Now police are ordered to go out and initiate physical force against those who have not used force to deprive others of their life or property. In fact, the police are ordered to deprive people of their right to self-defense by arresting anyone who possesses a gun for the purposes of self-defense.

In the last twenty or thirty years, most of the “gun control” debate has centered around so-called “assault weapons”, although this name is a misnomer. What is being described as an “assault weapon”, like an AR-15, is a semi-automatic long gun with a detachable magazine that can hold anywhere from five to 50 rounds. The term “assault weapon” is a cunning choice of wording used by left wing politicians. It implies that semi-automatic long guns with detachable magazines can only be used to commit initiations of physical force, i.e., an “assault”. But, as I will discuss below, these guns can sometimes be the best option for self-defense, and defense of others. (For brevity, I’m going to call a “semi-automatic-long-gun-with-a-detachable-magazine ban” a “semi-auto ban”.)

The calls for a “semi-auto ban” center around the fact that this type of gun tends to be the mass-shooter’s weapon of choice. I question that if these types of guns were to magically disappear, it would prevent any mass-shootings or even significantly reduce casualty rates in such events. Simple pump-action shotguns, holding fewer than six rounds, have been used in mass shootings in recent years. (https://www.scribd.com/document/233531169/Navy-Yard#from_embed) At any rate, the use of a these guns in high-profile, but statistically rare, mass shootings accounts for a lot of the political push for a semi-auto ban. (http://www.gunfacts.info/gun-control-myths/mass-shootings/)

People on the political left also tend to call for a semi-auto ban because it seems, at first blush, to be more difficult to justify the ownership of such a weapon. A lot of people might see that you need a handgun for self-defense, but they will ask: “Why does anyone ‘need’ an ‘assault weapon’?”

A concrete example of the utility of semi-automatic long guns for self-defense was demonstrated in the Los Angeles Riots of 1992. (https://www.britannica.com/event/Los-Angeles-Riots-of-1992) The LA Times reported that Koran store owners used “…shotguns and automatic weapons…” to defend their stores from looters. http://articles.latimes.com/1992-05-02/news/mn-1281_1_police-car (Likely the journalist reporting in the old LA Times article didn’t know the difference between a semi-automatic and an automatic, and these guns were likely semi-automatics, the precise type of gun that people push to ban after almost every mass-shooting.)

During the LA riots, Korean shop owners were targeted, and their small businesses were often destroyed. They were an immigrant minority group singled out because of the color of their skin by members of other racial minority groups engaged in mayhem and destruction. But, more fundamentally, rioters went after them because they were successful property owners. The Korean small businessmen were everything the rioters weren’t: hard working, ambitious, and devoted to making something of their lives. The store owners were the “producers”, as Ayn Rand would say, and the rioters were, literally, “the looters”. Rather than have their life’s work destroyed, many of these shop owners armed themselves when the police and the government abandoned them. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCYT9Hew9ZU)

Now, at this point an advocate of a semi-auto ban will say that riots like the one in LA are statistically rare. That is probably true, but, then again, so are shootings that involve the use of a semi-automatic long gun. Far more people are killed with handguns than long-guns of any type. https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2012/crime-in-the-u.s.-2012/offenses-known-to-law-enforcement/expanded-homicide/expanded_homicide_data_table_8_murder_victims_by_weapon_2008-2012.xls (For instance, in 2012 6,371 people were murdered by handguns, versus 232 people killed by rifles, whether semi-automatic or not.)

Now, lets turn to the consequences of a law prohibiting the ownership of semi-automatic long guns. The first thing to note is that the passage of a law is not like waving a magic wand that makes the outlawed thing go away. The drug laws have been on the books for over a hundred years now, but cocaine, heroin, meth, and marijuana are still readily available. Most people could acquire any drug they want in about 24 hours if they have enough money to pay for it. Furthermore, a semi-auto ban isn’t simply a law that says people can’t use guns to deprive others of their lives because we already have that: It’s called a murder statute. As already discussed, a semi-auto ban is what is known as “preventative law”. It involves the government threatening to use force against those who have not initiated physical force, and never would, because they possess the weapons for self-defense.

A semi-auto ban means that people who possess such weapons for morally legitimate reasons like self-defense will be threated with jail time if they continue to possess them. Like all laws, when the police come to arrest violators, if they resist, the state is authorized to use anything up to and including deadly force to subdue them. In other words, the state will use its guns to kill those who want to have the capacity to defend their lives. The initiation of physical force by the state will be required to enforce a semi-auto ban. Government agents become authorized, and ordered, to commit the moral-equivalent of murder to enforce preventative laws such as this.

Is what I’m saying here just “hypothetical”? Are there any concrete examples of how “preventative” gun laws lead to the killing of those who have not initiated physical force? I think the incident at Ruby Ridge is an example of this. Ruby Ridge is an illustration of the fact that gun-prohibitions have life and death consequences. (The facts I outline here are all found in a britanica.com article called “Ruby Ridge Incident” https://www.britannica.com/event/Ruby-Ridge-incident)

Randy Weaver was a white separatist who moved to Idaho in the 1980’s. While attending an Aryan Nations meeting in the late 1980’s he was approached by what turned out to be an ATF informant, who convinced Weaver to saw off two shotguns. A shotgun with a barrel below a certain length is illegal under Federal law. The ATF then threatened Weaver with arrest for possessing a short-barreled shotgun. They told him he could either face prosecution, or he too could become an informant for the ATF. Weaver refused to become an informant, so the ATF pursued the prosecution on the Federal weapons charge. Weaver was arrested, and after his trial was set, he was released.

Originally, Weaver’s trial was set for February 19, 1991, but the trial was then moved to February 20th. Weaver’s probation officer sent him a letter incorrectly stating that the new trial date was March 20. (Similar to the latest mass-shooting in Florida, Federal Government Officials demonstrated their incompetence. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5401101/FBI-knew-Nikolas-Cruz-stockpiling-weapons.html)

When Weaver failed to appear on February 20, the court issued a bench warrant for his arrest. Weaver was then indicted by a Federal grand jury for failing to appear at his trial. The US Marshal’s service was then tasked with arresting Weaver. On August 21, 1992, six heavily-armed Marshals entered Weaver’s property. The Weaver family dog discovered the Marshals in hiding, and one of the Marshals shot the dog. Weaver’s 14-year-old son, Sammy had been walking the dog, and he then got into a gunfight with the Marshals. The Marshals shot Sammy Weaver in the back, killing him. One of Weaver’s friends, Kevin Harris, who had also been with Sammy, then shot and killed US Marshal William Degan.

At that point, the FBI was brought in to assist the Marshals, and there was a standoff centering around Randy Weaver’s house. On August 22, 1992, an FBI sniper shot Weaver in the arm, and accidentally shot his wife, Viki Weaver, in the face, killing her while she held the Weaver’s infant daughter behind the front door of the cabin.

Weaver and Harris eventually surrendered. Weaver was charged with numerous crimes, including murder, conspiracy, and assault. Kevin Harris, who had shot US Marshal, Degan, was acquitted of murder. Weaver was found not guilty on all charges, except the original failure to appear for the original firearms charge.

To sum up: Viki Weaver, Sammy Weaver, and a US Marshal were killed because, back in the 1930’s, Congress arbitrarily decided that a shotgun was okay, but having a sawed-off shotgun was so bad that the Federal Government should be free to initiate physical force against anyone who was found to be in possession of one.

I doubt that the law against possessing a sawed off shotgun has ever saved a single life -although I obviously don’t know that for certain. What I do know is that Viki Weaver and her son Sammy are dead because the government saw fit to initiate physical force to prohibit the mere possession of device whose only difference from a legal device is a shorter barrel. Randy Weaver hadn’t initiated physical force against anyone, and whatever one thinks of some of his odious political views, I don’t think that justifies what I consider to be the moral-equivalent of the murder of his wife and son by agents of the state.

The death of Viki and Sammy Weaver is the price we pay when we direct government agents to initiate physical force in an attempt to ban the mere possession of a device. The death of innocent people who cannot defend themselves from criminals because guns are banned is another price we pay. Mass murders are horrible. But, then again, all initiations of physical force are horrible, especially when they are committed by armed agents of the state against a disarmed population.

I’ve heard death penalty opponents say something like: “How can the state say that killing is immoral by killing people?” They are noting an apparent contradiction, although it isn’t a genuine contradiction, since the death penalty is actually the state saying murder is immoral -and it is killing the murderer to demonstrate that. “Murder” and “killing” are different things. “Murder” is killing by the initiation of physical force. It is starting the use of force to deprive another of their most important value, which is their own life. However, this slogan by death-penalty critics can be repurposed when it comes to gun control into a true statement: How can we say that the initiation of physical force is immoral by initiating physical force against those who own a gun to protect their lives? Because that’s what “gun control” is.

Affirmative Action Penalizes The Rational

When I discuss the injustice of affirmative action programs, some will retort that such programs are necessary because not everyone is as rational as I am. The assertion seems to be that there are people out there who will make decisions on school admissions or job hiring based on racial discrimination, so the affirmative action programs are necessary to counter-act that.

But, do affirmative action programs in hiring and educational admissions encourage or discourage rationality? In actuality, they discourage people from acting rationally by destroying the benefit of behaving rationally.

First, I will start with some definitions:

Affirmative action– are policies by private employers, government employers, or universities in which individuals are admitted or hired over more-qualified persons because of the less qualified individual’s race.

Rationality– is the act of conforming one’s actions to the goal of promoting and sustaining one’s life. Such conformance of one’s actions to that goal requires one to recognize the facts of reality and then act accordingly. Reality, to be commanded, must be obeyed. Ayn Rand summed up the purpose of rationality:

“My morality, the morality of reason, is contained in a single axiom: existence exists—and in a single choice: to live. The rest proceeds from these. To live, man must hold three things as the supreme and ruling values of his life: Reason—Purpose—Self-esteem. Reason, as his only tool of knowledge…These three values imply and require all of man’s virtues, and all his virtues pertain to the relation of existence and consciousness: rationality, independence, integrity, honesty, justice, productiveness, pride.” Galt’s Speach, _For The New Intellectual_ Pg. 128, http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/morality.html)

Justice– is the virtue of judging people in accordance with a rational standard and then treating them accordingly. For example, in a fully free society, a criminal is put in jail because he is judged to have violated the rights of some other person to live and act in accordance with their rational thinking. The criminal is put in jail to restrain him from violating the rights of others going forward into the future. An employer hires the most productive employee he can at a given wage because such an employee will maximize the profitability of his business. The profitability of his business is the rational standard by which the employer judges employees. His act of hiring the most productive employee is treating someone in accordance with that standard.

The best way to see that affirmative action programs discourage rational behavior is by looking at some concrete examples:

(1) Affirmative action in college admissions. There are a limited number of spots for students in each freshman class per year. Affirmative action means a less qualified student will be admitted over a more-qualified student based on the less qualified student’s race. This isn’t necessarily a less-qualified non-white being admitted over a white in the United States. Asians would probably have greater admissions rates at some universities if affirmative action were done away with -which I am fine with. If they are the ones that have the best grades and SAT scores, then they are the ones that deserve to be there. https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/jeff-sessions-justice-department-goes-after-affirmative-actions

Such race-based admissions mean students and their parents are going to be forced to pay for universities through their taxes, and then their children are going to be denied admission based on their race, even though they have studied harder and done things to cultivate their rationality and expand their knowledge. (Leaving aside the fact that many public schools often seem to do the opposite of encouraging knowledge and rationality in their students.)

Students that are more rational will be penalized in favor of students that are less rational. Furthermore, to the extent a four-year degree is required to obtain a professional license for many areas of work, such as lawyers and doctors, those of us in the public will be forced to use the services of less-qualified minority doctors and lawyers who were admitted not because they were the most intelligent or qualified to work in those professions, but because of their race. This means our rational choice as consumers of things like medical services and legal services is thwarted by affirmative action programs in university admissions.

(2) Affirmative action in hiring. This involves a business hiring or retaining a less-qualified employee over another more-qualified employee based on the less qualified employee’s race. Since any one employer only has a set number of employees at a time, it means some people who are harder-working, more diligent, more productive, and, in a word, more rational, will be excluded from employment based on their race.

This doesn’t just hurt the employee who was not hired, but should have been hired if the business went on the basis of productivity of employees exclusively. Business customers will receive a sub-standard product over what they could have had. Investors in the business will receive a lower return on their investment than they could have obtained. Managers at the business who insist on hiring on the basis of productive ability, i.e., the more rational managers, will be penalized for doing so. The affirmative action program in hiring penalizes rationality and rewards irrationality.

Furthermore, if the business is a government contractor producing goods and services for governmental functions, then the taxpayers are being forced to not only pay taxes, but to pay taxes to employ people who are less competent at their jobs than other job candidates, and getting a substandard product in return. A funny consequence of affirmative action programs would be some of the employees at the United States Post Office. A less funny example would be what happens when less qualified people work on things like military equipment, where the lives of soldiers are at stake, as well as the ability of our country to defend itself from enemy attack. Our free and good society’s very existence is put at risk by affirmative action programs in military equipment contracts. Our continued ability to exercise our freedoms and liberties guaranteed under the constitution is contingent on our military’s ability to protect us from invasion by people who would not respect our right to be rational. Affirmative action programs in defense contracts are therefore a huge threat to those of us who want to be rational in order to sustain and maintain our lives.

If you look around, you can see other examples of treating less qualified people better than they deserve because of their race. Some are more subtle than the above and get into complex social dynamics. For instance, what happens when you invite someone to a party because of their race –you don’t want to be perceived as racist- but they are an obnoxious boor? I won’t go through the details, but the party is less fun.

These examples illustrate my overall point. Affirmative action programs discourage and penalize rationality. To claim that affirmative action programs are necessary because “everyone isn’t rational” is the opposite of the truth. In reality, affirmative action programs destroy incentives to be rational because they destroy the principle of justice -of judging people in accordance with a rational standard and then treating them accordingly.

Hume, Rand, and The “Is-Ought Problem”

I want to take a look at a well-known assertion regarding ethics, or the foundations of ethics, made by philosopher David Hume. It is presented as a sort of “problem”, that seems fairly intractable for those of us who are secularist, and also assert that there are certain “shoulds” or principles of morality that one should follow. This is David Hume’s “Is-Ought Problem”. After I look at what Hume said, I will compare his approach on this subject to that taken by Ayn Rand. My goal is to show why I think the logic of her philosophy would largely regard the “is-ought gap” as a product of Hume’s mistaken view of both reason and his misunderstanding of the fact that the rational IS the moral and the moral IS the rational.

Hume says:

“In every system of morality, which I have hitherto met with, I have always remarked, that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary way of reasoning, and establishes the being of a God, or makes observations concerning human affairs; when of a sudden I am surprised to find, that instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is, and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an ought not. This change is imperceptible; but is however, of the last consequence. For as this ought, or ought not, expresses some new relation or affirmation, ’tis necessary that it should be observed and explained; and at the same time that a reason should be given, for what seems altogether inconceivable, how this new relation can be a deduction from others, which are entirely different from it. But as authors do not commonly use this precaution, I shall presume to recommend it to the readers; and am persuaded, that this small attention would subvert all the vulgar systems of morality, and let us see, that the distinction of vice and virtue is not founded merely on the relations of objects, nor is perceived by reason.” (Book III “Of Morals”, part I “Of Virtue and Vice In General”, section I “Moral Distinctions Not Derived From Reason”, A Treatise of Human Nature (1739))

In essence, Hume says morality is not based in what he calls “reason”. What is “reason” for Hume?:

“Those who affirm that virtue is nothing but a conformity to reason; that there are eternal fitnesses and unfitnesses of things, which are the same to every rational being that considers them; that the immutable measures of right and wrong impose an obligation, not only on human creatures, but also on the Deity himself: All these systems concur in the opinion, that morality, like truth, is discerned merely by ideas, and by their juxta-position and comparison.” (Book III “Of Morals”, part I “Of Virtue and Vice In General”, section I “Moral Distinctions Not Derived From Reason”, A Treatise of Human Nature (1739))

Lets contrast this view “morality” and “reason” with the same concepts of Ayn Rand:

“If I were to speak your kind of language, I would say that man’s only moral commandment is: Thou shalt think. But a “moral commandment” is a contradiction in terms. The moral is the chosen, not the forced; the understood, not the obeyed. The moral is the rational, and reason accepts no commandments. My morality, the morality of reason, is contained in a single axiom: existence exists—and in a single choice: to live. The rest proceeds from these.

To live, man must hold three things as the supreme and ruling values of his life: Reason—Purpose—Self-esteem. Reason, as his only tool of knowledge—Purpose, as his choice of the happiness which that tool must proceed to achieve—Self-esteem, as his inviolate certainty that his mind is competent to think and his person is worthy of happiness, which means: is worthy of living. These three values imply and require all of man’s virtues, and all his virtues pertain to the relation of existence and consciousness: rationality, independence, integrity, honesty, justice, productiveness, pride.” (Galt’s Speach, emphasis added, For the New Intellectual, pg. 128, http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/morality.html)

So, I think that Rand would say in response to Hume:

You say that we cannot find an “ought” from an “is”, where an “is” is based in “…the ordinary way of reasoning…” that an “ought” is not “…founded merely on the relations of objects nor is perceived by reason…”. But, WHY do you make the “…usual copulations of propositions, is, and is not…”? WHY do you make is-statements at all? In other words, to what END do you aim when you REASON (make “is statements” based on your observation and thinking)? Hume makes a distinction between REASON on the one hand (so-called “usual copulations of propositions, is and is not”) and moral directives. But, he never discusses WHY one should reason at all? What is the “reason for reasoning”?

To recap, Ayn Rand says:

“If I were to speak your kind of language, I would say that man’s only moral commandment is: Thou shalt think. But a ‘moral commandment’ is a contradiction in terms…My morality, the morality of reason, is contained in a single axiom: existence exists—and in a single choice: to live. The rest proceeds from these….” (Galt’s Speach, For the New Intellectual, pg. 128, http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/morality.html)

In other words, as I see it, the difference between Rand and Hume on this point is Rand doesn’t just ASSUME that one should go about reasoning -making “is-statements” as a sort of axiom. She says: IF you want to live, THEN you must recognize reality, which is what it is, regardless of human choice to the contrary. Similarly, Rand asks why you should follow ANY “oughts” at all?:

“The proper approach to ethics, the start from a metaphysically clean slate, untainted by any touch of Kantianism, can best be illustrated by the following story. In answer to a man who was telling her that she’s got to do something or other, a wise old Negro woman said: ‘Mister, there’s nothing I’ve got to do except die.’…Reality confronts man with a great many ‘musts,’ but all of them are conditional; the formula of realistic necessity is: ‘You must, if—‘ and the ‘if’ stands for man’s choice: ‘—if you want to achieve a certain goal.’ You must eat, if you want to survive. You must work, if you want to eat. You must think, if you want to work. You must look at reality, if you want to think—if you want to know what to do—if you want to know what goals to choose—if you want to know how to achieve them.” (“Causality versus Duty”, Philosophy Who Needs It, emphasis added, http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/responsibility-obligation.html)

For Rand, the concept of “ought” or “should” or “must” only makes sense IF you ultimately CHOOSE to live. For Rand, both an “IS” statement and an “OUGHT” statement only makes sense if you’ve chosen to live. An “is” without the choice to live is purposeless, and an “ought” without the choice to live is unintelligible. I think that for Rand, the distinction between “IS” and “OUGHT” is not so great. Every “it is” implies an “I should”, IF you want to live. For instance: “Certain strains of fungus kill bacteria” (An “it is”.) Implies “I must try to isolate the substances involved to cure human diseases.” (An “I should.” or “I ought”.) “Plants grow more when they’ve received certain chemical substances in their soil” (An “it is”). I must put these chemicals, called fertilizer, into the soil to increase my crop yields” (An “I should” or “I ought”.)

For Rand, the only “oughts” are those that are based in the choice to live and the nature of reality. Any “oughts” not based in this are to be swept aside. Therefore, most of the “oughts” found in the Bible, are either to be rejected, or only accepted within certain contexts. “Though shalt not steal.” Becomes “Don’t violate the property rights of others.” But, this doesn’t mean you cannot take the property of another in an emergency situation so long as you can recompense them. This is because the “ought” of “respect for property rights” is, like all “oughts” based in the choice to live and the particular facts confronting you in reality.

Hume, and others, get into trouble because they accept “systems of morality” that have innumerable oughts not based in the axiom of “existence exists” and the choice to live. Some religions have ridiculous dietary restrictions that have no basis in principles of health or nutrition -or at least do not in modern times with modern food handling techniques. (Keeping Kosher, or not eating pork.) Some religions have restrictions on what kind of clothing women can wear. (Muslims require women to wear head covers or full-body covers, despite the fact that the Middle East is mostly a hot arid desert, and we have sunscreen today.) One of the Ten Commandments says “Honor your mother and father,” and makes no exception for being raised by psychotic narcissist. All of these “oughts” have no basis in the needs of man’s life, and, rather than simply brushing them aside, or delimiting them to certain factual contexts, Hume and others try to find “is statements” that can justify these commandments from some supernatural realm. This is where I think they get into trouble. They have a mental habit or “mind-set” of assuming we should have morality while never asking why be moral at all? Then that mind-set is combined with the post-Enlightenment mental habit of wanting to be rational and reality-oriented, and that gets them into trouble.

An example of this is someone I used to know who was quite sincerely interested in Ayn Rand’s philosophy, but he had real trouble with her ethics. He had been a fundamentalist Christian in his younger years, but subsequently had become an atheist in young-adulthood. He would find the following statement by Rand very problematic as a result:

“Man must choose his actions, values and goals by the standard of that which is proper to man—in order to achieve, maintain, fulfill and enjoy that ultimate value, that end in itself, which is his own life.” (“The Objectivist Ethics”, emphasis added, The Virtue of Selfishness, http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/standard_of_value.html )

He routinely asked questions like: “But why is life the *ultimate* value?” He could see that it was “a” value, but not the “ultimate value”. He decided that propagating your genes was the actual “ultimate value” and that your life was just your “penultimate value” -the value that you achieve in order to achieve the goal of reproduction. The reason I think he found the idea of gene propagation more satisfactory was because he could see that genes are these sort of small “information vehicles”, and he thought, at least on a sub-conscious level:

“Ah ha! Here is my ‘secular commandment’. Here, at last, is something that I am being commanded to do -by my genes. They are saying: ‘Though shalt reproduce.’”

The remnants of his fundamentalist Christian “mindset” found this very satisfying. Of course, he never asked, if he does find a ‘commandment’, it doesn’t answer the question of *why* he ‘should’ follow the commandment. He would then need an “ought statement” that tells him he is supposed to follow the commandment -as opposed to ignoring it.

The choice to live is a ‘basic choice’, but it’s a choice, not a commandment. *If* you choose to live, then you must do certain things because of the nature of reality. If you don’t want to live, then there’s nothing in particular that you have to do. Furthermore, it’s “either-or”: Either you want to live, or…you don’t. There is no in-between -at least for those who want to live.

My theory on Hume is this: He was a post-Newton Enlightenment thinker. He respected reason and observation, but he was still a Christian when it came to his system of morality. He found certain moral principles to be very emotionally satisfying. He couldn’t justify his morality by anything he observed in reality or any reasoning from such observation. But, he never thought to ask: “Why do I reason?” Without the basic choice to live, reasoning serves no purpose. Once this is understood, then all principles of action that are not based in the choice to live and the nature of reality can be mentally swept aside. At that point the concept of “morality” is salvaged and converted to a completely secular format: Reason as a fundamental *ethical* principle, or guide to action, the purpose of which is the choice to live.

Three Views of The Concept of “Individual Rights”

There are essentially two views on individual rights today:

(1) They are provided by positive law, by a majority or super-majority. So, for instance, you have rights because a super-majority of people ratified the Constitution and that is respected down to today.

(2) They are based in some sort of “transcendent morality”. Provided by god or something like that. Without a supreme being there would be no rights.

Group 2 will criticize group 1 by saying that they don’t actaully advocate rights since they are just permissions granted by a majority (or super-majority) of people. Group 1 will criticize group 2 by saying that there is no scientific evidence for this “transcendent morality” that supposedly establishes rights.

The criticism that both of these groups make of the other has some merit. Since there is no evidence of god and it must be accepted on faith, which is nothing more than somebody’s feelings, then this view of rights seems to have no basis other than in one’s feelings. If rights have no basis other than in the majority’s feelings, then they are only necessary so long as the majority feels that way.

Ayn Rand proposed a different approach. She presents rights as an aspect of her overall system of morality. Moral principles are essential according to Rand because: (1) “Existence exists”. In other words reality is what it is, and has a certain nature. (2) Human beings also have a certain nature, and *if* they want to live, they need to take certain actions. (Grow crops, hunt for animals, build shelter, make clothing, etc.) Human beings must adopt certain “mental strategies” or “guides to action” that will generally lead them to obtain the things they need to live. These “guides to action” are necessary because the human mind has trouble dealing with numerous concrete things in reality without tying them together mentally and recognizing that they are sufficiently similar to other concrete things to be treated the same. For instance, if you have no concept of, “tiger”, then you will treat every such animal you encounter as behaviorally and physically unrelated to the previous tigers you’ve encountered, and you will fail to recognize the benefits and dangers of being around such an animal, and will tend not to deal with tigers succesfully.

Such “mental strategies” or “guides to action” can be called “virtues”. The dictionary has various definitions of “virtue”, but the closest one to what is meant here is “a good or useful quality of a thing.” A human being has a “good or useful quality” if he adopts these guides to action because they will help him to live. For instance, human beings must judge others to determine if they are a benefit or a danger to their survival. This is the virtue (the guide to action) of justice. Human beings must generally refrain from lying when dealing with others in order to maintain their trust so that they will want to deal with them in the future. (This is the principle/virtue of honesty.) Human beings must act in accordance with these principles because simply holding them as ideals without taking action in accordance with them will cause your mind to slowly become disconnected from reality and will make rational thought more difficult. (The principle/virtue of integrity.)

Similarly, the principle of “individual rights” is a guide to action when dealing with other human beings. Since other human beings can be assumed to want to live just as much as you do, then you must give them an “initial presumption” that they will take action to maintain their lives. They will produce the material values necessary for their survival -property. Just as you must not have your property taken from you by means of physical force without your permission, so must they. As such, you must adopt a sort of baseline guide to action when dealing with all other human beings. This is the principle of individual rights, and the specific right that encompases property is the right to private property. (More generally, all rights are subsumed under “the right to life”, which means the right to live the life of a rational being.) If individual human beings are going to live in a social environment and gain the benefits of living together, they must have their individual rights respected:

“‘Rights’ are a moral concept — the concept that provides a logical transition from the principles guiding an individual’s actions to the principles guiding his relationship with others — the concept that preserves and protects individual morality in a social context — the link between the moral code of a man and the legal code of a society, between ethics and politics. Individual rights are the means of subordinating society to moral law.” (Man’s Rights, by Ayn Rand)

As an aside, the concept of “government” comes in because there is a temptation to “cheat”, and violate the rights of others while hoping that they will still respect yours. For instance, there is the temptation to rob someone at gunpoint and take their property, or just to pilfer it while they aren’t looking. If you are suspected of this, though, then others will use force in retaliation to stop your initial use of force. Government helps keep people honest by promulgating a list of prohibited acts that are widely-recognized as rights violations. Additionally, it isn’t always easy for others to tell who the aggressor is and who the victim is in a given situation. For instance, if you come upon someone with a gun held on him, is he the victim or the aggressor? Perhaps the person holding the gun on him was just robbed, but perhaps he is the robber? Government is created to provide for an orderly protection of individual rights by a recognized central authority that everybody generally trusts to be a rights-protector.

Going back to where we started: How is this view of individual rights different from groups 1 and 2? Both group 1 and 2 tend to present the concept of “rights” as something that is “nice to have”, but as unessential to the task of living one’s life. Both group 1 and 2 tend to think that a working social order is somehow possible even without respect for individual rights. They generally see rights as “altruistic” -a restraint from complete self-interest. Group 2 says rights are a gift from god, but if they are violated by persons here on Earth, there won’t be any consequences for doing so. (You might go to hell when you die, is all.) Group 1 says that the majority of people just feel that rights are nice to have, but think that a functioning society is possible without rights, and might even be more “efficient”. Ayn Rand says that “society” is nothing more than a number of individuals, and if the individual cannot live in society, then there can be no society. Ayn Rand’s concept of individual rights holds that they are necessary for the individual person to live in a social context, and that that “society” is only good to the extent that it is beneficial for the individual to live in it.

In essence, both groups today are partly right and partly wrong. Group 2 is right that group 1 seems to have no basis for rights other than the whim of the majority. Rand’s conception of rights isn’t “whim”, but the “law of nature”, i.e., the law of identity. Human beings are what they are -they have a certain nature. If they are going to live in a social environment, then others must respect their life and property by refraining from the use of force “as an initial matter”. I say “as an initial matter” because once a specific individual has demonstrated with a sufficient level of certainty that he will not refrain from the use of force to deprive others of their life or property, then force can and should be used in retaliation.

A society that tends not to respect rights will not exist for long because the individuals that comprise it cannot survive. Rights have a functional basis in the facts of reality.

Group 1’s criticisms of Group 2 has merit insofar as group 2 can present no evidence for their “transcendent” basis for individual rights. I’d also note that regardless of whether Group 2 is right about the existence of god, if they believe that reality has a certain nature, and to the extent that they want to live, then Rand’s conception of rights should also be persuasive to them, and can form the basic intellectual foundation upon which a government can be constructed, regardless of whether we all agree about the existence of a creator.

Faith and Force Revisited

In 1960, Ayn Rand published an essay called “Faith and Force: The Destroyers of the Modern World”. At some point around 1995, I read the essay in a book called “Philosophy: Who Needs It”. It asserted that “faith and force are corollaries”:

“I have said that faith and force are corollaries, and that mysticism will always lead to the rule of brutality. The cause of it is contained in the very nature of mysticism. Reason is the only objective means of communication and of understanding among men; when men deal with one another by means of reason, reality is their objective standard and frame of reference. But when men claim to possess supernatural means of knowledge, no persuasion, communication or understanding are possible. Why do we kill wild animals in the jungle? Because no other way of dealing with them is open to us. And that is the state to which mysticism reduced mankind –a state where, in case of disagreement, men have no recourse except to physical violence. And more: no man or mystical elite can hold a whole society subjugated to their arbitrary assertions, edicts and whims, without the use of force. Anyone who resorts to the formula: ‘It’s so, because I say so,’ will have to reach for a gun sooner or later.” (https://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-Who-Needs-Ayn-Rand/dp/0451138937/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1489794988&sr=8-1&keywords=philosophy%3A+who+needs+it)

I suspect the essay was likely written more as a response to Communism, since Rand regarded the philosophy of “materialism” as “neo-mysticism”. However, the essay applies equally to major world religions, which is what I want to focus on here. (We can leave aside the issue of whether Rand’s description of materialism as neo-mysticism is true or false here.)

In 1995, I found this essay to be very powerful. It made a mental connection for me that I had never even considered. (This often happened when I read Rand.) This connection later gave me a perspective on the events of September 11, 2001 that I have carried forward to today.

What I would like to do now is provide additional context to the following generalization: Faith and force are corollaries, and mysticism, when adopted by enough people, will always lead to the ‘rule of brutality’. (If you don’t like “absolute” statements, then I’m satisfied if you read this and think that mysticism, with a “high degree of probability” will lead to the rule of brutality.)

Before I begin, I want to note who this is written for. It is not written for someone who believes that there actually are revelations from some other realm that is not reality. I don’t expect to persuade the believer in Christianity, Islam, or any other religion not to believe with this essay. It’s not my purpose. (This becomes more apparent when I define “faith” below.)

This essay is aimed at people who generally already have a “secular” outlook on the world, but who tend not to believe me when I say that a very religious society, regardless of its religious content, is a society that initiates a lot of physical force -either institutionally, through government, or by the acts of individuals. It is aimed at people who haven’t grasped the logical connection between “faith” on the one hand and the “initiation of physical force” on the other. (I say “initiation” of physical force because I am referring to people who start the use of force to gain a value or to destroy a value held by another person who wants to live, as opposed to the use of force in self-defense or to stop a criminal from committing further crimes by putting them in jail.)

At root, I think Rand’s argument is that there is a connection between the “psychological phenomena” of “faith” and the initiation of physical force. By “psychological phenomena”, I mean the actual mental processes going on inside the mind of a person acting on “faith”. How do I define “faith” for purposes of this article? First, I’ll say that there is, in fact, no supernatural realm that is giving people divine flashes of insight. I’m not going to argue that point here. (Which is why this is not aimed at the “believer” –there are plenty of works arguing for atheism, and I’ll leave it to the reader to research them.)

If there is no supernatural realm giving people flashes of revelation, then where are people who claim to be acting on faith getting their “commandments from god”? “Faith” is usually defined as the belief in something without proof or sensory-evidence. What does the psychological phenomena/process of “faith” consist of, if there is, in fact, no supernatural realm? That psychological process is a reliance on one’s <b>feelings</b> as guides to knowledge, or a belief that one’s feelings are the fundamental basis of knowledge as opposed to sense experience or logic derived from sense experience. An idea simply pops into the faithful’s head, probably coming out of their subconscious, and they decide that it feels right, and that is it. Or, someone tells them, either orally or through a book, that an idea is right, and they simply accept it because they feel that they have to accept what this person has told them.

With these terms defined, how can you reach the conclusion that faith and the initiation of physical force are corollaries? In other words, how do you reach the conclusion that routine and systematic use of the psychological process of “faith” will lead, with some degree of necessity, to the act of initiating physical force against others? (Obviously, I don’t want you to take what I say on faith.) I think the only way to arrive at this conclusion is to look at enough examples and try to see if you can find a pattern. I will provide you, the reader, with a few hypotheticals, and then leave it to you to come up with more:

Example 1: Your religion says that you aren’t supposed to keep certain types of meats stored together. You cannot store meat A and meat B together. You enter into a contract with a truck driver who is not of your religion to transport meat A to you in a truck, and you pay him money in advance for that.

When the truck driver arrives with the delivery, it turns out that he has unknowingly stored meat B in the truck along with the meat A he is delivering to you. (The truck driver had another customer and he was going to deliver meat B to the other customer after stopping off at your house.) You say that you cannot accept the meat because it was stored with meat B, and you want your money back. The truck driver says you’re “off your rocker” and refuses to give you your money back or pay “damages” for this alleged “breach of contract”.

A secular court system would say there is no scientific basis for your belief about storage of meat A and meat B together. Your breach of contract lawsuit would be dismissed. You can either discard the meat you paid for, or discard your religion, but in a secular system of government, you cannot have both.

You cannot use rational persuasion to convince the truck driver to give you your money back because he thinks your religion isn’t true. The temptation would be to resort to “self-help” in order to recover your money from the truck driver. This is an initiation of physical force. Your faith has led to the initiation of physical force. If there is a court system that is based on your religion that has jurisdiction, then it will get you your money back. But, this is an initiation of physical force, since the use of physical force can only be justified in self-defense or to recompense someone whose right to life has been violated in some way. Either way, if you act on your religious principles about storing meat A and meat B together, and take it seriously, you are led to the initiation of physical force against the truck driver that doesn’t hold your religious beliefs.

Example 2: Your religion says that a particular piece of land is holy, and is not to be used for any human purpose. According to your religion, the land is just to be left as it currently is. Someone owns the land who doesn’t ascribe to your religion, and decides he’s going to build his house on it. If there is a secular legal system, you will not be able to prevent the house construction. You cannot use reason to persuade him not to build the house, because your belief isn’t based in reason. If you try to point to your holy text, he’s going to say it’s baloney, and he doesn’t believe it. There is only one way to stop him: the initiation of physical force. Once again, either you personally will have to resort to the initiation of physical force, or your theocratic government will have to resort to the initiation of physical force to stop him. Combine this with the fact that any “interpreter” of your religion (priest, imam, rabbi, or whatever), going off of his feelings, can suddenly claim that god has told him that a particular land is “holy” and belongs to members of your religion, and this is a recipe for constant conflict with the non-believers who want to use land for actually living their lives in the here and now. Then combine this with a multiplicity of religions, all claiming some tract of land as “holy” and you get the crusades, the 30-years war, or the conflict in Israel.

Example 3: Your religion has a “holy animal” that is not to be eaten or harmed. Someone who doesn’t ascribe to your religion routinely shoots and eats the “holy animal”. You cannot use reason to persuade him not to eat your holy animal, because your belief isn’t based in reason. Once again, he’s just going to say your religion is false…and he’s hungry. There is only one way to stop him: the initiation of physical force. Once again, either you personally will have to resort to the initiation of physical force, or your theocratic government will have to resort to the initiation of physical force to stop him.

The more all-embracing one’s faith is in their mind, that is, the more they rely on ideas based in nothing but their feelings, and the more they take such ideas seriously, the more they will end up in irreconcilable conflicts like the three examples above, that can only be resolved by either not taking the “holy text” seriously, or by the initiation of physical force against non-believers. There will be a multiplicity of instances like the three outlined above.

My point here isn’t concerning the content of particular directives and commandments contained within any religious doctrine. I’ve made up these particular examples for purposes of illustrating my point, and I don’t even know if they are part of any actual major world religion. My point here is that the religious doctrine is insulated from any sort of ability to resolve a dispute with followers of other religious doctrines or those who embrace a secular view-point because it will create insoluble problems with those who don’t follow the creed, or those who interpret the creed differently.

A follower of a creed based in faith, will be left with the choice of either: (1) separating himself from those who don’t believe. This is probably why you see “religious ghettos” when people of one religion move into a country with a majority that doesn’t ascribe to their faith. These minority religious groups just separate out and live in their own special areas of a city. Or, (2), the believer will use force against non-believers to the extent necessary to ensure that his doctrine based on faith is respected by the non-believers.

Additionally, note that I have made no mention of examples from actual religions concerning directives or commandments that say either: (1) kill the infidels/sinners, or (2), say something that could easily be interpreted as “kill the infidels/sinners”.

For instance, the Bible talks about killing adulterers: (“‘If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife—with the wife of his neighbor—both the adulterer and the adulteress are to be put to death.” Leviticus 20:10) The Koran talks about killing infidels: “And kill them wherever you find them, and turn them out from where they have turned you out. And Al-Fitnah [disbelief or unrest] is worse than killing… but if they desist, then lo! Allah is forgiving and merciful. And fight them until there is no more Fitnah [disbelief and worshipping of others along with Allah] and worship is for Allah alone….” http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/pages/quran/violence.aspx

This is because my analysis of “faith” and how it necessitates the initiation of physical force doesn’t rely on the content of any particular religious doctrine. The psychological process of faith itself necessitates the initiation of physical force against others to resolve the conflicts that will occur.

However, when you start looking at the content of actual world religions and some of the things they say regarding how the “sinful” are to be dealt with, and then combine those words -that religious content- with a method of “thought” (faith) that provides no means of dealing with non-believers because reason is jettisoned, you can see why it can be a potent psychological cocktail motivating the initiation of physical force.

Why are the countries in Europe and North America relatively peaceful and free compared to countries in the Middle East? After all, America, and, to a lesser extent, Europe is full of church-going people who believe. I think the difference is the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. If you’re atheist and you talk about religion and science with even the most religious Westerner, he will probably, eventually, say something along the following lines: “There is a place for faith and there is a place for reason.” I suspect this represents a sort of centuries-long compromise or rapprochement between religion and secularism in the Western World. It has sufficiently delimited faith in important areas of human life, especially in the realm of politics, and allowed for the creation of a (generally) secular legal system. I suspect that most Western intellectuals do not realize how “all-encompassing” faith is in the mind of the average Middle Easterner, because we haven’t been there ourselves for centuries. It is why Western politicians and intellectuals tend to describe Islam as “ideology” rather than as religion. For instance, a Dutch politician has noted:

“Let no one fool you about Islam being a religion. Sure, it has a god, and a here-after, and 72 virgins. But in its essence Islam is a political ideology. It is a system that lays down detailed rules for society and the life of every person. Islam wants to dictate every aspect of life. Islam means ‘submission’. Islam is not compatible with freedom and democracy, because what it strives for is Sharia. If you want to compare Islam to anything, compare it to communism or national-socialism, these are all totalitarian ideologies.” (“The Lights are Going Out All Over Europe”, by Geert Wilders, emphasis added, http://www.truthprovider.com/?app=articles&id=155 )

Christianity once was a system that laid down detailed rules for society and the life of every person too –we just haven’t seen it for about 500 years. As a result, people who take religion that seriously seem strange to the average Westerner –you would have to look to what would widely be regarded as a “cult” here in the West to find a similar mindset. (For instance, the “Branch Davidians” in Waco, Texas.) This is why I believe the average Westerner has a difficult time thinking of Islamic terrorism or the theocracy of a country like Iran as being based in religious faith. Faith is just not as all-encompassing in the mind of even the most religious Westerners.

After the November 2015 attacks in Paris, in which 130 people were murdered, I saw comedian Bill Maher ask, in a not so comedic mood, “Why do they hate us?” (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/nov/14/bill-maher-on-paris-attacks-why-do-they-hate-us/ )

Based on what I’ve said above about the mind of someone who operates primarily on the basis of faith, this is my theory on why so many in the Middle East seem to hate us:

Part of the reason is examples like 1, 2, and 3 above. In these instances, the non-believer doesn’t even know he’s done something that violated their religious faith. I think this is going to enrage a member of the faith, not just because of what the non-believer is doing, but because the non-believer, rightly so in my opinion, doesn’t care about their religion. The non-believer wants to live. The Westerner, with a much more delimited view of religious faith, will take numerous actions to live his life, all of which are offenses against Islam. This lack of concern for religious rituals will tend to infuriate the faithful, and is a spur to violence.

People in the West will tend to think there is some secular reason for the faith-based mind’s antagonism. They will look at factors like “US bombing in the Middle East” or “poverty” or anything besides the terrorist’s proclamations of fidelity to Islam. This is because people in the West have trouble conceiving of a mind that is that “faith-based”. Westerners assume there must be some secular reason that is the “real” reason planes are getting blown up, journalists are getting their heads cut off, and innocent people on sidewalk cafes are being shot. The reality is that they hate us because we aren’t just ignorant of their religious tenants, but because, on some fundamental level, they know we don’t regard their dogma as having any basis in reality. They hate us because we want to live this life, which is the only one we’re going to get.

Corporations as Contract and Government Financing in a Free Society

The philosophy set forth in the fiction and nonfiction of
Ayn Rand establishes an underlying intellectual framework for a
free society. Rand was like a physicist who deals with broad
abstractions about the nature of reality. The engineer then takes
these ideas and builds, among other things, the automobile.
Also like the physicist, Rand the philosopher dealt with the
underlying ethical principles of a free society, but left many of
the details of how a government should be “constructed” to
future intellectuals in the field of law and jurisprudence.1 The
aim of this paper is to help fill in some of the details as to how a proper government should be constituted. Specifically, this
paper deals with the issue of governmental financing in a free
society. (Read More: Corporations as Contract and Government Financing in a Free Society)

Why Act on Principle?

I recently said to a friend that any form of “gun control” is an initiation of physical force, and that allowing even a little initiation of physical force abrogates the entire principle of individual rights to life, liberty and property. When I thought about this some, I realized that the question might actually have been this: “Why act on principle at all? Why can’t you occasionally violate a principle without throwing it out altogether?” This is a good question, even if my friend wasn’t actually asking it, so I will endeavor to give an explanation to something he may or may not have actually been asking.

First, what is meant when we speak of a “principle”? I will start with an example and then move from there to a definition. Let’s consider the principle of respecting the property rights of others. I’ll reduce this to the following maxim: “Do not take the property of others without their consent.”

But, why shouldn’t I just occasionally steel when I can get away with it? For instance, when I go to the grocery store, I could take a few items and walk out without paying. If I stuck to stealing food, I might get away with this indefinitely. So why don’t I?

If I’m going to start stealing from the grocery store, I need to develop a methodology to maximize my chances of success. Lets take a look at my “game plan” for stealing from the grocery store:

When I go into the store, I have to check for security cameras.

I have to wait until employees aren’t watching. Once I’ve stolen the items, I’ve got to casually head outside, still checking to see if employees, store customers, or the manager have noticed me stealing from the store. These people are now all potential enemies to me –a threat to my existence- so I cannot trust any of them. I would constantly have to be “looking over my back”, checking to see if anyone noticed me stealing.

I have to develop a plan prior to going in, as this will reduce my chances of getting caught. So I will spend some time working it out. This is time I could have spent doing other things.

I probably want to go in beforehand, and scope out the store, but this could look suspicious -going in, looking around and then returning soon thereafter. So, maybe not?

What will be my “take” from stealing from the grocery store? I can only steal small items, so probably my “gain” will be less than $50.

There are also the penalties involved, if I’m caught. If I steal less than $50, then I am only looking at a fine in Texas, but the fine is up to $500, plus the store can sue me for treble damages and attorney’s fees. If I steal more than $50 of merchandise, I’m looking at anywhere from six months to a year in jail, plus big fines, plus the store suing me.

I think it’s legitimate to consider the government-imposed penalties like this in my analysis since I am not an anarchist -I actually think one of the major ways the government protects rights is by imposing sufficient “pain” or “cost” on the person committing the crime that they won’t want to do it. Criminal laws have a “deterrent effect”. (This isn’t the only reason for criminal penalties, however, they also serve as a “restraint”. For instance, locking up a murderer prevents him from committing more murders.)

Additionally, many jobs will be unavailable to me if I’ve been convicted of a crime involving “moral turpitude” like theft. Many employers won’t hire you with a criminal record for theft or fraud.

After any particular episode of theft from the grocery store, I might get $50 to $100 in merchandise, if I don’t get caught. I also stand to loose up to a year of my time in jail, plus all of the fines and civil penalties. That seems like a very “bad bet” to me. All of these “costs” associated with such a life of crime will also add up to feelings of anxiety about getting caught. Anxiety is not a pleasant emotion to feel on a chronic or long-term basis. (I also suppose I could eliminate the anxiety by refusing to think or consuming a lot of alcohol, but that means I’m really likely to get caught if I don’t think about how to get away with it.)

You should also consider the long-term risks of a policy of theft. You might get away with theft once or twice, but the more you do it, the more likely you are to get caught. It hardly seems worth all that pain for $50 of “free” stuff from the grocery store.

I’ve shown that stealing isn’t actually “free”, in terms of your effort and thought. There is actually a “cost” associated with every time you steal. There is the cost of all the mental energy and labor you expend executing your thefts successfully. There is the cost associated with the risk you’ll get caught. Furthermore, the greater the value of the things you are stealing, the greater the risk, because you will face more severe criminal and social penalties. More people will be watching, the more the valuable items, so the more effort you must expend. For instance, it’s a lot harder to steal from a jewelry store than a grocery store because everything is under glass. That means additional labor, time, and energy goes into a jewelry heist.

It seems easier to me to just work a legitimate job, and earn the money I need to buy things at the grocery store. Then, when I walk into the grocery store, I can just get the stuff I want, pay for it, and then walk out.

Additionally, as we saw, if you start stealing from the grocery store, you will wind up “juggling” in your mind, so many variables in trying to pull off a grocery store theft that it will overload your mind’s capacity to deal with all of them at once. This actually points to an important purpose that a “principle” serves. A “principle” is a sort of concept. A concept is a mental summation of relevant observed facts into a generalized “mental tag” -a word and/or a definition. (Although a “principle” is more of a “proposition” –a series of words.) It allows your limited mind to deal with many aspects of reality simultaneously, which would otherwise overwhelm it. You can deal with three or four concrete items as individuals in your mind at one time, but any more than that, and you cannot hold it all successfully. Your mind disintegrates into mental chaos without concepts, and when it comes to concepts of action, which is all I think a “principle” is, your behavior will become equally chaotic.

Given all of this discussion, I will define a “principle” as: “A consistent standard of action you use in the face of a particular set of factual circumstances.”

For instance, “Don’t take the property of others without their consent,” is a standard of action that I use whenever I face a particular set of facts. When I see a man-made thing that doesn’t occur in nature, and I didn’t produce it with my own effort, I do not physically appropriate it for my own purposes without the owner’s consent.

Can there be “exceptions” to this principle? For instance, if you break into a cabin when you are stranded in a snow blizzard in the mountains, have you taken the property of the owner without his consent? I believe this isn’t actually an “exception” to the principle, because “factual circumstances” are different from the grocery store example. You can articulate facts that make the situation different from going into the grocery store and taking groceries without the owner’s consent. The primary factual circumstance that is different is that you are willing to compensate the owner of the cabin at a later date for any loss, so it isn’t likely to be without his consent. (This also gets into the issue of what “consent” is, and whether the owner’s consent has to have a rational basis, but I leave that for another discussion.) Another “factual circumstance” that is different is that it is a “life and death emergency”, which means it is an extremely low-probability event that isn’t likely to occur very often –it is “life boat ethics”. (Remember, that part of the reason you don’t steal from the grocery store is you have to hide it, and the more times you do it, the more likely you are to get caught one of those times.)

By thinking of enough concrete scenarios like the grocery store theft example, I eventually decided that stealing just isn’t worth it. It’s better to adopt a general standard of action in my mind: “Don’t take the property of others without their consent.” I leave it to the reader to think through other examples of general standards of action such as “Don’t kill those who haven’t initiated physical force against you,” (i.e., don’t murder), “Don’t misrepresent facts to gain things from others,” (i.e., be honest), “Judge others according to a rational standard, and treat them accordingly,” (i.e., be just), etc.

How does my definition of “principle” compare to the “socially-accepted definition”? If you perform a “define: principle” search on google.com, you get some of the following definitions (as of 11-10-2016):

“…fundamental truth or proposition that serves as the foundation for a system of belief or behavior or for a chain of reasoning.”

“…a rule or belief governing one’s personal behavior…”

“…morally correct behavior and attitudes…”

“…a general scientific theorem or law that has numerous special applications across a wide field…”

“…a natural law forming the basis for the construction or working of a machine…”

These definitions are all essentially, compatible with mine, I believe. For instance, regarding the principle “Don’t take the property of others without their consent,” it is a “fundamental truth” that human beings must produce the material values necessary for their survival, because most of what we need to survive or flourish does not exist in nature. It is also a “fundamental truth” that human beings must use their reasoning minds to produce those material values, and that if you want to live with others they must respect your desire to live and you must respect theirs. (It’s also a “fundamental truth” that human beings are not omniscient, so they need an impartial system of laws and an institution with the socially-recognized exclusive right to the retaliatory use of physical force to protect rights.)

“Don’t take the property of others without their consent,” is also “…morally correct behavior…” If one wants to live, and if one’s life is the standard of the good, then, in order to live peacefully with others, you must recognize the property rights of others.

“Don’t take the property of others without their consent,” is also a “natural law” in the sense that it recognizes that the human mind functions by persuasion, not coercion. It is a “natural law” in the same sense that the law of universal gravitation is a “natural law”. If you want to build a rocket, you must take the law of inertia into account, because “nature to be commanded must be obeyed”. Similarly, if you want to have a functioning society, it must respect property rights.

Tying all of this back in, why would any form of “gun control” be an abrogation of the principle of individual rights? What is meant by “gun control”? Does it merely mean: “Prohibiting the possession of a weapon with an intent to commit a crime”? The intent to use a weapon to violate others rights is the start of an initiation of physical force, and, if it can be proved beyond a reasonable doubt, it can and should be prosecuted by the government. Taking any physical steps towards the eventual goal of force being used to destroy the values of others is an initiation of physical force, and therefore a violation of the principle of individual rights. Anyone who has ever seen a John Wayne movie recognizes that you don’t have to wait for someone to actually shoot you in the gut before you can defend yourself. When the bad guy “goes for his gun”, John Wayne shoots him, and that is self-defense, not an initiation of physical force.

An example of an rights-respecting gun law is something like the statute found in the state of Vermont:

“A person who carries a dangerous or deadly weapon, openly or concealed, with the intent or avowed purpose of injuring a fellow man,…shall be imprisoned….” (See http://ago.vermont.gov/divisions/criminal-division/gun-laws.php, emphasis added, last accessed on 11-12-2016.)

This is a perfectly acceptable and appropriate law regarding the possession of a firearm. It only prohibits carrying a weapon if the person can be shown, beyond a reasonable doubt, to have the “intent” or “avowed purpose” of injuring a fellow man. (Presumably, “injuring a fellow man” here means injuries of one’s fellow men other than for purpose of self-defense.)

This, by the way, is why the government could investigate someone who built a weapon of mass destruction in their backyard. Such a device would not be necessary for self-defense. If you walked around with a nuclear bomb strapped to your back for self-defense, even a “low-yield” device, you’d blow yourself up as well as the mugger -and half the city. Your possession of such a device would create the suspicion that you planned to use it for violating the rights of others. There is no likely or probable need for such a device if you are an individual. Now, you might ultimately be able to show that you had an innocent reason for possessing a WMD, but you’d have to go before a court, and the government’s “prima facie case” of an illegal intent is probably satisfied just by showing that you have no business interest in building such a device. For instance, you aren’t engaged in the business of building nuclear bombs for the US military or some sort of mining or industrial concern. After the government makes its “prima facie showing”, the burden can rightly be shifted to you at court to show some reason that doesn’t involve violating the rights of others. (Additionally, you could face civil liability if you create a “nuisance” that invades or imminently threatens the property of others, which a nuclear bomb probably qualifies as.)

But this isn’t what the left means when they speak of “gun control”. What is generally meant by “gun control”, as that expression is used by most members of the Democratic party and the political left, is the following: The government will initiate, or start, the use of physical force against someone for mere possession of a device, in this case, a devise that uses a controlled explosion to release a metal projectile through a tube by means of an explosive material, such as cordite. The government will initiate physical force against such persons even though they have no intent to use the device to violate individual rights. The initiation of physical force by government takes the form of actual or threatened use of force, and, it will continue to escalate the use of physical force until you comply with its commands, or die -whichever comes first.

Here is how government works: If you break a law, you’ll be arrested (force). If you resist arrest, more cops will come to restrain you (more force). If you use a weapon to resist, the cops will use weapons to stop you (deadly force). Ultimately, all laws follow this pattern: “Do not do X, or you will ultimately be killed.” If the government says: “Do not murder, or you will be killed,” then this is fine because murder violates the rights of others. If the government prohibits things like guns and marijuana, then it says: “Do not own a gun or you will be killed,” or “Do not smoke a joint or you will be killed.” At that point you are being threatened with a violent death despite the fact that you are not violating the rights of others. (Like I said, possessing a gun with intent to commit a crime is different, just as smoking a joint and deliberately blowing the smoke in someone’s face is different.)

So what’s wrong with a little governmental initiation of physical force? You face the same sorts of problems that you face with the example of stealing from the grocery store, but this time it’s on a society-wide level. For instance, if the government says you cannot own a gun to defend yourself from a criminal, when there is no time to call the police to protect you, then the government is implicitly saying: “We’re willing to risk your life in order to satisfy a bunch of soccer moms who have an irrational aversion to guns.” How will this be distinguished from other people’s irrational desires that would involve violating your right to life?

Since no one wants to say: “Government officials can arbitrarily murder some people whenever they feel like it,” the legislature and courts will need to come up with some sort of principled distinction between the prohibition on the ownership of a gun for emergency self-defense and any other number of actions you might take to maintain your life. This is why our legal code has become so “Byzantine” with all sorts of “loopholes”, exceptions, and exceptions to the exceptions. Our legal code is mostly unhinged from any principles distinguishing what should be prohibited and what shouldn’t be because we no longer follow the principle of individual rights.

Additionally, once the principle of individual rights is discarded, the legislature will be constantly bombarded by individuals, and groups of individuals, all trying to appropriate the property of others. It becomes a system of constant “pressure group warfare”, a “cold civil war”, if you will, with a particular political faction gaining power and stealing from some to give to others. They will hold onto power, handing out political favors to their cronies, until some other faction takes over the levers of government and imposes their will on others for a bit.

As I said, a “principle” is a sort of concept, which is a mental summation of relevant observed facts into a generalized “mental tag” -a word and/or a definition. It allows your limited mind to deal with many aspects of reality simultaneously, which would otherwise overwhelm it. You can deal with three or four concrete items as individuals in your mind at one time, but any more than that, and you cannot hold it all successfully. Your mind disintegrates into a mental chaos without concepts, and when it comes to concepts of action, which is all I think a “principle” is, your behavior will become equally chaotic. When society-wide principles like individual rights to life, liberty, and property are disregarded, that society will become chaotic. Eventually the “cold civil war”, of political factions fighting in the legislature, will disintegrate into an actual, shooting, civil war, and people will form gangs fighting one another for the scraps of what is left of civilization, or a “strong man” will take over and the country becomes a dictatorship, with his gang appropriating the property of all. Either way, life will become nasty, brutish, and short without the principle of individual rights to guide us.

An Example of What I Call “Platonic Rationalism”

A “logical fallacy” is an error in logical reasoning. An error in logic can occur because of some “formal” flaw such as Affirming the consequent ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirming_the_consequent ). An error can also occur because of the use of a common method of argument that may be widely used but is actually irrelevant. I thought these were called “informal fallacies”, but I cannot find confirmation of that on the Internet now. (http://www.iep.utm.edu/fallacy/#H2)

Most of these informal fallacies have Latin names. For instance, “ad hominem” means “to the person” or “against the man” and involves making an irrelevant attack on the arguer and suggesting that this attack undermines the argument itself. For instance, if a medical doctor is trying to convince his colleagues that they should vaccinate their patients at age four instead of age two, and someone responds that he is having an extramarital affair, so he shouldn’t be listened to, that is clearly irrelevant to his argument.

I want to address a particular type of argument that is similar to argument ad hominem, but has its origin in a particular, mistaken, view of the nature of the concept of “rationality”.

I found an example of this while doing keyword searches on the Internet for “Black Lives Matters”. The article quoted a popular musician I am fairly unfamiliar with named Sean Combs. The article quoted Mr. Combs as saying:

“‘For the last couple of months we have experienced a lot of injustice and wrongdoings to a community. But there is a flip side,” wrote Diddy. He continued, “Yes #BLACKLIVESMATTER ! But no one will respect us if we as a people don’t have any respect for our own black lives. We are committing genocide on ourselves. We are always looking for scapegoats.’” (http://www.theroot.com/blog/the-grapevine/diddy_on_blacklivesmatter_black_people_are_committing_genocide_on_ourselves/2/ , last accessed on 10-22-2016.)

The article then went on to say:

“Diddy added, ‘We as a people hurt ourselves more than anyone has ever hurt us. That makes no sense. We as a people including myself have to take accountability and do whatever we can do individually or together to stop the madness and realize that we are KINGS and QUEENS AND Must love ourselves and each other. I know I’m rambling a little bit’” (http://www.theroot.com/blog/the-grapevine/diddy_on_blacklivesmatter_black_people_are_committing_genocide_on_ourselves/2/ , last accessed on 10-22-2016.)

Essentially, what Mr. Combs seemed to be referring to is the fact that a black person is more likely to be unlawfully killed by another black person than they are to be unlawfully killed by a cop. This can be confirmed by looking at the statistics on the number of people killed while interacting with cops where the killing is classified as a “homicide” versus the murder statistics kept by the FBI. I have referenced this in previous blog posts.

What is the author’s response to Mr. Comb’s verifiably correct factual assertion that a black person is more likely to be unlawfully killed by another black person than to be unlawfully killed by a cop?

“It must be nice to be black, rich and oblivious to issues that plague society.” (http://www.theroot.com/blog/the-grapevine/diddy_on_blacklivesmatter_black_people_are_committing_genocide_on_ourselves/2/ , last accessed on 10-22-2016.)

In other words, Mr. Combs is wealthy, therefore he is mistaken.

The author of this article could be saying one of two things here:

(1) Sean Combs has some sort of interest in either lying or presenting only part of the facts (presenting half-truths). That his desire to acquire or keep wealth is serving as a motive for him to lie. This is what we would normally call “bias”. But, Sean Combs is correct that more black people are unjustifiably killed by other black people than they are by cops, and the sources of this information seem reliable. (FBI crime statistics.)

(2) Although Sean Comb’s factual assertion is correct -that black people are more likely to be unlawfully killed by another black person than by a cop- his *argument* is flawed because he is rich.

Since I don’t see any evidence to refute the fact that black people are more likely to be unlawfully killed by black people than by cops, then I think it is safe for me to assume that the author of this article means the second: that Sean Comb’s argument is flawed simply because he is rich. That his argument, while logical, is flawed because of his status as a rich man.

Argument “ad homenim” is a logical fallacy in which an argument is rebutted by attacking the character, motive, or other attribute of the person making the argument, or persons associated with the argument, rather than attacking the substance of the argument itself. The author of this article is making a sort of “argument ad homenim” against Sean Combs. She does this by: (1) Stating that he is rich, and (2) by saying his “…rhetoric [is] similar to that of conservative voices.” (http://www.theroot.com/blog/the-grapevine/diddy_on_blacklivesmatter_black_people_are_committing_genocide_on_ourselves/2/ , last accessed on 10-22-2016.) The author implies that since political conservatives make this argument, then Sean Combs use of the same argument is incorrect. But the author never bothers to address the argument of conservatives on this topic, or to show that it is mistaken.

So, this is probably argument ad homenim, but I want to address another, subtler point, aside from that. “Ad homenim” means “against the man”. Why is it “against the man” to say that Mr. Combs has wealth and wants to keep and acquire wealth?

Wealth, i.e. material values, are necessary in order to maintain your life. So, this is ultimately an argument that Mr. Combs’ desire to live is distorting what would otherwise be “objective truth”. The author believes there is a conflict between the interest to live and rationality or objectivity.

Before proceeding any further, lets discuss the concept of rationality. If you type the words “rationality” “logic” and “reason” into an Internet search engine, you will get some definitions of these terms:

“rationality” -> “based on or in accordance with reason or logic.” (define: rational on google.com, 10-22-2016)

“logic” -> “reasoning conducted or assessed according to strict principles of validity.” ( define: logic on google.com, 10-22-2016)

“reason” -> “a cause, explanation, or justification for an action or event.” or “the power of the mind to think, understand, and form judgments by a process of logic.” (define: reason on google.com, 10-22-2016)

“Rationality” means something along the lines of: to conform your mind to reality by the use of a systematic methodology (logic). This is somewhat seen in the definition of “reason” above, when it says that “reason” is a “cause” or “explanation” “for an action or event”. (Although all of these Internet definitions are somewhat “circular”.) In other words, you make some sort of mental connection in your mind that explains why something you observe happens the way it does.

Here is an example of using a systematic methodology to build concepts or ideas from observations: If you see that when you give a plant light, it grows, while when you put the same type of plant in a dark closet, while keeping all other factors the same, it dies, then you recognize that light is a “cause” of plant growth. It explains the “action or event” of a plant growing. Furthermore, you have used some sort of system or method to determine this. Specifically, you took two plants, and put one in the sun while the other one you put into a dark closet. You tried to keep all other factors the same. You gave them the same amount of water and soil, and otherwise tried to control all other variables and make them the same for the two plants. This is because you recognize that if you are going to be able to say that light is a “cause” of plant growth, you had to keep all other variables or factors the same. This is a “methodology”, the “scientific method”, which is a type of “logic”. All logic is ultimately based on the principle that all things have a specific identity, and that they act in accordance with that identity. (Which is “causality”.)

However, when we speak of “rationality”, we can also mean something slightly different. We can also mean that an action achieves a particular goal. “Rationality implies the conformity of one’s beliefs with one’s reasons to believe, or of one’s actions with one’s reasons for action.” ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationality , last accessed on 10-22-2106) “Rationality” means that you conform you actions with your “reasons for action”. In other words, you conform your actions to achieve your goals. Ultimately, this is not a different definition of “rational”, since you are still recognizing reality, and acting in a systematic way in accordance with the nature of reality. For instance, if you want to eat, you must recognize that plants grow in a certain way, and that if you want to grow enough to eat, you have to give them sufficient food, water, and sunlight in order to grow them. If you want food to eat, you must work to grow crops. The goal of eating, means that you must recognize reality and act accordingly. If you want to have good health, you must eat certain types of food, you must exercise, take vitamins, etc. If someone wants to have good health, but they shoot up heroin, eat only red meat, never exercise, and chain smoke cigarettes, then their rationality will be questioned. Their rationality is questioned because they are not recognizing the principles of good health, or at least are not acting in accordance with those principles of good health, and they are not likely to achieve their goal.

If your ultimate goal is to live, you must take certain actions to achieve that goal. This is because life cannot be achieved without taking certain actions. You must grow crops, you must hunt for food, you must build shelter, you must avoid dangerous animals and dangerous people, etc. By contrast, if you do not want to live, then no particular systematic action or methodology is necessary. You don’t need to recognize reality if you don’t want to live. You don’t have to act in accordance with the methods of logic if you don’t want to live. What this points to, or suggests, is that, ultimately, “rationality” means conforming your mind and actions to the nature of reality in order to maximize your chances of living.

Now, there is another conception of “rationality” that is disconnected from the concept of “life”. This is a conception of “rationality” based in the idea that there is some sort of “pure knowledge” in some other realm that has nothing to do with the desire to live. Plato is the oldest example of this view of “rationality”.

“…Platonism can be said to have in common is an intense concern for the quality of human life—always ethical, often religious, and sometimes political, based on a belief in unchanging and eternal realities, which Plato called forms, independent of the changing things of the world perceived by the senses.” (See https://www.britannica.com/topic/Platonism , last accessed 10-22-2016.)

Platonic philosophy suggests that there is a basis for knowledge not connected to reality and the desire to live. It suggests that knowledge, “true knowledge” exists in the “forms” in some other realm. “Rationality” then becomes psychologically or mentally disconnected in the Platonist’s mind from the desire to live or the requirements of living. In fact, for the Platonist, reality and the requirements of life, will be seen as a “distorting factor” towards “pure” or “genuine” understanding and “genuine” logic or reason.

There’s just one problem with this “Platonic rationality”. There is no evidence, in reality, for another world of “forms”. There can be no evidence for anything other than that which exists –so belief in another realm outside reality is a nonsense belief. When someone claims to have some sort of “intuitive” or “mystical” insight regarding some sort of “world of forms”, they are simply acting on emotional whim.

People who tend to hold the Platonic view of rationality will tend to disdain any desire to live as a disqualifying or “distorting agent” keeping you from “true rationality”.

Wealth is important because human beings require material values -food, clothing, and shelter- in order to live. The more wealth you have, the better you are able to live. Think about it in terms of personal health. A very wealthy person can afford to have a personal doctor that follows him around, which, other things equal, is going to promote his life. A very wealthy person can have a personal bodyguard to protect him from criminals, which also will tend to enhance and lengthen his life. At a mass level, we can see a difference in life spans between people living in the first world versus those living in the third world. This is because people in the first world are wealthier (on average).

The desire to live for the “Platonic rationalist” is a “distorting agent”. The desire to live means a focus on reality and acting systematically to achieve one’s goal of life. But, to the “Platonic rationalist”, true knowledge is based in some other realm, and has nothing to do with promoting your life. The desire to live, for the Platonic rationalist, is therefore a “distorting agent” preventing one from being “entirely rational”.

Mr. Comb’s argument is dismissed in the article because he is rich, but anyone can be criticized with this sort of argument “ad homenim” by those who hold the Platonic view of rationality. Because ascetic self-deprivation is the key to this Platonic view of rationality, and no one still alive can completely deprive themselves of everything. So long as one wants to live at all, and makes any effort to live, then they can be criticized as somehow “biased”. Mr. Combs is being criticized as biased because he wants to live.

The connection I am making here between “rationality” and “life”, with the “purpose” of rationality being the maintenance of one’s life, raises an interesting question. Is there such a thing as “bias”? What does it mean to say that someone is “biased”?

“Bias” generally means someone is either not telling the truth or is only telling half-truths, when it comes to reciting the facts. For instance, a witness in court is “biased” if he lies or only tells half the facts because of some “interest” he has. This “interest” doesn’t have to be *self* interest. He could be an altruist, and believe that he is serving that cause by lying. For instance, an environmentalist might believe that he is saving the planet by lying as a witness in a trial having to do with pollution. He isn’t lying because of any self-interest he has. He is lying because of his interest in saving others –in this case the environment.

Another example of “bias”: A news paper can have a “left wing bias” in that it reports only facts that serve its agenda while leaving out essential facts that would give a proper perspective. In both cases, we are talking about the reporting of facts, not logical argument. To say someone is “biased” is to say they are misreporting the facts, they are lying, to serve some interest. If someone is making a purely logical argument, and you agree with the facts they are using to make that argument, then you cannot say they are “biased”. You must refute the logic of their argument –assuming you agree with the facts and don’t believe there are any additional facts that need to come out to provide a more complete picture.

So, if the author of the article about Mr. Combs had said he was biased as a result of the facts he was reporting, about how black people are mostly being murdered by other black people, not cops, then perhaps the author could say he is “biased”. But, the author doesn’t seem to dispute the facts on homicide and murder rates. The author certainly didn’t present any additional facts, or show that that FBI and government statistics are wrong. The author simply said that his argument is flawed because he is good at acquiring wealth -i.e., because he wants to live. This is to claim that the desire to live and rationality are somehow at odds, but we are rational because we want to live.

How do we tell when it is proper to speak of someone as “biased”? Only when they are reporting factual observations. We say that they have some interest or motive that causes them to lie or to tell half-truths. But, if you agree with the facts they are reporting, and only disagree with their logical argument based on those facts, then I don’t think it is ever proper to claim they are biased. In such a situation, you are engaging in some sort of argument ad hominem. Furthermore, if you criticize someone’s logical argument because they want to live, or are successful at living, then you aren’t just engaging in argument ad hominem, you are implicitly accepting the “Platonic rationalist” view of reason, and are claiming that the desire to live is a distorting agent when it comes to reasoning. You are mentally severing rationality from it’s goal -which is life.

Thomas Hobbes on Accidental and Essential In “Leviathan”

In his book “Leviathan”, Thomas Hobbes prefaces his discussion of politics and the “social contract” with a discussion “Of Man”. (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3207/3207-h/3207-h.htm) (My references to “Leviathan” are to the Penguin Classics version, 1987, ISBN 0-14-043195-0 http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?bi=0&bx=off&ds=30&isbn=0140431950&recentlyadded=all&sortby=17&sts=t )

Hobbes recognizes that one must study the nature of man before discussing how men should be organized into society and what sort of political system they should adapt. He also recognizes that the nature of the human mind, and how it acquires knowledge, is key to understanding the nature of man.

In historical context, Hobbes lived in a time when some of the scientific assertions of Aristotle, which had been re-incorporated into Western thinking by Thomas Aquinas, were being questioned.

Galileo Galilei had presented evidence that tended to overthrow the Ptolemaic system, which had described the Earth as the center of the universe. This idea had become official doctrine of the Church with its adoption of Aristotle, through Thomas Aquinas, at the beginning of the Renaissance.

Hobbes wrote against this backdrop, in which all of Aristotle’s science, especially his cosmology, was starting to be questioned.

Despite his declared rejection of Aristotle, Hobbes didn’t go far enough in questioning the philosopher when it came to the distinction between “essential” and “accidental” properties of a thing. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accident_%28philosophy%29)

Although Hobbes was right to reject the Platonic/Aristotelian view of “essences”, his embrace of the idea of “accidental” features in things that are not man-made lead him to believe that definitions are based on mere “accidental” features.

An alternative to both Hobbes and the “realists” (Plato and Aristotle) holds that essential features are characteristics perceived by a particular type of mind, the human mind, to serve human purposes -ultimately, man’s life.

There is a long-standing debate in the history of philosophy about where the essential feature(s) that comprise a concept come from:

“The problem of universals is the problem of the correspondence of our intellectual concepts to things existing outside our intellect. Whereas external objects are determinate individuals, formally exclusive of all multiplicity, our concepts or mental representations offer us the realities independent of all particular determination; they are abstract and universal. The question, therefore, is to discover to what extent the concepts of the mind correspond to the things they represent; how the flower we conceive represents the flower existing in nature; in a word whether our ideas are faithful and have an objective reality.” (E.C. Moore, American Pragmatism: Peirce, James, and Dewey. New York: Columbia University Press (1961), quoting DeWulf, M. Catholic Encyclopedia, XI, “Nominalism, Realism and Conceptualism”(1909).)

“Since man’s knowledge is gained and held in conceptual form, the validity of man’s knowledge depends on the validity of concepts. But concepts are abstractions or universals, and everything that man perceives is particular, concrete. What is the relationship between abstractions and concretes? To what precisely do concepts refer in reality? Do they refer to something real, something that exists -or are they merely inventions of man’s mind, arbitrary constructs or loose approximations that cannot claim to represent knowledge?…To exemplify the issue as it is usually presented: When we refer to three persons as ‘men’, what do we designate by that term? The three persons are three individuals who differ in every particular respect and may not possess a single identical characteristic…If you list all their particular characteristics, you will not find one representing ‘manness.’ Where is the ‘manness’ in men? What, in reality, corresponds to the concept ‘man’ in our mind?” (Ayn Rand, Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, 2nd Ed., “Forward to the First Edition”. New York:Meridian (1990).)

Plato said that “essences” exist in pure form in some other realm, and that the world we see around us is just a vague, shadowy approximation of that real world of forms. This is probably what was meant by Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_Cave

Plato said we are all like people who are chained and forced to face the wall of a cave with a fire behind us. We can see the shadows of people and other things as they pass by, but we cannot see the actual things. This is a metaphor for the idea that human senses do not perceive actual entities or things, just the shadows of things that actually exist. What actually exists are the “forms”, which are in some other realm. Human beings are merely perceiving the shadows of those forms. Those “forms” are what we mean when we speak of the essence of a thing. The “manness” that we perceive in men actually exists in some pure form in another realm, and the individual men that we perceive are just shadowy approximations of the “Platonic form” of man.

Plato’s student, Aristotle was somewhat more “this worldly” than his teacher. Aristotle rejected the idea that “forms” exist in some other realm. Instead, some scholars interpret Aristotle as saying that the “form” or “essence” of a thing exists within each concrete instance. http://www.anselm.edu/homepage/dbanach/arist.htm The practical result of this would be that for Aristotle, studying concrete particular things is important to understanding them, since that “essence” of the thing exists somewhere within it, whereas Plato said the “essence” isn’t in the thing –the thing is just a shadow of that “pure essence”. Plato’s view of knowledge would tend to suggest that one gains knowledge by learning about some other world, other than the one you perceive, while Aristotle at least believed that you should study the things you can actually see and perceive in order to learn about their essence.

Starting in the late Middle Ages, the ideas of Aristotle were rediscovered by Western Scholars like Thomas Aquinas. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Aquinas By the time of the Renaissance, much of Aristotle had been incorporated into Church doctrine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance The ideas of Aristotle and Aquinas became part of the “scholastic” tradition. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scholasticism

In the 1600’s, Hobbes, and other thinkers and scientists, began to reject the ideas of the “Schoolmen” (the Scholastics).

“Lastly, the Metaphysiques, Ethiques, and Politiques of Aristotle, the frivolous Distinctions, barbarous Terms, and obscure Language of the Schoolmen, taught in the Universities, (which have been all erected and regulated by the Popes Authority,) serve them to keep these Errors from being detected, and to make men mistake the Ignis Fatuus of Vain Philosophy, for the Light of the Gospell.” (Leviathan, Pg. 708)

Along with the doctrines of Aristotle, Hobbes also denounced, amongst others, the idea of Papal infallibility (“…that the Pope In His Publique Capacity Cannot Erre…” Leviathan, Pg. 706) and transubstantiation (“…they assure the same, by the Power they ascribe to every Priest, of making Christ; and by the Power of ordaining Pennance; and of Remitting, and Retaining of sins.” Leviathan, Pg. 708)

Hobbes likely regarded Plato’s Allegory of the Cave as an “abuse of speech”:

“Secondly, when they use words metaphorically; that is, in other sense than that they are ordained for; and thereby deceive others.” (Leviathan, Pg. 102)

The allegory of the cave could be considered a “metaphorical” use of words, aimed at deceiving others into doubting the evidence of their senses.

If Hobbes rejected the essentialism of Plato and Aristotle, what did he believe we were referring to when we speak of an essential, defining characteristic of a thing?

For instance, I read an article about a chimpanzee that lost all of his hair in a zoo because of alopecia –a disease. (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1322472/Guru-chimp-suffering-alopecia-looks-human-star-zoo-attraction.html)

This is what Hobbes says the schoolmen would say:

“From these Metaphysiques [the philosphy of Aristotle], which are mingled with the Scripture to make Schoole Divinity, wee are told, there be in the world certaine Essences separated from Bodies, which they call Abstract Essences, and Substantiall Formes…” (Leviathan, Pg. 689)

Aristotle tried to draw a distinction between “essential” and “accidental” properties of a thing to account for something like a chimpanzee without hair, and why it is still a chimpanzee. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accident_%28philosophy%29)

The fact that most chimpanzees have hair on their bodies must be an “accidental feature” of a chimpanzee. Something else must be “essential”.

Although he is not always clear on this point, I believe Hobbes thought all definitions ultimately rest on “accidental qualities”:

“Of Names, some are Proper, and singular to one onely thing; as Peter, John, This Man, This Tree: and some are Common to many things; as Man, Horse, Tree; every of which though but one Name, is nevertheless the name of divers particular things; in respect of all which together, it is called an Universall; there being nothing in the world Universall but Names; for the things named, are every one of them Individual and Singular.

One Universall name is imposed on many things, for their similitude in some quality, or other accident: And whereas a Proper Name bringeth to mind one thing onely; Universals recall any one of those many. ” (See Leviathan, pg. 103)

“Secondly, it may enter into account, or be considered, for some accident or quality, which we conceive to be in it; as for Being Moved, for Being So Long, for Being Hot, &c; and then, of the name of the thing it selfe, by a little change or wresting, wee make a name for that accident, which we consider; and for Living put into account Life; for Moved, Motion; for Hot, Heat; for Long, Length, and the like. And all such Names, are the names of the accidents and properties, by which one Matter, and Body is distinguished from another. These are called Names Abstract; Because Severed (not from Matter, but) from the account of Matter.” (See Leviathan, Pg. 107.)

In the above passages, Hobbes says there are “accidental qualities” that make up “matter” and “body”. Hobbes initially did seem to suggest that one “…Universal name is imposed on many things, for their similitude in some quality, or other accident…” (Leviathan, Pg. 103)

This could be interpreted as meaning he made a distinction between “similarity” and “accident”. So, for instance, the chimpanzee with alopecia has no hair as a result of an “accident” (a disease). However, given what he then gives as examples of “accident” (“living”, “moved”, “hot”, “long”, etc), the logical implication is that all characteristics of any given entity would ultimately be considered “accidental”.

Additionally, for Hobbes, a “body without us” is what is commonly called an “object”. “Objects” are the things we perceive with our senses:

“Concerning the Thoughts of man, I will consider them first Singly, and afterwards in Trayne, or dependance upon one another. Singly, they are every one a Representation or Apparence, of some quality, or other Accident of a body without us; which is commonly called an Object. Which Object worketh on the Eyes, Eares, and other parts of mans body; and by diversity of working, produceth diversity of Apparences.” (Leviathan, Pg. 85)

Every “object” that we perceive, according to Hobbes, is a “Representation” of “Apparence” of “some quality, or other Accident of a body [an object] without us; which is commonly called an Object.”

The logic of Hobbes’ view of knowledge is to say that everything about a particular entity that we call “matter” or “body” is just an accidental feature. Therefore, all of our concepts must be based on “accidental features”. There is no “essence”, as Plato or Aristotle speaks of them.

One of the strengths of Hobbes is his commitment to good definitions:

“Seeing then that Truth consisteth in the right ordering of names in our affirmations, a man that seeketh precise Truth, had need to remember what every name he uses stands for; and to place it accordingly; or els he will find himselfe entangled in words, as a bird in lime-twiggs; the more he struggles, the more belimed. And therefore in Geometry, (which is the onely Science that it hath pleased God hitherto to bestow on mankind,) men begin at settling the significations of their words; which settling of significations, they call Definitions; and place them in the beginning of their reckoning.

By this it appears how necessary it is for any man that aspires to true Knowledge, to examine the Definitions of former Authors; and either to correct them, where they are negligently set down; or to make them himselfe. For the errours of Definitions multiply themselves, according as the reckoning proceeds; and lead men into absurdities, which at last they see, but cannot avoyd, without reckoning anew from the beginning; in which lyes the foundation of their errours. From whence it happens, that they which trust to books, do as they that cast up many little summs into a greater, without considering whether those little summes were rightly cast up or not; and at last finding the errour visible, and not mistrusting their first grounds, know not which way to cleere themselves; but spend time in fluttering over their bookes; as birds that entring by the chimney, and finding themselves inclosed in a chamber, flitter at the false light of a glasse window, for want of wit to consider which way they came in. So that in the right Definition of Names, lyes the first use of Speech; which is the Acquisition of Science: And in wrong, or no Definitions’ lyes the first abuse; from which proceed all false and senslesse Tenets; which make those men that take their instruction from the authority of books, and not from their own meditation, to be as much below the condition of ignorant men, as men endued with true Science are above it. For between true Science, and erroneous Doctrines, Ignorance is in the middle. Naturall sense and imagination, are not subject to absurdity. Nature it selfe cannot erre: and as men abound in copiousnesse of language; so they become more wise, or more mad than ordinary. Nor is it possible without Letters for any man to become either excellently wise, or (unless his memory be hurt by disease, or ill constitution of organs) excellently foolish. For words are wise mens counters, they do but reckon by them: but they are the mony of fooles, that value them by the authority of an Aristotle, a Cicero, or a Thomas, or any other Doctor whatsoever, if but a man.” (Leviathan, Pg. 105-106)

Here, Hobbes says that all authority must be rejected (specifically the authority of “…Aristotle…Cicero…[and]…Thomas [Aquinas]…” He says that one must “…examine the Definitions of former Authors…” to see if they are right or wrong. Hobbes says that failure to do so will cause one to “…find himselfe entangled in words…”

But, Hobbes doesn’t always follow his own advice on definitions. Hobbes uses the term “accidental” without thinking about what that means -what its definition is. The definition of “accident” is:

“a sudden event (such as a crash) that is not planned or intended and that causes damage or injury.”
“an event that is not planned or intended: an event that occurs by chance” (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/accident)

An “accident” means something that was not planned or intended. With respect to “the metaphysical”, i.e., all aspects of reality that don’t involve human choice, the concepts of “planned” or “intended” do not apply. Only human beings, and, arguably, certain other types of living organisms, are capable of “planning” or “intent”. These concepts pertain to entities that possess a mind like human beings.

Similarly, the concept of “chance” means that an event occurs about which one does not have sufficient information to know for certain what the outcome will be. For instance, if I flip a coin, whether it will come up heads or tails is a question of “chance”, and I can speak of the probability that it will come up heads or tails.

If I had enough data about the original position of the coin prior to being tossed, the angle(s) and speeds of all the forces that worked on it when it was tossed, the wind and weather factors involved, etc., then I could know for certain whether the coin toss would end up heads or tails. It would no longer be a matter of “chance” because I have sufficient knowledge to know all the factors that are playing into its eventual resting state.

All inanimate things act in accordance with their nature, and the nature of other things that they interact with, and they absolutely must act that way. “Chance” is just a way of saying that a human being doesn’t have enough knowledge about the nature of certain inanimate things to know what the outcome will be.

For example, the fact that the Earth and the other planets came to revolve around the sun the way they do, and at the orbits they occupy, had to occur that way because of the nature of the Sun and the other planets. (Their masses, their speeds, their composition, etc.) The element of “chance” comes into play because human beings do not know all of the factors that led to the Earth orbiting the sun in the way it does. “Chance” is just a reflection of some human being’s level of knowledge on a subject.

As far as we know, only human beings make choices. Since only human beings can make plans or intend to bring about some event or goal, only human beings are capable of having their plans or intentions fail due to some ignorance, negligence, or irrationality on their part. Only human beings can have “accidents”, because only human beings can be mistaken.

This means that when it comes to reality, apart from those aspects that don’t involve human choice, nothing is “accidental”, because the concept does not apply. It’s like asking: what is the sound of one hand clapping? Or: what is outside the universe? Since clapping, by definition, is the striking together of two hands, it is a nonsense sentence. If the universe is all that exists, then you cannot speak of anything “outside” it, because anything that exists is part of the universe. “Outside” is also a relational concept, implying that something that exists is not within something else, so there is no “outside” the universe. (Arguably, there is no “inside” the universe, either.) Similarly, speaking of “accidental” aspects or features of reality, that don’t involve human choice, is a nonsense statement.

Going back to the chimpanzee with alopecia, the fact that he lost all of his hair is not an “accident”, nor is the fact that other chimps have their hair an “accident”. Chimps that don’t have alopecia have their hair because of their nature as a living organism, plus the nature of the rest of reality that they interact with. It isn’t an “accident” that chimps have hair. It had to be that way, because reality is what it is. There is no god making choices about how reality is going to be. Reality simply is. Only human beings make choices, that we know of, and only human beings can make plans. Human beings, not reality, are capable of having “accidents” -of making mistakes. If a chimp looses his hair for some reason that doesn’t involve human choice, it had to be that way because of the nature of certain diseases and the nature of the chimp’s body in reaction to those diseases.

What is the consequence of believing, as Hobbes appears to, that all features or characteristics of “matter” and “body” are “accidental”? He would have to believe that all concepts that human being hold must be, in some sense, “accidental”. Concepts for Hobbes are not going to be fully real to him. Hobbes is what is known today as a “nominalist”:

“Denying that concepts have an objective basis in the facts of reality, nominalists declare that the source of concepts is a subjective human decision: men arbitrarily select certain characteristics to serve as the basis (the “essentials”) for a classification; thereafter, they agree to apply the same term to any concretes that happen to exhibit these “essentials,” no matter how diverse these concretes are in other respects. On this view, the concept (the term) means only those characteristics initially decreed to be ‘essential’. The other characteristics of the subsumed concretes bear no necessary connection to the ‘essential’ characteristics, and are excluded from the concepts meaning.

Observe that, while condemning Plato’s mystic view of a concept’s meaning, the nominalists embrace the same view in a skeptic version. Condemning the essence-accident dichotomy as implicitly arbitrary, they institute an explicitly arbitrary equivalent. Condemning Plato’s ‘intuitive’ selection of essences as a disguised subjectivism, they spurn the disguise and adopt subjectivism as their official theory…Condemning Plato’s supernaturally determined essences, they declare that essences are socially determined, thus transferring to the province of human whim what had once been the prerogative of Plato’s divine realm. The nominalists’ ‘advance’ over Plato consisted of secularizing his theory.”(Leonard Peikoff, “The Analytic Synthetic Dichotomy.” In: Rand, A. Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, 2nd Ed.” New York:Meridian (1990).)

Hobbes is correct that all definitions of concepts rest on human choices -that all essences are based on human choice. He is mistaken in believing that certain aspects or characteristics of the things we perceive, given certain contexts of knowledge, should be considered no more essential than all of their other features, though. This is because the human mind has a certain nature, and it must organize the material it perceives in accordance with that nature if it is going to function effectively. Since human thought serves human life, certain characteristics of the entities we perceive are more fundamental than others, because we adopt certain principles of “fundamentality” that serve our nature as living beings with a certain nature of mind.

“Now observe, on the above example, the process of determining an essential characteristic: the rule of fundamentality. When a given group of existents has more than one characteristic distinguishing it from other existents, man must observe the relationships among these various characteristics and discover the one on which all the others (or the greatest number of others) depend, i.e., the fundamental characteristic is the essential distinguishing characteristic of the existents involved, and the proper defining characteristic of the concept.

Metaphysically, a fundamental characteristic is that distinctive characteristic which makes the greatest number of others possible; epistemologically, it is the one that explains the greatest number of others.” (Ayn Rand, Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, 2nd Ed., Chapter 5, “Definitions”. New York:Meridian (1990).)

For instance, in the case of the chimpanzee, we know that it is a living organism that must obtain the fuel necessary for its continued existence. It must gather food and other resources. It will seek out females to reproduce with because all living organisms are capable of reproducing themselves, and, with the possible exception of humans, are driven by inexorable mating cycles to do so. Its internal organs are all aimed at sustaining itself. It reacts to its environment and attempts to adapt itself to that environment in a manner that will allow for its continued existence, so it behaves in certain ways. It possesses a consciousness that is, perhaps different from human beings, but a consciousness, nonetheless.

Take away its hair, and the chimpanzee is still a living organism, albeit one that is in a diseased state, so it might not be quite as successful at living. To the extent that human beings interact with a chimpanzee without hair, they will still do so in largely the same way. Hair, as far as human beings are concerned, is not an essential feature of the chimp. But, this is only as far as a human being are concerned. Outside of the way human beings organize certain entities that they perceive in their minds in order to serve human purposes, every entity is unique. No two chimpanzees are the same. The concept of “similarity” serves human needs.

What are some of the “principles of ‘fundamentality’” that human beings adopt in order to serve their purposes? Probably the most important one is the principle of causality. We try to find aspects of reality that we can use to bring about certain results. This is important because reason is our means of survival. So, for instance, we find that certain types of molds kill bacteria. A certain type of mold is the “cause” of bacteria death. We then extract the substance from that mold that leads to the death of certain types of bacteria, and make antibiotics. This means that when we form concepts we look for characteristics that are the “cause” of other characteristics of the thing. The more characteristics of a thing that a particular characteristic(s) causes, the more likely it is to be considered “fundamental”.

This isn’t always an easy task, since we may have incomplete knowledge, but this is what we are doing when we try to find “essential features” of a thing -and finding those essential features is necessary for successful living by human beings. The fact that the concept of essential features is necessary for living life means that there is a “right” and a “wrong” -that some ideas held by human beings are “true” and others are “false”. If one person believes that penicillin kills bacteria while another believes that voodoo incantations will cure disease, then the former is right and the later is wrong. If you want to live, then it’s not all just a matter of arbitrary definitions based on “accidental qualities”.

In the case of a chimpanzee, the fact that he has hair is not considered a fundamental feature. Other mammals have hair, and it doesn’t explain most of the chimp’s behavior patterns or the overall structure of his body. He also is still capable of reproduction with other chimpanzees, which is a strong indicator that an animal is the same species as another animal -although not always a definite indicator. (Wolves and coyotes can interbreed.) Why is interbreeding such a strong indicator? Because two animals breeding and giving rise to offspring tends to be very important to human beings in terms of farming. Agriculture, at least since the Neolithic period, is important to mankind because livestock for food and other purposes is important to human survival.

Essential features are neither “out there”, as Plato/Aristotle would say, nor “arbitrary creations”, as Hobbes would have to say. They are aspects of realty perceived and organized by a certain type of organism, a human being, who needs them to serve a certain purpose, which is living.

The legacy of Hobbes and of the Enlightenment is one in which tradition and authority is questioned. Hobbes just didn’t go far enough when he accepted, without criticism, the idea of “accidental qualities”, because the concept of “accident” does not apply to those aspects of reality that exist apart from human choice. (The “metaphysical”.) Only the metaphysical should be accepted, while all human choices and institutions should be judged, and, if necessary, reformed, if one wants to live.

A Review of “Altruism as Appeasement” by Ayn Rand

In 1962, Ayn Rand asked a student at MIT why so many of “…today’s young intellectuals were becoming ‘liberals’…” (pg. 32) A few weeks later, the MIT student wrote Miss Rand a letter, outlining his thinking on the subject. Miss Rand wrote “Altruism as Appeasement”, which expands on the response she got from this MIT student. This essay can be found in The Voice of Reason. (My page citations below are to the 1989 Meridian version, ISBN number: 0-452-01046-2)

In his letter, the student told Miss Rand that “The majority of college students…do not choose to think; they accept the status quo, conform to the prescribed code of values, and evade the responsibility of independent thought…’In adopting this attitude, they are encouraged by teachers who inspire imitation, rather than creation.’” (Pg. 32)

However, there is another group who are “…not willing to renounce their rational faculty.” Miss Rand then quotes at length from the MIT student’s letter: “‘They are the intellectuals -and they are the outsiders….They are teased and rejected by their schoolmates. An immense amount of faith in oneself and a rational philosophical basis are required to set oneself against all that society has ever taught…The man who preaches individual integrity, pride, and self-esteem is today virtually nonexistent. Far more common is the man who, driven by the young adult’s driving need for acceptance, has compromised. And here is the key -[the result of] the compromise is the liberal.’”

What is the psychological result? Most “liberal intellectuals” are driven by a strong guilt complex, because a person who sets himself against society in favor of rationality will feel guilt due to his rejection by the mediocrities around him. The “liberal” “…’loudly proclaims the brotherhood of all men. He seeks to serve his escapist brothers by guaranteeing them their desire for social security…’” (Pg. 33) “Liberals” are driven to atone for their false guilt, and they do so by working for “…’their welfare…’” (Pg. 33)

Miss Rand agreed with the MIT student regarding the psychological process he had identified, however: “…the situation he [the MIT student] describes is not new; it is as old as altruism; nor is it confined to ‘liberals’.” She says that this is the “…story of men who spend their lives apologizing for their own intelligence.” (Pg. 33)

Miss Rand then describes how this psychological process works out in the mind of the average college student. In an effort to avoid a massive quantity of quotations, I will summarize Miss Rand’s description of this process as best I can, as well as discuss some of my own observations that have led me to believe that Miss Rand is describing a psychological process that occurs very often in the mind of persons that usually self-identify as “liberals” or, more often today, as “progressives”.

When I originally read this essay in the mid-nineties, I was 19 or 20 years old. I hadn’t had enough experience to know if Miss Rand was right, so I just mentally “shelved” the issue. 20 years later, I’ve dealt with and seen enough people, and I’ve spent enough time thinking about their behavior, that I consider Miss Rand’s theory in “Altruism as Appeasement” to be a highly probable explanation for many people that are college educated, and self-describe as “liberals”, “progressives” or “social democrats”.

Miss Rand observes that bright children have a sense of being trapped in a “nightmare universe” when they are growing up. Growing up mostly in the Bible Belt and going to public school, I can relate to this description of childhood. In the South, large numbers of people will tell you that you are going to hell for some inherent moral vice called “original sin”, unless you repent your non-existent guilt to god. This could certainly be a frightening prospect for a child. In my own case, I started questioning the existence of god around age 13, and my mother must have sensed that because I was made to go to church despite the fact that I wasn’t particularly interested. Fortunately, the church that I was sent to was fairly “liberal”, and didn’t take the bible literally, so it could have been worse, I suppose.

Public schools, especially high school, were filled with their share of bullies -by which I mean children that would engage in low-level initiations of physical force, especially against anyone who didn’t seem to fit in, or that their emotions told them deserved such treatment. (By low-level initiations of physical force, I mean things like handing out quadriceps contusions —a “deadleg”- or being spit on, or having your books knocked out of your hands in the hall, etc.) Although in my case, by the 11th grade, most of the kids that were initiating physical force against others had either been removed from the school to a special “alternative school”, or were already in jail. Additionally, Plano Independent Schools contain a large number of children with parents that actually care about academic achievement and personal success, so my overall public school experience wasn’t what I’d call a “nightmare”. I suspect that an inner-city public school would be four years of complete hell all the way through, and make my experience look like I was living in Galt’s Gulch (a utopia).

I discovered Ayn Rand’s philosophy when I was about 15, and I did note that most people were hostile to Miss Rand’s ideas, if they knew about them at all. I did have a couple of teachers that seemed sympathetic towards her ideas, but that was rare. So, I can relate when Miss Rand says that the intelligent teenager wants to “…understand things and issues, big issues, about which no one else seems to care.” (Pg. 33)

Miss Rand goes on to say that most intelligent teenagers start college with the hope that it will be better, but their first year is too often a “psychological killer”(Pg. 33). He went to college hoping to find answers and meaning, and some companions to share his interest in ideas. She notes that he may find a handful of teachers that live up to his hopes, but “…as to intellectual companionship, he finds the same gang he had met in kindergarten, in playgrounds, and in vacant lots: a leering, screeching, aggressively mindless gang playing the same games, with latinized jargon replacing the mud pies and the baseball bats.” (Pg. 34)

I found Rand’s description of college to be fairly accurate at the University of Texas at Austin, which is easily the most left-wing school in Texas. One English professor was particularly terrible. He interpreted everything we read through the lens of “multiculturalism” and “feminism”. He told the class that Thomas Jefferson was a racist and a hypocrite when he wrote the Declaration of Independence. I raised my hand and disagreed with him. I told him that the Declaration of Independence may not have been consistently applied at the founding, but it formed the intellectual basis on which the nation eventually moved towards abolishing slavery. His response was that the civil war was the reason the slaves were freed. I disagreed, and said that slavery would have been abolished eventually anyway. In that professor’s mind, ideas had nothing to do with it. The use of physical force was all that mattered. It makes me wonder why he bothered to be a professor at all, if he thought ideas were so futile.

Going back to Miss Rand’s essay, how do too many intelligent college students deal with the intellectual wasteland that is college? “There are many wrong directions he can make at this crossroads, but the deadliest -psychologically, intellectually, and morally- is the attempt to join the gang at the price of selling his soul to uninterested buyers. It is an attempt to apologize for his intellectual concerns…by professing that his thinking is dedicated to some social-altruistic goal.” (Pg. 34) She notes that this is rarely a conscious decision on his or her part. It is done gradually and subconsciously and by semiconscious rationalization. She also notes that altruism “…offers an arsenal of such rationalizations: if an unformed adolescent can tell himself that his…subservience is unselfishness…he is hooked. By the time he is old enough to know better, the erosion of his self-esteem is such that he dares not face or reexamine the issue.” (pg. 34)

What is the psychology of an intelligent person who goes to college and professes that he is using his mind to serve others? Such a man or woman has some “…degree of social metaphysics [secondhandedness]…” (Pg. 34) The concept of “social metaphysics” requires some explanation, which Rand does supply: “Basically, a social metaphysician is motivated by the desire to escape the responsibility of independent thought, and he surrenders the mind he is afraid to use, preferring to follow the judgments of others.” (Pg. 34)

If you’ve read Miss Rand’s book The Fountainhead, the character Peter Keating is the ultimate “second-hander” or “social metaphysician”. If you haven’t read that novel, it could be thought of as the “go along to get along” type of personality. (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/go_along_to_get_along) It does not mean never compromising on non-fundamental or trivial matters. So, for instance if you are going to dinner with a friend, and they prefer Italian food and you want Chinese, and you compromise by going to an Italian restaurant, with the understanding that next time you will pick the restaurant, that isn’t social metaphysics. That is simply recognizing that there are a range of food preferences that vary by person, you can only go to one place at a time, and that friendship is about shared values, which means showing an interest in what your friends are interested in.

The social metaphysician regards society -others- as the standard of reality. The social order as it happens to exist is accepted by him, or her, and then he or she operates within it. A social metaphysician can be quite successful at operating within that social order, but she never questions it. This is why Rand called them social metaphysicians.

Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that deals with the most fundamental aspects of the nature of reality. Metaphysics are the principles that must be understood before one can study particular sciences like physics or biology. For instance, in Miss Rand’s philosophy, she accepts the existence of an external universe as the given. The entities that make up the universe have a particular nature and those entities act in accordance with that nature. According to Miss Rand’s system of metaphysics, an entity is what it is regardless of anyone’s desires or wishes to the contrary. If one is a social metaphysician, then the metaphysical, i.e., reality, is less important than the “man-made”. The man-made includes all of our social institutions and customs. Unlike reality, the man-made depends on human choice, and could be other than it is. For instance, America is a Republic and not a Monarchy because people chose to make it that way. It’s continued existence as a Republic depends on human choice. The social metaphysician simply accepts these man-made customs as the given, and rarely questions them. In fact, a social metaphysician has so internalized this way of thinking, that anyone who questions generally accepted social institutions will make her feel uneasy.

Social metaphysicians who are less intelligent, and didn’t go to college, are the “good old boys” and “rednecks” that one might see in a small, rural town. The social metaphysician is also quite common in inner cities, but I don’t know what the polite word to describe them would be. For lack of a polite term, I will call them “black rednecks”. A “black redneck” from a large inner city like Chicago or New York will be highly critical of anyone from his neighborhood who studies hard and tries to better his economic standing. He will accuse high-achievers in his race of “acting white”. This is a perfect example of the social metaphysician attitude. The “black redneck” believes there are certain social customs and institutions that are not to be questioned -unfortunately those social customs and institutions in minority communities include the belief that gaining knowledge and education is not in accordance with being of African descent. Anyone from his racial group who defies those customs is therefore a traitor in the social metaphysician’s eyes. There was once a great episode of a show that I didn’t typically watch that covered this topic, “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” where the “nerdy” character “Carlton” is accused of being a race-traitor.

Another great essay by Rand describing basically the same mentality as this type of social metaphysician, the “anti-conceptual tribalist”, can be found in Philosophy: Who Needs It called: The Missing Link.

The intelligent teenager who goes to college and has the “social metaphysician” mindset will not become a redneck, though. He (or she) will become a “liberal” -which is the “educated” equivalent. To a social metaphysician college student, it seems like all of his professors and peers accept the idea that the individual must sacrifice himself to the “common good”. This means that in the social metaphysician’s eyes, the idea of self-sacrifice is one of the social institutions and custom of college. It is the social order that is not to be questioned.

The psychology of social metaphysics doesn’t entirely explain the “liberal mindset”, however. The college “liberal” is also engaged in “intellectual appeasement”: “…an intellectual appeaser surrenders morality, the realm of values, in order to be permitted to use his mind. The degree of self-abasement is greater [than the social metaphysician]; the implicit view of the mind -as functioning by permission of the mindless -is unspeakable. (Nor does the appeaser often care to speak of it.)” (Pg. 34)

“There are as many variants of the consequences [of being an intellectual appeaser] as there are men who commit this particular type of moral treason. But certain scars of psychological deformity can be observed in most of them as their common symptoms.” (Pg. 35) Rand then describes some common consequences of being an intellectual appeaser.

First, the intellectual appeaser tends to hate mankind in general, and to regard them as “…evil by nature, he complains about their congenital stupidity…” (pg. 35) I regard the “people are stupid” attitude as the hallmark of the “liberal” or “progressive”. “Liberal” politicians like Michael Bloomberg pass laws to restrict the size of sugary drinks because he thinks people are too stupid to regulate their own caloric intake. The “liberal”, intellectual appeaser view of “…the people at large is a nightmare image -the image of a mindless brute endowed with some inexplicably omnipotent power -and he lives in terror of that image…emotionally, he keeps feeling the brute’s presence behind every corner…The brute is the frozen embodiment of mankind as projected by the emotions of an adolescent appeaser.” (Pg. 35)

In my own experience, the belief that the majority of people are brutish is why most “liberals” are for gun control. They believe that most human beings are seething cauldrons of rage who will snap at the slightest provocation -that they are brutes. I saw this when Texas legalized concealed carry with a license in the mid-1990’s. “Liberals” claimed that it would lead to the “wild west” -with people shooting each other over trivial matters like parking spots. This is not to say that murder never happens, but the world today is arguably less violent than it has ever been. (“Steven Pinker: The surprising decline in violence” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ramBFRt1Uzk )

Second, a “…corollary symptom, in most intellectual appeasers, is the ‘elite’ premise -the dogmatic, unshakable belief that ‘the masses don’t think,’ that men are impervious to reason, that thinking is the exclusive prerogative of a small, ‘chosen’ minority.” (Pg. 36) In politics, this “elitism” manifests itself in the form of two types of “intellectual appeasers”. There are the more aggressive “liberals”, who believe in rule by physical force because “…people are unfit for freedom and should be ruled -‘for their own good’- by a dictatorship of the ‘elite’.”(Pg. 36) These are the Michael Bloomberg’s and Hillary Clinton’s of the world, who want to force people to buy smaller soft drinks or to buy health insurance because they are supposedly too stupid to take care of themselves.

Unfortunately, the other type of intellectual appeaser is predominately found in the Republican Party: “The more timorous type of appeasers, the ‘conservatives,’ take a different line: they share the notion of an intellectual ‘elite’ and, therefore, they discard intellectuality as numerically unimportant, and they concentrate on cajoling the brute (‘the masses’) with baby talk -with vapid slogans, flattering bromides, folksy speeches in two-syllable words, on the explicit premise that reason does not work, that the brute must be won through appeals to his emotions and must, somehow, be fooled or cheated into taking the right road.”(Pg. 36)

This analysis of conservatism provides a possible explanation for the popularity of Donald Trump in the Republican party. One thing I’ve noticed about Trump’s campaign is that it tends to be short on many specifics, but it contains a lot of emotional appeals, bromides, and verbal “put downs” of the other Republican candidates. This is not something new within the Republican party, though. Ronald Reagan was the master of “flattering bromides”, “folksy speeches”, and one-liners at debates. Trump is just a little bit more blunt in his delivery than Reagan was.

A third consequence of being an intellectual appeaser is moral cowardice, which is “…the necessary consequence of discarding morality as inconsequential.”(Pg. 36) For the “progressive” intellectual appeaser, the image of the brute is “…the symbol of an appeaser’s belief in the supremacy of evil…when his mind judges a thing to be evil, his emotions proclaim its power, and the more evil, the more powerful.” (Pg. 36)

This can be understood in terms of what the intellectual appeaser has accepted as “good” or “moral”. The intellectual appeaser is a proponent of self-sacrifice in the service of others, which is generally known as “altruism”. This means that “good” action for the altruist consists in destroying one’s own happiness and sacrificing one’s life in order to serve others. As a result, “good” and “right action” is self-weakening, and self-destructive. To the altruist, those who do not engage in self-sacrifice will be regarded as morally bad. However, the altruist can see that people who do not sacrifice themselves to others are more successful at living. For instance, someone who rejects altruism will have more wealth because they refuse to drain off their financial resources to help complete strangers. The person who rejects altruism has an easier life. In the altruist’s subconscious mind, the good has become associated with self-destruction, while the evil has become associated with the efficacious. The mistake lies in the intellectual appeaser’s belief that self-sacrifice is “the good”, when it is, in fact, the opposite of the good -if one wants to live.

The result of the intellectual appeaser’s inverted moral system is his belief that “…the self-assertive confidence of the good [the good by the standard of those who actually want to live] is a reproach, a threat to his precarious pseudo-self-esteem, a disturbing phenomenon from a universe whose existence he cannot permit himself to acknowledge -and his emotional response is a nameless resentment. The self-assertive confidence of the evil [those who violate individual rights] is a metaphysical confirmation, the sign of a universe in which he feels at home -and his emotional response is bitterness, but obedience. Some dictators -who boastfully stress their reign of terror, such as Hitler and Stalin -count on this kind of psychology. There are people on whom it works.” (Pg. 37)

The final result of this sort of moral cowardice of the “liberal” intellectual appeaser is to oppose those who want to live, the actual good, in order to appease those who want to violate individual rights, and eventually “…to pounce upon every possible or impossible chance to blacken the nature of the good and to whitewash the nature of the evil.” (Pg. 37) This is why so-called “liberals” were always quick to apologize for atrocities and human rights violations committed by the Soviet Union. It’s also why “liberals” engage in ad hominem criticisms of Ayn Rand because she collected social security -like we’re all supposed to be forced to pay into that system and then “fall on our own swords” and not try to collect out of it. (This is altruist thinking.)

A fourth consequence of being an intellectual appeaser can be seen in art. “Progressives” are always fascinated by movies and art that is a “…projection of cosmic terror, guilt, impotence, misery, doom…” (Pg. 37) “Liberals” and “progressives” are fascinated with movies that study “homicidal maniacs” (Pg. 37), like “Natural Born Killers” or “Dexter” because of their subconscious belief that such people are the norm. They believe destruction is the norm, while creation is an aberration, because they hate mankind.

A fifth consequence of being a “liberal” intellectual appeaser is “…the dry rot of cynicism…”(Pg. 38) that eventually sets in. As the “liberal” appeaser grows older, any “…pretense at any belief in altruism vanishes from his [or her] mind in a very few years, and there is nothing left to replace it: his independent capacity to value has been repressed -and his fear of the brute makes the pursuit of values seem hopelessly impractical.” (Pg. 38) I suspect that this is the point that has been reached by a politician like Hillary Clinton. At this stage in her life, she is probably running on fumes. Her denial of any responsibility in the attacks on the American embasy in Benghazi, and her attempt to shift blame onto a YouTube video shows this sort of cynicism. In response to Congressional criticism about Benghazi, Hillary Clinton said: “What difference at this point does it make?” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ka0_nz53CcM) It doesn’t make any difference in Clinton’s mind, because the truth doesn’t matter. All that matters to her is whether she can con the American people into making her President.

Sixth, the intellectual appeaser ultimately spends so much time pandering to her own image of the “the masses” as a stupid, irrational mob, that she eventually “…assumes the standards of those he [or she] professes to despise…Any man who is willing to speak or write ’down,’, i.e., to think down- who distorts his own ideas in order to accommodate the mindless, who subordinates truth to fear -becomes eventually indistinguishable from the hacks who cater to an alleged ‘public taste.’ He joins the hordes who believe that the mind is impotent, that reason is futile, that ideas are only means of fooling the masses (i.e., that ideas are important to the unthinking, but the thinkers know better…” (Pg. 38) In my own experience with self-described “liberals” and “progressives”, this has been true. They will imply to me that reason is just a means of tricking or fooling people, and that objective truth is not even possible.

Ayn Rand had a more realistic picture of the majority of mankind than the “liberal” appeaser: “No, men are not brutes; neither are they all independent thinkers. The majority of men are not intellectual initiators or orginiators; they accept what the culture offers them….their abstract range is limited…The truly deliberately evil men are a very small minority; it is the appeaser who unleashes them on mankind; it is the appeaser’s intellectual abdication that invites them to take over…When the ablest men turn into cowards, the average men turn into brutes.” (Pg. 39)

Ayn Rand was not pessimistic about the future, so long as the more intelligent people refused to become altruistic intellectual appeasers: “No, the average man is not morally inocent. But the best proof of his non-brutality, of his helpless, confused, inarticulate longing for truth, for an intelligible, rational world -and of his response to it, when given a chance he cannot create on his own -is the fact that no dictatorship has ever lasted without establishing censorship.” (Pg. 39)

How does one avoid becoming an intellectual appeaser? By being “…proud of his intelligence -regardless of their [the average person’s] approval or disapproval. No matter how hard this might be in a corrupt age like ours, he has, in fact, no alternative. It is his only chance at a world where intelligence can function, which means: a world where he -and, incidentally, they -can survive.” (Pg. 39)

Regrettably, I suspect that by the time most people are about 30, it would be very difficult for them to change. They have too many habituated behaviors and thought patterns. But, Ayn Rand remains popular with the young, so I think that there is still a chance.