August | 2015 | Objectivism In Depth

Ayn Rand

A user on reddit posted a question to the subreddit, /r/askphilosophy, which I reprint below. I have also reprinted my response in a private message below that.

The question posed:

So I’ve read many of Ayn Rand’s work and have been frequently reading Libertarian articles and stuff. I’ve read Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead and The Virtue of Selfishness. [Links added in reprint.]

When I read Atlas Shrugged it was something quite new to me. I was a Philosophy undergraduate back then and her ideas were very different from all of the things I’ve been in contact with. Mainly her individualist ethics and capitalism.

As time went by I kept reading other books, articles, as well as debating with a few people and reflecting about all of those concepts. As for today, I really appreciate how well Rand’s ethics value the subject and how fair laissez-faire capitalism seems to be. However, I’ve seen many flaws in her ideas.

Concerning ethics, I think her ideas lack a lot of compassion and put collectivism to a zero. Individualism is great, but we are all part of social groups, aren’t we? And concerning politics I don’t see how a TRUE free market would be possible in any time soon, since it would require anarchy or minarchy to happen. (about economy, I am in favor of capitalism as an economic system, even though I disagree of how it is like right now)

So as it’s been a while since I’ve started this path, which was fairly opposite to the extreme-left I had taken when I got into Philosophy, I’d like to read some authors and books that have ideas that oppose Rand’s. I don’t want books that argue directly with her, such as “Ayn Rand Nation”. Instead, I’d like to read opposite opinions.

According to the Political Compass I’m a Right Libertarian, so I’d like to read some authors of the Left Libertarian. The Political Compass mentions Pyotr Kropotkin, Noam Chomsky and Emma Goldman in this area. (I’d like to read the Left Libertarian authors since I’m not that pro-government at the moment)

So what authors/books would you suggest me?

My response:

In your OP, you say:

Concerning ethics, I think [Rand’s] ideas lack a lot of compassion and put collectivism to a zero. Individualism is great, but we are all part of social groups, aren’t we?

First, in regard to compassion: that is an emotional response, and emotions are displayed by people, not ideas. Principles as such can neither be compassionate, nor uncompassionate. They can be true or false, justified or unjustified by evidence and argument.

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I recently found a blog post where a Christian reprints a debate he and his friends had on Facebook with an Objectivist. It’s a very long discussion where a lot of words are written, yet very little actual debate seems to be accomplished. In skimming this wall of words, one point caught my eye: the Christian participants are claiming that what distinguishes the Christian worldview from others–and what makes it the true worldview–is that it is internally consistent, whereas other worldviews are not.

In epistemology, this view–that what makes something true is (solely) its logical consistency with an overall structure of knowledge–is called the “Coherence Theory of Truth.” To say that this epistemological view is problematic is an understatement; it really is a non-starter. My theory of truth is a version of the Correspondence Theory: the only theory I consider tenable.

But my point here is not to attack coherentism or defend correspondence. Beyond the problems of coherentism, the claim that the Christian worldview is internally consistent is blatantly false. There are several places where I could show logical contradictions, but I only need one irreconcilable contradiction to demonstrate internal inconsistency. So I will confine myself to one: the contradiction between God’s supposed omniscience and human free will. (1)

Free will vs. God’s Omniscience

Most Christians are committed, implicitly, if not explicitly, to what I regard as genuine free will. This is the idea that a person’s choice in a given situation is not necessitated by antecedent factors, but represents a selection among alternatives that could also have been chosen in the same circumstance. (In contemporary philosophy, this is called “libertarian free will” as opposed to the alleged alternative, “compatibilist free will.” I will discuss Christians who hold compatibilist views after dealing with the libertarian version.)

Christians also generally believe that God is omniscient, such that he knows the future outcome of people’s choices and can infallibly implement his divine plan. But if God currently knows, with certainty, the outcome of future choices, then this means that there must be a current fact about those outcomes for him to know. If there is a current fact about the outcome of future choices, then those choices are already predetermined. This means that those “choices” are not genuine choices, because there is only one thing that will happen, with no alternative possibilities. Any “choice” is purely illusory, and thus, there really is no free will. So Christians are logically committed both to the position that humans have free will, and to the position that they do not.

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