Prescott on "The Golden Rule"
fred...@papertig.com
> "Mark N" <ma...@myinboxisbroken.com> wrote;
> > Suppose he had said quietly to himself, "I must take care never to abuse a
> > human being by simply treating him as a means to my ends, because that
> > would be inconsistent with his nature as a human being." Would that have
> > been wrong?
>
> Very. That would have made it soapy nonsense and, much worse, altruistic! He
> would have been saying, in effect, regardless of how others pledge, or not,
> to live their lives as those lives affect me, I will unilaterally -- hang
> the risk to myself! -- treat them as I would /wish/ them to treat me. That
> sort of Golden Rule is religious, not rational, motivated by altruistic
> sentiment, not egoism, and means putting the interests of others above one's
> own in the mere faith hope that they will reciprocate. It exposes oneself
> unnecessarily to being made a victim by those with whom one deals. The
> proper moral stance is, I'll not deal with you /at all/ -- in fact, I may
> even crush you -- unless I get from you a sincere, believable and believed
> commitment to the trader principle.
This is excellent and made it clear to me for the first time the
profound difference between the Kantian approach to the issue and
Objectivism's. It always bothered me because it seemed to be a point of
agreement where I strongly suspected there actually wasn't one.
Note the way that AR puts it, "I will not sacrifice myself to others or
sacrifice others to myself." If someone deals with you unjustly and you
respond accordingly (which is *not* turning the other cheek), you are
*not* sacrificing them to you (nor are you treating them as you would
*wish* to be treated, just as you say). You are dealing out justice.
Ok, Prescott, now that you are on a roll and if you are so schmart,
what difference do you see in Kant's dictum to treat others as "ends in
themselves and not means". I suspect - though the words are the same -
that the intended meaning and application is different from
Objectivism's. But what exactly is the difference?
Fred Weiss
James E. Prescott
> James E. Prescott wrote:
> > [about the trader principle]
> [...]
> Ok, Prescott, now that you are on a roll and if you are so schmart,
> what difference do you see in Kant's dictum to treat others as "ends in
> themselves and not means". I suspect - though the words are the same -
> that the intended meaning and application is different from
> Objectivism's. But what exactly is the difference?
Kantian scholars may want flame me for being simplistic about this (they'd
be wrong), but here it is:
For Kant the moral imperative to treat others as ends in themselves was of a
self-justifying sort. It was a supposedly directly apprehended principle
that rendered one's own /self/ as /not/ the end-in-itself that others are to
be treated as. So it was the very purest form of altruism. It was an
elevating of others to the point of not only being treated as /their/ own
ends-in-themselves but also to the point of being treated as /one's/ own
end-in-itself. The justification for the rule was beyond reason and
anti-egoistic. It was not /for oneself/ that one was supposed to treat
others as ends in themselves but instead for /their/ own sakes and/or for
the pure own sake of the purported moral principle itself.
Objectivism is much simpler, and true and right. Yes, you should indeed
treat others as ends in themselves in a way of speaking, but only in a very
qualified way. You treat them in a way "as if" they were ends in themselves.
Which is to say, you treat them as "end-in-themselves to themselves," which
they are, even though they are really and ultimately still just a /means/ to
your own end(s) as an egoist (to your own happiness, which depends on the
love of others among other social values).
In Objectivism/egoism the way you treat them ought to be always for your OWN
benefit, not ever for theirs (except as theirs serves yours). When treating
others as the ends in themselves that they truly are (to themselves!), you
are really simply granting to them the freedom to pursue their own highest
moral good using their own reason, and then as a result of this treatment
(of this sanctioned freedom) they are able to produce (and they do produce)
abundant values for trade on a free market with you, a person with whom they
then have the complementary incentive to treat as if he were an
end-in-himself, which, of course, as an egoist, to yourself you are.
So the views are actually radically different and not really close at all.
In Objectivism/egoism (as I see it, of course), you really only see yourself
as an end-in-himself and everything else as a means. However, you also
recognize that others should morally see themselves in the same way that you
see yourself (and see you as a means to their happiness), and the result of
each regarding the other as pursuing his own selfish ends is reason-based
cooperation and trade and love and respect and, of course, happiness for
all.
In Kantianism, everyone sees everyone /else/ as ends in themselves and not
as means to the egoistic ends of each individually, and that's the purest
form of altruism as well as of irrationalism. The result is self-immolation,
stagnation, resentment, and all things evil. Ayn Rand was right, I believe,
to evaluate Kantianism as disgusting and as the most unmitigatedly evil
philosophy in history.
Not that I have strong feelings about it!
Best Wishes,
Jim P.
Chris Cathcart
Well, for starters, Rand summarized her basic principle here by
reference to a moral purpose:
"Man -- every man -- is an end in himself, he exists for his own sake,
and the achievement of his own happiness is his highest moral purpose."
Kant treats the first part as being true irrespective of the last; Rand
rightfully recognizes that you can't have the first part without the
last. Kant treats his principle as being derivable from rational first
principles alone without reference to such low empirical factors as
happiness and life. It's more like, morality is an end in itself that
you respect without any expectation of personal benefit; you simply
"know" it to be right, and respect it for that alone.
Rand does, I think, have an argument that looks like Kant's in terms of
the form of argument (but not much beyond that). Something or other to
the effect that a rational man recognizes the necessity of his being
free to think and act in order to live and pursue happiness as man --
and that one can't logically uphold this for oneself, in virtue of the
kind of being that one is, without also recognizing the same necessary
conditions for others. You'd be guilty of a practical contradiction
and would not, if you followed through on it, have a basis to reject or
oppose others' responding to you in kind. It's one of those logical
preconditions for pursuing any kind of ends to respect people's freedom
to think and act -- only that the *ought* contained in this is
justified, in Rand, via reference to man's moral purpose, the pursuit
and achievement of happiness. Kant treats the norms as if
self-justificatory, not requiring any reference to a further moral
purpose.
So a rational egoist's moral psychology isn't one of "I'm the only one
that counts, and to heck with others of they get in my way." This
notion was already treated of in the Branden essay, "Counterfeit
Individualism" in -The Virtue of Selfishness-. A dimension of rational
self-interest is the appropriate recognition of the requirements of man
-- every man -- to pursue his own interests in a social context.
Eric Mack provides a brief summary of Rand's non-Kantian understanding
of man as an end in himself, which I take to be essentially correct:
"Ayn Rand was an advocate of both egoism and rights. As an advocate of
egoism, she held that the individual ought not to impose upon himself
sacrifices of his well-being, even if those sacrifices would promote
the well-being of others. She held that the appropriate ultimate end
for each individual is his achievement of his own well-being. As an
advocate of rights, she held that each individual must eschew imposing
sacrifices upon others; likewise, each individual may demand of others
that they not impose sacrifices upon him. Individuals must not treat
others as means to their own ends.
"What precisely is the relationship between Rand's claim that the
ultimate end for each individual is the achievement of his well-being
and her claim that no individual is a means to the well-being of any
other individual (or group)? This is a difficult question. It was
wonder about the precise relationship between Rand's advocacy of egoism
and her advocacy of rights that led me to devote a large part of my
academic life to more general questions about the relationship between
end-promoting reasons and means-precluding reasons.
"One common view about the relationship between Rand's claims about
ultimate ends and her claims about precluded means is that precluded
means are simply those means that do not effectively promote ultimate
ends. Wesley's enslaving of Hank is a precluded means because (and only
because) it will not really effectively promote Wesley's ultimate ends.
With this understanding, what is wrong about Wesley's enslavement of
Hank is that it is harmful to Wesley. (Hank has his own reasons to
resist this enslavement. But if Hank has rights against that
enslavement, Wesley must have reason to eschew the enslavement and, in
the view at hand, those reasons must be a matter of the enslavement
being contrary to Wesley's ends.)
"I want to plead for a different view of Rand's advocacy of egoism and
rights-a view which sees Rand's egoism and her endorsement of rights
as two equal facets of the root idea that each individual is a moral
end-in-himself. To be a moral end-in-oneself is necessarily connected
with having an ultimate end of one's own-an ultimate condition to go
for in life. To recognize oneself as a being with an ultimate end of
one's own is to recognize that one has reason to promote that end and
not the ends of others. To apprehend others as ends-in-themselves is to
apprehend each other person as having an ultimate end of his own and,
hence, to apprehend each other person as not merely an object available
as an instrument of one's own ends. Others' existence as beings with
ultimate ends of their own gives one reason, not to serve their ends,
but to treat them as beings who are not at one's own disposal-as
beings who uniquely are at their own disposal. It is because and only
because Hank is a moral end-in-himself that, when he asserts his rights
against Wesley, he is not merely appealing to Wesley's self-interest."
[I.e., Hank is appealing to his own right to exist for his own sake.
Still, I would add that Wesley's *rational* self-interest doesn't
consist in treating Hank other than as an end-in-himself, for the
reason that rationality involves recognizing every man's right to exist
for his own sake. It's about respecting the *conditions* in a social
context required of life qua man, as distinct from the prescription of
the *ends* that each man ought to seek.]
From
http://www.objectivistcenter.org/articles/honoring-ayn-rand.asp
While I am ever in anticipation of Mack's book getting published, I did
just read the notice that Cambridge Press will be publishing Tara
Smith's forthcoming -Ayn Rand's Normative Ethics: The Virtuous Egoist-.
That's a landmark event -- arguably the top academic publishing press
in the world, avowedly committed to defending Randian philosophy.
Looks like Smith beat Mack to the punch. :-)
The Cambridge URL:
http://www.cambridge.org/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=0521860504
Chris Cathcart
James E. Prescott wrote:
> Objectivism is much simpler, and true and right. Yes, you should indeed
> treat others as ends in themselves in a way of speaking, but only in a very
> qualified way. You treat them in a way "as if" they were ends in themselves.
Sorry, but I didn't see John Galt qualifying things by saying, "Man --
every man -- is as if an end in himself, he exists as if for his own
sake, as if with the achievement of his own happiness as his highest
moral purpose."
Rand meant the original, firmly, clearly and literally. Stop coming
around here with your agenda and mucking things up.
> Which is to say, you treat them as "end-in-themselves to themselves," which
> they are, even though they are really and ultimately still just a /means/ to
> your own end(s) as an egoist (to your own happiness, which depends on the
> love of others among other social values).
Really? Every man's right to exist for his own sake means that they're
ultimately just a means to your own ends?
That's news to me. It's news to me that this is *Objectivism* or
rational egoism.
> In Objectivism/egoism the way you treat them ought to be always for your OWN
> benefit, not ever for theirs (except as theirs serves yours). When treating
> others as the ends in themselves that they truly are (to themselves!),
This is weasel-language qualification. Again, Rand had it precise and
exact when she says "every man is an end in himself" without having to
add "to himself." That actually conveys approximately zero cognitive
content. Either he is an end in himself, or he isn't. There is no
"to" this person or that.
What *you* need to do, sir, is to understand the *meaning* of a man's
being an end in himself, *as it applies to you*.
Rand didn't need to muck it up with weasel-qualifications: what it
means, as it applies to you, is to leave them the fuck alone unless
they agree to interact with you. At least you seem to get it right in
the next phrase, maybe by intention, maybe by accident, I don't know:
> you
> are really simply granting to them the freedom to pursue their own highest
> moral good using their own reason, [etc]
But then we're back to:
> So the views are actually radically different and not really close at all.
> In Objectivism/egoism (as I see it, of course), you really only see yourself
> as an end-in-himself and everything else as a means.
So "man is an end in himself, not a means to the ends of others" means
that only you are an end in yourself and not a means to the ends of
others, but Bob over there is a means to your ends.
Again, I'm shocked if this is Objectivism or rational egoism.
I think I'm starting to see why your contractualist arguments are so
fucked up. Bob over there really *isn't* an end in himself, in an
unqualified, non-weasel, no-shittin' sense; no, for him to get his
freedom respected, he's got to submit to being a means to your ends.
Nice.
You say again that this is Objectivism, the one and only true
Objectivism?
But we then swing back to:
> However, you also
> recognize that others should morally see themselves in the same way that you
> see yourself (and see you as a means to their happiness), and the result of
> each regarding the other as pursuing his own selfish ends is reason-based
> cooperation and trade and love and respect and, of course, happiness for
> all.
Happiness for everyone may be just fine and good for each person being
happy, but my concern as a rational egoist and individualist is to have
my rights -- my life, liberty, and property -- respected, for I am an
end in myself with the right to exist for my own sake, free from
molestation or bargaining.
> In Kantianism, everyone sees everyone /else/ as ends in themselves and not
> as means to the egoistic ends of each individually, and that's the purest
> form of altruism as well as of irrationalism. The result is self-immolation,
> stagnation, resentment, and all things evil. Ayn Rand was right, I believe,
> to evaluate Kantianism as disgusting and as the most unmitigatedly evil
> philosophy in history.
Horseshit. You can't even critique Kant accurately and objectively.
Kant's problem was that he treats the principle "treat humanity,
whether in your own person or that of another, as an end in itself" as
an out-of-context absolute, treating the moral law as an end in itself.
Rand's basic point of opposition to Kant is that Rand recognizes that
morality serves man, serves his pursuit of happiness, his life here on
earth. For Kant, it's the other way around: man serves morality.
You might get out of that the idea that serving morality is a
*selfless* thing in the sense that you do it out of respect for the
moral law itself, rather than treating morality as a means to your
happiness. But it's silly to call it *altruism*, self-sacrificially
serving others. I thought that if there were *one* thing to be gleaned
from the pages and pages of Malenor wanking, it's that Kant saves
(read: tries to save) his theory by sneaking in self-interest through
the back door, since serving one's self-interest becomes part of
treating yourself as an end in yourself, so it's not totally selfless
in that sense. Of course, Kant wants to reassure the hand-wringers
that the reason you serve your self-interest is out of respect for the
moral law. It all hinges on whether you've grasped the proper,
"reason"-motivated (read: not inclination-motivated) rationale for
doing so, by worshipping the Categorical Imperative. Kant's great at
having his cake and eating it, too.
It's not the slightest surprise that you can't get philosophers who've
spent generations interpreting Kant to give you an unequivocal answer
about the actual meaning and application of the Categorical Imperative.
The reason for that is simple: treating it as an out-of-context
absolute without reference to a moral purpose doesn't provide guidance
much less rational motivation. Rand has cleared away that confusion
once and for all. (Not in virtue of her Kant-bashing, mind you, but in
virtue of her laying out an ethics of rational individualism in her
primary, non-polemical works.)
Chris Cathcart
Chris Cathcart wrote:
> A dimension of rational
> self-interest is the appropriate recognition of the requirements of man
> -- every man -- to pursue his own interests in a social context.
Just to note, if it wasn't already clear: the requirement of such in a
social context is: freedom. Perhaps it should just be re-worded to
something like: "recognition of the conditions required of man's nature
qua man to pursue his interests in a social context."
Chris Cathcart
Chris Cathcart wrote:
> While I am ever in anticipation of Mack's book getting published, I did
> just read the notice that Cambridge Press will be publishing Tara
> Smith's forthcoming -Ayn Rand's Normative Ethics: The Virtuous Egoist-.
> That's a landmark event -- arguably the top academic publishing press
> in the world, avowedly committed to defending Randian philosophy.
> Looks like Smith beat Mack to the punch. :-)
>
> The Cambridge URL:
>
> http://www.cambridge.org/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=0521860504
Another note: The title of Smith's book is great: the virtuous egoist.
Rand's understanding of egoism as well as of virtue are
mutually-reinforcing. I don't know what are the usual connotations
nowadays about referring to an ethicist as a "virtue ethicist," but
Rand's egoism is, if anything, a doctrine of virtue centering around
the virtue of rationality -- which is the virtue of practically
inculcating those traits of character that lead to your flourishing as
a human being. Rand was a eudaemonistic egoist, as it were. After
all, she radicalizes Aristotle once again by invoking metaphysical and
moral individualism: it's the achievement of my own flourishing, and
not sacrificing my ends to those of others, that I have reason to
pursue. (Probably something quite noticeably different than Prescott's
floating "others are means to my ends" "egoism.")
James E. Prescott
> James E. Prescott wrote:
> > Objectivism is much simpler, and true and right. Yes, you should
> > indeed treat others as ends in themselves in a way of speaking, but
> > only in a very qualified way. You treat them in a way "as if" they
> > were ends in themselves.
> Sorry, but I didn't see John Galt qualifying things by saying, "Man --
> every man -- is as if an end in himself, he exists as if for his own
> sake, as if with the achievement of his own happiness as his highest
> moral purpose."
Right. He was speaking of every man existing for himself, which they do. I,
as I man, exist of course for my own sake, not for the sake of others. All
my actions, including how I treat others, are and ought to be aimed at
serving myself as being, for me, my own end-it-itself. And the same for
other human beings. All of their actions ought to be aimed at serving
themselves as their own ends-in-themselves.
Now, of course, how I treat others is how I act, not they. Yes, I recognize
that they to themselves are ends-in-themselves. But my own action is my own
action, and it serves myself, not them. So in my treatment of them I am
acting for myself as an end-in-myself. Simple.
> Rand meant the original, firmly, clearly and literally. Stop coming
> around here with your agenda and mucking things up.
I'm straightening things up, actually. But like I tell my kids, clean your
own room and I wouldn't have to.
> > Which is to say, you treat them as "end-in-themselves to
> > themselves," which they are, even though they are really
> > and ultimately still just a /means/ to your own end(s) as
> > an egoist (to your own happiness, which depends on the
> > love of others among other social values).
> Really? Every man's right to exist for his own sake means that they're
> ultimately just a means to your own ends?
I regard my wife as a means to my own happiness, of course. She'd be
insulted if I didn't. But I also regard her for what she is, "to herself an
end-in-herself." She, properly, regards and treats me as a means to
her own happiness, and I rejoice in this. That's what love is, Chris.
> That's news to me. It's news to me that this is *Objectivism* or
> rational egoism.
Then you've still a lot to learn about Objectivism. Don't be discouraged.
It's really very simple.
> > In Objectivism/egoism the way you treat them ought to be always
> > for your OWN benefit, not ever for theirs (except as theirs serves
> > yours). When treating others as the ends in themselves that they
> > truly are (to themselves!),
> This is weasel-language qualification. Again, Rand had it precise and
> exact when she says "every man is an end in himself" without having to
> add "to himself." That actually conveys approximately zero cognitive
> content. Either he is an end in himself, or he isn't. There is no
> "to" this person or that.
Well, there shouldn't need to be, I'd agree. Unfortunately some admirers of
Ayn Rand are pretty darn dense about this whole thing and importing Kantian
duty into the scheme they surprisingly interpret her statement, "every man
is an end-in-himself" as meaning that other men should be treated by me as
if they were my own ultimate end! I know that's bizarre, but they do it. I
know it contradicts what Ayn Rand said, but under Kant's influence they
cannot see this.
So to help them see their mistake, it's useful to point out that Ayn Rand
meant every man is, to himself, his own end-in-himself, and this means
he ought to treat others in a manner that serves /himself/ and not in a
manner that serves /them/! To act in a manner that serves others is to
treat others as your ultimate end rather than yourself, which would be
contradictory to the original premise that each -- including you! -- is an
end in himself.
> What *you* need to do, sir, is to understand the *meaning* of
> a man's being an end in himself, *as it applies to you*.
Yeah. Of course.
> Rand didn't need to muck it up with weasel-qualifications: what it
> means, as it applies to you, is to leave them the fuck alone unless
> they agree to interact with you. At least you seem to get it right in
> the next phrase, maybe by intention, maybe by accident, I don't
> know:
> > you are really simply granting to them the freedom to pursue
> > their own highest moral good using their own reason, [etc]
> But then we're back to:
> > So the views are actually radically different and not really close at
> > all. In Objectivism/egoism (as I see it, of course), you really only
> > see yourself as an end-in-himself and everything else as a means.
> So "man is an end in himself, not a means to the ends of others" means
> that only you are an end in yourself and not a means to the ends of
> others, but Bob over there is a means to your ends.
To myself, of course he is a means to my ends. I see him as a trade partner.
But to himself Bob is of course an end-in-himself, and I recognize that, of
course. I do not treat him as if he existed for my sake. But I do treat him
as I treat all things, as a means to my happiness when treated properly.
That's because in all my actions, including the manner of my treatment of
others, I am seeking my own ultimate good, my own happiness as an
end-in-itself. That's because I'm a man and "each man is an end-in-himself,"
including me.
> Again, I'm shocked if this is Objectivism or rational egoism.
You'll recover.
> I think I'm starting to see why your contractualist arguments are so
> fucked up. Bob over there really *isn't* an end in himself, in an
> unqualified, non-weasel, no-shittin' sense; no, for him to get his
> freedom respected, he's got to submit to being a means to your
> ends. Nice.
You're catching on, perhaps. Yes, he has to "submit" to the extent of
respecting my freedom or else he does not get his own freedom respected.
That's how a trade works. My treatment of him, including my respect for his
freedom, is something -- like anything else I do! -- that I do freely for my
/own/ benefit, not for his. That's because I'm an end-in-myself. He can
choose not to recognize this if he likes. He can choose not to afford me the
freedoms he thinks I should afford unconditionally to him. But it doesn't
work that way. Freedom isn't free. It comes at the price of respecting
freedom in others like me. Or it doesn't come at all. We're not running a
charity here!
> You say again that this is Objectivism, the one and only true
> Objectivism?
Yes.
> But we then swing back to:
>
> > However, you also recognize that others should morally
> > see themselves in the same way that you see yourself (and
> > see you as a means to their happiness), and the result of
> > each regarding the other as pursuing his own selfish ends
> > is reason-based cooperation and trade and love and respect
> > and, of course, happiness for all.
> Happiness for everyone may be just fine and good for each person
> being happy, but my concern as a rational egoist and individualist is
> to have my rights -- my life, liberty, and property -- respected, for
> I am an end in myself with the right to exist for my own sake, free
> from molestation or bargaining.
Where do you imagine you got that right from? If it didn't come from your
own choice to recognize complementary freedoms in others, then it must have
magically appeared under your pillow without any choice on your part or on
the part of others. Nice theory. For you!
> > In Kantianism, everyone sees everyone /else/ as ends in themselves and
> > not as means to the egoistic ends of each individually, and that's the
> > purest form of altruism as well as of irrationalism. The result is
> > self-immolation, stagnation, resentment, and all things evil. Ayn Rand
> > was right, I believe, to evaluate Kantianism as disgusting and as the
> > most unmitigatedly evil philosophy in history.
> Horseshit. You can't even critique Kant accurately and objectively.
> Kant's problem was that he treats the principle "treat humanity,
> whether in your own person or that of another, as an end in itself" as
> an out-of-context absolute, treating the moral law as an end in itself.
> Rand's basic point of opposition to Kant is that Rand recognizes that
> morality serves man, serves his pursuit of happiness, his life here on
> earth. For Kant, it's the other way around: man serves morality.
That's what I said. Are you having some comprehension problem, here? Which
part of what I wrote are you claiming was "horseshit"? I'll repeat what I
said before. I think you are just confused. And I want to help, if I can!
> You might get out of that the idea that serving morality is a
> *selfless* thing in the sense that you do it out of respect for the
> moral law itself, rather than treating morality as a means to your
> happiness. But it's silly to call it *altruism*, self-sacrificially
> serving others.
No, it isn't. It's the purest and most despicable form of altruism. It's
when your service to others isn't even motivated by any good your
service actually does them! You become like a social worker who
loves disease and deprivation because it gives her a service opportunity
not because her service does any good for anybody. It is, as you said,
the moral principle itself that is being "served," not even genuinely the
interests of others. But it's still the treatment of others in a certain
manner (as ends-in-themselves) that is the purposeless essence of the
moral principle being served. So it is still altruism, just of a very pure,
despicable form, unadulterated by any goodness or pleasure experienced
by any human beings, even those in whose service one is acting!
> I thought that if there were *one* thing to be gleaned
> from the pages and pages of Malenor wanking, it's that Kant saves
> (read: tries to save) his theory by sneaking in self-interest through
> the back door, since serving one's self-interest becomes part of
> treating yourself as an end in yourself, so it's not totally selfless
> in that sense. Of course, Kant wants to reassure the hand-wringers
> that the reason you serve your self-interest is out of respect for the
> moral law. It all hinges on whether you've grasped the proper,
> "reason"-motivated (read: not inclination-motivated) rationale for
> doing so, by worshipping the Categorical Imperative. Kant's great at
> having his cake and eating it, too.
I agree.
> It's not the slightest surprise that you can't get philosophers who've
> spent generations interpreting Kant to give you an unequivocal answer
> about the actual meaning and application of the Categorical Imperative.
> The reason for that is simple: treating it as an out-of-context
> absolute without reference to a moral purpose doesn't provide guidance
> much less rational motivation. Rand has cleared away that confusion
> once and for all. (Not in virtue of her Kant-bashing, mind you, but in
> virtue of her laying out an ethics of rational individualism in her
> primary, non-polemical works.)
Her Kant bashing was pretty much on target, despite Malenor's taking
offense. Kant was a gentle soul who harbored and promulgated the absolutely
ugliest and most destructive doctrine of selflessness, of "service" both to
others and to moral imperatives as justification for living, that the world
has even seen. And that he did it purportedly in the name of science and
reason was the worst part of all.
Best Wishes,
Jim P.