Objectivism Critical Questions

[Elliot Temple]

the below are some questions I asked an Objectivist in 2012. i moved the anarchy one to the top because i think it's interesting and the issue wasn't covered at all in my other emails.

5) Anarchy

Our government is a tremendous achievement. Despite its many flaws, it provides liberty and order. Capitalism isn't automatic, it requires things like defense of property. The government should be reformed to better enable (classical) liberal values and capitalism.

Some libertarians and anarchists want to "smash the state" or advocate a state of nature and spontaneous order. They are destructive fools. I agree with Rand's criticism of libertarianism in general. But I don't think there's only one way to have a society with no government. I think we can have progress in government by incremental reform and eventually it will no longer meet the definition of a government.



"The fundamental difference between private action and governmental action ... lies in the fact that a government holds a monopoly on the legal use of physical force. It has to hold such a monopoly, since it is the agent of restraining and combating the use of force; and for that very same reason, its actions have to be rigidly defined, delimited and circumscribed; no touch of whim or caprice should be permitted in its performance; it should be an impersonal robot, with the laws as its only motive power. If a society is to be free, its government has to be controlled." (VoS ch14)

Controlled by whom?

What if someone figures out how to make a voluntary association of individuals which does rights enforcement and conflict resolution well? What if it's even better restrained than today's government, even better at subordinating itself to objective laws, and even better at avoiding whim or caprice in its decision making process?

The government with its monopoly won't let this exist. That suppresses improvement, by force.


"In a fully free society, taxation--or, to be exact, payment for governmental services--would be voluntary." (VoS ch15)

Voluntary payment for services -- to a monopoly provider maintained by force, which allows no competing service offerings -- is a contradiction. That is not voluntary.



"Remember that forcible restraint of men is the only service a government has to offer. Ask yourself what a competition in forcible restraint would have to mean." (VoS, ch14)

In could mean free innovation regarding how to avoid collateral damage, accurately determine who is guilty, provide defense quickly, make the force objectively restrained, use only the best courts/arbiters, and so on.


"[S]uppose Mr. Smith, a customer of Government A, suspects that his next-door neighbor, Mr. Jones, a customer of Government B, has robbed him; a squad of Police A proceeds to Mr. Jones’ house and is met at the door by a squad of Police B, who declare that they do not accept the validity of Mr. Smith’s complaint and do not recognize the authority of Government A. What happens then? You take it from there." (VoS ch14)

What happens is that the "governments" have agreed in advance on ways of resolving disputes. A bit like the US and France have some agreed on rules for resolving disputes, or contracting companies.

They could investigate the possible crime and if they still disagree they can present their cases at a court/arbiter. They would have a contract/treaty in advance specifying which one and agreeing to abide by the ruling. Resolving disputes by violence is primitive, immoral and expensive. The goal should be *more sophisticated* and effective methods of conflict resolution.

We don't know all the complicated details of how to organize better conflict resolution mechanisms now because they'd have to be created and figured out in incremental steps, not just dreamed up. That would mostly be done after setting up a minimal government. And it can only be done if it's not suppressed by force.

I think the principle is that a fully voluntary society with effective conflict resolution mechanisms is possible. It can allow free innovation and progress in all areas of life. Do you see my thinking here as incompatible with Objectivism?

1) Tradition

Roark talking to the dean at the start: "I inherit nothing. I stand at the end of no tradition." What does Objectivism mean by "tradition"?

I think of tradition as substantial, old existing knowledge. I would have thought that Roark rejects some traditions but stands at the end of others. He used knowledge built up over time regarding structural engineering, math, logic, English language, property, and how to interact with other people in society without violence. I think he meant the statement fairly narrowly referring to his work but even there he learned from people who came before him like Henry Cameron, and he followed some traditional knowledge like about what a business is, how to use money, how people can hire each other, door signs, and so on. What is Objectivism's perspective here?


"America was created by men who broke with all political traditions and who originated a system unprecedented in history, relying on nothing but the 'unaided' power of their own intellect. But the 'neo-conservatives' are now trying to tell us that America was the product of 'faith in revealed truths' and of uncritical respect for the traditions of the past (!)." ('Conservatism: An Obituary' in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal)

The neo-conservatives are completely wrong but I don't agree with Rand either. America kept some British political traditions like the common law legal tradition (rationally and critically, not on faith). Attempting to live by the unaided power of the intellect (aka pure reason, as opposed to thinking aided by tradition), and total disregard for tradition, sound like the stuff of the French Revolution. What do you think?




2) WWII

What's going on with the anti-WWII sentiment?

Yaron Brook gave a speech (http://ideas.theundercurrent.info/) criticizing helping other people. But he gave a major exception: helping productive people can be beneficial because they make productive contributions. OK so far. He then said that the US fighting WWII to help the European Jews would have been a bad idea which would not have been in our interest. What? The Jews in general have been so productive and benefitted us so much. Just watching as millions of the best people around die and letting Hitler dominate Europe and suppress productive life there would have been really bad for us.

Binswanger commented: "There's some indication that Ayn Rand also opposed [our] entry into WWII (leave aside the issue of the attack on Pearl Harbor, after which war on all Japan's allies was necessary). She did say, if I recall correctly, that we should have let Germany fight Russia, then take on the weakened winner."

Binswanger further said that Jews who failed to escape the Holocaust should have been "smart enough" to leave sooner. And he also said something I associate with dumb libertarian isolationism/pacifism: that anyone who wants could voluntarily personally travel to Europe and go fight WWII themselves without the US army.

I don't get it. What do you think?



3) Short questions

Why did Catherine Halsey like Peter Keating? My impression was basically that she was better than him (early on before she's corrupted).

Am I right in my impression that _We The Living_ isn't very popular among Objectivists? Why is that? I like it.

People (mistakenly) use the word "democracy" to refer to any system with a lot of voting for leaders, like the US. Objectivists complain. Why is it worthwhile to argue over this terminology, even though I think one can figure out what they meant?



4) Epistemology

Objectivism advocates induction. But Rand said (IToE 2nd edition):

"Prof. M: The question is: when does one stop? When does one decide that enough confirming evidence exists? Is that in the province of the issue of induction?

AR: Yes. That's the big question of induction. Which I couldn't begin to discuss--because (a) I haven't worked on that subject enough to even begin to formulate it, and (b) it would take an accomplished scientist in a given field to illustrate the whole process in that field."

So Rand did not solve the problem of induction. That makes Objectivist epistemology incomplete. Do you agree?


Karl Popper solved the problem of induction with his philosophy Critical Rationalism. Critical Rationalism and Objectivism agree on lots of stuff like:

- realism: says reality is objective
- fallibilism
- says that objective knowledge of reality is attainable (in practice by fallible humans)
- asserts there is objective truth
- says that there are objective moral truths
- says reality is not a random flux; it's comprehensible
- atheism
- anti-violence, pro-reason
- keeps our concepts "open-end[ed]". That means: possible to improve in the future as we learn more.
- pro-progress; does not want a "frozen, arrested state of knowledge" (ItOE p67)
- values clarity and understandable writing, unlike much philosophy
- says epistemology is useful and valuable to real people; it matters to life
- broadly in classical liberal tradition, pro-freedom (there are differences e.g. Popper isn't pro-capitalist enough)
- opposition to subjectivism, relativism, solipsism, idealism, skepticism
- opposition to positivism
- opposition to the language analysis school of philosophy
- say that most professional philosophers are wrong a ton and pretty worthless
- opposition to both skeptical and authoritarian schools of epistemology
- opposition to Marx, Hegel, Wittgenstein


Given this agreement, and Popper's offering of a solution to a major problem (induction), one might expect Objectivists to be interested. But instead:

"Popper is a villain" -- Harry Binswanger

"I agree with HB that [Popper] is very bad philosophically" - Edwin Locke

Is this representative?

Binswanger and Locke base these accusations on misinformation about Popper and poor scholarship. They have false beliefs about Popper's basic positions, e.g. Binswanger thinks Popper was a positivist. Popper actually refuted positivism. I can provide other details about misunderstandings of Popper.


I've never found any comments by Rand about Popper nor vice versa. I've also found little by Rand herself on the topic of induction, though she is in favor of it. I have lots of criticisms of induction. Is there any reason that Objectivism needs induction in particular? If induction doesn't work could Objectivism accept something else instead which solves the same important problems that induction tried to solve? 

Those problems include: providing a way that knowledge of reality is attainable with man's mind; providing a way to reject arbitrary ideas, skepticism and relativism; providing a way to use reason to figure out which ideas are good and bad and make objective progress; providing a way for science to work.

Am I missing something, or is it reasonable to integrate Critical Rationalism and Objectivism?