Ayn Rand and Altruism

I answered a question for someone who asked about Ayn Rand's use of the word "altruism" and her vehement objection to it.

"I've heard people ranting and raving about Rand's ethics, and I must admit that I find it disappointing. She goes on about how "most philosophers" and the "history of philosophy" have favored altruism, but she provides no examples of who might fit these descriptions. I honestly can't think of a single philosopher who fits her idea of altruism, and it appears to me that her whole argument is rooted in a strawman argument: she is attacking an opponent who doesn't exist. How can a Rand fan defend her?"

ANSWER:

RAND: It is ideas that determine social trends, that create or destroy social systems. Therefore, the right ideas, the right philosophy, should be advocated and spread. The disasters of the modern world, including the destruction of capitalism, were caused by the altruist-collectivist philosophy. It is altruism that men should reject.

PLAYBOY: And how would you define altruism?

RAND: It is a moral system which holds that man has no right to exist for his own sake, that service to others is the sole justification of his existence, and that self-sacrifice is his highest moral duty, value and virtue. This is the moral base of collectivism, of all dictatorships. In order to seek freedom and capitalism, men need a nonmystical, nonaltruistic, rational code of ethics -- a morality which holds that man is not a sacrificial animal, that he has the right to exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others, nor others to himself. In other words, what is desperately needed today is the ethics of Objectivism." http://www.ellensplace.net/ar_pboy.html

"Do not confuse altruism with kindness, good will or respect for the rights of others. These are not primaries, but consequences, which, in fact, altruism makes impossible. The irreducible primary of altruism, the basic absolute, is self-sacrifice—which means; self-immolation, self-abnegation, self-denial, self-destruction—which means: the self as a standard of evil, the selfless as a standard of the good.

"Do not hide behind such superficialities as whether you should or should not give a dime to a beggar. That is not the issue. The issue is whether you do or do not have the right to exist without giving him that dime.There are two moral questions which altruism lumps together into one “package-deal”: (1) What are values? (2) Who should be the beneficiary of values? Altruism substitutes the second for the first; it evades the task of defining a code of moral values, thus leaving man, in fact, without moral guidance.

"Altruism declares that any action taken for the benefit of others is good, and any action taken for one’s own benefit is evil. Thus the beneficiary of an action is the only criterion of moral value—and so long as that beneficiary is anybody other than oneself, anything goes." http://www.aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/al...

Altruism: (Alter: other) In general, the cult of benevolence; the opposite of Egoism (q.v.). Term coined by Comte and adopted in Britain by H. Spencer. 1. For Comte Altruism meant the discipline and eradication of self-centered desire, and a life devoted to the good of others; more particularly, selfless love and devotion to Society. In brief, it involved self-abnegating love...As thus understood, altruism involves a conscious opposition not only to egoism but also to the formal or theological pursuit of charity and to the atomic or individualistic social philosophy of 17th-18th century liberalism, of utilitarianism, and of French Ideology. Dictionary of Philosophy: Runes http://www.ditext.com/runes/a.html

[Comte] defines a theory of conduct by which only actions having for their object the happiness of others possess a moral value. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01369a.h...

Altruism is the opposite of egoism. The term “egoism” derives from “ego,” the Latin term for the English word “I”. “Egoism” should be distinguished from “egotism,” which means a psychological overvaluation of one’s own importance, or of one’s own activities. Rational egoism claims that the promotion of one’s own interests is always in accordance with reason. http://www.iep.utm.edu/e/egoism.htm#SH2a

THEN THERE WAS kant: By contrast, philosophers in the Kantian tradition conceive of altruism as a rational requirement on action. They claim there is no need to postulate a benevolent desire to explain altruism. Kant's initial argument appeals to his requirement that we may only act on principles that we can will as universal laws. Willing a world in which everyone has a policy of not helping others, while knowing that you will need help, would be inconsistent, so we must will to help those who are in need. Kant also argues for a duty of beneficence on the basis of the requirement of treating humanity as an end in itself. He argues that you must treat the ends of others as you treat your own ends. You take your own ends to be good and worth pursuing, so consistency requires that you treat the ends of others as good and worth pursuing. This suggests that we have reason to help not only those in need, but anyone we are in a position to help.http://www.bookrags.com/research/altruis...

The fallacy of altruism, or altruistic moralism (or moralistic altruism), is the sense that there is a general duty, or that morality as such requires us always, to act in the interest of others.http://www.friesian.com/moral-1.htm

OK, SO..............Because Rand was a rational egoist, and because altruism is defined as the opposite of egoism, anything not egoism is altruism. Collectivism of any sort, whether Marxism, Obama-ism (redistribution of wealth), communism, socialism, etc is thus altruistic, especially since Comte DEFINED it as being anti-egoistic, by making it "self abnegating love," whatever that is. An egoist would say you cannot love if you abnegate your personality.

BUT DO NOT SAY IT DOES NOT EXIST, as many people claim. The questioner says it is a "strawman" argument. Others say no such thing as altruism can actually exist because no one can live by its requirements.

There are plenty of people out there who are trying to make it work. This web site http://www.altruists.org/about/altruism/ even calls itself "Re-Establishing Altruism As A Viable Social Norm", as if it ever was the norm.

In the sense that anything which is NOT rational egoism is collectivism is altruism, that is how Rand meant it. You can listen to a half hour debate about it that Rand had on a radio show here http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?p...

It is in the DEFINITION of altruism as "a theory of conduct by which only actions having for their object the happiness of others possess a moral value", that Rand objected.

Yet, there are those who believe that in order to produce happiness in one's own being, one MUST take actions which have as their object the happiness of others.

That is the true definition of "altruism."

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Madoff's Family Ties to the SEC

The One Minute Case against the SEC
By heroic@gmail.com (David Veksler) from The One Minute Case

Markets Regulate Themselves
Long before the existence of the SEC, medieval guilds and trading houses established common standards, accreditation agencies, and accounting rules that have evolved to the present day. The system of English common law has been evolving since the 12th century[1], and the accounting system used today was codified in 1495.[2]

Numerous non-governmental bodies have continued to develop accounting rules and set auditing standards for public organizations.[3] It is the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, not the government, which sets ethical standards for the profession and U.S. auditing standards for audits of private companies; federal, state and local governments; and non-profit organizations.

Voluntary oversight organizations are embraced by their participants because they provide executives with a value - they allow them to discover waste and fraud and advertise honesty to partners and customers. Unlike government regulatory bodies, they are flexible, efficient, and competitive. When the compliance costs of accounting rules exceed their value, or when lax controls lead to unethical or risky behavior, the markets embrace new standards. The Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 did not begin the process of regulating markets, but nationalized much of the auditing market and turned it over to politicians and bureaucrats.

Regulations Hinder Competition and Raise Costs for Investors
The SEC subsidizes politically connected corporations at the expense of smaller firms, hindering innovation and encouraging corruption. Established corporations lobby the government to create burdensome regulations that smaller investment funds and markets cannot afford, thus creating coercive monopolies that raise profits a few firms at the expense of investors.[4] Government bodies like the SEC, the MSRB, the FTC, the USITC, the Fed, the Treasury, the IRS, the OTS, the MSRB, and the state attorney’s offices issue hundreds of thousands of laws, rules, opinions, bulletins, comment letters and threats and require numerous reports, statements, forms, notices, and approvals that investment firms and public companies must obey.[5] This creates an artificial scarcity of investment products that benefits large corporations and discourages savings and investment. Smaller companies cannot afford to raise money by issuing stock, and investors are forced to choose between public but expensive mutual funds and secretive and risky hedge funds with entry fees that only the rich can afford.

The SEC Creates Corruption
Rather than making Wall Street honest, regulatory agencies are the primary instruments of fraud and corruption on Wall Street. Politicians who control regulatory agencies have an incentive to use their power to extract benefits for themselves and their constituencies, rather than to keep markets honest and efficient. Power hungry politicians like Eliot Spitzer use the power of the SEC to go on crusades again innocent businessmen[6], and thus force regulatory bodies to hide the evidence of real corruption.[7] By blocking outsiders from seeing its records, the agency is makes it harder for investors to discover real fraud.[8]

The case of Bernie Madoff is a typical case study in how the SEC encourages fraud. Investors figured out that Madoff couldn’t possibly make the profits he claimed, and have been writing the SEC since 1999, urging them to put a stop to Madoff’s Ponzi scheme. However, Madoff used his close family ties to the SEC, and was instrumental in founding key regulatory bodies - and then nominated his family members to serve on their boards. When skeptical investors inquired about the irregularities in his fund, Madoff told them that the SEC had already investigated and cleared him over a period of three years.

While Madoff stole $50 billion dollars under their noses, the SEC’s budget surpassed $900 million dollars, and grew at record rates during the two Bush administrations. In response to this outrageous case of nepotism and corruption, the government will likely increase its budget and staff once again.[9]

The SEC Makes Markets More Volatile and Risky
By banning crucial market functions like short selling[10] and “insider trading”[11] the SEC hinders the market’s ability to react to new information, and makes markets more unpredictable and expensive.

The SEC Cannot Even Oversee Itself
While the SEC is charged with enforcing regulations like Sarbanes-Oxley, it consistently fails to control and report on its own processes and receives failing grades from the government’s own auditing body.[12] This is not surprising - like any socialist organization, it has no incentive to be efficient or responsible to stockholders.

The chief source of fraud and corruption in the United States is not Wall Street, but Washington D.C.

[1]Medieval English common law: foundations for 21st century legal systems
[2]Wikipedia: The history of accountancy
[3]Self-Regulation in Today’s Securities Markets: Outdated System or Work in Progress?CFA Institute Centre Publications (September 2007)
[4]See How the SEC Subsidizes Stocks by Jeff Scott and SEC: Protecting Investors Or Uncompetitive Companies?
[5](There are so many regulations that the department charged with publishing them can only report that “The Office of the Federal Register Library now contains more than 550 cubic feet .. which has the force and effect of law.” - History of the Federal Register
[6]The Cost of the “Ethical” Assault on Honest Businessmen by Alex Epstein and Yaron Brook (Silicon Valley Biz Ink, July 8, 2003)
[7]Deafened by the S.E.C.’s Silence, He Sued
[8]The S.E.C. Prevents Investors From Discovering Accounting Fraud
[9]The SEC Makes Wall Street More Fraudulent by Robert Murphy
[10]See the One Minute Case for Stock Shorting
[11]See Inside Insider Trading and Should Insider Trading Be Legal? by Yaron Brook
[12]GAO Finds Material Weakness in SEC’s Controls

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Looters, Strikers, and Economic Systems

The strikers will be only those with ethics because they are the ones with the most to lose. They are at the top of the economic food chain.

In an op-ed in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Robert P. Murphy, Ph.D., PRI senior fellow in Business and Economic Studies, argues [in a report] that vast government spending is not a cure for the U.S. recession. Dr. Murphy explains that the true purpose of an economic system isn’t to “create jobs” or channel a particular number of green pieces of paper into everyone’s wallet on payday, but that workers are employed productively, so that they take scarce resources and transform them into goods and services that consumers value.

“The price of limiting economic freedom is real, but not always apparent or easily understood by [ ] by lawmakers,” said Lawrence J. McQuillan, Ph.D., co-author of the report and director of Business and Economic Studies at PRI." PRI

It is not easily understood by business itself, apparently. After taking government money that essentially made government an invested stockholder, the bonus-paying, romper-room, jet-buying antics of those businesses have forced government to cap the pay of future recipients.

"Many of us who know [Ayn] Rand's work," wrote Stephen Moore in an op-ed, "have noticed that with each passing week, and with each successive bailout plan and economic-stimulus scheme out of Washington, our current politicians are committing the very acts of economic lunacy that Atlas Shrugged parodied in 1957, when this 1,000+ page novel was first published and became an instant hit." [emphasis added]

"For the uninitiated," Moore continues, "the moral of the story is simply this: Politicians invariably respond to crises -- that in most cases they themselves created -- by spawning new government programs, laws and regulations. These, in turn, generate more havoc and poverty, which inspires the politicians to create more programs . . . and the downward spiral repeats itself until the productive sectors of the economy collapse under the collective weight of taxes and other burdens imposed in the name of fairness, equality and do-goodism."

Not only did the politicians, using the code phrases "for the public good," "the redistribution of wealth," and others, create a downward spiral, the very spiral we are on now, but they created two new classes of Americans: the looters and the strikers.

The looters were those who, like the corporations who are now taking government money, took government money. Looters were also people as individuals who fed off this constant stream of government handouts to the needy. The government itself was the prime looter, because it took from those who produced the wealth in order to give to those who sucked the life out the productive workers.

The strikers were those who refused to play the game any longer. At first they were only the top executives of major companies, and only those who had ethics. Those who had no ethics, like the bank execs we have now who take multi-million dollar bonuses after wrecking their companys, had no reason to go on strike. If they played the game right, they would still eventually get their money.

In Atlas Shrugged, the main visable protaganist is a woman who runs the nation's major railroad, at a time in our history when railroads played a much larger role in the economy. The train could be said to be a metaphor for what happens in the plot, because the looters' train is out of control running downhill with no breaks.

The strikers are only those with ethics because they are the ones with the most to lose. The are at the top of the economic food chain. Everyone below them feeds off them. When they begin to strike, disappearing apparently from the face of the earth, untraceable, unreachable, then the execs without ethics are stuck at the top of the economic food chain.

No one has yet become a striker that I know of. But its going to happen. It happened in the great "Brain Drain"* from England in the 1960's, when the brains moved to freer nations. "The term was coined by the Royal Society to describe the emigration of "scientists and technologists" to North America from post-war Europe." [* see [1] [2] [3]]

But in Atlas Shrugged, some of the "brains" the keep the economy afloat are literally invited to strike, and are given a safe haven. Some, who don't know of this safe haven, strike on their own by retiring without explanation.

The moral of this blog is to point out that what is about to happen to this country and to the world, as long and as far as this bail-out is continued, will cause everything in the novel to come to fruition.

The only means of rescuing the world from the abomination of spending-stimulus packages, especially those filled with "social" programs, is to take the advice of the 200+ economists who disagree with President Obama and with the force behind the strike in the novel: "Get Out Of Our Way!"

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Naturalist Economics: Bernanke vs. Ayn Rand

Natural economics do not require the coercion and the gun-in-hand tactics of collectivism, nor is it up to the government to "allow" naturalism, but only to prevent unnatural economic acts.

Many times over the course of the lifespan of this blog, I have written about capitalism as the rational economics of metaphysical naturalism.

Ben Bernanke, former Chairman of the Fed, co-authored a syllabus called Principles of Economics, while teaching at Princeton. The authors do not describe "economic naturalism" as that which would apply to the nature of man if man was uncoerced by any policy other than the free, natural market.

They describe it, instead as "the ability to see economic principles in the everyday details of life as well as national and international events." Why does the small business woman in Minnesota who operates as though she were in a truly free marketplace need to see international "events" as part of her naturalistic view of business?

It was my understanding that all economists who are not concerned merely with the "big macro-economic picture" will understand that that "big picture" is made up of "principles in the everyday details of life." Any economist who only looks at the macro-economics of "international events" is a fool.

But what details of what life? As it has been said that we are already a socialist nation, the "details of life" are going to be those of a civilization living under the rules of socialism.

That, in short, has nothing to do with "naturalism" in economics. Natural economics do not require the coercion and the gun-in-hand tactics of collectivism. This may be the reason that former Treasury Secretarys Henry Paulson and Bernanke, and President Bush, put forward on September 18, 2008, a brief, three-page proposal without details about how the program would be overseen.

Bernanke, and obviously Paulson, are of that school of economics that does not recognize a natural market, not even after Bernanke defined what it means to him; in that three page proposal there were no "details of life." There were no details at all.

He and Paulson spent days in front of Congress conceding problems with the plan while at the same championing it as the solution to the nation's current financial problems. It has not been the solution. We are now looking at a boondogle spending bill of well over $800 billion.

"Try acting as a laissez-faire capitalist," I wrote here. "It will get you a prison sentence for ignoring all the laws that prevent it."

Acting as though the laws did not exist is not coercive. It twists no one's arm to keep your prices low.

It is, however, proper to make laws about capitalism that prevent such things as lowering prices below costs to put competitors out of business, or about the taking of public bail-out money then spending it on bonuses for the very people who took the bail-out. Legislating what are improper ethics is not the reverse position of allowing sound business practices that some people with certaain ideologies don't like. The government has no business and no right to allow that which is non-coercive because it is, instead, the right of the people to do anything they please that is not coercive, i.e., that does not require a gun, whether it be a literal or a virtual gun.

It is not up to the the government to allow anything. It is up to the government only to prevent that which is unlawful, and it is not up to the government to make unlawful those things which are not coercive. Naturalistic economics as would exist without any government interference is naturalistic economics and is therefore non-coercive.

Economic naturalism is the state of any economy that is not controlled by the governement, nor by any means of coercion--or worse--used by businesses or individuals in that economy.

Today, Americans are walking with eyes wide open into the kinds of scenarios that could have come right out of "Atlas Shrugged". As I speak, a pay cap is being legislated for businesses who take government bail-outs that never should have been paid in the first place but which will continue to be standard practice for many years to come. This will cause the best of our business leaders to get out.

The Governor of my state, Michigan, has vowed to cap the prices of health care costs. This will only drive doctors out of the state. Then the only way to prevent that is to make it illegal for doctors to leave the state because they have taken government money in the form of Medicaid or Medicare or some other plan.

Take WalMart as the biggest literal example of a business that every local government tries to control in some way, in the belief that WalMart is the big bad economic wolf who sets out to destroy local small businesses, that will cause traffic problems, and look like an eyesore. Sam Walton could have written these words, and if he had, and if he was alive today, he might become one of the "deserters" of the world of "Atlas Shrugged":

"I do not want my attitude to be misunderstood. I shall be glad to state it for the record...I work for nothing but my own profit--which I make by selling a product they need to men who are willing and able to buy it. It do not produce it for their benefit at the expense of mine, and they do not buy it for my benefit at the expense of theirs; --and I am proud of every penny that I have earned in this manner. Do I wish to pay my workers more than their services are worth to me? I do not. Do I wish to sell my product for less than my customers are willing to pay me? I do not. Do I wish to sellit at a loss or give it away? I do not. If this is evil, do whatever you please about me, according to whatever stnadards you hold. These are mine." Hank Reardon, industrialist in Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand, at his trial for ignoring laws that prevented doing business as his standard told him he ought to. [condensed]

That is "naturalist economics."

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Ethical Priorities

Asking Ethical Questions in Ethics Classes Must be Done Ethically

I recently read in Brian Leiter's blog that, "Susan Dwyer (moral psychology, applied ethics, feminist theory), Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Maryland at Baltimore County has accepted a tenured offer from the Department of Philosophy at the University of Maryland, College Park, effective January 2009." Dwyer from UMBC to Maryland/College Park

I think I had heard the name of Ms. Dwyer before, but I didn't know who she was. Leiter thought she was worth promoting, or possibly she is a friend or working associate.

So, to familiarize myself with a philosopher I didn't know I looked up Dwyer, and clicked on her syllabi. There I found "PHIL 150 Contemporary Moral Issues." Listed under "Outline" was this:

"We will critically examine four controversial topics: Pornography and Free Speech; Euthanasia and Physician Assisted Suicide; Punishment and the Death Penalty; and Abortion. The class has two main aims: (1) to introduce you to some central concepts in ethical theory and moral reasoning; and (2) to help you begin to develop views about the aforementioned topics that you can articulate and defend."

Well, that sounds like a good outline of subjects that are worthwhile of ethical investigation by students. I remember as a young student many years ago investigating them, and from time to time I read something that gives me a new twist on what or how I understand the subject. Sometimes, my opinions are tweaked by what I read.

But directly below Dwyer's Outline is this:

"Among the questions we will consider are the following:
 Is pornography harmful?
 Should the state censor or restrict the publication of pornography?
 Do we have a right to determine the manner and time of our own deaths?
 Is it permissible for a doctor to kill a patient at that patient’s request?
 How is punishment justified?
 Should the death penalty be retained or abolished in the United States?
 What is the right to life?
 Is the human fetus a person?
 What is the relation between morality and the law?"

And I thought, "Wait a cotton pickin' minute. The epistemic emphasis on most of the questions is all wrong."

Asking if pornography is wrong, for example; it leaves open the question of whether its harm, real or imagined, gives one human the right to deny access to it to those he thinks are harmed by it. Why else ask the question? I mean, so what if it is harmful, what is the answer to the answer that it is harmful? The real question and answer are lost.

If my answer in that class was that pornography was not harmful, is someone going to argue with me? Are they going to ask where I got my information? What difference does my answer make, yes or no, until the basic question of whether ethics can do anything about it?

In any question of ethics (moral issues), "The first question that has to be answered, as a precondition of any attempt to define, to judge or to accept any specific system of ethics, is: Why does man need a code of values?
"Let me stress this. The first question is not: What particular code of values should man accept? The first question is: Does man need values at all—and why?"
“The Objectivist Ethics”; Ayn Rand; The Virtue of Selfishness

go to Ethics continued

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American Socialism; Theism as Skepticism; sntjohnny and Me

American Socialism Is Upon Us

"Capitalism and markets [ ] are all inherently about self-interest and the pursuit of profit," said Dr. Yaron Brook. "Capitalism encourages and enables selfishness, and as long as our culture looks at profit and self-interest as vices, [ ] big government will always be preferred to free markets." [italics added] "Why Big Government Is Back, and How to Shrink It to Its Proper Size"

http://www.aynrand.org/site/MessageViewer?dlv_id=41441&em_id=44383.0&JServSessionIdr001=efh7ehivs1.app7a

This might be a surprising perspective to many people. But it really is surprising only to capitalists who simply want to earn a living--perhaps a big living, but a living that is ruled by nothing but proper market ethics and proper ethical treatment of his or her consumers. And I am one of those to whom it is a surprising perspective.

I should not be surprised. I know full well that the market situation we are currently in was caused by zealous, not ethical, pursuit of the dollar. There is a difference. We expect the neighborhood butcher, farm co-op, or shoe store to treat the community with a high standard of ethics. To do otherwise would be to risk negative letters-to-the-editor in the newspaper, and maybe an investigation by the local TV affiliate, if the situation warrants it. Consumers who feel bent out of shape by the way they were treated locally often sue.

But on the larger scale, in the bigger market places, we all know that ethics tend to become fuzzy, or even misplaced once a rule of ethics is broken the first time and not caught. The big markets can usually fend off attacks by angry customers, unless the business is WalMart or something similar. WalMart is expected to be all things to all people; that is how it grew to be so large. Big selection plus big inventory equals low low prices; that is what constitutes "all things to all people" most of the time.

But Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, explained why the reasons for the resurgence of big government are due, "not to any alleged failures of the market, but to a longtime cultural hostility to its moral basis: the selfish pursuit of profit."

We as Americans have lived with the idea of socialism long enough that most of us do not see how its operating principles-if they can be called "principled"--have crept into our nation's politics, policies, and regulations. In the Treasury Department's U.S crazy scheme to save Wall Street but they included this in big, huge piece of socialist nationalism in section 8: "Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency." [emphasis added] [see The Last Nail in the American Fascist Takeover ] more

Excerpt from Anthony Horvath’s
Christian Apologetics Ministry
http://sntjohnny.com/front/one-atheist-admits-im-right-another-responds-to-big-bang-post/364.html
And the Reclassification of Theism
as the Skeptical Position of Naturalism

"It is not very often that you get an admission as clear as the one that was posted on my forum today. I asserted in this post on my blog that at the bottom, most atheistic arguments against the existence of God are based on the ‘presumption of naturalism’ with [missing info in original post.] The atheist on my forum said:

'At the conclusion, you argue that the evidence will show God’s existence if only we give up our assumption that all explanations must be natural. What you fail to give us is any compelling reason why we must abandon that assumption.'"

Unfortunately, Rev. Horvath's critic undercuts his own position by saying he would, in effect, be willing to accept giving up reason. Horvath responds--quite logically--by saying, "The atheist in question says that this assumption can only be abandoned in the face of extremely good reasons, but it should be evident that anyone who believes ‘all explanations must be natural’ is really just throwing up a smokescreen if he now demands ‘reasons’ for thinking otherwise."

Oh, if only we would listen to what we say before we say it. In light of what Horvath said regarding the abandonment of reason for "compelling" reasons, I think the critic would have thought out his words more carefully.

But my favorite atheist philosopher said we must take men at their word. If they say it, then they said it, and we cannot presume to judge that they meant something else. This does not mean we cannot ammend our statement when our contradiction becomes evident.

But unless Horvath's critic writes back, we must assume he does not understand the difference between:

1. A principled deduction of logic that tells him that naturalism is natural, while supernaturalism is---not, by definition, natural; and

2. The decision that it makes no difference whether a thing is "natural" or "not-natural" if one is willing to suspend his rational judgment to decide that the "not-natural" can somehow become the "natural," or at least the "acceptable."

Horvath tells him--and others like him--"If you’re just starting to examine the merits of Christianity and are evaluating skeptical objections, the key here is to understand that all the later objections to things like the resurrection and miracles stem from this prior assumption."

What Horvath himself fails to explain is that naturalism was the prevailing world-view for nearly 1000 years, until Augustine.

There are four goals for the informed naturalist, says physicist and cosmologist Dr. Quentin Smith. "i) retrieve naturalism from its de facto reclassification by medieval philosophers. This is a reclassification (which may have been a result of some other deliberately chosen goal) from its original, accurate, classification in Greco-Roman naturalism, and this reclassification was effected by the medieval philosophers. This reclassification still prevails today." Philo Online http://www.philoonline.org/library/smith_4_2.htm more

Reverend "sntjohnny" Horvath Wrote Me an Email:

I Responded

Actually, I only responded to the first two paragraphs, as you will read. He sent the email because of his contention, which I challenged, that followers of Ayn Rand's Objectivism would "inevitably" come around to embracing Christianity.

[Dear Curtis:] "It is only 'inevitable' in certain senses. If you apply the principles you hold dear in Objectivism consistently I believe that you will find that Objectivism does not in fact have the answers while Christianity does.

"Consider. One of the most cherished doctrines of the Objectivist is the rights and freedoms and dignity of each individual human. However, to what degree can this be supported from an atheistic philosophy, especially an atheistic perspective on evolution, which is the prevailing scientific explanation for the rise of humans? Under this framework, a human is nothing more than an animal." [signed Anthony Horvath]

"stjohnny" and I are too familiar with each other to actually bother writing "Dear X," or actually signing it, except that my "automatic" signature is automatic, I do sometimes write "Sincerely," or simply "Curtis," and this time he finished his letter with "Yours."

My (Partial) Response

The atheism and evolution have no bearing on the freedom and dignity of the human individual.

You say according to evolution I ought to conclude man is "nothing more" than an animal. But the denotation of "Man" is that heis the "rational animal." From this perspective we conclude several things:

1. That "Man qua Man" requires the highest degree of rationality a man can discover;
2. That rationality belongs to individuals because there is no "collective" mind;
3. That since rationality belongs to the individual, just as his fingers are his, and his stomach is his, his mind cannot be coerced into doing, being or thinking what it does not want to be. more

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Determinism Vs. the Individualistic Naturalism of the Soul

The Soul is Naturalistic and Individualistic
“Humanism is a progressive philosophy of life that, without supernaturalism, affirms our ability and responsibility to lead ethical lives of personal fulfillment that aspire to the greater good of humanity.” Tom Clark http://www.centerfornaturalism.org/presentations.htm

Responsibility to aspire to the greater good? Well, then I'm glad I'm not a commie naturalist. I am not even implying that Tom Clark is a collectivist in any way, shape, or form. I don't know the man's politics. But after all, "the greater good" is Communism, as opposed to "promoting the general Welfare," which is American Constitutionalism. And that is a not a parsing of the terminology. So why use such terminology?

While Marx said violence in and of itself is not a good thing, he admitted it may at times be necessary to achieve a greater good. But the promotion of the general welfare requires the protection of the individual from violence initiated by others. The use of State sanctioned violence "when necessary" is the tyranny of the rulers over the ruled--for the ostensible benefit of those who are ruled.

And ostensibly, the "humanist naturalism" Clark promotes is because he wants to "affirm our ability and responsibility to lead ethical lives of personal fulfillment that aspire to the greater good of humanity.” So we have an ethical responsibility, Clark is saying, to look for personal fulfillment no where but in the squelching of individuality. If we were to look for it in the affirmation of individuality, it would destroy the ethics.

Why do I take the critical and extreme path of making the Clark look like an anti-individualist? Because he speaks in the most general of "mushy" soft terminology so that he can not be pinned down as to just what he means--unless you read between the lines."[W]e [need to] live in the light of the empirical truth about ourselves; we don’t need another way of knowing that [which] applies to personal concerns or ultimate concerns. This simplifies things."

What is this "empirical truth" that is opposed to "personal concerns?" According to some of his highly esteemed contributors, the empirical truth is "memes" and "genes" and "environment." Clark mentions the environment on this website; no where did I see him bring in the rest of the "empirical truth" his well-known members insist are real.

Why should personal concerns not be of importance? Because personal concerns get in the way of the common good, without which we can have no ethically personal self-fulfillment!

Naturalism," he says, "affords superior prediction and control of our environment and ourselves, since in dropping the soul and free will we get rid of the fictional supernatural agency that blocks true explanations of phenomena." How does the state, or an organization, "control" the environment for "the common good" which is made of people who ought to have no personal concerns except those of the common good?

Clark admits his naturalistic world-view is probably for the 25th Century because it will take a lot of "education"--or should it be called "re-education"--before we see the idealism of which he dreams. So it may be assumed he does not advocate State-promoted violence in order to accomplish any of his goals. But others of his world-view, those who are also looking at "the common good," do not feel this way. As I wrote in a column last week, the "WeCanSolveIt" campaign that is all over TV is a direct offshoot and is supported by Al Gore's environmental campaign. That can only mean government controls, since he isn't talking the 25th Century; Gore is talking ten years.

Tom Clark's vision of "progressive humanistic naturalism" defines free will as "supernatural." If individuals do not have free will, what do they have that Clark defines as "natural"? He says what is "natural" is that we are "fully caused to want what we want, and to be who we are."

Everything he says is obfuscation. "Fully caused" means that what we "want" and "who we are" are the result of things not in our control, those pesky memes and genes and environmental factors that "fully cause" us. "

"If we reproduced the exact circumstances that obtained at a given time and place, the same behavior would arise: so, in any given situation, we couldn’t have done otherwise, on this view. This means we can’t take ultimate credit or blame for what we do."

He means, if you had something to do all over again, went back in time and encountered the same circumstances, you never would have thought of a different course of action. This is not because in going back we are repeating history. It is because "we are not the ultimate originators of our behavior, but simply the most proximate cause, and other causes surround us in time and space." In time and space we are fully caused by things not in our control, which affect our choices, thereby leaving "free will" to be not only "supernatural" (to be explained below,) but leaving free will to be anything but free.

Why are we not the "ultimate originators of our behavior"?

"According to [the] sciences, we are more or less deterministic, organic, evolved systems, fully embedded within natural causality; so the bottom line is that the empirical debate about free will is essentially over."

There again, Clark uses that non-differential phrasing that means nothing. He says we are "more or less" deterministic. Which is it? And why are we deterministic, if indeed we are? Because the "other causes that surround us in time and space" determine who and what we are for us.

He says we are "organic, evolved systems." That is stating the obvious. We are not rock or gas; we are organic. Does this help his argument? It merely gives it a weightier preponderance of overspeak.

He says we are "fully embedded within natural causality." I'd venture to say we could not be half embedded, or one-tenth embedded, or two-hundred percent embedded. But what does it mean to be embedded "within natural causality?"

Clark uses that phrasing over and over as some sort of mantra, trying to dispell the soul as something man is predisposed to think of as supernatural. It is his goal to "embed" us so deeply into the "natural full-causality" of our determined lives as un-free members of the "common good" that individualism and the knowledge of what we call soul--no matter what it turns out to be be--is dismissed by us as the equivalent of mythology.

"Thanks to neuroscience, there are vastly fewer gaps these days in which the soul can hide." The soul is not an empirical existent, as Clark leads us to infer, something he says we believe is supernaturally reified and existing as something separate and apart from the biology of the human body, floating around it, causing our bodies or our minds to do things while we go on blindly believing that we have free will in order to fulfull the agency of the soul.

It is true that anyone with a belief in traditional religion believes something along these lines. Even Deists believe it. But naturalists don't have to give up defining a "soul" we know exists even by any other name they may choose to give it. We naturalists don't believe it is supernatural. So we naturalists don't believe it is "implanted" supernaturally or otherwise. We believe something exists that has been called soul and is defined as supernatural, but is not supernatural and is the result of our biology. We don't have to search off the beaten track for "memes" and "genes" and environmental agents as "causes" of behavior which are unchangable even if we went back in time to do something all over again.

The soul is precisely that which Clark claims neuroscience dispells: the neurological mechanics of the human organ in its entirety, the act of consciousness looking in upon itself and "feeling" its position in the world, knowing it must decide right from wrong on the basis of extant circumstances.

On that account he is correct; we must make all our decisions based on extant circumstances, on things that we have no control over, such as the light turning red when we're in a hurry to get to work but forcing us to stop, for example. We have no free will to run the light? Why not? We have no free will to calm down by saying the Serenity Prayer? Why not? We have no free will to explode with road rage and scream obscenities at the light and the city that put it there, and at the people going in other directions who didn't have to stop? Why not? Why don't we have the free will to act otherwise than we would have?

Adherents of determinism like him say that determinism is disbelieved by people such as myself because of three lies, "God, immortality, and free will [ ] joined together in a religious narrative, founded in medieval theological dogma [. ] The narrative goes like this: the universe is governed by an all-powerful benevolent spiritual entity – God – who implants a spiritual essence into people at some point following conception. It is this spiritual essence, the soul, that gives people two unique gifts – gifts they did not get from evolution and do not share with any other animal or plant. These two uniquely human spiritual God-given gifts are free will in this life and immortality in the next. According to traditional religion, it is because we have souls that we can transcend the influences of genes and environment, and even triumph over death itself, as our souls fly back up to heaven." Robert Gulack http://www.ethicalfocus.org/index.php?mpage=34/Free_Will.htm

Well, that was not the naturalistic world view of the soul before St. Augustine, but the pre-Augustinian Naturalists did not believe that the soul was implanted by the ruler of the universe. They were well aware of what we now call the "tabula rasa" mind, and that as the mind fills with metaphysical entities, so grows the soul based upon our evaluation of the specific entities we have come to comprehend. They did believe the soul was supernatural, and that it was transcendal of time and space.

They did believe the soul "flew back up to heaven," or some such nonsense as that. But if neuroscience is proving that there is no "implanted" entity we can wrap our minds around, it certainly is proving that what we can wrap our minds around is the idea that emotions are caused by the firing of neurons and the resultant chemical and electrical reactions in our central nervous system.

I've always said the soul is nothing more than the manifestation of the central nervous system, a manifestation of which we are aware within our cognitive capacities. But manifestations can be positively identified, and if the firing of neurons when we are faced with a decision, and the resultant firing of more neurons when we make that decision, can be located within our being it does not have to have the identity of "supernatural" when everything that exists as its cause is necessarily "natural." It is for the greater good of mankind that we identify the soul as individualistic, and neither "contra-causal" or "compatibilist", except that the harder I look the less luck I have finding an actual denotation of either phrase as it relates to free will. "Contra-causal" seems to be a floating abstraction not found in dictionaries but imbued with the anti-virtue of leaving man powerless.

The soul is natural, as natural as the fingernails on your hand, and was no more put inside you at conception by something that supercedes "natural" than your fingernails were implanted supernaturally. But they both exist.

I think Clark has things backward, but for the life of me I don't know how he got it that way. Since our souls are not supernatural, since they are nothing but neurons firing and the resultant emotional responses, then doesn't that indicate individualism, rather than "being one" with nature?

But whether the determinist takes it as "oneness" or or the metaphysical naturalists such as myself takes it to support individualism, neither idea leads to the ethical conclusion that "personal fulfillment [is to] aspire to the greater good of humanity." That aspiration is a very individualistic choice, and has nothing to do with causes which may be out of our control.

Publishing Note:
I have made the attempt several times to allow the posting of reader comments to this blog. I have followed all the directions set by Google (yes, I've read the directions, several times,) but as of yet it isn't working. If you wish to comment, please email them to the address below. Thank you.

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The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists is the sm of the
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This publication © 2008 by Curtis Edward Clark and Naturalist Academy Publishing ®