Originally posted by dadudemon
That's just my avenue of justification. Any reason can be used (other than, "I just want to have the choice"😉 but that's just the one I chose to use.[...]
Interesting. That's not the impression I get from reading about her ideas, though. She wouldn't get caught up in something so specific. Rather, she would applaud that the person had the choice to make, to begin with. The actual choice doesn't matter. Again, I am a newb to Rand so I could be completely wrong.
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Yes, that's where I was getting that. It's a personal choice one could use in justifying, through Rand's ideas on choice, for why they would not want a single payer system. It is just one of many justifications one could use.
so, yes, you have it. However, while she stresses that personal choice is a moral imperative, I don't think it would be fair to say she though a self-interested rational actor could make any choice. My interpretation is that she truly believed there were objectively knowable "right" decisions that people could make, and that self-motivated people would make them if free from outside influence.
This is one of the obvious weaknesses with Objectivism, or at least radical Objectivism (which Rand herself espoused). Any personal choice that she didn't think fell in line with Objectivism was obviously made by someone who was not thinking in a rationally self-interested way. Because post-hoc analysis is so easy, Rand could essentially say any behaviour was either using rational self interest or not. With strict Objectivist principles, it is possible that two people in the same circumstance, who behaved in the exact same way, could be labeled as one being morally right whereas the other morally wrong, simply by emphasizing different causal factors in the narrative one used to describe their motivation. Rand gives us no real way to tell when a decision is made using rational self interest and when one is not.
Originally posted by dadudemon
I did not know that about Rand. I guess my use of the family as a "personal choice justification" is ill-founded?
it depends. Rand herself would probably say yes because you are religious. In terms of the theory, it would depend if you were making the decision because you felt you were obligated to do it or if you had weighed the costs and benefits to yourself and decided this is what you wanted to do. Being religious, the Objectivist would say your ability to do such a weighing is imperfect, so in a pure Objectivist sense, probably. In principle though, you may have just saved the baby and thrown out the bathwater.
Originally posted by dadudemon
Yes, Rand was almost as extreme of an atheist as one can get. Why do some Republicans and Tea-Partiers laud her works?
I don't know, but seeing Paul Ryan have to do a 180 on her because of that was funny as hell.
Originally posted by dadudemon
Here's a semi-paradox for you: what if your religion is based on the idea of personal choice over choice restriction? Is that not an imposition of religious culture on how we make choices? How would Rand reconcile such a religion with her hate of religion, in general? Would she say that that is the perfect church or would she say that due to the culture it brings, it removes a "purer form" of choice by instilling a social system based around the idea of having choice? Basically, how would she deal with the semi-religious zealots of her philosophies, today?
She would disagree ontologically with the idea of such a church. Similar to how you or I might disagree that a girl in rural Afghanistan has a choice about the niquab, Rand would believe that the followers of that religion are not able to make rationally self-interested choices because the religion itself would subvert their will.
I assume you are taking about some LDS tenant, but lets assume we have a fictional religion that does encourage free thought (not suggesting LDS doesn't, just making a point), but for which there are no presumed truths or superior choices. Maybe, maybe, such a ritualized solipsism would satisfy her criteria for a non-subversive religion (though she would never admit it), but such a system of beliefs is hardly worthy of calling a religion in the first place, and sort of contradicts the fact she tacitly believes there are in fact superior truths or choices.
The argument that Objectivists, and even Rand herself, represented the very thing they often decried is valid. Rand didn't name the philosophy Objectivism to try and be subtle. Their response to this is little better than the post-hoc rationale that they use to determine if a choice is made in individual self-interest, largely being that they are able to criticize others because Objectivism is inherently true, as demonstrated in the writings of Rand. Like, one thing to keep in mind, Rand is among the most zealous Objectivists, she wouldn't feel a need to "deal" with people she felt supported her so fully.
Originally posted by dadudemon
Your two alternative explanations are better than my primary one for "Randian opposition to UHC". Can I steal these from you?
sure
Originally posted by dadudemon
From what the results show, the best medical systems are those that have both public and private options with the primary option being the public one: Norway, Switzerland, France, etc. The best option has not been just a state-owned-run system: it was the hybrid.
Sure, I think it is clearly the way to go from both a pragmatic and moral ground. An excellent compromise that works in the modern world, etc etc etc.
The thing to remember about Objectivism is that this type of pragmatic argument isn't really effective against its beliefs. Their ideas about what is pragmatic come from what they think about the morality of human freedom. No matter how effective we can show anything to be, if it involves any sort of coercion, it is tautologically less optimal than what would be produced in a situation where that coercion is not present.
A public/private partnership on medical care satisfies neither of the Objectivist complaints I mentioned, and only serves to, in their opinion, reinforce the coercive nature of the state that prevents people from making the self-interested choices that would alleviate their need of such support.
Of course, Objectivists, Rand included, are not Anarchists. There are legitimate functions of the state (military, police, contract enforcement) that they believe taxes may be coerced from people to support. Depending on how loose you are with Rand's specific ideas, clear arguments for UHC can be made using the same principles she would use to defend the military be supported by taxation. As can be made for economic regulation, public universities, and really, whatever you want, so long as you deem it "necessary" to civilization.
Originally posted by dadudemon
but an evolutionary "natural law": acting in evolutionary resultant ways.
Rand would resist such a thing even being existent, as to her, the only possible method for life to survive is through self-interested choice. However, to the degree that she would believe it were a "thing", genetic predisposition would be subversive if it influenced rational self-interest.
Originally posted by dadudemon
From "The Objectivist Ethics":"The existence of inanimate matter is unconditional, the existence of life is not: it depends on a specific course of action. Matter is indestructible, it changes forms, but it cannot cease to exist. It is only a living organism that faces a constant alternative: the issue of life or death. Life is a process of self-sustaining and self-generated action. If an organism fails in that action, it dies; its chemical elements remain, but its life goes out of existence."
This line is actually more about her feelings toward the sense of "dualism" that exists in her beliefs. For instance, she would be aghast at modern psychology or behavioural genetics, that suggest people may not be such self-motivated rational actors by nature. She is saying, unlike non-living matter, living matter must make choices that prevent it from changing forever into unliving matter.
Therefore, to her, life ontologically makes the best choices for its survival, because any other type of scenario, to her, is untenable. Hence, why such artificial subversion, like the state or religion, are so terrible. They subvert the one real purpose life exists to fulfill, and that is continuing to live by making the necessary choices to survive.
Originally posted by dadudemon
This is where I got that notion when I used the obligation towards family. But Oliver North (inimalist) pointed out that I am, if I am to extrapolate on his words, twisting Rand's words that would go against what she believed regarding man's function in families.
nothing about families per se, more that she thinks any form of "obligation" on man is an imposition on their will.