"The Moral Factor" by Ayn Rand

[@volition51]

@54:20 sets the context for a very special moment. She explains about Dr. Peikoff's book, then applause, then the moderator says "Quiet please" in preparation for the next question, and @55:10 she interjects one sentence containing the entire benevolent universe premise. Just beautiful.

[@r2aul]

Thank you, whomever is putting these up!!!

[@justiceessiel7484]

U

[@zardozcys2912]

Excellent talk and great quality of questions

[@PiedFifer]

8:49 “To defend your rights against altruism’s cannibals IS selfishness”.

[@COR2025]

1:11:19 Ayn speaks about Solzhenitsyn

[@gregguralnik2512]

And everything she said about Solzhenitsyn was correct! I am Russian and Ukrainian myself,and I can see that Putin and Zelensky as well as the leaders who came before them, are the spitting images of what Solzhenitsyn advocated for. To an extent, each.

[@masterJZX]

Q&A at 41:36

[@HAHAHAHAHA477]

10:53 Why the work ethic can't stand on altruism

[@whousa642]

Brilliant woman. I loved her definition of Libertarian. It is true to this date.

[@Gorboduc]

Her blast against Solzhenitsyn is exactly right. He's not against slavery, only against a certain group of slave masters - and that only because he thinks they're atheists!

[@booni5114]

Very good qna

[@stephanweaver1960]

Boston Forum April 1976 I presume ... "THE BOY NEXT DOOR vs. ELMER GANTRY"!

[@zeldastroud8661]

57:39

[@LethalBubbles]

her moral epistimology is more interesting than her economic views

[@depletable]

Ayn would've had an fit seeing leftists today.

[@andrewhinson4323]

How can anyone have a "perfect moral right" on her values to terminate another human being carte blanche? How she supports the right to abortion whilst being so staunchly defensive of the fundamental right to life is utterly astounding... She cant appeal to the safety or health of the mother for two reasons: 1. Abortion is just as risky for the health and safety of the mother as pregnancy is in general and you cant argue from corner cases to justify a general rule. 2. The infant human in the womb is fundamentally no different at month 6 than it is at month 10 when it has exited the womb. It is simply old enough to survive outside of the womb more easily (when now 6 months is the age of viability). So if the infant at 10 months has the right to life, then that same infant has the right to life at 6 months, and 5 months, and 4 months, and so on until its very first day of existence, which is the moment of fertilization whence it immediately meets all scientific criterion for life and is distinctly identifiable both bodily and genetically as unique and distinct from its parents.

[@zardozcys2912]

The right to life happens after the fetus takes its first breath to support its own life. If it cannot do that it cannot live on its own. Second it had to be physically cut from the mother so that it is no longer physically dependent on her body. Up until then she is the only independent human being in the situation.

[@PraniGopu]

Based on the information I can find, your first point is blatantly false, unless you are talking about back-alley abortion (which is not the norm if abortion is legal). Abortions have risks, like any medical procedure, but from what I gather, the risks are nowhere near the health and mortality risks of a full-term pregnancy and/or childbirth. Late-stage abortions are riskier than early-stage ones, but people who opt for them would likely be more worried about the risks of childbirth (in particular, some health issues can make childbirth life-threatening). Your second point is morally unfounded. Individual rights are not based on DNA or biology but on rational faculty (i.e. the capacity to reason) and agency (i.e. the capacity to exist and act as a physically independent entity). Children don’t have the same rights as adults for this very reason (although they have some rights, owing to them being physically independent* humans with potential for growth up to maturity). Granting “rights” to an embryo or even a foetus perverts the basis of rights. I’m not saying that an embryo or a foetus has no value or that abortion cannot be immoral in some cases, but it is immoral to ask anyone to put their life or their autonomy on the line for the sake of a potential individual (individual in the moral sense, not the biological sense). Once a child is born, the mother’s right to her life and her autonomy does not apply to the child’s life, but until childbirth, it does. * _Physically independent with respect to other humans, i.e. their existence is not physically tied to someone else._ EDIT: Added a reference to “autonomy” and not just “life”

[@bretnetherton9273]

At what point do I cease to exist, and at what point do I know that I am? Can there ever be answers to questions that falter? To be is to be that can never be altered. Empty your mind for clarity of view the absence of thought is not the absence of you. We come not out of the world, nor whither away. If all is oneself where does one stray?

[@coletrain6545]

Solzhenitsyn became infamous in soviet russia not famous. He and a bunch of underground writers lead the charge under pin names in a bunch of articles of daily atrocities sent to them and of their own experiences in "the daily letter" i think? to people of the ussr and they were forced to stop because the soviet union publicly announced that if they didnt stop they'd execute innocent civilians at random until they did. His work in the 60s and 70s got him stripped of his citizenship until the destruction of the soviet union. I like rand but her take on solzhenitsyn is ill informed or misinformed

[@macintosh2173]

Peanut brain take

[@whousa642]

is that your brain

[@billdiffenbaugh4578]

I like her. If she only reversed her opinion on God, she would have a near perfect philosophy

[@TLOK1918]

If she reversed her opinion on God, her philosophy would be contradictory. The moral wouldn't be what is in an individual's rational self-interest, but whatever God said it is, and reality wouldn't be absolute, but contingent on God's will. Objectivism would become both unnecessary and meaningless.

[@rogerwhite95]

@@TLOK1918 A good point; but it is contingent on one's idea of what God is and wants. Maybe what is in one's rational self interest is just what God wants for you as well.

[@TLOK1918]

​@@rogerwhite95 I said that in the context of Christianity (that's what is usually meant by "God"), and what the Christian God demands of His followers is pretty clear. But if we are talking about some supernatural creator in a more general sense--that is, _a_ god--you'd be correct. _Maybe_ what such a god (the existence of which is again not supported by physical evidence) wants is what's best for us. But you can see that's just circular logic: "What god wants is what's good for me, and what's good for me is what god wants." You still need some standard to judge what's actually good for you. Plus, that's a big "maybe" upon which to base your entire life and your view of existence. Bottom line is, if we cannot trust our senses to give us valid information about reality and the only means of reaching truth is not reason but faith and revelation, how are we ever to be sure how to live our lives? What is to be our standard of values and our moral compass? The whole thing immediately collapses into subjectivism where anything goes, because your claim as to what god wants is as good as mine. And a society governed by arbitrary whims, wishes and emotions can only be a society ruled through force.

[@rogerwhite95]

@@TLOK1918 You did not, in fact, specify the Christian religion; and you are right: I was not thinking of God in any orthodox terms but, as I usually do, as a non denominational All- pervasive superintelligence, which we, (at this stage of evolution at least) cannot really comprehend. A fair analogy might be that because a cell cannot comprehend a Beethoven symphony does not mean that it would be accurate for it to assert that there is no Beethoven symphony. But I admire Rand's intellectual integrity!

[@rogerwhite95]

@@zyxwvut586 me too, lol

[@legalfictionnaturalfact3969]

Love rand, but she screwed up royally by not knowing what anarchism means, especially for someone who appropriately places so much importance on dictionary definitions. She was against the initiation of force, and the initiation of force is the business of rulers. Anarchy means no rulership. She did not disagree with anarchism, she just didn't know that.

[@Mr.Witness]

it seems you have no idea the amount written on this nonsense. just google search Objectvism Vs Anarchism and Foundations of a free society by the ayn rand institute and some libertarians who sympathize with your view.

[@legalfictionnaturalfact3969]

​@@Mr.Witness no, kiddo.i've read a shyt ton of her and in general it is the opposite of nonsense. my statement stands.

[@BokononistMethod]

@@legalfictionnaturalfact3969 if you understood what you read of Rand, you wouldn't hold such a whimsical notion as anarchism.

[@legalfictionnaturalfact3969]

@@BokononistMethod nope. rand's philosophies were right, but she didn't always apply them correctly. if you understood her ideas, you wouldn't hold such a cynical notion as statism.

[@legalfictionnaturalfact3969]

@@hackfree94 really narrow view. there is no "concern" in anarchism save what you choose to participate in or choose not to participate in personally.

[@legalfictionnaturalfact3969]

It's pretty bizarre that someone of Rand's intellect was begging for cookies from Men by insulting women's Liberation. LMFAO. Again, she failed to follow her own very correct principles to their logical ends. :-)

[@bradbecker8982]

Or, you focus too much on men and women specifically. Individuals have rights, not specifically men and/or women. Rand was never against “liberation” of women in the context you suggest.

[@legalfictionnaturalfact3969]

@@bradbecker8982 lol. what a great mansplain. X) honey, patriarchy is a thing and if you don't think so you'll have to argue 95% of both sociologists and ANTHROpologists (look up the etymology there) on earth. oh, and scream down all the dads telling their daughters "men only want one thing/men are dangerous" when they go out on dates. i don't have time for silly lies no one buys.

[@bradbecker8982]

@@legalfictionnaturalfact3969 you called me “honey,” you’re the one mainsplaining. I was offering an alternative explanation to your leap to conclusions that you made about Rand going for cookies. If you think that’s what her objective is, without proof, you are more than likely projecting your sexism and anti-male viewpoint into the context unnecessarily. Btw.. “mansplaining” is a made up term.. it’s fake, and has no significant linguistic roots. You ARE allowing yourself to believe concepts as true, without even thinking about them as true or false in reality. If I’m wrong, tell me how I’m wrong in reality, rather than once again jumping to absolute conclusions and assuming that I’m just* mansplaining, whatever that actually means to people who deny truth. Patriarchy is not inherently a thing.. men and women in any given culture act the way they do because of their subconscious and consciously held moral values. For example: I value truth so I comment.. Imo you seem to value your biased views on men and women more than you value truth, which is a likely causal reason as to why I’m having to even explain this.

[@lauriedavies6183]

Rand wasn't begging for cookies so much as she was sharing something she truly believed. Communism preys on women's emotions and directs them toward mothering the world. Yuri Bezmenov noted how communism is the architect of feminism and uses feminists, like Jane Fonda. Anymore feminism is nothing but women beating down men with a club in one hand while pleading with men to validate them with the other. Feminism has become a cultish "me too" tribalism of narcissicism & self-victimization. Rand was against tribalism & self-victimization while she promoted actual self-confidence.

[@Triple_J.1]

I don't think you are capable of arriving at an accurate logical conclusion from any basic philosophy. Not only that, the very thing you are accusing her about has actually been leveled at her in several Q&A sections, and she addressed most of your specific issues herself.