| | Casey,
You've boiled the Objectivist ethics down to much simpler propositions than Rand managed to:
Absolute moral perfection is EASY to human beings, BECAUSE we have free will. We can simply choose to never fuck over anyone else or ourselves, and try our best to get the most out of life, by the same token. That should be pretty simple, right? What kind of psychology out there wants to carve out a place where we can NOT follow such a basic law, even during some supposed moment of weakness? A psychology that considers breaching this is not familiar to my own, and not one I want to know, that's for SURE. Yet that is what the Brandens did to Rand for 4 1/2 years, consciously, every time they met with her with a new version of the ongoing phoney story they were telling her.
Remember that Rand's notion of perfection means never failing to practice any of the virtues, at any time. Never failing at independence. Never failing at productiveness. Never failing to think about something that you sense a need to think about but makes you uncomfortable. Never (unless you just recently started on the right path, and still need to work off a load of confusion and unearned guilt from your benighted past) having less than high self-esteem. Maybe never needing to raise your self-esteem any further. If you factor in fictional portrayals (is there any doubt that Rand considered these relevant?), never really feeling pain, fear, guilt, hatred, or any other negative emotion, with the possible exception of anger at those who have genuinely done wrong.
As you may know, if you've seen my exchanges with Laj and Roger Bissell, I'm a defender of incompatibilist free will, on a model fairly close to Rand's own. But, as a psychologist, I doubt the credibility or applicability of any moral system that presumes the unity of the virtues (as Rand does in her treatement of pride, for example); that fails to deal with the goal and value conflicts that arise during our development as individuals; or that claims that basic human emotions can be transcended, as opposed to being repressed.
There are different kinds of moral failings. Many of them fall well short of deliberately lying to someone who thinks you (still) love her, and keeping up the lies for 4 1/2 years. Nathaniel and Barbara Branden didn't have to tell those lies to Rand; they knew well enough how to be honest about the issues in question, thought they should be, and persisted in being dishonest. See, I agree with you and Jim about this.
But it simply does not follow that because two other people lied to Rand for 4 1/2 years, and at some later time they publicly criticized her character and actions, that Rand had no moral failings. Indeed, there is other evidence concerning Rand's character and actions besides NB and BB's memoirs. Some of it comes from Rand's own writings.
Robert Campbell
(Edited by Robert Campbell on 10/06, 5:49am)
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