| | Objectivists call it "laissez faire" and make it a moral system that people can (indeed, must) choose to adopt. However, the Austrians call it "praxeology" and say that it describes how human action works. The difference is that to be successful, Objectivism must convert people -- either enough "ordinary" people or a smaller number of "intellectuals", whereas praxeology, being a description of reality need only be adopted by you to make you more successful.
Stephen Knoll wrote: "Additionally a court system allows for artificial enforcement of natural property rights, settle unavoidable disputes and apply artificial punishment to those of us that attempt force or fraud on other sovereign individuals."
1. In other discussions, I questioned the definition of "fraud." Perhaps, like the distinction between "art" and "pornography" we know it when we see it, even if we cannot define it rigorously. That might be fine for mere mortals, but Objectivists demand objective definitions, logically consistent and empirically verifiable. No definition of "fraud" meets that test.
2. It might be argued that all disputes are "avoidable." We know for a fact that many disputes never come to court. In America, we have a highly developed -- though largely invisible -- tradition of arbitration. Govern-mentality gives us television dramas about courts, but none about arbitrators. Additionally, television (and radio before it) delivers stories about "police" (with some nod to private detectives) while private security guards are commonly objects of popular derision. I am currently researching the Great Medieval Fairs. At this time, the town of Troyes in Champaigne gave us the "troy ounce." It was also a center of Jewish learning. Fair Courts met the needs of merchants from many different places who had to resolve problems in some way that restored balance without cutting off anyone's hands. There was no discussion of "natural rights to property."
The concept of "rights" serves to limit government. Absent government, you have no need for "rights." Read the Magna Carta, then consider the arguments about federal funding of colonial war debts. The barons demanded and won their "right" to fix their own bridges.
(Admittedly, some anarcho-theorist might explain a moral foundation for praxeology. To be objectively correct, it would need to apply to Klingons and Vulcans as well as humans, i.e, to all sentient, volitional creatures.)
3. At the end of Atlas Shrugged, Judge Narragansett is "correcting" the US Constitution, removing the "contradictions" from it. What we see him do is assert a natural right to property: "Congress shall make no law abriding the right to property..." (That would certainly stop taxation cold.) What of the other contradictions?
I am reading The Anti-Federalist Papers compiled by Ralph Ketchum -- and there are several such anthologies including some online. Where is the objective requirement for an electoral college? Should the President be elected instead by the governors of the states? Should there be national laws for electing national officials, i.e, property requirements (or not) poll taxes (or not) nationally applied? These debates from the time highlight many alternatives to drawing up the Constitution. There is little -- if anything -- "objective" about the U.S. Constitution. It is a wonderful arrangement, to be sure. Long, hard thought and debate created it. Yet, along the way, many alternatives were possible, many of them just as good as the final decisions. So what is an "objective" government?
Robert Malcom wrote: "... it took hundreds of years before Christianity became a reckening or influential force..."
Well, that depends on what you mean. Arianism, Mithratic cults, and of course Platonism were all threads in the rope. A thousand years later and you have the Albigensians and Bogomils. We might even consider Islam to be an offshoot of Christianity since Jesus as Christ appears a couple dozen times in the Quran and Mary is most often called either the Virgin or the Mother of God or both. What I read in what you wrote is that it will take thousands of years for "everyone else" to be as rational as we are.
1. That may never happen. I believe that Objectivism falls into a (utopian) taxonomic fallacy when we say that everything that looks like you is a rational animal. In other words, other people may or may not have the same mentality you do. In fact, I am pretty sure that they do not. No one had to hold seminars to convince people to order pizza delivered rather than driving through McBurger. We adopted computering pretty much on our own -- albeit with some formal education. You don't get a lot of argument over which way car doors should open or the arrangment of buttons on a telephone. (Accountants do suffer with two ways to layout a 10-key adding machine.) Yet, we cannot convince everyone else in the world that they have a right to live their own lives. Why is that?
One answer might be that our "objective" philosophy is flawed and we are the only ones who cannot see it. Another answer might be that other people are just too stupid (however defined) to understand it. The truth might be something else that reflects both of those. Most people feel comfortable in tribes for strong genetic reasons and those few of us who can wander on our own are differently made. We perceive the world differently. We perceive ourselves differently.
2. Objectivism is indeed "influential." So is Scientology. The basic utopian fallacy transmogifies "all men are equal under the law" into "all men are interchangible." I am not even sure that everyone should be equal under the law. In another discussion here on SOLO, Objectivists argue against the "veil of ignorance" theory of John Rawls. Yet, what Rawls demonstrates is only a fallback position. In other words, we tend to want to minimize our risks first, and then maximize our profits. So, most people want a stable society -- one with healthcare according to the liberals -- and then they want the chance to achieve. So, too, do Objectivists insist on "natural rights" and "objective law" and "constitutional government" as a floor below which no society can sink.
If you read the biographies of ancient Greek philosophers, you will see that they usually lived long lives. Empedocles reliably lived to 100. I believe that this came from good plain food, honest physical labor, and knowing who they were, i.e, having a place in the universe. Philosophy is for individuals. Most people have no philosophy because most people are not individuals, but members of tribes. Not all featherless bipeds are rational animals and it is utopian to say that they are.
It is perhaps more than a happy accident that Thales, Siddhartha, and Kung fu Tze were nearly contemporaries. Had they met, they might even have been friends. It is unlikely that had they disagreed, they would have "had no choice" but to kill each other. Einstein did not accept quantum mechanics. The physicists did not need to kill each other for self-defense. When men of reason come together the consequences are predicated on the fact that the men reason.
(Edited by Michael E. Marotta on 5/08, 5:55am)
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