Re: Rand and the Reality of Self-Sacrifice

From: Max Power (neptune@mars.superlink.net)
Date: Thu Aug 17 2000 - 00:39:13 MDT


On Tuesday, August 15, 2000 9:31 PM phil osborn philosborn@hotmail.com
wrote:
> If, as Rand argues, man - or any uploaded or SI progeny he may produce -
> has
> a specific nature - like every other thing in the universe - then he needs
> specific kinds of things to survive as the kind of being he is. That
> objective reality is the foundation for any discussion of objective value
> and thus what really constitutes selfishness.

I was going to comment on all of your stuff, but most of your post is laying
out a position I would disagree with in one paragraph, then refuting it in
the next paragraph. So, we are in general agreement, which is something to
be frightened of. I don't recall any previous time on this list someone has
agreed with me for such a long stretch.

As for Kant, I'm not the only person under Objectivist influence who does
not agree with Rand's unrelenting bashing of him. See, e.g., George Walsh's
"Ayn Rand and the Metaphysics of Kant" at
http://enlightenment.supersaturated.com/objectivity/walsh1/walsh.html (For
the record, I don't agree with all he has to say here. I won't go over that
here. Just wanted to point out that I'm far from being alone.)

Cheers!

Daniel Ust
http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/

A Poison Tree

I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I watered it in fears,
Night and morning with my tears;
And I sunned it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple bright.
And my foe beheld it shine.
And he knew that it was mine,

And into my garden stole
When the night had veiled the pole;
In the morning glad I see
My foe outstretched beneath the tree.
                    -- William Blake (1757-1827)



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