Blurts & Spasms

From the Quora discussion "Was Ayn Rand's application of her ethical principles a reflection of their validity?"

Was L.Ron Hubbard's application of his ethical principles a reflection of their validity?

Scientific consensus at this point in time is that we humans develop our ethical compass through observation and imitation of the social behaviors of our family and social groups. Speculation over extant principles of moral behavior throughout much of human history has also been derived from observation and experience, and eventually the testing of those hypotheses using reason (in the case of Philosophy), controlled behavioral experiments (in the case of Psychology/Sociology), brain function in response to stimuli (such as fMRI in Neurology), and parallel correlations across different species (as in Evolutionary Biology). All of these approaches add to the cumulative, constantly revising soup that validates or invalidates a given perspective.

If we treat Ayn Rand's ethical speculations as entertainment - akin to say, reading an Ursula K. Le Guinn science fiction novel - then I would agree that there is no need to evaluate her embodiment of her proposed principles. In the same vein, if Ayn Rand had expressed her views with the same humility and intellectual openness as, say, Aristotle or Spinoza, then we might also be willing to cut her some slack regarding their implementation; although Aristotle and Spinoza seem honest and earnest about their views, a reader gets the impression that they are often just "thinking aloud," discussing an array of tentative conclusions from observations they have made, rather than employing the emphatic forcefulness of, say, a prophet or a politician.

But Ayn Rand was not humble - she instead tended toward the pedantic, self-aggrandizing and arrogant, and to a degree that she emulated the initiation of intellectual force of many prophets and politicians throughout history. And, similar to the way in which L.Ron Hubbard created a religion from his fantastical imaginings, Ayn Rand nurtured a devoted following of her speculations, which ultimately resulted in a cultish ideology mired in irrational groupthink - a cult of personality that relied more on charismatic authority than intellectual honesty if you will. In other words, a following that was not rational in its self-interest. So in Rand's case, unless we view her beliefs and works entirely as entertainment, then our natural tendency as human beings will be to contrast and compare the way she lived with the ideals she promoted, and from all accounts her life embodied incongruence and hypocrisy in this regard. And so, because this is how humans have "validated" professed beliefs over millennia, and how we continue to do this in the scientific age, in Rand's case we can't help but conclude that her application of professed principles clearly falls short of her ideals.

At the end of his life, Jean-Paul Sartre abandoned his writing and speculation, and committed himself to social action instead. He felt that his previous intellectualizations were a bourgeois preoccupation, a poor substitute for making a real difference in society. He even went so far as to decline a Nobel Prize for his writing, and instead lived simply and with a passionate commitment to humanitarian principles and activism. Why did he do this? I think because he intuitively recognized the point I have been arguing here: that to profess the validity of certain ideals, but not live them, is the surest way to damage the credibility (and viability) of those ideals. In this way integrity, credibility and viability are intimately connected.

My 2 cents.

Comment from Godfrey Silas (Sept 24, 2022): "“…in Rand's case we can't help but conclude that her application of professed principles clearly falls short of her ideals.”

This is a beautifully written, logically compelling argumentation. I have offered an upvote in keeping with my intellectual response.

But here is my departure:

Rand could have fallen short of her ideals; yet, is it possible that it does not vitiate the exemplary and indubitable force of those ideals?

Plato could not prove the absolute falsifiability of Platonic Forms. Still, those forms remain powerful in speculative thought. Much as the field of psychology has disavowed Freud’s UNCONSCIOUS while hanging on to psychiatry.

Mark you, this does not compare her to Plato. Just an example."

You are of course correct that a lack of embodiment does not, in and of itself, constitute the irrefutable inadequacy of a given body of concepts. Unfortunately, in Rand’s case, the “absolute falsifiability” of objectivist ideals has indeed been proven (to my mind at least) many times over by both real-world evidence and simple common sense; her further failure to embody these ideals is just icing on this non-reifiable cake in that regard.

Take for example the extensive evidence from behavioral economics, or the research of neurologist Antonio Damasio, both of which soundly refute a framing of human behavior, ethics, and choices as “rational” or even capable of being grounded in reason alone. We are primarily emotional creatures who then post-rationalize our decisions and actions…a reality that soundly contradicts Rand’s objectivist assertions (but nonetheless does adequately explain many of Rand’s own self-contradictory attitudes, choices, and behaviors).

We also know that laissez-faire is not a sustainable long-term trajectory. In every historical case where laissez-faire conditions generated wealth, that wealth was always concentrated in a tiny minority and simply did not benefit society as a whole unless and until civic institutions intervened to “redistribute” the wealth that was being generated, and then — in most cases — changed how that productivity was either “owned” and managed into a more collective arrangement. Sweden is perhaps the best historical example of this — see the link below:

T. Collins Logan's answer to Is Laissez-faire capitalism possible in the current world, and if it was possible would the world be a better place if everyone followed the economical principals of this idea?

However, the main thrust of my answer here was focused around how human beings tend to assess credibility of a given meme and then transmit it via mimesis. We are hardwired imitators — albeit imitators who can tolerate a high degree of cognitive dissonance. Once invested, we then tend to counter and suppress that cognitive dissonance with highly irrational emotional convictions. Currently, our planet is reeling from various strains of toxic groupthink that are, seemingly, mired in such evidence-defeating ideology. The real problem with Randian objectivism is that, in its intoxicating misunderstanding of causal relationships, it is seductively easy for adherents to embrace her abstract principles and begin filtering their own observations through heady but incorrect distortions. The inevitable consequence is then an ongoing confirmation bias that closes itself off to any contradictory evidence.

My 2 cents.