Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 Hi, how you doing?
Speaker 1 00:00:02 I'm good. Thanks. How are you?
Speaker 0 00:00:05 Awesome. Uh, and this is gonna be fun because we are doing and ask me anything. So I want to, uh, welcome everyone who's filtering in. I'm also gonna start ping a few others to join us. Um, I am the CEO of the Atlas society. I'm a founder, David Kelly, who is be taking your questions and, uh, if you're shy and don't have a question then, um, we've got quite a cue from our Instagram followers. Uh, every week we do two Instagram takeovers. Um, so by the way, if anybody would ever be interested in trying their hand, uh, as a, a guest on our Instagram takeover, then, uh, let me know. So invite, uh, invite Scott up here as well. And, um, yeah, again, ask your question, raise your hand, if you have a question, but David, I'm gonna just dip into our, uh, questions as I often do when I call you on my own, um, here is here is one, uh, who asks, what sort of evidence satisfies an objectiveist that a God exists?
Speaker 1 00:01:34 Well, okay. Uh, no real evidence, um, because there isn't any the, but if you ask what evidence would convince us, um, I, I think it would have to be monumental, um, because the whole premise of the existence of a God as a supernatural being is that he's beyond nature. Um, and most traditional conceptions is the creator of nature, which means that our Axiom existence exists is false. That existence was created by something outside, at least our world. And, um, I think we'd have to, uh, have credible, uh, observational sight of such a being, uh, or some extremely strong scientific evidence pointing in that direction. And there just isn't um, I mean, something, I, I I've actually, I'll go up, make it a little stronger, most concepts of God violate basic axioms of knowledge that, um, things are what they are that they obey calls or laws that they're not open to miracles or providential intervention by something outside nature. So, um, it would actually be a, uh, um, contradict contradiction in terms to think of what evidence would be like, because, you know, it would, it was just, it would, it would undercut the very foundations of all knowledge and therefore we couldn't possibly have knowledge of such a thing. It would be, um, incoherent it's like asking what would, what would the evidence be for a square circle as a contradiction? You, there can't be any,
Speaker 2 00:03:33 What else she appears to have gone for a moment? Um, you know, I used to, uh, I talked to some missionaries when I was a teenager and, uh, exploring, and I remember saying, you know, Hey, if I'm being shot at and all of a sudden I'm in purgatory, yes, I will consider that evidence.
Speaker 1 00:03:53 <laugh>. Um, how would you know you were in purgatory?
Speaker 2 00:03:58 Well, you just, uh, <laugh> yeah. I mean, yes, I'm just saying at that point, if I'm seeing an afterlife, I'm starting to, uh, you know, get into the more believer spirit.
Speaker 1 00:04:10 Yeah. I, uh, there's a lot of, uh, uh, even videos. Uh, I've seen a few by people who have near death experiences and say they were, um, briefly, um, in heaven or in hell and, uh, you know, people, but, but <laugh>, you'd have to know that you died and that this was no longer the place you were in, as opposed to having a delusion, um, or finding yourself in a really Dan crappy basement, um, where you couldn't see anything or hear anything. I, I don't know. What, how would you, you couldn't identify it if you had no frame of reference, um, in real, in, you know, natural reality to, uh, um, to put it in the context of, so, um, I don't know, it's, it's kind of, there, there have been in the history of philosophy, there have been many, many philosophical arguments, regards existence, um, as well as many reported, um, um, incidents, um, of miracles or, um, appearances of like the face of Christ on a, on, you know, on a burial sheet or something, all of these, you have to weigh, weigh the plausibility that any of these actually point to on a contradictory, um, conception of reality versus the likelihood that the result of illusion or there's some other, um, problem in the, the philosophical arguments I are just, um, just not, are just not sound.
Speaker 0 00:06:04 All right. Well, um, thanks some of you guys raising your hand, um, Jonathan, welcome to clubhouse and welcome to our room. Do you have a question for professor Kelly, Jonathan, you'll have to unmute yourself And as you're trying to do that, Alison.
Speaker 3 00:06:29 Yeah. Hi. Um, thank you for taking my call. Um, I have a quick question about a definition. Um, is there a, how does an ideology differ from a philosophy? Is there a distinction worthy of a difference, I guess, or are they synonymous? Cause when I look up the definition of ideology, it there's about eight definitions, but one of 'em is a science of ideas. That to me seems a little platonic, but maybe that is, you could also define philosophy that way. I'm not sure.
Speaker 1 00:07:03 Oh, that's interesting. Um, actually we have a, uh, a short, um, pocket guide it's called the pocket guide to terms and it's a list of, uh, key philosophical terms, um, and with definitions and explanations, um, and one entry is ideology. And I would say the distinction is, um, Andy is normally restricted, uh, to a, or focused on a political philosophy that the, the issue philosophical issue of politics and, um, laying out a vision of what a good society is now that necessarily has ethical prepositions and, um, like Marxism or classical liberalism as ideologies is certainly are based on premises and philosophy. But the, um, the focus is more specifically on, on, uh, political arrangements. And I think in ideology normally has some kind of program or strategy for, uh, embodying and, and making their ideology, um, work in a society. So the, the definition you mentioned, it's not what I'm familiar with, but I suspect what it, that, that it's a science of ideas.
Speaker 1 00:08:31 Um, I suspect I could be wrong. I, and not, I've never seen it and I haven't seen your dictionary, but it sounds like it's the idea that, okay, we have a science of ideas, maybe like the sociology of science, for example, this it's a, it's a study of scientific knowledge and it sounds like ideology is the theology. So, uh, uh, the subject that still, that covers ideas, I that's the intended meeting, I'm guessing, but main use of VIY is as a, um, politically focused, um, broad, not single issue, but broad vision of a good society with some strategy for how to implement it.
Speaker 0 00:09:21 Thank you.
Speaker 1 00:09:25 Thank you. It was a good question.
Speaker 0 00:09:30 All right. Uh, Jonathan looks like you were able to access that. You have a
Speaker 5 00:09:35 Question for you. Yeah. Hopefully, hopefully you guys can hear me. Okay. Um, yeah, we do. So, yeah, so I knew, uh, David, uh, Kelly back at, uh, back in his days at Vassar almost 20 years ago. So it's nice to talk to you again, David. Um, so when I'm thinking about, uh, the, the, the course of the pandemic, um, I'm thinking that if, uh, Anne ran was to come back to life today, the heroes, uh, of the pandemic would be amongst other people. Uh, all of the people who made our vaccines, who created them, uh, the scientists who discovered them, the sort of, uh, unknown Hungarian woman who came up with mRNA and all the people who ran the trials were volunteers for the trials, et cetera. And I think the villains of the pandemic in her book would be all the people who are trying to undermine faith in vaccines and, you know, say that they don't work and they're not needed, et cetera, but I've seen the Atlas society align themselves with people who have worked very hard to undermine faith in vaccines and have spread misinformation about vaccines. And I was just wondering if you could comment on why that is because it's very surprising to me that the people who, in my opinion would be Anne ran, Villa villains are getting space on the society page to extol the virtues of natural immunity and to badmouth vaccines. And I'm not even talking about opinions about vaccine mandates. I'm talking about fed, spreading fake numbers. Well, let's give steps, misinformation. Thank you.
Speaker 1 00:11:09 Um, well thanks, Jonathan. Um, I'm not sure what you're referring to on our website. Um, I know that we've, um, hope some things by Jeffrey Tucker who was, uh, you know, an adamant, um, opponent of block downs, uh, and some of the other mandates, uh, from government. I, um, I don't know. I don't think I could be wrong as opposed to vaccines Jack, do you do you know?
Speaker 0 00:11:36 No. Um, I mean, certainly the, uh, the scientists and the inventors of these new medical technologies are heroes. Um, and, uh, but we have had critics of lockdowns on, uh, not just Jeffrey Tucker, Phil Curpin, um, we've had, uh, Scott Atlas on and, um, you know, I, I think it's possible to point out, uh, the obvious, which is that, uh, the vaccines have not worked as promised. Um, they, they do not stop transmission, uh, or, uh, infection. Um, they have limited durability, um, but they do protect against, uh, serious illness. So, um, I, I think that if anyone has undermined confidence in, um, in the VA in vaccine technology in general, it would have to be those who have, uh, continued to, um, to deny some of these limitations with vaccines, um, and have spread disinformation about a whole bunch of things, including the EF efficacy of, of masks. So, uh, definitely make no apology for trying to get us grounded in, in the reality of what, what these medicines and technologies, um, can do, and also what they can't. So,
Speaker 1 00:12:58 But I, I would add, um, and I, I have huge admiration and gratitude to the scientist who developed, uh, these vaccines at an UN UN completely UN unprecedented pace of speed really within, I think it was certainly within nine months granted they had the basis in, um, the research on messenger RNA, but the, um, you know, that was heroic. The it's hard to separate sometimes what the, the medical profession does, the scientific and biological profe, uh, professionals do from what the government does, because the whole, there's such a mixed economy and, and especially in healthcare, um, and, and medical research. So, you know, I'm, um, and that's, that's something that, that raises, you know, important issues about, um, from a objective standpoint about the role of government, but the, um, I don't see how any could have anything, but, you know, admiration for the GA like, um, genius of developing those vaccines and you know, how, how well they work.
Speaker 1 00:14:15 Um, you know, there's no, there's no magic bullet. Um, our bodies are really complicated. Viruses are surprisingly complicated for their simple minds or a simple structure. And, um, and so, you know, and naturally we're finding out as we go along, but, uh, we are in such better shape, uh, from vaccines and, and from natural immunity as well. Um, that, you know, I, you know, I, I was a kid before the polio vaccine was invented and it was a godsend, uh, when Sal owned the Sal vaccine and there was an earlier one too, came out. Um, the life setting potential of vaccines is amazing. So anyway.
Speaker 0 00:15:07 Okay, great. Um, Jason, I invited you up just cuz I love having you near me all the time, so, but you know, feel free to unmute at any point, if you have a question or, uh, wanna add additional commentary, but if not, uh, I'd love to go to Christopher.
Speaker 6 00:15:27 Uh, yeah, I've got a, uh, question for David. Um, I was wondering about the, um, the world health organization, pandemic treaty that's been recently announced and your opinion of it. Uh, from what I understand, they'd have, um, uh, what do you call it? Um, say, so over individual governments of individual, uh, countries in, in terms of, um, in, in future, um, uh, crises, if you like,
Speaker 1 00:16:07 I, I I'm, I'm, I'm gonna have to, uh, pass on that one, cuz I'm just not familiar with, uh, this, uh, w H O recent, um, plan. I, I don't have a high opinion of them, um, in the beginning, especially their, um, aligns with the and help to, um, the Chinese government put aside, um, put side out some myth, but, um, I, I just don't know enough to answer your question. I, I, I don't like the idea if just taking your description sounds like awful idea
Speaker 0 00:16:46 That I think particularly when we are in the process of learning, developing new technologies, testing out different kinds of policy responses, uh, various, uh, government interventions, it's good to have an opportunity to try different things in different places and, um, see what works and, and what works less well. We had that here in the United States, uh, to the extent that different states could try, um, different policies, Florida on, you know, one end and New Jersey and New York and California on the other. And now we can go back and we could say, gee were the tradeoffs we made really worth it. Um, similarly, internationally, uh, comparing outcomes in Australia and their policies to, with Sweden and their policies. And, um, I think that that if, uh, we had a kind of uniform top door down solution, we'd, uh, we'd be missing that. So, um, and I'm going to bring professor Salzman up. Did you have, did you wanna jump in on that Richard or Jason or
Speaker 7 00:17:56 No, I had sure they had a new, a new question. I wanted to ask David
Speaker 8 00:18:00 I'll, I'll go after I had a new question as well. I'll go after Jason.
Speaker 0 00:18:04 All right. Okay, Jason, go ahead.
Speaker 7 00:18:07 Hi, David. Uh, the, the question I wanted to ask you is something that, um, has, I won't say vex vexed me, that's too strong, a word, something that reading Rand's philosophy over many decades has always sort of, um, troubled me. And it's the question of the I, the tenability of the notion of a self-sufficient ego that often gets conflated with emotional self-sufficiency. I can understand the idea of a self-sufficient ego strictly in terms of the values and the principles that one holds that are tested against an objective reality that don't need to be corroborated by any one person, because one has already sort of tested their they've been corroborated by an external objective reality. But I think quite often in the novels that that gets sort of conflated with emotional self sufficiency. And we see some of the characters saying like emotions be damned, and I don't think ran herself could abuse herself as evidence of someone who is emotional self-sufficient.
Speaker 7 00:19:14 And, um, she clearly needed her husband and she said that to, without him, she couldn't have gotten through the fountain head and, and, and one of the most, um, um, I think delightful lines that she wrote in the fountain head was that a spirit can, or she might have written it elsewhere. A spirit can run dry and will need fuel. So I, I wanted to get your take on this because in the strictly limited sense of a self-sufficient ego, that doesn't where the ego is the seat of itself, but that part of the ego that doesn't need one, doesn't become a social meta pH meta physician here. One doesn't need to run a poll about the opinions or the ideas, the ideas, or the philosophical viewpoints that one has, but what troubles means that very often that emotion, that ego self sufficiency gets conflated with emotional self sufficiency that we see in the, in the characters and, um, where they sort of exist as brains and cased and flesh. And I wonder if you could just sort of comment on that if you see that sort of conflation going on sometimes between and ego, self sufficiency and emotional self sufficiency, which the latter I think is just of course, empirical, impossible and not tenable psychologically at all.
Speaker 1 00:20:41 Yeah. Uh, that's an interesting distinction, Jason. Um, um, thanks for that. I, it's not something that has troubled me, but maybe it's because I, um, I just have way, I, I think it you're 22 is something thats in Rand's novels anyway. Um, and especially the fountain head, uh, you know, <laugh>, it was a funny, uh, the couples, a couple of really revealing, um, scenes, um, about Howard Warren, the way ran describes him. Um, first of all, that, you know, in the very opening of the book, um, as after he's been out swimming and thinking about, um, what, what he's gonna do now that he's been expelled from Stan, um, Institute, uh, he just walks back and, you know, just as a line, something like he could walked naked to the town and, uh, you know, wouldn't have bothered him, whoever he was just not at tuned into people even more revealingly after, um, the scene of meeting. And, um, uh, let's just say being intimate with Dominique, uh, in the quarry scene, uh, the quarry episode, he get, he gets a letter, um, from, um, someone who wants to him to work as an architect. He gets on a train and says it was strange for him to think of being aware of another person.
Speaker 1 00:22:22 I, I I've come to see that, um, as Rand's literary effort to, to refine a, a character to emphasize his, his personal selfsufficiency and, uh, and, and partly by the literary technique of giving him a personality, not a character, but personality, trait of, uh, being, um, what we might call a loner or, you know, self-sufficient, uh, more, you know, less, less outgoing then, uh, other people might, but on the other hand, you know, later in the found handbook says to tells Dominique, I can't live without you. You know, I, I, I can't live for you, but, you know, you mean so much to me. Uh, I have to let you find your own way, um, to where you need to be. So, but philosophically ran is very clear. I think that emotions are, um, important. They're crucial all over pre theory of art. Um, the things she says, not fictionally about, about love and in, in, even in ATLA shrugged, if you look at, um, you know, the characters that are Dagney, for example, there are many scenes in which she is having extremely powerful emotions and also is very socially attuned.
Speaker 1 00:23:59 Um, I've written about some of those in my book under rugged individualism. Um, it's a kind of a kind of benevolence. Um, she understands people very quickly, like the, uh, conductor that she meets, um, who tells her the story about the Star's, uh, factory. So she, um, I, I think it's, it's quite clear that, and I certainly believe as, you know, as a principal of objectiveism love friendship, um, are, are among, you know, are really, really important social values. I E either high on the list of values, um, as is trade and all, all the personal things you have to do to make a successful business run or, um, uh, learning. I mean, you and I are intellectuals. We, um, we engage all the time. We learn from talking to other people from reading the, their words of absorbing the, all the past knowledge. I mean, it's just, it's inspiring.
Speaker 1 00:25:09 And the ability to do that is a, a really essential life skill. So I, there, there has been a, there has been a sprain of repression on the part of objectiveness and psychologists have talked about Brandon, um, and various others that people said, well, I've gotta be like RO um, unfortunately I don't have red hair, but, um, I can be like him in, I just, by shutting everyone out. And, you know, that's the kind of repression that, um, you know, people who think for themselves and really understand what the philosophy means. Uh, don't, don't fall for that. But I, I, I, I, I guess it's a temptation because it's, it's, it's some, it's more common say than among objectives than among, probably among other groups. I'm sorry, I'm wandering around Jason. Um, there so many dimensions to your question, but let me leave it there.
Speaker 0 00:26:23 All right. And I just wanna let people know who are queued up. I, I do take prerogative to, to call on, um, our scholars when they join us in the room. So I'm gonna go to professor Richard Salzman.
Speaker 8 00:26:36 Thank you, David. Um, uh, good to talk to you again. It's been, it's been a while, Dave. Yeah. Uh, sorry. Been traveling. I have a question, David, uh, connecting the issue of open versus closed objectiveism and the branches of philosophy. Uh, but, but specifically objectiveism view of the hierarchical structure. So my question goes, something like this, I, I know that you took painstaking efforts in, uh, contested legacy. Uh, I believe it was chapter five to say, well, these are the essential, fundamental principles of, objectiveism not, you know, super derivative things. And, uh, that is what it means to, you know, advocate or profound objectiveism. And then of course build off of that. And so you took the challenge of saying, well, what are the essentials? And, and, and if you reject those, of course, it's not objectiveism, but I, I, over the years, I've got to thinking the idea that metaphysics epistemology, ethics, politics, and aesthetics are, are often, the branches are often taught in objectiveism as your metaphysics conditions, your epistemology, or those two, at least condition and heavily influence, you know, your ethics and politics.
Speaker 8 00:27:50 And it doesn't quite go to aesthetics after that, but here's my question or thought, and I wonder what you think of it. Is it possible to think of the five branches also along the lines of closed versus open in the following way? If you disagree with the objective is metaphysics, uh, you know, as opposed to aesthetics it's it's worse or, or, or put it it's more significant say, so for example, in metaphysics is someone said, well, I believe in two realities, or, or can I be an objectiveist and believe in God, there's, there's almost no quote there's, there is no question, right? That you're, that's no longer objectiveism. But if, as you go through the branches, you know, epistemology ethics, politics, we know objectives differ a lot on, you know, political candidates, foreign policy, but, but especially in aesthetics, you know, Beethoven <laugh> art is this too rationalistic my account of this cuz cause what I'm thinking of is can we think of the branches themselves and their hierarchical structure as places to look for, whether someone is really, uh, you know, building off of objectiveism or not put, put it another way, shouldn't we be more lenient on things like that's a good movie or not versus, uh, obviously, you know, God or not faith or not altruism or not.
Speaker 8 00:29:18 Does that make any sense or is that too, too rationalistic?
Speaker 1 00:29:23 Well, I think it makes sense. Um, because if we think of, of, of, you know, like what movies you like or what art you think is great, um, um, as opposed to, you know, is a law of causality true. Um, I that's a stark difference, but the, but the, uh, principles of ethics and politics and aesthetics are the principles, not the applications or judgements you about particulars that you base on, on those standards, but they are principles, but the principles themselves that man needs art, for example, I think that's, I don't think that was on my list because that, that is itself fairly derivative. Um, and there's a very good argument for it. I think, um, that, but it, it has to do with establishing, you know, explaining why aesthetic experience is, is a value. And, um, it, it, there are some things that are, you know, let me try at it from this angle.
Speaker 1 00:30:45 I think I agree with what you're saying in that metaphysics and epistemology are so fundamental and they're they're so they light that really at the foundations of, of our knowledge, uh, ethics is based the whole concept of value and concept of virtue, the concept of character. Um, these are very abstract print of ideas and, you know, in the chain of derivation, there's a lot going on. The whole issue of life is the ultimate standard. What that's anal an inductive generalization from observing, living creatures and among them human beings. And that's a much more advanced level of conceptual knowledge than, uh, grasping that ASA. So there's more room for error. Uh, first of all, and there's more room for, um, disagreement about the detail about the specific form, the details. Um, I, I had a, uh, one of the points that I made in, um, in contested legacy truth and toleration in that section was that, you know, supposed, you know, rationale, no one, anyone who says rationale is not a virtue.
Speaker 1 00:32:17 You know, they're, they're not an objective there, make no sense to, um, classify therapeutic that way. But someone who says, you know, lying is lying, always wrong. Well, now we get into considering examples and types of situations where the issue of honesty arises and you disagree with, uh, people can disagree about that. Even, you know, honest, honest to God, good, hard, hard carrying objectives like you and me. Um, we might differ on that. And then, uh, some, some things like as with more policy, you know, we've talked about this before. Some things rely, the principles are, are so general and they rely so much on issues and knowledge other than philosophy, like strategy and economic, uh, uh, history, strategy, economics, uh, political science, et cetera. And in aesthetics, my God, you, you have to understand a lot about art even to have a, you know, you know, considered opinion, um, about, but the, so I think you're right in the sense that the, the farther you get go away from the foundations, the more scope, the more complex the issues become, the more scope there is for discussion debate and, um, you know, disagreement within the framework.
Speaker 1 00:33:54 Yeah. I, again, I'm wondering a little bit, but I, I never thought of your question. So forgive me.
Speaker 8 00:34:01 No, that's very helpful. David I'm often asked, for example, in politics, I, I would sometimes say, well, if you're saying, you know, yeah, I see this individual rights argument. I think that's central to the objective as politics, but, you know, I think you should add positive rights, you know, to healthcare education. That is obviously not objectiveism, but if you said, um, you know, a woman can be president, that's perfectly fine, a Margaret Thatcher type. And you know, when we know that Iran said that's troubling, that's the problem. I mean, she wouldn't outlaw, but she had his whole theory of masculinity and femininity that said, you know, a woman is president is just not a good thing. It, that second one seems, you know, if you didn't believe that, I don't believe that, but does that make me not an objective? That that's the kind of example of yeah. The woman is president is more remote, right. As a political principal, it's almost psychology. Is that a good example or not?
Speaker 1 00:35:00 Well, I would say it's not even, that's not a philosophical issue. It's an application of,
Speaker 8 00:35:06 Um, yeah.
Speaker 1 00:35:07 Philosophical premise about leadership of a government and, uh, assumptions about masculinity femininity. And actually, I don't think the issue of what, what counts as sexual differences, differentiation, preference, uh, masculinity and gender. I think all of that is, is, goes beyond what you can say, philosophically and establish philosoph, pure philosophical grounds. Right. Um, and so, I mean, it's really psychology. I, yeah. And that, that may be something where I disagree with ran. I don't know. I, I, I don't think I'm a usual in that, in that view among objectives. Um, I mean currently, so, um, yeah.
Speaker 8 00:35:54 Great. Thank you, David. Thank you.
Speaker 1 00:35:56 Thank you, James. Troy.
Speaker 0 00:35:58 Thanks for your patience.
Speaker 9 00:36:01 Thank you. Uh, my, my understanding of theist, uh, defense of freedom is that, uh, we require political freedom because we need to use our mind to survive and force, uh, paralyzes the mind. And I think about an example, I read in a book many years ago during world war II, the Nazis used Jewish prisoners and forced them to make weapons, to construct weapons that were to be used against, uh, the Germans enemies and the Nazi prisoners found ways to sabotage these weapons. So they wouldn't function properly. And the response was to assign one guard to watch every prisoner as the prisoner was assembling these weapons. And yet they still found a way to sabotage the weapons so that they wouldn't function properly. That's clearly a case where a tremendous amount of force, the, basically the threat of death is being used against someone yet it did not paralyze their mind. And so I'm wondering what would be the objectiveist response if the story is indeed true? I, I don't know that it's true, but I did read it in a book, a textbook, uh, if it is indeed true, what would be the objectiveist response to that counter example about force not paralyzing the mind?
Speaker 1 00:37:45 Um, that's interesting cuz um, I, I have to say I never fully, you know, agreed with or under maybe just haven't understood fully what ran meant by saying paralyzing the mind. Um, it's a, first of all, it's a metaphor. Um, you can't paralyze the mind. You can paralyze, uh, short of izing someone and, or, um, doing something else, physi physiological. But if, if the person's mind is functioning, um, you can't stop it from thinking what you can do is, is stop a person from acting on it. Um, but more, more importantly, I think the reason for rights is yes, we to act independently and coercion is the depriving a person of his ability to act independently by imposing the threat of, um, of some kind of loss or destruction. But the there's a much more, there's a, a power, a positive argument, which also, which is interest rational, interest don't conflict.
Speaker 1 00:39:01 We have much more to gain from dealing with people by trade, win, win, uh, trade in all realms, not just financial or business, but uh, emotional, um, academic, whatever. Uh, we, we have much more to gain by dealing with people and tapping into and benefiting from their rational capacity than we have in suppressing their rational capacity, threatening it or making it difficult for them to act on. So I think the, um, both the, the negative argument, uh, about how force interferes with the person's ability to act independently and the positive argument about all the benefits of dealing with people and, and tapping into their independent action in, in trade, um, is, is both sides are important in the theory of rights.
Speaker 11 00:39:57 All right. Thank
Speaker 1 00:39:58 You very much, David.
Speaker 0 00:40:02 All right, Phil, Phil doesn't look like you are muted, but, uh, you may be having issues with, um, with clubhouse. So if you want maybe sign out and come back and join us. I'll put you at top of John, our dear friend, John Lang.
Speaker 11 00:40:29 First. I'd like to say that today it earlier today, I listened to Richard's presentation on, um, capitalism as the habitat for humanity. I just wanted to say, sir, that was excellent. Um, now for David, um, uh, this is perhaps sophomore could betrays my, my ignorance. Um, when we, when we to define objectiveism as a system whereby I use my personal subjective ideas of how my life's self-interest is served. I see a contradiction there. If, if you could explain that away for me,
Speaker 1 00:41:20 Uh, can, can you help me first of all, by saying when you, what you meant by saying, uh, you're subjected ideas? Well,
Speaker 11 00:41:28 Yeah, I mean, if, if, if the ultimate value is human life, my human life, and I serve that through my self-interest and I, in terms of rational self-interest and I use the powers of reason to do that. That seems subjective yet. We call that objectiveism.
Speaker 1 00:41:55 Yeah. You know, when, when I was, uh, in high school and reading Rand for the first time, and I was, I used to argue with the dinner table, with my father all the time, used a lawyer, kind of a Roosevelt liberal, um, which would put him in a conservative pass today. But anyway, um, he, he said he, he kept referring to my philosophy of subjectivism because, uh, and maybe that's the, the same issue, um, that you're getting at it's meaning every human being is a subject of knowledge and of subject or Asian of action. And we are pursuing our self interest as opposed to sacrificing, but there's nothing subjective in the sense of arbitrary or whim worshiping in pursuing yourself interest. That's there's an objective basis. Why philosophically, um, our self-interest is the, the proper ultimate standard for action. And, um, if you, uh, we all differ in the specifics of what is in our interest, depending on all kinds of factors, but if you are rational in, in pursuing your interest, then it's not subjective subjective in, in that sense means in, in cognition means ignoring reality or, or being arbitrary or not using, you know, proper rational methods.
Speaker 11 00:43:28 That answers the question. Thank you. Yeah, it it's the, the rationality renders the subjective reference objective.
Speaker 1 00:43:40 Uh, okay. Let's
Speaker 11 00:43:42 Yeah, fine. I'm happy. Thank you.
Speaker 0 00:43:45 Thanks John. Thanks, John. And, um, folks, I, I, uh, just pin the link to the, um, presentation that John referenced, um, professor Salman's presentation to, uh, students in Pennsylvania. So, um, let's see, Carl, do you have a question for professor David Kelly?
Speaker 12 00:44:10 Thank you. Uh, so David, um, so ran held that seven Cardinal virtues, a rationality independence, integrity, honesty, justice productiveness, and pride served three core values of reason purpose and self-esteem, and you've written that benevolence is a virtue on grounds of self interest. So, uh, first, uh, do you hold that benevolence serves some value separate from reason purpose and self-esteem and then relatedly, do you hold that benevolence in some context is a major value on par with, or a major virtue rather on par with rands, uh, seven virtues?
Speaker 1 00:44:55 Um, yeah. Interesting question. Thanks, Clark. Uh, I, the, when I, when I developed and, and brought up the analysis of benevolence, um, I was saying, you know, what, what is a virtue has to be aimed at some value? And the value I said was, um, great, um, productive, positive win-win relationships with other people, again, in, in any realm, economic, personal, or whatever. And so, um, now that is a specific value rash. It, it's not a level rationality, certainly because that, that is universal applies to every single aspect of life productiveness well, that aims at, um, providing for oneself. And, um, it, it, it has somewhat more of, of a limited scope in terms, the value that you see in productiveness is maintaining a purpose yes. Of which purpose. Um, I would say, um, we have many purposes being purpose if deliberate and thoughtful interactions is universal.
Speaker 1 00:46:07 So, and if that's what we mean by purpose as a value, it's more general than what I would say about benevolence. Um, the, but the, as I see it anyway, um, you could say every virtue is a form of rationality, that's it, there's one, there's a master virtue of rationality, but the reason we have, we break it down and, and say, well, one aspect is not making reality. So that's honesty. Another one is making rational judgments about other people that's justice. Um, and benevolence is I, in my view, um, uh, a form of, of dealing with others in a rational way, it's actually kind of paralleled with justice. I think we do work hand in hand together. So it, it it's a form of rationality, but also a form of, of being purpose and delivering it, let me put it this way. All the virtues serve all the values. Um, it's not like a mechanical system, uh, or mathematical system where, you know, each, each thing is a pre element and, um, isolated from the others.
Speaker 12 00:47:35 Oh. So if you were to write another book on, on virtue, what, what might you add on, uh, in addition to benevolence and also, uh, do you think that reason purpose and self-esteem are jointly exhaustive of the core values that support our lives at that level of abstraction?
Speaker 1 00:47:54 You know, I honestly, if I were sitting down without the benefit of brands writing to say, okay, what are the, what are the, the absolutely core values I'm I'm far from sure. I would've come even close to that, um, that those three values, but there, as I have thought about it, I do think that they are they're exhaustive in a sense. And I'll, I'll just try to summarize this as explained to greater length in our book, uh, only online it's, um, the logical structure of objectiveism, um, and that here here's the, here's the idea, any purpose of action that you take, any conscious deliberate action you take has an agent that's, you has a purpose, a goal that it aims at, and it has an intended beneficiary.
Speaker 1 00:48:52 So reason is the, uh, view of the agent. Uh, you, you, as an agent, you, you are exercising your in instrument of reason in any action. You are aiming for some goal that's purpose, and you are aiming to benefit yourself. Um, that's self-esteem and so those are the three dimensions of any deliberate action. And I think the values line up very well with those. So I'm not sure that there would be any, um, additional value virtues, you know, the virtues that ran mentioned you could slice and dice in, in a number of different ways. Um, I think, you know, the seven or eight <laugh>, um, that we refer to most often are, are, that's a good ethic. Um, but there's so much overlap say between, um, honesty and justice, an example, um, it's unjust to be, to, to deceive someone. So always out of failure of justice or of honesty. Well, it's, we have to go back to foundation of rationality for that, how you classify these things is less important than understanding, you know, the principles, but, and all right, back here, bin, I have no, I'm not AP to increase virtues. Um, I'm my field is epistemology. I'm waiting for someone, uh, who's better at ethics than I am to <laugh> continue expanding.
Speaker 0 00:50:35 All right. Thank you. And, um, professor Steven Hicks just joined the room, so I want to recognize him and Phil, it looks like you got back in and you were able to unmute. So I'm gonna go to you before going to Clark. We've got nine more minutes and hopefully we'll get to the, both of you.
Speaker 14 00:50:53 Okay. Who's up next, Amaya.
Speaker 0 00:50:56 Yes, you are.
Speaker 14 00:50:58 Oh, okay. Speaking of epistemology, David, I, um, when I read introduction to objective epistemology, I thought, wow. Okay. When is the complete book on epistemology coming out? You know, that's, uh, basically concept theory, but, um, what I would like to ask you to do hopefully by next week is to do an outline of a complete epistemology and, uh, you know, what I'm interested in, and of course I'm joking, but, um, what I'm interested in is what might the table of contents be like for a complete epistemology? What would it look like? What are the central issues sort of maybe even a taxonomy. And I'm wondering if, if anybody has done anything along those lines, whether they be an objectiveist or a NONOBJECT and it would really be a good essay just to try and outline what are the branches, um, the taxonomy of the central issues that need to be addressed in epistemology in an objective of epistemology?
Speaker 1 00:52:02 Well, actually, I, I sort of have something like that. I'm, I'm, um, hoping that, that I have time left to, uh, uh, put together and, and develop some of the essays I've written. Um, for example, we just, I have a paper I wrote some time ago, but, um, on propositions, uh, ran herself said that was his next step beyond concepts. There's the issue of certainty. There's the issue of induction. Um, But in a sense, um, there's already a book by Harry Biner called how we know that, um, is, you know, presents what he, um, intends to be systematic presentation of the objective epistemology. I, I, for things I disagree with, but it, it is, you know, it's pretty, pretty, pretty good in, in outlines. I, so, um, I'm not sure how, how I would exactly structure it, but, um, yeah, we'll get there one step at a time.
Speaker 0 00:53:10 Thanks, Clark.
Speaker 15 00:53:14 Yes. Uh, thank you, Jack. And, uh, first I just wanted to second that endorsement of Dr. Salman's presentation on, on capitalism, uh, the operatable habitat for humanity. That's an excellent, excellent presentation. Everyone needs to see that. I'm not sure if Greta Sundberg or AOC, if they see that, that they necessarily would go on Twitter and say, gee, all these years I've been wrong, cuz ideas, I guess don't really work that way. But that actually leads me to my question for, for Dr. Uh, Dr. Kelly, uh, how do we account as objectiveness for phenomena that happened, which there doesn't appear to be a philosophical basis for us. And I'm thinking in particular of how, you know, 1978 dunks ping and China decided, uh, to free up the Chinese economy. And, and we now know all these years later that that resulted in the greatest uplift of, uh, uplift out of poverty in, in human history.
Speaker 15 00:54:15 And yet from, from all we know, dunk sh ping, didn't read Atlas, or didn't read me's human action, or, you know, or even's economics in one lesson, and yet still, and, you know, those are all works, that everybody in the west, all the economists in the west and the thinkers in the west, we have immediate access to all this great knowledge. And yet here we are halfway across the world all these years ago, dunk CPE just decides to, to become more capitalist. And it has all these well, obviously a great bene benefit to, to humanity. All those milli, literally hundreds of millions of people were lit, lifted out of poverty. So, you know, for a philosophy like objectiveism what, you know, ideas obviously are the, the prime mover of history. How do we account for a phenomena like that?
Speaker 1 00:55:07 Uh, the phenomenon being that, um, the liberation, uh, under thing of in, I guess, Sergeant the seventies, um,
Speaker 15 00:55:17 Yes.
Speaker 1 00:55:18 What, how did, how did he do that? Would that have been of projectism or, uh, has led or Mike ESES? Well, yes, he had, he had the awareness of the west as a very rich, um, successful, um, economically successful set of countries. And, you know, I, he didn't even need to REM Smith to, to, to be able to see that, you know, there was a, they had free markets, relatively free markets. So there's a lot of, um, a lot of learning by observation, historical and contemporary observation. Um, so I, I, that would be my answer. Um, but I'm not sure that, you know, there's a lot more to it. I, but, uh,
Speaker 0 00:56:16 Yeah, I'd, I'd add of course that, uh, the, the late economist, Robert Mundel had a thing or two to do with the economic liberalization of China.
Speaker 1 00:56:28 Okay, great. Yeah, there's a, there are people who could answer to this question, um, much better than I can, uh, uh, Ja and Richard, uh, uh, among many others. So, but I know we're getting close to our time, so thank you. We
Speaker 0 00:56:47 We're. Okay. Um, well, I want to thank everybody. Uh, thank especially our founder, David Kelly for, uh, coming and taking our questions today. Thanks to all of you who, uh, came to listen. And, and especially to those that you asked questions, we are a very busy week of clubhouse. Uh, tomorrow our professor, Jason Hill, senior scholar at the ATLA society is going to be doing a moral defense of elitism and meritocracy. Then on Tuesday, uh, we have Robert TRUS ontology and, um, on Wednesday we have a discussion between professor Steven Hicks and Roberts on art. And then on, uh, Thursday, we have, um, both, uh, professor Richard Salzman is gonna be doing and ask me anything on clubhouse. Um, for our student audience, he's gonna be doing one of his morals and markets sessions. And then finally on Friday, um, professor Jason Hill is gonna be doing, uh, a part two, um, in his world, defense of elitism and meritocracy. So, uh, please sign up for updates at the ATLA society. So you'll get notifications of these and any scheduling changes we may have, and, uh, hope to see you guys tomorrow. Thank you.
