San Diego Objectivist Study Group

A Houston Chronicle news clip announces: “Texas Doctors Opting Out of Medicare at Alarming Rate.” Though the total number of doctors who are opting out of the Medicare system is small in magnitude, the rate as measured from previous years is alarming. Rearranged as a table, here are the data for the state of Texas:

The numbers, however, only show one side of the issue. They show only those doctors who have made the decision to opt out. They do not show how many are contemplating it. According to a recent poll conducted by the Texas Medical Association, four in 10 doctors are considering the option.

Only four in 10! The only logical reason these four and the other six–all the doctors–have not left the Medicare system is that they are still motivated by altruism. Over and above their usual benevolence, it is altruism that is keeping doctors from exiting the government-run health care system.

Altruism, the moral doctrine that one’s action is judged moral only to the extent that it benefits others, is their controlling motive. Doctors, like anyone else, want to act morally. However, their morality has pitted them with a dichotomy: Stay with Medicare to help others and be moral, or opt-out to survive and be immoral. For these doctors, at least for now, the inertia of altruism is tugging them to stay with Medicare.

One can see how painful emotionally this moral tug is. Here is Dr. Guy Culpepper, a Dallas-area family practice doctor who opted out in March of this year: “I’ve been in practice 24 years, and a lot of my patients got old right along with me. It’s stressful to tell them you’re leaving Medicare and they’re responsible for payments if they want to stay with you. You feel like you’re abandoning them.”

Bob Bidinotto has written a timely report on a new scare campaign that is spun off from an older one. Based on the tactics of the campaign from the late 1980s against alar, a chemical growth agent sprayed on apples, the new scare campaign is against atrazine, a safe, widely used, fifty-year-old weed herbicide.

Proponents for banning atrazine include environmentalist group Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), The New York Times, and trial lawyers, led by the Texas law firm Baron & Budd. What do the proponents of the campaign count on? They count on the lack of memory of the original scare by the current generation of individuals comprising society. They count on the moral outlook that individuals cannot take care of themselves but must told by “society” how to live their lives. They count on the inertia from the political premise that the government—in this case, the Environmental Protection Agency—has the duty of protecting its citizens from nature. In other words, they are counting on the postmodern culture of the day.

A fruitful dialog began from a potential mistake of identity:

> Well, it’s a good thing I did not get up to make a fool
> of myself on that evening …

Imagine you did approach the person in question and assume him to be me, only to learn moments later that it was not me. Why do people feel so uncomfortable and/or embarrassed when they mistake someone’s identity? Have we been trained by society to be embarrassed in these situations, or is it a natural response? Are other primates or mammals capable of feeling embarrassment in general? What emotions require reason? Certainly fear does not require reason, but I think embarrassment does. Also betrayal, guilt, and the joy of accomplishing something difficult all require reason; hence animals cannot feel those higher emotions. Or can they? I don’t know.

Emotions are humanistic. What brutes experience may be said to be similar to a primitive form of emotion, but it is not emotion. Emotions are products of ideas; without them, we don’t emote. Like sensations, emotions are states of consciousness, but while the former are experienced causally by the direct stimulation of the object, the latter are experienced causally by both the object and its intellectual estimate. Watch enough America’s Funniest Videos, and you will see that toddlers begin with no fear of anything: they will put crickets in their mouths; they will swing snakes like ropes; they will crawl into the path of black cats.

Let’s suppose embarrassment is the emotion from seeing ineptitude in oneself in a public setting. I would feel embarrassed if, thinking myself to be refined in sartorial elegance, I showed up on a date with mismatched socks. In the same circumstance, I would not feel at all embarrassed if I thought elegance comes from refined control of one’s movements, but would instead if I picked up a glass and spilled its content.

An encounter with some anarchists at the recent ARI-sponsored lecture in La Jolla, California confirms for me two inferences: [1] ARI more and more is engaging directly with the public, especially with libertarian-leaning organizations—a reversal, which is great to see. And [2] anarchists aren’t freedom lovers. On the latter, here is why:

Interlocutor: Do you think government is a necessary evil, or an unnecessary evil?
Speaker: I think government is a necessary—what’s the opposite?—good.
Interlocutor: Really!

anarchism: the political doctrine that government is inherently oppressive and should be abolished for the sake of political liberty.

This is beyond false; it defies logic. The error is precisely the same as French anarchist Pierre Joseph Proudhon saying blatantly, “Property is theft.” The stolen concept here is “property.” The stolen concept there is “government.”

Just as there are entities that cannot be property (e.g., slaves), so there are governments that don’t deserve to exist (e.g., dictatorships). But these improper instances of each does not negate the respective proper concepts; rather, they reaffirm the causal identity for why property should exist (as the product of a man’s judgment and effort) or for why governments should exist (as instituted by men to protect their rights to life, liberty, and property). Only because each concept is legitimately grounded to man’s nature, giving rise to an objective standard, that we are able to distinguish some instances as improper.

Proudhon wanted to negate the concept “property” altogether; so too his modern aftchildren want to steal the concept “government” totally. But if so, “theft” is robbed of its core meaning, and “liberty” is forced out of society.

An intention without the proper means is worse than useless; it’s outright dangerous. Of an avowed socialist, Ayn Rand once wrote: “Feeling an enormous, incoherent benevolence, he was impatiently eager to abolish any form of human suffering, and he proclaimed ends, without thinking of means: he wanted to abolish poverty, with no idea of the source of wealth; he wanted the people to be free, with no idea of what is necessary to secure political freedom; he wanted to establish universal brotherhood, with no idea that force and terror will not establish it.” [TRM 159c]

Thus anarchists no way can claim to be defenders of liberty, for they don’t know its philosophical roots. Not knowing but still acting, is to act blindly on the basis of emotion. The anarchists’ refusal to know, places them beyond the realm of rational discourse. Theirs is a cause from unexamined whim, from sheer emotionalism. By agitating for a governmentless (i.e., stateless) society, they stupidly agitate to destroy political liberty. Unwittingly and foolishly, they become liberty’s enemies.

If there were a logo to brand anarchism, a most appropriate image would be a cross-eyed snake with half its body self-swallowed. Why a cross-eyed ouroboros? Because anarchists can’t see straight; worse, they see the loss of liberty as liberty. They believe their non-A as A.

At last night’s lecture presentation in La Jolla—by Dr. Yaron Brook, director of ARI, reprising Ayn Rand’s classic article, “What Can One Do” given today’s impending political bankruptcy—we learned of news of the long-awaited book by David Harriman and Dr. Leonard Peikoff on the theory of induction. The book, to be published by Penguin, will be on sale July 6, 2010.

How is it, if true, that people without a moral code exhibit feelings of guilt in their everyday actions? Aren’t there amoralists, who act destructively toward others while exhibiting no guilt? These questions were raised at a recent meeting.

All human actions fall within the purview of morality. The adjective “human” here is significant in separating out other automatic living actions such as digestive, pulmonary, cardiac, synaptic, mitochondrial actions. Human actions are actions assented by the will, i.e., by our capacity to choose, which can only be chosen in the absence of coercion. This last implication further separates human actions from brutish actions. Thus, morality is the realm of the freely chosen; where there is no choice, there is no morality. Within this context, I deny the existence of “amoralists” in the sense used in the above question. Regardless of how brazenly they assess themselves, they are immoral.

To elaborate, if a man acts volitionally, that action can be appraised for its moral status. The action is moral—moral in the judgmental sense—if it objectively contributes to the long-term survival of his life. The judgment requires a long chain of means-end justification in relation to man’s life as a standard, etc. The action is immoral if it is anti-life, his, in the full context of his whole lifespan. In the presence of coercion, in the absence of freedom, the animal-man acts as a brute; it acts self-interestedly to avoid pain or death in the short-term moment. In this context, its actions cannot be appraised as either selfish or selfless, for there is no reasoning self being asserted or denied in the actions performed. So too, its actions cannot be appraised as either moral or immoral, for there are no alternatives to choose. That is to say, its coerced actions are nonselfish and amoral. By whichever differentiation one chooses for the concept, an amoral being is either a robot, an animal, or a victim of coercion; excluded therefore is the brazen victimizer.

Because human action is moral (i.e., freely chosen), each man as a conceptual being needs an abstract code of morality to guide his actions. It is truly a human need, which he cannot do without (whether he acknowledges it or not). Thus, when Ayn Rand states that “guilt [is] the appropriate emotion of a creature devoid of moral values” (TRM 130c), she identifies a psychological fact of human nature. When a man, because of his conscious, anti-rational philosophy, evades the mental act of figuring out his moral code while every existential choice he makes “screams” for guidance, he is suffering a profound unremitting guilt. Do such men exist? Ask yourself whether there are anti-rational philosophies.

Furthermore, as a subsystem of philosophy, ethics depends on epistemology and metaphysics. That mental act I referenced above is examined more properly as part of meta-ethics. Such acts and choices are considered prehuman, premoral, or meta-ethical. That is to say, man’s volitional nature encompasses even the choice to live. But the basic choice to live is not a choice to be judged on par as moral or immoral—it is the “axiomatic” choice from which any other choice of a value may be judged morally; it is the fountainhead of morality. The mental act of choosing a code of values is concomitant to this basic choice. To choose to live is to put one’s life (i.e., one’s self-generated actions thereafter) in the purview of morality. To live humanly is to be moral. But the choice to live itself—choosing life, choosing its continuation as a standard of value—is premoral. (Parenthetically, the Objectivist ethics is neither consequentialist nor deontological, and is only marginally rule-utilitarian. Man acts from freedom of choice, not from commands of duty, but with his own life as his only end, as an end in itself, and only if he so chooses.)

Though he seems the most business-friendly of the political bunch, Dr. Ron Paul, Republican U.S. Congressman from Texas, is not a true friend of capitalism. Essentially a religious conservative, albeit with a libertarian, laissez-nous faire economic worldview, Dr. Paul is usually on point from a capitalist standard in matters related to the economy, especially fiscal and monetary policies. However, in his most recent speech to political followers and Tea Party activists, not only did he fail to defend capitalism, but he attacked and undercut its base: He slandered big business.

At the Southern Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans, Louisiana, as blogged today by The Wall Street Journal, Dr. Paul said, “In the technical sense, in the economic definition, he [President Barack Obama] is not a socialist. He’s a corporatist,” meaning, he takes “care of corporations and corporations take over and run the country.”

Now, setting aside for another day whether President Obama is or is not technically a socialist, and whether or not he really takes care of corporations, I simply want to point to the moral meaning behind Dr. Paul’s denunciation in calling anybody a “corporatist.”

Corporations are voluntary associations of individuals who combine their limited financial resources to form a running commercial enterprise with limited liabilities on themselves. Corporations are created, man-made instruments for the purpose of economy of large scale. If economic or economizing activities yield goods and services to support men’s lives, then such productive activities should be deemed morally virtuous. If so, then corporations, voluntarily formed, should be deemed a moral good. Therefore, businessmen who run or work in corporations are to be recognized as heroes, not villains. And in a free society, corporations, being the centers of economic power with zero political power, are the nodes of moral activities for all individuals. So, the term “corporatist” or “corporatism” is an epithet that should be taken with pride and distinction. A capitalist society would be a “corporatist” society.

Yet, this was not how Dr. Paul used the term this afternoon. He used it as a derogatory invective, as an immorality. Being thoroughly educated in Austrian economics, Dr. Paul would never accuse any two-bit ticket scalper, or any price-gouging gas station manager during a shortage, of being a “profiteer”; after all, to be driven by the prospect of profit is an economic virtue. But because he is ignorant in a non-divine, rational morality, one operated not by commands but by principles, Dr. Paul could not help himself but see commercial activities, at best, as amoral, and at worse, as immoral. He could not help but conflate economic power with political power. For these reasons, he would readily use “corporatism” as a derogatory term and would condemn anyone of it with seeming moral righteousness.

He is mistaken in the worst possible way. While he is the best political figure in the current crop of politicians, this error eliminates him–so close, and yet so far. For a person is not a defender of capitalism if he is unwilling and unable to defend the morality of corporate-formation.

To be sure, in a mixed economy as ours is, there are concrete cases of so-called “public-private partnerships”; that is, there are cases of socialism in which big private businesses are being coerced by regulatory governing bodies into partnerships to produce certain goods or to provide certain services for the sake of “the society.” Perhaps in some cases, the private firms voluntarily push for industry-wide regulations to force out their competitors by political means instead of by free-market means. But all of these cases are instances of fascism, a clear species of socialism. Conversely, if a government bureaucrat favors a certain industrial policy, or favors a particular corporation over another in an industry, by sheer personal whim, favoring a personal connection over a market-driven relationship, and then to use his political power to make it happen and to move markets; then this is a clear case of cronyism, again another species of socialism.

So if President Obama did do any of the above–and I am, again, setting this investigation aside–but if he did them, then Dr. Paul should have called him out on them, and called him technically as either a fascist or cronyist, or both. But instead, he called the latter by what he thought was a most reprehensible moral term, a “corporatist.” With “friends” like these …

In sullying the morality of corporations, Dr. Paul undercut any moral case he would make to champion full capitalism and limited government in the political arena. When to be called a corporatist is a bad epithet, no one would want to become or aspire to become a businessman, to trade, to deal, to make money, to produce. And to make it even worse, an Obama, is to be seen as the epitome of corporatism. The very term is thus sullied into a package-deal in which the essence of a moral activity is conveniently, deliberately forgotten and is replaced with a misdirected condemnation. Dr. Paul weakened his own argument. Who wins when he condems someone not as a fascist or as a cronyist but as a corporatist? Not big corporations.

For his lack of an enlightened moral code, Dr. Paul’s speech is of the same ilk as Mr. Michael Moore’s facetious “documentary,” his so-called Capitalism: A Love Story. Dr. Paul’s remark affirms once again that a conservative, no matter how free-market-oriented he professes to be, is no true defender of capitalism.

On starting to read again for tomorrow’s meeting Chapter 6 “What Is Romanticism?”, I found something new (at least new for me) concerning the Objectivist ethics, a cognitive connection I hadn’t made before about the relationship between goal and action (or value and virtue). [TRM 100a] A value isn’t yet a value unless it is pursued or maintained. It is not one unless it is committed.

The implication is that the concept “commitment” in the realm of ethics is like the concept “truth” in the realm of epistemology. A proposition isn’t really knowledge but mere dogma unless the cognizer processes it, integrates it first-hand from evidence, and judges and accepts it to be true. Without doing this, a man may pay lip service to some thesis, but he really doesn’t have it as a conviction, as something he has personally proven consciously. In exactly the same way, a man really hasn’t made a choice (e.g., a choice to lose weight, to learn a new language, etc.) unless he puts it into action. To choose is to value; but to value is to act to gain and/or keep it, which entails reducing a value to goals and intermediate goals, and translating action plans to priorities, schedules, and actual existential activities. Without doing this, he may pay lip service to some ideal, but he really doesn’t have it as a goal, as something he is personally to act on in his daily life.

Just as the epistemological relation of proposition to objective fact is truth, so the ethical relation between conscious choice and existential action is commitment. In simple, practical terms, just as discovering a truth is a cognitive achievement, so making a commitment is a moral achievement. And what of it really? Only that life is all about achievements.

To all those who show up at our biweekly meetings, know that I appreciate your commitment.

In reaction to the recent spates of student protests across the country concerning proposed raises in fees and tuitions at public universities, Dr. Onkar Ghate has a short piece in Business Week explaining why public universities should be privatized to lower the states’s budgets. He gives two arguments: one moral, one economic. Here is the first:

[… C]onsider the source of warring special interests.

War is inevitable the moment we accept the idea that there’s a right to a university education, a business that cannot go bankrupt, or a comfortable old age. Such “rights” require others to foot the bill, with the government intervening to make sure those unlucky others pay up. Governments become the dispensers of the unearned: They erect public universities and subsidize students, bailout businesses, and establish Medicare and Social Security. Thereafter, everyone woos legislatures to win favors while minimizing his bills.

To put an end to this sordid spectacle, we must discard the idea that anyone has a right to something at another’s expense. What would this dramatic change mean for higher education? Subsidies would end, and all universities would be private. Students would pay their own way or rely on private scholarships and loans.

Secondly, Dr. Ghate touches on the economic argument for privatization, arguing that private competition will bring innovation and reduce costs. This is also valid, but I think the above moral argument is undeniably more fundamental.

A prior discussion generated a new question: When can something be said to be arbitrary?

Arbitrariness is a relationship between the person who has to make a judgment and that which is stated or presented by someone else. More broadly, it is a relationship between the receiver and the message.

Before this relationship can be elaborated, it is necessary to understand specifically what may be at one end of this relationship: the statement.

A “statement” is a sentence being used for communication. For contrast, a “thought” (also known in logic as a “proposition”) is a unit of reasoning in one’s mind and is expressible as a sentence. For the purpose of this discussion, “communication” is any physical process of mind-to-mind exchange of thoughts.

No thought is meaningless, but some statements are—to others, especially if they are in another language. No thought can be misconstrued, but some statements can be—again, by others. You have a thought, but I have only your (communicated) statement.

Both thought and statement rely on the linguistic vehicle: the sentence. A “sentence” is a grammatically constructed series of words capable of conveying an intended meaning, in this case, a unit of reasoning. In using words in an understood language, there is the risk the structure may still be meaningless: 1) the series of words is not grammatical; 2) certain individual “words” themselves may lack meaning; 3) the words in compound usage don’t convey valid concepts; 4) the whole grammatical structure fails to refer to intended objects. Until the linguistic vehicle has meaningful content, it is not a sentence usable in thought and speech.

Before a meaningful statement go on into the mind of the receiver to be thought of and judged as either true or false, it must pass through the evidentiary threshold. Because knowledge is contextual, any true thought in the mind must be connected logically to a context of other true propositions and concepts, grounding the thought all the way to perceptual data. This context constitutes the full evidence for concluding the proposition to be true. A proposition divorced of its context is not knowledge.

That said, a statement delivered without the means to acquire the evidence to support it, is arbitrary and should be dismissed from one’s consideration.

Why must this be the case? Consciousness is always a consciousness of something. A higher-level awareness, such as a judgment, requires no less and must have an object. Thus, every objective judgment must either be self-evident or inferential toward the evidence. A judgment without its links—its context—to the evidence, is like a perceptual awareness without the object, which is a contradiction in terms. Therefore, a valid thought in my mind is one having been justified from my having the evidence.

A statement (i.e., a reported proposition), in relation to my judgment of it, is arbitrary if [1] the opiner provides no evidence (or cannot provide any) when asked, and [2] I can find no plausible means to obtain it otherwise.

If, in a specialized domain, I accept the statement as true on the opiner’s say so, on his credibility, he must have passed two conditions: [1] he knows the truth, and [2] he is objective in telling it. (Credibility applies only in specialized domains.)

But if, in a generalized domain or if otherwise, I accept it without asking for evidence, then my emotion has taken the place of evidence for its acceptance, an acceptance on faith, and its epistemological status is not knowledge but dogma.

Statuses of Statements in relation to Receiver

Arbitraries (sender’s or opiner’s fault):
— “Polly want a cracker.”
— “A man can swim leisurely in the sun’s hydrogen plasma.”
— “X has dice in his hand.” — if he is handless or unwilling to open his hand

Not arbitraries (sender’s or opiner’s credit):
— “X has dice in his hand.” — if he is willing to supply evidence

Statuses of Thoughts in relation to Believer

Dogmata (receiver’s or believer’s fault):
— “X has dice in his hand.” — though X is willing, I don’t ask
— “X has dice in his hand.” — regardless of any evidence, I believe

Knowledge (receiver’s or believer’s credit):
— “X has dice in his hand.” — if I have gotten positive evidence