Atlas Shrugged Movie: Actually Really Bad After All

More in line with expectations, Comingsoon.net rates the movie 2/10, describing it as a "laughable failure" and "wholly unappealing".

Stay tuned.

Atlas Shrugged Movie in Actually Quite Good Shock.

At least according to Matt Welch at Reason online. In ARCHNblog comments, Michael Prescott points us to another favorable review. With a budget of around $10m $15m - twice three times that originally reported and around twice that of a hit Coen brothers movie like Fargo - it looks like it may well be better than its thin trailer promised.

Now to the real drama: will the Ayn Rand Institute even acknowledge the movie's existence? Their front page column Ayn Rand In The Culture, and even the link that features press releases about "Atlas Shrugged" somehow has failed to notice it.

Rand and Empirical Responsibility 14

“Self-esteem is reliance on one’s power to think.” It's not clear whether this is meant as a definition or as a statement of fact. Objectivists often confuse the one with the other. A definition merely defines how a term is used. One may define one's terms as one pleases, but once a definition is granted, one needs to stay consistent to the usuage. If Rand's statement was meant as a definition, she is guilty of equivocation; for she does not always stick to that particular usage.

Self-esteem, in Rand and other writers, generally means esteeming one's self. Whether such esteem is based on a reliance of one's power to think is an assertion about matters of fact that requires evidence. Such evidence that is commonly available suggests that there is little relation between personal achievement (whether in thinking or in other areas) and self-esteem. American school children test highest for self-esteem and yet rank among the bottom in academic achievement. Criminals also test remarkably high for self-esteem, although their powers of thought are often sub-mediocre. Sometimes it is precisely who think well of themselves who lack the motivation necessary to become powerful thinkers. Why should they? They think themselves great as it is. Why bother with self-improvement if you already think you're great? On the other hand, there are those whose very lack of self-esteem serves as a motivator for self-improvement.

“Only a rationally selfish man, a man of self-esteem, is capable of love.” This statement packs three assertions, any one of which could easily be dismissed on empirical grounds. It assumes that, in order to be capable of love, one must be (1) rational, (2) selfish and (3) a man of self-esteem. Does Rand provide any evidence of these assertions? No. Indeed, they are hardly plausible. If Rand's view was true, we would have to conclude that most people are incapable of love. Would any sane person actually believe such a thing?

“Humility is not a recognition of one’s failings, but a rejection of morality.” So are humble people immoral (or amoral)? Again, we are confronted by a grossly implausible statement asserted without a jot of evidence to support it. Worse, Rand seems to be trying to redefine humility without making it entirely clear that she is doing so. Rand's tendency to redefine terms, not merely for herself, but for others, constitutes an egregious intellectual vice. She is, in effect, putting words in other people mouths and then condemning them on that basis. If she wishes to redefine humility, then she should do so in forthright terms, with a complete understanding that her usuage of the word has nothing to do with how the word is used in common discourse. And when chooses to use her redefined term in some controversial statement about matters of fact, she needs to back up her statement with factual evidence. Redefinition does not constitute proof.

Rand and Empirical Responsibility 13

“[Intellectual appeasement] is an attempt to apologize for his intellectual concerns and to escape from the loneliness of a thinker by professing that his thinking is dedicated to some social-altruistic goal.” Rand, despite her cluelessness about human nature, nevertheless couldn't help tossing off wildly speculative remarks about the more obscure motivations of the human animal. Where she comes up with some of this stuff is anyone's guess. How, for example, does she know that intellectual appeasement is merely an attempt to apologize for being concerned about intellectual matters? Where would she get such a notion? Where on earth does she come up with the idea that intellectual appeasement involves an "escape from loneliness"? What evidence does she have that such is the case?

Even as a mere conjecture or hypothesis, Rand's remark is not very plausible; yet she emits it as if it were a palpable certainty. On the face of it, Rand is merely indulging in psychological speculation about matters she knows little, if anything, about. The causes of intellectual appeasement, whatever they might be, probably vary from one individual to another. Whether loneliness or self-contempt is the main cause can only be determined (if it can be determined at all) on a case by case basis. In the meantime, a more plausible explanation for intellectual appeasement is to note that most intellectuals, being accustomed to a mode of living that eschews violence, simply either don't have or have never developed any special aptitude for violence, and are therefore prone to cowardice and appeasement.

“Tribalism is … a logical consequence of modern philosophy.” This is a specific application of Rand's theory of history. The trouble with such statements is that, because they are so broad and sweeping, they can neither be corroborated or refuted by empirical evidence. They are merely highly speculative hypotheses, and the question is whether they are plausible in relation to such facts that are known.

Rand makes no attempt to bring any kind of facts in to support her statement, beyond what she gleans from her distorted view of modern philosophy. Despite Rand's tendency to blur distinctions between views that she disagrees with, it would be mistake to regard so-called "modern" philosophy as a mere homogenuous mass. Modern philosophy includes many different positions, often virulently at odds with other positions. It is implausible to suppose that so many disparate views could all lead to tribalism.

But even more to the point is to reflect on the fact that tribalism, historically, has been the default position for the human race. For hundreds of thousands of years, human beings have existed in tribes; whereas the extended order leading to freedom and civilization only began to develop very recently, in the last ten thousands years or so. Since modern philosophy did not exist during mankind's long tutelage in the hunter-gatherer stage of development, it can't be regarded as a cause of whatever form of tribalism may have been prevalent during those tedious millenia. Indeed, it is far more plausible to suppose that tribalism is a hard-wired feature of human nature, prominent in many human beings, and only weaker or non-existent within the exceptional few. After all, we find its dominance, not only throughout mankind's history, but even in the present, in much of the 3rd world and even among 1st world minorities and ethnic groups. Most of the people in these groups are utterly innocent of so-called "modern" philosophy and would probably be incapable of understanding it were it introduced to them. Whatever strains of tribalism may be found in this or that species of modern philosophy probably has its roots in human psychological tendencies. Philosophy, as Nietzsche noticed more than hundred years ago and which cognitive science and experimental psychology continues to corroborate, often degenerates into a mere rationalization of the the desires, sentiments, and interests that afflict various strains of human nature. In the face of everything we know, Rand's conviction that the causation runs the other way, so that philosophy determines human nature, is rather implausible.

The Unsocial Network

The trailer for Atlas Shrugged Part 1 is up. It feels roughly like a two hour version of the opening narration in Star Wars Episode One - taxation of trade routes is in dispute! - set to stock photography.

For a bit of fun, here's Hank Rearden (Grant Bowler) in a previous role:

Would John Galt Collect Social Security?

Everyone's been having fun with the story of Rand and her husband collecting Social Security benefits (at least US$52,000 worth it seems) as well as possibly very likely Medicare. Reason provides an evenhanded summary along with the standard Randian defense that it's ok so long as the recipient "regards it as restitution and opposes all forms of welfare statism."

It's a predictable libertarians-have-to-drive-on-state-highways line of argument (ie it's ok so long as you complain vociferously about statist tyranny while you're driving) and at first glance seems to be straightforward. But I think a subtlety here is being overlooked that undermines this angle.

Freelance writer Patia Stephens, who seems to have picked up on this story first, quotes the original interview by the ARI's Scott McConnell (now in the "100 Voices: An Oral History of Ayn Rand" volume) with New York social worker Evva Joan Pryor from whence this story emerged. Let's go to the tape:

“She [Rand] was coming to a point in her life where she was going to receive the very thing she didn’t like, which was Medicare and Social Security,” Pryor told McConnell. “I remember telling her that this was going to be difficult. For me to do my job she had to recognize that there were exceptions to her theory. So that started our political discussions. From there on – with gusto – we argued all the time.

“The initial argument was on greed,” Pryor continued. “She had to see that there was such a thing as greed in this world. Doctors could cost an awful lot more money than books earn, and she could be totally wiped out by medical bills if she didn’t watch it. Since she had worked her entire life, and had paid into Social Security, she had a right to it. She didn’t feel that an individual should take help.”

McConnell asked: “And did she agree with you about Medicare and Social Security?”

Pryor replied: “After several meetings and arguments, she gave me her power of attorney to deal with all matters having to do with health and Social Security. Whether she agreed or not is not the issue, she saw the necessity for both her and Frank. She was never involved other than to sign the power of attorney; I did the rest.”

The interesting point here is that far from having a clear conscience on the issue, as her defenders try to portray, Rand in fact is obviously conflicted, and only acquiesces after several meetings and arguments - and even then tries to distance herself from the decision by giving power of attorney to the social worker to apply for the government benefits, rather than simply doing it herself. Why this extreme reluctance, when she supposedly had provided her own philosophical get-out-of-jail-clause? I think that Rand sensed that her line of argument was in fact rather weak. After all, if she had simply paid for her own private medical insurance, or had sufficiently saved for her own retirement, she could have set a powerful example of uncompromising self-reliance in reality, and into old age (an area her virile fictional heroes never get to experience). Further, libertarian heroines such as her former mentor Isabel Paterson and Rose Wilder Lane set just such examples themselves, both declining to enrol in what they considered fundamentally immoral programs. Yet here was Rand, taking the government handouts. Rand well understood the power of symbolism; perhaps it was this image that stuck in her craw. There are many things she could have done with that regular social welfare cheque that could have put a PR thumb in the eye of statist authority - for example, announcing she'd fund The Objectivist with it, or donating it an anti-tax foundation or similar prank. Surely this is the kind of thing Howard Roark or John Galt would have done, rather than give a social worker power of attorney to quietly accept it for them.

Further, given her advocation of life-long self-responsibility, of thinking outside of the "range of the moment" to the long-term consequences of one's actions, it is puzzling how, given her undoubtedly considerable means she might now find herself needing to take this less than ideal option. Is it simply because, like so many people late in life, she found she'd ended up in a situation she didn't quite expect? And if so, how is the average income earner supposed to allow for their future circumstances any better?

In the end, Rand was an elderly woman of frail health with no family to support her, the fearful burden of a husband suffering from dementia, and facing a future that their means might not be sufficient for. In other words, she was the very person government programs such as Medicare and Social Security was designed for. Equally naturally, she looked at the options and took the money. The only question is why she would still consider the fact that option even existed to be ultimately evil.

Rand and Empirical Responsibility 12

“The process of forming a concept is not complete until its constituent units have been integrated into a single mental unit by means of a specific word.” This assertion reflects Rand's bias against tacit knowledge. Rand was always mistrustful of anything that smacked of "just knowing." She shared the rationalist's contempt for non-explicated knowledge. The problem with this attitude is that does not square with what is known as the "cognitive unconscious," which plays a much larger role in cognition than Rand could have ever imagined. Hence the pressing need for Objectivists to come up with a large body of compelling, scientifically validated evidence to back Rand's extraordinary assertion about the necessity of words for the "completion" of a concept. The fact is, there are far more meanings (i.e., concepts) than there are words to stand for them. To declare that these unworded meanings are incomplete is sheer prejudice. Indeed, Rand herself seems to have thought better of it; for her notion of "implicit concept" contradicts her view that concepts require explicit words.

“The battle of human history is fought and determined by those who are predominantly consistent, those who … are committed to and motivated by their chosen psycho-epistemology and its corollary view of existence.” Leonard Peikoff, Rand's most orthodox disciple, has attempted to provide evidence for this view in his book Ominous Parallels. Unfortunately, that book cannot be taken very seriously. It suffers from an extreme case of confirmation bias. It has eyes for only that evidence which supports Rand's view, while ignoring the large body of evidence that goes against it. Worse, it even distorts and mauls such evidence that is brought forth to support the Objectivist position.

Consider, as one example, Peikoff's treatment of Kant, who is regarded, by both Rand and Peikoff, as a "predominantly consistent" advocate of all that they deplore. This, however, is not a very compelling position, for a whole host of reasons. In the first place, hardly anyone outside of Objectivism regards Rand's view of Kant as fair or accurate. But even if it were, questions arise over Kant's supposed consistency. Kant, for example, believed in the ideality of time, space, and causality; which means, if he had been "predominantly consistent", he would have been forced to regard all multiple and successive experiences as purely mental and imaginary. Nonetheless, Kant had no difficulty squaring these bizarre speculative allegiances with his work on astronomy and in his comforting postulates about immortality. Kant was also one of the principle figures of the so-called "Enlightenment," and gave voice to many things esteemed by Rand and her disciples. This aspect of Kant, while acknowledged by Peikoff, is dismissed as "inessential" and inconsequential. Why so? Even on Objectivist assumptions, Kant's advocacy of Enlightenment ideals must be regarded as a deep and abiding inconsistency.



“Only three brief periods of history were culturally dominated by a philosophy of reason: ancient Greece, the Renaissance, the nineteenth century.” This statement is so vague it's not clear its empirically testable. But to the extent that any meaning can be drawn from it, it is largely false. If by "reason" we mean something logical, we find the same examples of illogic and non-logic governing all periods of history. The human being is not a logical animal, but a sentimental animal. Ancient Greece, for example, was still rife with superstition; and Plato, Socrates, and even Aristotle, despite all their fine words about "reason," were hardly shining exemplars of scientific thinking. The Renaissance was the age of Luther and Savronola; it featured a revival of interest in the mysticism of Plato. The 19th Century, on the other hand, was "philosophically" dominated, in Germany, England, and America, by the horrors of neo-Hegelianism (although this so-called domination played hardly any influence outside of academia).

The assault on man’s conceptual faculty has been accelerating since Kant, widening the breach between man’s mind and reality. Given the immense progress made in science and medicine made since the 18th century, this is a grossly implausible view. In the 18th century, doctors bled people. Men rode around on horses. Plows were drawn by ox or mules. The majority of people in the West believed in the literal truth of Genesis. Anti-semitism and various forms of racism were rife. Blacks were bought in Africa and sold to colonists in the New World. It's not clear, given everything that has been learned in the interval, how anyone with even a rudimentary of history can believe that the breach between man's mind and reality has been "widening" since the 18th century.

Rand and Empirical Responsibility 11

“Definitions preserve ... the logical order of their hierarchical interdependence.” This touches on the Objectivist contention that knowledge is hierarchical. The concept animal is a step higher in the conceptual hierarchy than mammal, for example. Is it true, as Rand asserts, that definitions "preserve" the "logical order" of this hierarchy?

Rand derived her doctrine of definitions from Aristotle. It is not however clear what she means by "logical order," or how definitions go about preserving it. What Rand seems to have in mind (although she's none too clear about it) is the ideal of knowledge as a complete "logical" structure (logical in this sense meaning: integrated without contradiction). In this, Rand is mirroring Aristotle's ideal of knowledge as (in the words of Karl Popper) "an encyclopaedia containing the intuitive definitions of all essences, that is to say, their names together with their defining formulae."

For better or worse, there exists no compelling evidence that knowledge works this way; nor does Rand (or her disciples) provide any evidence, or seem in the least interested in the empirical side of this issue. Yet there is a great deal of evidence that formal definitions are of little importance to understanding the meaning of words. Most words are learned unconsciously, without the aid of formal definitions or dictionaries. Moreover, it can easily be observed that many people understand the meaning of words without being able to provide formal definitions for them. Just ask anyone (besides a linguist or a grammarian) to define the word the and you'll see what I mean.

Now it could be argued that Rand's theory of definitions is not confined to mere formal definitions, but applies to "tacit" or "implicit" definitions as well (whatever those might be), and that when she declares that definitions preserve the logical order of conceptual hierarchies, she is not distinguishing whether those definitions are consciously formalized or are merely implicit and tacit. Yet if this is so, Rand needs to explain (1) how she knows this to be true; and (2) provide compelling evidence for her view.


“Words without definitions are not language but inarticulate sounds.” If by definitions, Rand means consciously formalized definitions (after Aristotle methods of essentialist definitions), this is a grossly implausible position, for the reasons provided above. If Rand means merely "tacit" or "implicit" definitions, in the absence of any evidence (none of which is provided by Rand), it is not clear that this is true (or if it is true, whether it has any significance). What would make a lot more sense would be Words without meanings are not language but inarticulate sounds. This suggests that Rand has confused the concept meanings with that of definitions. Definitions are explanations of what a word means; but this does not mean that a definition is identical with the meaning. The meaning of a term can be understood without defining it, because knowledge is largely tacit and intuitive, rather than formalized and logical, as Rand seems to assume.

“The process of forming, integrating and using concepts is not an automatic, but a volitional process.” Given how important this assertion is to some of Rand's claims about history and morality, Rand's unwillingness to provide any evidence for it is most unfortunate. I suspect it never occured to her that she needed to provide evidence, because empirical responsibility was not part of her basic MO. In any case, had she tried to find evidence for it, she almost certaintly would have realized that the statement is not true. Many concepts, perhaps even most concepts, are formed unconsciusly, without anything remotely describable as volition having anything at all to do with the process. Indeed, this is an obvious fact that can be gleaned merely by observing young children learning to speak. How Rand could have ignored and/or evaded these obvious facts is difficult to comprehend.

An animal cannot perform a process of abstraction. Really? How on earth did Rand know this? For it's not clear at all that this is true. Consider the testimony of two neuroscientists, Jorge Martins de Oliveira and Julio Rocha do Amaral:

Although there is no general agreement, we believe that other species are also capable to develop abstractions. Some primates and cetaceans, without any doubt, have abstract conceptions, but these must be very tenuous and, certainly, they never develop, as humans do, to a point of giving rise to high creativity. And, even if it so happened, it would be an innocuous creativity, since they lack the physical attributes to allow them to build up something that could be considered significant and concrete. In spite of these handicaps, the exercise of conscious and abstract thoughts, among dolphins and superior simians, has been widely evidenced.

Rand and Empirical Responsibility 10

“To live, man must hold three things as the supreme and ruling values of his life: Reason—Purpose—Self-esteem.” It is not surprising that neither Rand nor any of her followers ever tried to provide evidence for this statement. Taken literally, the statement is palpably false. For it suggests anyone who does in fact "live" must hold reason, purpose, and self-esteem as his ruling values. Do Objectivists really believe that? Probably not. Here we have an example of Objectivists refusing to face up to the empirical implications of one of Rand's assertions.

“There has never been a philosophy, a theory or a doctrine that attacked (or 'limited') reason, which did not also preach submission to the power of some authority.” Given that Rand was not exactly very well read and had huge gaps in her knowledge, how could she know whether this assertion is true? As a matter of fact, it is not true. Even worse, Rand was probably should have known it not to be true, since she read two writers who attacked (or ridiculed the pretensions of) "reason" and authority: namely, Friedrich Nietzsche and H. L. Mencken. And if there be any doubts on the score of these two radical individualists, one need only add Vilfredo Pareto to the list, who remained, even in his late anti-ideological phase, a radical libertarian at heart who explicitly attacked "reason" in his sociological treatise, The Mind and Society.

None of the traditional theories of concepts regards concepts as objective. Rand never made any serious attempt to demonstrate this assertion. In fact, it's not even clear that she understood any of the "traditional" theories of concepts, or that she deeply read and studied any of the philosophers espousing them. Her interpretations of Hume and Kant are so distorted and eccentric (see Seddon and Walsh for more info) that, in the absence of clear, exhaustive, documented evidence, she is not to be trusted on such issues.

Rand and Empirical Responsibility 9

“Reason is man’s only means of grasping reality and of acquiring knowledge.” The first difficulty we must confront is trying to entangle what is meant by "reason." As far as I can make out, "reason," for Rand, means creating a logically consistent body of knowledge based on the evidence of the senses. Rand is fond of describing "reason" in terms of "integration," which seems to assume is a kind of "whole" made up of indivdual parts that have been logically conjoined together. Rand claims that "The method which reason employs in this process is logic—and logic is the art of non-contradictory identification." This description entails the additional difficulties involved in trying to figure out what on earth Rand could possibly mean by suggesting that logic is the "art of non-contradictory identification." Logic involves the study of arguments. But here Rand is suggesting that logic has a much larger range, that it involves "identification."

When examined more closely, Rand appears to have confused "classification" with "identification." Rand seems to have believed that A is A, which is a short-hand expression for logical identity, is equivalent to deciding which category a specific entity is to be placed. The integration Rand has in mind is (at least partly) conceptual. In any case, Rand's view of concepts is heavily saturated with her theory of concept-formation, which she places at or near the center of her epistemology. So having unravelled these tangles as best we can, we may safely assume that (1) reason involves creating a logically consistent body of knowledge, and (2) reason involves concept-formation. Rand's reason, for ought we know, may involve much more than what's listed here. I am merely trying to isolate two elements that can be subjected to empirical testing.

Reason, Rand claims, is man's only means of both grasping reality and acquiring knowledge. What evidence did she present for this view? Unfortunately, none at all. Worse, it would not be a very plausible assertion even on a priori grounds. Let us say (as Rand seems to say) that reason involves creating a logically consistent body of knowledge. Is having such logical consistenty necessary for grasping reality? In its absence, is knowledge impossible? No, of course not. Just imagine a man whose knowledge is divided in two parts, A and B, which contradict each other. Is this man incapable of having knowledge or grasping reality? No, not at all. All that the contradiction between A and B entails is that only one of the two parts of his knowledge can be in accord with reality. But if one part does accord with reality, that part grasps reality and can be considered as knowledge of the real world. Rand and her disciples, if they wish to be taken seriously on this point, really need explain in more detail what they mean by "reason" and provide evidence for why Randian "reason" is the "only" method that can grasp reality.

If we identify "reason" with concept-formation, we are in no better shape than before. Rand presented hardly any evidence for her theory of concept-formation; yet there exists a large body of evidence that can be placed against it, some of which I introduced in my "The Cognitive Revolution and Objectivism" series, others of which will be introduced in a future series on Rand's epistemology. Let me just note that, in the light of evidence brought to light by exponents of Wittgenstien's Family Resemblance theory of concepts and discoveries about the large role played in concept-formation by the cognitive unconscious, Rand's theory appears rather implausible. If "reason" involves forming concepts in accordance to Rand's theory, then we can safely assume that "reason" is entirely mythical faculty that has nothing to do with real cognition.

“Logic is man’s method of cognition.” (Peikoff, ITOE) If by "logic," Peikoff means Rand's bizarre mixture of logical identity with categorization, this is almost certainly wrong. If, on the other hand, Peikoff means only the ordinary logic of Aristotle and philosophy textbooks, this is almost certainly wrong as well. As Morton Hunt put it:

[F]ormal logic is not a good description of how our minds usually work. Logic tells us how we should reason when we are trying to reason logically, but it does not tell us how to think about reality as we encounter it most of the time....

Logic enables us to judge the validity of our own deductive reasoning, but much of the time we need to reason non-deductively — either inductively, or in terms of likelihoods, or of causes and effects, none of which fits within the rules of formal logic. The archetype of everyday realistic reasoning might be something like this: This object (or situation) reminds me a lot of another that I experienced before, so probably I can expect much to be true of this one that was true of that one. Such reasoning is natural and utilitarian — but logically invalid....

Our natural reasoning is thus a kind of puttering around — the intellectual equivalent of what a child does when it messes around with some new toy or unfamiliar object. After a spell of mental messing around, we may put our reasoning into logical terms, but the explanation comes after the fact, the actual process took place according to some other method... [The Universe Within, p. 132-136]

“The alternative to reason is some form of mysticism or skepticism.” (Peikoff, OP) Since when?

The only way to make this true is to define mysticism and skepticism analytically -- i.e., as the only alternatives to "reason." But if defined this way, these words become trivial and lose their sting. Suddenly, Morton Hunt's "natural reasoning" becomes merely another form of mysticism and/or skepticism. But since this natural reasoning is precisely the method which has allowed the species to reproduce and survive for hundreds of thousands of years, then to describe it as mysticism or skepticism is to give those words a far more benign meaning than Rand originally intended.

If, however, we assume that Peikoff is not using the words analytically, but using mysticism and skepticism in the usual disparaging, Objectivist sense of the terms, then his statement is most probably false (which would explain why he provides no evidence for it). There is all kinds of evidence from cognitive science (popularized, for example, by Malcolm Gladwell in Blink ) that demonstrate the empirical paucity of Peikoff's assertion.

Waiting For Dagny

New York Magazine offers us extracts from the user profiles on the Objectivist dating site The Atlasphere. While this is a fun idea, it's also quite an interesting opportunity for a bit of laptop sociology. This article's a couple of years old, perhaps the ARCHNblog might pick up the baton and do a regular core sample ourselves.

Rand and Empirical Responsibility, 8

“Man’s values control his subconscious emotional mechanism that functions like a computer adding up his desires, his experiences, his fulfillments and frustrations.” Again we are faced with the question: How does Rand know that this is true? Rand, per usual, provides no evidence for her contention. How then is a rational person supposed to evaluate it?

If we go by the evidence collated from common experience (i.e., so-called "common sense"), it is far more likely that man's "values" are an expression of his emotions, rather than vice versa. Rand is here guilty of assuming that man's values are (or ought to be) the product of non-emotional cogitation. But since cognitive science has discovered that non-emotional cogitation is probably a fantasy, we have every reason to believe that emotions must play at least a part in the forming of values. Indeed, it is difficult to understand how it could not be so. Ask any individual why he values something, and it will be found that some emotion or desire or sentiment is at the bottom of the whole thing. If a man values a certain type of music, it is because listening to it causes him pleasure; if he values meditation, it is because it improves his well-being (i.e., it makes him feel better); if he values self-flagellation, it is because he believes it will improve his well-being in the hereafter. Some values, of course, are rather contrived and even mad, such as values attached to ideological and religious systems; but there's still some sentiment or desire that is at the bottom of it, however twisted or narcissitic it might be. The individual who values mercy to child molesters might be guilty of entertaining a perverse and artificial value, disconnected from any natural need or sentiment, but that value has its root, not in "reason" or logic, but in some kind of pathological humanitarian affectation.

This point was fleshed out by Hume more than 250 years ago, as follows:

It appears evident, that the ultimate ends [i.e., values] of human actions can never, in any case, be accounted for by reason, but recommend themselves entirely to the sentiments and affections of mankind, without any dependance on the intellectual faculties. Ask a man, why he uses exercise; he will answer, because he desires to keep his health. If you then enquire, why he desires health, he will readily reply, because sickness is painful. If you push your enquiries farther, and desire a reason, why he hates pain, it is impossible he can ever give any. This is an ultimate end, and is never referred to any other object.

Now as virtue is an end, and is desirable on its own account, without fee or reward, merely, for the immediate satisfaction which it conveys; it is requisite that there should be some sentiment, which it touches; some internal taste or feeling, or whatever you please to call it, which distinguishes moral good and evil, and which embraces the one and rejects the other... Reason, being cool and disengaged, is no motive to action, and directs only the impulse received from appetite or inclination, by showing us the means of attaining happiness or avoiding misery.

Not only did Rand fail to provide evidence for her curious contention, she made no attempt to grapple with contrary arguments. Hume's position, as stated above, appears nearly irrefragible. In any case, if Rand wishes her contention to be taken seriously, at the very least she should have given us compelling reasons to reject Hume's argument. How, if not on the basis of some sentiment or affection, does man come by any values at all? If Rand had been a serious thinker dedicated the discovery and elucidation of truth, she would have attempted to provide a serious, detailed, fact-based answer to this question.

[This being the last post of 2010, I'd like to take the opportunity to wish all the good readers of ARCHNBlog a happy New Year. And to our bad readers, also, a happy New Year.]

Some Holiday Reading

Bill Bartley is a philosopher who deserves to be better known. In this essay, Rationality Versus The Theory of Rationality(with some opening remarks from my friend Rafe Champion), using the tools first formulated by Karl Popper, he tackles the important and longstanding conflict in the theory of rationality itself. While this essay has no direct connection to Objectivism, it is useful because it shows just how completely unoriginal Objectivism really is in its underlying justificationist and authoritarian approach to knowledge. For it turns out there is a good reason for the rise of irrationalism, and that is not due to Immanuel Kant and Plato, nor to the neglect of Aristotle and the Introduction To Objectivist Epistemology, but to a basic logical problem with the theory of rationality itself. But you would never know this from reading Rand, mainly as I doubt she knew it to begin with.

Rand and Empirical Responsibility 7

“An emotion that clashes with your reason is only the carcass of that stale thinking which you forbade your mind to revise.” How on earth did Rand know this? Without providing even a jot of evidence, it becomes impossible for a rational person to judge this assertion.

Let us conduct a little thought experiment to see if we can figure out how Rand came to this extraordinary judgment. Let us begin by inquiring as to where Rand could have ever come by such knowledge. I can think of only three possible ways:

1. Very sophisticated cognitive science experiments
2. Through introspection
3. By reading other people's minds
   

Right from the start we can dismiss the third possibility. No Objectivist, no matter how besotten with Rand, would ever claim she had ESP powers. Could she have conducted cognitive science experiments? Very unlikely. In any case, there is no evidence that she ever did conduct such experiments. (If she did so, such experiments need to be released so that other cognitive scientists can determine if they can reduplicate Rand's findings.) So this leaves us with only one possibility: Rand discovered it through introspection.

From the start, this is deeply problematic. Since consciousness is only "the tip of the iceberg," it would appear unlikely that Rand could have introspected her way to the discovery that clashes between "reason" and "emotion" are caused by "stale" thinking which the mind was forbidden to revise. But let us, in the interest of our thought experiment, waive this objection. After all, Rand was (as her apologists never cease reminding us) such an amazing person that perhaps it is possible that she made this stupendous discover about "stale" thinking through introspection. What we want to know is: How did this introspection work? What did Rand in fact introspect?

There seems only one possible way Rand could have introspected her insight about the relation between "reason," emotion, and "stale thinking." Rand herself must have had an experience involving stale thinking leading to reason-emotion clashes. At some point, Rand must have introspected herself involved in a bout of "stale thinking" (whatever that might be); she must have further introspected her mind engaged in the process of forbidding any revision of this "stale" cogitation; and, finally, she must have introspected the resulting clash between "reason" and emotion. Moreover, since Rand could not have made her grand conclusion from one experience alone (since it might have been a coincidence that "stale thinking" led to the reason-emotion clash in the first instance), we must assume that Rand introspected multiple experiences of this process. That was rather brave of her, don't you think?

Now there is just one other problem we have to address. Since, on the assumptions of our thought experiment, Rand's knowledge is based solely on her own private experiences as perceived via introspection, we cannot be sure that her claim applies to other people. Human beings are notoriously different; and one cannot assume a priori that what is true of one individual is true of every individual. Therefore, the most we can acknowledge in regards to Rand's assertion about stale thinking is that it might have been true about Rand: perhaps her "stale thinking," when once her mind refused to revise it, led to clashes between her reason and her emotion. Whether "stale thinking" leads to such reason-emotion clashes in other people remains an open question.

To be sure, if we allow science to be the guide to this issue, rather than merely suppositions about what Rand might have discovered via introspection, we reach a very different conclusion. According to cognitive science, it is a misnomer to talk about a clash between "reason" and emotion. Since "reason" must always operate with the assistance of emotion (i.e., Damasio's Somatic Marker Hypothesis), it is pointless to gripe about a clash between "reason" and emotion. A clash between "reason" and emotion is really a clash between two emotions, one of which is in league with "reason." Spinoza may have been right all along when he claimed: "An emotion can only be controlled or destroyed by another emotion contrary thereto, and with more power for controlling emotion."

Delusion

The Chronicle of Higher Education writes an obituary for that strange Objectivist creation known as Founders College. With its occluded origins, constant denials of Objectivist influence yet staff packed with ARIans, courses slavishly adhering to Rand and Peikoff's most whimsical tastes in literature , and all-round mismatch of grandiose vision with half-baked reality, it was a gift that kept on giving to us here at the ARCHNblog.

Rand and Empirical Responsibility 6

The conscious mind “programs” the subconscious mind. Rand's view is that the conscious mind serves as a kind of gate keeper for what gets into the unconscious mind. Again, we are faced with the question: How did she know this to be true? Where is her evidence? Is this merely a speculative conjecture? If so, why doesn't Rand make this clear?

In point of fact, Rand's assertion is almost certainly false. In any case, if it is a conjecture, it's been falsified by the "Iowa Gambling Task," an experiment that demonstrated the ability of the unconscious mind to make inferences on its own:

Participants are presented with 4 virtual decks of cards on a computer screen. They are told that each time they choose a card they will win some game money. Every so often, however, choosing a card causes them to lose some money. The goal of the game is to win as much money as possible. Every card drawn will earn the participant a reward. Occasionally, a card will also have a penalty. Thus, some decks are "bad decks", and other decks are "good decks", because some will lead to losses over the long run, and others will lead to gains. The decks differ from each other in the number of trials over which the losses are distributed.

Most healthy participants sample cards from each deck, and after about 40 or 50 selections are fairly good at sticking to the good decks.... Concurrent measurement of galvanic skin response shows that healthy participants show a "stress" reaction to hovering over the bad decks after only 10 trials, long before conscious sensation that the decks are bad.

In other words, the unconscious mind figures out which decks are bad before this awareness reaches the conscious mind. These findings are consistent with a large body of experimental research (see Timothy Wilson's Strangers to Ourselves).

“If your subconscious is programmed by chance, its output will have a corresponding character.” The phrase "programmed by chance" means something along the lines of: not sufficiently focused. Remember that according to Objectivism, the ultimate choice is to focus or not. Stated in its bald form, this seems extreme. Since any conscious person is, ipso facto, focused, this doctrine has to be restated in terms of degrees. It is the degree of focus that is important. One needs an intense enough degree of focus to be aware of one's own conceptual integrations, or else one will be prone to integrating errors. Those errors, once planted into one's subconscious, will lead to irrational emotions and other disturbing psychological phenomena (such as, par example, a fondness for "malevolent" art or music).

Did Rand provide any evidence for this view? Nope. Nor did she explain why she believed it. Then what reason can any rational person have for believing it? None whatever.

As anyone who has bothered to read some of the popular expositions about the "adaptive" unconscious knows, the subconscious (or unconscious--these words mean the same thing) doesn't work this way. The conscious not only processes knowledge, but makes decisions and organizes memory. The relevant evidence (see the above mentioned Strangers to Ourselves) strongly suggests that the conscious mind neither is nor could be in control all the time. The conscious mind, far from being a gate keeper of what goes into the unconscious, can at best merely provide critical testing of what comes out.

A “ruthlessly honest commitment to introspection” yielding a “conceptual identification of your inner states” allows one to discover the sources of one’s emotions. Same problem as before: how does Rand know this? what is her evidence?

Since it's now generally believed that the conscious mind is merely the "tip of the iceberg," Rand's advice about "ruthlessly honest" introspection seems misplaced. Since most of one's "inner states" lie below the threshold of consciousness, they cannot be introspected. It matters little how ruthless honest the individual hopes to be when the impossible is his goal. The attempt to introspect what cannot be introspected will most likely lead to little else but self-aggrandizing rationalizations.

Hitchens On Rand

Rand and Empirical Responsibility 5

“Emotions are not tools of cognition.” Rand elaborates as follows:

An emotion as such tells you nothing about reality, beyond the fact that something makes you feel something. Without a ruthlessly honest commitment to introspection—to the conceptual identification of your inner states—you will not discover what you feel, what arouses the feeling, and whether your feeling is an appropriate response to the facts of reality, or a mistaken response, or a vicious illusion produced by years of self-deception....

Where is Rand's evidence for this view? Again, we have nothing -- merely her own say-so. In Objectivism, emotions are equated with mere "whims"; to allow one's judgment to be affected by emotions is tantamount to committing the horrible crime of "whim worshipping." This, of course, is an argument ad hominem with no scientific standing whatsoever.

Cognitive science has discovered that emotions play an important role in decision making:

Recent research suggests that emotions are just as influential as cognitive processes when it comes to decision making. This is interesting because emotions are often considered irrational occurrences that may distort reasoning. According to Sayegh, the conventional way of thinking about decision making is to banish emotion from its decisions entirely. According to them, the decision makers should act using a “cool head” where decisions should come only from rational and cognitive processes to obtain the best results. The implications of emotions during decision making processes have only recently been discussed in some detail. With the growing body of knowledge on emotions in decision making, researchers have proposed various theories to help further our understanding of what influences the decisions that we make.

One of the most important theories illustrating the role that emotions play in decision making is the Somatic Marker Hypothesis:

The somatic marker hypothesis is a very relevant theory when discussing emotions in decision making. It states that bioregulatory signals such as feelings and emotions provide the principal guide for decisions where individuals, when dealing with a judgement, will assess the severity of the outcomes, their probability of occurrence and their emotional quality to provide their decision. According to Dunn,“the somatic marker hypothesis proposes that ‘somatic marker’ biasing signals from the body are represented and regulated in the emotion circuitry of the brain, particularly the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC), to help regulate decision-making in situations of complexity and uncertainty”. Therefore, in situations of complexity and uncertainty, the marker signals allow the brain to recognise the situation and respond quickly.

As mentioned earlier, there is an intimate connection between emotion and cognition in practical decision making. Damasio used somatic marker hypothesis to explain how emotions are biologically indispensable to decisions. He suggested that when choosing between options that differ in relative risk, a somatic marker (for example, a “gut feeling”) feeds back to the brain and influences cognitive appraisal. Thus emotions often unwittingly form the basis of many of our decisions and the conventional belief that cognitive processes alone run our decision making processes has been disregarded. It is in fact an interplay between emotions and cognition that helps us during decision making processes.

Now whether right or wrong, at least the Somatic Marker Hypothesis has a body solid evidence that can be placed in it's favor. For example, it is found that people who, through brain damage to the VMPFC, suffer from impaired emotional faculties are incapable of making the simplest decisions. One patient was unable to choose an appointment time with his neurologist because he gave countless arguments for every time that was proposed.

If Objectivists wish their view of the role of emotions in cognition to be taken seriously, they need to (1) provide scientific evidence on behalf of their view, and (2) explain why the evidence supporting the Somatic Marker Hypothesis is not inconsistent with Rand's assertions about emotion.

Rand and Empirical Responsibility 4

Emotions are automatized value judgments. "Emotions are the result of your value judgments," Rand declared in her Playboy Interview; "they are caused by your basic premises, which you may hold consciously or subconsciously, which may be right or wrong." How did Rand know this? Where is her evidence for this extraordinary assertion? Surely a theory so bold, so unconventional, so contrary to obvious facts commonly known should be supported with evidence strong enough to shift the balance of plausibility in its favor!

Rand, alas, never provided any evidence for this assertion. Her chief disciple, Leonard Peikoff, did provide the following:

...When, as a college teacher, I would reach the topic of emotions in class, my standard procedure was to open the desk, take out a stack of examination booklets, and, without any explanations, start distributing them. Consternation invariably broke loose, with cries such as "You never said we were having a test today!" and "It isn't fair!" Whereupon I would take back the booklets and ask: "How many can explain the emotion that just swept over you? Is it an inexplicable primary, a quirk of your glands, a message from God or the id?" The answer was obvious. The booklets, to most of them, meant failure on an exam, a lower grade in the course, a blot on their transcript, i.e., bad news. On this one example, even the dullest students grasped with alacrity that emotions do have causes and that their causes are the things men think. (The auditors in the room, who do not write exams, remained calm during this experiment. To them, the surprise involved no negative value-judgment.)...

There are at least two problems with this: first, it's merely an anecdote and as such cannot be regarded as decisive on this issue; but even more critically, the anecdote doesn't establish what it claims. Even if "the dullest students grasped with alacrity that emotions" are caused by "the things men think," the reactions to the surprise exam don't establish this. Peikoff's anecdote begs the question. For the real question is not whether emotions are inexplicable or whether thinking may influence emotions, it's whether emotions are entirely the product of thinking. The Objectivist claim is that the value judgment comes first in the form of a conscious thought, and the emotion comes afterwards. But it's quite possible (and, indeed, far more consistent with the obvious evidence) that the causation is, at least in some instances, reversed: that is, that value judgment could not have taken place without a prior emotion.

Evidence for the emotion-must-comes-first view can be gleaned from many sources. Indeed, it would appear to be a fairly obvious inference from facts commonly known. Consider the following from the Aristotelian scholar Neera K. Badhwar:

The idea that the emotions have to be programmed by the intellect, whereas the intellect can choose values independently of any help from the emotions, suggests a hierarchical relationship between intellect and emotion, and a unidirectional picture of moral and psychological development. First the intellect, functioning independently of the emotional faculty, collects the data and makes value-judgments; then it programs the emotional faculty. On this picture, the preprogrammed emotional faculty is inert, unable to make any value responses, and unable to play a fundamental role in forming or aiding the intellect. [Note: Badhwar provides evidence for this view in her footnotes.]

However, if infants and young children (not to mention animals) have emotions in a pre-conceptual form -- as they surely do -- then emotions cannot be entirely dependent on the intellect. We feel fear, anger, contentment, empathy, and pleasure in a pre-conceptual form long before we acquire the capacity tomake value-judgements. Insofar as these are responses to that which we sense as somehow good or bad for us, valuable or disvaluable, it follows that we are able to make value responses long before we are able to make value-judgements. Indeed, it is only because we have this pre-conceptual ability for responding to value that we can acquire the capacity for making value-judgments. Thus, preconceptual emotions are necessary for having any more than the most primitive values in the first place, and, thereby, for making value-judgments. Adult emotions build on these pre-conceptual emotions and the value-judgments they make possible. For example, adult fear typically contains not only the components of feeling and physiological response that a child's fear does, but also the value-judgment of the feared object as dangerous or threatening. Which objects are seen as fearful depends not on the judgments of an untouched intellect, but an intellect already shaped to some extent by our preconceptual emotions, and continually influenced by, even as it in turn influences, our adult emotions.

Some Objectivists have claimed that evidence on behalf of Rand's theory of emotions has been compiled on behalf of cognitive behavior therapy (CBT). The assumption is that CBT=Objectivist theory of emotion. There is no reason to believe this. One of the originators and most influential advocates of CBT, Albert Ellis, wrote the first critical book on Objectivism (Is Objectivism a Religion?), and he made it quite clear that Rand's theory of emotions was simplistic and inadequate:

The virtually perfect, one-to-one relationship between our thought and emotions that Rand and Branden posit is practically nonexistent. Consequently, if they wish to remain unchallenged, their position had better be modified. An emotion tends to arise from a value response. It usually is something of an automatic psychological result of our value judgments. It has, however, other important causative factors connected with human sensing, perceiving, and acting.

You're Nobody Till Somebody Hates You.

A young Objectivist offers a profound philosophical appraisal of the ARCHNblog and its authors. Even better, he's on a boat!
(hat tip Behemoth)