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Reason and Value: Aristotle versus Rand: Objectivist Studies | Number 3
Two of the central questions in philosophy are: What are the foundations of knowledge? and What is the nature of human well-being? Ayn Rand regarded herself as a follower of Aristotle. Roderick Long argues, however, that in answering the above two questions she unfortunately deviated from Aristotle in ways that subverted her own philosophical intentions. In particular, the author maintains that Ayn Rand's rejection of Aristotle's coherentist, testimony-based epistemology in favor of her own version of foundationalist empiricism both opens the door to a corrosive skepticism that she rightly wishes to avoid, and forces her into defending an instrumental survival-oriented conception of the relation of morality to self-interest, even though a constitutive, flourishing-oriented relation along Aristotelian lines would more closely match her basic ethical insights. Hence Ayn Rand's admirers may still have something to learn from Aristotle, their "teacher's first teacher."
ABOUT RODERICK T. LONG
Roderick T. Long (A.B. Harvard, 1985; Ph.D. Cornell, 1992) is professor of philosophy at Auburn University, president of the Molinari Institute and Molinari Society, editor of The Industrial Radical, and co-editor of The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies. A founding member of the Alliance of the Libertarian Left, senior scholar at the Ludwig von Mises Institute, and senior fellow at the Center for a Stateless Society, Long blogs at Austro-Athenian Empire and Bleeding Heart Libertarians.
ABOUT RODERICK T. LONG
Roderick T. Long (A.B. Harvard, 1985; Ph.D. Cornell, 1992) is professor of philosophy at Auburn University, president of the Molinari Institute and Molinari Society, editor of The Industrial Radical, and co-editor of The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies. A founding member of the Alliance of the Libertarian Left, senior scholar at the Ludwig von Mises Institute, and senior fellow at the Center for a Stateless Society, Long blogs at Austro-Athenian Empire and Bleeding Heart Libertarians.
- GenresPhilosophy
123 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 1, 2000
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August 7, 2017
This is the first in-depth critique of Rand's philosophy I've seen that I think is sound and substantive.
Most critiques are by people who haven't read her, who reject egoism or individualism, who have seemingly never heard of virtue ethics or a conception of "happiness" that inherently involves virtue, who don't have an aesthetic sense and therefore assume aesthetics aren't real, or who are focused on rather peripheral issues (like her tone or her sloppy scholarship).
On the contrary, Roderick T. Long is a libertarian and Aristotelian and has no problem with vivid or polemical language.
He takes Rand at her word -- she says she's making logically valid arguments, so he holds them to that standard, and finds that in many cases they're inconsistent. (For instance, she waffles between believing that respecting others' rights is instrumentally valuable because it works out to our advantage, and believing that a virtuous life is constitutively necessary for happiness; the latter is the Aristotelian view.)
There's something exhilarating and cheerful about taking the axe of critical thinking to sacred cows and *still* finding that the whole world is not destroyed. Long doesn't want to take away your ability to live freely or make sense of the world. He wants to strengthen you by clarifying away errors. I keep forgetting that this is possible, and I'm delighted to discover a new "friend" who can do it.
Most critiques are by people who haven't read her, who reject egoism or individualism, who have seemingly never heard of virtue ethics or a conception of "happiness" that inherently involves virtue, who don't have an aesthetic sense and therefore assume aesthetics aren't real, or who are focused on rather peripheral issues (like her tone or her sloppy scholarship).
On the contrary, Roderick T. Long is a libertarian and Aristotelian and has no problem with vivid or polemical language.
He takes Rand at her word -- she says she's making logically valid arguments, so he holds them to that standard, and finds that in many cases they're inconsistent. (For instance, she waffles between believing that respecting others' rights is instrumentally valuable because it works out to our advantage, and believing that a virtuous life is constitutively necessary for happiness; the latter is the Aristotelian view.)
There's something exhilarating and cheerful about taking the axe of critical thinking to sacred cows and *still* finding that the whole world is not destroyed. Long doesn't want to take away your ability to live freely or make sense of the world. He wants to strengthen you by clarifying away errors. I keep forgetting that this is possible, and I'm delighted to discover a new "friend" who can do it.
Displaying 1 of 1 review