On Getting Medieval

Once again, Mr. Nyquist tries to misguidedly and randomly find some insignificant "flaw" in Objectivist thinking that if true would not even have a remote impact of any fundamental aspect of Objectivism. If only he was actually honest instead along with desperately trying to find some minescule flaw in Objectivism

"Duty" and "obligation" are "distinct concepts"? Really? Let's see what Dictionary.com says:

du⋅ty   
1. something that one is expected or required to do by moral or legal obligation.

Or perhaps the OED:

duty
1. a moral or legal obligation.

Clearly a hugely important "conceptual" distinction!

I really hate having to do this. Because the difference is so utterly clear and obvious to people who don't have an amazingly blinding bias against any subject whatsoever, he seems to turn off that aspect of common sense, in which no body seems to notice because the effort to put into words something so ridiculously elementary. I will now attempt to explain the difference between "duty" and "obligation" to Mr. Nyquist.

Firstly, it makes absolutely no sense to compare the same words on two different dictionaries, finding one to be necessitate circular reasoning of the other. If one wished to ascertain the difference between two words, you would use the exact same source. From dictionary.com:

Obligation: 1. something by which a person is bound or obliged to do certain things, and which arises out of a sense of duty or results from custom, law, etc.

Assuming Mr. Nyquist can read things that deviate from his senseless bias, (which is certainly against all the evidence so far), there is a distinct differential aspect of the words "duty" and "obligation". While denotatively, the words lack sufficient distinctions, connotatively, the differences are quite clear. As duty only suggests something that is required to be done by an entity, (dropping contexts in the process), obligation presupposes a specific cause or reason for this requirement. There is no intrinsic duty by one to help others in desperate need, but there is an obligation, leading to their specific nature in relation to their ethical value to the person who would be saving the one in need. It arises, (as stated by Dr. Peikoff), from the fact that other people are needed for one's survival, as well as the fact that one could never have a voluntary moral claim to the help of another person if here were not do offer the same. While the concept of duty needs no rational and objectifiable source, (a la Kant), obligation does.

On Objectivism & Politics Part 5

Rand wrote the following in a letter to a fan:

It took decades of collectivist philosophy to bring this country to its present state. And it is only the right philosophy that can save us. Ideas take time to spread, but we will only have to wait decades—because reason and reality are on our side. (Letters of Ayn Rand, 596)

We find Rand in this passage making two very broad assumptions:

1. That’s Rand’s own philosophy represents “reason and reality.”
   
2. That rational ideas (that is, ideas based on “reason and reality”) spread quicker than non-rational ideas—presumably because most human beings prefer “reason” to "non-reason."

The first assumption is so fanatically rediculous is so utterly rediculous it necessitates an intrinsic tautology within the criticism. Yes, I suppose she does assume that her philosophy represents "reason and reality." What philosopher or any sane person would not. Clearly, if Mr. Nyquist is to better than Ayn Rand, he should not make her broad assumptions. He lists a broad assumption of hers to be assuming that her own philosophy represents "reason and reality." Thus, in this case, Mr. Nyquist not to make the same assumption must not assume that his philosophy is of the same status, and why stop there? Why should he assume that his understanding of Rand represents "reason and reality?" Why does he assume any critique of anything represents "reason and reality?"

Thus, I have proven that there are three possible explanations for this.

1. Mr. Nyquist is criticizing Rand for something he is committing himself, thus making him inconsistent at the least and hypocritical at the mot.

2. Mr. Nyquist vindictively criticizes Ms. Rand for something he does not do, meaning he is actively writing using a philosophy he does not believe is based on reason or reality, making all his conclusions based on said philosophy entirely arbitrary when it comes to how much insurance he has in it.

3. Mr. Nyquist decided to point something out that would objectively never be considered a valid criticism, making that point completely null and void, and proves that he hand nothing better to point out.

The the second point, I would advise Mr. Nyquist to educate himself on the law of identity. Ms. Rand said that it took decades of collectivist philosophy to bring this country to its present state, while saying it would take decades for her ideas to spread. She does not quantitatively differentiate the decades that it took for the collective philosophy to spread and the decades that it would take her ideas to spread. Any belief that she attempted to make clear that the decades that would at some point result in the mass acceptance of her ideas are shorter in comparison to the decades that it took for the collectivist philosophy to bring the United States of America to its present state is completely arbitrary in nature.

Welcome

I'm only writing this post if people actually read this blog. I don't expect anyone to, but if they do, here's is it's origin.

If you type in Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature into Google, you will find as your first result a blog with the subject of Ayn Rand's Objectivism and criticisms of it. I use to go there, but could not longer take how absolute maddeningly rediculous the criticisms of her philosophy were. Thus, I made this blog to motivate me to dissect the insult to intelligence that is Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature. That's pretty much it.