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Philosophical Critiques of Rand?

Brian Leiter

MOVING TO FRONT

Wes McMichael, a philosopher at Pennsylvania Highlands Community College, wrote me this morning (before my post earlier today, but I only just got his permission to post his inquiry) wondering about references for useful critiques of Rand by philosophers.  He writes:

Now that it appears that Governor Romney will be picking a Randian to be "one heartbeat away from the presidency," I am even more disappointed that the most readily available "analysis" philosophers have to offer of her work is the horrible Standford Encyclopedia entry. Are there not better systematic treatments of her work to which we can point students?

My impression is that few have taken her seriously enough to give a full-throated response. In a minimally decent world, I doubt it would be necessary (an introduction to ethics class is sufficient to disabuse someone of the notion that self-interest is a worthy foundation for ethics, and an introduction to political philosophy enough to show that there are social obligations to the less-fortunate (i.e. in terms of both monetary and genetic endowments)).  But, are there not some big-picture treatments of her work by serious philosophers to which we can direct those interested? If so, are they only tucked away in chapters of books, or are they readily available online? Sure, some journalists have given some cursory analyses, but where are the more rigorous philosophical treatments?

No one should have to take Rand seriously, but now we actually have a devotee with a serious shot at the vice-presidency of the United States, and the most accessible philosophical judgment on Rand (i.e. in the SEOP) is a judgment that is extremely unrepresentative of mainstream philosophical opinion (and worse, doesn't even acknowledge mainstream criticism)! It's embarrassing!

I really wish we could put pressure on the SEOP editors to ask the authors of the Rand entry to include criticisms and explain the eccentricity of their analysis among mainstream philosophers. In the meantime, I would be very interested in recommendations from you and your readers on serious philosophical treatments of Rand's work. I'm really at a loss when a student asks about her. I usually recommend basic readings from Intro to Ethics and Intro to Political Philosophy texts, but this is piecemeal and indirect.  I'd really like to point students to one simple overview.

         Any guidance would be appreciated.

 Suggestions and links from readers?  This is not an invitation to discuss Rand, just a request for resources of the kind Professor McMichael is seeking, and which would no doubt be useful for others.

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31 responses to “Philosophical Critiques of Rand?”

  1. Andrew

    Here's one by Mike Humer: http://home.sprynet.com/~owl1/rand5.htm

    Reply
  2. Mark Navin

    I have found the following short piece, by Jan Narveson, to be an accessible critical response to Rand: http://www.reasonpapers.com/pdf/23/rp_23_12.pdf. It has the advantage of being sympathetic to libertarianism, while being (much) less sympathetic to Rand.

    Reply
  3. Joshua A. Miller

    Derek Parfit, Reasons and Persons
    Robert Nozick's interview with Julian Sanchez, here: http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/NozickInterview.htm

    Reply
  4. Joshua A. Miller

    (Actually, Nozick attacks Rand more clearly in "On the Randian Argument.")

    Reply
  5. Mark Silcox

    Take a look at Robert Nozick's startlingly harsh and dismissive short essay "On the Randian Argument" in his anthology Socratic Puzzles.

    Reply
  6. Nathan

    There's Nozick's "On the Randian Argument" from his Socratic Puzzles, which is cited in the SEP's Rand article. I believe Nozick dismantles Rand, but I've never read the piece.

    Reply
  7. Jason Zarri

    John Scott Ryan has an entire book critiquing Rand's philosophy, with two chapters devoted to her ethics, available online for free here:

    http://www.scholardarity.com/?page_id=33

    Reply
  8. VL

    The most trenchant, accessible critique I have found: http://www.thenation.com/article/garbage-and-gravitas#. Robin's treatment benefits from his knowledge of political philosophy and history as well as familiarity with her novels and the pop culture responses they have elicited. Since people who admire Rand know her through her two famous novels, I suggest that any attempt to disabuse fans of her ideology should deal with the 'political affect' (as John Protevi might say) of her heroes.

    To deal with libertarianism more broadly, this is an excellent piece by philosopher Elizabeth Anderson (U.Mich.):
    http://bleedingheartlibertarians.com/2012/06/recharting-the-map-of-social-and-political-theory-where-is-government-where-is-conservatism/

    Reply
  9. Wes McMichael

    I should say that, when I emailed Brian, I was not aware that the "Ayn Rand" SEOP entry was recently revised. The article was revised last month specifically to note that Rand has been widely dismissed by mainstream philosophers. I appreciate this revision, and this is, in part, exactly what I hoped would be changed in the entry.

    The new entry contains the following addition to the introduction(along with others elsewhere, I'm sure):

    ***
    "For all her popularity, however, only a few professional philosophers have taken her work seriously. As a result, most of the serious philosophical work on Rand has appeared in non-academic, non-peer-reviewed, journals, or in books, and the bibliography reflects this fact. We discuss the main reasons for her rejection by most professional philosophers in the next section"
    ***

    Of course, the "main reasons for her rejection by most professional philosophers" described by Badhwar and Long are not very charitable (and were present in a less expansive (and somewhat less uncharitable) version in the original entry). To the original,

    ***
    "Her views of past and contemporary Anglo-American philosophy, however, seem to have been based largely on summaries of philosophers' works and conversations with a few philosophers and with her young acolytes, themselves students of philosophy. Unfortunately, this did not stop her from commenting dismissively, and often contemptuously, on other philosophers' works. Contemporary philosophers, by and large, returned the compliment by dismissing her work contemptuously, often on the basis of hearsay or cursory reading. A common source of misunderstanding is Rand's use of 'selfishness' to mean rational self-interest rather than 'disregard for others' legitimate interests,' and 'altruism' to mean abject self-sacrifice for others rather than 'other-regard'."
    ***

    the following was added:

    ***
    "But there are also other barriers to an academic study of Rand's work: most of her non-fiction is written for the general public, and lacks the self-critical, detailed style of analytic philosophy; understanding her views requires reading her fiction, but her fiction is not to everyone's taste; she developed many of her views in lectures and essays and letters written in response to questions sent by her readers, but never took the time to defend them against possible objections or to reconcile them with the views expressed in her novels; and finally, her polemical style, often contemptuous tone, and the dogmatism and cult-like behavior of many of her fans suggest that her work is not worth taking seriously.[2] Last but not least, her advocacy of a minimal state with the sole function of protecting negative individual rights is contrary to the welfare statism of most academics."
    ***

    The last line seems especially uncharitable to me, since it implies that philosophers/academics uncritically dismiss those who hold views contrary to their own.

    I'm glad to see the revision to the introduction, but would still love to see an entry more representative of mainstream philosophical opinion, or at least a critical interaction with the widely-accepted ideas that are opposed to Rand's thinking (e.g. Rawlsian liberalism, egalitarianism, cosmopolitanism, all versions of moral realism, etc.). One of the things I find most useful in the better SEOP entries is the interaction with criticisms. This entry still lacks that, in my opinion.

    And, thanks for the links above! Keep them coming.

    Reply
  10. Roderick T. Long

    If anyone can tell me what is supposed to be "horrible" about our Rand entry I'd be happy to hear it.

    Reply
  11. Bokata

    Try Murray Rothbard's essay here: http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard23.html

    Reply
  12. Wes McMichael

    Professor Long,

    Since "horrible" was my word, I should explain. There was considerable discussion of your entry on this blog not long after it appeared on SEP (http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2010/08/thoughts-on-the-stanford-encyclopedia-of-philosophya-disciplinary-treasure.html). An anonymous commenter wrote, "I’m a big fan of the project, and contributed several pieces, but my RSS feed of recent entries has raised my brows in several cases. The most egregious was the entry on Ayn Rand … The entry that set me off was the Ayn Rand one—the bibliography alone is one of the most embarrassing I’ve ever seen: outlets of questionable merit at best, etc." and "First, it is true that the Rand entry was the triggering cause of my complaint, especially the notable absence of any secondary literature from top journals. Not a surprise, of course, but part of the story of the collective opinion of the profession about Rand's status. Moreover, there is no mention in the entry of why this might be so–the general collective disdain of objectivist philosophy is ignored entirely. I would think that a disinterested treatment of Rand's philosophy would address the matter in some way, and the paucity of serious work on her ideas in quality outlets … The worry here is one about false credibility because of the status of SEP. Just as many philosophers, including me, cringe at news of quality publications including work on creation science, I cringe when SEP does something similar."

    Another said, "And this is where the Stanford Article really goes wrong. There is no discussion of the pervasiveness of this kind of cult-like sophistry [described above]. And, without such a discussion, seeing a link to Peikoff's 'Ayn Rand Institute' in a Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article gives me chills. Would we accept a link to the Church of Scientology in a Stanford article with no discussion of how sophistical and cult-like they are? Isn't this an abdication of our duties as philosophers?"

    Others commented on the section discussing rape in the Fountainhead–e.g. "I find the 'Feminism' section of the Ayn Rand entry to be incredibly offensive and not worthy of being part of the SEP. The way the 'rape' scene from _The Fountainhead_ is defended in this section is quite appalling: [Section from your article omitted] … The inappropriateness of this section speaks for itself. I am not against having an Ayn Rand entry in the SEP. I feel like it has the potential to be a useful resource that presents as well as critiques the work of Ayn Rand, especially for younger students who are interested in objectivism and derivatively might be interested in philosophy. But as this section evinces, I don't think that the current entry is providing such a service."

    Another wrote, "what struck me about the entry is that there is no space for criticisms. While most entries on philosophers don't have criticisms either, I think with someone as marginalized by the broader philosophical community as Rand, one would expect to at least see a section devoted to her critics."

    Still another wrote, "I have no problem with the SEP publishing a detailed article on Rand. My concern is that the article gives an academic gloss to her work which simply isn't justified by the quality of her actual writing. Reading the SEP article, one gets the impression that Rand produced a sophisticated neo-Aristotelian philosophy. This is a stark contrast with what she actually put down in print. Many of Rand's actual writings are crude, scattershot, lacking in rigor, and convey serious misunderstandings of both Aristotle and other historical figures like Kant. From that article, however, one could easily get the impression that Rand had a fully developed and well articulated philosophy. Indeed, much of the article reads as if certain technically refined, Rand-inspired positions have been projected back onto her corpus by the authors. This, rather than the decision to include her in the SEP, seems to be the real issue. Maybe an SEP entry on L. Ron Hubbard ought to exist. If that same entry leaves the impression that his philosophy is similar to and of the same philosophical caliber as Arthur Schopenhauer's, then this is a major problem."

    Another wrote, "The Rand entry, though, seems to gloss over (or completely leave out) any substantive criticisms of her views. In the passages noted about the rape scene, the authors mention don't offer any citations to critics of her treatment of sex (although one citation, Brownmiller, is offered as evidence of anti-feminism) while at least six are offered in support of the Rand-as-feminist thesis. This seems rather lopsided to me. The rest of the topics in the entry seems to be about the same. Most of the entries in the SEP offer a fairly clear and balanced presentation of the topic or thinker, and offer a nice selection of popular critical views. I would think the authors of the Rand piece could have found some place to interject, say, some criticism of Rand's view of altruism or at least offer some citations to point readers to its existence."

    There are more, but this is enough to give a general impression, I think. While the entry probably does give a reasonably good (or excellent) summary of Ayn Rand's thought (maybe beefed up a little bit), it does not represent the general consensus of philosophers on the merit of her thought. I take it that an encyclopedic entry should represent general thinking in the field. So, while I'm sure the entry does a good-to-excellent job summarizing Rand's thought, it seems to me "horrible" for an encyclopedic entry that I can send students to for a general impression of ideas found in Rand, such as self-interest/egoism, laissez-faire capitalism, identity, etc. It lacks critical engagement with mainstream philosophical thought.

    A 2009 poll on this blog (http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2009/03/now-heres-a-tough-poll-to-answer.html) asking which person we most wish the media would stop referring to as a "philosopher" had Rand winning by a 75% vote of around 1500 people! A philosophical entry on Rand ought to acknowledge this wholesale rejection and deal with critics of the ideas presented in her work. I don't see that in your entry (even in the most recently revised version).

    Reply
  13. Christopher Morris

    "The last line ["Last but not least, her advocacy of a minimal state with the sole function of protecting negative individual rights is contrary to the welfare statism of most academics."] seems especially uncharitable to me, since it implies that philosophers/academics uncritically dismiss those who hold views contrary to their own."

    But academic philosopher DO quite often uncritically dismiss POLITICAL views contrary to their own, at least if those views are to the right of theirs. Most academic philosophers are indeed "welfare statists", that is, supporters of welfare states. And some of this intolerance seems based on ignorance. Aging New Leftists might find much to agree with if they were to acquaint themselves with Rod Long's critique of American corporatism, US foreign policy, and our two political parties.

    Rand is not my favorite philosopher. But I find the excitement she causes mildly humorous. Imagine, taking a poll to see who deserves the honorific 'philosopher'! What unhappy, humorless people, these philosophers!

    BL COMMENT: Tsk, tsk, Chris. We both know that every philosopher we've ever met is "dismissive" of some philosophical views. And for humorlessness, not appreciating the joy in a poll of who is a bigger charlatan–Derrida, Rand, or Strauss–well, really!

    Reply
  14. Mark N.

    Related to this request, I would find useful a sort of concise handbook to Rand response. I feel there are at least three somewhat distinct lines one could take.

    1. There is the biographical/sociological one that many journalistic pieces take: make Rand seem like an unsympathetic figure by recounting her personality, the somewhat cultish group around her, etc. There are many sources for this angle, including some from within the libertarian movement, such as Murray Rothbard's short play satirizing what it was like to encounter Randians (an enthusiastic libertarian shows up to a Randian party only to be attacked for liking Mozart, who Rand deemed too aesthetically Red). The weakness of this approach is that someone so inclined can just say that, well, maybe Rand was personally unsympathetic, but her philosophy is nonetheless interesting, the way people apologize for Heidegger.

    2. There is just outright dismissal, arguing that her literature is bad and her philosophy unserious. This is probably the dominant approach among academics, but I think has only minor persuasive value when directed at those who are already fans.

    3. One may critique her philosophy at length. This might require treating it seriously as an initial step, attempting to relate it to accepted views in philosophy, e.g. to position her ethics within ethics, her metaphysics within metaphysics, etc., and then to critique it once that has been done. This seems to be what the post is asking for, and I have nothing really to suggest besides what's been mentioned.

    4. Finally, one may critique her novels' narratives and implications. This relates to the Protevi-style "affect" that VL mentions in an earlier comment. The goal would be to engage with the works in a mixed mode of philosophical/literary criticism, to undermine the assumptions they make and views they promote. One model that comes to mind is a critical version on the "X and Philosophy" series of books that has become so popular. Instead of a "Matrix and Philosophy" that treats the Matrix sympathetically, as an excuse to popularize philosophical doctrines to that film's fans, how about a "The Fountainhead and Philosophy", say, that uses that novel as an excuse to popularize mainstream philosophical accounts of issues her novels mention tangentially? It might even sell well.

    Reply
  15. Robert Bass

    Several years ago, I published two articles critical of Rand in the _Journal of Ayn Rand Studies_. The first, "Egoism Versus Rights" , develops an argument that key theses from Rand's ethics and political philosophy are actually incompatible with one another. Her ethical egoism is not compatible with her rights theory. The editor invited responses and allowed me to respond further, which I did in "Defending the Argument" . Suffice it to say that I think my initial argument was undamaged by the response.

    Reply
  16. Robert Bass

    Earlier, I mentioned two of my articles critical of Rand's theories, but links I meant to include are missing. Here are the links:

    "Egoism Versus Rights"
    http://www.aynrandstudies.com/jars/archives/jars7-2/jars7_2rbass1.pdf

    "Defending the Argument"
    http://www.aynrandstudies.com/jars/archives/jars7-2/jars7_2rbass2.pdf

    Reply
  17. Jonathan B.

    Did you notice when Julian asked if Ayn Rand and Saul Kripke should be thought of as making the same mistake in the metaphysics? What precipitated that mention of Kripke?

    Reply
  18. Nicholas McGinnis

    Searching in Google turned up Nozick's paper here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/102657523/On-the-Randian-Argument-Nozick

    It's an interesting piece, and worth reading, but I found the following passage (from the intervew, linked above) more succinct and dead-on:

    "The followers of Rand, for example, treat "A is A" not just as "everything is identical to itself" but as a kind of statement about essences and the limits of things. "A is A, and it can't be anything else, and once it's A today, it can't change its spots tomorrow." Now, that doesn't follow. I mean, from the law of identity, nothing follows about limitations on change. The weather is identical to itself but it's changing all the time. The use that's made by people in the Randian tradition of this principle of logic that everything is identical to itself to place limits on what the future behavior of things can be, or on the future nature of current things, is completely unjustified so far as I can see; it's illegitimate."

    I find it truly bizarre that anybody thinks we can be told how to run a complicated, non-linear, messy global economic and political system on the basis of rather poor armchair reflection on "existence exists" and other such principles (leading me to generally adopt Mark N.'s approach (2), above). But perhaps I am misunderstanding the structure of the Randian dialectic.

    Reply
  19. Marcus Morgan

    Nice piece by Robin. The simple reality, requiring little analysis, is that Rand favors the law of the jungle when confronted by alternatives to her own momentum, rather than compromise, thus limiting her education about people and ideas. Her background is a battleground and she would probably be at home with Machiavelli as her facilitator. her work is unchallenging pulp, and her message is easily mindlessly digested. I would put her ideas in a glass case with a skull and crossbones labelled "Such ideas can arise from Revolutionary & Cold War Tensions".

    Reply
  20. Neil

    Corey Robin's essay from the Nation is reprinted in his _The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin_ (Oxford 2011). Although the book reprints articles from The Nation, the London Review of Books, and etc, it is, as VL says, a nice combination of popular and scholarly discussion.

    Reply
  21. Andy Lamey

    In the 1980s there was an anthology of philosophers writing about Rand called The Philosophic Thought of Ayn Rand (University of Illinois Press). I've heard second hand that two of the essays are quite critical of Rand: "Life and the Theory of Value: The Randian Argument Reconsidered" by Charles King, and "The Fundamental Moral Elements of Rand's Theory of Rights" by Eric Mack (Mack is cited in the Stanford entry).

    Reply
  22. Young VAP

    I'd like to suggest that there is a non-causa pro-causa being committed by some (perhaps merely situational) defenders of Rand. The claim that I find questionable is the claim that academic philosophers are dismissive of Rand because they are welfare statists. That is, I find questionable the claim that philosophers have a certain view, perhaps a certain dogma, and then dismiss Rand because her views are in conflict with that dogma.

    For example, cited above in the thread, the SEP entry of Rand states, in explanation of why Rand does not receive more attention in from academic philosophers, "her advocacy of a minimal state with the sole function of protecting negative individual rights is contrary to the welfare statism of most academics".

    For another example, Christopher Morris above comments that "academic philosopher[s] DO quite often uncritically dismiss POLITICAL views contrary to their own, at least if those views are to the right of theirs. Most academic philosophers are indeed "welfare statists", that is, supporters of welfare states."

    In my case, at least, this is getting things backward. I do not reject Rand because I am welfare statist. Rather, I am a welfare statist because I reject Rand. I doubt that I am unusual in this regard. Let me explain.

    Like a lot of other intellectually-oriented young people (not to say "geeks") I read a lot of Ayn Rand as one of my first philosophical experiences. I daresay I read Rand's novels before I knew what a "welfare statist" was in the first place . . . I would have learned the term from her writing.

    Since hers was the first purportedly complete philosophical description of the world that I had come across (I bet this is a common experience), I was amazed and impressed with her work. I was amazed that such a thing — a philosophical description of the world — could be done at all, and I assumed that Rand's must be correct because, well, what else could be correct? How would I know? I had no comparison to make. I imagine Paul Ryan's experience was similar.

    So for a year or slightly longer — I think I was a college sophomore — I was a committed Randian. I carried Atlas Shrugged or The Virtue of Selfishness with me everywhere. I wrote letters to the editor. I wished more people would read her work and come to enlightenment. All of this, in the half-articulate manner of a person who has learned that words and ideas are capable of internal structure and that the consistency of that internal structure is important, but without yet really understanding what connection all of those words and structures ought to have to the real world. I didn't yet know anything about the real world. And I didn't yet know that more than one structured and comprehensive view of the world was even possible in the first place.

    But then in the coming years I read other stuff. I found the writings by Marx, Freud, Plato, and later Rawls, Arendt, and . . . well, make your own list . . . to be altogether more faithful to life than were the fantasies of Ayn Rand (in which there is a certain class of people called "geniuses" who all, inter alia, recognize each other instantly and like the same music). These other writers were better at rigor and responsibility to past thinkers, but just as important were more aware of suffering, of the exigencies and accidents of human life.

    So, beginning as a Randian, I became persuaded that other non-Randian views were more compelling. Was this the result of a rigorous, "philosophical" refutation of Rand? Not exactly. More likely it was the sort of process of persuasion described by Gary Gutting in What Philosophers Know. One is persuaded by the fruitfulness of differing philosophical systems and approaches. This is not to say that a more rigorous refutation of Rand cannot be accomplished, of course. It's just not really worth the bother. The difference in fruit and faithfulness to life is so overwhelming that there is no point.

    As I say, I doubt that my experience is unique. It's not that I reject Rand "because I'm a Marxist" or whatever. It would be much more accurate to say that I'm a Marxist, or whatever, because I reject Rand. To say the former is, at minimum, uncharitable.

    Reply
  23. Ryan C

    There is a lot of interesting critical work in the Journals of Ayn Rand Studies. That Journal features philosophers and others who, either for or against, take Rand's ideas seriously. So you might want to start there.

    Also, to say Paul Ryan is certainly absurd to anyone who has ever given Rand a fair look. You might find her personal views repugnant, but actually look at what she said and compare it to Paul Ryan.

    Reply
  24. Kevin D

    At one point a close friend of mine fell under the spell of Rand, so I decided to read some of her work in order to try and figure out a good way to critique it. I had slogged through a good portion of some of her novels in the past, so I realized that that was not where any real philosophical argumentation was to be found. (Fair enough – they are just novels, after all.) She has very few (if any) academic publications in the standard sense of the word, but there are some lectures and similar materials available online, so I decided to have a look / listen to those.

    It quickly became clear to me that the main challenge in launching an attack on Rand's point of view is locating some sort of argument in the first place. Now I understand that sometimes philosophers say 'there's no argument in paper X' when what they really mean is that they don't like the argument, or that they feel that something that the author wants to take as self evident shouldn't be taken as self-evident, and so on. For those not familiar with Rand, let me assure you that that's not what I mean when I say that there's no argument to be found in Rand. I don't mean that the argument has implausible premises, or question-begging premises, or is logically invalid. Rather, I quite literally and seriously mean that there is absolutely no argument at all. In her lectures and writings, she spends most of her time insulting her opponents. Those insults are followed by some insinuations, after which she gestures at some more insults. There are expressions of exasperation, followed by peculiar appeals to emotion, returning to more insults at the end. But at no point is there actually anything like an argument given in any sense of the word. To those unfamiliar with what a sustained philosophical argument is, this may be enough to give the facade of an argument. And perhaps that is enough to explain her success – she masterfully creates the illusion of giving an argument when there is none. To someone without the appropriate background, perhaps that is convincing enough.

    And so therein lies the main challenge. How does one critique Rand? The reason that philosophers have not provided sustained critiques of Rand in the way that they provide sustained critiques of each other is that Rand's work simply does not have the right sort of form to be critiqued at all (at least, not the sort of intellectual critiques that philosophers are trained to give.) The problem is not that no-one thinks it is worth their while to critique Rand. In fact, given the number of people who have fallen under the spell of Rand, it would be a huge service to the academic (and broader) community for someone to burst Rand's bubble. Nor is the problem that no-one is going to give you tenure for writing a critique of Rand (though that is probably true). The problem, rather, is that is simply nothing substantial to critique at all. And it is because of this that I think that the antidote to Rand is unlikely to come from the community of academic philosophers.

    If there is an antidote to be provided, it will likely take the form of a popular book (or set of books) that, through sensitively exploiting something in the Zeitgiest and by appealing to the emotions in a different sort of way, somehow neutralizes the spell of Randianism. Anyone who produced such a book would be doing the world a great service. But I doubt that such a book will come from a profession of people who are primarily trained in providing necessary and sufficient conditions for X or Y or Z. The production of such an antidote will require a very different – and perhaps even orthogonal – set of skills.

    Reply
  25. Scott

    Kevin D,

    Even if Rand doesn't offer any arguments, does she still makes claims? If she does, then why couldn't a critique take the following form?

    Rand makes controversial claims. She doesn't provide any arguments in defense of those claims. But there are some very powerful arguments against her claims.

    It seems to me that this has the potential to be a nice criticism and one that philosophers could engage in. Furthermore, it seems to me that this criticism is possible even if Rand doesn't offer any arguments for her views.

    Reply
  26. Steven Yates

    Actually, there is a detailed book-length critique of Ayn Rand's thought in the various branches of philosophy entitled With Charity Toward None: An Analysis of Ayn Rand's Philosophy by William F. O'Neill (1977). The Philosophical Thought of Ayn Rand (eds. Douglas J. Den Uyl & Douglas B. Rasmussen, 1986) was mentioned earlier. There is at least one favorable exposition entitled, Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical by Chris Matthew Sciabarra (1995) and at least one more entitled The Ideas of Ayn Rand by Ronald E. Merrill (1991)–haven't read this one & am not familiar with the author; I mention it for completeness sake. Finally, David Kelley shows an ability to develop Rand's ideas about sense perception (direct realism) in his book The Evidence of the Senses (1988). Tibor R. Machan has also developed Rand's ethics in Individuals and Their Rights (1989) and other books. Thus there are a few professional philosophers who have found value in Rand's ideas. Disclaimer: I am not a Randian "Objectivist" (though I am sympathetic to many libertarian ideas).

    Reply
  27. Greg Janzen

    Kevin D,

    "I quite literally and seriously mean that there is absolutely no argument at all [in Rand]."

    This is false (not that you mean it, but that there is no argument in Rand). In an untitled letter from her book Philosophy: Who Needs It?, Rand produces a number of (weak) arguments against Rawls's view of natural lottery inequalities. In The Virtue of Selfishness, she argues, among other things, that property rights follow from the right to life, that redistributing wealth amounts to condemning those whose wealth is redistributed to slave labour (an argument a version of which was later advanced by Nozick in Anarchy, State, and Utopia), and that there are no conflicts of interests among rational agents. In Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, she argues, citing what she takes to be good empirical evidence, that virtually all the supposed failures and injustices of free enterprise are actually attributable to government intervention in commerce. And then, of course, there's the argument that Nozick finds in Rand for the moral foundations of capitalism, which he discusses at length in his "On the Randian Argument."

    Rand did produce arguments, a lot of them, even if they're not easily discernible, and even if most of them are patently terrible.

    Reply
  28. Jon Cogburn

    What Young VAP wrote above pretty much describes my own adolescent trajectory.

    One of the biographies of Rand states that the only philosopher Rand actually read was Nietzsche, which reminds me of this bit of dialogue from "A Fish Called Wanda"-

    Wanda: Otto, you ape!
    Otto: Apes don't read Nietzsche.
    Wanda: No Otto. Apes don't *understand* Nietzsche.

    [Also, see Brian's post three posts forward from this one.]

    Reply
  29. LFC

    I'm not esp. interested in Rand, but Jennifer Burns' Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right (Oxford UP, 2009) may be worth mentioning.

    Reply
  30. Joshua A. Miller

    Presumably Sanchez is thinking of Kripke's famous objections to the truth-tracking/reliabilist theory of knowledge, although he may have some other notion in mind, like comparing a Rand's A=A to a theory of natural kinds.

    Sanchez is on Twitter @normative, so somebody should ask him.

    Reply
  31. R. Kevin Hill

    I discuss precisely this point, which you are quite right about, here: http://poseidonian.wordpress.com/2010/08/23/the-fundamental-problem-with-objectivism/ The worst thing about it is that if you think controversial classifications are really identity statements, and identity statements are necessary truths, you might think that anyone who denies your classifications is a fool, or worse. This reinforces the rhetoric of contempt for opposing views.

    Objectivism is a complex cognitive and moral syndrome with discernable contours; it is also one of the most influential ideologies around (though indirectly). I wish someone would write a really good book on it, but I fear that the profession is too embarrassed to do so.

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