Penn State Objectivist Club

The next meeting will be this Wednesday (Oct. 21) in 127 Henderson South at 7 p.m.

We will be watching a debate about capitalism vs. socialism.

Capitalists: Dr. Leonard Peikoff and Dr. John Ridpath
Socialists: Dr. Gerald Caplan and Dr. Jill Vickers

Positions
Dr. Gerry Caplan: “Socialism is an ideal that tries to touch the best in people and to elevate the best into the norm.”

Dr. Leonard Peikoff: “The system which guards the freedom of man’s mind is … based on the concept of inalienable individual rights: laissez-faire capitalism.”

Dr. Jill Vickers: “I am a socialist committed to broad humane values which transcend the bankrupt visions of societies that are subservient to economies.”

Dr. John Ridpath: “Socialism denies and assaults every basic social need of man and must therefore ultimately result in tyranny and destruction.”

The next meeting will be on Wednesday, Oct. 14 in 127 Henderson South at 7 p.m.

We will be discussing the meaning of money.

The financial crisis has been blamed on the bankers and the executives on Wall Street. They have been accused of selfishly pursuing profits at the expense of our financial security. They have been labeled greedy, irresponsible, and ruthless in their drive for making money. Pharmaceutical companies have likewise been depicted as villains. They are accused of making drugs exceedingly expensive in order to reap profits off sick people. They are blinded above all else by their desire to make money, knowing that many sick people are not able to access their drugs because of their high cost. Insurance companies, too, are to blame. In order to increase their profits, they deny coverage to people with pre-existing conditions and drop people’s coverage once they become exceedingly sick. This ruthless desire to make money has been blamed for many of the problems we are facing today.

But is money really the root of all evil? And if we money shouldn’t be used to trade goods and services, what are the alternatives? Are these alternatives any better? In Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, Francisco d’Anconia delivers a powerful speech in which he expresses a revolutionary view of the meaning of money and the kind of people who strive to make it.

If you ask me to name the proudest distinction of Americans, I would choose—because it contains all the others—the fact that they were the people who created the phrase ‘to make money.’ No other language or nation had ever used these words before; men had always thought of wealth as a static quantity—to be seized, begged, inherited, shared, looted or obtained as a favor. Americans were the first to understand that wealth has to be created. The words ‘to make money’ hold the essence of human morality.
-Francisco d’Anconia in Atlas Shrugged

Material to be Discussed:

“Francisco’s Money Speech” in Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged
Text online:
http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=1826


Other supplementary material:

Why Businessmen Love Atlas Shrugged
Alex Epstein, analyst at the Ayn Rand Institute
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfcpykambQU

The Money-Making Personality
Ayn Rand
http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ar_money_making

The next meeting will be in 127 Henderson South on Wednesday, Oct. 7 at 7 p.m.

We will be concluding our discussion of the Objectivist ethics.

Conventional wisdom often holds that we face a dilemma: either we surrender our interests to others or we exploit others. According to this view, there are unavoidable conflicts of interests among people.

In our final discussion on the “virtue of selfishness,” we’ll examine the psychological and social facts Ayn Rand identifies that undermine the inevitability of conflict and sacrifice, and her view of how the rejection of sacrifice supports the establishment of laissez-faire capitalism.

“[J]ust as life is an end in itself, so every living human being is an end in himself, not the means to the ends or the welfare of others—and, therefore, that man must live for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself. To live for his own sake means that the achievement of his own happiness is man’s highest moral purpose.”
-Ayn Rand , “The Objectivist Ethics”

Material to be discussed:

“The Objectivist Ethics,” pp. 30-39 (paragraphs 67-end) in Ayn Rand’s The Virtue of Selfishness
Order the book:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0451163931
Full text online:
http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ari_ayn_rand_the_objectivist_ethics

The next meeting will be Wednesday, Sept. 30 at 7 p.m. in 127 Henderson South.

We will be discussing part 2 of the Objectivist ethics…

Most people think that being selfish means ruthlessly pursuing any range-of-the-moment whim that one likes, even if it means plundering or exploiting other people. As a consequence, most think selfishness is the opposite of morality.

In our second discussion, we will inquire into the survival requirements of rational, creative producers, and whether these requirements generate any distinctive virtues (such as honesty, justice, and integrity) recognizable as moral. If such virtues exist, then selfishness is not simply an excuse to act in any way a person wants, but is a committment to acting in a way that truly enhances one’s life in the long-term.

“Man has been called a rational being, but rationality is a matter of choice—and the alternative his nature offers him is: rational being or suicidal animal. Man has to be man—by choice; he has to hold his life as a value—by choice; he has to learn to sustain it —by choice; he has to discover the values it requires and practice his virtues—by choice. A code of values accepted by choice is a code of morality.”
—Ayn Rand , Galt’s Speech, Atlas Shrugged

Material to be discussed:

“The Objectivist Ethics,” pp. 20-30 (paragraphs 34-66) in Ayn Rand’s The Virtue of Selfishness

Order the book:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0451163931
Full text online:
http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ari_ayn_rand_the_objectivist_ethics

The next meeting will be this Wednesday, September 21 in 127 Henderson South at 7 p.m.

We will be discussing the Objectivist Ethics. Read the post below for more information.

The next meeting will be on Wednesday from 7 to 8.30 p.m. in 127 Henderson South. This will be the location of all meetings for the rest of the semester.

For the next three meetings, we will be discussing the Objectivist ethics. We will explore the rational basis of Ayn Rand’s argument that morality consists, not of sacrificing your values to others, but of acting to achieve your values and pursuing your happiness. We will discuss why one’s own life must be the standard of value for any rational person and what virtues a life of rational self-interest requires.

For the first meeting, we will be discussing:

Most people are taught as children that it is wrong to be selfish, and that living morally means surrendering one’s wealth and time to others who are in need. In defense of this idea, little more is offered than that some higher power commands it or that society expects it of us.

In this first discussion, we will ask, with Ayn Rand, whether there is an alternative source of values, some rational, scientific basis—and how the idea that selfishness is a vice looks in light of that alternative basis.

“No philosopher has given a rational, objectively demonstrable, scientific answer to the question of why man needs a code of values… .

[M]ost philosophers have now decided to declare that reason has failed, that ethics is outside the power of reason, that no rational ethics can ever be defined, and that in the field of ethics … man must be guided by something other than reason… .Today, as in the past, most philosophers agree that the ultimate standard of ethics is whim … and the battle is only over the question or whose whim: one’s own or society’s or the dictator’s or God’s… .

If you want to save civilization, it is this premise of modern ethics—and of all ethical history—that you must challenge.”
-Ayn Rand, “The Objectivist Ethics”



Material to be discussed:
“The Objectivist Ethics,” pp. 13-20 in Ayn Rand’s The Virtue of Selfishness

Order the book:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0451163931
Full text online (read paragraphs 1-33 only):
http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ari_ayn_rand_the_objectivist_ethics
Condensed lecture version, read by Ayn Rand, online:
http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=reg_ar_ethics

The next meeting of the Objectivist Club will be this Wednesday (Sept. 9) from 7 to 8.30 p.m in 127 Henderson South.

We will be discussing:

What is the source of human progress? Do the greatest human achievements come from those who devote their lives to serving others? Conventional wisdom says that they do. Is conventional wisdom correct? And since when do we look to conventions to find wisdom?

This week’s discussion will focus on the climactic courtroom speech by Howard Roark in Ayn Rand’s novel, The Fountainhead, in which Roark breaks with tradition and asserts the primary role of the independent egoist in human history, and his moral right to exist for himself.

“Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps down new roads armed with nothing but their own vision. Their goals differed, but they all had this in common: that the step was first, the road new, the vision unborrowed, and the response they received—hatred. The great creators—the thinkers, the artists, the scientists, the inventors—stood alone against the men of their time… . But the men of unborrowed vision went ahead. They fought, they suffered and they paid. But they won.”
—Ayn Rand , The Fountainhead


Reading to be discussed:

-Roark’s speech
http://www.nasonart.com/personal/lifelessons/fountainhead.html

The first meeting for the Objectivist Club will be this Wednesday (Sept. 2) from 7.30 to 8.45 p.m. in 218 Thomas.

Since this is the first meeting of the semester, we will explore the introductory topic of philosophy itself. Many people think of philosophy as a study solely in the purview of intellectuals who wear robes and sit in ivory towers—as superfluous to the everyday life of most men. Is this true? In this meeting we will discuss whether you need philosophy and whether it can benefit your life, regardless of whether you plan to become an academic or a salesman.

Having established why we all need philosophy, we will briefly discuss Ayn Rand’s own philosophy, Objectivism, which she presented as a “philosophy for living a good life.”


“A philosophic system is an integrated view of existence. As a human being, you have no choice about the fact that you need a philosophy. Your only choice is whether you define your philosophy by a conscious, rational, disciplined process of thought and scrupulously logical deliberation—or let your subconscious accumulate a junk heap of unwarranted conclusions, false generalizations, undefined contradictions, undigested slogans, unidentified wishes, doubts and fears, thrown together by chance, but integrated by your subconscious into a kind of mongrel philosophy and fused into a single, solid weight: self-doubt, like a ball and chain in the place where your mind’s wings should have grown.”

—Ayn Rand , “Philosophy: Who Needs It.”




Material to be discussed:

1. “Philosophy: Who Needs It”

Full text of the essay online:
http://gos.sbc.edu/r/rand.html
Lecture version by Ayn Rand, online:
http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=reg_ar_pwni

2. “Introducing Objectivism”

Main text of the essay online:
http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=objectivism_intro
Lecture version by Ayn Rand, online:
http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=reg_ar_introducing


It is recommended that you read the two texts before the meeting on Wednesday. The discussion will be more rewarding if we are familiar with the material from beforehand.

The first meeting of the Objectivist club will be some time next week. As soon as the time and location are confirmed, I will send an email to the mailing list and post information here.

If you did not sign up at the Activities Fair or if you have not contacted me personally, you are not on the mailing list. To get on it, please email me at rvb5057 (at) psu (dot) edu.

We will be meeting again in Redifer Commons on Thursday, April 10 at 6 p.m for dinner. We will mainly be planning for the upcoming speaker event in the fall. We will meet at the entrace at the back of Redifer Commons (NOT the entrance on College Avenue).

Please be sure to let me know if you think you might be coming. That way we will know to wait for you.