FEE: Ayn Rand Predicts its Intellectual Bankruptcy
FEE or the Foundation for Economic Education has proven to be intellectually bankrupt. For instance, their position against patents and Intellectual property shows that they do not understand property rights or rights generally. They also revere the work of the philosopher David Hume, who argued “cause and effect” does not exist, induction is just correlation, and that a rational ethics is not possible (the so-called is-ought problem). This means that Hume undermined reason, science and ethics. Despite this FEE thinks Hume is a great guy. FEE also promotes Matt Ridley who denigrates human achievement in science and engineering, calling Nobel Laurites in science and inventors frauds, for more click here.
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Modern ("millennial") conservatism would be hard to typify except by statistical summaries of minority aggregates. I mean, for instance, the fact that many Tea Party members believe that social security and Medicare are good programs - because they get the benefits, or look forward to them. Some conservatives are "pro-life" themselves but say that they would not interfere with another woman's right to terminate her pregnancy. To me, that is a contradiction. The morass of immigration and security issues that cannot be resolved by self-identified "conservatives" stems from the fact that reality and reason and missing from the debate. They never get down to first principles.
I agree that many (most?) self-identified "conservatives" probably do hold to altruistic morality and ethics. But, as OldUglyCarl pointed out, many do not.
You question "conservatives as do-gooders." I do not know how old you are, but in my lifetime, Ayn Rand's philosophy has become a strong force within conservatism. You know that she was (and is) reviled in National Review, for instance. Nonetheless, whereas the "me-too" conservatives of the 40s and 50s embraced mere tradition, now "me-too" conservatives grab for various elements of Objectivism, though without admitted the entire truth. The spineless politician Paul Ryan is an example of that. He bragged about requiring his staff to read Atlas Shrugged.
He was not alone in that. The Bush-Obama Bailouts pretty much shot Atlas Shrugged in book and film to the top of the cultural news of the day.
So, ever since the "Reagan Revolution" many conservatives have become less squeamish about promoting self-interest. It is a strong current. Even so, many also are social conservatives who endorse the ethics of church and community service as primary virtues.
This is starkest in matters of sexual morality (or immorality, if you will). It is least open to discussion concerning killing the unborn. A less contentious issue is the failed "war on drugs." But you still find many "law-and-order" conservatives who want to "stop the drug trade."
That last issue differentiates libertarians from Objectivists. There, the issue is not whether or not they should be legal, but whether or not you should use them - and why people do. Libertarians end the debate with legalization. They are intellectually incapable of addressing the causes of drug use.
In this case, we could begin with the established fact that capitalism is a superior mode of production, abundance, and social good - childhood longevity, creature comforts, knowledge - and then look at why. Sometimes FEE does that. Occasionally, they publish essays on the morality of individualism, even extending down into the ethics of epistemology: you have no right to force me to contradict the evidence of my senses (granted that much of that goes on in the mind).
A friend of mine who retired as a successful businessman (which I am not), said that in a world of laissez faire, economics would be a branch of accounting... and not much more...
(I do not know what you mean by your not being a laissez faire economist. Do you believe that some government controls of production and trade are necessary?)
We can discuss whether non-aggression is a "principle." I suggest that is not a principle of ethics; it is of politics.
(By analogy, the Pythagorean theorem, which is complicated and dependent on much, is accepted as a basic principle (an "axiom" as I was taught it) of Cartesian Geometry. Similarly, the First Amendment could be a principle of government, because if instantiated in classical Athens, it would have been revolutionary: they lacked that principle, following instead the principle of majority rule. We know that the First Amendment rests on more basic truths of ethics.)
In any case, while I agree that NIOF is necessary but insufficient for a new culture based on reason, I am not loathe to accepting socially those who endorse it.
Rand was definitely one of the greatest thinkers of the 20th century. Her logic can not be disputed.
I am not a laissez-faire economist---you all know that. But you notice Rand did not mention in this letter how best to use the study of economics to promote individualism. She even once admitted she was not an economist.
Capitalism is moral if one wants to morally achieve one's ends and be truly successful "as a consequence". [as she states, morality is not the goal]-[to create and succeed is the goal]
This quote struck me truly.
"The root of the whole modern disaster is philosophical and moral. People are not embracing collectivism because they have accepted bad economics. They are accepting bad economics because they have embraced collectivism. You cannot reverse cause and effect. And you cannot destroy the cause by lighting the effect. That is as futile as trying to eliminate the symptoms of a disease without attacking its germs."
I believe that the reason for FEE's continued good works is that most people have limited interests. We all sort input through filters of understanding. Economics is easy to understand if only because gold coins are tangible. You can reduce economic arguments to Robinson Crusoe.
On the other hand, philosophy requires broad and deep conceptual thinking across the fullest range of your knowledge. Just for instance, when I last read Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology I questioned what I read against everything I know. My only limit was my own range of knowledge.
With economics, it all comes down to measures that we have in our hands. Economics does have "philosophical" arguments. In my last Econ 101 class (2006), on the first day the prof - a good market guy, but not laissez faire - disabused the class on the notion that there is a "fair" or "absolute" price. "Would you give up a dollar to get a quarter? What if you had to make a phone call and the only way to do that was with a pay phone?" So, again, the philosophical issue of "value" came down to everyday measurables.
Philosophy is more abstract than that.
And, if I may, I point out that if you are an economist, you can say that with a straight face. Tell people that you are a philosopher and they will look at your shoes to see if they are tied because you just said that you are not capable of doing it.