Next Meeting: Tuesday April 20th from 6:00pm - 8:00pm (part 3)

So this will be our last session of the semester. Don't forget we do have our last speaking event next monday the 26th click HERE for more info.

This week we will be finishing The Objectivist Ethics. If you haven't been reading along you may still attend this last meeting!

Also, we will be continuing the club over the summer. We will concentrate on one lecture series (we haven't decided which one yet), although some of us like Leonard Peikoff's "History of Philosophy." Stay tuned for more info.

Heres the information for this last meeting:


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:
http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ari_ayn_rand_the_objectivist_ethics

Next Meeting: Tuesday April 13th from 6:00pm - 8:00pm (part 2)

This week we will be continuing our three part discussion. We will be
covering Ayn Rand's theoretical article entitled: The Objectivist
Ethics. Click HERE for the link to the full text for free.

And a supplemental audio HERE.


By the way, even if you missed the first one, just read the first 66
paragraphs and you'll be fine.


This will be Part 2 and we will cover paragraphs 34-66 (It will end on
the paragraph that starts like this):


"The Virtue of productiveness is the recognition..."


Here is an intro:


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.”

Next Meeting: Tuesday April 6th from 6:00pm - 8:00pm

This week we will be starting a three part discussion. We will be covering Ayn Rand's theoretical article entitled: The Objectivist Ethics.

This will be Part 1 and we will cover paragraphs 1-33. (It will end on the paragraph that starts like this: "The higher organisms possess a much more potent form of consciousness: they possess the faculty of retaining sensations, which is the faculty of perception. A “perception” is a group of sensations automatically retained and integrated by the brain of a living organism, which gives it the ability to be aware, not of single stimuli, but of entities, of things."

Here is an intro:

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.”