The One Way to Defeat a Rational Argument
May 13, 2008 by Paul McKeever
Freedominion.com.pa is a popular discussion board, especially (but not exclusively) for small-c conservatives of various stripes, who want to discuss Canadian politics. It is one of a number of sites that has been sued or complained about in respect of matters relating to human rights legislation in Canada (especially as it relates to the issue of curtailing speech).
Accordingly, a major topic of discussion is section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, which curtails freedom in respect of speech on web sites. There have been allegations that the real purpose of some section 13 complaints is to shut down conservative discussion boards, thereby preventing the distribution of views contrary to those of the liberal collectivists. The topic is even more interesting for partisan reasons: one sitting member of the opposition Liberal Party of Canada, Dr. Keith Martin, has introduced a motion in parliament to repeal section 13. Dr. Martin was a Conservative, but switched parties a while back.
With that as context, you might not find it entirely surprising that several bloggers and posters on freedominion.com.pa are rather upset that the Conservative Minister of Justice has not expressed any opposition to section 13. Among the several postings on the subject, I noticed a couple by a fellow who goes by the handle EdS, who expressed both a crisis of loyalty to his party (the Conservative Party of Canada) and feelings of defeat at the prospect of fighting section 13:
I’m seriously considering my future with the Party over this issue. Freedom of Speech is the deal-breaker for me…I am overwhelmed…How do you encapsulate this whole CHRT/CHRC mess into something brief and cogent? How do you begin to explain all this to the ignorant and the apathetic?…I’m not taking any shortcuts. I just need some pointers.
I replied as follows:
EdS, you’re dealing with something that I’ve been dealing with since I took on the responsibility of leading Freedom Party of Ontario. You’ll not be surprised if I tell you that I believe Ayn Rand had the right answer:
Ayn Rand wrote:
…In an intellectual battle, you do not need to convert everyone. History is made by minorities-or, more precisely, history is made by intellectual movements, which are created by minorities. Who belongs to these minorities? Anyone who is able and willing actively to concern himself with intellectual issues. Here, it is not quantity, but quality, that counts (the quality-and consistency-of the ideas one is advocating)
…An intellectual movement does not start with organized action. Whom would one organize? A philosophical battle is a battle for men’s minds, not an attempt to enlist blind followers. Ideas can be propagated only by men who understand them.
…when you ask ‘What can one do?’ – the answer is ‘SPEAK’ (provided you know what you are saying)
…A few suggestions: do not wait for a national audience. Speak on any scale open to you, large or small-to your friends, your associates, your professional organizations, or any legitimate public forum. You can never tell when your words will reach the right mind at the right time. You will see no immediate results – but it is of such activities that public opinion is made…It is a mistake to think that an intellectual movement requires some special duty or self-sacrificial effort on your part. It requires something much more difficult: a profound conviction that ideas are important to you and to your own life. If you integrate that conviction to every aspect of your life, you will find many opportunities to enlighten others…
…it is never too late or too early to propagate the right ideas-except under a dictatorship.
…If a dictatorship ever comes to this country, it will be by the default of those who keep silent. We are still free enough to speak. Do we have time? No one can tell. But time is on our side-because we have an indestructible weapon and an invincible ally (if we learn how to use them): reason and reality.
Now, someone who wants you to stay loyal to some big organization – someone who condemns the idea of dissent or of people thinking for themselves – might argue (as they always do): “Yeah McKeever, I can see how well all of that Ivory Tower writing and talking is working for you! What did you get in the last election? Half a percent?”. In that connection, consider the following, from earlier in Rand’s career (1941, to be precise):
You say, what can one man do? When the Communists came to power in Russia, they were a handful of eighteen men. Just eighteen. In a country of [170,000,000] population. They were laughed at and no one took them seriously. According to their own prophet, Karl Marx, Russia was the last country in which Communism could be historically possible, because of Russia’s backwardness in industrial development. Yet they succeeded. Because they knew what they wanted and went after it — historical destiny or no historical destiny. Adolf Hitler started the Nazi Party in Germany with seven men. He was laughed at and considered a harmless crank. People said that after the Versailles Treaty Germany could not possibly become a world power again, not for centuries. Yet Hitler succeeded. Because he knew what he wanted and went after it — history or no history. Shall we believe in mystical fates or do something about the future? (from “To All Innocent Fifth Columnists“)
As an aside: Some moron might respond to that quotation with a smear, like: “Oh, so Rand advocated communism and Naziism, and she would have us all to do what the Nazi’s did?”. To which I will reply, in advance: Ayn Rand was born a Jewish woman. Her family was expropriated, in Russia, by the Communists. To falsely allege that she was in favour of the very things she detested and actively opposed – such as anti-Semitism, Naziism, Communism etc. – is to demonstrate just how fearful you are that someone might take her advice, and speak-up.
I’ve been taking every opportunity I get to advocate for freedom. Years of thinking, studying, writing and speaking have allowed me to identify the root of the problems that face society, including censorship. The root of all of these anti-freedom efforts is: to oppose the facts of reality and all thought and action that is consistent with those facts. Your enemies are those who want to believe that if we all just agree, or pass a law, or point a gun, we can change the facts of reality concerning man’s method of surviving and pursuing happiness. They are only deluding themselves, though at the expense of your freedom to recognize and deal with the facts of reality.
Luckily, one fact of nature is that your arguments, if founded on the facts of reality and if rational, cannot be defeated by others.
The only person who can defeat your argument is you: by not expressing it.
Don’t despair. On this issue (the Canadian Human Rights Act), reality and reason are on your side. Tell everyone so, because your enemy has no verbal weapon to defeat your argument. He only has guns and guns cannot control a person’s mind (to understand what I mean: you can be forced to have sex with someone, but no amount of force can cause you to love someone).
Smile.
Regards,
Paul McKeever
Well, would the sex be any good? Cause that would make a difference I think. Good post.
Well… not at every venue available to you, Paul. You don’t come to the Liberty Summer Seminar to express your dissenting voice against libertarians…
You’ve told me that attendance at events like these implies agreement with the organizers and their principles. If that’s your view, what venues have you spoken at, and how many “reason and reality” conferences are there?
Ah, well, as you know, I don’t regard the Liberty Summer Seminar as an opportunity for me to advocate freedom. As I’ve explained elsewhere, the net effect of an Objectivist doing a talk at a libertarian event is to give libertarianism an undeserved reputation for being a movement that defends freedom.
Those who deny the existence of existence; who deny that reason, and reason alone, is man’s means of obtaining knowledge; or who deny ones own life to be ones own highest value, rationality to be ones highest virtue, or ones own happiness to be ones highest purpose; are all people who will – in one instance or another – argue that government should not defend a person’s freedom rationally to pursue his own happiness. Yet libertarianism deliberately avoids taking a stand on metaphyics (reality), epistemology (reason), and ethics (rational egoism), in an attempt to gain the support of those who hold anti-reality, or anti-reason, or pro-altruistic philosophies; to gain the support those whose beliefs do not consistently support freedom.
Why give people the impression that I think a Hegelian’s arguments; or a mystic’s arguments, or an altruist’s arguments; are somehow worthy of serious consideration? They are not. But were I to stand amongst them; or to appear to be in league with them; it would be inferred that I think that freedom can be obtained when those committed to the facts of reality work with those who are committed to denying the facts of reality; that freedom can be obtained when those who regard divine revelation as a means of obtaining knowledge work with those who know reason alone to be effective in the discovery of knowledge; that freedom can be obtained when those who regard rational egoism to be pure evil work together with those who regard rational egoism to be the height of goodness; that the freedom rationally to pursue ones own happiness can be won by implicitly sanctioning altruism, irrationality, and the myth of the supernatural.
I’ve spoken/written numerous times as a guest of television programs; in newsmedia and magazine interviews; in major daily newspapers (including columns in the National Post and Toronto Star); in magazines (including the Fraser Forum, Consent, and the now defunct “Wealthy Boomer”), at Freedom Party dinners, conferences and media events; at private functions; at numerous all-candidates debates in 4 elections; on radio programs; on youtube (where I’m a partner); on my blog, etc.. I even spoke at the Liberty Summer Seminar before I understood how much of a mistake that was for one who wants a freer society. You can find much of it (though, clearly, not all of it) linked from my main web site: http://www.paulmckeever.com
Reason and reality conferences are held every year (see, for example, http://www.objectivistconferences.com ) though, clearly, there should be many more: if you want freedom, advocate reason.
I’ve accused you in the past of strawmanning libertarians, and I have another opportunity. The word “libertarian” does not function in the way you think it does. It does not represent a “closed” system. Neither, incidentally, is Objectivism (if you take the work of the Objectivist Center–now the Atlas Society–seriously).
How do you figure that the Liberty Summer Seminar is not helping the freedom movement? Can you name a speaker, or anything, for that matter, that doesn’t serve the ends of promoting liberty? Why is it so “much” of a mistake?
Because we don’t just repeat what Ayn Rand said? Surely, surely there’s room for disagreement. And, besides, the LSS is not an advocacy event, it is an educational event. We intend, and do, discuss various views on liberty. We always have plenty of objectivists who attend, and who are happy to participate in the discussion.
It’s possible, you know, for people to be wrong about things, Paul. And to be wrong about them while not being evil or being willfully ignorant. Some of us just haven’t heard the right arguments (or we find the arguments presented to be wanting).
Incidentally, I do advocate reason. But I’m open to hearing what others have to say.
Peter, in the past you’ve accused me of straw-manning arguments, and then proceeded to prove my argument by saying that libertarianism brings together anyone who advocates its political strategy (you might call it a philosophy, I wouldn’t), regardless of their metaphysics, epistemology, or ethics. Here’s a direct quotation, of you, from your blog:
(emphasis added)
I don’t care to rehash – yet again – why freedom cannot be defended without reference to a rationally-defensible metaphysical, epistemological, and ethical base. Those interested can read here, or here, or watch here:
Damned to Repeat It, Part I: Libertarianism, by Paul McKeever
Part II: Anarchism | Part III: Voting
You write:
First: a thing is what it is. That’s the law of identity. Ayn Rand’s philosophy is Ayn Rand‘s philosophy. Ayn Rand called her philosophy “Objectivism”. The various innovations that others want to pass off as her philosophy, by representing those innovations as “Objectivist”, are not a part of Ayn Rand’s philosophy and, so, are not Objectivism (whether those innovations are right or wrong). Objectivism is no more an “open system” than the concept “off” is open to including the concept “on”.
Second: I don’t take the work of David Kelley’s “Objectivist Centre-now the Atlas Society-seriously”. It tends to be associated with people who falsely call themselves Objectivists, and who speak at libertarian meetings. Related video:
Paul McKeever’s “The Peikoff-Kelley Debate”
You write:
Because it both implicitly and explicitly promotes libertarianism as being pro-freedom when it is not. Libertarianism, being a “big-tent” electoral strategy that intentionally denies the importance of metaphysical, epistemological and ethical issues to freedom, is anti-freedom in its effect.
Peter Jaworski, libertarianism, and the Liberty Summer Seminar.
Because doing so helps give libertarianism an undeserved reputation for being pro-freedom when, in fact, it is anti-freedom. It is a mistake because those who are committed to reality and reason are pro-freedom.
Of course, but not in the context of a pro-libertarian function. For example, I’m disagreeing with you right now.
Its purpose is to educate people…about libertarianism; or, at the very least, to educate in a way that implies libertarianism is a pro-freedom movement/strategy.
Believing you are an Objectivist is different from (a) being an Objectivist, and (b) acting as one. For example, I know anarchists who erroneously consider themselves to be Objectivists. Objectivists understand that to attend the Liberty Summer Seminar is to provide the sanction of the victim of altruism, irrationality, and unreality. A person truly committed to freedom looks at an invitation to the Liberty Summer Seminar, and shrugs.
You demonstrate that amply.
Tell me Peter. You are an intelligent guy. You have the capacity to read and understand Objectivism if you want to. You seem to imply that you have done the reading. What do you think about Hume and skepticism?
I asked: “Can you name a speaker, or anything, for that matter, that doesn’t serve the ends of promoting liberty?”
And you wrote: “Peter Jaworski, libertarianism, and the Liberty Summer Seminar.”
And I say: I was never a speaker at the LSS. I only co-host the event, I don’t speak at it. And add that that’s a pretty harsh indictment of me, personally, and you really shouldn’t do it without knowing me better. You don’t know where I diverge with Objectivism, and I think even Rand would insist that you collect more evidence before you cast so harsh a judgment. I might say the same of you, Paul, since I think Objectivism is a poor way to promote liberty. Unless you think you know that I like Mozart. In which case I stand corrected–since knowing that someone thinks this or that thing is aesthetically pleasing is sufficient to judge their character… ahem…
You asked: “Tell me Peter. You are an intelligent guy. You have the capacity to read and understand Objectivism if you want to. You seem to imply that you have done the reading. What do you think about Hume and skepticism?”
And I say, 1. thanks!,
2. I’ve read every significant work Ayn Rand ever wrote. Every non-fiction book, and every work of fiction, including Night of January 16.
And 3. You’ll have to be more specific. What are we talking about, exactly? Is it Hume’s general point about the fact that we have to use our senses, that those are, of necessity, filters, that we don’t perceive the (what Kant called) “noumenal” world, but only phenomena? Or do you mean his point about causality, and our inability to “know” the future? Or do you mean Hume’s skepticism with respect to religion, the existence of a god or gods, and his argument against miracles? His skepticism with respect to metaphysics, and its usefulness in general (that is where the famous “condemn it then to the flames” quip comes from)? Or something else?
I’ll answer all of them, I guess, and going backwards: 4. Condemn it to the flames, I say! Largely stuff we shouldn’t bother with, akin to arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Not all of it, mind you, but large, large chunks of it.
3. Miracles? Nonsense. God? I don’t believe. The supernatural? Humbug.
2. Hume’s right. And he’s usually grossly misunderstood. He does not deny causality, merely our ability to “know” this. Kant’s response is to insist that cause and effect is a frame we must use in order to understand the world in the first place. Awakened from his dogmatic slumber by Hume (if only Objectivists could be so roused), Kant’s response is pretty good, in my mind. We might append it here and there, and insist, for instance, that we have every reason to use cause-and-effect reasoning as a justified and legitimate *assumption,* even though we can’t *know* this without faith (and faith is a bugaboo, Paul). Incidentally, and contrary to Rand’s and Peikoff’s bastardization of both Kant and Hume (one wonders if they ever bothered to actually read them), neither of them “condemn” us to uncertainty or undermine our ability to think or reason. It does not undermine “man’s mind.” All it does is admit a fact: There’s stuff we can’t know (although some of that stuff we have excellent reason to go on as an assumption).
1. Yup, Hume’s right about this as well. We can’t step outside of our heads, as it were. We need reasons to think that our senses convey accurate information about the world. Reasons that are extra-sensesual (I don’t want to use “sensual” since that has a double-meaning…). But our senses are our only means of acquiring information about the external world, and so we’re stuck with the instruments we’ve got. But they *are* instruments and filters. They do not give us the world-as-it-is, they give us the world-as-it-appears-to-us. Of course, we can construct other instruments that tell us more–like the discovery that colours are not “in the objects” (as it were), but are rather the result of light waves bouncing off of them and interacting with our eyes in certain ways.
We have better and worse reasons to accept the world-as-it-appears-to-me (note the use of “me” rather than “us” here, since we don’t have access to a collective brain, but must constitute some sense of world-as-it-appears-to-us through a combination of world-as-it-appears-to-me). But that’s all we have–better and worse reasons, not “knowledge,” strictly speaking.
So I’m basically on-board with Hume, but it doesn’t lead to things Rand or Peikoff thinks it does.
One other thing: “Believing you are an Objectivist is different from (a) being an Objectivist, and (b) acting as one. For example, I know anarchists who erroneously consider themselves to be Objectivists. Objectivists understand that to attend the Liberty Summer Seminar is to provide the sanction of the victim of altruism, irrationality, and unreality. A person truly committed to freedom looks at an invitation to the Liberty Summer Seminar, and shrugs.”
a) duh and b) duh. You might know anarchists who consider themselves Objectivists, but I know Objectivists who think they know things that they don’t. A person truly committed to freedom looks at an invitation to the Liberty Summer Seminar and does what they can to attend.
Peter, I have explained, at various times mentioned above, that libertarianism not only fails to promote freedom, but implicitly or explicitly (depending upon the libertarian, and the day) denies the necessity or relevance of a commitment to the facts of reality, to reason, or to objective morality in the promotion of freedom. You have as much as agreed with me without saying so, when you’ve said such things as this:
As for my needing to know you better before making such an evaluation of your efforts: it is not as though you have not made your views amply known in writing and on your campus radio show. You have been a vocal advocate of libertarianism. Indeed, my understanding is that you just this weekend attended a Libertarian Party of Canada conference. Similarly, the Liberty Summer Seminar is a libertarian event hosted by you.
My argument (and that of Peter Schwartz, before me, in his “Libertarianism: The Perversion of Liberty”) is that Libertarianism does not “serve the ends of promoting liberty”. If you understand my argument, then you will understand my conclusion that it also follows:
1. that (such as the Liberty Summer Seminar) which promotes, advocates or sanctions libertarianism as a way of promoting liberty is not serving “the ends of promoting liberty”; and
2. those who (like yourself) promote, advocate, or sanction libertarianism as a way of promoting liberty are, similarly not serving “the ends of promoting liberty”.
You write:
Regrettably, then, you cannot claim to be ignorant, or accidentally wrong, in respect of that which you are promoting.
And you will be familiar with the fact that, in proposing that Objectivists get on board with those who believe knowledge to be impossible, you are – not ignorantly or accidentally – asking that that which leads logically to freedom work together with that which undermines it entirely.
[…] « The One Way to Defeat a Rational Argument […]
You wrote: “And you will be familiar with the fact that, in proposing that Objectivists get on board with those who believe knowledge to be impossible, you are – not ignorantly or accidentally – asking that that which leads logically to freedom work together with that which undermines it entirely.”
And I say: There are at least two different senses of “knowledge” which you are equivocating on. I “know,” for instance, that Socrates was put to death by hemlock way back in the day. I also “know” that a bachelor is an unmarried male. The second sense of “know” means: without *any* chance of error. The first sense of “know” means: have overwhelming reason to believe. The two are not the same, Ayn Rand and Leonard Peikoff (and anyone who pretends to do philosophy) should “know” that, and apply the right standard in the right context. Doing otherwise is to commit the fallacy of context-dropping (or whatever new fallacy Rand decided to call it).
Hume believed that “knowledge” in the looser sense is possible with respect to non-analytic or tautological truths or facts. Hume did not believe that we had “knowledge” about empirical matters in the strictest possible sense of “to know,” where there is no chance of being wrong.
But Rand probably knew that, and Peikoff does know it (since he is a professional philosopher), and so I’m tempted by the oft-repeated criticism of Rand that she was being imprecise for the sake of a cheap, emotional point. Because to be absolutely precise is to have to take Kant and Hume much more seriously than she did, and to admit that *they have a persuasive case.*
So, to make myself perfectly clear: Knowledge is possible. Knowledge about the past will necessarily not be without *any* chance of error, similarly with knowledge about the future, and so, too, with knowledge that we derive directly from our senses. We are not omniscient, Paul. But we *can* have knowledge in the sense of having *overwhelming* reason to believe some proposition. That’s real, genuine, honest-to-goodness knowledge. So let’s not play the Randian equivocation game (she does this so often, it’s used as a humorous example in philosophy classes).
Then you wrote: “In any collaboration between two men (or two groups) who hold different basic principles, it is the more evil or irrational one who wins. (“The Anatomy of Compromise,” Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, 145.)”
And I challenge you to prove this statement without quoting Ayn Rand. Why? Because the case is flimsy. In fact, I claim that that statement is empirically without support either in the sense of there being an insufficient number of empirical cases to support it (and therefore it would be wrong for her to assert that she knows this rather than to say that she’s got this hypothesis about “evil” stuff having more “power” than “good” stuff bouncing around in her noggin’ and she’s just throwing it out there so that others can do some empirical work), or in the sense of it being literally false.
Interestingly, it’s a conjunction of 1. evil *and* 2. irrational. Proving a conjunction requires that it be true that 1. The more evil individual or group will win and it must *also* be true that 2. The more irrational individual or group will win. Since the latter proposition is false (depending on what Rand means by “irrational”… but I’ll get to that), the whole statement is false.
Why is it false? Because “rationality” in one sense means merely to take the right means to accomplish your goals. On this version, “irrationality” means taking the wrong means to accomplish your goals (whatever they happen to be). For instance, if you want to count all the blades of grass on your front lawn, it would be irrational for you to grow corn on the assumption that the number of corn stalks will be directly proportional to the number of blades of grass on your front lawn if you multiply by a factor of 10. Thus, in any battle between good and evil, the “irrational” will lose, except by accident. Because they’ll be busy talking about lettuce when they want to move their feet, say, or eat telephones.
In the sense that Rand probably means, it is probably false as well. Surely one thing (amongst many others) going for being rational is that you can defeat “evil.” Surely we’d like to think, if we’re Randians, that in a battle between the rational man and the irrational man, the rational man will win out (one-on-one).
Finally, if it’s a *collaboration* (to achieve goal Y, say), then *they both win*. They *both* get Y. So suppose we want liberty, but you want it because of a (false) belief about the teleological nature of man (Rand either didn’t read enough, or didn’t understand, evolutionary theory), or you want it because of a (false) belief in God, and I want it because it leads to good outcomes (say). And suppose we collaborate (meaning: “work together on some particular goal,” where “goal,” in this case, means “get liberty”), and suppose that the goal we collaborate on is not the sort that only one of us can benefit from (as is the case with liberty), then the meaning of you “winning” in this case is you attaining the goal that we collaborated on. But that means that I won too, since I also get liberty!
It’s like she’s saying: if you’re on a soccer team, and you’re collaborating to score more goals, as a team, during the match, then that teammate of yours who is more evil or irrational will win. Uhm…
And Peter Schwartz’ article is a perfect example of an intellectually dishonest article. What kind of a libertarian you are makes a big difference. The Schwartz’ of the world see libertarians as one giant collective and then criticize that collective for holding different, and mutually exclusive views. But that’s like saying that ethical egoists hold inconsistent views, or that atheists hold inconsistent views. It may be true that this atheist (Ayn Rand, say), or that ethical egoist (Ayn Rand, say), does not hold inconsistent views, but when we compare Ayn Rand’s views on politics with Richard Dawkins views on politics, then–a ha!–we get an inconsistency, and then (by some magic) get to criticize Ayn Rand for being an atheist because atheists hold inconsistent views! But that is just utterly false.
Interestingly, Rand accepts the label “atheist” (why she doesn’t just insist that she’s not an “atheist”–because they don’t all reject faith or are atheists as a consequence of being thoroughly committed to reason–but an “objectivist” is beyond me), she also accepts “ethical egoist” (she could, likewise, insist on being called an “objectivist” because some ethical egoists will be Nietzschean-esque, and so inconsistent with her ethical views), but doesn’t accept “libertarian” which has the same genus function as “ethical egoist” and “atheist”.
It is *identical* to the fallacy Aristotle commits right off the bat in the very opening of the Nichomachean Ethics: “Every craft and every investigation and likewise every action and decision seems to aim at some good; hence, the good has been well-described as that at which everything aims.” (That’s the fallacy of composition).
Rand is wrong on this score, Paul. And wrong according to the demands of reason. Of course, no one is compelling you to be reasonable. (I suppose you’ll have the benefit of winning when you collaborate with the reasonable…)