In this episode of New Ideal Live, Ben Bayer and Mike Mazza respond to several common and plausible philosophic objections to Objectivism that were sent in by viewers.
Among the topics covered:
Why it is valuable to explore objections to any philosophy, especially one’s own;
Why Objectivism does not fall foul of a supposed is/ought gap in its argument for self-interest;
Why modern brain science cannot disprove the existence of free will;
Why the choice to live, which sits at the foundation of the Objectivist ethics, is not a groundless choice and does not make the Objectivist ethics arbitrary or subjective;
Why the method of raising counterexamples, commonly used in analytic philosophy, often neglects the need to keep firmly in mind the facts one is trying to conceptualize;
Mentioned in this podcast and relevant to the discussion are the New Ideal Live episode “Objectivism Q&A—July 2022,” “Life-Based Teleology and the Foundations of Ethics” by Harry Binswanger, “Why Champions of Science and Reason Need Free Will” by Ben Bayer, “Seize the Reins of Your Mind: The Objectivist Theory of Free Will” by Onkar Ghate, Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand by Leonard Peikoff, and “Reasoning About Ends” by Darryl Wright.
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