[glenstein]

I mean if it's a good explanation, then it most definitely is the same as lack of hypocrisy.

I do see how you can squint and feel that there's something there, after all Rand imagined a capitalist utopia. But it's not at all a crazy argument to understand accepting the benefits as a recovery of resources that were rightfully yours to begin with. It's actually refreshingly coherent and responsive, and a huge contrast with how modern public figures don't even pretend to address instances of personal hypocrisy.

I might raise a little bit of an eyebrow but I don't see the knockdown gotcha, and if you do, well, you've gotta make the argument.

[ceejayoz]

> But it's not at all a crazy argument to understand accepting the benefits as a recovery of resources that were rightfully yours to begin with.

I rather suspect Rand's politics didn't include giving land back to Native Americans, or paying reparations to slaves.

[glenstein]

Great point and no disagreements from me there, it's actually a great illustration of an intellectual blind spot her philosophy is practically helpless to address.

But one comment ago the subject was social security, and I don't think the charge of hypocrisy sticks on that one.

[ceejayoz]

> But one comment ago the subject was social security, and I don't think the charge of hypocrisy sticks on that one.

But that difference is the hypocrisy!

"I get to have this… because it was taken from me! No, that doesn't apply to your thing, because… uh..."

[glenstein]

We could live in a world where there was no injustice visited on Native Americans and Ayn Rand still either was or was not a hypocrite about Social Security. But I think Rand neutralized that by putting it in the context of losing money via taxation and recovering it as a benefit.

What's essential to that argument is what's contained in Rand's philosophy about taxation and her personal actions in electing to receive the benefit. Broadening the scope of the argument to include Native Americans in order to sustain the charge of hypocrisy is an indicator that the Social Security argument is not able to stand on its own.

[btilly]

The fact that it is a good explanation, doesn't mean that hypocrisy is missing. It is quite common for us to do things for one reason, while actually being motivated by a second, unacknowledged, reason.

For example consider this case. When we become dependent upon another's largesse, it is easy to emotionally deal with it by holding the other in contempt. Thereby making it emotionally comfortable to accept the largesse, and hiding from any potential feeling of guilt. For example Ayn Rand did an excellent job of portraying this dynamic on a personal level with the example of Lillian Reardon. Who holds Hank in contempt exactly because it keeps her from having to face how much of a parasite she has become.

I've seen Objectivists fall into exactly this dynamic. When their contempt for the government becomes a way to avoid thinking about how dependent they have actually become on said government, continuing to spout Ayn Rand's justification becomes hypocrisy. And as long as the underlying emotional reality is ignored, it remains hypocrisy no matter how logical and reasonable the explanation may be.

[glenstein]

We must have fundamentally different ideas of what it means for something to be a good explanation. It takes more than gesturing toward the hypothetical possibility of acting due to unacknowledged motives for it to count as a best, or even good, explanation.

I used to follow a lot of RSS feeds and the political blogosphere when that was a thing. And one of the best was Brendan Nyhan, and he had a routine segment criticizing op-ed sections for fabricating internal monologues of political actors, making assumptions about internal states of mind that could never be disproved and proceeding to analysis that depended upon such unfalsifiable speculation.

I think it was a good principle against which to judge media accountability, and I would generalize by saying that such speculation involves relaxing the norms that usually apply to critical thinking writ large. At the level of genre, this category of speculating I would say does not enjoy default legitimacy due to its departure from normal critical thinking principles relating to substantiation and a fundamental lack of interest in responding to arguments on their merits.

[btilly]

I'm arguing for the hypothetical possibility that an Objectivist could have hypocrisy on this. The argument that any individual Objectivist actually does requires a tremendous amount of additional information.

I do personally know some Objectivists who I believe are hypocritical on this matter. But that is based on years of interaction, and I wouldn't expect you to be convinced of that simply because I said it.