CompuServe Messages

John, I've read Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead and enjoyed them very much. I still think that one of Rand's failings is that she confuses science and morality. If one accepts the fundamental assumptions of the empirical method, then one can enter into debate over whether one proposition of fact or another is "true" in the sense of being consisten with empirical data. But when you talk about scientific or objective moral values, there is no way to prove them correct or incorrect. You either accept them or you or you don't. You may be able to prove as a matter of fact that if all people followed a particular set of moral values, certain consequences will follow, but that doesn't prove that those particular consequences are "good" or "bad". Fortunately, we seem to have a substantial consensus as to fundamental values, so we don't have to prove them to others. Just as an example, do you think you would be able to prove to Khomeini, Gorbachev, or whoever else you might pick out that his value system is wrong? How do you answer a communist when he says "I don't care if individual enterprise promotes greater societal wealth — promoting equality of all and economic security for all is morally superior"? I don't happen to agree with those views, but I don't for a minute think I can prove in any objective way that those moral values are wrong. Values are a matter of belief and faith, not proof and demonstration. Darron