April 9, 2011

Heroes

Ayn Rand identified the “package deal” as one of the deadly errors of thinking: combining opposites into the one concept, thus hopelessly confusing thinking. It is at its worst in ethical issues, where something good is conflated with something bad: something that can only damage the good and promote the […]
March 12, 2011

Feared, Hated and Adored

“Feared, hated and adored” is what Kzinti cubs feel about their fathers (Kzin are intelligent carnivores invented by science fiction writer Larry Niven), and I can’t think of a better description of people’s attitude to Ayn Rand – though not usually in the one person! I think we’re going to see a […]
January 31, 2011

Ayn Rand Versus Philosophy

As the “is-ought problem” in philosophy is the unifying thread in my chapter “Good Without God” in The Australian Book of Atheism, I thought I’d check out what Wikipedia has to say on the topic. A jarring omission was – no mention of Ayn Rand’s elegant solution to the problem. On […]