Political Theory

Re: Statists and Rand's malevolent universe premise.

mikachusetts — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 19:40:13 GMT

Cal:

This is particularly true when it comes to government regulation arguments. "Without the FDA, there wouldn't be any safe drugs!" What do you think of the malevolent universe premise? Do you think this is how statists see the world?

I think this argument has less to do with the "malevolent universe," and more to do with the idea of man as wild without government, like the Hobbesian jungle larose referenced. Statist see this as the greatest justification for government. The standard refutation of course, is that if man is unable to rule himself, and government is comprised of men, how could they possibly rule everyone else and thereselves as well.

Re: Statists and Rand's malevolent universe premise.

Htut — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 19:10:17 GMT

I think this has more to do with general ignorance than any 'malevolent universe premise'. Frankly, Rand is just kind of weird and Stalinist. Almost nothing people believe has anything to do with coherent 'premises' or 'ideologies'; it's a bunch of random minutia they picked up from their environment and never bothered to process. Most things they say about their beliefs are just post-hoc rationalizations (and Rand was no exception to this).

Re: Statists and Rand's malevolent universe premise.

hugolp — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 11:29:59 GMT

Very posible. Thinking that that way takes away responsability for your life: "Its not that I failed, its how the world is."

Add the though: "Anyone that succeded did it by inmoral means" (wich has some truth in the socialist world we live in) and you have the whole pacakge.

Re: Statists and Rand's malevolent universe premise.

Jackson LaRose — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 07:55:47 GMT

Cal:
Do you think this is how statists see the world?

A good deal do. Big into the Hobbesian "state of nature".

Statists and Rand's malevolent universe premise.

Scrooge McDuck — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 06:33:04 GMT

I find that when debating with statists most of them subscribe to what Ayn Rand called "The malevolent universe premise":

"The altruist ethics is based on a 'malevolent universe' metaphysics, on the theory that man, by his very nature, is helpless and doomed—that success, happiness, achievement are impossible to him—that emergencies, disasters, catastrophes are the norm of his life and that his primary goal is to combat them.

As the simplest empirical refutation of that metaphysics—as evidence of the fact that the material universe is not inimical to man and that catastrophes are the exception, not the rule of his existence—observe the fortunes made by insurance companies."

“The Ethics of Emergencies,” The Virtue of Selfishness, 48

This is particularly true when it comes to government regulation arguments. "Without the FDA, there wouldn't be any safe drugs!" What do you think of the malevolent universe premise? Do you think this is how statists see the world?