[Lecture Fourteen] Advanced Seminars on Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand
by Dr. Leonard Peikoff
Total Time: 1 hour, 34 minutes
Course summary: In this course, Dr. Peikoff presented material from his then-new book, Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand. The manuscript had its earliest roots in Peikoff’s comprehensive 1976 lecture course on Objectivism. As he worked on the material for publication, he discovered new connections and implications of major ideas in the philosophy as well as new insights on its integrated, hierarchical structure. Peikoff used these seminars to discuss what he learned in the process and to demonstrate how it would allow students of Objectivism to gain a new understanding of the philosophy. Read more »
In this lecture: This lecture features a discussion and elaboration of the concept of individual rights as the basis of government. Dr. Peikoff provides the validation of individual rights, discusses the proper functions of government, and the need for objective law.
Q&A Guide
Below is a list of questions from the audience taken from this lecture, along with (approximate) time stamps.
| 30:58 | If rights rest on such a complex foundation, how has anyone been able to validate them prior to Objectivism? |
| 33:36 | When does the transition of the potential to the actual occur in regard to the fetus? |
| 39:14 | Could you clarify the conceptual distinction between the evil of the initiation of physical force and the concept of rights, because in your example of the desert island of people who haven’t yet formed a society, certainly each person would have to say that it’s morally wrong to initiate force. And yet the concept of rights you say… |
| 42:50 | Why add the right to pursue happiness and have property? |
| 1:00:19 | What do you mean by “destroy destruction”? |
| 1:01:03 | How does libel relate to the Objectivist theory of violating rights? |
| 1:05:37 | Is vengeance a valid motivation of the just punishment of criminals? |
| 1:08:55 | Is it correct to say that a crime must be measurable in addition to observable? |
| 1:18:09 | Why doesn’t Miss Rand say that there are four functions of government: the police, the military, the courts, and the law-makers? |
| 1:22:16 | Is vigilante action ever justified in situations where the government fails to mete out justice? |
| 1:26:41 | What can you do in politics to make things better? Should you abstain? |
| 1:29:08 | Suppose a group of people within a country governed by an Objectivist government—a free country, with individual rights—wanted to withdraw from the main society and form their own society in which either a) they outlawed more things than the initiation of force or b) they agreed that some acts of force were okay. How would an Objectivist respond to that and what would the government do? |