[Lecture Two] Moral Virtue
by Dr. Leonard Peikoff
Total Time: 1 hour, 10 minutes
Course summary: This course features an extended discussion of three issues in moral virtue that Dr. Leonard Peikoff learned about in writing his treatise on Objectivism. He reviews the virtues of justice and independence as well as the chief vice, the initiation of force, and applies new insights about their derivation, validation, and application. Read more »
In this lecture: This lecture covers the chief vice of initiating physical force. Dr. Peikoff discusses the connection between inactive evil, irrationality, and open embrace of physical force. He illuminates the nature of how force arrests the rational mind as well as the common pseudo-arguments that favor it.
Study Guide
This material is designed to help you digest the lecture content. You can also download below a PDF study guide for the entire course.
| What is force and how is it properly defined? |
| Why is abstaining from force not sufficient for saying someone is not evil? |
| In a disagreement, is persuasion per se, as opposed to force, a sign of honesty? |
| What about force is uniquely anti-mind? |
| How does complying with a torturer’s demands necessitate something other than thought? |
| In what way does force always aim at action and not thought? |
| Using your own examples, explain how force invalidates three derivative virtues. |
| Why can force not achieve real, objective values? |
| Why is intellectual force not actually possible? |
| What is the difference between violence and force? |
Q&A Guide
Below is a list of questions from the audience taken from this lecture, along with (approximate) time stamps.
| 54:45 | Is consent essential to the issue of force? |
| 56:42 | What is the proper moral action toward the vicious killing of Colonel Higgins in Lebanon? |
| 1:00:10 | Is it legitimate to initiate a preemptive strike against another country when they are about to initiate force against you? |
| 1:03:27 | What is the moral status of an action taken by a prisoner in a concentration camp who is ordered to initiate force against another prisoner? |
| 1:05:19 | Is one who persuades another to use force as responsible as the one he persuades? |
| 1:08:03 | Can you explain the harm that the aggressor does to himself and not just the victim? |