[Lecture Ten] Understanding Objectivism
by Dr. Leonard Peikoff
Total Time: 2 hours, 23 minutes
Course summary: In this course, Dr. Peikoff explores the proper methodology for understanding Objectivism, and philosophy more generally. The end goal in grasping any complex set of ideas, he notes, is to keep them tied to reality. This course features lecture material by Dr. Peikoff as well as exercises and demonstrations from the live audience. The main methodological topics covered are the need for concretization, the role of definitions in concept formation, the understanding of hierarchy, reduction of concepts to the perceptual level, and the role of context in epistemology. Peikoff also presents essential material on the main cognitive and methodological mistakes that can be made in attempting to understand Objectivism, namely empiricism and rationalism. The course concludes with a discussion of the importance of moral judgment. Read more »
In this lecture: In this lecture, Dr. Peikoff investigates how the understanding of the role of emotions in human life parallels the trichotomy of rationalism, empiricism, and Objectivism. He further develops this application by connecting this view to the perspective on how we should make moral judgments within a wider discussion about the three approaches to value judgments more generally.
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.
| How does the rationalist approach the idea of ethical judgment? What are moral principles in this approach? Provide some examples. |
| What is the subsequent approach to emotions for the rationalist? How does he believe emotions are related to ethics? |
| How does the empiricist approach ethical judgment? What guides him in making moral choices? |
| What is the role of emotions in empiricist approaches to ethics? |
| Why does the empiricist and not the rationalist embrace purpose and context in ethics? How do these ideas fail to live up to human needs? |
| How does the empiricist always end up taking the rationalist dogma as the content of ethics? |
| Explain how Objectivism is a contextual ethics in the proper sense. |
| How does Objectivism understand the role of emotion in human life? |
| What are the five key areas of life in which emotions are crucial? |
| Explain using original examples in at least three areas of life the vital understanding of the role of optional values in Objectivism. |
| How does this perspective on emotions affect how we understand the process of judging another person or oneself? |
Q&A Guide
Below is a list of questions from the audience taken from this lecture, along with (approximate) time stamps.
| 2:04:46 | What were Ayn Rand’s reasons for not wanting to be a mother? |
| 2:05:39 | Does a more challenging job involve greater moral credit? If one person is doing his best as a garbage collector, does he get as much credit as a physicist? Is Eddie Willers as good a person as Galt? |
| 2:06:35 | Could you amplify on the meaning of “emotions are not tools of cognition”? To me, it appears that you very clearly identified some respects in which they are tools. |
| 2:08:25 | As a recuperating Objectivist represser, I would like to share my former motivations, by way of illustration and enlightenment. Because my abstract ideas were held emotionlessly, they did not move me directly to the pleasure they might otherwise have evoked. Rather they moved me indifferently through the pain of moral “shoulds” detached from personal pleasure incentives. Ironically I was ruled by emotions even in my attempt to be ruled only by reason. |
| 2:09:28 | What role do emotions play in the objective evaluation of choice of career? |
| 2:09:38 | You parenthetically mentioned that Miss Rand was not indifferent to people’s reactions toward her. Would you mind explaining? |
| 2:11:11 | Aren’t esthetic value judgments especially prone to the pitfalls of intrinsicism? How does one avoid being dogmatic, especially when one definitely distinguishes between good and bad works of art? All too often I come across the alternative of esthetic relativism or an intrinsic esthetic absolutism. Any suggestions? |
| 2:19:11 | Since knowledge always assumes a specific context, why not make the inductive leap with 1000 white swans? Why not say “swans are white within the context of the numerous swans I have observed”? Discovering a black swan in the future would not contradict this any more than your counterexamples about philosophy in history? |