laura@hoptoad.uucp (Laura Creighton) (03/29/88)
In article <5552@well.UUCP> dhawk@well.UUCP (David Hawkins) writes: >The main substitution is 'survival _qua_ man' for just survival. It's >invalid as far a philosophical or ethical statement because Rand >doesn't give a justification/proof for changing it. If you are >starting with axioms and working upward (as Rand claims to do) then >you can't make changes from one level to another without a reasoned >explaination. What you should read is Douglas Den Uyl's and Douglas Rasmussen's article called ``Nozick on the Randian Argument'' where they present a justification for this. (Nozick wrote a paper called ``On the Randian Argument'' where he tried to examine what he thought Rand's argument was. He missed the ``qua man'' part. ) You can get both of these papers in a book called *Reading Nozick* which is edited by Jeffery Paul in the Philosophy and Society series (general Editor: Marshall Cohen) published by Rowan and Littlefield Totowa, New Jersey. ISBN 0-8476-6279-9 However, you have to be extrememely fortunate to get them at all. The book is out of print (despite only coming out in 1981) and Rowan and Littlefield are not reprinting it. I think that this is terrible, since there are a few dozen essays which are collected in various books they have published which I think should be more widely read. I have been trying for three months to get reprint rights from the various authors involved. Understanding what contractual obligations they have to Rowan and Littlefield is a thorny problem. Until this is straightened, check your library and used bookstores. -- The universe is expanding, but I still can't find a parking space. Laura Creighton uunet!hoptoad!laura utzoo!hoptoad!laura sun!hoptoad!laura toad@toad.com