humanities.philosophy.objectivism

In article b26f8652442c@h25g2000hsf.googlegroups.com>, cbell97@bellsouth.net
says...

> From Ayn Rand, /Causality versus Duty/
>
> found here:
>
> http://www.mindmelding.com/ayn_rand_causality_versus_duty.htm

Thank you. If Rand wants to press hard on a distinction between "duty"
and "obligation" that's fine by me - but I have not been. (The words
are interchangeable according to the dictionary I have closest to hand,
The Random House Dictionary, Concise Edition.) You can replace any use
of "duty" in my posts with "obligation" - it does not change my
argument. In particular, it does not change my claim that the right of
one entails the obligation of others - just as Rand states in VOS.

> The obligation to keep one's promises is one of the most important
> elements in proper human relationships, the element that leads to
> mutual confidence and makes cooperation possible among men. Yet
> observe Kant's pernicious influence: in the dictionary description
> quoted earlier, personal obligation is thrown in almost as a
> contemptuous footnote; the source of "duty" is defined as "the
> permanent dictates of conscience, piety, right, or law"; the source of
> "obligation," as "the dictates of usage, custom, or propriety"--then,
> as an afterthought: "and to carry out a particular, specific, and
> often personal promise or agreement." (Italics mine.) A personal
> promise or agreement is the only valid, binding obligation, without
> which none of the others can or do stand.

This presents a choice. You can either read Rand as being inconsistent
in stating in one place that rights impose negative obligations while
stating in another that only "personal promises" create obligations, or
you can read her in the second case as speaking of positive obligations
only. The latter is better because (1) she mentions promises in the
context of cooperation, where persons are acting affirmatively and not
simply failing to interfere, and (2) she does not state in "Man's
Rights" that rights come about by means of personal promises, yet she
clearly believes that rights exist.

--
Gordon