Submitted by Gene Howington, Guest Blogger
In 1780, John Adams succinctly defined the principle of the Rule of Law in the Massachusetts Constitution by seeking to establish “a government of laws and not of men”. This reflects the democratic principles enshrined in the Constitution’s preamble: “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” The very foundation of our legal system says that the law should work for us all, not just a select few.
This raises the question of what is a good law that serves the majority of society and what is a bad law that doesn’t serve the majority of society?
This idea is further bolstered by the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment:
“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” The latter addition of the 14th Amendment as well as the Preamble of the Constitution both reflect the spirit in which this country was founded as set forth in the Declaration of Independence: “When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
Clearly, the pursuit of the Rule of Law under the Constitution as informed by the Declaration is a pursuit of the Utilitarian concept of the right course of action is the one that maximizes the overall good consequences of an action; what is in the best interest of greatest numbers of We the People is in the best interests of the country.
Utilitarianism is a quantitative and reductionist philosophical form. Utilitarianism, however, is not a unified philosophical view. It comes in different flavors with the two primary flavors being Rule Utilitarianism and Act Utilitarianism. Strong Rule Utilitarianism is an absolutist philosophical view and rules may never be broken. Like any absolutist view does not take into account that reality occasionally presents situations where breaking a rule results in the greater good. For example, the strong reductionist rule that murder is bad is countered by the exceptional example of murder is not bad if performed in self-defense or the defense of others. This result of practical application is reflected in what John Stuart Mill called Weak Rule Utilitarianism. It becomes apparent that since not all rules are absolutely enforceable when seeking the common good and exceptional circumstances require flexibility in the law, that the Utilitarian pursuit of the Rule of Law must be in Mill’s Weak Rule formulation of Utilitarianism. But is considering the greater good and circumstantial reasons for breaking or modifying rules the best way to judge whether a law is good or bad?
If one considers Kant’s Categorical Imperative – “Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law.” – then any law not universally applicable should not be a maxim worthy of being recognized as universal. This is contrary to Utilitarianism in general as well as Weak Rule Utilitarianism specifically, but while Kant’s view takes subjectivity into account when dealing with circumstances it does not take into account that there can be objective differences in circumstances as well. It is part of the judiciaries role as a trier of fact to consider not only subjective differences but objective differences in circumstances in formulating the most equitable and just solution to a case at bar. In seeking to be universally applicable in defining maxims, Kant is an absolutist as surely as Strong Rule Utilitarians are absolutists. As a consequence of reality not being neatly binary in nature and thus not often compatible to absolutists approaches to formulating laws for practical application, what can be done to keep Weak Rule Utilitarianism from degenerating into Act Utilitarianism where actors will seek the greatest personal pleasure when presented with a choice rather than the greater good? Utilitarianism conflicting with the Categorical Imperative? Is there a unitary philosophical approach to evaluating whether a law is good or bad?
The answer seems to be no. If there is no single view, absolutist or otherwise, that leads to a practical system for evaluating whether a law is good or bad, then there is only one option for building a framework for evaluation. That option is synthesis.
Consider that absolutist systems as they are not applicable in reality should be confined to being considered theoretical boundaries rather than practical boundaries. This does not negate the value of considering systems like Strong Rule Utilitarianism or Kant’s Categorical Imperative, but rather puts them in the place of aspirational goals rather than practically attainable goals in every circumstance. Given that Mill’s Weak Rule Utilitarianism can degrade into Act Utilitarianism and that degeneration can be compounded by the number of exceptions there are to a rule, are there ways to minimize the defects of using only Weak Rule Utilitarianism to determine the societal value of a law? What supplements can be made to that framework?
I submit that one such supplement is found in the form of Negative Utilitarianism. Negative Utilitarianism is exactly what it sounds like; the inverse function of Utilitarianism. Whereas Utilitarianism is the basic proposition that the right course of action is the one that maximizes the overall good consequences of an action, Negative Utilitarianism is the basic proposition that requires us to promote the least amount of evil or harm, or to prevent the greatest amount of suffering for the greatest number. If one takes both into account in evaluation of the social value of a law (a synthetic approach), the test becomes a balancing act. On one side of the scale is the societal value of overall good consequences, on the other side is the societal value of preventing overall harm. This proposition suggests the following framework for evaluation of whether a law is good or bad.
- How many people benefit from the good consequences of a law?
- How many people benefit from the reduction of harm as consequences of a law?
- Does the benefits from promoting good consequences outweigh the costs of reduction of harm?
- Does the benefits from reducing harm outweigh the costs to the greater good in taking no action?
- Are the net consequences of a law perfectly knowable from either perspective or does the possibility of unforeseeable consequences exist? Can the unforeseeable risks be minimized either by construction of the law(s) to allow for contingencies or by regulating other risks or contributing factors?
- Do solutions from either perspective negatively impact human and/or civil rights? Do those negative impacts outweigh the positive effects to the greater human and/or civil rights of all?
This is but one way to evaluate whether a law is good or bad for society. What are other methods? Are there ways to improve this method? What do you think?
Tony C’s Neurons
Man is the only living organism who is conscious of his consciousness of concrete reality. Brute animals are limited to perception, including perceptual association. They signal, not communicate to, other animals. They are not aware of their own consciousness and, as a result, that of other animals and man. The interpretation of experiments to conclude that brute animals are aware of consciousness is invalid. Such interpretations are merely applications of egalitarian nihilism in which man and brute animals are morally equal. So scientific quacks reduce reason to perception and then claim, validly in that context, that brutes can reason. There is not even any scientific justification for such experiments because millenia of man observing animals has not provided any context for them. Experiments must be rationally validated, not arbitrary, and not isolated from all else that man knows. This is not science but a contradiction of a rational view of common human experience, the context for all knowledge, from building a stone ax to designing a computer.
Man starts conceptualizing by regarding entities as units, as members of a group of essentially similar entities. Animals are stuck in the perception of entities. Animals can be aware that entities are similar or different but are unable to isolate similarities and differences and consider them. Man’s mind is a focusing power, enabling him to selectively attend, to abstract, properties.
Crows perceives entities thus: one, two, three, many. They don’t count, they don’t abstract number
Man counts thus: one, two, three, four…ten, ten entities as a unit, one unit, two units, three units….By this unit awareness, man brings the entire universe within the range of his consciousness. Animals are limited to the here and now. This is powerfully obvious from man’s long and often daily observations of animals. Ive lived always in cities but, since I can recall, my observations of cats, dogs, birds, squirrels, etc., animals can perceive and concretely symbolize or respond to concrete symbols of their perceptions. Highly specialized experiments with lab animals imply nothing
about their behavior in the wild, as man has observed them for millenia. Where is even the slightest cognitive progress, which would happen if animals could reason, ie, could use concepts to be aware of concretes? What in animal behavior has changed since the earliest records we have. The French cave drawings are familiar to use because today’s antelopes have not benefited from their ancestors being hunted successfully by man. Reason would have taught them a different strategy than running mindlessly in terror from spears.
Only man reasons, ie, conceptualizes ,ie, can consciously use states of consciousness which he has consciously and logically formed, to be conscious of concrete reality. You have a pre-conceptual, egalitarian ideology, not science, not systematic conceptualizing of entities and their properties. Your “intelligent” apes or whatever still eat, mate, sleep and shit in the wild, behavior that has not changed in millenia. Where is their advanced, progressive culture? Where are any non-perceptual tools? This is the context that real scientists would use to dismiss any hypotheses about animal reasoning. Man reasons and thats it.
@Roco: Chimpanzees have knowledge of knowledge. Chimpanzees take specific action to decieve other chimpanzees; this is well documented.
CROWS have knowledge of knowledge; in experiments crows can tell if other birds are watching them; and take actions that have the effect of deceiving these other crows. But they also know they may not have deceived them; so if they hid food while in sight of another crow, then if let back into a cage with that specific other crow; they will guard or collect their hidden food. If the other crow did not see them hide it, they will only react if the other crow strays too close to the hidden food.
Dolphins have knowledge of knowledge too, and apparently some means of communicating abstract knowledge (like a specific four-button combination that releases a fish, including the knowledge that the buttons must be pushed).
I am surprised you doubt that cavemen had knowledge of knowledge being non-universal. It is so well documented in so many species I just assumed you knew it. Perhaps I have overestimated your comprehension.
The Neuron Group Known As Tony [not a Star Trek episode]
>How did man know about knowledge, is actually unanswerable, at least at this time
So you never learned about Greek civilization in your, presumably, Progressive “education” in basket weaving, street riots…uh, social activism, folk music, global warming and practical compassion. And you, somehow, missed seeing the mini-history of the discovery of knowledge itself in my last post? And I would be fascinated ,flabberghasted really, to learn, re your claim, about caveman knowledge of knowledge. I am surprised, however, that this astounding discovery has not been trumpeted worldwide, especially by postmodernists. It would certainly shake up historians of philosophy. Can you provide at least a snippet of information about these heretofore unknown geniuses? I’m reminded of a professor of Progressive Thoughts who told me that Africans discovered philosophy but that a conspiracy of somebody or other had suppressed it in favor of dead white males. When I asked for a book written by an ancient African philosopher, she told me that it wasn’t available and I immediately thought of that wonderful Harrison Ford movie about Nazis sabotaging anthropological expeditions called, I believe, “The Treasure of the Lost Government Grant.”
@Grossman: These are concepts of consciousness (abstracted from concepts of concrete reality).
No, they are not.
The neuron group modeled as Tony C
>The scientific method does not depend upon the internal workings of the brain; it is a method of finding certainty
Won’t this startling claim invalidate your membership in the Society of Altruistic Neurons? How, after all, can a materialist find non-material
“things” such as certainty and method and logic and validity and reason? These are concepts of consciousness (abstracted from concepts of concrete reality).
@Grossman: Are you disabled in some way? Seriously?
(sigh) People have innate mirror neurons that let them see others take actions and these mirror neurons will simulate, within the mind, the body they are in taking the actions they can see. That simulation is actually weak signals on the circuits the brain; we can see with an fMRI the brain activity in the planning sections for movement.
This capability is not unique to humans; but for now let’s stick with humans. I will point out, however, that mirror neurons can map an animal’s actions to our own as well. During that simulation of mirror action; the brain has access to its own models and knowledge as well, and they can operate in parallel with the simulation. So it is possible for the brain to detect that actions are being taken that it would not take, because these actions are dangerous, or would lead to a loss, or are destined for failure. But one basic assumption (‘basic’ because it is made in the absence of data to the contrary) is that the other entity (animal or human) is not trying to fail or harm itself. How shall we resolve that logical dilemma? Evolution has provided us (but not all animals) with a “theory of mind,” and my guess is that is based upon a mental model of their existing independent information. I.e., it is is possible for one person to have information another does not have.
The idea of “independent information” predates history, there are indications of it in anthropological art and cave paintings. So the answer to your question, How did man know about knowledge, is actually unanswerable, at least at this time, and anybody that tells you they know that with certainty is an idiot or a liar. Early man had neurons whether they knew it or not, some mutation at some point allowed the neurons to construct a model of independent information, the idea that A can have information B does not, and that capability allowed the new being (new because of the mutation) to manipulate knowledge using the framework it already had for manipulating physical objects; which is still how we do it.
You seem to be willfully missing the point: Man can know he has knowledge or information without knowing how it is stored or where it is stored. A person can know they can make up stories without knowing how they do it or where the stories “come from” or anything else about it.
Based on the current state of science (which is incomplete) Man “knows about knowledge” as a side effect of neural model construction; and that includes man 10,000 years ago, and 5000 years ago, and one year ago, and today. It doesn’t make a difference if they knew HOW it was being done, they could USE their brain without knowing HOW it was constructed.
The collection of neurons formerly called Tony C
>> How did man know anything about knowledge prior to brain science?
>people can understand how to USE information and acquire knowledge without understanding how that information was developed in the brain.
How did man know about knowledge itself without brain science? How did people know to study the process of knowledge itself? How did Aristotle know, without brain science, to identify the process of deduction (still taught in universities and still expected of scientists)? How did Plato discover the hierarchical nature of reasoning without brain science? How did Socrates discover definition and induction without brain science? How did Francis Bacon and Newton discover that systematic experimentation, induction and math are part of scientific method? I’m not asking about application. How did they know that there is knowledge (apart from applications)?
The neurons formerly called Tony C
>What the vast majority of people want done unto them is to be treated generously and fairly and to be cut some slack for their mistakes.
Evasions are not honest mistakes. They are the refusal to focus one’s mind (“our brains think for us”) on the concretes (“concretes are trivial”) of one’s life, particular situations as well as one’s life as a whole. This is why irrationalists babble about compassion and pity. They know, in advance, that they intend to evade reasoning as a guide to action. See: modern “art,” with its nihilist hatred of values and their source, reason. Eg, Munch’s “The Scream,” a perfect “model” of our modernist/nihilist culture, no mind, no values, just barely any concretes against a swirling Heraclitean background of change without things that change. Is it just my imagination or is the figure in the painting howling for some slack? Maybe it’s Hitler complaining that [the pseudo-scientific, floating abstraction of your choice] caused his ideas and actions. Certainly a Pragmatist compromiser wouldn’t selfishly insist on objective justice for him. That would be extreme…
“And your claim is very close, at least, to the argument from pity.”
And your argument is beyond stupidity. Most remained there because they didn’t have the funds to get out and because they couldn’t believe that Hitler was a lasting phenomena. As I’ve stated in the past, you religious fanatic, I am not a Marxist and never have been. I’ve lived a life to prove that fact, while you’ve never stopped going to school long enough to discover anything about life. As for which of us would be donning the Brown Shirt in Germany in 1933, you are a far better candidate. You obviously need some simulacrum of religion to function in life. Now its Rand, then it would have been Hitler.
Mike Spindell
>Do you really think that I, an acknowledged Jew would have voted for Hitler in 1933?
Weimar German Jews, like Weimar German Christians, accepted Germany’s dominant culture of irrationalism and duty over rational selfishness. That’s why almost most remained there as anti-Semitism increased. In 1922, Walter Rathenau, liberal commentator, diplomat, industrialist (a practical man) and Jew, and who had written, “Instinct and feeling, illumination and intuitive vision…[reveal] the meaning of our existence,” was assassinated by anti-Semitic nationalists. Now, that’s what I call poetic justice. He helped motivate his murderers, just as this blog’s supporters are pushing our society toward the welfare riots of Greece and Britain. See Leonard Peikoff’s _Ominous Parallels_.
So maybe you would have voted for the same ideals in the Marxist variation. What, after all, is the difference between sacrificing your mind to racial intuitions rather than economic intuitions? And sacrificing your life to a race rather than an economic class.
And your claim is very close, at least, to the argument from pity.
@Grossman: Congratulations; the insult is quite late. I will respond to the first part: How did man know anything about knowledge prior to brain science?
It is possible to use something without understanding it. A kindergärtner can think she knows everything about a car. Where the gas goes, how much to put in, and how to make sure the gas cap is secure. The gas gets used up when you have the car on. You press on the gas pedal to go and the brake to stop. You steer with the wheel. She can even know how to signal, and operate the lights, wipers, A/C and entertainment system.
Yet there are questions she cannot answer. How does the engine work? The drive shaft? What is a spark plug for? Where does gas come from? Why don’t the wheels fall off? What is a “transmission?” How strong does the frame steel have to be? What is a “firewall?” How much should the tires be inflated? What is an engine “block” and what does it do?
Chances are she has never seen a piston and has no idea what internal combustion is. Chances are, also, that if she tries to invent some explanation of how the engine does what it does, she will be completely and laughably wrong about it; although if she were allowed to take the engine apart or even watch parts of it working in slow-motion her explanations might be far, far more accurate.
People can use their brains without knowing how they work; we are doing that now. Nobody on the planet has a model of the brain that explains all of human behavior, and chances are nobody will within the lifetimes of any infant alive today.
Just as a child can understand how to USE a car without really knowing how the car WORKS or came to be, people can understand how to USE information and acquire knowledge without understanding how that information was developed in the brain. In both cases, speculation about the internal workings without any observation of the internal workings is extremely likely to be wrong, because it is unconstrained by any actual facts. In both cases, every little bit of actual fact can serve to channel the speculation and keep it bounded much closer to reality. Of course, that also excludes an infinite number of solutions that do not comport with the facts.
The details of how the car works (or how the brain works) are really unnecessary if the goal is to simply use the car or use the knowledge. How something came to be and how something can be used are independent of each other; a person can be spectacularly wrong about the former and completely expert in the latter. Early man didn’t have to know where rocks came from to use them as weapons or tools.
However, if one wishes to know the limitations of cars (or brains), the details become necessary. If we want to know how to repair them when they are broken, the details are necessary. If we want to understand how to make them last longer, the details are necessary.
The scientific method does not depend upon the internal workings of the brain; it is a method of finding certainty. Experimentation is a way of constraining speculation, it also does not depend upon the internal workings of the brain. These are ways of developing rules that constrain the universe of possible models, preferably to a point, but failing that at least to some finite volume. The “laws” of physics are boundaries we have inferred and proven by experimentation; explanations of physical phenomenon that violate those boundaries are pre-excluded from consideration, not because they broke a “law,” but because breaking the law means they are excluded by prior experiment, the experiments that produced the law, if recapitulated, would immediately disprove the new explanation.
Long standing rules can be overturned, but the new explanations have to explain both all existing experiments and/or why the earlier experiments were flawed, or do not apply, or the conclusion from those experiments made an assumption that was unwarranted, and so on. The point is, the experiments and facts constrain us. What Ayn Rand (or Kant, or Freud, or Marx, or Locke, or anybody else) did NOT know caused their speculations to stray outside the boundaries of what is NOW known about how the brain works.
Live in the ignorant past if you like, I prefer reality.
“You may be a great guy but you and Gene H and Mike Spindell would have voted for Hitler had you been in Germany in 1933,”
Roco,
Do you really think that I, an acknowledged Jew would have voted for Hitler in 1933? I think you need to rein in you hyperbole.
The neuron collection formerly called Tony C
>[Rand did not get her MODEL of how the brain works by examining in detail some actual working brains; she INVENTED it out of whole cloth.
How did man know anything about knowledge prior to brain science? Eg, Aristotle’s scientific explanation of scientific method, Francis Bacon’s discussion of the importance of induction and experiment, Newton’s discovery of calculus and its use to discover universal gravity. Or even something as simple as primitive man teaching that culture’s technology
to their children. What is the source of this knowledge about knowledge?
How did man come to study the brain instead of, oh, say, the asshole, as a cause of knowledge? It seems to me and here I’m just taking a wild guess, that there must have been another source of knowledge about knowledge prior to brain science. I’m not asking for a conceptual answer. You haven’t evolved that far and concepts cause some anxiety in your neurons. But perhaps your neurons could model it. Please thank them in advance.
Gyges,
Mea culpa! lol
“Actual democracy that is, not the Übermensch oligarchical fantasies of a hack writer.”
You leave Plato out of this!
Roco,
You assume quite a bit. I have no interest in any public office let alone dictator. That’s precisely the kind of thing I seek to avoid because dictatorships (and oligarchies) always end badly, however, dictatorship is one of the two inevitable outcome of what Objectivists believe in were it put into practice: either a totalitarian state or anarchy. Probably one following the other in no particular order, cycling endlessly until a populist sentiment takes control of the government for the people and by the people once again. The arc of history is long and tends toward democracy. Actual democracy that is, not the Übermensch oligarchical fantasies of a hack writer.
@Roco: I would far prefer Stephen Grossman as dictator than Gene H. For one thing Stephen wouldnt accept the title and would free us all.
I see, you trust a person who has made selfishness a religion and thinks selflessness is a mortal sin to be …. selfless and charitable. Handed complete dictatorship, you think Galt would turn it down? How totally irrational you sound.
And of course, as I predicted, you refuse to engage in anything remotely like logic. Answer the question: You say government is necessary, so how is it chosen, and how is it funded, and how are the laws to be determined?
I predict you will resort to a totalitarian, it will just be Ayn Rand that single handedly and unilaterally decides what the laws should be instead of a Gaddafi or a Saddam or whomever.
Tony C:
you are the one who lies, I have stated on more than one occasion that limited government is necessary. You are the one that uses faulty logic and puts words in my mouth.
But yes you are a totalitarian, I have shown you why and Stephen Grossman has shown you why. You may be a great guy but you and Gene H and Mike Spindell would have voted for Hitler had you been in Germany in 1933, Stephen Grossman and I would have left Germany.
I am not saying you would condone the murder of innocents but your philosophy of life would have prevented you from seeing the future evil which was to come.
For example, I am not surprised we are in an economic downturn. The housing market peaked in the summer of 2005 or shortly thereafter. The dems won the house and senate in 2006, the rest was inevitable based on the philosophy which the dems in the house and senate held and the philosophy which Bush and Greenspan held/hold. Obama just pushed the stick in the mud further.
I am not saying you are a bad person, I just think you are misguided.
Just an aside, more people have been killed under the guise of “We are our brothers keeper” than in the name of free markets. You may think me a sociopath but the truth of the matter is I have more to fear from people who think like you do than from people who think like me and Stephen Grossman.
I would far prefer Stephen Grossman as dictator than Gene H. For one thing Stephen wouldnt accept the title and would free us all. Gene H would have me and Stephen up against a wall smoking a Camel.
And you think we are the sociopaths?
Hell Gene H was given a modicum of power as a guest blogger and he was censoring people he didnt agree with. God help us if he ever had any real power.
As Bertie Wooster used to say “the psychology of the individual”, is what is important. He and Jeeves thought in principles. You ought to try.
@Roco: We are traders, value given for value received.
That is illogical, especially in the context of your post: If I sacrifice my life to save my wife, then
a) What “value” do I receive from her in trade? She lives, I die. As an atheist, I have no feeling or consciousness after I am dead, I get nothing “in trade” for sacrificing my life, there is no “trade.”
b) If, for some reason, I have already received a value worthy of me ending my life, say in the decades of marriage before my sacrifice, then what did she get in trade, back then, for providing me those values? Nothing, and since it is ludicrous to think that we have some life plan where I will pay her back twenty years after the fact by sacrificing my life for hers, there was no “trade” back then, either.
See what I mean? You define everything as a trade, but not everything IS a trade.
Also, Rand’s philosophy was NOT the golden rule of “do unto others,” in her book her heroes take actions to destroy the economy and abandon others to their fate. Logically speaking, what the vast majority of people want is NOT to be abandoned to their fate. What the vast majority of people want done unto them is to be treated generously and fairly and to be cut some slack for their mistakes. Rand knew that, and advocated doing to others precisely what they did NOT want done unto them, she advocated selfishness, not generosity, she advocated taking advantage of people’s mistakes, not cutting them any slack, and she essentially advocated abandoning people to their fates even if it resulted in poverty, starvation or death.
Mike Spindell:
“but because I love the person she is.”
Exactly, but why do love her? Because you like her, you admire her, she has value to you. You would probably die trying to save her to preserve her life. Why? Because you have a selfless love? Give me a break, you love her because she makes you happy and the thought of of being without her in your life would be too much to bear.
So you are as guilty of selfish love as anyone, you just refuse to admit it.
As far as Rand’s personal life goes? Maybe it wasnt perfect, she had flaws just like the rest of us. I am sure Rabbi Hillel wasnt perfect and yet you use him as a guide for your life.
your comment about the genes really has me laughing.
Money isnt the only value in life, and Rand didnt think so either. Basically being as good as you are able at whatever you chose to do and being self reliant were virtues to her. She was not a multi-millionaire super businesswoman, she was a writer.
You miss her philosophy because you dont like what she has to say about liberals/progressives. She isnt kind to conservatives either if it makes you feel any better.
You miss the entire point of her philosophy. Live and let live and do unto others as you would want to have done unto you, and love yourself so you can love your neighbor if they are worthy of your love.
We are traders, value given for value received. We dont sell someone a hamburger with substandard beef and expect top dollar, we sell a top drawer hamburger and expect top dollar. But only what the market will bear. One must be mindful of reality.