Reading the "Public Use" clause

[RJLipkin at aol.com]

In a message dated 6/25/2005 11:12:34 AM Eastern Standard Time,  
miscsubs at arclights.net writes:

Also, to  claim that an argument is "bad" or not "an exemplar of 
philosophical  reasoning" without even pointing to the alleged flaw, let alone offering an 
 argument that it is a flaw, is unhelpful--and disappointing from a scholar  
whose posts are normally so thoughtful.


A point of personal  privilege: The meaning of (1) '"bad'' reasoning and (2) 
not '"an exemplar of  philosophical reasoning"' are not even remotely similar. 
An enormous range of  evaluations separate their meanings. And I never 
claimed that Rand's reasoning  was bad.  I simply suggested that Nozick's reasoning 
was an exemplar of  philosophical reasoning and that Rand's was not.  Nothing 
follows from  this about my overall evaluation of Rand's reasoning as "bad" or 
 good.
 
        But Alexander fairly asks  me to point to a flaw in Rand's overall 
philosophy. OK, her  libertarianism rests on a crude form of ethical egoism.  
She fails to  distinguish between psychological egoism an empirical theory of 
human  behavior and ethical egoism a theory of ethical obligations. Moreover, if 
I  recall Rand correctly she seems to derive property rights from the right 
to  life, an inference whose conclusion is a non sequitur. Although  Alexander 
is right to point out that to make good on  these objections I  would need to 
produce an argument, something I cannot do in this forum, I hope  these final 
remarks are not disappointing.
 
Bobby

 
Robert Justin  Lipkin
Professor of Law
Widener University School of  Law
Delaware
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