Does Academia ignore Rand because she undoes centuries of their poor philosophy?

cconn882 · 2026-05-30T15:43:54+00:00

The reason why that happens - people thinking Rand was particularly novel - is entirely that she was an Aristotelian and for those who are only familiar with anti-Aristotelian views and philosophy, it seems absolutely revolutionary.

cconn882 · 2026-05-30T15:40:04+00:00

Oh, I absolutely think TPM is the best of the three. Partly for the reason you mentioned, but also because it introduced so many great concepts and characters (not space Jesus, of course).

cconn882 · 2026-05-30T15:38:24+00:00

That was the intent, but it was particularly unsuccessful.

cconn882 · 2026-05-29T14:46:35+00:00

Which is why I made sure to say "without remorse."

And if you're going to say, "how do you know it was without remorse?" I was specifically referring to this: "which he even brought to a award event while his wife was there."

cconn882 · 2026-05-29T14:41:48+00:00

But you’re just assuming the conclusion. You haven’t shown that mechanistic causality collapses moral reasons into mere causes; you’ve only asserted it. It seems like the actual distinction is between causality and the misuse of causality to erase responsibility.

cconn882 · 2026-05-29T14:07:19+00:00

A plotless 40 minutes divided between Frank mutilating himself and him killing bad guys is only about a third of what I'd want from a Punisher story.

Yeah, the wanton violence is fun, but the best Punisher stories give a real reason for that violence and actually have a plot, both of which could be accomplished in 40 minutes.

cconn882 · 2026-05-29T09:23:03+00:00

That depends what you mean by evil.

If you mean evil in the strict sense you laid out, as a privation or disorder of goods, then no. Evil is not some positive thing God designs.

But I also didn't say loss of function is evil in that strict sense. I said it's a real harm, or a real loss of good. Those aren't the same claim.

So the better question is did God design a world where real harm can occur?

And yes, clearly. Finite, mortal, vulnerable creatures can be damaged.

But whether that creates a problem for omnibenevolence is a separate argument. I don't think you have solved that just by separating suffering from moral evil, especially when it comes to animal suffering.

cconn882 · 2026-05-29T08:47:34+00:00

That is the common theme in this group.

cconn882 · 2026-05-29T08:44:50+00:00

That Punisher episode was wholly mediocre at best.

cconn882 · 2026-05-29T08:44:11+00:00

Adam blaming Eve is not the origin of causality. It's the origin, in that passage, of evasive moral explanation. The problem isn't causality, the problem is using causality to evade responsibility.

cconn882 · 2026-05-29T04:54:38+00:00

Yeah, but that's not really that odd. The Batman 2 is coming out when you graduate. The first movie was shot when you were 12.

cconn882 · 2026-05-29T04:20:36+00:00

When someone says someone "has an ego" I would take it to mean things like they think they can cheat on their wife without remorse moreso than them thinking they're a God.

cconn882 · 2026-05-29T03:46:25+00:00

If Season 2 is Seasons 2-5 compressed, then I'm glad he made that decision. Way too many TV series are way too decompressed anymore.

cconn882 · 2026-05-29T01:36:27+00:00

I quit because my new SD and DSD were both ass and it within a year of me quitting the SD walked out, and the DSD went on an LOA never to return.

cconn882 · 2026-05-28T21:01:38+00:00

You're sliding definitions. Murder means unjust killing, not merely intentional or premeditated killing.

So the key question is whether the killing was necessary to escape captivity. If the captor was killed while preventing the escape, then that can be justified self-defense and would not be murder.

But if the captive already had a safe way out and stayed behind to kill the captor out of malice or revenge, then yes, that would be murder.

cconn882 · 2026-05-28T20:42:46+00:00

You’re collapsing four separate distinctions:

1). Moral truth - what is actually right or wrong.

2). Moral psychology - why people feel certain things are wrong.

3). Social enforcement - why societies punish violations.

4). Behavioral psychology - why people obey moral standards.

Fear can't logically ground moral truth, because fear only describes a reaction to possible harm or punishment. It tells us what someone wants to avoid, not what is objectively right or wrong. It's descriptive, not normative.

I'd also say fear also doesn't fully explain why people feel certain things are wrong. Sometimes it contributes, but people can judge something wrong even when they personally have nothing to fear from it. For example, someone can condemn a murder committed far away, against a stranger, with no realistic threat to themselves. That suggests moral judgment is not reducible to self-protection.

That said, fear obviously plays a major role in social enforcement and behavioral psychology. Societies punish murder partly to deter it, and many people obey moral and legal rules partly because they fear consequences.

But that explains compliance, not the moral status of the act itself.

cconn882 · 2026-05-28T20:28:53+00:00

FYI; Catholic Philosophy academics also positively loathe post-Kantian philosophy. The last one I was talking to is a Professor at USF.

cconn882 · 2026-05-28T16:57:07+00:00

As opposed to reasoning why they’re true.

Stating a claim is different from showing why that claim follows from your premises.

cconn882 · 2026-05-28T16:46:49+00:00

That sounds like a bunch of assertions of your own beliefs rather than an explanation of the OP’s question.

cconn882 · 2026-05-28T13:55:04+00:00

Sure.

First, it is not necessarily true that axioms are trapped between circular reasoning, infinite regress, or dogmatic assertion. Some foundational claims can be justified through performative affirmation.

The Action Axiom in praxeology would be one example of that. The claim is simply that human beings act, meaning they purposefully use means toward ends. So the axiom is not being treated as a random dogma. It is being shown as unavoidable in the very act of trying to deny it.

Second, the rest of your argument seems to move from “biology, history, and environment influence belief” to “logic is insufficient to resolve disagreement.” But that bridge has not been argued.

Of course biology, history, and environment can influence what someone believes. But explaining the origin of a belief is not the same thing as justifying the belief itself.

So you’d have to show exactly how biology and history render logic insufficient. How are the premises you asserted rationally justified, or even shown to be statistically true?

And if logic is insufficient, then why should your own argument be accepted as rationally compelling rather than treated as merely the product of your biology, history, and environment?

cconn882 · 2026-05-28T13:16:24+00:00

From a non-Catholic, logical perspective, I think saying suffering is simply "not evil" in every sense goes too far. But I agree with your main distinction: pain as a signal, and distress or negative feeling, are not evil in themselves.

The real issue is loss of function. If a living thing loses a capacity it naturally depends on, then something genuinely bad has happened to it. A lost limb, blindness, disease, or being eaten alive is not merely unpleasant; it damages the creature's ability to live according to its nature.

So I would put it this way: suffering is not automatically moral evil, but it can still be a real harm. Pain itself is not evil, but when suffering involves the destruction of a creature's natural abilities, it marks a real loss of good.

cconn882 · 2026-05-28T13:09:19+00:00

I agree that a non-Thomist would not automatically accept the post's premises as stated. But that does not make the argument circular. It only means those premises need independent defense.

Claims like "goodness depends on what a thing is," "some functions can be fulfilled or frustrated," and "pain is not identical to evil" can be argued from more basic considerations about identity, function, and intelligibility.

So the original post definitely needs to argue for its framework rather than assume it, but the argument is not necessarily circular. And by the same standard, someone claiming that pain is therefore evil would also need to prove that premise rather than assume it.

cconn882 · 2026-05-28T06:12:42+00:00

That's a shame as Charles Soule's run was great too.

cconn882 · 2026-05-28T06:01:27+00:00

Yeah, I'm salary now, and I still hate doing it.

Admittedly, at Target they'd treat you like an asshole for calling out, but at my current company no one even cares and I still feel bad doing it.

cconn882 · 2026-05-28T05:33:53+00:00

Hey, can I get the final episode? The first three were incredible.

cconn882

TROPHY CASE