Organization: Computer Science Department, University of Cape Town
Lines: 19
A bit of the thread, courteousy Tim Starr:
>} If Rand (or Starr or Wales) makes the claim
>} that "man is rational", in the lack of a metric for rationality,
>} how do you propose this claim be verified?
>Introspect to see if you behave purposively; see if the behavior of others
>matches the external characterstics of your purposive behavior. If so, then
>the subject being observed is behaving rationally.
Sounds a bit like a half-hearted Turing test going on here. Surely
"purposive" behaviour is neither unique (cf. the lives of higher primates,
bees and ants) nor essential (e.g the "man on the Clapham omnibus", who commutesto and fro each day with little purpose other than the monthly acquisition of a salary cheque, and a little hedonism added in between) to "man".
The objectivist characterisation of "man as a rational
animal" is either too inclusive (if a weak notion of rationality is entertained)or too exclusive otherwise. At best, it could provide a statement of how we
*ought* to be, but the requirement of rationality (weak or otherwise) seems
