[MD] Ayn Rand

[craigerb at comcast.net]

Chris & gav,

[Chris]
> Though Rand says ethical concepts arise only in the context of
> actions required to sustain life.  she writes that "it is only
> the concept of "life" that makes the concept of "value" possible."
> i.e. all value is derived from biological value. And that is pretty
> basic in her "philosophy"



This distorts Rand’s philosophy. (Blame that 1840 textbook again?)
She does say “’good’ and ‘value’ pertain only to a living organism”
(“What is Capitalism?”)
But that just gives a necessary condition for good.  (Just as for
Pirsig the biological level is necessary for the social level to
emerge, which in turn is necessary for the intellectual level.) 
She continues:
”good is neither an attribute of ‘things in themselves’ nor of man’s
emotional states, but an evaluation of the facts of reality by man’s
consciousness according to a rational standard of value.”
So evaluating something as good (= high quality, in MoQ terms),
requires the intellectual level for her. 
 

[gav]
> there is no dq and sq, just Q 
> - even the dq/sq split is an essentially imaginary first cut.
> just more fundamental than the secondary cut of the static levels

Just because Quality is the BASIC reality, does imply everything else
is imaginary.  What is imaginary has no BASIS in reality.
Craig