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[Professor S]

Originally Posted by Bube

Yes, maybe it wasn't an exact objectivist society, but it still had some of basic principles. But what do you mean by "reason"? Andrew Ryan's purpose of building the city was to make a morality-free environment so people could do whatever pleases them.. I think that's a good enough reason?

That is the exact opposite of Rand's beliefs. In Rand's work, the terms reason and morality are interchangable. We have morality because we reason that to act within a set of behaviors benefits us, because if everyone simply did as they pleased with no moral code, the world would be in chaos and in the end the individual would suffer.

There a considerable section from the Wiki that covers this:

There is a difference, therefore, between rational self-interest as pursuit of one's own life and happiness in reality, and what Ayn Rand called "selfishness without a self" - a range-of-the-moment pseudo-"selfish" whim-worship or "hedonism." A whim-worshipper or "hedonist," according to Rand, is not motivated by a desire to live his own human life, but by a wish to live on a sub-human level. Instead of using "that which promotes my (human) life" as his standard of value, he mistakes "that which I (mindlessly happen to) value" for a standard of value, in contradiction of the fact that, existentially, he is a human and therefore rational organism. The "I value" in whim-worship or hedonism can be replaced with "we value," "he values," "they value," or "God values," and still it would remain dissociated from reality. Rand repudiated the equation of rational selfishness with hedonistic or whim-worshipping "selfishness-without-a-self." She held that the former is good, and the latter evil, and that there is a fundamental difference between them.

This is why I believe Rand is so misunderstood. Her beliefs in morality fall more in line with those of self-professed progressive and Trotsky-ite, Christopher Hitchens; morality is a product of reason, and not God or Religion.

Me? I think she splits hairs in this, because I find reason in religious doctrine so my beliefs on morality can fall in line with hers and his, regardless of their atheism.

[Bube]

I think Ryan's plan was to make it close to objectivity, and I don't think he meant for people to butcher each other and stuff.

It was the citizens who took the "freedom" the wrong way. Which is what I was trying to say before - it fell apart, because people aren't perfect. Give people a bit of a good thing, and they want more. And some will go to any lengths to get it. Which affects everybody around.

[Professor S]

Originally Posted by Bube

I think Ryan's plan was to make it close to objectivity, and I don't think he meant for people to butcher each other and stuff.

It was the citizens who took the "freedom" the wrong way. Which is what I was trying to say before - it fell apart, because people aren't perfect. Give people a bit of a good thing, and they want more. And some will go to any lengths to get it. Which affects everybody around.

I agree with your synopsis of the failure of the society in Bioshock, I just don't agree that is was an Objectivist society because of the utter absence on reason and morality. Rand wrote, self-interest without morality is hedonism, or self-interest without a self. You've mentioned perfection several times in this discussion and how it can be the downfall of Objectivism. Can you go further into this, because I'm not sure what you are referring to?

[Bube]

Well, "perfection" may not be the correct word - blame it on my rusty English

But here's what I mean - even though Rand suggests that morality be within reason and all that, and that reason, truth and self-interest should be the main focus of a man's life, there are going to be people who don't follow these rules, and take it the wrong way.

This endangers the ones who do, because this kind of a society seems to be in a very delicate balance - it relies on reason to keep everything in order.