Making Rational Judgments (Show 080)

The topic for Show 080 arose from a conversation between Mosley and regular listener iheartcells. Mosley made a comment about the status of homeless people, saying that they are lazy people who made bad decisions. iheartcells asked, “Are you sure that you have enough information to make that judgment?” In the show Mosley and Arthur discuss this.

Topics in the show include: Mosley and iheartcell’s discussion; making unwarranted judgments; judgments as not just for the bad, but for the good; today’s negative connotation with judging others; different types of judgment; justice as a virtue of making rational judgments and acting accordingly; judgments as requiring rational standards; the need for and evaluation of evidence; judging friends; moral agnosticism; the morality of being overweight; making assumptions; the source of the need of rational judgment as self-preservation; praising the good as of primary importance; rash judgments; judgment applied to the financial crisis.

In the end, Mosley concluded that he did not have enough information to make his judgment, with the understanding that judging others and making sure that one does so rationally is of crucial importance.

On this topic, Ayn Rand said:

One must never fail to pronounce moral judgment.

Nothing can corrupt and disintegrate a culture or a man’s character as thoroughly as does the precept of moral agnosticism, the idea that one must never pass moral judgment on others, that one must be morally tolerant of anything, that the good consists of never distinguishing good from evil.

To see more of what she had to say on this and other issues, feel free to check out The Ayn Rand Lexicon.

Politics & Culture (Show 079)

First, a few updates on talkObjectivism: After being a regular guest on the talkObjectivism podcast for so long, Arthur is now going to be the co-host. His contributions are greatly appreciated.

Also, Mosley recently updated the website to the latest version of WordPress, which should help with some of the previous issues we were having, and Brandon will now be writing the show notes regularly, in a different format.

For those wondering what happened to last week’s show, Show 078, there was no show because the TalkShoe service was unavailable at the time.

Now for the show notes: The topic of Show 079 stems from the recent “bail-out bill” that passed in Congress, leading Mosley and Arthur to discuss today’s politics and culture, and its outlook for the future.

Topics include: Democrats blame today’s economic problems on the free-market, calling for more regulation; Republicans fail to defend the free-market and conceed that “greed” is evil; “capitalism” and “the free-market” as just buzz-words to Republicans; what Republicans stand for: religiosity; Republicans offer the wrong values, whereas the Democrats offer none; is it best to vote for the Democrats? Republicans? anyone at all?; the real battleground: the dominant cultural ideas, not immediate political gains; Obama as anti-American and his potential effect on the culture; the process and progress of cultural change.