[August 4, 2002] Originally written for the University of Toronto Objectivist club's newspaper, The New Intellectual.

The university is a marketplace of ideas. And just as marketplace shoppers customarily evaluate merchandise before making a purchase, so too should students evaluate ideas they encounter in college.

In fact, scrutiny is even more crucial in a lecture hall than in a shopping mall. For while customers might be reimbursed if they buy bad products, there is no "mind-back guarantee" for students who buy into bad ideas. Universities offer no warranties.

How then can one avoid the wares of the crooked "used-car salesmen" and sundry "con-men" of the intellect, so that earning a degree isn't the scholastic equivalent of buying a lemon?

Simply, one must think rationally.

But given today's eclectic campus setting, the admonition "be rational" may for some prove too broad to be of much help. After all, one needs to know how to be rational. Fortunately, Ayn Rand has offered an important tip that can streamline the process: identify when someone commits "the fallacy of the stolen concept."

Imagine one of your professors or fellow students disagrees with the premise of this article-- that ideas need evaluation. "There is no right or wrong, good or bad," he insists, "everything is relative." How do you respond? Well, consider that his position, in essence, amounts to this: "It's wrong to believe in wrong and right." The culprit "stole" and is using the same concepts he seeks to discredit, namely, the concepts "right" and "wrong."

The stolen concept fallacy is easy to understand. A person commits it when he uses a concept that logically rests on the very point he is using that concept to deny. In other words, in his argument the person assumes as true the very thing he purports to show is false. Let's look at some other variations of such conceptual cat burglary.

"Who are you to judge?" and "Who am I to judge?" Both disparage pronouncing moral verdicts. Now think about what such questions imply: "I judge it as right to judge as wrong those I deem judgmental." To condemn "passing judgments" is to pass a judgment. Can you say stolen concept?

"Man can't know anything," you are told. To which you reply: "How then do you purport to know that?" The concept thief is counting on knowledge while rejecting its possibility. He is counting on his knowledge of the concept "man," on his knowledge of sentence structure, on his knowledge that his listeners are capable of grasping ideas, etc. His decree deserves about as much respect as a newspaper headline reading: "Newspapers don't exist."

Try this one: "Since reason is fallible, man can't be certain of anything?" Your response: "How then are you so certain of reason's fallibility?" Detecting a mistake stems from grasping a truth. One doesn't need infallibility in order to possess certainty. The alternative to omniscience is not skepticism.

Another creature you might bump into is a "determinist." Determinists hold that man's every thought and action is necessitated by factors beyond his control. Yet, curiously, a determinist typically cites "evidence" for his philosophical convictions. To which you might respond: "So, let me get this straight. Only after scrupulously 'weighing' the facts did you conclude that determinism is true, correct?" When he says yes, he's busted. For if determinism is true, then one could not "weigh" the facts: all one's opinions are pre-set, including opinions on determinism. Choosing to believe that men lack volition is a contradiction in terms. (And choosing to evade the issue is also a choice.)

How about: "Can you prove that logic is valid?" Well, since "proof" entails establishing the connection of the relevant facts, how could one do so apart from using logic to begin with? In other words, proof is logic's offspring, not its father. When one requests proof, one has implicitly affirmed logic as the standard.

A religious expression of the same falsity goes: "Lean not on your own understanding." But this "Holy" scripture shoots a hole in its own foot. If man is not supposed to "lean" on his own understanding, then that necessarily pertains to one's understanding of the verse in question-- and of the rest of the Bible as well. If only "Thou shalt not steal" were applied to concepts!

We've all heard versions of: "Faith is superior to 'mere' human reason." Well, such religionists commit conceptual grand larceny when they gape at the accomplishments of science and the monumental achievements of industrial civilization, and then chalk it all up to faith in God. One may liken them to a man sitting on a donkey in a speeding railcar, who upon observing the scenery zipping past, exclaims: "My, how this burro goes! Donkey-power is far superior to 'mere' manmade transit!"

Hopefully, these illustrations will come in handy. But I don't want to leave the impression that rational thinking is just some "clever tactic" for winning arguments, or that ideas are erudite luxuries or academic playthings. To the contrary, ideas are inescapable guides to men's actions --what a person believes impacts how he lives. If you want proof, ask yourself: what are the real-life consequences of believing that everything is relative, that judging is immoral, that certainty isn't possible? What are the actual repercussions of accepting that man's actions are determined beyond his control, that faith trumps science, that logic is invalid? If you persist in seeking the answers, you will grasp the horrors that are the concrete results of irrational ideas. You will see that the wide-scale acceptance of many of the irrational ideas examined herein account for centuries of deprivations and rivers of blood. You will realize that a bad philosophical idea can account for a mountain of human corpses that would reach the stratosphere. Gas chambers, gulags, inquisitions and suicide-bombers are just some of the historical-- or present-day-- "fruits" of men espousing unreason.

As you evaluate the validity of people's assertions, remember that ideas matter. Bad ideas undercut life; good ideas promote life. That's why adopting a rationally demonstrable, non-contradictory, comprehensive, integrated set of ideas --i.e., a philosophy based on reason -- is an urgent necessity for anyone concerned with living. Thankfully, such a set of ideas exists: Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism.

TRV Home Page