Darryl-Wright-O-Rama

 Posted by on 18 August 2006 at 8:52 am  Announcements, Recommendations
Aug 182006
 

It’s Darryl-Wright-O-Rama at the Ayn Rand Bookstore.

Dr. Wright’s very fascinating — albeit dense and technical — lecture from the 2005 OCON has just been released:

Ayn Rand and the History Of Ethics

Can reason prescribe the ends human beings should seek in life, as well as the means to those ends? This has been a central question in the history of ethics, and it is also a central question in Ayn Rand’s Objectivist ethics. This lecture explores Ayn Rand’s view on this question, bringing out its distinctive and important features and contrasting it with some of the most influential historical views, including those of Aristotle and Hume.

100 min., with Q & A — Audio CD; 2-CD set: $23.95 or Audiocassette: $19.95

This lecture is fascinating, but also quite dense and technical. So if you don’t have some familiarity with the history of ethics, including the standard categories of “consequentialism” and “deontology” and the standard questions about ultimate values, then you’ll probably have trouble understanding it. However, if you have those meta-ethical basics, you’re sure to find it worthwhile.

The lecture does have a particularly interesting discussion of how to think of Ayn Rand’s metaethics inductively. That’s helped me understand it better, since before it always had something of the feel of a floating abstraction.

Dr. Wright’s other lecture courses are also on sale — 50% off!

Bonus clearance sale: 50% discounts on four other Darryl Wright titles!

Offer good through October 1, 2006

Reason And Freedom

This course extensively analyzes Ayn Rand’s groundbreaking principle that the mind cannot function under coercion–and uses this principle as a case study in philosophic methodology.

Audiocassette; 6-tape set; 7 hrs., with Q & A — Regular price: $79.95, Sale price: $39.95

Advanced Topics In Ethics

This course develops new perspectives on key topics in the Objectivist ethics. It focuses on two broad issues: the significance of the fact that everyone acts on some philosophy, and the dependence of the concept “value” on the concept “life.”

Audiocassette; 5-tape set; 6 hrs., with Q & A — Regular price: $68.95, Sale price: $34.45

The Philosophy of Motivation

Is achieving a value equivalent to avoiding a disvalue? Is pursuing life the same as avoiding death? This course, given by Dr. Wright, explores Ayn Rand’s important distinction between “motivation by love” and “motivation by fear.”

Audiocassette; 6-tape set; 7 hrs., with Q & A — Regular price: $79.95, Sale price: $39.95

Modern Political Philosophy: Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau

This course contrasts Hobbes’ and Rousseau’s arguments for political absolutism with Locke’s intransigent defense of individual rights and limited government. Dr. Wright corrects standard misinterpretations (such as the assertion that Hobbes’ theory is egoistic and pro-capitalist, or that Locke endorses altruistic limitation on property rights), and compares their views with those of Ayn Rand.

Audiocassette; 6-tape set; 7 hrs.,with Q&A — Regular price: $69.95, Sale price: $34.95

I can’t say anything about Modern Political Philosophy: Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau, since I haven’t listened to it yet. However, the other three courses are excellent. I would particularly recommend Advanced Topics In Ethics first and foremost, then Reason And Freedom, then The Philosophy of Motivation.

   
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