That last piece of pie . . .

[Selene]

Very nicely done.

It is also interesting that my two children and I did something similar when we expanded cutting the last piece for their class at school and then the school and then the city, country, world etc.

They were fascinated by how many slices it would take and how small the pieces would get and how "tiny" the knife would have to be.

Concepts are wonderful tools to self learn and to teach with.

I consider my technical "mathematical" skills to be weak, but conceptually, I love mathematics.

Nice video.

Thanks.

[william.scherk]

First off, what's with the unexamined premise of the question: what the heck is an Objectivist Child?

[Dawkins video lecture on Religiously-identified children]

Thanks for the apropos video -- Dawkins insight was on my mind as I questioned the notion of an Objectivist Child.

These two images show the illicit assumptions smuggled into Peikoff's answer.

<img src="http://i.imm.io/5bfR.jpeg" width="300px">

<img src="http://i.imm.io/5bg6.jpeg" width="300px">

As for your questions about hand-me-downs, any parent would explain the Reality first to their kids: When your sibling outgrows these new outfits, we will be passing them on to you. We will also try to buy you fresh things for yourself. We are limited in our resources, honey, so we are trying to do our best -- we care for your well-being and won't disregard your feelings -- we know you might feel like you get the second-hand, but you are not second hand in our hearts. We love you both.

It is sobering to realize that Peikoff has no idea what is at the heart of the question: How do we make moral lessons of the sharing of shareable things like cake?

It is not an ownership question: it is a fair division question. Nobody brings home a cake other that to be shared out, for crying out loud. Nobody brings home a cake that is not designed to be shared, unless they live alone or are food hoarders. Cake is a festivity, soaked in the brandy of fellowship. How can Peikoff be so off-base in grasping the emotional fundamentals? If some child feels disfavoured, feels an unfair portion of 'just desserts,' what job does the parent have to do?

It gives me a bit more insight into Alyssa Bereznak' whining about her dad:

Our objectivist education, however, was not confined to lectures and books. One time, at dinner, I complained that my brother was hogging all the food.

"He's being selfish!" I whined to my father.

"Being selfish is a good thing," he said. "To be selfless is to deny one's self. To be selfish is to embrace the self, and accept your wants and needs."

It was my dad's classic response -- a grandiose philosophical answer to a simple real-world problem. But who cared about logic? All I wanted was another serving of mashed potatoes.

I mean, the freaking question is about sharing cake, sharing, principles of sharing, and the Peikoff answer flubs his response.

How does 'last piece of cake' turn into 'sharing as such is not a . . . value' and 'sharing is [not] a value, a virtue, a proper way of behaviour?'

[9thdoctor]

Eureka! I thought of an example that plays into Peikoff’s hand! Imagine a case where one child wins the class spelling bee, and the prize is her very own piece of cake. Allow that this is a single serving size piece. Child takes home her prize, and is all ready to devour it after dinner, and the wicked stepmother demands that she split it four ways, so each of her evil, illiterate stepsisters get some too. Then they take her piece anyway, the damn redistributionists!

Um, paging Brothers Grimm, how to end this tale? It’s enough, y'all get the idea. A fairy godmother is going to have to work into it somehow.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

So long as we're having our cake and eating it, too, I have another question that Peikoff totally sidestepped. (Some would call it evasion, but I don't think he evaded. I think he just screwed up.)

How do you establish property rights on a piece of cake in the first place?

First come, first served?

That's the initial root? The starting point of property rights?

Tell that to the American Indians...

And how about if a kid wants the whole cake when it is still uncut if he shows up first? Is it evil sharing (the poison of covert altruism) to say everyone in the family gets a piece? What happens when his parents force him to allow everyone to have a piece?

Let's see if Peikoff's words apply--and I admit I am presuming to use the standard, first dibs by just showing up first, since I cannot detect any other standard in Peikoff's decree (I made the strike-through and suggested replacement in brackets):

If he chooses to do it, that's okay, if it's his piece [whole cake]. But not if he chooses under pressure from his parents, not if he does it out of duty, because the implication otherwise is that sharing is a value, a virtue, a proper way of behaviour, and that is wrong: sharing as such is not a correct or a value.

I severed the part below from the part above because Peikoff makes a weird inversion of property rights that reminds me of communists, of all things:

Sharing amounts to in this case giving some cake to someone who doesn't have it because he doesn't have it. And that is a complete injustice. It's an assault on the idea of private property.

What about the property rights of the person who bought the cake to begin with?

Isn't that person the one who is supposed to decide how it gets doled out?

All Peikoff is concerned with is how to divide up someone else's cake and talk about fairness to the recipients. As to the provider: blank-out.

If that ain't communism, I don't know what is.

(Well... maybe he did evade after all... )

Michael

[Xray]

In short, how do you reconcile the practice of hand-me-downs with this notion of property that Peikoff wants you to instill in your child?

Just to expand on this a little, should the younger child have to say Thank You to the older child when he receives a hand-me-down?

In other words, can an "ought to" be derived from an "is"?

Since the Objectivist answer to this age-old philosophical question is a clear "yes", can one infer that the "Objectivist Child" is to say "Thank you" for getting the hand-me down?

How do you keep either one from resenting the other?

I'm not sure whether pointing out that "there are no conflicts of interest among rational men" would work here. ;)

It doesn't even work with grown-ups btw. For these conflicts can of course exist, no matter how "rational" the individuals are.

Edited April 23, 2011 by Xray

[Xray]

So long as we're having our cake and eating it, too, I have another question that Peikoff totally sidestepped. (Some would call it evasion, but I don't think he evaded. I think he just screwed up.)

How do you establish property rights on a piece of cake in the first place?

First come, first served?

That's the initial root? The starting point of property rights?

Tell that to the American Indians...

And how about if a kid wants the whole cake when it is still uncut if he shows up first? Is it evil sharing (the poison of covert altruism) to say everyone in the family gets a piece? What happens when his parents force him to allow everyone to have a piece?

Let's see if Peikoff's words apply--and I admit I am presuming to use the standard, first dibs by just showing up first, since I cannot detect any other standard in Peikoff's decree (I made the strike-through and suggested replacement in brackets):

If he chooses to do it, that's okay, if it's his piece [whole cake]. But not if he chooses under pressure from his parents, not if he does it out of duty, because the implication otherwise is that sharing is a value, a virtue, a proper way of behaviour, and that is wrong: sharing as such is not a correct or a value.

I severed the part below from the part above because Peikoff makes a weird inversion of property rights that reminds me of communists, of all things:

Sharing amounts to in this case giving some cake to someone who doesn't have it because he doesn't have it. And that is a complete injustice. It's an assault on the idea of private property.

What about the property rights of the person who bought the cake to begin with?

Isn't that person the one who is supposed to decide how it gets doled out?

All Peikoff is concerned with is how to divide up someone else's cake and talk about fairness to the recipients. As to the provider: blank-out.

Good points.

Thinking things through is clearly not Peikoff's long suit.

Edited April 23, 2011 by Xray

[Jonathan]

'...because the implication otherwise is that sharing is a value, a virtue, a proper way of behaviour, and that is wrong: sharing as such is not a correct or a value. Sharing amounts to in this case giving some cake to someone who doesn't have it because he doesn't have it. And that is a complete injustice. It's an assault on the idea of private property.

I think the logical follow-up question for Peikoff is, "By what method should parents be put to death for perpetrating the 'complete injustice' of violating a child's cake rights, as well as assaulting the very idea of private property? Would it be enough to send in Objectivist Police and have them shoot the parents, or should the entire neighborhood be nuked from afar so as to avoid altruistically putting Objectivist Police in unnecessary danger?

J

Edited April 23, 2011 by Jonathan

[9thdoctor]

How do you establish property rights on a piece of cake in the first place?

That’s what my example addresses, assume the child supplied the cake, and it’s only enough for one. So assume that splitting it four ways (or two) means no one receives enough to achieve the critical mass of enjoyment. If you redistribute it anyway, you’ve upset the effort/rewards feedback loop. Solution: let the kid have her cake, and let her stepsisters watch her eat it enviously, and get motivated to earn their own, the same way.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Dennis,

When I used to do drugs, we would laugh about having just enough to make you mad.

That is, until that's all we had.

Michael

[Kat]

I don't understand LP's moral outrage over sharing a freakin' piece of cake. In my household parental authority trumps the kid's so-called property rights. If everyone had a piece of cake and there was one slice left, I might let the kid have it or tell him to share it with his brother if it was a big enough piece and they both really wanted more. It's just a piece of cake.

There have been times, however, when the kids were smaller when they got a new toy, game or something cool and I discouraged sharing, saying it was their new special toy and they were not ready to share it at this point. Some of the other kids and parents didn't get it but others did and sometimes we would put the special things away when other kids were coming over and I remember another mom understood and started doing that too. They always share freely when they are ready. Sometimes they just need a period to feel ownership.

My sharing when ready policy actually prevented a lot of problems and made the kids feel loved because they were not forced to share when they did not want to or were not ready to. Sharing feels better when it is given freely rather than forced upon you. Why feed resentment and sibling rivalry with misguided notions?

I don't know if this is a good Objectivist parenting practice, but it did teach the kids that sharing was a choice and not an obligation.

Kat

[9thdoctor]

In my household parental authority trumps the kid's so-called property rights.

The best, or at least most honest approach I know of is to state outright: this home is not a democracy, it is an enlightened despotism. Then enjoy the strange looks the children give you, as you teach them the meaning of “despotism”, then “enlightened” (substitute “benevolent” if you prefer).

[william.scherk]

I finished transcribing Peikoff's reply.

http://media.blubrry.com/peikoff/www.peikoff.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/2011-02-07.150_A_01.L.mp3

'"Would an Objectivist child be taught to share the last piece of cake with his brother?"

No.

I mean, assuming it's not his brother's piece.

If he chooses to do it, that's okay, if it's his piece. But not if he chooses under pressure from his parents, not if he does it out of duty, because the implication otherwise is that sharing is a value, a virtue, a proper way of behaviour, and that is wrong: sharing as such is not a correct or a value. Sharing amounts to in this case giving some cake to someone who doesn't have it because he doesn't have it. And that is a complete injustice. It's an assault on the idea of private property. It's telling this kid "you never really own anything because there's other people in the world who without doing anything to earn it have a claim on you and you are wrong if you don't split it up and give it to them."

Sharing toys, sharing food, if it's something other than casual friendship unprompted by parents is okay -- that is wrong.

[Xray]

Xray,

I have seen elephants displaying what we would call empathy.

I repeat, it is absolutely no surprise to me that Man, the rational animal, shares some hard-wiring, genetics, or whatever you want to call it, with animals.

But how do you measure empathy?

Let's say, I feel some for you, you feel some for me, what good does it do on its own?

For example, it can create an agreeable atmosphere of harmony.

However, translated into action, I do something for you as a result of my empathy - but you respond with less than I think I merit, or I did for you, and we fight.

I personally would not expect rewards and think I merit anything, so the possibility that I would start a fight over this is virtually non-existent.

(This btw was Phil's problem here: he constantly expected to get emotional rewards from the others in the form of appreciation or praise).

But suppose I had really behaved unempathetically to anything you did for me, and you would point it out to me, I would apologize to you for having hurted your feelings.

Edited April 24, 2011 by Xray

[william.scherk]

Does Peikoff have any children?

Leonard Peikoff has one Objectivist Child, Kira Peikoff, a woman of uncertain age who is presently shopping her first novel. He has a former wife who I think was probably trained as an Objectivist Wife, Amy Peikoff. He has had at least one other Objectivist Wife.

Kira Peikoff blog.

Kira Peikoff website.

Amy Peikoff blog.