Do Objectivists actually believe all non-Objectivist philosophers are stupid and evil?

This showed up on my Facebook feed just now. From The Objective Standard blog, an Objectivist website, here’s a list of major moral theories in their essence:

http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/2014/01/basic-moral-theories-essentialized/

The first three entries are fine as far as they go, if not entirely fair. When I used to teach the big introductory moral theory class at Brown, I’d spend a few days explaining how divine command theory, cultural relativism, and (certain forms of) subjectivism are each “ethics by authority”-type theories–that is, they establish something (God, the French, or you) as an authority that can create morality by fiat.

But notice what’s missing from the list? Yes–the stuff I covered for the other 11 weeks of class!  I guess if you tell people that there are four alternatives, three of which are completely crazy, then Rand’s moral theory looks good as the fourth alternative. But of course that are many more alternatives, such as all the varieties of utilitarianism (many of which overcome the standard objections to utilitarianism), various deontological theories, virtue ethics, and so on. (This reminds me of Matt’s post about why Rothbard’s argument for libertarian self-ownership fails.) In addition, the chart above conflates metaethics with normative ethics.

What’s going on here? Quoting Huemer:

Attacking straw men

Rand seriously misrepresents the history of ethics. Essentially, she leads the reader to believe that there have been only two alternative views in ethics: (a) that moral knowledge comes by mystical revelations from God, and (b) that moral principles are arbitrary conventions. Either way, ethics is regarded as “the province of the irrational.” One other position is mentioned: that of Aristotle, who allegedly based ethics on what noble and wise people choose to do but ignored the questions of why they chose to do it or why he thought they were noble and wise. Next to these alternatives, Rand’s theory looks almost reasonable by comparison.

However, the above is a gross caricature of the history of ethics, and Rand makes no effort to document her claims with any citations.

In short, Rand draws plausibility for her position by attacking straw men.

Rand’s theory does forbid human sacrifice, but only contingently. Ethical egoists are committed to the view that if raping, dismembering, and murdering some other person were slightly better for you than any alternative action, then you’d be justified, indeed, obligated to rape, dismember, and murder some other person. Randians of course deny that raping, dismembering, and murdering someone could ever serve your interests. It’s possible they’re right about that, though it seems easy to imagine thought experiments where doing so would serve your interests. Still, it doesn’t matter if they’re right that the conditions under which it would be serve your interests never obtain. They’re still committed to the view that you should rape, dismember, and murder others when it serves your interests. For more on this problem, including why Objectivists can’t, on pain of violating the rules of logic, deny the validity of philosophical thought experiments, see Huemer here.

This reminds me further of a talk I saw at a recent free market conference. The presenter was talking about how most philosophers are nihilists who believe that morality is bogus nonsense. I said, “You’ll be delighted to hear that we don’t have to speculate about what philosophers believe. Here are the results of the PhilPapers survey, and it shows that most philosophers, including most moral theorists, actually think the opposite!” He said, at the time, “Oh, that’s great to hear. I guess I should give them more credit.” However, shortly thereafter, in another session, he went back to strawmanning the field.

Here’s a question to which I don’t know the answer. Are the Randians–especially the high powered ones, like Peikoff– deliberately strawmanning the rest of philosophy, or do most of them sincerely believe that other philosophers say what they claim they say? I think it’s likely that young Objectivists who have only read Rand are sincere. They haven’t read Kant or Hume, and so take her word for it that, e.g., Kant says you can only be a good person if you take no joy in feeding your kids. But what about the big wigs? Do they know better? Are they lying about philosophy to keep the donations from unwitting donors coming in? (Give us money, or philosophers will corrupt the world!)