To the Editor:
This letter was inspired by the light ban editorial written for October 1, written by Robert Savino and Aaron Sorrell. They brought up a good point about the nature of certain rules as a resident or student.
RPI should be morally confident that it can justify each of its rules by a process of reason and not reduce its government to unprincipled dogmas that are to be accepted passively by blind obedience and no rational judgment. It is in RPI’s selfish interest, as a school set out to maximize its profits, happiness of its students, rich community of values, amount of knowledge gained and transmitted, and any of its other goals or values it seeks to obtain, to rationally justify and evaluate its rules by objective moral standards.
I do not in any way believe that RPI must be forced by law to change its rules. RPI reserves the right as a private institution and a sovereign free trader to set its standards when we agree to join. Ultimately we have the freedom to stay or to leave. For that reason, I also do not believe that students have any right to be able to make rules via democracy.
It is in RPI’s selfish interest and moral integrity to limit its rules to protect individual rights on their own effort without external government codes or internal student controls. They should not try to social-engineer its small community by unjust codes and controls, just because they are legally permissible. No institution, corporation, government, nation, or club can survive on the morality of: “we are good because it is us” (Ayn Rand). Their moral certainty and integrity derives from “we know we are good because we don’t use unjust force.” They can be morally certain their actions are just when they are based on objective moral standards that apply to individual rights, and not subjective pragmatic feelings. RPI and Public Safety do for the most part use limited force while protecting individuals from bodily harm, property damage, and intellectual theft. This is true, but they can never have too much moral integrity and there is always room for improvement.
I am not demanding that RPI selflessly serve the students as slaves. I am arguing that it is in RPI’s selfish interest to act with rationally justified objective moral principles and not pragmatic ungrounded dogmas. They risk unpopularity for being strict and irrational. Safety statistics cannot be improved by enforced abstinence or paternalism. Safety is achieved by advocating rational principles, arguing for common sense safety procedures, and reminding the students they are responsible for their actions and negligence. Safety via banning certain actions or objects and expecting blind obedience is a range of the moment pseudo-strategy and is ultimately against RPI’s future self interest.
Students should be free to make responsible moral decisions and to be able to openly evaluate and question the nature of RPI’s pragmatics. RPI should adhere to the student’s evaluations and arguments and make rational arguments to defend its principles. Students can only gain characteristics needed to change the world when their mind is free to think and evaluate. The individual’s mind cannot function, according to its nature, by force. Thinking is a process of volitional focus, organization, and evaluation (Ayn Rand). RPI’s self interest in releasing the greatest minds into the world can be realized when it frees the minds of its students. A free active mind and a free campus are corollaries. The same way a free market and a free mind are corollaries (Ayn Rand). Freedom has the best pragmatic effects, but Ayn Rand does not argue for freedom by appealing to its ends. Freedom lacks force as a means and treats the individual’s mind as something to be persuaded and not forced. Knowledge, understanding, and reason are all consequences of the lack of force upon the individual’s mind. Freedom should be supported by private institutions, not because they owe it to students by right, but because they owe it to themselves and their own selfishness. RPI students only feel unsafe and restricted, because RPI is not selfish enough and needs to be more selfish. Thank you.
Ben Mayer
EMAC ’05
