Earth’s first-and-final valid philosophy—Objectivist philosophy—openly attacks Immanuel Kant (1724–1804). The practical application of Objectivist philosophy to everyday situations—Neo-Tech—openly attacks Plato (427–347 BC). Both idea matrices assert that Plato and Kant are the most evil men in history.

While The Local Group arises from Neo-Tech and Objectivism, it takes a broader and more benevolent view toward Plato, Kant, and similar people. What is The Local Group’s view?

The only way a person can be evil is by initiating force or fraud against another person or group of persons. Plato and Kant probably never initiated physical force or fraud against anyone. In fact, both of these people probably were gentle men; they probably did not mistreat other people. Equally important, both probably did not defraud people to gain values; these men probably were fairly honest in their interactions with people.

Now, what about the ideas they promoted? Are they evil? Yes, the ideas that both Plato and Kant developed and promulgated are evil. What about the division of labor? Did other men rely on the work of these philosophers to construct societies, moral codes, and methods of thinking? In a division-of-labor society, men do rely on the goods, services, and ideas that workers produce. However, neither Plato nor Kant forced anyone to accept and implement their ideas. They formulated their ideas and offered them to anyone who would listen. But they did not force or coerce anyone to accept such ideas. If they had, they would be evil.

Since man has volition—free will—he can choose to accept or reject a product, service, or idea. Men, therefore, could have rejected Plato’s or Kant’s spurious philosophies. While a valid, fully integrated philosophy did not exist in the past, there were more accurate, pro-man philosophies available. Men could have rejected Plato’s and Kant’s work in favor of, for example, Aristotle’s or Spinoza’s work. As history reveals, this did not happen. Whatever the reasons, men embraced Plato’s and Kant’s ideas as the basis of civilized society. This resulted in the rise of mysticism, sacrifice, the Dark Ages, world wars, Marxism-Leninism, corporate-welfare statism, and more.

There is no doubt that Plato and Kant provided the ideology that let the criminal mind flourish on planet Earth. And, they certainly brought this ideology to the public via their teachings. But no force or fraud was used; men remained free to choose Plato’s and Kant’s ideas or their competitors’ ideas.

Plato and Kant can even be admired in a certain sense: Plato for his stunning creative powers and Kant for his wide-ranging intellect. Of course, in the widest context, neither man deserves respect, since they spent their life formulating philosophies that provided rationalizations needed for the criminal mind to rule everyone. But to be fair to both Plato and Kant, they did not initiate physical force or fraud against anyone and thus are not evil people. Those who did initiate force and fraud—such as Hitler and FDR—are in fact evil people.