David Kelley’s “A Question of Sanction” was an open letter was written in response to an article Peter Schwartz published in The Intellectual Activist in early 1989.
“I sent copies to about 30 people, including Schwartz himself and Leonard Peikoff and authorized anyone to copy and distribute it further," Kelley explained. "Within a few weeks it had circulated widely in the Objectivist movement. Peikoff’s ‘Fact and Value’ was written in response to it.”
In the introduction to "A Question of Sanction" Kelley writes:
A number of people have asked me about "On Sanctioning the Sanctioners" (The Intellectual Activist, 2/27/89), which was in part an attack on me for speaking to libertarian groups. In response, I want to set the record straight regarding my own actions, and to identify certain attitudes in the article that I think are incompatible with a philosophy of reason.
He continues:
In addition to my philosophical work over the last fifteen years, I have been a polemicist for freedom. In scores of articles and speeches, my goal has been to defend individual rights on an Objectivist foundation—as clearly and forcefully as I can to as wide an audience as possible. As a polemicist, my efforts are naturally directed at people who are not already Objectivists.