Critique of Objectivist ethics theory

[Victor Pross]

Daniel,

Regarding the is-ought debate, this fact—as a central point—remains: many sciences (other than ethics—the science of survival) are concerned with ought-judgments, and there is hardly any difficulty in understanding the relationship between “is” and “ought” as displayed in the normative sciences.

Medicine, as the example went, prescribes a set of actions that must be taken in order to preserve or to reinstate health. A doctor prescribes what ought to be done and this must be based on objective knowledge.

Descriptive = is = cognitive.

Prescriptive = ought = normative.

Both normative and descriptive sciences are centered chiefly on facts. The fact that ‘action results from identity’ is universally accepted and used in the fields of physics, chemistry, and the other realms of science. Both normative and descriptive sciences are concerned with facts and both are capable of verification---as both are subject to such judgments as “valid” or “invalid” or “true” or “false.”

I submit that normative and descriptive sciences are equal in that both deal with abstract principles derived from the facts of reality. The only difference, I maintain, lies in which facet of reality they consider along with the purpose for which their principles where employed.

The fact is human beings have to act in reality, they have to have knowledge in order to act if the standard of morality is life. The earlier talk of ethics is adequate to point out that ethics—like every normative science—is based on facts. The normative ought-judgments of ethics are capable of verification as the normative recommendations of medicine and architecture.

Would you, Dan, care to argue that such is not the case with medicine and architecture? If not, how is it that ethics, the science of survival, is cut off from what is true in other fields? What, then, is the purpose of ethics? Is it a legitimate branch of study? These are questions that we can deal with.

-Victor

edit: Daniel, I see our posts crossed over. I will deal with your post.

*** *** ***

MSK: "However, here is the rub for the present discussion. Rand's argument...is that ALL cognitive concepts include a normative abstraction, thus they are not really different. Hume's argument (or more specifically, the deductions of others from Hume's argument) is that the two strains are COMPLETELY separate."

MSK: I hold that they are like two circles that overlap, like in the diagram below:

Darrell: "Nice diagram. Now, if you would just label the gray area, "ethics," you would have the meat of Rand's philosophy. (I guess that means the, ought circle would have to fit within the is circle.)"

Edited March 16, 2007 by Victor Pross

[Victor Pross]

Daniel> Well, I do not see how substituting factual statements (eg: the fact that you need to format a disk to save a file to it) for normative ones (eg: love thy neighbour) can be seriously said to solve the "is/ought" difference!

Daniel,

To love your neighbor? Well, unless you are merely be facetious, do I have reason to suspect that you have a religious approach to ethics—in that ethics is a “series of commandments” issuing dictates such as “love they neighbor” and such? (Well, you used that has an example, and so a red flag went up!)

This is where we separate a rational approach of ethics from a religious/ subjective/duty-centered approach. If we approach ethics from this latter approach, then I would agree that the is-ought argument is valid. A rational morality, however, is based on standards—not rules per se. One does not speak of “obeying” or “disobeying” a standard--as is a religious morality. One does not “obey” a standard. One implements and follows it in a given context, for a given purpose.

-Victor

Edited March 16, 2007 by Victor Pross

[Victor Pross]

Daniel wrote: That you can make factual statements about norms, or decisions, or moral rules (which is what Merrill seems to be saying, and I think that would be the most charitable interpretation of the above sentence), has nonetheless zero bearing on the "is/ought" distinction at all, because of course the problem is not the fact a norm or rule (or means or end) was adopted, but what norm or moral rule (or means or end) to adopt.

Daniel,

For a direction in any ensuing discussion, why don’t we start where Rand did—at the root?

Rand: “What is morality, or ethics? It is a code of values to guide man’s choices—the choices and actions that determine the purpose and the course of his life. Ethics, as a science, deals with discovering and defining such a code.”

And as she tries to stress:

“The first question that has to be answered, as precondition of any attempt to define, to judge or to accept any specific system of ethics, is: why does man need a code of values?”

Rand wants to be clear from the outset, and I now stress her question:

“Let me stress this: the first question is not: What particular code of values should man accept? The first question: Does man need values at all—and why?”

-Victor

Edited March 16, 2007 by Victor Pross

[Daniel Barnes]

Victor:

>Both normative and descriptive sciences are centered chiefly on facts....I submit that normative and descriptive sciences are equal in that both deal with abstract principles derived from the facts of reality.

I submit that statements like the above demonstrate you do not clearly grasp the issue. There is no shame in this, it is sometimes hard to see at first. But we will not get very far in this discussion until you have your head around it, and I am prepared to commit a bit of time to clarify the issue if you are prepared to listen.

It is as follows: The dualism between facts and decisions, or (or facts/values or norms, or "is/ought") is like that between a natural law (eg: a law of physics, like the law of gravitation) and man-madelaw (or "norm", like "love thy neighbour"). For of course a law of nature describes an unalterable situation, one that we must accept, like it or not. Now, the man-made law does not have to be this way - men can obviously change it if we choose.

Now it happens that all decisions, ethical or otherwise, relate to one or more facts. This is because our decisions, while not derivable from them, have to be compatible with natural laws! As Popper puts it, we cannot decide to work more and eat less beyond a certain point due to the laws of physiology. Likewise we cannot decide to eat more and work less beyond a certain point due to the same laws, plus the natural laws of economics. So when you keep repeating stuff about norms and descriptions being 'equal' because both have something or other to do with facts all you are doing is repeatedly - and widely - missing the point.

Which is this: while decisions (or norms/values/"oughts" etc) always involve facts, and are stimulated or restrained or otherwise by them, they cannot be derived from facts, (or more formally, it is impossible to logically derive a sentence stating a norm or a decision from a sentence stating a fact). Thus there is a dualism. And that is the problem in a nutshell.

Or should I say, 'problem' in quotes. For just because something is a dualism doesn't mean it's a bad thing (despite purely reflexive urges towards Randian monism). For one could actually argue that the word 'problem' is misleading; that is/ought is not a bug, but a feature. For as I wrote much earlier, the lack of sound method of deriving decisions from facts in fact can also be seen as very important for individual responsibility, in that it is we who must decide. We cannot fob the responsibility off an abstract system to do our thinking for us; it is we who must struggle to decide what is the right thing to do.

At any rate, I hope the situation is somewhat clearer now. If in doubt revisit Ellen's short posts in the subject. And you will be relieved to know I do not have a religious bone in my body.

Edited March 16, 2007 by Daniel Barnes

[Victor Pross]

We cannot fob the responsibility off an abstract system to do our thinking for us; it is we who must struggle to decide what is the right thing to do.

Daniel,

I agree with the above quote. And if you think that my approach to ethics is along the above lines, you misunderstand me. Man does not serve an ethical system. As I said: “One does not speak of “obeying” or “disobeying” a standard--as is a religious morality. One does not “obey” a standard. One implements and follows it in a given context, for a given purpose."

But this is merely some fat from your most interesting argument (and clarification) of your stance. You have a lot of meat to address. So I will give it due consideration. But, for now, one more thing: should we happen to disagree, please do not characterize my disagreement (or contrary approach) as some sort of “failure” on my part to understand. I find this rather haughty. If I do it, call me on it. Ideally, I would much rather prefer to have a discussion as equals (since you know nothing of my background and I know nothing of yours). This is not an invitation to flash any credentials. We are two philosophically inclined guys having an interesting conversation--among, and including, others.

-Victor

Edited March 16, 2007 by Victor Pross

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Now it happens that all decisions, ethical or otherwise, relate to one or more facts. This is because our decisions, while not derivable from them, have to be compatible with natural laws!

Daniel,

This is actually how I understand Rand's meaning, with the sole problem being the definition of the word "derive." As I stated earlier, I suspect that Rand meant one thing and Hume, etc., another. Her main point was to derive ethics from reality (meaning making ethics compatible with and based on reality), not "compatible with and based on" an imaginary realm or God. That was her real beef: the imaginary as a standard for living.

I don't think she meant "derive" in the sense that man cannot choose his values because they are all derived from facts in the same manner existence and identity are derived from existents. (Man cannot choose whether something exists or what it is. He can only accept that and build on it or run a serious risk of being destroyed by it.) Man can choose and she never tired of saying that.

You essentially stated that man has volition in choosing his values, but not in choosing how natural laws operate. That's about as purely Randish as you can get.

Michael

[Victor Pross]

Daniel wrote: It is as follows: The dualism between facts and decisions, or (or facts/values or norms, or "is/ought") is like that between a natural law (eg: a law of physics, like the law of gravitation) and man-madelaw (or "norm", like "love thy neighbour"). For of course a law of nature describes an unalterable situation, one that we must accept, like it or not. Now, the man-made law does not have to be this way - men can obviously change it if we choose.

Daniel,

A few questions come to mind from the above. Do you see ethics as necessarily “man-made?” (If you do). And does the issue of man’s volition give credence—or ‘truth’, as you would have it, to the is-ought issue?

I am merely trying to gauge a better grasp of something, however odd the questions may seem to you.

-Victor

Edited March 16, 2007 by Victor Pross

[Ellen Stuttle]

I don't think she meant "derive" in the sense that man cannot choose his values because they are all derived from facts in the same manner existence and identity are derived from existents. (Man cannot choose whether something exists or what it is. He can only accept that and build on it or run a serious risk of being destroyed by it.) Man can choose and she never tired of saying that.

You [Daniel] essentially stated that man has volition in choosing his values, but not in choosing how natural laws operate. That's about as purely Randish as you can get.

I think you're onto something there, Michael. She certainly didn't solve Hume's problem; I've come to think that the hitch is, she didn't understand it. In fact, as I've a couple times pointed out, she accepted the conditional nature of "ought" statements in her article "Causality Versus Duty." Repeating my synopsis of that article's theme: (1) in the words of an uneducated woman she knew, you "don't gotta do anything but die"; and (b ) there is no unchosen obligation. This agrees with Hume (though Hume wouldn't have put the issue like this). Another way of saying it is that nature dictates no rules, a point with which Rand explicitly agreed. Moral principles are chosen, she said ("Morality is a code of values accepted by choice," quoting the line from memory), not a set of commandments writ on some "tablet" external to human ends.

I think it would be helpful in understanding her ethics if one simply disregarded her abrupt claim of having dealt with the "is"/"ought" problem.

As I see things -- and this disagrees with Hume, though I think it agrees with "Causality Versus Duty" -- the "problem" isn't really a "problem"; it might be restated as an acknowledgment that man is volitional and that there's nothing which will compel anyone to accept any particular ethical code, including Rand's. Ethics is unlike the "laws" of physics. If you're shoved in the back, you have no choice about "accepting" the laws of motion. If someone tries to persuade you of an ethical code, you do have a choice about accepting it or not.

Ellen

___

[Brant Gaede]

I don't think she meant "derive" in the sense that man cannot choose his values because they are all derived from facts in the same manner existence and identity are derived from existents. (Man cannot choose whether something exists or what it is. He can only accept that and build on it or run a serious risk of being destroyed by it.) Man can choose and she never tired of saying that.

You [Daniel] essentially stated that man has volition in choosing his values, but not in choosing how natural laws operate. That's about as purely Randish as you can get.

I think you're onto something there, Michael. She certainly didn't solve Hume's problem; I've come to think that the hitch is, she didn't understand it. In fact, as I've a couple times pointed out, she accepted the conditional nature of "ought" statements in her article "Causality Versus Duty." Repeating my synopsis of that article's theme: (1) in the words of an uneducated woman she knew, you "don't gotta do anything but die"; and (b ) there is no unchosen obligation. This agrees with Hume (though Hume wouldn't have put the issue like this). Another way of saying it is that nature dictates no rules, a point with which Rand explicitly agreed. Moral principles are chosen, she said ("Morality is a code of values accepted by choice," quoting the line from memory), not a set of commandments writ on some "tablet" external to human ends.

I think it would be helpful in understanding her ethics if one simply disregarded her abrupt claim of having dealt with the "is"/"ought" problem.

As I see things -- and this disagrees with Hume, though I think it agrees with "Causality Versus Duty" -- the "problem" isn't really a "problem"; it might be restated as an acknowledgment that man is volitional and that there's nothing which will compel anyone to accept any particular ethical code, including Rand's. Ethics is unlike the "laws" of physics. If you're shoved in the back, you have no choice about "accepting" the laws of motion. If someone tries to persuade you of an ethical code, you do have a choice about accepting it or not.

Ellen

___

Not when it comes to politics. If you believe that the primary if not sole function of government is the protection of individual rights, then you take over government and make that so. This leaves the citizens with no choice in the matter unless they want to violate rights if they think they can get away with it. Rights are protected or violated by force. If the anarchist says "I didn't consent to this government," so what? So what is his beef? He's not free to violate rights?

--Brant

[Darrell Hougen]

I don't think she meant "derive" in the sense that man cannot choose his values because they are all derived from facts in the same manner existence and identity are derived from existents. (Man cannot choose whether something exists or what it is. He can only accept that and build on it or run a serious risk of being destroyed by it.) Man can choose and she never tired of saying that.

You [Daniel] essentially stated that man has volition in choosing his values, but not in choosing how natural laws operate. That's about as purely Randish as you can get.

I think you're onto something there, Michael. She certainly didn't solve Hume's problem; I've come to think that the hitch is, she didn't understand it. In fact, as I've a couple times pointed out, she accepted the conditional nature of "ought" statements in her article "Causality Versus Duty." Repeating my synopsis of that article's theme: (1) in the words of an uneducated woman she knew, you "don't gotta do anything but die"; and (b ) there is no unchosen obligation. This agrees with Hume (though Hume wouldn't have put the issue like this). Another way of saying it is that nature dictates no rules, a point with which Rand explicitly agreed. Moral principles are chosen, she said ("Morality is a code of values accepted by choice," quoting the line from memory), not a set of commandments writ on some "tablet" external to human ends.

The problem here is that "derive" is being used in a deductive sense when discussing ethics, while it is being used in some other manner when discussing the laws of physics. Physical laws can no more be deduced from observations than morality can be deduced from human nature. Neither can be deduced. But, there are other ways of reasoning.

Rand's argument concerning ethics is not that an ought can be "derived" from an is in a deductive sense, but that man's choice to live as a rational being is the only rational choice. There is no other choice that optimally preserves both life and rationality. One can attempt to set up other standards of value, but any other standard is incompatible with man's nature. If a person fails to take reason to be his highest value and virtue, then he is irrational, to some degree. If he fails to make life as a rational person his standard of value, then he is irrational (because there is no other standard that is compatible with rationality) and his odds of surviving are lower. Therefore, man ought to take his life as a rational person to be his standard of value because there is no other standard that is fully compatible with what he is.

Rand has solved Hume's "is-ought" problem by restating it in a form that can be solved. It is true that the ultimate ought cannot be deduced from an is, but to state the question in that form misses the point. It is sort of like asking what happened before the beginning of the universe. The question assumes a contradiction and is therefore an uninteresting question. If we insist on taking Hume's question in an unanswerable form, it becomes equally uninteresting. But, if we drop the requirement that the ultimate ought be deduced from an is and reword it slightly, an answer becomes possible. If we ask, instead, whether there is some code of values, that is compatible with human nature, and if so, what it is, and whether there is more than one such code, then we can address the issue. The answer is that we ought to take life as a rational being as our standard of value because that is the only standard that is fully compatible with the nature of a rational being.

We can debate whether life as a rational being is, indeed, the only standard that is fully compatible with the nature of a rational being, but only after we have agreed that such a solution actually solves the is-ought problem in a meaningful way. In order to get past the deductive bottleneck, we must stop viewing goals as purely instrumental. Of course, most goals are instrumental to the achievement of other goals. For example, the goal of obtaining bread is instrumental to the goal of eating which is instrumental to the goal of living. But, if we insist that every goal be instrumental to the achievement of some other goal, then we have made bridging the is-ought gap impossible a priori. This is the form in which deductive statements are stated when they are applied to values, i.e., as instrumental statements. So, by insisting that every goal be instrumental, we are insisting that every fact be deducible. Both lead to an infinite regress.

Her argument with respect to ethics is similar to her arguments with respect to existence and identity. Existence cannot be deduced from prior facts. It is implicit in all facts, but it cannot be deduced from them. That is why it is taken to be axiomatic. Similarly, an ultimate end or goal cannot be instrumental to some even more ultimate end or goal. But, that does not imply that we cannot argue for the validity of such an end or goal --- and I have outline what I believe the proper form of that argument to be above.

Darrell

Edited March 16, 2007 by Darrell Hougen

[Victor Pross]

Rand has solved Hume's "is-ought" problem by restating it in a form that can be solved. It is true that the ultimate ought cannot be deduced from an is, but to state the question in that form misses the point. It is sort of like asking what happened before the beginning of the universe. The question assumes a contradiction and is therefore an uninteresting question. If we insist on taking Hume's question in an unanswerable form, it becomes equally uninteresting. But, if we drop the requirement that the ultimate ought be deduced from an is and reword it slightly, an answer becomes possible. If we ask, instead, whether there is some code of values, that is compatible with human nature, and if so, what it is, and whether there is more than one such code, then we can address the issue. The answer is that we ought to take life as a rational being as our standard of value because that is the only standard that is fully compatible with the nature of a rational being.

Darrell,

I think you're hitting a nail on the head here. I believe if one comes at these questions from a sticky empirical bases one gets nowhere. You know, instead of Rand not understanding Hume, I’m starting to see how it’s Rand’s solution that is flying over the head of those who seek to discredit her solution. Taken from the perspective you outlined, it makes a lot of sense (to me). So much for the is-ought dichotomy—if properly understood.

-Victor

Edited March 16, 2007 by Victor Pross

[Daniel Barnes]

Ellen:

>I think it would be helpful in understanding her ethics if one simply disregarded her abrupt claim of having dealt with the "is"/"ought" problem.

Yes.

>As I see things -- and this disagrees with Hume, though I think it agrees with "Causality Versus Duty" -- the "problem" isn't really a "problem"; it might be restated as an acknowledgment that man is volitional and that there's nothing which will compel anyone to accept any particular ethical code, including Rand's. Ethics is unlike the "laws" of physics. If you're shoved in the back, you have no choice about "accepting" the laws of motion. If someone tries to persuade you of an ethical code, you do have a choice about accepting it or not.

I agree entirely. See my #279.

[Daniel Barnes]

Michael K

>This is actually how I understand Rand's meaning, with the sole problem being the definition of the word "derive." As I stated earlier, I suspect that Rand meant one thing and Hume, etc., another.

Quite possibly. This would again indicate she did not understand the problem. Whatever the source of her confusion, her belief that she resolved Hume's "is/ought" dualism is clearly false. So we can say with some confidence that she did not solve - and IMHO the evidence indicates she did not understand - either of Hume's "is/ought" or his problem of induction.

If we accept this, this leads to several larger difficulties downstream for Rand, not the least of which being that without David Hume it is doubtful whether the world would ever have heard of Immanuel Kant.

>You essentially stated that man has volition in choosing his values, but not in choosing how natural laws operate. That's about as purely Randish as you can get.

Well, Rand did indeed say this, but that does not make it a Randian insight. It is a commonplace understanding that Hume sharpened with his logical observation. Rand also often wrote in a vague, confusing manner (like many philosophers) which means her writing can be retrofitted into a number of different epistemologies - Fred Seddon tried to shoehorn Rand into a straight-out skeptical position in his review of "Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature", for example. (see the end paras of my review of Seddon's review at http://aynrandcontrahumannature.blogspot.c...professor.html). Certainly there is nothing distinctively Randian about the idea that man has free will or that the laws of nature operate whether men like it or not.

[Daniel Barnes]

Darrell:

>Rand has solved Hume's "is-ought" problem by restating it in a form that can be solved....The answer is that we ought to take life as a rational being as our standard of value because that is the only standard that is fully compatible with the nature of a rational being.

While I am all in favour of restating philosophical problems to make their solutions possible, I disagree that this is the case here. Once again, I apologise that I cannot reply at greater length but once again brevity can be a virtue. For the above answer merely moves the problem back a step; for we now must ask, "As a result of this fact X, what should we decide to do as a rational being?" And then we are right back where we started.

Edited March 16, 2007 by Daniel Barnes

[Victor Pross]

Daniel,

Ethics can apply to man in two different respects. First, there is the objective sense of “value,” in which things are of value to man—that are conducive to his welfare—whether he chooses to recognize them or not. Second, there is the subjective use of “value”, in which “value” allocates the result of a corresponding process. A man’s values, in this case, represent his personal preferences. Rand was much more focused on ethics as a science: (“Ethics is objective, metaphysical necessity of man’s survival.”)

What a man values determines how he will act. As N. Branden put it: “Values constitute man’s basic motivational tie to reality.”

Daniel, the injunction to love thy neighbor is optional.

-Victor

[Daniel Barnes]

Victor:

>What a man values determines how he will act.

I am not sure what your point is here, as the adoption of a value or values is a decision, and thus is also underivable. It is the same situation.

>Daniel, the injunction to love thy neighbor is optional.

Yes it is. I am not sure why you are telling me this, as I did not argue otherwise.

[Victor Pross]

Victor:

>What a man values determines how he will act.

I am not sure what your point is here, as the adoption of a value or values is a decision, and thus is also underivable. It is the same situation.

>Daniel, the injunction to love thy neighbor is optional.

Yes it is. I am not sure why you are telling me this, as I did not argue otherwise.

Daniel,

Let’s get to the meat. I have pointed out the two different aspects of values---objective and subjective. If we approach ethics as entirely subjective—you won the debate! But a rational, objective and scientific ethics is possible (and this is to be discovered, not invented or contrived) and LIFE—the life of a volitional being—is the standard. To exist or not to exist, that is the question. Ethics, in this case, is like the "laws" of physics.

-Victor

[Ellen Stuttle]

Not when it comes to politics. If you believe that the primary if not sole function of government is the protection of individual rights, then you take over government and make that so. This leaves the citizens with no choice in the matter unless they want to violate rights if they think they can get away with it. Rights are protected or violated by force. If the anarchist says "I didn't consent to this government," so what? So what is his beef? He's not free to violate rights?

Brant,

You haven't eliminated the rights-violator's power of choice in regard to his/her acceptance of your code. You're merely saying that in the case of a rights violation, you'll meet force with force. Rights are enforceable moral claims, unlike other moral claims. This still doesn't say that the putative (or actual) rights violator has to accept your reasoning. (Re what "the anarchist" says, the anarchists on the lists you and I are both members of accept the idea of rights; I think you've caricatured those anarchists.)

Ellen

PS: Darrell, I'll get back to your post in awhile provided the university's server doesn't go down. Major snow storm here, and I have to go shovel the drive as first priority, if we're to be in advance of clearing the bottom of the drive before the snow plow comes by and piles up a near-mountain of snow.

___

Edited March 16, 2007 by Ellen Stuttle

[Darrell Hougen]

Darrell:

>Rand has solved Hume's "is-ought" problem by restating it in a form that can be solved....The answer is that we ought to take life as a rational being as our standard of value because that is the only standard that is fully compatible with the nature of a rational being.

While I am all in favour of restating philosophical problems to make their solutions possible, I disagree that this is the case here. Once again, I apologise that I cannot reply at greater length but once again brevity can be a virtue. For the above answer merely moves the problem back a step; for we now must ask, "As a result of this fact X, what should we decide to do as a rational being?" And then we are right back where we started.

I've already answered that question. You're still trying to treat all values as instrumental. You're not allowed to back up another step.

It's not rational to choose to be irrational. That's why you can't back up any further.

Darrell

[Brendan Hutching]

lTherefore, man ought to take his life as a rational person to be his standard of value because there is no other standard that is fully compatible with what he is.

Hi Darrell

You are confusing two separate issues here. Without getting too technical, you are trying to establish a normative principle by appealing to a metaethical theory.

As you will know, ethics is broadly divided into normative and metaethical theories. Normative theories attempt to establish a principle or principles on which to base decisions about one’s behaviour. The claim that the life of a rational person is the highest good is a normative claim, and one that must be established on its own merits.

Metaethical theories, on the other hand, attempt to describe the language of ethical thinking, and the is-ought question belongs to this category.

From that standpoint, the above argument is:

Premise: Man is a rational being

Premise: His life as a rational being is his highest good

Conclusion: Therefore, he ought to adopt that life as his standard of value.

There are two main problems with this argument. First, the conclusion is a non-sequitur, since the imperative of adopting x is not deducible from the mere fact that x is the case.

Second, in order for the argument to work, it must appeal to an unexpressed premise to the effect that one ought to strive to achieve one’s highest good. But in that case, the premises of the argument contain an ‘ought’, hence the is-ought gap remains unbridged.

Brendan

[Guyau]

This note is only a side-bar to the substantive issues in this thread.

Ellen and Rodney, yesterday you were struggling to recall a remark of Rand's saying what she saw as her most important contributions in philosophy. The remark occurred in her answer to a question in the Q&A the evening of Lecture 10 of Leonard Peikoff's 1976 lecture series "The Philosophy of Objectivism." She was asked what she considered to be her greatest intellectual discoveries. She replied that there were three: the non-initiation principle (for political theory), her ethics, and her theory of concepts.

[Daniel Barnes]

Darrell

>It's not rational to choose to be irrational. That's why you can't back up any further.

Actually there are two well-known problems with what you're saying here that you may not be aware of:

1) The least important, but still decisive one is that you can in fact back up further. For the problem with saying what you're saying here ie:"I should be rational, because that is the rational choice" is that it inherently presupposes that the decider is rational in the first place and is thus circular. So your argument is not valid.

2) The more important objection is that "rational" is a very vague word, (especially in Objectivism) and attempts to formulate "rational" ethical systems very quickly degenerate into mere verbalism, or arguments over the meaning of "rational" (for words are, entirely contra Rand, themselves norms or conventions, and thus logically undecidable for the reasons we have already agreed upon).

But don't just take my word for it: let us try it in practice. Even if we take an entirely unobjectionable definition of "rational" (such as:"the attitude of being willing to accept logical argument and factual experience") we find this brings us back to the start: for we know from logic that decisions/norms/values cannot be derived from facts, and we know from experience that people can choose to do any number of things when confronted by a fact

So I think for any or all of the above reasons your argument cannot possibly stand.

Edited March 16, 2007 by Daniel Barnes

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Even if we take an entirely unobjectionable definition of "rational" (such as:"the attitude of being willing to accept logical argument and factual experience") we find this brings us back to the start: for we know from logic that decisions/norms/values cannot be derived from facts, and we know from experience that people can choose to do any number of things when confronted by a fact

Daniel,

This just confused me. Aren't we talking about "ought" (should) and not "can" (is able to) in terms of choosing?

Michael

[Ellen Stuttle]

MSK wrote:

[MSK] I don't think she meant "derive" in the sense that man cannot choose his values because they are all derived from facts in the same manner existence and identity are derived from existents. (Man cannot choose whether something exists or what it is. He can only accept that and build on it or run a serious risk of being destroyed by it.) Man can choose and she never tired of saying that.

You [Daniel] essentially stated that man has volition in choosing his values, but not in choosing how natural laws operate. That's about as purely Randish as you can get.

I replied (in part):

[ES] I think you're onto something there, Michael. She certainly didn't solve Hume's problem; I've come to think that the hitch is, she didn't understand it. In fact, as I've a couple times pointed out, she accepted the conditional nature of "ought" statements in her article "Causality Versus Duty." Repeating my synopsis of that article's theme: (1) in the words of an uneducated woman she knew, you "don't gotta do anything but die"; and (b ) there is no unchosen obligation. This agrees with Hume (though Hume wouldn't have put the issue like this). Another way of saying it is that nature dictates no rules, a point with which Rand explicitly agreed. Moral principles are chosen, she said ("Morality is a code of values accepted by choice," quoting the line from memory), not a set of commandments writ on some "tablet" external to human ends.

Darrell begins his reply:

[DH] The problem here is that "derive" is being used in a deductive sense when discussing ethics, while it is being used in some other manner when discussing the laws of physics. Physical laws can no more be deduced from observations than morality can be deduced from human nature. Neither can be deduced. But, there are other ways of reasoning.

Rand's argument concerning ethics is not that an ought can be "derived" from an is in a deductive sense, but that man's choice to live as a rational being is the only rational choice. There is no other choice that optimally preserves both life and rationality. One can attempt to set up other standards of value, but any other standard is incompatible with man's nature. If a person fails to take reason to be his highest value and virtue, then he is irrational, to some degree. If he fails to make life as a rational person his standard of value, then he is irrational (because there is no other standard that is compatible with rationality) and his odds of surviving are lower. Therefore, man ought to take his life as a rational person to be his standard of value because there is no other standard that is fully compatible with what he is.

I don't think you're quite right -- though I think you're partially right -- in the way you're presenting the issue. The Humean problem is one of deduction -- and even in physics, yes, we deduce from certain principles that certain occurrences will happen, though we don't arrive at the principles by deduction and we continue to test the principles by seeing if the anticipated results indeed occur. But the Humean point, if I understand it correctly -- bear in mind that it's been a number of years since I last read Hume -- is that statements of an "ought" form cannot be syllogistically deduced from statements of an "is" form (in the way that "Socrates is mortal" can be deduced from the premises "All men and mortal" and "Socrates is a man"). I disagree with you as to Rand's claim in Galt's Speech. She's terribly sketchy there, but I think she is saying that an "is" entails an "ought."

[DH] Rand has solved Hume's "is-ought" problem by restating it in a form that can be solved. It is true that the ultimate ought cannot be deduced from an is, but to state the question in that form misses the point. It is sort of like asking what happened before the beginning of the universe. The question assumes a contradiction and is therefore an uninteresting question. If we insist on taking Hume's question in an unanswerable form, it becomes equally uninteresting. But, if we drop the requirement that the ultimate ought be deduced from an is and reword it slightly, an answer becomes possible. If we ask, instead, whether there is some code of values, that is compatible with human nature, and if so, what it is, and whether there is more than one such code, then we can address the issue. The answer is that we ought to take life as a rational being as our standard of value because that is the only standard that is fully compatible with the nature of a rational being.

Again, I partly agree and partly disagree. (This, incidentally, is an example of why I find that I can't answer your posts in the amount of time I usually have for writing emails. It's because I think you're mixing together in the same "train of thought" statements which require considerable disentangling. If the lecture I was supposed to go to tonight hadn't been cancelled because of the snow storm, I wouldn't be able to try to answer this post.)

I disagree with your first sentence, that "Rand has solved Hume's 'is-ought' problem by restating it in a form that can be solved." Again, she's very brief in what she says, but as I read her, she hasn't restated, she's swept aside.

I agree with your statement "It is true that the ultimate ought cannot be deduced from an is," but then that is exactly Hume's point. And as I read Rand, this is the point with which she was disagreeing in her brief comment. This is why I think one would get farther by setting aside what I see as her gaffe there, and proceeding to examine the rest of what she says.

One next runs into the problem that she did attempt to deduce an "ought" from an "is": she attempted to deduce from the observation -- with which I agree -- that it's only in the context of life that the issue of value arises that therefore for any given living entity that entity's life is its standard of value. I think that this is the statement on which she tries to make a logical case for her ethics -- but with the result, as Dragonfly and Daniel have pointed out a number of times -- that she then switches her standard when "survival as such" isn't doing the trick to "man's life qua man." In short, in addition to thinking that no deductive attempt at getting a standard of value will work (a point to which I'll come back), I think she doesn't carry through with the reasoning of her own initial argument.

Your next sentence I agree with, just taking the sentence by itself:

"If we ask, instead, whether there is some code of values, that is compatible with human nature, and if so, what it is, and whether there is more than one such code, then we can address the issue." [Darrell}

I think that this is an addressable issue. Addressing it, though, is going to require your delineating what you mean by "compatible with human nature." And there I'm not going to agree with your approach, since in other things you write, you show that you want to use as your idea of "human nature" the "rational animal" definition of "man," a definition which I think is debatable and which in any case "loads the die" in regard to the factual question of whether or not there is "more than one such code." In brief, as to that question, I'd say, many codes have been accepted during the course of human existence, and humans are still here. Thus you'd have to switch the question to whether or not there is more than one code which could produce "optimal" human survival, i.e., you'd have to bring in, as Rand did, some standard of quality of life.

You proceed to answer your own question:

"The answer is that we ought to take life as a rational being as our standard of value because that is the only standard that is fully compatible with the nature of a rational being." [Darrell]

And there I again disagree -- and think you've gone straight back to foundering the argument on the Humean "is/ought" problem because you've left out the conditional, the "if" a person cares whether or not his/her life is "fully compatible with the nature of a rational being." Assuming the person does care, and assuming that your ethical code is the only possible code compatible with that nature, then, yes, the person ought to live by your code. But that's where the ball stops bouncing, IMO. You require the person's being motivated before the person is going to accept your "ought."

You continue:

[DH] We can debate whether life as a rational being is, indeed, the only standard that is fully compatible with the nature of a rational being, but only after we have agreed that such a solution actually solves the is-ought problem in a meaningful way.

As indicated, I don't agree that this solves the Humean problem. Instead, I think that the sensible thing to do is to acknowledge that any choice of an ultimate value in terms of which to structure a moral code is a choice from desire.

[DH] In order to get past the deductive bottleneck, we must stop viewing goals as purely instrumental. Of course, most goals are instrumental to the achievement of other goals. For example, the goal of obtaining bread is instrumental to the goal of eating which is instrumental to the goal of living. But, if we insist that every goal be instrumental to the achievement of some other goal, then we have made bridging the is-ought gap impossible a priori. This is the form in which deductive statements are stated when they are applied to values, i.e., as instrumental statements. So, by insisting that every goal be instrumental, we are insisting that every fact be deducible. Both lead to an infinite regress.

Well, you lost me there; I don't follow you. I'm not saying that every goal is instrumental. I think an ethical code (to be consistent) does rest on an ultimate goal. But I'm not thereby insisting that "every fact be deducible." To the contrary, I'm disagreeing that ultimate goals are deducible.

And here we get to something which I think is a deep unease a lot of people have but which I don't share. I'm unbothered by what I see as the impossibility of saying that there's some ultimate goal which inherently "ought" to be accepted. My belief is that the vast majority of humans do want to live an emotionally satisfying -- a fulfilled, and a happy -- existence, and that if one can present a way of living which they believe is going to work to that end, there will be a lot of takers. That some people would remain holdouts doesn't trouble me. It's always been so, no matter what ethical code has been devised. But I think that with an ethical code which truly did work to produce emotional fulfillment, there would be fewer holdouts than has historically been the case.

This reverts to something I said earlier, about a stroke of illuminating lightning. That pertained to a thought about the evolutution of ethical behavior in relationship to current (frequent, by my sampling) Objectivist behavior. I think that ethical behavior -- behavior governed by internalized standards of right and wrong -- did initially evolve in the species as a means of social control, a means of forging a workable group existence; thus the focus was on behavior toward others. It's only with considerable development of an existence past the hunting/gathering band that such notions as "personal fulfillment" can really begin to come into play. (For instance, there wouldn't have been just a whole hell of a lot of debating what "career" one wanted to choose in a hunting/gathering band; there was a degree of specialization of labor, but not much.)

I do think that Rand's ethics represents a step in the direction of placing personal fulfillment center stage. But I think that ways of thought from the stage of projecting the source of ethics outward onto an authority delivering commandments carried over, both in her thinking and in that of many of her followers. (I'm speaking there of those of her followers of whom I have some knowledge, in person and/or in listland. There could be lots of people out there in the world at large who have been affected by Rand's thinking but haven't introjected the moralistic attitudes which I think make O'ist's use of the O'ist ethics often so "insufferable," as Dragonfly described it.) I hope that eventually people will be able to eliminate all the moralistic aspects of the way she herself and at least some of her followers have gone about it, and instead focus on the main goal, pursuing one's own satisfying life. Furthermore, I think that recognizing the ultimately conditional nature of one's standard -- as she did in the "Causality Versus Duty" article -- would help in getting rid of O'ist's using ethics as a bludgeon for bashing others (and a scourge for castigating themselves, the other half of that syndrome).

Well, I gave a bit of a speech there. Concluding with your last paragraph:

[DH] Her argument with respect to ethics is similar to her arguments with respect to existence and identity. Existence cannot be deduced from prior facts. It is implicit in all facts, but it cannot be deduced from them. That is why it is taken to be axiomatic. Similarly, an ultimate end or goal cannot be instrumental to some even more ultimate end or goal. But, that does not imply that we cannot argue for the validity of such an end or goal --- and I have outline what I believe the proper form of that argument to be above.

Possibly you're right in seeing the similarity in her argument for life as the standard and her arguments with respect to existence and identity, but I disagree that she didn't try to deduce a validating standard from the fact of life; and, as said, I think she didn't stick to that but instead switched her supposed ultimate end and standard from survival to "man's life qua man"; also, I don't think it's possible to validate this goal as an ought preceeding desire; instead I think that accepting a fulfilling life as one's goal and hence standard remains a matter of choice beyond which there's no argument.

Ellen

PS: Fair warning that I'm unlikely to reply again at the length of the above. Along with my having much else to do, it really is a terrible strain on my neuromuscular problem to sit at a computer screen long enough to write point-by-point answers to complicated posts. I expect that you and I will remain in disagreement over several details under dispute. But I'm not the type who's prone by general inclination to keeping on with an argument attempting to convince someone who disagrees with me. I'm content just to disagree and leave it there in a great many circumstances (not in all; something urgent to my own existence is another matter, but I don't view this dispute as being such a something).

___

[Daniel Barnes]

Michael K:

>This just confused me. Aren't we talking about "ought" (should) and not "can" (is able to) in terms of choosing?

I apologise if it's not clear, perhaps I should have said "might", or not turned the screw of the argument this extra turn with this example (certainly it was superfluous, as either 1) or 2) or both cleanly refute Darrell's argument). My point is simply if we are rational we must accept that thus far both logic and our experience support this dualism. So appeals to "rationality" by any ordinary definition also undermine his argument.