Getting the specifics of Ayn Rand's ethics down

[Samson Corwell]

I've been scouring multiple pages of content on the web trying to understand stuff. 'Stuff' being the philosophical terms that are thrown about. Rand says morality is a code to live by and survive. What does this mean in the sense of good, bad, and evil? Is this ethical realism, that there is an unspecified set of ethics that is/are true? Is this universalism? When answering this question keep this in mind: an exception to a rule is actually governed (what's being governed is the exception) by a rule. This began to get wonky with regards to other systems when they started to talk about ideas and the like.

[Selene]

I've been scouring multiple pages of content on the web trying to understand stuff. 'Stuff' being the philosophical terms that are thrown about. Rand says morality is a code to live by and survive. What does this mean in the sense of good, bad, and evil? Is this ethical realism, that there is an unspecified set of ethics that is/are true? Is this universalism? When answering this question keep this in mind: an exception to a rule is actually governed (what's being governed is the exception) by a rule. This began to get wonky with regards to other systems when they started to talk about ideas and the like.

In the essay "The Objectivist Ethics," The Virtue of Selfishness, she states explains:

What is morality, or ethics? It is a code of values to guide man’s choices and actions—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.

The first question that has to be answered, as a 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?

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

[Serapis Bey]

Objectivist ethics starts with the premise that morality is a study of the conditions and values which allow a man to survive and flourish -- as an individual. In this respect, morality is no different if one is alone on an island or a cog in a metropolis.

What virtually everyone else thinks of (when asked about the topic of "morality") are the guidelines and strictures which constrain an individual's behavior with respect to _other people_. On this view, morality is meaningless for a single individual on a deserted island

This leads to most Objectivists and conventional people talking at cross purposes.

[Samson Corwell]

Objectivist ethics starts with the premise that morality is a study of the conditions and values which allow a man to survive and flourish -- as an individual. In this respect, morality is no different if one is alone on an island or a cog in a metropolis.

What virtually everyone else thinks of (when asked about the topic of "morality") are the guidelines and strictures which constrain an individual's behavior with respect to _other people_. On this view, morality is meaningless for a single individual on a deserted island

This leads to most Objectivists and conventional people talking at cross purposes.

Talking at cross purposes? You'll need to be more specific. Offer an analogy. I'm good with those.

[Serapis Bey]

<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="Samson Corwell" data-cid="178787" data-time="1362794939"><cite class="ipb" contenteditable="false">Samson Corwell, on 08 Mar 2013 - 21:13, said:</cite>
<p> </p>
<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="Serapis Bey" data-cid="178785" data-time="1362793859"><cite class="ipb" contenteditable="false">Serapis Bey, on 08 Mar 2013 - 20:55, said:</cite>
<p>Objectivist ethics starts with the premise that morality is a study of the conditions and values which allow a man to survive and flourish -- as an individual. In this respect, morality is no different if one is alone on an island or a cog in a metropolis.<br />
<br />
What virtually everyone else thinks of (when asked about the topic of "morality") are the guidelines and strictures which constrain an individual's behavior with respect to _other people_. On this view, morality is meaningless for a single individual on a deserted island<br />
<br />
<br />
This leads to most Objectivists and conventional people talking at cross purposes.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Talking at cross purposes? You'll need to be more specific. Offer an analogy. I'm good with those.</p>
</blockquote>
<p> </p>
<p><a href="http://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=13064">http://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=13064</a></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Contra MSK's assertions, the nurse in question was indeed considering her rational self-interest.  What if she was a single mother?  Could she afford to lose her job?  Such a result would have been a direct consequence of her breaking with company policy.  And what was Bayless to her?  Just another customer.  Who is more important: a stranger -- or the nurse's own life and livelihood?  Micheal frames the issue as one of "Drooling Beasts" who slavishly obey authority, but this characterization only feeds into the Randian narrative.  The fact is, most people simply look out for their own immediate interests.  DGLGMUT has a good point.  The nurse was well within her rights to consider her livelihood and means of survival of more importance than some old bag's life.  I'm being rough in order to highlight the consequences of true dedication to rational self-interest. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Of course, I feel what happened in the "Independent Living Community" to be abbhorent, but such is life when people are no longer held to """higher""" values of duty, honor or self-sacrifice.  Self-sacrifice is verbotten in the Objectivist lexicon, remember?  I don't say this to pick sides, but merely to point out the confusion which results when an ethics of egoism runs into the wall of real life.</p>

[Serapis Bey]

screw this. i tried a million times to fix this mess but the damn editor is is a joke. make of it what you will. i'm done.

[anthony]

Sorta made sense of the jumble, Serapis. I think you've mixed some short-

range pragmatism in with rational selfishness. This latter is for the duration of

one's life, so is consistent and sustainable.

(Should the nurse have accepted that job, knowing that at some point the rules

will contradict her vocation, training and - supposed - value for life?

If the system is so compromised by litigiousness, should she have entered

the profession, in the first place? Tough one, obviously.)

Dedication to one's objective principles and virtues can no way contradict

one's rationally-selfish morality, self-evidently and by definition.

Conflicts, will always arrive, but can be dealt with. However, self-contradiction

- self-sacrifice, being one aspect - is a quick way to disaster.

Any morality that shifts with changing circumstances, and is measured entirely on momentary results (consequentialism) - is just blowin' in the wind.

[syrakusos]

Contra MSK's assertions, the nurse in question was indeed considering her rational self-interest.  What if she was a single mother? Could she afford to lose her job?  Such a result would have been a direct consequence of her breaking with company policy.  And what was Bayless to her? Just another customer. Who;is more important: a stranger --;or the nurse's own life and livelihood?; Micheal frames the issue as one of "Drooling Beasts" who slavishly obey authority, but this characterization only feeds into the Randian narrative. The fact is, most people simply look out for their own immediate interests.

DGLGMUT has a good point. The nurse was well within her rights to consider her livelihood and means of survival of more importance than some old bag's life. I'm being rough in order to highlight the consequences of true dedication to rational self-interest.

Of course, I feel what happened in the "Independent Living Community" to be abbhorent, but such is life when people are no longer held to """higher""" values of duty, honor or self-sacrifice. Self-sacrifice is verbotten in the Objectivist lexicon, remember? I don't say this to pick sides, but merely to point out the confusion which results when an ethics of egoism runs into the wall of real life.

Uncle Serapis, I edited out the tags. Do you work on a Macintosh? I have both and the Mac is less compatible. I have the same problem but inconsistently. Editing them out on the Mac only multiplies them like Mickey versus the Brooms. I am on my Windows PC right now. Be that as it may...

If you are seeking a "higher" morality then, indeed, Objectivism offers that. Self-interest is not a range-of-the-moment reflex response to a fleeting circumstance. Yes, "most people" may indeed think of keeping their job as being in their self-interest -- and they may not be wrong in that per se -- however, Objectivism asks higher (or deeper) questions.

Ayn Rand's fiction offers many examples of how she imagined her philosophy would work in real life. And indeed it has for millions of us these past 50+ years. In fact, The Fountainhead was the first statement 20 years before that. In the movie, when Roark rolled up the blueprints, he said, "I'd rather work as a day laborer." In the book, he says, "That was most selfish thing you've ever seen a man do." Many of her fans then and now have done just that, left "white collar" work for blue, rather than compromise on a moral issue.

Every Objectivist I know has walked off one job or another one way or another at least once. I know a guy who walked out of a bank the day that Nixon froze wages and prices. It was iconic. He was answering a higher calling, if you want to think of it that way. Basically, he knew that he could always find a job. The nurse in question - whom we do not know, and about whom we are only imaging a construct - lacked that self-esteem.

Self-esteem is the basis of selfishness.

It is the essential distinguishing characteristic between true rational self-interest and the momentary grasping for vacuous "advantages" that most people claim to be selfishness.

The last time I walked off a job was 2001. The company was sold and we were told to "surf the web" for a week while we waited for new instructions. That was not a productive use of my time. I would rather work as a day laborer at something that needs to get done than to burn other people's money in the shadow of their ignorance.

The idea that people "need jobs" is a socialist fallacy based on the assumption that most people are worthless on their own. One reason that I moved here to Austin was that when it was 100 degrees, people in the medians were not begging, but selling bottles of water. We do have beggars: every place does. Just to say, some people make their own opportunities because they believe in themselves enough to take advantage of an opportunity to whatever extent.

[syrakusos]

(Should the nurse have accepted that job, knowing that at some point the rules

will contradict her vocation, training and - supposed - value for life?

If the system is so compromised by litigiousness, should she have entered

the profession, in the first place? Tough one, obviously.)

Dedication to one's objective principles and virtues can no way contradict

one's rationally-selfish morality, self-evidently and by definition.

...However, self-contradiction - self-sacrifice, being one aspect - is a quick way to disaster.

Any morality that shifts with changing circumstances, and is measured entirely on momentary results (consequentialism) - is just blowin' in the wind.

Thanks, Why, it was a good post. I think that consequentialism gets a bad rap because it is based on the consequences to other people by the standard of still other people farther removed. That you should do unto others as you would have them do unto you ignores the fact that we are all individuals and often have different needs and wants.

I am going to post in the original topic, "So Wrong on So Many Levels." As I have said here before, I work as a security guard. My rock and hard place are the contractual limits and the moral mandate to keep other people safe. I work under one such contradiction right now. The slavish obedience to other people's control over you has created a situation in which our regional managers believe that the customer is always right. So, we have post orders that are nonsensical because we have to allow the customer to believe that their wishes are more powerful than the physical reality of human society. So, we guards ignore the rules and do the right thing, knowing that we might be reprimanded or fired. So what? I was looking for a job when I found this one.