Objectivist Epistemology And Ethics

[studiodekadent]

Rand's Epistemology and Ethics

When I was first learning Objectivism, my interest was predominantly in ethics. I found the epistemology to be overly complex, and technical, and as such I glossed over it. However, it is unfortunate that Rand's ethics cannot be fully justified without reference to her epistemology. As such, when I was studying philosophy and defending Objectivist arguments, my Professors picked up on something: I was using "objective" in a nontraditional way, and I couldn't fully explain how the Objectivist usage differs from the traditional usage.

In retrospect, the connection between epistemology and ethics is very simple to grasp. "Good" is a concept, as is "Value," and as such to explain the origins of these concepts, one first has to know what a concept actually is. This is one of the most vital questions of epistemology. In this article I want to explain how Rand's epistemology is absolutely vital to understanding Rand's metaethics and to defend one without defending the other is simply impossible.

There are three basic approaches to the question regarding the nature of concepts. This is of course the IOS Trichotomy, which all Objectivists are familiar with. The trichotomy represents three solutions to the problem of universals. Each solution is based upon a theory about the nature of the relationship between reality and consciousness.

The first alternative is Intrinsicism. Known as either 'Realism' or 'Objectivism' in the Problem of Universals literature, this solution states that concepts exist mind-independently, either in a realm of ideas (Platonic Realism) or in the objects in which they are recognized (Aristotelian Realism or Moderate Realism). This view is based on a view of a metaphysically and epistemologically passive consciousness, i.e. the mind absorbs ideas from Plato Heaven or from the external reality. If this is the nature of all concepts, when what is the nature of value? The Aristotelian version would state that the good exists inherently in some things, akin to a perceptual similarity such as 'redness.' Aristotle himself did not promote this, however his moderate realist followers do. I bring as evidence G. E. Moore. This philosopher advocated the viewpoint that one has an intuition that can identify intrinsic goodness automatically. The good, said Moore, was a simple property, irreducible to any natural fact, that could be percieved directly by the agent. This idea may appear patently ludicrous at face value, however it had many adherents. For one, mixed-economy Economist John Maynard Keynes, who was instrumental in damaging human freedom and shutting advocates of Laissez-Faire out of academia for about thirty to forty years (whether he intended to do such is irrelevant). However, any evil one wants to ascribe to Keynes cannot match the evil that can be ascribed to Moore's other intellectual descendents: the environmentalist movement. Moore's "method of isolation" by which intrinsic value can be detected has been used by environmentalists to promote the idea that the earth has intrinsic value, and from this stems the belief that we should save the orange-bellied Parrot, human interests irrelevant. The Platonic variety of realism, however, produces an even more monstrous conception of good. If the good exists outside of the world, then the world is inherently not good, and at best merely a shadow of good. This applies of course to human beings, because the good cannot inhere in them either, regardless of whether or not they approach it. One is tempted to think that this is a pagan version of the Christian concept of Original Sin, and the form of the good as the analog for the Christian God (Plato did explicitly regard the form of the good as the greatest of the forms, so this certainly fits with the Christian worldview of an inherently damned material world and an inherently sinful humanity, with the ultimate embodiment of good existing outside this world).

The "S" in the IOS trichotomy is Subjectivism. Known as 'nominalism' in the Problem of Universals literature, this solution states that concepts are just names, and need not have any connection to particulars. This view can be based on two characterizations of the relationship between reality and consciousness, from consciousness as metaphysically active to consciousness as metaphysically passive but epistemologically unrelated to reality. Outright metaphysical subjectivism is rarely advocated, however the advocacy of an epistemologically-detatched consciousness is utterly rife. For this, we can blame the Kantian Skeptics (i.e. those that use (an arguably bastardized version of) Kant to argue that we cannot perceive reality and understand it. The Marxists argued our understanding was controlled by our economic caste. The Fascists argued our minds were mere products of our nation-state-culture. The Nazis argued that our worldview was genetically controlled. Today's evolutionary reductionists (i.e. those that reduce all mental function to evolutionarially-conditioned brain chemicals) argue much the same thing as the Nazis (although changing the conclusion of "kill all Jews" to "tolerate everything since no one can help anything") and today's postmodernists argue regurgitations of the Fascist arguments. The postmodernists, however, have added political situation and power relations to the mix, thanks to the influence of Foucault (whether Foucault actually believed all knowlege was merely a political construct is debatable; he certainly claimed that some beliefs which may or may not be true are used for political ends, a proposition that all Objectivists would agree with (see for example how 'egoism' has been manipulated for political ends by advocates of totalitarianism); but Foucault certainly has influenced the academia in the direction of "all knowlege is political"). As such, if we have no valid concepts, then the referents of the concept "good" or "valuable" cannot be identified, we cannot have any moral knowlege, and hence we are left with moral skepticism or moral nihilism.

Someone that has an Intrinsicist answer to the problem of universals will not consider Rand's morality valid. To an Intrinsicist that is Platonic, the good does not exist in this world, and to an Intrinsicist that is moderate, the good cannot require an agent's premoral choice since something good has to be good in the same way something red has to be red. Hence, the Den Uyl/Rammussen/Nozick argument against Rand's morality imply a rejection of Rand's epistemology in favor of moderate realism (Intrinsicism). Any religious argument against Rand's morality implies a rejection of Rand's epistemology in favor of Platonic realism. Someone that has a Subjectivist answer to the problem of universals will not consider Rand's morality valid either, because to a consistent Subjectivist no morality is valid.

In order to defend Rand's concept of "value," one has to defend her position on the nature of concepts and how they are abstracted. Specifically, one has to defend that 1) concepts do not exist mind-independently (contra the realists/intrinsicists) and 2) concepts are validly abstracted from empirical reality (contra the nominalists/subjectivists). In order to defend proposition 2, one has to defend empiricism (in the broadest sense of "knowlege comes from experience and is not inborn") and direct realism as well as logic (for the abstraction process). In order to defend proposition 1, one also has to defend empiricism (because no one can see or observe these concepts), as well as reject the idea of supernatural realms (to close off the Platonic angle).

Rand's solution, the "O" in the IOS trichotomy, is based on a view of consciousness as metaphysically passive, but epistemologically active. That is, knowlege is not passively absorbed but actively acquired. The implicit assumption that Rand identified and rejected was called (by David Kelley in "A Theory of Abstraction") the "Diaphanous Consciousness" assumption, that if consciousness were epistemologically active then it could not produce reliable conclusions. The solution Rand proposes is (despite her rejection of the label) a Conceptualist solution, by which empirical evidence (hence within context) is, using logic and mental focus, organized and abstracted on the basis of integration by similarities and differentiation by differences, and as context expands (owing to more experience), boiled down into more precise identifications of essential traits. This solution provides a robust, open-ended and nonlinear framework allowing knowlege to build on itself and integrate with new experience, be refined and further clarified, and progress in a scientific manner, giving the means to correct error. As such, it allows concepts to be connected to both the agent and to external reality, to be both valid and flexible, to be both contextual and absolute ("absolute within a context" is not a contradiction, since in the end all facts are within the context of existence, as well as the context of human experience, thus if anything "acontextual absolute" is the contradiction). Rand's epistemology can be seen as a development on the themes of Locke in its empiricism and conceptualism. What are the consequences for ethical concepts under this epistemic theory?

First, intrinsic value is rejected as is subjective value. Instead, the approach to the concept of value begins, not with "what is valuable?" or "what do I will to be valuable?" but "what fact/s of the human condition give rise to moral concepts? What experiences do people integrate into the concept 'good'?" Rand argues that the nature of the human condition; that life is conditional and requires a constant process of teleological behavior for it's sustenance; and that people choose to live, is what provides the situation in which moral concepts are made.

Regardless of her metaethical and ethical argument, it is abundantly clear that one cannot fully defend that argument without being able to understand and defend Rand's epistemology. This article is of course mostly addressed to the more recent entrants into the Objectivist community. Promoting Rand's general spirit can be monumentally effective in this world, losing its enlightenment heritage and sufferring as a result (luckily the atheist "new enlightenment" movement from Hitchens and co. seems to be very receptive to the Objectivist sense of life). However, to genuinely demolish philosophically formidable foes in the battle of ideas requires more than sense-of-life-based argumentation.