Possible Exception to Objectivist Ethics

[l_chaim29]

Ayn Rand defines a value as "that which one acts to gain and/or keep"; she also says that values make no sense without one's LIFE as thier ULTIMATE VALUE. Hmm.... Well, it seems to me that I could be suffering from a horrible illness or something (and be right in the decision to end my life) and therefore a gun, or a few bottles of pills, etc... could be a "value" to me according to that definition... In other words, in such a situation, I could act to gain and/or keep one of thes things in order to serve my purpose of being able to kill myself. Yet, in this case, the value in question would not have my own life as its ULTIMATE value. I think that this is an exception to what Ayn Rand says about ethics. Let me know what you guys think though.... Especially any of you who knew Ayn Rand personally, and who might know her mind better than I could claim to.

[tjohnson]

Ayn Rand defines a value as "that which one acts to gain and/or keep"; she also says that values make no sense without one's LIFE as thier ULTIMATE VALUE.

My guess is that she means you have to value your life above all else because without life you can't value anything.

[Alfonso Jones]

Ayn Rand defines a value as "that which one acts to gain and/or keep"; she also says that values make no sense without one's LIFE as thier ULTIMATE VALUE. Hmm.... Well, it seems to me that I could be suffering from a horrible illness or something (and be right in the decision to end my life) and therefore a gun, or a few bottles of pills, etc... could be a "value" to me according to that definition... In other words, in such a situation, I could act to gain and/or keep one of thes things in order to serve my purpose of being able to kill myself. Yet, in this case, the value in question would not have my own life as its ULTIMATE value. I think that this is an exception to what Ayn Rand says about ethics. Let me know what you guys think though.... Especially any of you who knew Ayn Rand personally, and who might know her mind better than I could claim to.

Multiple times in her fiction and nonfiction Rand discussed examples which speak to your question. If you have read Atlas Shrugged, for instance, you will recall when John Galt describes to Dagny how if the statists were to capture her and begin to torture her to get Galt to cooperate, he (Galt) would immediately commit suicide ("At the first mention of a threat to you, I will kill myself and stop them right there." He goes on to say . . . "I don't have to tell you that if I do it, it won't be an act of self-sacrifice. I do not care to live on their terms, I do not care to obey them, and I do not care to see you enduring a drawn-out murder. There will be no values for me to seek after that - and I do not care to exist values.").

She also said "So in principle, a man has the right to commit suicide - but it is very inadvisable. Further, a government can't pass laws to prevent suicide. The Soviets tried that in Russia in the 1920s, because of a wave of suicides among Party members. The penalty was death - which illustrates the problem. In general, there are many reasons why a man should not take his life. There are situations, however, in which suicide is perfectly valid, and it is his own life; there is nothing the law or other people can do about it." (From Q&A period at the Ford Hall Forum in 1968, after her lecture "Of Living Death", reproduced in Ayn Rand Answers, page 16.)

Alfonso (Bill)

Edited to add the citation on the Ford Hall Forum 1968 quote...

Edited March 27, 2008 by Alfonso

[l_chaim29]

Alfonso,

The issue to me is this: in order to commit suicide (and I'm keeping in mind only instances in which it would be RATIONAL to do so), you would have to act purposefully... You would problaby even have to act to get/keep a gun, bottle of pills or whatever and use whatever means you decided to in order to go through with it. According to Ayn Rand's definition of "value" then, you would have to act for a value(s). (That is, you would probably be acting to gain and\or keep whatever device you wanted to use to commit suicide with. And yet, to act for such a value (this is the crucial point here), you would NOT be acting with life as your ULTIMATE value. Ayn Rand says however that values make no sense without some ultimate value, and that that ultimate value can only logically be one's own life.

I will admit, however, that Galt says that he would have no values under the circumstances you mentioned. However,what if, to commit suicide, he had to act to gain and/or keep something? If he did not have a tool to use to commit suicide, would he not go out and get or create it? And if someone tried to take it away from him to stop him, would he not act to keep it? It seems to me that if you want to die that you might have to act to gain and or keep something. The only way that I can accept the quote of Galt as being valid (in other words, to accept that he would be willing to commit suicide and to do whatever became neccessary to do so), is if I accept some definition of "value" other than Rands. For example, I might say that "value" is that which is an instance of the good; in accordance with that definition, Galt could still act to gain and or keep something--if that was neccesary for him to be able to commit suicide--, but he would not be acting for a value in terms of the new definition. Ayn Rand, in other words, seems to use another meaning for the word value than that she gave in her formal defnition when it comes to this qoute of Galt. Neither is this this first time that I know of where she did such... I once heard her say in a recording something like what she believed in was the value of the individual life. This may not sound like a contradiction to most "Objectivists", but to me it does. The reason is that Rand would say that a person should not always act to gain and/or keep their lives; and yet, she believes that the individual life is somehow a value. I don't think Rand was always trying to be very consitent with her statements, and I think that the areas of suicide, euthanasia, and the rights to do either were areas where she contradicted herself more tnan is scarcely believable for such an intelligent woman. I admire her on almost every issue except for these.

[Dragonfly]

Rand's error is that she concludes from the fact that values exist only for living beings that life must be the ultimate value. That is a non sequitur. Dying can be a value to a living being - that there will be no values afterwards is not relevant.

[Brant Gaede]

Rand's error is that she concludes from the fact that values exist only for living beings that life must be the ultimate value. That is a non sequitur. Dying can be a value to a living being - that there will be no values afterwards is not relevant.

Death (before death) can be a value to oneself. Not dying. Maybe there could be a queer scenario that'd make that work, but I can't think of one save for bad fiction.

--Brant

[UncleJim]

Rand's error is that she concludes from the fact that values exist only for living beings that life must be the ultimate value. That is a non sequitur. Dying can be a value to a living being - that there will be no values afterwards is not relevant.

Ayn Rand said that life is the 'standard-of-value.' This is not the same as saying that life is the 'ultimate' value. Her meaning here is that life is used to determine value; not that it, itself, is value.

Ayn Rand also said "value is that which one seeks to gain or keep." This is not saying that life can be either gained or kept. Either its existence exists or it does not. To act to the benefit of life is not the same as acting to keep it. To keep something means to prevent someone else from taking it for their own benefit. One person cannot take the life of another and then use it to their benefit.

The issue of value is whether choice is involved. Choice is the volitional selection of one thing over the other by use of reason. The reason for choosing the one and not the other - is called value. Since one must be alive to apply reason; then, ones life is the standard used to determine ones reasons for choosing.