Moral perfection

[MichaelJoyous]

Hi Michael:)

I think the key to understanding this is to look at the way "moral imperfection" is being used. When folks say that nobody can be morally perfect, they then say, "Everybody has a character flaw or two." They're not talking about perfection being associated with a point in time, as has been suggested in earlier posts. They're asserting rather, that everyone has a moral flaw. That no one is honest except a naive person. That no one makes a million without stealing some time in his or her life.

To distinguish ourselves from this kind of stereotyping, I think we should all run to the security of Rand's notion that we can all be morally perfect. Can't we all be honest totally, in principle? After all, honesty doesn't refer to not lying to folks, just not lying to folks who you have reason to believe won't attack you unfairly because of it. Can't we all do that much?

best wishes always,

Mike Rael

Paul,

I really like "moral excellence" too. To paraphrase myself:

"Striving to be morally excellent is not only attainable, it is a glorious and heroic thing to do."

Edit - A light bulb just went off in my head. Think about the following idea a minute. It's one of those that gets clearer and clearer the more you think about it. You can almost see it taking shape (at least, that is how it seemed to me).

Anyone who preaches moral perfection has something shameful to hide.

(Didn't even Rand have an affair with one she disapproved of that she hid from everyone all her life? I could go on...)

Michael

[Ciro]

Moral perfection is when at the end of the day your emotions are not in conflict with what you believe.

And thus, because people think differently and have different emotions, there will never be a universal moral perfection.

Hi Michael:)

I think the key to understanding this is to look at the way "moral imperfection" is being used. When folks say that nobody can be morally perfect, they then say, "Everybody has a character flaw or two." They're not talking about perfection being associated with a point in time, as has been suggested in earlier posts. They're asserting rather, that everyone has a moral flaw. That no one is honest except a naive person. That no one makes a million without stealing some time in his or her life.

To distinguish ourselves from this kind of stereotyping, I think we should all run to the security of Rand's notion that we can all be morally perfect. Can't we all be honest totally, in principle? After all, honesty doesn't refer to not lying to folks, just not lying to folks who you have reason to believe won't attack you unfairly because of it. Can't we all do that much?

best wishes always,

Mike Rael

[MichaelJoyous]

Hi Ciro:)

One problem I see with your formulation:Hank Rearden was morally perfect even though through most of the book, his emotions were in conflict with what he believed. He was trying his best within his limitations, while always open to new ideas. To me, that's where moral perfection is at. It's not about emotional harmony. I've met folks who were scientologists with beautiful emotional harmony, though some of the screwiest ideas!

That being said, I think it's a good thing for all of us to seek emotional harmony so long as we don't confine our basic premises to any particular Sacred Book!

best always,

Mike

Moral perfection is when at the end of the day your emotions are not in conflict with what you believe.

And thus, because people think differently and have different emotions, there will never be a universal moral perfection.

Hi Michael:)

I think the key to understanding this is to look at the way "moral imperfection" is being used. When folks say that nobody can be morally perfect, they then say, "Everybody has a character flaw or two." They're not talking about perfection being associated with a point in time, as has been suggested in earlier posts. They're asserting rather, that everyone has a moral flaw. That no one is honest except a naive person. That no one makes a million without stealing some time in his or her life.

To distinguish ourselves from this kind of stereotyping, I think we should all run to the security of Rand's notion that we can all be morally perfect. Can't we all be honest totally, in principle? After all, honesty doesn't refer to not lying to folks, just not lying to folks who you have reason to believe won't attack you unfairly because of it. Can't we all do that much?

best wishes always,

Mike Rael

[Ciro]

Mike, Rearden was not morally perfect, it is Francisco who teachs Rearden that the material production is an intellectual process and a great virtue.

It is Dagny who teachs him that sex is the expression of an individual's deepest believes and values. Rearden is able to recognize his own superlative values "Only" when trows off the idea that the body and its concerns are low.

Ciro

Moral perfection is when at the end of the day your emotions are not in conflict with what you believe.

And thus, because people think differently and have different emotions, there will never be a universal moral perfection.

Hi Michael:)

I think the key to understanding this is to look at the way "moral imperfection" is being used. When folks say that nobody can be morally perfect, they then say, "Everybody has a character flaw or two." They're not talking about perfection being associated with a point in time, as has been suggested in earlier posts. They're asserting rather, that everyone has a moral flaw. That no one is honest except a naive person. That no one makes a million without stealing some time in his or her life.

To distinguish ourselves from this kind of stereotyping, I think we should all run to the security of Rand's notion that we can all be morally perfect. Can't we all be honest totally, in principle? After all, honesty doesn't refer to not lying to folks, just not lying to folks who you have reason to believe won't attack you unfairly because of it. Can't we all do that much?

best wishes always,

Mike Rael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Hi Mike,

Here is my comment you objected to:

Anyone who preaches moral perfection has something shameful to hide.

I admit this was a bit overstated. I did not mean it as a hard and fast principle, but instead as a "common sense" guide on how to judge loudmouthed obnoxious Objectivist people.

If you examine the discussion of moral perfection in Galt's speach, moral perfection was put in direct contrast to the original sin concept (man being born morally corrupt). I fully agree with Rand that original sin needed to be challenged at the root. But Rand does not elaborate on moral perfection in that speech - on precisely what it means - except to call it "unbreached rationality."

Being honest with yourself at all times would seem to fit this bill, at least as a prerequisite. I see too many moral perfection advocates who obviously hide painful or inconvenient facts about themselves from themselves. Look at their thin skin. Then scratch a few of the high profile ones and see what is underneath. (I have and it ain't pretty.)

Here is a good example you can see all around you. A dude wants desperately to be an Objectivist guru. He wants it so bad he can taste it. He finds that "moral perfection" is a great catchword for stirring people up and getting a flock of followers. He even starts convincing himself that he is morally perfect.

Yet he engages in a series of irrational and self-destructive acts, especially alienating people within the Objectivist community. Is this last a morally perfect thing to do? Even when he disagrees with them, he is much closer philosophically to them than with religious people, for instance, so the answer is obviously "No, that is not a sign of morally perfection."

But it is "morally perfect" to intellectually abuse followers who disagree with him if he want to be guru and builds rationally from that premise (especially with "unbreached rationality"). Notice that such guru aspirants (and I do mean that in the plural form) fall out with those closest to them philosophically for one reason only: their standing as guru is contested. The only one who can contest them is one who knows in depth what they are preaching. Rejection by a learned person is a serious threat. Thus, logically, the "heretic" needs to be bitterly discredited in all manners possible, especially morally, not merely disagreed with.

The core value is prestige as guru, not truth, reason or other things of this nature. (Notice that the guru's followers hold his standing as guru, i.e., their own standing as guru disciples, as the core value and ferociously defend him.) Yet if you talk to the guru wannabee, he will make light of any accusation of his craving for social standing and, from what I have observed, he actually believes his own bullshit. He tells himself that his core value is commitment to reason yada yada yada, not social standing. He lies to himself, even as his actions betray him.

This is your typical moral perfection dude.

Now look at something I can tell you from my past. When I "lost it," I completely lost all sense of right and wrong. I decided to accept no authority whatsoever except my own mind. I did everything my little heart desired and I did many things that are morally wrong. I have no problem admitting that - and I never lied to myself about the fact that they were wrong, not even when I was doing them.

I would think, "yes, I am stealing," or "yes, I am lying to this person to get drug money," "yes, I am cheating on my wife," or whatever. I never rationalized these bad things by thoughts like "this person deserves what I am doing to him, so my act actually is a good thing," or "this person is so dumb that this will wake him up" or any of the other self-lies I heard colleagues say.

I did many things I am not proud of, yet because of the fact that I refused to sugarcoat them to myself, this made it easier to examine whether or not I really wanted to continue in that direction. (Obviously, I chose the path of the good. Metaphorically speaking, there is a character created by Dostoevsky who ended up believing in God because he already knew the Devil. I am a bit that way. I chose the good because I had way too close contact with evil.)

This cuts the other way, too. On the other end of the moral spectrum, the good end, I would think things like, "yes, I did a wonderful job," or "yes, I have a hard-won skill that makes me able to do that, so I will," or "yes, I love that person and that is why I just did something to please her" or even, "yes, I am not competent enough for that, but I have a capacity to learn it, so I will study it," and then actually study it, etc.

Was I morally perfect by not lying to myself? In one sense, maybe. That was my way out of a horrible place to be, so certainly it was a perfect moral principle to practice (self-honesty always). But then the whole concept of "perfect" becomes watered down and useless.

Here is the thing. You can choose to always be honest with yourself. If you do not choose that, there are many factors in life that will induce you to fake it inside. Pain and desire are two biggies. We all hurt more than necessary at times and we all want stuff that we can't have. We are simply made that way. Self-honesty demands that I acknowledge this because I observe it everywhere.

Man is born with strong desires and drives that are capable of overriding his rational faculty, even when he chooses to have an "unbreached rationality" and acts on it as much as he can.

I have observed that even after I consciously chose to always be honest with myself (decades ago), I still did a lot of bad stuff. Even today, I catch myself sometimes leaning toward a self-flattering interpretation of events that does not always correspond to reality. So I constantly stay on guard against that. I have seen too clearly where self-illusion leads.

What this means in practice is that I can easily recognize when I make a mistake - even a mistake of acting on an irrational desire, say a desire for the unearned, which pops up all by itself at times - and then correct the mistake and get on with my life. I have a deep-seated urge to correct my mistakes and I chose and cultivated that urge on purpose.

That is the core concept I live by. I guide my volitional faculty by self-honesty and the desire to correct mistakes as soon as I realize that I have made them. I consciously chose that concept and it works well for me. But I don't like the moniker "moral perfection" on it, even though it fits the "unbreached rationality" bill, because "moral perfection" is a loaded term too widely used for manipulating people. It is the manipulators, the ones who practice self-deception, who are the loudest to toot the "moral perfection" horn. Observe that a person who actually practices ruthless self-honesty rarely talks about moral perfection as the only true way to happiness. He is too busy living a productive (and happy) life.

So in this case, let me revise my statement: "Anyone who grandstands about moral perfection has something shameful to hide."

Now I think my meaning is much clearer.

Michael

[John Dailey]

~ I think that the prob with the idea of 'moral perfection' is in one's notion (definition?) of 'perfect.'

~ I've pointed out on RoR that any idea of 'perfect' is either Platonic (such as hypothesizing a 'perfect' fit of two conjoining pieces, as in 'perfect' down to the last atom/quark/whatever), or, is merely 'practical', ie, utilitarian/'good-enough.'

~ To me, the only meaningful sense is the latter.

~ Hence, what 'moral perfection' could meaningfully...'mean'...is: what 'fits' one's accepted idea of what 'moral'...means.

~ Was Rand IMmoral? ('Offensive' or dislikeable, like Henry Cameron...not the same meaning here, folks...maybe.) --- To be 'moral' IS to be 'morally PERFECT;' hello? Past 'sins' (immoralities)...if establishable (of you, me, her, anyone) are irrelevent to how one IS at any moment, or WAS, 'overall.' I'm open to hearing coherent disputes on that.)

LLAP

J:D

[John Dailey]

Addendum:

~ I say that *I* am 'morally perfect.' Why can I guess that some would have a real prob with even hearing/reading that?

~ That I am doesn't mean that I always was, nor, especially, that I always will be. Some leopards CAN change their spots (metaphorically); and, some leopards have no need to change such. But, none are hypocrites, and none need be charged with being such.

~ Rand was not a 'warm fuzzy'-to-all, obviously. Let's not confuse being a 'blue-prickly' with being an IMmoral hypocrite, ok? Especially since she's not been explicitly and coherently accused of being IMmoral re her own philosophic ethics, but merely been innuended and suggested as such. --- Because of her 'supporters', some are really giving her a bad, gossip-filled, rap.

LLAP

J:D

[Danneskjold]

On how learning moral perfection and such can exclude original sin at the same time denying moral perfection at birth.

First, I will clarify why neither statement makes sense.

Original sin implies that human beings do not have the free will to be completely moral. Humans have free will, so this statement is false.

If we were all morally perfect at birth, then there would be nowhere for immorality to come from.

So, how do you get around these while claiming moral perfection is attainable?

Do exactly what Rand did. Say that all human beings are tabula rasa at birth. From there you can blame moral imperfections on environment and cultural pull.

Now, personally I have a hard time accepting the notion that we are all blank slate at birth, however I am not sure what areas would be required to be blank slate from a moral standpoint.

[John Dailey]

Jeff:

~ Er-r, I kinda missed how the religious concept of Original Sin is relevent to the notion/idea/concept of 'moral perfection,' especially re Rand (other than she threw the idea out as worthless to consider.) Not clear why you brought it up.

~ One thing Rand DIDN'T do is use the 'tabula rasa at birth' idea to 'blame moral imperfections on environment and cultural pull'...unless I mis-read her.

~ O-t-one-h, you accept that "Humans have free will...", but finalize with "...however I am not sure what areas would be required to be blank slate from a moral standpoint." --- I find the 2 statements confusing re understanding *your* confusion. --- The USE of a discovered volition ('free will') IS what is required to even talk about a 'moral standpoint,' no? No 'free will' capability, no 'moral standpoint' to talk about, right?

LLAP

J:D

[BaalChatzaf]

Moral perfection

by Michael Stuart Kelly

One of the silliest notions promoted by orthodox Objectivists is that a person can become morally perfect. This statement is a complete inversion of values.

The English language has a strong limitation with the all inclusive verb "to be." I never really understood this until I had to learn Portuguese. In that language, there are two verbs for "to be": "estar" and "ser." Estar denotes a temporary state of being and ser means a permanent one.

Thus a person is a man or woman (ser) and he is at the movies (estar). This took some getting used to, but after I did, many things became much easier to identify and categorize.

An important distinction! It is the difference between what is necessary and what is contingent. Our current state is contextually dependent on happenings and choices and it has a specific history. It is contingent.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[John Dailey]

Baal:

~ So, your point is that the idea ('moral perfection') itself is ambigous, equivocal, meaningless, uh...wha'?

~ Re your proxying MSK's argument about a distinction 'twixt temporary and permanent (and the latter implies a guarantee/destiny of some kind, which raises questions about volition) or maybe momentary and inevitable, I have a prob regarding the idea of 'permanent' even applicable to the vague idea called 'moral perfection' (which Rand never accepted, btw; *who* 1st brought up this 'idea' anyways?)

~ That you bring in the new perspectives of 'necessary' and 'contingent' doesn't really clear things up; such just muddies a muddied subject further; might's well argue about it, if a meaningful idea, is as well 'analytic' vs 'synthetic.' Let's not go there.

LLAP

J:D

Edited June 9, 2007 by John Dailey

[merjet]

I haven't researched all Rand said about it. However, I read Tara Smith's "Ayn Rand's Normative Ethics", and Smith writes that for Rand moral perfection is simply unusual consistency in abiding by one's moral principles day in, day out (p. 237). Smith cites Rand: "Moral perfection is an unbreached rationality -- not the degree of your intelligence, but the full and relentless use of your mind, not the extent of your knowledge, but the acceptance of reason as an absolute" (Atlas, p. 1059). Citing but not quoting Peikoff, Smith writes: "[M]oral perfection, in its essence, consists in a single policy: the commitment to follow reason."

This is another case of Rand using common words in uncommon ways. It's no surprise that it leads to misunderstanding and controversy. In the more common meaning of "perfection", Rand's meaning is an extraordinary striving for perfection, not its achievement.

MSK makes a good point with the distinction between temporary and permanent. Even with the common meaning, a student can get a perfect score on a test w/o getting a perfect score on every test. Even in Rand's sense one can be morally perfect for several months or years w/o being so one's entire life. However, I do think it would much better for MSK to find out what Rand meant by the term before writing an entire article about it using the common meaning of "perfection."

Of course, one can probably find those who claim Rand was "morally perfect" her entire life, while not understanding what Rand meant by the term, and mixing ordinary meanings of "perfection" with it.

Edited June 10, 2007 by Merlin Jetton

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Merlin,

I disagree with your appraisal of my understanding of Rand's term. I reread that essay yesterday (before your comment) and I was very pleased to see how deep my understanding actually was.

You are essentially telling me that when Rand used the term "moral perfection," she was not talking about choosing values or the degree of correctness in exercising that choice at all, but instead, the degree of intent in exercising that choice. As the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Also, if I understand correctly, you are saying that "perfect" as used by Rand means "high degree" and not "highest degree."

Was she really that sloppy in her semantic precision? I do agree that her terms are often confusing, but I don't get that kind of sloppiness at all.

What I do get is a constant shift from cognitive (fact/truth) to normative (importance/volitional). Often she will use a term near the beginning of an essay in a cognitive manner, redefine it according to Objectivism with a strong normative element added, then end with a conclusion that the word does not mean what it does in the original sense at all. This is a rhetorical device for normative emphasis.

An example is the statement that art reflects the soul of the artist (i.e., "selective recreation of reality according to an artist's metaphysical value judgments"), then modern art according to this standard reflects a sordid anti-life soul (sense of life), then according to the Objectivist view of existence, modern art is incapable of presenting that view and is trash, and then to the statement that modern art is not art.

Cognitive to normative in one breath. Yet the same word is used and if one ignores this cognitive to normative progression, it appears that she ended by contradicting herself.

She does that with rights (some rights at the beginning are not rights at the end), with altruism (from evil morality to not morality) and with several other words.

Now that you have honed in on the meaning of "moral perfection" from the angle of what Rand really meant, I think that the term deserves a similar analysis. I do catch the meaning of "high degree of intent" (or striving) in her statement, but that is not the only meaning I discern. I will have to dig for some quotes and do some thinking on this to unravel this point correctly and bring it to a clear exposition (and possibly see what else is mixed in along with a flip-flop between cognitive/normative abstractions).

Michael

[merjet]

I disagree with your appraisal of my understanding of Rand's term. I reread that essay yesterday (before your comment) and I was very pleased to see how deep my understanding actually was.

What essay? If you mean #1 in this thread, I fail to see how it reflects your understanding (or misunderstanding) of Rand's meaning of "moral perfection". You address it barely or not at all.

You are essentially telling me that when Rand used the term "moral perfection," she was not talking about choosing values or the degree of correctness in exercising that choice at all, but instead, the degree of intent in exercising that choice. As the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Also, if I understand correctly, you are saying that "perfect" as used by Rand means "high degree" and not "highest degree."

Hardly. Rand's meaning of "moral perfection" is basically a relentless effort at unbreached rationality. Rationality clearly includes making value choices consonant with moral principles. I didn't say "high degree, not highest degree." If anything, I'd take "relentless" and "unbreached" as meaning "highest degree."

Was she really that sloppy in her semantic precision? I do agree that her terms are often confusing, but I don't get that kind of sloppiness at all.

Did I say she was sloppy? No, I said she used a common term ("perfection") in an uncommon way.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

However, I do think it would much better for MSK to find out what Rand meant by the term before writing an entire article about it using the common meaning of "perfection."

What essay? If you mean #1 in this thread, I fail to see how it reflects your understanding (or misunderstanding) of Rand's meaning of "moral perfection". You address it barely or not at all.

Merlin,

I was using "essay" and "article" in the colloquial sense as synonyms (this is one of the meanings). I agree that my small article is not an essay in the scientific sense and I have no interest in promoting it as such.

If, according to you, it would be "much better" if I "find out what Rand meant by the term," doesn't that mean that you think I misunderstand it, given that I just wrote an article on it?

What am I missing?

As to the actual ideas under discussion, more later after I do some research.

Michael

[merjet]

If, according to you, it would be "much better" if I "find out what Rand meant by the term," doesn't that mean that you think I misunderstand it, given that I just wrote an article on it?

What am I missing?

No. I said "much better" and what followed because this forum is allegedly Objectivist with Ayn Rand's picture and name in the header. And repeating what I said in my prior post, "I fail to see how it [your article or essay] reflects your understanding (or misunderstanding ) of Rand's meaning of 'moral perfection'."

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Merlin,

OK. However, we might end up disagreeing on what Rand means by that term. I do intend to document my views with Rand's own words, as I have done time and time again on OL.

That's about as Objectivist as you can get, albeit not very orthodox. The focus on OL is to foster honest independent thinking of individuals using Objectivism as a starting point or basic foundation. The focus is not on staging a movement to save the world or being an indoctrination center. The focus is on understanding and producing and each person valuing his own life. The focus is not on converting the heathen.

The world looks to me like it is in better shape than any time in history, anyway. Now, I admit that this last thought is not very Objectivist.

Michael

[Daniel Barnes]

Merlin:

>Rand's meaning is an extraordinary striving for perfection, not its achievement.

I agree with your interpretation Merlin. But I observe that once again it clashes with the widely held belief that Rand always wrote clearly and precisely. In fact she wrote, like many philosophers, in an often highly obscure and misleading way. I would also note that she would also use these words with her own specialised meaning, often quite the different to the usual sense, and then bash anyone who claimed things like 'perfection' was impossible without clarifying her own special meaning of it. Thus she seems to use the word in its usual sense when attacking her intellectual competitors, yet was able to repair to her own special and somewhat obscure meaning when it came to her own position; one that, on examination, was not so different from her opponents.

Perhaps the clearest example of this double talk in action is my oft-used one of her"absolute precision." You will find her always and everywhere violently attacking "hopeless swamps of the approximate, the not-quite, the not-yet" etc, and proclaiming how deadly to human thought any kind of vagueness or approximation is. Yet we must poke around in the obscure corners of the ITOE to find what Rand actually means by "absoute precision"; and when we do, we find it is saying things like "no less than one millimeter and no more than two millimeters." In other words, what most people, including most philosophers, would call an approximation. It seems much of Objectivism's separation from other philosophies is, as the old joke goes, by a common language.

I also note that these likewise very easily misunderstood demands for 'perfection' must be considered in the context of her other highly charged moral demands for black-and-white judgements, no compromises, and her various other claims to "absolutism." Yet we find underneath all this high-flown rhetoric about achieving "moral perfection" merely the modest demand that we try as hard as we can to be rational, without necessarily succceeding. No doubt Rand found this modesty unbecoming; but you are quite right to say that this is all her "moral perfection" amounts to.

Edited June 10, 2007 by Daniel Barnes

[Robert Campbell]

Merlin,

While Dr. Smith of course includes moral perfection in her exposition of Rand's ethical theory, she leaves part of Rand's notion out.

She does not address Rand's statements in "About the Author" at the end of Atlas Shrugged, which are taken up by Dr. Peikoff in a passage in OPAR that Dr. Smith doesn't mention.

The left-out part is the claim that a morally perfect person is another Howard Roark or John Galt.

Whatever you might think of this claim, it treats moral perfection not as striving, but as something already accomplished.

Robert Campbell

[Dragonfly]

My conclusion on reading these last posts is that Rand was inconsistent as hell. Just like the bible: everyone can pick the parts he likes best.

[Daniel Barnes]

Robert:

>Whatever you might think of this claim, it treats moral perfection not as striving, but as something already accomplished.

Actually, Robert is right - she leaves this implication of "moral perfection" in the usual sense quite clearly hanging out there on many ocassions. If I'd remembered this myself I would have made my own remarks even stronger. Hence while Mike's reading is, I think, at bottom mistaken, I believe it is not only perfectly understandable, but also widespread courtesy of Rand herself.

[merjet]

Robert Campbell,

Can you elaborate on, or be more specific, about #44? I have the Signet paperback 35th edition of AS, and I don't see anything about "moral perfection" in "About the Author". Also, where in OPAR?

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Hence while Mike's reading is, I think, at bottom mistaken, I believe it is not only perfectly understandable, but also widespread courtesy of Rand herself.

Daniel,

Which part is mistaken? My contention is that Rand uses the phrase (and some key words) to mean one thing in one place and another thing another.

Michael

[Daniel Barnes]

Mike:

>Which part is mistaken? My contention is that Rand uses the phrase (and some key words) to mean one thing in one place and another thing another.

Oh, ok. If this is the case, your contention might have been clearer if you had used a couple of actual examples of this equivocation in your essay. It seemed to me you were simply saying Rand/Objectivism only advocated an impossible ideal (and this is the source of Merlin's disagreement, as he seems to have got the same impression). If you're merely saying she made highly equivocal pronouncements on the subject, you're right.

Edited June 10, 2007 by Daniel Barnes

[Robert Campbell]

Merlin,

Dr. Peikoff's discussion of pride in OPAR (pp. 303-310) is clearly not just about aspiration or striving.

The key quotation is on p. 308:

Like any moral attribute, pride and self-esteem are open to everyone. The heroes of Ayn Rand's novels possess a superlative intelligence, but they are still normal men, human beings and not another species; with "human" meaning "rational."

He goes on to say that Roarkhood or Galthood requires only a "functional intelligence" plus the correct moral code, consistently put into action.

In "About the Author" I take Rand to be putting forth moral perfection as a constituent of being an ideal human being. So when she asserts her own Galthood, with that famous "And I mean it," I take her to be claiming moral perfection for herself.

Robert Campbell