Settling the debate on Altruism

[imurray]

I'm out of the evolution word game I agree with the point that I think Dragonfly was making - one could infer what was meant or intended by the use of the word "evolution" in that context.

Edited April 1, 2010 by Panoptic

[anthony]

What biological evolution of course implies is the mechanism that drives these changes (in general random variation in the genes with natural selection).

I think you have to be careful here. Evolution is not the mechanism that drives changes. Evolution is the name of the theory of how and why organisms change. The mechanism that drive the changes would be things like mutation, genetic drift, etc.

I'd agree here, except for your use of "mechanism" - which infers a Design. Even "adaptation" is a misnomer I believe, from my limited understanding of evolution.

Mutation is the key. It was the freaks of every species that survived and propogated due to some 'new' characteristic that gave them an edge - while the main body died out.

How many trillions of false starts and dead ends that must have occurred for the existence of all species we know today.

Nature, I believe, is essentially a careless idiot.

Tony

[bmacwilliam]

What biological evolution of course implies is the mechanism that drives these changes (in general random variation in the genes with natural selection).

I think you have to be careful here. Evolution is not the mechanism that drives changes. Evolution is the name of the theory of how and why organisms change. The mechanism that drive the changes would be things like mutation, genetic drift, etc.

I'd agree here, except for your use of "mechanism" - which infers a Design. Even "adaptation" is a misnomer I believe, from my limited understanding of evolution.

Mutation is the key. It was the freaks of every species that survived and propogated due to some 'new' characteristic that gave them an edge - while the main body died out.

How many trillions of false starts and dead ends that must have occurred for the existence of all species we know today.

Nature, I believe, is essentially a careless idiot.

Tony

Or, like a Blind Watchmaker. Where have I heard that before?

The theory of gravitation is not the "mechanism" that causes the apple to fall on your head. Gravity is the mechanism. Don't see how that implies "design" though.

Bob

[tjohnson]

I'd agree here, except for your use of "mechanism" - which infers a Design. Even "adaptation" is a misnomer I believe, from my limited understanding of evolution.

Mutation is the key. It was the freaks of every species that survived and propogated due to some 'new' characteristic that gave them an edge - while the main body died out.

How many trillions of false starts and dead ends that must have occurred for the existence of all species we know today.

Nature, I believe, is essentially a careless idiot.

Tony

I think you are leaving out genetic drift. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_drift#Genetic_drift_versus_natural_selection

[tjohnson]

I'm out of the evolution word game I agree with the point that I think Dragonfly was making - one could infer what was meant or intended by the use of the word "evolution" in that context.

Good idea, word games suck.

[Leonid]

For anyone seeking morality in his or her life, the lessons of evolution are useless.

What do they portray? That we are commanded by our genes? That we owe it to future generations to guard them ? Or that each individual life is of minor significance in the grand scheme of things?

I find this harking back to biological necessity, collectivist and altruistic, in its advocacy of responsibility to anyone but oneself.

Tony

I'm fully agreed. Biological determinism as source of morality is contradiction in terms since morality as code of values accepted by choice presupposes existence of free will. Besides, evolutionary determinism isn't only explanation of emergent properties of the living organisms. Most probably spontaneous self-organization plays very important role in this process. As J. B. Edelmann and M.J.Denton observed: "Biological self-organization witnessed classically in the folding of a protein or in the formation of the cell membrane—is a fundamentally different means of generating complexity. We agree that self-organizing systems may be fine-tuned by selection and that self-organization may be therefore considered a complementary mechanism to natural selection as a causal agency in the evolution of life. But we argue that if self-organization proves to be a common mechanism for the generation of adaptive order from the molecular to the organismic level, then this will greatly undermine the Darwinian claim that natural selection is the major creative agency in evolution." ("The uniqueness of biological self-organization: challenging the Darwinian paradigm", Published online: 13 December 2006 Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2006)

Determinism is incompatible with life as it's incompatible with mind.

Edited April 2, 2010 by Leonid

[Peter]

Ghs wrote:

What I find interesting is Rand's statement that she does not consider charity to be a "major virtue." This suggests that she regarded charity as at least a minor virtue, which would be news to me.

Where is that line from? It sounds like it might be from a Q&A session, in which case, depending on the inflection of her voice, Rand may have said "major virtue" in a dismissive tone, thereby indicating that she does not regard it as a virtue at all. In other words, "major virtue" might differ from "major virtue."

End quote

I found something from her Playboy interview quoted in the review below.

Following are some quotes describing Major and Minor virtues, though the minor virtues are given little ink.

Semper cogitans fidele,

Peter Taylor

From James S. Valliant review of Professor Stephen Cox biography, 'The Woman and the Dynamo: Isabel Paterson and the Idea of America' (2004, Transaction).

Cox also commits a more serious error. He writes: "Rand regarded virtually all charity as a culpable form of altruism, but Paterson thought there was nothing wrong with charity so long as it remained intelligent and uncoerced." (Cox, p. 308) Cox can direct us to no evidence that this was ever Rand's position since, of course, there is lots of evidence that this was not Rand's position at all. The views he ascribes to Paterson, by way of contrast, are, in fact, a decent summary of Rand's own views. The evidence for this is so copious that Cox should definitely have known better in this instance.

As Rand told 'Playboy' magazine in the March, 1964 edition,

"My views on charity are very simple. I do not consider it a major virtue and, above all, I do not consider it a moral duty. There is nothing wrong with helping people, if and when they are worthy of the help and you can afford to help them, I regard charity as a marginal issue. What I am fighting is the idea that charity is a moral duty and primary virtue." ('The Playboy Interview,' vol. II, p. 21)

Paterson wrote some things with which Rand definitely did take issue, and charity may have been among these. For example, Rand would not have agreed with Pat's praise for those from religious orders who devote themselves exclusively to charitable work. ('The God of the Machine,' p. 239) However, the two writers’ views on this subject are more alike than Cox seems to recognize.

More subtly, but still more importantly, Cox errs in suggesting that Paterson had a significant influence on the development of Rand's philosophy, Objectivism.

According to witnesses, Rand was seen literally sitting at Paterson’s feet, asking the questions which Paterson would patiently answer. Paterson was enormously well read and well informed, and she was obviously an important source for Rand on many aspects of American history and government. Rand herself acknowledged that she had “learned many important ideas” from Paterson, in a letter dated May 8, 1948. These “ideas” seem to have been factual and historical in nature, but Cox writes:

"There is evidence, indeed, that Rand's ideas were shifting significantly during the period of their first acquaintance. 'We the Living' is an anticommunist novel, but its treatment of alternatives to communism, of political ideas in general, is sketchy to say the least. It is a novel of psychological individualism. In succeeding years, Rand worked her way from a continental version of individualism influenced by Nietzsche to an American individualism grounded in a political theory of natural and equal rights." (Cox. p. 221)

Cox indicates that by 1942, when Rand was wrapping up writing on 'The Fountainhead,' she would, finally, give "her original quasi-Nietzschean ideas a classical liberal form." Cox continues, "If there was a crucial, external influence on Rand's political development, Paterson was that influence." (Ibid)

While he concedes that "the precise extent of her influence" would require overhearing their all-nighters for oneself, (Ibid) and although he is not as clear as one would like, Cox seems to be suggesting that Paterson had a significant influence on the politics of Objectivism, and, indeed, on Rand's "American" and "classical liberal" orientation itself.

It is true that Rand – in her early 20s – must be classified as a “quasi-Nietzschean,” if she can be classified at all. Her notes for the quickly abandoned project, "The Little Street," are the evidence for this. At least some traces of the distinctively “Nietzschean” can be seen in many of Rand's private philosophical journal entries throughout much of the 1930s, and, of course, in the first edition of 'We the Living.'

Nevertheless, Rand's important differences with Nietzsche, even in her twenties, were already portentous. In Rand's very first notes of a philosophical nature, dated from April through May of 1934, when she was still just twenty-nine – and before the publication of the first edition of 'We the Living' – she clearly states her un-Nietzschean belief that men can "use logical reasoning to govern their lives" – without recourse to either "faith" or emotion. Rand asks herself a question, and one suspects she already has at least an inkling as to her own answer: "Are instincts and emotions necessarily beyond the control of plain thinking?" ('Journals of Ayn Rand,' p. 68)

Also in these notes, Rand argues for free will, and, even more importantly, she comes out in favor of what Nietzsche contemptuously called the "Aristotelianism of morals," i.e., an ethics based squarely on logic and "generalization." ('Beyond Good and Evil' 198) Rand simultaneously and explicitly rejected any need for what she called a "history of ethics" – and what Nietzsche called his "genealogy of morals" – only a very Aristotelian "system of ethics" which would "stand or fall on its own merits." ('Journals of Ayn Rand,' pp. 68-70)

Even in the original edition of 'We the Living,' Rand's heroine first gives voice to John Galt's "A is A,” Rand's intended tribute to Aristotle in 'Atlas Shrugged,' by saying, "Steel is steel. Numbers are numbers." (See, Valliant, 'The Passion of Ayn Rand’s Critics,' pp. 44-48)

There is thus no reason to doubt Rand’s own reports of admiring both Aristotle’s logic and Nietzsche’s “heroic” sensibility as early as her teens.

End quote

From: "William Dwyer" <wswdwyer@attbi.com>

Reply-To: wswdwyer@attbi.com

To: <atlantis@wetheliving.com>

Subject: ATL: Objectivism's values and virtues

Date: Sun, 29 Jun 2003 16:11:18 -0700

Very little if any mention is ever made on this list of Objectivism’s values and virtues, so I thought they might be worth a brief discussion for those who are not especially familiar with them. There are three cardinal values and seven cardinal virtues in the Objectivist ethics.

The values are: reason (as one's only means of knowledge), purpose (as the choice to pursue happiness), and self-esteem, (as the belief that one is able to achieve happiness and worthy of achieving it).

The virtues are understood as the principled _means_ of gaining and keeping these values. As Rand puts it, "'Value' is that which one acts to gain and keep, 'virtue' is the action by which one gains and keeps it." [FNI, 147' pb 121] "Virtue," she says, "is not an end in itself. Virtue is not its own reward... [Rather] _Life_ is the reward of virtue -- and happiness is the goal and the reward of life." [FNI, 156, pb 128]

For Rand, virtues involve a relationship between existence and consciousness and therefore entail the recognition of certain facts. Accordingly, Objectivism's virtues are:

1) Rationality, which is the recognition that existence exists and that nothing can take precedence over the act of perceiving it;

2) Independence, which is the recognition that you must think independently and not subordinate your judgment to that of others;

3) Integrity, which is the recognition that you must remain true to your convictions;

4) Honesty, which is the recognition that the real is (and the) unreal can have no value and, moreover, that respect for truth is not a social duty but a selfish virtue.

5) Justice, which is the recognition that you must judge other people as conscientiously as you judge inanimate objects, condemning their vices and praising their virtues;

6) Productiveness, which is the recognition that productive work is the process by which your consciousness controls your existence, and that you must choose a line of work that is commensurate with your abilities;

and

7) Pride, which is the recognition that you are your own highest value, that a virtuous character has to be earned, and that the result of earning it is self-esteem.

The difference between pride and self-esteem may not always be clear and is admittedly a subtle one, but for Objectivism, pride consists of recognizing the importance of a good character and what it takes to earn it. When someone says, "Take pride in your job," he is saying, consider it important enough to do well. By the same token, when someone says, "Take pride in yourself or in your character," he is saying, consider a good character important enough to be worth acquiring. Self-esteem, on the other hand, is the _consequence_ of earning a good character; it is the experience of efficacy and self-worth that comes from having earned it.

Of course, these virtues offer a very general guide for living one's life; they don't give a detailed blue-print, but they do provide an indispensable foundation for "gaining and keeping" Objectivism's cardinal values of reason, of purpose (defined as one's own happiness) and of self-esteem (defined as a sense of personal efficacy and self-worth).

It should be noted that Rand gives a more elaborate definition of these virtues in _For the New Intellectual_, starting on page 157; pb, p. 128).

-- Bill

[imurray]

For anyone seeking morality in his or her life, the lessons of evolution are useless.

What do they portray? That we are commanded by our genes? That we owe it to future generations to guard them ? Or that each individual life is of minor significance in the grand scheme of things?

I find this harking back to biological necessity, collectivist and altruistic, in its advocacy of responsibility to anyone but oneself.

Tony

I'm fully agreed. Biological determinism as source of morality is contradiction in terms since morality as code of values accepted by choice presupposes existence of free will. Besides, evolutionary determinism isn't only explanation of emergent properties of the living organisms. Most probably spontaneous self-organization plays very important role in this process. As J. B. Edelmann and M.J.Denton observed: "Biological self-organization witnessed classically in the folding of a protein or in the formation of the cell membrane—is a fundamentally different means of generating complexity. We agree that self-organizing systems may be fine-tuned by selection and that self-organization may be therefore considered a complementary mechanism to natural selection as a causal agency in the evolution of life. But we argue that if self-organization proves to be a common mechanism for the generation of adaptive order from the molecular to the organismic level, then this will greatly undermine the Darwinian claim that natural selection is the major creative agency in evolution." ("The uniqueness of biological self-organization: challenging the Darwinian paradigm", Published online: 13 December 2006 Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2006)

Determinism is incompatible with life as it's incompatible with mind.

I'm going to get in the middle of this "evolution debate" for a second and then back away from it because I don't think I can add much more than I'm going to say now. I don't think anyone was talking about biological determinism when they spoke about evolution. They were talking about the survival of the species and how our morals may change as a consequence of novel biological pressures, not that evolution determines our morals. Or put another way, our morals evolve as we do. This doesn't take rational choice out of the equation - it just means that the choice that is rational may change. I don't see that as deterministic.

[Dragonfly]

Besides, evolutionary determinism isn't only explanation of emergent properties of the living organisms. Most probably spontaneous self-organization plays very important role in this process. As J. B. Edelmann and M.J.Denton observed: "Biological self-organization witnessed classically in the folding of a protein or in the formation of the cell membrane—is a fundamentally different means of generating complexity. We agree that self-organizing systems may be fine-tuned by selection and that self-organization may be therefore considered a complementary mechanism to natural selection as a causal agency in the evolution of life. But we argue that if self-organization proves to be a common mechanism for the generation of adaptive order from the molecular to the organismic level, then this will greatly undermine the Darwinian claim that natural selection is the major creative agency in evolution."

Of course natural selection is still the major creative agency in evolution, biological self-organization is merely a very useful toolbox that increases the number of possible solutions, but in itself it would be powerless, as the probability that it would spontaneously generate a useful solution for surviving is virtually zero - as every creationist will be quick to point out (thereby committing the deadly sin of ignoring the power of natural selection).

Determinism is incompatible with life as it's incompatible with mind.

Not at all. Determinism (at a biological scale) is quite compatible with life and with the mind. Moreover, Edelman's self-organization is no less deterministic than the classical darwinian mechanism.

[Peter]

Dan Ust wrote:

Finally, for those who'd want to test her views via her life, I'd always caution against this. That a moral philosopher fails to live up to her or his stated moral theory doesn't necessarily mean that that theory has failed -- any more than a scientist who makes up data means that the scientific method is bunk.

End quote

I am reading “Goddess of the Market,” and what is disconcerting are those earlier Randian marginalia notes. I won’t give any away (buy the book) but I am so used to “Rand, The Final Version” that to see her evolving causes vertigo.

And did you know she owned a collie? A joke: I am sorry for likening you to a Hobbit Dan, when you talked about New Zealand. To be fair you more resemble those pointy eared, Elfin kind.

I found a review of “Objectivism the Philosophy of Ayn Rand.” It provides a good summation of Objectism.

And in CHAPTER SIX: MAN, and CHAPTER SEVEN: THE GOOD, CHAPTER EIGHT: VIRTUE, and CHAPTER NINE: HAPPINESS virtues are discussed. Did Ayn practice what she preached? As much as humanly possible.

Semper cogitans fidele,

Peter Taylor

OPAR by Leonard Peikoff

Summary by Luke Setzer

This book summary has been generated and posted by SCOPE as a service to those who have an interest in Objectivism as a philosophical system. A person's chosen philosophy can be treated analogously to a computer operating system. Like DOS, Linux, or Windows on a PC, a brain's philosophy will profoundly impact the interpretation of incoming data, the treatment of that data, and the consequential output. The advantages of using Objectivism as your brain's operating system are numerous and profound. In my own life, Objectivism has allowed me to dismiss the assertions of time-wasting mystics while focusing my energy on my moral purpose in life, which is to prosper and to live happily.

Objectivism works harmoniously with your brain's nature as a reality-integrating organ, allowing you to form valid concepts and draw realistic conclusions from any situation in which you find yourself. Readers who wish to purchase the complete text of this book may order it from:

Second Renaissance Books

110 Copperwood Way

Oceanside CA 92054

(619) 757-6149

PREFACE

A philosophy is an integrated view of existence. As conscious human beings, we all require a philosophy in order to assign appropriate meaning to the events around us and thus to survive. Ayn Rand's philosophical system of ideas, which she called Objectivism, can be broken into five branches and summarily defined as follows, in order of primacy:

Metaphysics: Man's relationship to the universe is Reality.

Epistemology: Man's relationship with his mind is Reason.

Ethics: Man's relationship with himself is Self-Interest.

Politics: Man's relationship among each other is Capitalism.

Aesthetics: Man's relationship with beauty is Romantic Realism.

With that brief overview of Objectivism supplied, a step-by-step validation will be constructed throughout the remainder of the book. This summary will present that validation as levels of a philosophical pyramid properly constructed per the illustration below.

BRANCH I:

CHAPTER ONE: REALITY

Metaphysics is the study of the nature of the universe and man's relationship to the universe. It is the first major branch of philosophy, and is the branch upon which all others rely. This chapter validates the Objectivist view of metaphysics as simply Reality.

Existence, Consciousness, and Identity as the Basic Axioms

An axiom is a fundamentally given, directly perceived identification of a primary fact of reality. Axioms are irreducible and implicit in all facts and knowledge. Ayn Rand distilled her philosophy to three and only three irrefutable, primary axioms: existence, consciousness, and identity. Any attempt to deny the self-evidence of any of these three axioms automatically requires the implicit acceptance of all three axioms. All human cognition implicitly assumes that "There is (existence)--something (identity)--of which I am aware (consciousness)."

Causality as a Corollary of Identity

A corollary is a self-evident implication of already established knowledge. An entity is a subset of existence and is, therefore, an axiomatic concept, though not a basic axiom. The law of identity states that an entity will have a certain kind of nature under a given set of circumstances, and will have no other nature under those circumstances. An action can only be performed by an entity, i.e. there can be no such thing as an action that does not involve an entity. The law of causality is simply the law of identity applied to action. Thus, causality is a corollary of identity.

Existence as Possessing Primacy Over Consciousness

By the law of identity, existence exists. Also by the law of identity, consciousness is the awareness of existence and can only be experienced by an entity. Existence is the sum total of all entities. Therefore, without existence, there could be no consciousness. Conversely, existence would continue to exist even if all its entities were unconscious. The identity of existence and consciousness dictate that consciousness is simply an awareness of existence, not a power to alter or control existence. Thus, existence has primacy over consciousness and is a necessary precondition of consciousness.

The Metaphysically Given as Absolute

By the law of identity, existence has a certain nature and only that nature. This metaphysically given nature cannot be altered or controlled by consciousness, since existence has primacy over consciousness. Through thought and action, man can rearrange entities to suit his purposes, but in all cases, the metaphysically given laws of nature cannot be broken. As Francis Bacon said, "Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed."

Idealism and Materialism as the Rejection of Basic Axioms

Idealism advocates the notion of consciousness independent of existence. Materialism advocates the notion of existence without consciousness, claiming that consciousness is a biological illusion. Both of these philosophies reject the three basic axioms of existence, consciousness, and identity. By the law of identity, existence exists and is a necessary precondition of consciousness. The archaic myths of God, miracles, and the supernatural blatantly contradict these fundamental axioms. Because of this primacy of objective reality over subjective experience, Ayn Rand chose to call her philosophy Objectivism.

BRANCH II:

CHAPTER TWO: SENSE PERCEPTION AND VOLITION

Epistemology is the second major branch of philosophy. It is the science that studies the nature and means of human knowledge. It defines man's relationship with his mind. In order to address this relationship, one must first study the bridge between metaphysics and epistemology, which means between reality and reason. The two components of this bridge are sense perception and volition. They are the metaphysically given anteroom to epistemology. This chapter validates this bridge between existence and consciousness.

The Senses as Necessarily Valid

Consciousness is the awareness of existence. The means of this awareness are the senses. Thus, the senses are a corollary of the axiom of consciousness. The senses are the self-evident primaries of cognition. Any philosophical attack on the validity of the senses automatically negates itself, since the content of the attack must rely on concepts that are themselves constructed from percepts that were acquired through the senses.

Sensory Qualities as Real

Consciousness does not create its own content or even the sensory forms by which it obtains its content. Those forms are determined by the perceiver's senses interacting with external reality in accordance with causal law. The source of sensory form is thus not consciousness, but existential fact independent of consciousness. In other words, the source of sensory form is the metaphysical nature of reality itself.

Consciousness as Possessing Identity

By the law of identity, an entity will possess a certain kind of nature and no other. Consciousness can only be experienced by an entity. Thus, consciousness will possess a certain kind of nature and no other, and that specific nature becomes its identity.

The Perceptual Level as the Given

The first stage of consciousness is that of sensation, which is an irreducible state of awareness produced by the action of a stimulus on a sense organ. By its nature, a sensation lasts only as long as the stimulus. The most primitive conscious organisms, as well as newborn infants, possess only the capacity of sensation.

Over time, the human brain enters the second stage of consciousness as it automatically integrates sensations into percepts, which are the brain's internal representations of external entities. This automatic percept-formation is a metaphysically given absolute. Thus, any discussion of human knowledge must begin with percepts, not sensations, as the base of cognition.

The Primary Choice as the Choice to Focus or Not

Focus in the conceptual realm names a quality of purposeful alertness in a person's mental state. Focus is the state of a goal-directed mind committed to attaining full awareness of reality. Until a mind is in focus, its mental machinery is unable to function in the human sense--to think, judge, or evaluate. The choice to focus is thus the irreducible primary choice on which all other choices depend. It is a first cause within a consciousness, not an effect of preceding causes.

Human Actions, Mental and Physical, as Both Caused and Free

Man chooses to activate his consciousness or not. This is the first cause in a lengthy chain, and the inescapability of such choice expresses man's essential nature. On this basis, he forms the mental content and selects the reasons that will govern all his other choices. Man chooses the causes that shape his actions.

Volition as Axiomatic

Volition is a corollary of the axiom of consciousness. Not every consciousness has the faculty of volition. Every fallible, conceptual consciousness, however, does have it. Like any rejection of a philosophic axiom, determinism is self-refuting. Just as one must accept existence or consciousness implicitly in order to deny either of them, so one must accept volition in order to deny it. Objectivism identifies the locus of man's will as his conceptual faculty, arguing that the faculty of reason is the faculty of volition. This theory makes it possible for the first time to validate the principle of volition objectively. It removes the principle once and for all from the clutches of religion.

CHAPTER THREE: CONCEPT-FORMATION

A concept is an intellectual abstraction drawn from two or more percepts. Concepts are built on percepts and represent a new scale of consciousness, a scale that leaps beyond the perceptual limits of animals. Concepts allow humans to generalize, to identify natural laws, to understand what they observe.

Differentiation and Integration as the Means to a Unit-Perspective

A unit is an existent regarded as a separate member of a group of two or more similar members. The ability to regard entities as units is man's distinctive method of cognition. The processes of differentiation and integration of attributes among observed entities allow a person to make an abstraction of these entities into a single unit, which a person can then store mentally as a word.

Concept-Formation as a Mathematical Process

An attribute of an entity is any characteristic reducible to a unit of measurement, such as shape, length, velocity, weight, color, etc. The Conceptual Common Denominator (CCD) between two or more entities is the commensurable (commonly measurable) attribute between those entities. For example, tables and chairs have the commensurable attribute of shape, while tables and red objects have the incommensurable attributes of shape and color. In turn, the CCD of shape allows a differentiation between chairs and tables and an integration of all tables into a single concept called "table". The field of pure mathematics offers the deductive method of reasoning, while the process of concept-formation offers the first step in inductive reasoning.

Conceptual awareness is the algebra of cognition.

Concepts of Consciousness as Involving Measurement-Omission

A first-level concept is abstracted directly from concrete percepts. A higher-level concept is abstracted from abstractions. Concepts differ not only in their concrete referents, but also in their distance from the perceptual level. Concepts of consciousness, such as "thought" and "love", are formed by the same mathematical process as concepts of existence, such as "table" or "organism". For example, two fundamental attributes of every process of consciousness ("thought") are content and intensity of action. These two attributes of every mental process are measurable relative to each other by introspection. By omitting the measurements of these attributes, the concept of "thought" is abstracted.

Definition as the Final Step in Concept-Formation

The basic function of a definition is to distinguish a concept from all other concepts and thus to keep its units differentiated from all other existents. A definition identifies a concept's essential characteristics, which are the genus (CCD) and the differentia (differences from other existents that share the same genus). These characteristics must be fundamental, i.e. they must be responsible for all or most of the units' remaining distinctive characteristics. An excellent metaphor for the term "definition" is that of a file folder with a label. The file folder represents the concept, while the label represents the definition. The contents of the folder can increase as more sensory knowledge of the concept is obtained, but the definition remains the same.

Concepts as Devices to Achieve Unit-Economy

A mind can only retain conscious focus upon a limited number of concrete percepts. A concept allows the conscious mind to cluster related percepts together as a single unit, e.g. perceiving many chairs, observing their similarities and differences, and then forming the concept "chair". Thus, concepts allow the mind to condense or economize an unlimited amount of information into a finite number of easily processed, abstract units. Concepts empower the mind to process far larger amounts of information than it could on a strictly perceptual level, and thus enhance its ability to survive. Human beings are the only creatures on earth known to possess the ability to form concepts.

CHAPTER FOUR: OBJECTIVITY

Thinking, to be valid, must adhere to reality. Objectivity allows a person to achieve reality-oriented thought.

Concepts as Objective

Concepts do not pertain to consciousness alone or to existence alone; they are products of a specific kind of relationship between the two. Abstractions are products of man's faculty of cognition and would not exist without it. But a faculty of cognition is concerned to grasp reality and must, therefore, adhere to reality. Concepts are condensations of data formed by a volitional process in accordance with a human method. They represent reality as processed by a volitional human consciousness.

Objectivity as Volitional Adherence to Reality by the Method of Logic

Knowledge is the grasp of an object through an active, reality-based process chosen by the subject. Such grasp can be attained only by a complex process of abstraction and integration. Since this process is not automatic, it is not automatically right, either. Logic is a volitional method of conforming to reality. It is the method of reason. Logic is the art of noncontradictory identification of objective reality.

Knowledge as Contextual

Human knowledge on every level is relational. It is an organization of elements, each relevant to and bearing on the others. Knowledge is not a juxtaposition of independent items; it is a unity. Because there is only one universe, everything in reality is interconnected, and nothing is a completely isolated fact. Context means "the sum of cognitive elements conditioning an item of knowledge." Context sets an item's relationship to reality and thus the item's meaning and proper use. Context must never be dropped. Any quotations, concepts, claims, or proposals that drop context are by their nature invalidated, since their relationship to reality has been dropped.

Knowledge as Hierarchical

Knowledge has a hierarchical structure. A hierarchy of knowledge means a body of concepts and conclusions ranked in order of logical dependence, one upon another, according to each item's distance from the base of perceptual data with which cognition begins. The hierarchical view identifies a particular kind of cognitive relationship: it states not only that every (nonaxiomatic) item has a context, but also that such context itself has an inner structure of logical dependence, rising gradually from a base of first-level items. Reduction is the means of connecting an advanced knowledge to reality by traveling backward through the hierarchical structure involved, i.e. identifying in logical sequence the intermediate steps that relate a cognitive item to perceptual data. Rand's Razor simply states, "Name your primaries," i.e. name your irreducible axioms. This statement slashes off a whole category of false or useless ideas by identifying whether their basic axioms are existence, consciousness, and identity.

Intrinsicism and Subjectivism as the Two Forms of Rejecting Reality

Intrinsicism claims that conceptual information about entities exists intrinsically within those entities, and that humans must simply observe those entities passively in order for the concepts to imprint themselves onto human consciousness. Subjectivism rejects the idea of knowing reality through objective concepts, and claims instead that reality is whatever a person (or group of persons) says it is. Objectivism recognizes that concepts are a union of reality-based sense perception and thought-based concept-formation. Objectivism thus dismisses the so-called theory-practice dichotomy by closing the breach between concepts and percepts.

CHAPTER FIVE: REASON

Reason is the faculty that identifies and integrates the material provided by man's senses. Reason is the faculty which begins with facts (sensory data); which organizes these data in accordance with facts (the mathematical relationship among concretes); and which is guided at each step by rules that rest on the fundamental fact (the law of identity). The rules of reason require that each cognition be reduced back to the facts with which one started.

Emotions as a Product of Ideas

An emotion is a response to an object one perceives (or imagines), such as a man, an animal, an event. The object by itself, however, has no power to invoke a feeling in the observer. It can do so only if the observer supplies two intellectual elements, which are necessary conditions of any emotions: identification and evaluation. Emotions are states of consciousness with bodily accompaniments and with intellectual causes. The four steps in the generation of an emotion are perception (or imagination), identification, evaluation, and response. Because human minds learn to automatize their evaluations over time, people frequently lack explicit awareness of the intermediate steps of identification and evaluation.

Reason as Man's Only Means of Knowledge

Emotions are automatic consequences of a mind's past conclusions, regardless of how that mind has been used or misused in the process of reaching them. Any appearance of conflict between mind and emotion is, in fact, a clash between conscious and subconscious ideas. The proper relationship between reason and emotion in a person's life is: reason first, emotion as a consequence. A person's only path for resolving a conflict between feeling and thought is full identification and rational analysis of his own ideas, culminating in a new, noncontradictory integration. That person's only alternative is to place his own emotions as absolute, then expect reality to conform to them. Because existence has primacy over consciousness, reality will not conform to emotions, making this alternative irrational.

The Arbitrary as Neither True Nor False

A venerable rule of logic is that the burden of proof rests on the person who makes any positive assertion (e.g. "there are gremlins on Venus"), and conversely, that one must never attempt to prove a negative assertion (e.g. "prove that there are no gremlins on Venus"). This rule springs from the basic axiom of existence and its primacy over consciousness, i.e. one must start an assertion with facts, not with the absence of facts. An arbitrary claim is one for which there is no evidence, either perceptual or conceptual. Since the statement is detached from the realm of evidence, no process of logic can assess it to determine its truth (correspondence with reality) or falsehood (contradiction with reality). The rational response to such a claim is to dismiss it, without discussion, consideration, or argument.

Certainty as Contextual

As a being of limited knowledge, man must acknowledge the context of his conclusions rather than treat them as dogmatic absolutes disconnected from reality. A man who follows this policy will enjoy a feeling of certainty about his conclusions, and he will gain the benefit of having later discoveries augment earlier ones rather than contradict them. Many complex higher-level conclusions require a man gradually to obtain sensory evidence and integrate it to confirm those conclusions. During this gathering of evidence, any confirmable conclusion must pass through a continuum from unknown to possible to probable to certain.

Mysticism and Skepticism as Denials of Reason

Objectivism defines knowledge as a mental grasp of the facts of reality, reached either by perceptual observation or by a process of reason based on perceptual observation. Mysticism claims knowledge can be acquired through automatic internal feelings rather than external percepts, while skepticism claims that knowledge of reality is impossible to man by any means. Both mysticism and skepticism seek to escape the absolutism of reason and thus to allow their followers to apply reason only when they feel like it.

CHAPTER SIX: MAN

With the fundamentals of reality and reason covered in the first five chapters of this book, the time has come to analyze the entity that lives in reality and possesses the faculty of reason: man. This chapter will make fresh observations about the nature of man and integrate those observations with the axioms and principles covered earlier.

Living Organisms as Goal-Directed and Conditional

The most fundamental difference one can perceive among entities is living versus nonliving. Nonliving entities merely react to the laws of physics. A living organism can be distinguished by the fact that its actions are self-generated and goal-directed, with the goal being the maintenance of the organism's life. Lower-level organisms that rely only on sensations or percepts for survival have no choice in their goal-directed behavior; their actions are automatic. Higher-level organisms that have the ability to form concepts do have the power of choice. Thus, humans are unique in their ability to choose between life-enhancing and life-destroying actions.

Reason as Man's Basic Means of Survival

Every living organism has a means of survival. Nonhuman species survive by automatic functions that acquire and process metaphysically given raw materials, while humans require knowledge about those raw materials and knowledge about how to use those materials to their advantage. This uniquely human requirement of integrating past knowledge with present observations in a form enabling a person to make long-range survival plans demonstrates that reason is man's basic tool for survival. The mind-body dichotomy was exploded as a myth by the Industrial Revolution, which thoroughly illustrated that man's mind integrates holistically with man's actions to produce values for man's benefit.

Reason as an Attribute of the Individual

Reasoning requires the exercise of volition, which is a metaphysically given attribute of each individual, not groups of individuals. Thus, reasoning can only be exercised by an individual. The individual may share his conclusions with others, but those others must also choose to exercise their own reasoning in order to accept or reject those conclusions. The advocates of the collective thought process theory are therefore wrong at the metaphysical level, since there can be no such thing as a collective thought. Advocates of determinism are also wrong, since they deny the process of conscious concept-formation and instead argue that concepts and their ensuing emotional responses are either inborn or are planted by external humans without internal processing. Finally, the Christian notion of free will falsely declares that volition is an attribute supernaturally planted by God into man, thus treating volition as an unearthly characteristic rather than a practical worldly tool of survival. Objectivism uniquely treats the individual human as a sovereign being totally responsible for his own thoughts and actions and capable of determining what choices he ought to make for himself.

BRANCH III:

CHAPTER SEVEN: THE GOOD

Ethics is the third major branch of philosophy. It is the science that studies the nature and purpose of human behavior. It defines man's relationship with himself. The science of ethics provides a code of values to guide a person's choices and actions. Objectivism addresses three primary, interrelated ethical questions and provides these answers:

1. Q: For what end should a man live?

A: His own life.

2. Q: By what fundamental principle should he act in order to achieve this end?

A: His own rationality.

3. Q: Who should profit from his actions?

A: Himself.

Objectivism holds that these answers are the product of cognition, not feeling. The proof of these answers follows.

"Life" as the Essential Root of "Value"

Ethics centers around the concept of "value," which is anything that an entity strives to gain or to keep. The concept presupposes an entity capable of acting to achieve a goal in the face of an alternative. Only living entities possess this capability, because they are the only entities that are goal-directed and conditional. The alternative of existence or nonexistence--of life or death--is the precondition of all values. An indestructible robot would have no need of values, since its existence would not be conditional. Thus, by the very nature of "value," any code of values must hold life as the ultimate value. Remaining alive is the goal of values and of all proper action.

Man's Life as the Standard of Moral Value

Plants and animals have no choice in their pursuit of values; they pursue them automatically based on their inbuilt survival mechanisms driven by sensations and percepts. Because human beings are volitional and conceptual, they follow no automatic course of action. Thus, unlike all other organisms, human beings require a code of fundamental values accepted by choice in order to survive. Morality is that code of values. A valid moral code must address human needs long-range, conceptualizing the requirements of human survival into an integrated, hierarchically structured, noncontradictory system of reliable principles. Such a code must thus hold human life as its standard of value.

Rationality as the Primary Virtue

The three supreme and ruling values for which a human being should strive in order to sustain his own life are Reason, man's only tool of knowledge; Purpose, man's selected forms of happiness; and Self-Esteem, man's sense of certainty that he is able to live and worthy of living. Of these three, reason is the most important value and the one that makes all others possible. Virtue is the action required to gain or to keep a value. Rationality is the virtue required to gain and to keep reason, and it means simply the acceptance of reason as an absolute principle of human survival. Thus, a person practicing rationality will not tolerate within his mind any form of evasion, of blanking out some fact of reality which he dislikes. Evasion takes many forms, including the acceptance of the God myth, the desire for causes without effects or effects without causes, and the worship of whims. Consistent evasion brings harm to the evader and to those he touches. The cure for evasion is the consistent and ruthless practice of rationality.

The Individual as the Proper Beneficiary of His Own Moral Action

Objectivism advocates egoism, the principle that each person's primary moral obligation is his own well-being. Egoism is simply the corollary of individual human life as the moral standard. This view opposes the ethical tradition of altruism, the notion that a person's primary moral obligation is to serve some entity other than himself, such as God or society, at the sacrifice of his own welfare. Objectivist egoism explicitly advocates long-term, rational self-interest and should not be confused with subjectivist egoism, which through the centuries has advocated short-term, irrational self-interest through hedonism, irresponsibility, context-dropping, and whim-worship. A society based on Objectivist egoism benefits the rational members who wish to produce and trade freely in all aspects of life--food, clothing, education, knowledge, friendship, love, etc. Such persons would willingly help others of known or potential value (spouses, children, friends, perhaps even strangers) without being obligated to help those of no known value or of disvalue (beggars, enemies, criminals). The degree of assistance would be dictated by the provider's calculated self-interest in the situation, and no deliberate self-sacrifice would occur.

Values as Objective

For Objectivism, values, like concepts, are neither intrinsic nor subjective, but objective. Values (such as objects and actions) are good to man and for the sake of reaching specific goals, the most fundamental of which is the sustenance of an individual's own life. Thus, the conscious choice to live precedes and underlies the need of morality. Both intrinsicism and subjectivism reject the notion of objective values for the same reasons that they reject the notion of objective concepts (see Chapter 4). Intrinsicism divorces "the good" from reason, claiming that "the good" is an intrinsic property of external objects or actions. Subjectivism divorces "the good" from reality, claiming that "the good" is whatever a person (or group of persons) says it is. Thus, neither philosophy provides a real-world, practical code of morality. Instead, both philosophies pit human beings against objectivity and thus against their own well-being.

CHAPTER EIGHT: VIRTUE

Objectivism identifies six interconnected virtues required to practice the overall virtue of rationality. This chapter defines those virtues and also the primary vice that destroys them.

Independence as a Primary Orientation to Reality, Not to Other Men

Independence can be defined as "one's acceptance of the responsibility of forming one's own judgments and of living by the work of one's own mind." A person living alone on a desert island would have to exercise independence or perish. In principle, an independent person is as alone in society as he is on a desert island, since in either situation he accepts the primacy of existence as absolute. By contrast, a dependent person lives through or within others and accepts the primacy of consciousness as absolute. Thus, to a dependent person, solitude means death. In a free society, independent producers can enjoy the benefits of dividing labor, specializing their products and services and trading with each other for the net gain of all parties involved. This interdependence should not be confused with dependence. The order of a person's productive development in such a society is dependence (as a small child), then independence (a necessary virtue for rationality), and finally interdependence (the mutual benefits of trade among independent producers).

Integrity as Loyalty to Rational Principles

Integrity can be defined as "loyalty in action to one's convictions and values." It is the virtue of acting as an absolute on rational principle. A person of integrity will learn the proper principles of living, then follow them regardless of unwarranted protests from either his own or others' emotions. Practicing integrity based on rational principles leads to self-preservation, while attempting to practice integrity based on mystical principles leads to self-destruction and thus to the belief that real-world integrity is impossible. A compromise is valid only when concessions are made within the framework of rational moral principles that both parties accept, e.g. a buyer and seller negotiating the price of an item. A compromise is invalid when rational moral principles are conceded even a small amount, e.g. a man freely giving to a burglar "only part of the goods" the burglar came to steal.

Honesty as the Rejection of Unreality

Honesty can be defined as "the refusal to fake reality or to pretend that facts are other than what they are." It is a rational virtue because pretense is metaphysically impotent, i.e. pretense can neither erase an existent nor create one. A con man who dupes gullible people into providing him a livelihood works against his self-interest by falling into the primacy of consciousness trap and becoming dependent on those people. The commission of a vice (such as lying) in order to obtain a value (such as an income) invalidates the acquisition of the value. In other words, the end never justifies the means when those means are irrational. Because the ultimate standard of value is individual human life, moral principles are absolute within their proper context. Thus, lying to obtain cash from an honest and productive person is morally wrong, while lying to protect one's children from kidnappers is morally right.

Justice as Rationality in the Evaluation of Men

Justice can be defined as "the virtue of judging people's character and conduct objectively and of acting accordingly, granting to each person that which he earns." It is adherence to the trader principle. Its mandate is to sanction people's virtues while condemning their vices, thus encouraging good (life-enhancing) behavior and discouraging evil (life-diminishing) behavior. Justice demands the use of reason to reach one's moral estimates through two steps: first, identification of the relevant facts; second, evaluation of those facts by reference to objective moral principles. Moral judgment can only be passed on observable behavior, not psychological problems. Evaluative subjectivism occurs when a person judges others based on either whim or irrational principles. Either form tends to promote the evil at the expense of the good. Moral inversion, moral neutrality, and sweeping condemnation all defy the virtue of justice. Because what really counts in life are the virtues that support life, one should praise and support virtues first, and combat and brush aside vices second. Forgiveness can be legitimately earned, while mercy never can be. The purpose and result of egalitarianism is to smash the good by encouraging "completely equal" treatment of everyone regardless of their virtues or vices.

Productiveness as the Adjustment of Nature to Man

Productiveness can be defined as "the process by which man's consciousness controls his existence, a constant process of acquiring knowledge and shaping matter to fit one's purpose, of translating an idea into physical form, of remaking the earth into the image of one's values." Humans are one of only a few species on earth who survive by adjusting their backgrounds to themselves; the remaining species must adjust themselves to their backgrounds or perish. Productive people do not merely acquire knowledge for pleasure, they embody knowledge into the physical world for the definite practical interest of human survival. Productiveness integrates mind and body, thus exploding once again the archaic myth of the mind-body dichotomy and its human archetypes, the spiritualist and the materialist. A person's consciously chosen central purpose explicitly defines his abstract values and their associated concrete goals and action plans, allowing that person to integrate smoothly all his actions into a rational whole. Thus, purpose itself becomes a supreme and ruling value. Productive work is the only activity that can maintain a person's right relationship with thought, reality, and values. Neither social relationships nor recreational pursuits can replace it.

Pride as Moral Ambitiousness

Pride can be defined as "the commitment to achieve one's own moral perfection by shaping oneself into the image of one's own chosen values." Productiveness requires a person to shape outside material in the image of his values; pride requires a person to shape his own character in the image of his values. The commitment to achieve moral perfection reduces ultimately to the commitment to follow reason. The ultimate reward of pride is the value of self-esteem, which is a fundamental, positive moral appraisal of oneself--in essence, as affirmation of the dual and inseparable conclusions that "I am able to live and I am worthy of living." A person who gauges self-esteem by irrational standards will experience a conflict between his self-esteem's requirements and his life's requirements, and he will probably become an anxiety-ridden evader until he corrects his error. The Christian myths of "Original Sin" and "pride as a deadly sin" make any attempt at moral perfection by their standards impossible.

The Initiation of Physical Force as Evil

Rationality requires the exercise of volition, which is the metaphysically given faculty of reason. Human beings must exercise reason (and therefore volition) in order to live. Because thought is an individual and not a collective process, different individuals may draw different conclusions about how to live. Two or more people who disagree about this issue have only three ways to resolve the dispute. The first is simply to go their separate ways; the second, to use persuasive argumentation; and the third, to initiate direct physical force (or its indirect version, fraud), which renders the victim's reasoning irrelevant and therefore impotent. Because individual human life is the standard of value and the individual's own reasoning and property is his proper method of sustaining that value, the initiation of physical force or fraud against the individual or his property is the basic moral wrong and evil. This holds true even if an individual's conclusions about how he should run his life eventually prove to be self-destructive, since he is the exclusive owner of his life and he alone will pay the price for his own mistakes.

CHAPTER NINE: HAPPINESS

The moral man's existential reward is life; his emotional reward is happiness. Because the individual is the proper beneficiary of his own moral action, happiness is the individual's only moral purpose in life.

Virtue as Practical

Practical can be defined as "that which reaches or fosters a desired result." Historically, a dichotomy between morality and practicality has been preached. This argument is rooted in the age-old dichotomy between concepts and percepts, which has recently been closed by the Objectivist theory of concept-formation. Objectivism defines a practical set of virtues which are, by definition, the behavior patterns required to achieve values that support individual human life. Because Objectivism closes the moral-practical dichotomy, moral human beings now have the philosophical power to reject any immoral persons who seek to survive as parasites on their virtues.

Happiness as the Normal Condition of Man

Happiness can be defined as "that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one's values." Just as physical sensations of pleasure and pain serve as the self-preservation mechanism of the human body, the emotional sensations of joy and suffering serve as the self-preservation mechanism of the human mind. Unlike physical sensations, however, emotional responses rely on the contents of the individual's mind, which may or may not accurately map objective reality. Persons with inaccurate world views must deal constantly with the conflict between inner concepts and outer percepts, which robs them of happiness. Intrinsicism cheats its followers out of happiness by asserting that such an emotion is lowly, materialistic, and unworthy of attention when compared to the "supernatural" or other "higher causes" to which "duty" and "sacrifice" are owed. Subjectivism cheats its followers out of happiness by leading them to hedonism, the notion that the standard of value is short-range pleasure rather than long-range life sustenance. Objectivism leads its followers to happiness by advocating the benevolent universe premise, which holds that human beings can expect happiness when they conform to the metaphysically given facts of reality through reason.

Sex as Metaphysical

An animal's emotions are the product of its automatic perceptual associations, while a human's emotions are the product of his conceptual ideas. Thus, sexual pleasure for animals is primarily physical, while for humans it becomes dominantly intellectual. A person's tastes, preferences, and choice of partner are thus profoundly dictated by his philosophy of life. Intrinsicism condemns sexual pleasure as "animalistic" and condones sex as merely a "necessary evil" for procreation. Subjectivism treats sex as a purely hedonistic, physical pleasure while dismissing its intellectual component. Objectivism treats sex as "an intense form of happiness: the rapture of experiencing emotionally the two interconnected achievements of self-esteem and the benevolent-universe conviction." Thus, for Objectivism, sex is a person's metaphysical celebration of his own existence. Sex is a person's ultimate union of mind and body into a state of ecstatic happiness to be enjoyed with the person he values most.

BRANCH IV:

CHAPTER TEN: GOVERNMENT

Politics is the fourth major branch of philosophy. It is the science that defines the principles of a proper social system, including the proper functions of government. It defines man's relationship among each other by applying ethics to social questions.

Individual Rights as Absolute

Rights can be defined as "moral principles defining and sanctioning a person's freedom of action in a social context." The opposite of acting by right is acting by permission. A person's fundamental right is the right to sustain and protect his own life. The major derivatives of this right are the rights to liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness, which together provide the political circumstances necessary for the individual to satisfy his fundamental right to life. The only way to violate any of these rights is to initiate physical force, threat of physical force, or fraud against others or their property. Thus, no one has the right to claim or manage the life or property of others without their consent. Because only individual human beings have the power of choice, only individual human beings have rights. Groups, fetuses, and animals are not individual human beings and thus do not have rights.

Government as an Agency to Protect Rights

A government can be defined as "an institution that holds the exclusive power to enforce certain rules of social conduct in a given geographical area." A rational government will legislate only objectively verifiable laws that protect its citizens and their property from domestic or foreign initiators of physical force, threat of physical force, and fraud. To remove self-defense from the realm of whim, an Objectivist society will delegate this right methodically to the government--with the obvious exception of emergencies, such as home invasions. Because people do not always agree on the meaning of contractual terms, a government based on objective laws must serve as the arbitrator in contractual disputes. In Ayn Rand's words, there are three and only three proper functions of government: "the police, to protect men from criminals--the armed services, to protect men from foreign invaders--the law courts, to settle disputes among men according to objective laws." Any other function of government would require it to initiate force and would thus be immoral.

Statism as the Politics of Unreason

Statism can be defined as "any system that concentrates power in the state at the expense of individual freedom." Historically, statism has concentrated on ruling individuals' thoughts, actions, or both. Reason demands that individuals act on their own best judgment; conversely, unreason demands that individuals forfeit their own best judgment and instead obey the "authority" of the state. The ideological Old Left advocated welfare statism as the solution to social problems; when its philosophical premises about human nature were demonstrated to be wrong, it broke down into the anti-ideological New Left. Anarchism advocates that there should be no government, while ignoring the fact that lawless chaos is incompatible with survival. The mixed economy advocates a mixture of freedom and controls, making a pretense of offering "the best of both worlds" when in fact compromising the good to the evil, which leads inevitably to the victory of the evil at the expense of the good. Conservatives have destroyed more freedom than liberals and moderates precisely because they make a pretense at defending free enterprise while spreading all the opposite ideas and laws.

CHAPTER ELEVEN: CAPITALISM

The science of economics identifies how the principles of a proper politics actually work out in regard to people's productive life, and what happens to production under an improper system.

Capitalism as the Only Moral Social System

Capitalism can be defined as "a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned." Because it is the only system that allows people the freedom to act on their own conclusions, capitalism is the only moral social system, i.e. the only system that does not initiate physical force or threat of such force against its members. People are left alone by the government to trade freely and voluntarily with each other, and those who practice the Objectivist virtues of independence, integrity, honesty, justice, productiveness, and pride benefit most. Evil is de-fanged by market forces and by the prohibition of the initiation of physical force, threat of physical force, and fraud. Although "the public good" ends up being the effect of such a system, it is neither the cause nor the justification of such a system. The cause and justification of capitalism is the protection of individual and property rights.

Capitalism as the System of Objectivity

Objectivity is reality-oriented thought, while virtue is reality-oriented action based on that thought. Capitalism, the system of free trade, allows an objective market value to be assigned to any product or service based on economic laws of supply and demand. Any attempts at monopolies or price-gouging cannot last long before free competition drives prices back to reasonable levels. Thus, both economic values and their associated profits are objective under capitalism. As a free society grows more knowledgeable, the market prices assigned to its products will move from the merely socially objective toward the philosophically objective. In other words, a product's appeal must ultimately serve individual human life or market demand for it will eventually wither. Economic power should not be confused with political power, since the former involves only voluntary trading while the latter involves the initiation of physical force or threat of its use.

Opposition to Capitalism as Dependent on Bad Epistemology

Any argument for or against a political system requires a proper epistemology. Reasoning based on concrete percepts and objective concepts, i.e. the Objectivist epistemology, has already demonstrated that their can be no logical contradictions in reality, no conflicts of interest among rational people, and no dichotomy between virtue and practicality. Typical opponents of capitalism make these assumptions, though, and thus demonstrate their disconnection from reality. They often spout self-canceling falsehoods, such as "Capitalism is the system of coercive monopolies" and "Capitalism is the system of cutthroat competition." People who preach such contradictory bromides do so because of their bad epistemology, i.e. their rejection of objective reasoning.

BRANCH V:

CHAPTER TWELVE: ART

Aesthetics is the last branch of philosophy, the branch that studies art and man's relationship with beauty. Aesthetics answers the questions: What is art? What is its role in human life? By what standards should an art work be judged?

Art as a Concretization of Metaphysics

A work of art serves no utilitarian purpose beyond human contemplation of it. Ayn Rand argues that good art should serve as an emotional fuel for human consciousness. In her definition, "Art is a selective re-creation of reality according to an artist's metaphysical value-judgments." A work of art thus reflects the artist's sense of life, including his sense of the universe as benevolent or malevolent. Art concretizes abstract principles back into concrete percepts that are impregnated with profound abstract meaning. Even to a person without an explicit philosophy, a work of art can still convey this profound sense of life.

Romantic Literature as Illustrating the Role of Philosophy in Art

Romanticism, the art movement dating from the early nineteenth century, can be defined as "a category of art based on the recognition of the principle that man possesses the faculty of volition." For a writer specializing in this category of art, the plot of his story reflects the power of values (and thus philosophy) in human life. Such stories reflect, in a consistent and intelligible fashion, why their characters are pursuing certain goals. Romanticism illustrates heroic people "as they might be and ought to be." By contrast, Naturalism attempts to portray people as "the folks next door," thus reducing characters from potential heroes to mere plodding dolts.

Aesthetic Value as Objective

An art work can be judged by two standards: metaphysics and aesthetics. The first, discussed earlier, involves judging the artist's metaphysical sense of life and evaluating it as proper or improper. The second standard involves evaluating how well an art work actually concretizes the artist's sense of life. Ayn Rand advocated at least three principles useful in judging an art work's aesthetic value:

1. Selectivity in regard to subject: the artist must select a subject that best represents his sense of life.

2. Clarity: the artist must clearly convey his sense of life in his work.

3. Integration: every element of the artist's product must in some way enhance and relate to that work's central theme.

EPILOGUE: THE DUEL BETWEEN PLATO AND ARISTOTLE

Because human beings possess conceptual faculties, they act ultimately on their beliefs. Belief systems, i.e. philosophies, have thus been the ultimate driver behind major events in human history. Philosophies form within small subgroups of people, who then spread their ideas and whose followers eventually create the application systems for those philosophies. The two primary idea systems that have shaped Western history have been those advocated by Plato and Aristotle. Plato's ideas of "higher worlds" and self-sacrifice as "the good" helped to drive the Catholic Church into power and plunged the Western world into the Dark Ages. Aristotle's ideas of an objective reality perceivable by our senses and of happiness as "the good" helped the West to rise out of the Dark Ages and into the Renaissance. Kant's removal of paganism from Plato's philosophy made his idea system more virulent, and it infected large portions of the West's intellectuals, leading to its inevitable political applications as Nazism, Communism, and Fascism. Rand's removal of Plato's influence from Aristotle's philosophy led to her development of Objectivism, which has the greatest hope of sweeping Kantism from its position of influence on Western intellectuals.

[Xray]

I'm not going to spend time writing a primer on Rand's metaethics. Read "The Objectivist Ethics," and then you show me where she makes the argument that you attribute to her.

The issue is not about whether she verbatim said that "Life is an end in itself and therefore one ought to choose it as a standard of value"; it is about what exactly in my statement you think misrepresents her stance.

What complicates things in Rand's case though is that she contradicts herself often.

For example, in TOE, she alleges that the fact that living entities exist "necessitates" the existence of values, and of an "ultimate value" which for any given entity is "his own life", and few lines later dilutes her own claim of necessity by inserting the weak "ought to".

Quotes from prior posts re "ought to":

Xray: Also, there exists no "ought to from is" in nature. To say that a hungry tiger "ought to" to hunt for survival is nonsense. The tiger must hunt. To say that we "ought to" breathe for survival is nonsense. We must breathe.

GHS: Rand would agree. So your point is...?

My point is where and how she got the idea of deriving an "ought to" from "is" at all.

I had asked in my post:

Xray: And didn't she quote examples from nature as alleged evidence of a relationship "ought to" from is"?

She did. I've just found the passage in TOE, p. 18:

"The fact that a living entity is, determines what it "ought to" do." (Rand)

But using "ought to" makes no sense here at all. For "ought to" refers a conscious entity giving his/her personal opinion to another conscious entity (or to himself/herself) about a choice in the face of an alternative.

Therefore to claim that the fact that a tiger exists determines that it "ought to" hunt makes no sense.

To claim that the fact that we exist determines that we "ought to" breathe makes no sense either.

Rand's deriving an "ought to" from "is" using nature as example has no leg to stand on imo and is one of the weakest points in her ethics.

GHS: If someone says that people are always motivated by their own desires (as opposed to what? -- the desires of other people?), then I agree, even though the claim is trivial.

It's not that trivial as is seems because those desires play a role in every choice we make.

GHS: At bottom, Butler's analysis of psychological egoism is similar to Branden's, though it is much more complex and nuanced. The basic point, to repeat, is this: An "interest" of the "self" is what ultimately motivates us to act, but this interest can be egoistic, altruistic, or indifferent.

"Indifferent interest" is a contradiction in terms imo. Can you give an example of "indifferent" interest?

GHS: I know what your're thinking now. You're thinking, "But wasn't it in your self-interest to listen to Clark rather than Evans?" To which I answer: No, considerations of self-interest had nothing to do with my choice. In fact, if I had taken self-interest into account during my very brief deliberation, I probably wouldn't have listened to any music at all. Instead, I would have shut the music off and gotten back to work on my writing deadline instead of writing this stupid post.

Still, it is a fact that you preferred to write this "stupid post" over going back to work on your writing deadline.

That is, for whatever reason, and despite the deadline, you valued writing the post higher than not writing it.

As for altruistic/egoistic interest - imagine a sandbox bully demanding of little Timmy to give him his shovel. Timmy wants to keep his shovel but gives in because his self-interest wants to avoid a conflict with the bully.

Another child, Tommy refuses, his self-interest values keeping the shovel over avoiding a conflict. A fight follows during which the bully knocks out some of Tommy's teeth.

This simple example illustrates the complexity of judging who acted in his "best" or ("rational") self interest.

Actually Rand does not deny the fact that we are all motivated by self-interest. For she says that concerned with one's own interests does not include moral evaluation.

She then focuses on WHAT people's self-interests are, and judges the choices people make, using as criteria the "objective" moral values on which her prescriptive ethics are based.

But to claim "objectivity" of those values is an error. Values are subjective.

You yourself concede that you don't believe in values per se. (I'll address this point my next post dealing with your reply regarding my questions about "virtue").

GHS But if someone says that people always put their own interests above the interests of others, then that is simply and obviously wrong, as even a moment of reflection will reveal. People sacrifice their lives all the time (e.g., in war), after which there is no longer any "self" remaining which can have interests.

Self-interest does not imply preservation of self at all costs. For example, a terminally ill person's self-interest can be be to wish for his/her life to end in order to spare self the burden of having to continue life under these circumstances.

Panoptic: First: What exactly is biologically hard-wired? I'm assuming you're talking about the same genetic 'predisposition' possessed by unrational animals, which is to insure the continuation of one's genetic code through procreation. This drive to reproduce and perpetuate the species/life is the primary motivator for animal behavior.

If this is indeed what you mean then survival and procreation must be at the top of any hierarchy. So in George's example of risking one's life by volunteering to serve in war, even for a good cause, violates or stands in opposition to the primal or hard-wired disposition I spoke about above.

When you argue that a person chooses to risk their life in war because they view the cause to be of higher value than their own life you are no longer in the realm of primal unrational biological hard-wiring, you are in the realm of values. If you are arguing that values are biologically hard-wired then it must follow that all people would choose to fight in war over their own life.

What is biologically hardwired is that we humans are goal-seeking entities attributing value to this or that, and will choose, at any given point, that which our self values higher at the moment of choice. This is the self-interest I speak of.

"Self-interest" is not narrowed down to preserving self at all costs; therefore people can choose to sacrifice their lives for what they conceive as of higher value than their own life.

Edited April 3, 2010 by Xray

[Xray]

Xray: I'll start with point one which I have brought over here since the current discussion is about 'virtue':

GHS: "My ideas about "virtue" are more fixed and definite than my ideas about "value" (in the generic sense), but I will need to postpone that discussion for a later time." (end quote GHS))

Xray: "What do you think of Rand's Cardinal Virtue list: "Rationality, Productiveness, Pride"?

I'm interested in your fixed and definite ideas about "virtue".

"Virtue" does no figure in my personal ethics at all, since the term is too loaded connotatively in my mind with "morally prim and proper" behavior, with morality standards "by society" being imposed on the individual." (end quote Xray)

I'm sorry, but I missed the point you were trying to make and I don't mean this sarcastically. Could you restate it as a statement maybe?

Panoptic,

I had asked George a couple of questions which had piled up on another thread (Moral Certainty)

http://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=8291&st=300,

and he asked me him to narrow them down since the list is quite long.

He replied to my question re virtue:

GHS: My notions of "virtue" and "vice" are the standard ones found in the Aristotelian tradition and the vast majority of other traditions as well. A virtue is a morally good habit, whereas a vice is a morally bad habit.

Virtues and vices are dispositions to act in a certain manner; they are character traits, so to speak. This is why we can say that a person committed an immoral act (i.e., an act that violates a moral principle) without necessarily condemning the person himself as an "immoral" or "bad" person.

The later applies only when immoral behavior is a person's characteristic way of acting. (Btw, I have some problems with the term "immoral," as it is commonly used in many cases, but that's a topic for another discussion.)

Thus, although it is true in a sense that virtues, as Rand says, are the means by which we achieve and maintain values (this is a paraphrase; I don't have the quote in front of me), to use this as the definition is inadequate, because it fails to incorporate the habitual feature of virtues.

The classical approach to virtue and vice that I have sketched here has interesting implications for moral education and moral psychology.

Labeleing a virtue as a "morally good" habit raises the question: "By what moral standards"?

So depending on the moral standard from which you judge, a behavior can be labeled as a virtue/vice or not.

The question of virtue is closely tied to the value question:

You had written:

GHS: I don't believe in values "per se" -- and neither did Rand, for that matter.

I don't believe in them either.

Given Rand's premise of values per se NOT existing, how does this mesh with her presenting a list of "cardinal values": "Reason, Purpose, Self-Esteem"?

If they are no values per se, then what are they?

Also, in what way does your not caring for Rand's definition of value (as you wrote in another post) influence your assessment of her Cardinal Value list: "Reason, Purpose Self-Esteem"?

Bob_Mac. This is a nice little subtle twist here. She invites us to believe that we value the child and that's why we feed him (which sounds reasonable). She invites us to scorn the woman who only feeds her child because she has a "sense of duty" (makes sense too). Of course she ignores the reality that almost ALL of us feed our children because we value them AND we have a "sense of duty" to take care of them. But, for her having a "sense of duty" EVER to anyone else has to be bad.

Excellent observation. Imo it shows how much Rand was caught in a black and white thinking which often kept her from seeing things in a more differentiated way.

George H. Smith: I think many of the problems here could be rectified with a fairly minor tweaking of Rand's ideas, while still remaining true to her fundamental ethical theory. But on one issue at least I doubt if this is possible. I am thinking of Rand's contention that to "sacrifice" one's own interests for the interests of someone else is always immoral. This kind of conclusion, in my opinion, could only flow from a deontological (i.e., duty-based) form of egoism, and this form would constitute nothing more than a mirror image of the duty-based altruism that Rand so rightly condemns.

A bit like casting out the devil by Beelzebub, replacing one rigid moral duty by another.

Example: "If [people] place such things as friendship and family ties above their own productive work, yes, then they are immoral. Friendship, family life and human relationships are not primary in a man’s life. A man who places others first, above his own creative work, is an emotional parasite." (Rand )

http://exiledonline.com/atlas-shrieked-why-ayn-rands-right-wing-followers-are-scarier-than-the-manson-family-and-the-gruesome-story-of-the-serial-killer-who-stole-ayn-rands-heart/

Another question which preoccupies me in this context: Where is the individualism in a 'one set for all' list of values and virtues?

Edited April 3, 2010 by Xray

[imurray]

What is biologically hardwired is that we humans are goal-seeking entities attributing value to this or that, and will choose, at any given point, that which our self values higher at the moment of choice. This is the self-interest I speak of.

"Self-interest" is not narrowed down to preserving self at all costs; therefore people can choose to sacrifice their lives for what they conceive as of higher value than their own life.

Xray,

First I'll start with a disclaimer: I have a BS in Biology, but not evolutionary biology so what I am about to write is based on my understanding of evolution. I would have to do some additional research to substantiate my claims, but I'm relatively confident that what I write will be at least in the right ballpark. I could be wrong so if you have knowledge of data that refutes this I will be happy to reconsider.

I think you're confusing what biologists mean by "goal-seeking" and what sociologists mean by the term. Sociology has a tendancy to borrow from Evolutionary Theory without being true to the propriety of the technical/scientific usage of terms. When biologists speak of "goal-seeking" they are not talking about our rational ability to make choices, but the mechanisms which drive the Evolutionary process, that is, teleomatic vs. teleonomic processes (conditions vs. systems). These are terms given to processes that appear to be goal directed. What you are talking about is different - you are basically saying that our genes force us to persue those goals which we value most and that is not, as far as I know, a scientifically substantiated claim. I realize that other branches of science have studied motivation and purpose driven behavior, but to my knowledge there is no agree upon theory because they tend to get stuck when trying to explain how humans define a data set of desirable goals and objectives from which to choose from.

Edited April 3, 2010 by Panoptic

[Brant Gaede]

What an organism is determines what it might or will do. What a person ought to do is determined by the result it wants. Or, "is" suggests "ought" if there is an "if." If you want to sake your thirst you ought to drink the water. The problem is when another party tells you what your "ought" ought to be and it's not educational but control. This is necessary for children to some extent. So, to recap, I tentatively suggest that the is ought problem can't be solved unless it is an "is, ought, if" formulation.

--Brant

weak minded

[tjohnson]

What an organism is determines what it might or will do. What a person ought to do is determined by the result it wants. Or, "is" suggests "ought" if there is an "if." If you want to sake your thirst you ought to drink the water. The problem is when another party tells you what your "ought" ought to be and it's not educational but control. This is necessary for children to some extent. So, to recap, I tentatively suggest that the is ought problem can't be solved unless it is an "is, ought, if" formulation.

--Brant

weak minded

There is another factor. If I design a plane, for example, based on my understanding of aerodynamics, then I think it ought to fly. Similarly, if we examine the structure and function of organisms, including humans, we might suppose they ought to work in a certain way.

[Xray]

What an organism is determines what it might or will do. What a person ought to do is determined by the result it wants. Or, "is" suggests "ought" if there is an "if." If you want to sake your thirst you ought to drink the water. The problem is when another party tells you what your "ought" ought to be and it's not educational but control. This is necessary for children to some extent. So, to recap, I tentatively suggest that the is ought problem can't be solved unless it is an "is, ought, if" formulation.

--Brant

weak minded

There is another factor. If I design a plane, for example, based on my understanding of aerodynamics, then I think it ought to fly. Similarly, if we examine the structure and function of organisms, including humans, we might suppose they ought to work in a certain way.

"ought"

1. Used to indicate obligation or duty: You ought to work harder than that.

2. Used to indicate advisability or prudence: You ought to wear a raincoat.

3. Used to indicate desirability: You ought to have been there; it was great fun.

4. Used to indicate probability or likelihood: She ought to finish by next week.

[Middle English oughten, to be obliged to, from oughte, owned, from Old English hte, past tense of gan, to possess; see aik- in Indo-European roots.]

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/ought

But in nature itself there is exists no "ought to". For nature does not determine that e. g. we "ought to" breathe in order to stay alive. Breathing is a biological necessity.

For Rand tried ro justify the moral "ought to" in her prescriptive ethics using nature as an example:

"The fact that a living entity is, determines what it "ought to" do." (Rand)

Using "ought to" makes no sense here at all.

Imo Rand's deriving a moral "ought to" from "is" by using nature as example has no leg to stand on and is one of the weakest points in her ethics.

Panoptic ... you are basically saying that our genes force us to persue those goals which we value most and that is not, as far as I know, a scientifically substantiated claim.

Sorry if there was any misunderstanding. I wasn't saying that our genes "force us" to pursue any specific goals. The fact that we are are goal-seeking entities is a biological given, but what goals we choose is left to choice. For example, we can choose to go against the biological program "reproduction" by using contraception.

Peter Taylor quoting from Peikoff's "Objectivism the Philosophy of Ayn Rand":

Sex as Metaphysical

An animal's emotions are the product of its automatic perceptual associations, while a human's emotions are the product of his conceptual ideas. Thus, sexual pleasure for animals is primarily physical, while for humans it becomes dominantly intellectual.

With the "rational man finding pleasure only in rational actions".

Intrinsicism condemns sexual pleasure as "animalistic" and condones sex as merely a "necessary evil" for procreation.

Where is the source for this so-called "intrinsicism" condemning sexual pleasure?

For if "intrinsicism" means that a thing has value as such, then any "intrinsicism" may well celebrate sexual pleasure as inherently valuable.

Subjectivism treats sex as a purely hedonistic, physical pleasure while dismissing its intellectual component.

Again, where is the source for these wild allegations? Where are the quotes from those "subjectivists" to support the claim? Edited April 3, 2010 by Xray

[anthony]

Xray,

Man IS rational; Man OUGHT to be rational to his utmost capability.

All that's missing is EACH man's CHOICE and EFFORT.

What's so complicated about this?

Tony

[Daniel Barnes]

As surprising as it may seem, I actually think you raise some significant issues that deserve more attention than they often get from Objectivist types. I think Rand was careless at times in how she used the word "sacrifice."

I think Rand's confusion on this topic is almost unlimited. This becomes apparent when one considers her child vs hat example more closely.

No time to discuss in more detail currently. But in a nutshell, if you use words to mean the converse of what most people mean, likely you will confuse not only others but yourself as well.

[Brant Gaede]

Man IS rational; Man OUGHT to be rational to his utmost capability.

What does this really mean and what is being excluded aside from the irrational?

I can't think of a better way to destroy creativity than to ram this hunk of lead into your mind. And creativity won't be the only casualty.

--Brant

btw, "Man is the rational being" is not the same thing as "Man is rational"

[anthony]

Man IS rational; Man OUGHT to be rational to his utmost capability.

What does this really mean and what is being excluded aside from the irrational?

I can't think of a better way to destroy creativity than to ram this hunk of lead into your mind. And creativity won't be the only casualty.

--Brant

btw, "Man is the rational being" is not the same thing as "Man is rational"

Quite right. It was a rushed and irritated post. Xray looks to be one of those "tyre kickers" of Objectivism - who walk around the machine muttering, "this won't fly."

I've been flying it (but not to its max) for many years, and I know it does.

Your 'creative' comment was interesting and enigmatic, btw, care to add more?

I think there's a distinct danger early on of suppression of one's consciousness - at that stage of integrating Objectivism, when one believes that everything can be done with LOGIC, alone. It may take a long while to realize that logic is a tool towards rationality, no more, no less.

Where does creativity fit with rationality - can it, and should it? If not, dis-integration is likely, yes?

Please expand.

Tony

[tjohnson]

Quite right. It was a rushed and irritated post. Xray looks to be one of those "tyre kickers" of Objectivism - who walk around the machine muttering, "this won't fly."

I've been flying it (but not to its max) for many years, and I know it does.

Your 'creative' comment was interesting and enigmatic, btw, care to add more?

I think there's a distinct danger early on of suppression of one's consciousness - at that stage of integrating Objectivism, when one believes that everything can be done with LOGIC, alone. It may take a long while to realize that logic is a tool towards rationality, no more, no less.

Where does creativity fit with rationality - can it, and should it? If not, dis-integration is likely, yes?

Please expand.

Tony

Now this is interesting. The same kind of issue arises in general semantics. Often people think that it's an attempt to remove all emotion from us which of course is impossible. The idea is to not let pathological emotional responses dominate. The idea is to use our rational faculty to moderate our emotional responses. This is something animals cannot do well because they do not have a well developed cerebral cortex. Humans have it but they often don't use it.

[Leonid]

X-RAY

1. "Used to indicate obligation or duty: You ought to work harder than that."-if you want to succeed

2. "Used to indicate advisability or prudence: You ought to wear a raincoat."-if you don't want to get wet

3. "Used to indicate desirability: You ought to have been there; it was great fun."-if you want to enjoy

4. "Used to indicate probability or likelihood: She ought to finish by next week."-if she doesn't want to be late

In other words "ought" is hypothetical imperative, indicates action which is goal-depended

Ayn Rand said-life defined by certain condition. Every living thing has its tool of survival,” IS" but only man has a choice whether to use it or not. If man wants to survive qua man he ought to think. If not-not.

Edited April 4, 2010 by Leonid

[Xray]

Xray,

Man IS rational; Man OUGHT to be rational to his utmost capability.

All that's missing is EACH man's CHOICE and EFFORT.

What's so complicated about this?

Tony

Rand is far more rigid: her followers must be "rational".

"It means that one must never sacrifice one’s convictions to the opinions or wishes of others (which is the virtue of Integrity)." (Rand)

Example of how this "virtue of integrity" looks like:

"If [people] place such things as friendship and family ties above their own productive work, yes, then they are immoral. Friendship, family life and human relationships are not primary in a man’s life. A man who places others first, above his own creative work, is an emotional parasite." (Rand )

http://exiledonline....yn-rands-heart/

As surprising as it may seem, I actually think you raise some significant issues that deserve more attention than they often get from Objectivist types. I think Rand was careless at times in how she used the word "sacrifice."

I think Rand's confusion on this topic is almost unlimited. This becomes apparent when one considers her child vs hat example more closely

The child vs hat example:

[Posted by Daniel Barnes]:

http://aynrandcontrahumannature.blogspot.com/2007/10/understanding-objectivist-jargon-pt-13.html

"As someone once remarked about Gertrude Stein, Ayn Rand often does not seem to know what words mean. This peculiar usage is quite opposed to the standard meaning of "sacrifice", which is usually where one gives up something of lesser value for a greater value - for example, sacrificing a Queen to win a game of chess. As a result of this basic confusion, Rand ends up with confounding formulations such as the following:

"The word that has destroyed you is 'sacrifice'...If you wish to save the last of your dignity, do not call your best actions a 'sacrifice': that term brands you as immoral. If a mother buys food for her hungry child rather than a hat for herself, it is not a sacrifice: she values the child higher than the hat; but it is a sacrifice to the kind of mother whose higher value is the hat, who would prefer her child to starve and feeds him only from a sense of duty."- Ayn Rand, "Atlas Shrugged"

Ergo: It is immoral for the mother whose highest value is buying a hat to feed her starving child instead!

Either Rand intended this absurdity to be her argument - perfectly possible, given the thrust of her theory - or she got tangled up by her own inversions of meaning. Either way, it's yet another Randian pronouncement which is at first plausible, but on examination we might - with maximum charity - describe as confused.

I believe Rand got tangled up, in her zeal to label every act of serving others from a sense of duty as "immoral".

Whereas (per Rand) the man who once tried to sell me his child (!) in Rome in broad daylight (I'll never forget this shocking encounter!) was not behaving immorally since he clearly did not act from a sense of duty, placing his child first. Totally callous as to how I might react, it looks like he also acted "virtuously" according to the Randian criteria:

"One must never "sacrifice one’s convictions to the opinions or wishes of others (which is the virtue of Integrity)."

Instead he obviously valued his freedom higher than caring for the child, and acted "accordingly" by trying to get rid of what he believed stood in his way of achieving his goal.

I don't mean to sound cynical, but would like Objectvists to explain here where this man violated the code of "rationality".

GHS: My notions of "virtue" and "vice" are the standard ones found in the Aristotelian tradition and the vast majority of other traditions as well. A virtue is a morally good habit, whereas a vice is a morally bad habit.

Virtues and vices are dispositions to act in a certain manner; they are character traits, so to speak. This is why we can say that a person committed an immoral act (i.e., an act that violates a moral principle) without necessarily condemning the person himself as an "immoral" or "bad" person.

Per these elaborations, e. g a woman refusing to veil her face commits an immoral act in a society where the moral standard requires wearing a veil.

Given the fact that those so-called 'immoral' acts are judged on the basis of widely different (and forever changing!) moral principles, how does the idea of àny objective morality fit in here?

Edited April 4, 2010 by Xray

[imurray]

Xray,

I posted this earlier. The man who offered to sell you the baby would have been acting immorally because his value was not rational, that is, it doesn't follow the "golden rule" which Rand states differently but is basically the same concept imo.

From http://aynrandlexico...icon/duty.html:

"The meaning of the term “duty” is: the moral necessity to perform certain actions for no reason other than obedience to some higher authority, without regard to any personal goal, motive, desire or interest."

From http://aynrandlexico...obligation.html

"Accepting no mystic “duties” or unchosen obligations, he is the man who honors scrupulously the obligations which he chooses. The obligation to keep one’s promises is one of the most important elements in proper human relationships, the element that leads to mutual confidence and makes cooperation possible among men . . . .

The acceptance of full responsibility for one’s own choices and actions (and their consequences) is such a demanding moral discipline that many men seek to escape it by surrendering to what they believe is the easy, automatic, unthinking safety of a morality of “duty.”"

From http://aynrandlexico.../sacrifice.html

"“Sacrifice” is the surrender of a greater value for the sake of a lesser one or of a nonvalue...

This applies to all choices, including one’s actions toward other men. It requires that one possess a defined hierarchy of rational values (values chosen and validated by a rational standard). Without such a hierarchy, neither rational conduct nor considered value judgments nor moral choices are possible."

Back to the example:

"If a mother buys food for her hungry child rather than a hat for herself, it is not a sacrifice: she values the child higher than the hat; but it is a sacrifice to the kind of mother whose higher value is the hat, who would prefer her child to starve and feeds him only from a sense of duty."

Restated:

If a mother buys food for her hungry child rather than a hat for herself, she has not surrendered the higher value in her hierarchy which she has chosen for herself: she values the child higher than the hat which is at the lower end of her chosen hierarchy; but if the hat is on the higher end of her chosen hierarchy then she surrenders this value if she chooses to feed the child (which is on the lower end of her chosen hierarchy) - in this case she would prefer her child to starve, but feeds him only because she feels she must based not on her own choices, but those prescribed by others.

In the first instance she is "obligated" to feed the child because it is in keeping with her own rationally chosen hierarchy of values.

In the second she has not chosen to feed her child out of "obligation", but because society tells her she must (duty).

You could argue that this is not a very good example because any mother who would choose a hat over feeding her child is obviously a psychopath making it overly simplistic, but as an illustration it works fine. Basically it says that it is okay to feel or be "obligated" (moral even) to do something if it was rationally chosen and fits your hierarchy of values - it is not okay to do something that is of lesser value in your rationally selected hierarchy while sacrificing a higher value (this would be done out of a sense of "duty", not obligation - you are only "obligated" to follow your rationally selected hierarchy of values).

The question here could be if the mother did indeed consider the hat of higher value than feeding the child - would Rand consider her actions moral if she bought that hat? But that's the wrong question. The act is not immoral based on the mother's actions (buying the hat instead of feeding the child)it is immoral because the chosen value is incommensurate with being a rational human, that is, it is not a rational value because it would not support the continuation of life (in this case). Rand, as I understand from this site and my limited reading, did not say that people could do whatever they wanted as some think Nietzsche advocated for his Ubermensch(I don't necessarily agree with that reading of Nietzsche, but that's beside the point). Simply put you can't rationally choose to value doing harm to others because if everyone held a value like that man would not survive.

Ian

[Leonid]

Xray "Ergo: It is immoral for the mother whose highest value is buying a hat to feed her starving child instead!"

Wrong conclusion. It's immoral to have inverted hierarchy of values. Values aren’t subjective, they pertain to reality and child is more valuable than hat.