What are the facts of reality that necessitate and give rise to values?

[Donovan A.]

I would like to post some quotes that discuss the Objectivist view of values. The relationship between facts and values is the bridge between epistemology and ethics. If there is no truth, then there can be no proof of what is good or bad, right or wrong, pro or anti the life of a rational being.

"Ayn Rand does not begin by taking the phenomenon of "values" as a given; that is, she does not begin merely by observing that men pursue various vales and by assuming that the first question of ethics is: What values ought man to pursue? She begins on a far deeper level, with the question: What are values and why does man need them? Her approach is not statistical, sociological or historical, but metaphysical; her concern is: What are the facts of reality - the facts of existence and of man's nature - that necessitate and give rise to values?

A Value, she states, is that which one acts to gain and/or to keep. A value is the object of an action. " 'Value' presupposes an answer to the question: of value to whom and for what? 'Value' presupposes a standard, a purpose and the necessity of action in the face of an alternative. Where there are no alternatives, no values are possible." An entity who- by its nature - had no purpose to achieve, no goals to reach, could have no values and no need of values. There would no "for what." An entity incapable of initiating action, or for whom the consequences would always be the same, regardless of its actions- an entity not confronted with alternatives- could have no purpose, no goals, and hence no values. Only the existence of alternatives can make purpose - and therefore values- possible and necessary." - Nathaniel Branden, Who is Ayn Rand, p.21-22.

It is only an ultimate goal, an end in itself, that makes the existence of values possible. Metaphysically, life is the only phenomenon that is an end in itself: a value gained and kept by a constant process of action. Epistemologically, the concept of “value” is genetically dependent upon and derived from the antecedent concept of “life.” To speak of “value” as apart from “life” is worse than a contradiction in terms. “It is only the concept of ‘Life’ that makes the concept of ‘Value’ possible.”

In answer to those philosophers who claim that no relation can be established between ultimate ends or values and the facts of reality, let me stress that the fact that living entities exist and function necessitates the existence of values and of an ultimate value which for any given living entity is its own life. Thus the validation of value judgments is to be achieved by reference to the facts of reality. The fact that a living entity is, determines what it ought to do. So much for the issue of the relation between “is” and “ought.”

Now in what manner does a human being discover the concept of “value”? By what means does he first become aware of the issue of “good or evil” in its simplest form? By means of the physical sensations of pleasure or pain. Just as sensations are the first step of the development of a human consciousness in the realm of cognition, so they are its first step in the realm of evaluation.

The capacity to experience pleasure or pain is innate in a man’s body; it is part of his nature, part of the kind of entity he is. He has no choice about it, and he has no choice about the standard that determines what will make him experience the physical sensation of pleasure or of pain. What is that standard? His life. “The Objectivist Ethics,” The Virtue of Selfishness, 17 (http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/values.html)

[BaalChatzaf]

The capacity to experience pleasure or pain is innate in a man's body; it is part of his nature, part of the kind of entity he is. He has no choice about it, and he has no choice about the standard that determines what will make him experience the physical sensation of pleasure or of pain. What is that standard? His life. "The Objectivist Ethics," The Virtue of Selfishness, 17 (http://aynrandlexico...con/values.html)

I refute this so: anesthetic. Another bad idea down in flames. And it is the operation of the nervous system that makes us experience pain and pleasure, not life in general. True, one must be alive and conscious to experience pain or pleasure. But that is a condition, not an end.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Randall,

There are two facets of value that are used in advertising all the time to sell stuff. These facets hardly ever enter into philosophy discussions (at least the ones I have read and/or taken part in). It's really weird because the debates can get quite acrimonious and this stuff is so easily demonstrable. It's used all around us.

Facet 1: Perceived value.

Facet 2: Actual value.

The actual value is measured according to a standard in terms of the results it produces. The perceived value is personal.

In other words, the actual value is called an objective value and a perceived value a subjective value. These two states can exist separately and they both can be present in the thing that exists in a value relationship to the agent.

The real challenge of a person in defining his morality is to try to align his perceived values with actual values. If he perceives a value in a manner that contradicts the nature of the objective value, he will run a huge risk of getting hurt.

Here is an example: Water is an actual value to a living organism and this is measured by the results it produces. One of those results is that nothing bad happens to the organism if you exceed the thirst-quenching point. But this is only true up to a certain level. There are cases of radio shows staging water-drinking contests where contestants have died as a result of hyper-hydration. In these cases, the perceived value of water was that it is benign in excess and is peed out. This contradicted the actual value where the organism's water processing faculties can get overloaded to the failure point.

One of the action principles involved is that a person will act on his perceived value much more quickly than the actual value, even when he knows both clearly. Often he will not even seek to consciously identify the actual value. Madison Avenue runs on this. (In philosophy, over-focus on this results in the silly contention that all values are subjective.)

As any Madison Avenue professional will tell you, if the perceived value advertised does not come with a product that delivers some actual value, the product will have a rather short run. There is no long-term business that exists without delivering objective values in some measure.

How do you ascertain what is perceived value and actual value? You use reason, of course. And that starts with observation.

The whole purpose of taking demographic samples is to ascertain pockets of people who share the same perceived value of something. In other words, we arrive at this by studying people's behavior and what they say they value (giving huge priority to what they do over what they say, of course).

The actual value is easier since it uses a cause-and-effect standard. X makes people sick. Y heals them. (The standard is health.) X makes people hurt. Y brings them pleasure. (The standard is the biological pleasure-pain mechanism.) And so on.

This stuff (studying both in depth) is not covered very much in Objectivist literature. Like I said, it is brushed aside in philosophy for some reason. Philosophy people tend to choose one side and start attacking the other.

Maybe there's a reason Madison Avenue folks make lots of money (gained honestly and non-coercively, I might add) while philosophers don't. The sales folks focus on reality.

Michael

[Donovan A.]

The capacity to experience pleasure or pain is innate in a man's body; it is part of his nature, part of the kind of entity he is. He has no choice about it, and he has no choice about the standard that determines what will make him experience the physical sensation of pleasure or of pain. What is that standard? His life. "The Objectivist Ethics," The Virtue of Selfishness, 17 (http://aynrandlexico...con/values.html)

I refute this so: anesthetic. Another bad idea down in flames. And it is the operation of the nervous system that makes us experience pain and pleasure, not life in general. True, one must be alive and conscious to experience pain or pleasure. But that is a condition, not an end.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Hi Ba'al Zhatzaf,

I think the idea here is that humans must discover which entities will produce various effects upon our bodies and nervous systems. If you give a person anesthetic in the proper dosage, he will feel nothing as you remove his leg, this is beyond his control. I don't think Rand considered life as a condition or goal in a vacuum. Life without happiness (a state of non-contradictory joy) is meaningless. In this sense, I consider happiness to be the psychological and cognitive value belonging to the realm of man's mind. Life, i.e., physical well-being belongs to the realm of the body. And of course, man is an integrated being of mind and body. To value happiness without life is a contradiction, because happiness requires that a person be living to experience happiness. To value life without happiness, removes any motive for living. If life consisted only of pain, there would be no reason to exist.

R