The Objectivist Ethics - 1

(Originally written June 27, 2006 in Book 3)

1. The Objectivist Ethics
by Ayn Rand

Morality/Ethics is "a code of values to guide man's choices and actions - the choices and action that determine the course of his life" (Rand, 13).

The science of ethics is to discover the previously mentioned code.

Why does man need a code of values? This is the first question ethics asks.

"Is the concept of value, of 'good or evil' an arbitrary human invention, unrelated to, underived from and unsupported by any facts of reality - or is it based on a metaphysical fact, on an unalterable condition of man's existence?" (Rand, 13-14).

"No philosopher has given a rational, objectively demonstrable, scientific answer to the question of why man needs a code of values" (Rand, 14). That is quite a claim Ms. Rand!

Most philosophers feel ethics is outside of the scope of reason. They believe it must be guided by something other than reason. By what? Faith, instinct, intuition, revelation, feeling, taste, urge, wish, whim.

Linehan - Faith a whim?
Rand - A whim is "a desire experienced by a person who does not know and does not care to discover its cause" (Rand, 14). Thus, faith is a whim.

Linehan - The cause of faith is the psychological need to feel not alone. Even if there is no God (which is absurd) a faith in one is the fulfillment of a need. Therefore, anyone searching to fill a need is searching to discover the cause of faith and by your own definition cannot be a whim.

Most philosophers agree that the ultimate standard of ethics is whim (arbitrary postulate). The question is therefore, whose whim? God's? Society's? A dictator's? One's own? Regardless of whose whim is the standard, moralists agree that ethics is a subjective issue and three things are barred from its field - reason, mind and reality.

Linehan - How can anything bar reality from it, if it pertains to action that determine the course of a man's life (which is inherently real).

To challenge modern ethics and all ethical theory one must attack the premise of ethics being a subjective issue.The challenge begins with 'What are values?' and 'Why does man need them?'

Values - "that which one acts to gain or keep" (Rand, 15). Since one must act to gain something of value, then to have value there must be an entity capable of action.

John Galt - Life makes value and the concept of value possible.
Linehan - I would personally state that not only is life required to make the concept of value possible, but also a degree of consciousness or cognitive ability.

Rand - "To make this point fully clear try to imagine an immortal, indestructible robot, an entity which moves and acts, but which cannot be affected by anything, which cannot be changed in any respect, which cannot be damaged, injured or destroyed. Such an entity would not be able to have any values; it would have nothing to gain or to lose; it could not regard anything as for or against it, as serving or threatening its welfare, as fulfilling or frustrating its interests. It could have no interests and no goals" (Rand, 16).

Linehan - But God moves and acts unaffected by man and is the unchangeable changer. He cannot be destroyed. The love of God may be injured by a man's rejection, yet is more detrimental to the rejector than the rejected. God is the author of values, the perfecter of altruism. Yet, you state He could not have interests, goals or values.

"Ultimate value is that final good or end to which all lesser goods are the means - and it sets the standard by which all lesser goods are evaluated" (Rand, 17).

Linehan - I would agree that there exists an ultimate good (which can be chosen or rejected) in all men and lesser goods are means to it. Yet, I would disagree that it is the standard to be judged. If man were autonomous and generated their own ultimate value then this statement would be true. But man is neither autonomous nor does he generate his ultimate value. Therefore, the theory is implausible.

Ultimate goals are necessary to the existence of values. Without them values could not exist.

How does man come to realize what is 'good' and what is 'evil'. At the simplest level it is discovered through pleasure and pain.

"The capacity to experience pleasure or pain is innate... it is part of his nature... He has no choice about it, and he has no choice about the standard that determines what will make him experience...pleasure or pain" (Rand, 17). The standard is his own life.

The physical sensation of pleasure shows that one is pursuing the right course of action, whereas the physical sensation of pain signals a wrong course. Linehan - long-term or short-term?

Plants have no ability to learn, they simply respond. Animals learn specific good and evil specific to situations. These are passed down generations and serve as a code of survival. "Man has no automatic code of survival. His senses do not tell him automatically what is good for him or evil" (Rand, 19).

Organisms with consciousness possess pleasure-pain mechanism. The higher the consciousness possess perceptions.

"Perception is a group of sensations automatically retained and integrated by the brain of a living organism, which gives it the ability to be aware, not of a single stimuli, but of entities of things" (Rand, 19). Animals operate on this level.

Man is distinguished from all other conscious life by a consciousness that is volitional.

Plants - automatic values derived from the plant's body are sufficient for its survival.

Animals - automatic values derived from sensory-perceptional mechanism of its consciousness are sufficient for its survival.

Man - conceptual values derived from conceptual knowledge, conceptual knowledge is not automatic.

"A concept is a mental integration of two or more perceptual concretes, which are isolated by a process of abstraction and united by means of a specific definition" (Rand, 20).

All words, save for proper names denote concepts, which are abstractions of unlimited concretes.

Concepts are formed by conceptualization via the process of thinking, which utilizes reason.

"Reason is the faculty that perceives, identifies and integrates the material provided man's senses" (Rand, 20).

Reason is exercised by choice, thinking is not automatic.

Linehan - How does one not think?