Week Three - Aristotle and Virtue Ethics / Ayn Rand & Objectivism Flashcards
Aristotle and Virtue Ethics
Aristotle claimed that virtue and moral judgement are not abstract knowledge, but are in fact practical skills than can only be learnt through example and practice. Should we prioritise developing good character over merely following rules and codes.
‘One swallow doesn’t make a summer’ - this comes from Aristotle’s book Nicomachean Ethics. He is making the point that a few moments of pleasure don’t add up to true happiness. It’s not a matter of short-term joy. He thought that children could not be happy, because true happiness required a longer life.
Aristotle travelled and worked as a tutor to Alexander the Great. He set up his own school in Athens called the Lyceum.
Plato would have been content to philosophise from an armchair; but Aristotle wanted to explore the reality we experience through the senses. He rejected his teacher’s Theory of Forms, believing instead that the way to understand any general category was to examine particular examples of it.
Aristotle thought we should live by seeking happiness. The Greek word he used was ‘eudaemonia’, sometimes translated as ‘flourishing’ or ‘success’ rather than ‘happiness’. Eudaemonia is not about fleeting moments of bliss or how you feel.
He thought that the best kind of life for a human being was one that used our powers of reason.
The central question is :’What can we do to increase our chance of eudaemonia?’ Aristotle’s answer was to ‘Develop the right kind of character’. The best way to develop good habits is to practise from an early age.
Instead of looking to increase our pleasure in life, we should try to become better people and do the right thing. This is what makes a life go well.
Aristotle was not just interested in individual personal development. Human beings are political animals, he argued. We need a system of justice to cope with the darker side of our nature.
Atlas Shrugged and Ayn Rand’s Morality of Egoism
The morality presented in Atlas Shrugged is the morality of egoism.
The theme of the book is the role of the mind in man’s existence. The novel dramatises the fact that the reasoning mind is the basic source of the values on which human life depends.
There are 2 moral codes to choose from: rational egoism (the centrepiece of Objectivism) and altruism.
According to Rand, altruism is the cause of all our troubles. It can be destructive both personally and culturally.
As human beings we have to make choices - this is unavoidable. Our only choice is whether we acquire our morality through conscious deliberation - or by default, through social osmosis (likely to lead to altruism).
Altruism is the morality that holds self-sacrificial service as the standard of moral value and as the sole justification for one’s existence.
Ayn Rand was not exaggerating when she said, “The basic principle of altruism is that man has no right to exist of this own sake. Self-sacrifice is the highest moral duty, virtue and value.
Rand called altruism “The Morality of Death”. Altruism does not call merely for “serving others”; it calls for self-sacrificially serving others. In other words, giving up something for nothing (so it is different to trading where values are exchanged).
Altruism is the morality of personal loss, and it does not countenance personal gain. Only egoism calls for personal gain.
There is only one word which can blast the morality of altruism out of existence: WHY?
The Objectivist ethics holds human life as the standard of moral value. Each individual’s own life is his own ultimate value. Each individual is morally an end in himself - not a means to the ends of others. Accordingly, he has no moral duty to sacrifice himself for the sake of others.
Human sacrifice is immoral.
The Objectivist ethic recognises that reason is our basic means of living and achieving happiness.
Emotions are automatic consequences of our value judgements. A life devoid of joy is not a life worth living. We need emotions.
But emotions are not our means of knowledge. Only reason can tell us such things.
Egoism does not hold pleasure or feelings or conquest as the standard of value. It holds life as the standard of value and reason as your basic means of living.
The rational pursuit of life-serving goals is the essence of good living; purpose is a hallmark of self-interest.
Another value Rand identified as crucial to human life and happiness is self-esteem - the conviction that one is able to live and be worthy of happiness.
Self-esteem - confidence in one’s own worth or abilities; self-respect
The Objectivist ethic recognises that to live as civilised beings - rather than as masters and slaves - we need a social system that protects each individual’s rights to his life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness. The only social system that does so is laissez-faire capitalism.
Capitalism is the only social system that permits everyone to act fully according to his own judgement and thus to live fully as a human being.
Egoism makes human existence possible; capitalism makes human coexistence possible.
Atlas Shrugged is a hymn to capitalism and the moral foundations on which it depends.
The single most important aspect pf the Objectivist ethics: the principle that you should rely on your own observations and your own use of logic, the principle that you should not accept ideas just because others accept them, the principle that you should think for yourself. You must never surrender your mind.
The independent mind recognises no higher authority than its own.
Rational, independent thinking is the essence of being moral. Rational egoism is not a dogma.
The core of Rand’s philosophy is that unfettered self-interest is good and altruism is destructive.
This is the ultimate expression of human nature, the guiding principle by which one ought to live one’s life.
“Collectivism is the tribal premise of primordial savages who, unable to conceive of individual rights, believed that the tribe is a supreme, omnipotent ruler, that it owns the lives of its members and may sacrifice them whenever it pleases.”
The fly in the ointment of Rand’s philosophical “objectivism” is the plain fact that humans have a tendency to cooperate and to look out for each other, as noted by many anthropologists who study hunter-gatherers.
These “prosocial tendencies” were problematic for Rand, because such behavior obviously mitigates against “natural” self-interest and therefore should not exist.
She resolved this contradiction by claiming that humans are born as tabula rasa, a blank slate, (as many of her time believed) and prosocial tendencies, particularly altruism, are “diseases” imposed on us by society, insidious lies that cause us to betray biological reality.
To many of Rand’s readers, a philosophy of supreme self-reliance devoted to the pursuit of supreme self-interest appears to be an idealized version of core American ideals: freedom from tyranny, hard work and individualism. It promises a better world if people are simply allowed to pursue their own self-interest without regard to the impact of their actions on others. After all, others are simply pursuing their own self-interest as well.
