Peikoff - The Good - Man's Life As The Standard Of Moral Value Flashcards
(53 cards)
Now let us see how the principle of life as the standard of value applies to specific kinds of organisms — and above all, …
To MAN.
Plants and animals initiate automatically the actions their life requires. (…)
Man, however, …
Is the living being with a VOLITIONAL, CONCEPTUAL CONSCIOUSNESS.
As such, leaving aside his internal bodily processes, he has …
NO INBUILT GOAL OR STANDARD OF VALUE.
==> He follows no AUTOMATIC course of action.
==> In particular, he does NOT AUTOMATICALLY VALUE OR PURSUE SELF-PRESERVATION.
The evidence of this fact is overwhelming.
It includes not only deliberate suicides, but also …
People’s frequent hostility to the most elementary life-sustaining practices.
==> As examples, one may consider the Middle Ages, or the more mystical countries of the Near and Far East, or even the leaders of the modern West.
For a human being, the desire to live and the knowledge of what life requires are …
AN ACHIEVEMENT — NOT A BIOLOGICAL GIFT.
Like every entity, man has a nature — like the other organisms, he must follow a specific course of action if he is to survive.
But …
Man is NOT born knowing what that course is, nor does such knowledge well up in him effortlessly.
==> He has to seek out the knowledge and then decide to act on it.
==> “Man has to hold his life as a value — by choice; he has to learn to sustain it — by choice; he has to discover the values it requires and practice his virtues — by choice.”
How is he to discover all this?
THAT is the purpose of morality ==> “A code of values accepted by choice.”
==> Man needs it for ONE REASON ONLY ==> IN ORDER TO SURVIVE.
Moral laws, in this view, are …
PRINCIPLES that define how to nourish and sustain human life.
==> NO MORE AND NO LESS THAT THIS.
Morality is the …
INSTRUCTION MANUAL in regard to proper care and use that did NOT come with man.
==> IT IS THE SCIENCE OF SELF-PRESERVATION.
Plants and animals pursue values, but not …
MORAL values.
==> They have goals, but NOT ethics.
MORAL values are a subcategory of values, defined by 2 conditions:
Moral values are CHOSEN values of a FUNDAMENTAL nature.
==> Fundamental because they shape a man’s character and life course.
==> Other kinds of value, by contrast, are specialized — eg a man’s estimates in regard to government or art, which constitute not his moral, but his political or esthetic values.
The last seven paragraphs offer a broad overview of a complex issue, which now requires detailed analysis.
Until we understand step by step the exact purpose and role of morality in man’s life, there is little point in our proceeding further in the field.
The first step here is the fact that man needs to act …
LONG-RANGE.
“Long-range” means “…
Allowing for or extending into the more distant future.
==> A man is long-range to the extent that he chooses his actions with reference to such a future.
==> This kind of man sets goals that demand action across a significant time span; and, being concerned with such goals, he also weighs consequences, the future consequences of his present behavior.
By contrast, a man is short-range if, …
Indifferent to the future, he seeks merely the immediate satisfaction of an impulse, without thought for any other ends or results.
An animal has no need or capacity to be long-range, at least not in the human sense.
An animal …
DOES NOT CHOOSE ITS GOALS — nature takes care of that — so it can act safely on any impulse.
==> Within the limits of the possible, that impulse is programmed to be PRO-LIFE.
But man cannot rely safely on random impulse:
If he is to protect his life, he has to assess any potential action’s relationship to it.
==> He has to PLAN a course of behavior deliberately, committing himself to a LONG-RANGE purpose, then integrating to it all of his goals, desires, and activities.
==> Only in this way can the attainment of an ULTIMATE PURPOSE become an issue within his conscious control.
An action undertaken by a short-range mentality may lead …
ACCIDENTALLY to a beneficial result.
==> If one swallows, buys, befriends, or votes for whatever or whomever one stumbles across on the spur of the moment, without reference to reasons, purposes, or effects, one may get away with it for while — but ONLY for a while.
CONSISTENCY, in regard to any goal beyond the perceptual level or the routine, …
CANNOT BE ACHIEVED by sense perception, subconscious habit, or luck.
==> It can be achieved only by the aid of EXPLICIT VALUES AND KNOWLEDGE.
No one could expect to reach the big sale uptown by pointing his car north, then steering at random, with no map, no plan, no knowledge of turning points or detours, no concern but the impulse of the moment.
To reach a sale, however, is a modest quest.
To preserve one’s life is a more difficult task.
For any living organism, the course of action that survival is …
Continuous, full-time, ALL-EMBRACING.
==> No action an organism takes is irrelevant to its existence.
==> Every such action is either in accordance with what self-preservation requires or it is not.
==> FOR the entity’s life or AGAINST it.
This is true even of so innocuous an action as a man’s taking a nap:
In one context (if he is tired) such an action may be beneficial.
==> If he does it on the job, it may lead to unemployment.
==> If he does it outdoors during a blizzard, he may never wake up.
The principle involved in this simple example applies to every choice one makes:
It applies to one’s choices in regard to career, friends, investments, psychotherapist, entertainment.
==> It applies whatever the form and scale of a choice’s effects — which may be obvious or subtle, major or minor.
==> The point is that EVERY CHOICE HAS EFFECTS which redound, directly or indirectly, on ONE’S ABILITY TO SURVIVE.
LIFE IS MOTION.
If the motion is NOT self-preserving, then it is …
Self-destroying.
Self-destroying action need not be immediately fatal:
There is such a thing as drawn-out destruction, a state of affairs in which one is neither healthy nor dead, but in the process of moving from one condition to the other.
==> Thus it is possible to deteriorate GRADUALLY for years, breathing all the while, but increasingly damaged. (Eg alcoholic etc)
==> Such a negative cannot be deliberately courted or even passively tolerated, NOT IF SELF-PRESERVATION IS ONE’S GOAL.
