Peikoff - The Good - The Individual As The Proper Beneficiary Of His Own Moral Action

Question 1

Now let us turn to the last of the 3 basic ethical questions, the question of the PROPER BENEFICIARY.

The answer involves a distinction between …

Answer 1

The STANDARD of ethics and the PURPOSE of ethics.

Question 2

An ethical standard, writes AR, means:

Answer 2

An ABSTRACT PRINCIPLE that serves as a measurement or gauge to guide a man’s choices in the achievement of a CONCRETE, SPECIFIC PURPOSE.

“That which is required for the survival of man qua man” is an abstract principle that applies to every individual man.

==> The task of applying this principle to a concrete, specific purpose — the purpose of living a life proper to a rational being — belongs to every individual man, and the life he has to live is his own.

Question 3

Each individual must choose his values and actions by the standard of man’s life — in order to achieve the purpose of maintaining and enjoying his own life.

Thus Objectivism advocates …

Answer 3

EGOISM — The pursuit of self-interest — the policy of selfishness.

Question 4

The concept of “egoism” identifies merely ONE aspect of an ethical code:

Answer 4

It tells us not what acts a man should take, but WHO SHOULD PROFIT FROM THEM.

Question 5

Egoism states that each man’s primary moral obligation is to …

Answer 5

Achieve his own welfare, well-being, or self-interest (these terms are synonyms here).

Question 6

Egoism states that each man should be …

Answer 6

“Concerned with his own interests”.

He should be “selfish” in the sense of being the BENEFICIARY of his own moral actions.

Question 7

Taken by itself, this principle offers NO PRACTICAL GUIDANCE.

It does not specify values or virtues:

Answer 7

It does NOT define “interests” or “self-interest” — neither in terms of “life”, “power”, “pleasure”, nor of anything else.

==> It simply states: WHATEVER man’s proper self-interest consists of, that is what each individual should seek to achieve.

Question 8

The alternative is the view that man’s primary moral obligation is to serve some entity other than himself, such as God or society, at the price of subordinating or denying his own welfare.

In this view, …

Answer 8

The essence of morality is UNSELFISHNESS, which involves some form of SELF-SACRIFICE.

Question 9

Though LP has often implied the Objectivist position on the present question, it is only at this point that I am able to address the issue explicitly:

Answer 9

The reason is that egoism, like every other principle, requires a process of validation — and until now, the context needed to prove (and properly interpret) egoism has not been established.

Question 10

In the Objectivist view, the validation of egoism consists in showing that …

Answer 10

IT IS A COROLLARY OF MAN’S LIFE AS THE MORAL STANDARD.

Question 11

“Only the alternative of life vs death”, I said earlier, “creates the context for value-oriented action” and “only self-preservation”, I said, “can be an ultimate goal”.

Now I need merely add the emphasis required to bring out the full meaning of these formulations:

Answer 11

The alternative with which reality confronts a living organism is ITS OWN LIFE OR DEATH.

The goal is SELF-preservation.

Question 12

Leaving aside reproduction, to which every organism owes its existence, this is the goal of …

Answer 12

ALL AUTOMATIC BIOLOGICAL processes and actions.

==> When a plant turns it leaves to reach the sunlight, when an animal digests food or regulates its internal temperature or turns at a sudden sound to discover the source, the organism is pursuing the values ITS SURVIVAL DEMANDS.

==> As a living entity, each NECESSARILY ACTS FOR ITS OWN SAKE — EACH IS THE BENEFICIARY OF ITS OWN ACTIONS.

Question 13

Plants and animals may not, however, be described as “egoistic”.

The term …

Answer 13

“Self-sustaining” covers the facts of their kind of behavior.

Question 14

Concepts such as “egoistic”, along with its synonyms and antonyms (selfish, altruistic, selfless), are …

Answer 14

MORAL terms.

==> They apply only to an entity with the power of choice.

==> They designate a mode of functioning that has been adopted in the face of an alternative.

==> Plants and animals do NOT have to decide WHO is to be the beneficiary of their actions.

***MAN DOES HAVE TO DECIDE IT.

Question 15

In the case of man, self-sustaining behavior is …

Answer 15

NOT PRE-PROGRAMMED.

==> Even though man’s bodily processes are guided automatically by the value of life, we saw earlier, he must decide as a CONSCIOUS ENTITY to accept LIFE as his moral standard.

Question 16

A similar point applies in the present issue.

Even though man’s bodily processes aim automatically at …

Answer 16

Self-preservation, he must decide as a conscious entity to accept this end as his MORAL purpose.

==> Because his consciousness is volitional, man must CHOOSE to accept the ESSENCE OF LIFE.

==> He must CHOOSE to make self-sustenance into a fundamental rule of his voluntary behavior.

==> The man who makes this choice is an “egoist”.

Question 17

“Egoistic”, in the Objectivist view, means …

Answer 17

Self-sustaining by an act of choice and as a matter of principle.

Question 18

The wider principle demanding such egoism is the fact that survival requires an …

Answer 18

ALL-ENCOMPASSING COURSE OF ACTION.

Question 19

A man’s life cannot be preserved, not in the long-range sense, if he views the task as …

Answer 19

A sideline serving some other kind of goal.

Question 20

If an action is not for his life, then, as we have seen, it is …

Answer 20

AGAINST his life — it is self-inflicted damage, which, uncorrected, is PROGRESSIVE.

==> This principle applies w/o restriction, to every aspect of a man’s actions.

==> It is particularly obvious, however, when the aspect is not some complex means or lesser ends, but the ruling goal of a man’s existence.

==> To accept anything other than one’s own life in THIS kind of issue — to incorporate into one’s ultimate purpose any variant or tinge of self-denial — is to DECLARE WAR ON LIFE AT THE ROOT.

Question 21

Life requires that man gain values, not lose them.

It requires …

Answer 21

Assertive action, achievement, success, NOT abnegation, renunciation, surrender.

==> It requires SELF-TENDING — the exact opposite of SACRIFICE.

Question 22

A sacrifice is the surrender of a value for the sake of a lesser value or of a nonvalue.

A rational man, however, chooses his values and their hierarchical ranking not by whim, but …

Answer 22

By a process of COGNITION.

==> To tell such a man to surrender his values is to tell him:

==> “Surrender your judgement, contradict your knowledge, SACRIFICE YOUR MIND.”

***This is something a man dare not sacrifice.

Question 23

The process of thought requires a man to follow the evidence wherever it leads, without fear or favor, regardless of any effects such action may have on the consciousness of others.

He must …

Answer 23

Follow the evidence whether others agree with his conclusions or not, whether their disagreement is honest or not, whether his conclusions accord with their wishes or not, whether his conclusions make them happy or not.

==> Since thought is an attribute of the individual, each man must be SOVEREIGN in regard to the function and the product of his own brain.

==> THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE IF MORALITY DEMANDS THAT A MAN “PLACE OTHERS ABOVE SELF”.

Question 24

There is no dichotomy between epistemology and ethics — which means, in this issue, …

Answer 24

Between the PROCESS OF COGNITION AND ITS BENEFICIARY.

==> A man cannot offer unswerving allegiance to logic, if he holds that his moral duty is to surrender his conclusions in order to satisfy unchosen obligations to others.

Question 25

He cannot guide his faculty of awareness by the dictates of his own independent judgement, if ...

Answer 25

He believes that he is rightfully a mere means to the ends of others and that his mind, therefore, is their property. ==> He cannot combine in the same consciousness the STATUS OF COGNITIVE SOVEREIGN WITH THAT OF MORAL SERF.

Question 26

If a man’s brain, like an industrialist’s factory, is ...

Answer 26

NOT HIS TO PROFIT FROM, then it is NOT HIS TO CONTROL. ==> The result in both cases is that the entity viewed as the proper beneficiary — others or society — moves to take over the prerogatives of OWNERSHIP. ==> In regard to a factory, this takeover is called “socialism” and leads to the destruction of the factory. ==> In regard to a brain, it is called “faith in the leader” and leads to the cessation of thought.

Question 27

The need to be “concerned with one’s own interests” applies in every realm of endeavor, including above all, the realm of the INTELLECT:

Answer 27

There can be no interest greater to a rational being than the interest in his tool of survival — which can function only as HIS tool of survival.

Question 28

Just as the basic value, man’s life, requires the ethics of egoism, so does the primary VIRTUE:

Answer 28

Rationality requires that a man be able righteously to say: MY MIND IS MY MEANS OF ACHIEVING MY GOALS IN ACCORDANCE WITH MY JUDGEMENT OF FACT AND OF VALUE.

Question 29

“The most SELFISH of all things,” as AR puts the point, ...

Answer 29

Is the independent mind that recognizes no authority higher than its own and no value higher than its judgement of truth.

Question 30

We are often told that the pursuit of truth is selfless since a personal interest acts as an agent of distortion. The premise underlying this claim is that ...

Answer 30

Man’s goals are necessarily IRRATIONAL and, therefore, that he faces an agonizing dilemma: To uphold EITHER truth OR his interests — reason and reality OR his values.

Question 31

If a man’s goals are NOT irrational, however, they demand of him ...

Answer 31

A RECOGNITION OF FACTS. ==> In such a case, the discovery of truth is an EMINENTLY SELFISH POLICY — because it is an indispensable means to attaining one’s ends. ==> It is NOT SELFLESS TO KNOW WHAT ONE IS DOING AND WHY.

Question 32

If a man’s personal interest is the passion to live and succeed IN reality, that motive is the ...

Answer 32

Incentive to the most rigorous OBJECTIVITY he can practice. On the premise that IGNORANCE IS NOT BLISS.

Question 33

By contrast, if one had NO PERSONAL interest in knowing facts, or if he viewed facts as the enemy of values, what would prompt him to undertake the challenge of cognition?

Answer 33

The truth is the REVERSE of the conventional notion. Selflessness is NOT the precondition of objectivity, but its obstacle. In actuality, the SELFLESS IS THE MINDLESS.

Question 34

Whether one studies the nature of life, of value, of virtue, or of cognition, the conclusion is the same.

Answer 34

To be, for a rational being, IS to be selfish—by an act of choice.

Question 35

The Objectivist view of the nature of selfishness is implicit in the validation of the principle. The principle arises within the context of ...

Answer 35

The requirements of man’s survival. These, therefore, determine the principle’s proper interpretation.

Question 36

AR upholds rational self-interest.

Answer 36

This means the ethics of selfishness, with man’s life as the standard of value defining “self-interest”, and rationality as the primary virtue defining the method of achieving it.

Question 37

Within the Objectivist framework, indeed, the term “rational self-interest” is a REDUNDANCY.

Answer 37

We do not recognize any “self-interest” for man outside the context and absolute of reason.

Question 38

In the Objectivist interpretation, the principle of egoism subsumes all the values and virtues already discussed (along with all those still to be discussed).

Answer 38

Egoism requires noncontradictory goals, long-range thought, principled action, and the full acceptance of causality.

Question 39

The selfish man, in short, is NO OTHER THAN THE ...

Answer 39

RATIONAL MAN. ==> He recognizes that any default on rationality is harmful to his well-being. **The contrapositive of this point is that IRRATIONALITY = UNSELFISHNESS.

Question 40

Unfortunately, for a reason I shall soon indicate, egoism has been advocated through the centuries mainly by SUBJECTIVISTS.

Answer 40

The result is several corrupt versions of egoism, which most people now regard as the self-evident meaning of the concept. ==> Objectivism upholds OBJECTIVITY and therefore rejects all these versions.

Question 41

The subjectivist versions include:

Answer 41

1. The idea that egoism permits the evasion of principles. 2. The equation of egoism with irresponsibility — context-dropping — or whim-worship. 3. The notion that selfishness means “doing whatever you feel like doing”.

Question 42

The fact that you feel like taking some action ...

Answer 42

Does NOT necessarily make it an acion compatible with your “interests”, in the legitimate sense of that term. There are COUNTLESS examples of people who desire and pursue self-destructive courses of behavior.

Question 43

One such course consists of a person sacrificing others to himself.

Answer 43

Since egoism is a principle of human survival, it applies to all human beings.

Question 44

EVERY man, according to Objectivism, should live by his own mind and for his own sake:

Answer 44

Every man should pursue the values and practice the virtues that man’s life requires.

Question 45

Since man survives by thought and production, every man ...

Answer 45

Should live and work as an independent, creative being, acquiring goods and services from others only by means of trade, when both parties agree that the trade is profitable.

Question 46

At this stage, LP wants merely to dissociate AR approach from the subjectivist idea of dealing with others.

Answer 46

Egoism DOES NOT mean the policy of violating the rights, moral or political of others in order to satisfy one’s own needs or desires. It DOES NOT mean the policy of a brute, a con man, or a beggar. It DOES NOT mean the policy of turning other men, whether by clubs or tears, into one’s servants.

Question 47

Any such policy, as we will see in due course, is destructive NOT ONLY TO THE VICTIM, but also to the ...

Answer 47

Perpetrator. It is condemned as immoral, therefore, by the very principle of selfishness.

Question 48

The best formulation of the Objectivist view in this issue is the oath taken by Galt:

Answer 48

“I swear—by my life and my love of it—that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.” ==> The principle embodied in this oath is that human sacrifice is evil no matter who its beneficiary is, whether you sacrifice yourself to others or others to yourself. ==> Man—every man—is an end in himself.

Question 49

If a person rejects this principle, it makes little difference which of its negations he adopts:

Answer 49

Whether he says “Sacrifice yourself to others” (altruism) or “Sacrifice others to yourself” (subjectivist version of egoism).

Question 50

In either case, he holds that ...

Answer 50

Human existence requires MARTYRS — That some men are mere means to the ends of others. That somebody’s throat must be cut.

Question 51

The only question then is:

Answer 51

Your life for THEIR sake or THEIRS for yours? ==> This question does not represent a dispute about a moral principle. ==> It is nothing but a haggling over victims by two camps who share the same principle.

Question 52

We hold that man’s life is incompatible with sacrifice ...

Answer 52

With sacrifice as such OF ANYBODY TO ANYBODY. The rational man rejects masochism AND sadism, submission AND domination, the making of sacrifices AND the collecting them. ==> What he upholds AND CREATES is a SELF-SUFFICIENT EGO.

Question 53

People often ask if there are conflicts of interest among men—eg, in regard to work or romantic love—which require someone’s sacrifice.

Answer 53

Objectivism answers that there are NO conflicts of interest among RATIONAL men, who ==> live by production and trade, ==> accept the responsibility of earning any value they desire, ==> who refuse to make or accept sacrifices.

Question 54

There is a “conflict of interest”, if one wants to call it that, between ...

Answer 54

A banker and a bank robber. But not among men who do not allow robbery or any equivalent into their view of their interests. The same applies to all values, including romantic love. (An example discussed in Atlas Shrugged)

Question 55

Now, having removed the worst obstacle to understanding egoism (its equation with the vicious act of sacrifice), let us consider the relation of self to others afresh. Let us consider this subject as one would approach it in a proper culture, where lengthy polemics against vice would be unnecessary.

Answer 55

The essential fact to grasp here is that social existence is an asset to man in the struggle for survival.

Question 56

If we leave aside dictatorships, which are much less safe to their inhabitants than a desert island, the advantages of life in society are obvious.

Answer 56

Two great values to be gained from social existence are: KNOWLEDGE and TRADE. Transmission of knowledge from one generation to the next and division of labor.

Question 57

Egoism, accordingly, does NOT mean that a man should isolate himself from others or remain indifferent to them.

Answer 57

On the contrary, a proper view of egoism requires that a man identify the role of others in his own life and then evaluate them appropriately.

Question 58

Certain men—those who think, live independently, and produce—are a value to one another.

Answer 58

They are a value by the standard of man’s life and of each individual’s own self-interest.

Question 59

By the same standard, the opposite kinds of men—the evaders, the parasites, the criminals—are the opposite of a value.

Answer 59

If one lives or deals with other men at all, their MORAL CHARACTER is relevant to one’s own survival and can be an issue of ENORMOUS significance to it, for good or for evil.

Question 60

To concretize the principle further, one need merely project the effects on one’s well-being that would flow from living in a society made up of ...

Answer 60

Goose-stepping Nazis Or of the American Founding Fathers Or of mindless Babbitts out of Main Street Or of men such as John Galt and Francisco D’Anconia in the Atlantis of Atlas Shrugged.

Question 61

The above principle introduces a broad new context for the pursuit of value.

Answer 61

It points us to the realm of PERSONAL relationships.

Question 62

When men evaluate the moral character of others, they respond EMOTIONALLY, feeling esteem and affection for those individuals whose values they share.

Answer 62

The result is the phenomena of admiration, friendship, love (and, unfortunately, of their negatives as weel).

Question 63

Friendship and love are a crucial aspect of an egoist’s life, not merely because most people happen to want personal relationships, but ...

Answer 63

Because it is RATIONAL to want such, IF the value standards involved are legitimate.

Question 64

The attainment of such relationships, as of any other value, requires a PROPER course of thought and action.

Answer 64

It requires that a person DEFINE and VALIDATE the specific values of character (and their hierarchy) that he regards as important to him PERSONALLY.

Question 65

It requires that he recognize these values when he encounters them, ie, that he learn to identify OBJECTIVELY the traits possessed by others (and by himself).

Answer 65

And it requires that he seek from others, assuming they want it too, the form and degree of intimacy—of sharing his thoughts, his feelings, his life—which are appropriate given the degree of their mutual value-affinity.

Question 66

The result, if one can find the requisite individuals, will be an ascending scale of new pleasures added to one’s life, ...

Answer 66

Ranging from the pleasure of a promising acquaintance to the rapture of romantic love.

Question 67

By their very nature, all such responses to others are ...

Answer 67

SELFISH.

Question 68

They are selfish because they rest ULTIMATELY on self-preservation—...

Answer 68

On the value to one’s OWN life of other men who share one’s values.

Question 69

They are selfish because they demand ...

Answer 69

SELF-ESTEEM—the confidence to rely on one’s own conclusions and seek out one’s own values in the person of another.

Question 70

They are selfish because they ...

Answer 70

ARE pleasures, and deeply personal ones at that.

Question 71

We are often told that love (like the pursuit of truth) is selfless. A selfless love would be one ...

Answer 71

Unrelated to the lover’s own life, judgement, or happiness. Such a thing defies the very nature of love.

Question 72

A selfless, disinterested love is a contradiction in terms:

Answer 72

It means that ONE IS INDIFFERENT TO THAT WHICH ONE VALUES.

Question 73

Here again the truth is the opposite of the conventional idea.

Answer 73

The egoist is not a man incapable of love. He is the ONLY man capable of it. To say I love you, one must know first how to say the “I”.

Question 74

According to the subjectivist viewpoint, an egoist is an individual who is indifferent or hostile to everyone but himself. This view is irrelevant to Objectivism.

Answer 74

The objectivist does not say: “I value only myself.” He says: “If you are a certain kind of person, you become thereby a value to me, in the furtherance of my own life and happiness.” It is the invoking of this purpose, not the absence of loving, that constitutes egoism in the present matter.

Question 75

The same purpose determines the nature and the extent of the help one may properly give to others who are in trouble.

Answer 75

This is a marginal moral issue. If suffering were the metaphysical norm, if the essence of human life consisted in rescuing victims from fires, floods, diseases, bankruptcy, or starvation, it would mean that man is not equipped to survive.

Question 76

Any action one takes to help another person, AR holds, must be chosen within the FULL CONTEXT of one’s own goals and values.

Answer 76

One must determine the TIME, the EFFORT, the MONEY that it is appropriate to spend, given the position of the recipient in one’s EVALUATIVE HIERARCHY, and then act accordingly.

Question 77

To give a person less than he deserves, judging by one’s own hierarchy, is to ...

Answer 77

Betray one’s values.

Question 78

To give him more is to divert resources to a recipient who is unworthy of them by one’s own definition, and thus again ...

Answer 78

Sacrifice one’s values.

Question 79

It follows that a man must certainly act to help a person in trouble whom he loves, even to the point of risking his own life in case of danger.

Answer 79

This is not a sacrifice if he loves the individual—say, his wife—because what happens to her makes a LIFE-AND-DEATH difference to him PERSONALLY and SELFISHLY. If it does not make such a difference to him, then whatever the name of his feeling, it is NOT love.

Question 80

By the same reasoning, a man must certainly NOT help others promiscuously.

Answer 80

He must not help men who defy his values, or who declare war on him, or of whom he has no knowledge whatever.

Question 81

If a man is to qualify as self-sustaining and self-respecting, he must NOT help, LET ALONE LOVE, ...

Answer 81

His enemy, or even his neighbor—not until he discovers WHO the neighbor is and whether the person DESERVES to be helped.

Question 82

As to helping a stranger in an emergency, this is moral under certain conditions.

Answer 82

A man may help such a person if the concept “emergency” is properly delimited. ==> if no sacrifice is involved on the helper’s part. ==> if the recipient is NOT the cause of his own suffering, ie, the helper is supporting not vices but VALUES, even though it is only the potential value of a fellow human being about whom nothing evil is known.

Question 83

And above all, if the helper remembers the moral status of his action.

Answer 83

Extending help to others in such a context is an act of generosity, not an obligation. Nor is it an act that one may cherish as one’s claim to virtue. ==> Virtue consists in CREATING values, not in giving them away.

Question 84

You may and should help another man, or befriend him, or love him, IF ...

Answer 84

In the full context you—your values, your judgement, your life—are upheld thereby and protected. The principle of your action must be SELFISH. You may never properly accept the role of selfless servant to others or the status of sacrificial animal.

Question 85

We often hear it said with a cynical shrug that all men are selfish. This claim is doubly wrong, as fact and as estimate.

Answer 85

It is wrong as fact, because men can sacrifice their own interests—nowadays, they do it regularly, as the state of the world attests. It is wrong as estimate, because the cynicism implies that selfishness is evil.

Question 86

Selfishness, as Objectivism interprets the concept, is not an innate weakness, but a rare strength.

Answer 86

It is the achievement of remaining true to one’s own life and one’s own mind. This is not something to be taken for granted or cursed. It is something that must be learned, taught, nurtured, praised, enshrined.

Question 87

The Objectivist interpretation does not represent an attenuated or “unselfish” type of egoism.

Answer 87

We advocate PLAIN EGOISM, the kind that actually achieves the selfish goal of sustaining one’s own existence.

Question 88

Man’s life as the moral standard is not a “higher” addition to life. Similarly, rational egoism ...

Answer 88

Is not a “higher” version of egoism.

Question 89

The policy LP has been discussing is properly called “selfishness”.

Answer 89

Further, if one accepts an objective approach to cognition, AR’s ethics is the ONLY ONE fully entitled to that term of honor.

Question 90

Those who reject the principle of selfishness will find in the history of ethics 2 main alternatives:

Answer 90

==> The primordial and medieval theory that man should sacrifice himself to the supernatural. ==> The theory that man should sacrifice himself for the sake of other men. (Altruism)

Question 91

Altruism is not a synonym for kindness, generosity, or good will, but the doctrine that ...

Answer 91

Man should place others above self as the fundamental rule of life.

Question 92

I shall not attempt in this book to identify the contradictions and evils of these two theories.

Answer 92

AR has covered this ground too well—in theory, in practice, in history, and from every aspect I can think of. If her works have not already convinced you that the morality of self-sacrifice is the morality of death, nothing I can add will do so, either.

Question 93

I shall confine myself here to one polemical observation.

Answer 93

The advocates of self-sacrifice, in either version, have NEVER DEMANDED CONSISTENCY. They have not asked men to sacrifice their goods, pleasures, goals, values, and ideas AS A MATTER OF PRINCIPLE.

Question 94

Even the saints had to eschew such a course, which would be tantamount to ...

Answer 94

Instant suicide.

Question 95

The moralists of selflessness expect man to go on functioning, working, achieving—...

Answer 95

Else he would have NO VALUES to give up.

Question 96

They expect him to exercise his mind for his own sake and survival, and then ...

Answer 96

Deny his judgement as the spirit moves them.

Question 97

They expect him to be ruled by WHIM, ...

Answer 97

The whim of the relevant authority or beneficiary, whenever it injects itself into the process and demands to be paid off.

Question 98

These moralists expect you to live your life on a part-time basis only, while trying to get away on the side with sundry acts of self-immolation, ...

Answer 98

Just as drug addicts pursue some regular nourishment while trying to get away with their periodic fixes.

Question 99

Neither of these contradictions, however, is PRACTICABLE.

Answer 99

Man’s life DOES require adherence to PRINCIPLE. Nor is the above a distortion of the theory of self-sacrifice. It is what that theory ACTUALLY means. Short of suicide, this is all that can be denoted in reality by the notion of a living entity practicing “anti-egoism”.

Question 100

The content of “the good” should now be clear.

Answer 100

The good, in AR’s view, is man the individual sustaining life by reason, HIS life, with everything such a goal requires and implies.