Peikoff - The Good - Values As Objective

Question 1

Since integration is crucial to the process of understanding, let us now connect the …

Answer 1

ETHICAL knowledge we have been gaining to its roots in the Objectivist metaphysics and epistemology.

Question 2

In general terms, the connection is evident.

A morality of rational self-interest obviously presupposes a philosophic commitment to reason.

But let us be more specific.

Answer 2

Let us identify the role in this context of AR’s theory of concepts, which is the essence of her view of reason.

More than anything else, this is the theory that makes the Objectivist ethics possible.

Question 3

For Objectivism, values, like concepts, …

Answer 3

Are NOT intrinsic or subjective, but OBJECTIVE.

Question 4

Just as concepts do not represent intrinsic features of reality, but presuppose a mind that performs a certain process of integration, so VALUES …

Answer 4

Are NOT intrinsic features of reality.

Question 5

Value requires …

Answer 5

A VALUER—and moral value, therefore, presupposes a certain kind of ESTIMATE made by MAN.

It presupposes an ACT OF EVALUATION.

Question 6

Such an act, as we know is possible only because man faces a fundamental alternative.

Answer 6

It is possible only if man chooses to pursue a certain GOAL, which then serves as his STANDARD of value.

Question 7

The good, accordingly, is NOT GOOD IN ITSELF.

Answer 7

Objects and actions are good TO man and FOR the sake of reaching a specific goal.

Question 8

But if values are not intrinsic attributes, neither are they arbitrary decrees.

Answer 8

The REALM OF FACTS is what creates the NEED to choose a certain goal.

Question 9

This need arises because man lives in reality, because …

Answer 9

He IS confronted by a fundamental alternative, and because the requirements of his survival, which he does NOT know or obey automatically, are SET by reality (including his OWN NATURE).

Question 10

The particular EVALUATIONS a man should make, therefore—BOTH in regard to ultimate PURPOSE and to the MEANS that foster it—…

Answer 10

Do NOT have their source in anyone’s baseless feeling.

They are discovered by a process of RATIONAL COGNITION, the steps of which have already been indicated.

Question 11

Moral value does not pertain to reality alone or to consciousness alone.

It arises because …

Answer 11

A certain kind of living organism—a volitional, conceptual organism—sustains a certain relationship to an external world.

Question 12

BOTH these factors—…

Answer 12

Man AND the world—Consciousness AND reality—are essential in this context.

The good, accordingly, is NEITHER intrinsic nor subjective, but OBJECTIVE.

Question 13

Here is AR’s statement of the point:

Answer 13

The OBJECTIVE theory holds that the good is NEITHER an attribute of “things in themselves” NOR of man’s EMOTIONAL states, but AN EVALUATION of the FACTS of reality by man’s consciousness according to a rational standard of value.

(Rational = derived from the facts of reality and validated by a process of reason.)

Question 14

The objective theory holds that …

Answer 14

THE GOOD IS AN ASPECT OF REALITY IN RELATION TO MAN.

—It must be DISCOVERED, not invented, by man.

Question 15

An evaluation presupposes the capacity to think—…

Answer 15

It is a type of abstraction, ie, a product of the process of concept-formation and use.

This is why one’s theory of concepts determines one’s theory of values.

It is why, in the objectivist approach, the description italicized by AR above applies both to concepts and to values.

Question 16

Concepts are aspects of reality in relation to man. That is: …

Answer 16

Concepts designate facts—perceived objects with their similarities and differences—as condensed by human consciousness, in accordance with a rational method (logic).

Question 17

Similarly, the good is an aspect of reality in relation to man. That is:

Answer 17

The good designates FACTS—the requirements of survival—as identified conceptually, and then EVALUATED by human consciousness in accordance with a rational standard of value (life).

Question 18

Moral knowledge, therefore, follows the basic pattern of …

Answer 18

ALL conceptual knowledge.

Question 19

If one wishes to discover moral truth, he …

Answer 19

Cannot rely either on passive perception of the external or on mental events divorced from the external.

Question 20

Instead, he must actively process …

Answer 20

PERCEPTUAL DATA.

He must integrate and then evaluate the relevant data using the method of logic.

Question 21

The method enables him to evaluate noncapriciously by leading him to grasp the function of …

Answer 21

A moral standard in human life.

The result is the identification and validation of OBJECTIVE value-judgements.

Question 22

The term “objective,” let me stress here, does not apply to all values, but …

Answer 22

ONLY to values chosen by man.

Question 23

The automatic values that govern internal bodily functions or the behavior of plants and animals are …

Answer 23

NOT the product of a conceptual process.

Such values, therefore, are outside the terminology of “objective,” “intrinsic,” or “subjective.”

Question 24

In this regard, automatic values are like …

Answer 24

Sense data.

Neither “objective” nor “non-objective”.

Question 25

Sense data are the base that makes possible man’s later cognitive development; they thereby make possible ...

Answer 25

ALL the standards, including “objectivity,” which are eventually defined in order to guide human choices.

Question 26

Similarly, automatic biological processes and the sensations that accompany them are the base that makes possible ...

Answer 26

Man’s later evaluative development.

Question 27

Because her philosophy regards objectivity as essential to conceptualization, AR rejected from the outset any nonrational view of ethics.

Answer 27

Ethics deals with concepts, which, in her system, are FORMS OF INTEGRATION occurring within a cognitive hierarchy that is based on sense perception.

Question 28

This is the underlying theory that guided her in seeking out the proper, step-by-step reduction of “value”.

Answer 28

The result of such reduction was her discovery of a new code of morality.

Question 29

Conventional moralists hold that ethics flows from arbitrary acts of consciousness, whether divine or human, social or personal. Such ethical codes express the ...

Answer 29

Primacy-of-consciousness metaphysics. Objectivism, because it upholds an objective theory of value, is the first ethics in history to express consistently the PRIMACY OF EXISTENCE.

Question 30

Existence, we say—the metaphysically given facts of reality, including the IDENTITY of man—is what demands of human beings a certain course of behavior. This is the ONLY approach to ethics that does ...

Answer 30

NOT culminate in disaster. Only a code based on the demands of reality can enable man to act in harmony with reality.

Question 31

The “demands” of reality, however, are not commandments, duties, or “categorical imperatives”.

Answer 31

Reality does not issue orders, such as “You must live” or “You must think” or “You must be selfish”.

Question 32

The objective approach involves a relationship between existence AND consciousness.

Answer 32

The latter has to make a contribution here in the form of a specific choice.

Question 33

Existence, therefore, does demand of man a certain course, it does include the fact that he must act in a certain way—...

Answer 33

IF, IF, that is, he chooses a certain goal.

Question 34

Reality confronts man with a great many “musts”, but ALL of them are CONDITIONAL. The formula of realistic necessity is:

Answer 34

“You must, if—“ and the “if” stands for man’s choice: If you want to achieve a certain goal. You must eat, if you want to survive. You must work, if you want to eat. You must think, if you want to work. You must look at reality, if you want to think—if you want to know what to do—if you want to know what goals to choose—if you want to know how to achieve them.

Question 35

We have discussed the acceptance of cause and effect as an aspect of the virtue of rationality. Now let us take a wider view.

Answer 35

The field of ethics ITSELF, including all moral virtues and values, is NECESSITATED by the LAW OF CAUSALITY. Morality is no more than a means to an end—it defines the CAUSES we must ENACT if we are to attain a certain EFFECT.

Question 36

Thus AR’s statement that the principle replacing duty in the Objectivist ethics is ...

Answer 36

CAUSALITY.

Question 37

If life is what you want, you ...

Answer 37

Must PAY for IT—by accepting and practicing a code of RATIONAL behavior. Morality, too, is a MUST—IF, it is the price of the choice to live. That choice itself, therefore, is NOT a moral choice; it precedes morality. It is the decision of consciousness that UNDERLIES the need of morality.

Question 38

AR’s approach to morality is unique. As the whole history of philosophy demonstrates, ...

Answer 38

It is an approach unimaginable to the advocates of a nonobjective view of concepts.

Question 39

The intrinsicist school holds that values, like universals or essences, are features of reality independent of consciousness (and of life). The good, accordingly, is ...

Answer 39

Divorced from goals, consequences, and beneficiaries. The good is not good TO anybody OR FOR anything. It is good in itself.

Question 40

One can come to know such an object only by the standard intrinsicist means:

Answer 40

MYSTIC INSIGHT. Thereafter, one “just knows” good and evil. One knows them automatically and infallibly, without benefit of any cognitive method.

Question 41

Although it purports to discover values in external reality, intrinsicism actually cuts the tie between values and reality.

Answer 41

By divorcing value from purpose and beneficiary, the theory makes value-judgements POINTLESS and ARBITRARY.

Question 42

Why then should men concern themselves with ethical issues?

Answer 42

The most common answer intrinsicist answer is: God (or some equivalent, like Kant’s noumenal self) has issued commandments, and it is man’s duty to obey them.

Question 43

Duty is not a synonym for “virtue.”

Answer 43

Duty means the moral necessity to perform certain actions for no reason other than obedience to some higher authority, without regard to any personal goal, motive, desire or interest. Such an approach means the severing of ethics both from reason and from values.

Question 44

When a man acts to achieve his values, said Kant, he is ...

Answer 44

AMORAL—He is outside the field of ethics.

Question 45

To deserve moral credit, in this view, a man must do his duty ...

Answer 45

Without reference to any personal goal or to any future effects on his own life and happiness. He must do his duty as an act of pure selflessness, simply because it is his duty. Kant calls this “acting from duty”.

Question 46

By its nature, a duty ethics DEFAULTS on the task of ethics.

Answer 46

Since it detaches virtues from values, it offers man NO GUIDANCE in the job of living.

Question 47

The crucial problems of human existence, the daily decisions men must make in regard to goals such as work, love, friendship, freedom, happiness—all this, ...

Answer 47

For the intrinsicist, is beside the point. Ethics, he believes, defines man’s obligations to the supernatural. It transcends what the vulgar call “real life.”

Question 48

Real life, however, remains a fact. It continues to demand a specific course of action.

Answer 48

Of rational, selfish action—which the duty advocates not only ignore but seek to countermand.

Question 49

The result is a moral code that is worse than useless, a code that dooms man to an unendurable dichotomy:

Answer 49

Virtue vs pleasure—one’s character vs one’s welfare—the moral vs the practical—ethics vs survival. It would be difficult to imagine a greater assault than this on man’s life, or a greater negation of morality.

Question 50

Although most people pay lip service to the duty approach, they know enough to resent it.

Answer 50

Hence the bad name which “the good” now has—the odor of BOREDOM, PAIN, and SENSELESSNESS that permeates the subject of morality in the public mind.

Question 51

The subjectivist school, to which we may now turn, holds that values, ...

Answer 51

Like concepts and definitions, are CREATIONS OF CONSCIOUSNESS INDEPENDENT OF REALITY.

Question 52

In this view, values ARE related to goals of men or other acting entities.

Answer 52

But no such goal, it is added, can be rational, NONE CAN HAVE A BASIS IN THE REALM OF FACT.

Question 53

The good, accordingly, is divorced from reason.

Answer 53

It is whatever the ARBITRARY desires of consciousness decree it to be. Hence there is NO SUCH THING as MORAL KNOWLEDGE. There is merely SUBJECTIVE PREFERENCE.

Question 54

Subjectivists of the social variety, despite their rejection of intrinsicism, also tend to advocate a duty approach to morality.

Answer 54

Since a human GROUP of some kind is the creator of reality, they believe, its members’ ARBITRARY wishes are the standard of right or wrong—to which the individual must conform.

Question 55

The GROUP thus assumes the prerogatives of the divine moral legislator of the intrinsicists, and ...

Answer 55

Self-sacrifice for society becomes the essence of virtue, replacing self-sacrifice for God.

Question 56

This approach, though offered to us as modern, is merely a SECULARIZED version of the ethics of religion.

Answer 56

To secularize an error is still to commit it.

Question 57

Subjectivism of the personal variety leads to a more distinctive (though equally false) ethics:

Answer 57

The irrationalist or whim-worshipping version of egoism, typified by the stand of the Sophists in the ancient world and of most Nietzscheans in the modern. ==> The consciousness of each individual is the creator of its own reality.

Question 58

Each man, therefore, must be guided by his own arbitrary feelings.

Answer 58

He must act to gratify HIS desires, WHATEVER they happen to be and WHATEVER the effects on other men (who are assumed to be acting in the same fashion).

Question 59

It follows that every man is a threat to every other.

Answer 59

The essence of human life is a CLASH of senseless passions, and one’s only hope is to cheat, crush, or enslave the rest of mankind before they do it to him.

Question 60

This is the theory that makes “selfishness” in the public mind a synonym for “evil.”

Answer 60

It is a theory that divorces “selfishness” from every intellectual requirement of man’s life. ==> In this approach, “selfishness” becomes the frantic shriek: “The good is whatever I feel is good for me, MURDER NOT EXCLUDED.”

Question 61

In reason and reality, such an attitude is the OPPOSITE of what self-interest requires.

Answer 61

But this does not deter a subjectivist. He jettisons reason and reality from the outset.

Question 62

Despite all their differences, intrinsicists and subjectivists agree on FUNDAMENTALS. This is true in ethics as in epistemology.

Answer 62

Ethical principles, both schools agree, are RATIONALLY INDEFENSIBLE. There is NO logical relationship between the facts of this world and value-judgements. MORALITY REQUIRES A MESSAGE FROM THE BEYOND. ==> One school then claims to have received such a message, while the other, rejecting this claim, throws out the whole field as noncognitive.

Question 63

Neither approach grasps man’s NEED of morality, neither can be practiced without pitting man AGAINST reality—...

Answer 63

And BOTH are eager to insist that no 3rd alternative is possible.

Question 64

When they hear about the Objectivist ethics, philosophy professors from both groups ask, as though by reflex, the same question:

Answer 64

“If the choice to live PRECEDES morality...what is the status of someone who chooses NOT to live?” Isn’t the choice of suicide as legitimate as any other, so long as one acts on it? And if so, doesn’t that mean that for Rand, too, as for Hume or Nietzsche, ethics, being the consequence of an arbitrary decision, is itself arbitrary?

Question 65

In answer to this—suicide IS sometimes justified.

Answer 65

Suicide is justified when man’s life, owing to circumstances OUTSIDE of a person’s control, is no longer possible. ==> A person with a painful terminal illness, or a prisoner in a concentration camp who sees no chance of escape. ==> In cases such as these, suicide is NOT necessarily a philosophic rejection of life or of reality.

Question 66

On the contrary, it may very well be their tragic reaffirmation. Self-destruction in such contexts may amount to the tortured cry:

Answer 66

Man’s life means so much to me that I will not settle for anything less. I will not accept A LIVING DEATH as a substitute.

Question 67

The professors I just quoted, however, have an entirely different case in mind. They seek to prove that values are ARBITRARY by citing a person who would commit suicide, not because of any tragic cause, but ...

Answer 67

As a PRIMARY and an end-in-itself. The answer to this one is: NO.

Question 68

A PRIMARY choice does NOT mean ...

Answer 68

An “ARBITRARY,” “WHIMSICAL,” or “GROUNDLESS” choice. There ARE grounds for a (certain) primary choice, and those grounds are REALITY—all of it.

Question 69

The choice to live, as we have seen, is ...

Answer 69

The choice to ACCEPT THE REALM OF REALITY. This choice is NOT ONLY ARBITRARY. It is the PRECONDITION of criticizing the arbitrary—it is the base of reason.

Question 70

A man who would throw away his life WITHOUT CAUSE, who would reject the universe ON PRINCIPLE and embrace a ZERO FOR ITS OWN SAKE—...

Answer 70

Such a man, according to Objectivism, would belong on the lowest rung of hell.

Question 71

His action would indicate so profound a hatred—of himself, of values, of reality—that he would have to be condemned by any ...

Answer 71

HUMAN being as a MONSTER.

Question 72

The moment he would announce his decision seriously he would be disqualified as an object of intellectual debate.

Answer 72

One cannot argue with or about a WALKING CORPSE—who has just consigned himself to the void—the void of the nonconscious, the nonethical, the NON-ANYTHING.

Question 73

Ethics IS conditional. Values are not intrinsic. But values are NOT subjective, either.

Answer 73

VALUES ARE OBJECTIVE.