Intro
“In spite of all their irrationalities, inconsistencies, hypocrisies and evasions, the
majority of men will not act, in major issues, without a sense of being morally right and
will not oppose the morality they have accepted. They will break it, they will cheat on it,
but they will not oppose it; and when they break it, they take the blame on themselves.
The power of morality is the greatest of all intellectual powers - and mankind's tragedy
lies in the fact that the vicious moral code men have accepted destroys them by means of
the best within them.” – Ayn Rand (Faith and Force).
The currently accepted ethical system in the world is altruism which states that
the goal of your life should be to live for others. You hear this hundreds of times a day
from a priest saying that you should sacrifice your life to God, to a politician saying “Ask
not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country” (JFK), to a
charity worker denouncing mankind for not devoting more of their time to starving
children, the poor, the ill, or any number of other causes. Objectivism, Ayn Rand’s
philosophic system, rejects this morality completely and states that man’s life is his to
live for his own happiness. In the next ten minutes I hope to explain the Objectivist
ethics, egoism, and give you a brief view of a morality that stresses the value of your life
and happiness instead of the value others supposedly receive when you sacrifice yourself
to them.
Body
I.
What is ethics and why do we need it?
A. “In order to live, man must act; in order to act, he must make choices;
in order to make choices, he must define a code of values; in order to
define a code of values, he must know what he is and where he is – i.e.
he must know his own nature (including his means of knowledge) and
the nature of the universe in which he acts.” – Ayn Rand
B. There is essentially one fundamental alternative: existence and nonexistence (Virtue of Selfishness - VOS)
i. The nonliving entities do not have to act to exist, whereas the
living entities have to act to remain in existence
ii. All life must perform actions to maintain its life or it will die.
iii. Lower life forms live automatically (plants will automatically
produce food and animals will know how to hunt).
iv. Man is born ‘tabula rasa’ (without any ideas) and does not
know how to survive. He must learn what is good for him and
what is not.
C. Man must develop a code of ethics (i.e. principles on which to live) to
survive
i. Man must think in principles because the nature of his mind
(conceptual) requires this
ii. Any short term ‘gain’ that is in the long term a loss is harmful
to man’s life and it is necessary to develop principles to know
what actions will be helpful and harmful in the long term.
[Transition: so what values should a person strive for?]
II.
Since man must act to gain values to stay alive what should he value?
(Objectivism: Philosophy of Ayn Rand)
A. What are values?
i. That which one acts to gain or keep
ii. There is one fundamental value: your own life
iii. Without it all other values are worthless
iv. A ‘value’ suggests a valuer, therefore for anything to be a value
it must be a value to someone; there are no intrinsic values
B. What should Man value?
i. The purpose of values is to remain alive and happy and the
only way Man can do that is through reason and the use of his
mind, therefore it is the primary value
ii. “To live, man must hold three things as a supreme and ruling
values of his life: Reason – Purpose – Self-esteem. Reason, as
his only tool of knowledge – Purpose, as his choice of the
happiness which that tool must proceed to achieve – Selfesteem, as his inviolate certainty that his mind is competent to
think and his person is worthy of happiness, which means is
worthy of living.” (The Ayn Rand Lexicon)
iii. The purpose of values (and ethics) is happiness, but you judge
them by the standard of your life. That which furthers your
own life is good, that which does not is bad.
1. This goes against Hedonism which says the purpose of
life is happiness and you judge what is good by how
happy it makes you.
iv. Virtues are how you achieve values and the primary virtues in
Objectivism are: Rationality, Productiveness, Pride,
Independence, Integrity, Honesty, Justice(VOS)
[Transition: Now that you know a little about Objectivist ethics (what are values,
why do you need them, what should we value) lets move ahead to what this
means in daily life.]
III.
Morality, Life, and Selfishness
A. All of Objectivist Ethics leads to Selfishness
i. You face the choice of life or death and must gain and keep
values to stay alive, therefore anything that harms your life is
bad
ii. This is why Objectivism sees rational Selfishness as a virtue
and self-sacrifice (or Altruism) as a vice
B. Selfishness does not mean being able to hold up a bank for money.
i. A person lives by reason and the use of their mind and must be
free to do this
ii. Objectivism is against the ‘initiation of force’ and views that as
an act of trying to live as a sub-human
C. Selfishness does mean you picking the goals in your life and striving
to achieve them, never compromising, and never trading a higher value
for a lower value (sacrifice)
i. Every person is an individual and has complete ownership over
their own person.
ii. Selfishness means being a SELF-respecting, SELF-supporting,
and SELF-motivated person
Conclusion
Now to end I’d like to read a quote from Atlas Shrugged so you can get a sense of
the emotions an Objectivist feels when thinking about morality.
“In the name of the best within you, do not sacrifice this world to those who are its worst.
In the name of the values that keep you alive, do not let your vision of man be distorted
by the ugly, the cowardly, the mindless in those who have never achieved his title. Do not
lose your knowledge that man's proper estate is an upright posture, an intransigent mind
and a step that travels unlimited roads. Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable
spark, in the hopeless swamps of the approximate, the not-quite, the not-yet, the not-atall. Do not let the hero in your soul perish, in lonely frustration for the life you deserved,
but have never been able to reach. Check your road and the nature of your battle"
The world you desired can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it's yours. But to win
it requires total dedication and a total break with the world of your past, with the doctrine
that man is a sacrificial animal who exists for the pleasure of others. Fight for the value of
your person. Fight for the virtue of your pride. Fight for the essence, which is man, for
his sovereign rational mind. Fight with the radiant certainty and the absolute rectitude of
knowing that yours is the morality of life and yours is the battle for any achievement, any
value, any grandeur, any goodness, any joy that has ever existed on this earth.
You will win when you are ready to pronounce the oath I have taken at the start of my
battle -- and for those who wish to know the day of my return, I shall now repeat it to the
hearing of the world:
"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."
(Atlas Shrugged)
Bibliography
Binswanger, Harry (1986). “The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism From A To Z” New
York: Penguin Group
Peikoff, Leanard (1991), “Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand” New York:
Penguin Group
Rand, Ayn (1958). “Atlas Shrugged” New York: Random House
Rand, Ayn (1982). "Faith and Force: The Destroyers of the Modern World," Philosophy:
Who Needs It. p81
Rand, Ayn (1961). “The Virtue of Selfishness” New York: Penguin Group