Objectivism 101

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Objectivism 101

• 14th Annual Summer Seminar
• of
• The Objectivist Center
• Diana Mertz Hsieh
• Lecture Three Life and Happiness
• Tuesday, July 1, 2003

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Objectivism 101 Schedule

1. Sunday Ayn Rand and Philosophy
2. Monday Reality and Reason
3. Tuesday Life and Happiness
4. Wednesday The Virtues
5. Thursday Individual Rights and Capitalism
6. Friday Art as Spiritual Fuel

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Ethics

• Ethics is the branch of philosophy defining the
  values and virtues that guide choices and action.
• The central questions of ethics
• What should I pursue in life?
• How should I pursue it?
• The What A value is that which one acts to gain
  and/or keep
• The How A virtue is the act by which one gains
  and/or keeps the value
• Is ethics amenable to rational demonstration?

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Why Do We Need Ethics?

• The most fundamental questions of ethics What
  are values? Why does man need them?
• Values are that which one acts to gain and/or
  keep
• Values presuppose a to whom? and for what?
• All living creatures face a fundamental
  alternative of life versus death
• The sustenance of life requires constant action
  in accordance with the organisms nature
• An organisms life is its ultimate value

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Ayn Rand on Life and Value

• Life can be kept in existence only by a constant
  process of self-sustaining action. The goal of
  that action, the ultimate value which, to be
  kept, must be gained through every moment, is the
  organisms life.
• An ultimate value is the final goal or end to
  which all lesser goals are the meansand it sets
  the standard by which all lesser goals are
  evaluated. An organisms life is its standard of
  value that which furthers its life is the good,
  that which threatens it is the evil.
• Ayn Rand, The Objectivist Ethics

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The Challenge for Humans

• Non-conscious organisms (plants and lower
  animals) survive by means of their automatic
  physical functions
• Non-rational organisms (higher animals) survive
  on the basis of perception, association, the
  pleasure/pain mechanism, learned skills, and so
  on
• Humans must use reason to discover how to sustain
  their lives in the short and long terms
• The life we pursue must be consonant with our
  distinct human needs, including those of the body
  and the mind

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The Nature of Happiness

• Happiness is that state of consciousness which
  proceeds from the achievement of ones values
• Happiness is the successful state of life,
  suffering is the warning signal of failure, of
  death

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Life and Happiness

• The maintenance of life and the pursuit of
  happiness are not two separate issues. To hold
  ones own life as ones ultimate value and ones
  own happiness as ones highest purpose are two
  aspects of the same achievement. Existentially,
  the activity of pursuing rational goals is the
  activity of maintaining ones life
  psychologically, its result, reward and
  concomitant is an emotional state of happiness.
  It is by experiencing happiness that one lives
  ones life, in any hour, year or the whole of it.
  And when one experiences the kind of pure
  happiness that is an end in itselfthe kind that
  makes one think This is worth living forwhat
  is greeting and affirming in emotional terms is
  the metaphysical fact that life is an end in
  itself.
• Ayn Rand, The Objectivist Ethics

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From Life to Egoism

• Life is the ultimate value and thus the standard
  of value
• Happiness is the reward for a moral life and the
  purpose of life
• The Objectivist ethics is a form of egoism

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Self-Interest

• We always ought to pursue our long-term
  self-interest
• How do we determine what is in our self-interest?
  What values and virtues will promote our life
  and happiness?
• Three answers
• Authority Follow the tried and true
• Emotion Do whatever makes you happy
• Reason Just the facts, maam
• We ought to determine our values and virtues
  through a rational investigation of human nature
  and the world

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Values of Life and Happiness

• Rational values are the things that act to gain
  and/or keep consistent with life as ultimate
  value
• Material values
• Food, shelter, medicine, wealth, water
• Spiritual values
• Art, philosophy, self-confidence, knowledge,
  creativity
• Social values
• Friendship, dissemination of knowledge, trade,
  love

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Virtues of Life and Happiness

• Rational virtues are the characteristic means by
  which we achieve values that promote life
• The eight major Objectivist virtues
• Rationality
• Productiveness
• Independence
• Honesty
• Justice
• Benevolence
• Integrity
• Pride

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Moral Principles

• We determine self-interest through reason
• Moral principles are general ethical truths
• We need moral principles in order to make ethical
  choices quickly and accurately
• Moral principles identify the long-range goals
  and means of achieving them that promote life and
  happiness in the usual circumstances of life

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Integration in Ethics

• The Objectivist ethics unifies
• The moral and the practical
• Theory and practice
• Reason and emotion
• More generally, Objectivism rejects the
  mind-body dichotomy

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Social Ethics

• Social ethics concerns our interactions with
  other people
• How should we interact with other people?

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The Necessity of Sacrifice?

• Option One
• Sacrifice others to yourself
• Might makes right
• Mastery over others
• Egoism?!?
• Inherent conflicts of interest

• Option Two
• Sacrifice yourself to others
• Service to others
• Servitude to others
• Altruism
• Inherent conflicts of interest

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Option Three Trade

• Values (including wealth) can be created and
  destroyed
• There are no necessary conflicts of interest for
  those who live by production and trade
• Trade is voluntary exchange to mutual benefit
• Trades can be material and/or spiritual

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The Ethic of the Trader

• A trader is a man who earns what he gets and
  does not give or take the undeserved. He does not
  treat men as masters or slaves, but as
  independent equals. He deals with men by means of
  a free, voluntary, unforced, uncoerced exchange -
  an exchange which benefits both parties by their
  own independent judgment. A trader does not
  expect to be paid for his defaults, only for his
  achievements. He does not switch to others the
  burden of his failures, and he does not mortgage
  his life into bondage to the failures of others.
• Ayn Rand, The Objectivist Ethics

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John Galts Oath

• The Oath of Galts Gulch I swearby 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.
• In social ethics, Objectivism advocates
• Not sacrificing of others to oneself
• Not sacrificing of oneself to others
• But creating and trading values

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The Summary of Ethics

• The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to
  suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live.
• Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

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Todays Topics

• Ethics
• The purpose of ethics
• Life as the ultimate value and standard of value
• Happiness as the reward for a moral life and
  purpose of life
• Rational self-interest
• Values, virtues, and moral principles
• Integration (of mind and body) in ethics
• Sacrifice versus production and trade