Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical (44 page)

Rand’s resolution, by contrast, seeks to
transcend
one-sided “giving” and one-sided “taking.” She argued that such distortions are not proof of human immorality, but of the kinds of moralities that people have been taught. In Rand’s view, people have tacitly obeyed these cultural and moral ideals. They have divided themselves into masters and slaves, while being united by their reciprocal dependency.
¹⁸
She proposed to transcend such
dualism
by looking once again at the fact-value distinction. She did not envision the absorption of all values into facts, or all facts into values. She argued instead that values are a kind of fact emerging from an
objective
relation between
existence
and human
consciousness
. Just as she preserved the internality of existence and consciousness, so she preserved the internality of fact and value. In both cases, she emphasized the primacy of existence and the primacy of fact, which leads to the necessity for values. As she put it:

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, in this context, means: derived from the facts of reality and validated by a process of reason.) The objective theory holds that
the good is an aspect of reality in relation to man
—and that it must be discovered, not invented, by man.
¹⁹

Values
cannot be separated from the valuer and the valuer’s purposes. Conventional
ethics
fracture the relationship between “actor and beneficiary.” Rand sought to unite these elements, reasserting the “
right to a moral
existence
.” She argued that only morality can serve as a guide to the achievement of one’s ultimate goals. For Rand, we “
must be the beneficiary of
[our]
own moral
actions
,” because it is only through such principles that we can survive and flourish as human beings (
Virtue of Selfishness,
viii–x).

LIFE
AND VALUE

At the foundation of her ethical system, Rand remained true to her dialectical roots. She traced an internal relationship between
life and
value, such that neither phenomenon is possible in the absence of the other. The pursuit of values is not possible without the
context
provided by life, which is both the existential basis—and the ultimate value—constituting the relationship.

While preparing
Atlas Shrugged
, Rand wrote in her journal, that we are born as abstractions with our reason serving as our guide. Our lives are a process in which we concretize and create our selves through our own efforts. For Rand, life and self-preservation were synonymous. Since everything in the universe has identity, a person’s nature encompasses capacities and needs that are specific to the human character. To perform the activity of living as human beings, we must pursue our own self-preservation by the means distinctly available to us. The individual must live consciously, Rand explained, since “the essence and tool of his life is his mind.”
²⁰
Thus, an
epistemological
insight serves as the departure for ethical theory.

Rand argued that in the history of normative philosophy the primary question of ethics has usually been: What values ought one to pursue? But for Rand, to begin ethical inquiry with this question is to commit the
fallacy
of
reification
. Rand explained that most philosophers have taken the existence of ethics for granted, reifying the historically given codes of morality, but never considering their existential foundation.
²¹

Ethicists cannot debate the value alternatives without asking a more fundamental question: Why are values necessary for human existence? Rand began her investigation by exploring the epistemological roots of the concept of “value.” She defined a value as “that which one acts to gain and/or keep.” The concept itself is not axiomatic; it is both
relational
and contextual. It requires an answer to the twofold question “of value to whom and for what?” The concept “presupposes an entity capable of acting to achieve a goal in the face of an alternative. Where no alternative exists, no goals and no values are possible.”

The basic alternative that every living organism must face is its own existence or nonexistence. The sustenance of
life
requires activity on the
part of the organism.
Life
as such “is a process of self-sustaining and self-generated
action
.… It is only the concept of ‘Life’ that makes the concept of ‘Value’ possible. It is only to a living entity that things can be good or evil.”
²²

In this formulation, Rand traced the internal
relations
between three conceptual couplings: life and value, life and action, value and action. Just as life and value entail each other, so too do life and action. Binswanger explains that the relationship between life and action is reciprocal. Not only is the survival of life contingent upon the action of an organism, but action is itself conditional upon life; “A dead organism cannot act.”
²³
This same reciprocal dependency is noted between the categories of value and human action. As Nathaniel Branden ([1969] 1979) argues: “Value and
action
imply and necessitate each other” (26). The achievement and maintenance of a value requires a specific course of action, while the motive and purpose behind a consciously initiated action is the achievement and maintenance of a value.

The specific actions and goals an organism must undertake to achieve the sustenance of its own life are determined by the specific kind of entity that the organism is. Plants, animals, and human beings have distinct needs dictated by their distinct identities. The ultimate context—and goal—that conditions the needs and actions of the entity is the entity’s life. Just as existence cannot be validated by reference to anything beyond itself, neither can life be sustained by reference to a standard that transcends it. Since life is not the means to a supernatural realm, it is the means to its own end. It is “an
end in itself
.” Life “makes the existence of
values
possible.” It is an ultimate value because people must act to gain and keep it by a process that only life makes viable. In Rand’s view: “Metaphysically,
life
is the only phenomenon that is an end in itself: a value gained and kept by a constant process of action. Epistemologically, the concept of ‘value’ is genetically dependent upon and derived from the antecedent concept of ‘life.’ To speak of ‘value’ as apart from ‘life’ is worse than a contradiction in terms.”
²⁴

Rand transcended the fact-value dichotomy by claiming that “the
fact
that a living entity
is
, determines what it
ought
to do.” Rand affirmed the Aristotelian belief that actuality precedes potentiality.
²⁵
What a thing
is
determines what it can and will become. Just as Rand’s
ontology
dictates that “to be” is “to be something,” so her
ethics
demand that for something “to be,” it must act in accordance with what it is—that is, in accordance with its specific nature. And as Rand’s epistemology views human beings as entities possessing free will, so her ethics demand that for human beings “to be” human beings, they must
choose
to act
rationally
. But unlike other organisms, human beings
can
act against their nature; they can act
ir
rationally.

Beginning with an integrated, expansive concept of human
reason
, Rand attempted to develop and validate a rational code of
values
. She argued that there is in fact an
awareness
of
“good”
and “
evil
” even on a primitive, sensorial level. In the pleasure-pain mechanism, we first become aware of those things which are “for” us and “against” us. Our
sensations
and
perceptions
are the foundation of our cognitive and evaluative development. But sensations of pleasure and pain are automatized responses, “an automatic form of knowledge,” which a human
consciousness
cannot avoid experiencing. Our distinctive modes of sensual, perceptual, and
conceptual
awareness are our integrated means of surviving in the world. And since we have free will, we must choose to think and raise our mental focus if we are to sustain our lives.
²⁶

Thus the science of
ethics
is “an
objective
, metaphysical necessity
of …
survival
” (23). It satisfies a practical need that we cannot avoid. By accepting a code of principles to guide our
actions
, we consciously—or tacitly—accept a code of morality. In Rand’s system, a genuinely objective moral code emerges from ontological and epistemological premises. The standard of an objective morality is “man’s
life
,
or: that which is required for man’s survival qua man. Since reason is man’s basic means of survival, that which is proper to the life of a rational being is the good; that which negates, opposes or destroys it is the evil” (ibid.).

Just as Rand proposed an expansive concept of reason, so too, she proposed an expansive concept of what it means to live as a rational being. One cannot evaluate her concept of good and evil outside this context. For us to survive as human beings, we must not aim for “a
momentary
or a merely
physical
survival.” Nor can we survive through purely sensual or perceptual means. We have a
conceptual
consciousness, which shapes the “terms, methods, conditions and goals” that our survival requires, “in all those aspects of existence which are open to [our] choice.” Thus the abstract standard of value—our lives as human beings—is concretized on the individual level, as each of us pursues his or her own life as the ethical purpose of our existence. To survive, to fulfill and enjoy our own lives as integrated “continuous whole[s],” each of us must choose among actions, values, and goals according to the objective standards that our lives as human beings require (24).
²⁷

At this point, it is necessary to examine Rand’s proposed link between
life
and value in much greater detail. Her theory has been the subject of extensive scholarly discussion.
Nozick
, O’Neill, and other philosophers have not focused extensively on Rand’s main contention that the choice to live necessitates a guiding code of
values
.
²⁸
Rather, the critics question why anyone
should
choose to live. Why could not “death” be the ultimate
standard of value? Such Rand-influenced thinkers as Nathaniel Branden and
John Hospers
have responded to this query in a similar manner: To choose death as the ultimate standard of value distorts the very concept of value. Since value is that which one acts to gain and/or keep, death cannot qualify as a value per se. Death does not require any action at all; it demands nothing active. Thus issues of morality cannot be discussed if they are divorced from the very concept of life that provides the context for values. It is life that gives the notion of value any meaning.
²⁹

And yet even among those who are inclined to accept Rand’s contention, there is the belief that this argument is marred by a form of
circularity
.
Merrill
, for instance, argues that Rand seems to be using the concept of value in her understanding of the concept of life itself. At the base of her ethics, Rand seems to employ the same “
stolen
concept” arguments that are apparent in her defense of ontological axioms. By challenging the principle that life is the standard of moral values, one must be alive in order to raise the objection. If life were not the standard of morality, then the critic would be involved in a logical contradiction by questioning that which he implicitly accepts by the very fact of his continued existence (Merrill 1991, 101).

But Rasmussen has argued further that the mere presence of a logical contradiction in the critic’s challenge begs the question of why a person ought not to commit contradictions. Rasmussen wonders too: “Is life a value because we choose it, or do we choose it because it is a value?” For Rasmussen, the choice to live seems to be based on an arational commitment, outside the province of Rand’s ethics.
³⁰

It appears that even the friendly critics have pinpointed a difficult problem at the foundation of Rand’s ethical system. But such theorists as
Gotthelf
, Peikoff, and Binswanger have each argued that these questions are not fatal to the Objectivist approach. Gotthelf answers Rasmussen’s questions directly. He argues that in strict terms, life is not a value because we choose it, nor do we choose life because it is a value. For Gotthelf, as for Rand, there are no human values apart from human choice. But this does not imply that life is an ultimate value simply because we have chosen it to be so. It is in the nature of life that an individual’s choice to live simultaneously concretizes that person’s own life as the only rational, ultimate value within his or her grasp. In Gotthelf’s opinion: