Daily Archives: March 9, 2017

From The Objective Standard, Vol. 7, No. 2.

This essay is part of a compilation ebook, Objectivism, available at Amazon.com.

Authors note: This is an expanded version of a talk Ive delivered on various college campuses over the past several years.

Because of its seemingly prophetic nature with respect to current events, Ayn Rands 1957 novel Atlas Shrugged is receiving more attention and selling at greater volume today than it did when it was first published fifty-five years ago. Thats a good thing, because the ideas set forth in Atlas are crucial to personal happiness, social harmony, and political freedom.

Atlas Shrugged is first and foremost a brilliant suspense story about a man who said he would stop the motor of the world and did. But the book is much more than a great novel. Integrated into the story is a revolutionary philosophya philosophy not for pie-in-the-sky debates or academic word games or preparing for an afterlife, but for understanding reality, achieving values, and living on earth.

Rands philosophy, which she named Objectivism, includes a view of the nature of reality, of mans means of knowledge, of mans nature and means of survival, of a proper morality, of a proper social system, and of the nature and value of art. It is a comprehensive philosophy, which, after writing Atlas Shrugged, Rand elaborated in several nonfiction books. But it all came together initially in Atlas, in which Rand dramatized her philosophyalong with the ideas that oppose it.

While writing Atlas, Rand made a journal entry in which she said, My most important job is the formulation of a rational morality of and for man, of and for his life, of and for this earth.1 She proceeded to formulate just such a morality, and to show what it means in practice.

Tonight, were going to focus on the morality presented in Atlas Shrugged, but I want to do so without spoiling the novel for those of you who havent yet read it. And since it is impossible to say much of substance about Atlas without giving away key elements of its plot and the mystery of the novel, Im going to limit my discussion of the book to a brief indication of its plotwithout giving away anything pivotalafter which Ill discuss Rands morality of egoism directly.

Atlas Shrugged is a story about a future world in which the entire globe, with the exception of America, has fallen under the rule of various Peoples States or dictatorships. America, the only country that is not yet fully socialized, is sliding rapidly in that direction, as it increasingly accepts the ideas that lead to dictatorship, ideas such as self-sacrifice is noble, self-interest is evil, and greedy producers and businessmen have a moral obligation to serve the greater good of society.

Given this cultural climate, the economy becomes increasingly regulated by the government, and the country slides further and further into economic chaos: Factories shut down, trains stop running, businesses close their doors, people starvejust what you would expect if the U.S. government started acting like the government of the USSR.

But then, something strange starts happening. Americas top producersvarious scientists, inventors, businessmen, and artistsstart to disappear. One by one, they simply vanish. And no one knows where theyve gone or why.

Consequently, the supply of goods and servicesfrom scientific discoveries to copper to wheat to automobiles to oil to medicine to entertainmentreduces to a trickle and eventually comes to a halt. Life as Americans once knew it ceases to exist. The country is in ruins.

Where did the producers go and why? Were they killed? Were they kidnapped? Do they return? How is this resolved?

Read the book. Youll be riveted.

As I said, I dont want to give away the story, but I will mention its theme. The theme of Atlas Shrugged is the role of the mind in mans existence. The novel dramatizes the fact that the reasoning mind is the basic source of the values on which human life depends. And this is not only the theme of Atlas; it is also the essence of Rands philosophy of Objectivism: Reasonthe faculty that operates by means of observation, concepts, and logicis the source of all knowledge, values, and prosperity.

In this same vein, the theme of my talk tonight is the role of the mindspecifically your mindin understanding, evaluating, and embracing a moral code.

Suppose you are offered two moral codes from which to chooseand whichever one you choose, you have to live by it for the rest of your life. The first code tells you that your life is supremely importantthat it is properly the single most important thing in the world to you. This code says that you should live a wonderful, joy-filled life, and it provides an abundance of guidance about how to do so: how to make your life great; how to choose your goals, organize your values, and prioritize the things that are important to you; how to succeed in school, in friendships, and in romance; how to choose a career that youll love and how to succeed in it. And so on. In short, this first moral code provides you guidance for achieving a lifetime of happiness and prosperity.

The second moral code offers an entirely different kind of guidance. It tells you not that you should live a wonderful life, not that you should pursue and achieve your goals and valuesbut, rather, that your life is unimportant, that you should sacrifice your values, that you should give them up for the sake of others, that you should abandon the pursuit of personal happiness and accept the kind of life that results from doing so. Thats it. Thats the guidance provided by the second code.

All else being equal, which moral code would you chooseand why?

I suspect that, on serious reflection, you would choose the first code. I further suspect that your reasoning would be something on the order of: Were talking about my life here. If its true that embracing the first code will make my life wonderful, and embracing the second will make it miserable, then this is a no-brainer.

I think thats good reasoning. Lets see if it holds up under scrutiny as we flesh out the respective natures and implications of these two codes.

The first code is Rands morality of rational egoism, which lies at the heart of Atlas Shrugged and is the centerpiece of Objectivism. The second code is the traditional ethics of altruismwhich is the cause of all the trouble in Atlas Shrugged and is the ethics on which we all were raised. In order to be clear about what Rands egoism is, I want to compare and contrast it with altruism. This will serve to highlight the value of Rands ideas and help to dispel potential misconceptions about her views. It will also show how destructive altruism is and why we desperately need to replace it with rational egoismboth personally and culturally. (I will be using the terms egoism and rational egoism interchangeably for reasons that will become clear as we proceed.)

Let me stress that I cannot present the whole of Rands morality in one eveningthat would be impossible. What Im going to do is just indicate its essence, by discussing a few of its key principles. My aim is to show you that there is something enormously important heresomething important to your life and happinessand to inspire you to look further into the subject on your own.

To begin, observe that each of you brought a morality with you tonight. It is right there in your headwhether you are conscious of it or not. Each of you has a set of ideas about what is good and bad, right and wrongabout what you should and shouldnt do. And you refer to these ideas, implicitly or explicitly, when making choices and taking actions in your daily life. Should I study for the test, or cheat on it, or not worry about it? What career should I chooseand how should I choose it? Is environmentalism a good movement or a bad one? What should I do this weekend? How should I spend my time? Whom should I befriend? Whom can I trust? Is homosexuality wrong? Does a fetus have rights? What is the proper way to deal with terrorists?

The answers one gives to such questions depend on ones morality. This is what a morality is: a set of ideas and principles to guide ones choices, evaluations, and actions.

Because as human beings we have to make choicesbecause we have free willa morality of some kind is unavoidable to us. Morality is truly inescapable. Our only choice in this regard is whether we acquire our morality through conscious deliberationor by default, through social osmosis.

If we acquire our morality by default, we will most likely accept the dominant morality in the culture today: altruismthe idea that being moral consists in being selfless. Dont be selfish!Put others first!It is more blessed to give than to receive.Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.Volunteer to serve in your community.Sacrifice for the greater good. And so on.

This is the morality that surrounded all of us growing upand that still surrounds us today. It is the morality taught in church, synagogue, and schooloffered in books, movies, and on TVand encouraged by most parents.

Interestingly, however, although our culture is steeped in this morality, the actual meaning of altruism, in the minds of most people, is quite vague. Is a doctor acting altruistically when he cares for his patients? Or is he seeking to gain from doing so? Are parents being altruistic when they pay for their childrens education? Or is it in their best interest to do so? Are American soldiers acting altruistically when they defend our freedom? Or is defending our freedom in their self-interest? Are you acting altruistically when you throw a birthday party for your best friend? Or do you do so because he or she is a great value to youand thus, something is in it for you?

What exactly is the difference between self-less action and self-interested action? What is the difference between altruism and egoism?

To understand how each differs from the other, we need to understand the basic theory of each code and what each calls for in practice. To begin clarifying this issue, let us turn first to altruism.

Altruism is the morality that holds self-sacrificial service as the standard of moral value and as the sole justification for ones existence. Here, in the words of altruistic philosopher W. G. Maclagan, is the basic principle: According to altruism, the moral importance of being alive lies in its constituting the condition of our ability to serve ends that are not reducible to our personal satisfactions.2 This means that the moral importance of your life corresponds to your acts of selflessnessacts that do not satisfy your personal needs. Insofar as you do not act selflessly, your life has no moral significance. Quoting Maclagan again, altruism holds that we have a duty to relieve the stress and promote the happiness of our fellows. . . . [We] should discount altogether [our] own pleasure or happiness as such when . . . deciding what course of action to pursue. . . . [Our] own happiness is, as such, a matter of no moral concern to [us] whatsoever.3

Ayn Rand was not exaggerating when she said, The basic principle of altruism is that man has no right to exist for his own sake, that service to others is the only justification of his existence, and that self-sacrifice is his highest moral duty, virtue, and value.4 That is the theoretical meaning of altruism. And the altruistic philosophers know itand state it forthrightly. (Well hear from more of them a little later.)

Now, what does altruism mean in practice? Suppose a person accepts altruism as true and strives to practice it consistently. What will become of his life?

A widely-used college philosophy text gives us a good indication. As I read this passage, bear in mind that this is not someone speaking for or against altruism. This is just a textbook writers depiction of what altruism means in practice.

A pure altruist doesnt consider her own welfare at all but only that of others. If she had a choice between an action that would produce a great benefit for herself (such as enabling her to go to college) and an action that would produce no benefit for herself but a small benefit for someone else (such as enabling him to go to a concert this evening), she should do the second. She should be selfless, considering herself not at all: she should face death rather than subject another person to a minor discomfort. She is committed to serving others only and to pass up any benefits to herself.5

That illustrates the practical meaning of altruismand indicates why no one practices it consistently.

Observe, however, that whether practiced consistently or inconsistently, the basic principle of altruism remains the same: The only moral justification of your existence is self-sacrificial service to others. That some people subscribe to altruism but fail to uphold it consistently does not make their moral code different in kind from that of a person who practices it consistently; the difference is only one of degree. The consistent altruist is acting with a bizarre form of integritythe kind of integrity that leads to his suffering and death. The inconsistent altruist is acting with plain-old hypocrisyalbeit a necessary hypocrisy given his moral code.

And not only is the altruists morality the same in kind; the consequences of accepting it are the same in kind, too. To the extent that a person acts selflessly, he thereby thwarts his life and happiness. He might not die because of it, but he certainly will not live fully; he will not make the most of his life; he will not achieve the kind of happiness that is possible to him.

Have you accepted the principle of altruism? If so, how is it affecting your life?

Have you ever done something for the sake of othersat the expense of what you really thought was best for your own life? For instance: Have you ever accepted an invitation to dine with someone whose company you do not enjoybecause you didnt want to hurt his or her feelings? Have you ever skipped an eventsuch as a ski trip or a weekend at the beach with your friendsin order to spend time with family members youd really rather not see? Have you ever remained in a relationship that you know is not in your best interestbecause you think that he or she couldnt handle the breakup?

Conversely, have you ever felt guilty for not sacrificing for others? Have you ever felt ashamed for doing something that was in your own best interest? For instance, have you felt guilty for not giving change to a beggar on a street corner? Or guilty for pursuing a degree in business or art or something you loverather than doing something allegedly noble, such as joining the Peace Corps?

These are just some of the consequences of accepting the morality of altruism.

Altruism is not good for your life: If you practice it consistently, it leads to death. Thats what Jesus did. If you accept it and practice it inconsistently, it retards your life and leads to guilt. This is what most altruists do.

Rational egoism, as the name suggests, and as we will see, is good for your life. It says that you should pursue your life-serving values and should not sacrifice yourself for the sake of others. Practiced consistently, it leads to a life of happiness. Practiced inconsistentlywell, why be inconsistent here? Why not live a life of happiness? Why sacrifice at all? What reason is there to do so? (We will address the profound lack of an answer to this question later.)

At this point, we can begin to see why Rand called altruism The Morality of Death. To fully grasp why it is the morality of death, however, we must understand that the essence of altruism is not serving others but self-sacrifice. So I want to reiterate this point with emphasis.

Altruism does not call merely for serving others; it calls for self-sacrificially serving others. Otherwise, Michael Dell would have to be considered more altruistic than Mother Teresa. Why? Because Michael Dell serves millions more people than Mother Teresa ever did.

There is a difference, of course, in the way he serves people. Whereas Mother Teresa served people by exchanging her time and effort for nothing, Michael Dell serves people by trading with themby exchanging value for value to mutual advantagean exchange in which both sides gain.

Trading value for value is not the same thing as giving up values for nothing. There is a black-and-white difference between pursuing values and giving them upbetween achieving values and relinquishing thembetween exchanging a lesser value for a greater oneand vice versa.

In an effort to make their creed seem more palatable, pushers of altruism will try to blur this distinction in your mind. It is important not to let them get away with it. Dont be duped!

Altruists claim, for instance, that parents sacrifice when they pay for their children to attend college. But this is ridiculous: Presumably, parents value their childrens education more than they value the money they spend on it. If so, then the sacrifice would be for them to forgo their childrens education and spend the money on a lesser valuesuch as a Ferrari.

Altruists also claim that romantic love requires sacrifices. But this is ridiculous, too: Honey, Id really rather be with another woman, but here I am sacrificially spending my time with you. Or: Id really rather have spent this money on a new set of golf clubs, but instead I sacrificially bought you this necklace for your birthday. Or: Its our anniversaryso Im fixing you your favorite dish for a candlelit dinnereven though Id rather be playing poker with the guys.

Is that love? Only if love is sacrificial.

Altruists also claim that American soldiers sacrifice by serving in the military. Not so. Our non-drafted soldiers serve for a number of self-interested reasons. Here are three: (1) They serve for the same reason that the Founding Fathers formed this countrybecause they value liberty, because they realize that liberty is a requirement of human life, which is the reason why Patrick Henry ended his famous speech with Give me Liberty or give me Death! His was not an ode to sacrifice; it was an ode to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. (2) Our soldiers serve in exchange for payment and educationwhich are clearly in their self-interest. (3) They serve because they are fascinated by military science and want to make a career of itanother selfish motive.

Do some of these soldiers die in battle? Unfortunately, yes. Theirs is a dangerous job. But American soldiers dont willfully give up their lives: They dont walk out on the battlefield and say, Shoot me! Nor do they strap bombs to their bodies and detonate themselves in enemy camps. On the contrary, they do everything they can to beat the enemy, win the war, and remain aliveeven when the Bush and Obama administrations tie their hands with altruistic restrictions on how they can fight.

The point is that a sacrifice is not any choice or action that precludes some other choice or action. A sacrifice is not any old exchange. A sacrifice is, as Rand put it, the surrender of a greater value for the sake of a lesser one or of a non-value.6

Whether or not one is committing a sacrifice depends on what is more important and what is less important to ones life. To make this determination, of course, one must know the relative importance of ones values in regard to ones life. But if one does establish this hierarchy, one can proceed non-sacrificiallyand consistently so.

For example, if you know that your education is more important to your life than is, say, a night on the town with your friends, then if you stay home in order to study for a crucial examrather than going out with your buddiesthat is not a sacrifice. The sacrifice would be to hit the town and botch the exam.

Life requires that we regularly forgo lesser values for the sake of greater ones. But these are gains, not sacrifices. A sacrifice consists in giving up something that is more important for the sake of something that is less important; thus, it results in a net loss.

Altruism, the morality of self-sacrifice, is the morality of personal lossand it does not countenance personal gain. This is not a caricature of altruism; it is the essence of the morality. As arch-altruist Peter Singer (the famed utilitarian philosopher at Princeton University) explains, to the extent that [people] are motivated by the prospect of obtaining a reward or avoiding a punishment, they are not acting altruistically. . . .7 Arch-altruist Thomas Nagel (a philosophy professor at New York University) concurs: Altruism entails a willingness to act in consideration of the interests of other persons, without the need of ulterior motivesulterior motives meaning, of course, personal gains.8

To understand the difference between egoistic action and altruistic action, we must grasp the difference between a trade and a sacrificebetween a gain and a lossand we must not allow altruists to blur this distinction in our mind. Egoism, as we will see, calls for personal gains. Altruism, as we have seen, calls for personal losses.

Now, despite its destructive nature, altruism is accepted to some extent by almost everyone today. Of course, no one upholds it consistentlyat least not for long. Rather, most people accept it as trueand then cheat on it.

All the major religionsChristianity, Judaism, Islamadvocate altruism; their holy books demand it. All so-called secular humanist philosophiesutilitarianism, postmodernism, egalitarianismcall for altruism as well. (Note that secular humanists do not call themselves secular egoists or secular individualists.)

Alter is Latin for other; altruism means other-ism; it holds that you should sacrifice for others. From the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim points of view, the significant others are God and the poor; in the Old Testament, for instance, God says: I command you to be openhanded toward your brothers and toward the poor and needy in your land (Deuteronomy 15:11). From the utilitarian point of view, the other is everyone in general; the utilitarian principle is the greatest good for the greatest number. From the postmodern and egalitarian points of view, the other is anyone with less wealth or opportunity than you have; in other words, the better off you are, the more you should sacrifice for othersthe worse off you are, the more others should sacrifice for you.

Sacrifice. Sacrifice. Sacrifice. Everyone believes it is the moral thing to do. And no philosopher has been willing to challenge this idea.

Except Ayn Rand:

[T]here is one worda single wordwhich can blast the morality of altruism out of existence and which it cannot withstandthe word: Why? Why must man live for the sake of others? Why must he be a sacrificial animal? Why is that the good? There is no earthly reason for itand, ladies and gentlemen, in the whole history of philosophy no earthly reason has ever been given.9

On examination, this is true. No reason has ever been given as to why people should sacrifice for others. Of course, alleged reasons have been given, but not legitimate ones. So lets consider the alleged reasonsof which there are approximately sixeach of which involves a logical fallacy.

1. You should sacrifice because God (or some other voice from another dimension) says so. This is not a reasoncertainly not an earthly one. At best, it is an appeal to authoritythat is, to the authorities who claim to speak for God. Just because a preacher or a book makes a claim does not mean the claim is true. The Bible claims, among other things, that a bush spoke. More fundamentally, this non-reason is an arbitrary claim because there is no evidence for the existence of a god. But even those who believe in a god can recognize the fallacy of appealing to an authority.

2. You should sacrifice because thats the general consensus. This is not a reason but an appeal to the masses. Matters of truth and morality are not determined by consensus. That slavery should be legal used to be the general consensus in America, and is still the consensus in parts of Africa. That did not and does not make it so. Nor does consensus legitimize the notion that you or anyone else should sacrifice or be sacrificed.

3. You should sacrifice because other people need the benefit of your sacrifice. This is an appeal to pity. Even if other people did need the benefit of your sacrifice, it would not follow that this is a reason to sacrifice. More importantly, however, the notion that people need the benefit of your sacrifice is false. What people need is to produce values and to trade them with others who produce values. And to do so, they and others must be free to produce and trade according to their own judgment. This, not human sacrifice, is what human life requires. (Ill touch on the relationship between freedom and egoism a little later.)

4. You should sacrifice because if you dont, you will be beaten, or fined, or thrown in jail, or in some other way physically assaulted. The threat of force is not a reason; it is the opposite of a reason. If the force wielders could offer a reason why you should sacrifice, then they would not have to use force; they could use persuasion instead of coercion.

5. You should sacrifice because, well, when you grow up or wise up youll see that you should. This is not a reason, but a personal attack and an insult. It says, in effect, If you dont see the virtue of sacrifice, then youre childish or stupidas if demanding a reason in support of a moral conviction could indicate a lack of maturity or intelligence.

6. You should sacrifice because only a miscreant or a scoundrel would challenge this established fact. This kind of claim assumes that you regard others opinions of you as more important than your own judgment of truth. It is also an example of what Ayn Rand called The Argument from Intimidation: the attempt to substitute psychological pressure for rational argument. Like the personal attack, it is an attempt to avoid having to present a rational case for a position for which no rational case can be made.

Thats it. Such are the reasons offered in support of the claim that you should sacrifice. Dont take my word for it; ask around. Ask your philosophy professors. Ask a priest or rabbi. You will find that all the reasons offered are variants of theseeach of which, so far from being a reason, is a textbook logical fallacy. (Most even have fancy Latin names.)

Ayn Rand demanded reasons for her convictions. So should we.

She set out to discover a rational moralityone based on observable facts and logic. Rather than starting with the question Which of the existing codes of value should I accept?she began with the question, What are values and why does man need them? This question pointed her away from the established viewsand toward the facts of reality.

Looking at reality, Rand observed that a value is that which one acts to gain or keep. You can see the truth of this in your own life: You act to gain and keep money; you value it. You act to gain and keep good grades; you value them. You act to choose and develop a fulfilling career. You seek to meet the right guy or girl and build a wonderful relationship. And so on.

Looking at reality, Rand also saw that only living organisms take self-generated, goal-directed action. Trees, tigers, and people take actions toward goals. Rocks, rivers, and hammers do not. Trees, for example, extend their roots into the ground and their branches and leaves toward the sky; they value nutrients and sunlight. Tigers hunt antelope, and nap under trees; they value food and shade. And people act to gain their values, such as nutrition, education, a career, romance, and so on.

Further, Rand saw that the ultimate reason living organisms take such actions is to further their life. She discovered that an organisms life is its ultimate goal and standard of valueand that mans life is the standard of moral value: the standard by which one judges what is good and what is evil. Mans lifemeaning: that which is required to sustain and further the life of a human beingconstitutes the standard of moral value.

Now, the validation of the principle that life is the standard of value has a number of aspects, and we dont have time to consider all of them tonight. For our purposes here, I want to focus briefly on just a few.

By pursuing the question Why does man need values?Ayn Rand kept her thinking fact-oriented. If man needs values, then the reason he needs them will go a long way toward establishing which values are legitimate and which are not. If man doesnt need values, well, then, he doesnt need themand there is no point in pursuing the issue at all. What Rand discovered is that man does need valuesand the reason he needs them is in order to live. Life, she discovered, is the ultimate goal of our actions; life is the final end toward which all our other values are properly the means.

Granted, because we have free will we can take antilife actionsand, as we have seen, altruism senselessly calls for us to do just that. But the point is that we dont need to take antilife actions, unless we want to diein which case, we dont really need to take any action at all. We dont need to do anything in order to die; if thats what we want, we can simply stop acting altogether and we will soon wither away.

If we want to live, however, we must pursue life-serving valuesand we must do so by choice.

Free will enables us to choose our values. This is what gives rise to the field of morality. Morality is the realm of chosen values. But whatever our choices, these facts remain: The only reason we can pursue values is because we are alive, and the only reason we need to pursue values is in order to live.

This two-pronged principle of Rands philosophy is essential to understanding how the Objectivist morality is grounded in the immutable facts of reality: (1) Only life makes values possiblesince nonliving things cannot pursue values; and (2) only life makes values necessarysince only living things need to pursue values.

Observing reality, we can see that this is true: A rock doesnt have values. It cant act to gain or keep things; it just stays stillunless some outside force, such as a wave or a hammer, hits and moves it. And it doesnt need to gain or keep things, because its continued existence is unconditional. A rock can change formsfor instance, it can be crushed and turned to sand, or melted and turned to liquidbut it cannot go out of existence. The continued existence of a living organism, however, is conditionaland this is what gives rise to the possibility and need of values. A tree must achieve certain endsor else it will die. Its chemical elements will remain, but its life will go out of existence. A tiger must achieve certain ends, too, or it will meet the same fate. And a personif he is to remain alivemust achieve certain ends as well.

The Objectivist ethicsrecognizing all of thisholds human life as the standard of moral value. It holds that acting in accordance with the requirements of human life is moral, and acting in contradiction to those requirements is immoral. It is a fact-based, black-and-white ethics.

Now, combining the principle that human life is the standard of moral value with the observable fact that people are individualseach with his own body, his own mind, his own lifewe reach another principle of the Objectivist ethics: Each individuals own life is his own ultimate value. This means that each individual is morally an end in himselfnot a means to the ends of others. Accordingly, he has no moral duty to sacrifice himself for the sake of others. Nor does he have a moral right to sacrifice others for his own sake. On principle, neither self-sacrifice nor the sacrifice of others is moral, because, on principle, human sacrifice as such is immoral.

Human life does not require people to sacrifice themselves for the sake of others; nor does it require people to sacrifice others for their own sake. Human life simply does not require human sacrifice; people can live without giving up their minds, their values, their lives; people can live without killing, beating, robbing, or defrauding one another.

Moreover, human sacrifice cannot promote human life and happiness; it can lead only to suffering and death. If people want to live and be happy they must neither sacrifice themselves nor sacrifice others; rather, they must pursue life-serving values and respect the rights of others to do the same. And, given the role of morality in human life, in order to do so, they must accept the morality that advocates doing so.

In a sentence, the Objectivist ethics holds that human sacrifice is immoraland that each person should pursue his own life-serving values and respect the rights of others to do the same. This is the basic principle of rational egoism. And the reason it sounds so good is because it is good; it is right; it is true. This principle is derived from the observable facts of reality and the demonstrable requirements of human life. Where else could valid moral principles come from? And what other purpose could they serve?

We can now see why Ayn Rand said, The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live. Morality, properly conceived, is not a hindrance to a life of happiness; rather, it is the means to such a life.

So let us turn to the question of how to enjoy yourself and live. If that is the right thing to do, then whataccording to the Objectivist ethicsis the means to that end?

First and foremost, in order to live and achieve happiness, we have to use reason. Hence the technically redundant word rational in rational egoism. Reason is our means of understanding the world, ourselves, and our needs. It is the faculty that operates by means of perceptual observation and conceptual abstractionby means of our five senses and our ability to think logically, to make causal connections, and to form principles.

It is by means of reason that we identify what things are, what properties they have, and how we can use them for our life-serving purposes. For example, it is by the use of reason that we learn about plants, soil, the principles of agriculture, and how to produce food. It is by means of reason that we learn about wool, silk, and how to make looms and produce clothing. It is by means of reason that we learn the principles of chemistry and biology and how to produce medicine and perform surgery; the principles of engineering and how to build homes and skyscrapers; the principles of aerodynamics and how to make and fly jumbo jets; the principles of physics and how to produce and control nuclear energy. And so on.

On a more personal level, it is by means of reason that we are able to develop fulfilling careers, to engage in rewarding hobbies, and to establish and maintain good friendships. And it is by means of reason that we are able to achieve success in romance.

Since this last is perhaps less obvious than the others, lets focus on it for a minute.

To establish and maintain a good romantic relationship, you have to take into account all the relevant facts pertaining to that goal. To begin with, you have to know what kind of relationship will actually be good for your life; you were not born with this knowledge, nor do you gain it automatically. To acquire it, you have to observe reality and think logically. Further, you have to find someone who suits your needs and lives up to your standards. To do so, you have to judge peoples characters and qualities accuratelywhich requires reason. Once found, you have to treat the person justlyas he or she deserves to be treated. To do this, you have to understand and apply the principle of justice (which we will discuss shortly). Your means of understanding and applying it is reason.

To succeed in romance, you have to discover and act in accordance with a lot of facts and principles. You must think and act rationally. If you choose a lover irrationally, or treat your lover irrationally, then your love life will be doomed. Im sure you all know of people who approach relationships irrationallyand what the results are.

Read more here:

Atlas Shrugged and Ayn Rand's Morality of Egoism - The Objective ... - The Objective Standard

Although Americas political system seems unable to stimulate robust, sustained economic growth, it at least is stimulating consumption of a small but important segment of literature. Dystopian novels are selling briskly Aldous Huxleys Brave New World (1932), Sinclair Lewis It Cant Happen Here (1935), George Orwells Animal Farm (1945) and 1984 (1949), Ray Bradburys Fahrenheit 451 (1953) and Margaret Atwoods The Handmaids Tale (1985), all warning about nasty regimes displacing democracy.

There is, however, a more recent and pertinent presentation of a grim future. Last year, in her 13th novel, The Mandibles: A Family, 2029-2047, Lionel Shriver imagined America slouching into dystopia merely by continuing current practices.

Shriver, who is fascinated by the susceptibility of complex systems to catastrophic collapses, begins her story after the 2029 economic crash and the Great Renunciation, whereby the nation, like a dissolute Atlas, shrugged off its national debt, saying to creditors: Its nothing personal. The world is not amused, and Americans subsequent downward social mobility is not pretty.

Florence Darkly, a millennial, is a single mother but such mothers now outnumber married ones. Newspapers have almost disappeared, so print journalism had given way to a rabble of amateurs hawking unverified stories and always to an ideological purpose. Mexico has paid for an electronic border fence to keep out American refugees. Her Americans are living, on average, to 92, the economy is powered by the whims of the retired, and, desperate to qualify for entitlements, these days everyone couldnt wait to be old. People who have never been told no are apoplectic if they cant retire at 52. Antibiotic-resistant bacteria are ubiquitous, so shaking hands is imprudent.

Soldiers in combat fatigues, wielding metal detectors, search houses for gold illegally still in private hands. The government monitors every movement and the IRS, renamed the Bureau for Social Contribution Assistance, siphons up everything, on the you-didnt-build-that principle: Morally, your money does belong to everybody. The creation of capital requires the whole apparatus of the state to protect property rights, including intellectual property.

Social order collapses when hyperinflation follows the promiscuous printing of money after the Renunciation. This punishes those who had a conscientious, caretaking relationship to the future. Government salaries and Medicare reimbursements are linked to an inflation algorithm that didnt require further action from Congress. Even if a Snickers bar eventually cost $5 billion, they were safe.

In a Reason magazine interview, Shriver says, I think it is in the nature of government to infinitely expand until it eats its young. In her novel, she writes:

The state starts moving money around. A little fairnesshere, little more fairnessthere. ... Eventually social democracies all arrive at the same tipping point: where half the country depends on the other half. ... Government becomes a pricey, clumsy, inefficient mechanism for transferring wealth from people who do something to people who dont, and from the young to the old which is the wrong direction. All that effort, and youve only managed a new unfairness.

Laughing mordantly as the apocalypse approaches, Shriver has a gimlet eye for the foibles of todays secure (or so it thinks) upper middle class, from Washingtons Cleveland Park to Brooklyn.

The (only) good news from Shrivers squint into the future is that when Americans are put through a wringer, they emerge tougher, with less talk about ADHD, gluten intolerance and emotional support animals.

Speaking to Reason, Shriver said: I think that the bullet we dodged in 2008 is still whizzing around the planet and is going to hit us in the head. If so, this story has already been written.

George Will writes for theWashington Post Writers Group. Email him atgeorgewill@washpost.com.

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A vision of a grim future - Bluefield Daily Telegraph