Category Archives: Ethical Egoism

Has Islam been the one religion acceptable to God since the days of Prophet Muhammad? Does Islam claim to replace Christianity and Judaism, the way Christianity claimed (until recently) to have replaced Old Testament Judaism?

One does frequently hear extremist, and even some non-extremist Muslims, quote the Quranic verse: And whoever seeks a religion other than Islam, it will never be accepted of him, and in the hereafter he will be one of the losers.(Quran 3:85)That sounds pretty exclusive.

But the Quran also states, and then repeats: Verily, those who believe, and those who are Jews and Christians, and Sabians; whoever believes in Allah and the Last Day and does righteous deeds; shall have their reward with their Lord. On them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve. (Quran 2:62 & 5:69)

And the Quran goes even further, proclaiming that religious pluralism is the will of Allah. If Allah had so willed, He would have made you a single people, but (Gods plan is) to test (each group of) you in what He has given you: so compete in all virtues as in a race. The goal of you all is to (please) Allah who will show you on judgment day the truth of the matters which you dispute. (Quran 5:48)

This means that religious pluralism is the will of God. Thus, we will never know the truth of the matters which you dispute until judgement day. What we can know is who is the kindest and most charitable among us.

Yet for centuries many believers in one God have chided and depreciated each others religions, and some believers have even resorted to forced conversions, expulsions, inquisitions and massacres to spread their faith even though monotheists all pray to the same God, and all prophets of monotheistic faiths are inspired by the same God.

The two Quran verses above (Quran 2:62 & 5:69) place Jews, Christians, and Sabians alongside Muslims; and say that any one among them who believes in Allah and the Last Day and does righteous deeds shall have their reward with their Lord, on them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve.

Although these two verses (Quran 2:62 & 5:69) seem to be completely contradictory to the first verse (Quran 3:85), and it is possible that one view abrogates the other, there is a much simpler explanation.

There are two meanings for the word Islam. First, there is basic, fundamental, Islam (submission to God) which was the religion of all the prophets from Adam to Muhammad.

Second, there is the special and unique religion, or more accurate, way of life of Islam taught by Prophet Muhammad.

The two verses quoted above refer to basic, fundamental, Islam and not to the special and unique religion of Islam.In todays terms; basic Islam should be spelled islam without a capital letter I, and special and unique Islam should be spelled with a capital I.

The same is true for Muslim, a member of a special and unique community, and muslim referring to one who follows the fundamental religion of living in obedience to the commandments of the one God as taught by Moses, Jesus, or any other prophet of the one God.

Thus, And whoever seeks a religion other than (monotheistic) islam, it will never be accepted of him, and in the hereafter he will be one of the losers.(Quran 3:85)includes Jews, Christians, and Sabians (whoever they are) but does not include atheists on one hand, and polytheists on the other hand.

Religious pluralism as the will of God is very different from religious, moral or cultural relativism. Relativism teaches that all values and standards are subjective, and therefore there is no higher spiritual authority available for setting ethical standards or making moral judgements.

Thus, issues of justice, truth or human rights are, like beauty, just in the eye of the beholder. Most people, especially those who believe that One God created all of us, refuse to believe that ethics and human rights are simply a matter of taste. Religious pluralism as the will of God is the opposite of cultural or philosophical relativism.

The fundamental idea supporting religious pluralism is that religious people need to embrace humility in many areas of religion. All religions have always taught a traditional anti self centered personal egoism type of humility. Religious pluralism also opposes a religious, philosophical, and self righteous intellectual egoism that promotes a tendency to turn our legitimate love for our own prophet and Divine revelation into universal truths that we fully understand and know how to apply.

Religious pluralism teaches that finite humans, even the most intelligent and pious of them, can not fully understand everything the way the infinite One does. This is true, for every human being, even for Gods messengers themselves. When prophet Moses.who God spoke with face to face, as a person speaks with a friend (Exodus 33:11) asks to see God face to face, he is told, You cannot see My face, for no man can see My face and live. (33:20)

Similarly, in the Quran prophet Jesus admits to God, You know everything that is within myself, whereas I do not know what is within Yourself. (7:116) In the New testament when prophet Jesus is asked, in private, by his disciples, What will be the sign for your coming (back) and the end of the age? (Matthew 24:3) Jesus warns his disciples about all kinds of upheavals and false Messiahs that will come. Then Jesus concludes by saying, But about that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, not even the son: only the Father. (24:36)

A similar statement was made by prophet Muhammad when he was asked, Tell me about the Hour. Muhammad replied: The one questioned about it, knows no better than the questioner. (Muslim book 1:1&4) Prophet Muhammad taught the general principle of epistemological humility to his followers when he said, I am no novelty among the messengers. I do not know what will be done to me, or to you. (Quran 46:9)

The famous Quran verse (2:255) called Ayat Al-Kursi, the Throne verse is known for its profound meaning and its inspiring message. Allah is well described, and we are informed that the knowledge of Allah is incomparable to our own humble efforts. The Throne verse begins: Allah! There is no god but He, the Living, the Self-Subsisting, Supporter of all. and ends: They shall not encompass any of His knowledge except as He wills. His Throne/dominion extends over the heavens and the earth, and He feels no fatigue in guarding and preserving them. For He is the Most High, the Supreme in glory. And the very next verse states: There shall be no compulsion in (acceptance of) the religion (Islam). (2:256) because all humans have limited knowledge and no one should force anyone else to believe what is knowable only to Allah.

The Quran refers to Prophet Abraham as a community or a nation: Abraham was a nation-community [Ummah]; dutiful to God, a monotheist [hanif], not one of the polytheists. (16:120) If Prophet Abraham is an Ummah then fighting between the descendants of Prophets Ishmael and Isaac is a civil war and should always be avoided.

If all Arabs and Jews can live up to the ideal that the descendants of Abrahams sons should never make war against each other is the will of God; we will help fulfill the 2700 year old vision of Prophet Isaiah: In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria. The Assyrians will go to Egypt, and the Egyptians to Assyria. The Egyptians and Assyrians will worship together.In thatdayIsrael will joina three-partyalliance with Egyptand Assyria,a blessing uponthe heart.The LORD of Hosts will bless them saying, Blessed be Egypt My people, Assyria My handiwork, and Israel My inheritance.(Isaiah 19:23-5)

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Can A Religion Other Than Islam Ever Be Accepted OpEd - Eurasia Review

The purpose of this article is to explain different ethical theories and compare and contrast them in a way thats clear and easy for students to understand. There are three major categories of ethical systems that students typically learn about in philosophy classes: consequentialism, deontology and virtue ethics. I will describe all of them briefly, then describe each one of them in more detail, pointing out their defining features and major variants. Ill then discuss the nature of Objectivist Ethical Egoism and how it compares and contrasts with each of these types of ethics.

The Ethical Theories: Brief Summary

Consequentialism names a type of ethical theory that judges human practices, like actions or rules, based on their consequences. Human practices that produce good consequences are morally right, while ones that produce bad consequences are morally wrong. Roughly speaking, a consequentialist says that you should do certain things, because those actions produce good consequences. By far the most common historical variantof consequentialism is Classic Utilitarianism. Classic Utilitarianism was advocated by such philosophers as Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill.

Deontology names a type of ethical theory that judges human practicesbased on whether they are consistent with certain duties that the theory holds as intrinsically moral. Consequences are irrelevant to a fully deontological theory. Deontological theories tend to focus on the motives of actions, and whether a given action was motivated by duty or something else. In many deontological theories, motivation by moral duty itselfrather than other factors, like self-interestis essential to an actions being morally right. An advocate of deontology says that you should do certain things, just because those things are the right things to do, (they align with duty.)The originator of deontology as a formal theoretical framework was the German philosopher, Immanuel Kant. Later advocates have included W.D. Ross, Robert Nozick and Christine Korsgaard.

Virtue ethics names a type of ethical theory that takes virtues of character, rather than individual actions or rules, as the most fundamentalethical concepts. Moral virtues like honesty, courage, integrity, temperance and generosity are takento be inherently good first, then actions are evaluated based on whether they express those virtues. That is, do the actions match what a virtuous person would do in those circumstances? Basically, a virtue ethicist says that you should do certain things, because they are examples of good character. Modern virtue ethics takes inspiration from the moral theories of Ancient Greek philosophers like Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics, (especially Aristotle.) Prominent advocates include Christine Swanton, Rosalind Hursthouse and Alasdair MacIntyre.

Objectivist Ethical Egoism, unlike the other terms here, names one specific theory. It takes human life as the abstract or general standard of moral evaluation. Roughly speaking, that which promotes human life is the good, that which damages or destroys it is the bad. Because Objectivism, the whole philosophy from which this ethics springs, views human life as fundamentally individualneeding to be lived, maintained and enhanced by each individual through his own actionObjectivist Ethical Egoism (OEE) takes each individuals own life as his own effective standard of value. That which promotes the individuals own life overall is the good for him, that which damages or destroys his own life is the bad for him.

But OEE does not simply say that actions that end up promoting your life are moral, and actions that end up damaging it are immoral. Objectivism holds that the fundamental job of morality is to guide human choices in the context in which they aremade. Objectivism accepts the obvious truth that humans are not omniscient, and so cannot predict all the exact consequences of their actions in advance. It says that the way humans gain general or conditional knowledgeknowledge thatcan be applied to predict future consequencesis by forming rational principles from empirical observation and experience. In the field of morality, this means derivingrational moral principles from experience. These principles are general statementsof fact that are then applied to particular situations to determine a proper course of action. Thus, OEE says that a chosen action is moral, if and only if it represents a proper application of a life-promoting moral principle to the acting individuals current circumstances.

Among the principles that OEE holds as true are the idea that the rational self-interests of individuals do not conflict, and that initiating force against others (murder, slavery, theft, etc.) is destructive not only to the victims lives, but also to the perpetrators.

Basically, Objectivist Ethical Egoism says that you should do certain things, because those things actually support and/or enrich your own life.OEE is Ayn Rands highly distinctive theory that is widely misinterpreted by academic philosophers and the general public. It has been advocated and explained by such philosophers as Leonard Peikoff, Tara Smith, Allan Gotthelf and Gregory Salmieri.I will discuss OEEs relationship with the three ethical categories, and whether it can be considered a memberof any of them, when I discuss it in more detail later in this essay.

Consequentialism

Jeremy Bentham

Consequentialism is a category that includes those ethical theories that judge human practices as morally right or wrong based on their consequences. (Practice here is used very broadly to includea specific action, a rule guiding actions, a motive guiding actions, or a virtue of character.) Consequentialist theories say that morally right practicesare those that tend to increase or maximize whatever is inherentlymorally good. (1) If apractice tends to produce more moral goodness than any alternative practicewould have, then it is a morally right practice. Consequentialist philosophers differ on whether practices that tend to increase that which is morally good, but increase it less than an available alternative practice, can be called morally right. Are practices that produce less goodness wrongpractices, or merely sub-optimal but permissible rightpractices? In any case, for a pure consequentialist, the practice that tends to maximize moral goodness is the morally best practice.

There are many different types of consequentialism that people can adopt. Consequentialist theories can be divided into types in threemajorways. The first way is in what exactly it is about human practices that is being morally evaluated. A theory can evaluate individual actionsthis is called act consequentialism. Or a theory can evaluate the rules by which someone actsthis is called rule consequentialism. Or a theory can evaluate the motives by which someone actsthis is called motive consequentialism. Or a theory can evaluate the character traitsone demonstrates when one actsthis is called virtue consequentialism.

The secondmajor way consequentialist theories can be divided is by whose consequences count as morally relevant. That is, what beings are directly morally relevant in evaluating the consequences of a practice.Is it all conscious creatures? Is it all humans? Is it a subgroup of humans? Is it only the agent? Or is it all humans except the agent? Respectively, these choices among beneficiaries can be called broad consequentialism, human-centered consequentialism, group chauvinism, consequentialist egoism, and consequentialist altruism. (2)

The thirdmajor way of dividing consequentialist theories, as far as I can tell, only makes sense when applied to act consequentialism. Act consequentialist theories can be dividedby the sort of consequences that are relevant to the evaluation of an act. Are actual consequences the relevant factor? Or is it the consequences that analysis would show are most probable at the time of the decision to act?Or is it the consequences that the acting person (the agent) actuallyforesaw at the time he acted? Or is it the consequences that were reasonably foreseeable by the agent? Or is it the consequences that the agent intended to occur? (These different sorts of consequences could be called different epistemic statuses.)

The reason philosophers may want to consider the alternatives to actual consequences as the relevant type, is that people are not omniscient and cant predict the future consequences of actions perfectly. So it doesnt necessarily seem right to morally judge a decision, that was made at a given time and with a limited state of knowledge, by all of the actual consequences that followed. It would seem that one is saying that a person whose action produced bad consequences due to factors outside his possible knowledge was acting immorally. So, with actual consequentialism, people will sometimes be judged as acting immorally because they are not infalliblepredictors of the future. This tends to go against common-sense ideas of what morality demands.

Once we select an option from each of the three above lists, we have a pretty good idea of what sort of consequentialist theory were discussing. But we still havent narrowed our selection down to a single theory. For that we need a separate theory of moral goodness, more technically called a value theory or axiology.

The ethical approachof consequentialism depends on the notion of producing morally good consequences. But the consequentialist approach, by itself, does not answer the question of what the moral good is. So specificconsequentialist theories are partly defined by what they believe to be morally good.

Moral goodness may be identified with pleasure, preference satisfaction, justice, beauty, knowledge, wisdom, honor, peace, etc. Or, in the case of what is called negative consequentialism, moral goodness may be associated with the lack of something. This could be pain, injustice, ugliness, etc.

Historically, the most common version of consequentialism wasClassic Utilitarianism. Classic Utilitarianism (CU) defines moral goodness as pleasurespecifically, the aggregate pleasure of all sentient creatures. This pleasure is also called subjective happiness. So a common statement encapsulating utilitarianism is that it advocates for the greatest happiness of the greatest number. In this theory, pain is held to be a negation of pleasure, so it would be counted as subtracting fromaggregate pleasure. This function of pleasure minus pain is generally called utility.

Classic Utilitarianism is a form of act consequentialism, soit is a persons individual actions that are judged morally as good or bad, according to whether their consequences tend toincrease or decrease utility. CU also takes the actual consequences for net utility as the morally relevant kind, rather than probable, foreseen, or intended consequences at the time of the action. And it clearly takes universal consequences as the relevant kind, since it evaluates actions according to their effects on aggregate human and animalutility.

Classic utilitarianism was advocatedwith some variationsby philosophers such as Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill and Henry Sidgwick. (It should be noted that the distinction between act utilitarianism and rule utilitarianism was not well defined at the time these philosophers were active. So they were not explicit nor necessarily perfectly consistent about choosing one over the other.)

Act Consequentialism Table

Rule Consequentialism Table

Virtue Consequentialism Table

Motive Consequentialism Table

If we alter one parameter of CU, we can get a different theory. Instead of aggregate utility of all sentient creatures, we could count only the utility of the agent as morally relevant. This would generate a theory we could call Classic Utility Egoism.(As well see in more detail, this form of egoism is very different from Objectivist Ethical Egoism.)

If we also switch act consequentialism for virtue consequentialism, we get a category we could call Virtue Utility Egoism. The ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus would fit into this category rather nicely, since he regarded the pleasure of the agent as the good, and virtue as instrumental to that pleasure.

If we switch Classic Utilitarianism from act consequentialism to ruleconsequentialism, while keeping its other categories and its axiology, we get a theory that could be referred to as Classic RuleUtilitarianism.

Finally, if we take CU and only change its axiology, we get a different theory. If we no longer consider classic utility (pleasure minus pain) to be morally good, but instead consider the satisfaction of the preferences of conscious organisms to be good,we get an approximation of Peter Singers contemporary preference utilitarianism. (Peter Singer is a well-known Australian moral philosopher who teaches at Princeton University. It should be noted that he was a preference utilitarian prior to 2014, when he announced that he had switched to Classic Utilitarianism. See Footnote (3).)

It should be noted that different forms of consequentialism can be categorized and distinguished based on other criteria that I have not mentioned here. Most of these criteria can be considered part of the theories axiologiestheir varying explanations of what ismorally good. There are pluralistic theories, that hold that moral goodness cannot be reduced to one factor, like utility, but that it consists of more than one irreducible component. And there are also theories that attempt to hybridize different types of consequentialism with each other, or hybridize consequentialism with other types of ethical theories. For more detail on the various forms of consequentialism, you can see the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP) entry on Consequentialism.

Deontology

Immanuel Kant

A deontological theory judges human practices as morally right or wrong based on whether they are consistent with certain duties that the theory holds as intrinsically moral.

As a classof formal ethical theories, deontology has its origins in the ethical approach of the 18th-Century German philosopher, Immanuel Kant. Kant described two types of ethical rules or imperatives: hypothetical and categorical. Hypothetical imperatives are rules that you follow in order to attain some goal. For example, if you always tell the truth to good people in order to have authentic, healthy, win-win relationships with them, this would be a hypothetical imperative: a policy for the sake of a goal. On the other hand, a categorical imperative is a rule thats followed for the sake of no other goal. It is followed just because a moral law commands it. For example, if you never lie to anyone, simply because its the right thing to do, regardless of any consequencesgood or badthat might follow, then you would be acting on a categorical imperative.

Kant believed that only categorical imperatives could properly be considered part of morality. And he argued that there was one and only one such imperative that could be rationally justified, which, in Kants philosophy, is called the Categorical Imperative. Kant first stated this rule as: Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law. This moral law, according to Kant, was supposed to prohibit murder, theft, lying to others, cheating, suicide, etc. Those acts that could be seen to violate the Categorical Imperative were morally prohibited, regardless of any good consequences that might be gained from committing them, or any bad consequences that might be avoided by committing them. (4) Kant held that, in order to have moral worththat is, to be good and praiseworthy from a moral standpointactions must be motivated by obedience to the moral law, (duty.) If someone does something in accordance with the moral lawsay telling the truthbut is motivated by the desire to have good relationships or to avoid being convicted of fraud, the action is not a morally rightaction. The action must be performed not merely according to duty, but from duty.

Some early followers of Kant, such as Friedrich Schiller, as well as many later critics up through the mid-20th Century, interpreted Kant as holding that actions must be motivated purely by duty to be unambiguously morally worthy or right. Most commentatorsfound this requirement implausible and overly austere. Starting around 1980, the dominant interpretation shifted, following an influential paperby Barbara Herman. It is more typical now to interpret Kant as saying that an action having other motives can have moral worth, if the persons motive of duty would be sufficient in itself to produce the proper action, and thus stands ready to override all other motives when they would produce an action not in accordance with the Categorical Imperative.

Theorists of deontology since Kant have taken his basic approachi.e. treating categorical moral duties as fundamental to normative ethicsand adaptedit to formulate their ownmoral theories. In the early-to-mid-20th Century, W.D. Ross developed a moral theory that, instead of appealing to one categorical imperative, appealed to five irreducibledeontic principlesthat were supposed to govern a persons obligations. From the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, these are:

a duty of fidelity, that is, a duty to keep our promises; a duty of reparation or a duty to act to right a previous wrong we have done; a duty of gratitude, or a duty to return services to those from whom we have in the past accepted benefits; a duty to promote a maximum of aggregate good; and finally a duty of non-maleficence, or a duty not to harm others.

Ross supplemented his duty to promote a maximum of aggregate good with statements of what he considered to be intrinsic goods:virtue, knowledge, justice, and the pleasure of others, (not of oneself.) So this makes his ethical system a sort of combination of deontology and consequentialism: deontology at the base, with consequentialism added on as one of the duties.

SinceKants deontology includes only one irreducible categorical imperative, it can be called monist. Rosss deontology, in contrast, has more than one irreducible (basic) categorical imperative, so it can be called pluralist. (5)

Kants and Rosss ethical theories are both deontological theories that focus on the general obligations of the agent as a moral agent. (This means that individuals have duties to themselves based ontheir own agency.) These are called agent-centered deontological theories. On the other hand, some philosophers have theorized that human rights can be based on deontological imperatives. They see an agents rights as irreducible moral constraints on the actions of others toward that agent. (So this means thatindividuals have duties to others based on the agency of those others.) These sorts of theories are called patient-centered deontology.This sort of deontology is most oftendiscussedand advocated by academic libertarians, both right and left. Notable sourcesincludeRobert Nozick, Eric Mack,Michael Otsuka, and Hillel Steiner.

On the level of particular duties, bothagent-centered and patient-centered dutiesduties based on ones own agencyand duties based on the agency of othersare generally understood as being in the Kantian tradition, and are oftencontained together in deontologicaltheories. The difference between the two types of theories lies in where the overallfocus of the theory is: duties to self or duties to others. Typically, agent-centered theories like Kants include patient-centered duties, while patient-centered theories like Nozicks often dont include agent-centered duties.

Virtue Ethics

Aristotle

Instead of focusing primarily on the consequences of actions or duty fulfillment, virtue ethics takes virtuesqualities of moral characteras fundamental to the ethical life.

Modern virtue ethics got its start when Elizabeth Anscombe wrote her article, Modern Moral Philosophy in 1958. In this article, Anscombe expressed dissatisfaction with the utilitarian and deontological ethical theories of her day. She suggested that the ethical theories of the Ancient Greeks, such as those of Plato and Aristotle, could bethe most plausible and satisfactory ones, once they were more theoretically developed.

In the academic revival of virtue ethics that followed, Aristotles ethics became the most popular model for the basic concerns of the virtue ethicists. So to understand modern virtue ethics, it will help tremendously to understand Aristotles ethical views.

For Aristotle, a virtue is an excellence of a persons functioning in a certain area of life. It is a stable character trait that governs a persons actions in some respect. It is not a superficial habit or routine, but permeates every aspect of a persons character, including his emotions, desires and intuitions. The Greek term for such a virtue or excellence of character is arete, and this term is still sometimes used by virtue ethicists today.

Aristotle holds that every virtue is a meanan average or middle groundbetween two extremes which are both vices. So, for example, Aristotle believed that courage was a virtue and was a mean between the vices of cowardice and rashness. The virtue of courage consists of having the proper amount of the quality of confidence in ones character. Too little confidence, and the person is a coward. Too much confidence, and he is rash and foolish. In the practice of indulging in pleasures, temperance is the right amount of indulgence, where licentiousness is too much and insensibility is too little. Other qualities that Aristotle considers virtues, include truthfulness, magnanimity, modesty, and pride. (Pride meansactually being deserving of great things and knowing that one is, not unjustified arrogance.)

So how does one know the boundaries between too much or too little and the right amount? Well, Aristotle didnt think that ethics was an exact science, so he didnt think ethics could answer this directly. Aristotle thought that, in order to act within the boundaries of arete, a personneeds practical wisdom. The Greek term for this faculty isphronesis. (6)

A person who achieves virtue orarete in all the various areas of life, arrives at a condition often called happiness or flourishing. The Greek term for this condition is eudaimonia. Though eudaimonia is sometimes translated as happiness, it does not merely denote an emotional state or subjective feeling.A person in a state of eudaimonia is, according to Aristotle, living in a way that fulfills his natural potentialas a human being. He is living in harmony with his essential nature as a rational animal. Thus, eudaimonia is supposed to be a holistic condition of a person, potentially observable by others. (That is, eudaimonia is supposed to be an objective condition that encompasses both mindand body.)

Virtue ethicists today generally take this basic approach to ethics and make modifications. For virtue ethicists, eudaimonia is not a logically distinct consequence of being virtuous, but in fact consists of being virtuous. Anyone who thought eudaimonia could be treated as a distinct consequence ofarete, would not be a true virtue ethicist, but a virtue consequentialist, with eudaimonia as the moral good. So when a true virtue ethicist is asked what eudaimonia is, their full answer must include their favoredvirtues as being at least partially constitutive of it. This makes eudaimonia a moralized or value-laden concept, according to virtue ethicists, which must be derived from the virtues. Here, the virtues cannot be derived as the causal means toeudaimonia, because eudaimoniajust is the exercise of all the virtues, (perhaps with other conditionsadded.)

Virtue ethical theories can be divided into those thatare universalist and those thatare culturally contextualist. Universalist theories see virtues as applicable in the same basic form to all human beings, regardless of culture. These theories are like Aristotles in this respect. Proponents of universalist theories include Philippa Foot and Rosalind Hursthouse. Cultural contextualist theories see virtues as taking different forms depending oncultural tradition. Even if the virtues in different cultural contexts have the same name, like honesty or justice, they may well be different in theiressential content. The main proponent of this sort of theory has been Alasdair MacIntyre. (7)

There are various different views within virtue ethics about what the exact nature and meaningof the virtues is, and there are sometheorists whotakeinspiration for their theories from Plato and other ancients. Modern virtue ethics is a relatively young movement in the modern academic world. So it hasnt been explored, labeled and categorized to the degree that consequentialism and deontology have.

Objectivist Ethical Egoism

Objectivist Ethical Egoism (OEE) holds that human life is the abstract standard of value in morality. For each individual, who is making moral decisions and acting, this means his own life is his own standard of right and wrong.

OEE was developed by Ayn Rand, and further explicated by philosophers such as Leonard Peikoff, Harry Binswanger, Tara Smith, Darryl Wright, Allan Gotthelf and Gregory Salmieri.

OEE arises in the context of the whole fundamental philosophy that is Objectivism: that is, the Objectivist metaphysics and epistemology. OEE is the application of Objectivist epistemology to the fundamental problem of how to live as a human being in reality as it is.

Principles, Human Nature, and Morality

Objectivist epistemology holds that, in order to successfully predict the future (not exactly, but within certain parameters) human beings must observe the world with their senses and develop principles by reasoning on the basis of those observations. This holds whether the prediction is made in the fieldof the natural sciences, the humanities, or morality.

Rational principles are not mere rules. They are general statements of fact that, when combined with a situation and a goal, yield a normative guideline. So, for example, if I have a person on the surface of theEarth, the Newtonian principle of gravity tells me that I can put that person into a circular Earth orbit by launching him to a certain height at a certain speed and in a certain direction. If my goal is to do this, then I have my basic normative guideline: I should launch him to that height, speed and direction.

If you recall the section on deontology, you should recognize this sort of normative guideline as a hypothetical imperative, in Kants terminology: a normative guideline followed for the sake of a goal. According to Objectivism, all genuinely normative guidelinesthat is, all normative guidelines based in realityare hypothetical. This holds whether the normative guideline is in morality or some other field. Objectivism rejects categorical imperatives altogether as baseless.

As with physics and space flight, principles of chemistry normatively guide individuals action for successful chemical synthesis and characterization, principles of psychology guide action in the pursuit of mental health, principles of electronics guide action in the making of televisions and computers, etc. So what do principles of morality guide action in achieving? According to Objectivism, principles of morality guide action in the maintenance and promotion of ones own life, as a human being.

I hasten to addthat life, as it is used here, is not equivalent to being biologically living by having a beating heart, and promoting my life does not mean striving to maximize the length of time myheart is beating. Being comatose or in a vegetative state until one dies is not life in the relevant sense, and it cannot be sustained beyond a few days without the intervention of other humans, who are actually living and sustaining themselves as humans. The life as a human being for which moral principles are required, is a life of conscious value pursuit: that is, it is the deliberate choosing and thoughtful pursuit of goals that sustain oneself.

Humans cant survive like plants do, by rooting themselves into the ground and drawing nutrients from the soil. Nor can they survive by sheer emotions, drives and instincts, like other animals do. To survive for any significant length of time, humans have to think, plan, and obtain what they need using their minds. At the most rudimentary level, this can mean making tools and weapons, hunting animals and gathering fruit and vegetables. Or, atincreasingly advanced stages, it can mean subsistence farming, or producing and trading artisanal goods, meat and farm produce, or it can mean a modern industrial society with a division of labor between industrial farmers, steel producers, car manufacturers, transportation services, etc.

Humans survive by pursuing and achievingobjective values. Objective here does not mean mind-independent or agent-independent. It means based on facts of reality and not a matter of faith, personal whim or arbitrary convention. Objectivism understands that values are relational to each individual, but also that the relationship is a matter of fact, not a matter of faith or whims.

So, as a simple example, food is valuable to the person who is hungry. It only directly supports his life if he is the one to eat it. Food is not valuable in itself, apart from the needs of the hungry person. Yet it is not a matter of faith, whims, or convention that people need to eat to live; it is a matter of fact. (SeeValues Are Relational, But Not Subjective for a more detailed explanation of this point.)

The characteristic and necessary mode of human survival, which is self-sustaining action (i.e. pursuit of objective values) on the basis of thought, is the foundation of an objective account of human happiness, in Objectivism. This happiness is not merely a subjective assessment of ones own psychological state, but a state of consciousnessthat is the psychological aspectof living ones life as a human being. It is the experience of living well as a human being which can be called flourishing or, using Aristotles terminology, eudaimonia.

So here we see that Objectivism identifies eudaimonia with successful and sustainable life. It provides a solid theoretical foundation for Aristotles ultimate good. It clearly explains what eudaimonia means and gives it content in a way that is not dependent on assorted virtues of character as its irreducible foundation. It thus avoids the logical circle of: What are the virtues? The character traits that combine under auspiciousconditions to produce eudaimonia. What is eudaimonia? The state that is the combination of the virtues under auspicious conditions. For Objectivism, happiness is the mental experience of eudaimonia, which is surviving as a human, par excellence. It is the mental experience of engagingto the fullest of ones capacityin the sorts of actions that enable humans to survive and be healthy in the long term.

At this point, lets take a moment to observe an important issue:Earlier, I said that principles of morality guide action in the maintenance and promotion of ones own life. Yet all true principles can potentially be helpful in supporting and enhancing an individuals life. Principles of physics and electronics can enable the development of life-saving medical technology, the deployment of satellites for instant long-distance communication, etc. Principles of chemistry can enable the development of life-saving and life-enhancing pharmaceuticals. Principles of psychology can be used to improvea persons psychological health and help them lead a more fulfilled life. Etc.

So what actually differentiates moral principles from the principles of other fields? The Objectivist answer is first to note that moral principles are one subcategoryofphilosophical principles. Then we say that what differentiates philosophical principles is that, unlike the principles of other fields, the principles of philosophymust be utilized in some capacity by every human being, in the course of living a full human life. Morality is the branch of philosophy that deals withall freely chosen human actions. Basic moral principles apply to every free choice of action any person might make. So while principles of physics may be inapplicable and useless for a psychologist treating a patient, and principles of chemistry may be inapplicable for a student studying music, moral principles are applicable for everyone in virtually every waking moment, in every aspect of life where they are not being coercedby others. (8)

Moral principles are the principles that apply to all freely chosen actions as such, not just actions in the particular field of applied physics, or of music composition, or of applied psychology. Notice here that Im saying that normative morality is analogous to the applied fields of knowledge: applied physics, applied music theory, and applied psychology, but on a broader scale of application in ones life. So what is the field of knowledge that morality applies? The field of knowledge is fundamental human nature, which, in Objectivism, is understood to be a branch of metaphysics. In Objectivism, morality is applied metaphysics. It is the application of metaphysics to the chosengoal of living ones own flourishing, happy life. (9)

It was principles of fundamental human naturemetaphysicsthat I was discussing when I was explaining the concept of life and how humans cant survivelike plants or other animals, but must use their minds to live.

So now that we have a general idea of the nature of morality, in the Objectivist view, and moralitysconnection to Objectivist metaphysics and epistemology, lets discuss the content of Objectivist Ethical Egoism in more detail.

The Cardinal Values

So what does an individual need in order to engage in the sorts of actions that enable survival as a human in thelong-term? Objectivism holds that three cardinal values are needed by everyone in every waking moment: reason, purpose and self-esteem. The fundamental need of reason should be clear from what wasdiscussed earlier about human nature. It is the most basic value required for human life. One should do things that improve ones ability to reason, such as gaining knowledge and learning how to think. One should not do things that destroy ones ability to reason, such as abusing drugs or alcohol, or accepting things on sheer blind faith. One should avoid contradictions in ones thinking, since holding contradictory beliefs is the violation of reason.

Purpose is an aspect of reason, properly conceived. Holding it as a value emphasizes the need to treat reasoning as a means to goals, and not merely as an end in itself. Reasoning that is purely idle contemplation, with no further life-serving goal in view, is a detriment to life. (Please note here that intellectual goals can serve ones life in very indirect ways, as in many cases of increasing ones knowledge of highly abstract, theoretical topics.) In the Objectivist view, reasoning must be directed toward the production of knowledge that is ultimately used in reality in some fashion, in order to be worthwhile and genuine. All human thought and actions must be organized around some sort of reality-based purpose.

Self-esteem is the judgmentof ones own life and self as valuable. On the most basic level, humans need some amount of self-esteem for purposeful, life-sustaining action. This self-esteem is acquired through the judgmentexplicit or implicitthat one is capable of achieving happiness, and the knowledge that one fully intends to pursue that goal. A fuller self-esteem is gained as one actually achievesrational goalsand develops good character.

The Objectivist Virtues

According to Objectivism, these values are the fundamental goals one should pursue. They encompass many particular careers, hobbies, relationships and lifestyles. The fundamental means by which an individual pursues these goals are virtues. According to Objectivism, virtues are not fundamentally traits of character, (as virtue ethicists hold.) They are intellectual principles guiding action. If an individual consistently applies these principles in his life, then they can be automatized and can be said to form a basic part of the individuals character.

There is one fundamental virtue, according to Objectivism: rationality. Rationality is acting in accordance with ones reasoning to the best of ones ability. Being rational does not mean that an individual will be infallible. A fully rational individual may make mistakes in regard to facts, as well as in regard to methods of thinking (logic.) (10) An irrational person is one who doesnt consistently strive to be correct in every issue significant to his life. Irrationality is willfully turning away from facts and logic as ones guides to action. This may be done openly, through an appeal to something other than reason as a guide, such as faith, sheer intuition, emotion, or instinct, or it may be hidden by rationalizations, (thinking processes corrupted by emotionalism and/or dogma.)

The virtue of rationality, on its own, is very general, and so doesnt give people a lot of guidance in how to live moral lives. Thus, Objectivism breaks rationality down into six component virtues: honesty, independence, productiveness, integrity, justice and pride. Ayn Rand described each of these virtues as the recognition of certain fundamental facts about reality, human consciousness, and ones own nature as a human being:

Independence is your recognition of the fact that yours is the responsibility of judgment and nothing can help you escape itthat no substitute can do your thinking, as no pinch-hitter can live your life

Honesty is the recognition of the fact that the unreal is unreal and can have no value, that neither love nor fame nor cash is a value if obtained by fraudthat an attempt to gain a value by deceiving the mind of others is an act of raising your victims to a position higher than reality, where you become a pawn of their blindness, a slave of their non-thinking and their evasions, while their intelligence, their rationality, their perceptiveness become the enemies you have to dread and flee

Integrity is the recognition of the fact that you cannot fake your consciousness, just as honesty is the recognition of the fact that you cannot fake existencethat man is an indivisible entity, an integrated unit of two attributes: of matter and consciousness, and that he may permit no breach between body and mind, between action and thought, between his life and his convictions

Justice is the recognition of the fact that you cannot fake the character of men as you cannot fake the character of nature

Productiveness isyour recognition of the fact that you choose to livethat productive work is the process by which mans consciousness controls his existence, a constant process of acquiring knowledge and shaping matter to fit ones purpose

Pride is the recognition of the fact that you are your own highest value and, like all of mans values, it has to be earned

(Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged, (50th Anniversary Ed.) p. 932-934)

Of course, when Rand says you cannot fake she does not mean that its impossible to attempt to fake. She means that you cannot fake and hope to live fully as a human being. Faking puts you on a path to self-destruction. The applicability of the virtues, as with all of morality, depends on an individual making the choice to live, in some form, explicit or implicit. The alternative to the choice to live, according to Objectivism, is to slip into self-destruction. Such self-destruction may be very slow, very fast, or somewhere in between, but if one does not choose to livethat is, to pursue self-sustaining values rationally, keeping ones own life as the ultimate goal of ones actionsthe decay toward death is inevitable:

Man has been called a rational being, but rationality is a matter of choiceand the alternative his nature offers him is: rational being or suicidal animal. Man has to be manby choice; he has to hold his life as a valueby choice; he has to learn to sustain itby choice; he has to discover the values it requires and practice his virtuesby choice. A code of values accepted by choice is a code of morality.

(Ayn Rand, The Objectivist Ethics in The Virtue of Selfishness, p. 23)

Lets look at a hypothetical example to see how the Objectivist virtues are necessary means tothe achievement of values.Lets say theres a young woman who has studied Objectivism and who wants to become an architect. She attends college atanarchitectural school.

She is honest and doesnt cheat, since this would undermine her competence as an architect and expose her to the risk of being caught and discredited and/or punished. Shestudies diligently to follow through with her plans, so she exhibits integrity. She is working toward a self-supporting life as an architect, so she exemplifies productiveness.Shes ambitious in her coursework, she doesnt try to skate by with the minimum, and she doesnt apologize for her excellence to others who may resent her for making them look bad. So she demonstratespride. She doesnt try to muddle throughby imitating or copying others, or by relying on them to do all the work in group projects. So she shows independence. She selects her study partners according to their ambition and ability in the class, rather than their need for help. To the extent she can, she selects her instructors according to her best judgment of their teaching abilities. So she acts onjustice.

Now if we contrast this woman with one who exhibits the opposite qualities, it should be fairly apparent who will tend to become an architect in a sustainable way, (what we would typically call a successful architect.) Someone who lacks the above virtues may be granted the temporary illusion of success by making friends and going along with a certain social crowd. But regardless of any false esteem granted by others, the reality will be that a continually dishonest, lazy and unambitious person will not actually be a successful architect.

The Harmony of Rational Interests

Objectivism holds that there are no conflicts of interests among rational individuals. The interests of rational individuals do not consist of short-range, out-of-context desires (whims.) Rather, they consist of goals that are the result of careful thought and planning. This means that rational interests cannot be served by pursuing self-contradictory goals, or effects without the requisite causes.

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Ethical Theories Summarized & Explained ... - Objectivism In Depth

Welcome to WrestleMania.

More than any other phrase Vince McMahon ever said, perhaps aside from in any event, those three words are synonymous with him, the era and the period in which we closely identify as wrestlings big boom. That same boom period saw many smaller promotions padlock their doors, while also opening new doors for pro wrestlings most well known eras as WrestleMania itself became an entertainment phenomenon. That many of us watch wrestling in any form is largely due to what McMahon accomplished after purchasing the company from his father.

At the time, or looking back at it now depending on how old you are with the benefit of hindsight, it was both the worst and greatest era as WWF excelled to the detriment of promotions like AWA, WCCW, the NWA or many smaller Canadian promotions like Jack Tunneys Maple Leaf Wrestling or the Harts Stampede Wrestling in Calgary the deal with Tunney effectively crippled the Canadian landscape much like in the U.S. The ripple effect of McMahons success as WWFs promoter is part of his legacy and understanding the duality at that base level is critical to seriously understanding him professionally and much more so personally as much one can. The latter birthed the former and educated how he would initially grow WWF while stamping other promotions out under his soles, with the byproduct being the rise of the promotion almost completely responsible for younger generations getting into wrestling in the first place at varying times over the last 30-40 years to all others detriment.

As a businessperson, Vince McMahon is the epitome of a professional wrestling fan, promoter and monopolist who married the three together to fuel his desire to take professional wrestling from a regional sideshow to a national showcase and beyond as the company bloomed into an international conglomerate en route to moving from a private business to publicly-traded company. Whether he deserves full credit for their rise or not, he is responsible for the thriving of wrestlings greatest eras be they centred on Hulk Hogan, Steve Austin, John Cena and everyone else in between.

For that aspect, as clich as it is, a thank you Vince, is somewhat in order. For better and worse, we are where we are because of him. He set the conditions for wrestling to thrive, for competition to rise in the wake of all others downfall, and ultimately many of the counter-culture promotions in North America like ECW, TNA (for a time), ROH and to a lesser degree now-AEW (whose much more in the realm of a WCW than the latter three). Professionally, he set the table for wrestling at large to feast upon. Its important to acknowledge that when discussing his legacy. Otherwise, you cant have the full picture of that legacy.

While McMahon is responsible for wrestlings boom, as the sole entity left standing hes also responsible for the landscapes downward spiral over the last decades away from its heights in the late 90s. WWE became formulaic, his ideas recycled and over time he over-exposed himself in odd situations that didnt need to occur; an underhanded lothario, sleezy businessman and womanizing slimeball on-screen, and obviously former two-time world champion who also defeated God. Its almost comical now in hindsight considering his supposed belief his son overbooked himself at Royal Rumble 2022, but you know what they say about apples and trees. Whats clear however is that over time McMahon developed tastes for what he thought worked on a wrestling/entertainment show in the episodic format and thats not particularly debatable anymore if we use the the contrast between main roster WWEs reception from roughly 2014 onward against HHH-run NXT. The lack of synergy between them highlighted what they both lacked against the other, with HHH bringing in the most talented workers outside WWE into the fold, while Vince continued to play favourites and book his larger than life archetypes into favourable positions. So while NXT gained momentum because it was fresher, newer and more up-to-date with modern trends seemingly favoured by fans, McMahon stayed the course and booked many of the NXT darlings lesser to how they were positioned in developmental.

McMahon was a victim of his own success, and Id argue that to the point of O2 deprivation. For someone to be as successful professionally as he was in wrestling, he had to favour a set of guidelines for his promotion that would position it to succeed. As he found his templates for success to be fruitful, he tried to repeat the same basic methods over the decades to try and replicate that past success even as the shows viewership declined throughout the last two decades (catching lightning in a bottle twice or thrice). And without competition serious competition until AEW he had no reason to change, which naturally clashed with how NXT talent was portrayed in developmental versus on Raw or Smackdown. Some of that may have been simple resistance to changing from his standard course, and while weve seen small advancements in the product as it relates to the portrayal of women or people of colour in prominent positions, it hasnt nearly broken from the mold hed clung to from his entire run as owner and later CEO serving the Board.

Theres a reason why, while some fans stick with the company through thick and thin, others grow tired of the sameness of the product and look elsewhere and thats on him as the defacto then-head of the company. We cant only attribute professional successes to him, and ignore in turn where he fell short or dramatically overstepped his boundaries in storylines over the years that you could equate to being in poor taste. Thats again the duality of Vince McMahon the professional that we have to accept he was a success, and also despite making billions a critical dud when were discussing growing his audience which he did not do since the Attitude era. The numbers dont support a contradicting argument when you look at the year-over-year viewership decline were very familiar with by this point.

Vince McMahon cultivated an environment of success on his terms, with a show that catered to himself, his likings and if you liked that programming you were pleased with it week-to-week. Otherwise, you complained, moved on, or did both and hate-watched WWE like a commonplace weirdo. Regardless, what we cannot do is analyze only part of his story and apply that positive association toward resounding hero worship as though he didnt come up short as much as he perceptively succeeded and only hold him in high regard because he gave us warm and fuzzy memories as fans. That isnt realistic, adult-like in analysis, or all-together healthy. The complete picture of him is much less rosy, despite being ripe in the disposition that for better and worse he did what he wanted, when he wanted and coupled that with the egoism that he will because he could. Up to and including his response to his sexual misconduct allegations.

No.

Vince McMahon, aside from his professional wrestling-centric exploits, has been at the centre of serious allegations (see: El Gringo Loco Vince McMahon: The Rise and Fall for additional reading). The present allegations against him, detailed in documents compiled by the WWE Board, allege he paid millions in hush money to women he allegedly had a sexual relationship with over the last two decades. Thats further punctuated by a report released July 25, 2022, that found not only was $14M+ paid out by McMahon, but it was unrecorded in WWEs corporate quarterly financials and should have been declared as corporate expenses. This has resulted in the company having to recalculate its reports dating back to 2019. Those recalculated results are set to be released on Aug. 9 along with the companys Q2 report, according to a CNBC article dated July 25, 2022.

Wading into McMahons legal history is murky at best with nothing even formally falling upon him legally speaking, most notably stemming from rape allegations (no formal filings and it couldnt be proven), the Steroid trial and any alleged cover-up in the death of Jimmy Snukas then-girlfriend. Because of that theres very little you can say beyond McMahon potentially being ethically compromised, a cheat and steroid user with him admitting the latter two both during the steroid trial and in an interview in 2002 respectively.

In accepting the latter, acknowledging the potentiality of him possessing lowered ethical character in the former, and acknowledging that given his alleged involvement in these present hush money allegations which appear more damning by the day that its enough to at least ponder whether hes a person that is worth supporting. That maybe hes not worth a Thank You, Vince, no matter how much his family loves and cheerleads him and less so the fans hes been responsible for entertaining since the early 1980s. Is he worth that degree of worship now? Even if we discard the possibilities of any alleged involvement or association with past situations, what were faced with now and what appears to have catalyzed his stepping away from his post on the WWE board is very serious to such a degree he will not likely ever return in any capacity to the behind-the-scenes professional sphere and much less on television. If these new allegations prove true, hes become as much a liability professionally as you could argue he had become creatively in past years.

The Then, Now, Forever, Together, tagline that now adorns the openings of WWE programming paint an image of generations of fans being connected by their shared memories, and the ones passed down from grandparents and parents to their children not unlike WWE itself being passed down through the McMahon family from its earliest promotional days. It binds us and makes us extended family by simple association whether you grew up with WWE and still follow it devoutly, or have become the pretentious cousin everyone hates whos gone independent or dived into counter-culture wrestling, with the people caught in the crossfire just wanting everyone to get along and just appreciate the craft. That bond people share as wrestling fans does not however mean that when someone does something morally bankrupt they get a pass and are deserving of a thank you when they step aside as though because they entertained us and not even directly at that, that falls on the wrestlers themselves who put themselves in the line of fire and risk injury they are resilient from being held accountable for wrongdoing, or even being rightly and justly criticized.

Whats before us is serious, its not a joke and if found guilty he should be reprimanded and not showered with praise because he uttered some promotional taglines at the beginnings of shows for the last 40 years (or mere weeks ago on his final TV appearance), or took a bedpan to the head and allowed himself to be embarrassed on television infinitely during Steve Austins heyday. That doesnt dismiss the equally-odd behaviours or angles that he shepherded onto television as the companys creative chief or that he was directly involved in on TV himself. What makes him worthy of that degree of worship? Yes, thank him for his contributions to wrestling and entertainment, but in the same breath we need to also acknowledge that these allegations are very real and serious enough to prompt his stepping aside from the business. We have to acknowledge that while he gave us so many memories that our parents passed down, that we experienced ourselves and will be able to pass on to new fans as we share the present, that he may not be a good person. That he may not be worth idolization.

Vince is a human first, and that makes him fallible by nature like the rest of us, and because of that he shouldnt be treated any differently for the sake of entertainment, nor because of our memories of him. It holds less value weighed against these new allegations. When we discuss notions of legacy, or in this case his, with athletes we tend to look at how they came into leagues, how they played, how they responded to adversity early on, how they develop, and ultimately measures of success like stats, victories and championships. We look at the totality of it, and even more so them as a person and how they carry themselves when their careers are over as much as we do during them. Im specifically thinking of Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant (especially his post-career aspirations). They arrived, They failed. They horribly stumbled, had their vices and made awful mistakes. They also inspired generations to thrive, excel and succeed, using sports as a microcosm example of what we can do with our time, understanding concurrently that they are very flawed and imperfect.

Vince McMahon should not be let off the hook by fans for any of his ethical misdeeds especially now as though its normalized. His legacy is more than what he did on screen, or behind the scenes from week to week for WWE television programs. Its how he carried himself when the cameras were off just as much, the deals he made, and the totality of how he treated those who worked for him and were contracted to him. Thats what we need to consider before making the decision to stand up and cheer for him.

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McMahons WWE Retirement Marks End of An Era Amid Tempestuous Allegations - Wrestling Headlines

WHAT IF THE multi-billion-dollar self-help industry is built on an illusion? What if there really is no self? On the one hand, the glass may seem half-empty: if there is no self, theres no one to take charge of our imperfect, wayward lives. But the glass is also half-full: with the vanishing of the self go all its problems, permanently solved. And the book that solves them ought to sell though who is there to buy it?

I will not argue that we do not exist, writes the philosopher Jay L. Garfield in Losing Ourselves: Learning to Live without a Self. That would be madness. But I will argue that we do not exist as selves, but as persons. Our existence is nominal or conventional, Garfield claims; its superficial, not deep. Learning this is meant to kill our self-conceit, which rests on an inflated sense of our own reality. We do exist, but we are humble persons, not narcissistic selves. When we absorb this fact, well be released from the egoism that torments us into love, impartiality, and joy.

If this sounds too good to be true, it probably is. But for those who have felt the allure of Buddhist philosophy as self-help, Garfields book is a rigorous yet accessible treatment of the arguments behind it, drawing on Nagasena (c. 150 BCE) and Chandrakirti (c. 600650 CE), as well as George Berkeley (16851753) and David Hume (17111776).

What does it mean to believe in the self? Its a moving target. Garfield begins with the idea of the tman in ancient Indian philosophy: the self or soul [] characterized as unitary, as the witness of all that we perceive, as the agent of our actions. He finds the self again in Christianity: an enduring spirit, able to survive the death of the physical body. This is elevated stuff, but for Garfield, belief in the self is ubiquitous: it seems to crop up in some form in every major religious and philosophical tradition. We seemed to be wired to experience ourselves as selves.

The problem is that many of us, including me, have never believed in selves like this unitary, indivisible, enduring and we are as narcissistic and self-centered as anyone else. Ordinary egoism does not rest on the belief in some unchanging unity within. (Ill come back at the end to Garfields contention that we are wrong about our own beliefs: that were committed to souls despite ourselves.) Whats more, the arguments against the self rehearsed in Garfields book do not depend on thinking of ourselves in elevated ways.

Take Nagasenas chariot, presented to King Milinda as an analogy for ourselves. The chariot is not the same as any of its parts, Nagasena notes; nor can it be identified with the sum of those parts, suitably arranged or else it would cease to exist when any part of it is replaced. Instead, the words the Kings chariot are merely a designation with no determinate referent. [] A complete inventory of the basic constituents of the world, even if it contains chariot parts, contains no chariots.

This goes beyond the fact that chariots are not basic in the sense of being simple or atomic, indivisible. That is no surprise and it points to no surprise about us. Like many, I believe that Im a certain kind of organism, a human being, with manifold parts, not an indivisible soul. But Nagasenas argument is more radical: that the existence of things like chariots is a useful fiction. We talk as though they exist, even though they really dont, by grouping material stuff not wheels and axles, ultimately, but quarks and leptons in ways that make practical sense for us. There isnt really a thing that has the parts we take the chariot to have; there are only particles arranged chariot-wise, an arrangement we happen to find interesting. Thats how it is with people, too.

Garfield illustrates this radical view with a second analogy. Consider an apple. It seems to be something distinct from its roundness, redness, and sweetness, something in which those properties inhere. But actually, Garfield tells us, this idea makes no sense since it pictures the apple as something that lies behind its properties, a fruit without qualities. This is a redundant, barely intelligible posit. The self is similar: something posited, incoherently, behind the flux of experience and organic life.

For Garfield, strictly speaking, there are no composite things; nothing has parts or properties that change. In reality, there are no apples or chariots, even though we speak as though there are. Nor are there really human beings, gaining and losing matter, aging over time. We are useful fictions, too. The only alternative Garfield allows is that we are changeless selves or souls, spiritual atoms. If we cant believe that, then we must admit that he is right: while we exist as persons, conventional groupings of particles and processes, both mental and physical, we do not exist as selves.

A funny thing about Garfields book: he seems to take for granted that well buy his reasoning when it comes to apples and chariots but resist when it comes to us. He thus spends 50 intricate pages deflecting arguments for enduring selves that turn on the unity of experience, or the reflexivity of consciousness, or pre-reflective self-awareness. He doesnt register what I think is the more obvious response, which is to wonder if apples and chariots have more reality than he suggests, a mundane, composite existence that animals like us share. We dont ordinarily think of them as fictions.

Philosophers sometimes pose questions about real existence by asking what belongs to the furniture of the universe. According to Garfield, furniture does not belong to the furniture of the universe. If it did, it would have parts, like Nagasenas chariot, and nothing truly real is composite. At one point, Garfield reaches for a third analogy: All of this is to say that we are many, not one, he writes; we are collections of collections of processes, not unities; we are more like hives than bees in that respect. But his arguments imply that bees are collections of collections of processes, not unities; they are more like hives than what? The analogy falls in upon itself.

At the same time, Garfield looks for empirical evidence to confirm his view: Neuroscience does not reveal a central ego in the brain that marks who we are, as opposed to what we experience or do. There is no single place in the brain where it all comes together, or where consciousness is seated. But if the previous arguments work, this is at best redundant. At worst, its like trying to prove that chariots are not really real by pointing out that their wheels turn independently of one another. Why should real existence turn on unified functioning?

To be clear: Im not saying that Garfields puzzles about parts and properties are facile; they are not. I am saying that they have nothing specific to do with the self, and that their conclusions about the merely conventional existence of apples and chariots are shocking even before you apply them to us. If you ask why I believe that I exist as more than a convenient fiction, my answer wont appeal to the unity of consciousness or life after death but to the conviction that, as a human being, I am no less real than I take apples and chariots to be.

Lets not dive further into these deep waters. Instead, lets go back to the project of self-help. What is the ethical upshot of concluding, with Garfield, that apples, chariots, and human beings have a merely nominal existence that they are useful fictions? Should that make us more altruistic, less self-centered? Its not easy to see why.

Ive envied your chariot for years its bold curves and intricate moldings and I am desperate to make it mine. Nagasena drops by and convinces me that the chariot is a nominal thing, merely particles arranged chariot-wise, a conventional grouping of material stuff. Interesting to learn but I dont covet it any less! Misers are not cured of their obsession with wealth when we remind them that the economy is a social construction. Why should things be different when the object of attachment is not your chariot, or your bank account, but yourself?

When Garfield turns to ethics, his arguments have little to do with the reality of the self. Egoism is motivated by seeing ourselves at the center of [the moral] landscape, he writes. We see others as less real the more distant they are from us. When we describe this attitude so baldly, it seems preposterous[.] [] For one thing, each of us has the same claim to the center of the moral universe, and we cant all occupy that spot. Fair enough. But why should thinking Im a self not something merely nominal or conventional prevent me from thinking you are too? Id assume that were equally real, whatever we are.

The same goes for Garfields fascinating treatment of the first and second persons, I and you, which draws on the work of developmental psychologist Vasudevi Reddy: [O]ur awareness of ourselves as subjects dawns with our awareness of those who address us and who we address. In other words, the first-person and the second-person are co-emergent. If this is right, Garfield argues, then the problem of other minds cannot get started: we must already know other minds in order to know our own. Maybe so. But why does this depend on being a person, not a self? Why should our non-conventional existence lead us to predict that we know ourselves before we know anyone else? The issues seem unrelated.

In saying this, Im insisting again that the reality of selves could be mundane: the real existence of human beings ourselves with parts and properties that change, akin to the real existence of apples and chariots. Garfield thinks we believe ourselves to be more than that, that we are wired to experience ourselves as selves distinct from bodies or minds. But why?

Garfield has an argument, which comes at the beginning of his book. It invites us to imagine having someone elses body. Not being them, but being you, with their body as yours. (Garfield picks the body of Usain Bolt.) It then invites you to do the same thing with a mind. (Garfield chooses to have Stephen Hawkings.) Whether or not these exchanges are really possible, Garfield writes,

the very fact that you were able to follow me in this thought experiment shows that, at least before you think hard about it, you take yourself to be distinct from both your mind and your body, to be the thing that has your mind and your body, but that, without losing its identity, could take on another mind, another body, just like changing your clothes.

Is that so? Do our imaginative feats reveal such hidden beliefs? Consider an analogy with time. I can imagine any moment in history being now that it is now the Big Bang, or a million years from 2022. Does it follow that, at least before I think hard about it, I take now to be a time distinct from any day in history, including today? No. What follows is that the way in which the concept now picks out a time is different from the way in which we do so when we specify dates. Now refers to the time at which it is used, not to times indexed by a calendar. The difference is in thought, not reality, and no one is confused by this.

I dont see why we should be more confused when it comes to I and me why we should conflate a difference in how we think about a particular human being with a difference in what were thinking of. When I refer to a time as now, I leave open when it is; when I think of myself as me, I leave open who or what I am. My imagination is free to roam. That doesnt mean I secretly believe that now is a time beyond time, or that Im under the illusion that [I] stand outside of and against the world.

The irony is that this more deflationary view of I and now affords a better challenge to our selfish instincts. Suppose that Ive forgotten my own name and you tell me that Kieran Setiya is about to die. Too bad for him, Ill think, with pity. But if you tell me I am about to die, and I believe you, I will panic. Why do I care so much more about me than about him? There is no difference in whom Im thinking of, only how Im thinking of them. And the difference is just that, when I think of them as me, Im doing so by way of a device that picks out whoever is thinking this thought as now is a device that picks out the time at which its being used. Why should I give ethical priority to whomever is picked out in this way?

The force of this question can be lost in the fog of metaphysics that surrounds the reality of the self: the question is as hard to pin down as it is to answer. But I suspect that its a better path into our self-conceit than reflection on apples and chariots, properties and parts. The puzzle is not whether we belong to the furniture of the world but as William Godwin once asked What magic is there in the pronoun my, to overturn the decisions of everlasting truth?

Godwins question is less fashionable than Buddhist metaphysics or cognitive neuroscience. It leads into the murky depths of analytic philosophy, often disparaged as irrelevant to life. On the one hand, the glass may seem half-empty: the problems of first-person thought are intricate, technical, and largely unresolved. But the glass is also half-full: there is work for philosophers in the lucrative business of self-help.

Kieran Setiya teaches philosophy at MIT and is the author of Midlife: A Philosophical Guide (2017). His new book, Life is Hard, comes out in October.

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Buddhism as Self-Help: On Jay L. Garfield's Losing Ourselves: Learning to Live without a Self - lareviewofbooks

Jay L. Garfield is the Doris Silbert Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Philosophy, Logic, and Buddhist Studies at Smith College and a visiting professor of Buddhist philosophy at Harvard Divinity School.

Below, Jay shares 5 key insights from his new book, Losing Ourselves: Learning to Live Without a Self. Listen to the audio versionread by Jay himselfin the Next Big Idea App.

Id like to begin with a little story from the 7th-century Indian philosopher, Chandrakirti. He tells the story of a man who is worried that a snake has taken up residence in the wall of his house. If you live in India, this is pretty dangerous because a lot of the snakes are poisonous. The man looks through the house, reassures himself that theres no elephant there, and then he relaxes. Chandrakirti says, What an idiot that guy is!

Whats the point of the story? The snake is our self, and we often are convinced that that particular snake has taken up residence in our own homesthat we are ourselves. When we try to really figure out who we are, we might reject the idea that Im a body, that Im a mind, and so forth, but still that self, that snake, remains there.

Its important to begin by identifying that delusion so that we can see how dangerous it is. I like to do that using a thought experiment: We could begin by imagining somebody else whose body wed really like to have. I, for example, would like to have Usain Bolts body from a few years ago, just for about 9.4 seconds, because Id love to know what it feels like to run that fast. The moment I form that desire, Im telling myself that I do not identify my self with my body, because I think of myself as somebody who has a body, and who could have another body; I think of myself as the thing that owns my body. We can do the same thing with our mindsId really like to have Stephen Hawkings mind when he was at his peak, because Id love to be able to understand general relativity, gravitation, and all of that cool stuff.

The very fact that I can imagine that desirenot wanting to be Stephen Hawking or to be Usain Bolt, but to have their mind and body respectivelytells me that I dont, deep down, think of myself as identical to my mind, but rather as the guy who has my mind, and could have had a better one. Its that thing, the self, that stands behind mind and bodythat has the mind, that has the bodythats the target.

I think that that self has got to be an illusion. In fact, I think its a stupid idea, because after all, when you take your body and mind away and you ask whats left, theres nothing really there. Its the idea of something that stands outside of the worldthe pure subject that experiences the world and acts on the world, but is not in the world.

The 20th-century Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein described that as thinking of ourselves as like the eye in the visual fieldnot in the field, but standing behind it. Similarly, when we think of ourselves as selves, we take ourselves out of the world. But we know that were just biological organisms in the world, so we know that thats an illusion, even if its an illusion that evolution has wired us for.

A great way to get a handle on the difference between these two views is to think about the etymology of the word person in English. It comes from the word persona, which refers to a maskand in particular, the mask that an actor would wear in the classical theater. Persona became a word for a role in the theater, and we still have that in the phrase dramatis personae when we look at a play. The personae are the roles, not the actors. Similarly, we can think of ourselves not as actors, but as roles.

Think, for instance, about the difference between the role of Hamlet and the many actors who have played HamletSir Laurence Olivier, Benedict Cumberbatch, and so forth. The fact that Benedict Cumberbatch played Hamlet does not make Hamlet a contemporary Englishman, nor does it make Benedict Cumberbatch a fictional character. It means that the role of Hamlet survives different particular players; its constituted by a story, by a fiction, by the conventions of the theater, by being played by many people.

Thats how we are. We are constituted by the social practices in which we engage, by the families in which were raised, and by the cultures in which we live. Just as Hamlet changes from Sir Laurence Olivier to Benedict Cumberbatch, we constantly change as we get older, as we learn, and as we engage in social interaction with others.

This is really cool, because it means that were not imprisoned as static, permanent selves that stand behind the world; we are beings in constant, open engagement with others. This facilitates a kind of spontaneity and better ethical engagement.

One of the dangerous things about the self illusion is that it leads us to thematize our experience in terms of subject-object duality. We think of ourselves as pure subjects and everything else as objects, and that really distorts life because it takes the entire world as existing as our object, and us as outside of the world. It forgets that we are actually part of the world; it forgets that when I perceive the world, I only do so through the world entering me through my sensory apparatus, through my cognition, and through my experience. In fact, Im always part of the world, non-dually related to it, even though Im constantly maybe superimposing a duality.

The interesting point is that we dont always superimpose subject-object duality, or thematize ourselves as transcendent subjects; there are times when we forget ourselves completely. Psychologists call these flow states, states when we simply forget ourselves in seamless, effortless engagement with the world. We find this in really expert performancein great athletic performance, in musical performance, in dance, even when were engaged in a really great conversation with a friend, or observing objects of art, or lost in the contemplation of nature. We dont really notice ourselves, and dont thematize that duality.

Flow is a sign of expertiseit shows us that were able to do something spontaneously and without effort. When were in flow, we perform at our best and were happier, and it distinguishes a beginner or amateur from expert performance.

Theres a neat way to see this. If you think about the reasons for attending to ourselves and thematizing our experience in subject-object duality, that often works best when were acquiring a skill. If youre teaching somebody to play a musical instrument or play a sport, you ask them to direct their attention to their bodies, to what theyre doing, and to their interaction with whats around them. You stimulate subject-object duality, and that helps people get better.

But it turns out that if you ask experts to attend to themselves, to attend to their bodies, to pay attention to what theyre doing, that degrades their performance. That teaches us that subject-object duality is useful for learning, but we want to shed it when we get to expertise. Thats why I think that because the self underlies this idea of subject-object duality, in order to become really expert people, to lead virtuoso lives, we need to shed the self and recognize ourselves as personsbeings in constant, open, dynamic interaction with others and with our environment.

The moment we distinguish self from everything else, the moment we superimpose subject-object duality on all of our interactions, we set the stage for moral egoism. If we are the only subject and everything else is object, thats reason to take ourselves very, very seriously. It locates us at the center of our interactive social universe and at the center of our moral universe. It leads us to believe that we are somehow free from causality in that we simply act as independent, autonomous agents. It also leads us to treat others as though they are autonomous agents, and by doing that, we forget all the causal determinants of our behavior. We forget that what we do depends on what we believe, on what we intend, on what we see, and also on our emotional state and how were brought up.

Thats true of others around us, too. That can exaggerate our own sense of agency, leading to unjustified pride and egoism. It can also exaggerate our sense of others agency, leading us to blame people for things for which they really dont deserve blame. This makes us more reactive and less responsive. It makes it impossible to cultivate genuine human connections. If we understand ourselves as persons, as ensemble actors in the same big play as everybody else, then were able to interact with others in a more selfless way, a way characterized by care, friendliness, a commitment to relieve their difficulties, a commitment to help others become happier as we become happierwith sympathetic joy, with the ability to take pleasure not only in our own achievements, but also in the achievements of others.

When we do that, we de-center ourselves. We take ourselves out of the center of the moral universe and recognize that we are simply one actor among many in the grand cast of the human world. That allows us to who engage with others in a kinder, gentler, more open way, and gives us a much more realistic view of exactly who we are and who others are.

Ive been suggesting that were more like roles than we are like actorsthat is, that we are kind of fictional beings, made up. But the words fact and fiction, in English, are actually cognate. A fact is something thats madewe have the word factory, where we make thingsand a fiction is something thats been made up. These words in old English were very, very close, and theyve only diverged more recently.

The important point here is that fictions create facts. The fiction of Hamlet creates the fact that Hamlet was a prince of Denmark, and not Ophelia. It creates the fact that Hamlet dies in the last scene. It creates the fact that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Hamlets friends, and that fact leaks out of Shakespeares play and into Tom Stoppards.

Fictions do create facts. The grand fiction in which we participate creates the facts that we take most seriously in our lives. That also means that the fiction that we write is not a fiction that I author or that you author, but a fiction that all of us author togethera collectively authored improv fiction. Thats because we have evolved to be highly social beings, beings whose identity only emerges in interaction with others. We learn to be the social beings we are through our interactions with others, through the way our parents bring us up, through our childhood, and through our practice as adults. By understanding that we become who we are only among others, and that everybody with whom we interact has a hand in shaping us, just as we have a hand in shaping all of those with whom we interact, we can replace a sense of autonomy and isolation with a sense of fellowship and gratitude toward others.

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Losing Ourselves: Learning to Live Without a Self - Next Big Idea Club Magazine

For almost all of the 20th century issues of nationalism and socialism engaged the hearts, minds and activities of large numbers of people throughout the world in ways that were both positive and negative. In the last two decades the rivalry and conflicts of these two ideologies have been in decline, and a world wide religious revival is now occurring. Few can doubt that political-religious ideologies and movements in the 21st century can and will be both liberating and destructive for many societies as well as many millions of individuals. People, organizations and movements who are fully committed to contributing to a world at peace, and who are equally committed to respect both our own religion and our neighbors, will need to do all we can to promote interfaith religious respect through the advocacy of religious pluralism as the will of God.

Religious pluralism as the will of God is very different from religious, moral or cultural relativism. Relativism teaches that all values and standards are subjective, and therefore there is no higher spiritual authority available for setting ethical standards or making moral judgements. Thus, issues of justice, truth or human rights are, like beauty, just in the eye of the beholder. Most people, especially those who believe that One God created all of us, refuse to believe that ethics and human rights are simply a matter of taste. Religious pluralism as the will of God is the opposite of cultural or philosophical relativism.

The fundamental idea supporting religious pluralism is that religious people need to embrace humility in many areas of religion. All religions have always taught a traditional anti self centered personal egoism type of humility. Religious pluralism also opposes a religious, philosophical, and self righteous intellectual egoism that promotes a tendency to turn our legitimate love for our own prophet and Divine revelation into universal truths that we fully understand and know how to apply. Religious pluralism teaches that finite humans, even the most intelligent and pious of them, can not fully understand everything the way the infinite One does. This is true, for every human being, even for Gods messengers themselves. When prophet Moses.who God spoke with face to face, as a person speaks with a friend (Exodus 33:11) asks to see God face to face, he is told, You cannot see My face, for no man can see My face and live. (33:20)

And in the Quran Prophet Jesus admits to God, You know everything that is within myself, whereas I do not know what is within Yourself. (7:116) In the New testament when Prophet Jesus is asked, in private, by his disciples, What will be the sign for your coming (back) and the end of the age? (Matthew 24:3) Prophet Jesus warns his disciples about all kinds of upheavals and false Messiahs that will come. Then he concludes by saying, But about that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, not even the son: only the Father. (24:36)

A similar statement was made by Prophet Muhammad when he was asked, Tell me about the Hour.he replied: The one questioned about it, knows no better than the questioner. (Muslim book 1:1&4) Prophet Muhammad taught the general principle of epistemological humility to his followers when he said, I am no novelty among the messengers. I do not know what will be done to me, or to you. (Quran 46:9)

If, even the messengers of God humbly admit that they do not know the answers to many questions, how much more should we ordinary believers refuse to claim to know it all. When it comes to religious truths, we can see them, but only in part. The part we can see derives from the prophets and the holy scriptures that Jews, Christians and Muslims have been blessed with. As the Quran declares, Every people has a direction towards which they turn; so compete together wherever you may be as if in a race towards all that is good. Surely Allah will bring you all together. (2:148) Religions are to compete with one another, but not by claiming to be in possession of a better or higher truth.

Religions should compete in doing good deeds. This is a test of the commitment and effectiveness of each communities leaders, and the sincerity and devotion of each religions followers. Competing in doing good is a test for us as believers. It is not a test for determining which religion has the truest truth. This is why God made us into many nations, and many religions. For each We have appointed a clear way of life and a comprehensive system. If Allah had so willed He would surely have made you a single community: but (didnt) in order to test you by what (Scripture) He granted you. So compete together as if competing in good works. All of you will (ultimately) return to Allah and then He will make you understand what you have differed about. (Quran 5:48) Only after resurrection, at the time of final judgements, will humans be able to understand the full meaning of their various sacred scriptures, and the truths contained in the differences between them. In this world, God has determined that religious humility must rule.

Large scale immigration, the ubiquity of modern media, and the Internet have transformed our world, and now require religious leaders to spend much more time and effort studying their own tradition to find and publicize ideas of religious pluralism. I firmly believe that throughout human history, prophets and holy men have appeared in every nation and every tribe to speak Gods words. Assuredly We have raised up within every community a Messenger (proclaiming) worship God alone, and keep away from false Gods and the powers of evil. Among them (each religious community) were people whom God guided, just as there were among them those for whom straying was their just due. (Quran 16:36).

Thus, I am not surprised to find that every major religious tradition I have studied has some statements affirming the philosophy of religious pluralism. These texts were only theory in pre-modern times, when contact between different major religious communities was very limited, and so they were not accorded the emphasis and significance that they now deserve. That needs to be changed.

Christians and Jews have the words of the prophet Micah, who declared that until the end of history, and into the Messianic Age, religious pluralism will continue to be the norm even among polytheists. Though all peoples/nations walk, each in the name of its Gods, we will walk in the name of the Lord our God forever. (Micah 4:5) Micah, lived 2,700 years ago, in the same generation as the more famous prophet Isaiah. Micah is the first explicit proponent of religious pluralism in the west. Micah, like all prophets sent to Israel, and all the other prophets sent to other peoples, believed that there was only one God. Yet he was inspired by that one God to proclaim that the many peoples and nations on the earth would never have only one religion. Even polytheism would survive until the end of days. However, it might be that what we would call polytheism and idol worship today will someday be understood by the polytheists as monotheism.

In India, about three or four centuries prior to prophet Micah, the Rig-veda, the oldest scripture in Hinduism, stated (Book 1, hymn 164, verse 46): Sages/Priests call the one God by many names. But the word translated as God really means ultimate reality /truth and the usual translation of Ekam Sat, Viprah Bahudha Vadanti is, Truth is one but learned men describe it differently. As a Rabbi, I would interpret this to mean that God/Ultimate Reality is one, but Hindu sages declare/define/discuss/differentiate it as many. A Hindu philosopher would say that when Hindus enter a temple and see perhaps a dozen different statues of Deities, in their mind, they see just one Divinity.

The many religious streams making up Hinduism: the Vaishnava worship of Krishna, the Shaiva worship of Shiva and the Shakta worship of Durga are unified through the power of this simple verse. To a Rabbi this verse is really not a statement about the one unique Divine personality who created the universe, and who should not be associated with any of the gods of polytheism. The verse expresses a philosophy of universal metaphysical truth called monism (the denial of meaningful fundamental distinctions) or as this philosophy is usually call by Buddhists; non dualism.

By religious pluralism I mean a conscious acceptance that there can be, and are, legitimate alternate values and views, that contain different truths for other peoples and religions. This is what the Quran teaches about the Abrahamic religions and in at least one passage the Quran anticipated that traditional polytheism could be turned into a kind of monotheism if its adherents understood it that way, as many of todays Hindus and Zoroastrians do. Those who believe (Muslims), those who declare Judaism, Christians and Sabaeans: whoever believes in God and the last day (of Judgment) and does good, righteous deeds, surely their reward is with their Lord, and they shall have no fear, nor will they grieve. (Quran 2:62) The traditional commentaries have suggested that the Sabaeans could be many different religious groups among them Zoroastrians and Hindus. Only God knows.

About the same time as the Rig Veda spoke of many truths/gods/realities fundamentally being one and the same, a Jewish leader named Jephthah offered a different approach. He tried to avoid a war by appealing to an invading king as follows.Do you not hold what Chemosh, your God, has given you? So we will hold on to all that YHVH, our God, has given us. (Judges11:24) Jephthah does not believe in Chemosh nor does he think that Chemosh is just another name for the Holy One of Israel. He knows that the One God of Israel does not allow Jews to have any other god. But Jephthah recognizes the kings religious beliefs, and wants the king to equally recognize Israels. Thus, YHVH the One God of Israel is the only God for Jews but others can have one God that they submit to.

As the Quran declares, For every community We have appointed a whole system of worship which they are to observe. So do not let them draw you into disputes concerning the matter, but continue to call people to your Lord.,..God will judge between (all of) you on the Day of Resurrection about what you used to differ. (22:67&69) To use a simple example; there are many ways to travel from Los Angeles to San Francisco. Some people fly, others take the train or the bus, most drive by car and a few even sail or ride a bike. Each way has its pros and cons. Flying is fast but you do not see the scenery. Driving is less expensive but you cant read or sleep on the way.

What is important to understand is that you cant take the different ways and combine them to get the best of all ways. A combination of a boat, a car, a bike and a train will not produce something that will take you anywhere. Indeed. the Quran asserts that although the prophets all bring the same basic message of ethical monotheism the details vary according to the time and situation of each people, and prophets vary in their roles, activities, and personality. Quran, 2:253, states: We made some of these messengers excel others; to some Allah spoke (directly), others He exalted in rank; and to Jesus son of Mary We gave clear miracles and strengthened him with the holy spirit. If Allah had pleased, those after them would not have fought one with another after clear arguments had come to them, but they disagreed; so there were some of them who believed and others who denied. If Allah had pleased they would not have fought one with another, but Allah brings about what He intends. Also,Quran 17:55 which reads: And your Lord best knows those who are in the heavens and the earth; and certainly We have made some of the prophets to excel others, and to David We gave a scripture (Psalms).

Prophet Muhammad himself taught that even in the world to come it will not be clear if Moses or Muhammad is the supreme Prophet. Narrated Abu Huraira: Two persons, a Muslim and a Jew, quarreled. The Muslim said, By Him Who gave Muhammad superiority over all the people! The Jew said, By Him Who gave Moses superiority over all the people! At that the Muslim raised his hand and slapped the Jew on the face. The Jew went to the Prophet and informed him of what had happened. The Prophet sent for the Muslim and asked him about it. The Muslim informed him of the event. The Prophet said, Do not give me superiority over Moses, for on the Day of Resurrection all the people will fall unconscious and I will be one of them. I will be the first to gain consciousness, and I will see Moses standing and holding the side of the Throne (of Allah). I will not know whether (Moses) had also fallen unconscious and got up before me, or Allah has exempted him from that stroke. (Bukhari book 76 #524) Christians, Jews and Muslims should learn humility from this teaching of Prophet Muhammad.

And followers of all religions should always repeat this teaching of Allahs Messenger, Prophets are brothers in faith, having different mothers. Their religion is, however, one. (Muslim, book #030, Hadith #5836) All prophets have the same father, who is the One God whose inspiration gives birth to their prophethood. However, each prophet has a different mother i.e. the nation and people as well as the period and age that he speaks to. Thus prophets are brothers in faithfulness to the One God, but their Divinely inspired message differs because it must be appropriate for their motherland, their mother tongue, their own people and the historical circumstances of the prophets lifetime.

To be honest, we must admit that in the past religious leaders spent all of their time and effort seeking to educate, elevate and enlighten the members of their own religious community. This was only natural because 98% of their members rarely or never were engaged with beliefs or believers of another major religious tradition, much less with several other major religious traditions. The Quran is the major exception to this, and I have drawn upon the Qurans teachings about religious pluralism for most of my argument that religious pluralism is the will of God.

The Quran is the only book of revelation that includes within itself a theory of prophethood which includes other religions. The Quran proclaims that there have always been (since the days of Adam) people inspired by Allah who urged their society to avoid destruction by turning away from corrupt and unjust ways and turning to the One God who created all humans. The Quran mentions 25 prophets by name, and several others like Samuel without naming them. Of the 25 mentioned by name in the Quran only five; Abraham, Moses,David, Jesus and Muhammad revealed books of sacred scripture, and only Prophets Moses, Jesus and Muhammad revealed books of sacred scripture that are the bases for the three Abrahamic religious communities that still flourish today. Prophet Davids book was the Zabur/Psalms. Prophet Abrahams book has disappeared, unless it was incorporated into the Torah as the first half of Genesis, and into the Quran in several different chapters. Note that the Quran speaks of the Scrolls of Abraham and Moses in verse 87:19 and of the Scrolls of Moses and Abraham in verse 53:36&7; but God knows best.

Muslims believe that within each community there are at least three different groups or parties. There are hypocrites who claim to be believers in their book, but do not live according to its teachings. There are the majority, who are pious believers but do not always do all they should, And there are those who are excellent examples of the religious ideas of their prophet and their scriptures. Thus, the Quran proclaims, That which We reveal to you of the book (the Quran) confirms the revelations prior to it. Surely God is fully aware of His servants (deeds) and sees well. Then We made those of Our servants whom We chose heirs to the Scripture. However, among them (the followers of each revealed book) are those who wrong their own selves (by sinning), and among them are those who follow a moderate way (average followers) and among them are those who, by Gods leave. are foremost in doing good deeds. That is the great favor. (Quran 35:31&32)

How do I, as a Reform Rabbi, go about understanding some Jewish texts from a Quranic religious pluralism perspective, and how in the same way, I understand differences between Judaism and Islam. I think of myself as a Reform Rabbi and an Islamic Jew. Actually I am an Islamic Jew i.e. a faithful Jew submitting to the will of God, because I am a Reform Rabbi. As a Rabbi I am faithful to the covenant that God made with Prophet Abraham the first Muslim Hebrew (Genesis 14:13), and I submit to the covenant and its commandments that God made with the people of Israel at Mount Sinai.

In the Hebrew Bible, Prophet Abraham is the first person to be called a Hebrew (Genesis 14:13). The term Hebrew comes from the verb to go over a boundary like the Euphrates or Jordan river or to be an immigrant. The first thing God told Prophet Abraham in the Biblical account was: Leave your country, your kindred, and your fathers household, and go to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name (Israel) great, so that you will be a blessing. (Bible Genesis 12:1-2)

So Prophet Abraham was what we can call the first Islamic Hebrew or the first Muslim Hebrew,as the Quran indicates: He (Abraham) was not Yahuudiyyaan, a Jew, nor Nasraaniyyaan, a Christian, but rather a Haniifaan, a submitter to God, (Quran, 3:67)i.e. a monotheistic Hebrew believer submitting (Islam) to the one imageless God who created all space and time; and who made Prophet Abraham-the-Hebrews descendants through Prophets Isaac and Jacob (Israel) into a great multitude of monotheists called the Children of Israel Bnai Israel in Hebrew and Banu Israel in Arabic.

As a Reform Rabbi I believe that Jewish spiritual leaders should modify Jewish tradition as social and historical circumstances change and develop. I also believe we should not make religion difficult for people to practice. These are lessons that Prophet Muhammad taught 12 centuries before the rise of Reform Judaism in the early 19th century. Although most Jews are no longer Orthodox, if the Jews of Prophet Muhammads time had followed these teachings of prophet Muhammad; Reform Judaism would have started 1,400 years ago.

Ahadith are narrative accounts by Muhammads companions of situations involving Gods messenger and rulings or statements that Muhammad made. A Hadith narrated by his wife Aisha says, Whenever the Prophet was given an option between two things, he used to select the easier of the two as long as it was not sinful; but if it was sinful, he would remain far from it. (Bukhari book 56 #760) I follow this in my own life as an Islamic Jew; and as a Reform Rabbi I teach it to the members of my congregation.

As a Reform Rabbi I believe that Prophet Muhammad was the Prophet sent to the Muslim community. I believe that the Quran is as true for Muslims as the Torah is true for us Jews. Indeed, I love the Hadith Narrated by Abu Huraira that says, The people of the Book used to read the Torah in Hebrew and then explain it in Arabic to the Muslims. Allahs Apostle said (to the Muslims). Do not believe the people of the Book, nor disbelieve them, but say, We believe in Allah, and whatever is revealed to us, and whatever is revealed to you.' (Bukhari book 92 #460 and book 93 #632)

Following Prophet Muhammads teaching I also neither believe nor disbelieve the Quran. I do respect the Quran very much as a kindred revelation to a kindred people in a kindred language. In fact, the people, the language and the theology are closer to my own people, language and theology than that of any other on earth. The strong support that the Quran gives to religious pluralism is a lesson that is sorely needed by all the religious fundamentalists in the world today.

Over many centuries the Orthodox interpretation of Jewish law has gotten stricter and stricter. As a Reform Rabbi I totally agree with the Hadith Narrated by Sad bin Abi Waqqas: The Prophet said, The most sinful person among the Muslims is the one who asked about something which had not been prohibited, but was prohibited because of his asking. (Bukhari book 92 #392) For example, both Islam and Judaism teach the importance of sacred slaughter of animals for meat, and the total avoidance of certain animals for food. (Quran 2:173, 6:145, & 16:115) In Islam the rules are simpler and fewer than in Orthodox Judaism. (Quran 6:146 , Leviticus 11:1-47 & Deuteronomy 14:3-21)

Most Reform Rabbis would regard the increasingly restrictive developments in kashrut- Jewish dietary laws, especially for Passover, as a counterproductive, overburdening of the people. The expansion of restrictions on Shabbat activities is also seen by most Reform Rabbis as an unneeded overburdening of the joy of Shabbat. Prophet Muhammad wisely differentiates between extremism and striving to be near perfect (no one is perfect) which involves a rejection of all extremisms. Just trying to do well will be rewarded. As Abu Huraira related: The Prophet said, Religion is very easy and whoever overburdens himself in his religion will not be able to continue in that way. So you should not be extremists, just try to be near to perfection and receive the good tidings that you will be rewarded. (Bukhari book 2 #38)

The Quran refers to Prophet Abraham as a community or a nation: Abraham was a nation/community [Ummah]; dutiful to God, a monotheist [hanif], not one of the polytheists. (16:120) If Prophet Abraham is an Ummah; then fighting between the descendants of Prophets Ishmael and Isaac is a civil war and should always be avoided. And prior to the 20th century Arabs and Jews never did make war with each other.

If all Arabs and Jews can live up to the ideal that the descendants of Abrahams sons should never make war against each other is the will of God; we can help fulfill the 2700 year old vision of Prophet Isaiah: In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria. The Assyrians will go to Egypt, and the Egyptians to Assyria. The Egyptians and Assyrians will worship together.In thatdayIsrael will joina three-partyalliance with Egyptand Assyria,a blessing uponthe heart.The LORD of Hosts will bless them saying, Blessed be Egypt My people, Assyria My handiwork, and Israel My inheritance.(Isaiah 19:23-5)

While the Holy Kaba and Makkah City are open only to Muslims, the Holy Jerusalem Temple and the City of Jerusalem were always open to all monotheistic pilgrims; who would sing as they ascended to both the Holy Temple and the City the following hymn from the Zabur of Prophet David (Psalm 122); A song of ascents. Of David.1 I rejoiced with those who said to me, Let us go to the house of the LORD.2 Our feet are standing in your gates, Jerusalem.3 Jerusalem is built like a city closely compacted together.4 That is where the tribes ascend, the (12) tribes of the LORD, to praise the name of the LORD according to the laws given to Israel.5 There stand thrones for judgment, thrones of the house of David.6 Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: May those who love you be secure.7 May there be peace within your walls; and security within your citadels.8 For the sake of my (Abrahamic) family and friends, I will say, Peace be within you.9 For the sake of the house of the LORD our God, I will seek your (civic) welfare. (NIV)

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Qur'an And Torah On Religious Pluralism Is God's Will OpEd - Eurasia Review

The editors of New Ideal are delighted to republish, with permission, Rob Tarrs chapter from Foundations of a Free Society: Reflections on Ayn Rands Political Philosophy. Note: this text includes a number of abbreviated references (such as VOS and CUI) to published works. A key to those references appears at the end of each installment.

Ayn Rand is best known in contemporary culture for being an intransigent defender of capitalism. She always insisted, however, that I am not primarily an advocate of capitalism, but of egoism; and I am not primarily an advocate of egoism, but of reason. If one recognizes the supremacy of reason and applies it consistently, all the rest follows (TO 1089). She was adamant that capitalism had to be defended on philosophic grounds: I want to stress that our primary interest is not politics or economics as such, but mans nature and mans relationship to existence and that we advocate capitalism because it is the only system geared to the life of a rational being (Introduction, CUI vii).

Understanding the basic nature of value is crucial to understanding capitalism, Rand thought. A rational being must be a rational valuer, and she held that conventional theories of values and of evaluation did not treat these as rationally derived. These theories fall into two basic categories, which Rand called intrinsic and subjective. In contrast, she defined and defended a new category: a new concept of objective value. She writes: Capitalism is the only system based implicitly on an objective theory of values and the historic tragedy is that this has never been made explicit (CUI 15). She made this base explicit in her essay What Is Capitalism? (CUI ch. 1).

Every theory of economics necessarily assumes at its base a particular conception of the nature of value. I aim to examine how the different conceptions of value have been assumed by different economic theories, and how these shaped the theories. Classical economics assumed and was shaped by an intrinsic theory of value, while modern mainstream neoclassical economics was shaped by a subjective theory. More controversially, I argue that Austrian economics was shaped by implicitly assuming an objective conception of value (in Rands sense). It is the elements of an objective conception of value embedded in their theories that explain why Austrian economists reach a (largely) proper understanding of the nature of capitalism (from Rands perspective) and are rightly viewed as the preeminent advocates of capitalism in the economics profession.

One of Rands main intellectual goals was to define a rational ethics. In her essay The Objectivist Ethics, she writes:

Most philosophers have now decided to declare that reason has failed, that ethics is outside the power of reason, that no rational ethics can ever be defined, and that in the field of ethics in the choice of his values, of his actions, of his pursuits, of his lifes goals man must be guided by something other than reason. By what? Faith instinct intuition revelation feeling taste urge wish whim. Today, as in the past, most philosophers agree that the ultimate standard of ethics is whim (they call it arbitrary postulate or subjective choice or emotional commitment) and the battle is only over the question of whose whim: ones own or societys or the dictators or Gods. Whatever else they may disagree about, todays moralists agree that ethics is a subjective issue and that the three things barred from its field are: reason mind reality. (VOS 15)

Rand begins her ethics with a conception of value grounded in goal-directed action: Value is that which one acts to gain and/or keep (VOS 16). She traces the phenomenon of goal-directed action to the fundamental nature of living organisms: that living organisms in order to survive must systematically pursue goals aimed at preserving their lives. But while plants and animals have their goals (their values) automatically prescribed for them, man, as a volitional conceptual being, does not.1 Mans basic means of survival is his conceptual faculty:

Man cannot survive, as animals do, by the guidance of mere percepts. . . . He cannot provide for his simplest physical needs without a process of thought. He needs a process of thought to discover how to plant and grow his food or how to make weapons for hunting. His percepts might lead him to a cave, if one is available but to build the simplest shelter, he needs a process of thought. No percepts and no instincts will tell him how to light a fire, how to weave cloth, how to forge tools, how to make a wheel, how to make an airplane, how to perform an appendectomy, how to produce an electric light bulb or an electronic tube or a cyclotron or a box of matches. Yet his life depends on such knowledge and only a volitional act of his consciousness, a process of thought, can provide it. (The Objectivist Ethics, VOS 23; quoted in What Is Capitalism? CUI 7)

For Rand, values are conceptual: Mans actions and survival require the guidance of conceptual values derived from conceptual knowledge (VOS 21). But this involves two distinct types of thought process: conceptual thought to discover knowledge of facts and conceptual thought to form values. Or: a thought process aimed at discovering the facts of reality (including facts about mans needs), and a distinct type of thought process aimed at integrating these facts so as to conceive goals and devise plans for achieving them. The first category of thinking (discovering factual knowledge) is widely recognized. The latter category (conceptual, goal-directed thinking) is less so. Rand emphasized the role of creative thinking in forming and achieving goals.

After describing the enormous complexity of the conceptual integrations necessary for identifying factual knowledge of reality, Rand writes:

Yet this is the simpler part of his psycho-epistemological task. There is another part which is still more complex.

The other part consists of applying his knowledge i.e., evaluating the facts of reality, choosing his goals and guiding his actions accordingly. To do that, man needs another chain of concepts, derived from and dependent on the first, yet separate and, in a sense, more complex: a chain of normative abstractions. While cognitive abstractions identify the facts of reality, normative abstractions evaluate the facts, thus prescribing a choice of values and a course of action. Cognitive abstractions deal with that which is; normative abstractions deal with that which ought to be (in the realms open to mans choice). (RM 6)

Goal-directed thinking crucially depends on factual knowledge but is distinct from it. The facts, by themselves, do not automatically dictate what goals man should pursue nor what steps (what means, what conceptual plans) will achieve them. It takes a separate, and different, process of thought to conceive and achieve goals.

The type of conceptual thinking involved in goal-directed thinking (of creatively conceiving goals and creatively integrating means to ends) Rand calls teleological measurement:

In regard to the concepts pertaining to evaluation (value, emotion, feeling, desire, etc.), the hierarchy involved is of a different kind and requires an entirely different type of measurement. It is a type applicable only to the psychological process of evaluation, and may be designated as teleological measurement. . . . Teleological measurement deals, not with cardinal, but with ordinal numbers and the standard serves to establish a graded relationship of means to end.

For instance, a moral code is a system of teleological measurement which grades the choices and actions open to man, according to the degree to which they achieve or frustrate the codes standard of value. The standard is the end, to which mans actions are the means.

A moral code is a set of abstract principles; to practice it, an individual must translate it into the appropriate concretes he must choose the particular goals and values which he is to pursue. This requires that he define his particular hierarchy of values, in the order of their importance, and that he act accordingly. Thus all his actions have to be guided by a process of teleological measurement. (ITOE 3233)

For fully rational, conceptual evaluation to be possible, an individuals values must form a consistent, integrated harmony. This is an important principle of Rands ethics: that one must do the hard thinking to integrate all of ones goals into a consistent whole, to avoid working at cross-purposes (one must know that the pursuit and achievement of one goal wont contradict and negate another goal). This integrated hierarchy must be applied to the evaluation of every particular goal, plan, action, or object. It is only by having all ones goals integrated in this fashion that one can rationally assess what will in fact advance ones goals or sabotage them. But the only way to know this is to trace all the complex indirect links and causal chains to assess the consequences for all of ones goals. For this reason, Rand continues:

(The degree of uncertainty and contradictions in a mans hierarchy of values is the degree to which he will be unable to perform such measurements and will fail in his attempts at value calculations or at purposeful action.)

Teleological measurement has to be performed in and against an enormous context: it consists of establishing the relationship of a given choice to all the other possible choices and to ones hierarchy of values. (ITOE 33)

Such an integration can only be done by reference to an ultimate standard, which, for Rand, is mans life. By tracing the causal consequences of all ones goals (and all their means of achievement) to the ultimate consequences they entail for ones life (and weighing them and integrating them accordingly), one can have a fully integrated conceptual justification of all ones goals.

For Rand, then, value (in the case of man) crucially depends on and embodies conceptual knowledge. Value requires the conceptual identification of the causal role that an object or action can play, within an integrated plan, aimed at achieving a goal (with the ultimate goal being the individuals life). To evaluate is to engage in this sort of thought process.

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In contrast to views that treat fact and value as radically different categories, Rand writes: Knowledge, for any conscious organism, is the means of survival; to a living consciousness, every is implies an ought (VOS 24). This does not mean, for Rand, that the ought follows as a direct or automatic implication from the is. A separate (and different) process of creative thought is required to identify the value implications of what is.

To concretize this distinction: Everyone has had experience with the type of person who has (or can easily get) all the factual information he needs, and yet who is passive or paralyzed in action. Often he is paralyzed in action precisely because he hasnt chosen to engage in a goal-directed thought process that is, to conceive a goal and devise a plan to achieve it. This type of thought process doesnt happen automatically; the facts by themselves dont mandate what to do.

Rands Atlas Shrugged is replete with illustrations of this issue. Her positive characters regularly engage in goal-directed thinking, conceiving new goals and constantly making the effort to devise new plans to achieve their goals. In contrast, the negative characters do not engage in creative goal-directed thinking and do not have or pursue any creative goals. Most often they subsist in passive mental lethargy, merely reacting (usually emotionally) to whatever facts and circumstances happen to hit them. The worst characters actively evade awareness of important facts and circumstances, precisely to avoid grasping the need for action and for the thought processes to guide it. This point, in fact, forms part of the central theme of Atlas Shrugged: the role of reason in mans life, which includes, importantly, the role of reason in conceiving and achieving goals that further mans life.

Without Rands conception of values as essentially embodying conceptual knowledge, knowledge is separated from value, giving rise to the is-ought gap. In contrast to her conceptual view of value (which she designates as objective), Rand defines two main categories of theories that exclude conceptual knowledge from value, which she designates as intrinsic and subjective:

The intrinsic theory holds that the good is inherent in certain things or actions as such, regardless of their context and consequences, regardless of any benefit or injury they may cause to the actors and subjects involved. It is a theory that divorces the concept of good from beneficiaries, and the concept of value from valuer and purpose claiming that the good is good in, by, and of itself.

The subjectivist theory holds that the good bears no relation to the facts of reality, that it is the product of mans consciousness, created by his feelings, desires, intuitions or whims, and that it is merely an arbitrary postulate or an emotional commitment. . . .

The objective theory holds that the good is neither an attribute of things in themselves nor of mans emotional states, but an evaluation of the facts of reality by mans 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. Fundamental to an objective theory of values is the question: Of value to whom and for what? An objective theory does not permit context-dropping or concept-stealing: it does not permit the separation of value from purpose, of the good from beneficiaries, and of mans actions from reason. (CUI 1314)

The subjective theory of value holds that value is rooted in some conscious phenomenon in the mind of the subject, detached from any facts of reality (e.g., Humes view or the hedonic utility of Utilitarians); it is rooted in consciousness without reference to a mind grasping reality. The intrinsic theory holds that value is something inherent in existential objects (or actions); it is rooted in reality, without reference to a mind grasping reality. In contrast, Rands conception of objective value is fundamentally about a mind grasping reality. Although not denying the wide variety and complexity of different theories of value, its Rands view that in each case somewhere along the line, implicitly if not explicitly, all intrinsic theories ultimately rely on the individual just knowing whats good, while all subjective theories ultimately rely on the subject just feeling whats good. Completely left out of each case is any sort of rational process of forming values. It is precisely this issue that Rand has in mind when she asserts that most philosophers agree the ultimate standard of ethics is whim.2

In defining her intrinsic/subjective/objective trichotomy, Rand conceptualizes the terms differently from the traditional objective/subjective dichotomy. This can be a source of confusion, particularly when we apply her ideas to economics. In the traditional dichotomy, objective designates a phenomenon that is in reality independent of consciousness; while subjective denotes a phenomenon that is subject-dependent that is, a phenomenon that depends on the subjects consciousness in some form. Rand uses the term intrinsic to denote theories that view knowledge or values as mind-independent features of reality. Meanwhile, the category of subjective, as often used in economics, lumps together the views of value that Rand calls subjective and objective. For Rand, subjective designates conscious phenomena that are unconnected to reality, and objective designates conscious phenomena that represent deliberate, conceptual, mental integrations of facts of reality. Both can be construed as subject-dependent, but they differ fundamentally in their connection to reality. (I use the terms subjective, objective, and intrinsic in Rands meanings of the terms, unless otherwise noted.)

Both the mainstream neoclassical school of economics and the rival Austrian school are traditionally considered subjective value schools in contrast to the intrinsic value perspective of classical economics. I believe that the stark differences between these two schools of thought ultimately trace back to different conceptions of value: the neoclassical school assumes a purely subjective conception of value, while the Austrian school implicitly assumes an objective conception of value. While its true that for both schools value is subject-dependent, their stark differences trace to the fact that the neoclassical school conceives value in purely subjective and thus nonrational terms, and the Austrians broadly (and implicitly) have a view of value as involving conceptual knowledge to conceive ends rationally and to integrate means to ends. Unfortunately, the traditional category of subjective value confuses many later Austrians, too, such that they come to view value as rooted in subjective consumer preferences; this muddies but does not destroy their implicitly objective conception of value.

Later thinkers in the Austrian school often talk about subjective knowledge.3 But this idea again is meant only to emphasize subject-dependence, that each individual has his own particular, finite context of knowledge that guides his actions (he cannot be presumed to know things he has no way of knowing, in contrast to mainstream assumptions of perfect knowledge). The Austrian idea, generally, is only meant to convey this subject-dependence and not the philosophic idea that one can only know things-as-they-appear-to-us (i.e., only the phenomena of our own consciousness).4 Essential to the Austrian theory of the market process is precisely that the individual learns new knowledge about reality (and about the goals, plans, and actions of other people), such that he comes to increasingly conform to reality. He forms new evaluations accordingly; new goals, plans, and courses of action. When Austrians use the term subjective, then, in most contexts the proper way to understand it is simply as subject-dependent.

Another potential confusion to avoid is that, for Rand, the values required by mans life do not solely refer to physical or material needs. In her view, mans conceptual consciousness has a specific identity with its own needs and requirements, which, if not fulfilled, will lead to impaired functioning. But since mans conceptual faculty is his basic means of survival, impaired conceptual functioning means impaired survival. Thus, the needs of mans consciousness are just as real, just as important, and just as objective as mans physical needs.5 Rands view contrasts with the view that grounding the concept of value in the biological life of man necessarily makes value purely about satisfying mans physical needs.6 There appears to be a wide range of things that men subjectively like and pursue, but which dont seem to have any connection to his physical survival, such as poetry, music, philosophic discussion, and so on. Rands view is that all such spiritual values (e.g., art or philosophy) do in fact have crucial survival value for man.7 Even pleasure itself, for Rand, is an objective need that stems from mans metaphysical nature as a living organism.8 Far from mere subjective likings, the needs of consciousness are objective needs that man must discover and fulfill as much as any physical needs.

A further issue to mention is Rands category of optional value. Within her category of objective value, there is a wide range of optionality. Shoes, for example, are an objective value to mans life; but, in most cases, the particular color of shoes does not make a difference and can be whatever the wearer chooses. This kind of issue is often used in economic theorizing to illustrate that value is subjective; but Rands view is that the proper way to conceptualize it is in the category of optional, within the wider category of objective value.9

The issues of spiritual values and optional values have motivated economists to conceptualize value in purely subjective terms, suggesting that value, as far as economics is concerned, simply denotes whatever someone likes and pursues, period. It is true that anything someone seeks to obtain on the market (for whatever reason) will lead to the formation of prices which are then subject to some form of economic explanation. This is true even for cases of irrational/immoral products (drugs, prostitution, etc.), which are objective disvalues in Rands view. But this manifestly does not mean that a subjective conception of value is necessary or sufficient for economic theory (as will be argued in detail in the balance of this essay).

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For Rand, the concept of objective designates conscious phenomena that represent deliberate, conceptual, mental integrations of facts of reality. A full understanding of this concept requires an understanding of the epistemological nature of these conceptual integrations.10 Rands view is that a concept represents a mental grouping of referents, according to definite criteria, to form a new mental integration. This mental grouping is a creative, factbased act that results in a new (previously nonexistent) mental product. The facts of reality alone do not automatically dictate how to form the appropriate conceptual integration of those facts. It takes creative effort to identify the criteria for grouping that are required by the nature of the referents, of the human mind, and of the cognitive purpose one is trying to fulfill.

At a higher level, this is what all creative problem-solving involves: mentally manipulating the elements of a problem until one discerns a new way of integrating them so as to solve the problem. Three aspects of Rands view are important to emphasize. First, it takes volitional effort on the part of the individual to initiate and sustain such a thought process, or else thinking does not take place. Second, the resulting integration is something new that is formed in the mind of the thinker (it would not exist without his efforts). Third, a new integration is creative; it is not an automatic result algorithmically written on his mind from a mere surveying of the facts. These are all inseparable aspects of the single act of creative thinking volitional, creative formation of a new mental integration but its important to emphasize them separately.

Its exactly mental integration of this type that Rand thinks lies at the root of production. Production is the production of value, and value (for Rand) crucially involves conceptual knowledge; which means, at root, that it involves a conceptual mental integration. For Rand, production is the application of reason to the problem of survival (CUI 8). Rand regularly stresses, throughout her novels and her nonfiction essays, that the root of all production is an idea, a creative mental integration: Whether its a symphony or a coal mine, all work is an act of creating and comes from the same source: from an inviolate capacity to see through ones own eyes which means: the capacity to perform a rational identification which means: the capacity to see, to connect and to make what had not been seen, connected and made before (Atlas 78283).

To identify value is to engage in the process of teleological measurement discussed above that is, goal-directed thinking aimed at conceiving a new end and forming new integrations of means. Forming a new integration in this way is the root value-creating activity. Although a plan must be executed for a value to be achieved in reality, its the formation of the mental integrations guiding this action that is the root source of the value.

An entrepreneur starting a new venture needs to conceive a vision and discover what integration of inputs can achieve the vision he seeks to produce. Given his estimation of the potential value of the product, he consciously imputes value to the inputs, each one based on its respective contribution to the output. The inputs are neither intrinsically valuable nor intrinsically productive. By themselves, they have no value and no use. The only value they have is the value the entrepreneur conceives them to have, given their role within some plan he has devised, to achieve some value he has conceived, based on the facts he has identified.11 The inputs only have a productive use, because the entrepreneur consciously seeks to use them in some particular role.

The view of production, then, is a teleological one. Production of value stems from the mental conception of a goal and the conceptual integration of a plan to achieve that goal. The fundamental, root act of production is the volitional, creative formation of these conceptual mental integrations.

As with any mental integration (for Rand), the three points mentioned above apply. The integration underlying production is a direct result of the volitional thinking of the producer. It is a new phenomenon (it wouldnt exist at all but for the producers mental effort). And it is creative (its not intrinsic in the facts of reality, to be algorithmically or automatically imprinted in his mind, but is the result of a creative thought process). These are the factors that underlie Rands fundamental justification of why a producer is the fundamental cause of production of value, and thus why, in justice, he fully deserves the value he produces.

This is the view of production from an objective conception of value. If value is conceived as intrinsic or subjective, however, then value does not essentially involve any mental work. Instead, all value is simply given to the mind, quite apart from any deliberate conceptual act (value is just known or just felt). On these conceptions of value, there is no room for any mental integration to play a role, no room for the mind to do anything in producing value per se. If conceptual knowledge is not involved, then value cannot be something rationally created by the mind; it cannot be some new mental integration that the thinker brings into existence; and it is not the result of any volitional mental effort on the part of the individual.

What does this imply for a view of production? A teleological view of production is impossible on intrinsic or subjective conceptions of value since they exclude a view of valuing in terms of conceiving ends that guide the creative integration of means. But the only real alternative is an efficient cause view of production, where the value of output is deemed to stem entirely from the inputs to a production process (raw materials, labor, machines, etc.). In this view, the producer plays no fundamental role in creating value; at best, he is merely a deterministic cipher passively reacting to circumstances. There is nothing for him to do, since all production stems directly (and effectively automatically) from the factors of production themselves; they are the source and cause of value.12 These sorts of views have been important in mainstream economic theory, but they are antithetical to Rands view of production.13

Production also effectively comes to be conceived as static. If production of value doesnt fundamentally stem from conceiving goals and creatively integrating means, then there is no room to account for a process of creating such new mental integrations, as the driver of progress in production. Scientific and technical knowledge may be acknowledged as one of the input factors to production, but there is no recognition of the distinct process of goal-directed thinking to identify the value of integrating factors of production (including technical knowledge) into a given process of production. Any innovations in technical knowledge are therefore conceived as occurring completely independently from any value considerations; they occur exogenously to economic production (in this view), and are then simply automatically reflected in production. Production itself is just the static process of output stemming from given and known input factors rather than a continuous process of new value-integrations.

As discussed above, factual knowledge alone does not automatically dictate how to integrate those facts into goals and plans. But this whole category of a distinct process of goal-directed thinking is precisely what drops out on intrinsic or subjective conceptions of value. The three different conceptions of value (intrinsic, subjective, objective) lead to fundamentally different views of production in economic theory (as argued below): a view where goal-directed thinking is central to production (as in the Austrian school) and a view where goal-directed thinking is absent from production (as in classical and neoclassical economics).

Rands advocacy of capitalism was based on her view that it embodies an objective conception of value: Of all the social systems in mankinds history, capitalism is the only system based on an objective theory of values (CUI 14; original emphasis). It is only capitalism, in her view, that guarantees men the freedom to produce. It is only with capitalism that production (production of value) is truly possible, because it is only capitalism that protects the root mental act of the creative formation of goals and plans and the freedom to act on them. There are three elements fundamental to the functioning of capitalism: the entrepreneur, profit-seeking, and competition. In Rands view, all three of these center around the view of production as the creative formation of conceptual goals and plans.

The function of the entrepreneur is preeminently to engage in the process of creatively conceiving new productive goals and integrating the means to achieve them. Rand writes: The professional businessman is the field agent of the army whose lieutenant-commander-in-chief is the scientist. The businessman carries scientific discoveries from the laboratory of the inventor to industrial plants, and transforms them into material products that fill mens physical needs and expand the comfort of mens existence (FTNI 23). In other words, the fundamental role of the businessman is to take factual knowledge and figure out what value it can serve. It is precisely the businessmans role to engage in goal-directed thinking so as to form the conceptual integrations necessary for identifying and achieving value.

Profit is the reward for successfully discovering new value opportunities, and it pertains precisely to the discovery. Once knowledge about value opportunities becomes widespread and widely implemented, the profit is competed away and disappears. The only way to consistently earn new profits is to continually engage in a process of discovery of new value opportunities.

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Competition, for Rand, is effectively competition in this type of cognition. The competitive race is at root the race to create new value. Ones advantage over competitors is precisely the creation of new products valued more highly by the market, or the discovery of how to better integrate factors of production to higher-valued uses knowledge that competitors do not possess. For Rand, the fundamental issue is the creative evaluation and grasp of new opportunities, however, not the competition per se. She writes: Competition is a by-product of productive work, not its goal. A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others (The Moratorium on Brains, ARL 8).

What context then does Rands philosophy set for economics? What facts of reality give rise to the science of economics? Weve seen how her concept of objective value shapes her concept of production, and how production of value is central to mans life and survival. For an isolated individual (e.g., Robinson Crusoe), there is no further problem or question about production, beyond what philosophy describes. Crusoe needs to engage in a constant process of thought to discover factual knowledge about reality and to integrate this knowledge into values that is, to conceive the goals that will sustain his life and to devise integrated plans for achieving these goals. For Crusoe, all the knowledge he needs in order to evaluate what to produce is in principle accessible to him. Since he is thinking, valuing, and producing for his own needs, given his own context and knowing full well his own integrated set of goals, there is no additional issue for him beyond the problems of conceptual thought and evaluation that we have already discussed.

Production under the division of labor introduces an entirely new question and problem. Under the division of labor, most people spend most of their time producing value for others. But since a value (for Rand) stems from a conceptual conclusion reached by an individual mind (within its own context of knowledge and integrated hierarchy of values), and since we cant directly know the minds of others (nor think nor value for them), how are we to know what others value? How are we to evaluate what to produce, what counts as production? Its possible to engage in physical production under the division of labor, while not producing value (when the objects created turn out not to be valued by others or are valued less than the inputs used to create them). General Motors may physically produce cars; but if the company is losing money, then its engaged in value destruction, not production.

In a small self-sufficient village, this problem of production might be solved by direct communication. The blacksmith can approach the cobbler and commission directly what he wants. But in todays complex economy, goods are produced by strangers, often halfway around the world and by a long chain of production. And yet, we can walk into any local shoe store and usually find just the pair that suits us. How does this work? This is the basic task of economics: to detail the principles and processes by which this value problem is solved; to explain how it is that we can come to know about the values of others, such that we can successfully evaluate what to produce. To explain this interpersonal integration of knowledge of others values is to explain the interpersonal integration of production under the division of labor.14

Rands fundamental approach to all ethical, political, and economic questions is always the radically individualistic perspective, the perspective of the individual. For her, the correct perspective for economics would be: How am I (the individual) to evaluate what counts as production under the division of labor? This must be the fundamental starting point for economics. She categorically rejects any perspective on economics that operates from an aggregate or societal-level perspective, such as how to most efficiently allocate societys resources. She designates this sort of collectivist perspective as the tribal premise, which, she writes, leads . . . to a baffling sort of double standard or double perspective in their way of viewing men and events: if they observe a shoemaker, they find no difficulty in concluding that he is working in order to make a living; but as political economists, on the tribal premise, they declare that his purpose (and duty) is to provide society with shoes (CUI 6).15 For Rand, the correct perspective from which to approach economics is the perspective of the shoemaker trying to make a living. It is Rands conviction that an intrinsic or subjective conception of value will necessarily lead to a view of society as organized around collective goals. This logically leads to an aggregate, tribal perspective on society, including in economics.16 In contrast, an objective conception of value logically leads to a radically individualistic perspective on society, and in economics. We wont have space to pursue this point in depth, other than to note that mainstream economics, in both its classical (intrinsic value) and neoclassical (subjective value) variants, has consistently maintained a tribal perspective in economics. Only the Austrian school, operating implicitly with an objective conception of value, has approached a radically individualistic perspective similar to Rands. This is most consistently expressed in Misess theoretical system, in Human Action (1949 [1996]).

End of Part 1

Economic Theory and Conceptions of Value: Rand and Austrians versus the Mainstream by Robert Tarr from Foundations of a Free Society: Reflections on Ayn Rands Political Philosophy edited by Gregory Salmieri and Robert Mayhew 2019. All rights are controlled by the University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, PA 15260. Used by permission of the University of Pittsburgh Press.

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Footnotes

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Economic Theory and Conceptions of Value (Part 1) - New Ideal

The field of ethics (or moral philosophy) involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior. Philosophers today usually divide ethical theories into three general subject areas: metaethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics. Metaethics investigates where our ethical principles come from, and what they mean. Are they merely social inventions? Do they involve more than expressions of our individual emotions? Metaethical answers to these questions focus on the issues of universal truths, the will of God, the role of reason in ethical judgments, and the meaning of ethical terms themselves. Normative ethics takes on a more practical task, which is to arrive at moral standards that regulate right and wrong conduct. This may involve articulating the good habits that we should acquire, the duties that we should follow, or the consequences of our behavior on others. Finally, applied ethics involves examining specific controversial issues, such as abortion, infanticide, animal rights, environmental concerns, homosexuality, capital punishment, or nuclear war.

By using the conceptual tools of metaethics and normative ethics, discussions in applied ethics try to resolve these controversial issues. The lines of distinction between metaethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics are often blurry. For example, the issue of abortion is an applied ethical topic since it involves a specific type of controversial behavior. But it also depends on more general normative principles, such as the right of self-rule and the right to life, which are litmus tests for determining the morality of that procedure. The issue also rests on metaethical issues such as, where do rights come from? and what kind of beings have rights?

The term meta means after or beyond, and, consequently, the notion of metaethics involves a removed, or birds eye view of the entire project of ethics. We may define metaethics as the study of the origin and meaning of ethical concepts. When compared to normative ethics and applied ethics, the field of metaethics is the least precisely defined area of moral philosophy. It covers issues from moral semantics to moral epistemology. Two issues, though, are prominent: (1) metaphysical issues concerning whether morality exists independently of humans, and (2) psychological issues concerning the underlying mental basis of our moral judgments and conduct.

Metaphysics is the study of the kinds of things that exist in the universe. Some things in the universe are made of physical stuff, such as rocks; and perhaps other things are nonphysical in nature, such as thoughts, spirits, and gods. The metaphysical component of metaethics involves discovering specifically whether moral values are eternal truths that exist in a spirit-like realm, or simply human conventions. There are two general directions that discussions of this topic take, one other-worldly and one this-worldly.

Proponents of the other-worldly view typically hold that moral values are objective in the sense that they exist in a spirit-like realm beyond subjective human conventions. They also hold that they are absolute, or eternal, in that they never change, and also that they are universal insofar as they apply to all rational creatures around the world and throughout time. The most dramatic example of this view is Plato, who was inspired by the field of mathematics. When we look at numbers and mathematical relations, such as 1+1=2, they seem to be timeless concepts that never change, and apply everywhere in the universe. Humans do not invent numbers, and humans cannot alter them. Plato explained the eternal character of mathematics by stating that they are abstract entities that exist in a spirit-like realm. He noted that moral values also are absolute truths and thus are also abstract, spirit-like entities. In this sense, for Plato, moral values are spiritual objects. Medieval philosophers commonly grouped all moral principles together under the heading of eternal law which were also frequently seen as spirit-like objects. 17th century British philosopher Samuel Clarke described them as spirit-like relationships rather than spirit-like objects. In either case, though, they exist in a spirit-like realm. A different other-worldly approach to the metaphysical status of morality is divine commands issuing from Gods will. Sometimes called voluntarism (or divine command theory), this view was inspired by the notion of an all-powerful God who is in control of everything. God simply wills things, and they become reality. He wills the physical world into existence, he wills human life into existence and, similarly, he wills all moral values into existence. Proponents of this view, such as medieval philosopher William of Ockham, believe that God wills moral principles, such as murder is wrong, and these exist in Gods mind as commands. God informs humans of these commands by implanting us with moral intuitions or revealing these commands in scripture.

The second and more this-worldly approach to the metaphysical status of morality follows in the skeptical philosophical tradition, such as that articulated by Greek philosopher Sextus Empiricus, and denies the objective status of moral values. Technically, skeptics did not reject moral values themselves, but only denied that values exist as spirit-like objects, or as divine commands in the mind of God. Moral values, they argued, are strictly human inventions, a position that has since been called moral relativism. There are two distinct forms of moral relativism. The first is individual relativism, which holds that individual people create their own moral standards. Friedrich Nietzsche, for example, argued that the superhuman creates his or her morality distinct from and in reaction to the slave-like value system of the masses. The second is cultural relativism which maintains that morality is grounded in the approval of ones society and not simply in the preferences of individual people. This view was advocated by Sextus, and in more recent centuries by Michel Montaigne and William Graham Sumner. In addition to espousing skepticism and relativism, this-worldly approaches to the metaphysical status of morality deny the absolute and universal nature of morality and hold instead that moral values in fact change from society to society throughout time and throughout the world. They frequently attempt to defend their position by citing examples of values that differ dramatically from one culture to another, such as attitudes about polygamy, homosexuality and human sacrifice.

A second area of metaethics involves the psychological basis of our moral judgments and conduct, particularly understanding what motivates us to be moral. We might explore this subject by asking the simple question, Why be moral? Even if I am aware of basic moral standards, such as dont kill and dont steal, this does not necessarily mean that I will be psychologically compelled to act on them. Some answers to the question Why be moral? are to avoid punishment, to gain praise, to attain happiness, to be dignified, or to fit in with society.

One important area of moral psychology concerns the inherent selfishness of humans. 17th century British philosopher Thomas Hobbes held that many, if not all, of our actions are prompted by selfish desires. Even if an action seems selfless, such as donating to charity, there are still selfish causes for this, such as experiencing power over other people. This view is called psychological egoism and maintains that self-oriented interests ultimately motivate all human actions. Closely related to psychological egoism is a view called psychological hedonism which is the view that pleasure is the specific driving force behind all of our actions. 18th century British philosopher Joseph Butler agreed that instinctive selfishness and pleasure prompt much of our conduct. However, Butler argued that we also have an inherent psychological capacity to show benevolence to others. This view is called psychological altruism and maintains that at least some of our actions are motivated by instinctive benevolence.

A second area of moral psychology involves a dispute concerning the role of reason in motivating moral actions. If, for example, I make the statement abortion is morally wrong, am I making a rational assessment or only expressing my feelings? On the one side of the dispute, 18th century British philosopher David Hume argued that moral assessments involve our emotions, and not our reason. We can amass all the reasons we want, but that alone will not constitute a moral assessment. We need a distinctly emotional reaction in order to make a moral pronouncement. Reason might be of service in giving us the relevant data, but, in Humes words, reason is, and ought to be, the slave of the passions. Inspired by Humes anti-rationalist views, some 20th century philosophers, most notably A.J. Ayer, similarly denied that moral assessments are factual descriptions. For example, although the statement it is good to donate to charity may on the surface look as though it is a factual description about charity, it is not. Instead, a moral utterance like this involves two things. First, I (the speaker) I am expressing my personal feelings of approval about charitable donations and I am in essence saying Hooray for charity! This is called the emotive element insofar as I am expressing my emotions about some specific behavior. Second, I (the speaker) am trying to get you to donate to charity and am essentially giving the command, Donate to charity! This is called the prescriptive element in the sense that I am prescribing some specific behavior.

From Humes day forward, more rationally-minded philosophers have opposed these emotive theories of ethics (see non-cognitivism in ethics) and instead argued that moral assessments are indeed acts of reason. 18th century German philosopher Immanuel Kant is a case in point. Although emotional factors often do influence our conduct, he argued, we should nevertheless resist that kind of sway. Instead, true moral action is motivated only by reason when it is free from emotions and desires. A recent rationalist approach, offered by Kurt Baier (1958), was proposed in direct opposition to the emotivist and prescriptivist theories of Ayer and others. Baier focuses more broadly on the reasoning and argumentation process that takes place when making moral choices. All of our moral choices are, or at least can be, backed by some reason or justification. If I claim that it is wrong to steal someones car, then I should be able to justify my claim with some kind of argument. For example, I could argue that stealing Smiths car is wrong since this would upset her, violate her ownership rights, or put the thief at risk of getting caught. According to Baier, then, proper moral decision making involves giving the best reasons in support of one course of action versus another.

A third area of moral psychology focuses on whether there is a distinctly female approach to ethics that is grounded in the psychological differences between men and women. Discussions of this issue focus on two claims: (1) traditional morality is male-centered, and (2) there is a unique female perspective of the world which can be shaped into a value theory. According to many feminist philosophers, traditional morality is male-centered since it is modeled after practices that have been traditionally male-dominated, such as acquiring property, engaging in business contracts, and governing societies. The rigid systems of rules required for trade and government were then taken as models for the creation of equally rigid systems of moral rules, such as lists of rights and duties. Women, by contrast, have traditionally had a nurturing role by raising children and overseeing domestic life. These tasks require less rule following, and more spontaneous and creative action. Using the womans experience as a model for moral theory, then, the basis of morality would be spontaneously caring for others as would be appropriate in each unique circumstance. On this model, the agent becomes part of the situation and acts caringly within that context. This stands in contrast with male-modeled morality where the agent is a mechanical actor who performs his required duty, but can remain distanced from and unaffected by the situation. A care-based approach to morality, as it is sometimes called, is offered by feminist ethicists as either a replacement for or a supplement to traditional male-modeled moral systems.

Normative ethics involves arriving at moral standards that regulate right and wrong conduct. In a sense, it is a search for an ideal litmus test of proper behavior. The Golden Rule is a classic example of a normative principle: We should do to others what we would want others to do to us. Since I do not want my neighbor to steal my car, then it is wrong for me to steal her car. Since I would want people to feed me if I was starving, then I should help feed starving people. Using this same reasoning, I can theoretically determine whether any possible action is right or wrong. So, based on the Golden Rule, it would also be wrong for me to lie to, harass, victimize, assault, or kill others. The Golden Rule is an example of a normative theory that establishes a single principle against which we judge all actions. Other normative theories focus on a set of foundational principles, or a set of good character traits.

The key assumption in normative ethics is that there is only one ultimate criterion of moral conduct, whether it is a single rule or a set of principles. Three strategies will be noted here: (1) virtue theories, (2) duty theories, and (3) consequentialist theories.

Many philosophers believe that morality consists of following precisely defined rules of conduct, such as dont kill, or dont steal. Presumably, I must learn these rules, and then make sure each of my actions live up to the rules. Virtue ethics, however, places less emphasis on learning rules, and instead stresses the importance of developing good habits of character, such as benevolence (see moral character). Once Ive acquired benevolence, for example, I will then habitually act in a benevolent manner. Historically, virtue theory is one of the oldest normative traditions in Western philosophy, having its roots in ancient Greek civilization. Plato emphasized four virtues in particular, which were later called cardinal virtues: wisdom, courage, temperance and justice. Other important virtues are fortitude, generosity, self-respect, good temper, and sincerity. In addition to advocating good habits of character, virtue theorists hold that we should avoid acquiring bad character traits, or vices, such as cowardice, insensibility, injustice, and vanity. Virtue theory emphasizes moral education since virtuous character traits are developed in ones youth. Adults, therefore, are responsible for instilling virtues in the young.

Aristotle argued that virtues are good habits that we acquire, which regulate our emotions. For example, in response to my natural feelings of fear, I should develop the virtue of courage which allows me to be firm when facing danger. Analyzing 11 specific virtues, Aristotle argued that most virtues fall at a mean between more extreme character traits. With courage, for example, if I do not have enough courage, I develop the disposition of cowardice, which is a vice. If I have too much courage I develop the disposition of rashness which is also a vice. According to Aristotle, it is not an easy task to find the perfect mean between extreme character traits. In fact, we need assistance from our reason to do this. After Aristotle, medieval theologians supplemented Greek lists of virtues with three Christian ones, or theological virtues: faith, hope, and charity. Interest in virtue theory continued through the middle ages and declined in the 19th century with the rise of alternative moral theories below. In the mid 20th century virtue theory received special attention from philosophers who believed that more recent ethical theories were misguided for focusing too heavily on rules and actions, rather than on virtuous character traits. Alasdaire MacIntyre (1984) defended the central role of virtues in moral theory and argued that virtues are grounded in and emerge from within social traditions.

Many of us feel that there are clear obligations we have as human beings, such as to care for our children, and to not commit murder. Duty theories base morality on specific, foundational principles of obligation. These theories are sometimes called deontological, from the Greek word deon, or duty, in view of the foundational nature of our duty or obligation. They are also sometimes called nonconsequentialist since these principles are obligatory, irrespective of the consequences that might follow from our actions. For example, it is wrong to not care for our children even if it results in some great benefit, such as financial savings. There are four central duty theories.

The first is that championed by 17th century German philosopher Samuel Pufendorf, who classified dozens of duties under three headings: duties to God, duties to oneself, and duties to others. Concerning our duties towards God, he argued that there are two kinds:

Concerning our duties towards oneself, these are also of two sorts:

Concerning our duties towards others, Pufendorf divides these between absolute duties, which are universally binding on people, and conditional duties, which are the result of contracts between people. Absolute duties are of three sorts:

Conditional duties involve various types of agreements, the principal one of which is the duty is to keep ones promises.

A second duty-based approach to ethics is rights theory. Most generally, a right is a justified claim against another persons behavior such as my right to not be harmed by you (see also human rights). Rights and duties are related in such a way that the rights of one person implies the duties of another person. For example, if I have a right to payment of $10 by Smith, then Smith has a duty to pay me $10. This is called the correlativity of rights and duties. The most influential early account of rights theory is that of 17th century British philosopher John Locke, who argued that the laws of nature mandate that we should not harm anyones life, health, liberty or possessions. For Locke, these are our natural rights, given to us by God. Following Locke, the United States Declaration of Independence authored by Thomas Jefferson recognizes three foundational rights: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Jefferson and others rights theorists maintained that we deduce other more specific rights from these, including the rights of property, movement, speech, and religious expression. There are four features traditionally associated with moral rights. First, rights are natural insofar as they are not invented or created by governments. Second, they are universal insofar as they do not change from country to country. Third, they are equal in the sense that rights are the same for all people, irrespective of gender, race, or handicap. Fourth, they are inalienable which means that I cannot hand over my rights to another person, such as by selling myself into slavery.

A third duty-based theory is that by Kant, which emphasizes a single principle of duty. Influenced by Pufendorf, Kant agreed that we have moral duties to oneself and others, such as developing ones talents, and keeping our promises to others. However, Kant argued that there is a more foundational principle of duty that encompasses our particular duties. It is a single, self-evident principle of reason that he calls the categorical imperative. A categorical imperative, he argued, is fundamentally different from hypothetical imperatives that hinge on some personal desire that we have, for example, If you want to get a good job, then you ought to go to college. By contrast, a categorical imperative simply mandates an action, irrespective of ones personal desires, such as You ought to do X. Kant gives at least four versions of the categorical imperative, but one is especially direct: Treat people as an end, and never as a means to an end. That is, we should always treat people with dignity, and never use them as mere instruments. For Kant, we treat people as an end whenever our actions toward someone reflect the inherent value of that person. Donating to charity, for example, is morally correct since this acknowledges the inherent value of the recipient. By contrast, we treat someone as a means to an end whenever we treat that person as a tool to achieve something else. It is wrong, for example, to steal my neighbors car since I would be treating her as a means to my own happiness. The categorical imperative also regulates the morality of actions that affect us individually. Suicide, for example, would be wrong since I would be treating my life as a means to the alleviation of my misery. Kant believes that the morality of all actions can be determined by appealing to this single principle of duty.

A fourth and more recent duty-based theory is that by British philosopher W.D. Ross, which emphasizes prima facie duties. Like his 17th and 18th century counterparts, Ross argues that our duties are part of the fundamental nature of the universe. However, Rosss list of duties is much shorter, which he believes reflects our actual moral convictions:

Ross recognizes that situations will arise when we must choose between two conflicting duties. In a classic example, suppose I borrow my neighbors gun and promise to return it when he asks for it. One day, in a fit of rage, my neighbor pounds on my door and asks for the gun so that he can take vengeance on someone. On the one hand, the duty of fidelity obligates me to return the gun; on the other hand, the duty of nonmaleficence obligates me to avoid injuring others and thus not return the gun. According to Ross, I will intuitively know which of these duties is my actual duty, and which is my apparent or prima facie duty. In this case, my duty of nonmaleficence emerges as my actual duty and I should not return the gun.

It is common for us to determine our moral responsibility by weighing the consequences of our actions. According to consequentialism, correct moral conduct is determined solely by a cost-benefit analysis of an actions consequences:

Consequentialism: An action is morally right if the consequences of that action are more favorable than unfavorable.

Consequentialist normative principles require that we first tally both the good and bad consequences of an action. Second, we then determine whether the total good consequences outweigh the total bad consequences. If the good consequences are greater, then the action is morally proper. If the bad consequences are greater, then the action is morally improper. Consequentialist theories are sometimes called teleological theories, from the Greek word telos, or end, since the end result of the action is the sole determining factor of its morality.

Consequentialist theories became popular in the 18th century by philosophers who wanted a quick way to morally assess an action by appealing to experience, rather than by appealing to gut intuitions or long lists of questionable duties. In fact, the most attractive feature of consequentialism is that it appeals to publicly observable consequences of actions. Most versions of consequentialism are more precisely formulated than the general principle above. In particular, competing consequentialist theories specify which consequences for affected groups of people are relevant. Three subdivisions of consequentialism emerge:

All three of these theories focus on the consequences of actions for different groups of people. But, like all normative theories, the above three theories are rivals of each other. They also yield different conclusions. Consider the following example. A woman was traveling through a developing country when she witnessed a car in front of her run off the road and roll over several times. She asked the hired driver to pull over to assist, but, to her surprise, the driver accelerated nervously past the scene. A few miles down the road the driver explained that in his country if someone assists an accident victim, then the police often hold the assisting person responsible for the accident itself. If the victim dies, then the assisting person could be held responsible for the death. The driver continued explaining that road accident victims are therefore usually left unattended and often die from exposure to the countrys harsh desert conditions. On the principle of ethical egoism, the woman in this illustration would only be concerned with the consequences of her attempted assistance as she would be affected. Clearly, the decision to drive on would be the morally proper choice. On the principle of ethical altruism, she would be concerned only with the consequences of her action as others are affected, particularly the accident victim. Tallying only those consequences reveals that assisting the victim would be the morally correct choice, irrespective of the negative consequences that result for her. On the principle of utilitarianism, she must consider the consequences for both herself and the victim. The outcome here is less clear, and the woman would need to precisely calculate the overall benefit versus disbenefit of her action.

Jeremy Bentham presented one of the earliest fully developed systems of utilitarianism. Two features of his theory are noteworty. First, Bentham proposed that we tally the consequences of each action we perform and thereby determine on a case by case basis whether an action is morally right or wrong. This aspect of Benthams theory is known as act-utilitiarianism. Second, Bentham also proposed that we tally the pleasure and pain which results from our actions. For Bentham, pleasure and pain are the only consequences that matter in determining whether our conduct is moral. This aspect of Benthams theory is known as hedonistic utilitarianism. Critics point out limitations in both of these aspects.

First, according to act-utilitarianism, it would be morally wrong to waste time on leisure activities such as watching television, since our time could be spent in ways that produced a greater social benefit, such as charity work. But prohibiting leisure activities doesnt seem reasonable. More significantly, according to act-utilitarianism, specific acts of torture or slavery would be morally permissible if the social benefit of these actions outweighed the disbenefit. A revised version of utilitarianism called rule-utilitarianism addresses these problems. According to rule-utilitarianism, a behavioral code or rule is morally right if the consequences of adopting that rule are more favorable than unfavorable to everyone. Unlike act utilitarianism, which weighs the consequences of each particular action, rule-utilitarianism offers a litmus test only for the morality of moral rules, such as stealing is wrong. Adopting a rule against theft clearly has more favorable consequences than unfavorable consequences for everyone. The same is true for moral rules against lying or murdering. Rule-utilitarianism, then, offers a three-tiered method for judging conduct. A particular action, such as stealing my neighbors car, is judged wrong since it violates a moral rule against theft. In turn, the rule against theft is morally binding because adopting this rule produces favorable consequences for everyone. John Stuart Mills version of utilitarianism is rule-oriented.

Second, according to hedonistic utilitarianism, pleasurable consequences are the only factors that matter, morally speaking. This, though, seems too restrictive since it ignores other morally significant consequences that are not necessarily pleasing or painful. For example, acts which foster loyalty and friendship are valued, yet they are not always pleasing. In response to this problem, G.E. Moore proposed ideal utilitarianism, which involves tallying any consequence that we intuitively recognize as good or bad (and not simply as pleasurable or painful). Also, R.M. Hare proposed preference utilitarianism, which involves tallying any consequence that fulfills our preferences.

We have seen (in Section 1.b.i) that Hobbes was an advocate of the methaethical theory of psychological egoismthe view that all of our actions are selfishly motivated. Upon that foundation, Hobbes developed a normative theory known as social contract theory, which is a type of rule-ethical-egoism. According to Hobbes, for purely selfish reasons, the agent is better off living in a world with moral rules than one without moral rules. For without moral rules, we are subject to the whims of other peoples selfish interests. Our property, our families, and even our lives are at continual risk. Selfishness alone will therefore motivate each agent to adopt a basic set of rules which will allow for a civilized community. Not surprisingly, these rules would include prohibitions against lying, stealing and killing. However, these rules will ensure safety for each agent only if the rules are enforced. As selfish creatures, each of us would plunder our neighbors property once their guards were down. Each agent would then be at risk from his neighbor. Therefore, for selfish reasons alone, we devise a means of enforcing these rules: we create a policing agency which punishes us if we violate these rules.

Applied ethics is the branch of ethics which consists of the analysis of specific, controversial moral issues such as abortion, animal rights, or euthanasia. In recent years applied ethical issues have been subdivided into convenient groups such as medical ethics, business ethics, environmental ethics, and sexual ethics. Generally speaking, two features are necessary for an issue to be considered an applied ethical issue. First, the issue needs to be controversial in the sense that there are significant groups of people both for and against the issue at hand. The issue of drive-by shooting, for example, is not an applied ethical issue, since everyone agrees that this practice is grossly immoral. By contrast, the issue of gun control would be an applied ethical issue since there are significant groups of people both for and against gun control.

The second requirement for an issue to be an applied ethical issue is that it must be a distinctly moral issue. On any given day, the media presents us with an array of sensitive issues such as affirmative action policies, gays in the military, involuntary commitment of the mentally impaired, capitalistic versus socialistic business practices, public versus private health care systems, or energy conservation. Although all of these issues are controversial and have an important impact on society, they are not all moral issues. Some are only issues of social policy. The aim of social policy is to help make a given society run efficiently by devising conventions, such as traffic laws, tax laws, and zoning codes. Moral issues, by contrast, concern more universally obligatory practices, such as our duty to avoid lying, and are not confined to individual societies. Frequently, issues of social policy and morality overlap, as with murder which is both socially prohibited and immoral. However, the two groups of issues are often distinct. For example, many people would argue that sexual promiscuity is immoral, but may not feel that there should be social policies regulating sexual conduct, or laws punishing us for promiscuity. Similarly, some social policies forbid residents in certain neighborhoods from having yard sales. But, so long as the neighbors are not offended, there is nothing immoral in itself about a resident having a yard sale in one of these neighborhoods. Thus, to qualify as an applied ethical issue, the issue must be more than one of mere social policy: it must be morally relevant as well.

In theory, resolving particular applied ethical issues should be easy. With the issue of abortion, for example, we would simply determine its morality by consulting our normative principle of choice, such as act-utilitarianism. If a given abortion produces greater benefit than disbenefit, then, according to act-utilitarianism, it would be morally acceptable to have the abortion. Unfortunately, there are perhaps hundreds of rival normative principles from which to choose, many of which yield opposite conclusions. Thus, the stalemate in normative ethics between conflicting theories prevents us from using a single decisive procedure for determining the morality of a specific issue. The usual solution today to this stalemate is to consult several representative normative principles on a given issue and see where the weight of the evidence lies.

Arriving at a short list of representative normative principles is itself a challenging task. The principles selected must not be too narrowly focused, such as a version of act-egoism that might focus only on an actions short-term benefit. The principles must also be seen as having merit by people on both sides of an applied ethical issue. For this reason, principles that appeal to duty to God are not usually cited since this would have no impact on a nonbeliever engaged in the debate. The following principles are the ones most commonly appealed to in applied ethical discussions:

The above principles represent a spectrum of traditional normative principles and are derived from both consequentialist and duty-based approaches. The first two principles, personal benefit and social benefit, are consequentialist since they appeal to the consequences of an action as it affects the individual or society. The remaining principles are duty-based. The principles of benevolence, paternalism, harm, honesty, and lawfulness are based on duties we have toward others. The principles of autonomy, justice, and the various rights are based on moral rights.

An example will help illustrate the function of these principles in an applied ethical discussion. In 1982, a couple from Bloomington, Indiana gave birth to a baby with severe mental and physical disabilities. Among other complications, the infant, known as Baby Doe, had its stomach disconnected from its throat and was thus unable to receive nourishment. Although this stomach deformity was correctable through surgery, the couple did not want to raise a severely disabled child and therefore chose to deny surgery, food, and water for the infant. Local courts supported the parents decision, and six days later Baby Doe died. Should corrective surgery have been performed for Baby Doe? Arguments in favor of corrective surgery derive from the infants right to life and the principle of paternalism which stipulates that we should pursue the best interests of others when they are incapable of doing so themselves. Arguments against corrective surgery derive from the personal and social disbenefit which would result from such surgery. If Baby Doe survived, its quality of life would have been poor and in any case it probably would have died at an early age. Also, from the parents perspective, Baby Does survival would have been a significant emotional and financial burden. When examining both sides of the issue, the parents and the courts concluded that the arguments against surgery were stronger than the arguments for surgery. First, foregoing surgery appeared to be in the best interests of the infant, given the poor quality of life it would endure. Second, the status of Baby Does right to life was not clear given the severity of the infants mental impairment. For, to possess moral rights, it takes more than merely having a human body: certain cognitive functions must also be present. The issue here involves what is often referred to as moral personhood, and is central to many applied ethical discussions.

As noted, there are many controversial issues discussed by ethicists today, some of which will be briefly mentioned here.

Biomedical ethics focuses on a range of issues which arise in clinical settings. Health care workers are in an unusual position of continually dealing with life and death situations. It is not surprising, then, that medical ethics issues are more extreme and diverse than other areas of applied ethics. Prenatal issues arise about the morality of surrogate mothering, genetic manipulation of fetuses, the status of unused frozen embryos, and abortion. Other issues arise about patient rights and physicians responsibilities, such as the confidentiality of the patients records and the physicians responsibility to tell the truth to dying patients. The AIDS crisis has raised the specific issues of the mandatory screening of all patients for AIDS, and whether physicians can refuse to treat AIDS patients. Additional issues concern medical experimentation on humans, the morality of involuntary commitment, and the rights of the mentally disabled. Finally, end of life issues arise about the morality of suicide, the justifiability of suicide intervention, physician assisted suicide, and euthanasia.

The field of business ethics examines moral controversies relating to the social responsibilities of capitalist business practices, the moral status of corporate entities, deceptive advertising, insider trading, basic employee rights, job discrimination, affirmative action, drug testing, and whistle blowing.

Issues in environmental ethics often overlaps with business and medical issues. These include the rights of animals, the morality of animal experimentation, preserving endangered species, pollution control, management of environmental resources, whether eco-systems are entitled to direct moral consideration, and our obligation to future generations.

Controversial issues of sexual morality include monogamy versus polygamy, sexual relations without love, homosexual relations, and extramarital affairs.

Finally, there are issues of social morality which examine capital punishment, nuclear war, gun control, the recreational use of drugs, welfare rights, and racism.

James FieserEmail: jfieser@utm.eduUniversity of Tennessee at MartinU. S. A.

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Ethics | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

A new calendar year represents a new beginning for individuals and industries alike. While 2021 unlocked new growth opportunities for the denim sector, driven by demand for new fits and sizes, versatile work-friendly attire and sustainable product stories, the year also saw sweeping changes in sourcing strategies, production ,and raw material and freight costs.

This state of flux will likely carry into 2022, and with consumers increasingly aware of the challenges facing the apparel industry, denim experts anticipate a year of education and truthtelling ahead.

2022 is a time to address consumerism, educate, [and] collaborate, and retailers need to stop pretending they are genuinely delivering solutions when many decision makers barely understand how to wash a pair of jeans, said Salli Deighton, responsible denim development consultant.

Here, experts from across the denim industry specializing in circularity and sustainability, trends and design and events share their lessons learned in 2021 and what the blue world has to look forward to in 2022.

Fabio Adami Dalla Val, Denim Premire Vision show manager: Looking at the production side of the value chain, 2020 wasnt so bad for many countries despite the period of lockdown. The start of 2021 was hopeful but all the problems that we are facing now shows that the difficulties arent finished yet and all the players need to find common solutions. Effects of the pandemic will impact our lives for a long time from every perspective, but I feel positivity in the people of the denim industry.

Ana Paula Alves de Oliveira, Be Disobedient founder: Everything has prepared us for where we are today. In times of crisis, the fashion industry always suffers, but it has the power to recover fast. There is a strategic change in the way we are selling and a huge change in the way we buy. This time, I felt that we were able to adapt during the crisis, betting on transparency, traceability, technology, and collaboration. I saw the industry unite and work together side by side.

Michelle Branch, Markt&Twigs, Inc. founder: Although theres no clear-cut version of our [new normal], the industry was in a better place in 2021. That said, we are still facing residual effects from 2020, impacting things like costs and calendars. Well see how those things are worked through in the coming months.

Salli Deighton, responsible denim development consultant: Im based in London, so we had a very slow start to 2020 as our stores were closed until April. After the dramatic halt on production last year, retailers rushed to buy denim close to home from the Turkish and North African suppliers. Mills are under pressure, not only with cotton price hikes but escalating freight costs have increased the need for local denim. It has been a rocky year, but I wonder if we have really learned anything. Our industry has worked hard to create solutions and I believe this year and next will start to see a long overdue reset for manufacturing and buying practices.

Lucia Rosin, Meidea founder and head designer: In general, I would say better than 2020, despite the increases in raw materials. I saw a slow recovery in the second half of 2021.

Panos Sofianos, Bluezone innovation curator and circular denim consultant: Much better than expected, although the pandemic hit the apparel market hard enough. The denim community had some good reflections, setting new standards in production and the supply chain.

Brian Trunzo, VP, events (mens) Informa Markets Fashion: We saw an uptick in denim this year. After spending a year in sweats, people felt the urge to get dressed up again. Denim represented the perfect middle ground: still clearly casual, but more dress-up-able than what most people were wearing throughout the early days of the pandemic.

Aydan Tuzun, Naveena Denim Mills executive director of sales and marketing: Covid-19 affected the denim industry in many ways: by directly affecting production and demand, by creating supply chain and market disturbance, and by its financial impact on firms and financial markets. The rapid switch to remote working and lockdowns also had a negative impact, but in 2021 the category was already set to make a speedy recovery, driven by demand for comfort and sustainability. The recent rise of loungewear and sportswear has put pressure on denim-focused brands and retailers to keep innovating. And that is what the industry did in 2021, with success.

Andrea Venier, Officina+39 managing director: In 2021, the denim industry discovered a new enthusiasm which gave it a fresh [perspective]a desire to start again and to work together to achieve common goals. The trade fairs Munich Fabric Start and Denim Premire Vision Milan are positive examples of a sector that wants to be a protagonist again. If 2020 was a slow year with not much that could be done, 2021 saw a greater focus on new technologies and projects.

Vivian Wang, Kingpins Show managing director and global sales manager: 2020 started strong, so the temporary shutdowns forced by the pandemic was a shock to many businesses, including ours. We were forced to adjust to a new way of doing business, and then adjust again (and again) as we navigated through uncertain times. In 2021, we found new opportunities to connect the denim community and settled into a new way of workingin-person when we could but more often, remotely.

FA: The opportunity to meet each other again. The fact that suppliers can meet their customers again in different places of the world and restart work is a highlight.

AA: Digital is the word. Buying jeans online wasnt an easy challenge to solve, but in 2021 weve seen greater propensity toward trying new brands, new players and having new conversations. There are no boundaries in the online space where brands and consumers are open for change.

MB: An industry highlight was how it kept moving forward, not just from a community perspective, but also with innovations. The innovations that were developed based on need in the last year and a half are astonishing.

SD: Meeting denim friends again. I dont think I have ever been so excited to board a plane and head to a trade fair. Bluezone in Munich was so well-organized, and we connected again with our denim community. Denim, to many of us, is bigger than a day job and we love to learn, innovate and find future solutions and this comes through discussion and sharing. After 18 months of Zooms and home-working, it was wonderful to be in person, touching fabrics, seeing trends, and discussing all the new ideas which have emerged while we have all been grounded.

LR: Finally seeing each other again and talking to each other in person at the first physical fairs after almost two years at Bluezone in Munich and Denim Premire Vision in Milanthis makes the difference. And the general push by brands to be more [sustainable] and mindful of circular solutions. Theres a now a real need.

PS: The rise of back to basic activities including trade shows, sourcing and distribution aided by blockchain.

BT: Not entirely denim focused, but the Heron Preston collaboration with Calvin Klein was a personal favorite of mine. The sustainably minded polymath (DJ/designer/marketer) created an interesting capsule for this storied heritage brand featuring all sorts of interesting green products, including denim manufactured out of recycled bottles. While there are fully sustainable denim ranges doing similar things for close to a decade now, it felt fresh coming from Calvin Klein through the lens of a young visionary designer.

AT: I think there were two highlights for the industry in 2021: casualization and sustainability.

We have seen a global casualization thats taking hold right now, and we think that it is here to stay. After being home for months, nobody wants to update their wardrobe with dressier styles. In 2021, sustainability has again helped revolutionize the denim industry. Though at times misused and overused, the intention behind the term signals a more environmentally conscious future for the sector at large.

AV: The Covid era corresponded with an introspective phase that gave us the opportunity to reflect on the global situation and to restart by investing in new projects. During this period, the gap between those who actively believe in a different future and those who remain statically anchored to outdated models has steadily increased. Our industry was hit hard by the pandemic, but despite the difficulties, we should continue to produce innovation, collaborations and new initiatives. A lot of opportunities are rising for those who invest in technologies, sustainability and circularity.

VW: At Kingpins, we spent the year developing new avenues for the denim industry to work and collaborate. That included new Kingpins24 shows in new markets such as Latin America, Australia and Canada. We also struck a deal with Material Exchange to bring the Kingpins Show experience to the digital space, which was something we had always planned to do but it took on new urgency during the pandemic.

AA: There is more demand than supply now. This is part of the crisis and its consequences with cost, price, and sourcing. We are going through a consumption detoxification process. New generations want to know more. Its a circle: if we know more, we choose better and buy with quality and awareness.

FA: It will change the jeanswear ecosystem. In the upcoming months, it is possible that well see prices increase for the end consumer, or we will have suppliers working without margin or below the cost. In the first case, for many, it will be a market positioning issue, and in the second case, we will face another ethics problem.

The lack of and delay of the raw materials is another story and its even worse than the price rising because it will require companies to redesign the way the value chain is working.I think that it will take a few months to see the impact of it and it will affect the small brands with less bargaining power more. At the end of the day the loser is the product because it will be difficult to develop it.

MB: I think well be feeling the impact of this for some time to come.

SD: I hope it will make brands and retailers savvier and more sensible with planning. We dont need to reinvent the wheel each season. Volume, core denim is a slow transition, and we can take time to develop the products sensibly and sustainably to minimize the impact on the supply chain and the planet. Nearshoring will now grow in partnership with the long-haul suppliers, and we can move some of the finishing locally to enable more flexibility and response to sales. It will also allow us to reprocess unsold goods which will make a huge impact on the waste we create. Cotton price instability will see the use of more bio-based, recycled and alternative fibers. We have many options to work with thanks to the research and investment many mills have made.

LR: I think that those who have retained their customers with a good relationship can explain the increases. It is understandable why this is happening in all sectors. The delays we experienced during the pandemic are pushing [buyers to create] closer production.

PS: Nearshoring is promisingan antidote to a turbulent situation caused by skyrocking transportation prices. Were already seeing projects like C&As urban factory in Germany and Candianis microfactory in Milan and many more are in the pipeline.

AT: The pandemic disrupted the whole supply chain, leading to a rise in prices of raw materials, especially cotton and cotton yarn. Surging prices coupled with logistical problems such as congested ports and tight shipping capacity have created the perfect storm. To say times have been challenging of late for the denim industry would be an understatement. At Naveena, we are widening our menu of fibers, with an emphasis on hemp, Tencel and Lycra EcoMade as well as post-consumer waste and post-industrial waste. However, cotton will always be important. It is impossible to replace it totally with alternatives for the time being.

AV: This is certainly the most negative aspect of 2021. In the last 6-7 months we have had to face a situation never seen before in our 30-year experience. We have experienced moments of difficulty and pressure for various reasons, but this crisis in raw materials and the radical and impressive increase in transport, packaging and energy costs is something totally new for us.

Just as when people anticipate a food shortage by stocking up on food for the next six months, our customers are now reacting to the raw material crisis by ordering in anticipation of the future. Orders that we used to receive for 40 tonnes per month are now being requested for 120 tonnes. This only makes the situation worse because by asking for more raw materials, we are increasing the scarcity of raw materials, which is pushing up prices. If the situation is not tackled responsibly and with foresight, the risk of making it worse is very real: that is why in recent weeks we have tried to encourage both our internal team and our partners and customers to not panic and to just order according to real needs.

VW: The impact of the pandemic continues to ripple throughout the global denim market, making this a challenging time for all of us. In this ever-shifting landscape, flexibility is crucial. To be sure, there will be new opportunities as some countries and regions step up their sourcing capacities. This could be a time for companies to look beyond the traditional sourcing centers and investigate new ones. Similarly, brands and retailers are already looking to add new materials to their offerings.

One thing that should remain unchanged is the importance of sustainability and the ambitious goals and targets set before the pandemic began. To help the industry continue to pursue those goals, Kingpins partnered with the Conscious Fashion Campaign, in collaboration with the United Nations Office for Partnerships. We support the Conscious Fashion Campaigns call to reach 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, by urging the industry to incorporate SDGs into their business models. At all our events, we highlight SDGs, circular production solutions, sustainability innovations and facilitate knowledge within the denim industry.

FA: Indeed, more people face to face interactions. Thats what I really miss.

AA: I want to see people who are curious, inquisitive, aware and willing to innovate, creating new paths for our industry. I want to keep this trend for learning and sharing. This is the best way to collaborate with each other.

MB: Its been encouraging to see several in our industry step up their efforts around responsible practices in the last 18 months or soactually doing the work and not just offering lip service. Denim has led the way, but the whole fashion industry benefits from more purpose-driven companies, big and small, that have this philosophy legitimately built into their DNA. Id like to see more of the industry on this path in 2022 and beyond.

SD: More emphasis on UN Sustainable Development Goals, transparency and nearshoring.

LR: Research and innovation being the driving force in a new level of design and production. I would like to see a renewed style and creativity in collections with more awareness.

PS: Honesty, transparency, low-impact products and a real ethical industry that has empathy for suffering companies. Id also like to see restructuring in consumer habits and in companies green investments.

BT: Bigger fits and fuller cuts. No need for JNCO-level roominess, but a more relaxed fit feels more contemporary in the third decade of this century. But please, no bootcuts!

AT: Responsibility. I hope the denim industry truly acts in responsible and respectful ways towards the planet and humanity.

AV: I believe we still need to work hard to redesign a better sustainable model, where circularity represents the new sustainabilitynot only when it comes to the materials, but also to water. In the textile industry water is used to vehicle colors and chemical auxiliaries but luckily today many technologies aim at significantly reducing water consumption. For that, we need to involve young designers and technicians to develop products based on this circular approach. I think the right perspective between creativity and circularity should turn into a simple question of what if we could redesign everything using sustainable, resilient, circular materials? Imagination must have no limits; creativity with circular and sustainable materials should give us the confidence to redesign the world we live in.

VW: Obviously, we cant wait to see everyone in person in 2022, as [Kingpins] return to holding physical trade shows. But we also recognize that the way we do business has changed post-pandemic. Going forward, there needs to be more integration between digital and physical interaction and collaboration.

FA: Less egoism.

AA: Greenwashing.

MB: Weve all seen it, so its no surprise when I say that the number of companies in our industry that are still making unsubstantiated and untrue sustainability claims is tragic. The term greenwashing itself is almost as overused as sustainable. Id really like to see less of this in 2022.

SD: Greenwashing.

LR: I dont want to see overly destroyed jeans anymore. Its fine if you buy second-hand, but there are many other ways to make a new product attractive without destroying it. Enough washes with devastating chemistry. And enough with objectifying the image of women in advertising.

PS: No more greenwashing, less textile waste and no going back to business as usual.

BT: Skinny fits, particularly for men.

AT: Less greenwashing, more accountability.

AV: I certainly hope for less panic [in the supply chain]. I hope that we can return to an ordinary situation with greater awareness and an active attitude to change, not only on a personal level but also at work. We need to build a new denim industry, inspired by balance and respect for our planet. But to do this, we need to get out of this feeling of emergency chaos and the toxicity of its consequences, to get back into action.

VW: I would like to see the industry keep the focus on long-term goals over short-term gains. Ive spent much of the last two years talking to people in our industry about how they had been doing business before the pandemic and how they hope to do business in the future. I hope as businesses reopen and rebuild, we all continue our efforts to make the industry better and work together toward a more sustainable future.

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10 Denim Industry Experts on the Highs, Lows and Predictions for 2022 - Sourcing Journal

Imagine that youre walking down a crowded street and an old woman with bags in her hand is walking towards you. The handles on her bags break, and all of her belongings go tumbling to the ground. People walk by, look at her, and keep walking. Unlike them, you stop and help her pick everything up. She simply looks at you and says, Thank you. You smile at her and then continue on your way, feeling much better about yourself because you cared enough to stop and help.

Some people think we ought to only do what is best for ourselves, but I will present evidence that this is a misunderstanding of ethics and the incorrect way of approaching ethics. Ethical egoism doesnt say that we have no choice button act in our self-interest like psychological egoism. Instead, it says that we Ought to only do what is in our personal rational self-interest; this self-interest should be long term. For example, an ethical egoist realizes that I should go to the dentist to get a cavity removed even though it causes me pain because it can prevent even more pain in the future.

In this paper, I will explain what ethical egoism is, give examples why ethical egoism is incorrect, provide examples that support ethical egoism, and lariat why those reasons are inaccurate. We have natural duties to others simply because they are people who could be helped or harmed by our actions (FEE p. 113). In other words, if a certain action on our part could help another, then this is a reason why we should help others. The interests of others count from a moral point of view, even if ethical egoism claims that morality comes from doing what is in our self-interest; I dont believe that true.

So: other peoples interests are significant and count from a moral point of view. We can help others. Thus, we should help others. This argument would be an argument for altruism. Some disagree with it, namely ethical egoists; according to ethical egoism, one has a moral obligation to only serve and promote ones interests (FEE p. 107). The first argument I would like to bring to light is the argument from altruism. It starts with three assumptions. 1 We do not know the interests of others. Since we cannot know others interests, we are likely to fail in our attempts to help others.

We are, however, in a good position to know our own interests. 2. ) Helping others s invasive. 3. ) Helping others can be degrading in the way it says that they are not competent to care for themselves. From these assumptions, we get the following argument: 1 . ) We should do whatever will promote the interests of everyone alike. 2. ) The interests of others are best promoted if each of us adopts the policy of pursuing our own interests. 3. ) Thus, each of us should adopt the policy of pursuing our own interests exclusively. However, retaliation is quite simple.

The above argument is not an egoistic argument-?its actually an altruistic one. Notice that although the conclusion says that we ought to act egoistically, the conclusion is driven by the motivation of altruism (in premise 1). So it really says, In order to be successfully altruistic, everyone should act as an egoist. Thomas Hobblers argument says that common-sense moral intuitions can always be explained in terms of ethical egoism. We should do certain things (like tell the truth, dont kill, etc. ) because in the long run they serve our interests.

Examples of those would be if we make a habit of harming others, people will be reluctant o help us or refrain from harming us (thus it is in our own interests not to harm others), and if we lie to people, we will get a bad reputation so people wont be honest with us as a result (thus it is in our own best interests to be truthful). Hobble

Now what about egoism? It requires that we believe that from each persons perspective, his or her own interests are more important than everyone elses. If this is so, we must be able to come up with some salient differences between the self and others to ground it. Otherwise, it is no different than racism. However, an ethical egoist could simply say it is in fact in our best interest to put our own interests above everyone elses. If everyone were to do that, we would all be of the same importance.

Now, Im going to integrate an argument for ethical egoism that learned in an economics class. Its called the invisible hand, which is an economic theory that claims that we should expect a prosperous society from rationally self-interested individuals motivated by profit who compete for business. The invisible hand is an argument for ethical egoism because if the invisible hand argument is sound, ethical egoism within a capitalistic economy leads to prosperity.

Ethical egoism is endorsed by the invisible hand argument as long as it requires people to act on the profit motive, have rational self-interest and has absolutely no need for empathy. Ethical egoism could be used for practical reasons because everyday decision-making is not necessarily compatible with completed moral theory. There might be some sort of ethical egoism that encourages us to have empathy, help others, and look out for the interests of others, but the egoism endorsed by the invisible hand is not that sort of egoism.

Instead, it requires a more selfish and pure form of egoism. This kind Of egoism is impractical because we generally hurt others exactly when we think its in our self-interest to do so, and it seems false because it seems unlikely that hurting others would never be in our personal self-interest. Whether you believe the moral thing to do is pursuing your own self interest exclusively or that doing the moral thing is simply doing the right thing in regards to others needs, morals are and always have been a complicated issue.

We are raised with morals, told to obey the moral laws, we marry people with the same moral values that we posses, and then pass on our moral values to our children. Although there are positives to ethical egoism, such as only being responsible for your own self-interests, I dont believe its the correct approach to ethics. I believe in altruism, and it only takes one person doing a truly selfless act to disprove ethical egoism.

This essay was written by a fellow student. You may use it as a guide or sample for writing your own paper, but remember to cite it correctly. Dont submit it as your own as it will be considered plagiarism.

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What Is Ethical Egoism and its Examples Example | GraduateWay