On Pages 28 and 29 of her book, The Virtue of Selfishness, Ayn Rand writes of Rationality: “The virtue of Rationality means the recognition and acceptance of rationality as one’s only source of knowledge, one’s only judge of values and one’s only guide to action. I mean one’s total commitment to a state of full, conscious aware, to the maintenance of a full mental focus in all issues, in all choices, in all of one’s waking hours. It means a commitment to the fullest perception of reality within one’s power and to the constant, active expansion of one’s perception, i.e., of one’s knowledge. It means a commitment to the reality of one’s existence, i.e., to the principle that all of one’s goal, values and actions take place in reality, and, therefore, that one must never place any value or consideration whatsoever above one’s perception of reality. It means a commitment to the principle that all of one’s convictions, values, goals, desires and actions must be based on, derived from chosen and validated by a process of thought, as precise and scrupulous process of thought, directed by as ruthlessly strict an application of logic, as one’s fullest capacity permits. It means one’s acceptance of the responsibility of forming one’s own judgments and of living by the work of one’s own mind (which is the virtue of Independence). It means that one must never sacrifice one’s convictions to the opinions or wishes of others (which is the virtue of Integrity)—that one must never attempt to fake reality in any manner (which is the virtue of Honesty)—that one must never seek or grant the unearned or undeserved, neither in matter nor in spirit (which is the virtue of Justice). It means that one must never desire effects without causes, and that one must never enact a cause without assuming full responsibility for its effects—that one must never act like a zombie, i.e., without knowing one’s own purpose and motives—and that one must never make any decisions, form any convictions or seek any values out of context, i.e., apart from or against the total, integrated sum of one’s knowledge—and above all, that one must never seek to get away with contradictions. It means the rejection of any form of mysticism, i.e., any claim to some nonsensory, nonrational, nondefinable, supernatural source of knowledge. It means a commitment to reason, not in sporadic fits on selected issues, or in special emergencies, but as a permanent way of life.”
My response: As an ethical, spiritual, and spiritual moderate, it is predictable that I like what she wrote above, and I agree with her for the most part but not entirely. Rationality is the primary source of knowledge but our feelings, intuition, and subconscious logical processing of things leading to flashes of insight popping into our surface consciousness—these are important, vital sources of knowledge from and about the universe within us and outside of us, and all of it is mediated through our rich, complex mind.
I admire her uncompromising emphasis on full mental focus for that is the sentient, alert mindset of a self-realizer. When we use logic and language, we need to be honest to take our linear processes to logical conclusions that may not mesh without romantic or cherished fantasies.
The virtues she cites and defines are admirable. At times, her pronouncements are too black-or-white, too all-or-none, for life and truth do not often fit into clear, precise, sewed-up pockets. Her standards are so severely pure and high that they could discourage a lot of people as impossible or unworkable, unrealistic, or naïve, but I conclude, in the main she is right, and the first-hander she cares for must apply her mind with razor-sharp acuity to live as she would and make high-resolution statements and decisions about the world.
Rand: “The virtue of Productiveness is the recognition of the fact that productive work is the process by which man’s mind sustains his life, the process that sets man free of the necessity to adjust himself to his background, as all animals do, and gives him the power to adjust his background to himself. Productive work is the road of man’s unlimited achievement and calls upon the highest attributes of his character: his creative ability, his ambitiousness, his self-assertiveness, his refusal to bear uncontested disasters, his dedication to reshaping the earth in the image of his values. ‘Productive work’ does not mean the unfocused performance of some motions on some job. It means the consciously chosen pursuit of a productive career, in any line of rational endeavor, great or modest, on any level of ability. It is not the degree of a man’s ability nor the scale of his work that is ethically relevant here, but the fullest and most powerful use of his mind.”
My response: Her virtue of Productiveness fits well with maverizig making money, writing poetry, or bending conduit. She requires workers of both genders and all ability levels to work to this degree of involvement with employment.
Rand continues on Pages 29 and 30: “The virtue of Pride is the recognition of the fact ‘that as man must produce the physical values he needs to sustain his life, so he must acquire the values of character that make his life worth sustaining—that man is a being of self-made wealth, so he is a being of self-made soul’ (Atlas Shrugged) The virtue of Pride can best be described by the term: ‘moral ambitiousness.’ It means that one must earn the right to hold oneself as one’s highest value by achieving one’s own moral perfection—which one achieves by never accepting any code of irrational virtues impossible to practice and by never failing to practice the virtues one knows to be rational—by never accepting an unearned guilt and never earning any, or, if one has earned it, never leaving it uncorrected—by never resigning oneself passively to any flaws in one’s character—by never placing any concern, wish or fear or mood of the moment above the reality of one’s own self-esteem. And, above all, it means one’s rejection of the role of a sacrificial animal, the rejection of any doctrine that preaches self-immolation as a moral virtue or duty.”
My response: Pride as merited self-esteem based on self-improvement is okay. I would not dismiss irrational virtues out of hand, and our depraved nature and natural addiction to sin must be dealt with squarely if we are to work through all of this to become maverized moral agents of good will and legitimately held high self-esteem. She is perceptive in warning agents away from serving as a sacrificial animal to a doctrine or ideology requiring the self to lay down its life for the cause. It may be necessary sometimes, but the people should question each and every call to arms and self-sacrifice.
Rand on Page 30: “The basic social principle of the Objectivist ethics is just that life is an end in itself, so every human being is an end in himself, not the means to the ends or the welfare of others—and, therefore, that man must live for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others or sacrificing others to himself. To live for his own sake means that the achievement of his own happiness is man’s highest moral purpose.”
My response: Very nice. Life (One life in this world and in the next.) is an end in itself, and every human being is an end in himself, so his primary focus in life is pursuing his own interests, and what will make him happy is something like self-realization. He is egalitarian: he wants his property and wealth to do his own thing, but he will not sacrifice others for his gain either, and they should lead their own productive, independent lives. Since a life of self-actualization is noble, fulfilling and very hard work iterated over decades, it could be construed as self-sacrifice of the self’s pleasure, ease and modest goals in service of becoming a first-hander over time.
It also occurs to me that Rand is a secular humanist: each human is of great worth and should live in accordance with that natural nobility of character, live up to this ideal, as best she can.
Rand: “In psychological terms, the issue of man’s survival does not confront his consciousness as an issue of ‘life or death,’ but as an issue of ‘happiness or suffering.’ Happiness is the successful state of life, suffering is the warning signal of failure, of death. Just as the pleasure-pain mechanism of a man’s body is not an automatic indicator of his body’s welfare or injury, a barometer of its basic alternative, life, or death—so the emotional mechanism of man’s consciousness is geared to perform the same function, as a barometer that registers that registers the same alternative by means of two basic emotions: joy or suffering. Emotions are the automatic results of man’s value judgments integrated by his subconscious; emotions are estimates of that which furthers man’s values or threatens them, that which is for him or against –lightning calculators giving him the sum of his profits or loss.”
My response: If the merely survive is to stay alive as a mediocre, inauthentic nonindividuator, then one is intellectually and spiritually dying while biologically living. The life of a nonindividuator or second-hander,in the long run, will make the agent unhappy and declining physically, perhaps slowly dying. If that agent were to have a miraculous wake-up epiphany, and then focus the rest of her life on living as a first-hander or remarkable, gifted, wise individuator, she would be alive vibrantly and her good health would show it, and her joy, resolve, happiness and joy and living would so radiate from her aura, that she would glow with life, hope, and promise. There are always good pleasures and bad pleasures, and good pain and bad pain, but there is much suffering built into life, and some happy moments too, but lasting happiness is a merited byproduct of positive attitude and wise reaction to whatever comes at one.
Rand: “But while the standard of value operating the physical pleasure-pain mechanism of man’s body is automatic and innate, determined by the nature of his body—the standard of value operating his emotional mechanism is not. Since man has no automatic knowledge, he can have no automatic values; since he has no innate ideas, he can have no innate value judgments.
Man is born with an emotional mechanism, just as he is born with a cognitive mechanism; but, at birth, both are tabula rasa. It is man’s cognitive faculty, his mind, that determines the content of both. Man’s emotional mechanism is like an electric computer, which his mind has to program—and the programming consists of the values his mind chooses.”
My response: Rand seems correct that our primitive, primal reaction to experienced stimuli is divided by our mind into pleasure-pain categories, and these catetgorizing operations are instinctive. The next, higher level mental operations divide experiences and the reaction of the consciousness into suffering or joy as an immediate direct reaction, or as a long-term posture of reaction to cumulative painful and pleasurable reactions to stimuli from inside and outside of the agent.
This long-term posture of reaction or the functioning personality or worldview of the agent is Rand’s identified emotional mechanism valuing experiences that the agent has experienced as sources of suffering or joy.
It is brilliant of her to offer that man has no automatic knowledge (This is why the wisdom and tradition of the elders, and an accurate, impartial history of children’s people, society and culture must be taught to them.). As the agent or child grows and matures, he begins to think for himself as a maverizer (the ideal). He gains knowledge and wisdom about the world and his place in it. With his Objectivist set of values (We hope it is that set of values.), he now can make value judgments bracketing his cumulative response to what he has experienced over his lifetime as a life of suffering and loss, or joy and accomplishment.
If he were a joiner, a lazy, hedonistic narcissist leading a blessed life, he would not feel joy, but ennui and jaded sense of boredom and worthlessness and no self-esteem. If he were a maverizer and loner, of limited means and shaky health, with 5 kids to support and a wife that he did not get along with, it could be fairly stated that he has suffered a lot, but, if he sublimated his frustrations and pain into meaningful work, compassion for his family, and at work he writes original theorems as a math professor, his life is joyful, and he likely is a happy man.
Though I am a Randian and an Objectivist, the moderate in me, makes me hesitate at her sweeping generalizations about humans having no innate ideas. Our essential nature is filled with preconditions: original sin, with low self-esteem, with the desire for group-living, our self-loathing, our desire for ease, pleasure and luxury, our affection for bondage (enslaving others and being enslaved by others)--a weak and other-directed will, the personality of the second-hander--our religious appetite to meet and talk to and worship a divinity).
Still, she is more correct than not. Though we have some innate ideas, or something like them, we are largely born blank-slates and our family, our culture, our nature, our genetic makeup will feed us experiences that will help us shape our lives.
We start out tabula rasa, but if our naturally weak capacities to think and be self-reliant are encouraged and supported by parents and teachers, then we, as children, may choose to catch on, and learn to think and think for ourselves as a first-hander (the ideal). Then we will generate values to live by and that will program our personality, plans, behavior selections and future, for us intellectually and emotionally.
Rand continues on Page 31: “But since the work of man’s mind is not automatic, his values, like all his premises, are the product either of his thinking or his evasions: man chooses his values by a conscious process of thought—or accepts them by default, by subconscious associations, on faith, on someone’s authority, by some form of social osmosis, or blind imitation. Emotions are produced by man’s premises, held consciously or subconsciously, explicitly or implicitly.”
My response: she is right: we think independently and create values consistent with maverizing, or we are a mirror for social values borrowed from others, and the life of a parasite and nonindividuator awaits us. Our emotions influence our thinking, and our thinking influences our feeling, I suspect.
Rand: “Man has no choice about his capacity to feel that something is good for him or evil, but what he will consider good or evil, what will give him joy or pain, what he will love or hate, desire or fear, depends on his standard of value. If he chooses irrational values, he switches his emotional mechanism from the role of his guardian to the role of his destroyer. The irrational is the impossible; it is that which contradicts the facts of reality; facts cannot be altered by a wish, but they can destroy the wisher. If a man desires and pursues contradictions—if he wants to have his cake and eat it too—he disintegrates his consciousness; he turns his inner life into a civil war of blind forces engaged in dark, incoherent, pointless, meaningless conflicts (which incidentally, is the inner state of most people today).”
My response: Rand is a monist, atheist, firm foundationalist and epistemological optimist. Contradictions for her not only are false, but they cannot exist in the world. As a moderate, I say she is mostly correct, but that there are contradictions that are true and do exist in the world. How else can God be all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-loving, and yet we have free will and evil exists in the world, and we will go to heaven and hell based on our moral and spiritual choices. If people would react to and conceptualize their pain and pleasure felt more through rational values than irrational values (We cannot help but describe and judge the world on both sets of values because both are innate in our psyche.), and if we do so by loving truth, God, ourselves and others, then we can deal with our pleasure and pain in a way is not meaningless, shattering and embittering.
Rand continues: “Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one’s values. If a man values productive work, his happiness is a measure of his success in the service of his life. But if a man values destruction, like a sadist—or self-torture, like a masochist—or life beyond the grave, like a mystic—or mindless ‘kicks,’ like the driver of a hotrod ca--his alleged happiness is the measure of his success in the service of his own destruction. It must be added that the emotional state of all those irrationalists cannot be properly designated as happiness or even as pleasure: it is merely a moment’s relief from their constant rate of terror.”
My response: It seems that rationalists, first-handers or self-actualizers value and achieve productive work and they end up feeling happy about their lives, for they have sacrificed lower pleasures for higher pains of hard work and self-improvement to achieve their long-range goals. They have filled their lives with deep meaning and that is what makes one joyful and happy and it cannot be faked or substituted for by drugs or hotrod cars.
Note implicit moral standards here, important moral standards. She denounces sadists and masochists as irrationalist, unhappy and terrified by the demands of existence. If one is a first-hander, neither abusing others sadistically, or masochistically ever allowing one to torture oneself or be abused by another human, then one sweeps aide unhealth interrelations with others, and set up healthy relationships between the self and others and the self and the self Once this emotional and psychological sense of well-being and proper self-esteem is one’s worldview then one I predisposed to maverize, and that is when real joy via gaining knowledge, creative ends and productive work all lead one to having lived as one was meant to live, actualizing what one has to offer the world.
Here is Rand on Pages 31 and 32: “Neither life nor happiness can be achieved by the pursuit of irrational whims. Just as a man is free to attempt to survive by any random means, as a parasite, moocher or a looter, but not free to succeed at it beyond the range of the moment—so he is free to seek his happiness in an irrational fraud, any whim, any delusion, any mindless escape from reality, but not free to succeed at it beyond the range of the moment nor to escape the consequences.”
My response: I agree.
On Page 32 Rand continues: “The maintenance of life and the pursuit of happiness are not two separate issues. To hold one’s life as one’s ultimate value, and one’s own happiness as one’s highest purpose are two aspects of the same achievement. Existentially, the activity of pursuing rational goals is the activity of maintaining one’s life; psychologically, it result, reward and concomitant is an emotional state of happiness. It is by experiencing happiness that one lives one’s life in any hour, year or the whole of it. And when one experiences the kind of pure happiness that is an end in itself—the kind that makes one think: ‘This is worth living for—what one greeting and affirming in emotional terms is the metaphysical fact that life is an end in itself.”
My response: To live fully, virtuously, and innovatively is to maintain one’s life and this kind of project results in great happiness.
Rand: “But the relationship of cause to effect cannot be reversed. It is only by accepting ‘man’s life’ as one’s primary and by pursuing the rational values that it requires that one can achieve happiness—not by taking ‘happiness’ as some undefined, irreducible primary and then attempting to live by its guidance. If you achieve that which is good by a rational standard of value, it will necessarily make you happy; but that which makes you happy, by some undefined emotional standard, is not necessarily the good. To take ‘whatever makes one happy’ as a guide to action means: to be guided by nothing but one’s emotional whims. Emotions are not tools of cognition; to be guided by whim—by desires whose source, nature and meaning one does not know—is to turn oneself into a blind robot, operated by unknowable demons (by one’s stale evasions), a robot knocking it brains out against the walls of reality which it refuses to see.”
My response: rational egoism of the kind that Rand espouses will bring one closer to happiness than will base hedonism and self-indulgence. I am not sure that pursuing happiness should be our highest aim. I think we should aim to be loving, wise, spiritually and morally good, and fight evil and champion good; if we feel happy after that, okay—happy as a deserved and unexpected mood and a deserved by product of a live well-lived. It may be more important to pursue being tranquil and at peace, than to feel happy. If one could serve God as a living angel, then one’s state of mind here and in the next world would to be happy, so in that way I can agree with Rand that happiness is the ethical purpose.
Rand on Page 32 and 33: “This is the fallacy inherent in hedonism—in any variant of ethical hedonism, personal or social, individual or collective. ‘Happiness can be the purpose of ethics but not the standard. The task of ethics is to define man’s proper code of values and thus give him the means to achieve happiness. To declare, as the ethical hedonists do, that ‘the proper value is whatever gives you pleasure’ is to declare that ‘the proper value is what you happen to value’—which is an intellectual and philosophical abdication, an act that merely proclaims the futility of all ethics and invites all men to play it deuces wild.”
My response: the pursuit of happiness and chasing objects giving us cheap, immediate gratification are not the same.
Rand: “The philosophers who attempted to devise an allegedly rational code of ethics gave mankind nothing but a choice of whims: the ‘selfish’ pursuit of one’s whims (such as the ethics of Nietzsche)—or ‘selfless’ service to the whims of others (such as the ethics of Bentham, Mill, Comte and of all social hedonists, whether they allowed man to include his own whims among the millions of others or advised him to turn himself into a totally selfless ‘shmoo’ to be eaten by others).”
My response: Rand believes that rational values and rational means of seeking how to fulfill them will provide a higher-level crass hedonism, the irrationally willed egoism if Nietzsche or all of the myriad of altruistic ethical codes.
Rand on pages 33 and 34: “When a ‘desire,’ regardless of its nature or cause, is taken as an ethical primary, and the gratification of any and all desires is taken as an ethical goal (such as the greatest happiness of the greatest number)—men have no choice but to hate, fear and fight one another, because their desires and interests will necessarily clash. If ‘desire’ is the ethical standard, then one man’s desire to produce and another man’s desire to rob him have equal ethical validity; when one man’s desire to be free and another man’s desire to enslave him have equal ethical validity; one man’s desire to be loved and admired for his virtues and another man’s desire for underserved love and unearned admiration have equal ethical validity. And if the frustration of any desire constitutes a sacrifice, then a man that owns and automobile and is robbed of it, is being sacrificed, but so is the man who wants or ‘aspires to’ an automobile that the owner refuses to give to him—and these two ‘sacrifices’ have equal ethical status. If so, man’s only choice is to rob or be robbed, to destroy or be destroyed, to sacrifice others to any desire of his own or to sacrifice himself to any desire of others; then man’s only ethical alternative is to be a sadist or masochist.”
My response: Rand seems correct in denying that desire as an ethical motive is more than a erratic whim, and clashes arise as soon as a neighbor produces a competing desire as deserving social priority. Rand’s ethical egoism is a much more objective standard where all win, and social harmony and peace should follow.
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