On Page 82 of her book, The Virtue of Selfishness, Ayn Rand opens with essay 8, How Does One Lead a Rational Life in an Irrational Society?: “I will confine my answer to a single , fundamental aspect of this question. I will only name one principle, the opposite of the idea which is so prevalent today and which is responsible for the spread of evil in the world. That principle is: One must never fail to pronounce moral judgment.”
My response: I could not agree more: now we do not want to persecute people or discriminate them by calling them sinners publicly or to their faces over minor peccadilloes, or call them blasphemers when they are not but are just dissenters from the main culture of Christian belief, but, if one lives according to a clear, sensible set of moral values that one has selected, and tries to adhere to, then one must never fail to pronounce moral judgment, especially if evil is lethal, significant or blatantly present in the open for all to see and be impressed by and imitate occurring right under one’s nose, and one recognizes it instantaneously, then one must speak out and act to nip it in the bud to protect the community, and maybe one’ family and oneself.
Rand: “Nothing can corrupt and denigrate a culture or a man’s character as thoroughly as does the precept of moral agnosticism, the idea that one must never pass moral judgement on others, that one must be morally tolerant of anything, the good consists of never distinguishing good from evil.”
My response: Amen, I think we should judge the action and not the man’s character, though we could describe his sinning or illegal activity as consistent with being immoral or a criminal.
Rand on Pages 82 and 83: “It is obvious who profits and who loses by such a precept. It is not justice ore equal treatment that you grant to men when you abstain equally from praising men virtues and from condemning men’s vices. When your impartial attitude, declares, in effect, that neither the good nor the evil may expect anything from you—whom do you betray and whom do you encourage?
But to pronounce moral judgment is an enormous responsibility. To be a judge, one must possess an unimpeachable character; one need not be omniscient or infallible, and it is not an issue of errors of knowledge; one needs an unbreached integrity, that is, the absence of any indulgence of conscious, willful evil. Just as a judge in a court of law may err, when the evidence is inconclusive, but may not evade the evidence available, nor accept bribes, nor allow any personal feeling, emotion, desire or fear to obstruct his mind’s judgment of the facts of reality—so every rational person must maintain and equally strict and solemn integrity in the courtroom within his mind, where the responsibility is more awesome than in a public tribunal, because, he, the judge is the only one that knows when he has been impeached.
There is, however, a court of appeal from one’s judgments: objective reality. A judge puts himself on trial every time he pronounces a verdict. It is only in today’s reign of immoral cynicism, subjectivism and hooliganism that men may imagine themselves free to utter any sort of irrational judgment and to suffer no consequences. But, in effect, a man is to be judged by the judgments he pronounces. The things he condemns or extols exist in objective reality and are open to the independent appraisal of others. It is his own moral character and standards that he reveals when blames or praises. If he condemns America and extols Soviet Russia—or if he attacks businessmen and defends juvenile delinquents—or if he denounces a great work of art and praises trash—it is the nature of his own soul that he confesses.”
My response: I agree for Rand the acute ethicist knows that we publicly have to stand foursquare for what is morally proper to keep society from sliding into immorality, anarchy, lawlessness and chaos. Standards have to be upheld. On the other hand, I do not admire self-righteous hypocrites, something like the self-appointed, swelled-up Elect from some church that look down upon their neighbors, or that Iranian abomination, the morality police.
Rand is right, we do have a public obligation to speak up for what is right and what is wrong. We have an even more important and large obligation to get ourselves right when we fall of the wagon and betray our own values. Self-improvement and self-policing are the key to keeping one’s soul, one’s children and society as morally and spiritually fit as can be.
Rand on Pages 83 and 84: “It is their fear of this responsibility that prompts most people do adopt an attitude if indiscriminate moral neutrality. It is the fear best expressed in the precept: ‘Judge not, that ye be not judged.’ But that precept, in fact, is an abdication of moral responsibility: it is a moral blank check one gives to others in exchange for a moral blank check one expects for oneself.
There is no escape from the fact that men have to make choices; so long as men have to make choices, there is no escape from moral values; so long as moral values are at stake, no moral neutrality is possible. To abstain from condemning a torturer, is to become an accessory to the torture and murder of his victims.
The moral principle to adopt in this issue, is: ‘Judge, and prepare to be judged.’
The opposite of moral neutrality is not a blind, arbitrary, self-righteous condemnation of any idea, action or person that does not fit one’s mood, one’s memorized slogans or one’s snap judgment of the moment. Indiscriminate tolerance and indiscriminate condemnation are not two opposites: they are two variants of the same evasion. To declare that ‘everyone is white’ or ‘everyone is black’ or ‘everyone is neither white or black, but gray,’ is not a moral judgment but an escape from the responsibility of moral judgment.”
My response: Rand is correct above for the most part. If we would be moral, we must judge the behavior and character of others and ourselves, in public and in our own minds, but, paramount is the effort to be impartial, and speak the truth as close as one can, whether praising, or condemning or characterizing a character or action as neutral.
Rand continues: ”To judge means: to evaluate a given concrete by reference to an abstract principle or standard. It is not an easy task; it is not a task that can be performed automatically by one’s feelings, ‘instincts’ or hunches. It is a task that requires the most precise, the most exacting, the most ruthlessly objective and rational process of thought. It is fairly easy to grasp abstract moral principles; it can be very difficult to apply them to a given situation, particularly when it involves the moral character of another person. When one pronounces moral judgment, whether in praise or in blame, one must be prepared to answer ‘Why?’ and to prove one’s case—to oneself and any rational inquirer.”
My response: Mostly I accept her points, but would suggest that moral hunches about oneself and others can be spot on, even if not rationally justified, though one should seek to be able to why one feels as one feels. Again Objectivist Rand is too exclusionary of irrational sources of moral judgment.
Rand on pages 84and 85: “The policy of pronouncing moral judgment does not mean that one must regard oneself as a missionary charged with the responsibility of ‘saving everyone’s soul’—nor that one must give unsolicited moral appraisals to all those one meets. It means (a) that one must know clearly, in full, verbally identified form, one’s own moral evaluation of every person, issue and event with which one deals, and act accordingly; (b) that one must make one’s moral evaluations known to others, when it is rationally appropriate to do so.
This last means that one need not launch into unprovoked moral denunciations or debates, but that one must speak up in situations where silence can be objectively taken to mean agreement with or sanction with evil. When one deals with irrational persons, , where argument is futile, a mere ‘I don’t agree with you’ is sufficient to negate any implication of moral sanction. When one deals with better people, a full statement of one’s views may be morally required. But in no case and no situation may one permit one’s own values to be attacked or denounced, and keep silent.
Moral values are the motive power of a man’s actions. By pronouncing moral judgment, one protects the clarity of one’s personal perception and the rationality of the course one chooses to pursue. It makes a difference whether one thinks that one is dealing with human errors or knowledge or with human evil.
Observe how many people evade, rationalize and drive their minds into a blind stupor, in dread of discovering that those they deal with—their ‘loved ones’ or friends or business associates or political rulers are not merely mistaken, but are evil. Observe how this dread leads them to sanction, to help and to spread the very evil whose existence they fear to acknowledge.”
My response: I agree, and it I important to overlook mistakes, especially if minor or not too consequential. If they are major or consequential, then we must condemn them because bad consequences produce evil quite often, and if our pals or relatives are wicked, we must condemn them for it openly, a most difficult but necessary obligation. God is watching.
Rand on Pages 85 and 86: “If people do not indulge in such abject evasions as the claim that some contemptible liar ‘means we;;’—that a mooching bum ‘can’t help it’—that a juvenile delinquent needs love—that a criminal ‘doesn’t know any better—that a power-seeking politician is moved by patriotic is moved by patriotic concern for ‘the public good’—that communists are merely ‘agrarian reformers—the history of the past few decades, or centuries, would have been different.
Ask yourself why totalitarian dictatorships find it necessary to pour money and effort to pour money and effort into propaganda for their own helpless, chained, gagged slaves, who have no means of protest or defense. The answer is that even the humblest peasant or lowest savage would rise in blind rebellion, were he to realize that he is being immolated, not to some incomprehensible ‘noble purpose,’ but to plain, naked human evil.”
My response: People need to know the truth, be courageous, be armed and organized, and unwilling to be tyrannized or to tyrannize anyone, anywhere, anymore, and that will bring down totalitarian and authoritarian monsters everywhere.
Rand: “Observe that moral neutrality necessitates a progressive sympathy for vice and a progressive antagonism for virtue. A man who struggles not to acknowledge that evil is evil, finds it increasingly dangerous to acknowledge that the good is the good. To him, a person of virtue is a threat that can topple all of his evasions—particularly when an issue of justice is involved, which demands that he take sides. It is then that such formulas as ‘Nobody is ever fully right or fully wrong’ and ‘Who am I to judge?’ take their lethal effect. The man who begins by saying: There’s some good in the worst of us,’ goes on to say: ‘There’s some bad in the best of us’—then: ‘There’s got to be some bad in the best of us’—and then: ‘It’s the best of us who make life difficult—why don’t they keep silent?—who are they to judge?’”
My response: This essay is one of the best in her ethics book, and though there is good and bad in all of us, the good person cannot be driven into silence by this true accusation for he must speak out and denounce great evil, for the sake of himself and the sake of society, and for the sake the Divine Couple.
Rand: “ . . . and that values have no chance in this world.
An irrational society is a society of moral cowards—or men paralyzed by a loss of moral standards, principles and goals. But since men have to act, so long as they live, such a society is ready to be taken over by anyone willing to set its direction. The initiative can come from only two types of men: either from the man that is willing to assume the responsibility of asserting rational values—or from the thug who is not troubled by questions of responsibility.
No matter how hard the struggle, there is only one choice a rational man can make in the face of such an alternative.”
My response: good values are rational, but some irrational values are good, but we are cowards and we are ignorant, so we fight an uphill battle to be right and do right, but we must try and we may succeed.
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