The Goal

 

Ayn Rand, on Pages 17 and 18, of her book, The Virtue of Selfishness, lays out her account as to what the is goal serves as the ethical standard for the aspiring individual to compare and contrast his character, his motives, his actions and choices against: “An organism’s life depends on two factors: the material or fuel which it needs from the outside, from its physical background, and the action of its body, the action of using that fuel properly. What standard determines what is proper in this context? The standard is the organism’s life, or: that which is required for the organism’s survival.”

 

My response: this short paragraph is rich with implications. Note how the fuel, resources, both literal food so the creature does not starve, and the resources from the earth which allow him to continue living. To live the egoist and his existence depend on living in, interacting with and making a living off of reality out there. This seems a bit like Max Stirner’s the creative nothing and his own, consuming what the outside world offers.

 

Rand regards the survival and continued existence of the self as the standard against which to measure all behaviors, categorizing as good those actions that make life possible, richer or extend. An evil action will be one that ends the life of the egoist, or makes her poorer, truncated or killed.

 

With some qualification (Existence includes the self, alive, loving and thriving biologically, spiritual, intellectually, morally, artistically and emotionally. The soul must be heaven-bound, most likely.), I likely agree with her. I would need to interpret existing as physical survival, but for me to describe a person as alive, he also would lead a spiritual, moral and self-actualizing life—that would be survival but not just only a minimal level of surviving.

 

Rand continues: “No choice is open to an organism in this issue: that which is required for its survival is determined by its nature, by the kind of entity it is. Many variations, many forms of adaptation to its background are possible to an organism, including the possibility of existing for a while in a crippled, disabled or diseased condition, but the fundamental alternative of its existence remains the same: if an organism fails in the basic functions required by its nature—if an amoeba’s protoplasm stops assimilating food, or if a man’s heart stops beating—the organism dies. In a fundamental sense, stillness is the antithesis of life. Life can be kept in existence only by a constant process of self-sustaining action. The goal of that action, the ultimate value which, to be kept, must be gained through its every moment, is the organism’s life.”

 

My response: The human, or any creature—Unless its self-loathing is complete and its works actively, right away to kill itself, and it would likely succeed, if that were its objective--has no choice, but to be active and seek to make a living and keep alive. It is a profound point that Rand makes in extolling the active life, that stillness is death, the antithesis of life, the lived consciousness of a stone, not a moral, ambitious human being. The life lived and well lived is the moral standard for Rand for self-sustaining human beings.  As an atheist, she seems fascinated by the fact that biological life is important and meaningful somehow.

 

Rand continues: “Without an ultimate goal or end, there can be no lesser goals or means: a series of means going off into infinite progression towards a nonexistent end is a metaphysical and epistemological impossibility. It is only an ultimate goal, an end in itself, that makes the existence of values possible. Metaphysically, life is the only phenomenon that is an end in itself, a value gained and kept by a constant process of action. Epistemologically, the concept of ‘value’ is genetically dependent on derived from the antecedent concept of ‘life.’ To speak of ‘value’ as apart from ‘life’ is worse than a contradiction in terms. ‘It is only the concept of ‘Life’ that makes the concept of ‘Value’ possible.”

 

My response: She is spot on--without an ultimate goal or end, there are no lesser goals that are viable metaphysically or epistemologically. Whether that ultimate goal is teleological or deliberately intentional for the agent, her existence would make no metaphysical or epistemological sense. A religious believer would not disagree with Rand here but would counter that the existence and presence of the Higher Power in our lives would make living sensible, meaningful, fulfilling and worthwhile.

 

Rand the conservative, capitalistic, secular humanist would argue that a human life productive and well-lived must suffice.

 

Rand is brilliant, arguing that only life is the only end in itself, a value gained and kept by a constant process of action—Rand’s urban industrialist, artist, or architect would live a self-realized, monetarily profitable existence while tooling and bustling around the world of commerce and transaction—no retiring to a Trappist monastery for Ayn Rand.

 

Only Life makes the concept of Value possible—great quote and I concur wholeheartedly.