We promote open Objectivism: the philosophy of reason, achievement, individualism, and freedom. Rand also delivered a version on radio and, in a separate radio program, answered questions on the subject. Capitalism is not the system of the past; it is the system of the future — if mankind is to have a future. This is the game plan of many Objectivists: spread the ideas of Ayn Rand, and her compelling logic will eventually penetrate a critical mass of even the most thick-skulled philosophers and intellectuals. When applied to physical phenomena, such as the automatic functions of an organism, the term “goal-directed” is not to be taken to mean “purposive” (a concept applicable only to the actions of a consciousness) and is not to imply the existence of any teleological principle operating in insentient nature. Just as sensations are the first step of the development of a human consciousness in the realm of cognition, so they are its first step in the realm of evaluation. Psychologically, the choice “to think or not” is the choice “to focus or not.” Existentially, the choice “to focus or not” is the choice “to be conscious or not.” Metaphysically, the choice “to be conscious or not” is the choice of life or death. Unlike plants and animals, humans are not able to survive merely by automatic behaviors or instincts. And no one rose to ask the question: Good? 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 car — his alleged happiness is the measure of his success in the service of his own destruction. 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 own 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, fear or mood of the moment above the reality of one’s own self-esteem. Because Objectivism, the whole philosophy from which this ethics springs, views human life as fundamentally individual–needing to be lived, maintained and enhanced by each individual through his own action–Objectivist Ethical Egoism (OEE) takes each individual’s own life as his own effective standard of value. 3 Ainar Petersen Miyata The Case for Moral Objectivism A Moorean Odyssey through Metaethics . Bring a liberty chapter to your campus. Men have the right to use physical force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use. No society can be of value to man’s life if the price is the surrender of his right to his life. He cannot provide for his simplest physical needs without a process of thought. Only a brute or an altruist would claim that the appreciation of another person’s virtues is an act of selflessness, that as far as one’s own selfish interest and pleasure are concerned, it makes no difference whether one deals with a genius or a fool, whether one meets a hero or a thug, whether one marries an ideal woman or a slut. Instead of asking “Which moral code should one adopt?” Rand starts by asking why man needs a moral code in the first place. And, logically, these are the only things that the practitioners of altruism have achieved and are achieving now. The book covers ethical issues from the perspective of Rand's Objectivist philosophy. He does not treat men as masters or slaves, but as independent equals. And it will not occur to them, or to anyone, so long as the concept “rational” is omitted from the context of “values,” “desires,” “self-interest” and ethics. But everything he needs or desires has to be learned, discovered and produced by him — by his own choice, by his own effort, by his own mind. The motto “dog eat dog” — which is not applicable to capitalism nor to dogs — is applicable to the social theory of ethics. 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. His life. But he cannot succeed, as a subhuman, in achieving anything but the subhuman — as the ugly horror of the antirational periods of mankind’s history can demonstrate. The existential monument to this theory is the present state of our culture. Does an arbitrary human convention, a mere custom, decree that man must guide his actions by a set of principles — or is there a fact of reality that demands it? In it Ayn details the Objectivist view of ethics and how to live a moral life. It is only a living organism that faces a constant alternative: the issue of life or death. 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 own 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” that seeks to be eaten by others). In any hour and issue of his life, man is free to think or to evade that effort. So long as that question remained unanswered, no rational, scientific, objective code of ethics could be discovered or defined. The first question is not: What particular code of values should man accept? It holds that the rational interests of men do not clash — that there is no conflict of interests among men who do not desire the unearned, who do not make sacrifices nor accept them, who deal with one another as traders, giving value for value. Nature gives him no automatic guarantee of the efficacy of his mental effort. Only a living entity can have goals or can originate them. Man cannot survive as anything but man. “That which is required for the survival of man qua man” is an abstract principle that applies to every individual man. However, should the Objectivist ethics ever gain widespread social acceptance, you may be sure of one thing – it will not be called “the Objectivist ethics.” The two great values to be gained from social existence are: knowledge and trade. The pleasure-pain mechanism in the body of man — and in the bodies of all the living organisms that possess the faculty of consciousness — serves as an automatic guardian of the organism’s life. Matter is indestructible, it changes its forms, but it cannot cease to exist. The Objectivist ethics holds man’s life as the standard of value — and his own life as the ethical purpose of every individual man. The truth will win out in the end. His senses do not tell him automatically what is good for him or evil, what will benefit his life or endanger it, what goals he should pursue and what means will achieve them, what values his life depends on, what course of action it requires. Just as man is free to attempt to survive by any random means, as a parasite, a 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 any 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. Man is the only species that can transmit and expand his store of knowledge from generation to generation; the knowledge potentially available to man is greater than any one man could begin to acquire in his own lifespan; every man gains an incalculable benefit from the knowledge discovered by others. Productive work is the central purpose of a rational man’s life, the central value that integrates and determines the hierarchy of all his other values. 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 and undeserved, neither in matter nor in spirit (which is the virtue of Justice). The Dark Ages and the Middle Ages are the existential monument to this theory of ethics. 1 Since everything man needs has to be discovered by his own mind and produced by his own effort, the two essentials of the method of survival proper to a rational being are: thinking and productive work. 4 Abstract Its life is the standard of value directing its actions. I use the term “goal-directed,” in this context, to designate the fact that the automatic functions of living organisms are actions whose nature is such that they result in the preservation of an organism’s life. For those who are interested in the history and the psychological causes of the philosophers’ treason against capitalism, I will mention that I discuss them in the title essay of my book For the New Intellectual. An organism that possesses only the faculty of sensation is guided by the pleasure-pain mechanism of its body, that is: by an automatic knowledge and an automatic code of values. 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 purposeful use of his mind. He has to discover how to tell what is true or false and how to correct his own errors; he has to discover how to validate his concepts, his conclusions, his knowledge; he has to discover the rules of thought, the laws of logic, to direct his thinking. A Code of Blogging Ethics. I quote from Galt’s speech: “There is only one fundamental alternative in the universe: existence or nonexistence — and it pertains to a single class of entities: to living organisms. If you achieve that which is the 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. Ayn Rand’s timeless piece of literature The Virtue of Selfishness (1964) is the foundation for incorporating these ideals into the The virtue of Rationality means the recognition and acceptance of reason as one’s only source of knowledge, one’s only judge of values and one’s only guide to action. Read “The Objectivist Ethics” here or here. A trader does not expect to be paid for his defaults, only for his achievements. role of the school leader to indoctrinate stakeholders with the objectivist ethic- embracing egoism and relinquishing altruistic ideals when it comes to invigorating the system with sustainable change. Socially, Rand argues that rational, productive, and proud individuals can and will interact to mutual benefit. “Man must live for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself” (30). 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