Examining Ayn Rand's Paper: Part 3

Continuing the scrutiny of Ayn Rand's paper:

But man’s responsibility goes still further: a process of thought is not automatic nor “instinctive” nor involuntary—nor infallible. Man has to initiate it, to sustain it and to bear responsibility for its results. He has to discover how to tell what is true or false and hfow 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. Nature gives him no automatic guarantee of the efficacy of his mental effort.

Who or what gave man this responsibility? I just would like to know, just to be sure Ayn Rand truly knew what she was talking about. What makes the process of validating one's concepts, conclusions and knowledge necessary? I'm not being anti-intellectual, I am simply being curious as to how Ayn Rand came up with the notion that such things are absolutely important. What makes them important? Because you will die unless you do otherwise? That's not true; otherwise, we'll all be rational scientists. How would you explain the existence of people who are considered as "dumb"? 

Also, Ayn Rand is giving humanity too much credit. Just when did humanity take the concept of truth very seriously? Since when did humanity become systematic with its scientific research; when did humanity adopt the scientific method? Since when did humanity discover the rules of mathematical logic and the concept of "philosophy"? It's true that nature didn't readily give us the mindset necessary to obtain all of this knowledge, but early mankind didn't actually need such advanced knowledge to get by in the beginning! Man in his early years relied heavily on intuitive thinking, even luck to survive (testing edible plants, the accidental discovery of cooking, etc.). If what Ayn Rand said is true, that the systematic assessment of knowledge and concepts is absolutely important for survival, then we shouldn't even exist in the first place.

Let me lend Ayn Rand a hand here. Reason is important; reason is important for us to advance as a civilization, to improve our lifestyles and to know more about reality. However, as far as prehistoric times are concerned, mankind hardly used reason as Ayn Rand envisioned.

Nothing is given to man on earth except a potential and the material on which to actualize it. The potential is a superlative machine: his consciousness; but it is a machine without a spark plug, a machine of which his own will has to be the spark plug, the self-starter and the driver; he has to discover how to use it and he has to keep it in constant action. The material is the whole of the universe, with no limits set to the knowledge he can acquire and to the enjoyment of life he can achieve. 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.

I agree with this paragraph, although Gödel's theorem demonstrates that there is always a limit to what we can know. To know more about this theorem, you can visit this article of mine. Also, I find the last sentence to be quite problematic.

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.

If Ayn Rand meant this so that man can rationally and properly deduce its needs and desires for his self-preservation, then she's right; however, this is not absolutely necessary; people can have irrational desires and needs and still survive. 

A being who does not know automatically what is true or false, cannot know automatically what is right or wrong, what is good for him or evil. Yet he needs that knowledge in order to live. He is not exempt from the laws of reality, he is a specific organism of a specific nature that requires specific actions to sustain his life. He cannot achieve his survival by arbitrary means nor by random motions nor by blind urges nor by chance nor by whim. That which his survival requires is set by his nature and is not open to his choice. What is open to his choice is only whether he will discover it or not, whether he will choose the right goals and values or not. He is free to make the wrong choice, but not free to succeed with it. He is free to evade reality, he is free to unfocus his mind and stumble blindly down any road he pleases, but not free to avoid the abyss he refuses to see. Knowledge, for any conscious organism, is the means of survival; to a living consciousness, every “is” implies an “ought.” Man is free to choose not to be conscious, but not free to escape the penalty of unconsciousness: destruction. Man is the only living species that has the power to act as his own destroyer—and that is the way he has acted through most of his history.

The first sentence, I suspect, is the consequence of Ayn Rand's fallacious refutation of the is-ought problem. Plain truth can't give you the knowledge of right and wrong; an is cannot give you an ought. Meanwhile, as to good and evil, it depends; if we're talking about good and evil in terms of self-preservation, then the truth can provide you with the ought to meet the good in terms of self-preservation.

It is true that cows are herbivores. Therefore, grass is good for their self-preservation. However, that's it. You can't produce any moral output from the truth. Anyway, I agree with this part of the paragraph:

He cannot achieve his survival by arbitrary means nor by random motions nor by blind urges nor by chance nor by whim. That which his survival requires is set by his nature and is not open to his choice. What is open to his choice is only whether he will discover it or not, whether he will choose the right goals and values or not. He is free to make the wrong choice, but not free to succeed with it. He is free to evade reality, he is free to unfocus his mind and stumble blindly down any road he pleases, but not free to avoid the abyss he refuses to see.

It's true that man cannot survive by being random and stuff, without a definite goal, but it must be stressed that it does not necessitate that man needs to meet Rand's vision of reason. Remember; early mankind survived mostly by intuition, even luck, as well as his bodily resistance. I have no problems with the rest of this paragraph.

Knowledge, for any conscious organism, is the means of survival; to a living consciousness, every “is” implies an “ought.” Man is free to choose not to be conscious, but not free to escape the penalty of unconsciousness: destruction. 

Just take note that when it comes to knowledge; an is will give you an "ought" strictly in relation with the is; no moral output is produced. Only facts are derived from facts. Theobromine is poisonous to dogs; therefore, dogs ought not to eat chocolate if it wants to live. No morality is derived from a fact.

I'll just leave the second sentence alone. It's probable that Ayn Rand meant "unconsciousness" to be "mental lethargy" or something. 

Man is the only living species that has the power to act as his own destroyer—and that is the way he has acted through most of his history.

Contentious. Scientific evidence shows that some animals are also capable of suicide, although this phenomenon is yet to be confirmed.

What, then, are the right goals for man to pursue? What are the values his survival requires? That is the question to be answered by the science of ethics. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why man needs a code of ethics.

Ladies and gentlemen, this bold declaration is actually fallacious. Ethics deals with "values," taken to mean "manners." However, all Ayn Rand did was to discuss "value," taken to mean "something or someone to be treasured." There is an equivocation here. Suddenly, without warning, Ayn Rand meant values to mean manners, when it was originally taken to mean otherwise. This argument of hers does not hold up, if her previous arguments are to be considered. Ayn Rand proved that man, in surviving, obtains a set of "values;" things to be treasured. However, nowhere did Ayn Rand prove that man, in surviving, obtains a set of "values," or proper manners. Ayn Rand did not prove that man needs ethics.

Now you can assess the meaning of the doctrines which tell you that ethics is the province of the irrational, that reason cannot guide man’s life, that his goals and values should be chosen by vote or by whim—that ethics has nothing to do with reality, with existence, with one’s practical actions and concerns—or that the goal of ethics is beyond the grave, that the dead need ethics, not the living.

Yes, I can assess it just fine, and I can also assess one thing; Ayn Rand didn't prove that a logical connection between morality and reality exists.

Ethics is not a mystic fantasy—nor a social convention—nor a dispensable, subjective luxury, to be switched or discarded in any emergency. Ethics is an objective, metaphysical necessity of man’s survival—not by the grace of the supernatural nor of your neighbors nor of your whims, but by the grace of reality and the nature of life.

I quote from Galt’s speech: “Man has been called a rational being, but rationality is a matter of choice—and the alternative his nature offers him is: rational being or suicidal animal. Man has to be man—by choice; he has to hold his life as a value—by choice; he has to learn to sustain it—by choice; he has to discover the values it requires and practice his virtues—by choice. A code of values accepted by choice is a code of morality.”

I spy... a contradiction. First, Ayn Rand declared that ethics is an objective, metaphysical necessity of man's survival. Let's just set aside the fact that Ayn Rand didn't even prove that man actually needs ethics. Focus on the the word "objective."

Meanwhile, according to John Galt, man can actually choose a code of values based on his decisions. Why, this simply proves that there is no absolute moral code that can completely define ethics; Ayn Rand actually contradicted herself. Of course, Objectivists can assert that Ayn Rand's brand of ethics is objective; but that's exactly the point. It means that there are other brands of ethics out there, even if they're not objective. It's possible that Objectivism is objective (although this objectivity is increasingly dubious as my scrutiny progresses), but Ayn Rand wasn't able to prove that ethics itself is objective.

The standard of value of the Objectivist ethics—the standard by which one judges what is good or evil—is man’s life, or: that which is required for man’s survival qua man.

Now I guess we have an official change in the meaning of value; value now means "proper manners." Also, Ayn Rand seems to stick to her faulty logic that a moral ought can derived from an is. 

Since reason is man’s basic means of survival, that which is proper to the life of a rational being is the good; that which negates, opposes or destroys it is the evil.

Non-sequitur.

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.

It is not necessary that man discover what he needs by rational thinking; after all, man discovered many things by intuition or accidents. However, I can agree to the latter part of this sentence: the two essentials of the method of survival proper to a rational being are: thinking and productive work.

If some men do not choose to think, but survive by imitating and repeating, like trained animals, the routine of sounds and motions they learned from others, never making an effort to understand their own work, it still remains true that their survival is made possible only by those who did choose to think and to discover the motions they are repeating. The survival of such mental parasites depends on blind chance; their unfocused minds are unable to know whom to imitate, whose motions it is safe to follow. They are the men who march into the abyss, trailing after any destroyer who promises them to assume the responsibility they evade: the responsibility of being conscious.

But what if the imitator is imitating another imitator, who in turn, imitates the actual rational man? But still, I get Ayn Rand's point. A man who blindly imitates someone is left at that someone's mercy, and their well-being depends on that someone, which, by extension, means that their well-being depends on chance.

The men who attempt to survive, not by means of reason, but by means of force, are attempting to survive by the method of animals. But just as animals would not be able to survive by attempting the method of plants, by rejecting locomotion and waiting for the soil to feed them—so men cannot survive by attempting the method of animals, by rejecting reason and counting on productive men to serve as their prey. Such looters may achieve their goals for the range of a moment, at the price of destruction: the destruction of their victims and their own. As evidence, I offer you any criminal or any dictatorship.

So men cannot survive by attempting the method of animals? Not true, because in a biological sense, we're also animals. Of course we'll be primitive creatures, but as far as actual "living" is concerned, Ayn Rand's assertion is false. Also, I find the last part of the paragraph quite problematic. How exactly does looting destroy oneself? Does he actually die the moment he loots? And what kind of evidence is any criminal or any dictatorship? Criminals died at the hands of the law, not because of the actual act of committing a crime.

Man cannot survive, like an animal, by acting on the range of the moment. An animal’s life consists of a series of separate cycles, repeated over and over again, such as the cycle of breeding its young, or of storing food for the winter; an animal’s consciousness cannot integrate its entire lifespan; it can carry just so far, then the animal has to begin the cycle all over again, with no connection to the past. Man’s life is a continuous whole: for good or evil, every day, year and decade of his life holds the sum of all the days behind him. He can alter his choices, he is free to change the direction of his course, he is even free, in many cases, to atone for the consequences of his past—but he is not free to escape them, nor to live his life with impunity on the range of the moment, like an animal, a playboy or a thug. If he is to succeed at the task of survival, if his actions are not to be aimed at his own destruction, man has to choose his course, his goals, his values in the context and terms of a lifetime. No sensations, percepts, urges or “instincts” can do it; only a mind can.

Ayn Rand should stop with the "not surviving" thing. Man can survive like an animal, it's just that our utterly sophisticated minds enable us to transcend the monotony of animal lifestyle.

Such is the meaning of the definition: that which is required for man’s survival qua man. It does not mean a momentary or a merely physical survival. It does not mean the momentary physical survival of a mindless brute, waiting for another brute to crush his skull. It does not mean the momentary physical survival of a crawling aggregate of muscles who is willing to accept any terms, obey any thug and surrender any values, for the sake of what is known as “survival at any price,” which may or may not last a week or a year. “Man’s survival qua man” means the terms, methods, conditions and goals required for the survival of a rational being through the whole of his lifespan—in all those aspects of existence which are open to his choice.

I only have one question about this paragraph; John Galt demonstrated that man has a choice to be rational. Therefore, rationality does not encompass the entirety of mankind. Also, man is capable of being a brute or a thug or whatever. Furthermore, Ayn Rand didn't show any proof that being a brute or a thug is not in accordance with being human... well, in any case, she can't, since rationality by her own argument is a choice; the other choice, inevitably, is irrationality. Well, what's stopping someone from logically assuming that brutishness is in accordance with man's survival qua man?

Man cannot survive as anything but man. He can abandon his means of survival, his mind, he can turn himself into a subhuman creature and he can turn his life into a brief span of agony—just as his body can exist for a while in the process of disintegration by disease. 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. Man has to be man by choice—and it is the task of ethics to teach him how to live like man.

This paragraph can be understood if Ayn Rand would be so kind as to define what the standard of "man" is; what makes a man, well, a "man"? Rationality is a choice, therefore, man can be rational, but not absolutely rational. The same principle goes with irrationality. What then, is an objective standard of being a man? Whatever Ayn Rand's answer is, it does not help the case of her philosophy's "objective" nature. She's starting to be subjective.

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 difference between “standard” and “purpose” in this context is as follows: a “standard” is an abstract principle that serves as a measurement or gauge to guide a man’s choices in the achievement of a concrete, specific purpose. “That which is required for the survival of man qua man” is an abstract principle that applies to every individual man. The task of applying this principle to a concrete, specific purpose—the purpose of living a life proper to a rational being—belongs to every individual man, and the life he has to live is his own.

Man must choose his actions, values and goals by the standard of that which is proper to man—in order to achieve, maintain, fulfill and enjoy that ultimate value, that end in itself, which is his own life.

First sentence; Ayn Rand can of course assume it, that life is the ethical purpose of man, that life is the standard of value of Objectivism, but know that she didn't provide any proof that will attribute objectivity to her advocacy, which only increases the subjectivity of her philosophy.

I have no problems with the second part, although keep in mind what I've said about her not being objective anymore. The same thing goes with the last part. 

Value is that which one acts to gain and/or keep—virtue is the act by which one gains and/or keeps it. The three cardinal values of the Objectivist ethics—the three values which, together, are the means to and the realization of one’s ultimate value, one’s own life—are: Reason, Purpose, Self-Esteem, with their three corresponding virtues: Rationality, Productiveness, Pride.

There is once again a shift in meaning in the word "value." Value is once again taken to mean "something or someone to be treasured." Meanwhile, the definition of virtue is fine. Thankfully, new terms were introduced, making things a little more interesting. Let's press on with the scrutiny.

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. Reason is the source, the precondition of his productive work—pride is the result.

Rationality is man’s basic virtue, the source of all his other virtues. Man’s basic vice, the source of all his evils, is the act of unfocusing his mind, the suspension of his consciousness, which is not blindness, but the refusal to see, not ignorance, but the refusal to know. Irrationality is the rejection of man’s means of survival and, therefore, a commitment to a course of blind destruction; that which is anti-mind, is anti-life.

First paragraph: Non-sequitur. It's plausible to think that reason leads to productive work, but pride most certainly does not follow from reason and productive work. What if diligence resulted to humility instead?

Second paragraph: Ayn Rand can assume that rationality is man's basic virtue (which is consistent given how she defined virtue), but know that this does not necessarily follow from what she has said previously. Meanwhile, I challenge the notion that irrationality rejects man's means of survival; as I've said a while back, early mankind made use of his intuition, even dumb luck, to survive, both of which can hardly be classified as rational.

--To be continued--