Ayn Rand and Objectivism

I am an unabashed enthusiast of Rational Objectivism or (RO). RO is the creation or distillation of Ayn Rand, a Russian born, thinker, philosopher and novelist. Ms. Rand was immensely influenced by her experiences growing up in a communist society. This becomes more obvious as you read her writings. Ayn Rand's philosophy and belief that humans should rightly act in their own "rational" self-interest, instead of other systems where people are expected to sacrifice themselves for some undefined, and inexplicable "public good". The significant problem with this altruism is that the "public good" can be defined by anyone, and for any politically expedient reason. Thoughout history, nations and whole popluations of people, have been convinced to sacrifice themselves and commit and be the victims of horrendous crimes for the sake of the "public good" or the good of the "church" or for "Allah's" sake, or for the "Children" as the current political class in America constantly claim. The huge and obvious problem with this is that what is defined as the public good, can and IS, constantly manipulated and shaped to guide the masses of people to sacrifice themselves for the few elites at the top of the system. This has been true in all altruist based governments, be they: Communist, Nazi, Socialist, or Thoecracies like islamic governments. There is no distinction between any of these forms of government, at least in terms of their willingness, ability, and application of the elimination of freedom of their people.

Objectivism is the philosophy developed by the Russian-born American philosopher, writer, and novelist, Ayn Rand (1905–1982). Objectivism holds that reality exists independent of consciousness; that individual persons are in contact with this reality through sensory perception; that human beings can gain objective knowledge from perception through the process of concept formation and inductive and deductive logic; that the proper moral purpose of one's life is the pursuit of one's own happiness or rational self-interest; that the only social system consistent with this morality is full respect for individual rights, embodied in pure laissez faire capitalism; and that the role of art in human life is to transform man's widest metaphysical ideas, by selective reproduction of reality, into a physical form—a work of art—that he can comprehend and to which he can respond emotionally.

Rand originally expressed her philosophical ideas in her novels The Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged, and other works. She further elaborated on them in The Objectivist Newsletter, The Objectivist, The Ayn Rand Letter, Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, The Virtue of Selfishness, and other non-fiction books.

The name "Objectivism" derives from the principle that human knowledge and values are objective: they are not intrinsic to some inaccessible reality, nor created by the thoughts one has, but are determined by the nature of reality, to be discovered by man's mind. Rand chose the name because her preferred term for a philosophy based on the primacy of existence; existentialism had already been taken.

Philosophy

Ayn Rand characterized Objectivism as "a philosophy for living on earth", grounded in reality, and aimed at defining man's nature and the nature of the world in which he lives.

My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.

Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

Metaphysics: objective reality

Rand's philosophy begins with three axioms: existence, identity, and consciousness. Rand defined an axiom as "a statement that identifies the base of knowledge and of any further statement pertaining to that knowledge, a statement necessarily contained in all others whether any particular speaker chooses to identify it or not. An axiom is a proposition that defeats its opponents by the fact that they have to accept it and use it in the process of any attempt to deny it." As Leonard Peikoff noted, Rand's argument "is not a proof that the axioms of existence, consciousness, and identity are true. It is proof that they are axioms, that they are at the base of knowledge and thus inescapable."

Objectivism states that "Existence exists" and "Existence is Identity." To be is to be "an entity of a specific nature made of specific attributes." That which has no attributes does not and cannot exist. Hence, the axiom of identity: a thing is what it is. Whereas "existence exists" pertains to existence itself (whether something exists or not), the law of identity pertains to the nature of an object as being necessarily distinct from other objects (whether something exists as this or that). As Rand wrote, "A leaf ... cannot be all red and green at the same time, it cannot freeze and burn at the same time. A is A."

Rand held that since one is able to perceive something that exists, one's consciousness must exist, "consciousness being the faculty of perceiving that which exists." Objectivism maintains that what exists does not exist because one thinks it exists; it simply exists, regardless of anyone's awareness, knowledge or opinion. For Rand, consciousness is an inherently relational phenomenon, as she puts it, "to be conscious is to be conscious of something," so that an objective reality independent of consciousness must exist first for consciousness to become possible, and there is no possibility of a consciousness that is conscious of nothing outside itself. Thus consciousness cannot be the only thing that exists. "It cannot be aware only of itself — there is no 'itself' until it is aware of something." Objectivism holds that the mind cannot create reality, but rather, it is a means of discovering reality.

Objectivist philosophy derives its explanations of action and causation from the axiom of identity, calling causation "the law of identity applied to action." According to Rand, it is entities that act, and every action is the action of an entity. The way entities act is caused by the specific nature (or "identity") of those entities; if they were different they would act differently.

On this basis of its metaphysical principles, Objectivism rejects belief in God, the supernatural, and "every 'spiritual' dimension, force, Form, Idea, entity, power, or whatnot alleged to transcend existence."

Epistemology: reason

The starting point of Objectivist epistemology is the principle, presented by Rand as a direct consequence of the metaphysical axiom that "Existence is Identity," that Knowledge is Identification. Objectivism rejects philosophical skepticism and states that only by the method of reason can man gain knowledge (identification of the facts of reality). Objectivism also rejects faith and "feeling" as means of attaining knowledge. She defined "reason" as "the faculty that identifies and integrates the material provided by man's senses." Although Rand acknowledged the importance of emotion in humans, she maintained that emotion was a consequence of the conscious or subconscious ideas one already holds, not a means of achieving awareness of reality.

Rand held that there is no "causeless knowledge," and on this basis argued against any form of mysticism, which she defined as "the acceptance of allegations without evidence or proof, either apart from or against the evidence of one's senses and reason." She continues, "Mysticism is the claim to some non-sensory, non-rational, non-definable, non-identifiable means of knowledge, such as 'instinct,' 'intuition,' 'revelation,' or any form of 'just knowing.'" According to Rand, to reach "knowledge" beyond what is given in sense-perception requires both volitional effort and adherence to a specific methodology of observation, concept-formation, and both inductive and deductive logic. A belief in "dragons" or "elves," however sincere, does not oblige reality to contain "dragons" or "elves," and a process of "proof" establishing the basis in reality of any claimed item of knowledge (if it cannot be directly observed) is a prerequisite to establishing its truth. On similar grounds, Rand rejected the arguments traditionally made by epistemological skeptics who argue against the possibility of knowledge "undistorted" by the form or the means of perception.

According to Rand, like anything else, consciousness—any consciousness—possesses a specific identity and operates by a specific method. Rather than disqualifying an item of knowledge, awareness by a specific process and in a specific form is inherent in objective knowledge.

“

The attack on man's consciousness and particularly on his conceptual faculty has rested on the unchallenged premise that any knowledge acquired by a process of consciousness is necessarily subjective and cannot correspond to the facts of reality, since it is "processed knowledge... . [But] All knowledge is processed knowledge — whether on the sensory, perceptual or conceptual level. An "unprocessed" knowledge would be a knowledge acquired without means of cognition.

”

Kant's arguments to the contrary, according to Rand, amount to saying: "man is limited to a consciousness of a specific nature, which perceives by specific means and no others; therefore, his consciousness is not valid; man is blind because he has eyes––deaf because he has ears––deluded because he has a mind––and the things he perceives do not exist because he perceives them." For Rand, consciousness, like anything that exists, must possess identity, and its operation requires a causal means of adhering to reality, such as logic. Unlike logic, mystical revelation, Tarot Cards, or any other equivalent of a Ouija board, simply bypass the requirement of demonstrating how it connects its results to reality, and such "methods," according to Rand are not a "short-cut" to knowledge at all, but a "short-circuit" destroying knowledge. By the same token, that consciousness has an identity, far from disqualifying its product, only grounds it in reality, and the skeptics' claim would invalidate the operation of any consciousness, whatever the means and form it utilized.

To defend and explain her position on reason, she developed a theory of sense-perception that distinguishes between the form and the object of perception, holding that the form in which an organism perceives is determined by its physiological means of perception but that in whatever form it perceives, what it perceives—the object of its perception—is reality. She rejected the Kantian dichotomy between "things as we perceive them" and "things as they are in themselves." The validity of the senses, she held, is axiomatic: sense-perception, being physiologically determined, cannot make "mistakes" or err in responding to the facts of reality. Apparent errors, such as in "optical illusions", she regarded as errors in the conceptual identification of what is seen, not in the seeing itself.

Simple sensations are not the basis of man's knowledge. Sensations are integrated as perceptions, and it is only at the level of perceptions that the foundation of epistemology lies.

One aspect of Rand's epistemology is her theory of concept-formation, presented in her Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology. She observed fundamental links between concepts and mathematics and held that concepts are properly formed by a process of measurement omission. Rand uses "measurement" here in the broad sense of comparing any quantitative or qualitative relationship, even such things as the intensity of love, not just physical measurements such as mass, time, or distance.

“

According to Objectivism, concepts 'represent classifications of observed existents according to their relationships to other observed existents.' ... To form a concept, one mentally isolates a group of concretes (of distinct perceptual units), on the basis of observed similarities which distinguish them from all other known concretes (similarity is 'the relationship between two or more existents which possess the same characteristic(s), but in different measure or degree'); then, by a process of omitting the particular measurements of these concretes, one integrates them into a single new mental unit: the concept, which subsumes all concretes of this kind (a potentially unlimited number). The integration is completed and retained by the selection of a perceptual symbol (a word) to designate it. 'A concept is a mental integration of two or more units possessing the same distinguishing characteristic(s), with their particular measurements omitted.'"

”

According to Rand, "[T]he term 'measurements omitted' does not mean, in this context, that measurements are regarded as non-existent; it means that measurements exist, but are not specified. That measurements must exist is an essential part of the process. The principle is: the relevant measurements must exist in some quantity, but may exist in any quantity."

Rand did not consider the analytic-synthetic distinction to have merit. She similarly denied the existence of a priori knowledge. Rand also considered her ideas distinct from foundationalism, naive realism, or representationalism (i.e., an indirect realist who believes in a "veil of perception") like Descartes or John Locke. She admired Aristotle's achievements in logic and epistemology.

Ethics: rational self-interest

Rand defines morality as "a code of values to guide man's choices and actions - the choices and actions that determine the purpose and the course of his life." Rand maintained that the first question isn't what should the code of values be, the first question is "Does man need values at all- and why?"

According to Rand, "it is only the concept of 'Life' that makes the concept of 'Value' possible," and, "the fact that a living entity is, determines what it ought to do." She writes: "there is only one fundamental alternative in the universe: existence or non-existence—and it pertains to a single class of entities: to living organisms. The existence of inanimate matter is unconditional, the existence of life is not: it depends on a specific course of action... It is only a living organism that faces a constant alternative: the issue of life or death..." The survival of the organism is the ultimate value to which all of the organism's activities are aimed, the end served by all of its lesser values.

Integrating with this is Rand's view that the primary locus of man's free will is in the choice: to think or not to think. "Thinking is not an automatic function. In any hour and issue of his life, man is free to think or to evade that effort. Thinking requires a state of full, focused awareness. The act of focusing one's consciousness is volitional. Man can focus his mind to a full, active, purposefully directed awareness of reality—or he can unfocus it and let himself drift in a semiconscious daze, merely reacting to any chance stimulus of the immediate moment, at the mercy of his undirected sensory-perceptual mechanism and of any random, associational connections it might happen to make." According to Rand, therefore, possessing free will, human beings must choose their values: one does not automatically hold his own life as his ultimate value. Whether in fact a person's actions promote and fulfill his own life or not is a question of fact, as it is with all other organisms, but whether a person will act in order to promote his well-being is up to him, not hard-wired into his physiology. "Man has the power to act as his own destroyer—and that is the way he has acted through most of his history."

As with any other organism, human survival cannot be achieved randomly. The requirements of man's life first must be discovered and then consciously adhered to by means of principles. This is why human beings require a science of ethics. The purpose of a moral code, Rand held, is to provide the principles by reference to which man can achieve the values his survival requires. Rand summarizes:

If [man] chooses to live, a rational ethics will tell him what principles of action are required to implement his choice. If he does not choose to live, nature will take its course. Reality confronts a man with a great many 'must's,' but all of them are conditional: the formula of realistic necessity is: 'you must, if -' and the if stands for man's choice: 'if you want to achieve a certain goal'

Rand's explanation of values presents the view that an individual's primary moral obligation is to achieve his own well-being - it is for his life, and his self-interest in it that an individual ought to adhere to a moral code. Egoism is a corollary of setting man's life as the moral standard. A corollary to Rand's endorsement of self-interest is her rejection of the ethical doctrine of altruism—which she defined in the sense of August Comte's altruism (he coined the term), as a moral obligation to live for the sake of others. Rand did not use the term "selfishness" with the negative connotations that it usually has, but to refer to a form of rational egoism.:

“

To live, man must hold three things as the supreme and ruling values of his life: Reason, Purpose, Self-esteem.

”

Since reason is man's means of knowledge, it is also his greatest value, and its exercise his greatest virtue. "Man's mind is his basic tool of survival. Life is given to him, survival is not. His body is given to him, its sustenance is not. His mind is given to him, its content is not. To remain alive he must act and before he can act he must know the nature and purpose of his action. He cannot obtain his food without knowledge of food and of the way to obtain it. He cannot dig a ditch––or build a cyclotron––without a knowledge of his aim and the means to achieve it. To remain alive, he must think." In her novels, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, she also emphasizes the central importance of productive work, romantic love and art to human happiness, and dramatizes the ethical character of their pursuit. The primary virtue in Objectivist ethics is rationality, as Rand meant it "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."

Rand's egoism rejects subjectivism. There is a difference between rational self-interest as pursuit of one's own life and happiness in reality, and whim-worship or "hedonism." A whim-worshiper or "hedonist," according to Rand, is not motivated by a desire to live his own human life, but by a wish to live on a sub-human level. Instead of using "that which promotes my (human) life" as his standard of value, he mistakes "that which I (mindlessly happen to) value" for a standard of value, in contradiction of the fact that, existentially, he is a human and therefore rational organism. The "I value" in whim-worship or hedonism can be replaced with "we value," "he values," "they value," or "God values," and still it would remain dissociated from reality. Rand repudiated the equation of rational selfishness with hedonistic or whim-worshiping "selfishness-without-a-self." She held that the former is good, and the latter evil, and that there is a fundamental difference between them.

For Rand, all of the principal virtues are applications of the role of reason as man's basic tool of survival: rationality, honesty, justice, independence, integrity, productiveness, and pride—each of which she explains in some detail in "The Objectivist Ethics." The essence of Objectivist ethics is summarized by the oath her Atlas Shrugged character John Galt adhered to:

"I swear -- by my life and my love of it -- that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine."

Politics: individual rights and capitalism

Objectivist politics derives immediately from its ethics, which provides the principles for "how man should treat other men." These principles of ethics provide the foundation for "the principles of a proper social system." Objectivists believe that proper social system is laissez-faire capitalism, which is "the only moral social system."

Rand's defense of individual liberty integrates elements from her entire philosophy. Since reason is the means of human knowledge, it is therefore each person's most fundamental means of survival and is necessary to the achievement of values. The use or threat of force, however, neutralizes the practical effect of an individual's reason, whether the force originates from the state or from a criminal. According to Rand, "man's mind will not function at the point of a gun."

Therefore, the only type of organized human behavior consistent with the operation of reason is one of voluntary cooperation. Persuasion is the method of reason. By its nature, the overtly irrational cannot rely on the use of persuasion and must ultimately resort to force in order to prevail. Thus, Rand saw reason and freedom as correlates, just as she saw mysticism and force as correlates. Based on this understanding of the role of reason, Objectivists hold that the initiation of physical force against the will of another is immoral, as are indirect initiations of force through threats, fraud, or breach of contract. The use of defensive or retaliatory force, on the other hand, is appropriate.

Objectivism holds that because the opportunity to use reason without the initiation of force is necessary to achieve moral values, each individual has an inalienable moral right to act as his own judgement directs and to keep the product of his effort. The fundamental right is the right to life, with other rights following from it, including rights to "liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness." "A 'right' is a moral principle defining and sanctioning a man’s freedom of action in a social context." These rights are specifically understood to be rights to action, not to specific results or objects, and the obligations created by rights are negative in nature: each individual must refrain from violating the rights of others. Objectivists reject alternative notions of rights, such as positive rights or rights belonging to anything other than an individual human being, such as collective rights or animal rights.

Objectivism views government as legitimate, but only "a government of a definite kind." Rand understood government as the institution with a monopoly on the use of physical force in a given geographical area, so the issue is whether that force is used to protect or to violate individual rights. The government should use force only to protect individual rights. Therefore, the "proper functions of a government" are "the police, to protect men from criminals—the armed services, to protect men from foreign invaders—the law courts, to settle disputes among men according to objectively defined laws." In protecting individual rights, the government is acting as an agent of its citizens and "has no rights except the rights delegated to it by the citizens." It is also important that the government act in an impartial manner according to specific, objectively defined laws.

Objectivism holds that the only social system which fully recognizes individual rights is capitalism, specifically what Rand described as "full, pure, uncontrolled, unregulated laissez-faire capitalism." Rand includes Socialism, Fascism, Communism, Nazism, and the Welfare State (which she often referred to as the "mixed economy"), as systems under which individual rights are not protected. Far from regarding capitalism as a dog-eat-dog pattern of social organization, Objectivism regards it as a beneficent system in which the innovations of the most creative benefit everyone else in the society. However, unlike some other defenses of capitalism, Objectivism does not treat material benefits, such as economic growth, as the primary defense or moral justification of capitalism. Rather, because capitalism is a moral system that allows individuals to practice virtues such as rationality and productivity, they are able to create material benefits as a result.

Based on their political philosophy, Objectivists reject many typical "conservative" and "liberal" political positions. Rand advocated the right to legal abortion. She also opposed involuntary military conscription (the "draft") and any form of censorship, including legal restrictions on pornography. Rand opposed racism, and any legal application of racism, and she considered affirmative action to be an example of legal racism.

More recent Objectivists have argued that religion is incompatible with American ideals, and the Christian right poses a threat to individual rights. Objectivists have argued against faith-based initiatives, displaying religious symbols in government facilities, and the teaching of "intelligent design" in public schools. Objectivists have opposed the environmentalist movement as being hostile to technology and, therefore, to humanity itself. Objectivists have also opposed a number of government activities commonly supported by both liberals and conservatives, including antitrust laws, public education, and child labor laws.