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<center><h1>Rejecting Optional Values</h1></center><br>In Viable Values, Tara Smith equivocates between two different meanings when she uses the term "optional values". The equivocation is this: values that are "optional among people", and values that are "optional for a person".<br><br>The former meaning is valid, and she goes to great lengths to correctly explain and defend this meaning, but it is bad wording. Options imply a choice, and a choice implies a chooser. How can you have "options" that are "among people"? Why not call them "varying values" or "contexually dependent values"? The answer is that she wants to equivocate with the latter meaning. She does so explicitly here:<br><br><ul style = "list-style-type: none;"><li>Moral values are the most fundamental values that apply for all human beings. They so apply because they are necessitated by our common human nature. No one can live by defying his own nature or circumstances. Thus, honesty, justice, and courage, I would argue, are virtues for everyone. Certain ends and certain types of actions are required for anyone to achieve his life.<br><br>People can pursue numerous futher, optional values, however, that may vary considerably from person to person.<br><br>...<br><br>My point here is that even among human beings, the objectivity of value permits for some variation in particulars. There is not one complete set of values that is identical for everyone. Nor is it the case that a given person in given circumstances will always find himself with only one right choice or proper course of action. Sometimes, morality sanctions each of several options because they would all equally advance his life.<br><br>"Morality's Roots in Life,"<br>Viable Values, 100<br><br></li></ul>In this case she is someone who says, "suppose you have two options of apparently equal value, aren't they individually both allowed but neither is specifically obligatory?" To say that there are situations where the choices are "optional" and that no choice is "obligatory" necessitates there to be no objective standard of value, because if there were, you could always measure and order your choices according to that objective standard, and the highest choice would always be obligatory. Thus if one has objective values, in any given choice among alternatives, there is always one non-optional obligatory choice, and one or more non-optional prohibited choices. If there is sufficient uncertainty you might say that it is obligatory to choose one of two or more choices, although you are uncertain which one in particular, and thus act accordingly - but that does not mean any of those two or more choices are "optional" and that none of them in particular is "obligatory".<br><br>She says that,<br><br><ul style = "list-style-type: none;"><li>"In order to determine the ligitimacy of any seemingly optional value, the question to ask is whether its pursuit will advance one's life. Whenever the answer is negative, the would-be value must be rejected."<br><br>"Morality's Roots in Life,"<br>Viable Values, 101<br><br></li></ul>We must assume her next point of advice would be to then accept any and all choices that further one's life - no matter to what degree or magnitude - as equalivalent "options", and then proceed to choose among them according to one's arbitrary whim. The point being, it is not enough to simply reject anything that does not further one's life; one must choose the greatest choice available according to the measure of one's ultimate standard. To choose anything less than the greatest choice is a sacrifice.<br><br>As Ayn Rand said,<ul style = "list-style-type: none;"><li>"Sacrifice" is the surrender of a greater value for the sake of a lesser one or of a nonvalue ... and the rational principle of conduct is the exact opposite: always act in accordance with the hierarchy of your values, and never sacrifice a greater value to a lesser one.<br><br>"The Ethics of Emergencies,"<br>The Virtue of Selfishness, 44<br><br></li></ul>To further illustrate the consequences of failing to reject "optional values", look at the relationships between "errors in knowledge", "errors in morality", and "errors in choosing one's values".<br><br><br><ul style = "list-style-type: none;"><li>"Learn to distinguish the difference between errors of knowledge and breaches of morality. An error of knowledge is not a moral flaw, provided you are willing to correct it; only a mystic would judge human beings by the standard of an impossible, automatic omniscience. But a breach of morality is the conscious choice of an action you know to be evil, or a willful evasion of knowledge, a suspension of sight and of thought. That which you do not know, is not a moral charge against you; but that which you refuse to know, is an account of infamy growing in your soul. Make every allowance for errors of knowledge; do not forgive or accept any breach of morality."<br><br>John Galt<br>Atlas Shrugged<br><br></li></ul>One's choices of their most fundamental values affect one's decisions and actions over a long period of time as one pursues those values throughout their lives. Therefore, choosing an "optional value" which does further one's life, but does not further one's life as much as the choice of another value would have, requires the rejection or evasion of many higher-valued choices in many different instances over the long term. Errors in choosing one's values are often the worst breaches of morality.<br><br>For example, suppose there is Dr. F, whose chosen values were "enjoying life", and "making social connections", who frequently went to parties and didn't excel in school, but ultimately became a doctor. Dr. F saw a patient with a rare disease. He didn't diagnose it, and the patient died. Another doctor, Dr. G, may have made his most important values "doing well in school", or "looking good to his parents and society". He studied hard and passed with good grades in his schooling, and became a prestigious doctor. Dr. G saw a patient with the same disease, and was able to pull off the difficult diagnosis and save the patient. Now suppose Dr. G saw another patient, with a very rare disease that itself also came on with an unusual presentation, and Dr. G despite his professed "best" efforts, was unable to diagnose the disease and save the patient. Finally, there is Dr. H, who chose as his values "mastering medicine" and "being the best doctor possible", who abandoned the usual college course, studying voraciously with all his passion to learn medicine in an integrative fashion for which schools were not designed. He barely scrapes by with passing grades in school, often by cheating on the "better students" like Dr. G. He also sees a patient with the same very rare disease and unusual presentation that Dr. G saw, and "miraculously" makes the diagnosis and saves the patient. Despite all of them having perhaps all of the right virtues, the differences in their values accounted for the difference in their outcomes in reality. The values chosen and pursued by Dr. F had a lower overall value than those of Dr. G according to the ultimate standard, and Dr. G as well made a lower value choice than Dr. H. You can't say either Dr. F or Dr. G chose the best within their knowledge; they all had available to them the same alternative values they could have chosen from, and the same information about the consequences of choosing those respective values, and still chose the lesser of the possible fundamental values, and thus went on to make many lower-value choices over the long term, which ultimately resulted in many lower-value outcomes in reality.<br><br>Another example is from Atlas Shrugged in the character of Eddie Willers. Eddie Willers sold his soul to the railroad - not to his own life and happiness. His concrete-bound mentality of picking as his standard of value that particular railroad required major mental evasion over the long term - an evasion of many higher-value alternatives in many choices, and most importantly evading the choice to make as his ultimate standard of value his own life and happiness instead of the railroad. He shared the same fate as the railroad accordingly. All his actions were in the wrong direction because he had the wrong values, despite perhaps having all the right virtues.<br><br>It's your own responsibility to choose to fight for the ultimate standard of value which is your own life and happiness, and to check your premises and the consequences of your actions by that ultimate standard. It's your own responsibility to be your own John Galt. If you end up dying alone and defeated in the wilderness, failing miserably by that ultimate standard, even when alternative choices abounded around you for a very long time even up to the very end, then you are the very picture of immorality. Errors in choosing your values are often the worst breaches of morality, and in a morality that actually has relevance in reality, the consequence of a failure of morality is a loss of value according to that ultimate standard of your own life and happiness.<br><br>