Ryan Hacking

Craig, thanks for your remarks. I'm not disputing that one needs to value life, or in your formulation, that "one must value life in order to live." I'm disputing whether we must value life as the ULTIMATE value; i.e. whether ALL of our actions ought to be directed at sustaining our lives. You write: "To live, one must act; therefore all actions should support life." Certainly I agree that to live, one must act. But as it stands, it is invalid to infer from "to live, one must act" therefore, "ALL actions should support life." I could just as easily state, "To reproduce, one must act; therefore all actions should support reproduction." Now it might be responded that one can engage in valuation without valuing reproduction, but that one cannot engage in valuation without valuing life. But that is just to reassert that life is the precondition of valuation. So I'm still not seeing where the ultimateness comes in.

Certainly to stay alive, one must pursue values. But how is it not begging the question to assert that to pursue a value IS SIMPLY to pursue something necessary for life?? The purpose of the praying mantis "gaining and keeping" offspring via mating and thus dying is to stay alive? I don't think so. Also, its not reifying a stolen concept. You say, "To live, one needs to eat. Therefore, one should eat so that one can drive a car." How about: "To see, one needs to maintain the specific configuration and activity of the optic nerve termed XYZ. Therefore, one should see, so that one can maintain the specific configuration and activity of the optic nerve termed XYZ." No, organisms see in order to deal better with their environment, so that they can survive and reproduce. In the process of surviving, they will also probably maintain the specific configuration and activity of the optic nerve termed XYZ, but that is not the FINAL end of sight.

Alright, I have several disagreements, but I'll focus on one. You write "The concept of 'value' is dependent on the earlier concept of 'life' epistemologically." Then you write "Values simply *are* the things that promote your life." Is that supposed to be a proof? If so, please tell me how you move from the first statement to the second. The concept of 'X' is dependent on the earlier concept of 'Y' epistemologically. Therefore, X's simply *are* the things that promote Y. That isn't valid.

So if life is not the ultimate value, why should I hold my life as the ultimate value?

What are we reifying? Genes?

Once again, no one is denying that living organisms need values to live. But organisms also need values to reproduce. So the fact that values are a requirement of organisms remaining alive settles nothing, because values are also a requirement of organisms reproducing.

Ok, so what are values? "That which one acts to gain and/or keep." Only certain entities, i.e. living organisms, have values. But this merely shows that being a living organism is a necessary and sufficient condition for valuing, not that survival is the ultimate goal of values. So I agree--living organisms make values possible, but we cannot conclude from that alone that the ultimate goal of values is remaining alive. "X makes Y possible" does not entail that "The ultimate goal of Y is X". "Being alive makes values possible" does not entail that "the ultimate goal of values is remaining alive."

Sure, but nor does the plant convert sunlight to energy because the organism has "getting energy," or further, survival, as a goal. So I guess the basic question is this: how do we prove that survival is an organism's ultimate goal if not by observing how it acts? (1) An ultimate goal is the final goal for which all other goals are means. (2) Organisms have the goal of reproduction and protecting their young. (3) Reproduction and the protection of one's young, is not a means to the organism's survival (i.e. remaining alive). (4) Therefore remaining alive is not the ultimate goal.

Even if the majority of an organism's time is spent preserving its own life, is that all that its required to prove that survival is an organism's ultimate end? And for organisms that DO place the lives of their offspring above their own, is their ultimate end the perpetuation of their genes?

But in your example, the pleasure/pain mechanism is not a simply guide for what is required for its OWN survival. It gets pleasure from copulation, which is not required for its own survival, but rather the propagation of its genes. How is organism X's copulation a means to organism X remaining alive?

Burgess, thanks for your comments. But here is the sticking point for me--why do organisms even bother to copulate and die, or protect their young and die if all of their actions are means to their own survival. What endorsement of Rand's claim requires is that all of an organism's actions are means to survival. An organism could just as easily not copulate or not protect its young, and survive, rather than copulate and die, or protect its young and die. So what needs to be proven by defenders of Rand is how dying to protect one's offspring (an action which the organism need not take to promote its OWN survival) is a means to its own survival.

Once again, I was just using shorthand. By your own lights, a plant is acting for its own survival when it converts sunlight to energy. Does it matter that it is automatic? No. And you are avoiding my basic point: When organism X is faced with the alternative of its own survival or the survival of its offspring, and it acts for the survival of its offspring, it is NOT acting for its OWN survival. It doesn't matter that its automatic. The fact that the mother does not "know" it will die is irrevelvant. Does a plant "know" converting sunlight to energy will foster its survival? No. So you cannot say that the mother's OWN survival is its ultimate goal--that is, the goal all of its other goals are aimed at, if it acts (once again, automatically) for the survival of its young at the cost of its own life.

No, I'm not saying that. I am saying that if remaining alive were the goal of all values, why would organisms ever take the risk? And its not just isolated cases, it happens routinely in nature. I think it all boils down to this: (1) If X is the goal of all goals for an organism, an organism does not pursue a goal that is not aimed at X. (2) If remaining alive is the goal of all goals for an organism, an organism does not pursue a goal that is not "aimed" (I use this as short-hand, but I know, it is not consciously aimed) at remaining alive. (3) A mother "sacrificing" her own life for the sake of her offsprings' is not "aimed" at the goal of her herself remaining alive. Therefore, remaining alive is not the goal of all goals for an organism. If I made an error in the above three statements, please let me know.

Once again, no one is arguing that an animal does not pursue survival. The question is whether survival is its ultimate goal. First of all, on your theory, if nature has not set an organism's goals, what does? God? Survival and reproduction are both automatic actions of an organism. That statement settles nothing. How can you say that its continued existence is tied to that of its offspring? Its existence ceases, not continues, when it acts for the continued existence of its offspring. A plant needing sunlight is a requirement of the plant's own survival; an organism A dying so that its offspring B can live does not help A survive, it helps B survive. In fact, it kills A.

No "creature" aimed all of an organism's goals at reproduction. Natural selection did. Why? Because an organism that had as a genetic feature only the goal of survival would never reproduce, and thus, never pass that genetic feature on. In contrast, an organism that had as a genetic feature, the goal of reproducing, will reproduce, and thus, pass that genetic feature on to its offspring, who will in turn, pass the feature on to their offspring, and so on.

Yes, I am also talking about what nature has programmed organisms to do. And nature as programmed them to reproduce or help their young, when faced with the alternative of that or remaining alive. Has anyone argued against the idea that it is the identity of the organism that determines the values it must pursue to remain alive? No, absolutely not. But saying "The identity of the organism determines the values it must pursue to remain alive" does not, I repeat does not prove that remaining alive is the standard of value. The identity of an organism determines the values it must pursue in order to reproduce. So does that mean reproduction is its ultimate goal? So then present the facts that run counter to my claim. And let's cut to the chase: how do we prove what the ultimate goal of value is? Here is my method, tell me if you think I am wrong: (1) A value is that which one acts to gain and/or keep. (2) An ultimate value is the value that all of one's values are aimed at, or pursued for the sake of. Is this wrong? Reproduction is not "merely one feat among the billions in the world of living organisms"--it is the ultimate one. How does one know this? Through observation. Please answer me this: Why, if remaining alive is that goal at which all of an organism's goals are aimed at, does it always act for the sake of reproduction (and therefore ceases to remain alive), when the alternative is survival or reproduction? If remaining alive were truly the ultimate value, then the organism would never act for something that kills it.

Sure, but if your account is true, then life is not the organism's ultimate value, but pleasure. That is, when faced with the alternative of pleasure or remaining alive, it pursues pleasure. But than that would contradict Peikoff's claim that remaining alive is the goal of all values--in this case, pursuing pleasure would be the goal, not remaining alive. Furthermore, the claim that organism's pursue genetic fitness at the expense of remaining alive does not simply apply to organisms that die during mating. Even organisms that survive mating pursue their young's survival at the cost of their own. And its not that 99 percent of the spider's ancestors' relatives didn't like killing themselves mating. This phenomena of pursuing genetic fitness at the cost of survival is found in virtually all organisms. Why? Because as Sherlock noted, if a billion years ago, we had two organisms, one that aimed all of its goals at survival and the other that aimed them all at reproduction, the penchant for aiming all of one's goals at survival would die with that first organism because it wouldn't reproduce. In contrast, given that the second organism aims all of its actions at reproduction, that feature will be present in its descendents. So that is why today, virtually all organisms' ultimate end is reproduction and not survival.

I have not made any reference to choice. I have made reference to the concept of "alternatives," which Rand, Peikoff, Binswanger, et al have said apply to non-conceptual organisms. All living organisms face alternatives. Furthermore, every single cell of that male black widow is not fighting for its own life. An organism that is mortally maimed defending its young is not fighting for the preservation of itself, it is fighting for the preservation of its young. Peikoff's claim that "remaining alive is the goal of all values" is false. If it were true, than that organism would fight to remain alive itself, not fight to have its young remain alive.

Also, Burgess, I do value life, because it is a necessary condition for any valuation. However, there is a difference between valuing life and ultimately valuing life.

For instance, in his section on value-significance. He does not explictly state "The validity of the Objectivist metaethics is dependent on the validity of its philosophy of biology" but the validity of the Objectivist metaethics IS dependent on its theory of value, which is dependent on its theory of teleology, and thus, biology (that's the point of Binswanger's book--to show that goals are an exclusively biological concept). Let me ask you this: If the foundation of the Objectivist metaethics is the principle that "remaining alive is the goal of all values," how are we to validate this claim except by observing those entities that value and remain alive, i.e. the realm of biology?

What integrates these goals is my fundamental goal of living of a happy life. Now, if you are going to ask me, what is my standard of happiness, my answer is that I do not know. That is why I am interested in the question of the ultimate value.

But this only demonstrates is that no valuation can take place outside the context of life--I'm not contesting that. But that does not mean that life is the ultimate value, only that it is a necessary (and sufficient) condition for valuation. Therefore, any thing that is alive (such as spayed cats) can pursue values--this doesn't prove that living is an organism's ultimate end. I'm not saying that living is not a huge end for an organism--certainly, it is. Yet when faced with the alternative of its own survival or the survival of its genes, an organism pursues the survival of its genes through reproduction at the cost of its own life.

I am living for a great deal of things--work, friends, family, romance, for instance. Metaethics and philosophy of biology are not disparate points in the hierarchy of knowledge. Perhaps you should acquaint yourself with Harry Binswanger's The Biological Basis of Teleological Concepts in which he discusses how the Objectivist position on value is a direct consequence of its philosophy of biology First of all, I have named them--check back up on the thread, I specifically name Richard Dawkins. Secondly, organisms experience pleasure upon copulation because such behavior is adaptive, that is, it conduces to reproductive fitness. Furthermore, the question is what, for an individual organism, is its ultimate goal--i.e. the goal towards which all other proximate goals aim? I don't see what talk about "a group of organisms" has to do with this discussion. Even if an organism does choose to reproduce, not to spread its genes, but to feel the pleasure of copulation, the fact would remain that survival is not their ultimate goal, but rather the pleasure of copulation. [Moderator: Edited to straighten out missing quotation command]

I would say that this discussion centers on both philosophy of biology and metaethics. I can illustrate how an end can be "more ultimate" than another. When I sit down to breakfast, I can either eat a low-fat breakfast or a high-fat one (among other options). Suppose I eat a low-fat breakfast. What justifies me in making this decision? The "more ultimate" end of pursuing health. Or one could say that pursuing health is more fundamental than one's choice of food. In OPAR, in the section "Life as the essential root of value," Peikoff writes that his thesis is not that one must remain alive to pursue values (this is a truism, he says), but rather that remaining alive is the goal of all values. However, biologists have concluded that in fact spreading one's genes is the goal of all values, not remaining alive. They reached this conclusion that organisms, when faced with the alternative of survival or propogating its genes, will propagate its genes at the cost of death.

But then it seems like the concept of an "ultimate value" becomes vacuous--an organism's ultimate value is whatever it happens to do. When an organism pursues an end at the expense of its own life, how can you say that its ultimate end is the preservation of its own life? That end (genetic perpetuation) is a more ultimate end than the preservation of its own life.