Why is life the only permissible end in itself?

[brian0918]

Um... because you can't recognize that implicit in that choice is a more fundamental value that you have to pursue in order to pursue that one. Namely, to live.

The fundamentality isn't in the choice. It's in the nature of everything else you could choose relative to life itself. It is a function of reality itself. Of the nature of life relative to every other activity possible. Look around. You can't choose anything else without implicitly choosing life. That is why life is the ultimate value, and not the "one permissible choice" of value.

So life is the means to other ends, but also the ultimate value?

[Zip]

So life is the means to other ends, but also the ultimate value?

No. Life is all ends and therefore is the ultimate value.

[DavidOdden]

Then I'll ask it again - why can't I choose contemplating philosophy as my ultimate value?

What do you mean by "ultimate value"? Specifically, what do you mean by "ultimate" and what is a "value"?

[brian0918]

No. Life is all ends and therefore is the ultimate value.

Isn't saying "in order to think about philosophy, you have to first be alive" implying that life is the means to the end of the philosophical thought?

What do you mean by "ultimate value"? Specifically, what do you mean by "ultimate" and what is a "value"?

I mean what I have seen explained in this forum several times before - life is the ultimate value on which all other values are based and which is not based on any other values, ie, it is not the means to any other ends.

[DavidOdden]

I mean what I have seen explained in this forum several times before - life is the ultimate value on which all other values are based and which is not based on any other values, ie, it is not the means to any other ends.

I'll keep this in mind. Now how do you define "ultimate" and "value". Given your answer I will for the moment not ask what you mean by "based", but it seems to me that your value "always study philosophy" is based on "live" and is an elaboration of "live". I do not see how you can study philosophy always without living, so "study philosophy" is shorthand for "live studying philosophy always", and at some point I think I could persuade you that "live studying philosophy always" is based on "live".

[volco]

What I have not been able to understand is why life is the only permissible end in itself. This ultimate value is supposed to be the entire basis for the Objectivist ethics, but why can't someone accept a different ultimate value on which to base all other values?

Let's say I want to take philosophical thought as my ultimate value, my end in itself, rather than life. What is wrong with that?

Under an objetive, provable and reasonable worldview, life (your own) is the beginning and the end. If you took philosophy as higher than your life itself you'd be context dropping: the study of philosophy requires you being alive and well fed - and conversely, why would you study philosophy if it wasn't to achieve a personal value (if you'd gain something from it) during your only lifetime?

It is extremely self-evident that life is the end in itself, whether you permit it to be or leave it to a "higher" end.

[ammonius]

I'm probably wrong but doesn't the life=ultimate value (please correct me, are absolute, greatest, highest, etc. acceptable qualifiers of value?) resemble just a wee bit the second formulation of Kant's Categorical Imperative, namely that paraphrasing, "One should always treat human beings as an end, never as a means". Seems to me that they share some agreement on at least one significant issue. Also, of course Ayn Rand does address this... the life=greatest value presumably solves the "is=ought" question, (which indecently is part of what Kant was up to in his Categorical Imperative. Rand writes, "The fact that a living entity is, determines what it ought to do. So much for the relation between 'is' and 'ought'." (VS, 18). She doesn't really explain "why" it resolves the "is=ought" problem (accentuated by Hume), she more or less just demands a tautology. Furthermore, does her "is=ought" solution solve all "is=ought" situations (that is, is it really a solution?), if she is saying that "is=ought" always than where is there any possibility for actual change, innovation, or revolution in her philosophy?

That's saying nothing of the equivocation between life and value; it seems to me that in order for Rand to be consistent (with her axiom of identity) she would have to accept that the "is" of life "is"(=) the highest value than they are Identical or the Same. That's also saying nothing of the discourses of "bare life", such as that experienced in concentration camps, that are currently proliferating in some philosophical circles, around the work of Agamben.

[KendallJ]

I'm probably wrong but doesn't the life=ultimate value (please correct me, are absolute, greatest, highest, etc. acceptable qualifiers of value?) resemble just a wee bit the second formulation of Kant's Categorical Imperative, namely that paraphrasing, "One should always treat human beings as an end, never as a means".

Yeah, I don't know Kant's meaning as well as Rand's, but it is most definitely not the same. Life as an ultimate value is not some general reverence for anyone's and everyone's life as an imperative of action. For instance, someone else's happiness is never my end, unless it relates directly to my happiness. One deals with others by voluntary trade, as a recognition that their life is their ultimate end as well, and a voluntary trade is the only act that preserves both. But that trade is certainly, for me, a means to my happiness.

The result of Rand's formulation in many cases appears congruent to Kant's maybe, but Kant is very wrong in his formulation.

[DavidOdden]

Rand writes, "The fact that a living entity is, determines what it ought to do. So much for the relation between 'is' and 'ought'." (VS, 18). She doesn't really explain "why" it resolves the "is=ought" problem (accentuated by Hume), she more or less just demands a tautology. Furthermore, does her "is=ought" solution solve all "is=ought" situations (that is, is it really a solution?), if she is saying that "is=ought" always than where is there any possibility for actual change, innovation, or revolution in her philosophy?

Her terse response to the so-called problem is similar to her response to the so-called problem of universals, that it's a pseudo-problem. It's not hard to paraphrase her response using more words, but is that more revealing? First, the concept "ought" refers to a hypothetical state of affairs and the relationship of that state to the nature of the universe (in particular, causality). Ethical ought relates "hypothetical actions of a volitional being" to "the causal relation between a being and its action", so the nature of a being determines what the being ought to do, in the context of a goal and the nature of the universe (both the being, and what the being has to deal with in furtherance of a particular end). The hard question is the epistemological one, namely discovering what one ought to do.

[brian0918]

Her terse response to the so-called problem is similar to her response to the so-called problem of universals, that it's a pseudo-problem. It's not hard to paraphrase her response using more words, but is that more revealing? First, the concept "ought" refers to a hypothetical state of affairs and the relationship of that state to the nature of the universe (in particular, causality). Ethical ought relates "hypothetical actions of a volitional being" to "the causal relation between a being and its action", so the nature of a being determines what the being ought to do, in the context of a goal and the nature of the universe (both the being, and what the being has to deal with in furtherance of a particular end). The hard question is the epistemological one, namely discovering what one ought to do.

Where I see your argument failing to influence those who support the wall between "is" and "ought" is that while you are outright stating that people have goals - that goals are part of their nature - opponents would argue that you are presupposing the "ought". They would ask "how can you have goals if there is no bridge from is to ought?" They would essentially restrict goals (the "ought", according to them) from being part of the nature of a person (the "is"). What is wrong with making such a distinction?

Edited September 4, 2008 by brian0918

[DavidOdden]

Where I see your argument failing to influence those who support the wall between "is" and "ought" is that while you are outright stating that people have goals - that goals are part of their nature - opponents would argue that you are presupposing the "ought".

No, my argument does not require goals to be part of the nature of a being. For people with no goals, the notion of an ethical ought is as meaningless as applying ought to a rock. In the context of having goals, you have a basis for making a choice between A and B, judged according to the standard of your goal. The very notion of ethics presupposes goals. Rand has nothing to say about oughts for rocks. Edited September 4, 2008 by DavidOdden

[brian0918]

No, my argument does not require goals to be part of the nature of a being. For people with no goals, the notion of an ethical ought is as meaningless as applying ought to a rock. In the context of having goals, you have a basis for making a choice between A and B, judged according to the standard of your goal. The very notion of ethics presupposes goals. Rand has nothing to say about oughts for rocks.

Alright, I think I am satisfied with this explanation. I choose to exist and make rational choices to survive, so my most fundamental goals arise from that.