Highest Value

[sleepyop]

In Galt's Speech, AR writes, "No value is higher than self-esteem," which, I think is true. You can't live without self-esteem. It's impossible to do so. Yet, when I've heard Objectivists talk about their highest value, they usually say it's their kids or their career. I believe AR was even asked what her "top most value" was and she replied that it was her husband. (This was in an interview with either Tom Snyder or Phil Donahue. I don't exactly remember.) This confuses me a bit. When Objectivists talk about their highest value, do they mean in the context of optional values?

[DPW]

In Galt's Speech, AR writes, "No value is higher than self-esteem," which, I think is true. You can't live without self-esteem. It's impossible to do so. Yet, when I've heard Objectivists talk about their highest value, they usually say it's their kids or their career. I believe AR was even asked what her "top most value" was and she replied that it was her husband. (This was in an interview with either Tom Snyder or Phil Donahue. I don't exactly remember.) This confuses me a bit. When Objectivists talk about their highest value, do they mean in the context of optional values?

"Highest value" can be used in many contexts. It can refer to your ultimate value (your life), your highest personal value, your highest psychological value, etc.

Now, the particular quote you mention is important because of the unique role self-esteem plays in valuing: nothing can be of value to a man without self-esteem, AND, pursuing and achieving values is what gives rise to self-esteem. So no matter what other value you're talking about - love, career, life itself - you can't, strictly speaking, talk about those values apart from self-esteem.

[BreathofLife]

I think the Rand saying he was referring to was where she said the thing she was most proud of was that she married Frank O'Connor.

[Sesklo]

Oh, Breath, I didn't take it that way at all. In fact, I took it exactly the way that sleepyop did. Actually, this very quote started a long conversation with my boyfriend last night. I was contrasting that Rand quote about her husband being her highest value to the theme in Fountainhead of work being the appropriate highest value.

In alot of Objectivist literature, it seems that in a hierarchy of values, Objectivist ethics holds that work should be your highest value. I take this as meaning as a category among others like romance, leisure, etc. My point was that, if work should be an Objectivist's highest value, then why did Rand say that her husband was her highest value? The conclusion I came to was that work should be your highest value because without productive activity, you cease to live the life proper to a human, and only someone who lives that life can really hold other values. I suppose that is where self-esteem comes in. Self-esteem comes from work (meaning any honest productive activity). This doesn't mean that you should ignore your love interest all the time so that you can be at work more. I think that it is ok to value a person (your child, your spouse, etc) more than you value a certain kind of work or job, but that you can't cease being a productive person so that you can spend more time with the person.

For me, it gets a little sticky there. If work as a category should be a higher value than parenthood or romance as a category, should I be able to say, "My husband/kids/wife is the most important thing in the world to me" or should I say that my particular career is? As I understand it, productive activity (work) is a prerequisite to a proper value hierarchy (and with it, self-esteem), and when you say that it is the highest value, you are just acknowledging that without it, no other values would be possible for you. In this way, I think you can say that a particular thing (a certain career, a certain person) is your highest value, because you take it as a given that to hold this as a value, you would have to be a productive human being. I think that this understanding of it fits rather well with the idea (paraphrased from Rand) that before you can say "I love you", you have to first be able to say "I".

I would be interested to hear any other comments on this question of value.

[BurgessLau]

... This confuses me a bit. When Objectivists talk about their highest value, do they mean in the context of optional values?

Are you talking about philosophical values or personal values?

Philosophical values should apply to all individuals, everywhere, and at all times. Why? Because that is what philosophy is -- the foundational science that develops the concepts and principles that apply universally.

Personal values are those that apply to one individual but not necessarily to other individuals. For example, my particular work -- writing success stories from history -- is my highest personal value. It is an application of the philosophical value of purpose.

Here are my highest personal values, in order from highest down: my work, my closest friends, and my leisure activities (roving in two forms: reading fictional success stories, and walking or bicycling). Of course, I have many other personal values, but they are further down the list.

[y_feldblum]

Identify the appropriate context for each of these different highest values (qua highest). They are not all the same context. When you forget the different contexts, you get questions like sleepypop's and Sesklo's.

Don has, as usual, understood the issue well. I just thought I'd call a bit more attention to a crucial aspect.

Edit to add: sleepypop, I like your signature.

[Sesklo]

Feldblum, I'm not sure what you mean by understanding the contexts. My understanding of the question of what should be the highest value is defined by taking the context of categories of value that are broad in that they apply to a human being, and narrowing it down to the individual, with the understanding that the broad category of value called "work" is a prerequisite to the individual's specific value hierarchy.

[Betsy]

When Objectivists talk about their highest value, do they mean in the context of optional values?

Sometimes. It depends on the context.