Values without a valuer

[Ifat Glassman]

Bellow is a short essay I wrote about this topic. You can also read it on my blog. Open for discussion.

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Values without a valuer

What is "important" in life? A commonly accepted answer is: Getting your name down in history books, bringing progress to humanity, helping people, changing things on a major scale.

Then, there is a sub-version of what is "important": the idea of what is "successful". "Successful" means being famous, having a triple degree in something, rich, popular, good looking.

Even though this concept of "important" refers to an individual, and what an individual should do - What it fails to consider is the actual individual. It prescribes what is "important" to an individual while making irrelevant the actual opinion of an individual person.

Ethics taken as duty are experienced as an end in themselves: A person is honest for the sake of being good, he does well in school for the sake of being good, he goes on a diet for the sake of being "successful" etc'.

Philosophically he views morality as duty: as a set of rights and wrongs dictated to him from something outside himself (like society or god).

Psychologically this view of morality puts a wedge between his self esteem and desires; because he needs to choose if he wants to be good and obedient, or pursue his own desires and goals and give up being good (which means to give up self-esteem).

Philosophically, a proper moral code depends on man's choice to live and achieve his needs. It's opposite, a moral code prescribed as duty, makes personal goals and thinking irrelevant, and is therefore improper as a guide to life (which is what ethics in essence IS).

Psychologically, the distinction between morality from choice or from duty is not between following good morality or bad morality - rather the method by which a man accepts his moral code and why he accepts it.

Does he choose his moral code to better his life, or does he accept it unquestionably, as something above himself to live up to?

If a man sees morality as "the good" (i.e. "this is what I should do to be good!") and not as "the good for me" ("I should do X if I want good things for myself") then he accepts morality as a matter of duty, regardless of how good the moral code is philosophically.

The person with the first approach ("be good!") has no explanation of why these things are important. It seems to him like there is no explanation - those things simply ARE important, even though he never reached this conclusion himself nor recall ever choosing those things. His concept of "important" is divorced from his desires and ideas.

For many it can be difficult to grasp that a proper moral code actually depends on their choice; Many of us are educated to accept what is "good" or "bad" as irrelevant to our choice and beyond our reasoning.

Kids are taught what is "important", such as; it is important to get good grades, important to keep a safe, traditional path vs. pursuing a "hopeless" dream, important to have friends, not to upset anyone, to "get along". It is important to do "great things", to have money, important to share, important to be modest, nice, etc'. All this is demanded from a child as measurement of how good he is, without providing an explanation what makes these things good for the child. Without giving him incentive or reason to choose this course of behavior himself. [Additional note at the end regarding this point]

This sort of "education" sets the psychological state of mind for having values without a valuer. To pursue "important" things that one does not enjoy and that are not part of individual self-fulfillment, rather they stand above one's self, as a test of his worth.

What kind of psychology leads a man in one direction or the other? I find that the answer lies in the trait of selfishness.

A selfish person is primarily motivated to achieve his own enjoyment. And unless some enjoyment logically follows in exchange for the effort of acting - he does not move an inch. When there is something he values - he does not give it up.

A non-selfish person gives up his pleasure and his values easily if he is taught that the good is to do so. He does not act to achieve pleasure - rather he acts in a "moral" way for the sake of not disappointing himself - for the fear of being bad or the attempt to be good, without any further purpose - without attempting to gain something of personal importance to him, something he enjoys.

For example: Suppose someone enjoys romantic relationships. And some day he learns that according to an accepted ethical principle, this kind of behavior is bad. If he is selfish he will say: "To hell with this principle, it's taking away my enjoyment. Unless I understand in what way this principle is good for my life, I say to hell with it".

The person who sees morality as duty, however, will think: "Well, to be good I must give up my pleasure from dating. Being good is more important than my pleasure".

In what way, then, can morality be selfishly chosen?

As we grow up we learn that a certain course of action is required to achieve the things we aim at getting. We look for some guidance for the kind of person we want to be in order to deal with the difficulties in our lives and enjoy it, we look for some ideal or role model for guidance of the kind of person we want to be. Most people do not realize that this is their first step to choose a moral code - and not what they were taught to believe is "the good".

The correct method to choose a moral code is highly personal: It is acting as the kind of person you are inspired to be, for the sake of achieving things you enjoy. And the process of integrating a chosen moral code to one's life goes through one's ability to understand it.

Most of us get educated with one bad idea or another. It is therefore important to make sure what we consider as important actually serves our enjoyment and well being.

If there is one advice I could offer someone who wants to get rid of morality from duty it would be - focus on your pleasure, use the fullest capacity of your reasoning mind to maximize your enjoyment through the whole of your life. Learn to notice what you enjoy and what you drag yourself through in order to be "good".

One cannot chose a career or personality that are good for him and yet make him self-alienated and bored.

The purpose of morality compatible with human life is to provide us the principles to guide our lives: to teach us the kind of person we need to be in order to enjoy our lives and sustain them.

Don't give up your life for any purpose less than that.

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[Note: to some degree, a child always acts without fully understanding the benefit of some behavior to his life. It is the role of his parents to teach him to act in a certain way. But the right way to motivate him to do it, while he learns the importance of that behavior for himself, is to give (or take) values, and not by presenting the rule as a gauge of his worth.

For example: You can motivate a child to learn to read by promising a prize. But a bad way to motivate him would be to present the activity as an end in itself: in the form of "if you learn how to read you are good and I will love you, and if you do not you are bad and I will not hug you", which teaches him that "good" and "bad" are impersonal concepts.]

Edited June 1, 2009 by ifatart

[Skip Berkes]

Perhaps understanding the person I want to be, Ifat, I can say this is the kind of post I'd like to write. =)

Edited June 2, 2009 by Skip Berkes

[Ifat Glassman]

Perhaps understanding the person I want to be, Ifat, I can say this is the kind of post I'd like to write. =)

Thanks for the compliment. However, all it takes to write "this kind" of post is to find a subject that interests you and investigate it: gather information about it over time, draw conclusions and write it down in logical order.

I think the key is to genuinely find the topic interesting. A person can want to write something good to impress, for example - in which case they would never be able to write anything really good. But if the person finds the topic interesting enough to ask questions about it in his own mind for his own curiosity then he will discover new knowledge and be able to write about it well. This is the only sense in which personality plays a role in the quality of writing that I can think of.

If you follow the first requirement of having the right kind of motivation, Ayn Rand has a book on how to write non-fiction ("The art of non-fiction"). She says that this is a skill anybody can learn - it's just a matter of practice. After reading the book and getting some experience in writing in my blog, I sure know I have a long way to go to improve my writing style.

Edited June 2, 2009 by ifatart

[Skip Berkes]

The nature of personal interest is the motive force behind an act of creation such as your post. Whether devoid of a particular motive and pleasure, a post remains the writing of a specific motive and person.

I would say where you go in your life [purpose] and how fast you get there [success] is a matter of building the bridge to facilitate the greatest traffic [morality]. As I see it, the primary concern in the logistics of the human mind is based on the idea that traffic is proportional to the harmony between reason and emotion. That cognition depends on man's happiness as his happiness depends on his reasoning mind. It certainly is not the case that an unhappy man is incapable of great creations. But I do believe the person who is committed to his unhappiness [duty] and to the breach between consciously chosen goals and the most personal desires is ultimately committed to running his mind into the ground with his body soon to follow. First and foremost I believe this asserts the importance of emotional recognition, classification, and conceptualization. Finally then, reason seeking and maintaining total self-awareness is the crucial act of persistent success.

Where then, does this place the moral choice to act as who we want to be? Nowhere other than the choice to be selfish primarily from the pursuit of our self. =) And that is exactly right.

Edited June 2, 2009 by Skip Berkes

[Ifat Glassman]

The nature of personal interest is the motive force behind an act of creation such as your post. Whether devoid of a particular motive and pleasure, a post remains the writing of a specific motive and person.

I would say where you go in your life [purpose] and how fast you get there [success] is a matter of building the bridge to facilitate the greatest traffic [morality]. As I see it, the primary concern in the logistics of the human mind is based on the idea that traffic is proportional to the harmony between reason and emotion. That cognition depends on man's happiness as his happiness depends on his reasoning mind. It certainly is not the case that an unhappy man is incapable of great creations. But I do believe the person who is committed to his unhappiness [duty] and to the breach between consciously chosen goals and the most personal desires is ultimately committed to running his mind into the ground with his body soon to follow. First and foremost I believe this asserts the importance of emotional recognition, classification, and conceptualization. Finally then, reason seeking and maintaining total self-awareness is the crucial act of persistent success.

Where then, does this place the moral choice to act as who we want to be? Nowhere other than the choice to be selfish primarily from the pursuit of our self. =) And that is exactly right.

I would gladly discuss your ideas with you, but frankly, I have no idea what you are saying. I don't even know what to ask. I understand fragments here and there but can't put them together. Maybe you can explain your main point in different words/ try to simplify?

For example: "building the bridge to facilitate the greatest traffic [morality]" - in what way is traffic a metaphor for morality?

[Jill]

I was trying to comment on your blog but I can't get through. I really like this article and find it very helpful personally. I just disagree with the end note.

[softwareNerd]

A good post, Ifat.

It is important to always have that reminder: that one's pleasure is important. One should be aware if one is really enjoying something or doing it through a sense of duty.

A minor comment on your post-script: an extrinsic reward (prize for a book) is an option, but is only marginally different from (say) a hug, or love. "You'll get a hug/some love/a prize for doing XYZ" sends the message that XYZ is not enjoyable as such, and requires something extrinsic. There are contexts where such rewards are entirely appropriate, but the ideal is to search for intrinsic awards. In the specific example, it would be to somehow demonstrate how much fun it is to read a book, or how useful it is, or some such motivation that exists without the external motivation.

[Ifat Glassman]

I was trying to comment on your blog but I can't get through. I really like this article and find it very helpful personally. I just disagree with the end note.

Say what you disagree with so we can discuss it.

A good post, Ifat.

It is important to always have that reminder: that one's pleasure is important. One should be aware if one is really enjoying something or doing it through a sense of duty.

A minor comment on your post-script: an extrinsic reward (prize for a book) is an option, but is only marginally different from (say) a hug, or love. "You'll get a hug/some love/a prize for doing XYZ" sends the message that XYZ is not enjoyable as such, and requires something extrinsic. There are contexts where such rewards are entirely appropriate, but the ideal is to search for intrinsic awards. In the specific example, it would be to somehow demonstrate how much fun it is to read a book, or how useful it is, or some such motivation that exists without the external motivation.

I agree with you. (In fact in the original draft I wrote it down explicitly but this was packed enough as it is with disconnected point I had to erase some stuff).

But I think some things cannot be appealing to a child right away. For example, learning how to read; it is fun to know how to read, maybe even to succeed in identifying letters correctly, but there is a limit to the fun that can be gotten at the beginning: a child cannot possibly understand why education is important for his/her life. The only thing they understand is that if they put the effort in to learn the letters they get a cookie.

Once they grow up some more they can see the tremendous significance of education, but not at the beginning. So some external rewards are necessary, I think. However, you are the parent here, you tell me.

[Ifat Glassman]

I noticed something else you said though:

an extrinsic reward (prize for a book) is an option, but is only marginally different from (say) a hug, or love.

I don't agree that they are marginally different. I think there is a tremendous difference. A parent can give or not give a prize and not withhold his/her affection. Then they are sending the message" I love you, and if you want to earn a prize you can do it by reading/cleaning room". From this the child learns that the parent is always there for him, and that the task the parent encourages the child to do is part of the parent looking after him. But withholding affection because the child didn't do a certain task sends a completely different message, more like: "YOU are bad, you are unworthy because of not doing X".

[Ifat Glassman]

The first approach teaches the child to approach values from a positive background: "I am good. And if I put in effort, I can earn good things". The second approach sets a negative background: "if I fail to do X I am not good as a person".

For example; my parents educated me that doing well in school is important for my "status" as good or bad (more specifically successful as a person or a failure as a person) (By the way, I don't blame them, on the face of it this seems like a good method). However, this made me approach education as something I must do well in - not as something I choose to do well in to get good things. The thought of failing a test or not studying enough to do well "enough" was something I could not tolerate. The reason for this was not the failure of my future plans but an automated response I've had since childhood that it is simply "important" to do well in school.

I believe that if I were educated with the second approach I would not feel a necessity to do well apart from a selfish goal.

Now that I think about it - Many people I know have tests anxiety. I think it is because subconsciously they see the test as a test of their worth. Heck, if my self-esteem had to stand for a test in that way I'd be anxious about tests too (which I am actually not. It took a different form in my case).

[Skip Berkes]

I would gladly discuss your ideas with you, but frankly, I have no idea what you are saying. I don't even know what to ask. I understand fragments here and there but can't put them together. Maybe you can explain your main point in different words/ try to simplify?

For example: "building the bridge to facilitate the greatest traffic [morality]" - in what way is traffic a metaphor for morality?

I mean that morality is a matter of (Building The Bridge) which connects man to his personal values. Traffic referring to the necessary duplex supply-chain of positive experiences for the achievement of personal values. Continual achievement and happiness depending on proper values as well as a connection to those values (that they are your own) to be as motivated as possible. Or motivated period.

Edited June 3, 2009 by Skip Berkes

[Thomas M. Miovas Jr.]

I think it was a good essay, overall. But I would caution against thinking that morality is there to fulfill desires and ambitions. You didn't quite come out and say that, but I think it was implied -- i.e. one chooses a morality based upon one's desire to be like a particular hero (or something along those lines). I agree that one's own happiness is very important and that the fulfillment of personal desires is important, however it is not the reason to have a morality.

A man's life centered morality will lead to having desires that are actually for your life, while those desires that are not for your life will eventually fade away. As an example, I used to have a desire to go to Church and the pray to God, because I was Catholic. I stopped doing this as I converted to Objectivism, not because Objectivism said it was wrong, but rather that as I became more reality and man's life oriented, that desire simply faded away. Similarly, when one is young, one tends to think that fulfilling one's desires are beneficial to oneself, but accepting and thinking through and practicing a rational morality will change the nature of those desires to be more reality oriented.

By the way, I'm glad you have accepted that you do make choices and have chosen the proper course of action A biobot couldn't do that

Edited June 4, 2009 by Thomas M. Miovas Jr.

[Ifat Glassman]

I think it was a good essay, overall. But I would caution against thinking that morality is there to fulfill desires and ambitions. You didn't quite come out and say that, but I think it was implied -- i.e. one chooses a morality based upon one's desire to be like a particular hero (or something along those lines). I agree that one's own happiness is very important and that the fulfillment of personal desires is important, however it is not the reason to have a morality.

It's not that one's happiness is very important - it's the MOST important thing, its the only reason to be alive.

I can see how you got the idea that I promote hedonism (simply going after whatever desire you happen to have), but I do not. I assume the goal of seeking to maximize one's enjoyment in the whole of one's life by thinking and learning (I mention this at the end). Such a goal only ideally allows desires that are compatible with this goal (this is the ideal I present as desirable).

Morality is wider than allowing one to pursue unique, personal values, but this is its most important use. The reason for this is that those personal values are the most crucial to a person's happiness, and happiness is the proper purpose of morality.

One's happiness depends primarily on things like one's self-esteem, choice of career, romantic life, social life - all these things are very personal values. If you tell someone "productivity is a virtue" - how the hell can it serve their happiness apart from productive work which appeals uniquely to them - to their unique persona? Answer is that it can't. Trying to apply "the virtue of productivity" in an impersonal manner will lead to one working one's ass off in some random job just for the sake of creating material goods. That cannot possibly serve one's happiness. That's why I was saying that applying morality to one's life has to start with one's personal values.

Similarly one cannot achieve a fulfilling romantic relationship by seeking the "good partner" - a rational, hard working, picture of an ideal "Francisco"/ "Dagny" kind of partner.

As for self esteem - it is personal in the sense that self-esteem can only be obtained once a person becomes convinced, consciously and subconsciously that a certain standard of judging personality is good. A person cannot gain self esteem by living according to a standard they did not understand and "personalize" (make part of their subconscious ideas).

A person cannot gain self esteem by living up to a standard external to them, as, for example, judging oneself by one's level of productivity per day without having a subconscious positive evaluation of that trait - without understanding first hand why it is a virtue.

In that case all the person is capable of is condemning or approving - but he is incapable of an emotional reaction such as admiration or self-esteem. It has to be personal to "work" for one's happiness.

In case of mixed values and contradictory ideas: the process of applying morality to one's life still has to go through one's present ideas and values.

For example: If you were religious, reading Objectivism for the first time, it takes time to understand exactly how Objectivism gives value to your life. During that process, so long as you cannot see how going to church is a waste of time/ not good for your life - you should still go (as it seems you did). To stop going simply because Ayn Rand said that religion is bad is moral obedience. that is what my essay aimed at attacking.

A man's life centered morality will lead to having desires that are actually for your life, while those desires that are not for your life will eventually fade away.

Well, I agree, but yet it sounds like an impersonal thing. As if "correct desires" simply come to a person from some morality. As if, after reading Atlas Shrugged, a person's taste in romantic partner changes to want the "right" kind of person, i.e. a John Galt or a Dagny.

(But there is no such thing as an intellectual "ideal partner". An ideal partner can only be someone with a unique sense of life and traits. The best Objectivism can do for a person is make clearer what kind of personality is good for living and which is bad, thus somewhat change one's evaluation of others, while still keeping it 100% personal).

By the way, I'm glad you have accepted that you do make choices and have chosen the proper course of action A biobot couldn't do that

You know, you have no idea what I was talking about then, and you still don't know it now. It's wise to first make sure you understand someone's position before you go on to crack condescending jokes about them for it - especially if they tell you explicitly that you did not understand their position, like I have in the past.

[AllMenAreIslands]

Happy birthday, Ifat!

Thank you for that lovely post. I feel as if you gave me a present. It sounds so easy once you hear it. The purpose of life is to be happy. The purpose of morality is to find a rational way to achieve happiness.

[Thomas M. Miovas Jr.]

I think I'm being misunderstood in this thread and in a private message on the same topic, so I will cover them both here.

You personal desires do not exist in a vacuum, but are rather determined by your value premises, which are determined by your philosophy (implicit or explicit). So, if you had a desire to be like John Galt, for example, that was because you already had some respect for reason. Not everyone has the response to him. Certainly the Augustinian Christians would abhor him; and they gave up seeking personal desires because they thought such desires were vices and would lead to hell. Modern Islamic Militants would consider him someone to be killed, rather than someone to be admired.

And, yes, you have to have the personal motivation to go into a specific career, such as deciding to become an artist or deciding to become an engineer or deciding to become a salesman. The specifics of your desires are based upon you yourself valuing certain specific things in reality, but the global parameters of what you will value depends on the philosophy you accept. For example, I couldn't love a physically beautiful bimbo, because I value the mind too much to settle for that, and my respect for reason comes from the philosophy I accept. I was able to convert to Objectivism because I did value my mind and have always had a deep respect for reason, and the later Thomist tradition of Catholicism did present reason as a legitimate human value, and I was taught that respect for reason.

However, having a desire per se is not sufficient grounds for saying that desire ought to be pursued, you have to check it against the facts of reality and see if gaining that desire is good for you or not. I think being in love is wonderful -- probably the most wonderful thing possible to a human being -- but acting on love alone without checking the facts can get one into a world of a mess. Keep in mind that John Galt was in love with Dagny throughout those twelve years, but he couldn't permit himself to pursue her until he was reasonably sure she would understand the nature of the strike -- the nature of not supporting your own destroyers. And in The Fountainhead, Roark had to let Dominique go due to her sense of life confusions, even though he was in love with her. In reason, Howard could not give up his career the way Dominique wanted him to. So, both Howard Roark and John Galt acted on reason before emotions. They knew where their emotions came from, and they knew they had legitimate values in the women they loved, but they didn't act on emotions.

[Ifat Glassman]

Happy birthday, Ifat!

Thank you for that lovely post. I feel as if you gave me a present. It sounds so easy once you hear it. The purpose of life is to be happy. The purpose of morality is to find a rational way to achieve happiness.

Thanks, I appreciate it.

One point: "The purpose of morality is to find a rational way to achieve happiness", it is actually that "the purpose of morality is happiness and rationality is the way to achieve it". Rationality is not a goal of morality, like survival or happiness is, it's a virtue required to achieve survival and happiness.

I still have a problem with one thing I replied to Thomas. He said:

"A man's life centered morality will lead to having desires that are actually for your life, while those desires that are not for your life will eventually fade away"

I replied that I agree (with some reservation). After thinking of it further I want to take further caution.

An adult already has a very developed psychology, big part of which is neither right nor wrong, but simply is. For example, some people like dogs, some people like amusement parks, some are bored by it. some are interested in psychology or art or mechanical engineering, some have a lot of emphasis on a sense of humor, some are more serious, and the list goes on and on infinitely. All these values one can chose to pursue, come from one's developed psychology - not from an ethical system he uses. Ethics can teach a man certain traits of character that are important, but it does not and should not "reprogram" his other values.

(small note: I'm not sure if this is what Thomas meant, I am just presenting what I consider as worth emphasizing here).

As for approaching such values as I mentioned above (Peikoff calls them "optional values", as against, I assume, rationality or independence which are necessary values - one does not have a choice about needing them if he wants to survive). I've wrote down the method he describes in his audio course "Judging, feeling and not being moralistic" (awesome course, by the way, well worth the investment, and not too expensive too):

The proper pattern of choice will be: if you desire something and you decide that you desire is legitimate and you have looked at the facts that are relevant and that desire persists in the face of those facts - that's it. the decision is made you follow the feeling.

the final decision will therefor be not by an arbitrary emotion, it will be by an emotion that you yourself has shaped by a study of reality and your desires or your mind's relation to it.

This is part of his description of the significance of emotions and desires to pursuit of optional values.

[Thomas M. Miovas Jr.]

I'm glad you quoted Dr. Peikoff and took that course, because it is excellent. His study and presentation of optional values was in the framework of having a rational morality, and part of a rational morality is to assess whether or not your desires are in tuned with man's life as the standard. Once you have rationally thought it through and those desires are found to be within the scope of man's life as the standard, then yes, what you enjoy doing is legitimate. This goes all the way from liking chocolate ice cream to pursuing the career of your choice.

I wasn't trying to say that all of one's previous values will fall by the wayside as one gets more an more rationally integrated; however, as one becomes more and more integrated towards reason, then certainly the non-rational values will tend to slip away and one will become more focused on pursuing real values that are actually beneficial to oneself according to man's life as the standard. One would tend to become much more focused on the truly important values, such as one's career.

Because emotions stem from one's implicit value system, and because man does not have an automatically right value system, then emotions per se are never a justification for doing something. One can decide, for example, that one wants to be an artist, but not out of an emotional reaction alone. Of course, the best thing in the world is to find something legitimate that one loves to do and to find a means of earning a living from doing that.

Added on Edit: Also, Ayn Rand's essays "Causality versus Duty" is a great follow-up to this discussion.

Edited June 6, 2009 by Thomas M. Miovas Jr.

[RationalBiker]

Off topic yes but Happy Belated Birthday wishes Ifat!

[Ifat Glassman]

I'm glad you quoted Dr. Peikoff and took that course, because it is excellent. His study and presentation of optional values was in the framework of having a rational morality, and part of a rational morality is to assess whether or not your desires are in tuned with man's life as the standard. Once you have rationally thought it through and those desires are found to be within the scope of man's life as the standard, then yes, what you enjoy doing is legitimate.

In that course Peikoff talks about how most Objectivists tend to intellectualize things, disregard the significance of emotion and personal desires and try to go "purely by logic". I suggest you pay more attention to that part of the lecture.

Peikoff talks against it, emphasizing the tremendous significance of emotions. He says you only need to do "one onion-layer peeling" when deciding on optional values. You certainly do not need to reduce buying a dog or deciding on a type of vacation to have to "life as the standard of value".

That is a crazy level of over-intellectualizing.

Second thing, is that the whole point of living is to experience enjoyment (Ayn Rand phrased it as happiness as the purpose of morality). If I were a plant, I'd only care about basing my actions on "life as the standard of value", putting aside the nature of human psychology, my need for happiness, and the fact that enjoyment is the only reason I have to live. But I'm a human and I want my life to be worthwhile - to be enjoyable. The purpose of my life is to be happy and this is something every man must never forget.

THIS is the correct starting point to approach morality.

The starting point of "what is right and what is wrong to do in life" is exactly the approach of morality as duty which I was trying to put down in this essay.

It is the job of the philosopher developing ethics as a science to discover that life is the standard of value implicit in all values, but it is certainly not something every person needs to go through when choosing every day values.

In my opinion, it takes a high level of repression to be able to approach life this way, and would leave a person completely paralyzed in face of the simplest choices like what to have for breakfast.

I have an interesting question to ask you: WHY is it important to chose your actions and values by life as the standard? I'm very curious to see your answer to this.

I wasn't trying to say that all of one's previous values will fall by the wayside as one gets more an more rationally integrated; however, as one becomes more and more integrated towards reason, then certainly the non-rational values will tend to slip away and one will become more focused on pursuing real values that are actually beneficial to oneself according to man's life as the standard. One would tend to become much more focused on the truly important values, such as one's career.

And what exactly are "more rational values"? Does it mean I shouldn't value shopping clothes as much and should focus on my career more? Does it prescribe what hobbies are more or less "rational"? How about the amount of time I spend on each thing - does morality tell me what amount of time is more "rational"? Do I need to use life as the standard to decide if I want to buy a dress or jeans?

Because emotions stem from one's implicit value system, and because man does not have an automatically right value system, then emotions per se are never a justification for doing something. One can decide, for example, that one wants to be an artist, but not out of an emotional reaction alone.

Emotions certainly are part of the justification for doing something. If you want something, and if by thinking it through you still conclude this is worthwhile - that it maximizes your enjoyment long-term, then the fact that you want it and can enjoy it is the ultimate justification to pursue it.

another point: If one's implicit value system is set correctly, then emotions need very little validation. Yet they do require validation. You don't buy the most expensive car you see just because you feel like it. You consider all the other factors involved, the effect of such a choice on your life, your emotional reaction to all of those things, and if it all checks out, you follow the emotion.

Emotions provide you information to values which fall outside the category of "correct" or "incorrect" in the philosophical sense - they are the link between the external world and your unique personality. One cannot rely solely on morality to educate him what he should want or choose.

Morality can educate you that productivity is a virtue, it is not enough to tell you what kind of productive work to choose, how much time to put into it, what methods you feel most comfortable using for this particular work, etc'.

Surely many things in life come down to "feeling like it" after one has thought through all that is involved and checked how he feels about it; such as what shoes will you get, what movie to see, what hobby to have and even what partner one wants etc'.

It is ridiculous to assume that everything can be reduced to life as the standard of value, like explaining why you prefer a partner with a particular kind of sense of humor. Many values come down to "this is who I am, this is what I enjoy".

Added on Edit: Also, Ayn Rand's essays "Causality versus Duty" is a great follow-up to this discussion.

I second that. She talks about morality as duty from a philosophical viewpoint with some connection to psychology, and she defines all the concepts involved. There's also another article in the Romantic Manifesto discussing the same subject from a different context, don't remember the name though.

[Thomas M. Miovas Jr.]

I have an interesting question to ask you: WHY is it important to chose your actions and values by life as the standard? I'm very curious to see your answer to this.

Because you are alive, and only certain types of values will actually keep you alive; those values that actually sustain your live as you pursue your happiness.

I think we may be talking past one another to some extent. I am not saying don't be happy. Your emotions are your automatized way of experiencing your values, so I am not suggesting repressing one's emotions. Repression can actually lead one to not pursue certain values and therefore miss out on opportunities. Emotions are a lighting-like assessment as to whether something is of value or not; however, one must check one's value premises and not just go by an emotional reaction because emotions are subconscious and not automatically geared towards man's life as the standard.

Look, if you want to buy a dress instead of a pants outfit, I can't see where that would be against your life --unless, say, your job was working around dangerous moving equipment and the dress might get caught in it, or something like that. So, it is necessary to take the total context into account, which has to be done consciously.

And we are talking about optional values here, but they are optional within the range of man's life as the standard. Why does the decision have to be done within the range of man's life as the standard? Because you are alive, and the point is to sustain your life and your enjoyment of it. Emotions are not automatically geared towards what is good for you and what is bad for you. And that is why you have to check your value premises. That doesn't mean check every emotional reaction, but it does mean to go into a pursuit of a value with your eyes open and your conscious mind engaged.

[Grames]

If some amount happiness is caused by achieving some value in your code of values, and happiness itself is a value, then is it not true that achieving value is always objectively justified to some extent? Even if it may be objectively unjustified on balance, it at least had that going for it.

Low stakes and optional values are ennobled simply by cherishing them when there is no objective disvalue involved.

[Thales]

Because you are alive, and only certain types of values will actually keep you alive; those values that actually sustain your live as you pursue your happiness.

I think we may be talking past one another to some extent. I am not saying don't be happy. Your emotions are your automatized way of experiencing your values, so I am not suggesting repressing one's emotions. Repression can actually lead one to not pursue certain values and therefore miss out on opportunities. Emotions are a lighting-like assessment as to whether something is of value or not; however, one must check one's value premises and not just go by an emotional reaction because emotions are subconscious and not automatically geared towards man's life as the standard.

Exactly right!

I think the bottom line here is doing something that is possible to you. Emotions should be taken into account, but always check them against reason. By continually doing this and changing your course according to your evaluations, your emotions will be more in sync with your life's goals and thus will propel you in the right direction.

The prime directive is reason should always be your primary guide. Emotions can also help you check your reasoning. If you "feel" something is off, then that can tell you that you should apply reason to figure out what is off.

Happiness is your ultimate goal in life, or should be, but the way to achieve it is by achieving life. You achieve life by following reason. When you live as a rational achiever and are successful, happiness follows.

[Ifat Glassman]

Because you are alive, and only certain types of values will actually keep you alive; those values that actually sustain your live as you pursue your happiness.

And why do you want to stay alive? / What makes life valuable to a human being?

Second point: If "man's life" is the only tool and justification you have for choosing anything, then how do you choose from all the various values that keep you alive? How is one suppose to choose from the numerous values like friends, hobbies, vacations, clothes, art, entertainment, career, furniture, etc' etc' - all of which "keep him alive"?

There is no way in which you can use the Objectivist ethics to suggest to you to choose a green car rather than a red one.

Another thing is that your formulation as I understand it basically says the following: To be happy, you must stay alive, therefore, pursue values that keep you alive.

But if that is all you pursue - values that keep you alive - in what way are you pursuing your happiness? You say "while you pursue your happiness" but from your formulation it remains unclear how one goes about pursuing it - it is only clear that one takes actions to stay alive.

I think we may be talking past one another to some extent. I am not saying don't be happy. Your emotions are your automatized way of experiencing your values, so I am not suggesting repressing one's emotions. Repression can actually lead one to not pursue certain values and therefore miss out on opportunities.

Why is it important not to miss out on opportunities? I am asking to emphasize a certain point - that there is something far more important in the role of emotions than missing out or not missing out opportunities. Let's say one had some other way of detecting good opportunities - would it then be alright if emotions were repressed? If not, why not?

Emotions are a lighting-like assessment as to whether something is of value or not; however, one must check one's value premises and not just go by an emotional reaction because emotions are subconscious and not automatically geared towards man's life as the standard.

Emotions also tell you if you prefer a red or a green car, the type of vacation that best suits your life at a certain time in your life, the kind of hobby or career you would most enjoy - all these things have nothing to do with emotions reflecting or not reflecting life as the standard of value. Ethics tell you productivity is a virtue. It does not tell you which career is right for you. This is where your emotion come in. Think about it - there is no way to decide which career to have by reducing each career to being "for" or "against" man's life. They are all "for" it so long as they allow a man to be productive.

One can and should set the automatic value system correctly, and then it is a tool in the service of one's survival and happiness, to be enjoyed and trusted. even so, validation is necessary (maybe excluding cases like what type of cereal to have for breakfast - in which case it is ridiculous to even do a one-layer peeling (as Peikoff says it). In that case I'd say you should simply go by whatever you feel like eating).

So I agree that validation is necessary. However, What would you say is the role of emotions in pursuing values then, if they have one? Because all I see is that you say that they cannot be trusted as an automatic guide. You didn't actually state a positive role that emotions play in pursuing values.

And we are talking about optional values here, but they are optional within the range of man's life as the standard.

Just another quick question here: if you try to justify every action by this standard - how do you explain the Objectivist position that suicide is a good course of action when happiness is no longer possible? surely suicide is the ultimate action against life as a standard of value.

Why does the decision have to be done within the range of man's life as the standard? Because you are alive, and the point is to sustain your life and your enjoyment of it. Emotions are not automatically geared towards what is good for you and what is bad for you. And that is why you have to check your value premises. That doesn't mean check every emotional reaction, but it does mean to go into a pursuit of a value with your eyes open and your conscious mind engaged.

I could agree with this formulation, if it wasn't for the many open questions I have about the way you see the above in actual practice.

I think one important distinction should be made: and that is between the philosopher identifying ethics as a science, and the actual daily application of ethics in one's life - which is completely different. The scientist/philosopher looks at things generally, things which are true for humanity as a race - he does not look at every specific person and the requirements of happiness for every specific person. Trying to approach the daily application of ethics in the same way a philosopher/scientist would would make ethics an apersonal, logic-only based thing which cannot possibly make a person happy because it leaves emotions, or personal preferences no room.

[Thomas M. Miovas Jr.]

Trying to approach the daily application of ethics in the same way a philosopher/scientist would would make ethics an apersonal, logic-only based thing which cannot possibly make a person happy because it leaves emotions, or personal preferences no room.

You are implying that there is no logic to do the things you enjoy doing. By saying man's life as the standard that doesn't mean just staying alive physically. Certainly one ought to enjoy one's life and that enjoyment is logically necessary on the psychological level because we have free will. One ought not to live strictly on the duty bases, of being physically in existence. Our type of consciousness requires the enjoyment of life in order to have the motivation to continue to live, since we live by means of our volitional consciousness. Happiness is selfish; and selfishness is virtuous.

But if you don't seek values within the range of man's life as the standard, then your acting on emotions that are contrary to man's life -- contrary to your life.

Emotions are crucial in knowing what your values are without having to do an explicit calculation as to whether or not something is in your value hierarchy. But your emotions are programed by your conscious mind and you need to check periodically whether or not your emotions are geared towards sustaining and enjoying your life in the long run. You can have incorrect value standards.

Besides, choosing the color of your car is within man's life as the standard, so long as you know the car is safe to drive. Similarly, choosing what to eat for breakfast based on what you enjoy eating is great, so long as what you eat is not poison and so long as it does have nutritional value. Choosing a style of dress that you like is within man's life as the standard, so long as that dress is not going to put your life in danger somehow. Choosing to become an artist because that is what you enjoy doing is a good way to choose a career, so long as your art is not explicitly anti-man and anti-life; however, I wouldn't recommend choosing your type of art career if you lived in a country that would kill you for depicting naked people.

The ultimate context for making any decisions morally is man's life as the standard, but that doesn't mean to live as a valueless, non-emotional machine.

[Ifat Glassman]

You are implying that there is no logic to do the things you enjoy doing. By saying man's life as the standard that doesn't mean just staying alive physically.

As I understand it, it does mean just that. Happiness as the purpose of morality is just the second side of the coin, but it is not included in "survival of man qua man". In the later she actually talks about survival.

What do I mean by "other side of the coin"? As Ayn Rand explains in The Objectivist Ethics article, happiness is a metaphysical concomitant of life; meaning that when a philospher discovers what is required for man's survival as a rational being, whether or not he wants it, he also discovers what is required for man's happiness - in general terms.

Certainly one ought to enjoy one's life and that enjoyment is logically necessary on the psychological level because we have free will. One ought not to live strictly on the duty bases, of being physically in existence. Our type of consciousness requires the enjoyment of life in order to have the motivation to continue to live, since we live by means of our volitional consciousness. Happiness is selfish; and selfishness is virtuous.

But if you don't seek values within the range of man's life as the standard, then your acting on emotions that are contrary to man's life -- contrary to your life.

For god's sake, I already said many times that when I am talking about optional values I am only talking of those things within what is good for man's survival.

I think you do not give enough significance to the fact that we do need to choose from options, all of which are within life as the standard. It makes the difference between misery or happiness to know how to make the optional choice correctly. It's not just "well ok, this man or this man won't kill me, so just choose one as my romantic partner". It makes all the difference in the world if you marry someone who matches your sense of life or not. It makes the difference between misery and happiness. I don't think you give this part of optional choice its due credit - you put all the emphasis on whether or not it follows life as the standard. Let me tell you, if all my values were within man's life as the standard, yet none of them matched me personally (my clothes, my romantic partner, where I live, what I do for a living etc') I wouldn't really care to live anymore - because while I would be alive, I could not be happy.

So let's make it clear that the ability to make these optional choices correctly is a matter of life or death - not a small side issue.

And secondly, I think at this point you should recognize you were wrong in saying that the right way to choose values is by reducing every possible value to man's life as the standard. Obviously, this is part of the process of choosing values, but it is not THE method of choosing.

Besides, choosing the color of your car is within man's life as the standard, so long as you know the car is safe to drive. Similarly, choosing what to eat for breakfast based on what you enjoy eating is great, so long as what you eat is not poison and so long as it does have nutritional value.

...

The ultimate context for making any decisions morally is man's life as the standard, but that doesn't mean to live as a valueless, non-emotional machine.

I don't agree that this is the "ultimate context". The context is YOUR life. Not "man's" life.

By the way, you did not answer the most difficult question, which is what justifies suicide when happiness is no longer possible for an individual - since suicide is the ultimate action against life as the standard. According to you we need to reduce everything to man's life as the standard and decide based on that, so then how do you explain this?