I am having trouble with this. I usually see the phrase on her writings, but never any sort of justification for it. She simply asserts it and carries on. What exactly does she mean by this? On what grounds does it rests?
life is the highest value and an end in itself since every good thing a living being does is for its livelihood. Therefore man a living being with a rational and reasoning mind to use to ensure his life is an end in himself.
I am having trouble with this. I usually see the phrase on her writings, but never any sort of justification for it. She simply asserts it and carries on. What exactly does she mean by this? On what grounds does it rests?
Read “Virtue of Selfishness”.
Normally, when you ask the question, “Should I…?”, what you mean is should you carry out some action in order to further some end. Should you finish your homework in order to pass a class? Should you drive carefully in order to avoid a wreck? Should you produce some good or service in order to earn a wage? Should you watch the television in order to be entertained (or informed)?
All of the actions you perform are motivated by your desire to accomplish some end or other. Each achievement, whether it be to walk up a flight of stairs (to get to a room on the next story of the building), or to microwave a frozen food product (to make it edible), or to open a window (to get a breath of fresh air) is the result of an action, but it is also an action itself toward the accomplishment of another goal. You wanted to get to a the bedroom on the second floor so that you could go to sleep; or to eat some food in order to maintain your health; or to get some fresh air in order to lessen distractions (like a stuffy room) in order to concentrate better on a book you are studying.
But when it comes to living your life, you live it in order to be alive. And you want to be alive so that you can continue to experience life. And so on. There is no “outside” or “higher” reason or motivation or purpose for living. You choose to live and the goal of your life is… your life.
It is its own end.
If you want to phrase it in terms of justification, the justification for a normal action is its “parent” goal. My justification for walking up stairs is to reach the rooms at the top. My justification for nuking a burrito is to make it edible. My justification for opening the window is the fresh air. And, naturally, each of those higher-order goals is justified in turn by the goals they serve.
But with life, because it’s goal is simply more of itself, it is it’s own justification. Nothing else justifies my life, and nothing else needs to.
Incidentally, this is one of the preconditions to establishing ethics. It turns out that we need ethics in order to figure out how best to live, since we certainly can’t survive by following whatever whim happens to catch our fancy every changing moment.
Each man is his own end, his own moral purpose, and he uses ethics to develop the map of his whole life.
I am having trouble with this. I usually see the phrase on her writings, but never any sort of justification for it. She simply asserts it and carries on. What exactly does she mean by this? On what grounds does it rests?
“ end in itself ” is a common phrase in the History of Ethics.
E.g., Aristotle, notes that Ethics is the study of means and ends, that any value is a means to some end, but it is impossible to have an infinite series of means, so he wanted to find an ultimate end, or an end in itself , which all other ends where a means to.
He eventually concludes that ‘happiness,’ meets the criteria, so that all goals/values ultimately are intended to lead to happiness.
Ayn Rand, in the “Virtue of Selfishness” (VOS) recognizes values are only means to an end, noting often values form chains of means leading to ends, which are means to further ends etc. E.g., you wake up to go to work, go to work to earn money, earn money to buy food, etc.
Also, like Aristotle she realizes that values, being only means to an end, must stop somewhere or else there would be an infinite regress of means never terminating.
She searches for some fact of reality that gives rise for the need of the concept value, (or means to ends as such), while at the same time searches for some fact of reality that, by its nature, terminates the potential infinite regress problem.
She abstracts away all the complexity of man’s nature, simplifying her view of him not as a man, but as a certain kind of being.
(Note: I’m not going to attempt to recreate her inductive validation; rather I’m going to continue through some of my favorite parts, while attempting to keep highlighting, man’s nature as a certain kind of physical being, i.e., attempting to repeatedly keep a thread regarding his nature as a living being, and the implications this gives rise to.)
She discovers a certain kind of being/phenomena called “life” that by its nature, is an “end in itself”; a phenomena that is conditional depending on constant maintenance of self-sustained and/or self-generated action.
In other words, she finds this physical phenomenon (life), which depends on sustaining a constant implementation of one means after another after another, in order to just sustain its special status, and thus keeping itself from going out of existence.
She summarizes on page 17 of VOS:
“An ultimate value is that final goal or end to which all lesser goals are the means—and it sets the standard by which all lesser goals are evaluated. An organism’s life is its standard of value: that which furthers its life is the good, that which threatens it is the evil.
Without a ultimate goal or end , there can be no lesser goals or means : a series of means going off into an infinite progression toward a nonexistent end is a metaphysical and epistemological impossibility.
It is only an ultimate goal, an end in itself, that makes the existence of values possible.
Metaphysically, life is the only phenomenon that is an end in itself: a value gained and kept by a constant process of action.
Epistemologically, the concept of “value” is genetically dependent upon and derived from the antecedent concept of “life.”To speak of “value” as apart from “life” is worse than a contradiction in terms. “It is only the concept of ‘Life’ that makes the concept of ‘Value’ possible.”
(http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/ultimatevalue.html, “The Virtue of Selfishness” “The Objectivist Ethics,” VOS, 17.)
At the level of metaphysics, i.e., when we abstract away all the complexities and consider man in his simplest form, we find that a man is a member of the group of living beings. Or in other words, he shares their distinct of “being,” which is to be an end in itself. He is a living being, which faces the constant alternative of life and death; of existence or non-existence, just like all other living beings.
As Ayn Rand progresses, moving step by step, considering one additional property of man’s nature after another, while retaining the full context of all her prior notes; she integrates further implications of man’s nature as a living being into her building context of relevant knowledge. For example, eventually she considers man’s nature as a living being in the context of other men, i.e., as he exists in a society.
Having noted that life is a special phenomena, a certain kind of “end in itself,” i.e., a phenomena that is conditional existence, always depends on a constant supply of ends, thus requiring a constant set of means to achieve those ends; she recognizes that men just do not lose this aspect of their nature because they are living among other beings.
Therefore, just because he is acting among other living beings, his conditional nature stays intact; his definition does not change, i.e., his fundamental nature as a conditional being does not change. Thus, he does not become a means to the ends of others, nor do they become the means to his ends, all the men retain their living nature.
Note: this is not to say, that he “should or should not” become the means to the ends of others, nor that they “should or should not” become his ends; but rather, by the very nature of the being of man qua living being, it is improper, and self-destructive: I.e., prior to him ever considering whether he has any choice in the matter, i.e., far prior to him ever considering the issue within the conceptual framework and/or context of morality, the nature of his being, dictates maintaining his life by pursuing values by some means, is a necessary condition for him to remain in existence qua being.
As such, it is this metaphysically given fact about his nature, recognized in a much fuller context (which Ayn Rand provides in her work), which gives rise to the need for “moral” concepts, which he can volitionally adhere to, in order to proactively make sure he keeps his status as a living being.
Again, physically, by his nature, each man is still an end in itself , like every other living being. But, we don’t speak of men as being “ it ,” we speak of men as being, unique or distinct entities, thus we employ personal pronouns such as “him or her.”
Thus, man in the context of being a living “being” is an “end in itself,” but in the context of being a man, he is an “ end in himself.”
I highly recommend you read her VOS article many times.
But when it comes to living your life, you live it in order to be alive. And you want to be alive so that you can continue to experience life. And so on. There is no “outside” or “higher” reason or motivation or purpose for living. You choose to live and the goal of your life is… your life.
It would be great if we did automatically, _ “want to be alive so that you can continue to experience life.” _
Or,
If many did not believe there is an, _ “outside” or “higher” reason or motivation or purpose for living." _
Or,
It would be great if automatically we, _ “choose to live and the goal of your life is… your life.” _
Unfortunately, it is just not automatically the case because of man’s nature as possessing a conceptual/volitional consciousness, which you, so eloquently implied in your progression of " justifications ," for acting towards, X, Y, or Z goal.
It is a proper science of ethics, which builds a convincing case as to why each of these three statements are proper to any given man, given his nature.
:lol: Your post is a great example on concertizing using homey everyday examples. :o
If you’re looking for the origin of the phrase, Kant made first mention of it in his Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals:
Now, I say, man and, in general, every rational being exists as an end in himself and not merely as a means to be arbitrarily used by this or that will. In all his actions, whether they are directed to himself or to other rational beings, he must always be regarded at the same time as an end.
If you’re looking for the origin of the phrase, Kant made first mention of it in his Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals:
Do you know if Kant provides any justification for his formulation, prior to this arbitrary statement?
And/or does he just state it here for the first time as if were a self-evident axiom that he “must not” be used as means of some other will?
Do you know if Kant provides any justification for his formulation, prior to this arbitrary statement?
If you want the full context you’ll have to read the book. In short however, he tries to justify it through his invention of a categorical imperative. I’ll let you decide how successful he was.
Yes, I did concretize justifications for means and ends. Thanks for noticing. As a matter of fact, I even managed to imply that it is all chosen. Heck, I actually used the word “choose” in the very block you quoted. So sorry you missed that point. 
And seeing as how I was merely explaining, your snark about my failure to convince again missed the point. Thanks for trying, though.
If you’re looking for the origin of the phrase, Kant made first mention of it in his Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals:
I thought Aristotle preceded Kant by quite a few thousand years? 
I thought Aristotle preceded Kant by quite a few thousand years?
He did. And?
Aristotle never used the phrase “man as an end in himself”. The concept came from Kant as far as I know.