If you’re looking for an unconditional “ought,” you won’t find one. There is no categorical imperative. Why do you need one?
Another point: The choice to live or not is a binary one. Either you mean to live as a man qua man, or you are not, in fact, choosing to live. Choosing to live “for others” is rejecting your own life. That’s why “other methods” are not accepted.
Deduction is largely tautological: you can manipulate existing data but you cannot discover new truths (as in Socratic syllogisms).
I agree with everything in Megan’s post except this. I’ve tried to argue against people who have said this a few times in these forums. Syllogisms and other methods of deduction do result in new truths. The truth in the conclusion is implied in the premises, but it is not contained in them. For example, just because you know that “all men are mortal” and that “Socrates is a man,” does not mean that you already know that “Socrates is mortal.” You have to put the two together, and perform a completely separate act of deduction to reach that conclusion.
Some people who have been Objectivists for a while, and had lots of time to “chew” on the concepts become impatient with newbies, who may have grasped some of the fundamental concepts, but have not fully integrated them and performed all the deductions that are possible from the premises they’ve accepted. But humans are not like Aquinas’ angels-- we don’t automatically grasp everything implicit in a concept in one act of simply contemplating the universal from which it all derives.
Francis Bacon was the first to make a famous argument that syllogisms don’t result in new truths-- as if the value of deduction somehow subtracted from his revolutionary and valuable new methods of induction. But he employed a syllogism even in his argument that deduction does not reveal new truths! In order to provide a new truth, he seemed to reason, a syllogism would have to arrive at a conclusion which was not even implied in the premises, but syllogisms don’t do that, therefore syllogisms don’t contain new truths. So was he saying something new, or not? I say he was (but that he was wrong). 
In order to derive an “ought” from an “is” one must employ deductive and inductive reasoning.
Yes, but the difference is: with deductive logic, if you have correct premises and have reasoned correctly, your conclusions are automatic. That’s why the end result isn’t considered a “new” truth; it was fully contained in the premises, even if you haven’t identified it. However, if you’ve concluded that all swans are white, and you encounter a black swan and proceed to form an induction and change your premise (that all swans are white), you are now in possession of a fact that was not implied by anything else that you already knew.
In order to begin learning, you always have to start with induction from observations on reality; the idea that you can arrive at knowledge of reality strictly by manipulation of ideas is rationalism, and it’s also fallacious. I’m not saying that deduction can be dispensed with, you’d never get to higher-level conclusions if you did! I’m saying it’s not the starting point . . . it’s more like your mechanism of refining/applying what you’ve learned through induction.
I want to know what are your definitions of “morality”, “ethics” , “normativity”, “ought”, “should”. What is the scope ethics focuses? When mentioning suicide you just dismiss it as something outside the realm of morality. Even if it is not in the realm of morality it is still in the realm of normativity. Does ethics only research morality and dismiss other normativity? Which discipline study other normativity?
Your logic seems that:
To live is a morality; to die involves no morality therefore it should be dismissed.
In order to live, people must take some course of action to support their lives or even further their lives.
What course of action should be taken is determined by facts and laws of morality.
You call this "derivation of an “ought” from an “is”. But there is a question: why to live is moral? And the term “ought” seems open to different interpretations.
When I looked up dictionary, I found that “ought” has two usages: one is used to indicate an obligation or duty; the other one is used to indicate a probability or likelihood or expectation.
If I say, “She ought to finish her work in three days because she is clever.”, I am using the second meaning. If I say, “You ought to eat in order to sustain your life.”, I am still using the second meaning too. It seems that what can be derived from an “is” is the “ought” in the second meaning.
But how about the first meaning? Only this “ought” is an ethical concept. An obligation or duty cannot logically derived from a fact. It can only derived from a purpose. But a purpose can be a arbitrary thing. It can have no factual basis. It cannot be logically derived from facts.
If someone set him the purpose of death, he can still derived an “ought” from an “is” in an Objectivist way:
If I stop breathing I will die. ==> I ought to stop my breath ==> I should hang myself because according to the facts of reality this can stop my breath.
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Furthermore, the choice to live is NOT an axiom of the Objectivist ethics; there are no ethical axioms, since ethics is a derived branch of philosophy.
This seem just the Objectivist stance and not widely accepted.
Ethics is a guide to living. An ethics that did not, in fact, guide you in some method for living would be a contradiction of terms. This is why ethics only applies to the living
It seems an argument in a circle.
This is why ethics only applies to the living, and since you have volition, the fact of your continued existence is open to your choice. If it were not, you would not require a guide in order to live (you would do so automatically), and ethics would, again, not apply to you
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If I choose death volitionally I still need some guides. How about those guides?
This is why Ayn Rand said that nature presents us with a great many “oughts”, all of them conditional: IF you want to live, then you OUGHT to eat. If you want to eat, you ought to work.
This “ought” means a probability or likelihood or expectation, not an obligation or duty. Therefore this is not an ethical demonstrations. (I think now I understand that the problem lies on the meaning of “ought”. Only the first meaning has something to do with ethics. You are confusing the concepts. Still I haven’t see anyone who can reasonably derived it from any facts of reality. )
To live is a morality; to die involves no morality therefore it should be dismissed.
In order to live, people must take some course of action to support their lives or even further their lives.
What course of action should be taken is determined by facts and laws of morality.
That’s not the argument, you need to read Ayn Rand’s essay “The Objectivist Ethics.”
She says (p.16, VOS):
“The concept ‘value’ is not a primary, it presupposes … an entity capable of acting to achieve a goal in the face of an alternative.”
She is referring here to her theory of concepts. In the Objectivist epistemology, a concept is only valid if it can be reduced back to the perceptual level. For example in a universe where there were no animals with legs, “running” as we know it would not be a valid concept.
With respect to “value,” she is listing the things that a universe must have for that concept to be valid.
“Where no alternative exists, no goals and no values are possible.”
One of the things required is an alternative. There must exist things, where it is not inevitable that you attain them. Gravity for example, is not an alternative.
“There is only one fundamental alternative in the universe: existence or non-existence - and it pertains to a single class of entities: to living organisms.”
Life is a potential value since it is an alternative, but it also corresponds to the choice between existence and non-existence. Epistemologically, that makes it a fundamental. i.e. it is the point where you can’t reason any further, and must simply accept what is. In the same way existence is the standard of proof for non-normative statements, the choice of existence or non-existence is the standard for normative statements.
- To live is a morality; to die involves no morality therefore it should be dismissed.
Correct.
You call this "derivation of an “ought” from an “is”. But there is a question: why to live is moral?
It isn’t, as such. Once you have chosen to live, however, the moral is that which furthers your life.
An obligation or duty cannot logically derived from a fact.
Objectivism does not have a duty-based ethics.
It can only derived from a purpose.
Exactly. Our purpose is to live. What is yours?
But a purpose can be a arbitrary thing. It can have no factual basis.
Purposes other than living can be. We are uninterested in purposes other than living, since ours is to live.
If someone set him the purpose of death, he can still derived an “ought” from an “is” in an Objectivist way:
Only if he means to die in the quickest possible way. In fact, death will come one way or another through your inaction. The human body needs water, food, protection from the elements. It isn’t necessary for you to reason out a way to die… nature will oblige. It is, however, eminently necessary to reason out the way to live.
If I choose death volitionally I still need some guides. How about those guides?
How about them? Who the hell cares? The living are uninterested in the goals of the living-dead, other than inasmuch as they might represent a threat to our goal of living.
This “ought” means a probability or likelihood or expectation, not an obligation or duty.
You only have an obligation once you have decided to live. Even then, it is only an obligation to obey the laws of reality in pursuit of that goal. Before that there is no obligation.
You’re looking for something that does not exist: a categorical duty. There is no such thing. That does not mean there is no connection between “is” and “ought,” only that the connection isn’t established until one has chosen the goal of life.
*** Mod’s note: merged with a previous thread. - sN ***
It is only an ultimate goal, and 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.”
In answer to those philosophers who claim that no relation can be established between ultimate ends or values and the facts of reality, let me stress that the fact that living entities exist and function necessitates the existence of values and of an ultimate value which for any given living entity is its own life. Thus the validation of value judgments is to be achieved by reference to the facts of reality. The fact that a living entity is, determines what it ought to do. So much for the issue of the relation between “is” and “ought.”
From The Virtue of Selfishness, copied from the Ayn Rand Lexicon website.
Now, I’ve never read David Hume, mind you (A Treatise of Human Nature is on my want-to-read list). I have read The Virtue of Selfishness for what little of Ayn Rand I have read, and while I like the way she thinks I’m unconvinced that this ethical system can be derived as an imperative from our nature.
Daniel Dennett is one of my favorite intellectuals, and he makes the point that science can help inform ethical decisions (like if it turns out an animal is intelligent or feels pain, we may be more considerate of it’s well-being). But that’s as far as I’m willing to go, the knowledge that I’m built a certain way shouldn’t influence the conscious decision of how I want to live my life, short of setting physical limits. The fact that we can’t have a moral system without being alive in the first place doesn’t convince me that “survival” (in the broad developed sense Rand uses it) should be my highest standard of value.
I just find it very difficult to consider the notion that it is somehow unethical to do anything that would be detrimental to myself or counter intuitive to my nature. It can only be unethical to do such a thing to another person (and if someone depends on you then harming yourself could harm them) because now it’s an issue of rights. You don’t have the right to harm other people, but you certainly have a right to harm yourself if you feel like it, know one owns your life but you.
Maybe I’m misinterpreting her philosophy, but it seems like any assertion that you should live a certain way rather than laying out what you shouldn’t do (whatever is outside your rights) along the way is not consistent with a philosophy of individualism, in that case it’s a kind of secular social conservatism.
That aside, our nature is determined by evolution, which is blind and flawed for however brilliant it is. Evolution couldn’t have foreseen the supernormal stimuli we overload ourselves with today (porn, candy, etc), and it’s left us with imperfect abilities at reasoning, socializing, and even ethics and scientific pursuit, short of whatever was sufficient for our hunter gatherer days (my solution to all this is transhumanism, which is not the topic of the thread, but if anyone feels like making off-topic asides I would be curious as to what you guys think of that as well). So I really don’t think putting a huge stock in our nature as a reference for how we should live is a good idea.
Just to give an example of what I mean about evolution leaving us imperfect, if you’ve heard of the Trolley Problem, you can understand how irrational and underdeveloped (but strongly convinced of) our intuitive sense of right and wrong can be, as Steven Pinker points out in The Stuff of Thought: http://books.google.com/books?id=jylSITT9Z…ontcover#PPA229 (start from the bottom of the page, sorry it won’t let me copy and paste).
Something as trivial as a semantic distinction between causing and letting (resulting in the same effect otherwise) can influence the life and death decisions people make. Now I don’t mean to let that be a misanthropic statement (however true) but it does make me dubious of two things: 1. That man is a (completely) rational animal, and that 2. we should derive our ethical systems from our nature.
EDIT: Sorry, I just realized I’m making an argument here and I posted this in questions.
This probably belongs in ethics, rights?
- That man is a (completely) rational animal, and that 2. we should derive our ethical systems from our nature.
Look around you my friend, #1 is clearly false, but then Rand did not say that man was a “completely” rational animal. In this case the distinction is everything.
As for #2, what else would you recommend we derive our ethical systems from, something contradictory to our nature?
Look around you my friend, #1 is clearly false, but then Rand did not say that man was a “completely” rational animal. In this case the distinction is everything.
As for #2, what else would you recommend we derive our ethical systems from, something contradictory to our nature?
At best our nature can inform, I argue. Everything we do is a result of our nature anyway, directly or indirectly, regardless, so I can’t help fall into a kind of trap here, but to say that should do x because we have evolved that way to me seems presumptuous and creates problems (it’s like saying a rock should be hard and lumpy because that is the nature of a rock. That’s it’s unethical for the rock to be carved into anything else, which is absurd).
Humans are selfish by nature, no doubt (although we can be just as instinctually altruistic, there are two sides to this coin), and Ayn Rand says that we should have a selfish ethics because of that, but it doesn’t take into account the possibility that selfishness might be a flaw in a modern era where it would have been beneficial in early Darwinian situations to survival, just like rape might have been (I say might, I don’t really know) an effective strategy for spreading one’s genes. Surely that doesn’t mean we should vindicate rape, even if it’s an undeniable if ugly part of our nature.
EDIT: As an aside I argue we should develop our ethics based on individual rights and non-coercion, and the prevention of human suffering (but not to the detriment of individual rights) since this is the most effective way to ensure a happy and peaceful society… in my view. Kind of truncated, I know. You can call it a libertarian method motivated by a utilitarian goal.
I think a large part of your problem is you inherently divorce morality from life:
The fact that we can’t have a moral system without being alive in the first place doesn’t convince me that “survival” (in the broad developed sense Rand uses it) should be my highest standard of value.
I don’t have Tara Smith’s ‘Viable Values’, the copy I read was borrowed from the library, so I can’t provide a good page reference, but about half way through, she explicates on this point of Rand’s. Yes, you get it right in the first part there - morality makes no sense without life - but you fail to grasp the full implications of this. It isn’t merely that morality requires one to be alive - it is that all actions within the context of life are actions worthy of moral appraisal. All actions have some impact upon your life, and are therefore up for evaluation on how moral they are.
This is an important step to grasp and in understand this vital meta-ethical point, it opens the door to the rest of Rand’s ethics. You have to understand that the central issue in morality is not “choice” but “life”. It’s not like when faced with a choice you can say, “I can either make this choice which will effect my life, or this one which will not”. Morality, once you understand this, is involved in every decision, and is inherently tied to how you live you life. You cannot escape that life is going to be at the center of your decisions.
So, in other words, you don’t choose to make life the center of action - rather, by choosing to act, you choose to concern yourself with life.
Also, you misunderstand the whole point of “nature”. Yes, Rand placed great stock in obeying one’s nature. But that’s only half the battle. One does not merely obey for the sake of being a slave to something beyond oneself. One isn’t a pawn in a cosmic game of evolutionary progression, nor in the effective “spreading of genes”.
Rather, one obeys ones nature precisely because one is an individual, who has his own life to lead, and because one needs to know how to live it. Hence the expression, “Nature: to obey, so as to be commanded”.
The point of obeying one’s nature is in understanding what it means to live qua man. It means, recognising, “Since I am a man, I can only live as a man. I can’t photosynthesise, and I certainly don’t have any instinctual method of survival.” This investigation leads one to discover that man has a central capacity - reason - which can be applied in a certain manner - towards production (of live-serving values) - as well as a central purpose which gives purpose to all of that acting - happiness/flourshing/eudaimonia.
I could go on, but really, you only need to look back at the Virtue of Selfishness to see Rand elaborate on what it means to live qua man. If you don’t get it then, I highly recommend to you Tara Smith’s two great works: “Viable Values” and “Ayn Rand’s Normative Ethics” (in that order).
So, this is basically why the is-ought problem isn’t a problem. The is-ought problem identifies the central problem in morality as “choice”. It identifies that man is capable of choosing a lot of things, but states that there is no justifying reason that compels him to any specific course. Ayn Rand correctly identified that, actually, “choice” isn’t the central concern here, it’s “life”. Harking back to Aristotle, she pointed out that, eventually, all choices trace back to one essential choice “the choice to live”, a choice which no one can escape, and a choice which is inherently made when one chooses to act (hence I think Peikoff makes the point in OPAR that to “choose to die” is simply to cease action).
If you want to put Rand’s ethics in language that the supporters of the is-ought dichotomy would understand, you could say that Rand’s ethics is conditional - it requires you to choose to live. Nothing can compel you to make that choice, but if you do, there is a certain way you should act to support your life - namely, rationally. The is-ought folks have no problem with conditional statements, so I think if they would look at it that way, they would see through the “problem”, which basically demands an ethical system to justify an ethical system.
The point of Ayn Rand’s views on the is-ought “problem,” which I believe to be her most substantial contribution to philosophy in general, is that any moral-ethical system does not make sense if it is not based on the concept, not of bare survival (there lies a great misunderstanding,) but living life in a manner suitable to a being of your nature, what Rand calls living life qua man.
Rand’s view on the matter is twofold:
Values are necessary, if you want to live
Therefore, the only proper base for values is your own life, qua man.
The first point is the most important one and the result of her innovative approach to the is-ought problem. Instead of asking “What values ought men hold?” she asked “Do men need morality and values at all - and if so, why?” Values (and thus morality) are only necessary if you choose to live. At the point at which you have decided not to live, values become superfluous and meaningless - logically unjustifiable. So the conclusion is that, if you wish to be logical, there are only two alternatives: hold your highest value to be living life qua man, or to not hold life as a value at all, in which case no values are logically justifiable and the only (reasonable) course of action is to sit down and quietly die.
Of course, you can also be illogical and hold some contradictory values, living but pursuing values that contradict your own wellbeing, but if you consciously choose that you move beyond the realm of rational discussion.
So what do you think the purpose of morality is?
Thanks for the responses. To be honest I’m not entirely convinced, but I think I understand. I’ll check out those books Tenure recommended.
I think the problem is these arguments work best as a question of what the best course of action is rather than what one’s course of action should be. I would have to ask in the context of “ought” or “should” what standard a person is going by, and to say “oneself” is kind of an alien concept to me. At best you can choose your own life as a standard but the only imperatives that can impel you are whatever you don’t have a right to (i.e. you should repay a debt because you don’t have the right not to). However because I do have the right to something, and the fact that it is probably the best action to do all things considered, doesn’t seem like an ethical imperative, just a rational or admirable one.
I know I’m probably not making much sense here, I’m used to thinking in terms of negative rights and limits (what one ought not to do as opposed to what one ought to do) in the context of ethics. I suppose there’s a semantical problem I’m creating here.
So what do you think the purpose of morality is?
My understanding of why we have moral and political philosophy in the first place is so that we don’t have complete chaos where people can just do whatever they want to each other, or at least that’s why these things came about in the first place, I think. In light of growing societies and new scientific knowledge we need to improve on our understanding of ethics and systems of government.
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I think the problem is these arguments work best as a question of what the best course of action is rather than what one’s course of action should be. I would have to ask in the context of “ought” or “should” what standard a person is going by, and to say “oneself” is kind of an alien concept to me.
What the best course of action is ought to be the same as what one’s course of action should be, but this requires that you know by what (or whose) standard you are evaluating the choices open to you.
Let’s take an example. If your parents want you to become a doctor, and you want to study theatre, then the “best course of action” will be different depending upon whom you ask or depending upon whose standard of value you invoke when making the choice. Both courses of action are worthy, let’s say, and both honorable in the right context. BUT - choosing to do what your parents want you to do when you would rather pursue another career would be immoral FOR YOU.
The choices don’t have to be between “good” and “bad.” In fact they are more often than not choices between or among two or more equally good pursuits. The choice that is right for you must take into account your desires, interests and abilities. So in that sense going by “oneself” means one’s own hierarchy of values.
At best you can choose your own life as a standard but the only imperatives that can impel you are whatever you don’t have a right to (i.e. you should repay a debt because you don’t have the right not to).
This is why the Law needs to be built on a proper base, i.e., one where the law prohibiting initiation of force is fully described and fully adhered to by all (or at least the majority) of the members of the society. You don’t have the right not to repay a debt because that constitutes an initiation of force.
However because I do have the right to something, and the fact that it is probably the best action to do all things considered, doesn’t seem like an ethical imperative, just a rational or admirable one.
Then you do not understand the connection between “rational” and “ethical.” The rational is the ethical for man, because that is his nature.
I know I’m probably not making much sense here, I’m used to thinking in terms of negative rights and limits (what one ought not to do as opposed to what one ought to do) in the context of ethics. I suppose there’s a semantical problem I’m creating here.
I think you are missing out on the bigger picture. The concept of what one ought NOT to do is in the context of interaction with others. When deciding what one ought to do given a set of options, figuring out which one is in your best interests is every bit as important and every bit an ethical question as understanding what you may not do. However, being open-ended, deciding what to do with your life is not something others ought to force upon you.
My understanding of why we have moral and political philosophy in the first place is so that we don’t have complete chaos where people can just do whatever they want to each other, or at least that’s why these things came about in the first place, I think. In light of growing societies and new scientific knowledge we need to improve on our understanding of ethics and systems of government.
Actually all we need in the form of government is a system that is ruled by objective law. Moral philosophy is not just about what not to do, but also how about how to choose from the array of options. It is not simply a matter of avoiding chaos but of choosing that which you deem as the one most likely to result in your happiness. Having rational government is simply the initial point - the achievement of an environment in which you can then proceed to make the most rational choices in life to benefit yourself and those you care about.
My understanding of why we have moral and political philosophy in the first place is so that we don’t have complete chaos where people can just do whatever they want to each other…
So in your opinion, morality only pertains to what people do to each other? That is what the sentence above means, so with that in mind, I have two questions:
1.Does that include voluntary interactions (such as sex between two or more willing participants, or trade), or only interactions in which one person or group is being hurt or forced to do something against their will?
Well, there’s part of your problem. You haven’t essentially defined what an ethical system is. You’ve imported a normative ethic (an ethical rule) into your definition of “ethical system”. A certain ethical system could be one which sees people doing “whatever they want” as being wrong. This causes issues for you, because then you can’t understand a system which tells you what you may do – you only understand it in terms of things which you are forbidden to do; constraints on your choices, telling you what you shouldn’t do, rather than guides to choices, telling you what you should do.
As Sanjavalen pointed out, what Rand said was that this is a mistake. People inherently thinking that Ethics should be something about “stopping people from doing what they want”. Now, she wasn’t advocating that people should just do whatever they want, but she noted that by putting in that delimitation, you’re involving a non-necessary attribute in your definition of an ethical system.
She asked why we need an ethical system and the answer she found can be split into two sections:
We need a system of ethics because we do not know what we ought to do in every situation (given the choices we have)
We need a system of ethics, because we need some sort of principles (we can’t hold in our head what we should do in every conceivable type of situation).
So, we the purpose of ethics, you see, has something to do with how we should act, which must be defined in certain principles (but that’s a side issue for now, the principles thing). The other important step to learn is the whole thing, as stated above, that ethics must be concerned only with life, and the kinds of things which support life.
To understand this, you have to understand life’s conditional nature, specifically man’s conditional nature, and make a whole heap of inductions about what his life requires so as to flourish.
So in your opinion, morality only pertains to what people do to each other? That is what the sentence above means, so with that in mind, I have two questions:
1.Does that include voluntary interactions (such as sex between two or more willing participants, or trade), or only interactions in which one person or group is being hurt or forced to do something against their will?
I am a voluntarist. For me it’s about consent and coercion. But there is a lot of gray area here, life isn’t so simple. In general one should not be forced to do anything against their will, you can’t murder another person because you don’t own their life. You can’t do what you want with another person’s property without their permission.
However your life and property are your own, so short of “good ideas” I can’t see compelling moral (key word moral ) imperatives for why I shouldn’t kill myself. I can see rational and functional objections for why I shouldn’t though. Suicide is a sign of poor mental health, and perhaps even poor character, but it’s not immoral (unless you have a wife and kids or something).
This video (which you’ve probably seen) sums up my outlook pretty well: http://www.isil.org/resources/philosophy-o…rty-english.swf
- How should individuals decide about choices or courses of action that don’t involve “doing something to each other”, if not by using morality?
By whatever their goals and values are, measured against their capacity and knowledge. People are generally going to do what comes naturally to them anyway. No one purposefully starves themselves unless they’ve been infected with religion or other irrational ideas. The problem is when groupthink or superstition trumps individual interests, that’s when everything goes haywire. Every serious ethical issue deals with people interacting with each other (or non-existent supernatural entities). I don’t see any ethical dilemmas where only individuals are involved though, just psychological ones like self-worth, which I think people like Ayn Rand and Nathaniel Branden have good things to say about, don’t get me wrong, but to me it’s just not ethics.
Tenure, I think you hit the nail on the head and I like where you are going with this.
Honestly I do find virtue ethics very attractive (I bought Artistotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and am planning to read it, maybe after suffering through Plato). The problem is I see virtue and ethics as two different things. It’s leading a good life versus avoiding a bad life, the former is about a show of good character but the latter is an imperative. I’m not convinced living a virtuous life (setting your goals and achieving them, bettering yourself, etc) is a must , it’s just a good thing to do, but I don’t wish a pox on the lazy, ignorant and unmotivated, just as long as they stay out of other people’s way. If that makes any sense.
I’m unconvinced that this ethical system can be derived as an imperative from our nature.
I would guess you are unconvinced because Objectivism’s ethical system is not “derived as an imperative” from our nature.
Ethical statements are not imperatives, they are normatives.
It sounds like you believe the purpose of ethics is to formulate imperatives, commandments, edicts, dictates, dogmas or orders, i.e., that ethics is a subject for restraining men, or reigning in their choices.
It sounds as though you have accepted some variant of the mind / body dichotomy.
Proper ethics is not found in imperatives, ordering or dictating how men should restrain themselves and/or resist temptations, or mortify the flesh.
Objective normative statements ask, given I am a certain kind of being, living in a certain kind of world, and I have no automatic means of knowing what to do, what actions am I to choose?
Ayn Rand, called ethics “hypothetical.” If we choose to live, then a certain course of action necessarily follows. And, if we choose to consider the full context of our nature as men, and the nature of the world around us, then further refinements of our choices necessarily follow.
But, if you take the Objectivist ethics as a system of imperatives, and then look for evidence supporting why one should choose to restrain one’s choices; choose to restrain one’s mind, and blindly follow those imperatives; you will never find an answer, because you are looking for a reason to support un-reason.
The quotes you started with are Ayn Rand stating she has discovered a metaphysical phenomena (when considered epistemologically, i.e., when conceptualized), which stops the potential infinite regress one would be trapped in if one concluded that values are just means to ends, which are means to other ends, etc. etc.
She discovered that the phenomenon of life, i.e., life by its nature, is an end in itself, i.e., that it is conditional in nature, i.e., it constantly requires maintenance, for it to remain in existence.
She notes: the term we have for those things which provide the necessary conditions for sustaining that existence as a living being, are known as “values;” in other words, when we conceptualize living beings, and what is continuously required for them to remain in existence; concepts such as value and need arise.
In Garry Hall’s course, “Ayn Rand’s Philosophic System,” he demonstrates this point with a “Plant, cat, table.” If you had a plant, cat and a table, and you go on a very long trip, leaving the three behind. If the cat is in a cage or strapped to the table, when you return you will find the table unaffected, but the plant and the cat dead. Why?
As living beings, the existence of the plant & the cat, is conditional, they have continuous requirements to remain in existence as living beings. The table is not living and its existence is not conditional in the way the living beings existence is.
Ayn Rand states, “The fact that a living entity is, determines what it ought to do.”
The concept of values or needs do not apply to non-living beings. One does not observe non-living beings acting in ways to sustain their existence. The absence of food or protection does not lead to their death. There is no need to pursue the necessary conditions for their further existence as non-living beings, because there are no necessary conditions for them to remain what they are.
But what a living being is by its nature as a living being, requires it to get what it needs, or else. If a living being does not get what it needs it ceases to “be” what it is: it ceases to be.
“The fact that a living being is,” means that a living being is what it is, i.e., that to be a living being is to face a constant alternative of needing to sustain its life with values, or else.
As men, we conceptualize this state of our own conditional existence. That is to say, when we realize we are members of this class of living beings, we formulate our own needs or requirements into words, because that’s how we as men sustain our lives. We express the problem of being alive by formulating statements containing “should” and “ought” words.
These statements, implicitly acknowledge this entire context, including the context of our own free will in the matter of what to do.
Again, she states “The fact that a living entity is, determines what it ought to do.” What is determined here? Neither man nor beast has any choice about the fact that their lives depend on sustaining their needs.
A man can choose not to sustain those needs and die, but he cannot wish those needs out of existence.
But, no man is born knowing what his needs are. No man is born knowing how to know what his needs are.
It is the purpose of philosophy/ethics to tell him, but it is still his responsibility to convince himself what is right and how to go about getting it; which is why no system of ethics, consisting of a set of imperatives could ever provide him with what he needs.
Regards,
Michael