A lot of the confusion about sex and sex roles and relationships, and other topics, it seems to me, sprout from a misunderstanding of the answer to the is-ought problem. I think, but I’m not sure yet, that even Rand herself later may have held a confused and incorrect view on how the is-ought question is properly answered, even though I find that what is written in TOE is clear enough and perfectly correct.
A lot of objectivists seem to hold that an “is” directly constitutes an “ought.” It is for that reason that some objectivists will say, “A man is physiologically this way with a penis that penetrates, sex happens physiologically this way with the man doing the penetrating, and therefore a moral principle “ought” to be this way, with the man taking charge and being the initiator.” Or the argument may speak about a man’s physical strength compared with a woman’s, and moral conclusions are drawn from that. This seems to be in error according to the argument laid out by Rand in TOE, and the is-ought problem is still being committed.
She did not solve the is-ought problem by saying something like this: “Reality is objective and real, our nature as man is objective and real. Therefore, whatever our natures are, are what they are supposed to be morally speaking, and thus what nature is, is what ought to be.”
(You could replace “morally speaking” with “metaphysically speaking” and the sentence would be true, but then again you’re not making the connection from an is to an ought.)
That is close in some regard, but it is off on some important points.
Instead, I think she solved the is-ought problem this way:
You cannot get an “ought” from an “is.” When you see a statement of fact, all it is is a statement of fact. No matter how hard you stare at it, there is no “ought” to be found. However, you do get an “ought” from an “if.” Conditional statements are needed to have an “ought.” For example, “if” you want to eat that apple in that tree, you “ought” to pick it off the tree. Now, carry that idea over to life itself. “If” you want to sustain life, you “ought” to do the things that sustain life, and you “ought not” do the things that fail to sustain life or endanger life.
But it is at this next point where I think Rand shines and solves the problem. While you need a conditional statement in order to have an “ought,” the condition of life is already established by default for a conscious living being. You are alive; you didn’t choose to be. And being a living, conscious being, you have the nature of man qua man. You feel pain as you approach the loss of life; you feel joy in a healthy life and the acts of sustaining life. So, because you are a living, conscious being, and as long as you choose to continue to live, then there are objective “oughts” related to your life established by the facts of reality and the “if” of existence so long as you continue to exist. And being a rational being with free choice (unlike plants that are not conscious and have no rationality, or animals that are conscious but live instinctively without much rational decision-making), you ought to use your rationality in your survival, because that is how man survives.
That’s the answer.
But notice what the answer does not say. It does not say that any “is” of reality equals a direct “ought” of morality. It is the “is” of existence, together with the “if” of continuing to live, that creates the “oughts” that are necessary conditions for rational sustained life. But that is something different than saying that because men are bigger, or have sex a certain way, or that because the penis and sperm was designed for insemination in the vagina and egg, that there are “oughts” about those things. The facts of reality relate to morality only insofar as we understand and accept the relationship of realities have with self-interested rational life. So, the fact that the sky is gray may mean that you “ought” to protect yourself from the cold rain in order continue to survive, but the sky’s grayness or blueness itself doesn’t mean the sky “ought” to be gray or blue morally.
In the same way, the fact that a man is bigger than a woman, or that the penis goes into the vagina, does not mean that a man should be the ultimate leader in a relationship, or that anal sex is wrong, or that homosexual sex is wrong, if those actions have nothing to do with an individual’s rational sustaining of life.
The is-ought problem still exists, and necessarily so. The ethic that exists objectively doesn’t come from any and every “is” of the world, it comes from the “is” of life and the rational choices that sustain and enhance life.