Rand says “All that which is proper to the life of a rational being is the good; all that which destroys it is the evil”. In other words, that which destroys the “life” of a rational being is evil.
But, how do we _ know _ this is evil? From what I’ve read Rand doesn’t say. She only assumes that it is true. But how do we know that “all that” destroys rational life is evil? According to Rand’s philosophy, all of man’s knowledge must be based on observation (man’s concepts come from reality, since he is a blank slate at birth).
So, if all of our knowledge must be based on observation (which reason then processes into concepts), then what observations is Ayn Rand making that led her to form the moral concept stated above?
IOW: How do we have moral knowledge according to Objectivists?
The Objectivists Ethics is based on the fact that an organism’s life is its standard of value, i.e. a value that is an end in itself. This is because of the nature of living organisms. Life is “a constant process of self-sustaining action” i.e. a constant process of attaining and keeping values, because it is only life that faces an alternative, a fundamental alternative: existence and non-existence. So: anything that sustains an organism’s life is good; anything that destroys it is evil.
Animals don’t have volition, they automatically act to sustain themselves, they automatically act toward the good. Man, who has volition, has no automatic means of surviving, he must survive by the use of his reason, he must develop a code of ethics to guide his actions, and he must develop this code himself.
So whenever we must decide whether or not a particular action is good or not we must take all the variables of the situation, i.e. the context and decide whether or not it is conducive to the life of a rational being or not.
This is a quick overview, and I may have been a little out of order, but I suspect other people will be able to go over some of the other points.
So, if all of our knowledge must be based on observation (which reason then processes into concepts), then what observations is Ayn Rand making that led her to form the moral concept stated above?
IOW: How do we have moral knowledge according to Objectivists?
Are you Canadian? Could be a coincidence, yet…
There is one fundamental choice – living or not living. It is in the context of a decision to live that other decisions can be evaluated. That which serves your central purpose is known as “good” and that which is antithetical to that purpose is “evil”. You cannot derive the fundamental choice from anything else – see Galt’s speech. As to how you form the concept of “good” and “evil”, see OPAR 208, VOS 18, ITOE 228 for some discussion of the basis of values. How you conclude specifically that taking poison is evil is analogous to concluding that a cow can’t jump over the moon.
If one assumes that morality is a type of knowledge (as opposed to an edict from God etc.), then one has to ask why one needs it at all. The shortest, though not obvious, answer to “why do we need morality?” is: to live.