First up, it is definitely not representative of the arguments for ranges of moral codes as identified by Miss Rand or other prominent Objectivists. West mentions moral agnosticism, identified by Dr Peikoff. Another that Dr Peikoff mentions, in the “Objective Communication” course (lecture 9 or 10) is that Kant’s theory is neither egoistic nor altruistic (nor agnostic for that matter), as it instead exhorts people to sacrifice in favour of the “categorical imperative,” IE sacrifice for its own sake and explicitly for the benefit of nobody (as a primary source of motivation, anyway). He also mentions the death-worship of Nirvana-seeking Oriental religions.
Secondly, Nyronus is correct to note that the self-others continuum is bogus. This is also expressly mentioned by Miss Rand and Dr Peikoff, so again the excerpt is not representative of Objectivist thought. See OPAR Ch7, especially p229-241. A key quote (p239):
You may and should help another man, or befriend him, or love him, if in the full context you—your values, your judgment, your life—are upheld thereby and protected. The principle of your action must be selfish.
The final excerpt is blatantly NOT applicable to Objectivism. Maybe it holds of other theories, but if anyone tries to say it holds of Objectivism then just say that this other is asserting that books like AS, OPAR, VOS, CUI, and so on, do not exist.
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How else would I respond? Here’s what I’d do (depending on how much space there is to make an argument in): first I’d note that morality exists, and is a vital necessity for man here in this world, because man has the faculty of volition and is constantly faced with choices to make, but as he is born tabula rasa he has no innate knowledge of which option he should follow and so needs to adopt a code to help him decide. Morality is that code.
Dr Peikoff noted in ObComms that at this level there is a single simple question whose answer is subject to the Law of the Excluded Middle. Is at any time, anywhere, anyhow, a man required to make sacrifices (as properly understood)? Yes, or no? By reference to the sliding scale, the author of the book you’re working from is trying to avoid dealing with the blunt yes or no part of that question. There is no “balance” at that level, no sliding scale. Questions of how much a man should sacrifice are secondaries that presume a yes to the main question.
In OPAR (p206), he noted that this question was the third of three, and depended on the answers to the other two. The questions are: What is the ultimate value? How should it be achieved? Who or what (if anyone or anything) should benefit from action?
The only way properly to answer that main question, the third of the three, is to answer the first two first, starting with the standard of value. The whole excerpt you quote expressly depends on value through and through, but makes no mention whatever of what the standard of value is. The author speaks of doing a balance - but does not say how! The standard of value is the only method for making any balances. Further, the issue of virtue - the second question - includes answers that identify the fact that in questions of principle there is no such thing as balance. That is why the fundamental question of whether man is or is not ever a sacrificial animal is a simple yes or no question, whose answer just does not refer to a continuum.
From there, I’d go into what the standard is, what the foundation of virtue is, and validate oneself as the proper beneficiary of all one’s actions. That then provides the three answers to the three fundamental questions of morality. An undergraduate paper wouldn’t have room to go much further, but I would include reference to the virtue of justice and show what the proper basis and nature of one’s proper interaction with others is.
JJM