Only a living entity can have goals or can originate them. And it is only a living organism that has the capacity for self-generated, goal-directed action. On the physical level, the functions of all living organisms, from the simplest to the most complex—from the nutritive function in the single cell of an amoeba to the blood circulation in the body of a man—are actions generated by the organism itself and directed to a single goal: the maintenance of the organism’s life.1
An organism’s life depends on two factors: the material or fuel which it needs from the outside, from its physical background, and the action of its own body, the action of using that fuel properly. What standard determines what is proper in this context? The standard is the organism’s life, or: that which is required for the organism’s survival.
No choice is open to an organism in this issue: that which is required for its survival is determined by its nature, by the kind of entity it is. Many variations, many forms of adaptation to its background are possible to an organism, including the possibility of existing for a while in a crippled, disabled or diseased condition, but the fundamental alternative of its existence remains the same: if an organism fails in the basic functions required by its nature—if an amoeba’s protoplasm stops assimilating food, or if a man’s heart stops beating—the organism dies. In a fundamental sense, stillness is the antithesis of life. Life can be kept in existence only by a constant process of self-sustaining action. The goal of that action, the ultimate value which, to be kept, must be gained through its every moment, is the organism’s life.
I still don’t get why the ultimate value of man is his life. Can someone make it clearer for me?
If he isn’t alive, no other values are possible to man. Life is the source of all values.
If that’s the reason I don’t get how it’s valid or rational to sacrifice oneself for anyone else (including your kids and loved ones). What I am missing?
If that’s the reason I don’t get how it’s valid or rational to sacrifice oneself for anyone else (including your kids and loved ones). What I am missing?
Never sacrifice!!! There is no valid or rational reason ever to sacrifice. Have you read Atlas Shrugged?
A sacrifice is giving up a higher value for a lesser value. When a parent forgoes a movie so that he can stay home and help his children with their homework, that is not a sacrifice if he loves his children.
Never sacrifice!!! There is no valid or rational reason ever to sacrifice. Have you read Atlas Shrugged?
A sacrifice is giving up a higher value for a lesser value. When a parent forgoes a movie so that he can stay home and help his children with their homework, that is not a sacrifice if he loves his children.
This is debatable but some Objectivists toy with the notion that a person could be so valuable to one’s self, that losing him or her would actually make one’s life not worth living any longer.
The closest I personally could imagine that scenario transpiring would be with a lifelong old couple; one dies, the other is close to dying, he decides he doesn’t want to spend the last five years (or so) of his life trying to get over his lifelong love, years of probable/possible misery, only to die shortly thereafter.
As Marc pointed out, this wouldn’t be sacrifice. The person would be facing misery, and dying could be the better option for him (ie. it would be for his self, selfish). I imagine it similar to a horrible, painful illness without cure, where one ends one’s life because relief would never be possible.
JASKN’s answer is a good one and just to amplify and expand on what he said:
I doubt anyone on this forum will ever be faced with such a choice and very few in the country will ever face it so it is a little unrealistic. I mean if you would be willing to die for someone, then most certainly you would be willing to live for them also and I’m sure that is most people’s stance.
For instance why would someone join the military? Most people don’t volunteer in order to die, their objective is to kill the enemy or as Patton said “to make the other dumb bastard die for his country”. Certainly they are _ risking _ a great deal when joining the military, so your question might be: why would a rational man do such a thing? Well, knowing that an enemy who has attacked you must be killed and that someone has to do the killing, in order to protect his life and those he loves, and not wanting to live under dictatorship, a man could rationally choose to risk his life to protect those values which are irreplaceable and without which life wouldn’t be worth living.
Could you live with yourself if you saw your child crying in the window of a burning house knowing you could save her but instead you did nothing?
I would like to know if you have read Atlas Shrugged because Ayn Rand illustrates the point there. John Galt tells Dagny that if the government parasites figure out their value to each other and threaten to torture her in order to get to him he would kill himself on the spot. He would not help his destroyers and he could not live in a world in which Dagny had been tortured to get to him.
But for an egoist/Objectivist the orientation is always a selfish one. You would never “die for someone else”. You might risk your life to preserve a value that is very dear to you. If living as a slave is something you couldn’t live with, then starting a revolution with the most powerful country on earth would be rational. If you saw the love of your life drowning, you would risk everything to save her knowing how empty your life would be without her and knowing that you couldn’t live with yourself if you didn’t do everything you could. None of these choices would be considered a sacrifice then. The real sacrifice would be to allow the destruction of the things which make life worth living – what kind of life would you have then?
Fortunately, in a free society, most of us will never be faced with such a choice and instead we can concentrate on living and always gaining values.