Hi Mark. Here's my reply to your letter. You are quite right that I was basing my critique on Binswanger's lecture, rather than Rand's text. I did so because I had just heard his talk as his presentation was fresh in my mind. However, I had previously read Rand's writings on ethics over and over and over (as befits an impressionable youngster). Naturally, though, a more serious response would have to rely on Rand's original text; and to this end, I have just re-read for the (N+1)th time "The Objectivist Ethics" and "Causality vs. Duty," which are probably her two key meta-ethical works. My evaluation is unchanged: namely, amazingly good conclusions supported by rather poor arguments. I think I'll take a two-part approach here. First, I'll briefly respond to your letter point by point; then I'll state my conclusions more positively. 1. Rand's definition of value. I agree that Rand later seems to contradict this definition, but here is the one she gives: "'Value' is that which one acts to gain and/or keep." (VOS, p.15) The quotes give a clear indication she is offering a definition. She later contradicts this, as your cite ("An organism's life is its _standard of value_: that which furthers it is the _good_, that which threatens it is the _evil_.") indicates. Indeed, one of my very points in the critique was that her premise contradicts her conclusion, so I was clearly aware of this other element in her thought. 2. Rand's definition of life. Well, you conclude your description of her definition by saying that "Life, in the Randian sense, does not mean merely 'non-death." (your letter, p.2) I agree. But I'm not interested in Rand's definition of life unless it accurately expresses what most people mean when they use the term; or unless her definition yields new and interesting conclusions _without_ equivocating between her definition and standard usage. Now I claim that what Rand is doing is re-defining "life" and then equivocating between her definition and standard usage. Thus, in standard English, we could correctly say that there is "a fundamental alternative between life and death." Life and death are mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive ways to be. But if we take this Randian definition seriously, according to which we are living by different degrees, then the above partition no longer works; there isn't a fundamental alternative between "life" as Rand uses the term and "death", because these two categories no longer partition all possibilities into two mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive categories. 3. Ultimate values/ends But that isn't that big of a deal. The real problem comes in with her talk of ultimate value. You write (p.3) that "A value may be good _only_ if it ultimately contributes to the being's ultimate end." Now I claim that there is a serious equivocation going on here, which is typical of all teleological theories. What's the equivocation? Well, when I say, "X is an ultimate value," there are two things that I could mean. First, I could mean it descriptively: Person A wants X more than anything else, and therefore judges everything according to how well it promotes X." Notice that on this reading, we have made no moral evaluation of X; X could be "murdering as many Jews as possible" or what have you. Second, I could mean it prescriptively: X is more valuable than anything else, therefore everything _should_ be judged according to how well it promotes X." Now when you say that life is an ultimate value, what sense do you mean it in? I don't know about you, but Rand blatantly slides from one to the other. Thus, she notes the _descriptive_ fact that animals are so constructed that their lives are their ultimate values. As a matter of observation, that is what they do. And then she goes on to say that a man's life is his ultimate value. "Metaphysically, _life_ is the only phenomenon that is an end-in-itself:a value kept by a constant process of action." Now I want to know in what sense she is using the term "ultimate value." If she is using it in the prescriptive sense, I can only say that she has begged the question. If she is using it in the descriptive sense, then we may still wonder: Yes, but _should_ life be our ultimate end? Basically, I think she uses it descriptively when she says that only life can be an ultimate value, but then she uses it prescriptively to work out her ethics. So what is my big complaint? You seem to think that there is subjectivism lurking in my doubts about "ultimately values." Not at all. What I am saying is this: if we use "ultimate value" _descriptively_, then anything at all could be an ultimate value, since it is always open to us to select something one thing to use everything else as a means for achieving. What I want to know is: _which_ ultimate value is the right one? Now you (and Rand) seem to think that there is something incoherent about selecting something other than life as an ultimate value. Quoting (p.3): "A person may choose _any_ end as a value, but not all or any end chosen will be a _good_ value. A value may be good _only_ if it ultimately contributes to the being's ultimate end." Now what I am saying is precisely that a person may choose any _ultimate end_ he wants; and I want to know if it is _good_ (indeed, the _best_) ultimate end. Now you seem to be saying that only life could be an ultimate end: perhaps this is what you mean when you say that "Since valuation that is good sustains (e.g., furthers) one's life, life is a process where valuation has been good enough to lead to more valuations." I just don't see any argument here; either you are saying that only life is the _best_ ultimate value to choose, in which case you are begging the question; or else you are saying that life is the _only_ possible ultimate value, in which case I just don't agree. Indeed, Rand's own definition of ultimate value clearly supports my case: "An _ultimate_ value is that final goal or end to which all lesser goals are the means - and it sets the standard by which all lesser goals are _evaluated_." (p.17) She then somehow moves from this (correct) definition to the claim that life is the only possible ultimate value; but from her own definition it is clear that I could pick literally any aim whatsoever and then evaluate everything else with respect to its ability to promote this arbitrary aim, and my selection would be an ultimate value. (Note also how Rand slides from "evaluation" in the sense of mere causal efficacy with respect to an end to evaluation in the moral sense.) 4. The life of man qua man. You accuse me of the fallacy of mind-reading here, so I will offer the textual evidence supporting my view. From OE, p.24: "Such is the meaning of the definition: that which is required for the survival of man qua man. It does not mean a _momentary_ or a merely _physical_ survival. It does not mean the momentary physical survival of a mindless brute, waiting for another brute to crush his skull. It does not mean the momentary physical survival of a crawling aggregate of muscles who is willing to accept any terms, obey any thug and surrender any values, for the sake of what is known as 'survival at any price,' which may or may not last a week or a year." and again in her discussion of pride: "The virtue of _Pride_ is the recognition of the fact 'that as a man must produce the physical values he needs to sustain his life, so he must acquire the values of character that make his life worth sustaining - that as man is a being of self-made wealth, so he is a being of self-made soul." Rand does indeed _try_ to relate the above to life as the ultimate value; but then if we look closer, we see that she can only get her conclusion by _defining her conclusion into her premises_. Thus, to get the conclusion that we should not live as "mindless brutes" she defines mindless brutishness out of the concept of human life. But what if "brutishness" (without the "mindlessness") were indeed the most efficacious means of self-preservation, as it is under certain circumstances? Well, then Rand tells us that that isn't "really" self-preservation. Or take the second quote on pride. Does it even _make sense_ for Rand to talk about the "values of character" that make life worth sustaining? On her account, the very question is confused; to talk of things as making life worth sustaining, we must assume that _something else_ besides life is of ultimate value. For if life were really the ultimate value, then there isn't _anything_ that _makes_ life worth sustaining; it is their causal effectiveness towards promoting life than makes _other things_ worth sustaining. In fact, the above paragraph on pride is internal proof that life is _not_ the only good thing; for as Aristotle points out (_Nichomachean Ethics_, Book X, chapter 2), if you can add something to another and make it more good than it was before, then the thing you had before was not _the_ good (i.e., the _only_ ultimately good thing). Quoting, "As for this last argument [Eudoxus' argument that everything is better with pleasure, hence pleasure is the ultimate good], it does indeed prove that pleasure is a good thing, but not that it is more of a good thing than any other. For every good thing becomes more desirable when combined with another good than when taken by itself alone. As a matter of fact, Plato uses a similar argument in his refutation of the view that pleasure is the good: a pleasant life, he says, is more desirable when combined with practical wisdom than without it; but if pleasure is better in combination with something else, it is not the good, since the good cannot become more desirable by the addition of something to it." And the same goes for life: if life + happiness or life + non-brutishness or life + things that make life worth sustaining are all better than life, then life is not _the_ good (though it may be _a_ good). Now you make the argument that we apend the "qua man" because man has no other "effective means of survival." (p.4) Well, what if I _did_ have another effective means of survival? Indeed, most people have an extremely effective means of survival than falls far short of being Randians: they act somewhat reasonably most of the time, and this suffices to keep them alive. On what basis, then, is Rand's way of life better at preserving life, if most people do just as well without her way? Or suppose I acquired vast political power, or had the opportunity to commit the perfect crime that would set me for life? Wouldn't "brutishness" be the best route? --- So that's my main reply to the points in your letter. Now I'll state a few more positive remarks to contrast my view with Rand's. Rand begins the OE with the question, "What is morality, or ethics?" Let me offer my own answer. Morality is the study of what is good, right, virtuous, wicked, and so on, just as physics is the study of matter, energy, mass, and so on. What facts "give rise" to morality? The fact that some things are right, good, evil, and so on. Rand's problem is that she keeps trying to get rid of this hard-core realist view of morality without becoming a subjectivist. I don't think she succeeds, nor has she given any argument against the strict realism I am advocating. Let me be clear. When I say that "X is good" I don't mean that it promotes life, or pleasure, or anything else. I mean simply that it is good. What is goodness? It is a simple property like "yellow" or "real" that we all understand perfectly well, but which cannot be defined on account of its simplicity. (By simple, I mean: not having parts, incapable of non-circular definition, primitive.) But you can't see "goodness"? Of course not; it is a property grasped by the intellect, a property similar to logical validity which is invisible yet fully real. An animal can't determine if an argument is valid, nor can it determine goodness, because it lacks intellect. We have intellect, hence we are aware of many properties that cannot be seen, heard, smelt, etc. And I see no reason to think that all intellectually identified properties actually derive from experience; I've never realized that something it evil by staring at it under a microscope, nor have I ever used my sense of taste to determine what is evil. (Though I might use by intellect to realize that poison is evil, and use my taste to discover the something is poisoned.) Now Rand's whole problem is that she wants to take independent, fully real properties like goodness and mutate them into something else, _while retaining the argumentative force of the original concept_. Thus, we all realize that if an action is _right_, then we ought to do it. And we can agree on the descriptive facts, but disagree about what is right, since that is a separate issue. What Rand tries to do is say that by, e.g., "good" we just _mean_ "promotes my life." But I don't mean that, and neither does almost anyone else. And indeed, if we all did mean that, there would still be an unanswered question, namely: Should I do what promotes my life? Re-define "should" as "you _should_ do X if it promotes your life" and you get an easy answer. But what I want to know isn't what I "should" do in some idiocyncratic definition, but what I "should" do in the normal sense of the word. My charge becomes especially applicable to Rand's essay "Causality vs. Duty," when she just says that morality gives you hypothetical imperatives for how to promote your life. Well, as I asked in my letter, if _that_ is all that morality is, why do we use moral language _at all_? Why not simply get rid of all this talk of "good," "right," "should," and so on, and merely point out if something promotes or harms another's life? The answer is clear: something would be missing: the argumentative force of moral language. To say that something is good or right gives a reason to do it; but to say that something promotes or harms my life is a purely descriptive fact, which I cannot rationally ignore but which has no implications for action. Add the premise that life is good (namely, one of the things that has the moral property of goodness is life) and the descriptive facts become relevent. _Define_ life to _be_ good (namely, good is just another word for life-promoting) and the descriptive facts provide no reason for action. -- There's more I want to say, but for now I'll put the ball back in your court. Later, Bryan