| It says that the standard for morality is man's life, is the purpose of morality your own life or is the purpose of man's life is his or her own life? If morality's standard is man's life, man's life is the purpose of morality and is the value of the purpose existence or is it value of morality existence? So in short, morality standards, purpose and value is existence, or life, is that what it is? |
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You get things all jumbled up in your question, cherrypi. Let’s talk about “standards” first, what it means that man’s life is man’s standard for morality, then let’s differentiate “standard” from “purpose” and also talk about “value” and “reason” and “existence” and “virtue” and “nature.”
First, what are standards for morality? Religious people might hold God’s will as a standard. Others think of “the good of society” as a standard. Others just think in terms of wish fulfillment or whim, whatever we want. Of course, Rand rejects mysticism right away. There is no God. Also, there is no such thing as society apart from individuals within it. So, good of society is not very specific. It can mean what some group within society thinks is good or what someone imposes on the rest. And, wish fulfillment and whim is just too subjective to be a very good standard. Everybody has different wishes, and it ultimately boils down to might makes right. The mightiest may be very corrupt by the weakest’s standards.
Rand decided that man’s life is the standard for morality, for determining what is good and evil. That which promotes and protects man’s life is good, and that which threatens and destroys it is evil.
Before we can have morality, however, we have to have “value.” And, value is something only living things have. Non-living things can change their form, but they never cease to exist. Life, however, does cease to exist. It is a fundamental alternative. It can be lost. Therefore, it can be valued. Indestructible robots can have nothing for them or against them, so they cannot value. Only things with the self-generating, self-sustaining process called life can value life.
This is not all that is needed for morality. Plants and animals have life. They value, but they don’t need morality. They pursue life automatically. Plants reach out for nutrients in the soil, and turn their leaves to the sun. Animals hunt for food. They are hard-wired to do so. They have certain automatic functions which react to their environment.
Humans, according to Rand, are much more complex. They do have some of the sensations and perceptions of animals, but they need conceptual thought to survive as humans. And, this seems to be volitional. Man can choose not to be rational, not to focus his mind. This is why man needs morality, something which lets him know what he “ought” to do. Trees and animals do what they do, what their “natures” require of them. (A “nature” is what determines what an entity is and how it behaves in any given situation. It is in the nature of trees to get their sustenance from the soil and air and sunlight available to them.) How they behave is descriptive, not prescriptive. However, humans do not have such a limiting nature. They have free-will. Therefore, they need something like morality, a code of values to guide one’s choices and actions, to help them determine what they “ought” to do.
Now, in The Virtue of Selfishness, page 25, Rand says:
| The difference between “standard” and “purpose” in this context is as follows: a “standard” is an abstract principle that serves as a measurement or gauge to guide a man’s choices in the achievement of a concrete, specific purpose. “That which is required for the survival of man qua man” is an abstract principle that applies to every individual man. The task of applying this principle to concrete, specific purpose—the purpose of living a life proper to a rational being—belongs to every individual man, and the life he has to live is his own. |
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A little further down on the same page, she says:
| Value is that which one acts to gain and/or keep---virtue is the act by which one gains and/or keeps it. |
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Rand uses the example of productive work as the central purpose of a rational man’s life. Reason is the source and pre-condition, and pride, an authentic form of happiness is the result.
Notice that she is trying to avoid simply being a hedonist, someone who uses happiness as the main standard and goal of morality. If that were the only goal, one could be happy by taking drugs and being high all day. Rand says the life is the standard, and an authentic kind of happiness, which comes from achieving something in reality, not in a drug crazed illusion, is the result and symptom of a successful, flourishing life.
There are a few little problems with this. First, some wise-ass could say that since life leads to death, life, itself, could be threatening and destructive to life. Yes, but if life is the standard, it can’t be measured against itself, like a ruler measures other things but not itself. Second, if one must choose to be rational, what guides that initial choice? Is it an irrational choice to be rational? Third, some people might ask, what is so valuable about life? And, the answer is that that this is an end in itself. It is the intrinsic value which makes possible all instrumental values but is not instrumental to any further value. We work so we can earn money. We earn money so we can eat and buy things and flourish. We do all that so we can live and flourish. Asking why we want to live is like asking what is north of the North Pole. It is like asking what came before time and space?
Hey, we could go on forever, but I’ll let you digest this for now and ask more questions. You may need to work some of this stuff out for yourself. Spoon feeding you a lot of answers may do more harm than good, but I’ll let you decide.
Bis bald,
Nick
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