Copyright © 2007, Barry L. Linetsky, All Rights Reserved
Ayn Rand set a scientific footing for ethics by demonstrating an unbreachable bond between ethics and reality. The Randian paradigm shift – I would call it a revolution - in ethics is her proof that there is an objective standard by which one judges what is good or evil. That standard is “man's life, or: that which is required for man’s survival qua man" (P. 25).
What man’s life requires is knowable in reality, and reason is required to figure it out. It's the role of philosophy to provide understanding of reality and man’s place in it, and to provide practical guidance for living happily and successfully. Ethics requires the discovery of the nature of man and the conditions that allow him to flourish according to his nature. In a famous formulation, Rand wrote: "Since reason is man's basic means of survival, that which is proper to the life of a rational being is the good; that which negates, opposes or destroys it is the evil” (P. 25).
Because man is devoid of the survival instincts possessed by most other animals, man’s survival requires that he function as a conceptual consciousness, applying reason and purpose to direct his actions toward survival goals. Everything man needs has to be discovered by a human mind and produced by human effort.
This is an existential fact that applies to each of us. We each must discover knowledge and act to bring about and sustain our own survival. This leads to two essentials of the method of survival proper to a rational being, says Rand: thinking and productive work. (As an aside, business is a way of organizing to make the most of both.)
To succeed at the task of survival, man has to choose his goals and values in the context of a lifetime. The longer the range of a person's thinking, the better he can plan and prepare for contingencies. Failure to think long range for oneself leaves a person vulnerable and dependent on the thinking of others, and leaves one’s fate to chance. When people fail to take control of their own life and responsibility for their own welfare, they are left to depend on either the charity of others, or worse, the looting of others. Rand wrote: "Man has to be man by choice - and it is the task of ethics to teach him how to live like man" (P. 27).
Rand holds each person’s life as the standard of value, and his own life as the ethical purpose of every individual life (P. 27). For Rand, a standard is an abstract principle that applies to every individual person. But every individual person has to live his or her own life by applying this principle to the specific purpose of living a life proper to a rational being. Rand wrote: "Man must choose his actions, values and goals by the standard of that which is proper to man - in order to achieve, maintain, fulfill and enjoy that ultimate value, that end in itself, which is his own life" (P. 27).
Rand defined virtue as the act by which one gains and/or keeps values, and she identified Rationality as man's basic virtue and the source or all other virtue. She identified irrationality - the willful and purposeful rejection of reason – as man’s greatest vice. She wrote that irrationality is the rejection of man’s means of survival. It is anti-mind and anti-life because for a man to reject reason - his only tool of survival as a conceptual being – is to set himself on a blind course of self-destruction (see p. 28).
Placing rationality as the central tenet of ethics – as the primary virtue – is merely the identification of facts about reality and about us as human beings. Reason is man’s primary means of survival. It is a fundamental and non-optional requirement of his life that man understand what this requires of him, and that he puts forth the mental effort required to learn to excel at its application.
For Rand, the purposeful pursuit of rationality and the disciplined application of reason to achieve one’s chosen ends against all obstacles has been so rare historically, that it represents for her the heroic in man. Rand’s personal heroic achievement resides in the dedication of her life’s work to defining and demonstrating why this is so.
Her research and thinking on what constitutes virtue for man and her identification of the primary virtues and their functions, led her to overturn and refute all prior attempts to define a valid ethical code by non-rational means. Her unique methodology of taking an inductive and deductive scientific approach to philosophy led her to a unified philosophic system that is Aristotelian in spirit, and which culminates in a rational, individualistic, integrated, this-worldly code of ethics. Rand firmly shifted the basis of a philosophic defense of ethics from altruism to a form of enlightened egoism. She called her total system of philosophy Objectivism, and referred to the Objectivist ethics as a morality of “rational self-interest – or rational selfishness” (P. xi).
While her methodological approach has been vilified and swept aside by those who believe that all virtue resides in altruism and personal sacrifice, and reject out of hand her premise that facts and value are inseparable, it remains that fifty years after the publication of her magnum opus, Atlas Shrugged, there has yet to be a reasoned and valid refutation of her philosophy.
Those most likely to criticize Rand as an original thinker and as making an important contribution to our understanding of the field of ethics are those who aren’t seriously seeking truth and knowledge in the field of ethics, but rather have an agenda to hijack the normative language of ethics as a means to emotionally coerce others into agreeing with the social or political agenda they are advancing (usually an agenda that involves the collecting of the sacrifices of others - often through the initiation of physical force or deceit - to pursue their own hidden motives under the guise of benefiting “society” or God).
It’s ironic that those least able to defend their own agenda’s by means of rational arguments are the people most likely to disparage an author while failing to address serious legitimate challenges to their ethical ideas. Far too many thinkers dabbling in the subject of business ethics brush aside the serious challenges that Ayn Rand posed fifty years ago because facing those challenges are felt to be either unnecessary, or insurmountable. It is unfortunate that Rand’s work in ethics has been largely ignored through intellectual dishonesty and evasion in the hope that the advocacy of erroneous conclusions can remain valid. Nothing could be more irrational, and, frankly, more unethical, than such an evasion of reality.
Showing posts with label philosophy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label philosophy. Show all posts
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
What Is Ethics? It's Not Obvious To Most.
Copyright © 2007, Barry L. Linetsky, All Rights Reserved
Ethics is the branch of philosophy that studies and defines a code of values to guide human choices and actions in the pursuit of life. It begins by asking the question as to why man needs values, defines a standard of value, and then defines a code of values or ethical principles to guide the action of individuals in pursuit of their own life.
As such, ethics is a requirement for living a successful life. To live the kind of life proper to Man, one must pursue values that support one’s life and well-being. It is the role of ethics to provide rational guidance in this realm, so that each person can achieve, fulfill and enjoy that ultimate value, that end in itself, which is his own life.
In her 1961 essay “The Objectivist Ethics,” American philosopher Ayn Rand defined ethics this way: “What is morality or ethics? It is a code of values to guide man’s choices and actions – the choices and actions that determine the purpose and course of his life. Ethics, as a science, deals with discovering and defining such a code.”
For Rand, it was the role of philosophers to define and rationally defend such a code. The validity of a code of ethics was, for her, a matter of life and death not only for individual people, but for mankind as a species. She was irate at the failure of philosophers in this regard, and made it her mission to challenge the lethargy and status quo of academia.
Ethics has been contentious through the ages, not because of a disagreement that Man requires a set of guiding principles to define good and evil and guide his choices and actions, but because leading thinkers have not agreed on what the standard of value should be. In general two choices have been offered: the standard of value is the will of god (or other metaphysical entity, real or imagined); or the standard of value is Man’s life.
It is this disagreement about the standard of good and evil, right and wrong, which leads to major disagreements in ethics. Without the ability to discuss the grounds for different viewpoints in a rational way, no acceptable peaceful resolution can be found. The wider framework for a reasoned and scientific discussion of these more fundamental issues is to be found in the discipline of Philosophy. To the extent one is committed to appeal to god rather than reason, one deals in the realm not of philosophy, but of theology. In this realm, faith, not reason, determines the standard of value.
Rand defined philosophy as the science that studies the fundamental aspects of the nature of existence, man, and of man’s relationship to existence. Unlike the natural sciences that deal with particular aspects of existence, philosophy deals with wider aspects that pertain to everything that exists. At its best, philosophy is a unifying science of understanding.
The task of philosophy, wrote Rand, “is to provide man with a comprehensive view of life. This view serves as a base, a frame of reference, for all his actions, mental or physical, psychological or existential. This view tells him the nature of the universe with which he has to deal (metaphysics); the means by which he is to deal with it, i.e., the means of acquiring knowledge (epistemology); the standards by which he is to choose his goals and values, in regard to this own life and character (ethics) – and in regard to society (politics); the means of concretizing this view is given to him by esthetics.” (From her essay “The Chickens’ Homecoming,” quoted in The Ayn Rand Lexicon, p. 359.)
Here are a couple of other definitions of ethics to set the context for further discussion.
The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary defines ethics as the “science of morals.” It defines morals as “pertaining to the distinction between right and wrong, or good and evil, in relation to actions, volitions, or character,” and “concerned with virtue and vice, or the rules of right conduct, as a subject of study.”
The Mirriam-Webster On-line Dictionary defines ethics as “a set of moral principles: a theory or system of moral values.”
An online business glossary defines ethics as: “A system of principles based on ideas of right and wrong, whether true or false; rules of practice in respect to human actions”
(Small Business Glossary, http://www.smallbusinessnotes.com/glossary/defethics.html).
Author Elaine Sternberg, in her book Just Business: Business Ethics in Action, defines ethics this way: “As commonly used, ‘ethics’ and ‘morals’ refer variously to moral codes, to the actions enjoined by them, and to the study of either or both…. When used more strictly, however, the term ‘ethics’ refers simply to a branch of philosophy, that which seeks to identify and clarify the presuppositions of human conduct having to do with good and evil.”
My view is similar to that expressed by Sternberg.
Ethics is, first and foremost, the branch of philosophy that identifies principles to guide human actions as we pursue our lives. As a branch of philosophy, ethics must adhere to the principles of the discipline, and those partaking in the subject must adhere to the basic requirements imposed by reality and reason.
As a normative science, ethics begins with observations of reality combined with logical reasoning to provide prescriptive guidance for man to achieve goals and ends appropriate to his nature as Man. In essence, it provides mankind with intellectual ammunition to help us determine, at the highest level, what’s for us and against us in our struggle with nature to live our lives successfully. That which can be shown in principle to support successful and prosperous human life is ‘the good’ and that which can be demonstrated to be harmful represents ‘evil.’ The standard of value is human life.
It should be pointed out that not everybody agrees that ethics is a normative science and that it refers to a branch of philosophy. As Sternberg indicates, there is common usage around the term “ethics” that is descriptive and non-normative. For example one could research and report on the normative practices of various groups of people or cultures and speak about their ‘ethics.’ Hence, talk of ‘business ethics’ can be both prescriptive (business leaders should behave this way) and descriptive (our survey shows that most business leaders behave this way). This latter approach is how the humanities typically approach ethics, and can be seen in areas such as anthropology, sociology, or history. This is what might be called a ‘journalistic’ approach to ethics, as differentiated from ethics proper.
Still, it is only right that if you are going to profess to be an ethicist or expert in the realm of ethics, such as business ethics, that you provide a definition of, or delineate what it is you are talking about. I don’t trust people who want to tell me what I must do to be ethical unless they can demonstrate why such action is ethical and why other actions are unethical. I want to know what the standard of value is and what ethical principles are involved. I want to assess the real world consequences of any recommended moral prescriptions. My advice to everyone is: be wary of those practitioners who provide self-serving, non-objective definitions of ethics, and who cannot demonstrate the objectivity of their prescriptive judgments. Don’t be bullied by ethical language and the desire to be perceived as ‘ethical’ in the eyes of others. Ethics is open to human knowledge and human judgment, and, if one pursues it as the science which it is, then ethical conclusions are subject to reasonable proof.
Any discussion that takes us from what is the case to what ought to be the case, if it is not merely someone’s opinion but to which we intend to give the weight of serious principled guidance in pursuit of the good, takes us into the realm of ethics and philosophy, and the full weight of these disciplines come into play.
Ethics is the branch of philosophy that studies and defines a code of values to guide human choices and actions in the pursuit of life. It begins by asking the question as to why man needs values, defines a standard of value, and then defines a code of values or ethical principles to guide the action of individuals in pursuit of their own life.
As such, ethics is a requirement for living a successful life. To live the kind of life proper to Man, one must pursue values that support one’s life and well-being. It is the role of ethics to provide rational guidance in this realm, so that each person can achieve, fulfill and enjoy that ultimate value, that end in itself, which is his own life.
In her 1961 essay “The Objectivist Ethics,” American philosopher Ayn Rand defined ethics this way: “What is morality or ethics? It is a code of values to guide man’s choices and actions – the choices and actions that determine the purpose and course of his life. Ethics, as a science, deals with discovering and defining such a code.”
For Rand, it was the role of philosophers to define and rationally defend such a code. The validity of a code of ethics was, for her, a matter of life and death not only for individual people, but for mankind as a species. She was irate at the failure of philosophers in this regard, and made it her mission to challenge the lethargy and status quo of academia.
Ethics has been contentious through the ages, not because of a disagreement that Man requires a set of guiding principles to define good and evil and guide his choices and actions, but because leading thinkers have not agreed on what the standard of value should be. In general two choices have been offered: the standard of value is the will of god (or other metaphysical entity, real or imagined); or the standard of value is Man’s life.
It is this disagreement about the standard of good and evil, right and wrong, which leads to major disagreements in ethics. Without the ability to discuss the grounds for different viewpoints in a rational way, no acceptable peaceful resolution can be found. The wider framework for a reasoned and scientific discussion of these more fundamental issues is to be found in the discipline of Philosophy. To the extent one is committed to appeal to god rather than reason, one deals in the realm not of philosophy, but of theology. In this realm, faith, not reason, determines the standard of value.
Rand defined philosophy as the science that studies the fundamental aspects of the nature of existence, man, and of man’s relationship to existence. Unlike the natural sciences that deal with particular aspects of existence, philosophy deals with wider aspects that pertain to everything that exists. At its best, philosophy is a unifying science of understanding.
The task of philosophy, wrote Rand, “is to provide man with a comprehensive view of life. This view serves as a base, a frame of reference, for all his actions, mental or physical, psychological or existential. This view tells him the nature of the universe with which he has to deal (metaphysics); the means by which he is to deal with it, i.e., the means of acquiring knowledge (epistemology); the standards by which he is to choose his goals and values, in regard to this own life and character (ethics) – and in regard to society (politics); the means of concretizing this view is given to him by esthetics.” (From her essay “The Chickens’ Homecoming,” quoted in The Ayn Rand Lexicon, p. 359.)
Here are a couple of other definitions of ethics to set the context for further discussion.
The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary defines ethics as the “science of morals.” It defines morals as “pertaining to the distinction between right and wrong, or good and evil, in relation to actions, volitions, or character,” and “concerned with virtue and vice, or the rules of right conduct, as a subject of study.”
The Mirriam-Webster On-line Dictionary defines ethics as “a set of moral principles: a theory or system of moral values.”
An online business glossary defines ethics as: “A system of principles based on ideas of right and wrong, whether true or false; rules of practice in respect to human actions”
(Small Business Glossary, http://www.smallbusinessnotes.com/glossary/defethics.html).
Author Elaine Sternberg, in her book Just Business: Business Ethics in Action, defines ethics this way: “As commonly used, ‘ethics’ and ‘morals’ refer variously to moral codes, to the actions enjoined by them, and to the study of either or both…. When used more strictly, however, the term ‘ethics’ refers simply to a branch of philosophy, that which seeks to identify and clarify the presuppositions of human conduct having to do with good and evil.”
My view is similar to that expressed by Sternberg.
Ethics is, first and foremost, the branch of philosophy that identifies principles to guide human actions as we pursue our lives. As a branch of philosophy, ethics must adhere to the principles of the discipline, and those partaking in the subject must adhere to the basic requirements imposed by reality and reason.
As a normative science, ethics begins with observations of reality combined with logical reasoning to provide prescriptive guidance for man to achieve goals and ends appropriate to his nature as Man. In essence, it provides mankind with intellectual ammunition to help us determine, at the highest level, what’s for us and against us in our struggle with nature to live our lives successfully. That which can be shown in principle to support successful and prosperous human life is ‘the good’ and that which can be demonstrated to be harmful represents ‘evil.’ The standard of value is human life.
It should be pointed out that not everybody agrees that ethics is a normative science and that it refers to a branch of philosophy. As Sternberg indicates, there is common usage around the term “ethics” that is descriptive and non-normative. For example one could research and report on the normative practices of various groups of people or cultures and speak about their ‘ethics.’ Hence, talk of ‘business ethics’ can be both prescriptive (business leaders should behave this way) and descriptive (our survey shows that most business leaders behave this way). This latter approach is how the humanities typically approach ethics, and can be seen in areas such as anthropology, sociology, or history. This is what might be called a ‘journalistic’ approach to ethics, as differentiated from ethics proper.
Still, it is only right that if you are going to profess to be an ethicist or expert in the realm of ethics, such as business ethics, that you provide a definition of, or delineate what it is you are talking about. I don’t trust people who want to tell me what I must do to be ethical unless they can demonstrate why such action is ethical and why other actions are unethical. I want to know what the standard of value is and what ethical principles are involved. I want to assess the real world consequences of any recommended moral prescriptions. My advice to everyone is: be wary of those practitioners who provide self-serving, non-objective definitions of ethics, and who cannot demonstrate the objectivity of their prescriptive judgments. Don’t be bullied by ethical language and the desire to be perceived as ‘ethical’ in the eyes of others. Ethics is open to human knowledge and human judgment, and, if one pursues it as the science which it is, then ethical conclusions are subject to reasonable proof.
Any discussion that takes us from what is the case to what ought to be the case, if it is not merely someone’s opinion but to which we intend to give the weight of serious principled guidance in pursuit of the good, takes us into the realm of ethics and philosophy, and the full weight of these disciplines come into play.
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