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"[Tibor] Machan claims further that Rand did not deduce "ought" statements from "is" statements."(p.152)
"Hare agrees with Hume, and believes he has a profound philosophical insight in this passage." (p.152)
"In the following section of this paper, Rand's theory will be systematically explained so that the two ways in which she claims to have deduced an "ought" conclusion from only "is" premises may be meaninfully understood. One of her déductions is not moral, and one is moral. The deduction that is moral concerns human beigns, and is a deduction of an "ought" conclusion that contains all the normative claims of her ethical theory." (p.155)
"Rand is an Aristotelian (Den Uyl and Rasmussen 1984b, 3). As such, she holds that there must be an ultimate value toward which all goal-oriented action aims. This Aristotelian notion that there is Something "for the sake of which everything else is done" (Wheeler 1984, 83) is indeed central to her theory. Rand believes that for any normative theory to be "meaningful, to make sense, there must be an ultimate end" (Rasmussen 1980, 70). Her argument is thus strongly teleological. She cannot accept the notion that values are "an arbitrary human invention, unrelated to, underived from and unsupported by any facts of reality" (Rand 1964, 2) ; this, for her, would take away any meaning that values and ethics in general possess. She believes that the only acceptable way to establish a connection between "values and the facts of reality" (7) is to postulate an ultimate value stated as a fact, as an "is statement about the world. For her, this gives an absolute, objective basis upon which her normative claims are justified. She argues for an ultimate value in the following passage:
Without an ultimate goal or end, there can be no lesser goals or means: a series of means going off into an infinite progression toward a nonexistent end is a metaphysical and epistemological impossibility. It is only an ultimate goal, an end in itself, that makes the existence of values possible.
Essentialy, Rand believes that we need an ultimate value, which is at the same time a fact about the world, an "is", that explains the entire normative enterprise in order to arrive at any justifiable "ought" conclusion with truth value. This is why Rand attempts to deduce "ought" conclusions completely from "is" premises, as she believes that this gives all her normative claims objective, factual status." (pp.56-57)
"To describe what the ultimate value is Rand identifies, in her opinion, the only objective alternative between success and Failure in ends of all living things. She argues that this is the "fundamental alternative between life and death" (Blair 1985, 94). The physical fonctions of all living things, such as "nutritive function in the single cell of an amoeba to the blood circulation in the body of man" (Rand 1964, 6) automatically aim tat preserving life and not death. As such, Rand claims that the ultimate value, that thing "for the sake of which everything else is done" (Wheeler 1984, 83), that which is to be achieved or maintained as an end, "for any given entity is its own life" (Rand 1964, 7). Rand further holds that any known living creature, except for a human being, has "an automatic code of values", and "cannot decide to choose the evil and acte as its own destroyer" (10-11). Such creatures, she claims, seek to succeed in achieving and maintaining their lives as their ultimate end, in the face of the alteranative of failing in this end, death. She holds that same value applies to human beings too, but that a human can "act as its own destroyer" and may choose "evil" (11) values that do not have life as their end." (pp.57-58)
"The Following is the deductive argument for life as the ultimate value of simple living things. The value is given as a descriptive fact, as an "is" statement about the world:
D. V is a value X if X acts to achieve/maintain V as an end. - Analytic "is".
P. Any simple living thing acts to achieve/maintain its own life as an end. Empirical "is".
C. Any simple living thing's life is a value for itself. - Evaluative "is".
After postulating life as the ultimate value for all living creatures, Rand claims that this ultimate value allows her to bridge the is-ought gap. She says:
Let me stress that the fact that living entities exist and function necessitates the existence of values and of an ultimate value which for any given living entity is its own life. Thus the validation of value judgements is to be achieved by reference to the facts of reality. The fact that a living entity is, determines what is ought to do. So much for the issue of the relation between "is" and "ought"." (p.7-
." (p.158)
"This is in need some explanation. Rand argues that the actions that allow all creatures to succeed in their ultimate value, the achievement and maintenance of their own life, is determined by what kind of creature they are. For example, sustenance is a crucial compotent of any creature's continued survival, and different creatures use different methods to feed themselves. Indeed, she believes that where "a plant can obtain its food from the soil in which it grows", a lion "has to hunt for it" and "man has to produce it" (9). Rand argues that those actions that are successful for specific creatures in preserving their lives, given the kind of creature they are, are the actions they ought to take. This is because part of what it is to hold the achivement and maintenance of a Something as an end (to hold it as a value), is to prefer success over Failure in this end, or else one would not act for this end.
An example can explain this concept. Actions that are suitable to preserving lion's lives are the actions that they ought to take because such actions allow them to succeed in achieving and maintaining their own lives. This is their ultimate value, and implicit in holding it is to prefer values that achieve it. Conversely, actions that are not suitable to preserving lion's lives are the actions that they ought not to take because such actions do not allow them to succeed in achieving and maintaining their own lives. This is their ultimate value, and implicit in holding it is to avoid actions that do not achieve it. Whether lions belived, or are capable of understanding, which actions are better or worse for the maintenance of their lives is irrelevant. It is a fact that certains courses of action are better than others for maintaining the life of a lion, such as the acte of stalking prey. Lions that can stalk prey will be able to better maintain their lives than lions that cannot, as stalking prey is crucial to the survival of a lion." (pp.158-159)
"Rand derives the kind of ultimate value human beings have from the kind of creatures we are. Rand believes that, as with all other creatures, the ultimate value for humain beings is our own lives. However, humans are unlike all other creatures in a crucial way. We are rational beings but "rationality is a matter of choice" (Rand 1964, 16). What this means can be better understood by reference to the nature of the ultimate value that all other non-human animals possess. Rand explains:
An animal has no choice in the standard of value directing in actions: its senses provide it with an automatic code of values, an automatic knowledge of what is good for it or evil, what benefits or endangers its life. An animal has no power to extend its knowledge or to evade it. In situations for which its knowledge is inadequate, it perishes -as, for instance, an animal that stands paralyzed on the track of a railroad in the path of a speeding train. But so long as it lives, an animal acts on its knowledge, with automatic safety and no power of choice: it cannot suspend its own consciousness - il cannot choose not to perceive - it cannot evade its own perception - it cannot ignore its own good, il cannot decide to choose the evil and act as its own destroyer. (10)" (p.160)
"Rand claims that for humans to act in accordance with their nature they must choose those "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" (Rand 1964, 19). As Hartford (2007) explains, acting rationally, for Rand, denotes "the choice to use objectivity" (301) or to hold as a fact that one's life is the ultimate value as a fact and, consequently, it is irrational to act through some other motivation. She believes that to do so "contradicts the facts of reality" and that a man who would do so "disintegrates his consciouness" (Rand 1964, 24) and degenerates into subhuman behavior, perhaps even leading to his untimely death.
The logical structure of Rand's deductive argument regarding human beings is nearly identical to that applying to simple living things. It is as follows:
D. V is a value for X if X acts to achieve/maintain V as an end. Analytic 'is".
P. Any rational being acts to achieve/maintain its own life as an end. - Analytic "is".
C. Any rational being's life is a value for itself. - Evaluative "is".
The difference here is that rational beings are those who act rationally and do Indeed hold their life as the ultimate value. This may not Apply to all human beings." (p.162)
"Rand argues that her system of "rational ethics will tell" humans "what principles of action are required to implement" our "choice" if we choose to live and hold our own life as our ultimate value (Rand 1982, 99)." (p.162)
"Her ethical system is characterized as rational selfishness. This system is selfish because it demands people aim at the ultimate value that is the achievement and maintenance of their own life. One should never make any sacrifice of this value for the sake of others (Rand 1988, 4). Human life as the ultimate value is called "man's Survival qua man" (Rand 1964, 18).
Rand's description of the ultimate value when applied to human beings is as follows:
"Man's Survival qua man" means the terms, methods, conditions and goals required for the survival of a rational being through the whole of his lifespan -in all those aspects of existence which are open to his choice (18)." (p163)
-Lachlan Doughney, “Ayn Rand and Deducing 'Ought' from 'Is'.” The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies, vol. 12, no. 1, 2012, pp. 151–168. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41607997. Accessed 8 Feb. 2020 : https://philpapers.org/rec/DOUARA
"Hare agrees with Hume, and believes he has a profound philosophical insight in this passage." (p.152)
"In the following section of this paper, Rand's theory will be systematically explained so that the two ways in which she claims to have deduced an "ought" conclusion from only "is" premises may be meaninfully understood. One of her déductions is not moral, and one is moral. The deduction that is moral concerns human beigns, and is a deduction of an "ought" conclusion that contains all the normative claims of her ethical theory." (p.155)
"Rand is an Aristotelian (Den Uyl and Rasmussen 1984b, 3). As such, she holds that there must be an ultimate value toward which all goal-oriented action aims. This Aristotelian notion that there is Something "for the sake of which everything else is done" (Wheeler 1984, 83) is indeed central to her theory. Rand believes that for any normative theory to be "meaningful, to make sense, there must be an ultimate end" (Rasmussen 1980, 70). Her argument is thus strongly teleological. She cannot accept the notion that values are "an arbitrary human invention, unrelated to, underived from and unsupported by any facts of reality" (Rand 1964, 2) ; this, for her, would take away any meaning that values and ethics in general possess. She believes that the only acceptable way to establish a connection between "values and the facts of reality" (7) is to postulate an ultimate value stated as a fact, as an "is statement about the world. For her, this gives an absolute, objective basis upon which her normative claims are justified. She argues for an ultimate value in the following passage:
Without an ultimate goal or end, there can be no lesser goals or means: a series of means going off into an infinite progression toward a nonexistent end is a metaphysical and epistemological impossibility. It is only an ultimate goal, an end in itself, that makes the existence of values possible.
Essentialy, Rand believes that we need an ultimate value, which is at the same time a fact about the world, an "is", that explains the entire normative enterprise in order to arrive at any justifiable "ought" conclusion with truth value. This is why Rand attempts to deduce "ought" conclusions completely from "is" premises, as she believes that this gives all her normative claims objective, factual status." (pp.56-57)
"To describe what the ultimate value is Rand identifies, in her opinion, the only objective alternative between success and Failure in ends of all living things. She argues that this is the "fundamental alternative between life and death" (Blair 1985, 94). The physical fonctions of all living things, such as "nutritive function in the single cell of an amoeba to the blood circulation in the body of man" (Rand 1964, 6) automatically aim tat preserving life and not death. As such, Rand claims that the ultimate value, that thing "for the sake of which everything else is done" (Wheeler 1984, 83), that which is to be achieved or maintained as an end, "for any given entity is its own life" (Rand 1964, 7). Rand further holds that any known living creature, except for a human being, has "an automatic code of values", and "cannot decide to choose the evil and acte as its own destroyer" (10-11). Such creatures, she claims, seek to succeed in achieving and maintaining their lives as their ultimate end, in the face of the alteranative of failing in this end, death. She holds that same value applies to human beings too, but that a human can "act as its own destroyer" and may choose "evil" (11) values that do not have life as their end." (pp.57-58)
"The Following is the deductive argument for life as the ultimate value of simple living things. The value is given as a descriptive fact, as an "is" statement about the world:
D. V is a value X if X acts to achieve/maintain V as an end. - Analytic "is".
P. Any simple living thing acts to achieve/maintain its own life as an end. Empirical "is".
C. Any simple living thing's life is a value for itself. - Evaluative "is".
After postulating life as the ultimate value for all living creatures, Rand claims that this ultimate value allows her to bridge the is-ought gap. She says:
Let me stress that the fact that living entities exist and function necessitates the existence of values and of an ultimate value which for any given living entity is its own life. Thus the validation of value judgements is to be achieved by reference to the facts of reality. The fact that a living entity is, determines what is ought to do. So much for the issue of the relation between "is" and "ought"." (p.7-
." (p.158)"This is in need some explanation. Rand argues that the actions that allow all creatures to succeed in their ultimate value, the achievement and maintenance of their own life, is determined by what kind of creature they are. For example, sustenance is a crucial compotent of any creature's continued survival, and different creatures use different methods to feed themselves. Indeed, she believes that where "a plant can obtain its food from the soil in which it grows", a lion "has to hunt for it" and "man has to produce it" (9). Rand argues that those actions that are successful for specific creatures in preserving their lives, given the kind of creature they are, are the actions they ought to take. This is because part of what it is to hold the achivement and maintenance of a Something as an end (to hold it as a value), is to prefer success over Failure in this end, or else one would not act for this end.
An example can explain this concept. Actions that are suitable to preserving lion's lives are the actions that they ought to take because such actions allow them to succeed in achieving and maintaining their own lives. This is their ultimate value, and implicit in holding it is to prefer values that achieve it. Conversely, actions that are not suitable to preserving lion's lives are the actions that they ought not to take because such actions do not allow them to succeed in achieving and maintaining their own lives. This is their ultimate value, and implicit in holding it is to avoid actions that do not achieve it. Whether lions belived, or are capable of understanding, which actions are better or worse for the maintenance of their lives is irrelevant. It is a fact that certains courses of action are better than others for maintaining the life of a lion, such as the acte of stalking prey. Lions that can stalk prey will be able to better maintain their lives than lions that cannot, as stalking prey is crucial to the survival of a lion." (pp.158-159)
"Rand derives the kind of ultimate value human beings have from the kind of creatures we are. Rand believes that, as with all other creatures, the ultimate value for humain beings is our own lives. However, humans are unlike all other creatures in a crucial way. We are rational beings but "rationality is a matter of choice" (Rand 1964, 16). What this means can be better understood by reference to the nature of the ultimate value that all other non-human animals possess. Rand explains:
An animal has no choice in the standard of value directing in actions: its senses provide it with an automatic code of values, an automatic knowledge of what is good for it or evil, what benefits or endangers its life. An animal has no power to extend its knowledge or to evade it. In situations for which its knowledge is inadequate, it perishes -as, for instance, an animal that stands paralyzed on the track of a railroad in the path of a speeding train. But so long as it lives, an animal acts on its knowledge, with automatic safety and no power of choice: it cannot suspend its own consciousness - il cannot choose not to perceive - it cannot evade its own perception - it cannot ignore its own good, il cannot decide to choose the evil and act as its own destroyer. (10)" (p.160)
"Rand claims that for humans to act in accordance with their nature they must choose those "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" (Rand 1964, 19). As Hartford (2007) explains, acting rationally, for Rand, denotes "the choice to use objectivity" (301) or to hold as a fact that one's life is the ultimate value as a fact and, consequently, it is irrational to act through some other motivation. She believes that to do so "contradicts the facts of reality" and that a man who would do so "disintegrates his consciouness" (Rand 1964, 24) and degenerates into subhuman behavior, perhaps even leading to his untimely death.
The logical structure of Rand's deductive argument regarding human beings is nearly identical to that applying to simple living things. It is as follows:
D. V is a value for X if X acts to achieve/maintain V as an end. Analytic 'is".
P. Any rational being acts to achieve/maintain its own life as an end. - Analytic "is".
C. Any rational being's life is a value for itself. - Evaluative "is".
The difference here is that rational beings are those who act rationally and do Indeed hold their life as the ultimate value. This may not Apply to all human beings." (p.162)
"Rand argues that her system of "rational ethics will tell" humans "what principles of action are required to implement" our "choice" if we choose to live and hold our own life as our ultimate value (Rand 1982, 99)." (p.162)
"Her ethical system is characterized as rational selfishness. This system is selfish because it demands people aim at the ultimate value that is the achievement and maintenance of their own life. One should never make any sacrifice of this value for the sake of others (Rand 1988, 4). Human life as the ultimate value is called "man's Survival qua man" (Rand 1964, 18).
Rand's description of the ultimate value when applied to human beings is as follows:
"Man's Survival qua man" means the terms, methods, conditions and goals required for the survival of a rational being through the whole of his lifespan -in all those aspects of existence which are open to his choice (18)." (p163)
-Lachlan Doughney, “Ayn Rand and Deducing 'Ought' from 'Is'.” The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies, vol. 12, no. 1, 2012, pp. 151–168. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41607997. Accessed 8 Feb. 2020 : https://philpapers.org/rec/DOUARA
