We now turn to the most controversial aspect of Objectivism, its ethics. The term `ethics' is synonymous with morality. Ethics is the study of what people ought to do.

The source of controversy for Objectivism's ethics is its conflict with religion. In truth, it is Objectivism's metaphysics and epistemology that are in greatest conflict with religion. If reality is only what (it) is and man is able to understand it, whence god? Yet, since most religious people are convinced of philosophy's impotence, it is only the ethical, the obviously practical, that is within the realm of their perception.

If you try to convince a religious person of the validity of Objectivism's ethics, you will quickly be reduced to issues of epistemology and then metaphysics. A rational ethics cannot be based on an epistemology of revelation and eternal ignorance or a metaphysics of illusion. Religion promulgates rules. It does not evaluate their validity upon any basis other than god's supposed will. The word for this is dogma and it is quite accurate.

In fact, a valid theory of ethics can only flow from a metaphysics based upon objective reality and an epistemology of reason. It is possible to base one's ethics solely on reality.

Religious ethical systems consist of rules, which one must obey or face consequences imposed by the rule's alleged originator. One is also encouraged to heap guilt upon oneself for disobedience to god. From this we develop the absurdly self-contradictory notion of `sin'.

What is a sin? Disobeying god. Why shouldn't you disobey god? Because it's a sin. But what is actually wrong with disobeying god? No, no, no, you don't understand, ``wrong'' means contrary to god's orders. And so it goes -- there is no connection to reality.

Most people don't take religious morality too literally any more. If they did they could not survive -- it is often precisely this conflict that tortures religion's victims. Unfortunately, their replacement is often worse. One is often left with the vague notion that morality is a necessary evil! Religion counts upon the necessity to smuggle in a little reality for survival to create the emotion of guilt without which the `concept' of sin could not exist.

These ethical systems are usually quite vague. They argue that an act is evil (or at best morally neutral) if it is performed for one's own benefit. They teach that an act's moral value is in proportion to how far from one's own benefit one's motivations in performing the act are. In fact, as Rand observed, the word `selfish' has become nearly synonymous with evil.

It is supposedly moral to give money to a desperate stranger. Yet, if he earns the money, giving it to him is supposedly morally neutral. In fact, this moral creed states that rewarding the deserving is immoral if it deprives the `needier' or non-moral if it does not, while rewarding the unearned is moral.

In effect, this divorces the earned from the deserved and argues that the unearned is often deserved. This is the creed of the parasite and the host. It is a relatively trivial exercise to see that the concept `earned' is being stolen here -- ``earned'' means justly entitled to, and justice is supposed to be a virtue. To ``deserve'' can only mean to have earned, to merit. Religious 'moral' systems are a direct frontal attack upon justice, upon reality and objectivity in human relationships.

Another fundamental contradiction arises here: if it is moral for me to give money to a beggar, is it moral for the beggar to take it? The giving of the unearned logically requires the taking of the unearned. If the transaction is moral, the taking is justified. If you `should' give to me then I `should' take it from you. One requires the other.

Religions cannot wriggle out by saying that only voluntary charity is endorsed. If this were true, our country would not be considering universal health care, we would not have welfare, and so on.

A key observation here is that a creed of the unearned, of parasite and host, could never be a creed of human brotherhood, kindness, or dignity. Ironically, this is exactly how it is portrayed. Unfortunately, as Branden observed, calling torture ``re-education'' cannot turn a concentration camp into a university. Though it is a decade past 1984 its inversion of language lives on.

In addition, it is absurd to base morality on the intentions of the person whose act we are evaluating. For one thing, this would make it impossible to judge whether the actions of another are just. We could never be certain exactly what motivated a particular action, and some actions transgress reality whatever the motivation.

Suppose that a man believes that killing children before they reach the age of maturity guarantees them eternal happiness in heaven -- he believes that no redemption is possible for man's sins, any sin is so horrible as to doom a person to eternal torment, and children are incapable of sin. Suppose he then kills a hundred children, we do not call him a great humanitarian. His intentions are irrelevant, it is only the objective reasonableness of his actions that are important. If we examine his motivations, it is only to condemn their dissociation from reality.

All of these systems are guilty of a stolen concept fallacy. They use the term `ethical' (or `moral' or `should') without considering its genetic roots. The concept of morality only applies to the actions of a man. This is because of certain specific aspects of man's nature. Man's nature as man is the foundation in reality not just for correct ethics but for man's need for ethics.

Many of you who have taken philosophy courses or read philosophical works have heard of the supposed `is-ought' problem. It is claimed that it is a major philosophical problem to go from `is' statements, that is, the facts of reality, to `should' statements, that is, moral pronouncements.

They claim that one's moral axioms must either come from god, mysticism, or whatever source (except reality, which is all that there is) or they say that the choice is arbitrary and they proceed to pick something they like. This approach is based on the implicit assumption that because something ``feels right to you'' it is right. You should already know from earlier essays where this concept comes from and why it is wrong.

An essential has been forgotten; one can only have a clear and valid concept of `should' if something in reality suggested it. What are the genetic roots of the concept `should'?

The fact of reality involved here is that man's survival is not a given; it is not based upon automatic reflexive responses. Man must use his mind, and this process is volitional.

If men did not face choices, they would have no concept of morality. If the results of a man's choices did not matter at all, that is, they did not affect a man's state (or survival), he would have no need of morality.

In sum, the `is-ought' problem is already solved. Certain facts of reality, the nature of man, suggest and give meaning to the term `should'. Failure to acknowledge that the facts of reality have already led to the concept, and thus the meaning, identity, and valid sphere of application of the word `should' constitutes a stolen concept fallacy. Thus, no one can rationally claim that the field of morality is based on anything but objective reality and reason; there is nothing but objective reality for subject matter and nothing but reason to establish truth.

To make choices, one must have a standard of value. As a simple example, to choose between wearing a dark blue, warm coat or a light yellow jacket, one must pick some standard to maximize. If one chooses to wear the warmest coat, one wears the blue one. If one chooses to wear the lightest coat, one chooses the yellow one. Choices cannot be made without some standard of value. A `value' is that which one seeks to acquire and keep.

Once one knows what one's values are, the process of ethics is free from further `ought' issues. The only reasonable definition of the words `should' or `ought' or `must' is that they are used to denote an action consistent with one's values or the highest applicable value. But what is a value?

A living entity must continually act to maintain its life. If it does not, it dies. It continues to exist physically, but its life is gone. The distinction between life and death is perhaps the most fundamental metaphysical distinction among objects in the universe.

A plant is a living entity. It is automatically controlled to further its life as its standard of value. It cannot decide to rip up its roots, turn away from the sun, or grow roots up, leaves underground. If it could decide to do so and did, it would die.

An animal is also a living entity. It is capable of sensation and perception. Still, it is automatically engaged to further its own life. It cannot decide to kill itself, but if it finds itself in a situation in which its internal genetic programming is inadequate, it dies.

Now we come to man, the only entity for which morality is relevant. Man is a living entity, but he can choose to further his life, or not. He faces choices that affect his survival, and the effects matter to him; he faces, conceptually, a fundamental alternative, life or death.

In this context, survival must not be taken to mean pure physical survival. It is man's survival as man which is crucial. If a man is granted bodily survival as a slave, he is right to battle such tyranny even if it results in his physical death. Man does not survive as a man when his only tool for long-term survival, his ability to use his mind to apprehend and respond to reality is denied him.

George Smith wrote,

``The concept of value expresses the beneficial or harmful relationship of some aspect of reality to a living organism, and to say that something is of value to an organism is to say that it is conducive to the life of that organism. When we say that water is of value to a plant, for example, we mean that water is conducive to the life of that plant ... this relationship is objectively demonstrable. The value judgment involved here is true.''

To summarize, `value' denotes an objective relationship between two objects. The valuer must be a living entity. The thing valued can be an object, state, or abstraction.

A ``razor'' is a concept or law that allows one to reject a large amount of invalid reasoning rapidly. Well known razors include ``Occam's Razor' ' which tells us to accept the simplest explanation for a set of facts, and ``Rand's Razor'' which tells us that we must analyze the premises on which a conclusion is based before analyzing the conclusion itself and the reasoning process that generated it.

This brings us to a concept I call ``Katz's Razor'': The question of what one's values `should' be can never arise.

There is no concept of `should' until after there are values. The process of determining man's values is a purely scientific one -- what is essential for human existence? The question is, what is of value to a human? After we have values, we can ask what we should do to attain them. Both the set of rational values and the methods of attaining them originate in reality.

Man possesses no built-in instinctive survival mechanism. He must use his mind to survive. There is no place on earth where a man can survive without exercising his volitional consciousness. Even in a jungle free of predators filled with delicious fruits for the plucking, a man must still decide that when he is hungry, he will eat. He must direct consciously the process of picking the fruits and must put them in his mouth. He must decide which promote his health and which do not.

The exercise of mind is a uniquely individual process. Competence comes only with prolonged use, continued feedback from reality, and after a long `apprenticeship' called childhood. Man cannot survive by species reflex alone. Men possess no group consciousness. Every new idea arises in an individual mind.

The following quotation is from Leonard Peikoff's book Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand:

A long-standing tradition, stretching from Plato to the present, deprecates the activities involved in human survival as mindless, perceptual- level, ``materialistic'' -- while extolling reason as a ``spiritual'' organ concerned with ``pure'' contemplation. Before the Industrial Revolution, Ayn Rand remarked, this version of the mind-body dichotomy, though thoroughly false, had a certain degree of plausability. If one thinks -- as did most of the ancients -- that all the practical arts have long been discovered and that the process of keeping men alive consists primarily of physical labor, the labor of slaves or peasants repeating the age-old motions of their ancestors, then the pursuit of rational knowledge does indeed appear non-practical. It appears to be an unworldly self-indulgence of the aristocracy or the clergy.

No one can sustain this view today! Man, to survive as man, must use his mind. The dramatic rise in quality of life seen throughout those nations whose governments stay out of the way of progress and the rapid increase in technology show what a fraud this position is.

The opposite of mind is force. While it is true that a man can survive physically for a time by the use of force against other men, it is still his theft of their minds that sustains him.

Objectivist ethics absolutely prohibits the initiation of force or the use of fraud in human relationships. The following quotation is from The Virtue of Selfishness by Ayn Rand: ``Man's rights can be violated only by the use of physical force. It is only by means of physical force that one man can deprive another of his life, or enslave him, or rob him, or prevent him from pursuing his own goals, or compel him to act against his own rational judgment.

The precondition of rational society is the barring of physical force from social relationships -- thus establishing the principle that if men wish to deal with one another, they may do so only by means of reason: by discussion, persuasion and voluntary, uncoerced agreement.''

In this context, fraud is considered a variety of physical force. Also, it is important to note that this is not a philosophy of pacifism. Retaliatory or defensive force is not only permitted but often required. By coercion, we mean the use of force or fraud to gain a value. One does not shoot a thief to gain a value.

This point is one of Ayn Rand's great contributions to philosophy -- that one man can violate the rights of another man only by initiating the use of force or fraud against him. All of the rest of the sphere of human action and interaction is incapable of resulting in a rights violation.

It is a corollary of Objectivist ethics that there are no conflicts among rational men. There is a conflict between a thief and his victim, but the thief is not acting rationally. One cannot sustain one's life as a human being by theft. Reality demands of a man that he act upon his own rational judgment; force demands that he act against it. One cannot exist rationally in defiance of reality.

Two rational men who both want the same job have no conflict, they both know that only one of them can get it and accept reality; one does not insist that one gets everything one wants -- one is not in conflict when one does not get everything one wants. If the person who selects who gets the job picks the person less qualified -- acting irrationally -- he may come in conflict with both of the rational men who wanted the job, but they will still not be in conflict with each other.

It is a sad commentary on our world that many consider it ethical to resort to physical force to appropriate the goods produced by the minds of one set of people so that they can be given to another set of people who have not earned them. (The `right' to health care, for example.)

The strength of all laws ultimately rests on the threat (and execution) of physical force against those who violate it. For some laws, this is entirely appropriate. The laws against murder have the effect of, after a suitable procedure, putting the murderer in a prison where he will be confined by physical force. A tax law has the effect of, after a suitable procedure, fining its violators and jailing them if they do not pay the fine. These are clear uses of physical force.

The fact that these procedures seldom run to the end of their course -- most people will comply with a tax law and most violators will pay the fine rather than go to jail -- does not take the force away. If it did, a thief who pointed a gun at my head and demanded my money would not be taking it by force if I complied with his request and he did not actually have to shoot me. The threat of force is equivalent to its execution; the existence of the gun along with my objectively reasonable conclusion that it will be used if I do not comply is sufficient to establish the use of coercion.

If the government is to give out the unearned, it can only do so by seizing from others, by pure physical force, that which they have earned. To do so is, by definition, unjust.

If I am told that every American has a right to `X' where `X' is health care, education, food, a modest income, or any other positive value, I always reply, ``of course, providing they have earned it.'' If the government is to give you a value you have not earned, it must take it from someone else -- most likely someone who has earned it. This will be discussed in great detail in an upcoming essay on Capitalism.

Normative fields are those that contain imperatives. Actually, they contain a single imperative along with a set of laws derived from reality that are useful to attain the imperative.

For example, medicine is a normative field because it tells a doctor what he `should' do. In medicine, we have a single root imperative, ``you should make and keep the patient well'', the rest of medicine consists of laws such as, ``if a patient has a fever and you wish to reduce it, you can give him an alcohol rub.'' Architecture is likewise a normative field with a single root imperative, ``you should build a sound structure.'' Ethics likewise is a normative field because it too has clear-cut goals based upon the reality of man's nature.

A rational ethics consists of scientific laws such as, ``You must eat if you wish to survive.'', ``You must grow food if you wish to eat.'', ``You must build a shelter if you wish to survive a storm'', ``You must think clearly and reason accurately if you are to perceive the world accurately'', along with but a single root imperative, ``You must further your own life as a human being.''

In effect, all of your knowledge gets bundled into your ethical system. Every piece of knowledge you obtain helps you, in one way or another, to determine what you should do. In essence, all knowledge is normative; everything you know carries with it some implication regarding how you should act.

Justice is the virtue of evaluating people's conduct and character accurately and objectively and rendering to each person what he deserves, what he has earned. Justice is rationality in one's affairs involving others -- adherence to reality in the sphere of interpersonal relationships.

Pleasure is the sensation a person experiences when he achieves a value. Note that this sensation does not encompass all of the long-range effects of an action. Eating too many sweets tastes good for a reason, sugar is a source of energy for the body. The ultimate result may well be suffering and pain, this is why man needs his mind -- he must balance his short-term and long-term goals constantly and he must use his mind to allow him to thrive in situations in which his `genetic programming' is inadequate (which is pretty much all situations of significance).

The term ``value'' can be used either to mean that which is beneficial to the survival of an organism or that which one seeks to gain and/or keep. When one is rational, these two definitions present no conflicts.

One criticism often leveled against Objectivism is that its ethical system is essentially one of Hedonism. The term `Hedonism' means an ethical system based on pleasure instead of rules or consciously chosen values, and it comes in two varieties.

The first variety is called `Ethical Hedonism'. This system argues that what is moral, in any context, is whatever gives the moral actor the most pleasure. The problem with this argument is that it forgets that men have control over what gives them pleasure; what a person perceives as his values affects what gives him pleasure. A person feels pleasure when he achieves what he believes are his values. Ethical reasoning tells men how to choose what to consider their values. Ethical Hedonism is silent on this critical point.

Man, in order to practice Ethical Hedonism, must take his already formed perceptions of proper human values as etched in stone and simultaneously as bendable at his whim. Because Ethical Hedonism is powerless to tell men what their values are, it is useless as an ethical system. Further, it even fails to maximize pleasure because a recipe is necessary to maximize pleasure and direct pursuit of what happens to cause one pleasure is not it -- the recipe is pursuit of rational values, that is, to value what is of value.

The second variety is called `Psychological Hedonism'. This position argues that regardless of what people think is right or wrong, they will, in fact, do whatever they believe will give them the most pleasure. This position has several major problems.

To begin with, it is a fact of reality that people often forgo short- term pleasures. The Psychological Hedonist could argue that whenever this happens, people are actually concerned with their long-term pleasure. But this is not what Psychological Hedonism asserts!

Listen to the difference between the following two claims: ``Men will do whatever gives them the most immediate pleasure'' and ``When men decide what to do, they rationally evaluate the situation and choose the option that they believe will ultimately give them the most pleasure.'' Or must one argue that it gives a person maximum immediate pleasure to balance his long-term pleasure with his short-term pleasure?

The first claim is obviously false by introspection. The second is too close to a rational ethical theory to be used to denigrate Objectivist ethics. Both ignore the fact that men have control over what gives them pleasure. There is no in-between.

Even if we accept Psychological Hedonism, we are still left with the need for an ethical system, namely one capable of telling us what is in our `long-term pleasure' best interest. What would the nature of this system be? Clearly, it would be a rational theory of ethics as set forth above.

Second, Psychological Hedonism robs human beings of volition. It argues that humans, in fact, do not have true volitional power -- they automatically choose whatever will give them the most pleasure. Believing this, its adherents cannot argue that the tenets of Psychological Hedonism are in fact true, but only that it gives them the most pleasure to believe and argue that they are true. This is equivalent to the claim that man can be certain of nothing. In essence then, they exclude themselves from the field of logical discussion and argument. (See my earlier arguments about free will)

Pragmatism is the doctrine that men should do whatever works. The problem with this doctrine is that we cannot determine what works and what does not until we have a standard of value for comparing them. As previously discussed, once we have a standard of value their is no further question of what we `should' do. Thus pragmatism is not a system of ethics because it does not tell us what to value and that is the role of ethics.

A person cannot use the excuse that something `worked for him' to justify an unethical action -- he must defend his standard of judgment. Pragmatism does not tell us what our goals are or how we should choose them. If `working' means bringing us closer to our goals, we are left with no way to know what to choose.

Tell any Hedonists that you meet that you tried Hedonism, but it made your life miserable -- they are then either forced to argue that you should reject Hedonism or that you must reject Hedonism. Tell any pragmatists that you tried pragmatism but it just didn't work for you -- they are then forced to argue that you should reject it. Neither of these ethical systems is compatible with an epistemology based on objective truth, so if you have been with me this far, you cannot break here!

The moral code of Objectivism is based on objective reality. It states that the process of determining man's `proper values' is the scientific process of determining what is of value to a man. Pleasure is a corollary of moral conduct, that is, it automatically flows from achieving values. One's choice of what one considers one's values, however, cannot be based on pleasure; the dependency runs precisely in the other direction.

I could discuss these subjects in much more detail, however, the primary alternative to a rational system of ethics (that I know of) is a religious or mystical one, and I do not see any real need to discuss religion further at this point. Suffice it to say that such an `ethic' (or one of secular altruism) is one of arbitrary pronouncements. Nothing in the Objectivist ethical system is arbitrary.

You may hear talk of `subjective ethics'. This is the doctrine that what is right for one person may or may not be right for another. Certainly what is right in one situation may not be right in another situation and two people will seldom be in exactly the same situation, but what does this have to do with ethics? Don't ask me.

If two people are in exactly the same situation and there are no objective differences between them, what happens if we assume that what is right for the first person is not what is right for the second? Remember that no facts of reality can differ between the two people, none. The only thing that `subjective ethics' allows to differ is these people's `preferences'. The crux is, different things `feel right' to each person even though the facts of reality are the same.

It is clearly pathological to believe that because something `feels right' it is right. If it is right it is right. Men can use their feelings as tools, but following one's feelings without the use of one's intellect is a recipe for disaster. `Subjective ethics' claims that reason has no place in ethics. Yet it is only because man is capable of reason that the field of ethics even exists!

By the way, one thing I did not discuss in the essay on Epistemology is the truth status of the arbitrary. An arbitrary statement, one made for no reason whatever -- one in which the words are, in effect, selected at random -- conveys no meaning. Meaning is conveyed when a person carefully selects their words to correspond to concepts which correspond to something in reality. An arbitrary claim is neither true nor false but simply arbitrary. As Peikoff wrote, ``it is as if nothing has been said.''

Note that by ``words selected at random,'' I do not mean to imply that the construct is not gramatically valid. What I really mean is that the concepts and the relationships between them are selected without reference to reality. Remember Branden's, ``the side of the moon we cannot see is filled with flower gardens and Coca Cola factories.''

If anyone reading this buys into a religious foundation for morality, please, please, read George Smith's excellent book Atheism: The Case Against God. I will be more than happy to discuss any questions regarding that book that anyone might have at any time; it is a model of the efficacy of reason. I'm in the soul-saving business, after all -- I value human integrity.

``The moral, the practical, and the happy cannot be sundered.'' Leonard Peikoff

Happy reasoning,

Joel Katz (djls@gate.net)

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