McCaskey: "Rand doesn’t follow the conventional standards of logic"

John McCaskey, the former ARI board member forced to resign for mild criticisms of a Peikoff protege, wrote in a blog post a few years back about Rand's "method of arguing."

Rand doesn’t follow the conventional standards of logic. She has her own distinctive method of arguing. If that method is valid, her moral and political philosophy stands. If it is invalid, her whole system comes crashing down. 

What is her method and is it valid?... 

Rand’s distinctive method to answering many philosophical questions is to ask what knowledge is already presumed by the very terms in the question. 

You say, “Miss Rand, I want to argue with you about the proper role of government.” She replies, in effect, “OK, but let us first unpack the concepts you are using. What are you already assuming by using the words ‘proper’ and ‘government’?” If you think of a government as the owner of buildings where you fill out forms and “proper” as whatever avoids your mother’s wrath, then Rand will insist that the two of you first work out a mature and essentialized understanding of these concepts.

In other words, Rand seeks to answer very complex philosophical questions via an explication of the meanings of words. Is this an effective way to answer moral questions? Is it an effective way to determine matters of fact?

Ayn Rand & Human Nature 19

Human nature and "reason." Rand places enormous stress on individual conscious reasoning. "Reason" is her chief moral virtue and is considered a necessity to man's survival. Not surprising, Rand regarded "reason" as particularly important in ethics. Rand regarded any attempt to derive ethical behavior from intuition or gut feelings or emotion as mere "whim worship," which she denounced in fierce, vigorous language.

There are several problems with this point of view, some of which have already been explored on this blog. In the first place, it is logically fallacious to reason from two is premises to an ought conclusion, something Rand appears not to have understood. Secondly, it is psychologically impossible to derive a moral end solely from reason. Reason is a method, a means for attaining an end. But an end must be wished for it's own sake, because it satisfies some sentiment or desire. Reason can never provide that end by its own resources alone. And finally, there exists an immense body of research demonstrating that reason is not used to make moral decisions; on the contrary, where reason comes in is after the decision has been made. The role of reason is not to make moral choices, but to defend them after the fact.

Defending the Impossible

Over at amazon.com, there's a bit of a philosophical duel going on between myself and Rand apologist Paul Beaird. While it hardly reaches the exalted rank of Lincoln-Douglass or Wilberforce-Huxley, it will give Rand watchers a chance to witness an intelligent advocate of Rand trying to defend three impossible positions, namely: (1) that Rand logically derived an ought from an is, a value from a fact; (2) that there exists no equivocation between "man's life" and "man's survival qua man"; and (3) that Hume denied the possibility of any connection between fact and value. Since these positions are indefensible, Mr. Beaird spends most of his time try to divert attention through various debating tricks, particular the old the best defense is a good offense trick. Instead of defending Rand, he attacks what he imagines are my failings, with predictable results.

Empirical responsibility is not exactly one of Mr. Beaird's virtues. He twice insists that "Rand's use of observable facts and the relationships between them [which facts and relationships are those? can he state any?] to demonstrate the natural foundation of the concept 'value' is so well-known by now that, for you to still insist Hume had not been refuted reveals an uncomprehending mind..." Of course, no evidence is brought forth to back this extraordinary claim. Rand critic Michael Huemer expresses a very different point of view:

Objectivists seem to find "The Objectivist Ethics" completely convincing. But hardly anyone else finds it at all convincing. This is not a trivial observation—one often finds that people who do not accept a whole philosophical system nevertheless find certain parts of it plausible. And one often finds that people who are not ultimately persuaded by an argument nevertheless see some plausibility in it. But neither of these things is true of the argument of “The Objectivist Ethics”—hardly anyone finds that argument even slightly plausible, unless they also buy into virtually all of Ayn Rand’s views. This is not true of most of her other views: one would not be surprised to find a non-Objectivist who nevertheless thinks Rand’s political views are reasonable, or her epistemological views, or her aesthetic theories. The explanation is simple: the theory of “The Objectivist Ethics” is simultaneously the most distinctive and the least plausible, worst defended of all of Rand’s major ideas. (Here is a nicer way to say that: all of Rand’s other major theories are more plausible and better defended than that one.)

Now who is right? Is Rand's argument in "The Objectivist Ethics" so "well known by now" that only an "uncomprehending mind" would fail to understand that Rand had "refuted" Hume? Or is the argument only accepted by Objectivists, who are committed to accepting everything by Rand, in defiance of fact and logic? Huemer's contention is by far the more plausible. I can't think of a single non-Objectivist who accepts Rand's argument. And most people have never heard of it at all, and would not be able to make heads or tails of it if it were explained to them.

In my exchange with Mr. Beaird, I have made repeated calls for Beaird or any other Objectivist to back their talk and produce this marvelous refutation of Hume. Of course, no such proof will ever be produced. Ironically, however, the aforementioned Michael Huemer has attempted to state the Objectivist argument in logical form. I have linked to it before, but its worth the occasional perusal. Huemer finds all of Rand's premises to be dubious for one reason or another. Nor is Huemer able to complete the chain of reasoning all the way to Rand's "man qua man." That, of course, is impossible, since it involves a palpable equivocation ("'man qua man' and 'rational' [are] fudge words" is Huemer's verdict).

Objectivism & Politics, Part 55

Ayn Rand contra Conservatism 9. In the essay “Conservatism: an Obituary,” Rand’s main complaint against conservatism centers, not on what conservatives believe, but on the arguments that conservatives put forth to defend those beliefs. In other words, Rand acknowledges that conservatives favor capitalism and freedom. Their error, in her mind, is that they defend these ideals with bad arguments, that is to say, arguments lacking the “correct” philosophical premises. However, the capitalism and freedom that conservatives favor are not identical to what Rand herself favors; and it is important to grasp what the differences are. Many conservatives fail to understand these differences; and (I suspect) Objectivists are incapable of understanding them.

Objectivists frame the difference between themselves and conservatives in terms of basic premises. Since Rand believed human character stems from ideas, ideas become paramount. Conservatives take an entirely different approach. They tend to discount alleged differences in basic premises and instead focus on the practical consequences of a specific ideology. It is facts, not opinions, results, not premises, that are of most importance to the conservative. Conservatives favor a type of freedom, a form of capitalism that works in the real world, not merely one that works according to the speculative “logic” of this or that intellectual.





In Rand, we find a type of individualism, a type of freedom, that is at odds with basic facts about the human condition. Rand posits as a moral ideal defining the relations between individuals her “Trader Principle,” which contends that “The principle of trade is the only rational ethical principle for all human relationships.” [“The Objectivist Ethics,” emphasis added]

The notion that trade can define most human relationships rests on the tacit assumption that the individual is a kind atomistic unit without any bonds or ties to the community at large which will profoundly influence his behavior. This view simply doesn’t accord with the facts of human experience. As economist Frank Knight pointed out:


...the freest individual, the unencumbered male in the prime of life, is in no real sense an ultimate unit or social datum. He is in large measure a product of the economic system, which is a fundamental part of the cultural environment that has formed his desires and needs, given him whatever marketable productive capacities he has, and which largely controls his opportunities. Social organization through free contract implies that the contracting units know what they want and are guided by their desires, that is, that they are “perfectly rational,” which would be equivalent to saying that they are accurate mechanisms of desire-satisfaction. In fact, human activity is largely impulsive, a relatively unthinking and undetermined response to stimulus and suggestion. Moreover, there is truth in the allegation that unregulated competition places a premium on deceit and corruption. [Ethics of Competition, 41-42]

Knight’s view is amplified by philosopher Richard Weaver, where the distinction between “anarchistic” individualism and “social bond” individualism is elucidated. Consider Weaver’s description of these two types of individualism:

...if we are interested in rescuing individualism in this age of conformity and actual regimentation, it is the [social bond] kind which we must seek to cultivate. Social bond individualism is civil and viable and constructive except in very abnormal situations. Anarchic individualism is revolutionary and subversive from the very start; it shows a complete despite for all that civilization or the social order has painfully created, and this out of self-righteousness or egocentric attachment to an idea…. It is charged with a lofty disdain for the human condition, not the understanding of charity. It is not Christian to accept such a view; or, if that is too narrow, it is not politically wise; or if that is too narrow, it is just not possible. Such a view ends in the extremism of nihilism. The other more tolerant and circumspect kind of individualism has enjoyed two thousand years of compatibility with institutions in the Western world and is our best hope for preserving human personality in a civil society. [The Southern Essays of Richard M. Weaver, 102-103]

Now the “anarchistic individualism” analyzed by Weaver describes, in many respects, the sort of individualism we find championed in Objectivism. In Rand and many of her disciples we find a lofty disdain for the human condition and an egocentric attachment to an idea. But does the Randian form of individualism end in the extremism of nihilism, as Weaver suggests? There is every reason to believe it would, if it ever could become universal. Objectivists benefit from the social bonds in the society around them, many of which they regard as irrational (such as the bonds defined by common law, family “duty,” social “obligations,” etc.). But if (per impossible) Objectivism became dominant in a society, many of those bonds would be dissolved. The result would be a social order in which most people (including, perhaps, many Objectivists) would not wish to live. It would be a society dominated by intellectual bullies who would use their aggressiveness and their ability to rationalize their (unconscious and unacknowledged) need for respect and status to manipulate and stomp over their weaker brethren.

Even on small scale and within the broad context of a “normal” society, Objectivism hardly inspires hope that it can solve the many problems that arise when human beings attempt to live among each other within a social order. Objectivism attempts to solve these problems by denying that they are essential and ineradicable features of the human condition. But such denials only make these problems worse. We see this all too clearly when we turn our attention to Objectivist communities that have arisen among followers of Rand's creed.

Even under the best of circumstances, when relations between human beings are governed by the wisest precepts and customs, it is difficult for individuals to handle the inevitable disagreements and conflicts that arise between them. Within the social world of Objectivism, the belief that the “rational interests of men do not clash” renders it nearly impossible for Objectivsts to settle differences amicably. Instead, sharp differences always lead to ostracization. This is how Rand’s various disputes with her disciples inevitably concluded; and it is how such disputes end among her orthodox followers.

Within the tacit social rules that govern behavior among Objectivists, there exists no sensible or wise method through which to resolve disputes. The Objectivist ideal of solving conflicts impartially via reason is simply not workable, because disputes inevitably involve clashing sentiments and desires, neither of which are amenable to “reason.” Moreover, precisely because Objectivists tend to regard all disputes as arising out of contradictory fundamental premises, personal disputes are framed as philosophical disputes involving metaphysical, epistemological, and moral arcana. Once a personal dispute has been translated and rationalized into philosophical abstractions, there is no way it can be solved for the simple reason that the abstractions conceal the real causes of the dispute. Hence, the Peikoff-Kelley split is explained by on one side as a dispute over fact and value, and by the other as a perversion of objective moral judgment. But the real reasons are probably far more complex and far more personal than anyone would be comfortable admitting.

The dangers arising from Rand’s atomistic form individualism go well beyond the unsavory conflicts and schisms that have arisen among Objectivist luminaries. In the case of Ellen Plasil, we have a chilling example of what happens in a community where the social bonds have been weakened and perverted. Plasil was an Objectivist who was sexually manipulated and abused by her “Objectivist” therapist, Lonnie Leonard. When she exposed Leonard as a fraud, the community of Objectivists either ignored her or treated her as the culprit. No one in the Objectivist community other than boyfriend stood by her. Fortunately for Plasil, the Objectivist community is only a small sliver of society: there was a larger non-Objectivist community that she could appeal to for justice and support. But where would she have turned in a society dominated by Objectivists, where Objectivists ran the courts and administered justice? Ponder that question and you will understand why most people do not want an Objectivist society and are in fact repelled by it.

Most individuals do not want to be placed in a position where they might find themselves without any social support at all. Nor do they want to find themselves at the mercy of hordes of self-absorbed atomistic individualists who rationalize all their desires and are incapable of empathizing with others. But this is precisely what tends to happen wherever atomistic individualism prevails and the social bonds are weakened. Strong familial and community bonds fostered by Weaver’s social bond individualism provide a support system which enable individuals to seek redress against the Lonnie Leonard’s of the world. The law itself is a creature of this support system and would not exist without it. But when individuals become exclusively preoccupied with their “self-interest,” the practical results of this kind of self-absorption tend to result in the type of individual who can’t be bothered with maintaining the social bonds that strengthen justice and provide the glue that holds society together. So Ellen Plasil is left to fend for herself. Indeed, in such a society, everyone would be on their own and those who could not fend for themselves would be regarded with contempt, as Plasil is among Objectivists to this day. Who would want to live in such a world? Other than individuals like Lonnie Leonard, hardly anyone. It is not a world fit for normal human beings. As the best conservative opinion has long maintained, no social system can work which is exclusively based on voluntary interaction (i.e., the “trader principle”) guided solely by short-run utilitarian ends (i.e., “rational self-interest”). Yet this is where atomistic individualism leads in practice.

Objectivism & Politics, Part 49

Ayn Rand contra Conservatism 3. In “Conservatism: an Obituary,” Rand, after criticizing conservatives for not providing a “moral base” for their defense of the “American way of life,” suddenly turns course and asserts that in “recent years the ‘conservatives’ have gradually come to a dim realization of the weakness of their position, of the philosophical flaw that had to be corrected.” However, “the means by which [conservatives] are attempting to correct it are worse than the original weakness.”


Rand continues: "There are three interrelated arguments used by today’s “conservatives” to justify capitalism, which can best be designated as: the argument from faith—the argument from tradition—the argument from depravity."

In this post, we will concentrate on Rand’s analysis of the argument from faith. Rand’s analysis is as follows:

Sensing their need of a moral base, many “conservatives” decided to choose religion as their moral justification; they claim that America and capitalism are based on faith in God. Politically, such a claim contradicts the fundamental principles of the United States: in America, religion is a private matter which cannot and must not be brought into political issues.

It is important to reiterate what I have stated in previous posts: all these “moral-base” arguments are mere rationalizations covering a complex blend of motives, interests, and sentiments that could never be summarized in a handful of broad moral injunctions. Rand commits the error of greatly exaggerating the influence of moral-base arguments. Her remarks about faith-based rationalizations must be seen in this context.

Are the “fundamental principles of America” contradicting by the claim that capitalism and freedom are based on “faith in God”? Well, that all depends on what one means by such vague phrases as “faith in God” and the “fundamental principles of America.” If, however, we frame this matter somewhat differently, in terms that are more empirical and testable, we will come closer to what a more sophisticated conservatism asserts when it attempts to link religion with capitalism and freedom. It is a fact that capitalism, in its early stages, had a “link” of sorts with religion. As the sociologist Max Weber noted: “As a matter of fact it is surely remarkable, to begin with a quite superficial observation, how large is the number of representatives of the most spiritual forms of Christian piety who have sprung from commercial circles…. Similarly, the remarkable circumstance that so many of the greatest capitalistic entrepreneurs—down to Cecil Rhodes—have come from clergymen’s families… Even more striking … is the connection of the religious way of life with the most intensive development of business acumen….” [The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, 43-44]

Note that Weber does not claim that there is a connection between religious “doctrine” [i.e., religious rationalizations] and business acumen; no, Weber specifies the connection exists between the “religious way of life” and business acumen, a different matter altogether. The religious way of life is rarely, if ever, entirely consistent with religious doctrine. How could it be? Religions contain dogmas which, if taken literally, would overstep important practical realities. Such doctrines have to be reinterpreted to fit the practical demands of everyday life. The effect of religion is not in all cases as irrational as Rand would have us believe. Religion may, and often will, leave plenty of room for practical success in life. This does not mean that the “non-practical” (or “irrational”) side of religion has no effect at all. But the so-called “irrational” side of religion tends to display itself in various non-practical pursuits, such as worship and ritual. To a non-religious person, the amount of time and effort spent by intensely religious people in practicing their faith may seem like a horrid waste of time. Yet, ironically, there may exist positive benefits from this sort of non-logical behavior. Ritual and worship, whatever might be said against them, are entirely consistent, and in some measure may promote, some of the virtues necessary to succeed in business, such as sobriety, monogamy (divorce, mistresses, adultery are expenses the frugal businessmen can do without), self-discipline, etc. In any case, it is simply a fact that, in the early stages of capitalism, the business class tended to be dominated by the intensely religious. This fact can hardly be elucidated on the basis of Rand’s doctrinal view of religion, which attempts to explain the behavior of religious people on the basis of the “fundamental” premises of religion. Neither human nature nor religion work in so simplistic a fashion.

Ignoring these important facts, Rand resumes her harangue against “faith”:

Intellectually, to rest one’s case on faith means to concede that reason is on the side of one’s enemies—that one has no rational arguments to offer. The “conservatives’” claim that their case rests on faith, means that there are no rational arguments to support the American system, no rational justification for freedom, justice, property, individual rights, that these rest on a mystic revelation and can be accepted only on faith—that in reason and logic the enemy is right, but men must hold faith as superior to reason.

Consider the implications of that theory. While the communists claim that they are the representatives of reason and science, the “conservatives” concede it and retreat into the realm of mysticism, of faith, of the supernatural, into another world, surrendering this world to communism.

Here Rand reverts to one of her favorite strategies: polarization. An individual either believes entirely in “faith” or entirely in “reason.” Given that Rand claimed to admire Thomas Aquinas, she should have known better. Most religious conservatives do not regard “faith” and “reason” as opposites, but as supplementary. No conservative would claim that his case for capitalism and freedom rested solely on faith. Faith is merely used as a way to circumvent Hume’s is/ought gap in conservative rationalizations about morality. In this sense, there is a point in common between conservatism and Objectivism in that both rationalize their way around Hume’s gap. The main difference is that the conservatives are more honest about it and talk about “faith,” whereas Rand claims she gets around it (per impossible) through “reason.”

At the core of Rand’s criticism is the implicit claim that her moral rationalizations are superior (i.e., more convincing) to those of conservatives. Yet this goes against a very well established fact—namely, that there are a great many more conservatives than there are Objectivists. Of course, such rationalizations are only persuasive to those already inclined to believe them; which is why Rand’s complaints on this score seem much ado about nothing. Claiming that the moral base for capitalism is religious faith may not sound very convincing to the secular enemies of the free market; but Rand’s "reason"-based rationalizations have not been a jot more convincing to such individuals. Changing people’s minds through arguments (i.e., rationalizations) is very difficult and not very effective. Especially ineffective are broad arguments based on abstract moral principles. Most human beings instinctively sense that such arguments are hollow and not to be trusted. Moreover, because of their vagueness, broad, abstract principles do not yield any clear specific guidelines for practical actions, but can be interpreted to fit a variety of specific guidelines. So people tend to follow, instead, the complex web of strategies for navigating through the problems of life that they have learned and absorbed through years of trial and error experience.

Objectivism & Politics, Part 7

Politics and the non-rational 3: the is-ought gap revisited. In the last Objectivism and Politics post, I noted two problems with the view the logical conduct is always better than non-logical conduct:

1. It is not clear, and cannot be assumed a priori, that non-logical conduct in all instances is “bad.”
   
2. A society based solely on logical conduct and “reason” is not possible.
   

In this post, I will examine the second of these two problems.

In his massive treatise The Mind and Society, we find Pareto making the following observation:


Be it said in all deference to our estimable humanitarians and positivists, a society exclusively determined by “reason” does not and cannot exist, and that not because “prejudices” in human beings prevent them from following the dictates of “reason,” but because the data of the problem that presumably is to be solved by logico-experimental reasonings are entirely unknown…. Social reformers fail to notice, or at least they disregard, the fact that individuals entertain different opinions with regard to utility, and that they do so because they get the data they require from their own sentiments. They say, and they believe, that they are solving an objective problem: “What is the best form for a society?” Actually they are solving a subjective problem: “What form of society best fits my sentiments?” The reformer, of course, [as well as the Objectivist] is certain that his sentiments have to be shared by all honest men and that they are not merely excellent in themselves [or, as an Objectivist might put it, excellent in the light of reason] but are also also in the highest degree beneficial to society [or to the self-interest of “rational” individuals]. Unfortunately that belief in no way alters the realities. [§2143, §2145]

When Pareto denies that the “dictates of reason” cannot be followed because the “data of the problem … are entirely unknown,” he is restating, in his own words, Hume’s denial that moral values can be founded exclusively on “reason.”

Not only did Rand fail to bridge Hume’s infamous is-ought gap, she does not appear to have even understood it. Consider what she writes of it in her essay “The Objectivist Ethics”:

In answer to those philosophers who claim that no relation can be established between ultimate ends or values and the facts of reality [which philosophers make such a claim?], let me stress that the fact that living entities exist and function necessitates the existence of values and of life. Thus the validation of value judgments is to be achieved by reference to the facts of reality. The fact that a living entity is, determines what it ought to do. So much for the issue of the relation between ‘is’ and ‘ought.’ [VOS, 17]

Rand failed to solve the is-ought problem in this paragraph: indeed, she succeeded only in misrepresenting it. Neither Hume nor Pareto deny that value judgments refer to "facts of reality." What they deny is that those judgments can be determined (or “validated”) by “reason” (or, in Pareto’s case, by the "logico-experimental" method). The reason for this is quite simple: no value judgment can be derived without reference to actual needs, sentiments, and desires of human beings, all of which Rand and her followers deplore as mere “whims.” To value something is to care about in the emotive sense of the word; and if you didn’t care about it or were incapable of caring about it, you wouldn’t value it in the first place.

Rand tries to evade this so-called “subjectivist” conclusion by suggesting that, because only living beings can have values, life must be the “standard” of value. Rand never actually attempted to “prove” her argument (i.e., demonstrate it logically), but even if she had, the is-ought gap would have remained ungapped. Life can’t possibly be the standard of all values because most values clearly have no bearing on the question of life and death. This is a point I fleshed out in an earlier post, where I explained why life as the standard of value (or the “ultimate” value) fails to answer Hume’s objections: it covers too little ground and leads to troublesome moral paradoxes. This explains why Rand, as soon she thinks she has established her “reason-based” morality, quietly gets rid of her survivalist morality and replaces it with an entirely different one: “The standard of value in Objectivist ethics—the standard by which one judges what is good and evil—is ... that which is required for man's survival qua man." As I wrote in the earlier post:

this little man-qua-man qualification changes everything. It's not just any kind of survival, but a very a special type, that we are to pursue. What precisely it is, though, remains somewhat nebulous. Rand clarifies "survival qua man" with the phrase "that which is proper to the life of a rational being." But since this is supposed to be part of an argument explaining how rational values are justified and generated, this will not do. Observe closely, for we are here confronting as good an example of circular reasoning as one is likely to find. When we ask Rand and her orthodox followers, How are rational values discovered? they answer By determining what is proper (i.e., moral) to a rational being!

In other words, Rand’s attempt to bridge the is-ought gap collapses under the weight of its own ineptitude. Like every other philosopher of “reason,” she unwittingly equivocated her way to finding some vague solution to the problem so that she could pretend to be following “reason” instead of her own sentiments and desires.

Now since Rand claims to have founded her politics on her ethics, her failure to demonstrate how an ought can be logically derived from an is will have obvious consequences for her politics. Most critically, it will allow us to dismiss Rand’s claim that her political values are founded on “reason.” Rand’s normative political theory is merely the statement of her own personal preferences. Therefore it is pointless to discuss whether Rand’s theory of rights is “correct” or “true” or based on "reason" or "man's nature." If we are to stick to the realm of facts and practicalities, we should instead focus on whether Rand’s political theories are empirically viable: that is, whether they can be implemented as realities, rather than just dreamed about as pleasant ideals.

Objectivism & Economics, Part 15

Schumpeter’s challenge. The economist Joseph Schumpeter created quite a stir in the forties when he warned that “the capitalist order tends to destroy itself.” Schumpeter issued this warning despite his belief in what he described as “the impressive economic and the still more impressive cultural achievement of the capitalist order and at the immense promise held out by both.” Capitalism would destroy itself because it would undermine its own “protecting strata” and “institutional framework.” One of the reasons he gave for this pessimistic assessment seems rather prescient in relation to the current economic crisis:

Capitalist activity, being essentially “rational,” tends to spread rational habits of mind and to destroy those loyalties and those habits of super- and subordination that are nevertheless essential for the efficient working of the institutionalized leadership of the producing plant: no social system can work which is based exclusively upon a network of free contracts between (legally) equal contracting parties and in which everyone is supposed to be guided by nothing except his own (short-run) utilitarian ends.

In one sentence Schumpeter has put his finger on the greatest flaw of capitalist order. Contrary to what Rand and her followers believe, “rational” self-interest is not an entirely benign psychological force. Rand’s faith in self-interest (and it is only a faith) is not warranted by the facts. In the first place, it is absurd to regard human desires and sentiments as rational. A desire or sentiment can only be criticized in reference to an opposing desire or sentiment. As Spinoza famously put it: “an emotion cannot be destroyed nor controlled except by a contrary and stronger emotion.” Consequently, rationality, as an ideal, can only apply to the means by which desires and sentiments are satisfied. Yet this is not all. Even if there were (per impossible) such a thing as a “rational end,” it is very doubtful that very many human beings would be interested in pursuing it. If we make history and experience our guide in such matters—and whatever guide could possibly lead us to the truth besides history and experience?—then we are forced to conclude that the majority of human beings are largely non-rational in their conduct and are probably not even capable of being rational about any issue in the least complex (as rational methods of analysis tend to break down when applied to complex situations). When Schumpeter talks about “rational” habits of mind, he is not writing in the Randian sense of the word. He means something more along the lines of rationalism—i.e., the belief that no doctrine is true unless it can be proved “verbally,” through clever patter and other exercises of blatant sophistry. As a consequence of this sort of perfervid rationalism, individuals no longer believe in “higher” values or “lofty” moral ideas. Short-term self-interest and “immediate gratification” become the main desideratum, with sophistry being brought in to give the whole thing a window dressing of moral justification.

We see this played out in the financial sector. The birth of complex financial instruments based on computer generated formulas has allowed finance capitalism to mask what ultimately amounts to a vast ponzi scheme which yields huge profits in the short-run but ends in bankruptcy and dishonor. This sort of finance capitalism fits into what is known as the “Minsky cycle”:

Firms participating in the early stages of the cycle typically are not leveraged; Minsky called them hedged firms because their cash receipts cover their cash outlays. The success of the first movers draws in additional players. Speculative firms then engage in leverage to the point where they must borrow to meet some of their interest payments—usually borrowing in short-term markets to finance higher-yielding long-term positions. None of this is irrational behavior; market players are chasing short-term gains, and some of them are getting very rich.

The final stages of the Minsky cycle arrive with a proliferation of Ponzi firms, which must borrow to meet all their interest payments, so their debt burden continuously increases. At some point, a disruptive event occurs, … and markets abruptly reprice—the further along in the cycle, the more violent the repricing. [Charles Morris, The Trillion Dollar Meltdown, p. 133-4]

In other words, what we find in the world of high finance is a system which, by giving individuals the hope of huge rewards in the short-run, encourages them to behave in a ways that are destructive in the long-run. It takes strength of character to resist such huge short-run gains. Unfortunately, the very success of capitalism tends to create a prosperous society that weakens the moral fibre of individuals. Add to this situation the tendency of individuals—particularly intelligent individuals—to cloak their real motives under a thick shroud of ingenious rationalizations (e.g., “portfolio theory,” the “efficient market hypothesis,” “laissez-faire” ideology, etc.), and we have all the elements required to create market failure leading to widespread and socially harmful externalities, as can be readily corroborated by examining the 2008-2009 financial crisis.

Objectivism & Economics, Part 14

Rand’s “objective” value theory. Austrian economics ascribes to what is called the “subjective value” theory:

An individual's actions and choices are based upon a unique value scale known only to that individual. It is this subjective valuation of goods that creates economic value. Like other economists, the Austrian does not judge or criticize these subjective values but instead takes them as given data.

For obvious reasons, Rand did not like this theory. In her essay on capitalism, she provided an “objective” theory of economic value to take its place. The difficulty with all such “objective” theories is that they tend to equate objective value with success in the market. Hence popular music, headed by Elvis Presley and the Beatles, is objectively superior to classical music, because it has sold a lot more recordings and grossed far more profits. The Bible is objectively more valuable than Atlas Shrugged because it has sold more copies and, presumably, netted a greater profit.

To get around this difficulty, Rand introduces a distinction between what she calls “philosophical” and “social” value. The free market value of goods and services, she grants, “does necessarily represent their philosophically objective value, but only their socially objective value, i.e., the sum of the individual judgments of all the men involved in trade at a given time, the sum of what they valued, in the context of their own life.”

If Rand’s “socially objective” value sounds suspiciously like the the subjective value theory, well, that’s because there is very little difference between the two. So in order to draw a larger contrast between the two theories of value, Rand introduces another distinction. She claims that what makes her “socially objective” value truly objective is the discipline of the market:

Within every category of goods and services offered on a free market, it is the purveyor of the best product at the cheapest price who wins the greatest financial rewards in that field—not automatically nor immediately nor by fiat, but by virtue of the free market, which teaches every participant to look for the objective best within the category of his own competence, and penalizes those who act on irrational considerations. [CUI, 24-25]

As with many of this Rand’s theories, this one only remains plausible if we ignore the many facts that fail to accord with it. One of the long lasting criticisms of capitalism is that, under its regimen, business are often forced to appeal to the lowest common denominator to survive. The tacky, the tasteless, the vulgar, the obscene often triumphs over products that, from an “objective” point of view, appear more useful and “edifying.”

As an example of this, consider the most popular non-free iphone application, a piece of software appropriately entitled “iFart mobile.” According to the iFart website, their application is “Ranked #1 in overall sales of all applications in the world.” The video below goes into greater detail:



As amusing as all this may be, one still wonders what sort of “objective” value, even of the “social” type, a product like iFart can possibly have. Obviously, it is little more than an “entertainment” product and shouldn’t be taken too seriously. But where is the “objective” value in such a thing, beyond the obviously subjective humor that some people find in it? Can we really say that iFart, within its category of goods and services offered on the free market, is the “best product and the cheapest price”? How can this be? Is it because it's the best flatulence imitating application for the iphone? Even if this were so, it still doesn’t answer the question why flatulence imitating iphone apps have more objective value than other iphone apps. Beyond mere success in the market, what objective value, established by human “reason,” can be attributed to iFart?

The iFart application merely skims the surface of what is wrong with any objective theory of economic value. One can think of many worse examples: e.g., what about all those astrology books that are sold every year? or the billions of dollars spent on internet porn? or “gangsta” rap? Where is the objective value in these horrors? Yet they all thrive in the market. It simply will not do to mix economics with morality. Economic value—that is, the values people actually pursue in the market (rather than the values they “ought” to pursue) cannot in any meaningful sense be regarded as “objective.” The Austrians show good sense in regarding economic value as subjective.

Rand's Ethics, Part 16

Post-Rational Morality. Objectivism presents itself as a rational system of ethics. Indeed, Rand goes so far as to suggest that her system is the only rational system ever devised. This is clearly an exaggeration. Systems of rational ethics go back to Socrates and Aristotle and have found modern exponents in Spinoza and Santayana.

Many ethical systems aren’t so much rational as they are “post-rational.” As Santayana explained:

Aversion to rational ideals does not ... come ... from moral incoherence or religious prejudice. It does not come from lack of speculative power. On the contrary, it may come from undue haste in speculation, from a too ready apprehension of the visible march of things. The obvious irrationality of nature as a whole, too painfully brought home to a musing mind, may make it forget or abdicate its own rationality. In a decadent age, the philosopher who surveys the world and sees that the end of it is even as the beginning, may not feel that the intervening episode, in which he and all he values after all figure, is worth consideration; and he may cry, in his contemplative spleen, that all is vanity…

Pessimism, and all the moralities founded on despair, are not pre-rational but post-rational. They are the work of men who more or less explicitly have conceived the Life of Reason, tried it at least imaginatively, and found it wanting. These systems are a refuge from an intolerable situation: they are experiments in redemption. As a matter of fact, animal instincts and natural standards of excellence are never eluded in them, for no moral experience has other terms; but the part of the natural ideal which remains active appears in opposition to all the rest and, by an intelligible illusion, seems to be no part of that natural ideal because, compared with the commoner passions on which it reacts, it represents some simpler or more attenuated hope—the appeal to some very humble or very much chastened satisfaction, or to an utter change in the conditions of life.

Post-rational morality is, then, the morality of a chastened experience, of disillusion and societal decadence. Santayana identifies not merely religious moralities as post-rational, but even such secular moralities as stoicism and Epicureanism. These are all moralities of despair. They are devised by philosophers who have found the eudaimonism of rational ethics unworkable. Happiness is ephemeral, vain, and impossible, these philosophers decided. Retrenchment in some other moral standard, such as the absence of pain (Epicureanism), indifference to fate (stoicism), comfort in the benevolence of the supernatural (Christianity), the embrace an "unworldly" “spiritual life” (Plotinus, Spinoza, Santayana), or the achievement of “nirvana” through ascetic or spiritual discipline (Schopenhauer, Buddhism) becomes the central focus of the moral philosopher.

When Santayana, in the first decade of the twentieth century, introduced his theory of post-rational morality, he was clearly on the side of rational ethics. But later in life, he slightly modified his view, supplementing his rational ethics with post-rational values. In 1940, he was criticized for this change by some American pragmatists, who, sympathizing with Santayana’s earlier views, regarded the Spanish-American philosopher’s increasing obsession with the “spiritual life” as a betrayal of The Life of Reason. In his “Apologia Pro Mente Sua,” Santayana responded by pointing out that rational ethics is itself based on pre-rational impulses. After all, there can no such thing as a rational end—as Hume demonstrated. “ Reason alone can be rational, but it does not follow that reason alone is good,” Santayana explained. “The criterion of worth remains always the voice of nature, truly consulted, in the person who speaks.”

Since the voice of nature speaks uniquely to each individual, secluded in the egotism of his personal perspective, what is to prevent morality from sinking into narrowness and provincialism? Santayana proposes, as a counter-measure to moral perspectivism, an “ulterior shift” to post-rational morality. Rational morality seeks to establish harmony within the human psyche and the human world. But an individual chastened by the ultimate vanity of human goals might wish to extend this harmony, “not merely within the human psyche or within the human world, but between this world and the psyche on the one hand and the universe, the truth, or God on the other.” This involves a passage “from morality to religion,” admitted Santayana; “but not so as to destroy morality, because religion itself only adds a fresh passion (reason raised to a higher power and taking a broader view) to the passions that reason undertakes to harmonize.” By “higher power” Santayana does not mean some type of religious entity, like a God or a spirititual power. The phrase is used here to suggest an expansion of reason from a mere method of determining the means to achieving ends to a species of wisdom that seeks to see truth under the aspect of eternity, as Aristotle and Spinoza, in their more grandiose moments, sought to see truth. In other words, we are talking about viewing truth for its own sake, rather than as means for attaining some naturalistic end. The chastened spirit, recognizing the ultimate vanity of rational ethics, seeks consolation in purely intellectual pursuits. “I see the perfect continuity of post-rational with rational and pre-rational morality,” explained Santayana. “We begin with the instinct of animals, sometimes ferocious, sometimes placid, sometimes industrious, always self-justified and self-repeating [i.e., we begin with pre-rational morality]; we proceed to a certain teachableness by experience to a certain tradition and progress in the arts [i.e., we proceed to rational ethics]; we proceed further to general reflection, to tragic discoveries, to transformed interests [i.e., we culminate in post-rational morality].” “To draw the sum total of our account, and ask what do we gain, what do we lose, is possible at any moment of reflection, whatever the wealth or paucity of our experience,” Santayana noted. “But it is the impulse to reflect, not the impulse to acquire or to venture, that is here at work; and reason, instead of looking for the means to achieving given ends, has become an autonomous interest capable of criticising those ends. To itself therefore it seems reason liberated rather than reason abandoned.” In other words, the shift to a post-rational attitude, although ultimately founded on pre-rational sentiment, is nevertheless in accordance with reason, and is therefore entirely consistent with rational ethics, even when it criticizes these ethics or finds them vain or comfortless.

“I should therefore ask [my critics] to admit post-rational sentiment into their life of reason as an element,” concluded Santayana, “and to coordinate it with all the other profound and perennial elements in human nature. If they refuse to do so, it seems to me that rational life in them would itself sink to the pre-rational level. They would be fighting for a closed circle of accidental interests, established by them as absolute and alone legitimate, and fighting in the pre-rational jungle, like cats and dogs, or like prophets crying anathema to all other prophets.” [The Philosophy of George Santayana,, 560-565)

There is every reason to believe that Rand would have despised the notion of a post-rational morality based on “tragic discoveries” and “transformed interests.” Rand’s view, as stated by intellectual heir Leonard Peikoff, is that, while “accidents and failures are possible, they are not ... the essence of human life. On the contrary, the achievement of values is the norm”—provided that the individual follows the Objectivist morality. There are a number of serious problems here. In the first place, Rand’s notion of the benevolent universe principle is fraught with mischievous implications. Achievement of values and the personal happiness that goes with it are, Rand declares, the norm for those who follow her morality. So what does this mean for the person who does not achieve their values, but who instead endures misery and hardship? What does Rand have to say to this individual? Only one of two things: (1) that this individual is an unlucky exception to the general rule; or (2) that this individual has not followed the Objectivist morality and therefore deserves his misfortune. I would suggest that neither of these answers is adequate to console the individual in the face of suffering and tragedy. Indeed, Rand's two responses verge toward mockery and denigration

There are also serious questions whether “achievement of values” really is the norm. In real life, people experience both achievement and disappointment, suffering and happiness. A philosophy with any depth or wisdom at its core will take account of both the good and the bad in human life. It won’t simply sweep the bad under some jejune “benevolent universe” premise. Nor will it moralize the issue by implying that unhappy people are immoral and deserve their unhappiness. Psychology has discovered that, at least for some people, the level of happiness they are capable of reaching is probably genetically determined. For this reason, a rational ethics, with its stress on eudaimonic values, cannot serve everyone’s needs. People cannot be happy all the time. One way or another, whether they like it or not, they will suffer. Achieving moral perfection, even on Objectivist terms, will not cure the ills of the human condition. A philosophy that merely tells people to be happy, or insists they would be happy if only they followed this or that code of ethics, is a philosophy addressed to only one aspect of existence. It’s a philosophy for those unserious, superficial thinkers afraid of tackling the really difficult issues confronting the human species.

Philosophy is chiefly concerned with tackling problems—the more difficult, the better. Happiness, benevolence, joy are not problems. Most people agree in finding them desirable. Suffering, pain, disappointment, tragedy constitute very serious problems. They do so even when they don’t represent the norm. The fact that they occur at all gives them a special importance that no serious thinker can ignore.

Post-rational moralities such as stoicism, epicureanism, Buhddism and Christianity have each, in their own way, tried to grapple with these darker issues. For this reason, if for no other, such systems have a leg up on Objectivism when it comes to dealing with the tragic side of existence; which is to say, there is much that can be learned from them. We can learn not merely from their successes, but from their failures as well. To approach these moral systems with contempt, merely because they are not fully “rational” (i.e., because they don’t agree with Objectivism), constitutes yet another lapse into superficiality and fatuousness.

Rand’s failure to appreciate and learn from other points of view is symptomatic of her general failure to take a broader point of view. Her ethical philosophy is indeed guilty of “fighting for a closed circle of accidental interests, established ... as absolute and alone legitimate.” Most of the virtues she extols are virtues that apply, if they apply at all, only to a small number of people—nor could they ever be extended to mankind in general without doing a great deal of mischief. Her moralizing contempt for people who disagree with her only serves to isolate herself more firmly within the pre-rational jungle. It also prevents her and her orthodox followers from ever incorporating post-rational sentiment into their philosophy. Yet without this post-rational incorporation, Objectivism can never be considered a complete philosophy addressed to the chief problems of human existence.

Rand's Ethics, Part 6

Rational Ethics. Rand is not the only philosopher to attempt the formulation of a rational ethics. Starting with Socrates, many philosophers have attempted to square this particular circle, with varying degrees of success and failure. Perhaps the most successful attempt at a rational ethics was sketched by the Spanish born American philosopher George Santayana in his five volume Life of Reason. Santayana exhibited greater breadth of intellect, sounder judgment, and a significantly higher degree of philosophical literacy in his ethics than Rand did in hers. It is therefore instructive to compare his conception of a rational ethics, as outlined in Reason and Science, with Rand’s.

Santayana begins by admitting that a truly rational morality never has existed and never can exist. But this does not mean, he argues, that it isn’t an ideal to be pursued:

A truly rational morality, or social regimen, has never existed in the world and is hardly to be looked for. What guides men and nations in their practice is always some partial interest or some partial disillusion. A rational morality would imply perfect self-knowledge, so that no congenial good should be needlessly missed--least of all practical reason or justice itself; so that no good congenial to other creatures would be needlessly taken from them. The total value which everything had from the agent's point of view would need to be determined and felt efficaciously; and, among other things, the total value which this point of view, with the conduct it justified, would have for every foreign interest which it affected. Such knowledge, such definition of purpose, and such perfection of sympathy are clearly beyond man's reach. All that can be hoped for is that the advance of science and commerce, by fostering peace and a rational development of character, may bring some part of mankind nearer to that goal; but the goal lies, as every ultimate ideal should, at the limit of what is possible, and must serve rather to measure achievements than to prophesy them.

When Santayana claims that the knowledge necessary to achieve a fully rational ethics is “beyond man’s reach,” he is factually correct, as psychological studies have proven. Rational ethics, then, must be a goal to be aimed at rather than a goal to be achieved. This contrasts with Rand’s conviction that a rational ethics is not only possible, but necessary. Santayana continues:

In lieu of a rational morality, however, we have rational ethics; and this mere idea of a rational morality is something valuable... As founded by Socrates, glorified by Plato, and sobered and solidified by Aristotle, it sets forth the method of judgment and estimation which a rational morality would apply universally and express in practice. The method, being very simple, can be discovered and largely illustrated in advance, while the complete self-knowledge and sympathy are still wanting which might avail to embody that method in the concrete and to discover unequivocally where absolute duty and ultimate happiness may lie.

This method, the Socratic method, consists in accepting any estimation which any man may sincerely make, and in applying dialectic to it, so as to let the man see what he really esteems. What he really esteems is what ought to guide his conduct; for to suggest that a rational being ought to do what he feels to be wrong, or ought to pursue what he genuinely thinks is worthless, would be to impugn that man's rationality and to discredit one's own. With what face could any man or god say to another: Your duty is to do what you cannot know you ought to do; your function is to suffer what you cannot recognise to be worth suffering? Such an attitude amounts to imposture and excludes society; it is the attitude of a detestable tyrant, and any one who mistakes it for moral authority has not yet felt the first heart-throb of philosophy.

Santayana here equates rational ethics with the Socratic method, which means: with applying a searching, questioning, critical self-examination of our own wants or needs. There are both strengths and weaknesses in this position. The best that can be said of it is that it truly is the only fully rational method for achieving ethical science. Unfortunately, it may not be a very fruitful method. Despite Santayana’s caveats about the difficulties of realizing a rational ethic, they may turn out worse than he expected. Psychological experiments are beginning to demonstrate that conscious deliberate reasoning cannot tell us what we really want. If that turns out to be true, than Santayana’s Socratic method simply will not do.

Would Rand have regarded the Socratic method as the cornerstone of a rational ethics? Not in the sense advocated by Santayana. Rand’s and Santayana’s ethics aim at somewhat different things. Rand holds life as the ultimate value. Santayana, on the other hand, holds that values can only be determined by consulting what a man really and truly esteems. These Santayana takes as givens. They are based on natural dispositions. Rand could not have accepted a morality based merely on natural dispositions, because she wanted her morality based solely on reason. However, by rejecting natural dispositions, Rand runs right smack into Hume’s is-ought fallacy. By taking natural disposition as moral givens, Santayana triumphantly surmounts the logical problem of reasoning from is to ought. Here’s why.

Consider the following syllogisms.

One ought not to eat human beings.
Socrates is a human being.
One ought not to eat Socrates.

Eating human beings is not in a person’s self-interest.
Socrates is a human being.
Therefore, One ought not to eat Socrates.

Hume’s argument against arguing from is to ought only applies to the second syllogism; the first syllogism is entirely valid. In other words, it is logically valid to argue from one ought premise to an ought conclusion; what is invalid is to argue from is premises to an ought conclusion.

As Patrick O’Neil has argued, Rand’s ethics can be summed up in the following syllogism:

The adoption of value system x is necessary for the survival of any human being.
You are a human being.
Therefore, you should adopt value system x.

This is an invalid syllogism. Rand’s ethical argument, therefore, at its very foundation, is logically invalid. Her ethics, for this reason, can hardly be regarded as rational.

Another area of divergence between Rand and Santayana involves the whole notion of moralizing. By adopting the individual’s natural dispositions as the source of value in ethics, Santayana has embraced a relativist morality in which the unit of ethics is the individual person. This relativism is what allows Santayana to avoid Hume’s is-ought problem. It enjoys the further advantage of placing Santayana squarely against all forms of moralizing. As Santayana explains:

In moral reprobation there is often a fanatical element, I mean that hatred which an animal may sometimes feel for other animals on account of their strange aspect, or because their habits put him to serious inconvenience, or because these habits, if he himself adopted them, might be vicious in him. Such aversion, however, is not a rational sentiment...

Ethics, if it is to be a science and not a piece of arbitrary legislation, cannot pronounce it sinful in a serpent to be a serpent; it cannot even accuse a barbarian of loving a wrong life, except in so far as the barbarian is supposed capable of accusing himself of barbarism. If he is a perfect barbarian he will be inwardly, and therefore morally, justified. The notion of a barbarian will then be accepted by him as that of a true man, and will form the basis of whatever rational judgments or policy he attains. It may still seem dreadful to him to be a serpent, as to be a barbarian might seem dreadful to a man imbued with liberal interests. But the degree to which moral science, or the dialectic of will, can condemn any type of life depends on the amount of disruptive contradiction which, at any reflective moment, that life brings under the unity of apperception. The discordant impulses therein confronted will challenge and condemn one another; and the court of reason in which their quarrel is ventilated will have authority to pronounce between them.

Reprobation, or Randian moralizing, is not based, Santayana tells us, on a rational sentiment. In any truly rational system of ethics, values must be based on natural dispositions. Otherwise, any attempt to rationalize morality in the Randian fashion will inevitably lead to Hume’s is-ought fallacy.

There is another critical point in this passage that also raises problems for the Objectivist Ethics. Santayana writes about “the amount of disruptive contradiction” that life brings before human sentience. What he means is that people have contrary impulses, and in order for them to achieve the maximum of satisfaction (i.e., happiness), they must seek to satisfy only those impulses that are consistent with each other, thus creating a kind of harmony between the dispositions of the psyche. Now Rand also sought a harmony of sorts——a psychological concord where “no inner conflicts” disturb the soul, where the emotions are “integrated” and “consciousness is in perfect harmony.” But Rand believed that this could be established outside of the human emotional system, in the absence of motives, feelings, or any sort of emotive foundation. Feelings could be programmed into man’s emotional mechanism by an emotionless, rational mind in such a way that they never conflicted.

Rand’s ideal of the perfectly integrated man is based on a false psychology. Man’s affective system is a product of evolution; it is not, as Rand gratuitously assumed, a product of man’s conclusions. Emotions are not only prior to thinking, they are a prerequisite of thought. So any harmony of emotions that takes place in the psyche can only be imposed on impulses already clamoring for satisfaction. For Santayana, the role of reason is to select those impulses which can attain a consistent satisfaction and discard those that imperil not merely the organism’s life, but the satisfaction of the rest of the organism’s impulses. As Santayana puts it:

The direct aim of reason is harmony; yet harmony, when made to rule in life, gives reason a noble satisfaction which we call happiness. Happiness is impossible and even inconceivable to a mind without scope and without pause, a mind driven by craving, pleasure, and fear. The moralists who speak disparagingly of happiness are less sublime than they think. In truth their philosophy is too lightly ballasted, too much fed on prejudice and quibbles, for happiness to fall within its range. Happiness implies resource and security; it can be achieved only by discipline. Your intuitive moralist rejects discipline, at least discipline of the conscience; and he is punished by having no lien on wisdom. He trusts to the clash of blind forces in collision, being one of them himself. He demands that virtue should be partisan and unjust; and he dreams of crushing the adversary in some physical cataclysm.

Such groping enthusiasm is often innocent and romantic; it captivates us with its youthful spell. But it has no structure with which to resist the shocks of fortune, which it goes out so jauntily to meet. It turns only too often into vulgarity and worldliness... Happiness is hidden from a free and casual will; it belongs rather to one chastened by a long education and unfolded in an atmosphere of sacred and perfected institutions. It is discipline that renders men rational and capable of happiness, by suppressing without hatred what needs to be suppressed to attain a beautiful naturalness. Discipline discredits the random pleasures of illusion, hope, and triumph, and substitutes those which are self-reproductive, perennial, and serene, because they express an equilibrium maintained with reality. So long as the result of endeavour is partly unforeseen and unintentional, so long as the will is partly blind, the Life of Reason is still swaddled in ignominy and the animal barks in the midst of human discourse. Wisdom and happiness consist in having recast natural energies in the furnace of experience. Nor is this experience merely a repressive force. It enshrines the successful expressions of spirit as well as the shocks and vetoes of circumstance; it enables a man to know himself in knowing the world and to discover his ideal by the very ring, true or false, of fortune's coin.

The moral ideals implied in this passage are not fully consistent with Randian ideals. The major difference stems from different view of rationality. For Rand, the rational is a disembodied force (disembodied because free from emotion) that is directed solely toward determining the facts of reailty, which she believes (in defiance of Hume) includes moral precepts. For Santayana, reason and emotion are intertwined from the start. Indeed, reason is merely an impulse for harmony allied with intelligence, a fusion of emotion and reflection, of instinct and ideation. This conception of reason anticipates the discoveries of Antonio Damasio and other denizens of the Cognitive Revolution who have found that emotion is necessary to rational thought. Santayana’s rational ethics, whatever its shortcomings in terms of vagueness and lack of a detailed “technology,” at least can claim that in its broad outlines it does not clash with cognitive science. Rand’s attempt at a rational ethics, on the other hand, on the account of its false psychology and its philosophical illiteracy, stumbles headlong into error and contradiction. Rand reasons from is to ought in defiance of Hume and divorces reason from emotion in defiance of cognitive science.

"Ayn Rand and the Is/Ought Problem"

Over at Mises.org we find Patrick M. O'Neil's detailed breakdown of Objectivist ethics, and despite Rand's claims to the contrary, exactly how it fails to overcome Hume's problem. The result is what he calls the "essential subjectivity of Objectivism.":

"...It is at this stage in her argumentation, at the very point of seeming triumph over subjectivity, that Rand loses the battle. She takes aim at the Humean disjuncture of the prescriptive from the descriptive and fatally wounds the pretentions to objectivity of her own systematic ethics: "The fact that a living entity is, determines what it ought to do. So much for the issue of the relation between 'is' and 'ought'"("The Objectivist Ethics"). In these two sentences, Rand reveals a serious misconception of the nature of the Humean is-ought gap and introduces a dangerous potential for self-contradiction into her own ethical system.

In his work A Treatise of Human Nature, the Scottish philosopher David Hume challenged the basis of all objective systems of morality:

"I can not forbear adding to these reasonings an observation, which may, perhaps, be found of some importance. In every system of morality, which I have hitherto met with, I have always remarked, that the author proceeds for sometime in the ordinary way of reasoning, and establishes the being of a God. or makes observations concerning human affairs: when of a sudden I am surprised to find, that instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is, and is not. I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought or an ought not. This change is imperceptible; but is, however, of the last consequence. For as this ought, or ought not, expresses some new revelation or affirmation, 'tis necessary that it should be observed and explained; and at the same time that a reason should be given, for what seems altogether
inconceivable, how this new relation can be a deduction from others, which are entirely different from it."

Clearly, Rand thinks that Hume denied a connection between facts and systems of morality. This error is not uncommon, and forms the basis for A. C. MacIntyre's revisionist reinterpretation of Hume's famous paragraph. Claiming that Hume could not have meant to establish a total divorcement of facts from values because Hume uses facts in his own ethical system, MacIntyre interprets Hume to be assaulting only theologically-based morality. In fact, there is nothing in the Humean formulation of the problem which hinders the simple integration of facts and values. The sole difficulty arises over the derivability of values from facts...In conclusion, then, Ayn Rand's system of Objectivist ethics does not provide the basis for a solution to the Humean dilemma of the is/ought gap; nor have attempts by a new generation of natural law ethicians to rework her system succeeded in subduing that central ethical difficulty. Since no ethical system has been demonstrated to have solved the is-ought problem, it may be thought a minor flaw in Rand. It is her specific claim to have overcome this difficulty that magnifies its importance in regard to her system."