"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."

Ayn Rand & Epistemology 23

Definitions 8: Doctrine of the Hierarchy of Knowledge. Rand had the habit of drawing dubious premises from trivial premises. With her doctrine of the hierarchy of knowledge, we find her at her old tricks:

[There is a] long conceptual chain that starts from simple, ostensive definitions and rises to higher and still higher concepts, forming a hierarchical structure of knowledge so complex that no electronic computer could approach it. It is by means of such chains that man has to acquire and retain his knowledge of reality. [RM, 18]

To know the exact meaning of the concepts one is using, one must know their correct definitions, one must be able to retrace the specific (logical, not chronological) steps by which they were formed, and one must be able to demonstrate their connection to their base in perceptual reality. [IOTE, 50]

That some concepts are "wider" than others — that animal, for example, is wider than mammal, and mammal wider than deer — is something so trivial that hardly anyone has bothered making a fuss about it before Rand. But the way some Objectivists talk about the hierarchy of knowledge, you would think that only Rand noticed it, while everyone else is in denial that concepts have any such structure. "Knowledge is hierarchal," Rand's disciples keep insisting; to which the obvious retort is, "So what!" The problem with Rand's hierarchy of knowledge is not that it is wrong but that Objectivists exaggerate its importance.

How I Became a Critic of Objectivism 2

The issue of philosophical literacy is a troubling one for Objectivism on multiple levels. To begin with, many of Rand’s most ardent followers became Objectivists when they were teenagers or young adults. They discovered The Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged knowing little if anything about philosophy (or anything else for that matter). For this reason, they were not equipped with the necessary tools—which is to say, the philosophical literacy—from which to evaluate the contentions that at the bottom of Rand’s Objectivist philosophy. Yaron Brook, in his conversation with Michael Malice, admits as much. Teenagers and twenty-somethings rarely have neither the philosophical literacy nor the worldly knowledge to evaluate Rand’s contentions about human nature, morality, and the role of ideas in history. Swept away by Rand’s charismatic vision of a world populated by individualistic heroes like Howard Road and Hank Rearden, they end up taking everything Rand says on trust, without asking the necessary questions or demanding appropriate evidence.

This matter is further complicated by Rand’s own philosophical shortcomings. Rand had her own issues with philosophical illiteracy—although for very different reasons than we find among her youngest admirers. Rand’s philosophical illiteracy stemmed from her innate dogmatism and her intractable hubris about her own mind which made it very difficult for her to accept criticism and learn from those whom she disagreed with. Rand  rarely if ever entertained the possibility that she might be wrong. In any dispute with an individual who held rival views, she was right and they were wrong—end of issue. This attitude rendered it inconceivable for her to appreciate the possible merits of viewpoints and philosophies that conflicted with her own. 

There is also the issue of Rand’s education to consider. We know little, for example, about what Rand imbibed during her years attending Petrograd State University in the Soviet Union. According to biographical data accumulated about Rand, the most formative philosophical influence on her thinking was Isabel Paterson. From Paterson Rand developed her obsession for “reason,” her over-fondness for the phrase “A is A,”  her admiration of Aristotle, and her enmity to Kant and Hegel. Paterson, who was widely read, presumably had acquired at least some of her views through first-hand sources. She wasn’t merely repeating what had been told to her by another person. She had done the hard work for herself, coming to an understanding of philosophy through her extensive reading. Rand, on the other hand, seems to have relied far too much on brief abstracts provided her by Paterson, the Branden’s, Peikoff, and others. Rand was hardly a voluminous reader. She was impatient with detail and nuance. She did not read to understand; she read to demolish. When confronted with texts she disagreed with, she would begin with what she called the art of “philosophical detection,” which in practice meant putting the worst possible interpretation on anything she ran across that inspired her loathing.

Rand's Ethics, Part 1

Motivation. One of the glaring weaknesses of Objectivism is that it has no coherent theory of motivation. For Rand, individuals were motivated by their values. Where do these values come from? They come from the mind—preferably, from a rational mind. In other words, Rand implicitly believed that motivation can potentially derive from reason: people can use reason to determine the ends, the goals, the desires, of their lives. This is an entirely incoherent position, refuted by David Hume in the eighteenth century. As Hume wrote in his A Treatise of Human Nature:

Nothing is more usual in philosophy, and even in common life, than to talk of the combat of passion and reason, to give the preference to reason, and assert that men are only so far virtuous as they conform themselves to [reason's] dictates. Every rational creature, it is said, is obliged to regulate his actions by reason; and if any other motive or principle challenge the direction of his conduct, he ought to oppose it, till it be entirely subdued, or at least brought to a conformity with that superior principle. On this method of thinking the greatest part of moral philosophy, antient and modern, seems to be founded; nor is there an ampler field, as well for metaphysical arguments, as popular declamations, than this supposed pre-eminence of reason above passion....

It is from the prospect of pain or pleasure that the aversion or propensity arises towards any object: And these emotions extend themselves to the causes and effects of that object, as they are pointed out to us by reason and experience. It can never in the least concern us to know, that such objects are causes, and such others effects, if both the causes and effects be indifferent to us. Where the objects themselves do not affect us, their connexion can never give them any influence; and it is plain, that as reason is nothing but the discovery of this connexion, it cannot be by its means that the objects are able to affect us.

Since reason alone can never produce any action, or give rise to volition, I infer, that the same faculty is as incapable of preventing volition, or of disputing the preference with any passion or emotion. This consequence is necessary. It is impossible reason could have the latter effect of preventing volition, but by giving an impulse in a contrary direction to our passion.... Nothing can oppose or retard the impulse of passion, but a contrary impulse.... We speak not strictly and philosophically when we talk of the combat of passion and of reason. Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.

Note here first of all that Hume describes the view that morality should be determined by reason as the dominant view in both ancient and modern philosophy. In other words, Rand is hardly the first philosopher to support a reason-based morality. Also note Hume's rejection of the traditional view that sees passion and reason as potentially at odds. No, contends Hume, they are not at odds. Passion (or emotion) serves as the motivation for reason. Passions provide the ends, and reason tells us the means by which those ends can be attained.

Hume's argument in the Treatise is a bit obscure to modern readers, so it helps to supplement it with passages from a later work. In Hume's An Inquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, he explains with greater clarity the impossibility of a morality solely based on reason.

It is easy for a false hypothesis to maintain some appearance of truth, while it keeps wholly in generals, makes use of undefined terms, and employs comparisons, instead of instances. This is particularly remarkable in that philosophy, which ascribes the discernment of all moral distinctions to reason alone, without the concurrence of sentiment. It is impossible that, in any particular instance, this hypothesis [of a reason-only morality] can so much as be rendered intelligible; whatever specious figure it may make in general declamations and discourses. Examine the crime of ingratitude, for instance; which has place, wherever we observe good-will, expressed and known, together with good offices performed, on the one side, and a return of ill-will or indifference, with ill-offices or neglect on the other: Anatomize all these circumstances, and examine, by your reason alone, in what consists the demerit or blame: You never will come to any issue or conclusion.

Reason judges either of matter of fact or of relations. Enquire then, first, where is that matter of fact, which we here call crime; point it out; determine the time of its existence; describe its essence or nature; explain the sense or faculty, to which it discovers itself. It resides in the mind of the person who is ungrateful. He must, therefore, feel it, and be conscious of it. But nothing is there, except the passion of ill-will or absolute indifference. You cannot say, that these, of themselves, always, and in all circumstances, are crimes. No: They are only crimes, when directed towards persons, who have before expressed and displayed good-will towards us. Consequently, we may infer, that the crime of ingratitude is not any particular individual fact; but arises from a complication of circumstances, which, being presented to the spectator, excites the sentiment of blame, by the particular structure and fabric of his mind.

This representation, you say, is false. Crime, indeed, consists not in a particular fact, of whose reality we are assured by reason: But it consists in certain moral relations, discovered by reason, in the same manner as we discover, by reason, the truths of geometry or algebra. But what are the relations, I ask, of which you here talk? In the case stated above, I see first good-will and good-offices in one person; then ill-will and ill-offices in the other. Between these, there is the relation of contrariety. Does the crime consist in that relation? But suppose a person bore me ill-will or did me ill-offices; and I, in return, were indifferent towards him, or did him good-offices: Here is the same relation of contrariety; and yet my conduct is often highly laudable. Twist and turn this matter as much as you will, you can never rest the morality on relation; but must have recourse to the decisions of sentiment.

When it is affirmed, that two and three are equal to the half of ten; this relation of equality, I understand perfectly. I conceive, that if ten be divided into two parts, of which one has as many units as the other; and if any of these parts be compared to two added to three, it will contain as many units as that compound number. But when you draw thence a comparison to moral relations, I own that I am altogether at a loss to understand you. A moral action, a crime, such as ingratitude, is a complicated object. Does the morality consist in the relation of its parts to each other? How? After what manner? Specify the relation: Be more particular and explicit in your propositions; and you will easily see their falsehood.

No, say you, the morality consists in the relation of actions to the rule of right; and they are denominated good or ill, according as they agree or disagree with it. What then is this rule of right? In what does it consist? How is it determined? By reason, you say, which examines the moral relations of actions. So that moral relations are determined by the comparison of actions to a rule. And that rule is determined by considering the moral relations of objects. Is not this fine reasoning?

All this is metaphysics, you cry: That is enough: There needs nothing more to give a strong presumption of falsehood. Yes, reply I: Here are metaphysics, surely: But they are all on your side, who advance an abstruse hypothesis, which can never be made intelligible, nor quadrate with any particular instance or illustration. The hypothesis which we embrace is plain. It maintains, that morality is determined by sentiment. It defines virtue to be whatever mental action or quality gives to a spectator the pleasing sentiment of approbation; and vice the contrary. We then proceed to examine a plain matter of fact, to wit, what actions have this influence: We consider all the circumstances, in which these actions agree: And thence endeavour to extract some general observations with regard to these sentiments. If you call this metaphysics, and find any thing abstruse here, you need only conclude, that your turn of mind is not suited to the moral sciences.

And Hume concludes as follows:

It appears evident, that the ultimate ends of human actions can never, in any case, be accounted for by reason, but recommend themselves entirely to the sentiments and affections of mankind, without any dependance on the intellectual faculties. Ask a man, why he uses exercise; he will answer, because he desires to keep his health. If you then enquire, why he desires health, he will readily reply, because sickness is painful. If you push your enquiries farther, and desire a reason, why he hates pain, it is impossible he can ever give any. This is an ultimate end, and is never referred to any other object.

  Now as virtue is an end, and is desirable on its own account, without fee or reward, merely, for the immediate satisfaction which it conveys; it is requisite that there should be some sentiment, which it touches; some internal taste or feeling, or whatever you please to call it, which distinguishes moral good and evil, and which embraces the one and rejects the other... Reason, being cool and disengaged, is no motive to action, and directs only the impulse received from appetite or inclination, by showing us the means of attaining happiness or avoiding misery.

Rand either never read these passages in Hume or, if she did read them, she failed to understand them. If reason is perceived as a method by which matters of fact and relations are grasped and elucidated, how can a mere method generate a motive, let alone a moral end? Reason is but an intellectual tool; and since tools don't generate motives, but are merely methods or means by which some end is attained, something outside of reason, some appetite or passion or intention, must motivate reason to get it to do its thing. Rand's failure to grasp this led her to attempt the impossible: to create a morality based solely on "reason." And since, as Oakeshott reminds us, "to try to do something which is inherently impossible is always a corrupting enterprise," so Rand's so-called rational ethics terminates in what can only be described as a rationalistic moral code, where reason becomes a mere euphemism for casuistry.

Objectivism & Politics, Part 16

Politics of Human Nature 1: human rationality. The achievement of Objectivism’s political goals rest on the assumption that most human beings are at least potentially “rational.” Nor is it enough for them to be rational merely about the means they wish to achieve; they must also be rational about the ends as well. Rand and her followers are somewhat confused on this point. Rand never explains precisely how one arrives at a rational end and even suggests that her ultimate end is (or is based on) a conditional! However, all of that is of little importance for the issue at hand. For the fact remains that, whether her followers recognize it or not, a substantive rationality (i.e., a rationality of ends) is necessary in order for her politics to work. In order to implement the Objectivist politics, it’s not enough that individuals become rational about the means by which they attain their goals: they must also be able resolve problems that arise from conflicting ends; and if there exists no such thing as a rational end, then there exists no rational means of resolving conflict, because rationality about ends is psychologically impossible. Faction becomes unavoidable and laissez-faire unattainable.

So is there such a thing as a rational end? We have covered this issue elsewhere; but since it is so important, it bears repeating. Can human beings pursue rational ends? Or is it, as Hume asserted, psychologically impossible for reason to generate rational ends?

The philosopher Arthur Lovejoy explored the issue in his excellent Reflections on Human Nature, where he comments on Hume’s discovery:

Hume’s fundamental thesis must have shocked some of his contemporaries… For while they had declared that the Reason seldom if ever does in fact control the passions, they had still assumed, in accord with the long dominant tradition, that it should do so, that control was the function for which it was intended… But Hume challenged the great tradition of moral philosophy, and asserted that it is a psychological impossibility for the Reason to influence volition…. Hume does not … mean by this to deny that the understanding has an instrumental use in the determination of conduct. Given a desire for some end, a reasoned knowledge of the relations of cause and effect may show how to satisfy it by adopting the means without which the end cannot be attained. What he is asserting is that “reason,” the knowledge of any kind of truth, is not a passion or desire, is not the same psychological phenomenon as liking or wanting something; and that a thing can become an end only by being desired. The role of reason consists in judging of propositions as true or false, as in “agreement or disagreement” with the matters of fact to which they refer. “Whatever is not susceptible of this agreement or disagreement, is incapable of being true or false, and can never be an object of our reason.” But “our passions, volitions and acts” are “original facts and realities, compleat in themselves… ‘Tis impossible, therefore, that they can be either true or false, and be either contrary or conformable to reason.” And since reason neither is nor can produce a desire, it cannot even tell us what we should desire, it cannot even evaluate desires; or if it professes to do so, it will only the more clearly reveal its irrelevance and impotence. You either have a desire or you do not; unless you have one, you will never act at all; and a desire can be combatted or overcome, not by reason, but only by another desire. [181-183]

Now the importance of this insight into human nature is that it emphasizes the role that motivation plays in human conduct. All human conduct is motivated by non-rational sources—that is, by desires, sentiments, emotions, call them what you will. In Objectivism, there exists a tendency to make light of motives. The issue, for the denizen of Rand, is not what motivates the individual, but why a person should choose one motive rather than another. Objectivism goes so far as to deny that man’s most basic choices can be explained at all. “Why he chooses one or another [motive]… cannot be further explained,” contends Peikoff. “That is what it means to say that man has choice and is not determined. A volitional choice is a fundamental beneath which you cannot get.” [“Philosophy and Psychology in History”]

This extreme view of volition is tantamount to a denial of human nature. For it challenges the view, shared by all those who have a “constrained” vision of the human condition, that most human beings are strongly influenced by innate tendencies and that if you understand the pathology of those innate tendencies, you can make educated guesses as to the likelihood of various types of social conduct and the probability (or impossibility) of various social and political ideals.

I have discussed the issue of innate tendencies in previous posts (such as here). Outside of Ayn Rand and left-wing social science, nearly everyone believes in their existence. In the last half century, behavioral science has further strengthened the case for these tendencies. Indeed, to deny them is to be guilty of a kind of scientific illiteracy, not very different from denying the theory of relativity or the experimental success of quantum mechanics.

Once we have established the reality of innate tendencies, the next step is to investigate what those tendencies are and how they effect the social and political order. That will be the subject of the next half dozen or so “Objectivism and Politics” posts.

Objectivism & “Metaphysics,” Part 13

Objectivism & the paranormal. The assumption that “paranormal” events are unreal or impossible may be convenient and prudent in daily life; but it is, after all, only an assumption. To deduce such an assumption from “self-evident” axioms in the manner of Objectivism goes very much against the grain of empirical responsibility. The evidence of experience is far from supporting the Objectivist position, and logically, this position is untenable. As Santayana would remind us, “Logically, everything is possible; and if a certain sequence of events happens not to be found in our experience, nothing proves that it may not occur beyond.” [The Idea of Christ in the Gospels, 79]

The general view prevailing among Objectivist is that not only are paranormal occurrences unreal, but it is a waste of time to investigate such phenomenon. Yet given the millions of evidentiary claims that have been made on behalf of paranormal events, it would seem a subject ripe for investigation. If, as is eminently plausible, the Objectivists are right about the unreality of the paranormal, then an empirical investigation will merely serve to corroborate this hypothesis. If, on the other hand, there is discovered some residuum of truth in them, we will have learned more about this strange world that we find ourselves knocking about in.

To understand what is wrong with the Objectivist approach to the issue, it is instructive to compare it with Hume's take on a related issue. In his essay “On Miracles,” Hume set down a general rule for evaluating claims regarding miracles (which can be seen as a type of paranormal phenomenon):

A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature; and as a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined. Why is it more than probable, that all men must die; that lead cannot, of itself, remain suspended in the air; that fire consumes wood, and is extinguished by water; unless it be, that these events are found agreeable to the laws of nature, and there is required a violation of these laws, or in other words, a miracle to prevent them? Nothing is esteemed a miracle, if it ever happens in the common course of nature. It is no miracle that a man, seemingly in good health, should die on a sudden: Because such a kind of death, though more unusual than any other, has yet been frequently observed to happen. But it is a miracle that a dead man should come to life; because that has never been observed in any age or country. There must, therefore, be a uniform experience against every miraculous event, otherwise the event would not merit that appellation. And as a uniform experience amounts to a proof, there is here a direct and full proof, from the nature of the fact, against the existence of any miracle; nor can such a proof be destroyed, or the miracle rendered credible, but by an opposite proof, which is superior.

The plain consequence is (and it is a general maxim worthy of our attention), "that no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavors to establish; and even in that case there is a mutual destruction of arguments, and the superior only gives us an assurance suitable to that degree of force, which remains, after deducting the inferior." When anyone tells me, that he saw a dead man restored to life, I immediately consider with myself, whether it be more probable, that this person should either deceive or be deceived, or that the fact, which he relates, should really have happened. I weigh the one miracle against the other; and according to the superiority, which I discover, I pronounce my decision, and always reject the greater miracle. If the falsehood of his testimony would be more miraculous, than the event which he relates; then, and not till then, can he pretend to command my belief or opinion.

The advantage of Hume’s approach is that it is rigorously empirical. Hume makes no assumptions based on logical, rhetorical, or moral principles but attempts to settle the issue in relation to experience interpreted via human intelligence. Science can extend Hume’s approach by integrating it with a detailed experimental methodology. Hypotheses can then be formed and tested. Results of tests can be subjected to rigorous peer review. Hence all strange phenomenon, whether deemed as miracles or merely as the paranormal, can be made the objects of scientific investigation. Only then can we hope to have any real understanding of why so many people claim to have these experiences.

The American philosopher C. S. Peirce implored us to “Never block the path of inquiry.” Yet this is precisely the consequences of those metaphysical systems which pretend they can determine matters of fact on the basis of “self-evident” axioms. But no principle concerning matters of fact can ever be self-evident. Knowledge is fundamentally transitive and indirect. It involves becoming cognizant of something outside of consciousness, that exists on a different scale from the human mind within a different realm of existence. To arrive at true knowledge of facts requires a great deal of hard work and care. Progress in knowledge requires frequent contact with the relevant facts. When this contact becomes tenuous or is lost altogether, the intellect soon becomes lost in a thicket of arid speculations.

Objectivism & Religion, Part 6

Religion as a source of comfort. The Australian philosopher David Stove, despite regarding religion as little more than a psychological “deprivation-effect,” nevertheless provides an interesting take on the subject of religion as comfort. Whatever negative feelings Stove experienced toward religion, his hostility to anti-religious secularism was even more intense, as we find in the following passages:

It does not come naturally to us now, [Stove writes] to think of religion as a source of misery: we are far too familiar with the immense amount of misery that has resulted from the absence of religion. We therefore think of religion rather as a source of happiness, or at least comfort. And so it is, to many of the countless victims of twentieth-century atheist-terrorist governments, and to a few people in the derelict post-religious societies of the West. But those governments, and those societies, are themselves among the products of the Enlightenment’s assault on religion. In 1770, when that assault was reaching its height, religion presented a very different face from the one it does now.

Religion could then be blamed for bloody wars; massacres, expulsions, and persecutions of heretics; the craze for murdering witches; innumerable exactions for priests; the suppression of thought and even of natural curiosity; the forced sexual abstinence of thousands of men and women; flagellations and countless other “mortifications of the flesh”; the terror of punishments prolonged eternally after death. Such things as these formed, of course, the commonplaces of Enlightened denunciation; but it cannot possibly be denied that all these aspects of religion were fertile sources of misery. It was all true, too true.

At the same time, it is equally undeniable that a list like the one I have just given makes a startlingly trivial comparison with the misery which anti-religious zeal has produced in [the twentieth century]. Indeed, it is hardly even a comparison: “not game but shame” (as they say). How many Spanish Inquisitions equal one KGB? How many St. Bartholomew’s Day massacres, plus expulsions of the Huguenots, would it take to equal the misery caused by Lenin plus Mao?…

The Enlightenment’s tale of the misery caused by religion is not only trivial in retrospect: it was always absurdly exaggerated even at the time. Take, for example, the belief in eternal torments after death. Of course it ought to have been a source of enormous suffering, and in some cases it undoubtedly was. But the fear of hell was never as vivid or constant or widespread as, according to the religious theory, it should have been: a fact which we know partly from the incessant complaints of the priests to that very effect. Stupidity, the occupations of common life, and the natural belief that hell is intended only for other people, were always enough to prevent most Christians from being made as unhappy by their belief in hell as they should have been…. The fact is the Enlightened took religious beliefs far too literally and logically: a piece of folly which religious people, for their part, were hardly ever guilty of.

Does Stove overstate his case? Perhaps. But even when we have made the necessary adjustments, his thesis remains eminently plausible. Yet Stove has one last observation that seals the deal. The Enlightenment, Stove avers, had nothing to say about the suffering caused by “the actual process of losing religious beliefs.”

Parting with religion is not always, indeed, an altogether painful process. But there is always pain in it, and in most cases the pain greatly predominates over every other feeling. It was a question often pressed upon the Enlightened, therefore, how they reconciled their professed concern for human happiness, with their willful assault on the principal comfort of human life… It is [a question] not easily answered… Accordingly, the Enlightened never did answer this question….

Hume, for example, ignored the following response by James Beattie to his [i.e., Hume’s] attacks on religion. People like Hume, Beattie wrote, should remember that “in the solitary scenes of life, there is many an honest and tender heart pining with incurable anguish, pierced with the sharpest sting of disappointment, bereft of friends, chilled with poverty, racked with disease, scourged by the oppressor; whom nothing but trust in Providence, and the hope of future retribution, could preserve from the agonies of despair. And do they [the Enlightened], with sacrilegious hands, attempt to violate this last refuge of the miserable, and to rob them of the only comfort that has survived the ravages of misfortune, malice, and tyranny!”

Even when every deduction has been made for the over-eloquence of this passage, I do not see, much as I admire and love Hume, what satisfactory reply he could have made to it…. Hume, though he was infuriated by the great popularity of Beattie’s book, never did reply. [Against the Idols of the Age, 84-88]

Does religion, then, on balance, cause more happiness than misery? That is, indeed, what the evidence suggests. Consider the following facts:

• A large-scale 1972 study found that persons who did not attend church were four times as likely to commit suicide


• Numerous studies have found an inverse correlation between religious commitment as abuse of drugs. One study of nearly 14,000 youths concluded that religion was the single best predictor of substance abuse patterns.


• Several studies have found that high levels of religious commitment correlate with lower levels of depression, lower levels of stress, and greater ability to cope with stress.


• Strong religious believers consistently report greater overall happiness and satisfaction with life. In one Gallup survey, respondents who agreed that their religious faith was “the most important influence” in their lives, were twice as likely as those with minimal spiritual commitment to describe themselves as “very happy.” [Patrick Glynne, God: The Evidence, 62-65]

Of course, the thesis that religion serves as a comfort to people is only a generalization: it does not apply to everyone. There are people whose misery is increased by religious commitment, and who should therefore avoid religion like the plague. But there are many more people who are comforted by religion, and who would be less happy (or more miserable) were they to lose their faith.

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 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 & History, Part 8

Kant contra Rand There appear to be many orthodox Objectivists still in denial about Kant’s influence on history. Despite never having read Kant or the philosophers Kant influenced, they are nevertheless certain that Kant’s influence is precisely as Rand limned it. This prejudice can easily be refuted by quoting any non-controversial account of Kant. Take, as an example, what Karl Popper writes about Kant in the Open Society:

Kant, in his Critique of Pure Reason, asserted under the influence of Hume that pure speculation or reason, whenever it ventures into a field in which it cannot possibly be checked by experience, is liable to get involved in contradictions or ‘antinomies’ and to produce what he unambiguously described as ‘mere fancies’; ‘nonsense’; ‘illusions’; ‘a sterile dogmatism’; and ‘a superficial pretension to the knowledge of everything’. He tried to show that to every metaphysical assertion or thesis, concerning for example the beginning of the world in time, or the existence of God, there can be contrasted a counter-assertion or antithesis; and both, he held, may proceed from the same assumptions, and can be proved with an equal degree of ‘evidence’. In other words, when leaving the field of experience, our speculation can have no scientific status, since to every argument there must be an equally valid counter-argument. Kant’s intention was to stop once and forever the ‘accursed fertility’ of the scribblers on metaphysics.

Popper’s summation of Kant’s Critique is in line with the mainstream view. Kant’s attack on “pure reason” was not meant as an attack on knowledge as such, but only on speculative knowledge, i.e., claims of knowledge about matters of fact that aren’t backed by evidence. As Thomas Henry Huxley put it:

The aim of the Kritik der reinen Verunft is essentially the same as that of the Treatise of Human Nature, by which, indeed, Kant was led to develop that “critical philosophy” with which his name and fame are indissolubly bound up: and, if the details of Kant’s criticism differ from those of Hume, they coincide with them in their main result, which is the limitation of all knowledge of reality to the world of phenomena revealed to us by experience.

Kant’s basic position can be summed up from the famous aphorism from the preface of the second edition of The Critique of Pure Reason: “Concepts without percepts are empty; percepts without concepts are blind.” Whatever errors and mistakes Kant may have committed in explicating and developing this seminal insight, the principle itself remains sound. Nor would even Rand necessarily have disagreed with it, even if she might have quibbled about the terms in which the principle is expressed.

An anonymous commentator in an earlier post insisted “that Kant's philosophy and Objectivism are diametrically opposed.” This is a bit of exaggeration. Even in the field of ethics, where the differences between Kant and Rand are the most striking, there are still similarities (e.g., they are both absolutists, and they both believe in “autonomy”). So would Rand have necessarily disagreed with Kant’s view that “when leaving the field of experience, our speculation can have no scientific status”?

Orthodox Objectivists (including Rand herself) have always been vague on this point. While Rand and her disciples will occasionally stress the importance of keeping one’s concepts in touch with reality and avoiding what they call “floating abstractions,” if we judge Objectivists by how they act rather than on what they say it becomes clear that they really are quite attached to the type of speculative reason that Kant (and Hume) criticizes. Rarely do Rand or Peikoff provide detailed, convincing evidence for their numerous controversial assertions. If they deign to advance any kind of argument at all, it is nearly always of a wantonly speculative and, ipso facto verbalistic nature. Rand’s entire theory of human nature is merely a speculative leap from her equally speculative defense of free will! One can hardly get more rationalistic and non-empirical than that!

To the extent that there is real difference between Rand and Kant on this issue “pure” reason, it is Kant, not Rand, that is on the side of science, truth and realism. The world is weary of philosophers who seek to determine matters of fact with logical, rhetorical, or moral constructions. The sort of “reason” that Objectivists actually practice (as opposed to vague, amorphous “reason” they theorize about and provide genuflect-like homage to) is merely a futile exercise in generating concepts without percepts. Kant and Hume were right to criticize such an approach. To the extent that this aspect of their philosophy has been influential, it has been influential for the better. Objectivism, on the other hand, would, if it exercised any influence at all on this issue, would constitute a step backwards for the human intellect.

Ayn Rand & Human Nature 18

Psychopaths, vmPFC damage, and whim-worship. One of the central doctrines of Objectivism is the necessity of a "rational," "reason-based" morality. Human beings must follow their "rational" or "enlightened" self-interest. Emotions should not be used in moral judgments. That would amount to "whim-worship." According to Rand, people can and should follow "reason" at all times. To behave otherwise, to follow one's emotions instead of "reason," was tantamount to acting "like a zombie," without knowledge of the facts of reality. As Rand put it, "It means that a man acts in a state of temporary insanity."

Rand's view is in stark contrast with that of David Hume, who, in 1739, wrote that "reason is, and ought to only be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them." We can only image vituperation with which Rand would have responded to Hume's statement. However, it is important to note that Hume is not merely asserting that reason ought to be the slave of the passions; he is also insisting that reason is the slave of the passions, and that it can't be otherwise. In the last twenty years, experimental psychology has been forced to admit that Hume's position comes much closer to the truth than Rand's. Psychologists have found that, although people can and often do reason about morality, they don't engage in reasoning in order to discover truth, but rather use reason to support their emotional intuitions. Moral reasonings serve strategic purposes such as managing one's reputation, building alliances, recruiting bystanders to support one's side in the conflicts and scuffles endemic to social life. [Haidt, The Righteous Mind, 46] Human beings act like "intuitive politicians striving to maintain appealing moral identities in front of multiple constituencies." [ibid, 75]

An Objectivist critique of Popper examined

Nicholas Dykes' critique of Popper, linked by the poster Ian, while not as bad as most such Rand-inspired criticisms, does have its share of serious problems.

Dykes begins his critique by complaining about Popper's tone of assurance.

One thing which is quite certain is that Popper wrote with absolute assurance of his own rectitude, as I think the quotations in this paper reveal. For all his belittlement of knowledge and certainty, I have never read anyone who wrote so many books all imbued with such conscious certainty and authority— the authority of one who knows.

Dykes appears to be annoyed by the fact that Popper never prefaces all his remarks with the phrase I suppose or I conjecture. Of course, it would be very tedious to proceed in this way. Dykes also takes Popper to task for declaring "I am not a belief philosopher. I do not believe in belief" while at the same time refusing, in other places in his work, to stop using the phrase I believe to state one of his positions. Here Dykes shows himself deaf to the ambiguity of language. Popper's phrase "I don't believe in belief" plays on two senses of the word belief to make a point. In the first sense of the term Popper is using it to describe certain belief, in the second, the sort of conjectural belief Popper supported. In other words, Popper is simply saying that he doesn't believe (in the conjectural sense of the term) in certainty.

Dykes unquestioningly accepts the Platonic view that equates knowledge with certainty, asserting that all denials of certainty are "self-contradictory," because "in the absence of certain knowledge one is either forced into a position involving some kind of unfounded conviction, belief or faith, or into scepticism." Says who? Dykes here make use of an oft-repeated Objectivist fallacy: the either-or fallacy, where we are given the choice between the Objectivist position and several unappetizing alternatives. But who says that the only alternative between certain knowledge is unjustified belief and skepticism? What about probable knowledge? What about degrees of reliability? If one knowledge claim can be regarded as superior to another, isn't that good enough for practical purposes?

Some of Dykes criticisms demonstrate a lack of familiarity with Popper's ideas. He accuses Popper, for instance, of refusing "to have anything to do with definitions." This is an exaggeration. Popper accepted scientific, or nominalistic, definitions; he simply has no use for essentialist definitions — another matter entirely. I can find no evidence that Dykes understands this distinction, or has any idea why essentialist definitions, and the scholastic mythology that has grown-up around them, deserve the criticism and scorn Popper directed at them.

Dykes essay particularly flounders when he attempts to explode Popper's critical rationalism by associating it with the views of Kant and Hume. He repeats the Objectivist canard that Hume's "whole argument" is in conflict with the Law of Identity. Alas, this misses the point entirely. Hume's argument is not directed at the Law of Identity, but at our knowledge of specific identities. How do we know which attributes of an object are constant and which are not? This is not a question which the Law of Identity can answer. Reminding ourselves that objects have identities is nothing to the purpose if we don't know, or can't be sure, what those identities are.

Dykes is equally clueless when it comes to Kant. Because Popper believed that all observations are "theory impregnated," Dykes assumes that Popper regards all theories as prior to experience, and even wonders whether Popper is "asking us to accept that the heliocentric theory came before observation of perturbations in planetary orbits?" Again, however, Dykes has missed the point. When Popper asserts that observations are "theory-impregnated" he is merely noting how hopeless it would be for an empty mind, bereft of any presuppositions or "theories," to make sense of observations. As Kant put it, "Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions [i.e., sense experiences] without concepts are blind." Regardless of whatever confusions and pendantries Kant may have stumbled into trying to elucidate this paradox in the Critique of Pure Reason, the principle itself constitutes one of the seminal insights of epistemology, easily corroborated by common experience and scientific investigation. I wonder if Dykes has any familiarity, let alone understanding, of it. Or does he believe that facts can be understood without any prior theories at all? Hardly a plausible position, if so. After all, how can a blank mind ever make neither heads nor tails of the bewildering complexity of sense experience, without at least some prior heuristic to guide it? It can't. So some measure of theory does appear to precede fact. How, then, on a realist framework, are we to account for this? Popper at least deserves credit for taking this issue seriously and trying to provide a non-idealist, non-Kantian solution to it. Since Dykes does not even appear to grasp that this is what Popper is attempting to do, his criticism is worthless. One cannot effectively criticize what one doesn't understand.

And that seems to be the over-riding problem of Dykes critique. His understanding of the problems Popper attempts to solve is minimal, at best. His attachment to Randian categories of interpretion has rendered him hopelessly naive in the face of problems originally posed by Hume and Kant and later elucidated by Pierce, Santayana, Popper and Polanyi. His outlook is still trapped in the scholasticism of Plato and Aristotle.

Molyneux and the Objectivist Tradition 3

UPB 3: Preferences and morality. In his book Universal Preferable Behavior, Molyneux begins his disquisition on ethics by comparing assertions about preferences with assertions about matters of fact. Statements of fact, notes Molyneux are “objective, testable—and binding,” whereas statements of preference are “not generally considering binding … in any way.” Preferences are mere statements “of personal fondness.” It is not incumbent upon anyone to share our preferences. (22)

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.

Objectivism & "Metaphysics," Part 7

Rand’s axioms: one exists possessing consciousness. While no sensible person would deny that physiologically normal individuals "possess" consciousness, it is questionable whether such a fact deserves to be embalmed as an Objectivist axiom. Remember that these axioms are, according to Rand, "fundamentally given and directly perceived." Now it must be admitted that consciousness, however obvious its existence may seem to the intelligent observer, is neither given nor directly perceived. All that is "given" is the solipsism of the present moment, out of which no knowledge (including axiomatic knowledge) can ever arise. Knowledge, whether axiomatic or otherwise, requires (among other assumptions) trust in memory and belief that what is given (i.e., some datum or "essence") can serve as a description or symbol of real things or events taking place in a substantive world existing in space and time. Consciousness, far from being given or directly perceived, is only recognized through an act of inference. Since (as even Rand admits) consciousness cannot be conscious merely of itself, direct perception of consciousness is an incoherent notion.




David Hume's "attack" on personal identity is relevant to this issue. In his A Treatise of Human Nature, Hume wrote:

There are some philosophers, who imagine we are every moment intimately conscious of what we call our SELF; that we feel its existence and its continuance in existence; and are certain, beyond the evidence of a demonstration, both of its perfect identity and simplicity. The strongest sensation, the most violent passion, say they, instead of distracting us from this view, only fix it the more intensely, and make us consider their influence on self either by their pain or pleasure. To attempt a farther proof of this were to weaken its evidence; since no proof can be deriv'd from any fact, of which we are so intimately conscious; nor is there any thing, of which we can be certain, if we doubt of this.

Unluckily all these positive assertions are contrary to that very experience, which is pleaded for them, nor have we any idea of self, after the manner it is here explain'd. For from what impression [i.e., perception] cou'd this idea be deriv'd? ... [S]elf or person is not any one impression, but that to which our several impressions and ideas are suppos'd to have a reference. If any impression gives rise to the idea of self, that
impression must continue invariably the same, thro' the whole course of our lives; since self is suppos'd to exist after that manner. But there is no impression constant and invariable. Pain and pleasure, grief and joy, passions and sensations succeed each other, and never all exist at the same time. It cannot, therefore, be from any of these impressions, or from any other, that the idea of self is deriv'd; and consequently there is no such idea.

What Hume says of the self (or "personal identity") is easily transferable to consciousness: these are not realities that can be directly perceived or fundamentally given. They are, rather, inferred from the very process of perceiving. The inference by which intelligence identifies consciousness is so obvious and inescapable that it may seem as if it were given through direct perception. But it clearly isn't.

Another problem with the Objectivist axiom of consciousness is the vagueness of the term itself, especially within Objectivist writings. Rand tended to use it in several different senses, and it is not always clear, in each of her usages of the term, which sense she means. It would seem that, in this axiom, Rand is using consciousness in the sense of raw sentience. Consciousness, in this sense, is merely the light of awareness. Generally speaking, however, she seems to identify consciousness with intellect or mind. At other times, she identifies it with the self or the will, describing it as "the faculty of awareness" and as "an active process." She even goes so far as identify consciousness with knowledge: if "no knowledge of any kind is possible to man," she opined, then "man is not conscious."

As we shall note in later posts, Rand's tendency to play fast and loose with the term consciousness enables her to equivocate her way to precisely the sort of metaphysical conclusions she desires to reach. While the notion of consciousness may seem "inescapable" (at least via inference) to a foundationalist mindset, only consciousness as raw, passive sentience would be "inescapable" in this sense. After all, surely even Rand would not declare that intellect or knowledge are "axiomatic"! This being so, it is not clear how inferences against idealism or traditional monotheism can be justified using this axiom. But more of this anon.

Molyneux and the Objectivist Tradition 2

UPB 2: Foundationalism and logic. Central to Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism is the largely unsubstantiated assertion that the “objectivity of reality,” along with human knowledge in general, require “validation”; and that in the absence of this validation, human beings become cognitively helpless and hence defenseless against power-lusting authoritarians. Once, however, knowledge is properly “validated,” the masses of people in the civilized world will once again regard their senses, their “reason,” and their minds as reliable guides to reality, which will lead them to embrace “rational” moral and political ideals (i.e., Objectivism).

Rand and Empirical Responsibility, 8

“Man’s values control his subconscious emotional mechanism that functions like a computer adding up his desires, his experiences, his fulfillments and frustrations.” Again we are faced with the question: How does Rand know that this is true? Rand, per usual, provides no evidence for her contention. How then is a rational person supposed to evaluate it?

If we go by the evidence collated from common experience (i.e., so-called "common sense"), it is far more likely that man's "values" are an expression of his emotions, rather than vice versa. Rand is here guilty of assuming that man's values are (or ought to be) the product of non-emotional cogitation. But since cognitive science has discovered that non-emotional cogitation is probably a fantasy, we have every reason to believe that emotions must play at least a part in the forming of values. Indeed, it is difficult to understand how it could not be so. Ask any individual why he values something, and it will be found that some emotion or desire or sentiment is at the bottom of the whole thing. If a man values a certain type of music, it is because listening to it causes him pleasure; if he values meditation, it is because it improves his well-being (i.e., it makes him feel better); if he values self-flagellation, it is because he believes it will improve his well-being in the hereafter. Some values, of course, are rather contrived and even mad, such as values attached to ideological and religious systems; but there's still some sentiment or desire that is at the bottom of it, however twisted or narcissitic it might be. The individual who values mercy to child molesters might be guilty of entertaining a perverse and artificial value, disconnected from any natural need or sentiment, but that value has its root, not in "reason" or logic, but in some kind of pathological humanitarian affectation.

This point was fleshed out by Hume more than 250 years ago, as follows:

It appears evident, that the ultimate ends [i.e., values] of human actions can never, in any case, be accounted for by reason, but recommend themselves entirely to the sentiments and affections of mankind, without any dependance on the intellectual faculties. Ask a man, why he uses exercise; he will answer, because he desires to keep his health. If you then enquire, why he desires health, he will readily reply, because sickness is painful. If you push your enquiries farther, and desire a reason, why he hates pain, it is impossible he can ever give any. This is an ultimate end, and is never referred to any other object.

Now as virtue is an end, and is desirable on its own account, without fee or reward, merely, for the immediate satisfaction which it conveys; it is requisite that there should be some sentiment, which it touches; some internal taste or feeling, or whatever you please to call it, which distinguishes moral good and evil, and which embraces the one and rejects the other... Reason, being cool and disengaged, is no motive to action, and directs only the impulse received from appetite or inclination, by showing us the means of attaining happiness or avoiding misery.

Not only did Rand fail to provide evidence for her curious contention, she made no attempt to grapple with contrary arguments. Hume's position, as stated above, appears nearly irrefragible. In any case, if Rand wishes her contention to be taken seriously, at the very least she should have given us compelling reasons to reject Hume's argument. How, if not on the basis of some sentiment or affection, does man come by any values at all? If Rand had been a serious thinker dedicated the discovery and elucidation of truth, she would have attempted to provide a serious, detailed, fact-based answer to this question.

[This being the last post of 2010, I'd like to take the opportunity to wish all the good readers of ARCHNBlog a happy New Year. And to our bad readers, also, a happy New Year.]

Brief Re-visitation of Is-Ought Problem

Below is a response to an email request concerning an answer to Patrick Neil's essay on Rand's morality:

 Neil's article refutes the view expounded in Rand's article "Objectivist Ethics." In that article, Rand attempted to refute the is-ought gap by claiming that Hume denies that morality has anything to do with facts. This is just wrong. In a later article, Rand pursued a different tactic. She suggested that ethics is conditional on choosing life. Now logically this does allow Rand to skirt around Hume's is-ought gap, because instead of reasoning from "is" premises to an "ought" conclusion, the line of reasoning goes, "if x, then y," or: "if life, then the ultimate value is life."

While this mode of procedure may solve, or at least mitigate, the logical problem presented by the is-ought gap, it is questionable that it provides an "objective" code of values. The argument is so vague and abstract that it's difficult to logically generate a specific moral code that can guide everyday decisions. How does saying that life is the ultimate value help a person choose their career, or their life-mate, or how to spend their free time? Well, it doesn't help with any of these things. It's not even clear what it means, in terms of practical decision making. If life is the ultimate value, does that mean you should act to survive as long as possible? But that's not the principle Objectivists follow in their own decision making. Objectivists make use of the argument to "prove" the objectivity of their morality. Then they ignore the argument and follow their natural hard-wired and socially fine-tuned proclivities like everyone else. As a point of fact, human beings don't follow articulated moral systems derived from abstract philosophical reasoning. Everyday decision-making involves too much complexity for articulated systems of morality to work and be effective. Our brains have evolved complex motivational systems that help us survive and breed. These systems are hardly perfect and can perhaps be improved here or there through conscious reasoning (although that's not always the case), but it's impossible to entirely replace them with a "code of morality" based on a philosophical system of ethics like Objectivism. The Objectivist Ethics is little more than an ex post facto rationalization scheme to justify behavior Rand and her followers approve of and to provide a moral rationalization for the Objectivist politics. It doesn't provide a guide for how people should behave; it provides tools to rationalize types of behavior approved of by the broader Objectivist community.

For info (and scientific evidence) on how morality works in the real world of fact, see James Q. Wilson's The Moral Sense, Jonathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind, and/or Jordan Peterson's YouTube lectures on "Personality" and "Maps of Meaning."

Objectivist Myths: 1. Rand Solved Hume's 'Problem of Induction'

A handy, ongoing list of fact-free beliefs about Ayn Rand's intellectual achievements.

Rand is widely believed by her followers to have solved most of the major philosophic questions. For example, she is thought to have answered what has come to be known as Hume's "problem of induction."

But did she in fact do this? Sadly, no:

Prof M:"The question is: where does one stop? When does one decide that enough confirming evidence exists? Is that the province of the issue of induction?

Rand: "Yes. That's the big question of induction...Which I couldn't even begin to discuss - because...I haven't worked on that subject enough to even begin to formulate it..." - Introduction To Objectivist Epistemology p304

Rand & Human Nature 3

Moral Philosophy = Rationalization. There are convincing and powerful reasons to believe that nearly all that passes for what might be called exhortive, "normative" ethical philosophy is almost certainly rationalization. The first strong hint that this might be the case was unconvered by Hume, who persuasively demonstrated that, logically speaking, it was invalid to derive an ought conclusion from two is premises. Hume further demonstrated the psychological impossibility of generating moral ends from "reason" alone; that in the absence of some desire, sentiment, or other natural and emotive need, no moral end could arise.

The second strong hint comes from George Santayana, who, in his demolishment of Moore's ethical philosophy (as limned by Russell) , noted that all arguments for morality committed the ad hominem fallacy:

That good is not an intrinsic or primary quality, but relative and adventitious, is clearly betrayed by Mr.Russell's own way of arguing, whenever he approaches some concrete ethical question. For instance, to show that the good is not pleasure, he can avowedly do nothing but appeal "to ethical judgments with which almost every one would agree." He repeats, in effect, Plato's argument about the life of the oyster, having pleasure with no knowledge. Imagine such mindless pleasure, as intense and prolonged as you please, and would you choose it? Is it your good? Here the British reader, like the blushing Greek youth, is expected to answer instinctively, No! It is an argumentum ad hominem (and there can be no other kind of argument in ethics); but the man who gives the required answer does so not because the answer is self-evident, which it is not, but because he is the required sort of man. He is shocked at the idea of resembling an oyster. Yet changeless pleasure, without memory or reflection, without the wearisome intermixture of arbitrary images, is just what the mystic, the voluptuary, and perhaps the oyster find to be good.

The third strong hint was noticed, among others, by Pareto when, in his mammoth work investigating the relation between conduct and belief, Trattato di sociologia generale, he noticed that most moral philosophies were devoid of specific ethical content. For this reason (among others), our conduct could not be governed by a moral philosophy, since the purpose of moral philosophy is not to provide guidance (how could it when little or no specific conduct can be deduced from it?), but to coddle and flatter human sentiments. (For Pareto's analysis of Kant's ethics, see here.)