Objectivist ethics

The Objectivist ethics is a subset of the Objectivist philosophy formulated by Ayn Rand. Rand defined "ethics" as "a code of values to guide man's choices and actions — the choices and actions that determine the purpose and the course of his life." She sometimes referred to the Objectivist ethics in particular as "selfishness," as reflected in the title of her primary book on ethics, The Virtue of Selfishness. However, she did not use that term with the negative connotations that it usually has, but to refer to a form of rational egoism.

Metaethics

The Objectivist ethic begins with a meta-ethical question: why do human beings need a code of values? The Objectivist answer is that humans need such a code in order to survive as human beings.

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Rand summarized her ethical theories by writing:

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: To live, man must hold three things as the supreme and ruling values of his life: Reason, Purpose, Self-esteem.

Related Topics:
Reason - Purpose - Self-esteem

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Objectivism maintains that, alone among all the species of which we know, human beings do not automatically act to further their own survival. A plant seems to have no awareness of any kind and simply grows automatically; an animal that possesses a faculty of sensation relies on its pleasure-pain mechanism; an animal that operates at the level of perception can use its perceptions to muddle its way through its essentially cyclic life; but a human being, who at least potentially operates at the conceptual level, lives a life that consists of an integrated whole.

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Objectivism recognizes, of course, that a biologically human being can survive in a physical sense without operating at the conceptual level at all. Indeed, Objectivism regards the conceptual level as a volitional achievement that not everyone in fact attains. In speaking of "survival" here, however, Objectivism is speaking of survival as a "human being" — that is, as a being that has realized its cognitive potential and attained to the conceptual level. It is at this level, Objectivism says, that a life is the sort of continuous whole proper to a human being.

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