Ayn Rand's False Is-Ought Solution

Ayn Rand is one of the most important and influential philosophers of the 20th century. She also claimed to have solved an important philosophical problem. I claim that she didn't, but that I can.

In 1739 one of the most important modern philosophers, David Hume, wrote a book titled 'A Treatise of Human Nature'. In one paragraph he lays out this problem: "I cannot 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 some time 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 surprized 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 relation or affirmation, it is 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. But as authors do not commonly use this precaution, I shall presume to recommend it to the readers; and am persuaded, that this small attention would subvert all the vulgar systems of morality, and let us see, that the distinction of vice and virtue is not founded merely on the relations of objects, nor is perceived by reason."

Basically, religions say this is how the world was created, this is how humans were created, so here's a list of rules. How do we get from this "is" to you "ought"? How do we get from describing a situation to prescribing behavior? If someone comes over to your house and says, "Your paint is peeling.", why does that mean, "You should paint."? One is a fact, one is a value, there's a separation there that needs to be bridged. If a train is coming at you, that's what is happening, does that mean you ought to move?

Ayn Rand was a novelist who worked out a new philosophy in her fictional books 'The Fountainhead' and 'Atlas Shrugged'. One of her students, Nathaniel Branden, then worked out articulating her philosophy of Objectivism in non-fiction lectures and books. The two then wrote essays together, collected and published as books. Later, after the two had an affair, Rand disowned Branden. 'The Virtue of Selfishness' is one of these essay collections, and gives her solution to the is-ought problem.

In the first essay of the book, 'The Objectivist Ethics', Rand addresses the is-ought problem. The entire essay is good, I'm going to take three quotes from it.

Quote one:

"An ultimate value is that final goal or end to which all lesser goals are the means—and it sets the standard by which all lesser goals are evaluated. An organism’s life is its standard of value: that which furthers its life is the good, that which threatens it is the evil.

Without an ultimate goal or end, there can be no lesser goals or means: a series of means going off into an infinite progression toward a nonexistent end is a metaphysical and epistemological impossibility. It is only an ultimate goal, an end in itself, that makes the existence of values possible. Metaphysically, life is the only phenomenon that is an end in itself: a value gained and kept by a constant process of action. Epistemologically, the concept of “value” is genetically dependent upon and derived from the antecedent concept of “life.” To speak of “value” as apart from “life” is worse than a contradiction in terms. “It is only the concept of ‘Life’ that makes the concept of ‘Value’ possible.”

In answer to those philosophers who claim that no relation can be established between ultimate ends or values and the facts of reality, let me stress that the fact that living entities exist and function necessitates the existence of values and of an ultimate value which for any given living entity is its own life. Thus the validation of value 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.”"

Quote two:

"A being who does not know automatically what is true or false, cannot know automatically what is right or wrong, what is good for him or evil. Yet he needs that knowledge in order to live. He is not exempt from the laws of reality, he is a specific organism of a specific nature that requires specific actions to sustain his life. He cannot achieve his survival by arbitrary means nor by random motions nor by blind urges nor by chance nor by whim. That which his survival requires is set by his nature and is not open to his choice. What is open to his choice is only whether he will discover it or not, whether he will choose the right goals and values or not. He is free to make the wrong choice, but not free to succeed with it. He is free to evade reality, he is free to unfocus his mind and stumble blindly down any road he pleases, but not free to avoid the abyss he refuses to see. Knowledge, for any conscious organism, is the means of survival; to a living consciousness, every “is” implies an “ought.” Man is free to choose not to be conscious, but not free to escape the penalty of unconsciousness: destruction. Man is the only living species that has the power to act as his own destroyer—and that is the way he has acted through most of his history."

Quote three:

"The standard of value of the Objectivist ethics—the standard by which one judges what is good or evil—is man’s life, or: that which is required for man’s survival qua man.

Since reason is man’s basic means of survival, that which is proper to the life of a rational being is the good; that which negates, opposes or destroys it is the evil.

Since everything man needs has to be discovered by his own mind and produced by his own effort, the two essentials of the method of survival proper to a rational being are: thinking and productive work."

This is good stuff. Now let's tear it apart.

From quote one:

Rand says, "An ultimate value is that final goal or end to which all lesser goals are the means—and it sets the standard by which all lesser goals are evaluated. An organism’s life is its standard of value: that which furthers its life is the good, that which threatens it is the evil." The first sentence makes sense. The second sentence is easily refutable with some well-known animal examples of suicidal altruism. Honeybees sting people and die in the process to protect their hive, there are spiders that are eaten by their young, exploding ants sacrifice themselves for their colony, termite soldiers sacrifice themselves for their colony, forelius ants sacrifice themselves to protect their nest, an octopus mother starves while guarding her eggs, and pacific salmon die to spawn eggs.

Rand has made an error here. She says that an organisms life is its standard of value, but our counterfactual examples prove this isn't the case. This is a serious problem, because it means that everything that she builds and constructs on this foundation isn't grounded in reality. People committed to defending Rand's ideas with a religious fervor, often called Randians, will dismiss this error. They might say that it's part of the nature of those creatures and doesn't apply to humans. Notice this doesn't refute Rand's error, it just ignores it and distracts from it, she explicitly states organism.

She states this same error again, so it's not a mistake. Rand was very deliberate in her thinking and wording. Notice the "is" in this sentence, "...the fact that living entities exist and function necessitates the existence of values and of an ultimate value which for any given living entity is its own life." Up until the "is" the sentence is correct, but then it's wrong. By making an error in her "is" it seems that Rand would necessarily also make an error in her "ought".

From quote two:

Rand says, "...to a living consciousness, every “is” implies an “ought.” I'm a living consciousness. My table is flat. What ought does this imply? That I should sit things on it? I usually do, I wouldn't have to, as Rand notes that I have choice. Water is wet. I ought to, drink it? Swim in it? Take a shower? Rocks are hard. I ought to, step on them? Break them? Roll them down hills? Stack them in pyramids? It seems like she's making an exaggerated statement here. All things are as they are, but it doesn't imply that we should be doing anything in particular with everything. Of course the easy refutation is to say that we ought to ignore some things, even most things.

From quote three:

In the third quote Rand explicitly states that she's giving the view of her specific ideology, "The standard of value of the Objectivist ethics—the standard by which one judges what is good or evil—is man’s life, or: that which is required for man’s survival qua man." But, she doesn't just stop at human survival. Humans have been surviving for a long time with various ethical, moral, religious, and legal systems.

In her very next sentence Rand adds something to human life, "Since reason is man’s basic means of survival, that which is proper to the life of a rational being is the good; that which negates, opposes or destroys it is the evil." So it's the life of a rational human being that's good. This is why Rand can be pro-abortion, because an unborn baby isn't rational, and could be inconvenient to the parents who we assume to be rational. Rand's definition of rationality in this essay is large, but I'm going to include it because it's important.

"The virtue of Rationality means the recognition and acceptance of reason as one’s only source of knowledge, one’s only judge of values and one’s only guide to action. It means one’s total commitment to a state of full, conscious awareness, to the maintenance of a full mental focus in all issues, in all choices, in all of one’s waking hours. It means a commitment to the fullest perception of reality within one’s power and to the constant, active expansion of one’s perception, i.e., of one’s knowledge. It means a commitment to the reality of one’s own existence, i.e., to the principle that all of one’s goals, values and actions take place in reality and, therefore, that one must never place any value or consideration whatsoever above one’s perception of reality. It means a commitment to the principle that all of one’s convictions, values, goals, desires and actions must be based on, derived from, chosen and validated by a process of thought—as precise and scrupulous a process of thought, directed by as ruthlessly strict an application of logic, as one’s fullest capacity permits. It means one’s acceptance of the responsibility of forming one’s own judgments and of living by the work of one’s own mind (which is the virtue of Independence). It means that one must never sacrifice one’s convictions to the opinions or wishes of others (which is the virtue of Integrity)—that one must never attempt to fake reality in any manner (which is the virtue of Honesty)—that one must never seek or grant the unearned and undeserved, neither in matter nor in spirit (which is the virtue of Justice). It means that one must never desire effects without causes, and that one must never enact a cause without assuming full responsibility for its effects—that one must never act like a zombie, i.e., without knowing one’s own purposes and motives—that one must never make any decisions, form any convictions or seek any values out of context, i.e., apart from or against the total, integrated sum of one’s knowledge—and, above all, that one must never seek to get away with contradictions. It means the rejection of any form of mysticism, i.e., any claim to some nonsensory, nonrational, nondefinable, supernatural source of knowledge. It means a commitment to reason, not in sporadic fits or on selected issues or in special emergencies, but as a permanent way of life."

With that definition I think we can safely say that an unborn baby isn't rational. Also, a one year old wouldn't be. Or a two year old. Or a three year old. Or a four year old. Or a five year old. Actually, almost no humans would qualify as rational, if any even would. If it's okay to kill any non-rational human being, and our definition of rationality is that paragraph, then it would be permissible to kill any human being. This is an issue, because in general, Objectivists and Randians claim to be non-sacrificial concerning humans. But it's not obvious how they get to the "ought" of not killing. It could be because humans are rational living beings, however we've just seen that maybe no humans qualify by definition as rational, so the argument negates itself. In the case of abortion you could say that the parents are more rational than the baby, and that gives them the right to kill it, but then the same argument supports more rational adults killing less rational adults. Based on Rand's definition it's not obvious that there would even be a stopping point for the killing, up to and through the last human.

We're considering two types of sacrifice of life here, suicidal altruism as we've seen in the animals, and homicidal selfishness in the case of abortion; self-sacrifice and other-sacrifice. Objectivism supposedly rejects both of these, as in they "ought" not to be done, and yet we've refuted the foundations of "is" that such an ought is supposedly standing on.

Let's consider the self-sacrificial animals and Rand's false "is" again: "An organism’s life is its standard of value: that which furthers its life is the good, that which threatens it is the evil." All of the animals we previously listed sacrifice themselves either for their offspring or their overall group. Especially in the offspring case, but technically in both cases, it seems the standard of value isn't the individuals life, but the life of similar variations of DNA. This adjustment corrects for what we observe in our list of self-sacrificial animals, along with a lot of self-sacrificial behavior we see in humans. It also makes sense in light of what we see with animals and humans in their emphasis on procreation. Of course, this would highly conflict with Rand's pro-abortion stance, yet does seem to be more accurate with what we observe.

However, even this doesn't fully hold. Soldiers aren't out fighting wars to protect their families. A lot of soldiers sacrifice their lives saving other soldiers, who were strangers to them just a few months before, in wars dealing with government and corporate resource acquisition that won't benefit the individual involved in any way. If this is an example of human irrationality, and yet this and other types of human irrationality are common, that means that humans are not rational living beings, which negates Rand's proposed view of human nature as false.

Rand has a philosophy with many truths and insights, and an idealistic view of humans, which is wrong.

Let's look at other geniuses, scientists, and philosophers. David Hume in 'A Treatise of Human Nature' says that this is-ought gap is bridged by a moral sense. Charles Darwin in 'The Descent of Man' says that animals acquire a moral sense, or conscience, from social instincts. Stephen Jay Gould in 'Rock of Ages' says that science covers the empirical universe of what is and religions cover questions of moral meaning and value. Richard Feynman in 'The Meaning of It All' says that science can say what is, but not what we should do, and that's where religion comes in. Karl Popper in 'The Open Society and Its Enemies' says norms cannot be derived from facts. Max Planck in 'Where Is Science Going?" says that science can't solve the ultimate mysteries. G. E. Moore in 'Principia Ethica' says that if good is good is an open question. A. J. Ayer in 'Language, Truth and Logic' says that ethical terms express and arouse emotions. Thomas Nagel in 'The View from Nowhere' says he can't close the gap between is and ought, objective and subjective. C. L. Stevenson in 'Ethics and Language' says that facts and ethical judgments are separate. It's a hard problem, and none of these answers are satisfying.

Let's see if I can work out a solution. My goal is to bridge the gap between is and ought to solve this seemingly unsolvable problem. Let's use two of our earlier examples, peeling paint and an onrushing train.

In paragraph three of this article I said: "How do we get from describing a situation to prescribing behavior? If someone comes over to your house and says, "Your paint is peeling.", why does that mean, "You should paint."? One is a fact, one is a value, there's a separation there that needs to be bridged. If a train is coming at you, that's what is happening, does that mean you ought to move?"

Normally if a person came to your house and said "Your paint is peeling." they are saying you ought to fix it. If you own the house, you should paint, or hire a painter. If you rent, you should call your landlord or maintenance to fix it. So the "is" of peeling paint is prescribing a normative behavioral response, an "ought". Why? Because the person saying it assumes you don't want peeling paint. They assume that's a negative value for you, and that a positive value would be to fix it. The prescriptive normative behavioral response is based on an assumed value hierarchy, in this case (and most cases), an assumed shared value hierarchy.

From "is" to "ought" is not a gap, it's a bridge, a bridge made by an already existent value hierarchy. I'll call this the Martin Is-Ought Bridge.

This value hierarchy can be different for different people, for different animals, at different times, depending on the context, biology, thinking, and history.

If someone visited your house and mentioned the paint, but you don't care about the paint, then it doesn't mean to fix the paint. There's an "is" without an "ought". If the person visiting doesn't care they probably won't say anything. The paint is still peeling, but no one cares, so no one is going to do anything, nor ought to do anything.

In the case of a train rushing toward a person on the train tracks, we would normally assume they ought to move, because we normally assume that people don't want to die from being hit. But, if a person wanted to commit suicide, then they ought to stand on the tracks. The "is" is the same, but the "ought" is opposite. The difference is the value hierarchy.

Built into the bee is the instinct to attack a threat to the hive. To sting a person and die, because the value hierarchy of the bee is to protect the hive at all costs. The octopus starves to death protecting her eggs because she values the eggs at the cost of her life. The soldier dives on a grenade because he values the life of his friends higher than his own. Rand says humans should be valued because in her personal value hierarchy humans are valuable. Rand supports abortion because in her personal value hierarchy unborn babies do not have value. Rand's philosophy tries to convince people what their value hierarchy should be, because Rand valued having more people have her value hierarchy.

The Martin Is-Ought Bridge accounts for self-sacrifice and other-sacrifice, it accounts for human rationality and irrationality, selfishness and altruism. These are all variations in individual value hierarchies. The value hierarchies themselves come about through a myriad of causes. Humans have an in-built tendency to be afraid of snakes. That's in the biology. Some people are naturally less afraid, because there are biological variations. There are cultures that don't fear snakes. There are parents that teach kids to handle snakes. There are other cultures afraid of snakes, where people never interact with snakes. Some people rationally think that if a snake isn't venomous then it's safe to touch. Some people get hypnotized to get over a phobia of snakes. All of these things come together and interact to form an intricate and complex value hierarchy that determines how we perceive and respond to the perceived world, how we walk the bridge from "is" to "ought". Human value hierarchies have a wide variety. Bee and ant value hierarchies have very little variety. This is why bee and ant behavior is more determined and human behavior is less determined. We have more freedom in determining our value hierarchies.

Hume brought up a good problem. Rand thought she had solved it, but she had not. Now you know the real solution.

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