-
Reasoning about Ends: Life as a Value in Ayn Rand’s Ethics
- University of Pittsburgh Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
3 o n Ayn Rand’s view, ethics has a teleological foundation. There is an end that serves as the standard for defining moral values and virtues, and in relation to this end, moral norms impose obligations. The reason-giving force of these obligations, all things considered, depends on what normative status Rand accords the end that morality serves. And on this she is unambiguous. The end for which morality is needed is also the ultimate end for a rational agent qua rational agent and the foundation of all of such an agent’s (normative) reasons for action. These reasons, in Rand’s view, are always of a fundamentally teleological sort, that is, they are reasons to do or seek something as a means to something else.1 reasoning about ends Life as a Value in Ayn Rand’s Ethics darrYL Wright I reject the evil idea that choosing ends by reason is impossible. It has destroyed ethics. Everything that I have written is devoted to proving the opposite. —Ayn Rand, 1969 Much of the work on this article was done during a semester spent as a visiting scholar at the Social Philosophy and Policy Center in the spring of 2007. I’m grateful to the center and its staff for providing a wonderful environment in which to pursue and discuss my work on this and other projects. Epigraph: This was part of Rand’s answer to a question about her ethical theory after a 1969 lecture at the Ford Hall Forum. See Q&A 107. 1. The means may in some cases be a constitutive rather than an instrumental means, that is, a type of activity that is an instance of some more abstract type (as running is an instance of exercising) or that is a part of some more complex activity (as working is a part of living one’s life). gotthelf text4.indd 3 8/27/10 11:31 AM 4 ■ darrYL Wright Thus, in Rand’s view, everyone who has (normative) reasons for acting has reasons for being moral. Further, she argues that the relationship between morality and its telos is such that those reasons are indefeasible; there are no other reasons capable of trumping them. I outline Rand’s ethical thought with emphasis on the sort of justification she offers for an ultimate rational end, and the relation between this end and the requirements of morality. Already we can see a kind of puzzle or paradox that her view may seem to confront: if all reasons for action are teleological, how can anything be a rational ultimate end? For we cannot give a teleological reason for making something an ultimate end, yet if something is a rational end, must not an agent have a reason to hold it? Standard Approaches to the Rationality of Ends I want to consider four well-known views about the rationality of ultimate ends from which Rand’s view can be distinguished. Historically, these views are associated with Hume, Moore, Kant, and Aristotle, respectively. Since these views have heavily influenced contemporary discussions of practical rationality, we can gain a sense of where Rand’s views stand in relation to currently debated positions. By highlighting the ways in which Rand’s position diverges from standard theories about the rationality of ends and bringing these divergences out, we can frame a problem for which her own theory proposes a solution. When Rand refers to “the evil idea that choosing ends by reason is impossible,” probably foremost in her mind is the view that Hume defends in book 2 of the Treatise of Human Nature and in the Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals. According to Hume, our ends are determined by our passions, and an end of mine can be contrary to reason only if the passion that gives me this end is so. But a passion, Hume says, can be contrary to reason only “when founded on a false supposition, or when it chooses means insufficient for” an end we already have in our sights (Treatise 2.3.3.6). By definition, the passions responsible for our ultimate ends never have the second kind of defect, since we seek ultimate ends for their own sake. Our passions can, however, have the first kind of defect , being caused by false beliefs about that to which the passion attaches us. For example, a person’s passion for his ultimate end of knowing God could be caused partly by the “false supposition” that God exists. The...