morality is rational

In my first post, I demonstrated that there is a rational morality and briefly outlined its key principles. Morality is not an incomprehensible duty to another dimension, and it is not a matter of mere subjective whim. Rather, morality is a real world, practical necessity, because it provides us with the principles necessary to live well. This position is called ethical egoism, and it was defended in different forms by all of the major ancient Greek philosophers, Spinoza, and Ayn Rand. In spite of its antiquity, no philosopher has provided a cogent objection to it to date.My opponent raised a number of questions about ethical egoism, which I will now answer.1. How does pride make it easier to be rational?Pride gives a person more self esteem and motivation, which make it easier to think clearly. For example, a student who has done well on previous tests in a given subject will usually find it easier to focus on studying than a student who expects to do badly on tests.2. Isn't it rational to kill billions of people to reduce the human population?No, that would be completely unnecessary and immoral. There is no evidence that killing billions of people would be beneficial in any way. Even if there were benefits to that sort of mass murder, we would be setting a precedent that would allow the government to kill any group of people it wanted to, even if they hadn't done anything wrong, if they could come up with some economic rationalization for it. If you think this wouldn't happen, study Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia.3. Why is murder bad on egoism?Lots of reasons. First, if you're a decent person at all, you wouldn't be able to live with yourself after murdering someone. Second, you would never be safe again, because the police would be constantly hunting you down. If you were caught, you would face either life in prison or the death penalty. Third, even if you weren't caught, you would have to conceal your murder from everyone you knew. If you told anyone who had a conscience, they would never respect you again, so any friendships or relationships you had from that point on would be based on deception.4. Why is stealing bad on egoism?The reasons are similar to the above: conscience, potential criminal prosecution, and the necessity to conceal your theft from society.5. If morality is based on life, why do some people regard anti-life actions as moral?Usually this happens because the vast majority of people absorb their moral beliefs from their culture, which may contain anti-life elements. For example, we live in a Christian culture which advocates certain forms of self sacrifice, so most people in our culture hold some variant of Christianity's ethics. In some cases, people who hold anti-life values do so because they are dishonest or irrational. It depends on the specific case.6. How can survival be a moral value, since it isn't exclusive to humans and it isn't a learned value?Humans are the only species that can formulate survival as an explicit goal and work out rational principles that will promote it. Other species survive, but they don't consciously grasp that survival is their goal. Survival is a learned value for humans, since countless people take anti-life actions.7. How can morality be based on logic if logic is only concerned with factual cause-effect relationships?Being moral has better long term consequences than being immoral. If you think stealing is a better long term policy than honesty and productive work, then I invite you to take a trip to any jail. Some people do get away with stealing in the short term, but a person can never really know that they are going to get away with it, and eventually they will be caught.Let me know if you have any more questions.