From: brian@quake.sylmar.ca.us (Brian K. Yoder)
Subject: Re: Rational Man (Rand)
Organization: Quake Public Access
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 14:38:43 GMT

In article <By1C49.DqG.1@cs.cmu.edu> asp+@cs.cmu.edu (James Aspnes) writes:
>I'm a bit confused by the development of Randian ethics from the claim that
>man is rational.  From previous posts here the method seems to run something
>like this:

> 1. The defining property of humans is rationality.  The argument for this is
>    that, unlike other animals, humans need to reason (form concepts?  carry
>    out syllogisms?) to survive.

That is really not where the whole thing starts, but it is more appropriate 
to say that human beings achieve almost all of their values by thought
rather than by automatic reactions.  This is in the same sense as lions 
achieve values by hunting and that plants do so by chemical interactions with
the environment.  In humans, this is even more evident since thought modifies
almost every value we achieve, while lions (as an example) only hunt as a 
means of getting food, but not other values such as mates, shelter,
etc.

The place to start in defining ethics is to note that life is conditional and
that some conditions lead to life while other do not.  

> 2. An action is "good" if it promotes life.  In the case of humans, since
>    human life depends on rationality, "good" is anything that promotes reason,
>    individuality, and various other virtues that are part of man's nature
>    as a rational animal.

That is not quite it.  Reason is the human MEANS of pursuing values.  It is
not the end toward which choices ought to be directed.  Life is the proper
end, reason is the human means to that end.  

>(and everything else follows from here in a blinding blaze of logic.)

Certainly not.  I suggest you read Rand's arguments a bit more closely
(or if you want a more systematic presentation, read Peikoff's "Objectivism:
The Philosophy of Ayn Rand").

>It seems that the same methodology could be used to derive any number of
>incompatible systems of ethics.  Consider for example the following argument:

> 1. The defining property of humans is the ability to fit in to some society.

But that ISN'T the "defining property of humans".  You might make the case
that this is true of bees, but not people.  

>    The argument for this is that, unlike other animals, humans need to adapt
>    to their social environment to survive.  

Animals certainly DO have to do this, if they are social animals like ants
and bees.  Humans on the other hand are not primarily social animals.  That's
not our primary difference from other animals, and it's not the real source
of the values we achieve.  Our ability to reason is.  I should also 
point out that the means for our socialization is thought.  You can't
participate in human social arrangements without thought, in fact, it is
the human ability to reason which gives rise to human society in the 
first place.

>    (Even though solitary humans in
>    the wilderness may be able to stay alive, this is an unusual situation
>    similar to the "lifeboat situations" that are often raised against Randian
>    ethics--- the most common situation a human finds himself in is one where
>    he is surrounded by other humans and must to a certain extent adopt their
>    ways to survive.)

You could just as easily say that man is the "Tool using animal." (and that
would be a better example than "Man is the social animal."), but both
tool using and socializing are specific instances of applications of thought.
If you couldn't think, you couldn't engage in human social behavior.  You 
also couldn't make tools

> 2. Something is "good" if it promotes life.  In the case of humans, what is
>    good are those things that promote successful adaption of the individual
>    to the ways of the group.  So compulsory civics classes, top 40 radio
>    stations, and fashion magazines are "good" because they make it easier for
>    individuals to find out what the group's folkways are and conform to them.
>    On the other hand, most philosophy is evil because it encourages people
>    to turn into weird alienated intellectuals that can't talk to normal
>    people any more.

But is it better for your life to live in a mind-numbing society?  Is it better
for you to live in a society where geniuses are destroyed?  Is it better for
you to live in a society which discourages adaptation to new circumstances?
I think you can see why it is that this line of thinking is flawed, right?

>One could, of course, imagine similar arguments based on defining humanity
>as the animal that wears clothes (making good tailors into saints) or as the
>animal that is sexually receptive most of the time (making a virtue of sexual
>hedonism), or as the animal that walks erect (making osteoparosis the ultimate
>evil that must be avoided.)

These are all things which are (at least roughly) true of humans, but each of
them depends on the particularly human means of thought.  We wouldn't
make or wear clothing if we couldn't reason.  We can't find mates without
reason.  (Unlike other animals which find them by smell and automated
behaviors.)  As for walking upright, it is certainly true, but has few
value implications.  In that sense it falls into the same category as 
how many fingers we have, and that our eyes are on the fronts of our
heads.  The implications are pretty limited to the structure of gloves
and the construction of binoculars.

>So my question is, why do we pick reasoning as the defining human trait?
>Certainly as smart rational nerds it's tempting for us to think that that's the
>most important part of being human, but how do we justify it to somebody who
>isn't a philosopher?

A simple way of seeing this is to imagine how different our lives would be
if we changed some of your examples.  What if we didn't wear clothes?  Not
much would change beyond that.  What if we females were only fertile in
the spring?  Not much would change beyond that.  What if we walked on all
fours?  Not much beyond that.  But, what if we had the minds of apes?
Our way of living would be completely different in almost every respect.
We would get our food differently, stay warm differently, find mates
differently, travel differently, and there would be thousands of things
we do which would disappear.  There would be no money, clothes, tools,
computers, telephones, space travel, lights, cities, agriculture, 
philosophy, religion, war, insurance companies, books, language...
Everything would change.  That's why we can say that reason is the
fundamental attribute of human beings which differentiates us from the
animals, and as far as value implications go, almost everything we do
happens as it does because of our rational faculty.

--Brian 
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