Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand
The formal presentation of my attempt to summarise the philosophy.
Preface
A couple of weeks ago I attempted a presentation on the Philosophy of objectivism here, however, after some feedback, I found that while it is a good overview but it lacked refinement, was disjointed and frankly disorganised. It was the tabloid version though most of the remarks after the overview remain the same.
The following serves as a more systematic and formal version of the original and aims to clear up any point of confusion. Note: I do not speak for objectivism and what I write here is my attempt to put the philosophy in summary form. I also will update the below if there is anything that is not clear or it is not quite right when necessary.
Introduction
At a sales conference at Random House, preceding the publication of Atlas Shrugged, one of the book salesmen asked me whether I could present the essence of my philosophy while standing on one foot. I did as follows:
Metaphysics: Objective Reality
Epistemology: Reason
Ethics: Self-interest
Politics: Capitalism
If you want this translated into simple language, it would read: 1. “Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed” or “Wishing won’t make it so.” 2. “You can’t eat your cake and have it, too.” 3. “Man is an end in himself.” 4. “Give me liberty or give me death.”
The above passage in Ayn Rands is the shortest formulation one can give of the Philosophy of Objectivism striped to its barest of essentials excluding its expansion to include a theory of Aesthetics.
What I will attempt to do is to give a more complete 'unofficial’ overview of the philosophy, in my own words in its fully completed state. The official full version is outlined in the book “Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand” by Dr Leonard Peikoff.
There are the five branches of objectivism, each one corollary to the last, aside from Aesthetics which is a corollary of epistemology and runs parallel to Ethics and Politics. Each branch will be outlined in detail, those branches are:
Metaphysics (What is it?): The primacy of existence.
Epistemology How do we know?): Reason.
Ethics: Egoism.
Politics: Capitalism.
Aesthetics: Romantic realism.
Metaphysics: The primacy of existence.
The primacy of existence (of reality) is the axiom that existence exists, i.e., that the universe exists independent of consciousness (of any consciousness), that things are what they are, that they possess a specific nature, an identity. The epistemological corollary is the axiom that consciousness is the faculty of perceiving that which exists — and that man gains knowledge of reality by looking outward.1
In essence, what the above says is that there is only one existence2, this one. What exists right now, in its fundamental basic form, always has been, is and always will be and nothing can exist outside of this only existence. This means that all that there is is what is natural and the supernatural can not exist. Whatever exists must obey the rules of this existence.
As with all things in existence, all things have a nature (potential or actual) and their nature is fixed to that entity for which we recognize its identity. Our consciousness exists to be able to perceive, recognise and process what exists, it does not create or alter it in any way but identifies that the existence has an identity and can only do what is in its nature to do. For example, A rock can not inexplicit get up and start dancing the Cancan, nor can a human suddenly fly just by quickly waving their bare arms up and down.
Existence is objective and knowable and no amount of whim or wishes can change the fact that things are what they are and will do what is in their nature to do with predictable results. For example: Attempting to stop a speeding train by putting your hand out in front of it when it is beyond the limit of its ability to stop in time will have the same results regardless of whether the driver can see to attempt to stop in time or you believe you can use ‘the force’ to stop it.
Epistemology: Reason.
If we are to understand the world we need ‘Reason’ to do so. It is humanity’s only means of survival. Our emotions are not a method of survival as they are responses to our value judgements, or putting it another way our rapid first response outputs of are situation based on previous knowledge. We can not live either by brute physical force as we cannot physically force open potential food or even digest most foods without some sort of tool to allow us to do so due to biological limitations, a lack of sharp claws, or sharp teeth or long digestive tracts (for our size we have the shortest in the animal kingdom). Physically, compared to other animals, we are pathetic, slow and weak. To put things into perspective, in a physical confrontation, most humans could not win on strength alone against a fully grown medium size dog.
Even if you were to eat the easily accessible foods which we can easily digest, such as berries and fruit, not all are edible and without using reason each time you tried a new berry it would be down to luck if it was helpful or harmful. Even at that rudimentary stage, you would need basic reasoning to determine if the berry was safe to eat or not and even if it was at an edible stage. The only way humans can survive even at a rudimentary and primitive level is to use the reason of some sort to create and use basic tools.
But what is Reason?
To Quote Rand:
Reason is the faculty that identifies and integrates the material provided by man’s senses. 3
While we have the capacity to reason, it is fallible. To make sure that it functions correctly and we identify things correctly need a method, and that method is Logic (the art of non-contradictory identification). At its simplest level, the three basic laws, which are axiomatic4 are:
the Law of Identity: states that everything that exists has an identity in accordance with its nature. For example, a Rock is a Rock, it can not be a car or a bird or anything else.
the Law of Non-Contradiction: states that everything that exists can only do what it has the capacity to do in accordance with its nature and can not do something which its nature does not allow. For example, A rock can hold back water when placed on land that can support it and can not fly or move without an external force acting on it.
the Law of Excluded Middle: states that something is true or it is not, you can not have degrees of truth. To put it another way, something is or is not. For example, You can not have a pie that has some elements of a pie without being a full pie, It is either a Pie or it is not.
While there are more logical laws that build on top of these three, these will suffice for now.
It is our use of logic that allows us to, with confidence, know that what we are seeing is true or its likelihood and that things are what they are and as such, we can then predict the outcomes based on knowing an entity’s identity, thus it’s nature and what it has the capacity to do.
It is with this combination of logic and reason and only this combination, that we can create knowledge; we then know what to do, as it is our only guild to action. More importantly, knowing which actions to take can sometimes be a literal matter of life and death.
Ethics: Egoism.
With reason being our only method of survival, we in fact one fundamental choice: to live or to go out of existence, the first of which requires action on our part, the other requires nothing but the choice to do nothing.
The only option, if we wish to live and protect our minds to be able to reason is to have the ethics of Egoism. Rational Egoism recognises that every human is an end in themself and not the means to the ends of others. An Egoist is somebody to uses their mind and their judgement to make the best decisions for them, nobody else can do so, not even other people could somehow figure out how to do it externally for them.
Also as our mind is us, everything we are serves our mind, which is a volitional consciousness. Volition or free will is the capacity to choose to think or not, which makes us human and different from other living things. No other animal known had the same capacity for free will as humanity despite showing rudimentary consciousness. Without our minds being a volitional consciousness, as they are, we would be nothing more than mindless flesh robots. With our minds being volitional, we choose, we reason, we learn about and improve the world.
Egoism recognises that the ultimate purpose of the individual, as they are an end in themselves, is their own happiness. In doing so they must take every action to be in their rational self-interest. The reason why happiness is the highest moral value is there is no other legitimate rational reason for it to be anything else. The individual’s life is theirs to do with what they please and their purpose is to enjoy their life. Happiness can not be given it has to be earned by oneself in action and is a goal in and of itself, it is the reason to live.
An Egoist recognises that sacrifice is not an option, as sacrifice means to trade a value for a lower or no value, which is actively harmful. Any sacrifice is committing an act of self-harm as it destroys values that negatively impact their life, whether that be self-sacrifice, a sacrifice to some other or another to there self, even if there might be short term benefit. In the long term, a sacrifice of any type benefits nobody. Also to sacrifice others requires the use of physical force
To be an Egoist is to choose your life as your highest value (what one acts to gain and/or keep) and to use reason to survive, in a way that will benefit your life. Egoism recognises the fact that if one is to live and live happy that any threat to it has to be removed. The only real threat to you (concerning other humans) is a physical force as that is the only thing that can prevent your mind from functioning, either by shutting it down or by making it so that any conclusions it makes become irrelevant. If your mind can not be permitted to function then you can not live. An egoist will do what it takes to ensure that their mind is protected from such a destructive force. The only time physical force is morally permissible is in self-defence against an aggressor. To ensure that physical force is used objectively you need an arbiter in the form of a government, which the only possible form of government that is objectively pro-human is a Capitalist one.
Politics: Capitalism.
Capitalism today is ill-defined, with very few definitions getting to the core of what capitalism actually is. Most definitions only describe the concrete actions and none how what truly separates capitalism from literally everything else. Objectivism however defines everything on its essential defining elements.
Objectivism uses this definition for Capitalism:
Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned.5
So what are Rights?
Rights are, in a social context, non-contradictory and universal principles of morality defining and sanctioning an individual’s freedom of action and are not up to the vote or decision of any consensus as the requirements of life define them. There are four individual rights which there is one fundamental one and three corollaries:
The Primary or Axiomitic Right:
Right to your life: You are free to take self-sustaining and self-generated action that supports your life.
And the three corollaries:
Right to property: to keep the produce of your action or have legitimately traded.
Right to Liberty: to be free to take those actions uninterrupted by others.
Right to Pursuit happiness: Enjoy your life and the fruits of your actions.
Any ‘right’ that contradicts Individual rights i.e. positive ‘rights’, such as the ‘right to healthcare’ is not a right but a government entitlement as to enable such a ‘right’ has must violate the Right to Life and Right to Property, in other to fund it.
The only version of capitalism that fits the requirements of the above is rights respective laissez-faire capitalist system or capitalism, for short. So that is not misunderstood, when I say capitalism, I mean a socio-political system based on recognising individual rights, especially property rights, and ownership of property is private. Capitalism is also the system where the initiation of all forms of physical force, both direct (i.e. theft) and indirect (i.e. fraud), are outlawed, government is also limited to Police (including Prison), Judiciary and the Military.
In such a system, the Government has no special rights above and beyond the individual; it is an impartial referee and exists only to protect individual rights, nothing more or less. Government can not grant any extra ‘rights’ and can only be funded voluntarily.
Aesthetics: Romantic realism.
Art is a selective re-creation of reality according to an artist’s metaphysical value-judgments. Man’s profound need of art lies in the fact that his cognitive faculty is conceptual, i.e., that he acquires knowledge by means of abstractions, and needs the power to bring his widest metaphysical abstractions into his immediate, perceptual awareness. Art fulfills this need: by means of a selective re-creation, it concretizes man’s fundamental view of himself and of existence. It tells man, in effect, which aspects of his experience are to be regarded as essential, significant, important. In this sense, art teaches man how to use his consciousness. It conditions or stylizes man’s consciousness by conveying to him a certain way of looking at existence.6
Unlike most other philosophies, Objectivism has a theory of Art. The art style which is logically consistent with Objectivism is romantic Realism. Romantic realism is a variant of the romantic school of art which in brief shows what humanity could and should be rather than the alternative of Naturalism which shows things as they are or where. Note, Romanticism in Art is completely different from Romanticism in philosophy which is opposite due to Romantic philosophy being mystic in nature; Romanticism in art while idealistic is at least somewhat grounded in reality.
Unlike other schools of Romanticism which tend to drop into the realm of pure fantasy, romantic realism ties the nature of the ‘value obtaining hero’ & the world of possibility to what is actually or theoretically possible under the laws of reality.
For instance, All of Ayn Rand’s characters live in worlds that share our metaphysical laws but anything that goes into fantasy, such as Atlas Shrugged’s Reardon Metal (a metallic alloy of almost unlimited potential which would replace something as flexible as steel), is at least at the time of writing, theoretically possible.
To put it directly into Ayn Rand’s words
Romanticism: is a category of art based on the recognition of the principle that man possesses the faculty of volition 7
So why bother with art? Art deals with a deep psychological need, as your body needs food, your mind needs art, especially romantic art, especially at an individual early stage of life. As Humans are conceptual beings, due to our capacity to reason, we deal with the world through concepts built from abstractions. What Art does is it takes abstracted concepts such as beauty, efficacious, heroism, love e.t.c and brings them to the perceptual level. This way the person viewing the art can understand everything they are seeing in a way not possible in purely descriptive terms and trains their mind to be able to think in concepts and abstractions rather than just the precepts and concretes. Or to put it another way, It trains people to see the ‘big picture’ not just what is in front of them right at that moment.
The artists, by necessity, have to select the important parts they wish to focus on and omit the unimportant and unnecessary as they can not add everything into that recreation of reality, This is part of the reason why a Photo or a flower can not be art but a painting of a flower is, no matter how beautiful or clear it is. Romantic art shows the viewer that values are indeed possible and you can win. Romantic art by necessary omits hardship, pain, suffering and setbacks that are unimportant metaphysically and that success is indeed the norm; that ultimately the universe is not only knowable but everything you want you can achieve, not in some realm of fantasy but this universe.
As a side note, you can learn a lot about a persons ‘sense of life’8 by what Art they create or enjoy, Somebody who enjoys ‘The statue of David’ (above) will have a different sense of life from somebody who enjoys the Bayeux Tapestry. (below)
Though I will say this, whoever enjoys whatever this (below) is supposed to be, probably needs to go and see a psychotherapist:
An axiomatic concept is the identification of a primary fact of reality, which cannot be analyzed, i.e., reduced to other facts or broken into component parts. It is implicit in all facts and in all knowledge. It is the fundamentally given and directly perceived or experienced, which requires no proof or explanation, but on which all proofs and explanations rest. “AXIOMATIC CONCEPTS” Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, 55
An Axiom is a self-evident or universally recognized truth.
“What Is Capitalism?” Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, 19
“Art And Cognition” The Romantic Manifesto, 45
“Romantic literature as illustrating the Role of Philosophy in Art” Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, 428
https://courses.aynrand.org/lexicon/sense-of-life/