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THE IMPORTANCE OF THE SUBJECT IN OBJECTIVE MORALITY: DISTINGUISHING OBJECTIVE FROM INTRINSIC VALUE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 December 2007

Tara Smith
Tara Smith
Affiliation:
Philosophy, University of Texas at Austin
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Abstract

This essay contends that the debate between subjectivism and objectivism in ethics is better understood as a dispute among three alternatives: subjectivism, objectivism, and intrinsicism. Ayn Rand has identified intrinsicism – the belief that certain things are good “in, by, and of” themselves – as the doctrine that is actually operative in many defenses of moral objectivity. What intrinsicism fails to appreciate, however, is the significant role of the subject, the person to whom and for whom anything can be valuable.

Objective value, in Rand's view, is relational. Its existence depends on contributions of both external reality and human consciousness. Values are not reducible to psychological states, as in subjectivism, but nor are they independent of them, as in intrinsicism. Objectivity in ethics is attained neither through revelation of the intrinsic property of goodness nor through the subject's creation of goodness, but through a rational procedure of evaluation that is governed by the method of objectivity.

This essay is in three parts, explaining Rand's view of exactly what intrinsicism is; elaborating on her view of the nature of moral objectivity; and highlighting certain features that make plain the differences between an intrinsicist and an objectivist account of value.

Type
Research Article
Information
Social Philosophy and Policy , Volume 25 , Issue 1 , January 2008 , pp. 126 - 148
Copyright
Copyright © Social Philosophy and Policy Foundation 2008

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References

1 While some philosophers in recent years have defended ethics as a means of achieving eudaimonia or personal flourishing, this is not a common idea outside the academy, and many within as well as outside academia reject such a notion as a characterization of prudence rather than of morality.

2 This claim is admittedly controversial.

3 For more in defense of her view, see Smith, Tara, Viable Values: A Study of Life as the Root and Reward of Morality (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2000)Google Scholar; Smith, Tara, Ayn Rand's Normative Ethics: The Virtuous Egoist (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Peikoff, Leonard, Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (New York: Dutton, 1991)Google Scholar, esp. chap. 7.

4 Rand, Ayn, “What Is Capitalism?” in Rand, , Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (New York: Signet, 1967), 22Google Scholar.

5 Ibid. Rand offers a fuller statement of the three views (subjectivism, objectivism, and intrinsicism) there. See also Peikoff, Objectivism, 254.

6 In dialogues other than the Republic, Plato sometimes departed from this account and portrayed value as conditional on a person's making proper use of it. See, for instance, Euthydemus 281ff., Laws II.661, Laws I.641c, and Gorgias 470e. See also Mark LeBar's discussion of this in his essay in this volume. Thanks to Mark LeBar for reminding me of this.

7 Huemer, Michael, Ethical Intuitionism (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2005), 99Google Scholar.

8 Sayre-McCord, Geoffrey, “Introduction: The Many Moral Realisms,” in Sayre-McCord, , ed., Essays on Moral Realism (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988), 19–20Google Scholar. The material quoted is from Ross, W. D., The Right and the Good (New York: Oxford University Press, 1930), 89Google Scholar; emphasis mine.

In exactly the same vein, Ronald Dworkin holds that it is natural to say that we want to look at a Rembrandt because it is wonderful, and not that it is wonderful because we want to look at it. Dworkin, Ronald, Life's Dominion (New York: Knopf, 1993), 72Google Scholar. For statements in which Dworkin clearly divorces a thing's intrinsic value from its being good for anyone, see ibid., 69–71.

9 Ross, W. D., “What Makes Right Actions Right?” in Sellars, Wilfred and Hospers, John, eds., Readings in Ethical Theory (New York: Appleton Century Crofts, 1952), 184Google Scholar.

10 Moore does, however, disavow an equation of objective value with intrinsic value in “The Conception of Intrinsic Value,” in Moore, G. E., Philosophical Studies (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1922), 255Google Scholar.

11 Nagel, Thomas, “The Many in the One,” The New Republic (February 27, 2006), 32Google Scholar. Nagel describes intrinsic values as those values that are “not reducible to their value for anyone.” Nagel, Thomas, The View from Nowhere (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 153Google Scholar; emphasis his. For closely related claims, see ibid., 154–55, 162; and Nagel, Thomas, The Possibility of Altruism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1970)Google Scholar, 96.

12 Shafer-Landau, Russell, Moral Realism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 8CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For similar statements of moral objectivity understood in terms of independence of people's beliefs, see Railton, Peter, “Moral Realism,” Philosophical Review 95 (April 1986): 164CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Brink, David, Moral Realism and the Foundations of Ethics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 20CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a brief examination of intrinsicism in the work of another contemporary ethicist, see my “Comment on George Sher, ‘Perfectionism: A Theory’—Chapter 9 of Sher's Beyond Neutrality,” paper delivered at a conference on “Concepts and Objectivity” held at the University of Pittsburgh, September 22–24, 2006, esp. pp. 8–9.

Notice that Rand's thesis does not demand that all advocates of objective value be intrinsicists. Pointing out that many are intrinsicists usefully clears brush that typically obscures the alternatives in the debate.

13 Jorge Gracia offers a broadly similar perspective to Rand's in his “The Ontological Status of Value,” The Modern Schoolman 53 (May 1976): 393–97. Note that what Rand dubs “intrinsicism” does not refer only to the explicit assertion of the existence of intrinsic values. While advocates of intrinsic value certainly qualify as intrinsicists, so does anyone whose theory, in essence, divorces claims about value and morality from things' effects on human beings. For an argument against the existence of intrinsic value in particular, see my “Intrinsic Value: Look-Say Ethics,” The Journal of Value Inquiry 32 (1998): 539–53. For more on Rand's understanding of the intrinsicist conception of value, see Darryl Wright's essay in this volume.

Rand's statement that the intrinsicist believes that “the good is inherent in certain things or actions as such, regardless of their context and consequences” should not be taken to imply that intrinsicism precludes consequentialism. A consequentialist could be an intrinsicist about which states of affairs (which types of consequences) are valuable and are thus to be promoted. Bear in mind that consequentialism is a view about what makes actions right or wrong, rather than about which things are good or bad. Intrinsicism is a view about value or goodness. Rand is not maintaining that intrinsicists hold that “context and consequences” are irrelevant to rightness or wrongness. Rather, the context of her statement makes clear that she is speaking of views about what things are good (and good as ends, rather than good as means). She is observing the nonrelational character of value, on the intrinsicist view, rather than making claims about the consequentialist character of rightness. While Rand does refer to “actions” as well as to “things,” one could hold that an action has intrinsic value if one believes that it is good (as opposed to: right) independently of its consequences. Thanks to Michael Huemer for prompting me to clarify this.

14 See Smith, Viable Values, esp. chaps. 4 and 5.

15 Rand, Ayn, “The Objectivist Ethics,” in Rand, , The Virtue of Selfishness (New York: Signet, 1961), 13Google Scholar.

16 Ibid., 16. I will use terms such as “gain,” “acquire,” “obtain,” and “secure” as shorthands to refer to gaining and/or keeping.

17 Throughout, I will be speaking of “life,” “survival,” and “flourishing” interchangeably, such that “life” and “survival” refer not to the minimal clinging of a heartbeat, but to a life that is led in an optimal, life-furthering manner. For a detailed explanation of the relationship between survival and flourishing and of the justification of my usage, see Smith, Viable Values, chap. 5; and Smith, Ayn Rand's Normative Ethics, 28–33. See also Rand, “The Objectivist Ethics,” 25–27; and Peikoff, Objectivism, 219–20.

18 I explain Rand's understanding of the nature of virtues and their relationship to moral principles in Ayn Rand's Normative Ethics, 48–52.

19 I will sometimes use “value” in a neutral sense to refer to things that a person does in fact seek, whether with or without good reason, and sometimes in the stricter, normative sense to refer to those things that a person objectively should seek. It should be clear from the context which sense I am using.

20 Peter Railton offers a similar argument about goodness and badness being intelligible only to things for whom other things' differing effects could matter. See Railton, , “Facts and Values,” Philosophical Topics 14, no. 2 (Fall 1986): 9CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

21 For much further explanation, see Smith, Viable Values, 83–97, and Smith, Ayn Rand's Normative Ethics, 19–25.

22 Rand understands the spiritual as that which pertains to one's consciousness (“The Objectivist Ethics,” 35). Obviously, medicine is not indifferent to psychological well-being. Whereas medicine is concerned with dimensions of human functioning over which a person has no direct control as well as dimensions over which he does, however, ethics is ultimately concerned exclusively with the latter.

23 Henceforth, I will confine my discussion to values for humans and leave aside values for plants and animals, unless the context indicates otherwise.

24 Rand, Ayn, “Causality versus Duty,” in Rand, , Philosophy: Who Needs It (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1982), 118–19Google Scholar. For fuller explanation of this important aspect of Rand's thought, see all of that essay as well as Peikoff, Objectivism, 244–45; and Smith, Viable Values, 101–3, 105–11. Douglas Rasmussen's recent discussion of Rand's account of the foundation of morality, I think, gives insufficient weight to this aspect of her view and thereby delivers an overly naturalistic rendering of it. See Rasmussen, Douglas B., “Regarding Choice and the Foundation of Morality: Reflections on Rand's Ethics,” The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies 7, no. 2 (Spring 2006): 309–28Google Scholar; see esp. 318–19.

25 For more on this, see Rand, “The Objectivist Ethics,” 13–27; Peikoff, Objectivism, 206–20; and Smith, Viable Values, 83–95.

26 Rand, “What Is Capitalism?” 22; emphasis in original.

27 Peikoff, Objectivism, 243; emphasis added. See a similar statement on p. 397, which also stresses that the evaluation must be rational, i.e., determined according to the facts of reality.

28 Korsgaard, Christine, “The Dependence of Value on Humanity,” in Joseph Raz et al., The Practice of Value, ed. Wallace, R. Jay (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 67Google Scholar.

29 Moral naturalists such as Philippa Foot similarly see value as relational to human well-being. Their accounts of the necessary ingredients of that relationship are not always the same as Rand's, however. For succinct statements of the subjectivist and intrinsicist views, see Peikoff, Objectivism, 245–46.

30 This is similar to the case of a jury that proceeds with scrupulous objectivity in reaching a verdict but later discovers that, for reasons that reveal no deficiency of objectivity on its part, its verdict was factually incorrect. (The jury convicted an innocent man, for instance.)

31 I will leave aside here the further details of what this involves, but certainly it is incompatible with objectivity for a person to be casually indifferent to pertinent knowledge that is readily available.

32 Ayn Rand, “From the Horse's Mouth,” in Rand, Philosophy: Who Needs It, 96. Although Rand was speaking of material values in the passage cited, I am aware of no evidence suggesting that she would restrict this claim to apply only to material values. Moreover, in a workshop with students, Rand observes that “that which satisfies a need is not necessarily a value …” (“The Objectivist Workshop—54, Ethics and Politics,” transcribed by Ben Bayer, Ayn Rand Archives, Ayn Rand Institute, 11).

33 While we do refer to the goal-directed actions of a person's bodily organs, when speaking of the goals of a human being (as opposed to the goals of one of his body parts), “goals” refers to objects of deliberate choice.

34 Since human action is volitional, the prods in question are not mechanical.

35 For more on the relationship between values and benefits, see Smith, Viable Values, 84–85. On the related issue of the inability to impose or force a value on another person, see Rand, “What Is Capitalism?” 23.

36 A benefit, in contrast, does not require a person's embrace of his life or his recognition of the beneficial thing's salutary effects. Certain things are beneficial for a person insofar as they are life-preservative. This holds, regardless of the person's attitude toward his life. Whether something strengthens a person's prospects of living is quite independent of whether he wishes to live.

37 Gotthelf, Allan and Salmieri, Gregory, “Ayn Rand,” Dictionary of Modern American Philosophers, ed. Shook, John R. (Bristol, UK: Thoemmes Continuum, 2005), 1998Google Scholar. For Rand's discussion of the importance of appreciating the difference between the man-made and the metaphysical, see Ayn Rand, “The Metaphysical Versus the Man-Made,” in Rand, Philosophy: Who Needs It, 28–41.

38 Rand, Ayn, “Who Is the Final Authority in Ethics?” in Rand, The Voice of Reason, ed. Peikoff, Leonard (New York: New American Library, 1988), 18Google Scholar. Notice that both senses of “objective” were reflected in the statements from Rand and Peikoff that I quoted earlier, claiming that the good designates facts, conceptually identified and evaluated by a rational standard.

39 Accordingly, Rand does not believe that the phenomenon of objective value arises, strictly, prior to the conceptual level of consciousness. The term “objective,” Peikoff stresses, applies “only to values chosen by man. The automatic values that govern internal bodily functions or the behavior of plants and animals are not the product of a conceptual process. Such values, therefore, are outside the terminology of ‘objective,’ ‘intrinsic,’ or ‘subjective.’ ” Peikoff, Objectivism, 243. Further, Rand remarks in the workshop cited in note 32 that the claim that values are objective reflects a relationship in reality as identified by a human consciousness.

40 See Leiter, Brian's characterization of the distinction between metaphysical and epistemic objectivity, for instance, in his “Introduction,” in Objectivity in Law and Morals, ed. Leiter, Brian (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 1–2Google Scholar. I also discuss this distinction briefly in my “ ‘Social’ Objectivity and the Objectivity of Values,” in Science, Values, and Objectivity, ed. Peter Machamer and Gereon Walters (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2004), 143–71; see esp. 150–56.

41 Thanks to Scott MacDonald for prodding me to clarify this.

42 The parenthetical is a somewhat crude statement of the claim of metaphysical objectivity and leaves aside, for present purposes, certain exceptional sorts of “things” (such as certain of our own mental states).

43 Rand once described ethics as “a science devoted to the discovery of the proper methods of living one's life,” which suggests that ethics is not primarily concerned with identifying the appropriate objects of our pursuits, objects that antecedently possess intrinsic value. Rand, Ayn, Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, expanded second edition, ed. Peikoff, Leonard and Binswanger, Harry (New York: Penguin, 1990), 36Google Scholar.

44 See Peikoff, Objectivism, 116–21; and Darryl Wright's essay in this volume.

45 I do not mean that everyone is aware of the value of these things or that their value is self-evident.

46 For more on optional values, see Peikoff, Objectivism, 323–24; and Smith, Viable Values, 99–101.

47 Rand explicitly rejects this notion, as we saw in the passage cited earlier that insisted on the conditional character of value.

48 Rasmussen, I think, in the piece cited above (in note 24) fails to appreciate that the sheer fact that a thing stands in a beneficial relationship to a person does not render it a value. Such a relationship is part of what is necessary for objective value, on Rand's account, but not all.

49 Ross, “What Makes Right Actions Right?” 192. Along the same lines, Moore appeals to “the sober judgment of reflective persons.” Moore, G. E., Principia Ethica (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1903), 94Google Scholar.

50 Bear in mind that intuitionism per se is not a direct marker of intrinsicism. What is salient to certain intuitionists' also being intrinsicists is the kind of value that they believe is intuited. Also recall that intrinsicism encompasses a wider stable of thinkers than those who openly assert the existence of intrinsic values as such. See note 13 above. I examine the relationship between intuitionism and belief in intrinsic value in Viable Values, 66–71, 77; see also 20–28 on intuitionism.

51 Huemer, Ethical Intuitionism, 109.

52 Ibid., 133–34; see also 21 for related discussion.

53 In offering this last defense, Huemer is contesting a portrait of Samuel Clarke and using degree of controversy as the test of whether Clarke meant a specific moral claim to be infallible. Thus, Huemer's more precise contention is that degree of controversy is the barometer of a claim's fallibility rather than directly of its truth. Nonetheless, even if it is only allegedly infallible truths that are purported to be known through intuition (either by Clarke or by Huemer), as long as the defense of the existence of such truths is made by appeal to the level of controversy that these claims engender, Huemer is employing subjective props for claims that he asserts to be objectively valid.

54 Rand, “Who Is the Final Authority in Ethics?” 18; emphasis in original. She also observes that the question's presupposition that it is a matter of decision itself reflects subjectivism (ibid., 19).