The Journals of Ayn Rand (57 page)

The essence of morality is to
desire that which is good.
But we must define what is good—and that is the purpose of a code of ethics.

This point must cover and account for the fact that some people admit virtue without desiring it—such as Mallory’s “the genius recognized too well—the people who see it and don’t want it”; or “He’s a saint—I don’t like saints.”

Is the cause here the fact that people think of morality as an arbitrarily prescribed code of ethics, the Christian code, and rebel against it? Isn’t the greatest error of all morality the fact that the moral systems prescribed concrete rules, arbitrarily, instead of general principles that would allow men precisely the essence of morality—a free choice between good and evil?
Think this over.
The key here is the relation of the abstract to the concrete, of the general to the particular—and the need is that of a clear statement of the line dividing the two and of the relationship between the two.

What actually happens when men get lost in abstractions? What is the nature and cause of a “floating abstraction”?

Think over the relation of “survival” to happiness, the exact point in the process of man choosing a goal. And the relation of the material to the spiritual.

Humanitarians claim to hate suffering, and therefore to make it their goal to eliminate it. They take for granted that happiness is automatic, but suffering is not and therefore we must direct our actions at eliminating suffering. But it is precisely
happiness
(or good or virtue) that is
not
automatic and must be achieved by effort and purposeful action. Suffering comes automatically from the absence of action. (To be exact, the absence of the right action; if you do nothing at all, or if you make a mistake and do nothing to correct it,
that’s
when suffering will come automatically as your proper, natural punishment. Everything
good
—desirable—has to be achieved.)

But you want to act to relieve the suffering of others? Can you? To what extent? And why should you? And at what price? And is that the chief goal of life? Is your goal to run around correcting errors—or to act straight?

Here there enters the question of what it is you love when you love “Man.” Again, a reversal of the abstract and the concrete that destroys the concrete. By loving “Man” as an abstraction in the sense of loving any and all men, you end up by loving the worst of men. By loving “Man” as an ideal, you love actual men and the best among them. What is the difference between “abstract” and “general”? Between “archetype” or “ideal” and “average”? There might be an important key here.

 

 

The person who believes in determinism (personal or historical) merely confesses the truth about himself: he is not a prime-mover, he does not know what makes him act or how or why—therefore he assumes that others are equally “determined,” floating non-entities pushed around by chance. Having no prime-moving ego within himself, such a person assumes one of two things: either that others are equally uncertain—therefore “something” outside moves us all; or that others know and decide, while he can‘t—so he accepts them as the mover and the standard. Usually it’s both, since the essence of a second-hander’s thinking is that he does not think, therefore none of his premises are too clear and all of them are contradictory. If this were not so, if he were completely consistent with anything, he wouldn’t be a second-hander.

Can purpose determine entity? Purpose presupposes the one (a consciousness) who sets the purpose. And man is that one—the standard, the point of beginning.
Think this over.
(Plato said function determines virtue. I mean something much more than that.)

 

 

An animal can have self-respect automatically—“I am good such as I am,” because the capacity of self-destruction is not within him. A man’s self-respect (and instinct of self-preservation) must be conscious (based on a standard of values) because he
can
be his own destroyer. That is his great innate fear—and one of the causes of his rebellion against reason, against the terrible responsibility which the rational faculty involves.

The tendency of all civilization has been toward
division
of labor—not collectivization. Toward splitting jobs into separate activities—not toward doing things more and more “together.” All economic progress has come from that. But, it may be said, since each man does only a part of the whole—shouldn’t there be a collective direction and shouldn’t the whole direct the parts? The whole does direct the parts—by the mechanism of supply and demand, which is actually the verdict of the majority upon what kind of work it wishes done. But it is the whole as a number of individual units acting independently, each exercising his judgment for his own good. It is not the artificial arrangement of a “whole” out of units that cannot be added together, a whole that involves the sacrifice of some parts to others and is not, therefore, a whole. Each man should have a say about economic production and consumption? He does. By producing and by buying. In this way, each man decides for himself, and the “whole” is the sum of such decisions. In the collectivist way, each would have to decide for all—which is impossible in practice and vicious in concept, since it is the diametric opposite of human nature.

The mental and moral corruption of so-called intellectuals is due to the fact that they are the real class of “exploiters.” Men cannot be enslaved by sheer force alone—it would take too many people, so no parasitical minority could enslave the productive majority. The enslavement has to be done by spiritual means, by making men feel that their slavery is “right.” (This was done by every tyrant in history and by modem dictators.) Therefore it’s the “intellectuals” who become the spearhead, the professional tools and source of any human enslavement. They’re second-handers, collectivists, altruists—and getting paid for nothing. They believe that one can build that mode of living into a system.

Defeat collectivists and altruists by the single method of contempt. Take away their aura of holiness. Look at them for what they are—parasites.

The usual reason [given for] moral corruption is hatred for mankind—a man uses collectivism as an excuse for his own rottenness—“he can’t help it, others are vicious, he’s got to get along.” Thus he switches the responsibility. “Others” are his excuse. But there is no excuse. A man’s estimate of mankind is only a reflection of his estimate of himself. You think man as such is rotten? (Not the majority, but man as such.) It’s only you who are rotten. If you think you’re capable of virtue, but others are not—you’re a human being, therefore man as such
can
be virtuous. The majority can’t? Why should that concern you? Keep the majority (or anyone) from power, keep society free—and you have nothing to worry about.

 

 

[
AR is here rewriting and expanding on her notes from September 6, 1943. The first few pages have been omitted because the content was not significantly different from the 1943 notes
.]

The purpose of a moral code is the preservation of man’s nature, i.e., the preservation of man as man.

Every living thing exercises a form of choice—to the extent of assimilating only those elements which are necessary to its survival, not any and all elements indiscriminately. A plant absorbs particular chemicals out of the soil. An animal hunts particular foods. To live, a living thing must have a code of values: that which is good for it and that which is not. Its survival is the standard, the measure of value. But for a plant or an animal, the standard, the values, the method of survival and the exercise of that method are automatic; no other choice is possible; no conscious choice is necessary.

Man’s method of survival is not automatic. He must establish it by conscious choice based on a rational observation of nature and of himself; he must discover what he is, what he needs, how he must act in order to exist. He must establish his own code of values. Its standard must still be the same: survival. But the values he establishes must be the ones needed by and appropriate to his one and only means of survival—the human means—the rational faculty.

A moral code is man’s statement of the principles that permit him to function as man. It is his protection against becoming his own destroyer. It is a set of values upon which he bases his rules of conduct, the rules of what is right or wrong for him as a rational being. The moral faculty is a part and a necessity of the rational faculty.

The establishment of values requires a standard. The concept of “value” presupposes an entity to whom an object or action is valuable. Moral values constitute a code of good and evil. By what standard are they to be set? Good—for whom? Good—for what?

Man’s nature sets the standard of his moral code. Man’s survival sets the purpose. His proper morality is based on a single axiom:

All that which preserves man’s nature as a rational being is good. All that which destroys it is evil. All the actions based on, proceeding from, in accordance with man’s nature as a rational being are good. All the actions that contradict it are evil. All the forms and conditions of existence that permit man to function as a rational being are good. All the forms and conditions of existence that prevent it are evil.

The actions, conditions, motivations, and qualities required by and for the function of man’s rational faculty are man’s virtues—by sanction of the fact that they constitute man’s life principle, his means of survival, the forms, expressions and essence of his living energy.

It must be carefully noted, at this point, that the word “man” denotes a concrete, specific, existing entity—not “mankind,” which is a collective abstraction. An entity survives by surviving; a “kind” may attempt to survive by slaughtering nine-tenths of the entities composing it.