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What Does Ayn Rand Really Think?

By Neera K. Badhwar

August 21, 2020

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An Analysis of Virtue and Happiness in Ayn Rand’s Writings1

 

INTRODUCTION

 

“Virtue is not an end in itself. Virtue is not its own reward. … Life is the reward of virtue—and happiness is the goal and reward of life.”2
Ayn Rand

According to these statements, happiness is something entirely external to virtue, a further consequence of acting virtuously, and virtue is only an instrumental means to the agent’s happiness. As Leonard Peikoff states in his book on Objectivism, “[i]n the Objectivist approach, virtue is (by definition) the means to value,” including the supreme value, happiness. Virtue is practical, he explains, in the sense that it “minimizes the risks inherent in life and maximizes the chance of success” or happiness 3.

Unfortunately, the purely instrumental analysis of virtue has become standard in current interpretations of Objectivist ethics, thanks to the persistence of two false assumptions.

However, although this is Ayn Rand’s official view, she does not always treat virtue as only instrumental to happiness. As I will show, her novels and some of her theoretical statements present a different view, a view that, I believe, is far closer to the truth. Unfortunately, the purely instrumental analysis of virtue has become standard in current interpretations of Objectivist ethics, thanks to the persistence of two false assumptions. One assumption is that the sole alternative to regarding virtue as merely instrumental to happiness is to regard it as merely an end in itself, i.e., as Rand puts it, as “its own reward.” Another is that to regard virtue as an end in itself is to regard it as quite unconnected to happiness. And this is to open the floodgates to the irrationalism of intrinsicism or supernaturalism. Hence, the consequence of rejecting virtue as merely instrumental to happiness is to be unable to justify virtue in rational terms.

In this paper I will give an analysis of virtue, of happiness, and of their relationship that is both philosophically defensible, and adequate to Rand’s vision of the ideal individual and the ideal life.

However, both assumptions are false. First, the alternative to regarding virtue as merely instrumental to a further end is not necessarily to regard it as wholly an end in itself. There is a third logical possibility, namely, to regard virtue as both an instrument, or means, to happiness, and as an end in itself. Further, to regard virtue as an end in itself is not necessarily to regard it as unconnected to happiness. This is, indeed, how Kant regarded it, but not, for example, Aristotle. It can be an end in itself in the sense that it is partly constitutive of the supreme end, happiness, understood not as a temporary feeling, but as a certain sort of life, a life in which the happy individual is dispositionally positive in her attitudes and emotions. I believe that conceiving of virtue as merely instrumental to happiness shows a misunderstanding not only of the nature of virtue, but also of the nature of a happy life, as Rand often understands such a life. An adequate analysis of the virtues requires that we recognize virtuous activity as an ineliminable constituent of happiness, and an adequate analysis of happiness requires that we recognize it as partly constituted by virtuous activity. This conception of the relationship between virtue and happiness allows happiness to remain the summum bonum, while leaving room for justifying virtue in terms of its role in happiness. This conception of virtue and happiness is also the one that best captures the vision of the ideal individual—the individual of virtue—and of the ideal life—the life of happiness4—in Rand’s novels. Finally, it is implied by at least some of her explicit statements about the relationship between virtue and happiness. In this paper I will give an analysis of virtue, of happiness, and of their relationship that is both philosophically defensible, and adequate to Rand’s vision of the ideal individual and the ideal life.

 

 

THE NATURE OF VIRTUE

Rand’s Conception of Virtue

Rand defines virtue as the act by which we gain and/or keep value.5 But she also defines particular virtues, such as justice, pride, integrity, and honesty, more fully in terms of the recognition of certain facts and of actions that accord with such recognition. Thus, justice “is the recognition of the fact that you cannot fake the character of men as you cannot fake the character of nature, that you must judge all men as conscientiously as you judge inanimate objects, with the same respect for truth, with the same incorruptible vision, by as pure and as rational a process of identification—that every man must be judged for what he is and treated accordingly” (AS, 937, FNI, 129). Similarly, integrity “is the recognition of the fact that you cannot fake your consciousness” (AS, 936, FNI, 129), a recognition that is expressed in loyalty to your rational values and convictions in the face of the contrary opinions of others (VOS, 28, 52, 80). And honesty “is recognition of the fact that you cannot fake existence,” a recognition that is expressed in truthfulness in thought and speech (AS, 936-37, FNI, 129).

When Rand says, “you cannot fake the character of men”—or your consciousness or existence—she obviously does not mean that it is impossible to do so, since this would imply that injustice or lack of integrity or honesty are impossible. She means that you cannot do so in the long run without detriment to yourself, that to do so is disvaluable. Thus, recognition of the value of not faking various aspects of reality in thought and deed—or, in positive terms, of facing reality—is implicit in virtuous action. When we act virtuously, whatever other values we might aim to bring about, we give expression to—and, thereby, maintain, the value we place on facing reality. In this sense, every virtuous action both maintains a value, and is a means to some value. This is in keeping with Rand’s general definition of virtue as an act by which we gain or keep value.6

The value of justice, integrity, and honesty, as of the “higher-order” virtues of rationality, productiveness, and pride, is connected to what Rand regards as the three cardinal values: reason, purpose, and self-esteem. These values, says Rand, are “the means to and the realization of one’s ultimate value, one’s own life” as a rational being (VOS, 27), and, therefore, one’s own happiness, conceived of as a “successful state of life” and its emotional concomitant (AS, 932; FNI, 123; VOS, 27-29).7

As far as I know, Rand does not explain what it means for these values to “realize” happiness, or how they do so.

There is, thus, a hierarchy of values, as there is a hierarchy of virtues. There are the specific values connected to the different virtues, the three cardinal values, and the ultimate value, happiness. The particular values have a necessary connection to the three cardinal values, and these to happiness. As Rand says, the cardinal values are both the means to, and the realization of, one’s ultimate value, happiness. As far as I know, Rand does not explain what it means for these values to “realize” happiness, or how they do so. But when we talk of an action or state of affairs realizing something, we mean that it gives expression to, or embodies, that thing. Thus, a process of self-realization is a process of giving expression to the self, of “bringing forth” the deepest aspects of one’s self. 8 Again, a career that realizes one’s aspirations is a career in which one can give expression to one’s aspirations, embody them in one’s work. Applying this to the cardinal values, then, we can say that reason, purpose, and self-esteem realize an aspect of happiness because they express or embody an aspect of happiness. Thus, self-esteem consists of the belief and the feeling that one has worth as a person. And these are a necessary part of a happy life. It follows, then, that self-esteem is partly constitutive of happiness. It is also a means to happiness because the sense of one’s worth as a person serves as an important motivating factor in acting to achieve happiness.

Putting Rand’s definitions of virtue together, we can say that, according to Rand, virtue consists of recognizing various values as both means to, and part of, happiness, and acting to gain and/or keep them.

Even this fuller definition, however, will not quite do. What is missing is the idea that a virtue is a character trait, an enduring disposition or orientation that is expressed in virtuous acts. As Rand’s novels amply illustrate, our moral responses reveal our characters—our selves, our souls. And our characters consist not only of particular cognitions of value and actions motivated by such cognition, but also of general dispositions or tendencies to so cognize and act. 9

I will outline a conception of virtue that captures the character of Rand’s protagonists better than her own explicit statements about virtue, and that is more adequate to our everyday and scientific knowledge of human psychology.

But even this is not enough. Rand’s language often suggests that the recognition of values that is part and parcel of virtue is entirely intellectual in nature. But virtuous character traits are not only intellectual dispositions to apprehend and achieve value, they are also emotional dispositions. The rationality of virtuous dispositions and actions, I will argue, is a function of the intellect as well as of the emotions. Hence, when I refer to a virtuous disposition as a rational disposition, I will have in mind an integrated intellectual and emotional disposition. It is this sort of disposition that is possessed by Rand’s protagonists, whom she sees as exemplars of virtue, of moral excellence. In the next section, I will outline a conception of virtue that captures the character of Rand’s protagonists better than her own explicit statements about virtue, and that is more adequate to our everyday and scientific knowledge of human psychology.

 

A More Adequate Conception of Virtue

What must be true of virtuous traits and actions if they are to count as morally excellent, the pinnacle of moral achievement?

  • First, to count as excellent, an act must not only be motivated by a perception of something valuable, it must express a standing disposition or habitual tendency to choose what is truly valuable. For a good act that expresses a standing disposition is more deeply rooted—and, thereby, better—than an act that isn’t.
  • Second, to count as excellent, virtuous traits must make us responsive to the morally relevant features of the situations we face. But someone whose emotional dispositions are at variance with her intellectual dispositions will often fail to notice the morally relevant or important features of a situation. And so she will be a less reliable moral agent than someone whose emotions are integrated with her intellectual convictions.

The idea that (irrational) emotions can disrupt rational thought and action is commonplace. But the idea that (rational) emotions are required for rational thought and action is simply the other side of the same coin. Depending on whether one’s emotions are rational or irrational, they will direct one’s attention towards or away from what is truly important and, thereby, affect the accuracy of one’s total picture of things. Hence, someone who is committed to doing the right thing and has the right principles, but whose emotions are at variance with her intellectual commitments, will often fail to notice exactly what sort of response justice or courage or kindness requires in a particular instance. For intellectual principles alone cannot tell us what is relevant or important to one’s choice of action in every particular situation of a certain kind, any more than medical principles can tell us which symptoms are relevant or important to the right diagnosis in every instance of a certain disease. The morally important features of a situation depend on the current and past contexts, and contexts vary indefinitely. For example, a principle, or set of principles, can tell us that when someone has suffered a loss through his own carelessness, sometimes the important or relevant feature of the situation is the loss (and the right response: sympathy), at other times, his carelessness (and the right response: more complicated). But principles cannot tell us when a certain feature or response is the right one.10 The ability to discern what is relevant or important in a given situation depends, in part, on experience and the stock of value-judgments that are embodied in our (rational) emotions.

A vast amount of both everyday and scientific evidence supports this claim. It also supports the more general and basic claim that it is emotion that makes us aware of the value-dimension of most things in the first place, and indeed, partly constitute many of our values. If human beings lost their emotional faculties and became beings of pure intellect, they would also lose most of their values or their ability to apprehend values. Thus, because he is largely intellect, Star Trek’s Spock cannot apprehend or share many values important to human life. To paraphrase Daniel Goleman, without emotions the intellect is blind (ibid, 53). Likewise, people with an impaired emotional faculty, such as psychopaths, or people who have suffered certain sorts of brain injuries, are unable to grasp what matters in human affairs. Psychopaths are rational in a purely abstract sense: they can perform complex calculations and deductions, and can even follow arguments for doing or not doing certain things. 11 But they simply cannot be motivated by their abstract intellectual understanding of what must be done to attain certain ends, because these ends mean nothing to them. In standard philosophical terminology, such people have theoretical rationality, but not practical rationality, neither in connection with their own welfare, nor in connection with others’ welfare. This inability to have a sense of the importance of things leads to a profound amorality.

The idea that a virtuous disposition must include not only an intellectual commitment to objective values, but also an emotional orientation towards such values, is well illustrated in Rand’s depiction of her fictional characters. The following passage from Atlas Shrugged shows how the emotions of someone who possesses the virtues enhance her awareness and guide her responses.

Dagny, the heroine of the novel, has been looking for a scientist who can understand the design and structure of the motor she has discovered in a scrap pile, the motor she later learns was invented by Galt. On failing to find anyone intelligent enough or interested enough in her discovery, she reluctantly calls upon the brilliant Dr. Stadler. Reluctantly, because, despite his dedication to principles of rationality and truth in science, he fails to apply them to human affairs. As he has told Dagny on an earlier occasion, “[m]en are not open to truth or reason,” and must be deceived or forced if the men of intellect are to accomplish anything (180). And so he endorses the establishment of a state-funded Institute of Science, and allows himself to become a lackey of politicians in the name of saving science. When Hank Rearden’s metal is unjustly attacked in his name, he refuses to dissociate himself from the attack. This is the background of Dagny’s decision to meet with Dr. Stadler in the hope of uncovering the secret of the motor—and its inventor.

When Stadler reads about the motor in the materials that Dagny presents to him, he openly expresses his astonishment and delight at the extraordinary achievement. Dagny wishes that “she could smile in answer and grant him the comradeship of a joy celebrated together,” but finds herself unable to do any more than nod and say a cold “Yes” (332). Her response here is true to the full context of her knowledge of Stadler, a context made immediately available to her only with the help of her emotions. Throughout the discussion her responses are guided by her knowledge of Stadler’s past, even as they are finely calibrated to variations in Stadler’s present behavior. Thus, when he exclaims, “It’s so wonderful to see a great, new, crucial idea which is not mine,” and asks her if she has ever felt a “longing” for someone she “could admire,” she softens and tells him that she’s felt it all her life (335).

Not only do the emotions of someone who possesses the virtues guide moral perception and response, they even sometimes correct our intellectual judgments. Thus, when Dagny is on her way to confront Francisco, who apparently has turned into a playboy, destroying people and fortunes, she is determined to grant him no personal response, for she is certain that he deserves none. Yet when he smiles at her, “the unchanged, insolent, brilliant smile of his childhood,” and greets her with their childhood greeting, she finds herself greeting him likewise, “irresistibly, helplessly, happily” (114). Her emotions pick up something that her intellect alone could not, and lead her to respond appropriately to the facts, though contrary to her intentions.

These and similar passages illustrate some of the ways in which Rand’s portrayal of virtue in her novels goes beyond her theoretical statements about virtue.

To count as a moral excellence, a virtuous act must be deeply rooted in us.

To summarize the discussion thus far: to count as a moral excellence, a virtuous act must be deeply rooted in us, i.e., in a virtuous character trait, and such a trait must be an integrated intellectual-emotional disposition that enables us to recognize, and respond appropriately to, the relevant features of a particular situation.

What else must be the case for a virtuous act and virtuous character trait to count as fully virtuous—as the pinnacle of moral achievement?

(iii) Thirdly, a virtuous act is an act that is done not only for the right reasons—i.e., for the sake of the good, the valuable—but also in the right manner. This, too, implies that a virtuous character trait is an integrated intellectual-emotional disposition. For if our emotions are at variance with our intellectual dispositions and judgments, then, even if we recognize that a certain sort of act is called for, and why, we may fail to do it in the right manner.

For example, conceding a point in an argument when we recognize that it is only fair to do so does not count for much if we concede it in a resentful manner, and is not necessarily better than not conceding it at all (“O.k., o.k., you win!”). Again, helping someone in need when we judge that we should is not an act of kindness if we do it with the air of performing a painful duty. Nor is it necessarily better than not helping at all. Thus, the wrong manner can undermine the very rightness of an act done for the right reasons, and the manner can be wrong even when the agent recognizes the importance of acting in the right manner. For wayward emotional dispositions, dispositions that are contrary to one’s rational intellectual beliefs and commitments, can subvert one’s intended responses. But even if someone with such dispositions always manages to act in the right manner through sheer strength of will when she can see what the right manner requires, she will sometimes be unable to see what it requires. And so, even though admirably strong, she will remain a less reliable—and so less good—agent than a virtuous person.

In short, fully virtuous acts express deep-seated dispositions to think, feel, desire, and respond fittingly, with fine discrimination, in a variety of situations. Since these dispositions involve the agent’s emotions as well as intellect, virtuous acts express not only the agent’s commitment to the right, but her wholehearted love of the right. This wholeheartedness is exemplified in Dagny’s character, whose “love of rectitude,” we are told, was “the only love to which all the years of her life had been given” (AS, 512). When the “moratorium on brains” is announced, this love expresses itself in a total, cold anger—and a calm, full, intellectual certainty in the decision that she must immediately resign from the vice-presidency of Taggart Transcontinental (ibid). Only a wholehearted love of the good—a love in which all of the agent’s self is involved, rather than only her intellectual self—can express virtue, because a wholehearted love of the good is better than a half-hearted or divided love. And this not only because it is more reliable, but also because it is more expressive of the worth of its object.

(iv)      Lastly, as a moral excellence, a virtuous character must put us in the best state for achieving the supreme value, happiness, conceived of as a “successful state of life” and its emotional concomitant. To do this it must (a) enable us to stay in touch with reality, and (b) integrate and harmonize our inner life. The more “gappy” our grasp of reality, the more precarious our happiness, and inner conflict is both inherently unpleasant and an obstacle to this grasp. The connection of virtue with happiness is one more reason why virtue must be seen as an integrated intellectual-emotional disposition. For, as we have already seen, inner harmony and a solid connection with reality both require an integration of our emotions with our reason.

In short, if moral virtue is excellence of character, then a virtuous disposition must be one that incorporates both our intellectual and our emotional attitudes. This is explicitly recognized by Aristotle in his definition of virtue, a definition that captures what Rand depicts in her fiction far better than her own definition—an issue explored more fully in Part II.

 

Aristotle’s Conception of Virtue and Rand’s Virtuous Individuals

Aristotle defines virtue as “a state [of character] concerned with choice, lying in a mean relative to us, this being determined by reason and in the way in which the man of practical wisdom would determine it.” 12

Virtue is a disposition to choose the “mean” in the sense that it is a disposition to choose the “intermediate” or appropriate response, and to do so in a wide variety of situations. By contrast, vice is a disposition to choose the “extreme” or inappropriate response. For example, the virtue of generosity is the mean opposed to the vices of prodigality and stinginess. Likewise, courage is the mean opposed to the vices of recklessness and cowardice. Someone who has the virtues has the ready ability to “hit the nail on the head”—to respond finely and appropriately in a wide variety of difficult situations. And the disposition to respond appropriately is the disposition to feel, deliberate, choose, and act “at the right [appropriate] times, about the right things, towards the right people, for the right end, and in the right way” (NE, 1106b21-23).

Further, the mean is “relative to us” in the sense that the right or appropriate action depends on both the circumstances in which the action takes place, and on certain features of the agent. Thus, what counts as generosity for a graduate student might be stinginess for a millionaire and prodigality for an undergraduate student. For example: a $50 contribution to an organization that promotes the cause of freedom might be generous for a graduate student, prodigal for an undergraduate student, and downright stingy for a millionaire who professes dedication to the cause of freedom above all other causes. The mean or virtuous act in a given situation is “determined by reason” in the sense that practical reason—reason as applied to the question of how to act, or, more generally, how to live—takes all the relevant facts into consideration.

The man of practical wisdom exemplifies practical reason at its best. For practical wisdom—the virtue of practical reason—just is excellence in practical reasoning. But practical reason both shapes, and is shaped by, emotion. Hence, practical wisdom is possible only with the proper emotional dispositions that are part and parcel of virtue. A wise and virtuous choice, Aristotle remarks, expresses “truth agreeing with correct desire” (NE 1139a30) or correct desire combined with correct thought (NE 1139b5). Practical wisdom is part of full-fledged virtue. The inner states and actions of the virtuous or wise man display not merely an intellectual commitment to principle, but an intellectual and emotional disposition that informs his characteristic ways of deliberating, perceiving, feeling, desiring, and acting. Moreover, since we all get pleasure from doing what we love—the philosopher from philosophizing, the painter from painting, the runner from running—the person who loves virtue gets pleasure from acting virtuously. This sort of pleasure is inherent in virtuous activity, and inseparable from it. Hence, the pleasure of virtuous activity as such, including the pleasurable awareness of oneself in such activity, is not interchangeable with other sorts of pleasure, such as the pleasure inherent in running qua running, or solving a puzzle, or consuming fine truffles. These pleasures are independent of whether or not the activities in which they inhere are compatible with one’s overall happiness. The pleasure of virtuous activity, by contrast, is the distinctive pleasure of expressing one’s values in an awareness of their relationship to the supreme value, one’s own happiness.

This does not mean that there can be no pain attendant on virtuous action. When a serious loss of, or serious damage to, other goods is involved, Aristotle recognizes that the right action will involve pain. But the pain will be due to the loss of real, important goods, not to the loss of trifles, or of things that should never have been valued in the first place. Nor, of course, will the pain come from the knowledge that one is doing the right thing—only the very vicious would find this painful.

Aristotle distinguishes between the virtuous man and the strong-willed or continent man. Both have the right principles and commitments, and are disposed to act in accordance with their intellectual judgment. Nevertheless, the strong-willed man falls short of practical wisdom and virtue because his emotions conflict with his intellectual judgment. He is rational without possessing that excellence of practical reason which is practical wisdom, and he is rightly motivated without possessing that excellence of desire and feeling that is part of virtue. Hence, he also lacks the fine-tuned perceptiveness and responsiveness that is characteristic of the virtuous. And he is robbed of the pleasure that the man of virtue gets from acting virtuously. He would be a better, as well as a happier, man if he were virtuous rather than merely strong-willed.

Rand does not make the Aristotelian distinction between virtue and enkrateia in her ethical theory, nor are there any enkratic characters in her novels. But her portrayals of her ideal characters illustrate the Aristotelian conception of a virtuous character. When her heroes and heroines act honestly or fairly or kindly, they do so wholeheartedly, i.e., without inner conflict over whether to do the right thing or take the easy way out. Their choices and actions express their intellectual as well as emotional dispositions. They desire to do what they correctly perceive as right and believe they ought to do. And so their responses “hit the mean” in a wide variety of situations.

A good example of this occurs in a scene in The Fountainhead, where Peter Keating goes to see Howard Roark to bribe him for remaining silent about his contribution to the Cosmo-Slotnick building, the building for which Keating has won an award. In the conversation that precedes the actual offering of the bribe, Keating tries to persuade Roark to compromise his principles and aim for success. “Just drop that fool delusion that you’re better than everybody else and go to work. Just think, Howard, think of it! You’ll be rich, you’ll be famous, you’ll be respected, you’ll be praised, you’ll be admired—you’ll be one of us!”13 Roark looks at him, with eyes that are “attentive and wondering,” knowing that Peter is sincere, but also that he is disturbed by something in him, Roark, and asks, “Peter, what is it that disturbs you about me as I am?” (192). Keating responds honestly, acknowledging that he is disturbed by something in Roark, although he doesn’t know what it is. In the face of this confession, Roark’s response “hits the mean” by being exactly appropriate to the situation. “‘Pull yourself together, Peter,’ said Roark gently, as to a comrade. ‘We’ll never speak of that again.'” To the extent that Keating is honest, he is Roark’s equal, to be treated with respect, not scorn. And because he is honest and willing to show that he is ashamed of himself, he deserves the kindness of being given the chance to “pull himself together,” to recover his dignity. In the next moment, however, Keating’s attitude changes. He pretends that he was “only talking good plain horse sense,” thereby implicitly denying his fear of Roark. Roark’s attitude changes immediately: he responds to this dishonesty harshly, telling Peter to shut up. Once again, Roark’s response “hits the mean,” giving Peter exactly the treatment he deserves.

In this scene, as in many others, we see an individual whose responses are appropriate to the situation in all the ways delineated by Aristotle: in aim, in timing, in the emotions felt, and in manner. Such “fine-tuning” of his responses is possible only because they are informed by both his intellect and his emotions.

Rand also depicts the pleasure, or at least the sense of inner satisfaction and fulfilment, that a virtuous person gets from doing the right thing—without forgetting the painful, even tragic, aspects that the choice of the right action can involve. In Atlas Shrugged, Francisco’s choice to give up Dagny and his work, the two things he loves most, perhaps forever, for the sake of joining the strike, is a particularly dramatic example of the agonizing loss that the choice to do the right thing can involve. It is also an example of the serenity and fulfilment attendant on such a choice. On his last night with Dagny, at the height of his despair, Francisco turns to her and begs her to help him refuse Galt’s call, “[e]ven though he’s right” (AS, 111). By the next morning, however, after he has emerged from his agonized struggle and made his decision, his face shows “both serenity and suffering,” and he looks like a man “who sees that which makes the torture worth bearing” (AS, 112).

The veridicality of Rand’s portrayal of her ideal characters lends support to Aristotle’s conception of virtue, just as the independent plausibility of Aristotle’s conception of virtue lends support to Rand’s portrayal of her characters. Aristotle’s conception of vice—the worst possible state of character is also dramatized in Rand’s fiction. According to Aristotle, vice disposes an individual to feel, deliberate, choose, and act wrongly. Vice blinds a person to the good, and may even reverse his perception of good and bad, so that he sees the good as bad and the bad as good (NE, Bk. Ill, Ch. 4). Vice, says Aristotle in a memorable phrase, is unconscious of itself (NE, 1150b 35).

This conception of vice captures Rand’s portrayal of her wholly or partly vicious characters. In The Fountainhead, Gail Wynand is time and again shown revealing his lust for power over others without any awareness that this lust is a vice even if, as he claims, these others are devoid of integrity.

Power, Dominique. The only thing I ever wanted. To know that there’s not a man living whom I can’t force to do—anything. Anything I choose …. They say I have no sense of honor, I’ve missed something in life. Well, I haven’t missed very much, have I? The thing I’ve missed—it doesn’t exist (497).

Rather like a latter-day Thrasymachus, the anti-moralist in Plato’s Republic, who sees the ability to be unjust when one can get away with it as a sign of superior strength, Wynand sees his ability to break people’s wills as a sign of his self-sufficiency and superiority. And again rather like Thrasymachus, who “unmasks” justice as simply a ploy of the strong to get the weak to serve their interests, Wynand “unmasks” people’s belief in integrity as simply another expression of their dishonesty, their failure to see themselves or others as they are, even as he interprets his own cynicism as a sign of his clear-sightedness and honesty (497).

However, contrary to Aristotle’s suggestion, the vicious are not always unconscious or ignorant of their vice. Sometimes they are aware of their vices as vices, but, as Rand emphasizes, they evade this knowledge, as they evade knowledge of many other facts. Sometimes, again, habitual evasiveness combines with ignorance to put a person at the mercy of his vicious dispositions, which then “break through” and subvert his better intentions, even to his own detriment. Consider again the scene where Keating goes to see Roark. He has “planned the interview to be smooth and friendly,” with a manner to match (FH, 191). But he surprises himself by starting off with the words, “What’s the matter, Howard? You look like hell. Surely, you’re not overworking yourself, from what I hear?” (191). His manner is insultingly familiar and condescending, prompted by his desire to show Roark that he is not afraid of him—a desire that overcomes the intention to conduct the interview smoothly. In Rand’s words, “[h]e felt himself rolling down a hill, without brakes. He could not stop.” Matters escalate, as the passage quoted earlier shows, and Keating ends up not only failing to conceal his fear of Roark, but confessing it to boot.

 

This is Part I of a two-part essay. The concluding Part II is here.

 

This essay, which appears in Savvy Street in two parts, is a revised version of what was first published in Reason Papers (Fall 1999) as “Is Virtue Only a Means to Happiness? An Analysis of Virtue and Happiness in Ayn Rand’s Writings” and is reprinted with permission from the author.

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Notes:

  1. This paper was presented at the Institute for Objectivist Studies Summer Seminar (now The Atlas Society) in July 1997, and later expanded for publication in Reason Papers (Fall 1999)
  2. Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged (AS), 35th Anniversary Edition (New York: Signet, 1957), 939, For the New Intellectual (FM) (New York: Signet), 131.

3, Leonard Peikoff, Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, (New York: Meridian, 1991), 328. See also David Kelley, “Unrugged Individualism: The Selfish Basis of Benevolence” (New York: Institute for Objectivist Studies, 1996/2003), for an entirely instrumentalist defense of the virtue of benevolence.

  1. In “Flourishing Egoism,” Lester Hunt takes a stronger position, arguing that in Rand’s ethics the virtues are constitutive of happiness, or “an essential part of it” (Social Philosophy and Policy, eds. E.F. Paul, F, Miller, and J. Paul, Vol. 16, 1, Winter 1999), 93. My view, as stated above, is that although this idea is implicit in her writings, her official view is different. Hunt and I also develop very different (though largely compatible) lines of argument for the claim that the constitutive view is to be found in Rand. Whereas there are some other philosophers who would agree with this claim as part of a broadly Aristotelian interpretation of Rand’s ethics (see, for example, Tibor Machan, Ayn Rand [New York: Peter Lang, 1999]), no one else actually argues for it.
  2. AS, 930, “The Objectivist Ethics,” The Virtue of Selfishness (VOS) (New York: Signet, 1961), 27.
  3. More precisely, it is a means in normal circumstances. An act of resistance to tyranny, knowing that there is no chance of furthering the cause of justice, is only an expression of certain values, not a means to any.
  4. I discuss Rand’s conception of happiness in Part II.
  5. This interpretation is also supported by Francisco’s words to Dagny: “[e]very form of happiness is one, every desire is driven by the same motor – by our love for a single value, for the highest potentiality of our own existence—and every achievement is an expression of it” (AS, 708). I take this to mean that every achievement is an expression of our love for, and desire to realize, our highest potential, and happiness consists of doing so. The idea that happiness lies in self-realization is not often (if at all) voiced in Rand’s philosophical writings, but it is often illustrated in her novels. Thanks to David Kelley for bringing this passage to my attention.
  6. There is a reference to character in the definition of the virtue of pride (AS, 938, FNI, 130), but here, too, character is that which pride aims to build; pride itself is not said to be a character trait
  7. The problem goes deeper than this, for it affects not only moral response, but all belief and all action. As Ronald de Sousa argues in The Rationality of Emotion (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1987), no amount of knowledge or degree of logical and inductive acumen would enable us to solve the “frame problem,” i.e., the problem of knowing what is relevant, what irrelevant, in the mass of data on the basis of which we make inferences, form beliefs, and decide on action (192-96). To solve the frame problem, we need emotions. In Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain (New York: Grosset/Putnam, 1994), the neurologist Antonio Damasio discusses patients with high IQs but impaired emotional faculties who are unable to make the simplest of decisions.[i]* One patient is unable to choose an appointment time with Damasio because he can give countless arguments for and against any time that Damasio proposes. According to Damasio, such people have lost their “somatic markers,” or gut feelings, that tell us that certain courses of action are good for us, others bad. See Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence (El) (New York: Bantam, 1995), 27-29, 52-54 for an excellent discussion of Damasio’s work as well as of the neurological, psychological, and biological research on the emotions.
  8. Hervey Cleckley, The Mask of Sanity (St. Louis: C.V. Mosby, 1964), argues that the psychopath’s failure to be a moral agent is due to the fact that his stunted emotional capacity renders him incapable of seeing the significance of things.
  9. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics (NE), tr. Terence I. Irwin (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co., 1985), 1106b361107a2.
  10. The Fountainhead (FH), 50th Anniversary Edition (New York: Signet, 1971), 191-92.

 

 

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