Ayn Rand’s Aristotelian Philosophy of Human Flourishing

 

Ayn Rand set out the broad philosophical system of Objectivism in her novels and essays. Objectivism is her integrated system of thought that defines and explains the abstract principles by which a person must think and act if he is to live a life proper to man.

Objectivism is founded on the axioms of existence, identity, and consciousness.

A coherent philosophical system must have axioms which are irreducible self-evident truths that are implied in all acts of cognition and that cannot be logically refuted. Objectivism is founded on the axioms of existence, identity, and consciousness. More specifically, existence exists, to be is to be something, and consciousness is the faculty that perceives that which exists independent of consciousness. Existence is identity and consciousness is identification. Human consciousness perceives reality, as against creating it in the act of perception (some philosophers have argued the latter). The denial of any of Objectivism’s axioms is illogical because they are implicit in the very act of their denial. The person denying the axiom is forced to use it in his efforts to deny it.

Affirming the primacy of existence, Rand declared that existence is primary and irreducible and that consciousness is a characteristic of human beings by which they acquire awareness of an independently existing reality. Rand states that a thing’s actions are determined by its nature—an entity cannot act in contradiction to its identity. She explained that reason and free will are features of human nature and that free will is compatible with the law of causality.

Men are beings of conceptual consciousness and reason is man’s sole source of knowledge and should be his sole guide to action. Rand defined reason as the faculty that identifies and integrates the material provided by the senses through the formation of concepts. She maintained the validity of a man’s senses (i.e., perceptual realism) and that reason is competent to know the facts of reality.

 

Rand’s Philosophical Foundation

Rand’s metaphysics and epistemology are inextricably interconnected and together they form Objectivism’s philosophical foundation. Knowledge is based on the observation of reality. Through both extrospection and introspection, a man pursues knowledge using the methods of induction, deduction, and integration. A man forms concepts according to actual relationships among concretes and uses concepts according to the rules of logic. Rand provided a set of rules for deriving valid concepts. She explains that concepts refer to facts, knowledge has a base in reality, that it is possible to define objective principles to guide a man’s process of cognition, and that the conclusions reached via a process of reason are objective. Rand contends that it is possible to obtain objective knowledge of both facts and values.

For Rand, essence is an epistemological (as well as contextual and relational) concept rather than solely a metaphysical manifestation. An essence is a product of epistemological processes that permit men to group concretes into classes. Her objective theory of concepts, including essences, is integral to her rational epistemology in which concepts are derived from reality. Rand’s epistemology, in which concepts or essences are epistemological rather than metaphysical, is arguably superior to the Aristotelian view which sees them as metaphysical.

Like Carl Menger, the Austrian economist, Rand espouses a contextually-relational objectivity in her theory of value.

Rand states that it is only the concept of life that makes the concept of value possible. Life as a particular kind of being is an ultimate end (i.e., an end in itself) for any living being. For a man, living as a rational animal means living by the use of his reason. She explains that reason is a man’s only proper judge of value and his only legitimate guide to action. For Rand, what is good is an evaluation made of the facts of reality by a man’s consciousness according to the rational standard of value of the promotion of his life.

According to Rand, the concept of value depends upon, and is derived from, the antecedent concept of life. Life, an ultimate goal and end in itself, makes the existence of values possible. Her naturalistic value theory is concerned with what is, in fact, proper or good for human life. Like Carl Menger, the Austrian economist, Rand espouses a contextually-relational objectivity in her theory of value. Rand contends that it is possible for a person to pursue objective values that are consonant with his own rational self-interest.

 

Human Flourishing

Rand’s moral theory is based on the Aristotelian idea that the objective and natural end for a human being is his flourishing. Practicing morality will lead to his well-being and happiness, which is the highest moral purpose of his life. A man’s need for morality arises from his distinctive nature as an entity with volitional consciousness. Because a person does not automatically perform the actions necessary to meet his needs, it is imperative that he ground his ethical judgments on reason. Adhering to a rational morality enables a person to make the most out of his life.

Ayn Rand’s philosophy can be viewed as a paradigm of human flourishing.

Ayn Rand’s philosophy can be viewed as a paradigm of human flourishing.[1] Her self-perfectionist morality of rational self-interest is, in essence, eudaimonistic. She holds that benefits and happiness for an individual human being derive from what is in that person’s rational self-interest. Each individual is responsible for thinking and acting in ways that enable him to become the best human being that he can be in the context of his facticity.

Rand’s eudaimonistic account of ethics involves the virtues of rationality, independence, integrity, honesty, justice, productiveness, and pride. Life is conditional and requires choosing values, gaining them, and the development of character attributes.

A man must exercise his mind in the service of his life and thus requires the power to act without coercion from others. It follows that men must deal as traders giving value for value through free voluntary exchange to their mutual benefit. A man should not obtain values from others by the use of force and may not institute the use of force against others. Rand explains that a person’s rights can only be violated by physical force or fraud and that the proper function of government is the protection of a man’s rights. It follows that she views government as the agency that holds a monopoly on the legal use of physical force.

Ayn Rand, whose philosophy is a form of Aristotelianism, had the highest admiration for Aristotle. Intellectually, she stood on Aristotle’s shoulders and she praised him above all other philosophers. Rand acknowledged Aristotle as a genius and as the only thinker throughout the ages to whom she owed a philosophical debt

As naturalistic realists, Aristotle and Ayn Rand are the philosophical champions of this world. Both Rand and Aristotle appeal to the objective nature of things. They agree that logic is inseparable from reality and knowledge. Affirming reality, reason, and life on earth, they concur that a man can deal with reality, attain values, and live heroically rather than dismally. Men can grasp reality, establish goals, take actions, and achieve values. They view the human person as a noble and potentially heroic being whose highest moral purpose is to gain his own happiness on earth. Their shared conception of human life permits a person to maintain a realistic moral vision that has the potential to inspire men to greater and greater heights. Rand follows the Aristotelian idea of eudaimonia as the human entelechy.

Like Aristotle, Rand ascribes to only a few basic axioms: existence exists, existence is identity, and consciousness is identification. Aristotle and Rand agree that all men naturally desire to know, understand, and act on the knowledge acquired. For both, all knowledge is arrived at from sensory perception through the processes of abstraction and conceptualization. They each see rationality as man’s distinctive capacity. Both develop virtues and concrete normative behavior from man’s primary virtue of rationality.

For both Aristotle and Rand, the issue of how a person should live his life precedes the problem of how a community should be organized. Whereas Aristotle sees a social life as a necessary condition for one’s thoroughgoing eudaimonia, Rand emphasizes the benefits accruing to the individual from living in society as being knowledge and trade. Although Rand does not expressly discuss the human need for community in her non-fiction writings, her portrait of Galt’s Gulch in Atlas Shrugged closely approximates Aristotle’s community of accord between good men. Of course, the organization of Galt’s Gulch is along the lines of anarcho-capitalism rather than the minimal state political system of capitalism advocated by Rand or the somewhat paternalistic ideal of Aristotle’s polity. Rand defended the absence of government in Galt’s Gulch as being workable in a small cohesive community of shared values, but not in a large nation governed by laws.

Viewing human life in terms of personal flourishing, both Aristotle and Rand teach that we should embrace all of our potentialities. Their similar visions of the ideal man hold that he would have a heroic attitude toward life. The ideal man would be both morally and rationally heroic. They both saw pride (or moral ambitiousness), according to Rand) as the crown of the virtues.

 

Differences between Rand and Aristotle

So, where do Rand and Aristotle differ? Rand argues that her philosophy diverges from Aristotle’s by considering essences as epistemological, contextual, and relational instead of as metaphysical. She envisions Aristotle as a philosophical intuitivist who declared the existence of essences within concretes. Rand considers an essence to be the epistemological product of a classification process that reflects the best knowledge that a person possesses about the particular entity in question at that time, and thus may change over time, but Plato and Aristotle viewed essences as unchanging. For Rand, an essence is an idea or concept about some part of reality—it is not something existing in that part of reality itself.

In addition, Rand, like Menger, appears to require the conceptual recognition of what is valuable or good in order for it to exist in reality as something potentially valuable to, or good for, a given person. Rand states that value consists of an evaluation of the facts of reality by man’s consciousness according to a rational standard of value. Menger says that value does not exist outside the consciousness of man. In contrast, the Aristotelian view is that the values that a man may strive toward exist in reality as potential values in relation to him even before he cognizes and chooses among them.

Rand and Aristotle apparently disagree regarding the role of choice in morality.

Also, Rand and Aristotle apparently disagree regarding the role of choice in morality. According to the “official” or “voluntarist” interpretation of her thought, Rand contends that an individual needs to choose to live or to flourish in order for ethical obligations to exist. If one chooses to live, then a rational ethics will inform him regarding the principles of action he is required to take in order to put his basic choice into effect. According to Aristotle, a person’s obligation to pursue his self-perfection stems from facts pertaining to human nature. It is the nature of an individual human person’s potential for flourishing, which exists as a potentiality whether or not it is chosen, that determines his obligation. Aristotle maintains that individuals make choices only about the objects of their deliberations, which are not ends, but are the means of ends. For Aristotle, the ultimate end (or good) for man is not chosen—it is part of man’s nature.

Neo-Aristotelian philosopher, Douglas B. Rasmussen, is critical of the claim that Ayn Rand definitively holds the view that all moral obligation rests on a pre-moral choice to live. He explains that Rand held that life is the ultimate value for each and every human being. Her idea of ultimate value has no reference to choice. The choice to live does not underpin moral evaluation. It follows that the choice itself can be morally assessed based on the existence of something (i.e., a person’s life) that is an end in itself—one should choose life because life is a value. Life is “choiceworthy” and has “directive power” for a person’s actions, regardless of an individual’s choice. Rasmussen therefore concluded that Rand repudiated the notion that all moral obligation depends upon a choice to live. [2] She, however, maintains that living a man qua man life (i.e., a rational life) is a choice.

Whatever their differences, it is clear that Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism is within the Aristotelian naturalistic tradition. Rand inherited significant elements of the Aristotelian eudaimonic tradition. Rand, like Aristotle, recognized her task as helping people to know. Because of Rand, we have had a rebirth of Aristotelian philosophy with its emphasis on reason and on man, the thinker and doer.

 

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[1] See Den Uyl, Douglas J. and Douglas B. Rasmussen. 1984. “Life, Teleology, and Eudaimonia in the Ethics of Ayn Rand.” in Den Uyl, Douglas J. and Douglas B Rasmussen, eds.  Urbana: University of Illinois Press: 63-80; Bloomfield, Paul. 2011 “Egoism and Eudaimonism: Replies to Khawaja” in Gotthelf, Allen and James G. Lennox, eds. Metaethics, Egoism, and Virtue: Studies in Ayn Rand’s Normative Theory. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press: 74-84; and Bissell, Roger E. 2020 “Eudaimon in the Rough: Perfecting Rand’s Egoism.” The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies 20. No.2, 452-77.

 

[2] See Rasmussen, Douglas B. 2002. “Rand on Obligation and Value.” The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies. 4. No.1, 69-86 and Rasmussen, Douglas B. 2006. “Regarding Choice and the Foundations of Morality: Reflections on Rand’s Ethics.” The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies. 7. No. 2, 309-28.