Part II: What Does Ayn Rand Really Think?
An Analysis of Virtue and Happiness in Ayn Rand’s Writings1
Part I of this two-part essay can be found here.
VIRTUE AND EMOTION IN ARISTOTLE AND RAND
The Aristotelian conception of virtue and vice gives emotion a central role in their constitution. The emotions that partly constitute the virtues not only motivate right action, they also have cognitive power, insofar as they track what is truly valuable. Thus, the courageous person’s confidence and fearlessness aid him in seeing which dangers are worth facing for which ends. By contrast, the emotions that partly constitute the vices track what is disvaluable, a spurious image of the good. Thus, the cowardly person’s fearfulness and lack of confidence exaggerate the danger, becoming tools of distortion that also distort or block the cognitive power of the intellect.
Rand the novelist, like Aristotle the philosopher, sees the agent’s emotional dispositions as crucial components of his moral character, and as having the power to enhance or distort cognition (refer Part I).
Clearly, Rand the novelist, like Aristotle the philosopher, sees the agent’s emotional dispositions as crucial components of his moral character, and as having the power to enhance or distort cognition (refer Part I). But what about Rand the philosopher? Rand’s claim that “emotions are not tools of cognition” (VOS, p. 29) has often been interpreted in a way that contradicts the picture she presents in her novels. However, this claim must be interpreted in the context of another important claim, viz., that “[e]motions are estimates of that which furthers man’s values or threatens them, that which is for him or against him—lightning calculators giving him the sum of his profit or loss” (p. 27). The emotions of someone who wholeheartedly values the truly valuable—truth, reason et al.—will apprise her of what is truly good or bad in particular situations. Since emotions, unlike conscious reasoning, are “lightning” quick, without them she would often act too late or fail to act at all. Again, Rand would agree that since rational emotions, unlike deliberate, conscious reasoning, make available a vast store of evaluative knowledge, in the absence of such emotions a person would simply fail to see certain things. Without rational emotions, then, a person would make mistakes of judgment and act inappropriately or not at all. It is this vast store of knowledge embodied in her emotions that enables Dagny to recognize, “[i]n a single shock of emotion,” that Ellis Wyatt’s simple greeting signifies “forgiveness, understanding, acknowledgment” (AS, 157). And it is because Dagny knows that her emotions have cognitive power that she can surrender “her consciousness to a single sight and a single, wordless emotion … [aware] that what she now felt was the instantaneous total of the thoughts she did not have to name, the final sum of a long progression, like a voice telling her by means of a feeling” (674).
In her fiction, Rand also depicts the power of emotions to affect cognition in ways that are independent of the issue of virtue or vice.
In her fiction, Rand also depicts the power of emotions to affect cognition in ways that are independent of the issue of virtue or vice. Moods and feelings induced by events in one’s life, events to which they may be appropriate responses, can affect the way other things appear to one. In a couple of striking scenes in Atlas Shrugged, we first see Hank Rearden overcome by disgust at the world around him, a disgust that makes “the city seem sodden to him” (349). But then, on reaching Dagny’s apartment, he recovers his sense of benevolence, a sense that enables him to see the city as a stupendous achievement of human creativity (351). As a matter of fact, the city is both: sodden in some respects but also a great achievement. But Rearden’s disgust at the world hides its greatness till he has recovered his sense of benevolence.14
As this discussion shows, some of Rand’s stated views of the emotions, along with her depiction of them in her fiction, imply the view, so central to Aristotle’s conception of virtue, that emotions have cognitive power. Hence, the claim that emotions are not tools of cognition must be interpreted to mean that they are not in themselves tools of cognition. Rather, they must be “programmed” by the intellect. As she states, “[m]an’s emotional mechanism is like an electronic computer, which his mind has to program—and the programming consists of the values his mind chooses” (VOS, 28).
The idea that the emotions have to be programmed by the intellect, whereas the intellect can choose values independently of any help from the emotions, suggests a hierarchical relationship between intellect and emotion, and a unidirectional picture of moral and psychological development. First the intellect, functioning independently of the emotional faculty, collects the data and makes value-judgments; then it programs the emotional faculty. On this picture, the preprogrammed emotional faculty is inert, unable to make any value responses, and unable to play a fundamental role in forming or aiding the intellect.
However, if infants and young children (not to mention animals) have emotions in a pre-conceptual form—as they surely do—then emotions cannot be entirely dependent on the intellect. We feel fear, anger, contentment, empathy, and pleasure in a pre-conceptual form long before we acquire the capacity to make value-judgements. Insofar as these are responses to that which we sense as somehow good or bad for us, it follows that we are able to make value responses long before we are able to make value-judgements. Indeed, it is only because we have this pre-conceptual ability for responding to values that we can acquire the capacity for making value-judgments. Adult emotions build on these pre-conceptual emotions and the value-judgments they make possible. For example, adult fear typically contains not only the components of feeling and physiological response that a child’s fear does, but also the value-judgment of the feared object as dangerous or threatening. Which objects are seen as fearful depends not on the judgments of an untouched intellect, but an intellect already shaped to some extent by our pre-conceptual emotions, and continually influenced by, even as it in turn influences, our adult emotions.15
Aristotle’s picture of moral and psychological development as that of a process in which intellect and emotion grow and mature interdependently, each influencing the other, reflects these facts. It is, therefore, a more adequate account than Rand’s hierarchical account of the emotions as programmed by an untouched intellect.
Rand’s writings also often suggest that in a conflict between one’s emotions and one’s intellectual judgement, one must always opt for the latter, that the intellect is always more trustworthy than the emotions. However, we have already seen a counterexample to this in the scene where Dagny finds herself responding to Francisco happily, instead of with the intended coldness. One reason why one’s emotional evaluation in a situation may be more trustworthy is that, as Rand herself points out, unlike the intellect, emotions can apprise us of a vast amount of evaluative knowledge. Given this, whether one should opt for the deliverances of one’s emotions in a particular situation, or for one’s intellectual judgement, depends on the general reliability of one’s emotions vis-a-vis one’s intellect in that sort of situation. The issue cannot be decided simply by appeal to a hierarchical relationship between intellect and emotion (even should this picture be correct). Indeed, some of the psychological nuances and complexities of Dominique’s and Roark’s relationships with Gail Wynand can be understood only as the result of each of them allowing their emotional responses to challenge their intellectual judgments. Consider the passage in which Dominique urges Wynand—the man who stands for everything she despises—to fire Ellsworth Toohey, because he is a threat to Wynand’s beloved Banner—the paper that caters to everything she despises.
Gail, when I married you, didn’t know I’d come to feel this kind of loyalty to you. It contradicts everything I’ve done, it contradicts so much more than I can tell you—it’s a sort of catastrophe for me, a turning point—don’t ask me why—it will take me years to understand—I know only that this is what I owe you (499-500).
She allows her feeling of loyalty to Wynand to dictate her action, even though she cannot quite understand why she feels this loyalty to him; she “knows” that she “owes” him this warning, even though she cannot quite understand why she should want his paper saved. The fact that Wynand is an “innocent weapon” compared to Toohey, who is “a corrosive gas … the kind that eats lungs out” (500), neither justifies Dominique’s feeling of loyalty, nor supports her claim to “know” that she “owes” Wynand a warning. After all, even if Wynand is innocent compared to Toohey, his record of destruction can still only be classified as unambiguously evil. We can understand Dominique’s actions and words only if we interpret her as trusting her emotions to tell her something her intellect alone cannot yet grasp.
To reiterate: Rand’s depiction of virtuous individuals, and of the role of emotion in virtuous action, in her novels is closer to Aristotle’s views of these matters than her own stated views. But what about her conception of happiness, and of its relationship to virtue? It is to this question that I will now turn.
HAPPINESS
Rand’s Definition(s) of Happiness
(i) “Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one’s values” (VOS, 28).
The values in question are rational values. “If you achieve that which is the good by a rational standard of value, it will necessarily make you happy; but that which makes you happy, by some undefined emotional standard, is not necessarily the good” (VOS, 29). (The implication of the second clause, that it is possible to be happy even if one’s values are irrational, is later taken back, so I will simply ignore it.)
(ii) “Happiness is a state of non-contradictory joy—a joy without penalty or guilt, a joy that does not clash with any of your values and does not work for your own destruction ….” Rand continues: “[h]appiness is possible only to a rational man, the man who desires nothing but rational goals, seeks nothing but rational values and finds his joy in nothing but rational actions” (29).
These definitions make two important points:
- Happiness is a state of consciousness.
- It is a positive, harmonious (non-contradictory) state of consciousness that results from the achievement of one’s rational values, and only from such values.
Rand also gives a less psychological definition of happiness in VOS.
(iii) “Happiness is the successful state of life” (27). More fully, “[t]he maintenance of life and the pursuit of happiness are not two separate issues [but] two aspects of the same achievement. Existentially, the activity of pursuing rational goals is the activity of maintaining one’s life; psychologically, its result, reward and concomitant is an emotional state of happiness” (29).
Putting these thoughts together, we can say that, for Rand, happiness is a successful state of life, and the positive state of consciousness that accompanies and results from such a life.
The values Rand has in mind when she says that happiness results from the achievement of one’s rational values are existential or external values or lifegoals, most importantly, career and romantic love. Thus, when she says that The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged have happy endings, she means that The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged end with the success of her protagonists in achieving their most important life-goals through rational (moral) action.16 And when she says that We the Living has a tragic ending, she means that her protagonists fail to achieve their most important life-goals. Rand’s statements here are, of course, in keeping with the usual understanding of a happy or tragic ending. What is noteworthy is that Rand gives no hint in her essays that she regards spiritual success in the absence of existential success—i.e., success in remaining true to one’s rational values in the face of existential failure—as partially constituting happiness. If she had, then she would have acknowledged that We the Living was not entirely tragic. After all, in this novel only Leo is destroyed spiritually; Kira triumphs, and Andrei learns the meaning of love and individuality.17 Elsewhere, too, as we have seen, Rand equates a happy or successful life with a life in which we achieve our rational external values through virtuous action.
On this conception of happiness—the conception standardly accepted in interpretations of her views—virtue is only a means to happiness. Yet many of her claims—as also her portrayal of her characters—imply a different view, the view that a life in which we fail to achieve our most important external values, but still continue to act honestly, justly, and with integrity, is also to some extent a successful and, therefore, happy life. In other words, many of her claims imply the Aristotelian view that a virtuous life is partly constitutive of a happy life. The most important texts supporting this view are the ones that deal with Rand’s conception of the most important values and their connection to happiness.
Hence, someone who truly values self-esteem will continually strive to become—and remain the sort of person who is both capable of happiness and worthy of happiness.
As we have already seen, the cardinal values, the values that are expressed by the cardinal virtues, are the largely psychological or “internal” higher-order values of reason, purpose, and self-esteem. As Rand makes clear, to truly value reason is to have a commitment to living rationally, and (presumably) to derive pleasure from living rationally. Likewise, to truly value having a purpose is to have a commitment to living a life of productive activity, and to derive pleasure from living productively. The cardinal virtues of rationality and of productiveness, then, are exercised in rational and productive activity that is motivated in this wholehearted way by the value of reason and purposiveness. And it is in a life characterized by the virtues of rationality and productivity that one maintains and expresses love of reason and purposiveness. The third cardinal value, a sense of self-esteem, is the sense of oneself as capable of achieving happiness and being worthy of happiness (AS, 936, FNI, 128). Hence, someone who truly values self-esteem will continually strive to become—and remain the sort of person who is both capable of happiness and worthy of happiness. The virtue necessary for self-esteem, says Rand, is the virtue of pride or moral ambitiousness, the virtue of acting to achieve one’s own moral perfection (VOS, 27). Only by acting to perfect ourselves can we achieve and maintain self-esteem, and only by valuing self-esteem will we be motivated to act with pride. It is in a life characterized by the virtue of pride, then, that one expresses the value one places on self-esteem.
It follows that, so long as one can act virtuously, one is guaranteed success at achieving or maintaining the three supreme values—reason, purpose, and self-esteem—regardless of success or failure in achieving one’s external values. So, if happiness is a successful state of life, then such “inner” success must count not only as a necessary means to happiness, but as itself a major part of happiness. I will refer to the life of inner success alone as a life of partial or “inner” happiness, and the life of both inner and outer success as full happiness. Images of both partial and full happiness occur in several passages in Rand’s novels.
Images of Happiness in Rand’s Novels
- Partial happiness
Roark in the quarry (The Fountainhead): Roark’s months in the quarry are shot through with pain—pain at the loss of the opportunity to be doing the thing he loves. Yet he is not entirely unhappy. His consciousness of having done the right thing in refusing to build buildings that violate his architectural principles, and his sense of purpose in being engaged in a “clean,” worthwhile activity in the quarry, impart to his life a certain serenity and quiet satisfaction that are part of happiness.
Francisco after he has given up Dagny and his work, and decided to assume a new persona for the public (Atlas Shrugged): After his initial tortured struggle, when Francisco begs Dagny to help him to refuse John Galt’s call to “strike” so that he does not have to give her up, Francisco achieves a measure of serenity in the knowledge that his renunciation of his love and his work are necessary for a deeper and longer-lasting success. His house in Galt’s Gulch serves as a splendid metaphor for his state of mind in those years of painful renunciation: the “silent, locked exterior” of the house bespeaks sorrow and loneliness—the interior is filled with an “invigorating brightness” (AS, 710).
Interestingly, Peikoff also draws on these facts about the psychology of Rand’s heroes to come to the conclusion that “[v]irtue does ensure happiness in a certain sense, just as it ensures practicality” (Objectivism, 339) , “not the full happiness of having achieved one’s values in reality, but the premonitory radiance of knowing that such achievement is possible” (34). Indeed, Peikoff puts it even more strongly—and somewhat misleadingly—when he says that someone like Roark is “a happy person even when living through an unhappy period” (339-400). He distinguishes between the achievement of existential and philosophical values, and between full happiness and “happiness in a certain sense,” or “metaphysical pleasure” (340) Yet he denies that “the achievement of philosophical values,” reason, purpose, and self-esteem, which we achieve and maintain only through virtue, constitutes a form of success, describing it instead as the achievement of “the ability to succeed.” However, if achieving and maintaining the cardinal values and virtue is not a form of success, and existential success is necessary to happiness, then it is hard to see how virtue can “ensure happiness” in any sense of the word. To consistently maintain the thesis that virtue ensures happiness “in a certain sense,” Peikoff would have to reject the canonical view that equates happiness with the state of consciousness that results from existential success, and sees virtue as entirely a means to happiness. But this should not be a problem. For, as we have seen, some of Rand’s own theoretical statements imply the rejection of the canonical view, and her fiction constitutes a powerful argument in support of this rejection.
- Full happiness
Dagny and Francisco in the early days of their relationship, before he (apparently) turns into a playboy and their relationship comes to an end: The description of her state of mind after her first sexual encounter with Francisco is a good example of full happiness. “[W]hen she thought that she would not sleep. her last thought was of the times when she had wanted to express, but found no way to do it, an instant’s knowledge of a feeling greater than happiness, the feeling of one’s blessing upon the whole of the earth, the feeling of being in love with the fact that one exists and in this kind of world” (AS, 105-6).
Dominique and Roark after they are united and he has become a successful architect. The passage that captures her happiness best, however, occurs shortly before this, when she decides to leave Wynand and go back to Roark— and the world she has rejected out of fear and disgust.
Dominique lay stretched out on the shore of the lake Flat on her back, hands crossed under her head, she studied the motion of leaves against the sky. It was an earnest occupation, giving her full contentment. She thought, it’s a lovely kind of green …. The fire around the edges is the sun …. The spots of light weaving in circles—that’s the lake … the lake is beautiful today … I have never been able to enjoy it before, the sight of the earth . . . I thought of those who owned it and then it hurt me too much. I can love it now. They don’t own it The earth is beautiful . . . . (FH, 665-66).
She thought, I’ve learned to bear anything except happiness. I must learn how to carry it. How not to break under it (666).
CONCLUSION
We have seen that Rand’s views about the three supreme values and the virtues required for them leads to the view that virtuous activity is itself partly constitutive of happiness. For on this view virtuous activity is both a means to, and an expression or realization of, the three supreme values—reason, purpose, and self-esteem and these values are both the means to, and the realization of, one’s ultimate value, happiness. More formally:
- Virtuous activity is both a means to, and realization of, the supreme values.
- These values are both a means to happiness, and a partial realization of happiness.
- Hence, virtuous activity is also both a means to, and partial realization of, an important part of happiness.
Virtuous activity is inherently deeply satisfying or happiness-making. That is, the satisfaction that accompanies virtuous activity is “embedded” in it the way the pleasure that comes from walking along the beach is embedded in the walk. The passages from Rand’s novels discussed above show why this is so. In acting virtuously and, thereby, expressing our values, we actualize a clear-sighted view of our selves and of external reality. A virtuous life thus brings with it a sense of harmony and of freedom—a justified sense of efficacy, of the power of one’s agency to deal with external obstacles. It is this sort of enduring reality-oriented pleasure and deep satisfaction that is an essential and central part of happiness. It is only when we cease to act virtuously that we lose happiness altogether. Henry Cameron and Steven Mallory, supporting characters in The Fountainhead, are examples of individuals who allow their existential failures to damage their inner resources, their capacity for virtuous action. When first introduced to the reader, they are shown as bitter, self-destructive individuals, who are rescued from this state only with Roark’s help and kindness. It is also, of course, possible to never develop one’s inner resources and, therefore, to never achieve happiness. Keating is a case in point.
Insofar as the virtues are a constitutive part of happiness, they are ends in themselves. But they are also, of course, means to happiness. As traits and acts that put us in the best state to achieve and maintain a successful state of life, they aim at bringing about certain states of affairs in the world. For example, the aim of being just is to succeed in bringing about just states of affairs. But success in doing this often depends on circumstances that are independent of the agent’s actions. Thus, the success of a judge in acquitting an innocent defendant depends not only on his acting justly himself, but also on the others involved acting justly and capably, as well as on luck, in gathering and presenting evidence. Again, the aim of being courageous is to succeed in standing up for, and defending, one’s values. In short, it is possible to act virtuously, yet fail to achieve one’s most important goals. Kira (We The Living) is a case in point. Such a life, though (necessarily) not unhappy, is not fully happy either. An unqualifiedly happy life is one in which one’s virtuous actions are rewarded by existential success, and one’s happiness and sense of satisfaction in one’s life, are partly derived from this success.
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.
Notes:
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- 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).
For a fuller discussion around this paper, please refer Is Virtue Only a Means to Happiness? (Objectivist Studies Book 4).
14 There is a suggestion in the text that Rand thinks that the city is seen veridically only when it is seen as an achievement. But my interpretation is both compatible with the text and more accurate as a description of the city.
15. Some of the best evidence for the importance of normal emotional development to normal intellectual development comes from studies of autism. Autistic people show an inability to understand complex personal relationships and emotional nuance due to neurological abnormalities that prevent normal emotional development. See Temple Grandin’s autobiographical account in Thinking in Pictures (New York: Vintage Books, 1995), especially ch. 4, “Learning Empathy.”
- Francisco and Rearden don’t succeed in their romantic goals, but are nevertheless happy that Dagny made the right choice in choosing Galt, and happy for their beloved friend, Galt.
- Indeed, Rand depicts Kira dying with a smile on her face because she knows that “[L]ife, undefeated, existed and could exist.” But when she addresses the issue of happiness in her essays, she insists on existential success.
About the Author: Neera K. Badhwar
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