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Reason and Value: Aristotle Versus Rand

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Reason and Value: Aristotle Versus Rand Reason and Value: Aristotle versus Rand By Roderick T. Long Roderick T. Long received his philosophi- cal training at Harvard (A.B., 1985) and Cornell (Ph.D., 1992), and has taught at the University of North Carolina and the University of Michigan. He is currently Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Auburn University, as well as Editor of the Free Nation Foundation’s journal Formulations. His principal research interests are moral psychology, Greek philosophy, and libertarian thought. Objectivist Studies series editor: William Thomas Objectivist Studies is a monograph series published by The Atlas Society. Founded in 1990 as the Institute for Objectivist Studies, and also formerly known as The Objectivist Center, TAS is a not- for-profit research organization for the study, development, and dissemination of Objectivism, the philosophy originated by Ayn Rand. Objectivism is a secular world view that stresses reason, individualism, respect for achievement, and liberty. The series is edited by William R Thomas. Individual monographs deal with topics relevant to Objectivism: exposition of Objectivist themes, advances in the theoretical development of the philosophy, or critical studies of the philosophy. Manuscripts are selected for publication on the basis of their value for these ends. Manuscripts submitted for publication should: • Be double-spaced throughout, including notes. • Conform with The Chicago Manual of Style. • Be submitted in hard copy and in electronic form. • Include an abstract and author’s biography of no more than 250 words each. Opinions expressed in these works are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of TAS’s staff or trustees. TAS is grateful to Frank Bubb for his generous support of Objectivist Studies. Copyright © 2000 by The Objectivist Center. All rights reserved. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Long, Roderick T., 1964– Reason and Value: Aristotle versus Rand/Roderick T. Long Includes bibliographic references (p. 56) ISBN 1-57724-045-6 Printed in United States of America 2nd printing; 2010 The Atlas Society 1001 Connecticut Avenue NW, Suite 830 Washington, DC, 20036 On the Web: www.atlassociety.org Cover design by Douglas Hesseltine Contents Reason and Value: Aristotle versus Rand Roderick T. Long I. Rationality as Purely Procedural: David Hume .................................... 5 II. Rationality as Substantive but Mystical: Plato ............................... 9 III. Substantive Rationality Without Mysticism: Aristotle .................... 17 IV. Objectivism on Theoretical Rationality: Rand as Platonist .. 29 V. Objectivism on Practical Rationality: Rand as Humean .......................... 33 VI. Ethical Egoism in Three Varieties .... 34 VII. The Hobgoblin of Kantian Consistency .................................. 35 VIII. Hobbes in the Head, Aristotle in the Heart ............................................ 39 IX. The Aristotelian Alternative .............. 49 X. Flourishing Justified; or, In Praise of Whim-Worship ............................. 52 Notes ............................................................. 56 Commentaries Fred D. Miller, Jr.: Reason and Perception in Ayn Rand’s Epistemology ......... 65 Eyal Mozes: Flourishing and Survival in Ayn Rand ...................................... 85 Author’s Response Foundations and Flourishing .................. 101 Long: Reason and Value 5 Reason and Value: Aristotle versus Rand In her philosophical novel Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand has one of her heroes, Ragnar Danneskjöld, refer to Aristotle as “our teacher’s first teacher” (because Danneskjöld and his comrades were students of the Aristotelian philosopher Hugh Akston).1 For those, like me, who first became interested in philosophy through the writings of Ayn Rand, Aristotle is indeed “our teacher’s first teacher.” To many of Rand’s admirers he is, I think, no more than that: at best a kind of John the Baptist, preparing the way for the true philosophical messiah. For me it has been otherwise. Reading Rand in high school led to a philoso- phy major in college, and eventually to the Master Knower himself (to paraphrase Dante’s description of Aristotle2 ); and in the end it was Aristotle, not Rand, who claimed my philosophical allegiance. But I have not forgotten that it was Rand’s works which first opened up to me the world of philosophy, and I welcome this opportunity to reexamine some of her ideas from the perspective I have since reached. Rand’s Objectivist philosophy proclaims itself a version of Aristotelianism. It is also a philosophy that places a premium on rationality. So my question here is: How far does the Objectivist account of rationality succeed in capturing the crucial insights of the Aristotelian approach? My answer, to give the game away, is that Rand unfortunately adopts a Platonic rather than an Aristotelian conception of theoretical rationality; that this in turn leads her to adopt a Humean rather than an Aristotelian conception of practical rationality; and that this leads her to adopt a Hobbesian rather than an Aristotelian conception of the relation between self-interest and morality— all of which tends to undermine her basically Aristotelian inclinations and senti- ments. Hence, I would maintain, Rand’s admirers may still have something important to learn from their teacher’s first teacher.3 I. Rationality as Purely Procedural: David Hume Perhaps the best way to understand what is most significant in the Aristote- lian approach to rationality is to see it as a Golden Mean between, and a response to the difficulties raised by, two rather different conceptions of rationality, which I shall call the Humean or Sophist conception and the Platonic conception.4 Objectivist Studies 3 (Poughkeepsie, NY: The Objectivist Center, 2000): pp. 5-64. 66 Objectivist Studies On the Humean conception (still widely influential today), rationality is purely procedural. Theoretical rationality enables us to derive true conclusions reliably, given true premises, but it is of no use in identifying true premises; practical rationality enables us reliably to select appropriate means, given appropriate ends, but it is of no use in choosing appropriate ends. Hume is not simply making the usual empiricist point that abstract reason alone cannot, in isolation from all further data, generate the premises of knowledge. His point is rather the stronger one that upon being supplied with reliable data, reason as such can give us no more reason to accept those data than to reject them. Hence it is by feeling or inclination, not reason, that we decide upon our basic premises: When I am convinc’d of any principle, ’tis only an idea, which strikes more strongly upon me. When I give the preference to one set of arguments above another, I do nothing but decide from my feeling concerning the superiority of their influence.5 This analysis applies, above all, to our belief in cause and effect, the crucial assumption upon which depends nearly everything else we believe. This belief can- not be rationally derived from any of our other beliefs or experiences but is simply basic; and since the belief in causality is a basic premise or principle, reason can have nothing to say either for it or against it. The decision must rest with feeling alone. If we reason a priori any thing may appear able to produce any thing. The falling of a pebble may, for aught we know, extinguish the sun; or the wish of a man control the planets in their orbits.6 Reason can never satisfy us that the existence of any one object does ever imply that of another; so that when we pass from the impression of one to the idea or belief of another, we are not determin’d by reason, but by custom or a principle of association. Objects have no discoverable connexion together; nor is it from any other principle but custom operating upon the imagination, that we draw any inference from the appearance of one to the exist- ence of another.7 Now just as theoretical rationality cannot guide us in choosing our basic premises, so practical rationality cannot guide us in choosing our basic values. Given a certain goal or end, reason can enable us to evaluate the most efficient means of attaining it. But when it comes to evaluating the end itself, reason is silent, and the decision rests once more with feeling: Long: Reason and Value 7 Nothing is more usual in philosophy, and even in common life, than to talk of the combat of passion and reason . [But] reason alone can never be a motive to any action of the will . Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them. ’Tis not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the world to the scratching of my finger.8 Yet Hume, as I read him, is not in the end a skeptic, either in theoretical or in practical matters. He believes we can indeed learn the truth. He merely argues that since reason cannot provide us with true premises, and in fact is more likely to lead us astray, our salvation lies with our inborn natural inclinations, which make us tire eventually of skeptical arguments, however sound, and so lead us to embrace com- mon sense in defiance of reason. ’Tis impossible upon any system to defend either our understand- ing or our senses; and we but expose them farther when we endeav- our to justify them in that manner. As the sceptical doubt arises naturally from a profound and intense reflection on those subjects, it always encreases, the farther we carry our reflections . Careless- ness and inattention alone can afford us any remedy. For this reason I rely entirely upon them . .9 When we trace the human understanding to its first principles, we find it to lead us into such sentiments, as seem to turn into ridicule all our past pains and industry, and to discourage us from future enquiries. the understanding, when it acts alone, and according to its most general principles, entirely subverts itself, and leaves not the lowest degree of evidence in any proposition, either in phi- losophy or common life.
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