| | I imagine this question is going to annoy.
"In a nutshell, the conditional nature of man as a being of volitional consciousness gives rise to the need for morality, and his nature as a rational being dictates the furtherance of his life in accordance with that nature as his primary standard of value."
Why does the fact that humans are rational dictate futhering our own lives as our standard of value?
I realise that reading the philosophy of Ayn Rand will most likely answer this question, but I don't understand how this can be stated so surely.
I do imagine it is due to the conflict that other value systems present, when adherence to those values will result in our own death, or some such event.
But can we thus say that we should assume the furtherance of our own lives as our standard of value? Can there be value in any other pursuit?
One of the links mentions that self-sacrifice is destructive. While this may be true, certainly in some instances not sacrificing of the self could be seen as being more destructive, in the sense that perhaps we have the power to save our planet, along with the human race, by sacrificing ourselves.
In this scenario we have multiple courses of action. We can choose to sacrifice ourselves to save the rest of the humans. Theoretically for us to decide to do this, we must believe the collective value of the human lives to be greater than our own life.
If we choose to preserve our own life, safe in the knowledge that all the human race will become extinct, we must have believed that the value of our own life was greater than that of the collective value of all the other human lives.
I have a feeling the majority of people would choose to save the rest of humanity, based on the moral values given to them by society, or religion.
In what sense can we regard saving ourselves as the 'better' alternative, in the sure manner of the quote above? Is it not true that each individual will have their own value system which they use to make the decision.
Or does the phrase 'primary standard of value' simply imply that furtherance of the self is inherently more important due to our nature as beings who decide?
Can this be surely stated? Who can say that furtherance of the self must be the primary standard of value? It is true that humans show a great instinct for self-preservation. Is this statement a result of observation of this phenomenon?
Is it natural for us to disregard all other value systems, in favour of this one primary one?
In what sense is having a different value system 'wrong'? Isn't one of Objectivism's fundamentals the right of the individual to choose? Surely this is in contradiction to the automatic assumption that Objectivists believe primarily in the furtherance of the self.
It seems to me that Objectivists are inherently individual, in the sense that they choose based on their own value system, according to their own choice. How can they then be regarded as a collective?
"Anything goes"
Surely this includes standards of value other than the furtherance of the self?
How do you (Objectivists) refute this contradiction?
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