| | Cal, Joel, and Wolf,
Before addressing your counter-points, I will quote Eric Mack on the matter -- as he busted the is/ought dichotomy sky-high in The Philosophic Thought of Ayn Rand (p 130-) ...
After an analogy involving aliens first becoming aware that humans have a strange-structure inside of them (hearts), and wondering what a "good" heart would be ...
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... the notion of function seems to be the natural bridge between is and ought. That things of a given kind have a particular function, that there is some need to which we must refer to explain the existence of things of this kind, is a factual matter. Whether things of a given kind have a particular function is a matter of how the world is. Yet if things of a given kind do have a particular function, then those things can be evaluated. We can judge whether this or that thing is as things of its kind ought to be.
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Since the function of a type of thing is the satisfaction of the need that explains it, the function of valuation is the satisfaction of the life needs of the valuing organism. We have, then, a standard for evaluating goal-directed activity. When that activity actually satisfies the life needs of an organism, it is good. As valuation it is fulfilling its function.
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Rather, it is simply a matter of our seeing valuation as a reflection of and response to the fundamental challenge that is posed for any living entity in virtue of its being a living being.
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In one respect, the analogy between hearts and human goal-directed activity may be misleading. Hearts characteristically fulfill their function. They have no choice in the matter. Hearts do, unfortunately, malfunction--but not through intellectual or moral error on their part. The same is true, according to Rand, of goal-directed activity by organisms below the human level. Such activity automatically tends toward the preservation of the acting organism (pp 18-19), although the mechanism of such activity can, of course, miscarry.
Thus, if in attempting to understand valuation, ethical theorists had focused upon goal-directed activity below the human level, they would have more readily concluded that the function of goal-directed activity was the satisfaction of the life needs of the acting organism. And, therefore, they would have tended to conclude that within any organism the satisfaction of its life needs is the criterion for evaluating its actions.
But in the context of human activity, an additional complication appears. Human action, according to Rand, is not programmed. We survive and prosper by choosing the best alternatives among the many avenues for action available to us. It is the freedom of choice in the case of human action that, according to Rand, makes the evaluation of these actions moral evaluation.
But this freedom of choice carries with it the possibility of choosing activities that are less than optimally life satisfying. This is especially true because of the great number and variety of cues that confront us--the sensorial pain or pleasure of an act, its many emotionally felt qualities, our anticipation of its consequences, its felt conformity with past or possible future actions, and so on.
Indeed, since we may guide our choices in particular situations by general rules or strategies about how to choose and since these rules or strategies may themselves not be optimally life satisfying, we may end up systematically acting in ways that frustrate life needs. Such actions may, at the same time, be thought of as enlightened and right. So, in the case of human goal-directed activity, we should not expect to arrive at a correct identification of its function simply by observing what characteristically results from human action.
Neither should we focus on existing opinion about what constitutes right action. In very traditional philosophical language, the point is that, because human beings have freedom of choice, the natural end of man's activity (that which fulfills its function) may be neither the characteristic nor the characteristically endorsed end of human action. This is not paradoxical. There is nothing inconceivable about such divergence between a natural (i.e., function-satisfying) end and a characteristic result.
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The sort of surface inspection and disorganized collection of data that results from not wondering why such things exist does not yield an adequate conception of hearts or an adequate standard for evaluating them. Rand claims that, in parallel fashion, ethical theorists have taken the existence of valuation for granted.
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... the presumption of the rhetorical question "Why does man need a code of values?" is that there is a genuine and valid need for some code of values, i.e., that there is some worthwhile end for the attainment of which guided action is necessary. Given this presumption, the rest of the argument follows quickly. If man's worthwhile goal were death, then no code of values would be needed, for inaction or mere random activity would be causally sufficient for death. Hence, death cannot be man's worthwhile goal. But there are only two fundamental alternatives, viz, death and life (OE, p. 15). So it must be life that is the goal worth being guided to.
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If there is human survival and subhuman survival, one's preference for the former must be in terms of the greater value of humanness over subhumanness. There is need to appeal to a principle--humanness is better than subhumanness--which is quite independent of the endorsement of survival.
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The argument for pleasure and satisfaction being constitutive of the ultimate good of beings capable of these experiences turns on the structure of the concept of benefit.
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... it is because the capacity for pleasure and pain introduces benefits and costs not previously present and these benefits and costs influence the behavior of the entities subject to them.
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But to say that the pleasure and/or the satisfaction work by being new benefits and that the pain and/or dissatisfaction work by being new costs is to go beyond the claim that the pleasure and/or the satisfaction are signs of life-preserving activity and that the pain and/or dissatisfaction are signs of life-hindering activity. It is to accept that the pleasure and/or satisfaction is a part of the good of the entity and that the pain and/or dissatisfaction is constitutive of disvalue for that entity.
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A standard and decisive philosophical criticism of hedonism is that if one had only a desire for happiness as a source of one's actions, one would achieve little happiness. Since happiness is the product of valued actions and achievements, before the actions or achievements can be valued for the happiness they bring, they must be valued on some independent basis. Only under such circumstances will they bring happiness.
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On the validation view, one is not directly concerned with the source of a desire but, rather, with the effects for one's life and well-being of affirming, fostering, and acting upon that desire.
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But at some point in each of these stories we must make reference to natural (i.e., nonpromulgated) desires, interests, capacities, and propensities that I have in common with all or most other people or that distinguish my personality and hopes from those of others.
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Alterations in my desires and interests that on net bring greater safety, riches, or more articulate harmonious experience to my life are to be sought. Passion that are self-destructive or that conflict with the satisfaction of more central goals are to be examined, modified, and, if necessary, overcome.
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For it seems that sometimes we do desire x, because we judge x right or good (and not merely as a means to something already desired). In such cases desire does seem to be based upon, derived from, (purportedly) rational judgment. For example, my judgment that a particular political crusade is right, may itself generate a desire for or interest in joining that crusade.
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Although the ultimate value for each person is his life and (we have argued) happiness, this does not mean that only the desire for life and happiness can be a proper motive. Instead, any desire, interest, or obsession--whether promulgated by reason or not--will be a proper motive if fostering and acting upon it furthers the life and happiness of the agent.
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If Rand the novelist is in this respect right about human nature, rationality and productivity can be welcomed into her ethical scheme--as traits to be valued for the life and happiness they bring.
Hmf!
Ed
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Every prescription is a description, since all statements about reality, including normative or ethical statements, are simply statements of fact - statements about what exists.
