San Diego Objectivist Study Group

A fruitful dialog began from a potential mistake of identity:

> Well, it’s a good thing I did not get up to make a fool
> of myself on that evening …

Imagine you did approach the person in question and assume him to be me, only to learn moments later that it was not me. Why do people feel so uncomfortable and/or embarrassed when they mistake someone’s identity? Have we been trained by society to be embarrassed in these situations, or is it a natural response? Are other primates or mammals capable of feeling embarrassment in general? What emotions require reason? Certainly fear does not require reason, but I think embarrassment does. Also betrayal, guilt, and the joy of accomplishing something difficult all require reason; hence animals cannot feel those higher emotions. Or can they? I don’t know.

Emotions are humanistic. What brutes experience may be said to be similar to a primitive form of emotion, but it is not emotion. Emotions are products of ideas; without them, we don’t emote. Like sensations, emotions are states of consciousness, but while the former are experienced causally by the direct stimulation of the object, the latter are experienced causally by both the object and its intellectual estimate. Watch enough America’s Funniest Videos, and you will see that toddlers begin with no fear of anything: they will put crickets in their mouths; they will swing snakes like ropes; they will crawl into the path of black cats.

Let’s suppose embarrassment is the emotion from seeing ineptitude in oneself in a public setting. I would feel embarrassed if, thinking myself to be refined in sartorial elegance, I showed up on a date with mismatched socks. In the same circumstance, I would not feel at all embarrassed if I thought elegance comes from refined control of one’s movements, but would instead if I picked up a glass and spilled its content.

On starting to read again for tomorrow’s meeting Chapter 6 “What Is Romanticism?”, I found something new (at least new for me) concerning the Objectivist ethics, a cognitive connection I hadn’t made before about the relationship between goal and action (or value and virtue). [TRM 100a] A value isn’t yet a value unless it is pursued or maintained. It is not one unless it is committed.

The implication is that the concept “commitment” in the realm of ethics is like the concept “truth” in the realm of epistemology. A proposition isn’t really knowledge but mere dogma unless the cognizer processes it, integrates it first-hand from evidence, and judges and accepts it to be true. Without doing this, a man may pay lip service to some thesis, but he really doesn’t have it as a conviction, as something he has personally proven consciously. In exactly the same way, a man really hasn’t made a choice (e.g., a choice to lose weight, to learn a new language, etc.) unless he puts it into action. To choose is to value; but to value is to act to gain and/or keep it, which entails reducing a value to goals and intermediate goals, and translating action plans to priorities, schedules, and actual existential activities. Without doing this, he may pay lip service to some ideal, but he really doesn’t have it as a goal, as something he is personally to act on in his daily life.

Just as the epistemological relation of proposition to objective fact is truth, so the ethical relation between conscious choice and existential action is commitment. In simple, practical terms, just as discovering a truth is a cognitive achievement, so making a commitment is a moral achievement. And what of it really? Only that life is all about achievements.

To all those who show up at our biweekly meetings, know that I appreciate your commitment.

A prior discussion generated a new question: When can something be said to be arbitrary?

Arbitrariness is a relationship between the person who has to make a judgment and that which is stated or presented by someone else. More broadly, it is a relationship between the receiver and the message.

Before this relationship can be elaborated, it is necessary to understand specifically what may be at one end of this relationship: the statement.

A “statement” is a sentence being used for communication. For contrast, a “thought” (also known in logic as a “proposition”) is a unit of reasoning in one’s mind and is expressible as a sentence. For the purpose of this discussion, “communication” is any physical process of mind-to-mind exchange of thoughts.

No thought is meaningless, but some statements are—to others, especially if they are in another language. No thought can be misconstrued, but some statements can be—again, by others. You have a thought, but I have only your (communicated) statement.

Both thought and statement rely on the linguistic vehicle: the sentence. A “sentence” is a grammatically constructed series of words capable of conveying an intended meaning, in this case, a unit of reasoning. In using words in an understood language, there is the risk the structure may still be meaningless: 1) the series of words is not grammatical; 2) certain individual “words” themselves may lack meaning; 3) the words in compound usage don’t convey valid concepts; 4) the whole grammatical structure fails to refer to intended objects. Until the linguistic vehicle has meaningful content, it is not a sentence usable in thought and speech.

Before a meaningful statement go on into the mind of the receiver to be thought of and judged as either true or false, it must pass through the evidentiary threshold. Because knowledge is contextual, any true thought in the mind must be connected logically to a context of other true propositions and concepts, grounding the thought all the way to perceptual data. This context constitutes the full evidence for concluding the proposition to be true. A proposition divorced of its context is not knowledge.

That said, a statement delivered without the means to acquire the evidence to support it, is arbitrary and should be dismissed from one’s consideration.

Why must this be the case? Consciousness is always a consciousness of something. A higher-level awareness, such as a judgment, requires no less and must have an object. Thus, every objective judgment must either be self-evident or inferential toward the evidence. A judgment without its links—its context—to the evidence, is like a perceptual awareness without the object, which is a contradiction in terms. Therefore, a valid thought in my mind is one having been justified from my having the evidence.

A statement (i.e., a reported proposition), in relation to my judgment of it, is arbitrary if [1] the opiner provides no evidence (or cannot provide any) when asked, and [2] I can find no plausible means to obtain it otherwise.

If, in a specialized domain, I accept the statement as true on the opiner’s say so, on his credibility, he must have passed two conditions: [1] he knows the truth, and [2] he is objective in telling it. (Credibility applies only in specialized domains.)

But if, in a generalized domain or if otherwise, I accept it without asking for evidence, then my emotion has taken the place of evidence for its acceptance, an acceptance on faith, and its epistemological status is not knowledge but dogma.

Statuses of Statements in relation to Receiver

Arbitraries (sender’s or opiner’s fault):
— “Polly want a cracker.”
— “A man can swim leisurely in the sun’s hydrogen plasma.”
— “X has dice in his hand.” — if he is handless or unwilling to open his hand

Not arbitraries (sender’s or opiner’s credit):
— “X has dice in his hand.” — if he is willing to supply evidence

Statuses of Thoughts in relation to Believer

Dogmata (receiver’s or believer’s fault):
— “X has dice in his hand.” — though X is willing, I don’t ask
— “X has dice in his hand.” — regardless of any evidence, I believe

Knowledge (receiver’s or believer’s credit):
— “X has dice in his hand.” — if I have gotten positive evidence

“Is a miniature bonsai tree a work of art?” This is one of the questions to be posed at a meeting discussing Chapter 4 of The Romantic Manifesto, “Art and Cognition.” If you have read this chapter, what is your answer?

Mine is that it is an ornamental decoration for the interior of a house. As such, it is not art. Sure, it is a selective re-creation, one that takes a living tree as a medium and slowly transforms it into a man-made object; however, there is not a conceptual relationship to any of the cognitive faculties: it still appears as a tree to the eye and to the touch. In the same way that a beautiful garden is not a work of art, this indoor miniature garden is not art; it’s a tree in a pot.

An observer asked recently:

I want to bounce an idea off of you: I got into a debate recently with someone who claimed that nothing is impossible unless you’re talking about man-made systems with man-made rules.

I mentioned “It is impossible to find a number X such that X is simultaneously less than 2 and greater than 3.”

He said “Mathematical numbers are man-made concepts and as such do not apply to my claim that ‘nothing is impossible.”

“Is it possible for a person to jump so high that he accelerates to Mach 50,000 and crashes into the moon? Is it possible for a human to be alive while swiming inside the sun’s 10,000 degree hydrogen plasma for three hours?”

He said “There may be alien technology that will enable a person to do that.”

I’m not sure how to prove to him that some things are impossible. Of course that is just a premise of mine… or more of an axiom I guess: The idea that some things are impossible.

The terms “possibility,” “probability,” and “certainty” (as well their complements) are concepts dealing with the quantitative and qualitative levels of evidence for the truth of a conclusion. Where there is no evidence, the assertion is plainly arbitrary; it would be as if the person saying it just jumbled a group of sounds together. Only when there is some evidence to its plausibility is there then the possibility of a conclusion’s truth. The probability that something is true depends on the logical strength of the argument for it—which further depends on a lot more relevant evidence. And when the level of evidence is overwhelmingly abundant for it, as well as negating all other alternatives, then the conclusion is contextually certain—certain to the extent of the available human knowledge. And as for the complement at issue, when you have certainty of the truth of a conclusion, then both its contradictory and contrary positions are impossible. For example, when you are certain 2+2=4 , then 2+2=5 is impossible. When you know for certain that something is A, then it’s impossible for it to be nonA.

Your opponent in the debate was wrong both in the scope of the man-made and in the rules by which they’re made. Actually, had he understood the concept “concept” at all, he would have realized that all concepts are man-made, not just mathematical concepts. A concept is a mental integration of two or more units that are volitionally isolated from others on the basis of their common characteristics. In cases of higher-level concepts, the units of integration are other lower-level concepts. Only in cases of first-level concepts are the units actually the perceptually given, those perceptual data of existents that are sent automatically by man’s senses. That is, although percepts are metaphysically given to man by physiological processes, all concepts are totally man-made by volitional processes. Your opponent’s very claim depends on man-made concepts for every word he uttered; on the face of it, it suffers from the fallacy of self-exclusion.

Secondly, the “rules” for making concepts are not man-made but metaphysically causal, because the common characteristics are to be found in the very nature of the units isolated. And they are what they are, independent of any one’s feelings about them. In the same way, man’s mind is what it is; if he chooses to identify an abstraction of reality by means of the given, he has to form it causally in accordance both to the nature of the things out there and to the nature of his reasoning faculty. Therefore, if it is to be a valid concept, there just isn’t any leeway for any arbitrary human rule in the concept-formation process, even if it is a totally volitional cognitive process. In forming knowledge of reality of what’s possible or impossible, man must be on his best behavior—nature to be commanded must be obeyed.

Finally and procedurally, you do not need to disprove a claim. If someone wishes to assert a claim, he has to provide the evidence for his conclusion. If he fails to provide a proof—a series of logical relations linking the conclusion to the evidence—then you have no obligation to accept it. Anyone can make a claim; indeed, everyone can claim he has a right to his opinions. But that’s just it. An opinion by definition is someone else’s judgment whose reported proposition and truth you yourself have neither judged on nor endorsed, from the evidence. A rational man, if he is courteous, might ask, where is the evidence?

Is it meaningful to say that our concepts are in our minds–my concepts in mine, yours in yours, etc.–and that my concept of whatever I’m talking about has nothing to do with any of your concepts? And given whichever being the case, what happens to the subjective-intrinsic thesis, that a concept is not in a mind, but neither is it in reality?

In discussing concepts, we have to be cognizant of two important terms: “product” and “content.”

When you observe concrete existents, and if you choose actively to focus on their similarities and differences, then you act to understand more about them; that is to say, you choose to abstract from your perception. The volitional cognitive action by your mind, when successful, enables you to become aware of reality in a more abstract and universal perspective. You become aware of a category of existents which may be various in variety (abstract) and numerous in quantity (universal).

The awareness from this cognitive action is very temporary and tenuous. It ceases when the action is disrupted, as when your mind is occupied with other actions. But unlike the experience of perception whose percept is also transient and in the moment, you have the ability to retain this awareness.

At this volitional, conscious level, the what that you are aware of is the content. The action that enables you to be aware of it, is abstraction. And the one-time action to retain the awareness of the content beyond the present moment over time, is concept-formation.

The product of cognition is the way/method/means/instrument of retaining the resulting object of conceptual-level cognition; i.e., the receipt or resulting byproduct of [1] detaching the content of a cognitive action (e.g., the category or the type of existents) [i.e., the objective content] as a content of a cognitive action occurring at a specific moment, and [2] retaining it as a cognitive content over time [ITOE 256-258].

So, is a concept a product or a content? In one context, it is a product of your action. In another, it is the content that you are aware of.

From an internal perspective, the one-time action of concept-formation, if valid, yields once and for all a product, a concept. This is a private achievement by the conscious mind doing the action. Before having the product, you would have had to perform the elaborate process of abstraction every time you want to identify some category of existents. Thereafter, you merely have to call up to consciousness the product, a mental unit [ITOE 256-257], and, voilà, you become aware of the abstract and universal category of existents. This is the context in which the concept is a product: a new instrument of consciousness that is exclusively yours to enable your willful, conceptual awareness of reality.

From another perspective, reality exists independently of you and me the knowers–this is the thesis of epistemological realism, or, simply, the primacy of existence. My or your awareness of reality does not change reality one bit. So in the same way that you and I may see perceptually the same glass vase on the table, we may each be aware of one and the same concept as a cognitive structure defined by its content of reality.

To put it in another way, while our actions of awareness may be individual, separate, private, and unique, we can become aware of the same abstract and universal category of existents; that is to say, we can come to share the same concept. You may form this concept of cars, for instance, and index it internally (and instrumentally) as “car” while I index it as “voiture”; but the concept as the content of which we are both aware, is the very same. We are, as it were, on the same page, on the same wavelength, etc.

Therefore, whenever we want to talk carefully about a concept, we have to make a further distinction. Are we talking about the concept as a product of the one-time concept-formation action? Or are we talking about the concept as some content of awareness that all men can come to discover individually? In the first sense, a concept is indeed in the head; but in the second sense, a concept is out there.

How out there is it? A concept is out there objectively–just not really, really out there. After all, only concrete things exists ontologically. The abstract and universal categories of things only appear to us through conscious, volitional, cognitive actions, and remain eternally for us only through further cognitive (and linguistic) actions.

Concepts are neither subjective nor intrinsic; they are objective. Objectivity in this sense means [1] the categories are based on similarities and differences that do exist independently of us, in the concrete things themselves; and [2] we act to abtract these similarities and differences in accordance to the nature of our conscious faculties.

My interpretation of Ayn Rand’s new conception of egoism: (excerpted from a longer post elsewhere)

• moral code: [code of values:] a set of abstract principles serving as a system of teleological measurement which grades the choices and actions open to man, according to the degree to which they achieve or frustrate the code’s standard of value–whether that standard be life qua man, life qua brute, or pleasure, or death.
• egoism: the moral code that a man’s existence is his to live and enjoy and that rationality is his highest virtue.
• altruism: the moral code that a man’s existence is to serve other men and that sacrifice is his highest virtue.
• rationality: the use of reason as the only means for acquiring knowledge and guiding one’s actions.
• sacrifice: the giving up of a higher value for the sake of a lower value.
• volition: a capacity of man for choosing to think or not.
• reason: the faculty of consciousness that a human must choose volitionally to activate in order to think.
• self: the faculty of reason in the context of choosing to evaluate.
• mind: the faculty of reason in the context of choosing to act.
• nonvolitional action: an animalistic nonrational action.
• volitionless action: a man’s action without volition in the presence of coercion or interference from other men.
• volitional action: a human action with volition in the absence of coercion and interference from other men.
• freedom: the absence of coercion and interference from other men (a.k.a. liberty:).
• A reflex action is nonmotivated by any conscious self (e.g., digestion, hiccup).
• An animal action is motivated 100 percent by self-interest.
  • In a situation without freedom,
    • A coerced man has no choice but to act nonselfishly (without the self).
    • A tyrant acts selflessly or unselfishly (against the self).
  • In a situation with freedom,
    • A rational man acts selfishly (pro self, with the assent of the conceptual mind).
    • An irrational man acts selflessly or unselfishly (against the self).
    • A rational but erroneous man acts selflessly (mistakenly against the self).
• self-interest: that which relates to the means for gaining or keeping one’s values.
  • selfishness: a concern for one’s volitional rational self-interest.
  • selflessness: a concern for one’s volitional irrational self-interest (a.k.a. unselfishness:).
  • nonselfishness: a concern for one’s volitionless nonrational self-interest.
• egoist: one who values his mind, respects its judgments, and respects its nature (e.g., fragility).
• non-egoist: one who disvalues his mind, disrespects its volitional nature, and elevates irrational emotions and desires above rational judgments.
  • hedonist: a non-egoist who takes pleasure as the standard of value.
  • altruist: a non-egoist who takes selflessness as the standard of value.
    • second-hander: an altruist who depends on the minds of others and sacrifices his life to them.
    • power-luster: an altruist who depends on the minds of others and sacrifices their lives to him.

On Rand’s conception, a rational man acts selfishly. An irrational man acts unselfishly [or selflessly].

Notes to readers: So far as I can discern, Ayn Rand uses the term “meaning” to stand for two closely related concepts in Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology (ITOE). They are used together at the beginning of Chapter 5 “Definitions.”

meaning:¹ a designation of a concrete visual-auditory symbol to a conceptual abstraction, which when mentally imposed on the former turns it into a word and the latter into a concept. (based on ITOE 20a, 40b)

meaning:² a mental designation of a conceptual abstraction to its units of existents, which when mentally integrated into the former become its referents. (based on ITOE 40b)

• “Meaning” in the first sense is a psycho-epistemological relationship between the physical and the mental, relating visual-auditory symbols to conceptual abstractions, naming the respective relata as words and concepts.
• “Meaning” in the second sense is a one-to-many relationship, an epistemological relationship between consciousness and reality, relating concepts to referents.
• The second meaning shows clearly how Ayn Rand distinguishes her theory of universals [1] from the nominalists, who reject the existence of concepts; [2] from the conceptualists, who take the relation “meaning” to point to inner mental ideas (e.g., John Locke’s representationalism); [3] from the extreme realists, who point to objects of another realm; and [4] from moderate realists, who point to intrinsic existents with a common metaphysical essence intrinsic metaphysical essences shared in common among concretes.

When someone asks “What does the word ZA01 mean?” we should take the question to presume that ZA01 is a word and that the questioner is really asking for the definition of the abstraction that goes with the visual-auditory symbol ZA01. The questioner is actually not using the word but is merely mentioning it in the question. The meaning of “meaning” in this question is the first.

When someone asks for another someone to illustrate or concretize an idea with an example, we should take the request to presume that the particular idea is some concept unfamiliar to the questioner and that the questioner is really asking for not the definition of the abstraction but the referents of the concept. The questioner is using words to express the concept meant¹ in order to request its meaning².

Applied ethics concerns your actually living your life; it concerns the actuality of living a concrete, specific life. You can study ethics as much or as little as you want, but in the end it is you who has to choose whether you live your life, and if so what kind of life you choose to live.

From my perspective, I see applied ethics, or moral living, as having three phases: 1) choosing the correct standard, 2) choosing and ranking values, and 3) pursuing values. The most difficult phase is the last. (By “phase” I do not mean simply a temporal duration, in which one succeeds another, because all phases occur iteratively simultaneously; nor do I mean a process that may be optional for some or may be skipped without consequence. I mean strictly a certain layer of analysis in decision making toward the purpose of living. Every action in life however significant involves these layered considerations.) These phases of applied ethics need elaboration and concretization. But before doing so, I will first locate the literature and identify the terms for understanding.

Among the Objectivist literature so far examined, Ayn Rand makes a passing mention of the three phases altogether, but only doing so in her work on epistemology:

A moral code is a set of abstract principles; to practice it, an individual must translate it into the appropriate concretes—he must choose the particular goals and values which he is to pursue. This requires that he define his particular hierarchy of values, in the order of their importance, and that he act accordingly. Thus all his actions have to be guided by a process of teleological measurement. (The degree of uncertainty and contradictions in a man’s hierarchy of values is the degree to which he will be unable to perform such measurements and will fail in his attempts at value calculations or at purposeful action.) [ITOE 33b]

Elsewhere, about the first two phases, Rand writes: ” ‘That which is required for the survival of man qua man’ is an abstract principle [a standard] that applies to every individual man. The task of applying this principle to a concrete, specific purpose—the purpose of living a life proper to a rational being—belongs to every individual man [forming a hierarchy], and the life he has to live is his own.” (TVOS 27b) It is in the third phase that volitionally rational beings need to acquire virtues in order to avoid acting immorally. In particular, Rand advises that egoists cultivate the cardinal virtues of rationality, productiveness, and pride. (TVOS 27d)

In studying “The Objectivist Ethics,” I find it helpful to pay special attention to certain of Ayn Rand’s technical concepts:

hierarchy: [pertaining to concepts of evaluation] a teleological measurement in the psychological processes of evaluation identifying the ordinal ranking in accordance to a generic standard that serves to establish a graded relationship of means to end. ( ITOE 32d-33a)
moral code: [or in TVOS, code of values:] a set of abstract principles [serving as] a system of teleological measurement which grades the choices and actions open to man, according to the degree to which they achieve or frustrate the code’s standard of value. (ITOE 33a)
standard: an abstract principle that serves as a measurement or gauge to guide a man’s choices in the achievement of a concrete, specific purpose. (TVOS 27b)
standard of value: 1. a normative end toward which man’s actions are the means. ( ITOE 33a-b) 2. the standard by which one judges what is good or evil. (TVOS 25a)
good: that which is proper to the life of a rational being, given that reason is man’s basic means of survival. (TVOS 25a)
evil: that which negates, opposes, or destroys the life of a rational being, given that reason is man’s basic means of survival. (TVOS 25a)
code of morality: a code of values accepted by choice—a moral code accepted by choice. (TVOS 25a)
hierarchy of values: a particular man’s translation of a moral code into the appropriate concretes—through his choices of the particular goals and values, in the order of their importance, which he is to pursue—such that he can practice the morality and can act accordingly. ( ITOE 33b)
ethics:¹ 1. a science devoted to the discovery of the proper methods of living one’s life. (ITOE 36c) 2. a science dealing with discovering and defining a code of values. (TVOS 13d)
ethics:² 1. a code of values to guide man’s choices and actions—the choices and actions that determine the purpose and the course of his life. (TVOS 13d) 2. an abstract, conceptual code of values and principles to guide man’s choices and actions. (TRM 145a)
ultimate value: the end in itself which is a man’s own life, if he chooses it. ( TVOS 27c)

And now, to the task of elaborating on the three phases:

If a man chooses to live, then he enters Phase 1 necessitating his choosing a standard of value. There are many standards from which to choose. He can choose to live like a vegetable, a fish, a brute animal, etc.; or he can choose to live in the manner of a man. Each is a legitimate standard of value.

Which one is the best standard for him? At this premoral level, can there be such a question? Yes, but the answer is a metaphysical one. In accordance to the laws of identity and of causality, a man should live in accordance to his nature. If a fish lives best as a fish (in water), then a man lives best as a man. Thus, the best or objective standard of value for a man is “man’s life, or: that which is required for man’s survival qua man.” Nevertheless, because man is a volitional being, he is free to choose whichever standard of value by which to live.

How will he personally decide which standard is the best for him? That is his personal problem, a problem not of ethics but of epistemology. But assuming that he does know how to decide and does decide to accept some standard of value, then an entire moral code opens up and is implied in that decision. And he enters Phase 2, choosing a hierarchy of values.

On entering Phase 2, a man is held morally by a code of morality—the particular moral code he accepted by his choice in the previous phase. From here on, any choice or action he makes can be judged as moral or immoral by the standard of value integrated in that code of morality. In this phase, one part of his task is to choose concrete things that can be of value to him. These are the things that will constitute the content of his life. Another part is to rank these things into a hierarchy of values.

Must he figure out what he wants in life? Yes, this task belongs to every man, by the nature of man. Man is born without innate concepts and talents. He has to determine which facts and values to hold. He can be mistaken with either.

Does he have to examine his life and fill out its content? No, he does not; he is free to fill it out or to leave it sparse, and the history of mankind shows that most men do not have examined lives. Whether he does much or does little, the result is a hierarchy of values, his own, for good or for evil.

Can’t others figure them out for him? Yes, that is his choice also as a volitional being. Many men have cookie-cutter lives. Whole nations have hierarchies of values preset, prearranged, from cradle to grave.

It is not an easy job, this lonely task of iteratively, recursively choosing values. Rand advises, “Teleological measurement has to be performed in and against an enormous context: it consists of establishing the relationship of a given choice to all the other possible choices and to one’s hierarchy of values.” (ITOE 33c)

So too the choice for hierarchy of values can be judged morally. A man’s hierarchy of values may be more or less correct, relative to the standard of value chosen. For example, if a standard calls for man to take reason as his only absolute; then if a particular man’s hierarchy places reason as a mere backup to faith, then his hierarchy of values is inappropriate by that standard.

With a starter-hierarchy of values, a man enters Phase 3, acting to gain and keep values. Prior phases involve choosing (i.e., acting mentally). This phase is all about acting (i.e., acting existentially); it is about the actual business of living one’s life, about experiencing the joys and sufferings of life.

A man always has the choice to revisit the prior phases. Indeed, every moment of his waking life involves making the choice to live, which entails affirming or denying the standard of value chosen in Phase 1.  And throughout his life, a man can revisit Phase 2 to re-order, re-rank, re-affirm, or replace his values. This too is a choice he can make, if he values his choices and purposes as such.

Does a man know how to act to pursue his values? Ethics is the science devoted to defining guidelines for choosing and for acting. Acting without some guidance of knowledge is evil. One example should illustrate the point.

Sacrifice is an act that presumes a prior knowledge of a hierarchy of values. Suppose, right or wrong, a mother values her baby higher than a bunny rabbit. Then, when while driving in a car with her infant, she veers off the road suddenly in order to avoid colliding a crossing bunny at the cost of crashing the vehicle and killing the baby, she is in effect surrendering a higher value, the baby, in exchange for a lower value, the rabbit. Relative to her particular hierarchy of values, she has made a sacrifice.

It is in the third phase that having knowledge and practice of the virtues become relevant to the life of the person. In particular, the possession of the virtue of integrity can help a man to avoid valuing one way but acting another. Its becoming second-nature would have helped the woman above to keep her value, the baby, from sacrifice.

Each code of morality encourages a distinct set of virtues, and, obversely, discourages a distinct set of vices on the standard of value integrated. Some virtues in one ethics become vices in another ethics, and vice versa. Pride as a virtue, for example, in the ethics where the standard of man is man, becomes a sinful vice in the ethics where the standard of man is a brute. And mercy as a vice in the rational ethics, becomes a virtue in traditional morality.

Regardless, if practiced virtuously in Phase 3, a man will achieve his standard of value, be it man qua man or man qua brute. And he will achieve his ultimate value, be it life or death. It all depends on his hierarchy of values that is chosen in Phase 2, which then depends on his standard of life that is chosen in Phase 1. Thus, by the causal nature of reality, a man achieves exactly what he deserves in Phase 3.

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Advocating for a rational standard of man’s life qua man, Ayn Rand writes, “Man must choose his actions, values, and goals by the standard of that which is proper to man—in order to achieve, maintain, fulfill, and enjoy that ultimate value, that end in itself, which is his own life.” (TVOS 27c) And on this standard, Rand advises that egoists choose as their cardinal values: reason, purpose, and self. Why only three? Three, because valuing presupposes knowing, which can err, and presupposes the answers to—of value to whom and for what? Why these? Simple: reason, because it is the means of survival; purpose, because it is the end of any action; and self, because as beneficiary of action, it must equal to the action in value. The rest is up to each person.

“Value” is a relational concept. For example, “daughter” is a relational concept. If I begot a child, and if the child were female, then she would be a daughter relative to me, and I a father relative to her. Of course, apart from me and our relationship, she would still be a human being, a primate, an omnivore, a biped, a rational being, etc. In the same way, certain concrete things (tangible or intangible) can become values relative to me or to anyone belonging to the species of man.

Objectively, there are four criteria a concrete thing has to meet before it can become a human value (relative to me, etc.):

1. It must be capable of filling a human need—the lack of which could degrade or even terminate human life. A need arises out of a human capacity, be it biological or psychological.
2. It must be recognized to have such capability—through a discovery of knowledge—by the person or persons. (Forcing something on someone for his own good, when he doesn’t know that it is really good for him, will not make it a value to him.)
3. It is something within the power and range of the person(s) to choose and to obtain.
4. It must be actively pursued by the person(s) to gain or keep.

(And in the economic realm [per George Reisman (pdf) CATOE 40c], 5. It requires productive effort to acquire and must be expended in the form of purchasing demand.)

What justifies these criteria? The justification is that values are objective (and not either subjective or intrinsic). The objective is that which is to be “determined by the nature of reality, but to be discovered by man’s mind.” [CTUI 23c] Criterion 1 is independent of my personal desire or subjective whim. The nature of being human entails certain biological and psychological conditions for proper survival qua man. Criterion 2 is an affirmation of my relationship to reality—that nothing is given for free, not even the knowledge of what I need to survive, namely, the standard of man’s survival. Nothing can be an intrinsic value without a knower knowing it. Maybe God knows. But then “God” does not exist. Maybe society knows. But then society is merely a number of individual men, each with his own knowing mind. Criterion 3 pertains to a knowledge of me as a valuer, of my hierarchy of values, of my purpose in life; just as the previous criterion pertains to a knowledge of concrete things as candidates (and constraints) for valuing. If I were born male, a career in motherhood would be beyond my range and would not be a value relative to me; and I should not waste time pining about it even in my dreams. Criterion 4 affirms the causal nature of free will—that I am my own cause in thinking, choosing, and acting—and that nothing is of value to me if it isn’t I who seeks to gain and keep it.

An analysis of valuation in practice is posted here, and a critique of intrinsic valuation is posted here.