Objectivism

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Objectivism (Latin ob- out of and iacio I am throwing, and Greek -ισμος or -ismos the doing of a thing) is a school of philosophy that holds that things in the natural world exist independently of anyone's perception of them or efforts (or lack of effort) to understand them. Objectivism also holds that nothing is provably real that one cannot demonstrate independently of one person's percept of it.

History of Objectivism

Objectivism as a formal discipline began with Ayn Rand, a Russian-born émigrée to the United States. Rand had no formal training in philosophy, but in her work showed more than a passing familiarity with the great philosophers of ancient Western civilization. The only ancient philosopher for whom she had any respect at all was Aristotle.

By far the most complete expression of Objectivism in a single volume is in her novel, Atlas Shrugged. However, her philosophy found expression in innumerable essays, which she published in a number of newsletters and magazines that she edited from time to time: The Objectivist Newsletter, The Objectivist, and The Ayn Rand Letter.

Since her death in 1982, other students of hers, most notably Leonard Peikoff, have tried to carry on her work. Whether they have enjoyed any success is a debatable question. For better or worse, the history of Objectivism is largely the history of Ayn Rand herself, and by the time she died, the name Objectivism was known chiefly to her admirers and to readers of her works.

The Fundamental Tenets of Objectivism

Objectivism attempts to be a "unified theory of everything worth thinking about." As such it addresses prominent issues in metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, politics, and esthetics.

The Central Axiom and its Corollaries

Objectivism starts with a simple axiom: existence exists. To grasp that axiom is to realize two other, corollary axioms:

  1. Something exists that someone perceives.
  2. Someone exists who possesses consciousness, which is the faculty of perceiving what exists.

Metaphysical Axioms and Theorems

Objectivism continues with a number of other corollaries:

  1. A is A. This is also known as the Law of Identity and is quite similar to a similar law in formal logic. But more than that, the Law of Identity holds that A has certain properties, or attributes, that distinguish it incontrovertibly from B or C. If a thing has no attributes, then it is a nonentity--it does not and cannot exist.
  2. Consciousness exists--the Law of Consciousness. But consciousness implies something independent of consciousness. What one perceives, one does not invent--and furthermore, a thing exists whether one perceives it or not.

From these axioms, several theorems necessarily follow, among them the Law of Non-Contradiction. Aristotle stated it thus: "the same attribute cannot at the same time belong and not belong to the same subject in the same respect." Objectivism states it more simply: contradictions do not exist. Therefore, if one encounters a contradiction, one should check the assumptions he has made, because at least one of them is false.

Epistemology

Epistemology (from Greek words roughly meaning "the word stands on something") deals with what a human being knows and how he knows it. Objectivism states that perception is only the beginning. Perception is sensation extended over time, and perception becomes knowledge only through measurement. On the other hand, one forms a concept of something by developing a list of attributes without the measurements of them. Apply the measurements, and instead of a concept one has an object that fits the concept.

One important result of pure Objectivism is that what one cannot perceive, one cannot know--and what no one has perceived, no one need admit the existence of. Indeed, according to Branden,
(A)ny form of irrationalism, supernaturalism, or mysticism, (and) any claim to a nonsensory, nonrational form of knowledge, is to be rejected.

This includes God, a Concept that almost no Objectivist has ever accepted. This might be Objectivism's greatest weakness: that it will not admit that which one cannot perceive directly, but which has affected something else that one perceives, and that in a measurable way.

Ethics

Ethics is about values. What is value? From Atlas Shrugged:
"Value" is what one acts to gain and/or keep; "virtue" is how one acts to gain or keep it.
The central contribution of Objectivism to ethics is the definition of morality. Again from Atlas Shrugged:
"Value" presupposes an answer to the question, "Of value to whom, and to what?" "Value" presupposes a standard...A code of values accepted by choice is a code of morality.

Objectivism then declares that the only moral code proper to man has man's life as its standard of value. Rand, Peikoff, and other students of Objectivism have always drawn a stark contrast between this standard and the standard of those they regarded as their opponents: "the greatest good for the greatest number."

But this does not mean that Objectivism extols what most people mean by selfishness. Objectivism regards that sort of "selfishness" as shortsighted and non-rational. Objectivism requires that a person choose to be rational in his thinking, and should work to enhance his self-interest after determining what that interest is after rational and logical analysis.

Objectivism makes at least two definitions that non-adherents might find harsh and symptomatic of overgeneralization:

  1. "Sacrifice" is the giving away of a greater value in favor of a lesser value or a non-value.
  2. "Altruism" is sacrifice, as defined above, for the sake of persons other than oneself.

Actually, what Objectivism calls sacrifice, other schools of philosophy call waste. Sacrifice, according to these other schools, is actually the giving of a great value for another, still greater value. Furthermore, the definition of altruism implies that no man should be obliged, let alone forced, to care or act for the sake of other people.

Indeed, in only one context does Objectivism itself lay any obligation on its adherents to act for the sake of another, and that is in an emergency--which Objectivism defines as an immediate life-threatening casualty event or condition.

Rand, Peikoff, and other adherents to Objectivism held that their greatest objection was to the use of force in social relationships. This leads directly to the Objectivist theory of politics.

Politics

Politics (from the Greek πολις a city, from the organization of Greek civilization around independent city-states) is the philosophy of government--the need for it, its proper sphere, and the obligations of its subjects. The central axiom of Objectivist politics is that
Force is permissible only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use.

This is the Law of Retaliation, or Lex talionis in Latin.

Thus a government ought not compel charity--and in this context, compulsion is the application of force to induce another person toward an action he might not otherwise take. Nor should the government compel anyone to associate with those with whom he would prefer not to associate. Freedom of association is very important in Objectivist politics.

Objectivism holds that an individual has a fundamental right to life--but this "right to life" means the right to live one's life as his self-interest dictates, not the right to expect someone else either to protect his life or to guarantee his survival.

From these principles, the only economic system with which Objectivism has any sympathy is capitalism, with its emphasis on the rights of the individual. Objectivism rejects the welfare state as an improper exercise of the government's police power. However, Objectivism also holds that the government ought to reserve to itself the exercise of force, when necessary, in retaliation against the initiators of force. As a repeated theme in Rand's novels and essays, a government ought to confine itself to three major functions:

  1. The police power--to protect against criminals.
  2. The military power--to protect against invasion from without.
  3. The judiciary--to protect contracts from breach or fraud, and to provide a forum for the settlement of disputes without resort to force.

From the above, one may conclude that Objectivism rejects the code duello as an improper feature of society, and even as an attribute of anarchy.

However, Rand herself advocated many things the support for which, from a strict read of Objectivism, is doubtful. She repeatedly stated, in a number of essays and in at least one magazine interview, that
Just as the United States had the right to invade Nazi Germany, so the United States has the right to invade Soviet Russia or any other slave pen.
She justified this aggressive foreign policy stance by drawing up a set of four evil policies that, if any country engaged in all of the same, would make it liable for invasion by a society that did not do these things:
  1. Execution without a proper, fair trial
  2. Detention without charge
  3. Denial of the right of dissatisfied subjects to emigrate
  4. Censorship

By "censorship" Rand meant not only restrictions on political speech, but in fact any restriction on any form of artistic expression--even on forms of expression that she explicitly despised and suggested that any rational being would despise.

By her theory, then, if people were at least free to leave a society that executed people without trial, then if they did not leave, no country ought to be obliged to relieve their suffering by invasion. But if they could not leave, then their country would be liable for invasion, because they could not rationally help themselves. The freedom of emigration follows from the freedom of association.

Of course, any country that invades or otherwise attacks another, either directly or through surrogates, lays itself open to a counterinvasion by the country so attacked. This follows from the principle of the Law of Retaliation defined above.

Esthetics

Art, according to Objectivism, serves a need to allow man to perceive directly that which normally he can only conceive. Art, in short, makes things real. An artist is any person who presents abstract concepts in concrete ways.

Objectivism's take on art is simple: art should uplift, and present uplifting things. The favorite school of art among students of Objectivism is Romantic realism, the name that Rand gave to a school of art that emphasizes human reason and ideals and primarily portrays people striving to do great deeds, rather than suffering great disasters--in short, being proactive rather than reactive. Good art, in other words, celebrates that which Objectivism itself celebrates: the ideal rational man.

Certain forms of expression receive nothing but scorn from adherents of Objectivism. One is pornography, which Rand herself said was "unspeakably disgusting," and
not because sex is bad, but precisely because it is good--too good, and too important, to be the subject of a public anatomical display.

Another is any form of art that emphasizes emotion over reason, and especially anything that divorces emotion from reason. Similarly, Objectivism decries any form of art that shows human beings being reactive and slaves to emotion.

Controversies

Nathaniel Branden, Rand's closest-ever associate and confidant, set forth in 1984 a number of defects in Objectivist philosophy, or at least Rand's theory and practice of it:

  1. A tendency to confuse "reason" with "the reasonable," essentially a problem in informal logic.
  2. The encouragement of its students to repress all emotion as somehow unworthy, all in the name of being proactive rather than reactive.
  3. A tendency toward "moralizing," or condemning others for not adhering to a strict emotional discipline.
  4. The conflation of "sacrifice" with benevolence.
  5. Emphasizing philosophical premises to an unhealthy degree, leading to an often unwarranted judgment of character by the criterion of belief.
  6. A dogmatic, inflexible approach to philosophy and its various disciplines, leading to the inability to forgive a mistake in philosophical formulation or application.

In this last context, Branden specifically decried Rand's conclusion that "no woman should aspire to be President of the United States." Rand did say that, and her justification of that stance flowed directly, oddly enough, from her theory of sex.

Can Objectivism develop further?

This question is debatable. Many students of Objectivism are not likely to admit that Ayn Rand's original system had any flaws. Branden, of course, asserted that Objectivism was flawed, but was not prepared to reject it entirely. He still found its emphasis on logic and of an independent reality important and beneficial.

Objectivism's chief limitation appears to be the unwillingness of its adherents and formulators to consider that anything might exist outside of perceptual reality, that might nevertheless influence that reality. This either led to, or followed from, the atheism that is one of this school's most prominent attributes. Branden reports one interesting interaction, however: Rand was not willing to accept the theory of evolution as more than an hypothesis. She couldn't accept creation, but evolution discomfited her nevertheless--perhaps because it blurred the distinction between man and animal.

References

See Also

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