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Objectivism is the philosophy of Ayn Rand. She characterizes it as a philosophy "for living on earth," grounded in reality, and aimed at facilitating knowledge of the natural world and harmonious, mutually beneficial interactions between human beings. One major theme of Objectivist philosophy is a focus on the potential of the individual human being. In Rand's own words:
- My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.1
In summary, Objectivism holds that "existence exists" separate from any conscious recognition of it, that human beings are conscious of this existence, using a process of reason to interpret and understand sensory data, that the proper moral purpose of one's life is to pursue one's own rational self-interest, and that the only moral social system is full laissez-faire capitalism with a minimal government limited to courts, police, and a military.
Objectivism derives its name from the conception of knowledge and values as "objective," rather than as "intrinsic" or "subjective." According to Rand, neither concepts nor values are "intrinsic" to external reality, but neither are they merely "subjective" (by which Rand means "arbitrary" or "created by [one's] feelings, desires, 'intuitions,' or whims"). Rather, properly formed concepts and values are objective in the sense that they meet the specific (cognitive and/or biocentric) needs of the individual human person. Valid concepts and values are, as she wrote, "determined by the nature of reality, but to be discovered by man's mind."
Objectivist tenets
Metaphysics: objective reality
The key tenets of the Objectivist metaphysics are (1) the Primacy of Existence, (2) the Law of Identity (Aristotle's "A is A"), and (3) the Axiom of Self-Consciousness. In addition, (4) the Law of Causality is a corollary of the Law of Identity. The Primacy of Existence states that reality (the universe, that which is) exists independently of human consciousness. The Law of Identity states that anything that exists is qualitatively determinate, that is, has a fixed, finite nature. The Axiom of Self-Consciousness is the proposition that one is conscious. The Law of Causality states that things act in accordance with their natures. These propositions are all held in Objectivism to be axiomatic. According to Objectivism, the proof of a proposition's being axiomatic is that it is both (a) self-evident and (b) cannot coherently be denied, because any argument against the proposition would have to suppose its truth.
The Primacy of Existence
The Primacy of Existence premise says that reality is objective: the universe exists independently of the particular psychological states (beliefs, desires, etc.) of individual cognizers. This view was also held by Aristotle. Objectivism distinguishes The Primacy of Existence from the Primacy of Consciousness (a view held by Plato, George Berkeley and G. W. F. Hegel). The Primacy of Consciousness holds that consciousness is prior to existence. It is the view that one could, in principle, be conscious exclusively and entirely of one's self. Objectivism rejects this view: it holds that objects present themselves to consciousness in such a way that they must be genuinely "other," that is, non-identical to one's own consciousness. This axiom is the basis of the Objectivist refutation of both theism and idealism. Though Objectivism grants that some particular existents are mental (e.g., minds, thoughts, desires, intentions), it holds that, if what fundamentally exists is independent of any consciousness, then the universe as a whole is neither the creation of a divine consciousness nor itself mental. (This argument is laid out in Chapter 1 of Leonard Peikoff's Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand).
The Law of Identity
The Law of Identity states that everything that exists has an identity. In saying this, Objectivism is asserting more than the tautology of self-identity (i.e., "everything is identical to itself"). It is asserting that everything that exists has a specific nature, consisting of various properties or characteristics (as Rand wrote, "to be is to be something in particular"). Moreover, Objectivism holds that the properties and characteristics in question must exist each in a specific measure or degree; in this respect "identity" also means finitude. According to Objectivism, then, everything that exists has a specific finite nature. To have a specific, finite nature, is incompatible with having a self-contradictory nature. Therefore, the whole of reality is noncontradictory; though contradictions might exist in thought, there are no contradictions in the real world.
The Axiom of Consciousness
This axiom amounts to the first-person judgment, "I am conscious" (each person can truthfully assert this for himself). For Rand, this fact is a corollary of the axiom of existence. She writes that "consciousness is conscious," affirming both that the thinker is conscious and that he is conscious of something external to himself. She writes, "If nothing exists, there can be no consciousness: a consciousness with nothing to be conscious of is a contradiction in terms" (Atlas Shrugged, p. 1015). Though the axiom of consciousness has antecedents (most famously in the thought of Descartes), Objectivism distinguishes itself by holding that the Primacy of Existence (see above) is co-fundamental with the axiom of self-consciousness, so that consciousness and its contents are no more certain or fundamental than mind-independent reality.
The Law of Causality
Each thing's specific nature determines how it acts. This principle is Objectivism's formulation of the Law of Causality; it is held to be a corrollary of the Law of Identity (see above). Contemporary philosophers define the Law of Causality differently, e.g., as "Every event has a cause." Objectivism rejects this contemporary definition because it leads to paradoxes concerning free will and cosmology. A further implication of the Objectivist account of causality concerns explanation: since genuine explanation is causal, nature can only be explained in terms of nature (i.e., without reference to the supernatural).
Mind and body
Another Objectivist doctrine deserves mention here: Objectivism rejects the mind-body dichotomy, holding that the mind and body are an integrated whole. Though this doctrine may sound like a stance in the philosophy of mind — a doctrine concerning the relationship between consciousness (mind) and brain (body) — it is not. Rather, it amounts chiefly to the assertions that (a) there are both mental existents and physical existents, and (b) existents of both sorts have genuine causal powers, though whether entities of either sort, or their causal powers, can be reductively explained is another matter. This doctrine represents a rejection of any forced choice between Marxian materialism and Christian spiritualism. Marxists hold that the material factors of production have metaphysical priority over consciousness. Christians hold that reality is fundamentally spiritual. Objectivism rejects both views: physical entities and mental entities both exist, and neither is more real than the other. Though this doctrine may entail the rejection of eliminativism, Objectivism does not offer any particular metaphysical or scientific explanation of the relationship between mind and body in the philosophy of mind. However, Harry Binswanger, a prominent Objectivist philosopher, argues in his lecture course, "The Metaphysics of Consciousness," in favor of substance dualism. He rejects not only eliminativism and materialism, but even the property dualism of David Chalmers and the emergentism of John Searle.
Epistemology: reason
Objectivism's epistemology, like the other branches of Objectivism, was present in some form ever since the publication of Atlas Shrugged. However, it was most fully explained in Rand's 1967 work Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology. Rand considered her epistemology central to her philosophy, once remarking, "I am not primarily an advocate of capitalism, but of egoism; and I am not primarily an advocate of egoism, but of reason. If one recognizes the supremacy of reason and applies it consistently, all the rest follows."
According to the Objectivist epistemology, through sensory perception and a process of reasoning, man can achieve absolute knowledge of his environment. Objectivism rejects skepticism. As a corollary, it also maintains that anything that is not learned by objective, rational means is not true knowledge, rejecting faith as a means of attaining knowledge.
From sensations to concepts
Sensory perception is considered axiomatically "valid" on the grounds that it is self-contradictory to deny the efficacy of the senses as sources of genuine knowledge. (Objectivism argues that such an assertion implicitly relies upon the validity of the senses, since the senses are the only possible source of the alleged knowledge of their invalidity.) Some animals other than human beings operate at the level of sensory perception and thus possess a measure of knowledge.
Sensation, or awareness of raw sensory data, counts as knowledge in a limited way. However, sensations as such are not retained by the mind and so cannot provide guidance beyond the present moment. Perception extends the awareness of the objects of sensation over time, a "percept" being a group of sensations that is automatically retained and integrated by the mind. Some animals can apprehend reality on a perceptual level, and humans definitely can.
Human beings are unique in possessing another, higher level of cognition: the conceptual level. According to Objectivism, the human mind apprehends reality through a process of reasoning based upon sensory observation, in which perceptual information is built up into concepts and propositions.
However, humans are not guaranteed to achieve this level of consciousness, instead possessing a "volitional consciousness", reaching the "conceptual level" only by an act of volition to which no one can be led or forced from the outside. All humans by definition have the potential to achieve the conceptual level, but some may fail to actualize this potential — and some may lapse from the conceptual level by practising evasion, by which is meant evasion of reason, a deliberate abandonment of the rational consciousness.
Any mind, human or nonhuman, can explicitly hold only so many perceptual units at a time. But the human mind is able to extend its knowledge over a wide range of space, time, and scope by organizing its perceptual information into classifications.
Concept formation
A concept is just such a classification: a mental "integration" of at least two existents that share a common attribute or set of attributes (perhaps in different measures or degrees), each of which is for this purpose regarded as a unit of the concept. Once a concept is formed, it is given a specific definition and assigned a word; thereafter, it can be treated almost as a perceptual object, containing (or otherwise linking to) a wealth of implicit knowledge that need not be held explicitly in consciousness.
These concepts are formed by means of "measurement omission". In order to form a concept, such as "table", from the various particular tables (concretes), one disregards differences of degree or measurement and considers only differences and similarities in kind. Once a concept is formed, it is defined by identifying its "essential" characteristic(s) — that is, the characteristic or characteristics on which, within the context in which the concept is being formed, the most other characteristics depend.
The reference to "context" here is crucial. Since every concept is formed in a specific context, every definition is therefore contextual. If concepts are properly formed, then even though additional knowledge may require changes to one's definitions, one's later definitions will not contradict one's earlier ones.
What is the role of reason in this process? Reason consists in forming concepts through the use of logic, what Objectivism defines as "the art of noncontradictory identification".
Objectivism denies that the proposition is the fundamental unit of knowledge, arguing instead that concepts themselves constitute the building blocks of knowledge. So, in their way, do percepts, which consist of the knowledge that something exists. Concepts, however, consist of knowledge of what exists.
Errors of concept formation
Not all supposed concepts represent genuine knowledge. In order to constitute knowledge, concepts must be formed validly, in accordance with certain non-arbitrary rules which must be adhered to if we wish to reach valid conclusions. These rules include the laws of identity, noncontradiction, and causality, as well as various principles intended to prevent pseudoconceptual groupings of entities that are not genuinely or relevantly similar.
Apparent concepts that are not formed in accordance with these rules or principles are considered "anti-concepts" and are said to represent failures of integration. A major concern of the Objectivist epistemology is the identification and avoidance of such "anti-concepts", which are regarded as mental monstrosities that do not succeed in referring to any external reality whatsoever. Objectivism also opposes what it calls "floating abstractions", or concepts formed without proper connection to their concrete foundations. In all cases, the application of "Rand's Razor" is warranted; this razor states that all concepts must be resolved into their irreducible primaries.
It is also an error to identify a concept too fully with one of its referents, i.e., to fail to generalize properly. In the Objectivist view, one who is thus "concrete-bound" (i.e. whose thinking is fixed at the level of concrete entities) is unable to use concepts properly. To be concrete-bound is to fail to achieve a fully conceptual consciousness.
Objectivism refers to any attempt to apply a concept outside its proper scope as "context-dropping". One form of context-dropping is considered a major and dangerous fallacy: the "fallacy of the stolen concept". The stolen concept fallacy consists of invoking a concept while denying the more fundamental concepts on which it depends. Much like the classical logical fallacy of "assuming what you are supposed to prove", the stolen concept fallacy is a fallacy of "assuming what you are supposed to disprove".
While many fallacies are mere errors worthy of no ethical attention, any deliberate commission of a rational error, or the deliberate refusal to abide by reason, is called "evasion" — evasion, that is, of reason. Evasion is considered grossly immoral by Objectivism, as it is a deliberate abdication of the capacities of the human person and a volitional desire to live at a subhuman level.
The analytic-synthetic dichotomy
Objectivism explicitly rejects the analytic-synthetic dichotomy. This dichotomy — which stems from the views of David Hume and Immanuel Kant — is the view that there is a fundamental distinction between statements that are true in virtue of meaning, alone, and statements whose truth depends upon something more (usually, upon the way the world is). Rand rejected the view that there is any such fundamental distinction, because she accepted that the meaning of a word is its referent, including that referent's every attribute. Consequently, any true proposition is in a way true in virtue of meaning, while its truth simultaneously depends upon the way the world is. In specific, Rand holds that the meaning of a non-singular term is the concept associated with that term, while this concept somehow includes or subsumes all the particulars of a given class, including all the attributes had by these particulars. Which particulars a concept subsumes, according to Rand, depends upon what the concept-coiner was discriminating from what when he or she formed the concept (this appears to be how Rand accomodates Gottlob Frege's insight that there are different "modes of presentation" of the same content). This view is a version of content externalism, similar in certain ways to the views of Hilary Putnam and Tyler Burge.
The analytic-synthetic dichotomy is intimately related to the distinction between a priori and a posteriori knowledge, as some philosophers believe that analytic truths are known a priori (i.e., they are justified independent of any experience), while synthetic truths are known a posteriori (i.e., they are justified in virtue of experience). Rand rejects the view that there is any a priori knowledge. All knowledge, she holds, including mathematical knowledge, is about the world (though possibly at some very high level of abstraction or quantization). Justification always terminates in the evidence of the senses.
The analytic-synthetic dichotomy is also related to the alleged distinction between necessary and contingent truths, i.e., the claims of a distinction between truths that could not have been otherwise and truths that could have been otherwise. Many contemporary philosophers believe that mathematical truths such as "2 + 2 = 4" are necessary (could not have been otherwise) while statements such as "There are nine planets in our solar system" are contingent (could have been otherwise). These notions of contingency and necessity have led many contemporary philosophers to elaborate metaphysical systems-building. In constrast, Objectivism holds that there is no distinction between necessary vs. contingent facts in the natural world (that is, all natural facts are necessary) and that the concept of "contingent" applies exclusively to the results of human choice (that is, there is a fundamental distinction between the metaphysical and the man-made). All facts hold in virtue of the natures or identities of the entities involved. Man-made facts hold in virtue of actions that were initiated by volitional beings ("I went to the grocery today" is a man-made fact, because I could have done otherwise). Metaphysical facts, by contrast, hold without reference to any action of a volitional consciousness.
Objectivism holds that, in a sense, all facts are "necessary": all knowledge is knowledge of identity, i.e., a statement that an entity (or aspect, potentiality, condition etc. of an entity) is what in fact it is. Many contemporary philosophers claim that, while the proposition "1 + 1 = 2" is "necessary" because true in all possible realities, the proposition "the atomic mass of hydrogen is 1" is "contingent" because it is not constant across possible worlds. Objectivism would reply that the second proposition is just as "necessary" as the first: if the atomic mass differed, the substance in question would not be hydrogen. Objectivism recognizes no legitimate meaning of "necessity" other than this one.
Additionally, Objectivism also accepts so-called "nomological" possibility and necessity. Statements of nomological possibility say that certain states-of-affairs are in accordance with natural reality in the sense that they reflect the potential of an entity to act in a certain way. For example, consider the propositions, "This glass could break" and "It could rain this weekend." These report truths, because they say that, it is in the nature of glasses that they can break (given the right circumstances) and similarly it is in the nature of the weather that it has the potential to produce rain. Objectivism analyzes counterfactuals, e.g., "If I had dropped this glass, it would break," in similar terms. Objectivism does not insist, as many contemporary philosophers do, that there must be some fact in another possible world for this proposition to correspond with, in order for it to be true. Objectivism also rejects the now-popular view that these nomological facts should be analyzed using a "possible worlds" framework that builds on a distinction between the necessary and the contingent.
The problem of universals
Objectivism offers the foregoing account as the solution of the problem of universals. This problem has throughout the history of philosophy been regarded as a problem of metaphysics, but Objectivism asserts that its proper resolution lies in epistemology. Traditional solutions to the problem divide generally into realism and nominalism. Objectivism regards the first as "intrinsicism" (the view that universals are "intrinsic" to reality) and the second as "subjectivism" (the view that universals are arbitrary creations of the human mind). The proper resolution, Objectivism says, is that universals are concepts, created to meet the unique cognitive needs of the human mind, but objective so long as they are validly formed.
Objectivism, classical rationalism, classical empiricism
There are many notable differences between Objectivist epistemology and classical rationalism. While a classical rationalist would defend a "thick" conception of reason that includes a priori knowledge and the grasp of relations of necessity, Objectivism defends a "thin" conception that denies the possibility of a priori knowledge, tends to treat the grasp of necessity as something akin to mystical insight, and relegates reason to the role of classifying and organizing the information provided by sensory perception.
This should all come as no surprise: though Rand described herself as "primarily an advocate of reason," she steadfastly rejected "intrincism," under which she included traditional rationalism. For Rand, reason processes the evidence of the senses and nothing else, since on the Objectivist view, all knowledge of any sort is reached either by perceptual observation or by a process of reasoning based on such observation. For traditional rationalists, such as Plato, Descartes, Leibniz, Malebranche, Gottlob Frege, and G.E. Moore, reason is a faculty that provides knowledge over and above the knowledge (if any) which comes through sensory perception. For such thinkers, reason is a kind of intuition by which one grasps facts not available through the senses — for example, logical truths (or, as in Plato's case, eternal Forms or Universals). Such thinkers have held (with significant variations) that the mind can in some manner directly comprehend or intuit some truths, especially those of mathematics and logic. Rand rejected this view: she thought that logic and mathematics were merely the most general sciences about empirical reality. In its acceptance of sensory perception as the sole means of knowledge (and also in its acceptance of the view that the human mind is a tabula rasa prior to sensory experience), Objectivism is firmly on the side of empiricism.
However, Rand ostensibly rejected classical empiricism at least as represented by e.g. Hume (and his modern logical positivist heirs, such as Rudolf Carnap and A. J. Ayer). These philosophers were denigrated by Rand as "subjectivists" on account of their acceptance of descriptivist or purely linguistic theories of meaning and reference and their concomitant failure, from the Objectivist point of view, to recognize an important role for concepts in the acquisition of knowledge. Rand held that such thinkers could not account for the full content of our concepts or the progress of science. (Rand also rejected a number of outlooks broadly associated with empiricism, e.g., eliminativist materialism, behaviorism, reductionism, the idea that physical phenomena are "more real" than biological or psychological phenomena, representationalist theories of perception, the distinction between truths that describe "matters of fact" and those that describe "relations among ideas", and emotivism in ethics.)
Rand sought to formulate an alternative to both of these traditions, similar in spirit to the programs of such philosophers as Aristotle, St. Thomas Aquinas, and John Locke. Each of these philosophers, like Rand, has a broadly empiricist tenor (and Locke in particular is generally regarded as an empiricist), but each of them, in his way, assigns reason a significant positive role in dealing with sensory information. In this respect, Objectivism, though "empiricist" in the strictest sense, seeks to give reason its due as well.
Ethics: rational self-interest
Metaethics
Objectivism defines an "ethic" as a code of values to guide the choices and actions of human beings, where a "value" is anything which a living organism acts to gain and/or keep. The Objectivist ethic begins with a meta-ethical question: why do human beings need a code of values? The Objectivist answer is that humans need such a code in order to survive as human beings.
Rand summarized her ethical theories by writing:
- To live, man must hold three things as the supreme and ruling values of his life: Reason, Purpose, Self-esteem.
Objectivism maintains that, alone among all the species of which we know, human beings do not automatically act to further their own survival. A plant seems to have no awareness of any kind and simply grows automatically; an animal that possesses a faculty of sensation relies on its pleasure-pain mechanism; an animal that operates at the level of perception can use its perceptions to muddle its way through its essentially cyclic life; but a human being, who at least potentially operates at the conceptual level, lives a life that consists of an integrated whole.
Objectivism recognizes, of course, that a biologically human being can survive in a physical sense without operating at the conceptual level at all. Indeed, Objectivism regards the conceptual level as a volitional achievement that not everyone in fact attains. In speaking of "survival" here, however, Objectivism is speaking of survival as a "human being" — that is, as a being that has realized its cognitive potential and attained to the conceptual level. It is at this level, Objectivism says, that a life is the sort of continuous whole proper to a human being.
Since operating at the conceptual level remains volitional for the duration of one's life, Objectivism holds, human beings require a code of values — an ethic — in order to guide them in making the choices and taking the actions that will not only keep them biologically alive but preserve their status as fully human beings. For Objectivism, a "human being" who is not operating at the conceptual level is not, in the proper sense of the word, conscious, and indeed is not even properly human: by lapsing from the conceptual level, a human being "can turn himself into a subhuman creature".
The purpose of the Objectivist ethic, then, is to guide human beings in becoming and remaining "fully human" — or, in Rand's language, in promoting their survival as "man qua man". In so doing, it adopts life — the specifically human form of life — as its standard.
However, the purpose of the Objectivist ethic as applied by any particular human being is the preservation and promotion of that person's own life (again, as man qua man). In this context, Objectivism seeks to differentiate between the "standard" and the "purpose" of an ethic, adopting "life" as its standard and "one's own life" as its purpose.
"Value", again, is understood as anything which a living organism seeks to gain and/or keep. Objectivism contends that values make no sense without a single "ultimate value" — and argues that this ultimate value is, for each person, that person's own life.
Objectivism contends, then, that "value" makes no sense apart from the context of "life". Here the Objectivist trichotomy reappears: Objectivism rejects both "intrinsicism" and "subjectivism" with regard to values just as with regard to universals. On the Objectivist account, value (or the "good") is not "intrinsic" to external reality, but neither is it "subjective" (again meaning "arbitrary"); the term "good" denotes an objective evaluation of some aspect of reality with respect to a goal, namely, the life of the human being with respect to whom the evaluation is made.
Objectivism regards the concept of "duty" as one that divorces value from its context in life (and therefore as an "anti-concept"). On its Objectivist definition, a "duty" is a moral obligation rooted in nothing more than obedience to an external authority and independent of one's goals and desires. Such a supposed moral obligation Objectivism sees as particularly destructive; according to Objectivism, one has no obligations other than those one has voluntarily assumed. Even obligations rooted directly in the needs of one's own life count as "voluntary" in this sense, for Objectivism regards the "choice to live" as the fundamental choice from which all other ethical requirements flow.
Virtues and values
In Objectivist parlance, a "virtue" is any act by which one gains and/or keeps a value. It is in this sense of the word that Objectivism speaks of the "virtue of selfishness": the Objectivist view is that adopting one's own life as one's ultimate ethical purpose, and then making the specific choices and taking the specific actions that implement that fundamental choice to live, is an achievement worthy of moral respect. It is in this sense that Rand wrote, "Man is a being of self-made soul."
In fact, Objectivism does not list "selfishness" among its official virtues. The "values" officially recognized by Objectivism are reason, purpose, and self-esteem, and the "virtues" by which these are achieved are said to be rationality, productiveness, and pride. Objectivism maintains that productiveness — work productive of objective value — is the central purpose of a rational human being's life, reason its precondition, pride its outcome.
Objectivism rejects as immoral any action taken for some other ultimate purpose. In particular it rejects as immoral any variant of what it calls "altruism" — by which it means, essentially, any ethical doctrine according to which a human being must justify his or her existence by service to others. According to Objectivism, every ethical or moral action has the agent as its primary beneficiary.
Objectivism especially opposes any ethical demand for sacrifice. Objectivism uses this term in a special sense: a "sacrifice", according to its Objectivist definition, is the giving up of a greater value for a lesser one. (In other worlds of discourse, for example baseball and chess, the term is used to mean the giving up of a lesser or shorter-term value for the sake of a greater or longer-term one. Objectivism does not regard such an exchange as a genuine "sacrifice".)
Not all superficially self-interested actions count as moral, however. Objectivism espouses an ethic of genuine self-interest — that is, of choices and actions that genuinely do promote one's life qua human being, not merely those that we think or hope may do so. The Objectivist ethic can be called one of "rational self-interest" (rational egoism) on the grounds that human beings must discover, through reason, what genuinely is of value to them.
"Conflicts" of interest
What about interpersonal conflict? Might it not happen that two human beings, each pursuing his or her own rational self-interest, come to an ethical impasse in which they are hopelessly at odds with one another?
Objectivism argues that this is not possible under normal circumstances (though it may happen in emergencies). Ordinarily, if human beings behave rationally, do not claim what they have not earned, and recognize that rational, productive human beings are of tremendous value to one another as trading partners, no irresoluble conflicts will arise.
This claim is the one on which the Objectivist political theory is largely founded. On the premise that no such conflicts are possible and that a world of peaceful trade is of benefit to all rational agents, Objectivism supports a principle of nonaggression. This principle is one of the most important moral rules of Objectivism. "Whatever may be open to disagreement," wrote Rand, "there is one act of evil that may not, that no man may commit against others and no man may sanction or forgive. So long as men desire to live together, no man may initiate — do you hear me? No man may start — the use of physical force against others."
Rand's reasoning is that since man's mind and capacity for free will is necessary for morality to exist at all, to take that from him with an immediate threat of force is to prevent and co-opt him from acting morally. Initiation of force is seen by Objectivists as a negation of morality as it precludes choice by interposing the threat of physical destruction between a man and his desired ends. Furthermore, Objectivism holds that physical force is the only kind of force; that is, it holds that physical harm (or threat of physical harm) is the only way a person may be coerced to take an action against his or her will. All actions which are taken in the absence of such threats are voluntary according to Objectivism, and, as a result, they are subject to moral judgment.
However, actions taken under threat of physical force are considered immune from moral judgment, as they occur in a special type of "emergency situation". A man's actions under initiation of force — for instance, if one man points a gun at another man and instructs that man to kill a third man — are neither moral or immoral, as he is not free to choose his actions. In the words of Ayn Rand, "No rights are applicable in such a case. Don't you see that that is one of the reasons why the use, the initiation of force among men, is morally improper and indefensible? Once the element of force is introduced, the element of morality is out. There is no question of right in such a case." This particular emergency situation can only be interpreted literally — as Rand also said, "For instance, you couldn't claim that the men who served in the Gestapo, or the Russian secret police, [...] that they were merely carrying out orders, and that therefore the horrors they committed are not their fault, but are the fault of the chief Nazis. They were not literally under threat of death. They chose that job. Nobody holds a gun on a secret policeman and orders him to function all the time. You could not have enough secret policemen."
Politics: individual rights and capitalism
The transition from the Objectivist ethics to the Objectivist theory of politics relies on the concept of rights. A "right", according to Objectivism, is a moral principle that both defines and sanctions a human being's freedom of action in a social or societal context. Objectivism holds that only individuals have rights; there is, in the Objectivist view, no such thing as a "collective right" that does not reduce without remainder to a set of individual rights. Furthermore, Objectivism is very specific about the set of "individual rights" that it recognizes as such; the Objectivist list of individual rights differs significantly from the ones adopted by most governments, for example.
Although Objectivism does not use the term "natural rights", the rights it recognizes are based directly on the nature of human beings as described in its epistemology and ethics. Since human beings must make choices in order to survive as human beings, the basic requirement of a human life is the freedom to make, and act on, one's own independent rational judgment, according to one's self-interest.
Thus, Objectivism contends, the fundamental right of human beings is the right to life. By this phrase Objectivism means the right to act in furtherance of one's own life — not the right to have one's life protected, or to have one's survival guaranteed, by the involuntary effort of other human beings. Indeed, on the Objectivist account, one of the corollaries of the right to life is the right to property, which is assumed to always represent the product of one's own effort; on this view, one person's right to life cannot entail the right to dispose of another's private property, under any circumstances. Under Objectivism, one has the right to transfer one's own property to whoever one wants for whatever reason, but such a transfer is only ethical if it is made under the terms of a trade freely consented to by both parties, in the absence of any form of coercion, each with the expectation that the trade will benefit them.
On the Objectivist account, the rights of other human beings are not of direct moral import to the agent who respects them; they acquire their moral purchase through an intermediate step. An Objectivist respects the rights of other human beings out of the recognition of the value to himself or herself of living in a world in which the freedom of action of other rational (or potentially rational) human beings is respected.
According to Objectivism, then, one's respect for the rights of others is founded on the value, to oneself, of other persons as actual or potential trading partners. Here is where Objectivism's claim about conflicts of interest attains its full significance: on the Objectivist view, it is precisely because there are no (irresoluble) such conflicts that it is possible for human beings to prosper in a rights-respecting society.
Objectivist political theory therefore defends capitalism as the ideal form of human society. Objectivism reserves the name "capitalism" for full laissez-faire capitalism — i.e., a society in which individual rights (as defined by Objectivism, including property rights) are consistently respected and in which all property is (therefore) privately owned. Any system short of this is regarded by Objectivists as a "mixed economy" consisting of certain aspects of capitalism and its opposite (usually called socialism), with pure socialism at the opposite extreme.
Far from regarding capitalism as a dog-eat-dog pattern of social organization, Objectivism regards it as a beneficent system in which the innovations of the most creative benefit everyone else in the society at no loss to anyone. Indeed, Objectivism accords a high level of respect to creative achievement itself and regards capitalism as the only kind of society in which it can flourish.
Objectivism holds that an official institutional government, though a minimal one, is necessary in order to provide and safeguard such a society; such a government, on Rand's view, must have a territorial monopoly on the use of (retaliatory) force.
On either account, a society is, by Objectivist standards, moral to the extent that individuals are free to pursue their goals. This freedom requires that human relationships of all forms be voluntary (which, in the Objectivist view, means that they must not involve the use of physical force), mutual consent being the defining characteristic of a free society. Thus the proper role of institutions of governance (whether minarchist government proper or its equivalent institutions in an anarchist society) is limited to using force in retaliation against those who initiate its use — i.e., against criminals and foreign aggressors. Economically, people are free to produce and exchange as they see fit, with as complete a separation of state and economics as of state and church.
Esthetics: Romanticism
The Objectivist theory of art flows fairly directly from its epistemology, by way of "psycho-epistemology" (Objectivism's term for the study of human cognition as it involves interactions between the conscious and the subconscious mind). Art, according to Objectivism, serves a human cognitive need: it allows human beings to grasp concepts as though they were percepts.
Objectivism defines "art" as a "selective re-creation of reality according to an artist's metaphysical value-judgments" — that is, according to what the artist believes to be ultimately true and important about the nature of reality and humanity. In this respect Objectivism regards art as a way of presenting metaphysics concretely, in perceptual form.
The human need for art, on this view, stems from the need for cognitive economy. A concept is already a sort of mental shorthand standing for a large number of concretes, allowing a human being to think indirectly or implicitly of many more such concretes than can be held explicitly in mind. But a human being cannot hold indefinitely many concepts explicitly in mind either — and yet, on the Objectivist view, needs a comprehensive conceptual framework in order to provide guidance in life.
Art offers a way out of this dilemma by providing a perceptual, easily grasped means of communicating and thinking about a wide range of abstractions. Its function is thus similar to that of language, which uses concrete words to represent concepts.
Objectivism regards art as the only really effective way to communicate a moral or ethical ideal. Objectivism does not, however, regard art as propagandistic: even though art involves moral values and ideals, its purpose is not to educate, only to show or project.
Moreover, art need not be, and often is not, the outcome of a full-blown, explicit philosophy. Usually it stems from an artist's sense of life (which is preconceptual and largely emotional), and its appeal is similarly to the viewer's or listener's sense of life.
Generally Objectivism favors an esthetic of Romanticism, which on its Objectivist definition is a category of art treating the existence of human volition as true and important. In this sense, for Objectivism, Romanticism is the school of art that takes values seriously, regards human reason as efficacious, and projects human ideals as achievable. Objectivism contrasts such Romanticism with Naturalism, which it regards as a category of art that denies or downplays the role of human volition in the achievement of values.
Response to Objectivist philosophy
Although academics largely ignore Objectivism, some have published in academic journals on various aspects of Objectivism. Rand published most of her non-fiction essays in her own newsletter and earlier in the journal she edited, in which only those who largely agreed with Objectivism were published. She did not publish in conventional academic journals. Much of the non-fiction Objectivist corpus is available only in the form of audio recordings.
Academic institutional support for Objectivism has increased in recent years. There are currently fellowships for the study of Objectivism at the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Texas, and the business schools of universities such as the University of Southern California. Leonard Peikoff published a book to comprehensively present Objectivism, entitled Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand. Other works have been directed at academic audiences, such as Viable Values by Tara Smith, The Evidence of the Senses by David Kelley, and The Biological Basis of Teleological Concepts by Harry Binswanger. An academic journal, the Journal of Ayn Rand Studies has been publishing interdisciplinary scholarly essays on Rand and Objectivism since 1999. Whether this new scholarship and institutional support will result in any kind of dialogue between mainstream academic philosophy and Objectivism remains to be seen.
For detailed summaries of specific responses to Objectivism, see Bibliography of work on Objectivism
Notes
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