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War in the Middle East is Inherently Collectivist – Article by G. Stolyarov II

War in the Middle East is Inherently Collectivist – Article by G. Stolyarov II

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The New Renaissance Hat
G. Stolyarov II
September 8, 2013
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Especially in light of the looming threat of a wasteful, counterproductive US military intervention in Syria, it is necessary to offer a resounding refutation to the recommendations of those who consider themselves individualists to engage in any sort of mass military action – commonly known as war, declared or not – against large numbers of people in the Middle East. Some such persons, especially those affiliated with the Ayn Rand Institute (ARI), advocate a foreign policy more aggressive and, in its consequences, far more destructive than even the actual interventionist measures undertaken by the United States federal government during the Bush and Obama administrations. In a recent speech at the 2013 Steamboat Institute Freedom Conference, Yaron Brook, ARI’s executive director, put forth his recommendation for solving the persistent threat of politicized Islamist regimes and the terrorism that stems therefrom: completely destroy either Iran or Saudi Arabia and threaten the surviving country into submission. Brook also reaffirmed his consideration of General William Tecumseh Sherman, one of the first practitioners of modern “total war” and an instigator of untold damage to the lives and property of innocent civilians during the American Civil War, as his personal hero.  As an advocate of reason, a person of conscience, and a staunch individualist, I strongly, emphatically object to this course of action. As foreign policy goes, I cannot think of one less productive, other than perhaps indiscriminately launching nuclear weapons everywhere.

In March 2012 I made a video, “Refuting Ayn Rand on War”, where I specifically described my objections to Rand’s and Brook’s advocacy of warfare. I refer there to some of Brook’s previously stated views, including his admiration of William T. Sherman, which he again articulated during his Steamboat Institute speech. While most of Brook’s speech is sympathetic in its emphasis on individual freedom and a rolling-back of the economic burdens imposed by the federal government domestically, his foreign policy would clearly undermine this path. Indeed, if one wishes to reduce the scope of the federal government and its intrusiveness into individuals’ lives, deep cuts on both the domestic and foreign fronts are needed. US government debt is already spiraling out of control, and it would not be practically feasible to balance the budget (avoiding increased taxation, inflation, or borrowing) without cutting military spending and eliminating numerous wasteful and deleterious foreign occupations. As long as self-proclaimed individualists, libertarians, and fiscal conservatives resist an enormous reduction in US military budgets and overseas intervention, at least one, and probably all, of the three consequences of continued budget deficits will inevitably occur.

But there is a deeper, moral case to be made against war in general. Some might allege that this time it is different. But when was it ever not different? The regime of the Soviet Union posed a far greater danger to liberty in the 20th century than rag-tag groups of fundamentalist Islamist terrorists and the regimes backing them ever could. Yet war between the United States and the Soviet Union was fortunately averted, aside from some admittedly destructive proxy wars, and billions of innocent people can live in relative peace and comfort today due to the avoidance of nuclear Armageddon through a more restrained foreign policy than the “hawks” of the Cold War era advocated.  I do not oppose targeted strikes that specifically eliminate violent terrorists and only such individuals. A good example of this was the raid that killed Osama bin Laden in 2011. However, a state of war is completely unnecessary to carry out such limited actions.

War attacks not just an armed band of terrorists, not just a regime, but an entire country and its people. This is especially true since the shift in the 19th century away from limited battlefield engagements involving professional armed servants (and mercenaries) of powerful interests competing for natural resources and prestige, and toward “total war” fueled by nationalistic and ideological animosities – where all of a country’s population is considered “the enemy” or at least an asset to “the enemy”. Such warfare is inherently collectivistic in its premise. It fails to recognize that individuals ruled by hostile regimes or terrorized by armed criminals still have minds of their own, that they may disagree with and indeed be oppressed by those regimes and criminals. Targeted assassinations of dictators and terrorist leaders are one matter, but indiscriminate “collateral damage” against peaceful civilians is morally unacceptable for an individualist. Anyone claiming to follow the philosophy of Ayn Rand, including Ayn Rand herself, should know (or, in Rand’s case, should have known) better.

The current case of violent crime fueled by fundamentalist Islamist ideology is no exception. The world has over a billion Muslims, who are overwhelmingly peaceful (like most adherents of all major religious and ideological systems), even if one legitimately considers them mistaken in their theological beliefs. Many prominent Muslims have condemned the attacks of September 11, 2001, and other attacks on peaceful civilians in the West. Some Muslims are secular in their political outlook and, indeed, have made efforts to maintain secular governments in the face of threats by Islamist political parties to implement sharia law and religiously motivated restrictions on personal freedom. The revolutions in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya, despite their sub-optimal outcomes and the eventual emergence of dominant factions advocating the politicization of religion, were initially driven by freedom-respecting, secular, yet largely Muslim individuals. These people set the spark for the overthrow of the long-standing authoritarian tyrannies of Mubarak, Ben Ali, and Gaddafi. They now contend against political Islam in their troubled countries, but it is essential for any individualist to respect them and their plight, and for any government that even pretends to respect freedom to leave them alive to have any positive influence of which they are capable. Often, the infighting within the turmoil-ridden Middle East results in tragedy on all sides; surely, this ought to be the glaring lesson of the current Syrian situation. However, American bombs, missiles, and drones are surely not the answer. These weapons kill indiscriminately. Even drone attacks allegedly “targeted” toward terror suspects (still often without due process or convincing evidence of their criminal intent) end up killing far more innocent bystanders, including children, than actual would-be terrorists. Are the relatives, friends, and acquaintances of the victims going to acknowledge the “moral legitimacy” of their deaths by the brutal calculus of Yaron Brook and those who think like him? Or, more realistically, are they going to experience a justified outrage and forever despise the government – and, if they are themselves collectivists in mindset – the entire country and people whom they blame for these terrible killings?

There is no quick, easy solution to the turmoil in the Middle East, nor to the violent threats that such turmoil sometimes poses to the lives of people in the Western world. However, there are some clear changes of direction that can gradually curtail the major risks.  First, it is essential for governments in the Western world to refrain from actions that curtail the liberties of their own citizens, allegedly to respond to this threat. In fact, the terrorists and political Islamist regimes have won a greater victory than they could ever have achieved by force of arms, as a result of the pervasive civil-liberties violations instigated by Western governments since September 11, 2001. The omnipresent surveillance, the bodily violations at airports, the increasing militarization of the police force surely have more in common with a totalitarian regime than with the freedom that the fundamentalist terrorists allegedly hate. The more aggressive American military interventions become, the more animosity and blowback they generate, the more inclined Western governments will be to crack down on their own citizens’ freedoms further. Thus, militarism abroad directly causes unfreedom at home – as it has during every major war in American History, from Lincoln’s imprisonment of dissident newspaper editors during the Civil War, to Woodrow Wilson’s World War I propaganda machine and imprisonment of opponents of the military draft, to Franklin Roosevelt’s internment of 110,000 Japanese-Americans during World War II. The present period of the never-ending “War on Terror” is no exception. There is no way for a government to respect individualism and the rights of its own citizens while it turns civilians abroad into fodder for bombs and drone strikes.

Second, it is essential to treat “acts of terror” no differently from “ordinary” crimes – attacks on human lives and property. The criminal-justice system has various ways of dealing with gangsters, murderers, street muggers, arsonists, and common vandals. Domestically, the same standards should apply toward the same acts, no matter whether or not they were motivated by Islamist ideology. A person who bombs a building or a public event is a criminal murderer and should be dealt with accordingly. It is time to dismantle the exceptional category of “terrorist acts” as distinct from ordinary crime. That category is the linchpin by which all of our Constitutional freedoms have been rendered moot. As regards armed military-style groups operating abroad, it is acceptable to use truly targeted strikes limited to neutralizing members of those groups (and not “signature strikes” that attack an entire area, irrespective of the known presence of militants). But this is not war against an entire people or even a government; it is more akin to a targeted action. As former Representative Ron Paul has recommended since the September 11 attacks, issuing Letters of Marque and Reprisal specifically against such militants is a desirable, Constitutionally authorized remedy quite distinct from war.

Finally, to end the threat of militant attacks on Westerners, it is essential for the Middle East itself to become transformed over time, both economically and culturally, into a place where individual rights and intellectual progress are fundamentally respected and appreciated. Bombs could never effectuate such transformation; they only breed hatred and backlash. Instead, individuals and companies in the West should entice the Middle East to join them on a more enlightened trajectory. Commerce and cultural diffusion can bring economic opportunity and prosperity to millions who are currently in dire poverty. Ayn Rand recognized and appreciated the power of free-market capitalism to bring not just peace and prosperity, but moral elevation, to vast numbers of people. This should be the path embraced by decision-makers in the West, echoing the sage advice of Thomas Jefferson: “peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none”. Over the coming decades, a steady application of this approach will diminish the militant threat, though not overnight. Still, it is a far preferable alternative to the recommendations of those whose policy of mass destruction would only fuel the fires of militant attacks and reduce Western governments, militaries, and their supporters to the same level of inhuman barbarism against which they are allegedly defending us.  True individualism – indeed, true humanism – would demand no less than a complete rejection of the killing of innocent civilians as a solution to any problem.

Free Will and Self-Causation – Article by Leonid Fainberg

Free Will and Self-Causation – Article by Leonid Fainberg

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The New Renaissance Hat
Leonid Fainberg
August 26, 2013
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Homo liber nulla de re minus quam de morte cogitat; et ejus sapientia non mortis sed vitae meditatio est.

~ SPINOZA’S Ethics, Pt. IV, Prop. 67

(There is nothing over which a free man ponders less than death; his wisdom is, to meditate not on death but on life.)

Reductionism and its corollary, Determinism, are deeply enrooted in the fabric of the modern mainstream philosophy. These are leftovers of the Cartesian mind-body dichotomy. Instead of rejecting this notion altogether, Reductionists simply choose the other, bodily side of this loaded coin. Now they have reached a blind alley in their attempts to explain life in terms of lifelessness. As Hans Jonas observed:

“Vitalistic monism is replaced by mechanistic monism, in whose rules of evidence the standard of life is exchanged for that of death.” (The Phenomenon of Life, pg. 11).

Since Mind and Free Will are biological phenomena which cannot be explained in terms of non-life, Reductionists are necessarily Determinists. Hard Determinists reject the notion of Free Will (and therefore Mind) completely; soft Determinists and Compatibilists are still trying to find explanation of Free Will in the indeterminate realm of Quantum mechanics, in stochastic rules of Chaos theory, or in the mystical realm of Tao. I maintain that Free Will is a manifestation on the conceptual level of the very essential property of life itself, which is biological self-causation.

“Freedom must denote an objectively discernible mode of being, i.e., a manner of executing existence, distinctive of the organic per se.” (Ibid, pg. 3).

The Law of Causality is the Law of Identity applied to action (Ayn Rand). Since biological action is a self-generated, goal-orientated response (SIGOR) to environmental challenges, such an action cannot be predetermined by any antecedent cause. On the contrary, any antecedent or proximate action could be only detrimental to the healthy living process.

As Rosen put it:

“[I]t is perfectly respectable to talk about a category of final causation and to a component as the effect of its final cause… In this sense, then, a component is entailed by its function… a material system is an organism if and only if it is closed to efficient causation.” (Life Itself, pg. 135).

In other words the process of biological causation is a process in which a final cause (a goal), becomes its efficient cause.  Traditionally, the notion of the final cause associated with Aristotle’s primary mover, some divine, supernatural source.  However, this is not a case of mysticism, far from it.

Life emerged as a result of self-organization of abiotic elements. How that happened we don’t know yet. However, some researchers think that this is a thermodynamically inevitable event.

“Life is universally understood to require a source of free energy and mechanisms with which to harness it. Remarkably, the converse may also be true: the continuous generation of sources of free energy by abiotic processes may have forced life into existence as a means to alleviate the buildup of free energy stresses….” (Energy Flow and the Organization of Life. Harold Morowitz and Eric Smith, 2006).

But does this mean that life is a determined process? I don’t think so. Life is an emergent phenomenon, and as such it possesses new properties which its precursors don’t have. In their book Biological Self-organization Camazine et al. (2001: 8) define self-organization “as a process in which pattern at the global level of a system emerges solely from numerous interactions among the lower-level components of the system. The system has properties that are emergent, if they are not intrinsically found within any of the parts, and exist only at a higher level of description….’’

From this definition it follows that (1) a process of self-organization doesn’t have an antecedent cause; and (2) emergent properties of such a system are different from the properties of its components and therefore cannot be explained by means of reductionism. In other words, properties of such a system are not defined by antecedent cause. Life is a self-organizing, self-regulated material structure which is able to produce self-generated, goal-orientated action when the goal is preservation and betterment of itself. This new emergent identity which applied to biotic action defines new type of causation: self-causation.

Harry Binswanger observed that “All levels of living action, from a cell’s protein-synthesis to a scientist’s investigations, are goal-directed. In vegetative action, past instances of the ‘final cause’ act as ‘efficient cause.’” (1992).

This is the mechanism of self-causation. Now it is clear why any action imposed on the organism and driven by antecedent cause could be only detrimental: it inevitably would interfere with the self-generated action of the organism. Each and every organism is its own primary mover. In the low organisms the degree of freedom of action is limited by their genetic setup. However, even low organisms, like fungi for example, able to overcome this genetic determinism.

“During a critical period, variability is generated by the fact that a system becomes conditioned by all the factors influencing the spontaneous emergence of a symmetry-breaking event. In such a context variability does not reflect an environmental perturbation in expression of a pre-existing (genetic) program of development…It is expression of a process of individuation.” (Trewavas, 1999)

SIGOR is limited by an organism’s perceptual ability and capacity to process the sensory input. The process of evolution is a process of development of these qualities, since the organism’s survival depends on them. More freedom of action means better chances of survival. The end product of such a process is Free Will and self-awareness – that is, human mind. Free Will therefore is an expression of self-causation on conceptual level.

As Rodrigues observed: “Cerebral representations result from self-emergence of networks of interactions between modules of neurons stimulated by sensorial perception.” (Rodriguez at al., 1999)

The human abilities to choose goals consciously and to act rationally in order to achieve them lead us from biology to ethics. But the origin of these abilities lies in the very fundamental property of any living being. This property is self-generated, goal-orientated action driven by self-causation. Any attempt to reduce this property to the set of biochemical reactions or to undetermined behavior of subatomic particles is doomed to fail. Ayn Rand profoundly summarized the meaning of life in We, The Living: “I know what I want, and to know HOW TO WANT – isn’t it life itself?”

Leonid Fainberg is an Objectivist philosopher and contributor to The Rational Argumentator.

Implied Consent: A Play on the Sanctity of Human Life by G. Stolyarov II – Second Edition

Implied Consent: A Play on the Sanctity of Human Life by G. Stolyarov II – Second Edition

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Implied Consent - A Play on the Sanctity of Human Life - Second Edition - by G. Stolyarov II

Implied Consent – A Play on the Sanctity of Human Life – Second Edition – by G. Stolyarov II

 

The 95-year-old self-made multi-billionaire Quintus Grummond collapses from heart failure and enters a state of brain death. Meanwhile, his son Oswald makes plans for his father to never again awaken. Oswald hires a shyster lawyer who attempts to legitimize Grummond’s termination by claiming that the multi-billionaire is no longer truly alive and that he has given Oswald “implied consent” to make decisions regarding his fate. This play depicts a battle over a principle: the question of whether anybody has the right to terminate an innocent individual’s life against his explicit wishes.

This is the Second Edition of Implied Consent, with original and freely downloadable cover art by Wendy Stolyarov. This play was originally written in December 2004 and January 2005; the First Edition was published in May 2007.

The Second Edition of Implied Consent is available in PDF, MOBI, and EPUB formats.

Download the PDF version.

Download the MOBI version.

Download the EPUB version.

The Rational Argumentator welcomes your reviews of Implied Consent. You can submit them to TRA by sending them to gennadystolyarovii@yahoo.com. You are also encouraged to spread the word by reprinting the information on this page or your own comments concerning the book on other media outlets.

A Brief History of Western Liberalism – Article by Kyrel Zantonavitch

A Brief History of Western Liberalism – Article by Kyrel Zantonavitch

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The New Renaissance Hat
Kyrel Zantonavitch
June 1, 2013
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This is a brief history of the philosophy and culture of liberalism. It describes a life-style and civilization which lifts human beings far above that of animals, chimpanzees, hominids, and even tribalist hunter-gatherers. Liberalism features man at his best. Liberals are clear-thinking and rational men: natural, sound, healthy, happy, uplifted, and heroic.

Liberalism is a fundamental category of philosophy and life-style – something broad and general. It constitutes a definitive concept – beyond which one cannot venture or improve – like life, happiness, greatness, transcendence, virtue, beauty, pleasure, thought, reality, existence, and the universe. Liberalism’s subsidiary concepts are also ultimate and final: rationality, egoism, and liberty.

In the story of mankind, first come bonobos, then semi-human Homo habilis, then primitive man Homo erectus, then highly advanced Neanderthals, then truly intelligent and impressive Cro-Magnons – who used their 100 IQs to exterminate their brutish competitors, invent sophisticated arrow technology, and make art such as those Venus statues and cave paintings.

By 9000 BC the last Ice Age ended, and humans immediately converted from hunter-gatherers to rancher-farmers. After domesticating multitudinous plants and animals, by 3300 BC human beings further cultivated them with irrigation on their new private property, backed by their revolutionary social institution called government. By 1700 BC men had well-established written laws, well-developed literature and art, easy personal transportation using horses, and elaborate international trade using sophisticated great ships.

All of this constituted impressive advances in humans’ quality of life; but none of it constituted philosophical or cultural liberalism.

Finally, by about 600 BC, the ancient Greeks created the indescribably magnificent phenomenon of Western liberalism. They invented rationality or “Greek reason” or syllogistic logic – or pure thought or epistemology. This is usually described as “the discovery of science and philosophy.”

But along with the stunning and wondrous epistemology of reason – naturally and inevitably and inherently – came the ethics of individualism, and the politics of freedom.

All of this can be fairly, accurately, and usefully denominated as the thought-system and life-style of Western liberalism – of liberal philosophy and culture, especially as exemplified by Aristotle, Epicurus, and Zeno the Stoic. These three theorists, ironically, were labelled by their intellectual opponents as “dogmatic.” This was not because these scientifically minded open debaters claimed to know everything based on faith, but because they claimed to know anything at all based on evidence and analysis.

By the 100s BC in Greece, the general ideology of liberalism was well-established in the middle and upper classes. Then the Romans conquered the Greeks and within a century made liberalism their own. They even advanced the noble ideas and ideals a bit, with such thinkers as Cicero, Lucretius, Virgil, Horace, and Aurelius.

But skepticism of reason ascended rapidly by the 200s AD, and with it came the decline of the greatest country in human history. The new phenomenon of monotheism began to dominate in the 300s AD, especially Christianity or “Plato for the masses.” By the middle of the 400s, the philosophy and culture of liberalism were dead, and so was Rome. A long, terrible Dark Age ensued.

This irrational, illiberal nightmare of Western civilization lasted for a millennium. The wretched and depraved philosophy of Jesus ruined everything.

But a bit of reason and hope came back into the world in the 1100s of northwest Europe with the mini-Renaissance. High-quality Greek thinkers were gradually reintroduced. Then came the 1300s and the Italian Renaissance.

By the 1500s a whole Europe-wide Renaissance began with France’s conquest of northern Italy. The French brought their reborn art and philosophy to everyone in the West. The beautiful general philosophy of liberalism ascended still higher while the ghastly evils of fundamentalist skepticism, Platonism, monotheism, and Christianity declined. The classical liberal era was brought about by radical and heroic innovators like Francis Bacon, John Locke, Voltaire, Adam Smith, and Thomas Jefferson.

The late 1700s Enlightenment and Age of Reason in Britain, France, Holland, and America featured liberalism at its height. But it was gradually and massively undermined by the irrational, nonsensical philosophers Bishop Berkeley, David Hume, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Immanuel Kant, and Friedrich Hegel.

During and after the 1790s the French Revolution went astray and embraced ideological dogmatism, and self-sacrifice to the cause. It also converted itself into an early version of modern communism; as well as the false, evil, and illiberal ideologies of right-wing conservatism and left-wing progressivism. In the art world this was manifested by the slightly but definitely irrational Romantic movement of 1800-1850. Paintings started to turn ugly again.

Socialism and communism fairly quickly went into high gear after Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto of 1848. Religion also somewhat revived in the late 1800s. These two monstrous ideologies backed the moral ideal of self-destruction, or the “Judeo-Christian ethic,” or, even better, the “religio-socialist ethic.” The fin de siècle of the 1890s was the giddy, despairing, hopeless, lost end of a noble era in the West – a dynamic, heroic, rational, liberal era.

A practical, real-world, irrational, illiberal dystopia was achieved in the mid-1900s with Stalin, Hitler, and Mao. Later in the 1900s there were Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Ayatollah Khomeini, and countless other despots. Illiberalism reached a hellish trough around 1985.

Then came Ronald Reagan in America, Margaret Thatcher in Britain, Mikhail Gorbachev in Russia, and Deng Xiaoping in China. These four political semi-revolutionaries, in four leading nations, used their governments to change world culture in a liberal direction.

These liberal leaders emerged on the world scene because theory always precedes practice, and the theory of liberalism began to rise again – at least intellectually, and in certain recherché circles – around the early 1900s. It began anew with Austrian economic thinkers like Ludwig von Mises, Henry Hazlitt, and Friedrich Hayek. In addition to the dry, mechanical realm of economics, these three addressed the fields of politics and sociology – and even ethics and epistemology. They filled in many of the gaps, and corrected many of the weaknesses and failures, of Locke, Smith, and company.

The Austrians also attacked the communism, socialism, and progressivism of Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson, among others. And they taught the fiery intellectual novelist Ayn Rand.

Rand converted from fiction to philosophy from the late 1950s to the late 1970s. She was by far the most liberal thinker in the history of man. She created the philosophy of Objectivism. Ayn Rand advanced human knowledge about as much as Bacon, Locke, Voltaire, Smith, and Jefferson combined.

Sadly, however, Rand undercut her liberal ideology with a heavy atmosphere and subtext of cultism and religiosity in her propaganda movement. This was understandable, considering how revolutionary and hated her philosophy was, but hardly rational or legitimate.

However, Rand died in 1982, and a highly rational and non-religious organization, organized around her discoveries, emerged in 1989. This brought the world Objectivism as a thought-system, not a belief-system; and Objectivism as a rational, benevolent, effective philosophy – not an irrational, malicious, weird cult.

There are currently three separate but related avant-garde liberal ideological movements: Austrian economics, libertarian politics, and Objectivist philosophy. All three are tiny but, based on historical intellectual standards, seemingly growing solidly.

Pure liberalism – a pure, clean, complete comprehension that reason was 100% right in epistemology, individualism was 100% right in ethics, and freedom was 100% right in politics – began in the early 21st century. Randroid illiberalism began to die out. A New Enlightenment is about to begin.

Kyrel Zantonavitch is the founder of The Liberal Institute  (http://www.liberalinstitute.com/) and a writer for Rebirth of Reason (http://www.rebirthofreason.com). He can be contacted at zantonavitch@gmail.com.

When Will The End-of-the-World Nonsense End? – Article by Edward Hudgins

When Will The End-of-the-World Nonsense End? – Article by Edward Hudgins

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The New Renaissance Hat
Edward Hudgins
December 26, 2012
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Yawn! The world ended again, this time on December 21, 2012, as predicted by the Mayan calendar. Seems few of the actual Mayans in the Yucatan today were particularly concerned about this.

It was folks in the most advanced industrialized countries who shivered in fear of the apocalypse, who flooded NASA with phone and email messages asking whether the prophecy was true, and who headed for the hills in attempts to survive or perhaps to be taken up into heaven, the Mother Ship, or whatever.

Okay, this particular doomsday might have been mostly hype by the media meant to titillate sensationalist-seeking audiences. But these doomsday fears pop up on a regular basis and too many people actually take them seriously.

Last year fundamentalist fruitcake Harold Camping predicted The End, using his 66 radio stations to get the word out. Many of his followers gave away their possessions in preparation for the Rapture. A woman who believed him wanted to avoid the horrors of fire and brimstone so she slit her 11- and 14-year-old daughters’ throats with a box cutter and then slit her own. (All survived.)

Clear-thinking individuals often don’t understand why folks with even a minimum of intelligence and education can fall for this stuff.

First, culture matters. In the twenty-first century most folks appreciate the products that come from the rational mind, everything from advanced medical devices to the iPad. But t reason itself is hardly venerated. Rather, indulgence of undisciplined impulses saturates our culture with the most idiotic and pernicious products, spiritual as well as material. New Age cults are one of these products, manifested in people wasting what few functioning neurons they still have worrying about whether primitive peoples half a millennium ago predicted the end of the world.

Second, the virtue of rationality is an attribute of individuals. We must exercise it, each of us, one mind and one brain at a time. And it takes an effort to think. A culture that values the virtue of reason as well as its products is important. But you develop that virtue through practice, not through osmosis.

Third, to be rational doesn’t simply mean to memorize the forms of the syllogism or to master the knowledge and technical skills needed to be successful in some narrow field or profession. Most of the 39 Heaven’s Gate cult members who committed mass suicide in 1997 earned money as website developers. Rationality means always being honest with one’s self. It means always asking, “Am I trying to get at the truth or simply to rationalize some prejudice or convenient belief that bears little resemblance to reality?” It means practicing self-reflection, monitoring one’s thoughts and emotions to make sure they are not clouding one’s mind. It means practicing the virtue of integrity, of making certain that one’s thinking and actions are in sync. And it means exercising one’s independent judgment and not letting one’s beliefs be determined by group-think and popular opinion.

Those who fall for predictions of Armageddon certainly don’t practice the virtue of rationality.

Those who laughed at the foolish fears over the Mayan doomsday should take a mental step back and understand the cause of this and so much else that’s wrong with our culture today. And they should understand that a commitment to reason and rationality will both guide one to a happy and flourishing life and help create a wonderful world as it can be and should be.

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Dr. Edward Hudgins directs advocacy and is a senior scholar for The Atlas Society, the center for Objectivism in Washington, D.C.

Copyright, The Atlas Society. For more information, please visit www.atlassociety.org.

Ayn Rand, Non-Atomistic Individualism, and the Dangers of Communitarianism – Article by G. Stolyarov II

Ayn Rand, Non-Atomistic Individualism, and the Dangers of Communitarianism – Article by G. Stolyarov II

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The New Renaissance Hat
G. Stolyarov II
September 8, 2012
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James Joseph argues in “Ayn Rand’s Paradox” that Rand’s “defense of individual freedom provides a self-defeating apologia for the American welfare state.” Mr. Joseph’s essay takes the communitarian view that, without the bulwark of “natural community” (including “shared duties” or “natural duties and obligations” or “claims from direct community”), the individual becomes increasingly reliant on government for every benefit in life.

Yet Mr. Joseph’s analysis portrays Ayn Rand as espousing a view that no serious thinker has ever held – the canard of atomistic individualism, which is often used by communitarians against those who do not think that communities can exist as superior entities apart from and greater than the individuals who constitute them. Mr. Joseph believes that “In fact, American statism’s apologia is the individual freedom so touted by Ayn Rand, complete with her denial of the claims of the community on the individual. One need look no further than the ‘Life of Julia’ campaign  to see that American statism is built around the idea of highly independent, atomized individuals that cannot be bothered with claims from direct community.”

True individualism is far from atomistic, and Rand saw this clearly. She wrote, for instance, that “Man gains enormous values from dealing with other men; living in a human society is his proper way of life—but only on certain conditions. Man is not a lone wolf and he is not a social animal. He is a contractual animal. He has to plan his life long-range, make his own choices, and deal with other men by voluntary agreement (and he has to be able to rely on their observance of the agreements they entered).” (“A Nation’s Unity,” The Ayn Rand Letter, II, 2, 3)

But Rand also correctly saw the individual as being primary and precedent to any “community” or “society” – although the conditions of a society can certainly constrain or empower an individual. In response to the questions “Is man a social animal?” and “Can he develop only in society?” Rand stated: “Man does live in society, not on a desert island. But that does not mean society ‘develops’ him. The expression ‘develops in society’ implies that man is a social animal. I believe no such thing. The issue here is: What is primary in a man’s development, society or his mind? Of course, his mind has primacy. Society cannot make or unmake him. An immoral society can mangle him and make it enormously difficult for him to develop properly psychologically. A rational society can help a man’s development a great deal. In a mixed society, the best minds and those who are strongest morally might withstand the pressure from society, whereas the average person will find it beyond his individual capacity and give up. Society cannot form a person. It cannot force him to accept ideas; but it can discourage him. Nevertheless, that doesn’t make man a social animal.” (Ayn Rand Answers: The Best of Her Q&A, edited by Robert Mayhew)

Rand properly recognized that individuals are not better off in insulated vacuums, apart from all other people. She acknowledged that man stands to gain greatly from interactions in society – but he can also come to great harm thereby. The question for Rand, and for all individualists, is not whether one should stand apart from society, but rather which relationships within society are most conducive to the flourishing of the individual, and which are to his detriment. Rand’s answer is that the conducive relationships are those of mutual benefit, where values are exchanged among all parties involved, and all parties seek to be better off and grant their consent to the arrangement. While Mr. Joseph thinks that, in this approach, “Ethics is collapsed into economics,” the truth is more complex and subtle. Economics describes the outcome of people’s existing value judgments (in the form of market prices, interest rates, and other phenomena) and does not directly comment on what individuals ought to value. It explains ubiquitous laws of human action that hold no matter what people happen to prefer.  Ethics, on the other hand, is directly concerned with what an individual should want to have and do – what a good life consists of and how it might be attained. Economics can inform you of the influences that result in the price of food, but it cannot tell you whether you ought to pursue food in the first place.

Rand’s Objectivist ethics arrives at the ultimate value of the individual’s life by recognizing that the very existence and meaningfulness of the idea of “value” depends on a living being that is capable of pursuing values. She writes, “The existence of inanimate matter is unconditional, the existence of life is not: it depends on a specific course of action. Matter is indestructible, it changes its forms, but it cannot cease to exist. It is only a living organism that faces a constant alternative: the issue of life or death. Life is a process of self-sustaining and self-generated action. If an organism fails in that action, it dies; its chemical elements remain, but its life goes out of existence. It is only the concept of ‘Life’ that makes the concept of ‘Value’ possible. It is only to a living entity that things can be good or evil.” (“The Objectivist Ethics” – quotation from John Galt’s speech in Atlas Shrugged)

Unlike an individual human, a collective of any sort cannot, qua collective, breathe, eat, move, or perform any unitary action. To say that a collective can “act” is a misleading figure of speech. Such an “action” can be no more than an aggregation of the extremely disparate and individually motivated actions of a group’s members or participants. The relationships among a group’s members can be quite sophisticated, it is true, but they do not supersede – in terms of either their existence or their moral worth – the essential, indivisible, and indissoluble individualities of the participants.

That brings us to the substance of the disagreement. Mr. Joseph seems to infer that Rand’s individualism is incompatible with relationships within the family – such as the care for parents and children – or within a neighborhood – such as local mutual-aid societies or groups of volunteers. I do not see any reason why such incompatibility need be the case. The exchange of values can readily occur in these circumstances, even in the absence of formal legal contracts or direct exchanges of money. Values are far broader than money and can consist of intangible goods and services – such as friendship, intellectual improvement, esthetic enjoyment, and even love (see my essay “A Rational View of Love” for a detailed discussion). The key principle governing such relationships, to the extent that they are beneficial, is that they should be based on mutual consent as much as possible. Even in cases where full informed consent cannot be given – as with children, pets, or senile elders – consent should be sought to the extent that a living creature is capable of exercising it non-destructively, and a presumption must always exist that a dependent creature would act in a life-preserving and life-enhancing manner if it had greater knowledge and ability to do so.

A respect for the principle of consent in relationships of dependency would imply, for instance, that children should not be forced to accept styles of clothing which they detest or espouse opinions which they do not personally hold through their own conviction; that pets should not be humiliated or restrained from non-destructive inclinations; and that elders should not be infantilized and should be empowered to manage their own affairs to every extent their physical faculties (in combination with technology) permit.

What Rand detested, and what many individualists likewise abhor, is the idea of top-down or compulsory “community” – of the sort that tries to deliberately (inevitably, through the wishes of some central planner or committee thereof) herd people into artificially constructed relationships for the purpose of building “togetherness” (or some comparably disingenuous justification). Compulsory national “service” – be it military or civilian – is the prime example of such exploitation of individuals in order to fulfill the power ambitious of the elites creating the “communities” of cannon fodder or work drones.

Additionally, a misguided perception of the purpose of societal interactions can lead to good people being subverted and shackled by their moral lessers. A misperceived sense of the value of “community” for its own sake (apart from any values for the individuals involved) could lead to the persistence of abuse within families; the continual funding of corrupt, dysfunctional, and even perverse churches or other civic organizations due to ingrained guilt or a sense of disembodied obligation among the contributors; the tolerance of incompetent “old boys’ networks” running local governments, because they are part of the “social fabric” and a deference to tradition prevents their being supplanted by a meritocracy. This kind of perverse communitarianism is a prime example of what Rand called “the sanction of the victim” – as it cannot thrive without the endorsement and participation of the good people who create resources upon which the abusers and parasites prey.  In even worse times and places, the willingness to accept communities over and above individuals has led to thoughtless conformity about the desirability of harming individuals perceived as being “other” or “outside” of the community – persons of different skin colors, national origins, religions, peaceful lifestyles, or peaceful political persuasions.  The vicious tribalist impulse is still strong in all too many humans, and it should not be stoked.

A misguided communitarianism has already resulted in the mangling of the first two decades of most Americans’ lives in the form of compulsory “public” schooling – where academic learning takes second stage to “socializing” the students with one another, which typically means that the best of them will be mercilessly bullied by the worst, while the rest lose themselves in pointless fads and clique rivalries. The travesty of compulsory public schooling serves as a prominent demonstration that – while Mr. Joseph seeks to posit an opposition between the Leviathan and communitarianism – the two go hand-in-hand more often than not. The Leviathan often employs communitarian rhetoric while representing itself as the entity that gets to define and structure the “community” in question.

Are we dependent on other people for much of what is good in life? Certainly! But this, far from requiring a communitarian viewpoint, is actually the implication of a consistent individualism. No one person can know everything or learn to do everything. In order for each of us to maximize our well-being, we need to specialize in some activities while relegating the rest to our fellow humans – with whom we then exchange the fruits of our respective labor. In a market economy based on the principle of individualism, each of us literally depends on the efforts of millions of others to produce the goods and services we daily enjoy.  Truly sustainable economies and societies – ones that operate without degenerating into violence or mass poverty – require that we treat others with the respect needed to facilitate these ongoing transactions. With a small circle of these individuals, we are able to form even closer ties, where formal transactions are not required to maintain ongoing value-trades. In a household, for instance, it is simply more efficient to keep a rough mental picture of other participants’ contributions, rather than itemizing everything in minute detail. Furthermore, the ability to closely trust others in one’s family (provided that it is a good one, without abuse, deception, or exploitation) eliminates the need for most of the typical safeguards of commerce among strangers. Similarly, a custom of volunteer work in one’s neighborhood might result in the capture of certain “positive externalities” – such as the benefits of cleaner streets, happier (and therefore more productive and peaceful) residents, and lower rates of vandalism and other crimes.

Perhaps Ayn Rand’s individualism, properly understood, would allow for precisely the ideal sense of the “natural community” that Mr. Joseph extols – one in which individuals engage in a variety of interactions (many of them non-monetary) to mutual benefit and thereby develop strong ties. Unfortunately, in practice, the explicit idealization of the “community” has not been an effective way of achieving such an outcome. It has, indeed, resulted in the very opposite: an insidious and manipulative elite, or a conformist and prejudiced majority (often incited by that same elite), limiting the freedoms and sometimes ruining the lives of those who wish to use their rational faculties to find a better way.

What Happened Before the Big Bang? The New Philosophy of Cosmology – Article by James B. Wright

What Happened Before the Big Bang? The New Philosophy of Cosmology – Article by James B. Wright

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The New Renaissance Hat
James B. Wright
June 3, 2012
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In the telephone conversation between Ross Anderson, of Atlantic, and Dr. Tim Maudlin, of NYU, entitled “What Happened before the Big Bang?” I was intrigued by his statement “Physicists for almost a hundred years have been dissuaded from trying to think about fundamental questions.”, and “The asking of fundamental physical questions is just not part of the training of a physicist anymore.”  The result of this training is the furious reaction you get if you suggest to a physicist that the Big Bang is nonsense, as is the Expanding Universe.  But could not the Cosmological Redshift be caused by something other than a Doppler frequency shift?  It could, indeed, but because of the Physicists having accepted space as a pure vacuum they couldn’t find the answer.

And the answer is perfectly logical and not at all complicated.  The scientists have calculated that this space has the characteristics of permeability (µ) and permittivity (ɛ), and that these characteristics determine the speed of light (C), which in turn, determines the wavelengths (λ) of light.  So we set up a test range on the moon (which we suppose to be in a vacuum) with a light transmitter and a light receiver a mile away.  There will be N waves of light at frequency (F) traveling through that one mile of space.  Now, if we imagine that the space around the moon actually contains some sort of medium, and that that medium is becoming slowly more dense causing its µ and ɛ to increase, then C will steadily decrease, λ will gradually shorten, and N will be gradually increase.  Consequently, fewer waves will exit the one mile path than enter it, each second, and the light seen at the receiver will be lower in frequency than the light being transmitted, which is fixed, of course.  Move the receiver two miles away and a similar frequency shift will occur over the second mile, adding in a compound fashion to the first one-mile frequency shift.

So we not only have a redshift but we have a compound redshift, precisely as we observe in the Cosmological Redshift.  Our problem is now to determine what this medium can be, and how it could continually increase in density without becoming bogging down after a while?  But it certainly does change the appearance of our Universe, with the Big Bang and the Expanding Universe being discarded.  Before using the evidence at hand to answer this question it may be helpful to use a philosophy available to us to see what we may be able to find that could be useful.

In her philosophy of objective reality Ayn Rand starts it all off with the axiomatic concepts of Existence, Consciousness, and Identity.  We must exist having a consciousness with which we may identify that which exists.  Miss Rand builds her whole philosophy using these concepts, insisting on causal chains.  I use only Existence (openly) to establish a starting point in the science of Cosmology, here again insisting on causal chains.

“Existence Exists.”, as a self-evident axiom.  Our Earth, our Solar system, the Universe, all exist and have existed for the tens of billions of years that our telescopes reveal.  And, if we rule out any such thing as Creation or Annihilation, Existence must have existed for an eternity past, and will exist for a future eternity.  Similarly, it must extend outward from here to the infinite reaches of space.  It is infinite and eternal, which, of course, rules out any sort of a beginning or an end.  And, now we may re-examine the evidence without the need to make it fit into an Expanding Universe.  We will observe that the Galactic Clusters which fill this Universe in some tens of millions, can be expected to extend outward into an infinite ocean of such clusters.  Nothing new or unusual should be anticipated “out there” that’s not already found within our Universe.  And, our Observable Universe should be seen as a very adequate sample of Existence.

One more conclusion we should draw from our Universe, with its hundreds of billions of stars in more hundreds of billions of galaxies all apparently being burned up.  Unless there were mechanisms at work taking the ashes of these old galaxies and renewing them into new galaxies, we wouldn’t be here asking these questions.  We’d be down some “black hole” somewhere.  And the Galactic Clusters are those mechanisms, scattered as they are throughout the Universe and into the endless ocean of Existence.

Gravity is the universal force, a Prime Mover at work everywhere.  It builds the galactic clusters, starting with two galaxies and growing to perhaps three or four thousand galaxies, drawing in not only the galaxies themselves, but also the gaseous masses within the galaxies and the dark masses within the clusters’ outer boundaries, all moving towards the center-of-gravity for each cluster.  And as these masses are being drawn in from the surface of the cluster towards its center they undergo a continual compression until, in time, the central volume develops into a massive spiral galaxy called a Seyfert.

These masses, the ashes of the thousands of galaxies all being moved in toward the central Seyfert galaxy, causing it to eventually reach the point where its central pressure and temperature becomes critical and a nuclear explosion occurs, and after another 7.5 billion years of growth another explosion occurs, etc., etc.  These explosions expels two quasars in opposite directions, usually at escape velocity, quasars that evolve into normal galaxies (per H. Arp), only to become fuel for the galactic clusters.  This transformation must be 100% efficient, with the Universe (and Existence) appearing essentially as we see it today, for all of eternity.

Pausing at this point, it is helpful to envision these galaxy clusters as they are located in the Universe.  If the Universe has 200 billion galaxies and a galactic cluster has 4 thousand galaxies we may roughly estimate that there are about 50 million such clusters spread homogenously throughout the Universe, each doing its job of galactic renovation in its own locale.  And, of course, this mechanism will be at work throughout all of Existence.  It may also be concluded that there would be about 50 million Seyfert galaxies, one for each mature cluster.

A Gravitational Lens is the result of the formation of a Galactic Cluster.  Ideally, a Galactic Cluster is an sphere with some 4 thousand galaxies and their masses of gas and energy, all being drawn inward toward a center-of-gravity.  At the surface of the sphere one may envision wisps of the various masses, being drawn inward quite slowly.  As these masses move inward their density increases gradually until the cluster reaches the critical mass at the center of its Seyfert.  If we look back at the whole of the sphere we find that we have just described a Luneburg Lens, one that is being perpetually rebuilt as the masses are continually moving inward to the nucleus of the Seyfert.  Then as light moves into the lens from (say) a Quasar far beyond the cluster it is refracted inward to a focal point (the Observer) on the other side of the Lens.  While gravity forms the lens it is the lens that focuses (bends) the light.

But note that the light path through the mass is affected by the constant increase in the density of that mass and undergoes a redshift.  Note also that the mass in the path of the light is constantly being renewed with fresh mass coming in from outside that space as it flows towards the center of the cluster so that there isn’t the problem discussed earlier, of a build up mass.  The Cosmological Redshift remains essentially unaffected.

Attention must be paid to the energy mass that leaves the stars along with the stellar winds.  For the Sun it is reported as being 96% winds and 4% energy.  The discussion now takes up with the planets that surround our Sun that are awash in these Winds and Energy.

In high school we were told that “a moving charge generates a magnet field”, and proceeded to build a solenoid and, by passing a DC electric current (a flow of negative charge) through the turns of wire on the solenoid, made an electromagnet having the usual North and South Poles.  One ampere flowing through each of (say) one thousand turns of wire gave us 1000 ampere-turns.  We also found that this same effect could be envisioned as 1000 amperes flowing through one turn of wire, say using a sheet of copper with a cross section area equivalent to the cross-sectional area of the 1000 turns of wire.  Electrons were the “moving charge”.

Now, suppose we were to imagine the Earth as a single turn solenoid, one that was electrically charged with that charge moving (effective) as a flow around the Earth by its rotation.  We would have our Earth generating an electromagnet!  And, by using the solenoid formula we would be able to determine the size of the charge necessary to give that electromagnet it’s observed 0.4 gauss field strength and, furthermore, by noting where the North and South poles were located we could determine whether that charge was positive or negative.

It turns out that all planets have charges that are a function of their surface area and that, except for the Earth, those charges are all positive.  Knowing that our geologists had determined long ago that the Earth had undergone several pole reversals over time it seemed that the ionosphere was acting as a huge capacitor enveloping the Earth and that it intercepted the positive charge, leaving the Earth’s surface negative.  As the Earth itself rotated, not its ionosphere, the magnetic Poles would be determined by this negative charge and would be opposite that of the other planets.  Periodically a massive Solar Storm would short out this ionospheric capacitor allowing the positive charge to drop to the Earths surface and allowing its magnetic North/South poles to agree with that of the other planets.  [Note that only five of the planets (Earth, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune and Uranus) had characteristics that allowed their charges to be calculated.]

The fact that all of these planets had positive charges suggested that the Solar Wind must be the source of these charges and must itself be positive.  This, in turn, would suggest that the energy mass leaving the Sun was carrying away the negative charged, in some way, and was perhaps intrinsically negative?

So we now may have a negative energy mass leaving the stars as they burn, and a candidate for the “dark matter” of space.  It also gives us a tangible medium that allows the transmission of electro-magnetic waves (TV, Etc.), and one for a magnetic field as an electro-magnetic warp in the dark matter, as well as the dark mass we “feel” in the galactic rates of rotations.  We don’t know what this dark mass is, any more than we know what gravity is, but we do know some of what these forces do.

We now need the mathematicians and the scientists to try afresh using this new Universe, existing within Existence.  If only they would ask the questions that Tim Maudlin claims they are avoiding.

James Burton Wright writes on physics and philosophy on his blog, Cosmological Musings, utilizing a reason-based, Objectivist approach.
Flourishing and Happiness in a Nutshell – Article by Edward W. Younkins

Flourishing and Happiness in a Nutshell – Article by Edward W. Younkins

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The New Renaissance Hat
Edward W. Younkins
June 3, 2012
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By integrating features found in the writings of Aristotle, Austrian economists, Ayn Rand, and a number of contemporary thinkers, we have the potential to develop a powerful, reality-based argument for a free society in which individuals have the opportunity to flourish and to be happy. Modern contributors to this approach include Tibor R. Machan, Douglas B. Rasmussen, Douglas J. Den Uyl, Frederick D. Miller, Roderick T. Long, Chris Matthew Sciabarra, George Reisman, Eric Mack, Neera K. Badhwar, Lester H. Hunt, Geoffrey Allan Plauché, among many others.

At the big-picture level, it can be argued that Aristotelian and neo-Aristotelian theories of morality and human flourishing can be compatible with Objectivist teachings regarding the nature of reality and man’s distinguishing characteristics of reason and free will and with Austrian ideas with respect to value theory, decision making, action, and social cooperation. It may be possible to construct an integrated conceptual framework that coordinates the ideas of Aristotle, the Austrian economists, Ayn Rand, and a number of current philosophers, economists, political scientists, positive psychologists, and others.

My inquiry in my book, Flourishing and Happiness in a Free Society: Toward a Synthesis of Aristotelianism, Austrian Economics, and Ayn Rand’s Objectivism, does not extend beyond a systematic level that relies heavily on logic and common sense. My purpose has been to outline the essentials of a worldview leaving it to philosophers and economists to fill in the details and to evaluate, critique, revise, refine, and extend my systematic understanding. What follows here is a brief summary of my attempt to formulate ideas and to relate them logically to other ideas and to the facts of reality. Although a person’s ideas are derived from reality and are about reality, there are differences between one’s ideas and the identity of the things that we can know. The rules of logic are determined by the facts of reality. In a sense, logic is both epistemological and ontological.

A proper philosophy must appeal to the objective nature of human beings and other entities in the world. There is a world of objective reality that exists and that has a determinate nature that is intelligible. Reality will not yield to permit a person’s subjective desires. Reality establishes the conditions for objectivity. It follows that realism is a necessary, instrumental means for a person’s success in the world. To be morality efficacious, a person must discern and use proper means to attain his truly valuable ends.

There is a human nature and it is man’s nature to be individual, volitionally conscious, rational, and purposive. Because each individual has a specific identity as a human being, we can say that there are particular things and actions that are appropriate to him and for him. Individuality is essential to one’s nature. Possessing reason and free will, each individual has the capacity and responsibility to choose to try to actualize his potential for being a flourishing, individual human being. Each person is a metaphysically unique self who is responsible for discerning what is good for himself. A person discovers his individual strengths and virtues through a process of moral development. A particular man’s own life is his purpose or goal. One’s aspirations are the aspirations in the only life he has to live. One’s entire life can be viewed as a project or overall goal which is subject to continual evaluation.

The goal or function of an individual human being is to perfect himself by fulfilling the potentialities that make him who he is. One’s flourishing is teleological consisting in fulfillment of his unique set of potentialities to be a mature human being. Each person has an innate, unchosen potentiality for his mature state along with the obligation to attempt to actualize that potentiality. Each person is responsible to discern and to live according to his daimon (i.e., true self) which includes his aptitudes, talents, and so on. This involves a process of progressive development, unfolding, or actualization in which a man attains goals that are in some way inherent in his nature as an individual human being. What constitutes a person’s daimon at a given point in time is a function of his endowments, circumstances, latent powers, interests, talents, and his history of choices, actions, and accomplishments. We could say that the fulfillment of one’s daimon is not static or fixed. An individual uses his practical rationality to assess himself and to work on his life in accordance with the objective standard of his flourishing as a singular human person. He can increase his generative potential to attain his own flourishing. A person is able to critique what he has done in the past and can change what he does with respect to the future development of his potentialities. Possessing free will, a man can adjust his actions in response to feedback that he has received.

Morality is an essential functional component of one’s existence as an individual human being. Moral knowledge is possible and can be derived from the facts of reality including human nature. Possessing rationality and free will, a person needs a proper moral code to aid him in making objective decisions and in acting on those decisions in his efforts to attain his true self-interest. Morality and self-interest are inextricably interrelated. Morality is concerned with rationally determining what best contributes to a person’s own flourishing and happiness.

Flourishing is a successful state of life, and happiness is a positive state of consciousness that flows from, or accompanies, a flourishing life. The legitimate function of every human person is live capably, excellently, and happily. This involves an ethic of aspiration toward one’s objective well-being that is actively attained and maintained. A person should aspire to what is best for him taking into account his given potentialities, abilities, and interests. Limits for self-fulfillment are set by reality including the type of being that we are and our individual characteristics.

Rationality is the foundational means to the end of human flourishing. Rationality is necessary to effect the appropriate means to a person’s ends and to integrate them. To be rational, a man must be committed to reality, truth, and logic. Not solely instrumental with respect to a person’s flourishing, rationality can also be viewed as partially constitutive of his flourishing. Rational introspection by a specific individual can enable him to determine the type of life that he should be leading.

Practical wisdom, an aspect of rationality, involves the ability to discern the relevant and important aspects of one’s circumstances in order to make the most proper response to them. The use of practical wisdom (or prudence) can only take place through self-direction or human agency. An individual requires practical wisdom to contend with the specifics, contingencies, and circumstances of one’s life. Practical wisdom is needed to guide oneself regarding the progressive fulfillment of his own potential to flourish. A prerequisite for one’s flourishing is self-direction or autonomy. Human flourishing requires self-direction and practical wisdom.

Natural rights are based on the common attributes of human beings and, therefore, apply universally to all people and to all actions. A metanormative system of negative rights that provide a context of self-directedness can be derived from a proper conception of human nature. Such a system of rights allows for value pluralism and for a variety of approaches to living one’s life. A conception of negative rights emphasizes where one individual’s life begins and another individual’s life ends. A political and legal order that protects natural rights is a necessary precondition for individual self-direction and for the possibility that human flourishing can take place in a social context. Protected self-directedness is necessary for social cooperation, specialization and trade, freely-chosen productive work, private property, free markets, voluntary contracts, and so on.

There is an important interrelationship and complementarily between the ideas of natural rights and human flourishing which together comprise a two-level ethics. At a metanormative level, rights protect people’s liberty to pursue (or not to pursue) their own good. They simply regulate the conditions under which moral conduct may (or may not) occur. In turn, what is good for the life of each individual person is found in the realm of personal virtue, morality, and flourishing. The ideas of natural rights and human flourishing describe different but related sides of what it means to be a human being. Together they provide a rational ethical framework.

The only enforceable limits on one’s actions are other people’s rights. We must recognize other individuals as purposive beings with ends of their own choosing. It would be contradictory to advocate my own rights and not to recognize the rights of other individuals. If a person does not acknowledge the rights of others, then he cannot declare that his own rights are valid. Each individual is thus permitted and limited in both the private and social spheres with respect to the types of actions in which he can engage.

People are born with physical, philosophical, and psychological needs specific to them as individual human beings. Human beings have needs embedded in their nature. We could say that value derives only to the extent that something satisfies an objective human need. The term value implies the personal importance or significance of an activity or object. Self-interest refers to the objective needs of a flourishing human life. Values promote and constitute one’s life and happiness. They have a metaphysical foundation in the nature of reality. There is an inextricable connection between values and natural facts. A value relationship exists due to the nature of a living beings and the nature of other existents in the world. Something in the world can be a value to a specific man even though he does not view it as valuable or even if he is not aware of its existence.

A flourishing life, including the happiness that accompanies it, is a person’s ultimate value. Everything else in life is aspired to because of this chief value. All of a man’s other values are instrumental and/or constitutive of the ultimate value. Means that serve the end of a flourishing life can be part of that end. Constitutive values such as a productive career, friendships, and so on are not simply means to a flourishing life but are also vital parts of such a life.

In order to flourish and to be happy, each man must select values, place them in a hierarchy, and strive to attain them. A person must experience many aspects of reality in order to discover values that are proper for him and that interest and inspire him. This active learning process highlights the exploratory nature of individual human interests and values. A person decides to live a particular type of life because he sees the value of it. He should select and pursue specific meaningful values that are metaphysically appropriate for him. He needs to identify the positive relationships in which things exist in relationship to his life. The meaning of particular projects in a person’s life is a function of his individuality.

There are differences among needs, values, and goals. Whereas needs are inborn, values are acquired. Values prioritize needs. People require a value hierarchy in order to be able to make choices. Goals are values applied to particular circumstances. Goals achieve values and values fulfill needs. A person’s goals and values should be consistent with his needs. Values are translated into reality through the means of goals. Value attainment requires setting and pursuing goals. Needs lead to values, values lead to goals, and goals lead to action.

Human beings are goal-directed. Goals are specific forms of values. Values provide a strategic underpinning for a person’s goal-setting activities. They supply meaning and purpose to a person’s goals. We could say that goals depict values as related to particular states of affairs. Because not all goals are equally valid, a person needs to examine the values underlying his goals. It is important to realize that goals are not isolated from one another. A person should strive to create a rational system of goals aimed at his flourishing and happiness.

Human flourishing is related to a number of general goods and virtues that provide structure but not specific direction or content with respect to living one’s life. Because there is a wide diversity of human beings, it follows that a flourishing life is not universal. Generic goods such as knowledge, health, and friendships need to be integrated in various measures and the virtues need to be applied in specific circumstances.

Each person needs to consider a variety of values, goods, and virtues in order to determine the relationship among them that will best achieve his flourishing as an individual human being. This requires rational insight into the particular and the contingent. Reason is the basic means used by human beings to create the values necessary for life and to interrelate and integrate goods and virtues into their lives. Virtues may be viewed as a set of fundamental principles that a rational person uses to guide the long-term course of his life.

Virtues can be viewed as principles of action which promote the flourishing of an individual who, by following them, engages in consistent actions that are in alignment with practical rationality. Virtuous actions enable a person to gain (and keep) the values he pursues. The virtues are required for one’s practical efficacy and happiness. Of course, virtue, by itself, is not enough to guarantee practical efficacy. A person also needs to have the relevant skills, resources, and so on. The fundamental virtue is rationality and the other virtues are particular expressions of that basic virtue. The virtues are both instrumental to, and a constitutive part of, an agent’s flourishing. They are valuable, not merely as means to flourishing, but also as partial realizations of it. Virtuous action begins with the ability to discern the aspects of a situation that are the most relevant and that fit the circumstances at hand. A man needs to possess the ability to decide which virtues are required in a particular situation and the optimal way of applying them. Virtuous actions tend to foster further virtuous actions. Applying the virtues is heavily dependent upon the context of a situation. People tend to take pleasure in virtuous actions—affect is related closely to virtue especially when one’s emotions are properly aligned with his rationality.

Ayn Rand makes a powerful case that the rational pursuit of one’s flourishing requires the consistent practice of seven essential virtues—rationality, honesty, independence, justice, integrity, productiveness, and pride. She saw rationality as the master virtue and the other six virtues as derivative from the primary virtue. Some scholars have pointed out that Rand did not specifically discuss the intellectual virtue of practical wisdom (i.e., prudence). It is likely that she considered practical wisdom as part of rationality. Others have suggested that her version of virtue ethics might be improved by including positive qualities such as benevolence, kindness, generosity, charity, tolerance, and so on in her prescription for moral perfection.

Emotions are an important part of one’s life experience and are relevant to his moral character. A case can be made that many emotions are the products of a person’s judgments of value as integrated by his subconscious mind. Such emotions stem from a person’s values and estimates which, in turn, depend upon his knowledge. They are about personally meaningful values and circumstances. These emotions are directed by one’s chosen values. It follows that a change in one’s values can bring about a change in his emotions. Emotions can encourage or discourage goal-directed actions. Correctly programmed positive emotions can be indicators that we have located objective values. Such emotions both signal and promote a person’s optimal functioning and flourishing. Justified positive emotions are fundamental conditions of human existence. We could say that emotional and psychological well-being is a crucial part of human flourishing.

Happiness occurs to the extent that one leads a flourishing life. We could say that happiness is an emergent effect of living a good life. Happiness has both cognitive and affective dimensions and depends upon the degree to which a person responds realistically, morally, and efficaciously to his life circumstances. Successful people tend to be happy people who continue to intentionally seek new, not-yet-attained goals. There are various degrees of personal growth, development, and happiness. A person can be happy and still strive to be even happier. Happiness is an issue of living a particular type of life—it is not just a case of having positive feelings. However, happiness is related to emotion-laden experiences such as flow and self-esteem.

A person is apt to be in a psychological state of flow when he is engaged in meaningful, self-controlled, and goal-related activities. Flow involves focused immersion in an activity, lack of self-consciousness, and the merging of awareness and action. A man is in the flow state when he is vitally engaged in enjoyable activities that offer him scope.

Self-esteem refers to a person’s legitimate attitude of self-affirmation. Self-esteem is connected to a sense of agency and control of one’s environment. A person with self-esteem tends to be competent, optimistic, and virtuous, and to have self-respect. A person who does not practice the virtues (such as rationality, honesty, justice, and so on) is not likely to possess self-esteem. Virtuous action leads to self-respect and self-esteem.

People should take virtuous actions in alignment with their objective values. A person must use his practical wisdom to examine and judge the context of a situation before freely choosing to exercise virtuous action. Deliberation itself is an action aimed at an end. The final end of the actions of a human being is his own flourishing life. People are capable of taking self-directed, deliberate, reasoned, and planned actions directed by a notion of an ultimate end. Of course, they can choose to act and live in a variety of ways that are not conducive to a flourishing life.

Austrian Economics and Objectivism agree on the significance of the ideas of human action and values. The Austrians explain that a person acts when he prefers the way he thinks things will be if he acts compared to the way he thinks things will be if he fails to act. Austrian Economics is descriptive and deals with the logical analysis of the ability of selected actions (i.e., means) to achieve chosen ends. Whether or not these ends are truly objectively valuable is not the concern of the praxeological economist when he is acting in his capacity as an economist. There is another realm of values that views value in terms of objective values and correct preferences and actions. Ayn Rand’s Objectivism is concerned with this other sphere and thus prescribes what human beings ought to value and act to attain.

Austrian economists contend that values are subjective and Objectivists maintain that values are objective. These claims can be seen as compatible because they are not claims about the same phenomena. These two senses of value are complementary and compatible. The Austrians view actions from the perspective of a neutral examiner of the actions and Objectivists suggest values and actions for an acting human being as a moral agent himself. The Austrian economist does not force his own value judgments on the personal values and actions of the human beings that he is studying. Operating from a different perspective, Objectivists maintain that there are objective values that stem from a man’s relationship to other existents in the world. For the Objectivist, the purpose of ethics is to live a flourishing and happy life by recognizing and responding to the significance of human action.

It is possible for these two schools of thought to be combined into an integrated framework. At a descriptive level, the Austrian idea of demonstrated preference agrees with Ayn Rand’s account of value as something that a person acts to gain and/or keep. Of course, Rand moves from an initial descriptive notion of value to a normative perspective on value that includes the idea that a legitimate or objective value serves one’s life. The second deeper level view of value provides an objective standard to evaluate the use of one’s free will.

Austrian praxeological economics (i.e., the study of human action) has been used to make a value-free case for liberty. This economic science deals with abstract principles and general rules that must be applied if a society is to have optimal production and economic well-being. Misesian praxeology consists of a body of logically deduced, inexorable laws of economics beginning with the axiom that each person acts purposefully.

Although Misesian economists hold that values are subjective and Objectivists argue that values are objective, these claims are not incompatible because they are not really claims about the same things—they exist at different levels or spheres of analysis. The value-subjectivity of the Austrians complements the Randian sense of objectivity. The level of objective values dealing with personal flourishing transcends the level of subjective value preferences.

The value-freedom (or value-neutrality) and value-subjectivity of the Austrians have a different function or purpose than does Objectivism’s emphasis on objective values. On the one hand, the Austrian emphasis is on the value-neutrality of the economist as a scientific observer of a person acting to attain his “subjective” (i.e., personally-estimated) values. On the other hand, the philosophy of Objectivism is concerned with values for an acting individual moral agent himself.

Austrian Economics is an excellent way of looking at methodological economics with respect to the appraisal of means but not of ends. Misesian praxeology therefore must be augmented. Its value-free economics is not sufficient to establish a total case for liberty. A systematic, reality-based ethical system must be discovered to firmly establish the argument for individual liberty. Natural law provides the groundwork for such a theory and both Objectivism and the Aristotelian idea of human flourishing are based on natural-law ideas.

An ethical system must be developed and defended in order to establish the case for a free society. An Aristotelian ethics of naturalism states that moral matters are matters of fact and that morally good conduct is that which enables the individual agent to make the best possible progress toward achieving his self-perfection and happiness. According to Rand, happiness relates to a person’s success as a unique, rational human being possessing free will. We have free choice and the capacity to initiate our own conduct that enhances or hinders our flourishing as human beings.

A human being’s flourishing requires the rational use of his individual human potentialities, including his talents, abilities, and virtues in the pursuit of his freely and rationally chosen values and goals. An action is considered to be proper if it leads to the flourishing of the person performing the action. A person’s flourishing leads to his happiness. Each person is responsible for voluntarily choosing, creating, and entering relationships in civil society that contribute toward his flourishing.

Long ago, Aristotle observed that social life and social cooperation in a community are essential conditions for one’s flourishing. Today, it is generally held that a person’s social networks have strong effects on a person’s well-being. Mediating institutions such as charitable societies, fraternal organizations, churches, clubs, and so on, provide individuals and communities with valuable interaction networks. Most people hold memberships in a number of value-providing associations. It follows that civil society is important to the pursuit and attainment of our individual ends.

Unlike the state, which is based on coercion, civil society is based on voluntary participation. Civil society consists of natural and voluntary associations such as families, private businesses, unions, churches, private schools, clubs, charities, etc. Civil society, a spontaneous order, consists of a network of associations built on the freedom of the individual to associate or not to associate. The voluntary communities and associations of civil society are valuable because human beings need to associate with others in order to flourish and achieve happiness.

One’s personal flourishing requires a life with other people. Sociality is essential to a man’s attempt to live well. Benefaction (i.e., charity) can be viewed as an expression and specific manifestation of one’s capacity for social cooperation.

The interpersonal realm is integral to a well-lived life. We love our friends because we appreciate their potential to advance our well-being. Friendship and love have an egoistic basis in a person’s love for, and pride in, himself. The well-being of a person who is a value to an individual increases the individual’s own ability to flourish and to be happy. The fundamental reason for performing other-regarding actions is to enhance one’s own well-being. Other people’s interests can be viewed as contributive to, or interrelated with, one’s own interests as evidenced in the case of production and free trade. It can be said that a person’s authentic self-interest cannot conflict with the self-interests of other people.

Dr. Edward W. Younkins is Professor of Accountancy at Wheeling Jesuit University. He is the author of Capitalism and Commerce: Conceptual Foundations of Free Enterprise [Lexington Books, 2002], Philosophers of Capitalism: Menger, Mises, Rand, and Beyond [Lexington Books, 2005] (See Mr. Stolyarov’s review of this book.), and Flourishing and Happiness in a Free Society: Toward a Synthesis of Aristotelianism, Austrian Economics, and Ayn Rand’s Objectivism [Rowman & Littlefield Pub Incorporated, 2011] (See Mr. Stolyarov’s review of this book.). Many of Dr. Younkins’s essays can be found online at his web page at www.quebecoislibre.org. You can contact Dr. Younkins at younkins@wju.edu.

Creation of an Ethical Business: The Implementation of Virtuous Behavior and Shared Values and Goals – Article by Jessica L. Kuryn

Creation of an Ethical Business: The Implementation of Virtuous Behavior and Shared Values and Goals – Article by Jessica L. Kuryn

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The New Renaissance Hat
Jessica L. Kuryn
May 10, 2012
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IN TODAY’S COMPETITIVE BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT, a growing number of firms will do almost anything to gain sales and customers, as well as to increase profits.  For some of these firms, playing by the rules doesn’t achieve the results they are after.  Firms have the choice to act ethically or unethically.  While misguided managers think that unethical behavior can lead the firm, and ultimately themselves, to greater profits over the long term, it is only for the short term.  It will eventually lead to their downfall in that unethical behavior spirals out of control and can be very difficult to maintain.  Once this occurs, a firm’s reputation becomes tarnished and the company fades into non-existence.  On the contrary, “firms that pursue ethically driven strategies realize a greater profit potential than those firms who currently use profit-driven strategies” (Arjoon 159).

The point is that a firm’s leaders do have a choice in how they conduct business.  Creating an ethical business does not happen overnight.  It takes extensive collaboration and several implementation and evaluation processes, as well as continual reinforcement of and changes to established practices and values.  Perhaps one of the most important aspects to creating an ethical business is that it requires cooperation on multiple organizational levels and the implementation of virtuous behavior and values.

Maintaining ethical practices, once implemented, is an ongoing process.  There are many factors that can affect ethical behavior, such as competition for customers and market share, the need for increased profits, and management incentives.  Some firms, such as BB&T have been able to implement an ethical environment that has led to firm success, while others such as Enron, have succumbed to greed and wrongdoing, and no longer are in existence.  BB&T’s story of success will be discussed later in this paper.

CREATING AN ETHICALLY DRIVEN BUSINESS

Business ethics can be defined as “the applied ethics discipline that addresses the moral features of commercial activity” (Marcoux).  The question we have to ask concerning business ethics is how they can be applied to a business.  One of the most important aspects in creating an ethical business entails the need for new and refined organizationalvalues.  A value, as defined by Ayn Rand in Younkins’s article, is “that which one acts to gain and/or keep” (Younkins 9). Antonio Argandoña suggests a business must first identify its currently existing values and from that develop what values are needed (Argandoña 22).  In identifying these needed values, it is crucial that businesses select values that pertain to both the business’s goals, as well as the employees’ goals.  Congruence between the goals of the business and its employees increase the chances that the valueswill be received well and adhered to.

Once the desired values and goals have been determined, it falls in the hands of management to implement and communicate them.  “At the top level of an organization, it takes effective communicators who are clear about what they champion and who establish the company on virtuous behavior” (Younkins 21).Virtues, which are also defined by Ayn Rand in Younkin’s article, are “the act[s] by which one gains and/or keeps an objective value” (Younkins 11).  It is crucial for each employee and manager to establish virtues within themselves in order to pursue individual and organizational values, as well as keep them once they have been successfully implemented.It is the responsibility of management to ensure that these values are clearly communicated and followed, while established virtuous behavior becomes the mean by which these values flourish and exist.“A culture (or climate) of virtue in a business begins with executives who exhibit virtuous leadership through their personal actions and interpersonal relationships” (Younkins 21).

In displaying virtuous behavior throughout an organization, managers are setting an example for employees.   “Employees are influenced by observing visible and legitimate role models who themselves act as virtuous agents.  Not only should leaders openly discuss virtues and values, they should also live the virtues and values that they advocate” (Younkins 21).  I believe that this is one of the most important aspects in creating and sustaining an ethical business environment.  As explained by Kouzes and Posner in Minkes, Small, and Chatterjee’s article, “…leaders who could not personally adhere to a firm set of values, could not convince others of the worthiness of those values” (Minkes, Small, and Chatterjee 330).  People learn through example.  Therefore, managers should be mindful of this and back up their words with consistent virtuous behaviors that champion the organization’s values.

Once organizational values have been implemented, only half of the work has been done.  The remaining half is a continual and never ending process within the business.  In maintaining an ethical business, ongoing promotion and reinforcement is necessary.  Management must continue to display ethical behavior, while continuing to communicate values to employees.  This also includes communicating what actions are and are not acceptable.  Employee evaluations should also frequently be performed, in which employees are evaluated on values implemented by the organization’s managers.  In addition, management also needs to develop systems that reward value-oriented behaviors and reprimand value-destructive behaviors.

In regards to a reward system, “employees should be objectively appraised and compensated based on their contribution toward achieving a firm’s mission, values, and goals” (Younkins 19).  Employees may receive monetary or recognition awards for their display of virtuous and ethical behavior.  In establishing such incentives, there is an encouragement that exists among employees to accept and display the organization’s values and goals.  In addition, such incentives create a pathway in which individuals can fulfill their own self-interests and goals simultaneously.  “The good manager tries to shape employees’ ideas about self-interest by instituting incentives rewarding cooperation and reinforcing the pleasure people take in collaborating with each other” (Koehn 498). When employees act ethically, the business is also handsomely rewarded in that it gains a good reputation as being an ethically driven business.  This can lead to higher profits in that consumers will be more likely to choose that particular business over competitors because of its reputation.  “Many companies are now realizing that ethically driven strategies are resulting in a sustainable competitive advantage” (Arjoon 168).  In addition, “companies that have seriously adopted ethically driven or people-centered strategies have seen clear gains in productivity, sales and profits, customer service, retention rates, reduction in absenteeism, positive impact on employee morale, [and] increased and timely launching of products” (Arjoon 169).

Adversely, a disciplinary system is also necessary in order to maintain organization values and ethically driven behavior that have already been established.  Employees should be aware of the possible repercussions of their actions in advance, and management needs to ensure disciplinary actions are followed through with when dealing with value-destructive behaviors.  This sends a message to employees that unethical behavior will not be tolerated and it should be avoided at all costs.

The acts of Enron and WorldCom have increased consumer demands for ethically driven organizations.  Therefore, the businesses that make ethics a priority will likely obtain a sustainable competitive advantage because more consumers will choose to do business with them.  In today’s economy and business world, businesses must place a large focus on ethics in order to be successful.

FACTORS THAT AFFECT ETHICAL BEHAVIOR

Implementing a form of virtue ethics and values throughout a business can be very challenging, but maintaining it can be just as difficult.  There are many factors that can affect ethical behavior and lead a manager or employee to act unethically.  Competition for customers and increased market share, as well as the need for more profit are common issues that can lead to unethical behavior.  In addition, management incentives, such as bonuses, pay increases, promotions, and stock options can open the gateway for unethical behavior.

With a specific focus on profit, businesses that have an urgency to increase profits are likely to engage in false reporting.  Reporting false financial information makes a business’s financial statements look more appealing to investors and gives a false pretense that the business is in better financial health than it really is.  In addition, management may inflate earnings if they receive bonuses, pay increases, or promotions for increasing profits.  These monetary compensations can prove beneficial for businesses in that management will be more driven to make sales and increase wealth in the business.  Adversely, these monetary compensations can be dangerous if a manager works in his or her own interest and does not act ethically.  It could put the business in a financial position that is difficult to correct.

Stock options are another form of management compensation.  “Stock options allow employees to purchase a particular number of common shares of company stock at a specified price over a specified time period” (Brooks and Dunn 172).  Stock options can be beneficial in that they serve as a motivational devise.  When managers have an interest in the company they work for, they are more willing to strive towards an increase in stock prices.  Shareholders, as well as the managers, enjoy higher returns when stock prices increase.  In addition, stock options enable management to adopt the investor’s perspective in that theyenable both the interests of investors and management to be aligned.

One of the biggest problems with this is that unethical managers can work out of their own self-interest to falsely raise stock prices in order to earn more money.  With the incentive to earn more money comes the high possibility for unethical behavior and false reporting.  Managers that get used to these increasing stock prices are also the ones who will likely forego ethical standards and correct reporting procedures.  The concept of stock options can be extremely dangerous to a firm, especially when stock prices are truly in decline and these types of managers are present.  Reporting false income to increase these prices will eventually catch up to the firm and will result in the company’s non-existence.  Another problem with stock options is that management has the option to exercise their stock options and then sell them immediately.  This does not align with investor interests in that managers are only maintaining a short term perspective.  Making decisions based on the short term only hurts the long term investors.

BB&T – A TRUE ETHICALLY DRIVEN BUSINESS

BB&T is a fine example of a business that has been led to success through the values-driven approach adopted by one its leaders.  John Allison, former CEO of BB&T, now serves as the chairman of the board of directors.  During Allison’s time as CEO, the company has grown from approximately $5 billion in assets to $165 billion in assets.  This substantial growth has placed the company as the eighth largest financial institute in the United States.  Just a few of the issues BB&T has made a bold stand on are a municipality’s right to seize property by eminent domain for the purpose of economic development, and negative amortization loans.  Allison received national attention is his decision to “not provide loans for any economic development projects in which the land for the project had been taken in this manner” (Parnell and Dent 587).  This decision was not initially favored by many mortgage producers.

“When we made the decision not to do these loans, we got beat up in the market.  We also lost a number of mortgage producers who could make more money working for Countrywide – of course a number of these producers would now like to come back to BB&T.  We believe that doing our best to help our clients make the right financial decisions is good for BB&T.  I believe that while there may be short-term trade-offs by sticking to your values, you are never making a sacrifice in the long run, if your values are rational” (Parnell and Dent 589).

“Allison is known for, and attributes BB&T’s success to, operating by a set of principles that are embodied in BB&T’s Values Statement.  These ten values – Reality (Fact-Based), Reason (Objectivity), Independent Thinking, Productivity, Honesty, Integrity, Justice (Fairness), Pride, Self-Esteem (Self-Motivation), and Teamwork/Mutual (Supportiveness) – are not simply platitudes at BB&T but drive the decision-making process of the bank” (Parnell and Dent 588).  These values serve as the foundation that BB&T was built on.  As part of the evaluation process, employees are evaluated on their performance in accordance with the 10 values.  Those employees that perform in accordance with the values are rewarded.

Allison attributes Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism as the framework for these 10 values.  The main aspect of Objectivism is that it relies on truth and blocks out all emotions in the decision making process.  “The purpose of the process is to help you think rationally.  It is about not letting your emotions make decisions that are bad for you.  It is the ability to make logical decisions based on the facts and to pursue our purposes that makes us happy” (Parnell and Dent 591).

In addition, BB&T has also been viewed as being socially responsible.  Milton Friedman, who is referenced to in Parnell and Dent’s article, argues that there are two reasons as to why a firm should act socially responsible.  “First, not doing so can increase the likelihood of more costly government regulation.  A number of regulations over business operations were enacted because some firms refused to be socially responsible” (Parnell and Dent 593).  The second reason as to why a firm should act socially responsible is that “stakeholders affected by a firm’s social responsibility stance – most notably customers – are also those who must choose whether to transact business with the firm” (Parnell and Dent 593).  The point here is that if consumers do not think a firm is socially responsible, they have the option to do business with another company, and they will more than likely do so.  As discussed in Parnell and Dent’s article, studies have shown that consumers will be willing to pay more for products and services that are responsibly produced.  Simply, consumers favor ethically driven and responsible businesses, and will purchase products and services from them considering this factor.  This is why it is crucial for businesses in today’s economy and environment to be ethically driven and socially responsible.  With the events as seen in Enron and WorldCom, it has made consumers extra sensitive to firms and what approach they take in formulating profit.  Consumers want to be valued for their choice to do business with a particular firm, and they take enjoyment in purchasing products from these firms when they display ethically driven strategies.

From a market and environmental perspective, we could argue that BB&T is doing exceptionally well.  “From a market perspective, BB&T has delivered strong growth and financial performance since Allison’s appointment as CEO in 1989.  From a broad environmental perspective, BB&T’s business decisions defending eminent domain rights and eschewing negative amortization loans reflect support for a sustained society that respects personal property rights and responsible mortgage loan practices” (Parnell and Dent 594).  In respect to this, BB&T speaks on behalf of individuals and what they want.  While BB&T suffered somewhat in the short term, they were able to come out on top in the long run.  In my personal opinion, I have much more respect for companies like BB&T because they are willing to forgo potential profits and take a stand, even when it is not the popular decision.  Companies, like BB&T, will be around for years longer than the companies that jump on the popularity bandwagon.  They will also see considerably larger profits because they stand out among their competitors – just as BB&T has come to do

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, it is easy to see how BB&T has come to be a top competitor in the financial institution sector of business.  BB&T is a classic example of an ethically driven firm that has realized greater profits than the firms that have adopted a profit-driven strategy.  The implementation of ethics throughout an organization is a very difficult thing to do.  It requires substantial acceptance from employees and managers alike to be successful.  Most importantly, managers are the driving forces in implementing such a strategy throughout an organization.  They must be effective in communicating the values of an organization to employees, as well as lead by example.  Management cannot expect to preach values that they do not live by themselves.  After all, people learn through example.  A leader that lives by the values it communicates to employees has the best shot at having an ethically driven business.

In addition to the communication process, managers must provide incentives for desirable behavior.  A rewards system based on monetary or recognition awards are great ways to encourage cooperation and motivate employees.  This also encourages the creation of a pathway in which individuals can fulfill their self-interests.  These same values must also be a part of the evaluation process.  Just as there are rewards systems, management must also design a disciplinary system.  It is important that employees are aware in advance what they could encounter by not behaving in accordance with a firm’s values and policies.  Managers must also follow through with any disciplinary action to reinforce their importance on having a values-based business.

The benefits of implementing an ethically driven business strategy can be great, but it can be a difficult thing to do.  Competition for customers and increased market share, as well as the need for more profit are common issues that can lead to unethical behavior.  In addition, management incentives, such as bonuses, pay increases, promotions, and stock options can open the gateway for unethical behavior. However, if a firm is able to successfully implement an ethics-driven approach, these issues can be minimized and the interests of the firm and employees will be satisfied and aligned.  When a firm is able to align individual self-interests with its own interests, happiness and flourishing are more likely to occur for both.

Jessica Kuryn is a student in Wheeling Jesuit University’s Master of Science in Accountancy (MSA) program.

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            15-28.

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            Ethics, no. 28:159-78.

Brooks, L. J., and P. Dunn. Business & Professional Ethics for Directors, Executives &

Accountants. 5. South-Western Pub, 2011. 172.

Koehn, Daryl. (1998).  Virtue ethics, the firm, and moral psychology.  Business Ethics Quarterly

            8 (3): 497-513.

Marcoux, Alexei, “Business Ethics”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2008

Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL

<http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2008/entries/ethics-business/>.

Minkes, A.L., M.W. Small, and S.R. Chatterjee. (1999).  Leadership and business ethics: Does it

            Matter? Implications for management.Journal of Business Ethics 20: 327-35.

Parnell, John A., and Eric B. Dent. (2009).  Philosophy, Ethics, and Capitalism: An Interview

            With BB&T Chairman John Allison.Academy of Management Learning & Education

            8 (4): 587-96.

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            Pursuit of Values and Goals,” Libertarian Papers 3, 26 (2011).

Objectivist Virtue Ethics in Business – Article by Edward W. Younkins

Objectivist Virtue Ethics in Business – Article by Edward W. Younkins

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The New Renaissance Hat
Edward W. Younkins
April 24, 2012
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Virtuous actions can lead to the achievement of values. When one’s context is reduced to business, virtue theory contends that pursuing virtuous principles, strategies, and actions can result in firms realizing their values including their mission, purpose, profit potential, and other goals. Virtuous employees tend to carry out their roles in a competent manner that is congruent with the firm’s goals. Virtues are instrumental allowing a person to act to gain values. When business people conform to the Objectivist virtues, they increase the likelihood of achieving their values and goals. Virtue ethics stresses the importance of each individual employee being able to make contributions of value. Valid virtue concepts are required to describe what it means to be an excellent director, leader, manager, or employee. To be successful, a business needs to espouse a set of virtues that are reality-based, non-contradictory, integrated, and comprehensive.

Virtue theory holds that ethics is an inherent part of business and that it is necessary to integrate moral theory into management theory and practice. The role of the virtues in business is to direct and motivate behavior toward the success of the business. Strategic management and business ethics converge because each area has an explicit interest in the nature and goals of business. In business, the virtues facilitate successful management and cooperation and enable a company to attain its goals. The Randian virtues can provide a moral framework and integrating strategy to guide a business in achieving its goals.[1]

The virtues connect ethics to business positively and provide a sound logical foundation for business ethics. Given the laws of nature and of human nature, there exists a set of virtues that fit reality and that are most likely to lead to success and happiness in business. Ayn Rand’s Objectivist ethics specifically recognizes production as the central human value. In addition, the personal virtues that she advocated have a direct bearing on work: rationality, honesty, independence, justice, integrity, productiveness, and pride. These virtues can be used as guiding forces in a business career and in the management of a business. They define the excellent manager (or other employee) and provide the principles that a corporation should adopt with respect to investors, employees, customers, vendors, and others.

A case can be made that virtue ethics has priority over, and perhaps grounds, other competing ethical approaches to business. In most cases being virtuous will be sufficient for leading a morally decent life in the world of business. Virtue theory is more attractive, positive, unified, comprehensive, and practical than are traditional approaches to business ethics because it is concerned with the type of person that one should be rather than with rules that tell people how they ought to act. Virtue theory is concerned with the cultivation of character and provides a framework through which a person can lead a flourishing and happy life. Moral growth comes from choice rather than from conformity to rules or codes.

Traditional approaches to business ethics (i.e., deontology, consequentialism and codes of conduct) are viewed as formulaic, prescriptive, constraining forces that legislate the form of moral deliberation. Conventional approaches focus on a set of prohibitive principles or rules that tell people how they ought to act. Kantian and utilitarian act-oriented approaches concentrate only on the development of principles while neglecting the cultivation of an individual’s character. Neither deontic nor consequentialist judgments are apt to supply sufficient action guidance for resolving particular dilemmas. Virtue ethics should be viewed as a precondition of, and complement to, moral reasoning based on a deontological focus on one’s obligation to act and on a teleological focus on the consequences of an action. Virtue ethics is more fundamental, and in many cases, preempts the consideration and application of deontic and utilitarian rules. An emphasis on virtuous behavior is motivational because it depends upon a person’s ability to aspire to excellence through virtuous acts. Virtue ethics emphasizes the process of individual moral character development. Above all, virtue ethics is concerned with the flourishing and happiness of the human agent (Mintz 1996, 537-38; Arjoon 2000, 159-78; Whetstone 2001, 101-14).

Virtue theory provides a context in which strategies, plans, tactics, policies, and procedures can be developed to attain a business’s stated mission and other relevant values. Virtues can play a causal role in achieving economic success. Virtues-driven firms tend to maximize profits. However, acting virtuously does not always result in wealth creation because other factors can come into play. Despite such an occurrence, virtuous employees still can experience the internal rewards of pride, self-esteem, and the joy of knowing that they did their jobs well.

The achievement of a firm’s telos, mission, purpose, ultimate end, or ultimate value requires virtuous action on the part of the company’s employees. The ultimate value for a business is financial value. The purpose of a business is to maximize owner value over the long-term by selling goods and/or services. Most corporation mission statements explain this purpose explicitly, or at least implicitly. It is necessary to recognize a business’s distinctive purpose when organizing and integrating human effort into purposeful long-term activities. Purposeful behavior requires a single overarching valued objective function. In a corporation market price per share can be a surrogate for owner value. More specifically, the ultimate purpose of maximizing total long-term market value can provide a criterion for management decisions and choices among competing alternatives, Virtues are instrumental and support a firm’s overall telos.

To accomplish a corporation’s ultimate purpose requires the attainment of a number of goals within a business. It is possible look upon both a firm’s ultimate purpose and its goals as values that need to be achieved. Although technically a value is an object of goal-directed action, in general parlance, the terms, goals and values, are often used interchangeably. For our purposes, we can consider both the ultimate end of a corporation (i.e., the long-term maximization of firm value) and the goals that can lead to the ultimate end to be values.

Goals (sometimes referred to as objectives) are specific quantitative targets that a business needs to meet in a manner consistent with ethical principles in order to accomplish its purpose. Typical goal areas in a business include: profitability, sales, sales growth, return on investment (ROI), profit margin, cash flow, market share (or position), customer loyalty, productivity, efficiency, cost control, research and development, product leadership, employee development, employee attitudes, employee loyalty, expansion or contraction of product and service lines, reducing business risks, and so on. Each and every goal should be analyzed to determine the potential impact on firm value and whether or not they are contributing to the attainment of the firm’s target valuation. Goals whose achievement does not contribute to increasing shareholder value should be eliminated.

To succeed a business must have a superior vision and purpose to work toward and the strategic focus and direction of effort to achieve them. The Objectivist virtues can enable people to direct their actions toward the attainment of a company’s goals and values including the maximization of owner value. Virtuous actions can lead to better customer service, gains in productivity and efficiency, higher employee retention rates, reduction in employee absenteeism, improvement in employee morale, better communications both internally and externally, honest and reliable internal and external financial reporting, the flexibility necessary to adapt to market conditions, increased innovation and the more frequent and more timely launching of new products and services, higher sales and profits, sustainable competitive advantages, greater flourishing and happiness of the firm’s employees, and so on.

Virtuous behavior is required at all levels of a company from employees who realize that business is a natural and moral means by which they can satisfy their needs and attain their actualization as individual human persons. Virtuous employees are energetic, productive workers who: (1) focus on reality; (2) think objectively, rationally, and logically in applying relevant knowledge; (3) ask clear, pertinent, insightful questions and listen carefully; (4) search for facts in their total context before judging and evaluating business situations; (5) use time efficiently and effectively; (6) organize their lives and work toward accomplishing worthwhile endeavors; and (7) set value-producing goals and strive to accomplish them.

A virtuous employee begins by understanding what the facts are and does not evade the distinction between the real and the unreal. Evasion detaches a person from reality. Virtue begins with the effort to confront reality as it is. Given that there is no standardized algorithm for making business decisions, an employee needs to use his reason to make rational, logical decisions based on the facts of reality. One needs to apply conscious, prudent, rational judgments and choices in various business contexts in order to identify, execute, and implement profitable and ethical internal and external exchange transactions.

Much of morality in business falls under the rubric of honesty. Honesty means being in accord with reality. Honesty is basic to the structure of human relationships in virtually all contexts. Dishonesty is self-defeating because it involves being in conflict with realty. Morality in business involves objectively recognizing and dealing with customers, employees, creditors, stockholders, and others as autonomous rational individuals with their particular goals and desires. The trader principle should govern the course of all human interactions because voluntary value-for-value relationships are consonant with human nature.

Honesty is closely related to the virtue of justice. Justice, a form of faithfulness to reality, is the virtue of granting to each man that which he objectively deserves. Justice is the expression of man’s rationality in his dealings with other men and involves seeking and granting the earned. A trader, a man of justice, earns what he gets and does not give or take the undeserved. For example, a virtuous manager must make sure that customers get what they pay for. In addition, he needs to identify employees for what they accomplish and treat them accordingly. Employees should be objectively appraised and compensated based on their contribution toward achieving a firm’s mission, values, and goals. A virtuous manager will discriminate among all those that he deals with (i.e., customers, suppliers, workers, etc.) based on relevant qualities and personal merits such as ability, competency, performance, and character. He will not improperly discriminate based on irrelevant characteristics such as sex, race, nationality, and so on.[2]

Although individuals can learn from each other, the fact remains that each of us thinks and acts alone and is responsible for his own actions. Independence requires the acceptance of one’s intellectual responsibility for his own existence, requires that a man form his own judgments, and that he support himself by the work of his own mind. It is not a corporation’s fault if someone does not attain his goals. Each employee is responsible for his favorable or unfavorable outcomes in a business setting where responsibilities are defined by, and arise out of, his particular role. Of course, a goal may not be completely under one’s control. It may require interdependence with or on other employees who co-contribute to whether or not someone attains a goal. Positive change and innovation in a company are based on the creativity of logical independent thinkers. It is through such employees that a firm discovers and invents ways to improve the fiscal bottom line thereby increasing the firm’s market value.

Integrity is the refusal to permit a breach between thought and action. It means acting consistently with rational principles that will lead to success and happiness. In business, an employee’s rationally-made plans are integrated with his actions in order to bring values into existence. From more of a macro viewpoint, we could say that the integrity of a business is maintained if the purpose for which it was created is followed (i.e., the maximization of owner value).[3]

Productiveness, the virtue of creating material values, is the act of translating one’s thoughts and goals into reality. Productiveness comprises an important existential component of virtuousness and is a responsibility of every moral person. It involves a commitment to creating value and to being self-responsible for bringing what one needs and wants into existence. Workers in a business are committed to producing wealth and bringing about well-being by taking the actions required to achieve the firm’s mission. Profits are an indicator of productive work on the part of people who want to achieve, produce, and improve well-being. Because people differ with respect to their intelligence, talents, and circumstances, the moral issue becomes how a particular employee addresses his work given his facticity, including his potentialities and concrete circumstances. In a business, the Randian virtues (including productiveness) offer a set of principles for getting the most value from one’s work. Rand’s Objectivist ethics recognizes that individuals search for meaning and purpose in the various components of one’s life (i.e., one’s work life, love life, home life, social life, and so on). Each of these is an end-in-itself and a means to the end of one’s life in total. One’s life in total is an end-in-itself and an ultimate value.

Pride, also called moral ambitiousness, is a man’s commitment to achieving the best in his life thereby effecting his moral perfection. Pride is the reward we earn by living by the other six Objectivist virtues. A businessman’s drive for success is a result of his taking pride in the business portion of his life. Each employee needs to work in a way as to be able to be rightfully proud of what he has done. Work is needed not only for sustenance, but also for one’s psychological well-being—it can be viewed as a means by which a man can maintain an active mind, attain purposes, and follow a goal-directed path throughout his lifetime. Through work a man can achieve his highest potentials. Doing work well in accordance with the goals of a firm (which are aligned with the personal goals of the worker) can cause an employee to positively enhance his self-esteem.

Dr. Edward W. Younkins is Professor of Accountancy at Wheeling Jesuit University. He is the author of Capitalism and Commerce: Conceptual Foundations of Free Enterprise [Lexington Books, 2002]. Many of Dr. Younkins’s essays can be found online at his web page at www.quebecoislibre.org. You can contact Dr. Younkins at younkins@wju.edu.

 

[1] Ayn Rand’s Objectivist ethics is specifically related to business and business ethics in Kirkpatrick 1992; Greiner and Kinni 2001; and Hicks 2003.

[2] See Locke and Woiceshyn 1995 for an argument for honesty in business from the perspective of rational egoism.

[3] Paine 1994 provides an interesting perspective on how to manage for organizational integrity.

References

Arjoon, Surendra. (2000). Virtue theory as a dynamic theory of business. Journal of Business Ethics, no. 28: 159-78.

Greiner, Donna and Theodore Kinni. (2001). Ayn Rand and Business. New York: Texere.

Hicks, Stephen R.C. (2003). Ayn Rand and contemporary business ethics. Journal of Accounting: Ethics and Public Policy 3 (1) (Winter): 1-26.

———. (2009). What business ethics can learn from Entrepreneurship. Journal of Private Enterprise 24 (2): 49-57.

Kirkpatrick, Jerry. (1992). Ayn Rand’s objectivist ethics as the foundation for business ethics. In Business Ethics and Common Sense. Edited by Robert W. McGee. Westport: CT: Quorum Books 67-88.

Locke, Edwin A. (2001). and J. Woiceshyn. (1995). Why businessmen should be honest: The argument from rational egoism. Journal of Organizational Behavior 16: 405-14.

Mintz, Stephen M. (1996). Aristotelian virtue and business ethics education. Journal of Business Ethics, no. 15: 827-38.

Paine, Lynn Sharp. (1994). Managing for organizational integrity. Harvard Business Review 72 (March-April): 106-17.

Rand, Ayn.  (1964). Objectivist ethics. In The Virtue of Selfishness. New York: New American Library.

Whetstone, J. Thomas. (2001). How virtue fits within business ethics. Journal of Business Ethics, no. 33: 101-14.