If there is no God, there is no objective morality... or is there?

 This essay was written as a response to a video I saw on TikTok which make the claim that if God did not exist, there would be no objective morality. The video showed an exchange between a religious apologist and a Subjectivist, wherein the Subjectivist fundamentally stated that morality was based on society.

Briefly, I posted a response stating that there is an objective morality--but that God is not what gives rise to this objective moral code, in which I received a response of the effect of, "If there is an objective moral code apart from God, then what is it?"

As it so happens, I do not always find it the best policy to debate with every person you meet, but never-the-less, I find certain statements--regardless of who is to receive it--worth addressing. I do not think that a man has any obligation in service of his own principles apart from making it clear that he does not agree. Yet, despite how unlikely my refutation of any such claims is to be received by those who blindly follow their own intellectual whims, it is not for their sake but for the sake of developing and making my own principles so clearly understood for myself that I feel it necessary to take pains to defend them whenever and to whatever extent I feel it necessary to do so. As such, though I am currently working on doing just that in my next book, "Building Atlantis," I never-the-less took a significant part of my day to respond. However, since not everyone wants to sit there are read a 15k word response in the form of a TikTok video, I decided to post the response here as well for those who would rather read the essay in a more readable form. Here is that response:

We are often offered a false dichotomy between Intrinsicism and Subjectivism. Intrinsicism is the belief in truth divorced from reason. Subjectivism is the belief in truth divorced from reality. To say that something is intrinsically true means that truth is not determined by or dependent upon rational understanding. Subjectivism is the belief that truth is derived from consciousness, independent of the object or subject in question.

 

In morality, Theists claim that moral values are determined by the divine—most often meaning derived from the Theist’s chosen deity. It is never brought into question that there are many such religions, each with similar but (in some respects) widely contradictory beliefs. It is taken as given that if there is to be morality, it must be derived from the divine dictates of an omnipotent creator; and that if we accept this belief, it must necessarily mean that it is derived from the particular omnipotent creator that the Theist believes in.

 

In truth, if we were to accept the idea that morality is determined by some “higher” spiritual realm, it does not necessarily follow that such a moral code is derived from this particular god or some other. It may very well be the case that there are many competing gods; or, it could be the case that whatever god is responsible for the creation of the universe is not benevolent whatever—that, perhaps, the figure of Satan imagined by the Christians (or some other equivalent) could be such a masterful deceiver that he—in his superior influence over man—has convinced us that we are worshiping an omnibenevolent deity, while—in truth—we, being impotent and unable to compete with Satan’s power, have mistaken him—Satan—for a God of pure good and justice. In other words, if man is so small, so misguided, so easily led astray, so mindless, and so inferior to the powers of evil that prevail in the world, then there is no rational justification to proclaim that we do or can know that an all-good god does exist. In any case where you presuppose that the powers of pure evil are so brilliant and efficacious that man has no power of sight which cannot be so-corrupted, one is left with only blind faith as a justification for believing that he has not been so convincingly deceived.

 

One of the fundamental questions which monotheists must face—those who believe in a single, all-powerful, all-good god—is what is commonly referred to as “the problem of evil.” The problem of evil is a challenge to the god narrative which asks, “If God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and the embodiment of pure goodness, then where from comes evil?” The common response to this question is that God has given man free will. For what purpose did God bestow upon us this capacity? Because, to God, he desired to create man such that he had the capacity to love—a capacity, the theist says, can only be achieved in-so-far as man has a choice. A choice which man must make, lest he be cast into eternal fire for not loving his creator. Thus, though God gave man free will in order to love him, God is not indifferent to man’s choice. God could have, perhaps, made only those men who would have—by their own free will—chosen to love him. This would not require God to strip man of his free will, but only abstain from creating those men who would not have—once created—chosen to turn away from. Or, perhaps, God had to make some men who would freely turn away from God in order to make it possible for those whom he did create (with knowledge that they would eventually choose to love him) to choose to love him.

 

Whatever is the case, the theist does not accept the idea that evil is created by God. Either God gave free will to Satan, and Satan is the source of all evil by virtue of having chosen to oppose God. Or, evil is the result of man’s free will because without God he is fundamentally depraved. In either case, the responsibility for evil is shifted away from God, even though God—being both all-powerful and viewing all events in time from outside of time itself, having an infinite knowledge of everything that is and will become—was solely responsible for everything that exists.

 

The problem of evil can be flipped on its head in support of the existence of an all-powerful evil god. Rather than saying “God is good but evil still exists,” we could say, “God is evil but good still exists.” Why does our malevolent God let good exist in the world if he is all-evil? Well, in order for men to be truly cruel and malicious, men had to be free to choose the good in order to choose the evil. This evil god was not satisfied with merely watching mindless robots do whatever he commanded of them. He wanted to set his creations free to choose to follow his evil or oppose it, such that the individual—the acting entity—was morally responsible for his own actions.

 

What keeps the idea of an all-good god alive in the theist’s mind is the promise of his scriptures which tells him that god is unmovable—the idea that the power of evil cannot penetrate his being, and that wherever his light shines, evil must recoil. But these scriptures would be precisely the kind of dogma that an all-evil god would create. If he wanted to deceive his creations into worshipping him, the most effective way would be to seek to convince him that the god they were worshipping was their moral champion. Perhaps there is no such thing as a good god—only one of evil. All that which seems good in the world was only a promise given to man to later tear it away. There is no cruelty in depriving a child of a toy he knows not of—but to give him a toy, to watch him enjoy it, and then to smash it in front of him would cause him terrible bewilderment, frustration, disappointment, and perhaps anguish.

 

How does the theist know that his god exists? He opens up his heart, he blanks out his mind, and he invites into his spirit a divine presents. This, he says, grants him an ineffable affirmation of God’s existence. He cannot describe his experience consistently with that of other theists—nor is his description ever anything intelligible. Whatever form his “vision” of God takes, it is always the sort of thing dreamed up by a child—of a warm light washing over him, or of being lifted up into the clouds or cosmos, or of an all-embracing assurance of strength, wisdom, and guidance. The theist says, “I know God because I have formed a bond with him—a bond which cannot be denied or mistaken. And from this bond, I know that God is benevolent, that his total goodness cannot be mistaken or denied.”

 

If we were to grant to the theist that his revelation was a truly divine experience (and not merely an act of self-delusion), it still would not solidify the idea that God was all good. If God was truly infinite and omnipotent, such that God could change or destroy you at his arbitrary whim, such that comprehension of God was beyond your Earthly capacity, such that “all things are possible through God,” then, it stands to reason that even if God were actually malevolent and seeking to deceive you into believing that he was benevolent, he would surely fine it easy to achieve this deception.

 

The tangled mess that the theist finds himself in is that he tries to make the claim that morality exists only because God exists. He does not always say it explicitly, but what he means (in explicit terms) is that morality is whatever God happens to decree. Why do we abstain from murder, rape, genocide? Why do we not enslave, steal, exploit? Why is it better for a man to produce rather than destroy? All of these answers point back to God.

 

We may go as far as to say, “It is surely a good thing that God is all-good because if he was vicious and cruel, he would command us to do only acts of evil.” But the issue here is that if God commands us to slaughter an entire civilization, it must be good for us to do so. Why? Because God said so.

 

If this were not the case, then on what grounds does the theist say that if God did not exist there would be no morality? To say that anything—anything at all—that God commands is evil, or even not good, is to say that there is, in fact, a standard of good and evil apart from and completely independent of God. To be consistent, one must accept that everything and anything—and for whatever reason—that God commands is, by definition, good—and that man, being of God’s creation and subject to his divine rule, has no right to oppose him in any way. To say that God is the source of morality means that if God wants us to go around punching toddlers in the face, we must accept this as good. If we happen to feel terrible about punching toddlers, this just shows how fundamentally wicked we are as human beings.

 

This is the proposition the theist offers us. He says, “Good is good—and the standard of all morality—and you must accept it whether you like or it or not.” If God commands you to kill your oldest son, you must do it—God commands it. If God wants to destroy an entire city, this is good, too—God commanded it. If God wants us to go on a crusade and slaughter all of the non-believers—this is also good. If God wants us to mutilate the genitals of infant children—this is also good. If God wants us to live without electricity and work the fields by hand despite all of the wonderful technology man has invented—this is also good. If God wants us to dissect human beings while they are still alive, this—too—is good, if God commands it.

 

To say that morality would not exist without God is to say—in effect—that you, as a human being, either A) would be entirely indifferent to moral issues without God, or B) that you would be actively evil as a human being without God. There really is no use in asking “Why is it good that God commands us to do…?” because whatever God commands us to do is what God commands us to do. God is the standard of morality—or he is not. To even ask the question of “Is God all-good or all-evil?” presupposes that there is, in fact, some standard of good or evil derived from man. What do you mean, “Is God an all-good being?” God is the standard of good and evil, and God is God; ergo, God is good by definition—by the fact of being God. Who is his commandments good for? It doesn’t matter! He is God. What gives rise to the human conception of the distinction between good and evil? It doesn’t matter—man’s conception of good or evil is based on man’s mind—it is only God’s command which makes any difference.

 

Therefore, if we accept the idea that God is what makes morality possible in the world, we are accepting that God is beyond moral judgement—that man is fundamentally incapable of even properly asking whether God is good or evil because God is the source and standard of those concepts. To ask if God is benevolent or malevolent is purely meaningless, if we define good as that which God commands. If he commands it, it is good—by fiat. If he commands us to abstain, it is evil—by fiat. Man is left with no means to evaluate from his worldly perspective whether he regards any action or event as good or evil for himself—all that matters is whether or not God commanded it. Even were God to command man to subject himself to the most wicked torture possible—such as those who used to flagellate themselves in public display—or, if God commanded man to live a life of an aesthetic, withdrawing from the world and seeking to achieve as little pleasure as possible, abandoning all ambitions, achievements, and worldly possessions in the name of God—or, if God commanded man to sacrifice himself for the sake of his neighbor, his community, the world—whatever God commands and for whatever reason, man must accept this as good—even if his entire life is then an endless torture of misery and despair.

 

If you believe that without God there is no morality, then you have no right to say that your morality is “objective.” Objective means those facts of reality which are derived from observing the world as it is—from relying upon our perception of reality—and deriving from a rational epistemological means at the only conclusions which can be true within the context of our knowledge. Objective means “derived from the object in question.” The term Objective cannot be applicable to God. God is that which can alter or change anything and everything at every moment. There is no logical consistency in the world where there is God—unless God is asleep, or can’t be bothered to change the world at any given moment. A miracle is that which suspends the laws of nature. If an extraordinary event happened which did not suspend the laws of nature, it could not be called a miracle; science would, then, eventually be able to logically explain what happened. To say that God can perform miracles, even if he does not always, means that at any moment a thing can be both A and Not-A, red and not-red, hot and not-hot, alive and not-alive, and so forth…

 

More than that, however, not only does the existence of God mean that the laws of nature can be suspended at any and every moment, but it also means that morality itself is not the study of the “object.” What is the “object” in morality? What is being studied? The study of morality is the study of man, of choice made by free will, and of the consequences or benefits of those actions. But if morality is purely whatever God decrees it to be, then man, the acting entity, does not operate with reference to himself—but he operates according to whatever divine decree was commanded. He is still morally responsible because he can choose to obey God or disobey God, but his only motivation for doing either is whether he will be accepted into eternal paradise or thrown into an eternal flame. The facts of reality confronting him have nothing to do with the choice in question—only the eternal fate of his soul and the fact that it is God commanding it of him have any bearing as to what the right thing to do is. Even if what God tells him to do doesn’t make sense, he still must obey. And finally, there are no benefits or consequences whatever to consider. Whatever benefit he may receive is just gravy. It isn’t any important part of the equation as to whether it is good or evil—it merely happens to be the case that sometimes he does good things and good things happen. But even if doing good things required him to suffer, it would still be good to do that thing—even if that good thing required him to kill his wife and children whom he loved dearly and deeply. Murdering his closest loved ones might be immensely painful to him, and make him want to die, but he has to do it because God is good, and if he doesn’t, he will burn in a lake of fire for eternity.

 

This, fundamentally, is the total absurdity of the claim that without God there is no morality. To accept this decree, we all must sit in hopeful terror that God never commands us to murder our loved ones. We may say, “I know that God would never do that because God is all good; and an all-good God would never command me to murder my family.” But how could you possibly know that? What do you mean by good? God is the good. Remember, without God, there is no good. Only the existence of God makes the good possible.

 

So, perhaps, we should say, “I hope that God commands me to murder my loved ones so I can show God how devoted I am to him by doing the thing that would cause me the most immense pain and suffering here on Earth.”

 

What? You don’t accept this? Well, is God what makes morality possible, or isn’t he? Is the existence of God the prerequisite for morality? Or, is morality that which we induce from our experience as mortal beings? Is morality that which is bestowed upon us by an omnipotent being? Or is morality that which is derived from the facts of reality—derived from the fact that some things are necessarily harmful to us—to human beings—as living organisms, and some things are necessarily beneficial. Either God is the source and standard of morality—and thus, nothing that we understand about life on Earth matters apart from what God commands of us, even murdering our family—or, morality is not derived from God, and we are free to judge God as good or evil based on our concepts of good and evil as we come to understand them from the facts of our nature, our relationship to existence, and our understanding of what is fundamentally good or bad for us as living, conscious, beings. You cannot have both!

 

The belief in God, fundamentally, rests most-often on establishing a series of false dichotomies. For instance, the theist will say:

 

Everything has a cause;

Something cannot come from nothing;

Ergo, God must exist.

 

We do, in fact, recognize that a boulder does not roll down a hill on its own. If we observe that a boulder descends, we assume that there were acting forces upon it which caused it to roll. Perhaps, something pushed the boulder. Perhaps, there was a shift in the ground on which the boulder was resting. In any case, we cannot escape recognizing that the boulder would not roll without the proper round shape, or without gravity. There is the recognition of the fact that the laws of physics were necessary in the boulder rolling—that the boulder is not always rolling—and, that the boulder only rolls under specific conditions and will eventually stop rolling once other conditions have been achieved.

 

But the theist wants to extend this kind of relationship to existence itself. He makes the arbitrary claim that if there was no infinite force to create matter, matter would not exist.

 

Really? How do you know this? Have you found yourself walking along a deserted sidewalk with no obstructions in your way only to suddenly encounter a table? Were you having tea with a friend, caught up in the conversation, and went to place your cup on the table only to find that it wasn’t there anymore? In other words, when have you ever observed something suddenly coming into existence that did not already exist, or something going out of existence that was previously, unmistakably there?

 

The theist might say—Ah, yes, but we observe this at the quantum level of physics all the time. We observe through scientific research that at one moment there is an electron, and the next there is not.

 

We observed this, have we? Really? Did we simply glance down at a cluster of electrons and declare, “Ah, here’s some electrons—and now they’re gone”? Or, did we create elaborate scientific experiments requiring a vast understanding of particles in order to try and test a hypothesis of the existence of smaller particles (known as electrons) by means of observing the readings on our equipment? Can we say for sure that when an electron “appears” to go out of existence and come back (according to our equipment) that we know for certain that this is precisely what it did? Even where we develop mathematical models based on this seeming phenomena that seems to lead to further truths, are we absolutely certain that our models truly explain the world totally, completely, without error, and without any further context that we have not yet discovered? If we are so ready to accept the idea that electrons can just come and go at random, why are we so quick to dismiss the possibility that our machines are not accurately reading the electrons at all times, or that our theories are incomplete (or require further understanding), or that we have somewhere made an error, or that—perhaps—no equipment we could make could suitably measure particles on the quantum level? No, it’s much easier to accept the idea that things that exist can simply choose not to exist, and then suddenly come back into existence, isn’t it?

 

So, we can begin with analyzing the first premise: Everything requires a cause. Well, what do the theists mean by this? They mean everything in material reality requires a cause. The spiritual reality—the divine realm—the reality of God and spirit—does not have to operate according to this. Even if we pretend the arbitrary idea that matter must have had a beginning, God—for whatever reason—is completely immune from having the necessity of having a beginning. Let us say that everything in reality can be reduced to “puffs.” All electrons, protons, neutrons—all of their smaller components—are all reducible to one single kind of “something,” a “puff.” These “puffs,” the theist says, could not simply be eternal. It is impossible, they say, that they have just always been around and always will be. They must have, if you will, “Come into existence at some point.” Well, why? No answer, really. They just suppose that since a table cannot come into existence unless a man makes a table that the little quantum stuff that makes up the universe must have also been created. But God—God is not of this world—he can exist without cause or explanation. He can exist eternally. He can exist causelessly. And how do we know this? Well, because we define God as being infinite. That’s what makes him God!

 

But what do we really know about the spiritual reality that supposedly exists? Do we have senses that can perceive this reality? Well, yes, of course—says the theist. Well, what are those senses? They are spiritual senses, they tell us. What kind of sensation do these spiritual senses give us? Well, nothing that can be described by the other senses—our other senses only give us perceptions of the material reality, which the spiritual reality explicitly isn’t.

 

So, we have physical senses and spiritual senses—two sets of senses that do not interact with each other at all. Whatever our eyes tell us is real, but whatever our spirit tells us is more real—it supersedes this reality and is a “higher” truth. It matters not at all that we cannot describe our spiritual sensations by means of material sense organs. You just “know things” from spiritual senses, and once you experience, there is no denying its truth. You can’t explain it to anyone unless they have felt it, too. You either “know” it, or you don’t.

 

So, then, how can we claim anything about this spiritual realm? Well, you just “feel” it. Just open up your heart, and all of the truths of life, of the universe, of existence—both here on Earth and in the beyond—will just magically appear in your mind by some indescribable means. The sensation and the exact means that this occurs is completely otherworldly, and it cannot be translated intelligibly to those who have not felt it; but those who have felt it cannot be anything but certain of this truth. So, if I say that God is eternal, that Heaven transcends this existence, that God is all good, you just have to take my word for it until you have this sensations for yourself. Just close your mind, open your heart, and just “feel.” This, the theist tells us, is the highest truth—the highest reality.

 

But, when challenged, the theist proclaims, “Either you believe that everything came from nothing, or it must have been created by something.” This, of course, is a false dichotomy. He wants to say, “Either you believe that the universe just suddenly popped into existence without cause or explanation—perhaps, just because the universe just felt like it was a good time to start existing—or, you believe that the universe was created by God.” And from this, the theist says, “If you believe the former, you’re just silly; and thus, because God is the only explanation left, we are the ones guided by reason.”

 

But wait, has the theist never entertained the proposition that the universe—like their idea of God—could, itself, be eternal? To reject the belief in an eternal God does not mean to believe that the universe suddenly “popped” into existence—that the universe just sprang up from nothing. The question is not, “The universe suddenly came into existence or God created it,” but either, “The universe is eternal, or the universe is not.” Either matter is indestructible and has always existed, or the universe (and all of the matter which comprises the universe) experienced a point of coming into existence. This is a true dichotomy—there is no third alternative. The universe either began, or it didn’t. It can’t sort-of have begun but sort-of not. It either did, or no. Thus, the false dichotomy offered by the theist is the idea that either God did it, or the universe came up from nothing—leaving out the possibility that the universe itself has always existed—presenting us with a third plausible option to consider, and thus destroying the dichotomy. But the reason why this dichotomy is so appealing to the theist is it makes him feel like the question was answered and requires no further thought or attention. He can then say, “It is ridiculous to believe that we can get something from nothing; therefore, God exists; therefore, my God—whichever God I happily believe in—must exist, since he is the best God amongst all of the alternatives of which God to believe in.”

 

Or, on the issue of evolution, the theist will commonly proclaim, “Either you believe that man emerged from a process of evolution, or God created man,” ignoring the fact that not all Atheists accept the theory of Evolution, and not all theists reject it. What is man left with if he rejects both? Well, perhaps some third alternative may be proposed—none of which I am aware of—but as clearly indicated by the fact that some Atheists reject both propositions, there is always open room for some later explanation. But in any case where we have two alternative explanations—neither of which can be fully substantiated, validated, supported, or justified, the choice is not A or B, but simply, “I don’t know.” To observe something in reality which is neither explained by the first or the second explanation does not give rise to merely inventing whatever the hell we damn-well please. But most-often, the theist constantly seeks to discover new problems which man has not yet solved, and in every instance say, “Well, I reject the explanation (or possible explanation) you have provided; and given that no other explanation has been proposed, it must, therefore, be God.” This is the basis of every “argument from ignorance,” the idea that anything that cannot be immediately and sufficiently explained leads us to conclude that God must exist. God is infinite, after all; and whatever cannot be explained by man can always be explained by that entity which has no definite form, nature, potential, or limitation. He is limitless in all of his capacities and can literally do anything; and therefore, wherever man fails to explain anything about the universe (form lack of knowledge, understanding, context, discovery, or thought), we can just assume that God is the answer. If we happen to find an explanation as to why lightning occurs, or why gravity pulls objects towards the Earth, or why certain chemicals combined create new chemicals; well, then, I suppose on that particular issue, it wasn’t God—but nature—but there will always be an endless number of questions for which man has no answer; and, unless we can discover (immediately) otherwise, that unanswered question—even if it is a new question of which we were not previously capable of even asking—must be the justification of and lead only to God.

 

In morality, the Christians seek the same kind of false dichotomy. Perhaps recognizing the philosophical bankruptcy of our country today—in recognizing the untenable, unintelligible, Subjectivist philosophical position of the modern—mostly Atheist—Left, the modern theists are trying to claim “objectivity” by saying, “Either God exists and, therefore, morality is objective; or, God does not exist and morality is, therefore, Subjective.” Once again, the term “objective” does not apply to God. Objectivity requires study, inference, observation, deduction, and induction. Objectivity means established by observing the evidence of reality, evaluating that evidence according to a correct epistemological method, and establishing conclusions in a way that are evidentially justifiable. If we were to observe that there is a force called “gravity” which pulls objects closer to larger masses (such as the Earth), another person could come along and say, “Well, no, I don’t think such a force exists.” In such a case, the scientist would be perfectly justified in saying, “On what basis do you reject the existence of gravity?” In other words, “Have you ever seen any object operate in any other manner? Do you have any valid, demonstrable means of providing evidence as to even the possibility that an object would operate by any other means than by the law of gravity?” In such a case, the skeptic would have to admit that he does not. He has never—not even once—observed any event which contradicts the law of gravity, and a total abundance of evidence that supports the law of gravity. To say that something is even possible requires some amount of proof. One does not have to prove an alternative thoroughly and irrefutably to demonstrate that the alternative is possible—but to say that something is possible at all requires some basis to establish that it is, in fact, possible. Without any foundation of logic, evidence, or observation, the proclamation that something is possible is purely arbitrary. It is just as arbitrary as to say (without any valid reason) that something is possible as it is to say that it is definitely the case.

 

What evidence does the theist provide for even the possibility of God? Well, predominantly, he holds that either we have a definitive explanation of that which we can observe—namely a scientific proof of natural laws—or it must be God. But it is only the absence of any other explanation that is their foundation. Rather than saying “it must be God,” we could say, “it must be Zeus.” Or, “it must be Satan.” Or, “it must be a fifth dimensional being.” Or, “it must be aliens.” Well, how do you know that such a fifth dimensional being exists? Well, we have no explanation for why this phenomenon occurs; therefore, the only logical explanation is a completely indefensible belief in fifth dimensional beings. But wait, how do you know there is a fifth dimension? Because, there are things in our third-dimensional space which we cannot explain. Only the existence of a fifth dimension provides a sufficient explanation for that which we cannot explain in our third dimension. But what is the fifth dimension like? It’s completely unlike our third dimension. How do you know this? Well, the fifth dimension can transcend through and between the lower dimensions. The fifth dimension can pass, not only through the fourth dimension, but also through our third dimension. Thus, we can see things in our third dimension which cannot be explained by our understanding of our third-dimension physics; and since we cannot explain it, this proves that there is a fifth dimension.

 

Now, is this argument about a fifth dimension any less absurd than any argument for God? Surely, you might be wary of a maniac who says that a fifth dimensional being was speaking to him by some ineffable means (which he cannot describe in third-dimensional logic), who tells us that these higher-dimension beings told him to bomb a school house. Would you accept this man, and say, “Well, there must be a good reason for him to believe that a fifth dimensional being is speaking to him; and if the fifth dimensional being wants him to blow up a bunch of children, I suppose he ought to do it”? Certainly not. But this is precisely the position we take with religion—that we say, “Well, what other explanation is there? None? Well, then it must be God”—“Oh, and God talks to me. How? Well, I can’t describe it. It’s a spiritual language. God just tells me what he wants from me, and I obey.”—“What? No, God has never told me to blow up a schoolhouse full of children, he would never do that; he’s an all-good God.”—“What if God told me to blow up a schoolhouse full of children? Well, he’d never do that! But, I suppose if he did, I’d have to do it. He is God, you know?”

 

The theist is thoroughly trapped in the belief that God must exist, and if he exists, he must be all-good. He relies on a position of ignorance to say, “There is no other explanation,” and thus he establishes a belief in God. But, completely unwilling to entertain the idea that God is anything but fully good, he says, “And since God exists, he must be all good.” Then, when asked, “If God told you to do something evil, would you do it?” he answers, “God never tells me to do anything evil because God is all good; but even if he did, there would be an all-good reason behind it,” which is precisely the attitude they take to all the contradictions in their scriptures of God ordering Abraham to murder his son, or God needlessly punishing his faithful devotee Job. In other words, I can’t explain certain things about the universe, and, therefore, God must exist; and because he exists, he must be all-good; so if he tells me to do something evil, it must actually be good, and I—therefore—must be so small and stupid that I can’t comprehend why it’s good.

 

It is worth noting that before Christianity, nobody thought that murder was good. It wasn’t the coming of Christ, or even of establishment of Judaism that gave rise to the idea that we shouldn’t needless kill each other. Asian cultures which had never heard of Judaism or Christianity had no problem grasping the idea that killing others was inherently wrong. And unsurprisingly, they did not go around stabbing each other for no reason.

 

Also worth noting is that Christ never told us that we shouldn’t own slaves. He did, however, say that if we owned slaves, we ought to treat them well—then went on to describe the proper methods of buying and selling slaves. It was only much later, after Christ was crucified, that Christians derived the idea that, perhaps, black people were of the same species and must, therefore, also have souls like white people. From this, the Christians deduced the idea that all men have a certain natural dignity—a common dignity which they proclaim would not exist in the absence of God. But this, even, was not arrived at until the advent of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke who established formally the idea of “man in nature” and the concept of “natural rights.” Though Locke was a Christian himself—or at least a theist—it was not from God that he arrived at the conclusion that man has the right to “Life, Liberty, and Private Property.” It was only after these ideas were proclaimed and accepted by Western society, that the Christians sprang upon this and added, “And if not for God, it wouldn’t be so.” But God, nor Jesus, nor Moses felt it suitable to give us these ideas. Jesus told us that our duty was blind, promiscuous love for all other men—to sacrifice our values for the sake of the less fortunate—to give up our prosperity to those who suffer—even, and especially, when they “spitefully use you,” and to “turn the other cheek” against those who have wronged you, to love them all the more for love is the emotion which—supposedly—conquers all wickedness; and, that in death, all men are judged and will inevitably get their just deserts. It might have been apt of Jesus to say, “All men have the right to life, liberty, and property,” but his message was clearly that of giving up one’s property for the sake of the suffering, not the “pursuit of happiness” later devised by Thomas Jefferson. Alleviating suffering, not seeking one’s own happiness, was the basic message that Jesus left us with. Seeking to forgive, not seeking to enact justice, was the virtue Jesus proclaimed. Promiscuous, underserved, blind love was his prescription, not seeking to reward those of honesty and productive spirit. Mercy for the wicked, not justice for the offended. For Jesus to have left us with the Constitution of the United States—both in its implied and explicit message—would not be consistent with what Jesus taught or preached. “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness” has been appropriated by Christianity, not derived from it. It is only a complex series of rationalization that makes it possible for the Republicans to hold that God wants us to be free to pursue our own good, while at the same time having a moral obligation to give up our worldly possessions to the “less fortunate”—particularly when the less fortunate suffer as a result of their own immorality.

 

The Subjectivists, who the theists proclaim are the only alternative to God, widely agree. However, whereas the theists often—at least in Western society—proclaim that God has bestowed upon us certain inalienable rights, somehow concluding that while God commands us to take care of the poor and suffering, we must embrace an economic system built on the idea that man—each man—has the fundamental right to pursue his own happiness for his own sake—embracing a system of Capitalism whereupon the Republican says man ought to have the legal right to be greedy but is immoral if he is acting selfishly—the Subjectivist, on the other hand, says that Selfishness is evil, and therefore we must destroy Capitalism, the system which is it’s politico-economic embodiment. The theist says that the moral purpose and justification of man’s life is service to God—but God commands us to be free, even if we choose to act Selfishly, which is our right. The Subjectivist—the modern Progressive Liberal—says that Selfishness is evil, and we must, then, be enslaved by the government in order to prevent men from acting in their own self-interest, and force men to act only for the benefit of society—to punish men for acting selfishly such that they have no choice about being a sacrifice. Sacrifice to God, or sacrifice to society. But conspicuously, the theist and the Subjectivist both agree that sacrifice is man’s proper role and foremost duty—Selfishness being man’s foremost vice. And yet, the theist proclaims, “Either you accept that God exists, and morality is therefore ‘objective,’ or morality is Subjective, and therefore arbitrary.” Either you accept the “objectivity” that man’s moral duty is sacrifice to God, or you accept the Subjectivity that man’s moral duty is sacrifice to society.

 

Once again, the theist has established a false dichotomy. The choice is not “God” or “Society,” but “Sacrifice or Selfishness.” Either man lives in the pursuit of his own happiness, or he lives in the pursuit of sacrificing himself to some higher or nobler calling. Either man’s life his is own highest value—a value which supersedes all lesser values—a value which if he gives up constitutes a sacrifice; or, man’s life is not his highest value, and he holds some value higher than his life for which he is willing to sacrifice his life and his own happiness. The choice is not between Intrinsicism, which is what religion is—not objectivity—and Subjectivism, but between true objectivity and non-objectivity. Either one is objective, or one is some variant of non-objectivity, in which case he is either an Intrinsicist (usually of the religious variation), or he is a Subjectivist. But because neither side conceives of what Objectivity consists of, the accept the false dichotomy of “God’s whims” or “My whims”—between the will of God, whatever it may happen to be, or the will of the majority, whatever that may happen to be and for whatever reason. Between God’s morality and Moral Relativism—or between God’s omnipotent, tyrannical dictates, or arbitrary moral impulses.

 

Indeed, the theist has one thing right, which is that the Subjectivist’s position leaves open every kind of evil. If a society happens to agree that slavery is wrong, then that society will necessarily view slavery as evil and be repulsed by it. But, if a society happens to agree that the Arian race is the only pure genetic bloodline and that all other genetic bloodlines must be eliminated from the world to make room for the spread of the pure bloodline—in order to, of course, ensure the survival of the human race into the future—which, I fear I must add I do not agree with but am merely adding here as a means of demonstrating how foolish moral relativism is—then there is no rational basis to say that such a society is wrong. If we do not derive morality by means of reason—by evaluating through a proper epistemological process the actual nature of man’s and the facts of existence which concern him in his choices and actions—if we purely accept that mass agreement constitutes the contents of morality, well, then I hope we all happen to agree not to murder children, enslave others, torture, steal, lie, and cheat. But if we did happen to love murdering children, it would be the case from the basis and standard of moral relativism that this was properly “good” and “desirable.” This, at least, the theist has correct—But, rejecting moral relativism (or any variety of Subjectivism) does not open us up to say, “Ah ha! Therefore, there must be a God.” Or, “Therefore, God must exist, or morality is purely arbitrary.” Conspicuously, many theists proclaim that if not for God, this is precisely what men would do. If there was no God, we would be the most vicious and cruel creatures that ever existed. Apparently, God did not create us with any capacity to get along with each other without his constant presence. Good thing God is eternal, or he might blip out of existence one day and we’d immediately start killing each other. Some theists even go as far as to say, if not for God, he—the theist—would do all kinds of horrible things. But good thing he has accepted God into his life, or we might have a few more psychopaths running around shooting people. Strange, however, that he seems to imply that murdering people (or other despicable acts) might be desirable for him if God was not directing his life—which seems like quite an awful disposition. We are all glad that he has made the sacrifice of resisting his most vicious impulses to sacrifice his evil desires for the sake of God. But, of course, he would be happy to indulge in those desires if only God would command it of him.

 

It is shocking to recognize just in how many ways religion and Subjectivism are similar—not only in respect to their fundamental views of ethics (the exalting of self-sacrifice and the vilification of selfishness) but also in the fundamental philosophical beliefs in which these systems are derived. The theist acknowledges and recognizes that the material world exists, but likewise holds that this world is imperfect, that this world is vicious and evil, and that worldly concerns are—if not are flat-out a product of man’s impulse for evil, (of selfish desire)—are of far-less significance and importance than his devotion to some higher, spiritual realm for which he must sacrifice his life on Earth for the glory of God. The Subjectivists, on the other hand, differ greatly on their views of reality—some holding that there is no reality, most others (including Plato and Immanuel Kant) maintaining that reality is at least semi-unreal, or merely a reflection of true reality. The theist holds that reality is real but unimportant. The Subjectivist holds that reality is, predominantly, a product of his experience. In other words, reality is either a product of God’s consciousness, or is a product of man’s consciousness. Thus, in either case, reality is merely an afterthought for both schools of thought—in either case, consciousness comes first, then reality.

 

Epistemologically, the theist holds that reason is perfectly valid—except in the question of God’s existence, where he holds that God can only be known by a “feeling” or “spiritual sensation,” by a pure impulse which cannot be described because it is purely “spiritual,” meaning “purely non-material.” He holds, in effect, that his senses are purely valid—that scientific knowledge can lead him to truths about the material world; but only his spiritual sense—his purely non-material experiences—can lead him to those higher, nobler truths about God’s existence. And, in terms of the hierarchy of truths, God’s truth trumps all of man’s material truths. Whenever and to whatever extent there is a clash between God’s commandments and that which is purely derived only by a human mind using human reasoning, it is God’s commandments which must be right—and man who must be ignorant. He must prostrate himself, pray, give in to his “spiritual impulses” to discover why he is wrong. And in-so-far as he can find no worldly reason to be guided by his own thinking, he must relinquish his mind and follow God blindly. He is, after all, only human. His mind cannot grasp reality as God’s mind does. He may not know why he must act in any certain way, but God is infinite and, therefore, infinitely wise—and things will always work out for the best as long as he doesn’t let his impotent mind take precedence over the dictates of that omnipotent being. Modern theists, of course, say that God can be known by reason—but they do not believe this is possible for all men. They are still scratching their heads about how to prove or even validate God’s existence, offering a textbook over hundreds of shaky arguments in favor of God—not a single one sufficient—but saying, “Look, we have so many shaky arguments; the fact that there are so many, even though no one can validate God’s existence on its own, proves that he must exist.” In the end, all roads with any discussion of how one knows—for certain—that God exists always points back to one single, final conclusion: I know that God exists because I have felt him, and he has given me the gift of knowing beyond a doubt that he exists. I know that God exists because I feel that he exists; and nothing you say—particularly nothing in reason—will convince me otherwise.

 

Similarly, the Subjectivists who do not accept reality as fully real, say that reality is whatever he happens to experience it as. Today, the Subjectivists have no qualms about declaring that “Each man experiences reality differently; and the way man experiences reality dictates what reality is.” They hold that, in effect, a black man experiences reality as a black man, and therefore, he has a special “black reality.” Everything, for him, is experienced through the context of his race, and therefore, he creates a whole separate reality. Or, the gay man has a special “gay experience,” which means that reality is created through the lens of being gay. Sure, a table is a table—but when we begin thinking in terms of a higher, more abstract conception of reality, it may be a black table or a gay table. This, I jest a bit, but this is more-or-less the modern Subjectivist position. They accept the immediately graspable facts, but simultaneously proclaim that there are no absolutes—no universal truths. They may, when pressed, offer that the existence of material objects cannot be denied, but in the higher, nobler truths of man’s existence, they say, “anything goes.” I, they say, experience reality through my own Subjective experience. This, they say—pointing to a green object—appears to me as green, but to you, it may be purple. Yes, of course, we can actually observe the variations in the light’s reflections in order to establish mathematically that there is a stagnant color to the object we examine; but the way it appears to me is not the same as it appears to you—and therefore, we have no basis to saying there is any truth at all—except whatever I happen to “feel” is true for whatever reason.

 

This, they say, is reality. Not the actual observations and self-evident truths provided by the senses—not the immediately perceptible—not the demonstrable—not the evidential—but whatever he, the Subjectivist, happens to feel. Reality, to him, is not real—only his emotional response to reality. That which makes him feel pleasure is good. Why? Because it happens to give him pleasure. What later effects or consequences that thing that makes him feel good now may make him feel terrible later—but that is just another Subjective event to be Subjectively experienced when it occurs. There is no reality which may have caused him to feel terrible later by disregarding the facts present today that would necessarily lead him to this later consequence. He has his own Subjective reality which may or may not be similar to your Subjective reality. Reality, he says, is all a matter of his mind—not the grasping of that which his mind perceives. You may say that there is no systematic oppression in the legal system of America today, and when you ask him which laws or policies are causing systematic oppression which he seems so fully convinced of, he will say, “Just the whole thing—I just feel that the system is oppressive—you wouldn’t understand; you are not a person of color, or a gay person, or a delusional transgender, or a woman, or whatever minority group of victims I want to classify myself as.” In other words, “If I feel oppressed, I am oppressed.” Or, “Truth is whatever I happen to feel is true—regardless of facts, evidence, proof, or reason.”

 

Thus, metaphysically, the theist says, “reality is real—but a lesser truth than the truth of God;” the Subjectivist says, “reality is real—but only if I feel like it’s real.” Epistemologically, the theist says, “I know God exists because I feel that he exists;” the Subjectivist says, “I will acknowledge facts of reality only if I feel that they are true.” Thus, given this similar views of reality and thought, it may not be any great surprise that both sides—in terms of ethics—seem to agree on the fundamentals: namely, self-sacrifice is noble, and any action taken out of selfish interest is inherently evil. Whereupon, in politics, we are offed, “God and Capitalism” or “Moral Relativism and Government Enslavement.” Or, put another way, “Sacrifice to God and your fellow men—but only if you want to be a good person,” or, “Sacrifice to society or we will kill or imprison you.” Heads, Collectivism. Tails, Collectivism. Either accept God and have rights (but relinquish your mind)—or, reject God and give in to the tyranny of the majority, and let society enslave you in your interests to all other men. Arguably, the proposition that accepting God means accepting Capitalism may hold only in-so-far as the Atheists constantly advocate for Socialism. By maintaining polar opposites, the Republicans can continue to pretend to be advocates of liberty. They, looking at the Democrats, say, “These are ungodly people; and we must be their opposite.” But if, perhaps, the Democrats were to switch things up and say, “You know, we reject God and Socialism,” then the Republicans would take the more consistent position of saying, “Fine, we accept God and will stop at nothing to bring his laws into the laws of man,” establishing a firm Theocracy like some of those oppressive Theocracies which dominated early Colonial America—barring those who refuse to swear allegiance to their particular religion from owning property or participating in voting. See “Conceived in Liberty” by Murray N. Rothbard. For now, we can go on pretending that the theists are defenders of liberty and are committed to upholding individual rights, liberty, and Capitalism. My advanced warning about the Republicans, however, is this: With respect to an infinite God—a God who is to be regarded as the ultimate and final judge of man’s soul and his eternal fate—if you were so-convinced as to have no doubt of his existence, what on Earth would be off limits? What price would be too great to pay in the service of the glory of an infinite being? What slaughter, terror, suffering, pain would be beyond justification if in the service and by the command of such an infinite deity? Personally, if I was so-convinced in an infinite God, my answer would be, “Everything and anything can and ought to be sacrificed to God whenever and to whatever extent he so commands it of me.” And, if your answer is anything similar, ask yourself, “What is man’s rights when compared to God’s infinity?” In-so-far as you are convinced that the existence of God gives man a claim to his rights, we may be safe; but if you eventually conclude that Capitalism is a selfish system which rewards man’s selfish actions and desires—which it is—you might eventually conclude that God does not really want us to be free—God does not really want us to have a government which encourages people to be selfish. No? It’s not possible that Christians could oppose Capitalism? Really? “Anything and everything for the glory of God.” If he exists, and you are absolutely certain of this, and he is everything—what could possibly be more important that God? What could possibly be withheld from God, including your rights, your liberty, your property, your family, your friends, your prosperity, your happiness, your freedom? But, that aside, it is—after all—the Socialists and the Leftists who are, today, seeking to achieve the enslavement of mankind. But, perhaps, if the Republicans ever won a total victory over the country… I’ll let you project what might eventually come to be.

 

Before I proceed to answer the question of “If not God and not Subjectivism as the base of morality, then what objectively gives rise to moral principles,” I will state simply that any discussion of ethics without a firm understanding of metaphysics and epistemology is purely a wasted effort. Those who cannot agree with the self-evident fact that existence exists—that reality is a primary—that reality is an absolute not to be wished away or reinvented by man’s consciousness—cannot be convinced of any objective fact whatever. If you do not believe that there is a reality, then there is no basis whatever to discuss any idea of truth. Truth is that which accurately identifies the facts of reality. If you wipe away reality, you wipe away truth at the same time.

 

Similarly, if you refuse to accept reason as valid—or if you believe that there is some higher truth than that which man can verify by means of his own thinking (either by logical deduction from the self-evident truths of reality or by means of direct observation), then—if like the theist you are willing to say that spiritual truths are more true than material truths—there is really no means of discussing any human means of discovering truth—no point in discussing anything in terms of reason. If you, in effect, are willing to say, “Yes, but that’s only reason,” and instead hold that, “My feelings on the matter are what really constitute truth,” either God or otherwise, then there is no rational argument of anything whatever that could convince you of anything at all. If you are, however, willing to accept the fact that truth is that which correctly identifies the facts of reality—meaning that reality is the primary and consciousness is only that which perceives reality (and may err)—then there is some use in attempting to use reason as a means of discovering the facts of reality as they may occur.

 

Here, however, I will not make any attempt to validate the fact that reality exists, that reality is a primary, that consciousness is that which perceives the facts of reality, and that reason is man’s only valid means of acquiring knowledge and his only valid guide to action. This much I am already attempting to do in my next book, Building Atlantis, which I am still working on. Fortunately, my work is based on the great minds that have come before me; and I can, therefore, refer you to their validation of these principles. Most notably, Ayn Rand—who derived much of her understanding of metaphysics and epistemology from the first great thinker which gave rise to modern society, Aristotle. Second, one of my personal favorites, Nathaniel Branden—particularly his series of lectures known as The Basic Principles of Objectivism. Third, Leonard Peikoff in his book Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, as well as many recorded lectures you can listen to yourself for free on Youtube. While it is significantly important to establish and validate the fact that reality is a primary and an absolute, and that man’s senses are valid, and that reason is man’s only means of acquiring knowledge, (and, therefore, his only guide to action), it is far-too-significant and far-too-lengthy of an achievement to do so here. Thus, if you refuse to accept reality and want to challenge my arguments here on those grounds; or, if you refuse to accept reason and want to challenge me on those grounds—first, go read or listen to the arguments proposed by Objectivists on this subject before bothering me, here, on these grounds. I would offer that Nathaniel Branden’s lectures were my first formal introduction to Objectivism after having read The Fountainhead, and that this is a clear, concise, and very well formulated defense of both reality and reason—And, you only need listen to the first few hours of these lectures to grasp the essentials. But that being said, I will—in this case—take it for granted that my readers accept the existence of reality and the validity of reason as a means (or perhaps—if they are better equipped mentally—even that they may accept reason as the only means) of acquiring knowledge.

 

Here I will add, also, that my task in this essay is not to provide a full and complete context of Objectivist ethics. Here, I will seek only to provide the essential basis for the Objectivist ethics—to provide enough explanation of what the ethics rests on, on the basic validation of its principles, on the means by which Ayn Rand and her admirers have arrived at establishing a rational, objective code of ethics based on the facts of man’s nature and of his task of dealing with reality.

 

That being said, I will provide a much more thorough analysis in my next book, Building Atlantis. And having said that, I have touched on these arguments in my first book, The Right To Live: In Defense of Capitalism. However, I will not be ashamed to admit that in having done significantly more mental work on examining these issues since then that I no longer regard much of my early essays in my first book as a good analysis. My first book was my first few steps forward, and though I have often thought about going back and revising (or even removing) some of these essays, I have not found ample time yet to devote the effort. I make no apology of this fact, especially given that I will openly admit to this. (I do, however, believe that my first book does still have significant value—particularly in the main objective of the book, that being to provide arguments in defense of Capitalism as an economic system.)

 

Thus, again, I will do the necessary work here to provide the context of the fundamental principles of Objectivist ethics. But first—or perhaps afterwards—I would advise you to refer to the sources I have listed above—to seek an understanding of Objectivist Metaphysics and Epistemology—an area in which Ayn Rand and Leonard Peikoff, in particular, have done incredibly significant work. Then, from there, if I have done a suitable job of presenting the essentials of Objectivist Ethics, and your mind is clear enough to recognize the truth of these principles and the validations I have provided, you may, then, seek to learn the wider context and implications of these principles on your own from the same sources. That having been made clear, I will now proceed.

 

If, then, ethics is not the province of God, nor of society, then from where is it to be derived? No, ethics is not arbitrary. It is not merely the case that we happen to prefer mutual respect to murder. No, we do not need God as a basis of having moral impulses. No, a society which has never heard of God nor of Jesus does not immediately descend into depravity and chaos. Morality, while being that which philosophers have struggled to define or derive, is—in fact—a system of principles which we first discover by means of induction and introspection; which can later be discovered and validated by means of deduction—which is purely rational and solely derived from the facts of reality.

 

Ayn Rand defines morality as “a code of values to guide man’s choices and actions—the choices and actions that determine the purpose and the course of his life.” (Ayn Rand Lexicon, http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/morality.html)

 

This definition of morality subsumes the core elements of defining precisely what morality is. First, it is a code of values—what are values? Second, these values serve as a guide—a guide to choices and actions. Third, these choices and actions determine man’s purpose—the purpose of his life. And these choices and actions determine the course of man’s life based on the choices he makes and the actions he pursues.

 

Morality consists of values. To speak of “moral principles” is to speak of the abstract conceptualization of the overarching relationships which exist between all “moral values.”

 

What are values? According to Ayn Rand, “’Value’ is that which one acts to gain and/or keep. The concept ‘value’ is not a primary; it presupposes an answer to the question: of value to whom and for what? It presupposes an entity capable of acting to achieve a goal in the face of an alternative. Where no alternative exists, no goals and no values are possible.” (Ayn Rand Lexicon, http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/values.html)

 

One cannot say that anything is a value in-and-of-itself. We may say that food is a value. But is food, by itself, a value? If there were no entity capable of consuming the food, would the existence of food apart from one who consumes it be a value? A value to whom? For what? It just exists. Its existence has no significance or purpose whatever. It simply is.

 

To say that something is “valuable” presupposes the entity for whom it is a value. “Valuable” presupposes “evaluation.” Evaluation presupposes a standard of formulating such an evaluation. If we were to say, “That’s a good car.” What do we mean by this? Well, taking “car” as the standard, and with some understanding of what the purpose, function, and utility of a car is, we can then say, “Based on what a car is supposed to do and for what purpose, we can then say that this car, in particular, is a well-designed car.”

 

Similarly, with morality, we must recognize that to say that a moral principle is a “good moral principle,” we must have some standard of judging this moral value on this same kind of basis. If something is “good,” we must know, “good, based on what standard?” If food is a value to man, we know that it is valuable to man because man needs food to eat. We may inquire further and recognize that some foods are better for his health than others. Some things are terrible food. If a man ingested rat poison, it would not be “good food,” it would be particularly “not food” and also “not good.” If, however, man were to acquire rat poison, this may be good for him—supposing he doesn’t mistake for food—and instead he has a rat infestation which is wrecking his livelihood as a farmer or threatening his life; and, conveniently, some man before him has invented rat poison which serves as a useful solution to his problem.

 

Thus, given the proper context, food is a “value” to man; and so can be something like rat poison. But what makes such things valuable? Well, in the instance of food, it seems quite obvious, doesn’t it? If he had no food whatever—given a long enough period of time—he will die. Even if he eventually gets food, he will experience prolonged fits of hunger, perhaps pain, perhaps unbearable suffering until he eventually gets the food he needs to sustain his life. In the case of rat poison, he recognizes that living with a rat infestation is threating to his life—either directly due to the consequences to his health, or indirectly by threatening his production of crops which he needs to produce in order to be able to trade with others. In either case, that which is a value to him is a value because it serves his own happiness, his own survival, and his own higher goals. It is not valuable in-and-of-itself. There is a specific purpose and meaning as to why any such thing may be a value. If, however, he had an abundance of food—and perhaps was even trying to get rid of some of it—it may not be a disvalue for him to get some additional food, but it certainly would not be as valuable to him in that moment as were the case that he were starving to death. Similarly, if he didn’t have any rats to deal with, would rat poison be a value to him in that moment? If there was no purpose in him getting some rat poison—he may be thankful for the fact that such a useful tool existed should he need it—but in-so-far as no such situation ever arises, it isn’t really much of a value, is it? Perhaps, only indirectly, in-so-far as other people have rat problems; and only in-so-far as those others are capable of adding value to his own life. If, for instance, Hitler were having a rat problem, this may actually be something he might celebrate—hoping that the genocidal maniac will come down with illness.

 

To say that something is a value means that it is something worth having, protecting, or striving for. That which is something which adds value to a man’s life is something that can potentially be a value to him. All values are relative—such that he may value having a cheeseburger, but he may value even more having a steak. Both are properly values, but not to the same degree. And, if he gets tired of having steak every night, he may prefer to have a cheeseburger. Hence, given different context, a man’s values may change over time. What does not change—unless his premises regarding his basic approach to his existence change—is his moral values—the values which create the overarching principles by which he makes the choice of his lesser values in his life.

 

Thus, the question is, “How should man choose his values?”—What values, particularly moral values, ought a man to choose in order to guide his choices and actions. What purpose should be man’s highest purpose in his life? What should be man’s supreme and ultimate values which serve as the base and justification of all of his other values?

 

We may simply take it for granted that man has values. There are certain things which he wants to pursue, and because he wants to pursue those things, he guides his choices and actions towards those objects. But, is this purely arbitrary? Is anything man chooses to hold as a value as valid as any other? Does man need to choose his values by a process of reason, or can he simply say—“well, others seem to accept this value, so it’s good enough for me”?

 

Well, the question is, “Does man even need values?” Or, in other words, “What role and function do values play in man’s life, if anything?”

 

For this, Objectivism provides the metaphor of an indestructible robot. Suppose, for instance, that there was a robot which could not be harmed or altered in any way. Whether you leave him out in the rain, or throw him into an explosion, or hit him with a hammer, or just forget about him for a few million years—nothing whatever affects him. His body is completely unchanging. He requires no fuel, no inputs, nothing. Nothing whatever can add to his being. Nothing whatever can subtract from it. But, suppose this robot had a consciousness. It was capable of acting just as a human is. What sort of things would you suggest this robot do?

 

Would you tell the robot it should go eat a good meal? What for? The robot doesn’t need food. It can’t even distinguish between good for or bad. It has no pleasure response to food. It feels no harm when it ingests something that would kill a human.

 

What about a good movie? Well, what is appealing about a movie? What makes a movie enjoyable is that it reflects certain aspects of our human existence. We, as humans, experience life in a certain way—adopting certain values—holding some things to be good, some bad, and enjoying the experience of seeing these values in the form of a story. What values does the robot have? Well, nothing can be good for or bad for the robot. It doesn’t make any different to it at all if it climbs a mountain or takes a swim in the ocean, or just sits around. What values could it possibly have? Nothing makes any impact on its existence whatever. It can’t have any goals, goals towards what? For what purpose?

 

How about we tell the robot to take vacation? We all love a bit of relaxation, don’t we? Well, relaxation from what, exactly? We enjoy relaxing as a reprieve from work—as a means of recuperating our minds and bodies. Is a vacation a value all of its own? No, not really. Vacations are fun because they give us new experiences, and let us escape for a while from the places we live. And they give us time to do things we find personally enjoyable. The robot doesn’t need a break from work, and nothing is really that interesting to him. He has no need for intellectual pursuits. Why should he learn calculus or architecture or anything? Human beings need knowledge as a means of achieving new, higher ends. What ends would the robot want to achieve? It makes no difference at all to him. He is perfectly fine at the Marriott or in a cave.

 

In all respects, pleasure, pain, boredom, excitement—all of the human motivations which inspire us to act towards higher ends are completely superfluous. The robot has no need of love, friendship, knowledge, food, shelter, anything. The robot cannot be changed or altered in any way. It has no goals to pursue. No work to do. It doesn’t even have a need to enslave human beings. Enslave them to do what? To grow food? To grow food for what? To erect a monument? A monument for what? And for what purpose?

 

The robot, no matter what you offer it, can only be completely indifferent. Nothing is for it. Nothing is against it. Nothing can harm it. Nothing can add to it. Nothing can destroy it; and therefore, nothing it does can add to its survival, or even its enjoyment. There is nothing for it to enjoy since nothing can harm it.

 

Values pertain only to a single class of entity: living organisms. Matter—rocks, water, et cetera—have no “good” that they can achieve. Anything you do to matter, inanimate matter, makes no difference to it. You can smash a rock apart, but so what? Matter does not go out of existence, it merely changes.

 

However, living organisms are a type of existent of a special quality: that life is a constant process of motion. Whether a plant, an animal, or man—all living organisms must act as self-regulating entities. All actions of a living organism are geared towards one ultimate end: self-generated action towards self-sustenance. A plant, possessing no consciousness, acts automatically towards his own survival. It has no experience of pleasure or pain, and yet it responds automatically and without thought to its conditions in a manner to further its own survival. An animal possesses consciousness, and it experiences pleasure and pain. But an animal always acts in the service of its own life. Guided by pre-rational consciousness, guided by the instincts and intuitions programmed into it by its nature, an animal has no choice about acting consistently in the service of its own life. An animal cannot act in deliberate suicide. An animal cannot act towards its own self-destruction. If a plant or animal are programmed by their nature to be suitable to their environment, the organism lives, reproduces, and succeeds as a living organism. If it is not suited for its environment, evolution takes its course (fundamentally changing the species), or the species goes extinct. In other words, all the lesser life forms live or die based on the nature they are born with. An animal with a successful adaptation may ensure the survival of its species when conditions changes. If no such adaptation takes place, the species as a whole vanishes. Any individual in the species can only rely upon its own nature as a means to its own individual survival—and in-so-far as its instincts are insufficient to provide for that survival, it will die.

 

Inanimate matter is unconditional. It requires nothing to exist—nothing can harm it. Nothing can be good or bad for a non-living entity. A living entity exists as an integrated whole. Its existence as a living organism depends upon the specific requirements of its survival set by its nature. It has no choice about what is good or bad for it. Nor does it have any choice about its instincts. It acts in the service of its own life unerringly—and only when its instincts prove insufficient for its survival with regards to its environment does it die. For a living entity qua living entity, life and death is the basic alternative. Nothing can be good or evil to a rock. But a living entity which requires specific conditions for its survival as a living entity has specific values which its life requires—and thus, as Ayn Rand has stated in Galt’s speech from Atlas Shrugged:

 

“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.”

 

Thus, the question, “Does man need values?” Yes. Man is a living organism whose life depends on the specific kinds of values determined by his nature as a living being. “What role or function do values play in man’s life?” Values are values because man is a living being, and it is only the ultimate value of his life and the standard of all values which makes any lesser value possible. It is only on the basis that man is a living being—a being which must sustain his life by specific actions to achieve specific goals in the service of his life—that makes any other value possible, and makes the concept of “good or evil” meaningful to man.

 

However, we must recognize that man is a living being of a specifically unique nature than that of lesser organisms. Most significantly, man is the only living species who is born with no innate knowledge, who is born without any sufficient instincts to guide him in his survival, without any innate knowledge of values—and thus—Man is the only living organism which is capable of acting as his own destroyer—the only living organism capable of acting towards his own self-destruction, against the service of his life, in the service of the evil which is inimical to his life. Man is a conceptual being. Man, in order to possess the capacity to extend his knowledge, to project his actions into the future, in order to defer his immediate gratification towards some higher, nobler purpose (like building a skyscraper, an industrial complex, or achieving a beautiful symphony) must, necessarily, possess the capacity to act on principle. Having the capacity to deal with reality conceptually—not merely responding to the immediate problems of the moment—man is capable of acting long-range, even acting in the context of his entire lifetime or beyond. In order for man to possess the intellectual capacity to conceptualize of the idea of even growing a field of crops over the length of months, let alone the idea of discovering the computer, man has to be able to recognize the abstract principles in reality, project his own actions into the future, and act accordingly. Were a man to take up the task of farming one day, then spend a few months mindlessly frolicking in a field for a few weeks, then come back to his farm and try to consume the seeds he planted only a few weeks ago, man would not have anything to gain from his mindless efforts. Only in seeking the understanding of the relationship between the seeds, the soil, the water, the nutrients, and projecting a committed process of action towards a single goal—a goal that he knows right and worthy doing—can man achieve anything at all.

 

Whereas a plant or animal lives or dies based on the suitability of its instincts to its environment, man uniquely uses his mind as a means of making his environment suitable to his life. There is no environment on Earth on which man could survive by instinct alone. All of the values on which man’s life depends are products of man’s mind, of his knowledge, of his conscious effort, and his commitment to the benefits he seeks from his actions in the future.

 

It is for this reason that Objectivism holds that man’s cardinal virtue—the virtue which makes all other values possible for man—is rationality. Reason is man’s only means of acquiring knowledge, his basic tool of survival, and his only guide to action. Man’s life and all of the values on which his life depends—including his own happiness—must be discovered and achieved by reason. Reason is man’s only means of survival and his only guide to action. Only reason can serve man’s life. And as such, irrationality is man’s fundamental vice—the vice which actively destroys him and leads him down a path of self-destruction.

 

Man needs a code of values in order to know what lesser values serves his life. He needs a code of morality in order to determine the goals which serve his life and the means appropriate to achieve the values which makes his life possible and worth achieving. Man has a private, selfish need for morality because it is his choices and actions which determines the course of his life. His action or inaction will determine his own success as a living being. His choices of values will determine the purpose and direction of life. His choices and actions will determine the happiness or suffering that are the consequence.

 

A man may choose to abdicate the responsibility of his life by gaining his values (uncritically) from others. He may accept the prevailing values of his culture, his peers, his teachers, his religious leaders. But in-so-far as man does not know the purpose of his values—in-so-far as he does not know why such values should be values—in-so-far as he does not bother using his own mind to establish an understanding and knowledge of that which is for or against him—he lives his life capriciously by chance, and any error of any other from which he derives his values will ultimately determine the success or failure of his life. And worse, the man who does not choose his own values will not know what to appreciate and why. If he chooses a certain career because his parents chose it for him, he does not really value it—he values the opinion of his parents. If he chooses a certain kind of artwork to appreciate because it’s what his friends like, he doesn’t know why he should appreciate that kind of painting—he just knows that others enjoy it, and so he should. Thus, even in this most basic sense, he has no connection to reality, no purpose, and driving motivation behind his actions or what those actions are meant to achieve. In place of reality—in place of any interest in his own life—he places the minds and opinions of others above himself. He sacrifices himself in the most vicious and depraved sort of way. He abdicates his self in principle by holding nothing as a value apart from the reflection of himself as projected by others. He lives his life through the mirror of the approval or disapproval of others—caring not at all for anything in particular except about his own fear of the uncertainty he feels about himself and his own self-worth.

 

The moral purpose and justification of man’s life according to religion is man’s self-sacrifice to the service of God. The purpose and justification of man’s life according to racial minority groups is self-sacrifice for the sake of the race. The purpose and justification of man’s life according to Fascism is self-sacrifice for the sake of the nation. The purpose and justification of man’s life according to Marxism is self-sacrifice for the sake of the proletariat. The purpose and justification of man’s life according to the environmentalists is self-sacrifice for the sake of nature.

 

The moral purpose and justification of man’s life according to Objectivism is man’s life as an end in itself. Man needs no higher purpose, he needs no value higher than himself, and any value he places higher than his own life as the basic standard of morality and the moral justification for his own life will necessarily be inimical and actively destructive of his life as an individual. To say that man should hold his life as his highest value means that man must always seek to understand the facts of reality, know what is possible to him, know what is good for him and why, know what is actively inimical to his life, know that on which his life depends—his productivity and creativity—and never seek to act without knowing the facts which are relevant in that context, knowing what principles are involved, and—in a broader sense—to always maintain the policy of knowing what he is doing and why he should do it.

 

For ages, self-sacrifice has been taken for granted as the “noble” virtue of the individual; and as such, Selfishness has been held as the primary evil. The advocates of self-sacrifice present man with a “packaged deal” of Selfishness, holding up a false dichotomy for man to choose: either sacrifice others for the sake of yourself; or sacrifice yourself for the sake of others—sadism or masochism, with no alternative. Objectivism rejects both of these views. From John Galt in Atlas Shrugged:

 

“I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.”

 

Life requires no sacrifice. Man, in order to live, in order to know that his life worth sustaining, in order to achieve his own happiness, must always act in service of his own selfish, rational values. Life is a process of self-generated, self-sustaining action. Man is a being of a specific nature, and his life depends upon specific values—the values which makes his life possible and makes his life worth living. Man must act in service of his own values in order to live. Any act which is not in the service of his values is actively inimical to his values. Any act taken in the service of any principle higher than man’s life as the standard is an act actively taken in the service of man’s own self-destruction: an act taken actively in the service of his death. If sustained and persisted, man will die. Values require action, achievement, and protection. Values are the objects of man’s actions, and the responsibility of man achieving his values rests on him valuing that which he does.

 

Self-sacrifice requires the renunciation of man’s values—not the abnegation of values—but to hold values and give them up. To create values, but then to relinquish those values. It makes no difference to whom those values are sacrificed: God, society, the race, the proletariat, the dictator, to one’s parents. Whatever is a value to man, any act of sacrificing his values—either material or spiritual—is an act of activing in the service of self-destruction. And any value man places higher than his own life as his ultimate value will have the same consequences and create the same disasters in man’s life.

 

From Galt’s Speech:

 

“Sacrifice does not mean the rejection of the worthless, but of the precious. Sacrifice does not mean the rejection of the evil for the sake of the good, but of the good for the sake of the evil. Sacrifice is the surrender of that which you value, in favor of that which you don’t. If you exchange a penny for a dollar, it is not a sacrifice. If you exchange a dollar for a penny, it is. If you achieve the career you wanted after years of struggle, it is not a sacrifice; if you then renounce it for the sake of a rival, it is. If you own a bottle of milk and give it to your starving child, it is not a sacrifice; it you give it to your neighbor’s child and let your own die, it is.”

 

To be Selfish does not mean to care for nobody but yourself. In fact, love is the most selfish expression of man’s love for himself. A man cannot truly love another person without accepting his own life as a value—without the recognition that the person whom he loves is an immense value to his own life. Perhaps just as common between the theists and the Subjectivists is the demand for promiscuous love—a general, common, unconditional love for all people—to hold nobody as more important to your life than any other—or even to sacrifice those whom are of the highest value in your life to those who are not. Love is not an emotion we feel for others by fiat, causelessly, or even unconditionally. Love is an achievement both of those who recognize the value of another person in the highest sense, and of those who have achieved a character worthy of being loved. For those who are led to believe that selfishness means to love only one’s self do not understand the concept of selfishness or love.

 

Thus, we have established here—hopefully sufficiently—that values pertain to living beings and that only life can serve as the ultimate value which makes all other values possible. Hopefully I have given sufficient indication of the fact that sacrifice consists of the renunciation or destruction of a person’s own values. Hopefully I have indicated sufficiently that man needs morality in order to know what actions are for or against his life—that he has a selfish need to discover morality in order to achieve his own happiness. And hopefully, I have sufficiently demonstrated that “life and death”—the basic alternative which every living organism faces—is the only valid standard for morality—not God, and not society.

 

Finally, I will indicate that there is no such thing as “irrational self-interest.” That which is irrational is inimical to reality, and only reality can serve as a value to man. To say that something is actually in your self-interest necessarily implies that the value you seek is rational.

 

Further, to say that man ought to act only in his own self-interest does not tell us anything further about what principles he must discover and accept in order to achieve this. Man as an end in himself—not the means to any further end, nor to the end of anyone else—man as properly selfish means only that man, when guided by proper moral principles, ought to be the beneficiary of his own actions. If morality means that man must act against himself in order to be moral, why—morality and desire are fundamentally opposed—and as such, whatever is properly moral ought to make him miserable. Objectivism actively denounces the idea that morality and happiness are in competition. If man is to be moral, it will rationally lead to his proper happiness. And if man desires to be happy, he needs a proper code of morality to achieve it. Just as an industrial complex cannot be achieved by any random means—neither can happiness, love, or any of man’s other values. And if you think that morality consists of destroying or impeding your own happiness—that your proper and justified reward for being virtuous is your own displeasure—check your premises.

 

I have taken great lengths here to address this question and to present to you the basics, but I will only briefly indicate some of the virtues which Objectivism upholds and defends. Honesty, Integrity, Productivity, Pride, Independence, Justice, and above all else, Rationality.

 

For more, see the writings of Ayn Rand (including both her fiction and non-fiction), the lectures I have indicated by Nathaniel Branden, the works of Leonard Peikoff (including his books and lectures), and some of the other work done by other prominent Objectivists such as Yaron brook or Harry Binswanger. Or, perhaps, if you are seeing this in 2024, check out my own book, Building Atlantis, which should be available for purchase before the end of 2023 if I stay at this pace—though the exact title may change.