21 Philosophical Questions

1. “How do you define good?”

What you're asking for is a standard of value. The problem you run into is: by what standard is your standard of good or bad...well...good? It becomes circular.

The answer is more fundamental. Every person has a basic choice, that comes before any other choices, and generally before he even understands the question: it is the choice of whether to live. If you choose not to live, then philosophy doesn't apply to you. A standard of good or bad does you no good when you're dead. If you choose to live, you have, by default, chosen your standard of value: life itself. Anything which furthers your life is the good, and that which detracts from it is the evil.

2. "But how do you know when something is good for your life or bad for it?"

Reason is our tool of survival. We use it to make every evaluation, from the smallest life decision to the biggest. It is all based on observation. We observe, for example, that an injury is painful, so we rationally avoid injury. Obviously, not every case is a case of injury - but we can evaluate new cases by similarities to known ones. For example, a rational person would view throwing away a big pile of money he earned in the same way as he would cutting off his hand - a waste of a known value to his life. In the end, the purpose of life is to use reason to achieve long-term happiness, as this is a barometer of how well we live. Happiness is an emotion, but our emotions are based on value judgments - in our case, a rational judgment. Thus, if we know our values are rational, we can be equally certain that our emotions will be rational and enduring.

So the standard is: life. The measure is: long-term happiness. The means is: reason, as that is the only way men survive.

3. “If there is no definition of good and evil, how do you judge whether what you're doing is right? If there is no good and evil, then what should Adolph Hitler and Osama bin Laden be considered as? What should Mahatma Gandhi and MLK be considered as?”

The initiation of force is always against your interests. It is the highest sin against yourself, and against your fellow man. Think about it: you have a lot to gain from trading voluntarily and to mutual benefit from those around you. You COULD live as an island - but by trading with others, you gain luxuries and services and the time to specialize in your own field. So anyone who initiates force against anyone's life, liberty or property is the utmost evil, NOT because he harmed others, but because he harmed himself. Others are not part of the reason because the standard of value is not the lives of OTHERS, but YOUR life. This is why Hitler and bin Laden are evil. Mahatma Gandhi was evil because he practiced a life of self-abasement, rejecting reason in favor of mysticism, and self in favor of other-worship.

In order to live in societies, men must organize to eradicate the most heinous evil, the initiation of force: hence the role of a limited government.

4. “Do you believe we have a soul?”

'Soul' has long been an ill-defined word used by religion. It refers to a vague spirit that lives inside you but leaves at death. There is no scientific basis for it whatsoever. I do use the word soul - but I always use it to mean 'self'. My self is what religionists would call a soul, insofar that it is your rational faculty - i.e. the faculty by which you think and feel (feelings are based on value judgments, which are based on a process of thought).

5. “If we have no souls, then are we merely a mass of tissue and chemical reactions?

We ARE masses of chemicals and tissue - so what? Clearly, at some point, we developed a rational faculty, and since then, we are able to create and think and understand. The fact of our composition doesn't change that.

6. “If all that we are (our emotions, thought processes, actions) be merely chemical reactions, by what basis do we define morality and 'good?'”

By the basis of our rational faculty. By the fact that we CAN think, and we CAN reason, and judge and decide. The fact that these judgments are a chemical reaction doesn't invalidate the judgment. The composition of reason doesn't invalidate its qualities. Besides, the concept of morality is simple: it is the science of discovering how best to live. The only facts this requires is you being alive (and willing to live) and capable of thinking long-term (rationally).

7. “If my definition of good is directly opposed to your definition, who's right? Do all paths lead to 'enlightenment?'”

The person who is right is the person whose view corresponds to reality. This requires objectivity and reason. If you decide on a whim that doing acid is in your best interests, I can point to evidence of it's harmful effects. If you do it anyway, reality will be the final judge: the reality of a wrecked life.

8. “Are we any better than animals? If so, what sets us apart, besides our increased intelligence?”

The faculty of reason - it is our ability to think long-term. Consider the first farmer: he had to see seeds and imagine that in several months he would get food, based on his observations. An animal can only act automatically, and therefore cannot act morally. Morality requires a choice and one able to make it volitionally. Animals do not choose - they react to reality. We don't just react to it - we shape it around us, in cities and skyscrapers.

9. “What, to you, constitutes evil?”

An volitional action or idea harmful or injurious to your life and long-term happiness.

10. “What are necessary evils?”

Anti-concepts. If something is necessary to sustain your life, it is necessarily good (for your life). There are painful goods - but never necessary evils. Evil is, by definition, bad.

11. “Do you believe in the sanctity of life?”

Yes. I call it the right to life. I mean HUMAN life, not a hunk of protoplasm (i.e. Fetus)

12. “When is it 'OK' to take life, if ever?”

In defense of your life and liberty, and perhaps in extreme cases, property. More simply, in defense of your rights. It is NEVER okay to INITIATE force of any kind. But when someone initiates, you need to do whatever you can to defend yourself, including taking the force-initiators' life.

13. “Is suicide wrong?”

Suicide cannot be evaluated by a standard of life; as soon as you have chosen suicide, you have rejected life. The standard no longer applies, and nor does morality in general. The CHOICE to commit suicide can be considered RATIONAL in cases where any continued life would be so painful you could not possibly achieve happiness.

14. “Do you believe in absolute truth?”

Are you asking if I believe it is ABSOLUTELY TRUE that there is no ABSOLUTE TRUTH? If it's true that there's no truth, then that statement is untrue and there must be absolute truth. If it's true that there is truth, then no contradiction exists. Of course I believe in absolute truth.

15. “When is it 'OK' to lie, if ever?”

Never. Dishonesty is an evasion of reality, which is a very quick way to fail at life, since life is a progression of events in reality. If a man pulls a gun on you and orders you to lie, HE is the one who is evading reality. You would not be lying, because there is no evasion involved.

16. “Why do you attempt to do good/follow a moral code?”

To live on my feet, as only a free and rational man can. The most important part of that sentence was: to LIVE. Morality is how best to live. Simple as that.

17. “What is your moral code based on?”

It is based on reason, oriented towards living in reality.

18. “As long as your good deeds outweigh your bad deeds will you be alright?”

Alright by whom? I am the only relevant judge of whether my life is alright. There is no scale to which you subject your life to at the end. There is only whether you are truly, deeply satisfied and happy with your life and accomplishments. I know that bad deeds will lead to failures and unhappiness in the long term, so I avoid them like the plague. They carry no temptation for me, for the same reason that I have no temptation to jump off a building and splatter on the pavement. They hold no temptation for me because suicide holds no temptation for me. That's what we're talking about: life or suicide.

19. “A good man who has done charity work all his life, raised a good family, befriended the lonely, and dedicated his life to stopping racism, has a little too much to drink one night, gets in his car, and accidentally strikes an old woman crossing the street, killing her. Should this man be sent to prison for the rest of his life? Is this man considered evil?”

First of all, I don't consider charity work to be a virtue. It CAN be good, if done for purely selfish reasons. I also don't see why being lonely should have anything to do with friendship. You make friends because you share interests, not out of pity. I wouldn't even consider that friendship - it's pretty condescending, really.

Anyway, all of these are entirely irrelevant to the question at hand. It doesn't matter who you are after you violate rights: the fact is, you violated someone's rights. He took the risk of drinking and driving, and he should be punished appropriately. I don't know about life, but definitely prison time.

20. “A hardworking single mom is laid off from her job and thrown out into the street with her kids. Desperate to feed her hungry children, she holds up a convenience store, stealing food and money. Should this woman be sent to prison. Is she considered evil?”

Of course. Notice how the store owner is not at fault for any of what happened to her. Even if everything that happened was completely out of her control, why should he pay for her misfortune at the point of a gun? She deserves to go to jail because she violated someone else's rights. As for being evil - I'm not certain I would say she's evil based on a single mistake (assuming that everything that happened prior was entirely unavoidable). It is certainly an evil act - but to say someone is categorically evil requires a consistent irrational approach to life, for the same reason that to say someone is good requires a consistent rational approach.

21. “A mass murderer and sex-offender repents of his actions while in prison. When he is 60 years old, he gets out and starts doing charity work at the local shelter. he organizes drives to benefit the youth of the community, and he takes it upon himself to do his best to stop gang violence in his neighborhood. Should this man be accepted by the community? Is this man considered evil?”

A murderer doesn't stop being a murderer after he repents, for the same reason that the victim he killed doesn't stop being dead after he repented and the people he raped don't stop being rape victims.

As for the examples of his repentance - they all assume a morality based on others, i.e. altruism. Egoism demands that he act in his own self-interest. If he wants to be a good person, the only thing he has to do is begin acting selfishly. That means never initiating force, and living life for its own sake. He should not be concerned with what the community thinks, except insofar as it affects him.

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All answers based on Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism, as outlined in her novels "The Fountainhead" and "Atlas Shrugged", as well as Leonard Peikoff's "Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand."

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Copyright ©2007 Nader W Badri
With editing contributions from Sara Triplett

(These were questions posed by Flash Lovdahl which I answered in comments to his note. I think my answers are a good, clear primer for people who are wondering about these issues; for a full list and the original post, see: http://ucla.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=2254888272&ref=nf)