Tag Archives: Objectivist Ethics

by | December 7, 2020 · 5:20 am

A Woman’s Right to Life

Objectivist ethics is a morality of rational self-interest—or of rational selfishness.

 

To most rational women an unplanned pregnancy is nothing short of a disaster, and it is a woman’s right to life and selfishness, as in – her fundamental right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness that she has as a human being, that gives her the right to terminate that pregnancy, if it is in her own best interest or desire to do so. It is her own right to life to make this decision, and phrases such as “right to life” are hypocritical when used by anti-abortion activists, who simply don’t deserve to be called “pro-life”. In reality, they are anti-life. A woman has a right to her own life, which is sacred only to living beings, not potential beings. The rights of a woman are tragically and heinously ignored by anti-abortion activists, which at its root is one of the biggest issues here. It is the actual living person who counts, not the potential of an embryo. Claiming that an embryo has a right to life over that of the woman is hideous nonsense.

To objectively observe the issue of abortion one must define what constitutes a human life, and not get that confused with what is surely only the potential of life. In its earliest stages, an embryo is essentially a small growth of cells which do not constitute an individual. This tiny cluster of cells is not physically individual from the mother, and further, a woman is not obligated to that cluster of cells over her own desires for her own life that has already begun. To some women, that cluster of cells may as well be cancerous, and who has the gall to tell that woman to let it grow? 

The attitude of the anti-abortionist is simple: “To hell with the individual lives of women! Give up your God-given rights and the pursuit of your own happiness for this embryo that is only the potential of a person. Forget your finances, your mental and physical health, your goals and dreams for yourself. You don’t matter anymore. The cluster of cells is more important than your actual, real, existing life”.  Anything that threatens the ideal fulfillment of a person’s life, their desires, their goals, dreams, their own selfishness, should be discarded. If something hinders or threatens an individual’s life, or does nothing to further that individuals life or happiness, it is not good and should not forcibly be pursued.

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by | December 14, 2017 · 1:03 am

In Response to Mill’s Piece on Birth Control

As I’ve said before, everyone has the right to make his own decisions, but none has the right to force his decision on others.

In Mill’s Utilitarianism on Birth Control, he attempts to convince the public that President Trump’s rolling back of communist Affordable Care Act provisions that mandated employers to pay for their employees’ birth control are immoral. I, Ayn Rand, beg to differ.

The idea that employers would have to subsidize birth control is just a step away from socialism. Many years ago, the support of socialism may have been somewhat forgivable. The concept of a political theory that aims for benevolence and wellbeing is admittedly appealing. Today, however, we have all seen the results of socialism across the world. Supporting socialism can no longer be considered innocent.

Mill tries to mitigate his immoral argument by listing the benefits of socialized birth control: “Birth control is not only used for pregnancy prevention, but it also has other health benefits. In order to establish greatest happiness, pain must be absent, and if birth control can fight pain, then we most certainly should make it easily accessible to women. In addition, birth control prevents teen pregnancy, in which the economy arguably pays heavily for in the long run. Essentially, birth control is small price to pay compared to the latter of paying for children’s food, education and healthcare.” This appeal to emotions is thinly veiled and ineffective. Further, our society wouldn’t have to pay for children’s ‘food, education, and healthcare’ if it weren’t for the Nazi welfare policies our government has implemented.

Mill’s argument is that altruism will result in the greatest happiness. But do you know what makes me happy? Freedom. Freedom to spend my money however I choose to spend it. It makes no sense for companies to pay for employee’s birth control. Rather, the company can pass that money on to its employees through higher wages, and the employees can then purchase the birth control themselves if they wish to do so. The benefit of this is that all of the people who don’t use birth control can use this extra money on what they choose.

Yet another issue is that of faith. Not only does this policy take away people’s financial freedom, but it inhibits their freedom of religion as well. For a person whose religion disapproves of birth control to be forced to pay for it is ludicrous as well as illegal. The common argument from those like Mill is that no one is forced to take birth control by paying for it in their insurance premium, but that is beside the point, as it is still forcing them to pay money to a company that provides birth control. Imagine being forced to shop at a store that goes against your values. In fact, it would be immoral for someone who doesn’t believe in contraceptives to pay towards birth control. There is no grey area in this, only right and wrong. If you believe that birth control is wrong, you would be breaking your own ethical code to pay for birth control, even if it isn’t for yourself.

Mill’s ‘greatest happiness’ principal directly conflicts with my objectivist ethics, which “holds that the actor must always be the beneficiary of his action and that man must act for his own rational self-interest.” Mill believes that we should all give up some (or even all!) of our self-interest if it will benefit those around you, but I disagree. This goes back to the cancer of our society known as altruism. If we all worked towards our own self-interest, as long as we didn’t directly harm anyone else, everyone would be happier.

I don’t condone violence outside of self-defense, but I do encourage everyone to beat Nazi arguments down through strong reasoning.

 

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by | December 6, 2016 · 1:13 am

Entitlements and its Effect on Economic Growth

“Life is a process of self-sustaining and self-generated action…Man has to be man—by choice; he has to hold his life as a value—by choice; he has to learn to sustain it—by choice…” – John Galt in Atlas Shrugged

Here, John Galt expresses an individual’s productive role in his or her own life and how that person finds value in their life.

Entitlements and the welfare state have been polarizing political objects since their inception. The welfare state and entitlement programs were created and strengthened during Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Lyndon Baines Johnson’s presidencies. Both men pioneered massive reform and construction of social programs to assist the impoverished and disadvantaged. These institutions have a prominent role in the productivity and sustainability of every American citizen.

In an article for the Albuquerque Journal, Robert J. Samuelson highlights the thoughts of former chairman of the Federal Reserve Board Alan Greenspan in regards to the slowdown of economic growth since 2010. Greenspan blames the welfare state for this slowdown. He delineates that the baby boomer generation is beginning to retire and the labor force is expanding very slowly as a result. Greenspan then notes that productivity growth has “collapsed.” Samuelson references statistics that exhibit the effect that entitlements and welfare have on productivity, “Spending on entitlements (Social Security, Medicare, food stamps and the like) is crowding out gross national saving. Since 1965, saving has dropped from 25 percent of GDP to about 18 percent. Meanwhile, entitlement costs went from 5 percent to 15 percent…Entitlements are draining funds from productivity-enhancing investments.”

When does the strain that entitlements put on economic growth outweigh the benefit provided to welfare state individuals and entitlement program participants? If you ask me, the inception of such an institution violates the basic social principle of objectivist ethics and thus isn’t worth the harm placed on economic growth. Every living human being is an end in himself, not the means to the ends or the welfare of others—and, therefore, that man must live for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself. Entitlements and the welfare state hinder the productivity of individuals and negate purpose of individual life. By encouraging idleness and reliance on others in society, the welfare state robs working individuals of the product of their effort. What’s the incentive or purpose of productivity if one can’t reap the rewards that productivity brings? I believe that only individuals, not society, have the right to decide whether they want to help others. The government should not have the power to redistribute the rewards of individual’s efforts. Entitlement programs and the welfare state essentially endorse collective rights, but I believe that a group can’t have rights outside of the rights of the individuals in that collective. Thus, it is wrong for the government to establish programs that discourage self-sustainability, especially when the performance of the welfare state and entitlement programs has inhibited growth in the economy for several years. Intruding on individual liberties like this can lead to a slippery slope of tyranny. Having entitlement programs essentially demonstrates that the government values the rights of society and groups over the rights of individuals: a true breach of objectivist ethics.

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