Moral environment and ethical considerations

Moral Environment

Ayn Rand's The Ethics of Emergencies speaks about the value of selfishness or self-interest. Although "selfishness" might seem negative at first, Rand's explanation makes quite a bit of sense. Rand speaks about selfishness as a rational process in which a person sets his/her hierarchy of values and lives according to those values in order to achieve the moral purpose of life: one's own happiness.

Summary of The Ethics of Emergencies

According to Ayn Rand's The Ethics of Emergencies, the moral purpose of life is to achieve one's own happiness. Describing her belief in Objectivism in 1962, Rand stated, "Man -- every man -- is an end in himself, not the means to the ends of others. He must exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself. The pursuit of his own rational self-interest and of his own happiness is the highest moral purpose of his life" (Rand, Introducing Objectivism, 2012). Rand rejects "altruism," which can be defined as "unselfish concern" (Dictionary.com LLC, 2012), and believes that the ethical basis for altruism is a "malevolent universe" metaphysics. "Malevolent universe" metaphysics, which Rand also rejects, holds that "man, by his very nature, is helpless and doomed -- that success, happiness, achievement are impossible to him -- that emergencies, disasters, catastrophes are the norm of his life and that his primary goal is to combat them" (Peikoff, 2012). According to Rand, given the moral purpose of achieving one's own happiness, sacrifice is neither morally required nor admirable. The rational principle of conduct to adhere to this moral purpose is to always act in accordance with the hierarchy of your values. Rand believes that the virtue called "selfishness" requires: "(a) a hierarchy of values set by the standards of one's self-interest, and (b) the refusal to sacrifice a higher value to a lower one or to a nonvalue" (Rand, 1964, p. 55).

Application of Rand's Ideas to Today's Moral Environment

We might tend to think of "selfishness" as a strictly bad thing. Applying Rand's ideas to today's moral environment, it first appears that Rand is telling us to "live and let die": strive only for ourselves and let others fail, sink and die. Sometimes that might be true, depending on the hierarchy we have set according to our own self-interest. However, as Rand also states in her book, sometimes after we have rationally set our own hierarchy based on self-interest, helping someone else might also serve our self-interest. Most importantly, Rand mentions the fact that "concern for the welfare of those one loves is a rational part of one's selfish interests" (Rand, The Ethics of Emergencies, 1964, p. 51). If our loved one's welfare is part of our self-interest, then helping them does not violate self-interest, as long as the act of helping them does not violate our hierarchy. Extending that to other people, if helping other people -- whether or not they are strictly our "loved ones" -- also serves our self-interest and doesn't violate our rational hierarchy, then helping them is perfectly fine. Using Rand's rational self-interest and the well-developed hierarchy of values developed from it, an individual or a community or nation could help another person or community or nation -- during an emergency or otherwise - in a "win-win" situation and still be perfectly in line with Rand's ideas.