The Ayn Rand Lexicon - Objectivism From A To Z Part 1

The Ayn Rand Lexicon.

Objectivism From a to Z.

Ayn Rand.

Harry Binsw.a.n.ger.

Introduction.

AYN RAND WAS a philosopher in the cla.s.sical sense: she was intent not on teasing apart some random sentences, but on defining a full system of thought, from epistemology to esthetics. Her writing, accordingly, is extensive, and the range of issues she covers enormous-so much so that it is often difficult for a reader to know where in her many books and articles to look for a specific formulation or topic. Even Miss Rand herself was sometimes hard-pressed in this regard.

The Ayn Rand Lexicon solves this problem. It is a compilation of key statements from Ayn Rand (and from a few other authorized Objectivist texts) on several hundred alphabetized topics in philosophy and related fields. The book was initially conceived by Harry Binsw.a.n.ger, who undertook it during Miss Rand's lifetime with her permission and approval.

Two different audiences can profit from the Lexicon. Those who know Miss Rand's works will find it a comprehensive guide to the literature. It will enable them to locate topics or pa.s.sages easily, and-by virtue of its detailed indexes and cross-references-to check on their wider context and ramifications. Newcomers to Ayn Rand will find the book an intriguing introduction to her thought, one eminently suited to browsing. Many such browsers, I venture to say, after sampling the entries under REASON, SELFISHNESS, CAPITALISM, and a few more such topics, will become hooked by the logic and originality of Ayn Rand's ideas. If this happens to you, the next step is to turn to one of her books.

By its nature, this kind of project requires an editor with a professional knowledge of philosophy in general and of Ayn Rand's philosophy, Objectivism, in particular. Harry Binsw.a.n.ger qualifies on both counts. He is a Ph.D. from Columbia University and taught philosophy for many years at Hunter College. Dr. Binsw.a.n.ger was an a.s.sociate of Miss Rand's. He taught Objectivism at the New School in New York City, and a.s.sisted in a course on the subject at the University of California (Berkeley). At present, Dr. Binsw.a.n.ger is editor of The Objectivist Forum, a magazine that applies Objectivism to philosophical and cultural issues.

In preparing the Lexicon, Dr. Binsw.a.n.ger has done a thorough and meticulous job. He has covered not only the familiar works of Ayn Rand, but also obscure and little-known sources. He has done the excerpting skillfully and accurately, always selecting essentials; as a result, the pa.s.sages he offers are generally self-contained and self-intelligible. And he has arranged the material within a given topic in a logical sequence, each excerpt building on the earlier ones. If one reads straight through a topic, one will discover not a series of disconnected sentences, but a definite structure and development; this makes the reading even more illuminating and enjoyable.

The Lexicon is a welcome addition to the growing Ayn Rand Library, of which it is Volume IV. It is going to be extremely helpful to me personally, and I am happy to recommend it to anyone interested in the thought of Ayn Rand. She herself, I know, would have been pleased to see it become a reality.

-Leonard Peikoff South Laguna, California January 1986.

Editor's Preface.

THE philosophic WRITINGS of Ayn Rand and her a.s.sociates have grown to include almost two thousand pages distributed among eight books-plus various lecture courses, newsletter articles, and pamphlets. Accordingly, I conceived the idea of creating a reference work, organized by topic, to function as an Objectivist dictionary or mini-encyclopedia.

I first proposed this idea to Ayn Rand in 1977. She was originally somewhat skeptical about its feasibility, being concerned as to whether her writings would lend themselves to the kind of excerpting that would be required. To sell her on the project, I wrote a detailed prospectus of the book and worked up a sample-the entries beginning with the letter "N." She was favorably impressed with the results and gave me permission to go ahead. She commented extensively on several dozen entries, helping me to define appropriate standards for excerpting and topic selection.

As the work progressed, Miss Rand became increasingly enthusiastic about the project. One value of the book had special meaning to her: it eliminates any shred of excuse (if ever there had been one) for the continual gross misrepresentation of her philosophy at the hands of hostile commentators. As she quipped to me, "People will be able to took up BREAKFAST and see that I did not advocate eating babies for breakfast."

Miss Rand had intended to read over the entire book, but after cornpleting the letter "A" I had to shelve the project in order to found and edit The Objectivist Forum, and did not resume work on it until two years after her death. Consequently, she read only about 10 percent of the material.

I have endeavored to cull from the Objectivist corpus all the significant topics in philosophy and closely allied fields, such as psychology, economics, and intellectual history. The Lexicon, however, does not cover Ayn Rand's fiction writings, except for those philosophical pa.s.sages from her novels that were reprinted in her book For the New Intellectual. Material by authors other than Miss Rand is included only if she had given it an explicit public endors.e.m.e.nt-as with Leonard Peikoff's book The Ominous Parallels and his lecture course "The Philosophy of Objectivism"-or if it was originally published under her editorship in The Objectivist Neusletier, The Objectivist, or The Ayn Rand Letter. I have also made use of four Objectivist Forum articles that Miss Rand read and approved.

To keep the book to a manageable size, I have had to omit many pa.s.sages which could have been included. I have sought to include under each heading only the essential pa.s.sages, roughly proportioning the length of the entries to their scope and importance, within the limits of the amount of material available in the sources. The entry under Immanuel Kant, for instance, is as long as it is not merely because Miss Rand had so much to say about Kant's philosophy, but because of his immense influence on the history of philosophy, and thus on history proper. Miss Rand regarded Kant as her chief philosophical antagonist. Nevertheless, I may have missed some pa.s.sages that merit inclusion, and readers are invited to send me any such pa.s.sages c/o New American Library for their possible inclusion in future editions. For some headings (e.g., KNOWLEDGE), I give only the term's definition and rely on the cross-references to lead the reader to other topics for elaboration.

In accordance with Miss Rand's wishes, I have included statements about other philosophies only in selected instances: on Aristotle (whose system is the closest to that of Objectivism), on Kant (whose system is the diametrical opposite of Objectivism), on Friedrich Nietzsche (whose views, though fundamentally opposed to Ayn Rand's, are often taken to be similar), on John Stuart Mill (the philosophical father of today's "conservatives"), and on some influential contemporary schools: Pragmatism, Logical Positivism, and Linguistic a.n.a.lysis. Those interested in the Objectivist a.n.a.lysis of other philosophies may consult For the New Intellectual and The Ominous Parallels.

In a number of instances, I have used oral material from Leonard Peikoff's tape-recorcfed lecture courses. Dr. Peikoff has edited these pa.s.sages for this purpose. I have also included a few statements by Miss Rand from the question-and-answer periods following these lectures. Miss Rand's answers, which were wholly extemporaneous, are presented virtually unedited.

In excerpting from written material, I have sought to minimize the clutter of ellipses and square brackets. Where I have excised material from within a continuous pa.s.sage, I have, of course, used ellipses to indicate that deletion. But I have not used ellipses at the beginning or end of entire pa.s.sages, even when I have made initial or terminal cuts. Thus, the reader is put on notice that, at the beginning of a pa.s.sage, some words from the start of the original sentence may have been dropped. Likewise, at the end of a pa.s.sage, sentences in the original may continue on beyond where they end here.

Square brackets are used to indicate my own interpolated words or introductory notes (except that I have retained the square brackets used by Ayn Rand, Leonard Peikoff, etc. to insert their own comments within a direct quotation from someone else). In a few instances, I have deleted italics, but as a rule they are as they appear in the original texts; in no case did I add italics.

Some entry headings appear in quotation marks. The quotes are used to indicate either a concept that Objectivism regards as invalid or obfuscatory (as with "COLLECTIVE RIGHTS"), or a term used in a new or special sense (as with "STOLEN CONCEPT," FALLACY OF). The content of the entry should make clear which function, in a given case, these quotation marks serve.

Some explanation is necessary about the manner in which I have identified the sources of the pa.s.sages quoted. The references include page numbers for both hardcover and paperback editions when possible (only paperback editions are currently available for Intruductiun to Objectivist Epistemology, The New Left: The Anti-Industrial Revolution, and Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal). I have cited the page number only for the pa.s.sage's beginning even when it continues beyond that page in the original (e.g., a page reference normally given as "54-56" would appear here only as "54"). And, unless otherwise stated, all quotations are from Ayn Rand.

Note also that paperback page references for The Romantic Manifesto and The New Left refer to the second editions of these works. The first edition of the former did not include "Art and Cognition," and "The Age of Envy" was not included in the first edition of the latter.

All the books cited are available in paperback editions from New American Library. Much of the other material, including back issues of Miss Rand's periodicals and some separate pamphlets, is available from The Objectivist Forum, P.O. Box 5311, FDR Station, New York, NY 10150. (When an article published in a periodical has been reprinted in a book, only the book reference is given.) I wish to thank Leonard Peikoff for his continued encouragement and editorial advice. Thanks are also due to Allison Thomas Kunze for identifying several pa.s.sages that were worthy of inclusion and to Michael Palumbo for his meticulous a.s.sistance in a.s.sembling the ma.n.u.script.

I must stress that the Lexicon is not intended as a subst.i.tute for the primary sources from which it is derived. It is a fundamental tenet of Objectivism that philosophy is not a haphazard collecaion of out-of-context p.r.o.nouncements, but an integrated, hierarchically structured system, which has to be studied and judged as such. For a brief indication of what Objectivism as a philosophic system advocates, the reader may refer to the entry, OBJECTIVISM. For a fuller statement, the best single source is Galt's speech in Atlas Shrugged (reprinted in For the New Intellectual).

-Harry Binsw.a.n.ger.

New York City.

February 1986.

Abbreviations.

A.

Abortion. An embryo has no riglels. Rights do not pertain to a potential, only to an actual being. A child cannot acquire any rights until it is born. The living take precedence over the not-yet-living (or the unborn).

Abortion is a moral right-which should be left to the sole discretion of the woman involved; morally, nothing other than her wish in the matter is to be considered. Who can conceivably have the right to dictate to her what disposition she is to make of the functions of her own body?

["Of Living Death," TO, Oct. 1968, 6.]

Never mind the vicious nonsense of claiming that an embryo has a "right to life." A piece of protoplasm has no rights-and no life in the human sense of the term. One may argue about the later stages of a pregnancy, but the essential issue concerns only the first three months. To equate a potential with an actual, is vicious; to advocate the sacrifice of the latter to the former, is unspeakable.... Observe that by ascribing rights to the unborn, i.e., the nonliving, the antiabortionists obliterate the rights of the living: the right of young people to set the course of their own lives. The task of raising a child is a tremendous, lifelong responsibility, which no one should undertake unwittingly or unwillingly. Procreation is not a duty: human beings are not stock-farm animals. For conscientious persons, an unwanted pregnancy is a disaster; to oppose its termination is to advocate sacrifice, not for the sake of anyone's benefit, but for the sake of misery qua misery, for the sake of forbidding happiness and fulfillment to living human beings.

["A Last Survey," ARL, IV, 2, 3.]

If any among you are confused or taken in by the argument that the cells of an embryo are living human cells, remember that so are all the cells of your body, including the cells of your skin, your tonsils, or your ruptured appendix-and that cutting them is murder, according to the notions of that proposed law. Remember also that a potentiality is not the equivalent of an actuality-and that a human being's life begins at birth.

The question of abortion involves much more than the termination of a pregnancy: it is a question of the entire life of the parents. As I have said before, parenthood is an enormous responsibility; it is an impossible responsibility for young people who are ambitious and struggling, but poor; particularly if they are intelligent and conscientious enough not to abandon their child on a doorstep nor to surrender it to adoption. For such young people, pregnancy is a death sentence: parenthood would force them to give up their future, and condemn them to a life of hopeless drudgery, of slavery to a child's physical and financial needs. The situation of an unwed mother, abandoned by her lover, is even worse.

I cannot quite imagine the state of mind of a person who would wish to condemn a fellow human being to such a horror. I cannot project the degree of hatred required to make those women run around in crusades against abortion. Hatred is what they certainly project, not love for the embryos, which is a piece of nonsense no one could experience, but hatred, a virulent hatred for an unnamed object. Judging by the degree of those women's intensity, I would say that it is an issue of self-esteem and that their fear is metaphysical. Their hatred is directed against human beings as such, against the mind, against reason, against ambition, against success, against love, against any value that brings happiness to human life. In compliance with the dishonesty that dominates today's intellectual field, they call themselves "pro-life."

By what right does anyone claim the power to dispose of the lives of others and to dictate their personal choices?

["The Age of Mediocrity," TOF, June 1981, 3.]

A proper, philosophically valid definition of man as "a rational animal," would not permit anyone to ascribe the status of "person" to a few human cells.

[Ibid., 2.]

See also BIRTH CONTROL; INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS; LIFE, RIGHT to; MAN; s.e.x.

Absolutes. Reality is an absolute, existence is an absolute, a speck of dust is an absolute and so is a human life. Whether you live or die is an absolute. Whether you have a piece of bread or not, is an absolute. Whether you eat your bread or see it vanish into a looter's stomach, is an absolute.

[GS, FNI, 216; pb 173.]

"There are no absolutes," they chatter, blanking out the fact that they are uttering an absolute.

[Ibid., 192; pb 154.]

Just as, in epistemology, the cult of uncertainty is a revolt against reason-so, in ethics, the cult of moral grayness is a revolt against moral values. Both are a revolt against the absolutism of reality.

["The Cult of Moral Grayness," VOS, 99; pb 77.]

A moral code impossible to practice, a code that demands imperfection or death, has taught you to dissolve all ideas in fog, to permit no firm definitions, to regard any concept as approximate and any rule of conduct as elastic, to hedge on any principle, to compromise on any value, to take the middle of any road. By extorting your acceptance of supernatural absolutes, it has forced you to reject the absolute of nature.

[GS, FNI, 216; pb 172.]

See also AXIOMS; COMPROMISE; METAPHYSICAL vs. MAN-MADE; PRAGMATISM; PRIMACY of EXISTENCE vs. PRlMACY CONSCIOUSNESS.

Abstraction (process of). The act of isolation involved [in concept-formation] is a process of abstraction: i.e., a selective mental focus that takes out or separates a certain aspect of reality from all others (e.g., isolates a certain attribute from the ent.i.ties possessing it, or a certain action from the ent.i.ties performing it, etc.).

[ITOE, 11.].

The higher animals are able to perceive ent.i.ties, motions, attributes, and certain numbers of ent.i.ties. But what an animal cannot perform is the process of abstraction-of mentally separating attributes, motions or numbers from ent.i.ties. It has been said that an animal can perceive two oranges or two potatoes, but cannot grasp the concept "two."

[Ibid., 19.]

See also CONCEPT-FORMATION; CONCEPTS; INTEGRATION (MENTAL ).

Abstractions and Concretes. Abstractions as such do not exist: they are merely man's epistemological method of perceiving that which exists-and that which exists is concrete.

["The Psycho-Epistemology of Art," RM, 27; pb 23.]

See also CONCEPTS; ENt.i.tY; PERCEPTION; PLATONIC REALLSM.

Acting. See Performing Arts.

Agnosticism. [There is] a widespread approach to ideas which Objectivism repudiates altogether: agnosticism. I mean this term in a sense which applies to the question of G.o.d, but to many other issues also, such as extra-sensory perception or the claim that the stars influence man's destiny. In regard to all such claims, the agnostic is the type who says, "I can't prove these claims are true, but you can't prove they are false, so the only proper conclusion is: I don't know; no one knows; no one can know one way or the other."

The agnostic viewpoint poses as fair, impartial, and balanced. See how many fallacies you can find in it. Here are a few obvious ones: First, the agnostic allows the arbitrary into the realm of human cognition. He treats arbitrary claims as ideas proper to consider, discuss, evaluate-and then he regretfully says, "I don't know," instead of dismissing the arbitrary out of hand. Second, the onus-of-proof issue: the agnostic demands proof of a negative in a context where there is no evidence for the positive. "It's up to you," he says, "to prove that the fourth moon of Jupiter did not cause your s.e.x life and that it was not a result of your previous incarnation as the Pharaoh of Egypt." Third, the agnostic says, "Maybe these things will one day be proved." In other words, he a.s.serts possibilities or hypotheses with no jot of evidential basis.

The agnostic miscalculates. He thinks he is avoiding any position that will antagonize anybody. In fact, he is taking a position which is much more irrational than that of a man who takes a definite but mistaken stand on a given issue, because the agnostic treats arbitrary claims as meriting cognitive consideration and epistemological respect. He treats the arbitrary as on a par with the rational and evidentially supported. So he is the ultimate epistemological egalitarian: he equates the groundless and the proved. As such, he is an epistemological destroyer. The agnostic thinks that he is not taking any stand at all and therefore that he is safe, secure, invulnerable to attack. The fact is that his view is one of the falsest-and most cowardly-stands there can be.

[Leonard Peikoff, "The Philosophy of Objectivism lecture series (1976), Lecture 6.]

See also ARBITRARY; ATHEISM; CERTAINTY; "OPEN MIND" and "CLOSED MIND"; SKEPTICISM.

Altruism.

Theory What is the moral code of altruism? The basic principle of altruism is that man has no right to exist for his own sake, that service to others is the only justification of his existence, and that self-sacrifice is his highest moral duty, virtue and value.

Do not confuse altruism with kindness, good will or respect for the rights of others. These are not primaries, but consequences, which, in fact, altruism makes impossible. The irreducible primary of altruism, the basic absolute, is self-sacrifice-which means; self-immolation, self-abnegation, self-denial, self-destruction-which means: the self as a standard of evil, the selffess as a standard of the good.

Do not hide behind such superficialities as whether you should or should not give a dime to a beggar. That is not the issue. The issue is whether you do or do not have the right to exist zuithnut giving him that dime. The issue is whether you must keep buying your life, dime by dime, from any beggar who might choose to approach you. The issue is whether the need of others is the first mortgage on your life and the moral purpose of your existence. The issue is whether man is to be regarded as a sacrificial animal. Any man of self-esteem will answer: "No." Altruism says: "Yes."

["Faith and Force: The Destroyers of the Modern World," PWNI, 74; pb 61.]

There are two moral questions which altruism lumps together into one "package-deal": (1) What are values? (2) Who should be the beneficiary of values? Altruism subst.i.tutes the second for the first; it evades the task of defining a code of moral values, thus leaving man, in fact, without moral guidance.

Altruism declares that any action taken for the benefit of others is good, and any action taken for one's own benefit is evil. Thus the beneficiary of an action is the only criterion of moral value-and so long as that beneficiary is anybody other than oneself, anything goes.

["Introduction," VOS, x; pb viii.]

It is your mind that they want you to surrender-all those who preach the creed of sacrifice, whatever their tags or their motives, whether they demand it for the sake of your soul or of your body, whether they promise you another life in heaven or a full stomach on this earth. Those who start by saying: "It is selfish to pursue your own wishes, you must sacrifice them to the wishes of others"-end up by saying: "It is selfish to uphold your convictions, you must sacrifice them to the convictions of others."

(GS, FNI, 176; pb 142.]

Now there is one word-a single word-which can blast the morality of altruism out of existence and which it cannot withstand-the word: "Why?" Why must man live for the sake of others? Why must he be a sacrificial animal? why is that the good? There is no earthly reason for it-and. ladies and gentlemen, in the whole history of philosophy no earthly reason has ever been given.

It is only mysticism that can permit moralists to get away with it. It was mysticism, the unearthly, the supernatural, the irrational that has always been called upon to justify it-or, to be exact, to escape the necessity of justification. One does not justify the irrational, one just takes it on faith. What most moralists-and few of their victims-realize is that reason and altruism are incompatible.

["Faith and Force: The Destroyers of the Modern World," PWNI, 74; pb 61 .]

Why is it moral to serve the happiness of others, but not your own? If enjoyment is a value, why is it moral when experienced by others, but immoral when experienced by you? If the sensation of eating a cake is a value, why is it an immoral indulgence in your stomach, but a moral goal for you to achieve in the stomach of others? Why is it immoral for you to desire, but moral for others to do so? Why is it immoral to produce a value and keep it, but moral to give it away? And if it is not moral for you to keep a value, why is it moral for others to accept it? If you are selfless and virtuous when you give it, are they not selfish and vicious when they take it? Does virtue consist of serving vice? Is the moral purpose of those who are good, self-immolation for the sake of those who are evil?

The answer you evade, the monstrous answer is: No, the takers are not evil, provided they did not earn the value you gave them. It is not immoral for them to accept it, provided they are unable to produce it, unable to deserve it, unable to give you any value in return. It is not immoral for them to enjoy it, provided they do not obtain it by right.

Such is the secret core of your creed, the other half of your double standard: it is immoral to live by your own effort, but moral to live by the effort of others-it is immoral to consume your own product, but moral to consume the products of others-it is immoral to earn, but moral to mooch-it is the parasites who are the moral justification for the existence of the producers, but the existence of the parasites is an end in itself-it is evil to profit by achievement, but good to profit by sacrifice-it is evil to create your own happiness, but good to enjoy it at the price of the blood of others.

Your code divides mankind into two castes and commands them to live by opposite rules: those who may desire anything and those who may desire nothing, the chosen and the d.a.m.ned, the riders and the carriers, the eaters and the eaten. What standard determines your caste? What pa.s.skey admits you to the moral elite? The pa.s.skey is lack of value.

Whatever the value involved, it is your lack of it that gives you a claim upon those who don't lack it. It is your need that gives you a claim to rewards. If you are able to satisfy your need, your ability annuls your right to satisfy it. But a need you are unable to satisfy gives you first right to the lives of mankind.

If you succeed, any man who fails is your master; if you fail, any man who succeeds is your serf. Whether your failure is just or not, whether your wishes are rational or not, whether your misfortune is undeserved or the result of your vices, it is misfortune that gives you a right to rewards. It is pain, regardless of its nature or cause, pain as a primary absolute, that gives you a mortgage on all of existence.

If you heal your pain by your own effort, you receive no moral credit: your code regards it scornfully as an act of self-interest. Whatever value you seek to acquire, be it wealth or food or love or rights, if you acquire it by means of your virtue, your code does not regard it as a moral acquisition: you occasion no loss to anyone, it is a trade, not alms; a payment, not a sacrifice. The deserved belongs in the selfish, commercial realm of mutual profit; it is only the undeserved that calls for that moral transaction which consists of profit to one at the price of disaster to the other. To demand rewards for your virtue is selfish and immoral; it is your lack of virtue that transforms your demand into a moral right.

A morality that holds need as a claim, holds emptiness-non-existence -as its standard of value; it rewards an absence, a defect: weakness, inability, incompetence, suffering, disease, disaster, the lack, the fault, the flaw-the zero.

[GS, FNI, 178; pb 144.]

Altruism holds death as its ultimate goal and standard of value.

["The Objectivist Ethics," VOS, 33; pb 34.]