
The Mattering Instinct - lermontov
https://www.edge.org/conversation/rebecca_newberger_goldstein-the-mattering-instinct
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gd1
That was a good read. It's no GTA San Andreas streaming deer cam, but not bad.

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objectivistbrit
In ethics, one must begin by asking: What are values? Why does man need them?
“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.

There is only one fundamental alternative in the universe: existence or
nonexistence—and it pertains to a single class of entities: to living
organisms. The existence of inanimate matter is unconditional, the existence
of life is not: it depends on a specific course of action. Matter is
indestructible, it changes its forms, but it cannot cease to exist. 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.

To make this point fully clear, try to imagine an immortal, indestructible
robot, an entity which moves and acts, but which cannot be affected by
anything, which cannot be changed in any respect, which cannot be damaged,
injured or destroyed. Such an entity would not be able to have any values; it
would have nothing to gain or to lose; it could not regard anything as for or
against it, as serving or threatening its welfare, as fulfilling or
frustrating its interests. It could have no interests and no goals. Only a
living entity can have goals or can originate them. And it is only a living
organism that has the capacity for self-generated, goal-directed action. On
the physical level, the functions of all living organisms, from the simplest
to the most complex—from the nutritive function in the single cell of an
amoeba to the blood circulation in the body of a man—are actions generated by
the organism itself and directed to a single goal: the maintenance of the
organism’s life.

An organism’s life depends on two factors: the material or fuel which it needs
from the outside, from its physical background, and the action of its own
body, the action of using that fuel properly. What standard determines what is
proper in this context? The standard is the organism’s life, or: that which is
required for the organism’s survival. No choice is open to an organism in this
issue: that which is required for its survival is determined by its nature, by
the kind of entity it is. Many variations, many forms of adaptation to its
background are possible to an organism, including the possibility of existing
for a while in a crippled, disabled or diseased condition, but the fundamental
alternative of its existence remains the same: if an organism fails in the
basic functions required by its nature—if an amoeba’s protoplasm stops
assimilating food, or if a man’s heart stops beating—the organism dies. In a
fundamental sense, stillness is the antithesis of life. Life can be kept in
existence only by a constant process of self-sustaining action. The goal of
that action, the ultimate value which, to be kept, must be gained through its
every moment, is the organism’s life.

An ultimate value is that final goal or end to which all lesser goals are the
means—and it sets the standard by which all lesser goals are evaluated. An
organism’s life is its standard of value: that which furthers its life is the
good, that which threatens it is the evil.

Without an ultimate goal or end, there can be no lesser goals or means: a
series of means going off into an infinite progression toward a nonexistent
end is a metaphysical and epistemological impossibility. It is only an
ultimate goal, an end in itself, that makes the existence of values possible.

When applied to physical phenomena, such as the automatic functions of an
organism, the term “goal- directed” is not to be taken to mean “purposive” (a
concept applicable only to the actions of a consciousness) and is not to imply
the existence of any teleological principle operating in insentient nature. I
use the term “goal-directed,” in this context, to designate the fact that the
automatic functions of living organisms are actions whose nature is such that
they result in the preservation of an organism’s life.

Metaphysically, life is the only phenomenon that is an end in itself: a value
gained and kept by a constant process of action. Epistemologically, the
concept of “value” is genetically dependent upon and derived from the
antecedent concept of “life.” To speak of “value” as apart from “life” is
worse than a contradiction in terms. “It is only the concept of ‘Life’ that
makes the concept of ‘Value’ possible.”

In answer to those philosophers who claim that no relation can be established
between ultimate ends or values and the facts of reality, let me stress that
the fact that living entities exist and function necessitates the existence of
values and of an ultimate value which for any given living entity is its own
life. Thus the validation of value judgments is to be achieved by reference to
the facts of reality. The fact that a living entity is, determines what it
ought to do. So much for the issue of the relation between “is” and “ought.”"

\-- Ayn Rand, The Virtue of Selfishness

