PART 2: CHAPTER 9

THE MORALITY OF REASON

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Rational Morality Derives from Benign Egoism

Morality derives from benign egoism and answers the question: What should I do?

Every healthy person who lives for himself knows where he is, how he knows it, and who he is. The next question is: What should he do?

Morality is the study of the best course of action to benefit oneself in life.

If a person wakes alone in a desert with only their clothes and no reference points, they will ask: Where am I? How do I know it? Who am I? The first question is metaphysics; the second and third, epistemology. These have been studied. Now comes: What should I do? The answer opens morality.

Is it moral to benefit from one’s own actions? Yes. Is the benign selfishness of self-interest moral? Yes. Many cultures confuse egoism with selfishness without differentiating evil egoism from benign egoism.

Evil egoism creates nothing, disrespects others, and uses force or deceit. Benign egoism is productive, peaceful, and seeks one’s own interest.

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The word egoist (from “ego,” I, and “ist,” supporter) denotes one in favour of oneself. Its opposite, altruistic (from Latin alter, other), favours others, but not necessarily good ones. Altruism is often used by politicians to win votes, advocating self-sacrifice for strangers, even murderers.

A mother who sacrifices for her son acts from benign egoism, because it gives her pleasure. She will not sacrifice herself for a stranger. Love is a trade in virtues, born of benign egoism, beginning with admiration for the loved one’s qualities.

Evil egoism, by contrast, ranges from common thieves to Machiavellian politicians. It manifests in Hypatia of Alexandria’s assassins, who stripped her naked and murdered her for teaching science.

Hypatia taught at the Library of Alexandria. Some of her phrases:

“All formal religions are fallacious and should not be accepted out of self-respect.”

“Defend your right to think, because even thinking wrongly is better than not thinking.”

“The truth does not change because it is or is not believed by the majority.”

“Ruling by fear or punishment in another world is as basic as using force.”

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“Fables must be taught as fables, myths as myths, miracles as poetic fantasies. Teaching superstitions as truth misleads children and harms them.”

“He who influences the thought of his time influences eternity.”

“Regardless of our colour, race, or religion, we are brothers.”

The malignant egoism of Hypatia’s assassins illustrates the egoism that initiates force and deceit.

Survival instinct is automatic. It preserves life in danger. Morality is not automatic. One must choose a moral code and understand why it is correct. Choosing a moral code is like making a compass for life. But morality depends on correct metaphysics and epistemology. A Kantian metaphysics plus Platonic epistemology will produce a flawed compass.

The quality of this moral compass is proportional to the willingness to acclimatize the mind to higher concepts, such as metaphysics and epistemology.

Acclimatization is necessary to understand why a moral code benefits life, and to understand it as clearly as 2 + 2 = 4.

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Reason as The Root of Moral Value

Reason gives moral value to man, and shows him his way of moral perfection.

If reason is man’s essential characteristic, his first moral duty is to choose reason as a value. This means thinking with valid concepts.

If a man has moral ambition, he must choose his rational perfection as his highest value. Reason is his essence, his spiritual spark, his defining characteristic, what makes him a man and not something else.

In Ayn Rand’s words:

“Man must consider his life as a value, by choice; he must learn to keep it, by choice; he must discover the values that it requires and practice his virtues, by choice.”

If reason is man’s soul, his best option is to become the Olympic athlete of his own soul, the champion of himself.

Reason discovers new relations, beginning with man: the relation between conceptual faculty, emotions, work, and success. It does so from the top of the pyramid of knowledge: philosophy. Philosophy produces holistic morality.

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The Importance of Choosing a Productive Life Goal

A productive life goal serves to prioritize one’s actions and not get bored.

For a man to choose a productive life goal, he must think seriously and for a long time. This involves prioritizing his interests, assessing his abilities, and deciding how much effort he is willing to put in.

Living without a productive goal is like playing a soccer game with no goalposts. What sense would it make to play where there is no place to score?

But life is different from a soccer field. On a soccer field, goalposts exist by default, set by the rules of the sport. In life, the place to score is not given. Each man must discover his rules and create a place to achieve his goals. He needs it to celebrate them.

Choosing a life-productive goal is the most important decision of a man’s existence. His destiny and self-esteem depend on it.

This choice includes his profession and social life, but most importantly, improving his character. For that, he needs deep philosophical thinking to remove unwanted aspects of cultural imprinting and to understand and practice what this manual teaches.

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Rationality Is The Main Virtue of Man

The main virtue of man is his rationality.

Man must act rationally according to his circumstances to succeed. Rationality is his main virtue.

To exercise reason impeccably, a man must focus his mind. He must understand axiomatic concepts and their corollaries and learn to think with valid concepts. He must discover rational morality and practice benign egoism. He must recognize the benefits of acting rationally.

He also needs to choose a long-term productive goal that develops his intellectual creativity. All of this requires rational action. Therefore, man’s central virtue is rationality.

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Egoism, Altruism and Empathy

Benign egoism is better than altruism, which is not empathy.

Egoism, or selfishness, is the least understood concept in history.

In The Virtue of Selfishness, an essay by Ayn Rand and psychologist Nathaniel Branden, selfishness is shown to be a moral virtue when it is rational and peaceful. Altruism, by contrast, is always immoral and not synonymous with empathy.

Choosing yourself as the beneficiary of your actions is morally good. Sacrificing yourself for strangers, indiscriminately, is morally wrong.

A man can be selfish and still have empathy, for example, helping an old man who falls in the street. But it is immoral to jump into a stormy sea to save a stranger if you cannot swim.

The benign selfishness of striving to achieve a productive life goal is good. A man’s happiness is self-justifying, but it must not involve force or deceit. The pursuit of happiness needs no argument; it is a natural, absolute right.

Is there something wrong with empathizing and helping others? No. But empathy has limits. It is not morally correct to forgive a serial murderer or rapist. Nor is it good to risk your life to save a canary in a burning house. Altruism becomes immoral when it dictates self-sacrifice for others indiscriminately.

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Altruism demands universal empathy. It insists on helping everyone, even criminals. Its only beneficiaries are politicians, who gain votes, and criminals, who exploit it. You see them in governments, financial systems, and streets worldwide. Hooded men burn businesses or live dishonestly. Feeling empathy for criminals is unhealthy, but altruism drives politicians to defend them instead of honest citizens. Those who break the social contract voluntarily renounce their human rights. Altruistic politicians defend the guilty rather than voters, discouraging participation.

The ethical principle of altruism requires man to sacrifice his happiness to relieve others’ pain, without limits. Which Kantian narrative gains more votes today? Do human rights organizations protect the middle class or criminals who loot cities? Altruism is collectivist self-deception, disguised as love of neighbour. Altruistic politicians claim the “common good” and “social justice” to justify taxing producers. They spend others’ money to secure re-election and repay campaign backers.

Benign egoism is healthy, decent, and reasonable. It includes empathy and compassion in the right measure. Altruism demands total self-sacrifice as a categorical moral imperative. It is an erroneous ethical theory that leads to disaster.

The morality of benign egoism rests on natural, absolute facts. Each individual is the sole beneficiary of his actions. Celebrate man’s right to pursue happiness by producing value and freely trading goods, services, and virtues.

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Good egoism sustains rational morality. It is the rock on which a man must build his moral house. Altruism builds on sand.

Is it fair to benefit from your actions without harming others? Yes. Is it fair for the State to threaten honest citizens to collect taxes that benefit criminals? No.

Altruism cannot be a value to pursue. Helping irrationally and indiscriminately is a moral mistake. If institutionalized in politics, it produces decadence and chaos.

If value is what man acts for, which values should he pursue? Three: Reason, Purpose, and Self-esteem.

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The Value of Reason

Reason is a value, but only for the man who chooses it as such.

If reason is man’s essence, he must choose it as a value to make it effective.

If reason is man’s highest value, he must understand why. He must decide to discover why reason is his greatest value. Only then can he gain proper motivation to perfect it—starting with axiomatic concepts, their corollaries, and committing to think with valid concepts.

If man needs to think to live, and reason is his essence, then pursuing intellectual perfection is his path to moral perfection. This path is practical and moral at once and is the source of true self-esteem.

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The Value of Purpose

The moral purpose of life is to discover why one’s own happiness is an end in itself.

The first thing to understand in the search for your happiness is that it is an end in itself. Ayn Rand, in Objectivism, explains:

“Man — every man — is an end in himself, not the means to the ends of others. He must exist by himself and for himself, without sacrificing himself for others or sacrificing others. The pursuit of his rational self-interest and his own happiness is the highest moral purpose of his life.”

If the purpose of your life is your own happiness and it is morally self-justifying, then a productive goal is the tool that makes it possible.

Man’s happiness justifies itself. It combines animal pleasure with rational pleasure. Relief and joy are two forms of pleasure. Relief occurs when bodily pain — wounds, hunger, thirst, the desire to urinate, defecate, or sleep — is alleviated. Relief from bodily pain is self-justifying because it guides man to stay alive.

The other form is sensory joy. Sensory pleasure comes from listening to waves, feeling sunlight on your skin, walking barefoot on a white sand beach, or watching a Caribbean sunset. Feeling the wind on your face, smelling spring flowers, or sharing the moment with a dog or horse also produces joy.

If you feel the urge to urinate, hunger, or pain, action is required to relieve it. A horse or dog acts the same. Sensory enjoyment, by contrast, offers choices. You can choose a more beautiful beach, but not during a hurricane or in freezing winter. Animals make similar choices. Man shares this reality with them.

Sensory pleasure, in relief and joy, is animal pleasure. It is a self-justifying, natural, absolute end.

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Because man is a rational animal, he also seeks intellectual pleasure. Intellectual relief comes from alleviating intellectual pain. What causes this pain? Contradictions. Cognitive dissonance, denying logic, using floating concepts, or ignoring evidence produces intellectual discomfort.

Most people avoid contradictions, distracting themselves with TV, social media, vices, or drugs. But ignoring a contradiction does not truly relieve it. It persists, like insomnia.

Instead, man can face contradictions, discover their cause, and resolve the problem at its root. The result is relief and self-confidence. Resolving contradictions this way builds success and true self-esteem. Mental anesthesia — evasion, drugs or distractions — only postpones the problem and weakens character.

Another type of intellectual pleasure comes from contemplating reality in action. Man enjoys seeing the universe follow axiomatic concepts and their corollaries. This pleasure is stable and effortless when thinking with valid concepts anchored to perception. Objective thought produces the highest intellectual pleasure. Choosing to think this way is like choosing the most beautiful beach to walk barefoot on perfect sand. This “beach” is the morality of reason, rooted in reality. It arises from three core values and seven virtues. It allows man to synchronize with the universe and discover true self-esteem.

The most beautiful beach is not separate from bodily pleasure. True happiness integrates body and mind. This integrated pleasure — sensory-intellectual pleasure — combines sensory and intellectual joys. The result is greater than the sum of its parts. This super-joy belongs to the man who chooses to integrate mind and body, and it is the source of his success and authentic self-esteem.

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The Value of Self-Esteem

Man’s self-esteem derives from his rational integrity and knowing why he is worthy of his happiness.

The need for self-esteem is as vital to a man’s soul as air is to his body. Trusting his reason and feeling worthy of a happy life is necessary to achieve true self-esteem, the kind that does not depend on social status.

Self-esteem comes from knowing how to think correctly. For that, a man must grasp the basics of an objective philosophy: metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics.

As said, if a man wants to think like a Rolls-Royce, he must pay the price of a Rolls-Royce. He cannot claim to become an exceptional mind while using ordinary, low-value concepts. Quality has a cost, and that cost is training your mind to understand the topics in this book accurately.

Self-esteem is often confused with social status. Many wealthy people with high status wonder why they lack genuine self-respect. Seeking self-esteem through status is like measuring distance in kilos, surface in hours, or temperature in inches. It is absurd. True self-esteem comes from intellectual confidence, not social recognition.

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Rational Virtues

The rational virtues are: productivity, independence, integrity, honesty, justice, rationality and pride.

A value motivates you to act. What should you pursue? The answer is eudaimonia. You achieve it by practicing rational virtues.

A virtue is a set of behaviours needed to reach a goal. You act by principles to earn success and real self-esteem, that is eudaimonia.

What are the rational virtues? There are seven: rationality, honesty, independence, integrity, justice, productivity, and pride.

They are studied one by one below.

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Independence

The virtue of independence are the conclusions that are derived from our own experiments.

The true man is interested in producing with his own intellect and discovering the world for himself. For this, you need the virtue of independence. It comes from trusting your reason, because you know how to focus your mind. You see the world clearly, choose well, and build a good destiny for yourself.

The man who practices independence runs his own experiments and reaches his own conclusions. He is serious in thinking and esteems himself for his effectiveness in the world. He knows how to make good decisions based on evidence.

He enjoys the approval of others when he approves of those who approve of him, but he does not seek to please anyone to survive. You gain values from others in exchange for what you produce.

The Oxford Dictionary defines “independence” as “the freedom to organize your own life, make your own decisions, etc. without needing help from other people.”

It is the self-governing of your premises.

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Integrity, as Loyalty to Reason

The virtue of integrity is to act without logic-contradictions.

The virtue of integrity is the refusal to tolerate rational contradictions. You stay loyal to axiomatic concepts and their corollaries. You think with valid concepts.

A man with integrity lacks cognitive dissonance. He tolerates no split between public and private life, between what he sees and thinks, between what he feels and does, or between percepts and concepts.

Nature yields to a man with integrity because he obeys it first. He does not initiate force or deceit, yet he defends himself if attacked. He never betrays his principles, not even “sometimes,” because integrity is total or it is nothing. He rejects concessions and excuses. He commits to logical integrity. His character rests on an objective philosophy that aligns his actions with the natural and absolute laws of reality. His reason is a reliable compass. It works through logical integrity and lets him navigate the material world successfully.

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Honesty, as Loyalty to Reality

The virtue of honesty is being loyal to the evidence.

The virtue of honesty is recognizing nature as absolute and being loyal to it before friends.

Honesty begins by recognizing that material reality is given, natural, and absolute. You then act to master it, but only by obeying reality first.

The honest man is loyal to the laws of the universe. He adapts his knowledge to evidence, his culture to science, his concepts to percepts, and his reason to logic.

Honesty includes logical honesty, which means zero tolerance for intellectual contradictions.

In the social sphere, honesty begins with good faith. It includes not initiating force or deception against others, while defending yourself against force or deception initiated by them.

The Oxford Dictionary defines “honest” as “not hiding the truth about something.” But can you be honest with the truth if the truth cannot be known, as Kant claims? If so, is everyone dishonest according to the Oxford Dictionary?

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Justice, When Evaluating Others

The virtue of justice is to exercise judgment objectively to judge natural and human facts.

The just man chooses to exercise objective judgment with logical integrity. He judges others accurately, based on conclusive evidence, and prepares to be judged by the same standard.

Refusing to judge others in order not to be judged is moral cowardice. You must judge others with the same precision a scientist uses to test a hypothesis. Without judgment, your reason is invalidated and your self-respect is lost.

The man who adopts the policy of judgment must first recognize the virtuous. By doing so, he confirms his own virtues. Second, he must condemn the vicious. By doing so, he recognizes his own defects.

By recognizing the virtuous, you nurture your values. By condemning the vicious, you defend your values. In both cases, you exercise reason and honor your essence. You must judge whenever the occasion arises in daily life, but without becoming a witch hunter.

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Productivity, as Adapting Nature to Man

The virtue of productivity allows man to adapt nature to his wishes, obeying it first.

The virtue of productivity belongs to the man who creates a good or a service. You must conceive it with your mind before you materialize it. As stated, if you want to adapt nature to your purposes, you must obey it first. You think based on evidence and adapt your premises to science.

The producer invents the wheel, a satellite, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, and the Mona Lisa. He innovates in science, art, and technology.

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Productivity, as a Virtue of Purpose

The virtue of productivity serves to achieve man’s productive-life-goal and therefore its self-esteem.

Productivity is your necessary virtue to achieve your value of purpose. It is the action required to reach your life productive goal, from which real self-esteem follows.

When choosing a life productive goal, the clearer your why, the stronger your commitment, the greater your motivation, and the more options you gain to achieve it. Before choosing, you must ask yourself: Am I being honest with myself? Will I do the most and the best I can? Will I use all my gifts and experience? Am I doing what I truly want to do?

These questions, and others like them, must be asked over time. The third part of this book explains how to do this step by step in your own constitution.

The great works of history, created by inventors, entrepreneurs, scientists, and artists, were not driven by the pursuit of fame as an end in itself. They resulted from choosing to produce the best possible work, according to personal talent, ambition, and the price each was willing to pay.

When choosing a productive life goal, you must consider all your talents. Choose the most challenging goal that, if achieved, makes you feel the deepest pride. Ask yourself: given my talents and interests, will this goal let me become the best I can be, and should be, as a human being?

The following example from a real case illustrates the process.

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An upper-class man studied engineering for five years. After graduating, he founded a construction company. His passion, however, was soccer. He divided his time between directing a local soccer team and running his company. After careful thought, he closed the company and devoted himself fully to coaching. This choice was poorly regarded by his family of professional engineers in a country where soccer belonged to a lower social class. His decision led him to become technical director of the best team in Spain, and later of leading teams in England. Today, in the sports world, he is known as “the engineer.”

When choosing your life productive goal, you must follow your own passion.

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Pride, as Moral Ambition

The virtue of pride is the sum of all the rational virtues.

For Aristotle, pride is “the crown of all the virtues,” meaning the quality of the man who practices all the rational virtues. In this context, you need to know the difference between correct, good, and perfect.

The man who practices pride practices all the rational virtues. Metaphorically, you choose to carve your character as a Michelangelo masterpiece. Moral perfection is not a single act. It is built from many small virtuous actions. If you act incorrectly, that is irrationally, you do not ignore it. You repair the damage and search for the cause to avoid repeating the error. Your decision to sculpt yourself into a masterpiece makes possible exceptional self-esteem, which should be normal.

The man who practices pride gives himself no license to act irrationally, even sometimes, because every detail matters when sculpting the soul, which is superb in the sense of beautiful and well made.

Objective virtues and values must be integrated into the character of the man who chooses to be his own champion.

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