A younger friend at work has recently completed reading Atlas Shrugged. He is fairly close to the age I was at when I got enthralled with Ayn Rand. Something about her writing appeals to the emerging man. “You can do anything. The world will try to hold you down, but you can create.” At the time of my transition from Army Officer to civilian programmer, nothing was more comforting to hear.
Ayn Rand founded a school of philosophy called Objectivist. They state that Quality is Objective. If you fail to see the quality in a certain situation, it must be due to intentional self-delusion. In the Fountainhead, she uses architecture as the medium to express her view. One of the reasons for the length of Atlas Shrugged is that she is attempts to be exhaustive in applying the Objectivist viewpoint to all aspects of human life. The person on the train whistling a fragment from the greatest composer that ever lived, the super-chef making a burger in a podunk greasy spoon, the Metal that outperforms steel, the device that pulls energy from the atmosphere, cigarettes, gold, oil, billboards, commerce,railroads and most especially, sex.
It wasn’t until later, after reading many other things, experiencing more life, that I was able to see the flaws in her reasoning. I’ve often thought that there has to be a clear, coherent counter argument to the Objectivist point of view. She herself points out the method in Atlas Shrugged. If a logical argument results in a contradiction, check your premises. And this is where Objectivism falls apart.
In Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig takes us on a guided tour of his philosophical descent into madness. His trigger is the question “What is quality.” This question comes up in an English class he is teaching. He takes the resultant frustration expressed by his pupils seriously. So seriously that the question consumes him. Is quality a property of the object or the subject? With the dichotomy presented by classical Greek thought as the only two options, he realizes that there is no answer.
Quality, Pirsig decides, is where subject meets object. A person (or animal, or…) has an experience and judges “This is high quality” or “this is low quality.” Note that this is not the rationalization after the fact. By the time the person is able to express the phrase “This is low quality” even unto herself, the judgement has taken place, and quality sensor has moved on.
Here we have a battle brewing. One camp claims that quality is objective, the other that it is not objective. Which is right?
Let’s take the hamburger example from “Atlas Shrugged.” Is there, objectively speaking, a high quality hamburger present? For the hamburger aficionado, there most certainly is. This person, who loves hamburgers, when given said hamburger, takes a bite and can report that it is, as Quention Tarantino wrote, a tasty burger. But notice all the things that are held fixed or excluded. Let’s not focus on the things that are easy to explain away like tomato and condiment preferences, vegetarianism, caloric and cholesterol intake and so on. Lets focus on the heart of the experience, the burger and the bun. Note that I am not being specious here. If there is even one counterargument to the Objectivist point of view, then A is no longer A, and quality is not objective.
The bun. Is is bleached white bread like so much of America finds attractive, or is a good, hearty wheat bread bun that sticks to your ribs? Is the burger rare or well done, or a happy medium? Is the meat high fat or low fat, not for health purposes, but for taste? Each of these things is a value judgment. Each of these things make a difference in the quality experience. But at the heart, there is a seeming core of objectivity. Lets take all the people who like medium rare burgers with a high fat meat and white bread bun, and they can compare two burgers and state which is the best…or can they? Cooking contests across the country and the world test chili, pies, and a wide assortment of other delights and declare certain exhibits as the winner. But the judges don’t always agree. It is a majority ruling. If there truly is a top quality burger, is it possible for one hundred completely objective judges to test a set of burgers and objectively state that this one is the best? I don’t think anyone would expect that outcome. After all, as John Popper said, “There is no accounting for some peoples taste.”
Let’s take something not so personal. Railroads. Is there anything that should be more objectively high or low quality than railroads? A railroad should run on time. The cars should be clean. It should be easy to purchase your ticket. And so on. We will discount the old black smoke belching engines, the land committed to the tracks and the cost of building it. Once you’ve held everything else constant, you should be able to compare to railroads and state which is superior. This is the core example of Atlas Shrugged. Is it possible that two people can experience the same railroad ride, and one have a high quality experience and one have a low quality experience? Of course. Context makes it easy. The world traveler who can objectively compare a German train to a train in India can objectively state that the German one is better. After all, it was clean, started and stopped at all of the stations on time, was fast, and was just much better at getting you from one point to another. But the Indian train has to serve a different community, where there is a much higher likelihood of cows getting on the track, and the population is one of the largest in the world. The amount of effort it takes to just get the train to move at all is impressive. The train is filthy from the sheer quantity of people it moves around. And yet, the system works. Again, to get to a comparable system, you have to hold everything else constant: country, society, loads, times, agricultural and industrial demands, and so on. Yes, for a given train, you can probably say, “This was good run” or “this was a bad run”, but the real question is does the train support it’s community. This is the kind of statement that an Ayn Rand antagonist might pose in one of Wynand’s papers, but it is also the kind of question Dagney Taggart would ask in building a new rail line or deciding to revamp an old one. Who cares if a train runs perfectly if it has no riders?
I think the commonality here is the definition process. You have to strip away all of the variables to get down to the two things you are trying to compare. This is the scientific method incarnate. Pirsig notes that removing quality judgments from the world would leave mathematics the most unchanged. The least dependent on quality of human endeavors is that of pure logic. You only care if a statement us true or not true, not if one is better than the other. Oh, sure, one proof can be said to be more elegant or efficient than anther, but both have the resultant quality of truth. There you have it, truth is a quality as defined within the system of logic.
Pirsig expounds on this thought in Lila and provides a hierarchy to place quality judgments, from Physical to Intellectual. Many of the values that Ayn Rand denigrates are in the social layer (just below intellectual) while many of the qualities she holds highest are in the intellectual layer. The two frameworks seem to be complimentary.
Quality is where subject meets object. There is an objective aspect to the quality judgment, but it is not the entirety of the event. The subject brings with them a long trail of experiences that make up their context. A great deal of randomness goes into the growth and development of a human being. If you factor all of this out, yes, what is left is the objective side of the quality experience. Some people prefer crowds, some solitude. Some people create best when locked away from the rest of the world, others when they are sucking in new ideas as fast as they can consume them. Sometimes, this is even the same person. What environment is best for this person? The obvious answer is, “It depends.” If a quality office is supposed to be objectively identifiable, please show me one that can achieve both of those objectives. I can hear Howard Roark’s pen scratching away. I realize that it is possible to do so in a space. See, I have limited the problem to a comprehensible minimum, and these are the situations in which Objectivists do best.
What happens when the number of variables expands beyond human decision making capabilities? A Go board has just under 400 spaces. While there are a large array of bad first moves, and a small array of good first moves, you can quickly get to a situations, say three or four moves in to the game, where, objectively speaking, it is impossible to state what the “best” move would be. All of the information is on the board, except the decision making process of the opponent. This context, how the opponent thinks, is far more important to the quality decision than any of the objective knowledge in the situation.
If you define quality of an object in a context, then it is easier to state that quality is objective and get people to believe you. But quality in a context is not the same as the overall quality experience a person has in an event. It is just a component.
Man, I don’t know where to start. What I got from your post is that the quality of an object is difficult to fully evaluate when the object is made up of more aspects, or there are more factors involved, than the human mind is capable of taking into consideration. And when attempting to make a quality judgment of a complex object, humans resort to heuristics “due to lack of computational power“ which yields an objective judgment, or one that doesn’t consciously consider the full context of the situation. However, I do not believe that this renders a judgment not objective. The antagonists in Ayn Rand’s novel abused their use of the heuristic; this is what Galt referred to as the blank-out in his epic radio speech. Of course, blank-out is a bit harsh of a term, since one cannot expect humans to have infinite computational power. But in the case of the likes of Jim Taggart “scratch that, I’ll get to him later“ the likes of Wesley Mouch and all the other moochers around the country, they only used the heuristic and didn’t consciously process anything. Their heuristic was “the betterment of society“ and Rand claimed that their heuristic was broken, as well. So their crime was two-fold.
Rand’s heroes in Atlas Shrugged were competent in every way: expert gun-slingers (d’Anconia), expert airplane pilots (Dagny), expert cooks (Hugh Akston), and on top of that each was an expert in his respective field of work. This, to me, is a hyperbole. It makes the story and the argument more compelling. But I don’t believe that Rand is claiming that to be a good person one needs to be good at everything. As you said in your post, “how the opponent thinks is far more important.” The conscious thought process, the computation, is what Ayn sanctifies in Atlas Shrugged. In his speech, Galt admits that one cannot expect to have all the knowledge in the world “ all the objective knowledge “ but one must strive to learn. Do not say ‘Who am I to know?’ but use your capacity for reason to reach a conclusion. Again, my capacity for reason falls far short of being able to incorporate all available facts into my decision, so I’m bound to use heuristics. But as long as I put in an honest, conscious effort, I’m a hero in Rand’s eyes.
Now as for the heuristic of social responsibility. This excerpt from Galt’s speech captures the essence of its dysfunction: ‘You fear the man who has a dollar less than you, that dollar is rightfully his, he makes you feel like a moral defrauder. You hate the man who has a dollar more than you, that dollar is rightfully yours, he makes you feel that you are morally defrauded. The man below is a source of your guilt, the man above is a source of your frustration.’
Lastly, there’s Jim Taggart. We get the point that he’s pure evil. But how does he fit into the issues above? Is he the master of the ‘blank-out’? That is, is he the epitome of the non-thinking man? Kinda. Yes, he does delude himself quite a bit. But of all the Washington boys with which he surrounds himself, he seems to be most aware of this issue. He understands his sister’s world and how it differs from the world in which he lives. It scares and haunts him to no end. So is he then the most avid proponent of the other crime, of social responsibility? Not really. He just works the system well. So what then is his evil, for which Rand destroys him in the end with a tragic death of the soul? It’s the fact he knowingly, consciously blanked out and rode the wave of social responsibility, using the two as means to his ultimate end: the destruction of the competent, rational man. Why did he want this? Well every story needs a bad guy, and this one’s just evil to the bone.
Sorry if I diverged from the Objective quality issue, I had to get that out of my system =).
I’ll just stick to the first portion of your post:
It isn’t just that a quality judgement is ipossible to objectively make due to ininite information and finite processing, but that the quality judgement is based on the subject’s interaction with the object.
Ayn Rand states that it is OK for an individual to look out for what is best for himself. But then defines quality as objective, which means that his values should align with everyone elses. It is ok to be an individual, so long as you conform. Reduxio absurdum. I agree with the individualistic aspect of her philosophy. I don’t agree with the statement that Quality is Objective.
Ayn Rand was reacting to Immanual Kant’s philosophy. Others have written about their opposing view points. I think the A-Priori nature Kant refers to is the same as the quality perception of Pirsig. However, Pirsig does not lead us on to the path of “Duty” that Rand found so objectionable. An interesting follow on would be to look at Kant’s philosophy and analyze in the context of Pirsig’s metaphysics.
I have never seen anyone misunderstand Objectivism more in my entire life.
Jason,
I suspect that statment is Hyperbole. I’ve seen some pretty extreme misunderstanding of Ayn Rand’s writings out there. I spent a long time out there pondering Objectivism from the inside. Perhaps my attemts to work through the reasons are weak. This is my first attempt to put these thoughts down, and actually have started to do so in the form of a dialogue with Alex. Please feel free to join. I will attempt to play both your antagonist and moderator.
Perhaps some people have forgotten that valid logical content can never exist in invalid logical form. Furthermore, it is a logical fallacy of form to limit a subjective term to objective expression. For these reasons, Objectivism must be rejected, at least until someone comes along and gives a better argument for why it’s valid. The conclusion might turn out to be true, but only if an argument can be made for the conclusion that does not rest on the premise of a logical fallacy.
I believe that Rand was a highly intelligent woman, but let’s not confuse intelligence with correctness.
Good points, Avi. I’ve personally been wary of the terms subjective and objective for a long time.
I’ve been reading Karl Popper lately. He makes a distinction between those things that are tautologies, such as a logical argument that must be true, and gathered data (I am butchering his explanation…sorry) which can be used to disprove a hypothesis. Scientific (and thus human) theories can only be either disproved, or held as working hypothesis. Its an interesting view of the world, and much more in keeping with how science and technology actually progresses than the Ayn Rand/Objectivist view that there is one absolute objective quality. If we can’t even say conclusively that the most basic of scientific theories are absolutely true, why should we expect to be able to make such statements about matters of human affairs. Not that we can’t have useful statements like “Murder is Bad.” but always with the caveat that we are talking about “one standard deviation from the mean” and not an absolute.
I’m not wary about the terms “Subjective” and “Objective” at all. I think they’re the most fundamental understanding anyone can have of the world itself.
Subjective are matters of quality. Different people can have different opinions about matters of quality, and all of them can all be, but not necessarily must, equally valid. Subjective is perspective based and dependent upon mental facts.
Objective are matters of quantity. Different people can have different opinions about matters of quantity, but they can’t all be equally valid. Objective matters are not influenced by anybody’s perspective and are equally factual for everybody regardless of our understanding of it.
Even murder isn’t always bad. It’s just murder. Good or bad are judgments about the action, not the action itself. Besides, to even make such a judgment one would need a point of origin (predetermined point of view or subjective bias such as philosophy or faith system) and the context in which it happened. Murdering a random person might seem bad, unless it was someone like Hitler. Good and Bad are matters of gradation. To regard matters of gradation as if they were absolutes, is logical fallacy. It’s similar to trying to define the color black, by expressing the qualities of the color white.
Avi, that is the intention of the terms Objective and Subjective, but when applied, they become meaningless. When people try to claim “Quality is Objective” as Ayn Rand did, the outcome is downright dangerous: It is like unto the Church having the sole discretion to say what “Truth” means. Quality can be described as “When subject meets Object” as Pirsig claims. But, since the terms have such loaded historical context, it is probably more correct, and certainly more clear, to say “Quality is perceived by a value system interaction with its environment.” I think that there are a lot of good thinkers out there that have addressed these types of issues. Popper is certainly one. I need to go back through the list that Pirsig references and read some of the others.
Reading Lila for the first time, years after Zen, and started thinking about Pirsig’s societal patterns over biology’s, intellectual patterns over society’s, framework in relation to Atlas Shrugged. My first thought was that Rand put biology on the same side as intellect, in a duality against society, but that it was biology very much driven by intellect, where physical pleasures, sex, etc. could only be enjoyed as the result of an uncompromised commitment to value–earned, not taken or given. Then I realized that it would perhaps be more accurate to say that Rand reduced Pirsig’s ‘society over biology’ to her maxim that it was never okay to initiate force (loosely paraphrasing from Galt’s speech) and then, with that baseline out of the way, the rest of her philosophy dovetails really well with the idea of the intellect over society, in a way that encompasses also the intellect’s awareness and appreciation of biology.
All that to say, I agree with your statement that “The two frameworks seem to be complimentary.” I think Pirsig gains on Rand’s objectivism in his anthropologist’s understanding of different values being held by different cultures, different standards of insanity, etc., and in his ideas of static vs. dynamic. Rand sacrifices to her absolutes any such awareness of possible changes throughout space and time. She ignores that distinction you rightfully make, that “quality in a context” is different than just plain “quality.” (Again, I suppose all I’m saying is that I agree, though I realize your views could be completely different now than when you originally posted this. Regardless, thanks for writing it!)
Wonderful insights, Megan. I love the way this has become a conversation over the years.
Pirsig’s take on the violence you mention would be that the social is attempting to damage the intellectual layers, and I think we see this pattern at all layers. The biological stresses the physical, the social stresses the biological. The intellectual layer will, of course, reduce the effectiveness of the physical, but there will also be battles within the intellectual layer. We call these discussions, but they really are Memes attempting to assert dominance over each other, just within the value-system of the intellectual: logic, etc.
Violence is the epitome of the low quality eperience, especially if you are on the recieving end, but also to the layers above it. The plague devastated the social and intellectual fabric of Europe. Violence at the social level to try and achieve intellectual superiority is self defating, and I suspect that this is really what Rand was saying in her Galt speech.
I’m glad I found this site, it is very good. Having just read Ayn Rand’s ‘philosophy who needs it’, I reacquainted my self with Robert Persigs great scenario between Phaedrus and the professor at the school of Chicago.
Everything is an analogy, this is of course is self evident. We must not forget that reason is a product of the mind, and the mind is a product of the universe, therefor the universe is reasonable. BUT, and it is a big but, our mind is the product of a self reflecting universe, and the universe cannot look outside of itself to make objective measurements, therefor it’s self reflection ( reasoning ) has to be by analogy, as there is no reference behond this. “All”, for the human mind , is analogy full stop. So if one cannot logically derive reason directly, ( because the foundation is built on spongy analogy ) then all reason is based on spongy quality, and it is this where the confusion arises. A is A the universe is obviously objective, ( because it works ) but we can not get access to it by reason, because we, as the product of the universe, are imbedded in this tautology.
So is Ayn Rand right?… damn right she is right,.. an A is an A there are objective facts reason and logic; but the fact that we cannot get access to them directly doesn’t matter, as we can do this by analogy.
Complexity is a small problem for the human mind, we can to use tools to access to information that the senses cannot directly perceive. but this is okay, we can build hierarchies of complexity all the way up. As plato would say there are instructions for a starship floating in the platonic realm just waiting to be discovered. I wouldn’t nor would Aristotle, it is simply that the platonic realm “Quality”, is in a higher level of complexity in the hierarchy of reasoning, but the complexity and the rules governing the complexity are objective.
I will leave it there. p.s in my opinion Ayn Rand is the greatest philosopher of this or any age. p.p.s this discussion (but using slightly different terminology ) and making great progress has been taking place between the interface of theoretical physics mathematical logic and computer science. Great work is being done by Stephen Wolfram and Johnathan Gerard et al.
I think you lost Pirsig there for a while. Rand is good to, I like her anyway. Bear in mind that Pirsig was a few dacades later than Rand.
Pretty sure I kept him sight the whole time.
I love revisiting this essay. 15 years later I still think it reflects my understanding of reality.
Thank you for accepting my reply at once.
I notice you haven’t said anything about Aristotle, although he might be the communality between novelists Rand and Pirsig in the first place; also; I forgot to speak about him as well.
A difference between Rand, whom I read first in 2010, and Pirsig, whom I had already read by then, is that while Pirsig let’s his aversion for Aristotle show in his novel I think you must learn of Rand’s admiration for Aristotle in her personal life.
Although both of their views on Aristotle might be interesting, generally I think criticism can be more worth reading than admiration, therefore I think I should prefer Pirsig’s thoughts on Aristotle to Rand’s counterpart.
David, Thanks for engaging. If anything is a timeless debate, it is this one.
Yeah, I kinda let Pirsig color my view on Aristotle, as I read ZAMM long before I tired to tackle Aristotle.
I might be slightly more forgiving now, as I realize that Aristotle had a very slim philosophic grounding for what he was doing. They were inventing the art of formal argument, and coupled with advances in recording, he had a lasting impact. I think that several of the ideas I’ve read in Plato are stomach-churningly bad (love for all thing Spartan, for one,) and some of the ideas I’ve read in Aristotle are laughably stupid…but that is with 2000 years of retrospect. Perhaps Socrates was truly making the weaker argument topple over the stronger one as he was accused, and these documents preserved them for posterity. Or maybe by reading ZAMM first I was prejudiced before I ever entered the discussion.
I also didn’t bring up Kant…who was very much lauded during my philosophy class at West Point. I think Kant also has some really bad ideals. I just didn’t have a way to address them through Objective/Subjective split. So, again, I think PIrsig really helped me put to words what I was getting as “a bad quality judgement.” And again, I am more forgiving now as I understand that, until Kant wrote what he did, we could not discuss it.
Some things are clearly good, and some are clearly bad…it is those things that seem a little of both that are the most interesting, and where we find growth.