The Randian Argument

I will lay out here the Randian argument(s) in favor of my candidate ethical system: that morality consists of maximizing the number and duration of one's genes.

I call it the Randian argument because it closely parallels the arguments Ayn Rand gives for her individualist survivalist ethic. I consider it a logical and natural extension of Rand in light of a newer and better understanding of human nature. In this sense, it does not violate the Randian demand for always and only reason as a guide to thought.

The first formulation is this: Rand claims that all organisms face a fundamental choice of nature - to live or to die. Only by taking action can the organism live, and action taken to pursue some other goal is fruitless unless action is also taken to survive. Thus nature appoints as primary a particular value, survival. I believe the same can be said just as well of reproduction over a longer time frame and in the larger sense of reproduction. By this I mean the sense I am generally using - procreation but also helping others to survive and procreate; helping not only to create the next generation but to raise them and prepare them for the adult world. This fundamental choice version of the argument would give the resulting ethics a dualist tinge, blending the Randian survivalist ethos and my own. I consider this unsatisfactory, and am motivated by all of the other arguments I present for the procreation ethos to conclude: in the dualistic formulation, procreation trumps survival should the two conflict.

The second formulation is this: If all organisms act to survive, including simple bacteria, the same ought to apply to our own genes, which seem to have arisen historically as independent organisms and created animal bodies out of self-interest. Humans are the machines that human DNA builds to survive, and genes do so via our reproduction. The survivalist ethic applied to genes (i.e. applied to our current and improved understanding of human nature) is the procreation ethic.

The third formulation is this: There is a fundamental alternative not just between choosing to live versus choosing to die, but between choosing to have come into existence and not have come into existence. It is not an alternative that is available to us in fact, but it is an alternative which we can choose for the next generation. If morality is non-subjective we should expect that the moral choices of the next generation and the moral choices of the current generation differ only with respect to circumstances, not with respect to the individual actors. If we morally approve of our having come into existence (a premise very close to the heart of the Randian system, if not quite espoused by Ayn herself) we should in most circumstances conclude that the next generation would approve of itself coming into existence. Crucially, since we are aiming for a non-subjectivist ethics we must conclude that in most circumstances we morally approve of ourselves creating the next generation. The alternative is that ethics varies from person to person, not merely by circumstance but also in content - a conclusion we ought to reject on epistemological and metaphysical grounds. In Randian terms, if one's life is the standard of value, the processes that create life across time must also have positive moral value. In lay terms, the reader ought to say to themself: wouldn't it be bizarre if it were morally good for a thousand prior generations to procreate, ultimately resulting in my own existence, but I - who share a number of fundamental traits with them - have no moral inclination to create further generations?