JFQ:
You wrote:
>>Reason alone is value neutral. It can be logical to kill a rival, or the inconvenient, or the 'inferior'. Reason can't define good and evil as an absolute, ethical systems are external to the rules of logic.<<
WRONG!
The only code of ethics that is moral is that derived from reality.
As Ayn Rand pointed out: Only one fundamental alternative exists in the universe -- that is existence or nonexistence. This can only pertain to living organisms.
It is only the concept of `Life' that makes the concept of `Value' possible. It is, therefore, only to a living organism that things can be good or evil.
Man's needs of principles (needed to sustain existence and empower him with the knowledge of the actions required to guide him in dealing with nature and other humans) is his need of a code of values. A code of values accepted by choice is a code of morality. The reason of the need for morality determines the purpose of reality as well as the moral values chosen.
Therefore, all that is proper to the life of a rational being is good; all which destroys it is evil.
"To live, man must hold three things as the supreme and ruling values of his life: Reason -- Purpose -- Self-esteem. Reason, as his only tool of knowledge. Purpose, as his choice of happiness which that tool must proceed to achieve. Self-esteem, as his inviolate certainty that his mind is competent to think and his person worthy of happiness, which means: is worthy of living." -- from A. Rand's "Atlas Shrugged"
Man's life depends on thinking, not blind action; on achievement, not destruction. Nothing can change these facts.
Father Terrence |
