Ethics: Ayn Rand and John Stuart Mill

Ethics is defined as the study of moral standards and how they affect conduct in a society or individual. With such a definition it is not wonder that the idea of what is ethically right or wrong can be interpreted differently depending on whose moral compass you use. Though there are many scholars to choose from I chose two very specific doctrines to evaluate for the purpose of this class. Ayn Rand and John Stuart Mill are two scholarly writers who both developed their own ideas and opinions on how morals should be carried out in our everyday lives. Thought the two have many differences, the fact that they are both worldly centered, setting then apart from, for example, and the Christian ethics of other scholars.

Ayn Rand is a Russian born writer, who first gained fame for her work in The Fountainhead which was written in America. She is classified as an objectivist, a belief that focuses more on the reality of things over the individual’s thoughts and feelings about them. The basic idea of her philosophy is that the ultimate goal for human kind is life, that all lesser goals are just means to this goal. She advocates that whatever helps this goal is good and whatever impedes it is evil.

Rand’s hierarchy of value is based on what is most necessary to survival. People’s values might be different according to what that particular individual needs for their survival. She believes that ethics is necessary for life; therefore it is valuable to uphold. She quotes in her book The Objectivist Ethics “ethics is a metaphysical necessary of man’s survival” (24). She uses the illustration of an indestructible robot to illustrate the point of values. If a robot is indestructible and everlasting then it cannot possibly have values because n...

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... that this is a plausible goal to ask of people who (in my beliefs) are inherently selfish.

Mill did have the right idea in implementing this mindset in the two occasions he outlined. Both those instances are times when I believe utility should be the deciding factor to determine if an action is ethical or not. It is entirely possible that had Mill lived closer to this time period his argument would be more plausible to this era, but that will never be certain.

Another aspect of Mills philosophy that I do agree with is in his belief that welfare is a continual social project. Society can never be stagnant and efficient forever, so this idea is very applicable. With the continual change people who were not happy before can have the prospect of becoming happy under the new provisions (allocation of resources), their happiness adding to the greater good.