To be or not to be...

[PRN 0]

First, this discussion might benefit from definitions -- formally, by genus and differentia, if possible. What do you mean by good in each instance I have made bold, above? Trying to use the same term -- even with one in scare quotes -- in different ways in the same thought can be, at best, very confusing. At worst, it is a trap leading to equivocation.

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I found these formulations for the good in the Ayn Rand Lexicon (pp. 188-189):

“All that which is proper to the life of a rational being is the good…”

“The good is … An evaluation of the facts of reality by man’s consciousness according to a rational standard of value.”

“The good is an aspect of reality in relation to man.”

I would define the good as:

*An aspect of reality in relation to man (genus) which is proper to man’s life (differentia).*

As to the other type of “good”:

People speak of food as tasting “good,” of “having a good time,” of a massage feeling “good,” etc. This is the other “good” I’ve been referring to. Again, this boils down to a single common denominator, enjoyment.

I would define this “good” as:

*An experience (genus) which is enjoyable (differentia).*

Second, in the posts immediately preceding mine, Betsy gave a psychological explanation of the relation between the decision to live and enjoyment; and Stephen addressed again a philosophical explanation of the need to decide to live before morality (and therefore reason) is possible. Which context are you speaking in -- psychological or philosophical?

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I’m not sure I understand this distinction. Could you elaborate on the difference between a psychological and a philosophical explanation?

I have one more suggestion: If you believe that the pleasure of a delicious meal is "good," try dropping that word and using a more exact term -- such as pleasurable or delicious or enjoyable. By dumping the connotations of "good," your argument is simply -- and rightly -- stating a fact: a delicious meal is delicious.

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Yes, this would eliminate quite a bit of confusion. Rather than speak of two types of good, it makes much more sense to restrict the good to the moral sense and simply drop the other formulation.

The good is *an aspect of reality in relation to man which is proper to man’s life* while *an experience which is enjoyable* refers to nothing more than enjoyment.

Thank you for this suggestion.

What inferences a particular individual draws from that are psychological, that is, they pertain to that individual but not necessarily all individuals.

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I’m not sure what this means.

Failure of an individual to draw the proper inference -- Life is worth living when I have the prospect of enjoyment -- is worthy of condemnation…

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This is the basic argument I’ve been trying (in an awkward, searching manner) to make.

Even if enjoyment is not a species of the good, the claim that life is worth living when one has the prospect of enjoyment still seems irrefutable.

…but that is a different issue from recognizing that the decision to live philosophically (that is, hierarchically) precedes the need for morality (including rationality).

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Since I have dropped the notion that enjoyment is a species of the good, I think I now see why the choice to live or not is outside of morality.

But I’m still facing an apparent contradiction:

If the choice to live or not is outside of morality, how is the failure of an individual to recognize that life is worth living, when he has the prospect of enjoyment, worthy of condemnation? How can we say that the chooser of death belongs on “the lowest rung of hell,” as Dr. Peikoff wrote?

Mr. Speicher wrote that we can condemn one who chooses death on the basis of those who choose life. ← Does that mean the basis of condemnation is itself relational? That only on the basis of choosing life can we condemn one who chooses death?

But the basis for choosing life over death is, as far as I can tell, still rooted in the fact that life holds the prospect of enjoyment. I'm still confused...

[PRN 0]

The physical pleasure-pain mechanism is biologically based, a consequence of natural selection. But in what sense is such a mechanism good apart from the acceptance of man's life as a standard? You have used terms like "pre-moral" and "amoral" and yet allude to some "good" which, somehow, is not the moral good. I simply do not know what that means.

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When Burgess asked me for formal definitions for both my formulations of the good, I discovered in the process of trying to define them that the non-moral good simply does not exist. I’ve now dropped all notions of the good other than the moral good.

Again, I really think that you are skirting around an attempt to establish some intrinsic value to use as that which underlies the choice to live. Intrinsic values do not exist, no matter what name you give to them. The choice to live is a primary.

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Is it intrinsicism to claim that enjoyment is worth remaining in reality for?

Even if intrinsic values do not exist, and there is no such thing as the good apart from man's life as the standard, isn't it still true that life is worth living when it holds the prospect of enjoyment?

[Stephen Speicher 0]

Is it intrinsicism to claim that enjoyment is worth remaining in reality for?

No.

Even if intrinsic values do not exist, and there is no such thing as the good apart from man's life as the standard, isn't it still true that life is worth living when it holds the prospect of enjoyment?

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Certainly, as long as you choose to live and accept Man's life as the standard and happiness as your purpose.

[Burgess Laughlin 0]

I’m not sure I understand this distinction. Could you elaborate on the difference between a psychological and a philosophical explanation?

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Here is my understanding -- subject as always to criticism.

First, philosophy is the universal science.

Its objects of study are those questions which all men everywhere and at all times need to answer in order to survive and flourish: The basic nature of the world (metaphysics/ontology), how one knows about the world (epistemology), what one should do about it (ethics), how we can live in society while taking action (politics), and how we can in some form hold all of this together in one piece (esthetics).

Its method consists of three elements (all of which are available to man as such): perceiving, thinking, and using logic.

Second, psychology is a specialized science.

Its object of study is mainly the subconscious mind and, perhaps, the functions of the conscious mind as it is affected by the subconscious mind (often involuntarily). Because the content of one individual's subconscious contains somewhat different information (validly stored or not), psychology must also study individuals as individuals. Philosophically everyone needs to know about virtues; but psychologically only some individuals have a neurotic reaction to spiders.

Its methods are not necessarily proper to other specialized sciences. Perhaps examples are asking individuals to describe ink-blots or lie down on the couch and talk about their childhood. There are specialized fields of psychology -- such as the psychology of learning languages, fields which can help everyone, but even these fields recognize -- if what I have read is correct -- that different individuals have different styles (of learning, for example). There are no styles in logic or other philosophical subjects. What is right in philosophy applies to everone, everywhere, at all times.

(There is also psycho-epistemology which studies the borderland between the conscious mind's function and one's subconscious mind. If an individual's subconscious is defective, through having been improperly "programmed," for example, then that individual can work to correct his subconscious so that his conscious mind will work as it should, that is, as everyone's should.)

Here is another way to approach the question. Recall Ayn Rand's distinction, in Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, between the hierarchical order of concepts (which is an epistemological, that is, philosophical order) and the actual individual order of learning concepts that a child (and later an adult) goes through. The two orders are not the same. I think of the learning order as a psychological issue, that is, an issue pertaining to a particular individual who has a particular individual nature at a given time because of individual factors in this life, past and present -- all involving storage in his subconscious.

Whether a particular man at a particular time and place chooses to live is a psychological issue. But his decision is subject to moral (that is, philosophical) evaluation by others (who have chosen to live) based on the facts of who he is and what he should know in his situation. Likewise, once he chooses to live he must learn how to live, that is, learn to live morally (which includes the virtue of rationality).

(P. S. -- I am moving tomorrow morning. I may be electronically disconnected for awhile.)

[Stephen Speicher 0]

... P. S. -- I am moving tomorrow morning.

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Well. I found your post rather moving tonight.

If I may ask, is this a local or a long-distance move? I ask because I seem to recall you once talking about moving to California.

[Burgess Laughlin 0]

If I may ask, is this a local or a long-distance move?

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Very local -- 1.5 miles away.

[Janet_Busch 0]

Hi Janet.

I enjoyed your posts in Objectivism Online. Glad to see you here.

Thank you. I've been here from day one, but I've been out of pocket for over a month now. I'm glad to see you here!

I went back over this entire thread and carefully reread every post. Your question about a "pre-moral" reason to choose life has been answered. If you still don't understand it, try rereading the whole thread (it did wonders for me!) Aside from the fact that the term "pre-moral good" is a contradiction and invalid (by what standard are you judging this pre-moral good as good?), I think the problem is in your approach to this question. Here's why:

As Betsy aptly pointed out, most people don't question whether to choose life. Many people make life and death decisions only when they are faced with exigent circumstances and are forced to think about it. If they think about morality, they usually begin by wondering which morality they ought to believe in. But you are asking this question in a different context, Patrick, because you are an Objectivist. Miss Rand didn't start her ethics by asking which ethics is the correct one. In VOS she begins by asking why man needs morality in the first place.

An Objectivist doesn't ask whether he ought to choose to live, but whether he ought to choose life, the life proper to man. He does this in the context of what is required to live his whole life; he isn't thinking of whether or not to continue to draw breath, but whether or not to live his life in the acceptance of the whole of reality and by the use of his reason. If a man understands Objectivism, understands its ethics and all that that entails, he understands that to choose to ignore the facts of reality and behave in an arbitrary, range of the moment manner is to choose death--not instantaneous dying, but death nonetheless. He recognizes that the way he lives, not that he lives, is a moral question that can only be answered by the assiduous use of his reason. He recognizes that his first choice is whether or not to focus his mind and think. When you do that, Patrick, to the extent that you do it, you are choosing life, in the Objectivist sense.

By seeking a fundamental reason to live, you aren't asking whether you want to choose life, but whether or not you should choose to die. The fact is that you are alive and will continue to live unless you decide to die (leaving aside death due to accident or illness). If the only reason you can come up with for not killing yourself is that you enjoy your life, you will leave yourself spiritually disarmed to face life when enjoyment is impossible.

There are no guarantees in life. You may do everything right and still have your efforts wiped out by circumstances beyond your control. Believe me when I tell you that tragedy and grief, or chronic pain and suffering can turn the most savory meal to ashes in your mouth and beauty into a mockery. What sustains you at such a time isn't life's simple pleasures, which have become impossible to you, but a deeper vision--a vision of that which is the good, and that the good exists in the world and is still possible for you to attain. It is when this vision can no longer sustain you in the hell you are living that you may justifiably choose to end it all. That time is different for every man, and no one has the right to condemn the man who has reached the end of his endurance. This is not the person that Dr. Peikoff is talking about when he says that those who commit suicide without just cause are to be condemned.

As I said before, context is everything.

P.S. I've been working on this for two days now (I'm slow) and I haven't read anything since yesterday. Sorry if I've repeated what someone else has said in the meantime.

[Janet_Busch 0]

Whether a particular man at a particular time and place chooses to live is a psychological issue. But his decision is subject to moral (that is, philosophical) evaluation by others (who have chosen to live) based on the facts of who he is and what he should know in his situation. Likewise, once he chooses to live he must learn how to live, that is, learn to live morally (which includes the virtue of rationality).

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This is a point I ought to have included in my post. I lost it somewhere in all my cutting and pasting.

Nicely done, Burgess, as usual.

[PRN 0]

… I went back over this entire thread and carefully reread every post.  Your question about a "pre-moral" reason to choose life has been answered.  If you still don't understand it, try rereading the whole thread (it did wonders for me!)  Aside from the fact that the term "pre-moral good" is a contradiction and invalid …

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Yes, I see now there is no such thing as non-moral good.

… I think the problem is in your approach to this question.  Here's why:

As Betsy aptly pointed out, most people don't question whether to choose life.  Many people make life and death decisions only when they are faced with exigent circumstances and are forced to think about it. If they think about morality, they usually begin by wondering which morality they ought to believe in.  But you are asking this question in a different context, Patrick, because you are an Objectivist. Miss Rand didn't start her ethics by asking which ethics is the correct one.  In VOS she begins by asking why man needs morality in the first place. 

An Objectivist doesn't ask whether he ought to choose to live, but whether he ought to choose life, the life proper to man.  He does this in the context of what is required to live his whole life; he isn't thinking of whether or not to continue to draw breath, but whether or not to live his life in the acceptance of the whole of reality and by the use of his reason.

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Let me tell you about myself, to give you some context. I am a philosophy student and my long-term goal is a PhD. I want to work at a university as a professor as well as write on philosophical topics.

So, given my goals, even the question of the choice to live or not is of interest to me. Most people would simply choose life and get on with living it. But as a student of philosophy, I want to know the answers to questions others may not bother with. If choosing life is the basis for ethics, what is the basis for choosing life? How can I reduce this basis to direct experience? How do I answer an adversary who claims that the choice to live has no basis?

This is the background I’m coming from when I approach this question.

… By seeking a fundamental reason to live, you aren't asking whether you want to choose life, but whether or not you should choose to die.  The fact is that you are alive and will continue to live unless you decide to die …

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This is crucial, thanks for bringing it up. The choice is really whether to continue to live or not, and the inclusion of “continue” is important.

If the only reason you can come up with for not killing yourself is that you enjoy your life, you will leave yourself spiritually disarmed to face life when enjoyment is impossible. 

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But how can life be worth living when enjoyment is not possible? Perhaps some clarification is in order. When you wrote “enjoyment is impossible,” do you mean impossible at present or indefinitely?

There are no guarantees in life.  You may do everything right and still have your efforts wiped out by circumstances beyond your control.  Believe me when I tell you that tragedy and grief, or chronic pain and suffering can turn the most savory meal to ashes in your mouth and beauty into a mockery. 

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This is also crucial, and I thank you for pointing it out in such an eloquent manner.

What sustains you at such a time isn't life's simple pleasures, which have become impossible to you, but a deeper vision--a vision of that which is the good, and that the good exists in the world and is still possible for you to attain.

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So even in one’s darkest hour, if the good is still possible to attain, life is worth living. But doesn’t this come back to the possibility of future enjoyment of life again? Please note that by enjoyment I don’t mean just simple pleasures, but long-term happiness as well.

It is when this vision can no longer sustain you in the hell you are living that you may justifiably choose to end it all.  That time is different for every man, and no one has the right to condemn the man who has reached the end of his endurance.  This is not the person that Dr. Peikoff is talking about when he says that those who commit suicide without just cause are to be condemned.

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Yes, I see that.

P.S.  I've been working on this for two days now (I'm slow) and I haven't read anything since yesterday.  Sorry if I've repeated what someone else has said in the meantime.

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No need to apologize for anything. I found your post quite illuminating.

[Janet_Busch 0]

[1]  But as a student of philosophy, I want to know the answers to questions others may not bother with. If choosing life is the basis for ethics, what is the basis for choosing life? How can I reduce this basis to direct experience? How do I answer an adversary who claims that the choice to live has no basis?

This is the background I’m coming from when I approach this question.

[2]  So even in one’s darkest hour, if the good is still possible to attain, life is worth living. But doesn’t this come back to the possibility of future enjoyment of life again? Please note that by enjoyment I don’t mean just simple pleasures, but long-term happiness as well.

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I numbered the points I will address, since I'm not able to cut and paste and maintain the quote (I'm not on a computer).

1. You ask "if choosing life is the basis for ethics, what is the basis for choosing life?"

Begin with the metaphysics, i.e., Existence exists. When you are speaking about your own life, you might start with "I am." You had no choice about whether to be born or not; your choices begin with the fact of your own existence. When you question the choice to live, on a metaphysical level you are positing a negative -- you are in effect asking whether you ought to choose to die. The fact of reality is that you are alive and you begin with that positive fact of reality.

Ethically you are not asking whether you choose to live, i.e., choose to exist, but whether or not you choose to live a life proper to man (as oppposed to merely existing in whatever haphazard fashion you can manage). Just as ethics is subsumed under metaphysics and epistemology, the question of choosing a life proper to man is subsumed under the fact of your own existence and your own self-awareness.

[2] To attain the good at any point in one's life requires the proper ethics. Happiness is a result of living a good ethical life. One's own mental, emotional, and physical enjoyment of life is a part of one's attainment of happiness.

One of the joys of parenthood is watching the unabashed, innocent enjoyment one's child takes in being alive. An adult's experience of joy is different, however. It is an attainment made in full self-awareness, a result of living a proper life. (Please note that I'm not talking about mindless "fun".) In other words, it is subsumed under more primary concepts.

Happiness must be earned on a continuing basis. You must maintain your awareness of this fact, and you must see some possibility of its attainment, when you are under adverse circumstances if you are to continue to choose life. You will never have the strength and courage to do that if you have not determined that you value your metaphysical, epistemological and ethical life. Happiness, and the enjoyment it entails, is thus subsumed under, and depends upon your own self-value. Therefore, to attempt to make enjoyment a primary is to steal the concept from the more fundamental concepts upon which it is based. You're putting the cart before the horse.

Before I go, I would like to say that I find a certain poignance in the fact that you are so insistent about the importance of enjoyment as a reason for living. It means that you must enjoy your life, which means that you love life, which means that you have determined your own personal reason to live. All of those things are attainments. It speaks well of you.

[Stephen Speicher 0]

But as a student of philosophy, I want to know the answers to questions others may not bother with. If choosing life is the basis for ethics, what is the basis for choosing life? How can I reduce this basis to direct experience? How do I answer an adversary who claims that the choice to live has no basis?

By asking the question "what is the basis for choosing life" aren't you asking what is the reason, what is the justification for choosing life? But did you not already agree that the choice to live is a precondition for reason and justification? In fact, isn't the question itself a sort of stolen concept? Aren't you stealing the concept "basis" when asking for the basis of the choice to live, denying that the choice to live is itself a precondition for the concept "basis?"

[PRN 0]

By asking the question "what is the basis for choosing life" aren't you asking what is the reason, what is the justification for choosing life? But did you not already agree that the choice to live is a precondition for reason and justification? In fact, isn't the question itself a sort of stolen concept? Aren't you stealing the concept "basis" when asking for the basis of the choice to live, denying that the choice to live is itself a precondition for the concept "basis?"

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I agree. I was merely giving Janet examples of questions I've asked myself about this subject.

[Stephen Speicher 0]

By asking the question "what is the basis for choosing life" aren't you asking what is the reason, what is the justification for choosing life? But did you not already agree that the choice to live is a precondition for reason and justification? In fact, isn't the question itself a sort of stolen concept? Aren't you stealing the concept "basis" when asking for the basis of the choice to live, denying that the choice to live is itself a precondition for the concept "basis?"

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I agree. I was merely giving Janet examples of questions I've asked myself about this subject.

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Does this mean that the issue is now fully resolved in your mind? Are there any lingering questions?

[PRN 0]

Does this mean that the issue is now fully resolved in your mind? Are there any lingering questions?

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I'll likely have more questions, but right now I'm still trying to "chew" what I've learned so far.

[Stephen Speicher 0]

I'll likely have more questions, but right now I'm still trying to "chew" what I've learned so far.

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Good. Digest it well.

Although I have mentioned this elsewhere, I do not recall if I have said this in this thread: Tara Smith's work on this and related issues is exemplary. Viable Values is, in my view, a book that should be read and kept in every Objectivist's library.

[Burgess Laughlin 0]

[...] the choice to live is a precondition for reason [...]

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Yes, philosophically speaking, choosing to live (and thereby choosing life as the standard of action) is hierarchically prior to recognizing rationality as a virtue.

However, psychologically speaking, I can choose to die -- for example, being 90 years old and discovering that I have some particularly awful form of cancer that will wreck my happiness and offer no prospects of recovery. I can then use reason for deciding the best manner of ending my life (choosing to die).

Should I buy a shotgun and shoot myself in the head? Should I buy pharmaceuticals on the black market and hope I can learn enough about using them to ensure a successful suicide? Should I jump in front of a truck on the freeway? What effects will these choices have on my friends as well as the police, ambulance attendants, and medical examiners who are caught in the waves that will flow from my act?

Based on the values and virtues I now have, all accumulated through my past use of reason, I can gather facts and make a decision about the form of my death -- all while using reason now. I am alive while I am doing this, but my goal is death (on my own terms).

As a philosophizer, I can assert about this matter only that if one chooses to live (in a manner fully proper to man), then one must do certain things. This is what I can say about everyone, everywhere, at all times. There is no universal (that is, philosophical) justification for choosing to live or not.

As an individual, speaking only for myself, I can choose to live and act accordingly. Likewise, I can condemn any other individual I know who chooses not to live even when he has the prospects of living a life proper to man, that is, one that offers happiness as a possibility. Or I can choose not to live, that is, to die. The choice is mine, and I can base it on my particular circumstances and my particular values, all considered rationally and logically -- or I can evade the facts that support the possibility of happiness, and proceed blindly to my death.

If I were wrestling with this issue any further (I am not, thanks to this thread), then I would try to keep the two contexts -- philosophical and psychological -- straight, not only in my own thinking, but also in answering any attack on Objectivism that targets life as the standard of Objectivist ethics.

[Stephen Speicher 0]

Yes, philosophically speaking, choosing to live (and thereby choosing life as the standard of action) is hierarchically prior to recognizing rationality as a virtue.

However, psychologically speaking, I can choose to die ...

... then I would try to keep the two contexts -- philosophical and psychological -- straight, not only in my own thinking, but also in answering any attack on Objectivism that targets life as the standard of Objectivist ethics.

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If I take your "psychologically speaking" to mean relative to your own values, then I would agree with the overall thrust of the distinction you draw.

[PRN 0]

I think the conception of the good I’ve been advancing in this thread is actually a form of hedonism. I have always taken it as self-evident that enjoyment is good and pain and discomfort are bad. But is this true?

When Burgess asked me to define the concept “good,” I came up with: “an aspect of reality in relation to man (genus) which is proper to man’s life (differentia)” and “an experience (genus) which is enjoyable (differentia).” The second definition is obviously not a definition for “good” at all, but for enjoyment. It simply does not follow from this definition that enjoyment is good. All is says is that enjoyment is…enjoyable.

With one’s life as the standard of value, pain or discomfort may very well be good in certain contexts, and enjoyment bad. The discomfort of going to a job I don’t care for, in order to work my way through school, is an instance of something being objectively good but not enjoyable. Likewise, the enjoyment of certain foods today, that can cause fatal illness decades later, is an example of something being objectively bad, yet enjoyable.

These examples illustrate that my second, hedonistic definition of the good contradicts the first, objective definition of the good. That, along with the fact that the second definition is not really definition at all, has caused me to totally reject it as a conception of the good.

So we can’t literally say that enjoyment is “good” and that pain/discomfort is “bad.” All we can say is that enjoyment is enjoyable and that pain hurts. Whether or not a particular instance of enjoyment or pain is or is not objectively good or bad must be discovered in reference to life as the standard.

I’ve personally always hated discomfort and I think I know why, now. While I’ve explicitly advocated life as the standard of the good, I’ve implicitly acted on the principle that enjoyment is the self-evidently good. It wasn’t until this thread that I made the implicit explicit, and once I did, my focus on enjoyment could not withstand critical scrutiny.

The value of this thread, for me, is that it prompted me to question a mistaken view I’ve always implicitly held.

[PRN 0]

There is still one issue left unsettled in my mind:

Is happiness is the ultimate goal or is life the ultimate goal? Do we pursue life in order that we may pursue happiness? Or do we pursue happiness in order that we may live?

I suspect this is a false alternative, but at the moment I don’t know how to explain it.

[Stephen Speicher 0]

Is happiness is the ultimate goal or is life the ultimate goal?

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In a single sentence, I would put it this way: Life is the ultimate goal for a man, and happiness is a man's ultimate purpose in life.

[PRN 0]

In a single sentence, I would put it this way: Life is the ultimate goal for a man, and happiness is a man's ultimate purpose in life.

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I’m not clear on the difference between a goal and a purpose. What is the distinction?

[piz 0]

There is still one issue left unsettled in my mind:

Is happiness is the ultimate goal or is life the ultimate goal? Do we pursue life in order that we may pursue happiness? Or do we pursue happiness in order that we may live?

I suspect this is a false alternative, but at the moment I don’t know how to explain it.

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It is a false alternative, because life, in the sense of the life proper to Man, means a full and flourishing life. In other words, a happy life. I recommend Tara Smith's book, Viable Values, for an excellent treatment of this topic. I was unclear on this, too, until I read that.

[Stephen Speicher 0]

I’m not clear on the difference between a goal and a purpose. What is the distinction?

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In this post ← I wrote "Simply put, I would say that 'goal' is the end-point of connected actions, 'purpose' is the reason for taking the actions, and 'value' is the result achieved by acting."

[PRN 0]

It is a false alternative, because life, in the sense of the life proper to Man, means a full and flourishing life. In other words, a happy life. I recommend Tara Smith's book, Viable Values, for an excellent treatment of this topic. I was unclear on this, too, until I read that.

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I guess I'd better read that book again.

[Charlie 0]

I've come up with lot of thoughts while reading this thread, and I'm really not sure how to integrate them, but here goes.

I'm trying to figure out what the grounds for the choice to live are

This is exactly what I'm trying to figure out. At first I thought Janet_Busch had answered it for me with this:

By seeking a fundamental reason to live, you aren't asking whether you want to choose life, but whether or not you should choose to die. The fact is that you are alive and will continue to live unless you decide to die (leaving aside death due to accident or illness).

But now I disagree. It isn't necessary to choose death in order to die. All you have to do is STOP deciding to live. Every day I continously make the decision to live. If I ever stopped making that decision, I would no longer eat, drink, or even breathe, and soon I would be dead without my doing anything at all. In other words, not choosing to live is not the same as choosing to die, even though both will kill you. The former is a lack of a decision to be moral, the latter is a deliberate decision to be immoral.

So I still need to find some reason to choose to live. Patrick's answer to this- that we choose to live for happiness- makes a lot of sense to me. After all, we don't really need to ask why happiness is good- it's directly obvious to anyone that it is.

But on the other hand, this seems to go (slightly) against Objectivist ethics. After all, if life is the standard of morality, and happiness is the ultimate purpose in life, than wouldn't it be more accurate to say that happiness is both the standard and ultimate purpose of life?