The previous section showed how AR formulated an understanding of the concepts ``value,'' ``morality,'' and ``ethics'' based on observation. She developed the specific content of her morality with the same method.
The first observation in this context is that actions have consequences. Every thing you do, from scratching your head to changing your job, affects your life. Some actions are good, i.e., they positively affect your life; other actions are bad, they have negative affects on your life. Actions can be arranged on a continuum: from really bad ones to slightly bad ones to slightly good ones (scratching your head) to really good ones.
The second observation is that the consequences of actions extend over time. The actions we make today may have consequences tomorrow, next year, or fifty years from now. While the consequences of a particular action may actually extend over a short period of time (e.g., scratching your head), in general an action can have repercussions that affect your entire life.
A third observation is that a human life is a continuous sum. Where we are now depends on what we've done before; and where we'll be in the future depends on what we do now. The life of animals consist cycles of behavior (usually one-year in length) repeated over and over (thus animal lives are usually described in terms of this-season and that-season). The life of a human, on the other hand, is an integrated whole with one start and one end.
These observations combine into what I call ``the cognitive problem of human life.'' A person faces hundreds of choices every day. The consequences of how he chooses may be insignificant, they may be harmful, or they may be beneficial. The consequences may extend into the short-future, or they may extend over his entire life time. These choices become part of where he has been, and they determine where he can go. Each we act we are presented with the problem of considering all these aspects of our decision, and making the right choice.
How do we do it? How do humans survive in the face of such a task? The faculty that makes it possible is the one that makes it necessary: reason. We have to conceptualize the requirements of life. In my previous talk I described how concepts reduce the units; a concept subsumes an open number of particular instances into a single, mental unit. This is just what we need to solve our problem: instead of looking at each decision as an individual instance, we classify similar decisions into concepts and treat them as a unit. In doing this, we learn from one instance to the next, we apply what we've learned in the past to new instances in the future. This is what AR designated the conceptual or principled approach to life.
To make this more concrete, let's consider honesty. You're talking and you need to decide whether to lie or to tell the truth; what should you do? One approach is to treat this instance on an ad-hoc basis. On this approach you try to determine, on the spot, and with out reference to previous experience, all the possible consequences of your decision, both the immediate and the long-range consequences-don't miss one, it may be the most significant-and then project how they will fit into the ``sum'' of your life. This is a pretty hopeless task. (This approach is the approach advocated by so-called called ``pragmatists.'')
The conceptual approach is to subsume all your previous experience (and the experience of people you talk to and read about) into the principle of ``honesty.'' Subsumed in this concept are the consequences of telling the truth and the consequences of telling a lie. Assume that your principle of ``honesty'' tells you that lying is wrong, that it leads to negative consequences. With this knowledge, deciding what to do is easy.
Objectivism holds that the conceptual approach is the only practical means of human survival. However, in order for it to work, your principles must be formed correctly. Thus, reason is the basic, fundamental, most important value in the Objectivist morality: it's our means for validating our other principles. Objectivism holds that rationality-using reason as your only guide to action-is the primary virtue. Rationality entails two things. First, focusing your mind on reality, rather getting caught up in fears, wishes, and desires. Second, forming and validating principles to guide your actions, and acting on them.
To summarize, we've seen that life presents humans with an enormous cognitive problem. The only way to solve this problem is through reason; that is, by conceptualizing the requirements of human life. Thus reason is the primary value of O'ism, and rationality the primary virtue. (In O'ist lingo, a ``value'' is that which one acts to gain and/or keep, and a ``virtue'' is the act by which one acts to gain and/or keep it.)