The Rational Animal

So lately I’ve been listening to Roderick T. Long’s lecture series Foundations of Libertarian Ethics (available for free on Mises.org), and while I don’t agree with Mr. Long on everything, he has certainly given me quite a bit to think about.

For example, he brings up how there are two types of means; instrumental and constitutive. Instrumental means are prior to the goal; for example, if I want to play Beethoven’s 9th on the piano, buying a piano, getting sheet music, etc. would all be instrumental means.

Constitutive means are means that are a part of the goal itself. Using the previous example, the act of playing the correct notes in the right order and rhythm would be a constitutive means. While it is logically coherent to say “I wish I could play Beethoven’s 9th without having to pay for a piano,” it would make no sense to say “I wish I could play Beethoven’s 9th without having to play these notes in this specific order.” Playing those notes in that order is Beethoven’s 9th.

Another thing that Long discusses at length is the concept of eudaimonia, a Greek word that roughly translates to long-term happiness, human flourishing, etc. Many of the ancient Greeks would cite eudaimonia as the ultimate end of human action, which would make them egoists (though not necessarily egoists in some modern understandings of the term).

So I’ve been thinking a lot about these concepts lately, and the question that keeps popping in my head is this; Are there certain values or goals apart from the end of eudamonia that are constitutive means to achieving eudaimonia? Are there certain ends that, while not truly ends in themselves, almost qualify as such since they are a part of the end of eudaimonia and should be pursued consistently as a result?

For example, human beings are rational animals. Through a process of sensory perception and logical thought, we can develop a basic understanding of the world around us on a level that most, if not all, other animals cannot. This is because we are able to form concepts, which allow human beings to make more efficient use of the limited memory and processing power of the human mind (Read Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology for a more detailed analysis of this).

Not only can we do this, but we have to in order to survive. As humans, our rational faculty is the equivalent of an eagle’s claws or a chameleon’s camouflage; without it, we would not last long. We are not instinctively guided to survival except in the most basic ways. If you doubt this, go into a forest and eat anything that “tastes good” and see how long it takes for a poisonous plant or mushroom to kill you.

I think from this, we can conclude that rationality is a constitutive means to achieving eudaimonia. It is not just a means to the end of human happiness and flourishing, but part of it. This would mean that it is logically incoherent to say that sometimes it is in a man’s best interest to be irrational; this would be like saying you rue the fact that you have to play specific notes in a specific order to play Beethoven’s 9th.

Using rationality as a core virtue and constitutive means to eudaimonia, I think we can discover other virtues that should be pursued as though they were ends in themselves. This is not to say that they should be pursued at the expense of one’s own self-interest, but that pursuing them is a constitutive means towards that end.

I could keep going but I’ll stop here for now. I will say, as a brief summary, that certain virtues like justice and honesty are fundamentally connected to rationality and, as a result, it could be argued that they are constitutive means to achieving eudaimonia. Leave comments to let me know your thoughts.