Loving Life: The Morality of Self-Interest and the Facts that Support It

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Summary: Morality is practical
Review: A clear, simple and highly enjoyable presentation of the morality of self-interest. "The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live." -Ayn Rand
Morality is a code of values, based on certain requirements of human survival. The author shows how a proper morality must be based on certain facts of reality, facts that makes human life and happiness possible.
It's your life! Are you living it? For your own well-being and happiness - or somebody else's? The ideas presented in this book have the power to change your life. What are you waiting for? Go get this book - now!

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Summary: Objectivist Ethics for the beginner
Review: Craig Biddle has done an outstanding job of making objectivist ethics understandable for the beginner. He has shown what happens with a faulty premise through, recent and not so recent history. Also he has shown that greed, which is just a "desire to want", is a good thing if you want to enjoy your life. We all have a desire to want food, a mate, a house, a car, a breath of air and a life. If you want to know what is needed to enjoy life, this can be a place to begin.

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Summary: Good intro to Rand's Moral System
Review: Firstly, to criticize this book because it breaks no new theoretical ground or is just an intro to an already existing philosophy is absurd. It is more than clear that the book is intended to be introductory, and as an introduction it is superb. Criticizing it for failing to do what it was never intended to do is senseless.

That said, Biddle writes with a style that is easily understandable and his arguments are clear and unambiguous. As an introduction to Objectivist moral theory, this book is unmatched. I highly recommend this to anyone who is interested in Objectivism, but doesn't yet know the philosophy. This also makes a great companion to Rand's book The Fountainhead (assuming, of course, that the only Objectivism you've been introduced to is The Fountainhead).

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Summary: Decent, More Objectivism
Review: If you want to learn how to truly live your life in a way that is meaningful and virtuous, get this book. Biddle shows how to live life using an objective code of moral values where Man's life is the standard of value. He uses solid examples and leaves no room for subjectivism. Much better than the works of those like Nathaniel Branden, whose dishonesty is only matched by his philosophical confusion.

Recommended for those both familiar and unfamiliar with Ayn Rand's philosophy of rational self-interest (a philosophy that says that greed is indeed good - if the material and spiritual rewards of that greed are not received by force but by voluntary contract).

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Summary: For students of ethics and morality
Review: Loving Life: The Morality Of Self-Interest And The Facts That Support It by Craig Biddle is a challenging, informative, thoughtful treatise about the true meaning of ethics. Putting forth that morality does not come from God, social convention, personal opinion, or limiting oneself to what is culturally accepted, but rather embodied in reason, logic, cause and effect, and understanding the importance and value of human life and happiness. Loving Life is a fresh voice of reason about truly living well and pursuing happiness within ethical bounds that are righteous for the best reason of all - because they are rationally constructed out of respect and love for all other human beings. Loving Life is very highly recommended reading for both students of ethics and morality, as well as the non-specialist general readers with an interest in philosophy.

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Summary: A Pep Talk For Frustrated Randians
Review: Most people who are interested in Ayn Rand were probably introduced to her via her ethics and politics, as expressed in her novels and philosophical essays. Although her followers consider her theory of concept formation her greatest achievement, what grips most of her casual admirers is her ethical theory (rational selfishness) and politics (laissez-faire capitalism). Unfortunately, there is no introduction that focuses on these aspects of her though. Craig Biddle attempts to reconcile this defect in LOVING LIFE, a primer on Rand's ethics and politics (although ethics gets more attention).

I should note from the start that Mr. Biddle appears to be a follower of the "Official Objectivism" of Leonard Peikoff. (A supportive blurb on the back cover by the Peikoffian magazine The Intellectual Activist confirms this.) Anyone who starts from this stance is less likely to write an informative book on Objectivism. On the other hand, fairness dictates that I point out the some Peikoffians such as Tara Smith have written valuable works.

Mr. Biddle's book isn't entirely bad. He writes in an exciting and fast-paced manner and provides examples and illustrations of the points he makes. Unfortunately, Mr. Biddle writes too quickly and certain points of difficulty are glossed over. Even a philosophical primer should take some notice of potential weaknesses and counter-arguments, and in this respect LOVING LIFE is a failure.

In explaining Randian ethics, Mr. Biddle presents several examples that appear to support her claim of the relationship between life, human reason, and productiveness. He mentions a corrupt bank teller and a car thief. Such individuals will get caught and be unhappy. Of course, many people who cheat and steal get caught. But many don't and in fact live quite successfully by being parasites on others. Don't these counter-examples indicate that I can advance my happiness by non-rational, non-productive means? Rather than confront these objections head-on, Mr. Biddle equivocates on the meaning of happiness. Yes, these people may appear to be happy, but they really aren't. Yes, they may have self-esteem, but it isn't the type of self-esteem that a "truly human" person would want, etc. (Incidentally, I am curious about how the claim that bad acts lead to unhappiness is consistent with the Objectivist affirmation of the tabula rasa mind and denial of instincts.) Lest you think I'm making this up, Mr. Biddle tells us that "[r]egardless of what they say, personal subjectivists are miserable people . . . ." [P. 29.] How does Mr. Biddle know this? Certainly Mr. Biddle's on-the-fly conclusions are inconsistent with his commitment to empiricism. If our only source of knowledge is through the senses, then Mr. Biddle should produce the empirical studies demonstrating that swindlers get caught, car thieves are unhappy, and scoundrels have low self-esteem.

There is a further problem with Mr. Biddle's discussion of lying. According to him, liars try to "fake reality." Although their lies may appear to work, they will ultimately catch up with them because they are in "conflict with reality." [P. 78.] Yet to be accurate liars don't necessarily "fake reality": their understanding of reality is in fact more sophisticated than the people they deceive. Consider the forty-second president: he understood political reality better than his opponents, who consistently overplayed their hand.

All in all, Mr. Biddle's book read likes a pep talk for frustrated Randians: "Trust me, Objectivism really does work. Those moochers and second-handers aren't really happy."

There also are several other problems with LOVING LIFE, only three of which I'll mention:

1. Mr. Biddle, like most Objectivists, can't do without snide comments on religion. But why does Mr. Biddle constantly refer to religious believers as believers in "God"? [See, e.g., pp. 4-9.] Doesn't Mr. Biddle know that many (or most) religions are not monotheistic?

2. Mr. Biddle takes Tertullian's famous statement "it is to be believed . . . because it is absurd" out of context. [P. 16.] Tertullian wasn't arguing against critics of religious dogma, but rather against the arguments of Gnostic heretic Marcion. And, taken as a whole, Tertullian wasn't the irrationalist that Mr. Biddle takes him out to be. In fact, James Moffat argued in 1916 that Tertullian's famous statement was actually an example of an Aristotelian type of argumentation! [Journal of Theological Studies 17 (1916) pp. 170-1 (which is available on the web.]

3. Like Leonard Peikoff in THE OMINOUS PARALLELS, Mr. Biddle quotes from Hermann Rauschning's alleged talks with Adolf Hitler. [P. 40.] The authenticity of Rauschning's quotations from Hitler is generally denied. Hitler's definitive biographer Ian Kershaw does not make use of the Rauschning material. [See Kershaw, HITLER, vol 1, p. xiv.] Richard Steigmann-Gall calls the material "highly questionable" and says it shouldn't be used. [THE HOLY REICH, p. 29.]

Instead of LOVING LIFE, I would recommend that those who are interested in Rand's ethics and politics read her essays, and then proceed to the more difficult (and rewarding) works of Tara Smith.


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Summary: The Objectivist Alternative
Review: The primary virtue of the this book is a complete demolition of the typical Conservative claim that without God there is no morality. Craig Biddle does an excellent job of refuting all sides (the religious and personal or social subjectivist) of that particular mistaken proposition in all their manifestations and proves his points both with authoritative quotes from the various advocates and helpful examples that serve to clarify the ideas in a manner far better than I've seen in virtually all presentations of this sort.

In addition Mr. Biddle does not just stop there but spends the rest of the book presenting the proper alternative to the false God/Anything Goes dichotomy -- a morality based of reason and principled self-intest. He shows how morality can be derived from facts and what the specifics of such a fact-based morality would look like. He concludes by outlining the essential principle of politics -- individual rights.

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Summary: Trying to justify greed
Review: This book will challenge both Conservatives and Multicultural Relativists. Conservatives view the drift away from religion as the cause for our cultural demise, as they equate the abandonment of God's word and loss of religious faith with an ethical free-for-all. The Relativists see religion as a failed system of dogma, which must be replaced by ethical values of our own making - depending on a collective consciousness defined by society, race, class, gender, ethnicity, or the latest victim classification of the day. Biddle will have none of this. He takes both to task for failing to find and ground an ethics appropriate to human life.

Faith, upon analysis, is as subjective as social relativism. Biddle provides ample quotes by religious authorities to buttress his analysis. The arbitrary nature of faith and religious commandments, uncut from the necessity of reason and evidence, cannot escape the charge of subjectivism. Conservatives claim that Socialists and Multiculturalists replace God with society. Biddle's analysis implies the converse is true also.

Social subjectivism also receives a scathing critique. Secular philosophy fails to ground values in fact - on principle! Accepting a faulty analysis and fatal dichotomy, modern philosophy paves the way for subjectivism while seeking to avoid the obvious pitfalls of blatant individual whim by adapting a collectivist subjectivism. Once again, Biddle provides ample quotes illustrating the unabashed subjectivist nature of those who currently claim to provide an alternative to religion.

With both positions, Biddle illustrates the logical consequences and resultant human misery. I tend to view Conservatives as rightfully reacting to the horror of 20th century history unleashed by subjectivism - see Paul Johnson's "Modern Times" as an excellent example. And one can view modern Social Collectivists as rightfully reacting to the backwardness and oppression of dogmatic religion.

Biddle reviews the argument for an objective ethics first presented by Ayn Rand in "The Virtue of Selfishness"; for a more in depth presentation see Tara Smith's "Viable Values". His presentation is good and fully adequate for the novice. Hopefully, he'll motivate the reader to the other sources. Peikoff's "Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand" is an obvious next step.

The latter half of the book discusses normative issues and political philosophy. It is a good presentation with ample examples from daily life to society in general. However, there are very few references to the substantial literature of people with similar views to parallel his treatment of the Religion/Subjectivist chapters. Thus, he fails to present Aristotle's contribution and limitations. His discussion of individual rights is lacking a description of John Locke's classic work, which underlies our American Revolution and the views discussed in the chapter on political philosophy. His discussion of self-esteem is impaired by his lack of any quotes of Nathaniel Branden (see my review of Branden's classic "The Psychology of Self-Esteem"). His description or egoism avoids the standard misconceptions but it could be improved by reference to David Kelley's "Unrugged Individualism: The Selfish Basis of Benevolence". One can argue that a slim book focused on the essentials cannot go into a more lengthy exposition. However, we would expect to see these and other relevant books in the bibliography. The philosophy presented in this book has an important tradition - it should be referenced if not discussed.

Overall, I recommend this book to those who think the alternative is religion vs. subjectivism. Hopefully, the reader will realized the vicious circle of this false alternative.