This same phenomenon (switching between two meanings of a concept) has been noted with respect to Ayn Rand’s ethics, and has been named “The Shuffle.”
We can now address and allay the concerns that Prof. Eric Mack (2003) raises about what he
calls The Shuffle – a supposed shifting back and forth in Randian arguments between different
understandings of man’s life (qua man) without explicit acknowledgment that such shuffling is taking
place. While Prof. Mack does indeed raise some legitimate issues about Rand and certain of her
admirers’ rhetorical and argumentative techniques, I think he overlooks, at minimum, the spirit of
Rand’s arguments. In any case, applying an objective, context-keeping method leads to a properly
integrated argument resembling what I present here.
What exactly is The Shuffle of which Mack speaks? It is the supposed shift back and forth
between causal and conceptual understandings of the phrase “man’s life (qua man).” Mack unpacks
this distinction by pointing out (seemingly) distinct lines of argument in Rand’s writings. We have,
on one hand, the causal interpretation of “man’s life” amounting, in essence, to: Adopting such and
such means will result in achieving such and such an end, the end being along the lines of maintaining
one’s physical existence, living a long period of time, acquiring material wealth, experiencing
pleasure, and a number of other earthly benefits. By being rational, productive, independent, honest,
and so on, you will succeed in obtainingthese benefits, whereas if you do not exercise these qualities
of behavior, you will experience failure, suffering, death.
On the other hand, we have the conceptual interpretation of “man’s living (qua man),” which
involves conceptually refining the meaning of “man’s life” to mean living a life of character, of virtue,
of principle. By treating productivity, independence, honesty and so forth as worth adopting in their
own right, as inherently constitutive of a good life (qua man), we understand that man’s good can
never be attained by being dishonest, unproductive, and so forth. Living according to virtue as a
matter of principle just means what it is to live the good life qua man. This is opposed to the causal
interpretation that treats rationality, productivity and honesty as instrumentally valuable in attaining
the goods one seeks. Morality, on the causal interpretation, is deeply linked to numerical and strategic
calculations of benefit and cost.
The problem, Mack claims, is that the causal interpretation is subject to counterexamples. A
sufficiently calculating and prudent individual can live a long, seemingly happy, wealth-filled,
pleasure-filled life by predating upon others’ production. And, in fact, we see real-world examples
of such predators. So, it turns out, there isn’t a necessary connection after all between being
productive and being wealthy. In fact, this observation seems to run bothways: a predator can amass
a great deal of wealth while a productive individual, all careful calculating notwithstanding,
experiences business failure or accumulates littlemoney. Indeed, the heroic character Howard Roark
could, conceivably, live his entire life as a manual laborer without seeing his designs made reality and
his firm prosper. Roark seems like the impractical idealist, choosing a life of principled virtue even
if it doesn’t lead to worldly success.[7]
Mack does note Rand and her admirers’ seemingly begrudging acknowledgment that some can
manage to lead a life of predation upon others – but only that predation is made possible by others’
production and (counter-factually) that excessive lootingwould spell their own destruction. And so,
The Shuffle implicitly kicks in: such predators are not truly living qua man; they’re living the life of
a brute, a thug, a moocher, an unprincipled whim-worshiper – in other words, as someone unworthy
of self-respect and incapable of looking in the mirror without loathing. This may be all well and good,
Mack says, but this involves a rhetorical and argumentative shift (The Shuffle) away from the causal
interpretation of “man’s life” to a refined conception of it,without its practitioners acknowledging the
shift so as to hold themselves to account for it. Are predators not livingwell because they don’t live
long and happy lives, and are actually destroying themselves? Or are they not living well because
true human life takes “respectable” form? After all, man’s life (qua man) involves more than staying
alive, experiencing pleasure, obtaining wealth, and so forth. But The Shuffle’s practitioners seem to
want to leave this question hanging so as not to tackle the hard problemof real-world counterexamples
in light of Rand’s grounding of virtue in the requirements of living. They would seem to prefer leaving
unaddressed the problem for moral theory that some people advance their ends via predation while
some principled, virtuous people see their ends frustrated.