living entity that things can be good or evil; life is the basic value that makes all other values possible; the value of
life is not to be justified by a value beyond itself; to demand such justification—to ask: Why should man choose to
live?—is to have dropped the meaning, context, and source of one's concepts. "Should" is a concept that can have
no intelligible meaning, if divorced from the concept and value of life.
If life—existence—is not accepted as one's standard, then only one alternative standard remains: nonexistence. But
nonexistence—death—is not a standard of value: it is the negation of values. The man who does not wish to hold
life as his goal and standard is free not to hold it; but he cannot claim the sanction of reason; he cannot claim that
his choice is as valid as any other. It is not "arbitrary," it is not "optional," whether or not man accepts his nature as
a living being—just as it is not "arbitrary'' or "optional" whether or not he accepts reality.
What are the major virtues man's survival requires, according to the Objectivist ethics? Rationality—
Independence—Honesty—Integrity—Justice—Productiveness—Pride.
Rationality is the unreserved commitment to the perception of reality, to the acceptance of reason as an absolute, as
one's only guide of knowledge, values, and action. Independence is reliance upon one's own mind and judgment,
the acceptance of intellectual responsibility for one's own existence. Honesty is the refusal to seek values by faking
reality, by evading the distinction between the real and the unreal. Integrity is loyalty in action to the judgment of
one's consciousness. Justice is the practice of identifying men for what they are, and treating them accordingly—of
rewarding the actions and traits of character in men which are pro-life and condemning those which are anti-life.
Productiveness is the act of supporting one's existence by translating one's thought into reality, of setting one's
goals and working for their achievement, of bringing knowledge or goods into existence. Pride is moral
ambitiousness, the dedication to achieving one's highest potential, in one's character and in one's life—and the
refusal to be sacrificial fodder for the goals of others.
If life on earth is the standard, then it is not the man who sacrifices values who is moral, but the man who achieves
them; not the