The following is a partial transcript of a radio interview, given by Ayn Rand, in the early 1960s at Columbia University. This radio interview was one of a series of interviews, billed as "Ayn Rand On Campus." The interviews were produced and broadcast by radio station WKCR (which I believe was a student-run radio station on the Columbia campus).
In this interview, titled "Morality, and Why Man Requires It," Rand explains how it is proper, under certain emergency conditions, to violate the rights of innocent men, or even to kill them. I think Ayn Rand's own words are going to come as a shock to a great many "Objectivists." Many (if not most) Objectivists seem to believe that Ayn Rand would never countenance the violation of rights under ANY circumstances.
To the best of my knowledge, this is the only time Rand ever commented specifically on these matters.
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Moderator:
Ken Dalphy
On the Panel:
Norman Fox of C.W. Post College
Gerald Goodman, Columbia School of Engineering
Richard E. Newman, Staff of WKCR
Alan Gottheld
Norman Fox:
Miss Rand, a particular example has been brought to my attention, involving suicide, or apparent suicide, and it goes as follows. If Man B is placed in a situation where he is under a threat of death by Man A, and the threat is contingent on Man B killing Man C, what is the resolution of this situation philosophically? What are the moral explanations of the possible actions of Man B?
Ayn Rand:
In a case of that kind, you cannot morally judge the action of Man B. Since he is under the threat of death, whatever he decides to do is right, because this is not the kind of moral situation in which men could exist. This is an emergency situation. Man B, in this case, is placed in a position where he cannot continue to exist. Therefore, what he does is up to him. If he refuses to obey, and dies, that is his moral privilege. If he prefers to obey, you could not blame him for the murder. The murderer is Man A. No exact, objective morality can be prescribed for an issue where a man's life is endangered.
Norman Fox:
Just one point that bothers me. Isn't Man B then shifting the initiation of force, made against him, to Man C?
Ayn Rand:
No. Because he isn't initiating the force himself; Man A is. What a man does in a position where, through no fault of his own, his own life is endangered, is not his responsibility, it is the responsibility of the man who introduced the evil, the initiation of force, the threat. You cannot ask of a man that he sacrifice his life for the sake of the third man, when it's not his fault that he's been put in that position.
Gerald Goodman:
But Miss Rand, what right does Man B have to take Man C's life, instead of his?
Ayn Rand:
No rights are applicable in such a case. Don't you see that that is one of the reasons why the use, the initiation of force among men, is morally improper and indefensible? Once the element of force is introduced, the element of morality is out. There is no question of right in such a case.
Norman Fox:
Miss Rand, I think I see a distinction here that would be very important because there may be some doubt in the mind of a listener. A distinction between a situation in which a person in which the force is initiated, or a person who is in an unfortunate circumstance. To go back to the original example, if a man were merely in an unfortunate circumstance, he has no right, as far as I can see, to take something from another man just because he's in an unfortunate circumstance.
Ayn Rand:
No (agreeing with Norman Fox).
Norman Fox:
He is not under coercion. No one has initiated force against him. He's merely in an unfortunate circumstance. I should think this is an important distinction when we're dealing with morality.
Ayn Rand:
Are you referring back to your argument of the three men, and one of them has a gun?
Norman Fox:
Yes.
Ayn Rand:
Well here you have to take your example literally. If a man is under threat of losing his life, then you cannot speak of his right, or the right of Man C, since the rights have already been violated. All you can say is that the rights of Man B and Man C are still valid, but the violator is Man A, with Man B as merely the tool. Therefore you cannot say that rights do not exist. They do exist, but the violator is the initiator of force, not the transmission belt. However this does not apply to any other kind of misfortune, and it does not apply to a dictatorship, because here you would be speaking metaphorically. For instance, you couldn't claim that the men who served in the Gestapo, or the Russian secret police, they couldn't claim (as some of the Nazis did) that they were merely carrying out orders, and that therefore the horrors they committed are not their fault, but are the fault of the chief Nazis. They were not literally under threat of death. They chose that job. Nobody holds a gun on a secret policeman and orders him to function all the time. You could not have enough secret policemen. Therefore I took your example literally. Actually, such a thing does not happen, because if somebody wants to murder someone, he picks a willing executioner. He cannot go with a gun in the back of Man B, and order him to shoot Man C, because that does not relieve him of the responsibility, nor the guilt, for the crime. Only in that literal sense could one say that Man B is absolved, but not in the metaphorical sense; not if he is a willing official of a dictatorship, and then claims "I had no other way to make a living"" That does not absolve him. His life was not in danger.
Gerald Goodman:
Miss Rand, then you would say that a person who was starving, and the only way he could acquire food was to take the food of a second party, then he would have no right, even though it meant his own life, to take the food.
Ayn Rand:
Not in normal circumstances, but that question sometimes is asked about emergency situations. For instance, supposing you are washed ashore after a shipwreck, and there is a locked house which is not yours, but you're starving and you might die the next moment, and there is food in this house, what is your moral behavior? I would say again, this is an emergency situation, and please consult my article "The Ethics Of Emergencies" in _The Virtue Of Selfishness_ for a fuller discussion of this subject. But to state the issue in brief, I would say that you would have the right to break in and eat the food that you need, and then when you reach the nearest policeman, admit what you have done, and undertake to repay the man when you are able to work. In other words, you may, in an emergency situation, save your life, but not as "of right." You would regard it as an emergency, and then, still recognizing the property right of the owner, you would restitute whatever you have taken, and that would be moral on both parts.
Gerald Goodman:
Miss Rand, this discussion has dwelled on ethics in abnormal situations, but can't Objectivist ethics lead to a positive contribution to a normal life?
Ayn Rand:
Why certainly. I don't quite understand your question. This is only the choice of the questioner here that asks what one does in abnormal situations, on the basis of what the ethics of Objectivism prescribes for normal situations. In normal situations, each man is responsible for himself and his own life, and that, socially, he should deal with others as a trader, meaning trading value for value, and dealing with others only by mutual voluntary consent. Never initiating force against another human being. Never sacrificing himself to others, or others to himself. That, in very brief, is the essence of the Objectivist ethics.