Hudgins Debates a Subjectivist

The Objectivist Center's Washington, D.C., director, Edward Hudgins, debated the topic "Are Ethics Objective or Subjective?" on August 10. The Institute for Humane Studies sponsored the forum for an audience of Charles Koch Fellows and other interested individuals. Max Borders, the institute's program director, took the subjectivist side.

Hudgins argued that the need for ethics, morality, and codes of value arises from the fact that human beings are living creatures with a rational capacity and free will. The highest value is reason and the highest virtue rationality. Together, these allow individuals to survive and flourish. Hudgins also showed how a free society and free markets could be ensured—and a happy life lived—only if individuals adopt a morality of rational self-interest.

Borders maintained that there is no way to derive an "ought' from an "is" and, indeed, that humans do not have free will to choose in any case. This contention—and Hudgins's support of volition—led to a lively discussion and question-and-answer period. Hopefully, Hudgins's well-received defense of Objectivist ethics changed the minds of some and improved others' understanding of the issue.