We believe that murder is wrong – why? Where did this come from?
Even still, we do things that we know to be wrong. Right and wrong; good and bad; logical and illogical, where do this come from? Free will?
If free will exists, than logical absolutes must exist. A logical absolute being; ‘X’ cannot “be” ‘X’ and not be ‘X’ at the same time. Or – ‘if I go into the house that is on fire, I will be burned’ and ‘if nobody goes into the house that is on fire, the baby inside will die’.
Now if logical absolutes exist, do moral absolutes exist? A basic moral absolute is ‘do not hurt an innocent person intentionally’. For morality to exist there must be good and bad.
If good and bad does not exist, than we are only left with logical and illogical choices. So we are left with the question of ‘is it logical to hurt an innocent person intentionally?’. If the answer is ‘no’ we must have a reason. This reason can only be in the realm of morality. Even still, logical absolutes are conceptual, they transcend all people at all time and are absolute in all circumstances since they are absolute.
Objectivism is the first philosophy to identify the relationship between life and moral values. "Ethics," writes Ayn Rand, "is an objective, metaphysical necessity of man's survival -- not by the grace of the supernatural nor of your neighbors nor of your whims, but by the grace of reality and the nature of life."The Philosophy of Objectivism: A Brief Summary.The standard of ethics, required by the nature of reality and the nature of man, is Man's Life. "All that which is proper to the life of a rational being is the good; all that which destroys it is the evil."