Tara Smith here tries to make the best possible case for the Objectivist theory of "value." She does a fairly good job, and she is surely right to make "life" in _some_ way the standard of value for ethical purposes. But I do not see that she has improved on Rand in her formulation of this point. As another reviewer notes, Smith's answer to the question "Why be moral?" is, "You should be moral because you have chosen to live." And this is indeed Rand's answer. But it is not without troubles of its own. Suppose I have chosen to die; is it really true that "anything goes"? Is my decision to take a few hundred children with me really just "amoral," or is it positively _immoral_? If the latter, then my own reasons for being moral are not exhausted in my own choice "to live." In short, neither Rand nor Smith (nor any other Objectivist) has yet managed to mount a case for ethics that really includes what most of us mean by "rights." Your rights, if they have any moral existence or meaning at all, must provide me with reasons for refraining from treating you in certain ways independently of my alleged decision "to live." Of course, Objectivism would say my decision to die is "immoral" too. But (a) this is inconsistent with Objectivism's basic view of morality as presented by both Rand and Smith; on that view, in strict logic, the decision to die can be immoral-for-me only if I have _already_, contra hypothesis, decided to live. And (b) it still doesn't meet the objection I mentioned above, that the moral constraints imposed by your "rights" still apply to me _even_ if I'm irrevocably suicidal. The entire Objectivist approach to ethics needs to be re-thought from scratch. I'm afraid Smith hasn't yet accomplished that task.
