246 An Introduction to Immortalist Morality the basis on ‘immortalist morality’, although it could serve as guide in formulating public policy for some issues. A number of philosophers have tried to construct ethical systems  by  taking  affirmation  of  life  as  the  foundation  for morality. Ayn Rand based her Objectivist theory of ethics on the idea that one’s individual life is one’s ultimate value. The German humanitarian and theologian Dr. Albert Schweitzer wrote: Affirmation of life is the spiritual act by which man ceases to live unreflectively and begins to devote himself to his life with reverence in order to raise it to its true value. To affirm life is to deepen, to make more inward, and to exalt the will to live. At the same time the man who has become a thinking being feels a compulsion to  give  to  every  will-to-live  the  same  reverence  for life  that  he  gives  to  his  own.  He  experiences  that other  life  in  his  own.  He  accepts  as  being  good:  to preserve life, to promote life, to raise to its highest value life which is capable of development; and as being evil: to  destroy  life,  to  injure  life,  to  repress  life  which  is capable of development. This is the absolute, funda- mental principle of the moral, and it is a necessity of thought. [3] A major objection to the idea that ethics is derived from the survival goal, is that there are many things that we value in life beyond mere survival. After our physical needs are taken care of, we still have physical desires that may conflict with our survival. And quite apart from physical desires, we have emo- tional and intellectual goals. Is it not better to regard survival as just one value out of many, and ethics as a weighing up of multiple preferences? It is important to understand that many of our desires are actually  by-products  of  evolution.  Evolutionary  psychol-