The legacy of Ayn Rand

[Karl]

So what would a child sitting next to you trade that's of value, once you have your own oxygen mask on?

Acts of kindness, compassion. Do you think Rand would sit and let a child die because they had nothing to trade ? FFS. Normal people take joy in saving the life of another human, it isn't difficult. However, if you fail to take that oxygen and fall unconscious then the child next to you might well die.

 

The point of trading value for value is for those that have that capacity, you know the one I talked about, that they are free to trade and are alive first of all, then perform acts of kindness/charity/compassion as we judge it. I would let Stalin, or Ted Bundy die for sure as they are a threat to my and other life of people I depend on through free value/value trading.

[ralis]

This thread as I see it denies the complex social structure of the human species i.e, no separate self.  Rand promoted abject selfishness which is the basis of Neoliberalism. There are a number of representatives in Congress that espouse her writings and are basing governmental policy on such, which is a very dangerous trend.

[Geof Nanto]

This thread as I see it denies the complex social structure of the human species i.e, no separate self.  

 

We and all of life are part of a hyper-complex web of interdependencies. We are both separate and joined - and this joining exists on subtle, invisible psychic levels as well as more obvious ones. If it was truly possible for a human to rationally understand and work through the all the possible implications of a given action, then rational self interest would be the only sensible course. As it is, it's just one strand of many that determine the course of life. In other words there is vastly more to life than we are conscious of.  A purpose of meditation and mysticism is to explore and expand the horizons of human consciousness outside and beyond what is implied by rationalism. 

[Aetherous]

Normal people take joy in saving the life of another human

 

So true.

 

It seems that you think altruism serves rational self interest. In other words, you do a good deed only because it makes you feel better or maybe causes people to not hate you.

 

One problem with that is that good deeds are often the last thing we want to do, they're unrewarded, sometimes we're even punished for doing them...so it's very unlikely with a hedonist philosophy to ever really do much good...and yet, if no good is done by anyone in society, it invariably comes back to bite us in the ass. When we need help, which happens sometimes in life, it ends up being nowhere.

 

I'm saying it's better if rational self interest serves altruism...like self interest being the base of the pyramid and altruism being the capstone. You first of all get the ability to help yourself and others, lets say you become wealthy...then you're in a better position to be of service. Can't help others in the same way if you're broke and ineffective.

 

Being of service is not sacrifice...I would say it's also part of rational self interest. Sometimes we're punished for being greedy...maybe family grows away from us because we're too selfish and unmerciful to them. Maybe we even get fired from our position of employment for it. Such a thing doesn't serve us, of course. Sometimes good deeds serve us, sometimes self interest serves us.

 

Spiritually speaking, since we're on a forum kind of dedicated to that, it's a degrading way to live to put oneself before others. The heart becomes stunted and darkens. There's no chance of development with such a philosophy. A purely altruistic philosophy without the base of rational self interest would be only slightly better, yet it's an impotent form of altruism and really doesn't solve anything.

 

To put it very simply: it's best in life if we benefit ourselves as well as others.

Or as the US military drilled into my head: TEAMWORK IS THE KEY.

Edited August 18, 2016 by Aetherous

[steve]

Can you explain what you think is the critical flaw Steve ? I'm struggling to see anything that represents an argument within the text. I will gladly answer if you will pick specifics and then I can address them. I started on a long piece which began with the obvious use of a 'clinical psychologist' employed to discredit the mad old bint with crazy ideas. She is dangerous crazy comrade, take her to the Gulag.

 

She certainly didn't promote greed. I can answer to rational selfishness, but it's easier just to post the entire thing from the Rand Lexicon, then, any parts within it I can answer more fully ?

 

I'm keen to answer but I can only see that it would be swapping ad Homs with the author.

 

I'll pass as I mentioned earlier.

[Karl]

So true.

It seems that you think altruism serves rational self interest. In other words, you do a good deed only because it makes you feel better or maybe causes people to not hate you.

One problem with that is that good deeds are often the last thing we want to do, they're unrewarded, sometimes we're even punished for doing them...so it's very unlikely with a hedonist philosophy to ever really do much good...and yet, if no good is done by anyone in society, it invariably comes back to bite us in the ass. When we need help, which happens sometimes in life, it ends up being nowhere.

I'm saying it's better if rational self interest serves altruism...like self interest being the base of the pyramid and altruism being the capstone. You first of all get the ability to help yourself and others, lets say you become wealthy...then you're in a better position to be of service. Can't help others in the same way if you're broke and ineffective.

Being of service is not sacrifice...I would say it's also part of rational self interest. Sometimes we're punished for being greedy...maybe family grows away from us because we're too selfish and unmerciful to them. Maybe we even get fired from our position of employment for it. Such a thing doesn't serve us, of course. Sometimes good deeds serve us, sometimes self interest serves us.

Spiritually speaking, since we're on a forum kind of dedicated to that, it's a degrading way to live to put oneself before others. The heart becomes stunted and darkens. There's no chance of development with such a philosophy. A purely altruistic philosophy without the base of rational self interest would be only slightly better, yet it's an impotent form of altruism and really doesn't solve anything.

To put it very simply: it's best in life if we benefit ourselves as well as others.

Or as the US military drilled into my head: TEAMWORK IS THE KEY.

I don't know why this doesn't sink in.

 

Look at extreme examples of altruism and it becomes clear that there is no such thing. The Jews sent to the death camps were selflessly serving the German people, the teeth and wealth that the guards took and sorted was for the glory of the third reich. The soldiers sent to die in the Russian winter were told to serve their country, to act selflessly, to sacrifice, to duty.

 

Of course, if we look at the case of soldiers on the battlefield they must first act selfishly in order to survive long enough to be effective killers, then they must work as a team because each man depends on the other to protect each other's lives. They aren't acting altruistically, they are trading value, my life for his. The same goes for any kind of voluntary trade. I trade something I value less for something I value more. The same in reverse. Each person gain more value by the exchange, they are both wealthier.

[Aetherous]

I don't know why this doesn't sink in.

I'd say the same thing here...not sure you actually read my post...

[ralis]

I don't know why this doesn't sink in.

 

Look at extreme examples of altruism and it becomes clear that there is no such thing. The Jews sent to the death camps were selflessly serving the German people, the teeth and wealth that the guards took and sorted was for the glory of the third reich. The soldiers sent to die in the Russian winter were told to serve their country, to act selflessly, to sacrifice, to duty.

 

 

I can't believe what I am reading here! The Jews were mercilessly rounded up, put in the death camps and slaughtered like cattle through no choice of their own. To state they were selflessly serving is preposterous!

Edited August 19, 2016 by ralis

[Karl]

This thread as I see it denies the complex social structure of the human species i.e, no separate self.  Rand promoted abject selfishness which is the basis of Neoliberalism. There are a number of representatives in Congress that espouse her writings and are basing governmental policy on such, which is a very dangerous trend.

No she promoted rational selfishness.

 

None base their policies on Objectivism. Ron Paul might come closest, but he wasn't really a policy maker. Lots of people say they are objectivist, but they aren't, they haven't interpreted the philosophy correctly. Clearly that's not the fault of the philosopher, but of the reader. It's not possible to silo out small sections of the philosophy such as selfishness and then simply interpret it anyway you feel it works. Each part is grounded in reality like the branches of a tree form a trunk then the roots. It's not enough to talk about the leaves, you must know the entire thing back to the soil.

 

Neither does it ignore the complexity of social exchange, it promotes it by first promoting freedom to act rationally.

 

If you really don't want 'the world to burn' then promoting freedom is a good place to begin I would suggest.

 

It's completely ridiculous to suggest Rand was a Neo liberal, she was a philosopher not a politician. The philosophy she espoused was the original US constitution.

 

The thing is, I think your a nihilist. Your Avatar suggests you have an affinity with the Joker and your lack of argumentation when challenged only strengthens my view. You appear a dark shadow to me. I hope it's not true and that I have you wrong.

[Karl]

I'd say the same thing here...not sure you actually read my post...

Of course I read it. Altruism = sacrifice it's anti-life, anti-spiritual it is the cult of death and destruction. I shall post the entire piece on selfishness followed by the entire piece of selflessness. Compare and contrast.

[Aetherous]

Of course I read it. Altruism = sacrifice

 

Then you didn't grasp it.

 

It's not a sacrifice to help the child get his oxygen mask on, once yours is on.

[ralis]

No she promoted rational selfishness.

 

None base their policies on Objectivism. Ron Paul might come closest, but he wasn't really a policy maker. Lots of people say they are objectivist, but they aren't, they haven't interpreted the philosophy correctly. Clearly that's not the fault of the philosopher, but of the reader. It's not possible to silo out small sections of the philosophy such as selfishness and then simply interpret it anyway you feel it works. Each part is grounded in reality like the branches of a tree form a trunk then the roots. It's not enough to talk about the leaves, you must know the entire thing back to the soil.

 

Neither does it ignore the complexity of social exchange, it promotes it by first promoting freedom to act rationally.

 

If you really don't want 'the world to burn' then promoting freedom is a good place to begin I would suggest.

 

It's completely ridiculous to suggest Rand was a Neo liberal, she was a philosopher not a politician. The philosophy she espoused was the original US constitution.

 

The thing is, I think your a nihilist. Your Avatar suggests you have an affinity with the Joker and your lack of argumentation when challenged only strengthens my view. You appear a dark shadow to me. I hope it's not true and that I have you wrong.

 

 

My responses to you are ones of criticism at your sometimes disjointed and outrageous statements in which there is no room for discussion. Too bad you fail to understand the joker archetype.

 

Your narrative is usually one of a classic double bind in which I have no interest.

[Karl]

I can't believe what I am reading here! The Jews were mercilessly rounded up, put in the death camps and slaughtered like cattle through no choice of their own. To state they were selflessly serving is preposterous!

Yet this is exactly the point. Sacrifice to whom. In this case it was the National Socialist Government that decreed it. They saw it that the Jews were serving the German nation by their sacrifice, the people were serving the nation by their enduring hardship, the soldiers were doing so by freely sacrificing their lives on the battlefield.

 

The inherent element of collectivism is sacrifice of self to some greater good, be it spiritual ideal, emperor, nation or God.

 

Does it seem like a good deal to you, that some authority takes away your freedom to choose and imposes selflessness upon you. That is communism, you have no choice. The irony is that each person, if we discount execution, must first act selfishly in order to provide whatever the state decrees as altruism to its demands.

[ralis]

Yet this is exactly the point. Sacrifice to whom. In this case it was the National Socialist Government that decreed it. They saw it that the Jews were serving the German nation by their sacrifice, the people were serving the nation by their enduring hardship, the soldiers were doing so by freely sacrificing their lives on the battlefield.

 

The inherent element of collectivism is sacrifice of self to some greater good, be it spiritual ideal, emperor, nation or God.

 

Does it seem like a good deal to you, that some authority takes away your freedom to choose and imposes selflessness upon you. That is communism, you have no choice. The irony is that each person, if we discount execution, must first act selfishly in order to provide whatever the state decrees as altruism to its demands.

 

I am seeing it from the persons in those death camps point of view and not the Third Reich, as you see it. Again, your narrative is way off and not in the real world.

 

I have friends that lost family in those death camps and your statement would be offensive.

Edited August 19, 2016 by ralis

[Karl]

Then you didn't grasp it.

It's not a sacrifice to help the child get his oxygen mask on, once yours is on.

It's not altruism, it's compassion, kindness, act of charity. It's so simple.

 

Look, back to the aircraft. Let's do a thought experiment. I shall give you the scenario then you do the rest.

 

Two aircraft.

 

On one the stewardess holds guns to everyone's heads and demands that that the passengers put on their masks first before attending to others. Each mask has a sensor that detects that this has taken place, otherwise a light goes on which tells the stewardess who to shoot.

 

Second aircraft, same deal, but the stewardess demands the passengers must not put on ANY mask at all until they have put on someone else's mask.

 

On which aircraft are there likely to be more survivors ? The impossibility of altruism becomes clear.

[ralis]

It's not altruism, it's compassion, kindness, act of charity. It's so simple.

 

Look, back to the aircraft. Let's do a thought experiment. I shall give you the scenario then you do the rest.

 

Two aircraft.

 

On one the stewardess holds guns to everyone's heads and demands that that the passengers put on their masks first before attending to others. Each mask has a sensor that detects that this has taken place, otherwise a light goes on which tells the stewardess who to shoot.

 

Second aircraft, same deal, but the stewardess demands the passengers must not put on ANY mask at all until they have put on someone else's mask.

 

On which aircraft are there likely to be more survivors ? The impossibility of altruism becomes clear.

 

This is a Logic 101 game that we played in college. Life is much more complicated than this.

[Karl]

I am seeing it from the persons in those death camps point of view and not the Third Reich, as you see it. Again, your narrative is way off and not in the real world.

 

I have friends that lost family in those death camps and your statement would be offensive.

I'm trying to save them Ralis, you are going to condemn them to death. Objectivism let's them go free, communism/fascism takes away that freedom to choose and uses force to impose its will on them.

 

There is no altruism, it's just a common thugs word for sacrifice, either property, or life it doesn't matter which. Who decides this altruism ? Come on you profess to be a critical thinker so it should be obvious that the decision is not made by the sacrifices as is the case with the death camps. If one should choose to die willingly, then one is doing so from the point of self choice (selfishness). The only way altruism can function is if an authority tells you that you must make a sacrifice and gives you no option about it. It is selfless, because someone else decides your fate, not you. Would you be pleased about that ?

[Aetherous]

It's not altruism, it's compassion, kindness, act of charity.

 

Here's the dictionary definition of altruism: "unselfish regard for or devotion to the welfare of others". The word has nothing to do with sacrificing oneself while helping others so as to be unable to actually help others.

 

But if you're defining it that way, then it does make sense that you'd misunderstand my posts.

 

Look, back to the aircraft. Let's do a thought experiment. I shall give you the scenario then you do the rest. 

 

Two aircraft. 

 

On one the stewardess holds guns to everyone's heads and demands that that the passengers put on their masks first before attending to others. Each mask has a sensor that detects that this has taken place, otherwise a light goes on which tells the stewardess who to shoot.

 

Second aircraft, same deal, but the stewardess demands the passengers must not put on ANY mask at all until they have put on someone else's mask. 

 

On which aircraft are there likely to be more survivors ? The impossibility of altruism becomes clear. 

 

 

On the first aircraft, there are multiple children who can't reach their oxygen masks. There is a senile elderly person who just isn't getting it. The stewardess is forced to shoot all of those people of lesser value.

 

On the second aircraft, each person looks around their immediate area to place any others' masks on...no one puts their own on. Everyone lives.

[Karl]

This is a Logic 101 game that we played in college. Life is much more complicated than this.

No you didn't. You have repeatedly avoided answering questions on a broad range of subjects, you don't even try.

 

Life isn't complicated at all, you either have it and are free to preserve it, or you are not free to preserve it and therefore don't have it. It's called survival. More survival = better. Less survival=worse anything that improves life is good, anything that destroys life is bad.

 

Force is the antithesis of reason and reason is our only means of survival.

[Karl]

Here's the dictionary definition of altruism: "unselfish regard for or devotion to the welfare of others". The word has nothing to do with sacrificing oneself while helping others so as to be unable to actually help others.

But if you're defining it that way, then it does make sense that you'd misunderstand my posts.

 

 

 

 

 

On the first aircraft, there are multiple children who can't reach their oxygen masks. There is a senile elderly person who just isn't getting it. The stewardess is forced to shoot all of those people of lesser value.

On the second aircraft, each person looks around their immediate area to place any others' masks on...no one puts their own on. Everyone lives.

Look again. Right on the first, wrong on the second. No one may put any mask on, not just there own. Everyone dies whether they put on the masks or not. They are either shot or suffocate.

 

Let's take a third plane where there is no gun aimed at the head of the passengers at all, where the instructions advise you of the right course of action - this is moral principle by decree, but based on reality, the company doesn't want dozens of passengers dying on its flight, so it gives the correct instruction for maximising survival. It's in both passenger and company interests to follow the instructions. Here, where non coercive instruction and freedom to choose is invoked, the most people survive.

 

This is why the use of coercive force is bad. In the first case even force applied for the right reason results in more deaths than no force. In the case of the altruistic plane, the evidence is clear. It always has been, history confirms it. Altruism is coercive force applied to another person in order to extract an unearned value.

Edited August 19, 2016 by Karl

[Aetherous]

Look again. Right on the first, wrong on the second. No one may put any mask on, not just there own. Everyone dies whether they put on the masks or not. They are either shot or suffocate.

 

Ah, so you made this scenario to prove your point...one plane is forced self interest and the other is forced death. LOL

 

 

 

Altruism is coercive force applied to another person in order to extract an unearned value. 

 

No, it's not. Please see a good dictionary for the correct use of the word!

Edited August 19, 2016 by Aetherous

[ralis]

No you didn't. You have repeatedly avoided answering questions on a broad range of subjects, you don't even try.

 

Life isn't complicated at all, you either have it and are free to preserve it, or you are not free to preserve it and therefore don't have it. It's called survival. More survival = better. Less survival=worse anything that improves life is good, anything that destroys life is bad.

 

Force is the antithesis of reason and reason is our only means of survival.

 

The problem is that you play the 'classic double bind game' in which I am very familiar with. I am pointing out to others the problems I see with your narrative and making certain that I don't get caught up in it.

[Karl]

 

Selfishness

 

¶

The Objectivist ethics proudly advocates and upholds rational selfishness—which means: the values required for man’s survival qua man—which means: the values required for human survival—not the values produced by the desires, the emotions, the “aspirations,” the feelings, the whims or the needs of irrational brutes, who have never outgrown the primordial practice of human sacrifices, have never discovered an industrial society and can conceive of no self-interest but that of grabbing the loot of the moment.

 

The Objectivist ethics holds that human good does not require human sacrifices and cannot be achieved by the sacrifice of anyone to anyone. It holds that the rational interests of men do not clash—that there is no conflict of interests among men who do not desire the unearned, who do not make sacrifices nor accept them, who deal with one another as traders, giving value for value.

 

The Virtue of Selfishness “The Objectivist Ethics,”

The Virtue of Selfishness, 31

 

¶

The meaning ascribed in popular usage to the word “selfishness” is not merely wrong: it represents a devastating intellectual “package-deal,” which is responsible, more than any other single factor, for the arrested moral development of mankind.

 

In popular usage, the word “selfishness” is a synonym of evil; the image it conjures is of a murderous brute who tramples over piles of corpses to achieve his own ends, who cares for no living being and pursues nothing but the gratification of the mindless whims of any immediate moment.

 

Yet the exact meaning and dictionary definition of the word “selfishness” is: concern with one’s own interests.

 

This concept does not include a moral evaluation; it does not tell us whether concern with one’s own interests is good or evil; nor does it tell us what constitutes man’s actual interests. It is the task of ethics to answer such questions.

 

The Virtue of Selfishness “Introduction,”

The Virtue of Selfishness, vii

 

¶

There is a fundamental moral difference between a man who sees his self-interest in production and a man who sees it in robbery. The evil of a robber does not lie in the fact that he pursues his own interests, but in what he regards as to his own interest; not in the fact that he pursues his values, but in what he chose to value; not in the fact that he wants to live, but in the fact that he wants to live on a subhuman level (see “The Objectivist Ethics”).

 

If it is true that what I mean by “selfishness” is not what is meant conventionally, then this is one of the worst indictments of altruism: it means that altruism permits no concept of a self-respecting, self-supporting man—a man who supports his life by his own effort and neither sacrifices himself nor others. It means that altruism permits no view of men except as sacrificial animals and profiteers-on-sacrifice, as victims and parasites—that it permits no concept of a benevolent co-existence among men—that it permits no concept of justice.

 

The Virtue of Selfishness “Introduction,”

The Virtue of Selfishness, ix

 

¶

To redeem both man and morality, it is the concept of “selfishness” that one has to redeem.

 

The first step is to assert man’s right to a moral existence—that is: to recognize his need of a moral code to guide the course and the fulfillment of his own life . . . .

 

The reasons why man needs a moral code will tell you that the purpose of morality is to define man’s proper values and interests, that concern with his own interests is the essence of a moral existence, and that man must be the beneficiary of his own moral actions.

 

Since all values have to be gained and/or kept by men’s actions, any breach between actor and beneficiary necessitates an injustice: the sacrifice of some men to others, of the actors to the nonactors, of the moral to the immoral. Nothing could ever justify such a breach, and no one ever has.

 

The choice of the beneficiary of moral values is merely a preliminary or introductory issue in the field of morality. It is not a substitute for morality nor a criterion of moral value, as altruism has made it. Neither is it a moral primary: it has to be derived from and validated by the fundamental premises of a moral system.

 

The Objectivist ethics holds that the actor must always be the beneficiary of his action and that man must act for his own rational self-interest. But his right to do so is derived from his nature as man and from the function of moral values in human life—and, therefore, is applicable only in the context of a rational, objectively demonstrated and validated code of moral principles which define and determine his actual self-interest. It is not a license “to do as he pleases” and it is not applicable to the altruists’ image of a “selfish” brute nor to any man motivated by irrational emotions, feelings, urges, wishes or whims.

 

This is said as a warning against the kind of “Nietzschean egoists” who, in fact, are a product of the altruist morality and represent the other side of the altruist coin: the men who believe that any action, regardless of its nature, is good if it is intended for one’s own benefit. Just as the satisfaction of the irrational desires of others is not a criterion of moral value, neither is the satisfaction of one’s own irrational desires. Morality is not a contest of whims . . . .

 

A similar type of error is committed by the man who declares that since man must be guided by his own independent judgment, any action he chooses to take is moral if he chooses it. One’s own independent judgment is the means by which one must choose one’s actions, but it is not a moral criterion nor a moral validation: only reference to a demonstrable principle can validate one’s choices.

 

Just as man cannot survive by any random means, but must discover and practice the principles which his survival requires, so man’s self-interest cannot be determined by blind desires or random whims, but must be discovered and achieved by the guidance of rational principles. This is why the Objectivist ethics is a morality of rational self-interest—or of rational selfishness.

 

Since selfishness is “concern with one’s own interests,” the Objectivist ethics uses that concept in its exact and purest sense. It is not a concept that one can surrender to man’s enemies, nor to the unthinking misconceptions, distortions, prejudices and fears of the ignorant and the irrational. The attack on “selfishness” is an attack on man’s self-esteem; to surrender one, is to surrender the other.

 

The Virtue of Selfishness “Introduction,”

The Virtue of Selfishness, ix

 

¶

Do you ask what moral obligation I owe to my fellow men? None—except the obligation I owe to myself, to material objects and to all of existence: rationality. I deal with men as my nature and theirs demands: by means of reason. I seek or desire nothing from them except such relations as they care to enter of their own voluntary choice. It is only with their mind that I can deal and only for my own self-interest, when they see that my interest coincides with theirs. When they don’t, I enter no relationship; I let dissenters go their way and I do not swerve from mine. I win by means of nothing but logic and I surrender to nothing but logic. I do not surrender my reason or deal with men who surrender theirs.

 

For the New Intellectual Galt’s Speech,

For the New Intellectual, 133

 

¶

Men have been taught that the ego is the synonym of evil, and selflessness the ideal of virtue. But the creator is the egoist in the absolute sense, and the selfless man is the one who does not think, feel, judge or act. These are functions of the self.

 

Here the basic reversal is most deadly. The issue has been perverted and man has been left no alternative—and no freedom. As poles of good and evil, he was offered two conceptions: egoism and altruism. Egoism was held to mean the sacrifice of others to self. Altruism—the sacrifice of self to others. This tied man irrevocably to other men and left him nothing but a choice of pain: his own pain borne for the sake of others or pain inflicted upon others for the sake of self. When it was added that man must find joy in self-immolation, the trap was closed. Man was forced to accept masochism as his ideal—under the threat that sadism was his only alternative. This was the greatest fraud ever perpetrated on mankind.

 

This was the device by which dependence and suffering were perpetuated as fundamentals of life.

 

The choice is not self-sacrifice or domination. The choice is independence or dependence. The code of the creator or the code of the second-hander. This is the basic issue. It rests upon the alternative of life or death. The code of the creator is built on the needs of the reasoning mind which allows man to survive. The code of the second-hander is built on the needs of a mind incapable of survival. All that which proceeds from man’s independent ego is good. All that which proceeds from man’s dependence upon men is evil.

 

The egoist in the absolute sense is not the man who sacrifices others. He is the man who stands above the need of using others in any manner. He does not function through them. He is not concerned with them in any primary matter. Not in his aim, not in his motive, not in his thinking, not in his desires, not in the source of his energy. He does not exist for any other man—and he asks no other man to exist for him. This is the only form of brotherhood and mutual respect possible between men.

 

For the New Intellectual “The Soul of a Collectivist,”

For the New Intellectual, 81

 

¶

The moral purpose of a man’s life is the achievement of his own happiness. This does not mean that he is indifferent to all men, that human life is of no value to him and that he has no reason to help others in an emergency. But it does mean that he does not subordinate his life to the welfare of others, that he does not sacrifice himself to their needs, that the relief of their suffering is not his primary concern, that any help he gives is an exception, not a rule, an act of generosity, not of moral duty, that it is marginal and incidental—as disasters are marginal and incidental in the course of human existence—and that values, not disasters, are the goal, the first concern and the motive power of his life.

 

The Virtue of Selfishness “The Ethics of Emergencies,”

The Virtue of Selfishness, 49

 

¶

Love, friendship, respect, admiration are the emotional response of one man to the virtues of another, the spiritual payment given in exchange for the personal, selfish pleasure which one man derives from the virtues of another man’s character. Only a brute or an altruist would claim that the appreciation of another person’s virtues is an act of selflessness, that as far as one’s own selfish interest and pleasure are concerned, it makes no difference whether one deals with a genius or a fool, whether one meets a hero or a thug, whether one marries an ideal woman or a slut. In spiritual issues, a trader is a man who does not seek to be loved for his weaknesses or flaws, only for his virtues, and who does not grant his love to the weaknesses or the flaws of others, only to their virtues.

 

The Virtue of Selfishness “The Objectivist Ethics,”

The Virtue of Selfishness, 31

 

¶

The first right on earth is the right of the ego. Man’s first duty is to himself. His moral law is never to place his prime goal within the persons of others. His moral obligation is to do what he wishes, provided his wish does not depend primarily upon other men. This includes the whole sphere of his creative faculty, his thinking, his work. But it does not include the sphere of the gangster, the altruist and the dictator.

 

A man thinks and works alone. A man cannot rob, exploit or rule—alone. Robbery, exploitation and ruling presuppose victims. They imply dependence. They are the province of the second-hander.

 

Rulers of men are not egoists. They create nothing. They exist entirely through the persons of others. Their goal is in their subjects, in the activity of enslaving. They are as dependent as the beggar, the social worker and the bandit. The form of dependence does not matter.

Edited August 19, 2016 by Karl

[ralis]

G

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

Q

R

S

T

U

V

W

X

Y

Z

Home

 

Search

Selfishness

 

¶

The Objectivist ethics proudly advocates and upholds rational selfishness—which means: the values required for man’s survival qua man—which means: the values required for human survival—not the values produced by the desires, the emotions, the “aspirations,” the feelings, the whims or the needs of irrational brutes, who have never outgrown the primordial practice of human sacrifices, have never discovered an industrial society and can conceive of no self-interest but that of grabbing the loot of the moment.

 

The Objectivist ethics holds that human good does not require human sacrifices and cannot be achieved by the sacrifice of anyone to anyone. It holds that the rational interests of men do not clash—that there is no conflict of interests among men who do not desire the unearned, who do not make sacrifices nor accept them, who deal with one another as traders, giving value for value.

 

The Virtue of Selfishness “The Objectivist Ethics,”

The Virtue of Selfishness, 31

 

¶

The meaning ascribed in popular usage to the word “selfishness” is not merely wrong: it represents a devastating intellectual “package-deal,” which is responsible, more than any other single factor, for the arrested moral development of mankind.

 

In popular usage, the word “selfishness” is a synonym of evil; the image it conjures is of a murderous brute who tramples over piles of corpses to achieve his own ends, who cares for no living being and pursues nothing but the gratification of the mindless whims of any immediate moment.

 

Yet the exact meaning and dictionary definition of the word “selfishness” is: concern with one’s own interests.

 

This concept does not include a moral evaluation; it does not tell us whether concern with one’s own interests is good or evil; nor does it tell us what constitutes man’s actual interests. It is the task of ethics to answer such questions.

 

The Virtue of Selfishness “Introduction,”

The Virtue of Selfishness, vii

 

¶

There is a fundamental moral difference between a man who sees his self-interest in production and a man who sees it in robbery. The evil of a robber does not lie in the fact that he pursues his own interests, but in what he regards as to his own interest; not in the fact that he pursues his values, but in what he chose to value; not in the fact that he wants to live, but in the fact that he wants to live on a subhuman level (see “The Objectivist Ethics”).

 

If it is true that what I mean by “selfishness” is not what is meant conventionally, then this is one of the worst indictments of altruism: it means that altruism permits no concept of a self-respecting, self-supporting man—a man who supports his life by his own effort and neither sacrifices himself nor others. It means that altruism permits no view of men except as sacrificial animals and profiteers-on-sacrifice, as victims and parasites—that it permits no concept of a benevolent co-existence among men—that it permits no concept of justice.

 

The Virtue of Selfishness “Introduction,”

The Virtue of Selfishness, ix

 

¶

To redeem both man and morality, it is the concept of “selfishness” that one has to redeem.

 

The first step is to assert man’s right to a moral existence—that is: to recognize his need of a moral code to guide the course and the fulfillment of his own life . . . .

 

The reasons why man needs a moral code will tell you that the purpose of morality is to define man’s proper values and interests, that concern with his own interests is the essence of a moral existence, and that man must be the beneficiary of his own moral actions.

 

Since all values have to be gained and/or kept by men’s actions, any breach between actor and beneficiary necessitates an injustice: the sacrifice of some men to others, of the actors to the nonactors, of the moral to the immoral. Nothing could ever justify such a breach, and no one ever has.

 

The choice of the beneficiary of moral values is merely a preliminary or introductory issue in the field of morality. It is not a substitute for morality nor a criterion of moral value, as altruism has made it. Neither is it a moral primary: it has to be derived from and validated by the fundamental premises of a moral system.

 

The Objectivist ethics holds that the actor must always be the beneficiary of his action and that man must act for his own rational self-interest. But his right to do so is derived from his nature as man and from the function of moral values in human life—and, therefore, is applicable only in the context of a rational, objectively demonstrated and validated code of moral principles which define and determine his actual self-interest. It is not a license “to do as he pleases” and it is not applicable to the altruists’ image of a “selfish” brute nor to any man motivated by irrational emotions, feelings, urges, wishes or whims.

 

This is said as a warning against the kind of “Nietzschean egoists” who, in fact, are a product of the altruist morality and represent the other side of the altruist coin: the men who believe that any action, regardless of its nature, is good if it is intended for one’s own benefit. Just as the satisfaction of the irrational desires of others is not a criterion of moral value, neither is the satisfaction of one’s own irrational desires. Morality is not a contest of whims . . . .

 

A similar type of error is committed by the man who declares that since man must be guided by his own independent judgment, any action he chooses to take is moral if he chooses it. One’s own independent judgment is the means by which one must choose one’s actions, but it is not a moral criterion nor a moral validation: only reference to a demonstrable principle can validate one’s choices.

 

Just as man cannot survive by any random means, but must discover and practice the principles which his survival requires, so man’s self-interest cannot be determined by blind desires or random whims, but must be discovered and achieved by the guidance of rational principles. This is why the Objectivist ethics is a morality of rational self-interest—or of rational selfishness.

 

Since selfishness is “concern with one’s own interests,” the Objectivist ethics uses that concept in its exact and purest sense. It is not a concept that one can surrender to man’s enemies, nor to the unthinking misconceptions, distortions, prejudices and fears of the ignorant and the irrational. The attack on “selfishness” is an attack on man’s self-esteem; to surrender one, is to surrender the other.

 

The Virtue of Selfishness “Introduction,”

The Virtue of Selfishness, ix

 

¶

Do you ask what moral obligation I owe to my fellow men? None—except the obligation I owe to myself, to material objects and to all of existence: rationality. I deal with men as my nature and theirs demands: by means of reason. I seek or desire nothing from them except such relations as they care to enter of their own voluntary choice. It is only with their mind that I can deal and only for my own self-interest, when they see that my interest coincides with theirs. When they don’t, I enter no relationship; I let dissenters go their way and I do not swerve from mine. I win by means of nothing but logic and I surrender to nothing but logic. I do not surrender my reason or deal with men who surrender theirs.

 

For the New Intellectual Galt’s Speech,

For the New Intellectual, 133

 

¶

Men have been taught that the ego is the synonym of evil, and selflessness the ideal of virtue. But the creator is the egoist in the absolute sense, and the selfless man is the one who does not think, feel, judge or act. These are functions of the self.

 

Here the basic reversal is most deadly. The issue has been perverted and man has been left no alternative—and no freedom. As poles of good and evil, he was offered two conceptions: egoism and altruism. Egoism was held to mean the sacrifice of others to self. Altruism—the sacrifice of self to others. This tied man irrevocably to other men and left him nothing but a choice of pain: his own pain borne for the sake of others or pain inflicted upon others for the sake of self. When it was added that man must find joy in self-immolation, the trap was closed. Man was forced to accept masochism as his ideal—under the threat that sadism was his only alternative. This was the greatest fraud ever perpetrated on mankind.

 

This was the device by which dependence and suffering were perpetuated as fundamentals of life.

 

The choice is not self-sacrifice or domination. The choice is independence or dependence. The code of the creator or the code of the second-hander. This is the basic issue. It rests upon the alternative of life or death. The code of the creator is built on the needs of the reasoning mind which allows man to survive. The code of the second-hander is built on the needs of a mind incapable of survival. All that which proceeds from man’s independent ego is good. All that which proceeds from man’s dependence upon men is evil.

 

The egoist in the absolute sense is not the man who sacrifices others. He is the man who stands above the need of using others in any manner. He does not function through them. He is not concerned with them in any primary matter. Not in his aim, not in his motive, not in his thinking, not in his desires, not in the source of his energy. He does not exist for any other man—and he asks no other man to exist for him. This is the only form of brotherhood and mutual respect possible between men.

 

For the New Intellectual “The Soul of a Collectivist,”

For the New Intellectual, 81

 

¶

The moral purpose of a man’s life is the achievement of his own happiness. This does not mean that he is indifferent to all men, that human life is of no value to him and that he has no reason to help others in an emergency. But it does mean that he does not subordinate his life to the welfare of others, that he does not sacrifice himself to their needs, that the relief of their suffering is not his primary concern, that any help he gives is an exception, not a rule, an act of generosity, not of moral duty, that it is marginal and incidental—as disasters are marginal and incidental in the course of human existence—and that values, not disasters, are the goal, the first concern and the motive power of his life.

 

The Virtue of Selfishness “The Ethics of Emergencies,”

The Virtue of Selfishness, 49

 

¶

Love, friendship, respect, admiration are the emotional response of one man to the virtues of another, the spiritual payment given in exchange for the personal, selfish pleasure which one man derives from the virtues of another man’s character. Only a brute or an altruist would claim that the appreciation of another person’s virtues is an act of selflessness, that as far as one’s own selfish interest and pleasure are concerned, it makes no difference whether one deals with a genius or a fool, whether one meets a hero or a thug, whether one marries an ideal woman or a slut. In spiritual issues, a trader is a man who does not seek to be loved for his weaknesses or flaws, only for his virtues, and who does not grant his love to the weaknesses or the flaws of others, only to their virtues.

 

The Virtue of Selfishness “The Objectivist Ethics,”

The Virtue of Selfishness, 31

 

¶

The first right on earth is the right of the ego. Man’s first duty is to himself. His moral law is never to place his prime goal within the persons of others. His moral obligation is to do what he wishes, provided his wish does not depend primarily upon other men. This includes the whole sphere of his creative faculty, his thinking, his work. But it does not include the sphere of the gangster, the altruist and the dictator.

 

A man thinks and works alone. A man cannot rob, exploit or rule—alone. Robbery, exploitation and ruling presuppose victims. They imply dependence. They are the province of the second-hander.

 

Rulers of men are not egoists. They create nothing. They exist entirely through the persons of others. Their goal is in their subjects, in the activity of enslaving. They are as dependent as the beggar, the social worker and the bandit. The form of dependence does not matter.

 

Must be from the Ayn Rand lexicon.

[Karl]

The problem is that you play the 'classic double bind game' in which I am very familiar with. I am pointing out to others the problems I see with your narrative and making certain that I don't get caught up in it.

You aren't doing that, you are just avoiding answering. It's like talking to a politician that refuses to give a straight reply.