Ayn Rand, Altruism

Off Topic Politics and World Issues
21

[quote]Headhunter wrote:
Gael wrote:
If I am living only for myself, why do I have to respect the rights of others? What if living for myself entails conquering and enslaving everyone else?

This is similar to Kant’s Categorical Imperative, which Rand adopts in part. If you harm another rational being, you are announcing that it is okay to harm you. Logically, we return to a state of nature. This means that you may also be attacked and so on. Rand assumes that rational beings don’t want to live in anarchy like that, a kill-or-be-killed environment.[/quote]

Yeah, but you as an individual stand a very small chance of effecting the collapse of civil society by violating someone else’s rights.

Crime pays. If you knew you could get away with it, and why not steal and kill whenever it fits your interest?

Really, why not?

Moreover, you have just attempted to justify natural law for utilitarian reasons – a contradiction.

22

I need no warrant for being, and no word of sanction upon my being. I am the warrant and the sanction.

Ayn Rand, Anthem

This can be the foundation for an ethical theory, but only one that is consistent with atheism. In what religion does one not have a warrant for being from their creator?

23

[quote]Journeyman wrote:
I need no warrant for being, and no word of sanction upon my being. I am the warrant and the sanction.
Ayn Rand, Anthem

[/quote]

I don’t understand why this would be accepted as is. She owns the warrant and sanction by simply being? Isn’t a cow also in a state of being? Am I just misunderstanding her claim? And, I’m about as far away from being a philosopher as could be, so I’m admitting that up front.

24

[quote]Sloth wrote:
Journeyman wrote:
I need no warrant for being, and no word of sanction upon my being. I am the warrant and the sanction.
Ayn Rand, Anthem

I don’t understand why this would be accepted as is. She owns the warrant and sanction by simply being? Isn’t a cow also in a state of being? Am I just misunderstanding her claim? And, I’m about as far away from being a philosopher as could be, so I’m admitting that up front.[/quote]

Yes, in a Darwinian world, each creature exists and has the right to reproduce if it is able. In this sense, it needs no warrant to exist and there are no sanctions that are placed on it for its behavior.

If it is fit, it will reproduce. If not, it will die and nobody is obligated to mourn the cow. This is the ‘nature red in tooth and claw’ of social Darwinist. This is the world of Ann Rand.

There is a logical coherence to this world view, but I think is is anti-Christian, anti-Islam and anti-Hindu. I am sure that I don’t fully appreciate the wisdom of Ann Rand, so please explain how one can combine a religion that follows the Golden Rule with a philosopher who extols the virtue of selfishness.

25

Ayn Randists remind me of Scientologists.

26

Have we determined THE answer yet?

27

[quote]Gael wrote:
Headhunter wrote:
Gael wrote:
If I am living only for myself, why do I have to respect the rights of others? What if living for myself entails conquering and enslaving everyone else?

This is similar to Kant’s Categorical Imperative, which Rand adopts in part. If you harm another rational being, you are announcing that it is okay to harm you. Logically, we return to a state of nature. This means that you may also be attacked and so on. Rand assumes that rational beings don’t want to live in anarchy like that, a kill-or-be-killed environment.

Yeah, but you as an individual stand a very small chance of effecting the collapse of civil society by violating someone else’s rights.

Crime pays. If you knew you could get away with it, and why not steal and kill whenever it fits your interest?

Really, why not?

Moreover, you have just attempted to justify natural law for utilitarian reasons – a contradiction.[/quote]

If my goal is to continue as a rational being and I don’t want to see my society descend into a war of all against all, then crime most definitely does NOT pay. If crime did pay, society then becomes a race of brutality and eventually collapses.

I am far better off in civilisation. Civilisation allows workers to exploit and benefit from all those above us on the intellectual scale. A worker pushing a broom in a factory benefits from all those above him intellectually —the engineers, scientists, and the capitalists who make the factory possible. Workers exploit capitalists.

It therefore follows that I am not justifying natural law at all. Having a civilisation is contrary to natural law and predation. Reason trumps natural law or Man dies.

28

[quote]Journeyman wrote:
I need no warrant for being, and no word of sanction upon my being. I am the warrant and the sanction.

Ayn Rand, Anthem

This can be the foundation for an ethical theory, but only one that is consistent with atheism. In what religion does one not have a warrant for being from their creator?[/quote]

Ms. Rand was a thorough going atheist. Her argument is inherent in Kant, in that what you wish for others you simultaneously wish for yourself.

Her metaphysics was based upon the axiom that ‘Existence Exists’. You can’t argue that nothing exists. Therefore one’s job in life is to recognize that fact, accept it, and don’t try and evade it.

To exist means that you have a distinct nature, a definition. This is you. Because of that, you need no warrant for being. You exist. You are a fact. You have a nature, the rational animal, the animal that thinks using concepts.

29

I see.

[quote]Headhunter wrote:
Gael wrote:
Headhunter wrote:
Gael wrote:
If I am living only for myself, why do I have to respect the rights of others? What if living for myself entails conquering and enslaving everyone else?

This is similar to Kant’s Categorical Imperative, which Rand adopts in part. If you harm another rational being, you are announcing that it is okay to harm you. Logically, we return to a state of nature. This means that you may also be attacked and so on. Rand assumes that rational beings don’t want to live in anarchy like that, a kill-or-be-killed environment.

Yeah, but you as an individual stand a very small chance of effecting the collapse of civil society by violating someone else’s rights.

Crime pays. If you knew you could get away with it, and why not steal and kill whenever it fits your interest?

Really, why not?

Moreover, you have just attempted to justify natural law for utilitarian reasons – a contradiction.

If my goal is to continue as a rational being and I don’t want to see my society descend into a war of all against all, then crime most definitely does NOT pay. If crime did pay, society then becomes a race of brutality and eventually collapses.

I am far better off in civilisation. Civilisation allows workers to exploit and benefit from all those above us on the intellectual scale. A worker pushing a broom in a factory benefits from all those above him intellectually —the engineers, scientists, and the capitalists who make the factory possible. Workers exploit capitalists.[/quote]

Can you define exploitation?

You believe it is in your self interest to live in civil society, I understand. But you haven’t convinced me how you as an individual will bring about the collapse of society by committing a crime.

Sure, stealing a book from a bookstore might cause prices to go up, but the cost would be shared by others, and you would come out on top.

Crime pays. If it didn’t, there wouldn’t be any. “Rational beings” wouldn’t engage in it.

Yes, everyone engaging in crime means the end of civil society, but you as an individual cannot have more than a negligible impact.

30

[quote]Headhunter wrote:
Journeyman wrote:
I need no warrant for being, and no word of sanction upon my being. I am the warrant and the sanction.

Ayn Rand, Anthem

This can be the foundation for an ethical theory, but only one that is consistent with atheism. In what religion does one not have a warrant for being from their creator?

Ms. Rand was a thorough going atheist. Her argument is inherent in Kant, in that what you wish for others you simultaneously wish for yourself.

Her metaphysics was based upon the axiom that ‘Existence Exists’. You can’t argue that nothing exists. Therefore one’s job in life is to recognize that fact, accept it, and don’t try and evade it.

To exist means that you have a distinct nature, a definition. This is you. Because of that, you need no warrant for being. You exist. You are a fact. You have a nature, the rational animal, the animal that thinks using concepts.

[/quote]
I accept that as a logical foundation for ethics. I can also understand that religion provides a logical foundation for ethics. What I don’t accept are people that want to follow Ann Rand and also say that they are Christian. These world views seem strongly at odds with one another.

31

[quote]Gael wrote:
orion wrote:
Gael wrote:
If I am living only for myself, why do I have to respect the rights of others? What if living for myself entails conquering and enslaving everyone else?

Well, if you want to discuss it that way, pure egoism may lead to the enslavement of others, pure altruism must lead to the enslavement of others.

I do not think so. If you wind up enslaving others in your quest to achieve the greatest good/utility/happiness for everyone else, you have failed. You need a way of evaluating moral outcomes, and if respect for natural rights does not enter into this evaluation, then yes, you will wind up enslaving everyone else.

This can be avoided by assign sufficient value to respect for natural rights.

OK, so you want to preach egoism on the condition that natural rights are respected. My question for then, is how do you feel about altruism on the condition that it is applied with a respect for natural rights.

[/quote]

Did you not read Comtes´ quote?

There are no individual rights for him, you live to serve.

32

[quote]Journeyman wrote:
Headhunter wrote:
Journeyman wrote:
I need no warrant for being, and no word of sanction upon my being. I am the warrant and the sanction.

Ayn Rand, Anthem

This can be the foundation for an ethical theory, but only one that is consistent with atheism. In what religion does one not have a warrant for being from their creator?

Ms. Rand was a thorough going atheist. Her argument is inherent in Kant, in that what you wish for others you simultaneously wish for yourself.

Her metaphysics was based upon the axiom that ‘Existence Exists’. You can’t argue that nothing exists. Therefore one’s job in life is to recognize that fact, accept it, and don’t try and evade it.

To exist means that you have a distinct nature, a definition. This is you. Because of that, you need no warrant for being. You exist. You are a fact. You have a nature, the rational animal, the animal that thinks using concepts.

I accept that as a logical foundation for ethics. I can also understand that religion provides a logical foundation for ethics. What I don’t accept are people that want to follow Ann Rand and also say that they are Christian. These world views seem strongly at odds with one another.
[/quote]

Not really.

You are incited to care for your neighbor, but you have no right to make your neighbor care for his at gunpoint.

Where is the contradiction.

This “contradicton” does not really exist in real live either, because people who do not believe in forced redistribution of wealth give more to charity than those who do.

33

[quote]Gael wrote:
Yes, everyone engaging in crime means the end of civil society, but you as an individual cannot have more than a negligible impact.[/quote]

You mean, like that Madoff dude who ‘made off’ ;> with 50 billion of other peoples’ dollars?

What you’re pointing out is one of the critiques I have of Rand’s philosophy — what if an individual steals and has a grand life? A common morality means nothing to such an individual. Only insofar as each person recognizes the code do we have a civil society. A macro egoism suffers one of the same flaws as macro altruism — what if a group decides not to participate?

Only the absolute egoism of a radical individualist, where the morality applies only to that person, is a possible moral code. As Sartre would say: “Pick a morality and play it.”

This is one place where Nietzsche’s Ubermensch is superior to Rand’s ethical concepts.

34

[quote]orion wrote:
You are incited to care for your neighbor, but you have no right to make your neighbor care for his at gunpoint.

Where is the contradiction.

This “contradicton” does not really exist in real live either, because people who do not believe in forced redistribution of wealth give more to charity than those who do.
[/quote]
For most of us, taking something at gunpoint is selfish behavior. It just seems to me that we in in a Humpty-Dumpty world where selfishness is a virtue and altruism is denigrated as a vice. Can’t Rand just use words in the same way that the rest of us do?

35

But what is virtue? Not a virtue, but virtue itself. What is the common characteristic which makes something recognizable as a virtue? Yeah, I’m trying to read Menos, so what?

36

[quote]Sloth wrote:
But what is virtue? Not a virtue, but virtue itself. What is the common characteristic which makes something recognizable as a virtue? Yeah, I’m trying to read Menos, so what?[/quote]

I have been told that it must be based on selfishness, otherwise it’s not a virtue.

37

[quote]Journeyman wrote:
orion wrote:
You are incited to care for your neighbor, but you have no right to make your neighbor care for his at gunpoint.

Where is the contradiction.

This “contradicton” does not really exist in real live either, because people who do not believe in forced redistribution of wealth give more to charity than those who do.

For most of us, taking something at gunpoint is selfish behavior. It just seems to me that we in in a Humpty-Dumpty world where selfishness is a virtue and altruism is denigrated as a vice. Can’t Rand just use words in the same way that the rest of us do?
[/quote]

She used the words like Comte, the very inventor of the word “altruism”, meant them.

It seems that it is not her fault that

a) we use the word wrong and

b) it was and still is sold to us as compassion and altruism to rob Peter to pay Paul.

38

[quote]Journeyman wrote:
orion wrote:
You are incited to care for your neighbor, but you have no right to make your neighbor care for his at gunpoint.

Where is the contradiction.

This “contradicton” does not really exist in real live either, because people who do not believe in forced redistribution of wealth give more to charity than those who do.

For most of us, taking something at gunpoint is selfish behavior. It just seems to me that we in in a Humpty-Dumpty world where selfishness is a virtue and altruism is denigrated as a vice. Can’t Rand just use words in the same way that the rest of us do?
[/quote]

She used to agonize over ever word, every paragraph, in her work. She uses words exactly and correctly.

In her philosophy, to be selfish leads to the question: “What is my self?” If you answer ‘rational animal’, then an action is selfish only if your actions promote your welfare AS A RATIONAL ANIMAL. To steal, in her philosophy, decreases your rationality. You become a thug.

Hitler was the ultimate unselfish person. All of his actions required other selves, victims. A truly selfish man never wants or requires victims, as harming another rational animal makes you into an irrational animal (thug).

Rand is most definitely NOT someone you can read once or gloss over lightly in reading. You have to turn your brain on full power. Read Galt’s speech in Atlas Shrugged and if you really, really read it, you’ll be exhausted after the 3 or 4 days it took.

39

[quote]Headhunter wrote:
In her philosophy, to be selfish leads to the question: “What is my self?” [/quote]
Why not call this self-aware, or reflective?

[quote]If you answer ‘rational animal’, then an action is selfish only if your actions promote your welfare AS A RATIONAL ANIMAL. To steal, in her philosophy, decreases your rationality. You become a thug.
[/quote]
You must recognize that you are emotional as well as rational. I have heard a very perceptive marketing expert describe how SUVs sell because they appeal to our desire to dominate. He described everything in terms of ‘lizard brain’. Reason is insufficient to understand our humanity.

But rand states, “To live, man must hold three things as the supreme and ruling values of his life: Reason, Purpose, Self-esteem.” To me, this describes a cold life, I want to add love, lust, camaraderie and hope.

Bonobos have great empathy while chimpanzees do not. It is the empathic Bonobos that have the less violent society. Empathy, traditionally tied to altruism, seems to be tied to non-violent culture.

This is a fascinating idea, but it really is a Humpty-Dumpty definition of selfish. Anthropologist are finding that empathy is critical for civilization. Civilization is less the results of philosophy of self as it is the sharing of common goals. It is not the realization of self, but the realization that others are as significant as self, that is the foundation of civil behavior. This is the Golden Rule. Traditionally, this is called empathy.

40

[quote]Headhunter wrote:
In her philosophy, to be selfish leads to the question: “What is my self?” If you answer ‘rational animal’, then an action is selfish only if your actions promote your welfare AS A RATIONAL ANIMAL. To steal, in her philosophy, decreases your rationality. You become a thug.

Hitler was the ultimate unselfish person. All of his actions required other selves, victims. A truly selfish man never wants or requires victims, as harming another rational animal makes you into an irrational animal (thug).

Rand is most definitely NOT someone you can read once or gloss over lightly in reading. You have to turn your brain on full power. Read Galt’s speech in Atlas Shrugged and if you really, really read it, you’ll be exhausted after the 3 or 4 days it took.

[/quote]

Huh? Could you elaborate on this.
This seems to state that power seeking behavior is unselfish because it requires someone to have power over?

If I shot a 6 year old girl, fucked her anus and stole her lollipop that wouldnt be a selfish act as it required a victim? It seems its extremely selfish as it’s putting minor pleasures for the self above the well-being of another individual(to a very extreme degree). Or does the fact that I disregarded the consequences for the hypothetical actions make it irrational, and therefore unselfish? Thus stupidity=not selfishness?

Ok, then if I did the same thing, kidnapping her disquised as her parents as to not arouse immediate suspicion, taking her to a secret location with a furnace that heats up to 10,000 degrees fahrenheit to chuck the body into and dispose of the evidence, taking a decontaminaton bath to remove any of her DNA, and having completed said task, without any risk of retaliation, and in total secrecy, would it then be a selfish task?

What about exploding myself with the intent to blow up a bunch of people, expecting to receive access to 72 virgins upon completing said mission with my death? Maybe I am just not getting that selfishness presupposes rationality, and rationality presupposes not being a a gullible fucking moron.
Anyways, if you do have a response, please do so in a thorough manner. I am really trying to understand this viewpoint, or make sense of these ideas at least. The kind of “you are a dumbass, and you just dont get it” type remarks aren’t helpful if you just leave it at that, like Pushharder sometimes does. I don’t think you do, but I dont read the forums enough to be sure.