I received several comments to my QUORA answer to Is Ayn Rand wrong about altruism?
From Eddie Pilchard
She applied pure philosophy to human beings, and her experience of human beings was… unusual. Moreover, she had a circle of followers who, through an almost religious belief in her put her needs before their own in extremis, including a woman who willingly let her husband have a relationship with her. Sounds almost… altruistic..?
The definition she gives for altruism is a textbook one; but in reality few people live their lives entirely without regard for their own needs. Most altruism is in the form of altruistic acts not an entirely altruistic life. You may do something supremely kind at your expense without it being to such an extent you could be said to entirely put others first.
And that's my major issue with Rand: she didn't know real humans. Her experiences were of unusual and extreme circumstances, not of the average. And so she describes scenarios and personalities that are based on academic and false assumptions. As for the visions she paints, rather than a utopian idea of how the world might be they all share one thing: that in reality to live in her future world - if applied to people as they really are - would be just awful. [sic]
My reply:
Actually, Ed, I have found Rand’s thinking on this subject very relevant to real life (though not always her particular application to her life). It is up to each individual to apply philosophic principles to her/his own life, and one does not have to agree with every aspect of Rand’s (or other Objectivists’) individual choices to find value in Objectivist principles.
Rand sharply distinguished between altruism and rational benevolence/generosity. This has been very helpful in how judging and shaping relationships with others fits into my hierarchy of values.
It is true that “in reality few people live their lives entirely without regard for their own needs.” Altruism has its greatest, and most destructive, application in politics. Note that few people in their personal relationships would demand the sacrifice of others’ wealth or interests for their own needs or interests. But, when turning to politics, where the reality is more abstract, these same people often have no problem expecting the state to forcibly redistribute others’ wealth—hence, the spreading entitlement mentality and our runaway welfare state. Note the politicians’ incessant calls for sacrifice. Altruism, even when only part of an “average”, is a malignancy.
And yes, altruism does get and has been applied in its extreme. The utopian visions of communism and fascism are based on the complete subordination of the individual to “others”, with the state as the embodiment of the others, in the cause of some collectivist good, with real life devastating results. These atrocities cannot and have not been justified or implemented except by reference to the strict textbook definition of altruism, coupled with the explicit rejection of the individual’s rationally self-interested right to his own life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.
I have found Rand’s observations on altruism, and Objectivism more broadly, to be well-grounded in reality and a good guide to practical living.
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1 comment:
Did Ayn Rand apply "pure" philosophy, as in "pure" reason, to human beings? No. She applied philosophy induced from experience to human beings.
Perhaps some of her followers took her philosophy as "pure", as something given by the supernatural, so they took her as something like a god to whom they would sacrifice. Maybe they thought that, like a god, Ayn Rand bestowed upon them truths from the supernatural. Such followers learned nothing from her. That wasn't her fault.
Ayn Rand's definition of altruism covered Kant's description of it. So, she was defining something that is impossible for anybody to practice without deliberately giving up his life, as in going out of existence, about the same as suicide. Yes, that is a "pure" definition, of something that doesn't and can't exist and, so, can't be induced from experience. As such it can be practiced only to the extent of one's life's ability to tolerate it without being killed by the effort. It's just an arbitrary conjuring, from which nothing can even be deduced.
Ayn Rand knew that. She said so. She was showing how Kant, supposedly great philosopher, was actually a great sorcerer engaging in sleight of mind (not of hand), making worlds of incoherent noises and chicken scratches on paper which we're all supposed to take as sage and to actually try to practice.
People who try to think by applying their experience to indoctrinations of arbitrary conjuring are not thinking at all. When they DO think, by inducing from experience or by deducing from actual knowledge gained by induction, but never beyond distinct and narrowly limited things and not integrating them into a comprehensive whole, down to the philosophical fundamentals that they at least know of, they are reverting to the arbitrary conjuring they are familiar with.
I think Ayn Rand considered such people as not fully, but only partially, human. They are definitely Homo-sapiens, with the faculty of volition, but only partially human, in that they, overall, dispense with volition, meaning, with thought, leaving their minds hanging in mid-air, with only conjuring or nothing to address. I ask myself how uncommon this is everywhere.
In her novels, Ayn Rand described people who are fully human, as in her "ideal man", not partial. She called them pure, in the sense of their actual potential, which they fulfilled, not "pure" in the impossible sense of adhering fully to conjuring or to altruism which is the road to an unnatural death not consisting of accidents. She knew actual pure people in real life, in the sense of their actual potential. At least she said so, and I believe her. And she certainly knew plenty of partial, not fully human people. We all do.
Now, if we try to impose a requirement of either purity in the sense of actual potential or in the sense of adhering to conjuring, the result WOULD be an awful world, a world of totalitarian dictatorship, not of unalienable individual rights and capitalism. Our rights are not subject to vote. Unalienable individual rights must simply be put in place, period. Capitalism and peoples' best potential, their full humanity, will then come. No imposition of anything other than recognition and enforcement of unalienable individual rights is needed.
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