I know they are formally a closed loop belief system limited by the writings of Ayn Rand
Some of them are, and some of them are not. David Kelley is at least a leader of those who are not, and previously posted to LW to point out the error of this assumption.
Objectivism applied to the fulfillment of one’s desires
But Objectivism is not about fulfilling your desires, which Rand would consider “whim worshipping subjectivism”.
It is only by accepting “man’s life” as one’s primary and by pursuing the rational values it requires that one can achieve happiness—not by taking “happiness” as some undefined, irreducible primary and then attempting to live by its guidance.
I don’t understand why objectivists seem to be held in low regard here.
Many people believe in altruism and their feelings of self worth are based in it. Even those not particularly moved by it generally grant that it is moral. She condemns altruism as an evil in harsh, explicit, and effective terms. People are unaccustomed to that, and don’t like it. That makes her a natural object of hatred for altruists, as probably the most well known “egoist” philosopher, particularly in the US.
they were indistinguishable from those here, though much more focused on personal instrumental rationality in their topics.
Interesting. Not my experience. I’d say they are more focused on instrumental rationality here than in objectivist lists I’ve been on previously. Almost entirely theoretical, to the extent that I can recall. Maybe that was because it was the very early days of the internet, and people hadn’t gotten pontificating out of their systems yet.
She condemns altruism as an evil in harsh, explicit, and effective terms.
And she uses the original definition of altruism (approximately: reversed survival instinct), which most people don’t even know today.
Instead of blaming her, I would rather blame the people who use the word “altruism” as an applause light. Successful Dark Arts maneuver here -- 1) invent a new word describing something horrible, and say it is the best thing ever and all humans should do that; 2) wait for your opponents to publicly criticize the word; 3) change the definition of the word to something nice and pretend the original version never existed… now all your opponents look like horrible, evil people.
the original definition of altruism (approximately: reversed survival instinct), which most people don’t even know today
According to the Oxford English Dictionary (which is generally very trustworthy on such things),
the oldest meaning of the English word altruism is “disinterested or selfless concern for the well-being of others, esp. as a principle of action” (which seems to me to be more or less the standard meaning today);
the word is derived from French altruisme, coined by Auguste Comte in his “Positivist Catechism” (and the OED has a citation for the English word from the same year as that work was published).
In that work, Comte says of positivism “It is by its nature thoroughly altruistic, or unselfish” which seems to indicate that he takes altruism to mean something like “being concerned directly for others rather than only or primarily for oneself”—which is pretty much the standard present-day meaning.
Here’s a longer quotation from the same work of Comte; it doesn’t happen to use the word “altruism” but seems to me to make it clear that he isn’t calling for the abandonment of self-interest, never mind its outright reversal:
Only remark that unity in the altruistic sense does not, as the egoistic unity does, require the entire sacrifice to itself of the inclinations which are contrary to it in principle. All it asks is, that they shall be wisely subordinate
to the predominant affection. When it condenses the whole of sound morality in its law of Live for others, Positivism allows and consecrates the constant satisfaction of our several personal instincts. It considers such satisfaction indispensable to our natural existence, which is and always must be the foundation for all our higher attributes.
On what basis do you say that the original definition of altruism is “approximately: reversed survival instinct”?
Comte’s altruism went far beyond the conventional moral beliefs that we
should exercise benevolence and charity toward our fellow human beings.
Altruism, for Comte, was the absolute duty of humans to subordinate all
personal interests (other than eating and other rudimentary necessities of
physical survival) to the interests of others, and ultimately to “humanity”
as a whole.
[...]
Consider Comte’s reaction to the Golden Rule, which many philosophers had
cited as exemplifying the principle of justice, “Do to others as you would
be done unto.” This will not suffice as a guide to social interaction, Comte
argued, because it introduces “a purely personal calculation” and is
therefore inherently egoistic. Even what Comte called “the great Catholic
formula: Love your neighbor as yourself” retains the “stain of selfishness”
and is therefore inadequate. One should love one’s “neighbor” more than
oneself.
Only Comte’s doctrine of altruism, according to which we should “live for
others” exclusively—again, with the “sole limitation” of basic
life-sustaining activities, for only the living can live for others—can
satisfy “the definitive formula of human morality.” “Live for others” is
the “motto” of human beings at their highest stage of moral development. This
is why Comte condemned suicide; to kill oneself, say, to escape intolerable
pain is a selfish act that eliminates one’s potential service to humanity:
“For our life is less even than our fortune or any of our talents at our
arbitrary disposal, since it is more valuable to Humanity, from whom we hold
it.” There can, after all, be no self-sacrifice without a self to sacrifice.
According to Comte, love, not the desire for personal gain, should be “the
sole source of voluntary cooperation.” [...]
[...]
In appealing to happiness as the consequence of exercising our altruistic
sentiments, Comte might be accused of introducing an egoistic element into
his altruistic scheme, so he set the record straight. Although altruism is
the only possible source of true happiness, happiness may or may not result
from altruistic acts. In no case, however, should personal happiness be the
motive for altruistic acts. Whether or not we “gain” happiness from serving
humanity is irrelevant. To behave altruistically because we want to be
happy is to taint altruism with an egoistic motive; it is to degrade our
duty to serve humanity to the level of a selfish desire for personal
happiness.
[...]
[...] We are born loaded with obligations of every kind, to our
predecessors, to our successors, and to our contemporaries. Later they only
grow or accumulate before we can return any service. [...]
So, first of all, none of that indicates even slightly that “altruism” ever meant anything like “reversed survival instinct”. (Which, to me, implies an outright preference for death.)
Secondly, it is not necessarily right to assume that Comte intended “altruism” to mean “the entirety of what Positivism says people should think, feel and do”. It looks to me, from an admittedly cursory look at his book, as if he took “egoism” to mean “acting for oneself” or “caring about oneself” and “altruism” to mean “acting for others” or “caring about others”, and the key moral content of his quasi-religion was: “altruism should totally dominate over egoism”. If I’m right, this dominance is part of Positivism but not part of what he meant by “altruism”, and any action or attitude based on caring about others is “altruistic” in his sense even if the person involved cares a lot about himself too.
Assuming his summaries are accurate and his quotes are selected charitably,
Those don’t seem to me like safe assumptions.
Altruism, for Comte, was the absolute duty of humans to subordinate all personal interests (other than eating and other rudimentary necessities of physical survival) to the interests of others, and ultimately to “humanity” as a whole.
No, I don’t think it was. I do think Comte believed in something like that duty (though I think Smith is overstating it a little) but it doesn’t seem to me that that duty was what he meant by “altruism”.
Comte’s doctrine of altruism, according to which we should “live for others” exclusively
That isn’t (in my reading, at least) Comte’s meaning of “altruism”, merely one of his doctrines about altruism. And, further, I think “exclusively” is an exaggeration: see the passage I quoted above, which seems to me to be saying that although the welfare of humanity as a whole is the One True Ultimate Goal it’s necessary and proper for people to care about themselves because if they don’t they’ll end up being no use to the rest of humanity.
To summarize my position:
even taking Smith’s not-necessarily-quite-fair summary of Comte at face value and assuming that Comte meant “altruism” to encompass everything he taught about “living for others”, that still doesn’t make the meaning anything like “reversed survival instinct”
Smith’s not-necessarily-quite-fair summary is not necessarily quite fair, and Comte’s position wasn’t quite as extreme as Smith would have us believe
Comte didn’t intend “altruism” to be another word for “how Positivism says we ought to live”, but to be one of two kinds of motivation (egoism, caring for oneself; altruism, caring for others) about which Positivism then made a further claim (altruism should dominate over egoism)
the meaning of “altruism” in ordinary English, aside from technical discussions of Comte’s writings, never seems to have been much like “living for others and not caring at all about oneself” (never mind “reversed survival instinct”)
and it seems to me that even Comte’s meaning is actually pretty close to what “altruism” usually means today, even though he believed things about it that few other people do.
the meaning of “altruism” in ordinary English, aside from technical discussions of Comte’s writings, never seems to have been much like “living for others and not caring at all about oneself”
I disagree. Altruism is almost always put in opposition to egoism. If you care about your family because you love them, and put their needs above the needs of others, that’s less altruistic than putting the needs of another family over the needs of your own.
I think Rand is correct on the current usage. One is altruistic to the extent that one sacrifices your own interests to the interests of others.
You can always leave yourself an out with “at all about yourself”. Yes, even most people who praise altruism will allow you a moment to do something for your own happiness. How generous they are! But you are praised to the extent you sacrifice your own happiness for the sake of others, and condemned to the extent that you don’t. It’s not how much happiness you produce in others, it’s how much happiness it costs you that matters. If you do exactly as you please but thereby still make millions happier, you are not an altruist by the usual calculations.
Altruism is almost always put in opposition to egoism.
If you think that contradicts what I was saying, then I fear you have misunderstood my point. Altruism is (according to what I think was Comte’s usage) the opposite of egoism in the same way as loving is the opposite of hating: they point in opposite directions but the same person can do both—even, in unusual cases, both at once.
A single action will rarely be both altruistic and egoistic, just as a single action is rarely both loving and hating. But “altruism” doesn’t mean “never thinking about your own interests” any more than “loving” means “never hating anyone”. A typical person will be altruistic sometimes and egoistic sometimes; a typical person will sometimes be moved by love and sometimes by hate.
But you are praised [...] and condemned [...]
There are probably people who hold that everyone should be as completely altruistic and non-egoistic as possible. Perhaps Auguste Comte was one of them. That’s an entirely separate question from whether “altruism” implies the total absence of egoism; still more is it separate from whether “altruism” means anything like “reversed survival instinct”, which you might recall is the claim I was originally arguing against and which no one seems at all inclined to defend so far.
It’s not how much happiness you produce in others, it’s how much happiness it costs you that matters.
There may be people who believe that, but it certainly isn’t part of the meaning of “altruism”. And the example you give doesn’t support that very strong claim. If you do something with the purpose of making millions happier and not out of considering your own welfare then (at least in my book) that is an altruistic action whether it happens to help you or harm you. If people are reluctant to apply the term “altruistic” to actions that benefit the agent, I suggest that’s just because it’s hard to be sure something was done for the sake of others when self-interest is a credible alternative explanation.
Altruism is (according to what I think was Comte’s usage) the opposite of egoism in the same way as loving is the opposite of hating:
Bad analogy. Loving and hating are different emotions with different qualities, while egoism and altruism are different in the objects of their intent, not the quality of the intent. The intent is to serve the interests of the object—whose interests are to be served is what is at issue. Basically, it’s whose love matters to you, your own, or the other guys?
And your continued disavowal of absolute Altruism as the meaning of Altruism is self contradictory—Altruism is what it is, and allowing people to be less than 100% does not change the quality that we’re measuring in percentages.
More altruistic means more willing to sacrifice your interests for the interests of others. It’s the balance of the trade off that matters. The more you lose, the more altruistic you are. The smaller the gain to others for what you lose, the more altruistic you are. The more you hate the beneficiary, the more altruistic you are. It’s the ratio of marginal cost to yourself (including actually caring for the beneficiary) versus marginal benefit to the beneficiary.
Of course, one should not just waste value inefficiently, destroying your own values to jack up the cost to yourself, or minimizing the value you create for others to minimize the benefit to others. But as you maximize net total weighted utils, it’s the relative weight you assign to your utils and their utils that matters.
But I admittedly said this poorly
It’s not how much happiness you produce in others, it’s how much happiness it costs you that matters.
I was just trying to get at the issue of the trade off here. Setting myself on fire willy nilly is not necessarily altruistic, it’s only altruistic if it’s done as an intended and efficient tradeoff for the benefit of others.
If you do something with the purpose of making millions happier and not out of considering your own welfare then (at least in my book) that is an altruistic action whether it happens to help you or harm you.
I wrote:
If you do exactly as you please but thereby still make millions happier, you are not an altruist by the usual calculations.
You’ve changed the scenario. In mine, You did exactly as you pleased and it happened to make others happier. You changed it to “with the purpose of making millions happier”. That was not the purpose. Satisfying yourself was the purpose.
So, in my scenario, are you altruistic according to you, or not?
I don’t see why. I was trying to point out a feature of the logical structure. If the difference between love/hate and egoism/altruism that you point out invalidates that, I’m not currently seeing why.
your continued disavowal of absolute Altruism as the meaning of Altruism is self contradictory
If (as I think is the case) your objection is simply that generally optimizing for one thing gets you suboptimal results by any other standard, so that e.g. if you optimize for others’ wellbeing then usually you end up worse off yourself, then of course I agree with that.
We seem to be agreed that (1) whatever the exact definition of “altruism”, it is possible to say coherently that a person, or an individual action, is somewhat altruistic and somewhat egoistic, and (2) altruism doesn’t mean actively preferring worse outcomes for oneself. In which case, I think we are in fact agreed about everything I was trying to say.
You’ve changed the scenario.
Yes; that was the whole point. Your scenario was relevant to the question “is altruism about intentions or about outcomes?”, but we never had any disagreement about that; of course it’s about intentions. I was aiming at the question “is altruism about acting for others or about suppressing one’s own interests?”. Though I’m not sure my scenario actually addresses that very well, and I suspect it’s almost impossible to give clear-cut examples of. (Because in most circumstances there’s no observable difference between the results of caring more for others, and those of caring less for oneself.)
As I maintained, a crucial part of altruism is the trade off between your interests and the interests of others. The more you’ve sacrificed of your interests to others, the more altruistic you are. If nothing else, there is always an opportunity cost associated with pursuing the interests of others over yourself.
I think we may be at cross purposes about #2, but there’s a related point I want to attend to first.
You have made a few times an argument that I’ll paraphrase thus: “If A is willing to sacrifice more of his own interests than B is for a given amount of gain for others, then A is more altruistic than B. Therefore altruism is all about how much you hurt yourself, not how much you help others”.
This argument addresses the question of what counts as being more altruistic, but not the question of at what point altruism begins. And that (purely terminological) question matters in this discussion, for the following reason. Objectivists, so I understand, say that altruism is a Bad Thing. But depending on where one draws that terminological line that could mean anything from “making huge personal sacrifices in exchange for tiny gains to others is a Bad Thing” to “making tiny personal sacrifices in exchange for huge gains to others is a Bad Thing”. You’ll get a lot more agreement with the first of those than with the second.
So. Suppose I’m considering my own welfare and that of some other person or people similar enough to me that we can compare utilities meaningfully between persons. (At least for the tradeoffs under consideration here.) For each of the following, (a) would you consider it altruistic, (b) would you approve, and (c) would you expect Ayn Rand to have approved?
I choose (X+10 utils for others, Y-1 utils for me) over (X for others, Y for me).
I choose (X+1.1 for others, Y-1 for me) over (X for others, Y for me).
I choose (X+1 for others, Y-1.1 for me) over (X for others, Y for me).
I choose (X+1 utils for others, Y-10 for me) over (X for others, Y for me).
My own answer: I would consider all of those altruistic, because in every case my motivation seems clearly to be benefit to others. I would certainly approve of #1, would want to look at the rest of the context for #2 and #3, and would think #4 usually a stupid thing to do. My impression is that Ayn Rand would have disapproved heartily of all four, but I am not an Ayn Rand expert.
Now, back to your argument. If the only point it seeks to make is that generally different people’s interests aren’t perfectly aligned and therefore caring more about others will lead to getting less benefits for oneself, then of course I agree and indeed I’ve already said so. But if you’re making the stronger claim expressed in my paraphrase then I disagree. The statement “A is more altruistic if he’s willing to accept more personal loss for a given gain to others” is exactly equivalent to “A is more altruistic if he’s willing to accept less gain to others for a given personal loss”, and if the first of these shows that altruism is all about embracing personal loss then the second shows that it’s all about seeking gain for others.
And, finally, back to issue 2 from the parent and grandparent comments. “Actively preferring worse outcomes for oneself” can mean two things, and I think you’ve taken a different meaning from the one I intended. What I meant by #2 was that altruism doesn’t mean actually preferring, other things equal, worse outcomes for oneself. Of course it does mean being prepared to accept, in some cases, worse outcomes for oneself in exchange for better outcomes for others.
I like books. I buy quite a lot of them. They cost money, and as a result I have less money than if I bought fewer books. That doesn’t mean I actively prefer having less money; it means that in some cases I value a book more than the money it costs me.
I care about other people. Sometimes I do things to help them. That costs money or time or opportunity to benefit myself in other ways, and as a result I am sometimes worse off personally than I’d be if I didn’t care about other people. That doesn’t mean I actively prefer worse outcomes for myself; it means that in some cases I value a benefit to others more than what it costs me.
Does the Objectivist objection to “altruism”, as you understand it, extend to all instances of the schema in the foregoing paragraph? That is, does it advise me never to let any benefit to others, however great, outweigh any loss to myself, however small?
Objectivists, so I understand, say that altruism is a Bad Thing.
The analysis of Objectivism is further complicated by Rand’s act essentialism. As I would characterize her view, it’s the principle of the act, the intent of a policy involved, not the particular consequences that matter.
Just as life wasn’t your living and breathing, but life “qua man”, altruism for her would be an intended policy of sacrificing your values for the values of others, which is just what Comtean altruists suggest as the moral policy.
I care about other people.
Per Rand, your feelings are not the standard of morality. Acting because you feel like it is “whim worshiping subjectivism”, per Rand. Me, I’m a whim worshiping subjectivist, so if you care about people and want to help them, great, knock yourself out. Where I part company with most altruists is on the belief in a duty to be altruistic. I don’t condemn people who aren’t altruistic, but instead have other values they wish to pursue, as long as they aren’t infringing on what I consider to be the rights of others.
Does the Objectivist objection to “altruism”, as you understand it, extend to all instances of the schema in the foregoing paragraph?
You have a prior problem with Rand here. You have not defined a moral code based on principles, but are making ad hoc evaluations of preference. You unprincipled, whim worshiping subjectivist, you.
That is, does it advise me never to let any benefit to others, however great, outweigh any loss to myself, however small?
You’re analyzing in a different schema than she does. You’re analyzing the particular concrete, while she analyzes the “essentials” of the act. The practical answer is no. Sometimes the correct moral code will seem to be a sacrifice of your interests to others in a particular situation. For example, she would be against stealing even when you’re “sure” you will get away with it.
But if your intent is to sacrifice your values to the values of others, if that is the standard by which you judge the morality of the act, then you’re acting on the basis of an evil moral code.
Per Rand, your feelings are not the standard of morality.
I wasn’t suggesting that they are. Per Rand, my feelings are the standard of whether I’m being “altruistic” or not, and my question was about that.
You have a prior problem [...] You have not defined a moral code based on principles, but are making ad hoc evaluations of preference.
I don’t see how you infer from what I wrote that I “have not defined a moral code based on principles”.
if your intent is to sacrifice your values to the values of others, if that is the standard by which you judge [...]
It seems obvious to me (perhaps this makes me a whim-worshipping subjectivist) that neither “always sacrifice your interests to those of others” nor “always sacrifice your interests to those of others” is remotely a sane policy. (I’ve put “interests” in place of your “values” because I don’t think anyone’s really talking about sacrificing values.)
Suppose I propose the following policy: “Consider your own interests and those of others as of equal weight”. Does Rand, and do Objectivists generally, consider that policy “evil”?
What about “Consider your own interests as weighing, so far as one can quantify them, 100x more than those of strangers and some intermediate amount for family, friends, etc.”? Note that living according to this policy will sometimes lead you to act in a way that furthers your own interests less than you could have done in favour of the interests of others; even of strangers.
And she uses the original definition of altruism (approximately: reversed survival instinct),
I don’t think that’s the definiction she gives, although given the sum of her beliefs, you could say that. Reversed “interests” instinct seems about right. It’s about who is the intended beneficiary of the action—if it’s them, it’s a good action, and if it’s you, it’s a bad action. Now you put that together with life as your fundamental interest, and you could say “reversed survival instinct”, but I think that conveys a too narrow concept for most people.
Altruism as the desire to help others is fine and dandy. But who means that by altruism?
Uhm, almost everone?
I am not sure, because people typically don’t provide their definitions of words like “altruism” when they use them. They assume that everyone knows exactly what it means, and if you ask for a definition, that seems like trolling.
Everyone seems to mean that slave morality which states that working for the happiness of others is good, and working for your own happiness is evil.
That too, actually. Perhaps the word is usually used to mean a set of this all. You know, the wider the meaning, the greater the chance that at least some part of it can be defended successfully in a debate.
They assume that everyone knows exactly what it means,
Most importantly, themselves.
and if you ask for a definition, that seems like trolling.
Yes. If you suggest they’re conceptually muddled, instead of attempting to demonstrate their conceptual clarity, which should be trivial to do if they have it, they will get huffy and declare you a troll.
That too, actually. Perhaps the word is usually used to mean a set of this all. You know, the wider the meaning, the greater the chance that at least some part of it can be defended successfully in a debate.
That’s the true Dark Art. Endlessly equivocate on the meaning of your terms. It’s so dark, you can manipulate yourself into believing that you know what you’re talking about. See Rand and “life” for details.
Some of them are, and some of them are not. David Kelley is at least a leader of those who are not, and previously posted to LW to point out the error of this assumption.
http://lesswrong.com/lw/m1/guardians_of_ayn_rand/h16
But Objectivism is not about fulfilling your desires, which Rand would consider “whim worshipping subjectivism”.
Many people believe in altruism and their feelings of self worth are based in it. Even those not particularly moved by it generally grant that it is moral. She condemns altruism as an evil in harsh, explicit, and effective terms. People are unaccustomed to that, and don’t like it. That makes her a natural object of hatred for altruists, as probably the most well known “egoist” philosopher, particularly in the US.
Interesting. Not my experience. I’d say they are more focused on instrumental rationality here than in objectivist lists I’ve been on previously. Almost entirely theoretical, to the extent that I can recall. Maybe that was because it was the very early days of the internet, and people hadn’t gotten pontificating out of their systems yet.
And she uses the original definition of altruism (approximately: reversed survival instinct), which most people don’t even know today.
Instead of blaming her, I would rather blame the people who use the word “altruism” as an applause light. Successful Dark Arts maneuver here -- 1) invent a new word describing something horrible, and say it is the best thing ever and all humans should do that; 2) wait for your opponents to publicly criticize the word; 3) change the definition of the word to something nice and pretend the original version never existed… now all your opponents look like horrible, evil people.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary (which is generally very trustworthy on such things),
the oldest meaning of the English word altruism is “disinterested or selfless concern for the well-being of others, esp. as a principle of action” (which seems to me to be more or less the standard meaning today);
the word is derived from French altruisme, coined by Auguste Comte in his “Positivist Catechism” (and the OED has a citation for the English word from the same year as that work was published).
In that work, Comte says of positivism “It is by its nature thoroughly altruistic, or unselfish” which seems to indicate that he takes altruism to mean something like “being concerned directly for others rather than only or primarily for oneself”—which is pretty much the standard present-day meaning.
Here’s a longer quotation from the same work of Comte; it doesn’t happen to use the word “altruism” but seems to me to make it clear that he isn’t calling for the abandonment of self-interest, never mind its outright reversal:
On what basis do you say that the original definition of altruism is “approximately: reversed survival instinct”?
George H. Smith talks about what Comte meant by altruism here. Excerpts below. Assuming his summaries are accurate and his quotes are selected charitably, this is not what most people mean nowadays by altruism.
So, first of all, none of that indicates even slightly that “altruism” ever meant anything like “reversed survival instinct”. (Which, to me, implies an outright preference for death.)
Secondly, it is not necessarily right to assume that Comte intended “altruism” to mean “the entirety of what Positivism says people should think, feel and do”. It looks to me, from an admittedly cursory look at his book, as if he took “egoism” to mean “acting for oneself” or “caring about oneself” and “altruism” to mean “acting for others” or “caring about others”, and the key moral content of his quasi-religion was: “altruism should totally dominate over egoism”. If I’m right, this dominance is part of Positivism but not part of what he meant by “altruism”, and any action or attitude based on caring about others is “altruistic” in his sense even if the person involved cares a lot about himself too.
Those don’t seem to me like safe assumptions.
No, I don’t think it was. I do think Comte believed in something like that duty (though I think Smith is overstating it a little) but it doesn’t seem to me that that duty was what he meant by “altruism”.
That isn’t (in my reading, at least) Comte’s meaning of “altruism”, merely one of his doctrines about altruism. And, further, I think “exclusively” is an exaggeration: see the passage I quoted above, which seems to me to be saying that although the welfare of humanity as a whole is the One True Ultimate Goal it’s necessary and proper for people to care about themselves because if they don’t they’ll end up being no use to the rest of humanity.
To summarize my position:
even taking Smith’s not-necessarily-quite-fair summary of Comte at face value and assuming that Comte meant “altruism” to encompass everything he taught about “living for others”, that still doesn’t make the meaning anything like “reversed survival instinct”
Smith’s not-necessarily-quite-fair summary is not necessarily quite fair, and Comte’s position wasn’t quite as extreme as Smith would have us believe
Comte didn’t intend “altruism” to be another word for “how Positivism says we ought to live”, but to be one of two kinds of motivation (egoism, caring for oneself; altruism, caring for others) about which Positivism then made a further claim (altruism should dominate over egoism)
the meaning of “altruism” in ordinary English, aside from technical discussions of Comte’s writings, never seems to have been much like “living for others and not caring at all about oneself” (never mind “reversed survival instinct”)
and it seems to me that even Comte’s meaning is actually pretty close to what “altruism” usually means today, even though he believed things about it that few other people do.
[EDITED to fix formatting]
I disagree. Altruism is almost always put in opposition to egoism. If you care about your family because you love them, and put their needs above the needs of others, that’s less altruistic than putting the needs of another family over the needs of your own.
I think Rand is correct on the current usage. One is altruistic to the extent that one sacrifices your own interests to the interests of others.
You can always leave yourself an out with “at all about yourself”. Yes, even most people who praise altruism will allow you a moment to do something for your own happiness. How generous they are! But you are praised to the extent you sacrifice your own happiness for the sake of others, and condemned to the extent that you don’t. It’s not how much happiness you produce in others, it’s how much happiness it costs you that matters. If you do exactly as you please but thereby still make millions happier, you are not an altruist by the usual calculations.
If you think that contradicts what I was saying, then I fear you have misunderstood my point. Altruism is (according to what I think was Comte’s usage) the opposite of egoism in the same way as loving is the opposite of hating: they point in opposite directions but the same person can do both—even, in unusual cases, both at once.
A single action will rarely be both altruistic and egoistic, just as a single action is rarely both loving and hating. But “altruism” doesn’t mean “never thinking about your own interests” any more than “loving” means “never hating anyone”. A typical person will be altruistic sometimes and egoistic sometimes; a typical person will sometimes be moved by love and sometimes by hate.
There are probably people who hold that everyone should be as completely altruistic and non-egoistic as possible. Perhaps Auguste Comte was one of them. That’s an entirely separate question from whether “altruism” implies the total absence of egoism; still more is it separate from whether “altruism” means anything like “reversed survival instinct”, which you might recall is the claim I was originally arguing against and which no one seems at all inclined to defend so far.
There may be people who believe that, but it certainly isn’t part of the meaning of “altruism”. And the example you give doesn’t support that very strong claim. If you do something with the purpose of making millions happier and not out of considering your own welfare then (at least in my book) that is an altruistic action whether it happens to help you or harm you. If people are reluctant to apply the term “altruistic” to actions that benefit the agent, I suggest that’s just because it’s hard to be sure something was done for the sake of others when self-interest is a credible alternative explanation.
Bad analogy. Loving and hating are different emotions with different qualities, while egoism and altruism are different in the objects of their intent, not the quality of the intent. The intent is to serve the interests of the object—whose interests are to be served is what is at issue. Basically, it’s whose love matters to you, your own, or the other guys?
And your continued disavowal of absolute Altruism as the meaning of Altruism is self contradictory—Altruism is what it is, and allowing people to be less than 100% does not change the quality that we’re measuring in percentages.
More altruistic means more willing to sacrifice your interests for the interests of others. It’s the balance of the trade off that matters. The more you lose, the more altruistic you are. The smaller the gain to others for what you lose, the more altruistic you are. The more you hate the beneficiary, the more altruistic you are. It’s the ratio of marginal cost to yourself (including actually caring for the beneficiary) versus marginal benefit to the beneficiary.
Of course, one should not just waste value inefficiently, destroying your own values to jack up the cost to yourself, or minimizing the value you create for others to minimize the benefit to others. But as you maximize net total weighted utils, it’s the relative weight you assign to your utils and their utils that matters.
But I admittedly said this poorly
I was just trying to get at the issue of the trade off here. Setting myself on fire willy nilly is not necessarily altruistic, it’s only altruistic if it’s done as an intended and efficient tradeoff for the benefit of others.
I wrote:
You’ve changed the scenario. In mine, You did exactly as you pleased and it happened to make others happier. You changed it to “with the purpose of making millions happier”. That was not the purpose. Satisfying yourself was the purpose.
So, in my scenario, are you altruistic according to you, or not?
I don’t see why. I was trying to point out a feature of the logical structure. If the difference between love/hate and egoism/altruism that you point out invalidates that, I’m not currently seeing why.
If (as I think is the case) your objection is simply that generally optimizing for one thing gets you suboptimal results by any other standard, so that e.g. if you optimize for others’ wellbeing then usually you end up worse off yourself, then of course I agree with that.
We seem to be agreed that (1) whatever the exact definition of “altruism”, it is possible to say coherently that a person, or an individual action, is somewhat altruistic and somewhat egoistic, and (2) altruism doesn’t mean actively preferring worse outcomes for oneself. In which case, I think we are in fact agreed about everything I was trying to say.
Yes; that was the whole point. Your scenario was relevant to the question “is altruism about intentions or about outcomes?”, but we never had any disagreement about that; of course it’s about intentions. I was aiming at the question “is altruism about acting for others or about suppressing one’s own interests?”. Though I’m not sure my scenario actually addresses that very well, and I suspect it’s almost impossible to give clear-cut examples of. (Because in most circumstances there’s no observable difference between the results of caring more for others, and those of caring less for oneself.)
We’re agreed on 1 but not on 2.
As I maintained, a crucial part of altruism is the trade off between your interests and the interests of others. The more you’ve sacrificed of your interests to others, the more altruistic you are. If nothing else, there is always an opportunity cost associated with pursuing the interests of others over yourself.
I think we may be at cross purposes about #2, but there’s a related point I want to attend to first.
You have made a few times an argument that I’ll paraphrase thus: “If A is willing to sacrifice more of his own interests than B is for a given amount of gain for others, then A is more altruistic than B. Therefore altruism is all about how much you hurt yourself, not how much you help others”.
This argument addresses the question of what counts as being more altruistic, but not the question of at what point altruism begins. And that (purely terminological) question matters in this discussion, for the following reason. Objectivists, so I understand, say that altruism is a Bad Thing. But depending on where one draws that terminological line that could mean anything from “making huge personal sacrifices in exchange for tiny gains to others is a Bad Thing” to “making tiny personal sacrifices in exchange for huge gains to others is a Bad Thing”. You’ll get a lot more agreement with the first of those than with the second.
So. Suppose I’m considering my own welfare and that of some other person or people similar enough to me that we can compare utilities meaningfully between persons. (At least for the tradeoffs under consideration here.) For each of the following, (a) would you consider it altruistic, (b) would you approve, and (c) would you expect Ayn Rand to have approved?
I choose (X+10 utils for others, Y-1 utils for me) over (X for others, Y for me).
I choose (X+1.1 for others, Y-1 for me) over (X for others, Y for me).
I choose (X+1 for others, Y-1.1 for me) over (X for others, Y for me).
I choose (X+1 utils for others, Y-10 for me) over (X for others, Y for me).
My own answer: I would consider all of those altruistic, because in every case my motivation seems clearly to be benefit to others. I would certainly approve of #1, would want to look at the rest of the context for #2 and #3, and would think #4 usually a stupid thing to do. My impression is that Ayn Rand would have disapproved heartily of all four, but I am not an Ayn Rand expert.
Now, back to your argument. If the only point it seeks to make is that generally different people’s interests aren’t perfectly aligned and therefore caring more about others will lead to getting less benefits for oneself, then of course I agree and indeed I’ve already said so. But if you’re making the stronger claim expressed in my paraphrase then I disagree. The statement “A is more altruistic if he’s willing to accept more personal loss for a given gain to others” is exactly equivalent to “A is more altruistic if he’s willing to accept less gain to others for a given personal loss”, and if the first of these shows that altruism is all about embracing personal loss then the second shows that it’s all about seeking gain for others.
And, finally, back to issue 2 from the parent and grandparent comments. “Actively preferring worse outcomes for oneself” can mean two things, and I think you’ve taken a different meaning from the one I intended. What I meant by #2 was that altruism doesn’t mean actually preferring, other things equal, worse outcomes for oneself. Of course it does mean being prepared to accept, in some cases, worse outcomes for oneself in exchange for better outcomes for others.
I like books. I buy quite a lot of them. They cost money, and as a result I have less money than if I bought fewer books. That doesn’t mean I actively prefer having less money; it means that in some cases I value a book more than the money it costs me.
I care about other people. Sometimes I do things to help them. That costs money or time or opportunity to benefit myself in other ways, and as a result I am sometimes worse off personally than I’d be if I didn’t care about other people. That doesn’t mean I actively prefer worse outcomes for myself; it means that in some cases I value a benefit to others more than what it costs me.
Does the Objectivist objection to “altruism”, as you understand it, extend to all instances of the schema in the foregoing paragraph? That is, does it advise me never to let any benefit to others, however great, outweigh any loss to myself, however small?
The analysis of Objectivism is further complicated by Rand’s act essentialism. As I would characterize her view, it’s the principle of the act, the intent of a policy involved, not the particular consequences that matter.
Just as life wasn’t your living and breathing, but life “qua man”, altruism for her would be an intended policy of sacrificing your values for the values of others, which is just what Comtean altruists suggest as the moral policy.
Per Rand, your feelings are not the standard of morality. Acting because you feel like it is “whim worshiping subjectivism”, per Rand. Me, I’m a whim worshiping subjectivist, so if you care about people and want to help them, great, knock yourself out. Where I part company with most altruists is on the belief in a duty to be altruistic. I don’t condemn people who aren’t altruistic, but instead have other values they wish to pursue, as long as they aren’t infringing on what I consider to be the rights of others.
You have a prior problem with Rand here. You have not defined a moral code based on principles, but are making ad hoc evaluations of preference. You unprincipled, whim worshiping subjectivist, you.
You’re analyzing in a different schema than she does. You’re analyzing the particular concrete, while she analyzes the “essentials” of the act. The practical answer is no. Sometimes the correct moral code will seem to be a sacrifice of your interests to others in a particular situation. For example, she would be against stealing even when you’re “sure” you will get away with it.
But if your intent is to sacrifice your values to the values of others, if that is the standard by which you judge the morality of the act, then you’re acting on the basis of an evil moral code.
I wasn’t suggesting that they are. Per Rand, my feelings are the standard of whether I’m being “altruistic” or not, and my question was about that.
I don’t see how you infer from what I wrote that I “have not defined a moral code based on principles”.
It seems obvious to me (perhaps this makes me a whim-worshipping subjectivist) that neither “always sacrifice your interests to those of others” nor “always sacrifice your interests to those of others” is remotely a sane policy. (I’ve put “interests” in place of your “values” because I don’t think anyone’s really talking about sacrificing values.)
Suppose I propose the following policy: “Consider your own interests and those of others as of equal weight”. Does Rand, and do Objectivists generally, consider that policy “evil”?
What about “Consider your own interests as weighing, so far as one can quantify them, 100x more than those of strangers and some intermediate amount for family, friends, etc.”? Note that living according to this policy will sometimes lead you to act in a way that furthers your own interests less than you could have done in favour of the interests of others; even of strangers.
I don’t think that’s the definiction she gives, although given the sum of her beliefs, you could say that. Reversed “interests” instinct seems about right. It’s about who is the intended beneficiary of the action—if it’s them, it’s a good action, and if it’s you, it’s a bad action. Now you put that together with life as your fundamental interest, and you could say “reversed survival instinct”, but I think that conveys a too narrow concept for most people.
Have they redefined altruism it to something nice when I wasn’t looking?
Altruism as the desire to help others is fine and dandy. But who means that by altruism?
Everyone seems to mean that slave morality which states that working for the happiness of others is good, and working for your own happiness is evil.
Uhm, almost everone?
I am not sure, because people typically don’t provide their definitions of words like “altruism” when they use them. They assume that everyone knows exactly what it means, and if you ask for a definition, that seems like trolling.
That too, actually. Perhaps the word is usually used to mean a set of this all. You know, the wider the meaning, the greater the chance that at least some part of it can be defended successfully in a debate.
(Anti-epistemology as usual: oppose “tabooing” words, and only use narrow definitions for the things you don’t like.)
Most importantly, themselves.
Yes. If you suggest they’re conceptually muddled, instead of attempting to demonstrate their conceptual clarity, which should be trivial to do if they have it, they will get huffy and declare you a troll.
That’s the true Dark Art. Endlessly equivocate on the meaning of your terms. It’s so dark, you can manipulate yourself into believing that you know what you’re talking about. See Rand and “life” for details.