she’s using the words “selfishness” and “altruism” in her own idiosyncratic ideological sense that doesn’t match how most people would use those words.
I think the word “altruism” was defined by A.Comte in the way Rand uses it. (In the dark sense, where the altruism is measured by how much you hurt yourself, and where helping others because you enjoy helping is dismissed as insufficiently noble.) And then most people started using “altruism” as a synonym for helping others. So now, when you discuss philosophy, you are stuck in a motte-and-bailey situation.
Hank Rearden rearranges his production schedule (at a critical time when he could scarcely afford to do so) in order to sell steel to a Mr. Ward, who needs the steel to save his family business (but doesn’t see Rearden as obligated to help him). Rearden’s motive is pure benevolence: “It’s so much for him, thought Rearden, and so little for me!”
This makes mathematical sense from the perspective of utility function. I am not a psychopath, so the well-being and suffering of other people is included in my utility function.
From that perspective, I could call helping others a “selfish” action, because it is my utility function that I am increasing (and also their utility functions, but that is coincidental). So it’s just a question of how much something increases my utility function, and how much does it cost me. Watching you eat a cake increases my utility function less than if I ate that cake myself in the same situation, but it increases it by a non-zero amount nonetheless. So if the cake is cheap, it makes perfect “selfish” sense to give it to you. Even if the cake is quite expensive, but you are e.g. starving and it saves your life. Or if you provide value for me, either by mutually beneficial interaction, or by writing articles that I enjoy, then giving you the cake is an investment in that value.
In other words, the difference between “the world where Mr. Ward’s family business survives” and “the world where it does not” is greater—from the perspective of Rearden’s utility function—than the expected costs of rearranging his production schedule. A perfectly “selfish” reason to help, even at a cost to yourself.
The villains want to wield power by means of psychological manipulation, guilt-tripping and blackmailing the people who can do good work into serving their own parasites and destroyers.
Sometimes the libertarian(?) ethics is simplified as “do not initiate force or fraud against others”, and I think the thing that Rand tries so hard to explain is how this psychological manipulation is a form of fraud; less direct but not less harmful than usual fraud, because it is often greater in scope. By giving you a fake coin, I can steal a limited amount of product from you; by giving you a fake philosophy, I can redirect your entire life’s effort into something useless or harmful—and yet the former is clearly recognized as a crime, but the latter is not.
Furthermore, I know that “winning” a debate via sophistry and rhetorical tricks obviously “doesn’t count.” Maybe I could fool an undiscriminating audience, but I would know it wasn’t real.
Yes, but maybe you underestimate your ability to fool yourself. Of course, if you know that X is false, but you convince other people about X, your victory will feel empty. But if you could cleverly prevent yourself from finding out that X is false...
I guess the accusation is not that you are lying, but that you are engaging in behaviors that minimize your chances of figuring out when you are wrong. Which is a way to have undeserved victories without them feeling hollow.
I think the word “altruism” was defined by A.Comte in the way Rand uses it. (In the dark sense, where the altruism is measured by how much you hurt yourself, and where helping others because you enjoy helping is dismissed as insufficiently noble.) And then most people started using “altruism” as a synonym for helping others. So now, when you discuss philosophy, you are stuck in a motte-and-bailey situation.
This makes mathematical sense from the perspective of utility function. I am not a psychopath, so the well-being and suffering of other people is included in my utility function.
From that perspective, I could call helping others a “selfish” action, because it is my utility function that I am increasing (and also their utility functions, but that is coincidental). So it’s just a question of how much something increases my utility function, and how much does it cost me. Watching you eat a cake increases my utility function less than if I ate that cake myself in the same situation, but it increases it by a non-zero amount nonetheless. So if the cake is cheap, it makes perfect “selfish” sense to give it to you. Even if the cake is quite expensive, but you are e.g. starving and it saves your life. Or if you provide value for me, either by mutually beneficial interaction, or by writing articles that I enjoy, then giving you the cake is an investment in that value.
In other words, the difference between “the world where Mr. Ward’s family business survives” and “the world where it does not” is greater—from the perspective of Rearden’s utility function—than the expected costs of rearranging his production schedule. A perfectly “selfish” reason to help, even at a cost to yourself.
Sometimes the libertarian(?) ethics is simplified as “do not initiate force or fraud against others”, and I think the thing that Rand tries so hard to explain is how this psychological manipulation is a form of fraud; less direct but not less harmful than usual fraud, because it is often greater in scope. By giving you a fake coin, I can steal a limited amount of product from you; by giving you a fake philosophy, I can redirect your entire life’s effort into something useless or harmful—and yet the former is clearly recognized as a crime, but the latter is not.
Yes, but maybe you underestimate your ability to fool yourself. Of course, if you know that X is false, but you convince other people about X, your victory will feel empty. But if you could cleverly prevent yourself from finding out that X is false...
I guess the accusation is not that you are lying, but that you are engaging in behaviors that minimize your chances of figuring out when you are wrong. Which is a way to have undeserved victories without them feeling hollow.