JARS V14 N1 - Summer 2014


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The new issue of The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies includes a review essay of the two books issued so far in the series Ayn Rand Society Philosophical Studies. The review author is Fred Seddon.

. . .

The new issue of The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies includes an essay by Marsha Enright titled "The Problem with Selfishness."

. . .

John Aglialoro, a co-producer of the film Atlas Shrugged Part II was quoted recently in an interview:*

“The left dismisses Ayn Rand,” he says. “The version of her that they attack is childish, it’s a cartoon.” But he understands why. “I wish she didn’t say ‘selfishness’ as she did. That she was for ‘selfishness.’ She was human, and probably meant that in a rhetorical way. But if she was on this earth again, maybe she’d put it another way.”

No. And she would be right to decline that alteration. The center of pure self-interest is pure selfishness. That pure form of selfishness is articulated—expressly, by the name selfishness—in The Fountainhead, where it is contrasted to a variety of conceptions commonly accepted as selfishness. Her novel argues that the latter are incoherent and at odds with pure selfishness, which entails independence and a certain kind of integrity. It is not only those unfitting parts in common conceptions of selfishness that are attacked as immoral in our culture. It is also pure selfishness, as exposed by Rand in Fountainhead, that is daily attacked in moral criticism of behavior by voices such as those speaking Christianity.

Rand was right in the Preface to The Virtue of Selfishness to defend her choice of the term selfishness as naming a core of human being needing to be championed. I would wish only she had added, “See also The Fountainhead.” Yes, selfishness in common parlance entails things excluded and antithetical to the selfishness Rand applauded. That makes for an invitation to further examination of the phenomena and the concept of selfishness. I mean among open-minded readers. Such are not those who understand well enough what is Rand’s ethical egoism and understand well enough the selfishness she was holding up as a glory, but are then smearing it for the sake of religion and politics, in a word, for the sake of old mistaken morality.

I have not yet received this issue of JARS, so I’ve not yet read Marsha’s paper; but I came across and would like to share a passage in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics concerning the derogation “lover of self” parallel Rand’s treatment of the derogation “selfish” in The Fountainhead. The problem of sorting the good from the bad in love of self and in selfishness is ancient, and the different divides made by Aristotle and by Rand are telling of the likeness and difference in their ethics (as of Rand 1943).

If we grasp the sense in which each party uses the phrase “lover of self,” the truth may become evident. Those who use the term as one of reproach ascribe self-love to people who assign to themselves the greater share of wealth, honours, and bodily pleasures; for these are what most people desire, and busy themselves about as though these were the best of all things . . . . So those who are grasping with regard to these things gratify their appetites and in general their feelings and the irrational element of the soul; and most men are of this nature thus the epithet has taken its meaning from the prevailing type of self-love, which is a bad one; it is just therefore, that men who are lovers of self in this way are reproached for being so. That it is those who give themselves the preference in regard to objects of this sort that most people usually call lovers of self is plain; for if a man were always anxious that he himself, above all things, should act justly, temperately, or in accordance with any other of the excellences and in general were always to try to secure for himself the honourable course, no one will call such a man a lover of self or blame him.

But such a man would seem more than the other a lover of self; at all events he assigns to himself the things that are noblest and best, and gratifies the most authoritative element in himself and in all things obeys this; and just as a city or any other systematic whole is most properly identified with the most authoritative element in it, so is a man; and therefore the man who loves this and gratifies it is most of all a lover of self. Besides, a man is said to have or not to have self-control according as his intellect has or has not the control, on the assumption that this is the man himself; and the things men have done from reason are thought most properly their own acts and voluntary acts. That this is the man himself, then, or is so more than anything else, is plain, and also that the good man loves most this part of him. Whence it follows that he is most truly a lover of self, of another type than that which is a matter of reproach, and as different from that as living according to reason is from living as passion dictates, and desiring what is noble from desiring what seems advantageous. Those, then who busy themselves in an exceptional degree with noble actions all men approve and praise; and if all were to strive towards what is noble and strain every nerve to do the noblest deeds, everything would be as it should be for the common good, and every one would secure for himself the goods that are greatest, since excellence is the greatest of goods.

Therefore the good man should be a lover of self (for he will both himself profit by doing noble acts, and will benefit his fellows), but the wicked man should not; for he will hurt both himself and his neighbours, following as he does evil passions. (1168b13–69a14)

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  • 1 year later...

Stephen, I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that Rand is misunderstood even among Objectivists - particularly over the selfishness issue. And it doesn't help that so many of them are young adult males who emotionally/ethically have not progressed beyond the egocentric amoralism that teenagers have to struggle with. Rand excoriated this type in the second page of her "The Ethics of Emergencies," and she really did lay down that you have a moral obligation to give non-sacrificial help to those you encounter that are in trouble. The New Testament's Good Samaritan is actually supported in Objectivism as a manifestation of the virtue of integrity. Rand and Tara Smith both argued that it was a matter of loyalty to one's values. Seeing this as also a manifestation of (true) selfishness is the conceptual stretch many, many people are unable to make, but which they need to be encouraged to make.

REB

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There is no selfishness if it's not "true selfishness"?

Good selfishness, bad selfishness? Each tries to drive out the other? Those who say it's all bad mean there's no good. And vice versa?

Was Rand confused too?

--Brant

how about not selfish enough? (Good or bad?) Etc.

our selfless/selfish rulers?

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Remember Rand's essay "Selfishness without a Self?" That's the kind of "selfishness" some would refer to as "bad" selfishness - and that is how some try to caricature and smear "all" selfishness. It's because of these negative connotations that some Objectivists have urged us to replace (good) selfishness with some other term - just as some libertarians have urged replacing "capitalism" with some other term like "free market" or "free enterprise."

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Yeah, inventing one's own personal dictionary is really not a good idea. In can have some effective in-your-face impact and shock value, but can also backfire and gum up one's message with lots of confusion. Above all, when intelligent people discover that someone is really just pointlessly arguing semantics, they tend to dismiss them as not being serious thinkers. Objectivism, unfortunately, has that stain on it.

J

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Remember Rand's essay "Selfishness without a Self?" That's the kind of "selfishness" some would refer to as "bad" selfishness - and that is how some try to caricature and smear "all" selfishness. It's because of these negative connotations that some Objectivists have urged us to replace (good) selfishness with some other term - just as some libertarians have urged replacing "capitalism" with some other term like "free market" or "free enterprise."

Some excerpts from the essay ...

I had a great conversation here with Barbara Branden wherein my conceptual confusions were dispelled. What I retain of her wise words is that when I read an Objectivish offering of 'selfishess' as a signifier, I should read 'rational self-interest.' I notice that in the vast majority of obituaries, Barbara is remembered as having advanced the Randian notion of 'rational self-interest.' Not 'selfishness.'

For me the crux of my confusions was in Rand's claim that there was a common dictionary meaning of selfish that supported her reading and usage.** I haven't yet found that entry. She probably omitted one very important qualifier.

Here's a link to that confusion-dispelling conversation part way through ... at issue in my mind was the coupling of altruism with selfishness, as antinomies. Altruism bad, selfishness good. That didn't work for me. But I was thinking of the antinomy in an undisciplined manner. Just because there is sociopathy ... and sociopathic attitudes within the Objectivish universe, that does not make 'rational self-interest' sociopathy. So a weird Baby in the Woods scenario may reveal psychological frailties in individuals, autistic qualifiers of empathy and sociality.

But disempathy, ruthless regard only for one's self to the detriment of other persons, none of this should be associated with 'rational self-interest' ...

Now, in Randian contexts, Atruism bad, rational self-interest good. Altruistic 'behaviour' can be good or bad, 'selfishness' is a psychological indicator as good as any.

For one last perspective, on Objectivish things as rendered out in the wider world. I see that there is a persistent and incorrect association of Rand and Objectivism as a hearless, self-obsessed, anti-social and egotistic mass. Selfish. Greedy. Antisocial. All manner of distortions.

I am most thankful to Barbara for helping me to better appreciate Rand. There is indeed a virtue in rational self-interest. Without the rational, we move back into the realm of the inhuman.

From Rand herself, from the Virtue of Selfishness, "The Objectivist ethics proudly advocates and upholds rational selfishness."

Tell that to Jonathan Chait. Ayn Rand and the invincible cult of selfishness on the American right

__________________________

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

Edited by william.scherk
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For me the crux of my confusions was in Rand's claim that there was a common dictionary meaning of selfish that supported her reading and usage.** I haven't yet found that entry. She probably omitted one very important qualifier.

_________________________

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

Nobody else has found such a dictionary either.

Arnold Baise wrote in JARS:

The OED, however, justifies the definition of any word by referring to its actual use in written English, in the past and the present, making it the definitive English dictionary. In particular, the OED shows that "selfish" has been used with a decidedly negative connotation since the seventeenth century, contrary to Rand's argument for a morally virtuous meaning. (link)

I once looked at all the dictionaries listed here. Every one had a qualifier such as "without regard to others".

I don't know of any word that means 'concern with one’s own interests with regard for others'. Coining one might be very useful. Candidates?

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Webster's New World Dictionary, Third College Edition (1988):

selfish - (noun form: selfishness)

1. TOO MUCH concerned with one's own welfare or interests and having TOO LITTLE OR NO concern for others; self-centered.

2. Showing or prompted by self-interest.

self-interest -

1. One's own interest or advantage

2. An EXAGGERATED regard for this, esp. when AT THE EXPENSE OF OTHERS

This may not be the same dictionary Rand was consulting, but I have no doubt that she was using some version or other of Webster's and probably not one that was published after 1960.

In any case, Rand was obviously keying off of the combination of dictionary meanings embedded in the stereotype, the smear, based on combining "selfish"1 with "self-interest"2. That, in fact, is how the vast majority of Americans have been conditioned/propagandized to think of selfish(ness) and self-interest.

REB

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What about starting with the suffix "-ish" which turns the noun into an adjective.

My '50's Concise Oxford (among the etymology) defines "-ish":

"... belonging to, of the nature of... " [e.g. girlish]

Then we get: selfish, "belonging to self", "of the nature of self". I think that's as denotative and neutral as it can be.

It seems evident that definitions which carry normative connotations of "selfish" have merely reflected societies' moral disapproval, i.e. their entrenched altruism.

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For me the crux of my confusions was in Rand's claim that there was a common dictionary meaning of selfish that supported her reading and usage.** I haven't yet found that entry. She probably omitted one very important qualifier.

_________________________

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

Nobody else has found such a dictionary either.

Arnold Baise wrote in JARS:

The OED, however, justifies the definition of any word by referring to its actual use in written English, in the past and the present, making it the definitive English dictionary. In particular, the OED shows that "selfish" has been used with a decidedly negative connotation since the seventeenth century, contrary to Rand's argument for a morally virtuous meaning. (link)

I once looked at all the dictionaries listed here. Every one had a qualifier such as "without regard to others".

I don't know of any word that means 'concern with one’s own interests with regard for others'. Coining one might be very useful. Candidates?

Canada? Prosociality? God?

Roger does prove the greater point that Rand set a trap for future Objectivish thought. We need look to dictionaries to find the changing English word over time.

We find the taint of sociopathy in selfishness, we assess the morality of those who think only of themselves, their own opinions, their own needs and wants, their own psychological visibility, who view other human beings as pawns, catspaws and tools, not partners, colleagues, compatriots, family and friends.

We have the primate sense of reciprocity. We know that there are 'turns' in taking. We observe the 'fairness' in reciprocity. We are like monkeys that way. We watch as 'rewards' are handed out to our cousins. We favour fairness and proportion. We expect grooming from those we groom. We watch each other for signs of betrayal, hostility, thieving, deception, fellow-feeling and inhuman attitudes.

I remember a conversation online about A Pie. I think it might have been with Luke Setzer. I thought to introduce a family and a treat to probe the concept of selfishness as a bad thing. The primates watch the keeper deliver the treat. The keeper sections the pie, and distributes it around the table to the children. Maybe it was cake. I will look later. A table. A pie/cake. An open-ended story.

Anyhow, Luke commented on all the ways that a Dad could reward and punish his children by sectioning out the pie/cake.

Of course, this missed the point. Dad may well have good reasons to give Bubba a huge slice and Trig and Trip none at all. This is how Dad doles out the winnings of the race for perfection in his house. But that doesn't say anything about Selfish.

No, it's the kids at the table who have bought into the propaganda that cake and pie are treats. Everyone gets a piece are the ground rules of the event. A kid can detect to the Nth degree which of the slices was inequitable if and when the eaters self-select. They don't need Rand or a dictionary to figure out which is the selfish hog at the table, who takes it upon himself to deal out Treats To Which He Is Not Entitled. If you ask the kids at the table who is the selfish hog, they will all point to the same blithe pie-schmecking sociopath in their midst. If there are no hogs at the table, no harm no foul. The detection equipment can ping another day.

I can't remember what Luke had to say after that, and I am probably misremembering the whole episode. My point is ...

Roger, both you and Merlin validated the wisdom of Barbara Branden in her conversation with me. She cut through the cant. In Merlin's case he warranted my claim of omission. In your case you did the same. The omission is telling, for interpreting Rand to the general and/or hostile public. It is foolish to omit the necessary qualifiers when explaining The Virtue Of Selfishness.

You who have struggled to make your mark in contesting stale old Randian angel-pinhead-dancing analyses will well understand the struggle with The Masses.

Here, I hope you give way, my friend, as at a courtesy corner. Give way with grace ... and show that you respect and comprehend Barbara's and my and Merlin's point. I think you need to give one last read of my and Merlin's warrants, and consider incorporating them into a revised appreciation of Rand. Rational Self-interest, rational selfishness if you will. The Pie/Cake story reveals those uncanny abilities to detect 'off' behaviour ... whatever conceptual marker used to denote this behaviour. Change the word, change the behaviour? No, it is just a marker. Change the word, change the assessment of this behaviour? Not quite. In a case of the Primates and the Pie, at least.

Unite the positive aspects of attention to one's own interests? Yes, yes, yes. That is the wisdom of Rand, the wisdom of Baise, the wisdom of Barbara Branden, the wisdom of Stephen Boydstun, the wisdom of Merlin Jetton and the wisdom that comes down on the side of WSS on this issue.

It is going to be a long, hard, unrelenting slog to turn aside all that wisdom, Roger. I suggest you concede the agreeable points and add additional wisdom to that already demonstrated.

If not, of course we have an opportunity for recursion, another delight of Objectivist discussions. Around and around and around we go. When we will stop, nobody knows.

I get dizzy, so I will step off the merry-go-round here, while I can still walk.

I miss Barbara's clear sight, generous mind, and her exquisite sense of proportion and emotion. I miss her at times like this, when we risk recursion.

-- Merlin, thanks for that link to the JARS essay. I read it before and thought it well constructed in argument. Perhaps it has been discussed before at OL. I will check the archives to see what rebuttals may have been offered, if by you, if by Roger, if by other Rand scholars.

To go out with a schmaltzy late-career musical number, this is the classic Objectivist song of thwarted Selfishness, by Anne Murray. This is 'What About Me?' ...

Roger, any one of us struggling to get our fair share of the Objectivish pie could be singing the lyrics of this song if we had taken the wrong road. Listen as if it were yourself singing, and have some feeling for the room. At times in your performance in this thread you appear selfish in that you do not rationally consider other's opinions. To the degree you insist upon your own triumph over rivals for best interpretation, to the degree you deprecate or ignore the interlocutor's logic and warrants, to the degree of insistence on Roger Is Right and All Of You Are Wrong, the greater the impression.

You have to earn your slice of pie around here. Daddy is strict. Reason is stricter. It is in your rational self-interest to give way at this corner. You get more pie that way.

The singer of the song has lost his way in special pleading. I hate it when I do that, however poignant it seems when sung by a pop master. Who doesn't weep at the final chorus?

"What About Me"

[Chorus]

Hey hey hey, what about me?

I've got some feelings on my mind, too

Hey hey hey, what about me?

I'd like to have a song to sing, too

Please let me in when you're singing your song

And I'll just sit quiet, I won't try to sing along

You've got the warmest place that I've ever found

Please let me in, and I won't make a sound

[Chorus]

But, don't you ask me to give you a song

I won't know the words to use, I won't know where they belong

But if you give me one of yours, I will make it my own

And it would be the sweetest song that I have ever known

[Chorus]

I'd like to have a song to sing, too.

Edited by william.scherk
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William, I'm not challenging or rejecting *any* of the points made here - except offering a simple fact-check about whether any extant dictionaries support the definition of "selfishness" from which Rand argued.

She jolly well *should* have highlighted *both* very different meanings of the term. It might have made for a longer essay, but I think it would also have been more interesting. Not long after that, she was very intent on analyzing distortions of language used for the purpose of smearing one's opposition.

In the title and lead-in to VOS, Rand was selective, in order to simplify her attack on the negative stereotype. By doing so, she ran the very real risk of looking either ignorant or dishonest. At the very least, I don't think she was ignorant of dictionaries, nor making up what she said was in a dictionary she possessed.

Barbara was very wise in how she approached the whole issue of ethics - including especially the fact that pro-life selfishness must be specifically *rational* self-interest. Otherwise, for one thing, it's not truly *self*-interest, but "counterfeit selfishness" (my term, adapted from NB's "counterfeit individualism") or "selfishness without a self" (Rand's term).

I hope this suffices as wisdom and benevolence. For what it's worth, in posting originally, I was not deliberately disregarding anyone, nor trying to be anything but constructive and move the discussion along without hindrance of incorrect information. I don't know why I should have to say that, but apparently I do, so I don't mind doing so. Also FWIW, I liked Stephen's initial post very much; probably should have said so.

I'm also not sure what it is that I'm supposed to "give way" to. I'm well aware of four-way stops and the rules of right-of-way. I don't think that either this or my previous post in any way interferes with anyone's enjoyment of their trip down the road of truth on this issue. My apologies to anyone who feels otherwise, or fears that my intentions or compulsions are to foul up the traffic on OL.

REB

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Well, after writing and posting the above comments, I had to run out for several hours to do a jazz gig, and now, since everything still seems quiet on this thread, it's probably the best chance I will get to post a few more things I'd like to say about William's post in particular...

I read the Baise piece, and he has a point about earliest usage of "selfish" being decidedly negative. (He also points out the flip-flop in usage of "objective" and "subjective," dating back to Kant. This is also a point I made in my 2007 JARS essay on Rand's objective-subjective-intrinsic distinction. It's good to see this historical fact being underscored more than once by movement scholars.)

But this is also true of the term "capitalism," which I believe was originated in the 1850s by free-market radicals (e.g., Proudhon), who were scornful of what we would today call crony or mercantilist capitalism which benefited from interventionist government policies. Various "fixes" for the term have been suggested from "free market capitalism" and "laissez-faire capitalism" to "free enterprise."

A consultant on libertarian persuasion and an erstwhile (and it's been quite a long while) friend of mine by the name of Michael Cloud (originally Michael Cloud Emerling), has often talked about how Rand followed the practice of what he called "The Great Macho Flash." Use certain terms more for their shock value and to get attention, then make the reasonable (even unarguable) case for them. By contrast, Cloud counsels using terms with little or no red flag, like "(the) free market."

My friends, the Dougs (Rasmussen and DenUyl) are trying to salvage "liberalism" and my friend Chris Sciabarra is trying to salvage "dialectics." With appropriate modifiers, of course. Are they engaging in a futile crusade, merely opening themselves up to scorn and derision? There has already been plenty of the latter, just as for people not as careful of how they label enlightened pursuit of one's best interests or economic freedom. Jury still out, perhaps...

But Rand and her dictionary - I really think that the particular Webster's I trotted out tells the tale. Note that for "selfish," the more acceptable definition is *second,* while for "self-interest," the more acceptable definition is *first.* That indicates that someone who wants to argue for rational egoism in terms of selfishness is shooting him- or herself in the foot - or at the very least, taking on a lot of unnecessarily heavy lifting. (Translation: here's some evidence that Marsha is right.)

Barbara Branden (god, how I miss her!) understood this issue very well, hence her urging the use of "rational self-interest," rather than the macho flash term, "selfishness." Why invite misunderstanding and/or misrepresentation, when you don't have to? (Rand's answer in the introduction to VOS: for the very reason it bothers you, or words to that effect, is lacking in wisdom, to say the least.)

I appreciate William's patience and grace in drawing me into taking a different posture on this whole discussion. Not sure I've fully (un)contorted my psyche and persona in the way he hoped, but it at least gives me a chance to also say a few words of praise for the guy. He reminds me a lot of my dad: a very sweet soul and a loving cultivator of things he wants to see bloom and grow. My dad was a farmer, while William is working in a very different kind of field. But they resonate very much the same with me. :-)

REB

P.S. - I love Anne Murray's singing, and "What About Me?" was one of my favorites. (I also liked "You Needed Me," which was written by a friend and colleague, Randy Goodrum, who is from Pine Bluff, Arkansas, but made it very big in both Nashville and L.A.) I don't know for sure, but I suspect, however, that if she had to raise some demanding little primates, they did not get their slice of pie by caterwauling their demands to her. One hopes they got a "time out," instead! ;-)

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Barbara Branden (god, how I miss her!) understood this issue very well, hence her urging the use of "rational self-interest," rather than the macho flash term, "selfishness." Why invite misunderstanding and/or misrepresentation, when you don't have to? (Rand's answer in the introduction to VOS: for the very reason it bothers you, or words to that effect, is lacking in wisdom, to say the least.)

In a film interview Duncan Scott made with John Hospers, Hospers says he once asked Ayn Rand why not use the more neutral “self-interest” rather than “selfish”, since her meaning of “selfish” differed so much from common usage. She didn't budge.
There is also some discussion of the meaning of "selfish" in Letters of Ayn Rand, especially page 604 (which can be seen on Amazon) showing a letter to another philosopher, W. T. Stace, dated February 4, 1963. Exactly what Stace wrote isn't revealed.
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My American Heritage Dictionary does not include mere concern with one’s own interests as a definition of selfishness. Yet when it comes to define selfless, they give: “Without concern for oneself; unselfish.” They give only that definition, no others for selfless. That definition of selfless implies a definition of selfish: concern for oneself.

Rand promoted both a sort of selfishness and a sort of self-interest as virtuous. They are in harmony. I do not subscribe to ethical egoism, which must reduce all moral virtue to such virtues as selfishness or self-interest. However, I do agree with Rand’s thesis of the virtue of selfishness and much of what she defends as right selfishness in opposition to the Judeo-Christian and Hollywood traditions.

Jesus said to love your neighbor as you love yourself. His presumption that you would love yourself is horribly mistaken. Rand taught love of oneself and formation of definite self apart from others. The virtues, I say, of loving yourself and being a definite self and the virtues of integrity and pride are virtues of selfishness. These character traits are continually maligned today, as ever, as selfish. Indeed they are selfishness, and to present such traits in first strokes not as selfishness but as rational self-interest is as dry as cardboard passed off as food and does not invite the profound rethinking needed for learning to love one's self and life full weight.

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The true selfishness encapsulates rational self-interest, I think. I've attempted it both ways to individuals, the softer, practical "rational self-interest" as well as "selfishness" with the moral, virtuous and 'psychological' explanation. People generally see the sense in the first, but will usually balk at the other (and some eventually seem to slide away from the former, anyhow). I can't see any future purpose or persuasiveness in calling a spade a shovel. Rather call it for what it is from the start. "Cardboard" indeed, Stephen.

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.

Tony, I don’t think innocent selfishness is reducible to innocent self-interest. Personal liberation requires recognition of the former. That root is not the end of the transformation, of course, just as it is not the whole of the journeys Rand scribes for readers of Fountainhead or Atlas (those readers with at least some of “the loyalty to life of a bird or a flower”). I expect in the future, as in the past, that the greater social benefit of Rand’s philosophy will be its role in personal liberation,* not political impact. But for the latter, sure, self-interest talk from Rand or others, with selfishness talk never mentioned with favor, may be in the persuasion toolkit (together with economics) sufficient to the purpose.

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“Selfishness” in popular usage often means not sharing something that should be shared and behavior focused on the self alone that disregards others. Very young children are naturally selfish, due to egocentrism. Some examples are:

1. The toddler who wants to play with others’ toys, but not reciprocate.

2. The basketball player who cares more about how many points he scores than his team winning the game.

3. The boy who takes two-thirds of the remaining cake for himself, leaving one-third for his siblings who have not had any.

We learn this meaning of “selfish” when young, and to reject it is to reject something real. But these examples are far different from what Ayn Rand claimed:

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. (VoS, vii).

Attempting to replace the popular meaning with hers was and remains an unwinnable war.

[Addenda]

Two synonyms of "selfish" are "hoggish" and "stingy" (link). The Virtue of Hoggishness? The Virtue of Stinginess? :smile:

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“Selfishness” in popular usage often means not sharing something that should be shared and behavior focused on the self alone that disregards others. Very young children are naturally selfish, due to egocentrism. Some examples are:

1. The toddler who wants to play with others’ toys, but not reciprocate.

2. The basketball player who cares more about how many points he scores than his team winning the game.

3. The boy who takes two-thirds of the remaining cake for himself, leaving one-third for his siblings who have not had any.

We learn this meaning of “selfish” when young, and to reject it is to reject something real. But these examples are far different from what Ayn Rand claimed:

“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” (VoS, vii).

Attempting to replace the popular meaning with hers was and remains an unwinnable war.

But when someone does get it, they really *get it* for good.

One life, the only value source and value potential, valuing of and valued by other lives, and back to whom earned values rightly flow.

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I remember a conversation online about A Pie. I think it might have been with Luke Setzer

[...]

I can't remember what Luke had to say after that, and I am probably misremembering the whole episode.

Hey, it was a long time ago in Trump years. Here was my plaintive What About Me song back before SOLO cracked and spawned. Preserved at Rebirth of Reason and now here. Thanks for the 'kind soul' cultivator of reason note, Roger.

This is from Wednesday, July 27, 2005

Objectivism is very attractive in its essential points, except for 'selfishness' -- I just can't get some connotations out of my mind -- viz., a pie is plonked down on the table, four children tuck in, one child carves out half for self. Unclear on the concept of sharing the spoils.

I can't yet get past a notion that formal Objectivism is not particularly well-acquainted with human nature -- by way of example, I am still searching for some extended Objectivist notes on present-day studies in altruism (e.g., thorny and unresolved questions for Evolutionary Psychology -- why altruistic behaviour in animal groups and human society, how selected; why primate compassion/empathy, etcetera).

Imagine, three identical desert islands, with 100 marooned Objectivists on one, 100 marooned islanders (say Andamanese) on another, 100 marooned nobodies on a third.

Who prospers, who exemplifies the highest values, who furthered the human enterprise when we visit some hundred years later?

(what puzzles me about Objectivism in practice is that it occasionally sounds nasty, mean, inhuman, and out of touch with reality. I gotta say that what attracted me to Objectivism and to SOLO in this past year was David Holcberg's article about government aid & the Boxing Day Tsunami . . . much publicized at the time. Wondered if Holcberg was representative of much thinking in the O-world, wondered how much Holcberg's remarks increased any ick-factor already attached to Objectivism . . . at first glance, thought, hmmm, if Holcberg was onmy overloaded 'lifeboat,' I would not hesitate to urge the group to pitch him over. "Have a nice, rational day, Dave. We hear the nearest non-taxed society is about 8 fathoms down. Bye now.")

WSS

"When there is no hero, you be the hero." -- said some dead sage

I got going with the pie metaphor when challenged. This from the same comment thread:

Todd Sanderson writes:

The concept of "sharing" (for its own sake) is an altruistic one; meaning that the "spoils" of one's endeavors should benefit those who have no stake on them.william.scherk, on 04 Jan 2016 - 3:30 PM, said:

Yes, sharing one's own spoils (in the sense of plunder, or prey) seems irrational: I brought down this hog, I'm a gonna eat it all myse'f.

I should have made clear that in my visual lure, the pie was plonked down deus ex machina by a big old Ma, or by an auntie on the back porch, a spoil (in the sense of incidental benefit accruing to an individual) of the adult world: I cain't finish all this hog myse'f right now, and the fridge is broke, and it sure is hot out here, so the hog will rot, so I guess I better feed the kids. And oh yeah, Auntie brought over pie to share later.

Or imagine it's all adults on the back porch, and it's Uncle Festhock what carves that pie before the assembled social group. Why, I had a mind to holler him down, the pig-eyed greedy hog, but you know Auntie gets to cryin' if folks holler at each other. We jest shook our heads.'

One might also imagine the children as monkeys cooperating for mutual benefit (as with recent 'cheat-detector' experiments) and watch the *other* three kids' faces. My scant reading of Rand suggests that honed calculations and appraisals of reality [ought] inform emotion. Watching varied species quite-rationally respond with anger at being cheated tells me that support for Rand comes in surprising places, and delivers surprising implications.

Still, what possesses a pie-grabber? I dare say not the SOLO spirit.

You might want to re-form your equation because your exponents are not of equal nature. [ . . . ] Since your aim here is to ask "which philosophical system would better survive this particular situation", you should present different examples of philosophical systems.

Right. Good point. How about Objectivist's Island (Classic Rand), Liberal's (Classic Bentham), Pragmatist's (Classic Peirce), and Andaman (Classic 1200 BCE) Islands?

: )

[i find the Andaman Islanders fascinating, and mentioned them not because they are doomed to extinction, but for their pre-historic philosophy . . . these remnants, decimated by the Boxing Day Tsunami, occupy a rare place in anthropology: utterly not of the modern world, illiterate, core way of life thought to be unchanged since their isolation 14,000 years ago. In my imagination, they were the only marooned group for which we could likely infer the outcome: survival and stasis. By 'nobodies,' I could have written 'bell-curve sample of world philosophical adherence,' and of the Andamanese 'sample weighted by pre-historic philosophic adherence,' and of the Objectivists 'sample weighted by philosophical adherence to Objectivism,' (with demographics held constant across the three marooned groups). But I didn't, so thanks for the critique. I still stand by my emotion of ick with regard to Holcberg's article.]

I appreciate your reply, Todd. How's about "Survivor Objectivist Island"?

WSS

"If you aren't trying to find out the truth about whatever-it-is, you aren't really inquiring. Genuine inquiry seeks the truth with respect to some question or topic; pseudo-inquiry seeks to make a case for the truth of some proposition or propositions determined in advance." -- Susan Haack "Preposterism and Its Consequences"

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Years before reading "The Virtue of Selfishness," probably around the age of 10, I once consumed an entire lemon meringue pie my grandmother had made and which was my grandfather's favorite dessert. When she informed him of what I had done, he just laughed and laughed. Nursing a well-deserved stomach ache, I was quite relieved at the time. No harm done, I thought.

But years later, during my 20s, I was visiting with granddad and Anne Murray's "What about Me?" came on the radio, and he unaccountably burst into tears. Until this very day, I didn't realize why. ;-)

REB

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The person who introduced me to Rand’s work discovered it by seeing the title The Virtue of Selfishness in a bookstore, was intrigued enough to buy it, and (alert, cliché ahead!) the rest is history. But for that title, OL might be 4,199 posts the poorer. :sad:

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.

Tony, I don’t think innocent selfishness is reducible to innocent self-interest. Personal liberation requires recognition of the former. That root is not the end of the transformation, of course, just as it is not the whole of the journeys...

Stephen,

"Innocent selfishness" (good term) is the precursor to the rest, as I see it. If one can get that far. The autonomous way we are is what one senses one should be, at some early age. Since it remains an implicit and a fragile sense so it will certainly fritter away in despair, unknowing of a good ethics. I see some good young people (not many) who have bravely hung onto a little of this independence and self-ness against the conformism of parents, teachers, society etc.. They, who never even thought to ask any of 'the cake' from others, are told they must give away what they value. The ones who aren't yet totally convinced that he or she exists to meet others' expectations, to be of service to them, to fit in with 'the group', and to 'pay back' in personal sacrifice. The explicit and conscious morality would bring each "personal liberation": to know with certainty that one is indeed right to cherish living and pursue a self-interested, selfish life, as are others. That's the necessary, unerodable, "rational" addition to "selfishness", imo.

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