The Virtues of Benevolence and Tolerance

[Charles R. Anderson]

Preface

In essays 4 and 5 of this series, I used the term tolerance in a manner close to that used by David Kelley in The Contested Legacy of Ayn Rand - Truth and Toleration in Objectivism. At that time, I wrote of three forms that tolerance took: epistemological tolerance, tolerance of individuality, and political tolerance. Now, I would maintain that tolerance of individuality and political tolerance might be considered to be subsumed by the larger concept of benevolence. Some Objectivists seem to think that they fall under Justice and indeed, they do in part. I believe they fall completely under benevolence, however.

As you should begin to see in these essays, I believe that benevolence and tolerance play a key role in one's being able to derive value from interactions with other people. In a society so bad that we are not justified in extending considerable benevolence to unknown or insufficiently known people and holding a tolerant view of ideas until we have carefully examined them, we should become hermits and retire from the society. If our review of the entire value of our society to us causes us to conclude that we are better off as a member of that society, then we should also be committed to regarding others with initial benevolence and their ideas with initial tolerance.

As I will be using the term tolerance in this 6th essay and in the 7th essay, I am using it to refer to epistemological tolerance only. This is the most fundamentally important meaning of tolerance to my mind. In a real society the other two meanings are also very important. I am not convinced that we have to use the term tolerance to cover them however. We might be better off separating them out from the issues related to examining and evaluating ideas. It might be a more objectively defined set of concepts if we had separate clear words and concepts for each of these three distinctive ideas. If we did, the discussions among Objectivists in recent times might be less muddled.

There is another problem with the discussions of tolerance and benevolence among those who call themselves Objectivists. Many Objectivists view society as primarily a threat and feel that they must constantly refuse the Sanction of the Victim. They are frankly obsessed by this. They refuse to understand that we live in a largely benevolent society which blesses us with a wealth of ideas which we have only to evaluate for ourselves. This is much easier than having to have formulated them entirely on our own. The thinking people who gave us these many gifts, some of them less than perfect and some seriously flawed, set the context which elevates benevolence and tolerance as virtues for us in our lives.

While we must sometimes look not to provide the Sanction of the Victim in our lives, before we do that, we should view others in society with benevolence and their ideas with tolerance. Then we can objectively evaluate both the idea and the holder of the idea. If the idea is wrong, we should address that. If the person is massively evil, we must address that. Before we do either, however, we must make an objective evaluation as rational human beings while holding a large context of life in our society in mind.

The present essay was posted in my blog Reasoned Thoughts on 24 February 2006. I have corrected two typographical errors from that original post.

The Virtues of Benevolence and Tolerance

In the context of the times and the society in which I live, benevolence and tolerance are important and intertwined virtues. As I have pointed out earlier, in a different society and in a different time, these virtues would be less important and might, if broadly applied, insure my death and that of those I love. In other words, in a violent and capricious society, they might simply constitute an unwise trust in unknown people and in unknown ideas. However, in America today and in a number of other areas of today's world, to adopt a malevolent view of others and to be intolerant of new and differing ideas, is to cut oneself off from the benefits of trade and friendships with others and will isolate oneself from knowledge to be gained by examining their ideas with fairness and thoroughness.

To the extent that others, though personally unknown or little known to us, might reasonably be assessed as likely to be able to deliver values to us in the context of our time and our society, the rational man will approach such strangers with an assumption that their persons are of value as an enhancement to our own lives. This means that we have a benevolent assessment of our fellow man preceding our opportunity to evaluate them morally upon getting to know them. Without such a benevolent approach, it will in fact be much more difficult to get to know them, since they will reasonably be loath to entertain our company and unwilling to confide their thoughts to us. A benevolent approach to others is often a necessary prelude to our being able to make a rational assessment of someone previously unknown to us. If we are to benefit from the existence of this person, whether through commercial trade, an exchange or simply a gleaning of their knowledge and experiences, or the development of a great friendship, we must take the risk of first assuming the likelihood that we will find some value in them. It would not be reasonable to invest our time in getting to know another, if we thought before we knew them that we would find no value in them.

The result of getting to know someone might be that we evaluate them as not a particularly rational person, but we might still have gained something of reasonable value for our effort. We might have learned something new that we would have been unlikely to have learned otherwise. But having learned this, we realize it is time to move on and invest any future time into getting to know someone else. We might realize that we have encountered a monster and devote some effort to thwarting their monstrous activities. On the other hand, we might find the love of our lives or develop a wonderful, lifelong friendship. Benevolence does not substitute for a rational judgment of others. It precedes that assessment and enables it.

Toleration is a parallel to benevolence. As benevolence is to the unexamined person, so is tolerance to the unexamined idea. This concept is a bit more abstract and it is therefore a bit more difficult to grasp. Furthermore, as I have earlier noted in other essays, English dictionary definitions are inadequate and sometimes even self-contradictory for this word. Whereas benevolence enables us to know and evaluate other people and makes it possible for us to ultimately enjoy values created by other people, toleration enables us to know and evaluate the ideas of others and makes it ultimately possible for us to find such values as those ideas may have. Just as we ultimately assess the value of the people we encounter and invest the time to get to know, we also evaluate the ideas we encounter upon taking the time to understand and critically assess them. We will encounter many good ideas and many bad ideas. Toleration does not in any way require us to be kind to an evil or reality-denying idea. Toleration does depend upon an overall assessment that ideas are important, that many other people have spent a great deal of time and effort developing ideas, that some of the ideas they have developed are either right or will teach us that this line of thought leads to a deadend, and that examining the ideas of others will allow us to understand more than if we tried to develop every thought entirely on our own.

Toleration is the attitude that there is great value in the ideas developed by others and that to realize this value we should invest a considerable effort into rationally examining the ideas of others and fairly assessing their value.

Tolerance is a virtue since we recognize that ideas are important, that valuable resources are required for their development, that many valuable ideas have been developed by others, and that a thorough understanding of our reality is not realistic in our own finite lifetime without reference to the many valuable ideas that others have developed. Tolerance offers us a path to gather up such valuable thoughts as others have had. Of course, randomly adopting other people's ideas would be foolish. Many irrational ideas have been developed, but without tolerance we will never be able to rationally identify the good ideas and differentiate them from the bad ideas. Without toleration, even the greatest genius will encounter many a brick wall he can only batter his head against, though someone else has climbed over it, burrowed under it, or outflanked it.

Toleration does not require us to accept the validity of bad ideas. It does not require us to refrain from a constructive criticism of an idea found wanting. It does not necessitate backing down from evil. It simply enables a rational assessment of ideas. Many people who read the works of Ayn Rand, whose ideas are developments along directions substantially set by Aristotle and Enlightenment thinkers in many cases, and are yet very different from most of the ideas accepted by scholars at many of our traditionally accepted best universities, had to initially approach her ideas with a healthy sense of toleration. Having done so, they became convinced that Objectivism was the philosophy they should adopt and that they should invest much of their future efforts to further develop it. Some Objectivists thought they were Christians when they first encountered her works. Some were at least moderate socialists. Many had simply never thought much about some aspect or other of philosophy. They may not have thought about concept formation, about the mind-body dichotomy, about what their ultimate value was, or about the moral basis of Capitalism. But they had enough toleration for new ideas to read her work and to evaluate it. They may have learned a great deal in the process about how to evaluate an idea. Before they adopted many or almost all of her ideas, they most likely thought that ideas were important and that they might learn something by fairly examining the ideas of Ayn Rand. Of course, if they simply adopted her ideas without critically examining them in light of their own experiences in the world and using their best effort to evaluate them rationally, they are simply dogmatists and they are not really Objectivists.

Because benevolence allows us to maximize the benefits of interactions with other good people and because most of the value of people is the result of their having good ideas, benevolence and toleration are closely tied together. If the society one lives in is good enough that benevolence is a major virtue, then it is good enough that tolerance is a major virtue. Each attains its status as a major virtue because approaching people and ideas with such a principled attitude enables one to acquire the greatest value from others and from their ideas. Neither should be held as a virtue simply as wishful thinking. How great a virtue each is is dependent upon how good the people around us are and how good their ideas are.

But, if we did live in a world in which few people were of value to us and in which few of their ideas were of value, then we probably should become hermits. In America today, that would be a very sad choice, because many people, while not at all perfect, do offer us a very great value by virtue of how they live their lives and by virtue of the ideas they develop and contribute to us with little more effort on our part but that we examine them carefully. In historical terms, we live in a wonderful time with many good people and a proliferation of ideas, many of which have and continue to greatly enhance our understanding of our universe. This is not the time to be stingy with benevolence and toleration!

[John Dailey]

Charles:

~ I'm sorry but, though I sympathize with where you're coming from (I think), I unfortunately can see no reason to accept your support of D. Kelley's view of additional 'virtues' beyond the listed ones in Rand's Galt's "O'ist" speech.

~ Given that "...all of man's virtues...pertain to the relation of existence and consciousness" (*my* underline), meaning primarily, only an individual's manner of relating him/herself to existence per se (hence, not to any restrictedly-particular part/sub-group of it, as say rocks, trees, animals, weather...or...other individuals), concern about 'benevolence' and 'tolerance' just seems...irrelevent. One might as well talk about...mere etiquette. O'ist 'virtues' are not inherently/primarily/basically, 'social-ethics' oriented.

~ I'm assuming that we're talking within the established "O'ist" framework, of course; if not, please clarify.

~ Granted, there ARE social-ethics to consider, derivatively from the selfish-ethics base; but, 1st and foremost, clarity about the nature of individual rights (hence, relations to others) is an absolutely necessary base in deriving any secondary 'social' principles thereby. What 'rights' imply about 'tolerance' is...ambiguous...to say the least. --- At best, "tolerance" is a secondary 'virtue', if one at all. Even then, the question arises (which I fault Kelley totally about not showing consideration towards at all, in his argument): to-what-Rationally-Justified-'limits'? If an answer to that can't be put into a comprehensive 'ethical' answer, then 'tolerance' is something to consider only in terms of a particular individual and their particular situation; ie: 'situationally' (as in "Situation Ethics"), and is not to be praised as any kind of 'virtue', per se, though can be denigrated as a 'vice' (re the mothers 'tolerating' fathers abusing daughters). 'Limits' is the key-word, and lack of referencing to the idea of such is the key-problem re this idea being a 'virtue.'

~ Then, there's the concept of "benevolence".

~ I'm sorry again, but, I find it unfortunate that the idea of 'benevolence' has lately (amongst secular circles, that is) become tied to the idea of 'toleration'. Charles: they have nothing to do with each other, attitude-wise. Nada. Unless one's a theist or a moral-relativist.

~ One 'tolerates' something done by another which one dis-likes, is repulsed by, etc (or worse: one believes is absolutely morally-'wrong')...for whatever rationalizations or even 'reasons' (maybe justifiable, maybe not; no matter here). Whereas "Benevolence" given to such a person is the Christian attitude of "Love thy enemy," and, obviously, any O'ist would barf at that idea. (Fwiw, I'm all for 'benevolent' forgiving and redemption-considerations...AFTER recompense, if possible, has occurred; until then...nope. But then, 'forgiving' is NOT 'toleration', agreed?)

~ A while ago, Ed Ames made a song popular. It was My Cup Runneth Over with Love. This, to me, is the essence of 'benevolence'. It has nothing to do with 'toleration.' When you think about it, anything one 'puts up with' that one dis-likes regarding someone whom one values/'loves' (or even merely 'respects') is not 'tolerated'; it's ignored! Think of Rand's example of the painting of the beautiful woman...with a mole on her lip. Then think of it not being a painting, but, someone you see at a swanky party. Get my drift? (Maybe more pertinently, think of how you/one would/should deal with The Elephant Man.) 'Tolerate'? Or 'ignore'? And, which is 'benevolent', ie, HAS benevolence coming from (as it only can) one's 'cup runnething over'?

~ Finally, 'benevolence' CAN'T be a 'virtue' (though it CAN be 'attractive' in seeing in another; but, 'attraction-perception' = 'virtue', NOT.) --- Unlike 'tolerance' and O'ism's primary virtues, it takes no effort (other than the Christian going-through-the-motions-'duty'...which clearly thereby LACKS a justifiable basis for the facade) to be in that framework; like happiness or love or mere attraction/repulsion, it's just there...or it's not. A virtue is something that takes effort to acquire (upon discovery) or to improve upon (upon identification that you have some of it.) 'Benevolence' is not something you can decide to get or improve upon. --- 'Virtue'-wise, it's irrelevent.

~ Hope this gave you some 'Food for thought'...O'istly speaking.

LLAP

J:D

P.S.

MSK: Ironically, this subject of 'benevolence' (or it's lack in some) may relate in terms of Rand's 'sense-of-life' to your long ago prob re the adult and the lost 'child' in the woods more than 'rights' seemed to!

Edited September 9, 2006 by John Dailey

[Bidinotto]

John Dailey writes:

~ Given that "...all of man's virtues...pertain to the relation of existence and consciousness" (*my* underline), meaning primarily, only an individual's manner of relating him/herself to existence per se (hence, not to any restrictedly-particular part/sub-group of it, as say rocks, trees, animals, weather...or...other individuals), concern about 'benevolence' and 'tolerance' just seems...irrelevent. One might as well talk about...mere etiquette. O'ist 'virtues' are not inherently/primarily/basically, 'social-ethics' oriented.

Oh? What about "justice"? Are we "just" toward "existence" at large, or toward only people in particular?

The fact that Rand singled out seven CARDINAL virtues of her ethics does not suggest that they exhaust the list of all rationally valid virtues. Isn't courage a virtue? ("You have a great deal of courage, Dagny." --Francisco) Persistence? Diligence? If those aren't virtues, what are they?

Finally, I found no resemblance between John's description of "tolerance" and "benevolence," and the discussion of those same concepts in David Kelley's books.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Charles,

I am so glad to see this article of yours finally receive some comments. It well deserves it.

John,

I agree with Robert on your understanding of Kelley's concepts of benevolence and toleration—albeit, I know more about his idea of toleration because I read The Contested Legacy of Ayn Rand (which deals with toleration) and have not yet read Unrugged Individualism (which is about benevolence). I suggest a closer examination of this.

I just finished reading The Ideas of Ayn Rand by Ronald Merrill and he mentioned something that gave me pause: the one theme running throughout all of Rand's works is how to be a moral individual in an evil society. Well, what if you do not live in an evil society? Are virtues some kind of metaphysical absolutes handed down by something called "nature" or an axiom called "existence/identity/consciousness," or are they attitudes we cultivate within ourselves in order to live according to our nature and attain our goals? These are the questions Charles asks (and Kelley).

Here is the quote from Galt's speech giving the big seven—and I wonder what it is about the number seven that makes it so special or absolute. Remember the seven deadly sins or seven cardinal virtues of Christianity? Rand's preoccupation with Christianity was much deeper than appears on the surface. For instance, see her favorite painting (which made my jaw drop open when I saw that in Britting's book). I definitely see an influence here, since she was questioning precisely the altruism in Christianity. (And how about the Holy Trinity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost? Take a look at her three cardinal values below. Reason the Father, Purpose the Son, and Self-esteem the Holy Ghost. )

My morality, the morality of reason, is contained in a single axiom: existence exists—and in a single choice: to live. The rest proceeds from these. To live, man must hold three things as the supreme and ruling values of his life: Reason—Purpose—Self-esteem. Reason, as his only tool of knowledge—Purpose, as his choice of the happiness which that tool must proceed to achieve—Self-esteem, as his inviolate certainty that his mind is competent to think and his person is worthy of happiness, which means: is worthy of living. These three values imply and require all of man's virtues, and all his virtues pertain to the relation of existence and consciousness: rationality, independence, integrity, honesty, justice, productiveness, pride.

Notice that the seven virtues are listed in the service of the holy trinity of values: reason, purpose and self-esteem. They are not simply commandments. Certainly other virtues can serve reason, purpose and self-esteem—"to gain or to hold" them qua values. In the manner Kelley uses toleration and benevolence, I certainly see the tie-in. I see it directly, too, not indirectly.

But before I go into this direct connection, I have one comment about the "evil society" concept. I read in Rand (and keep hearing in some comical creatures who think they are Rand's spiritual progeny) that "the world is perishing in an orgy of _________." (You fill in the blank.) Frankly, the human race is one of the most biologically successful ones on the planet, so I don't see the perishing or the orgy. Where is it? What a Puritanical idea anyway! (There certainly is an "orgy" of population growth.)

When I came back to the USA from Brazil, which is a wonderfully benevolent and tolerant society with enough real happiness to go around for all mankind, I marveled at the way things work here. What a wonderful system of living! There are so many conveniences and facilities and entertainment for long, long hours of leisure. Whoever looks around America today and says it is perishing in an orgy of something—anything—is simply not looking.

Now back to the crux underneath. Rand's concept of human was almost correctly defined, but she did not adhere even to her "fudge" in much of her writing. She defined man as a "rational animal" in ITOE, where "rational" is the differentia and "animal" is the genus. That is not precise, since she fudged the genus. Man actually is a "rational primate." The word animal is much too broad to be the genus. That would mean that if someday a dog developed a rational faculty (and there is no reason to suppose that dogs will not evolve one over time, especially living around people who selectively breed them), we would call a future rational dog a human being. That would be a rational animal, too.

Rand concentrated on the rational part so much that often she completely eliminated the "animal" part. This is the source of much confusion in her writings on "tabula rasa," innate knowledge, instinct, talent and so forth. The weirdest expression of this was her assertion that man could program and know the source of all of his emotions through rational thinking alone. When I read that in her writings, I tried to think that there must be something I missed. But that is exactly what she wrote, and she wrote it enough times to lead me to believe that this is exactly what she meant.

ARI even compounded Rand's fudge by eliminating "animal" altogether and replacing it with "being." See Essentials of Objectivism. Here is a quote from there, which incidentally expanded the five philosophical categories to six to include Human Nature (which is a good thing, even if they misfired on what it is):

Human Nature

Man is a rational being. Reason, as man's only means of knowledge, is his basic means of survival. But the exercise of reason depends on each individual's choice. "Man is a being of volitional consciousness." "That which you call your soul or spirit is your consciousness, and that which you call 'free will' is your mind's freedom to think or not, the only will you have, your only freedom. This is the choice that controls all the choices you make and determines your life and character."Thus Objectivism rejects any form of determinism, the belief that man is a victim of forces beyond his control (such as God, fate, upbringing, genes, or economic conditions).

A very funny observation here is that if man is a "rational being" as given above and it is later found that there are spirits (that they are "beings") and that these beings are rational, then spirits can be human beings also. Just like the Bible says.

If you look at toleration and benevolence through the lens of man as a disembodied individual rational something/whatever, these virtues do not look essential. If you look at them through the lens of the genus—that man is a primate before he is rational—you see herding, reproduction and a host of other defining "animal" characteristics.

I hold that a man who uses reason to serve an existence that denies his nature as a primate is committing slow suicide.

I hold that a man who holds to a fundamental purpose that does not include his nature as a primate is committing slow suicide.

I hold that a man who finds his nature as a primate irrelevant will have a serious negative self-esteem issue, and thus commit slow suicide.

In all three, man must include both "rational" and "primate" in his formulations of values and codes. To deny either is slow suicide. In the case of the rational faculty, it will atrophy, just like any other organic thing, with lack of proper use.

Going back to the fundamental condition in the Galt quote, existence exists. Rand constantly states that existence is identity because to exist is to be something that exists. Thus man has a specific identity. When considering his fundamental choice "to live," this means that a man must live according to his identity. That identity as a broad category (primate, or "animal" as Rand would have it) and a distinguishing characteristic (rational).

Toleration and benevolence are not fundamental virtues for the differentia part of man. They are fundamental for the genus part. It is a virtue to be benevolent enough toward existence to want to live. It is a virtue to be tolerant toward members of your own species when you herd so you can tend to your own needs without constant fighting and so you can find a mate among those available. There are differentia advantages of these virtues also, especially in a society that is not "evil," but they are only part of the picture. The real root is in the genus—of being a species within a specific category of things that exist where all beings in that category have a specific nature.

My preoccupation with the starving child in the woods is more on that level—the definition of human nature level—than on the more superficial one of human rights. This is a fundamental question, one which I believe bothers many Objectivists but they don't have the words for it. This also explains to me (partially at least) the reason for the exaggerated hostility this issue received.

I smelled fear much more than hatred back then.

Michael

[John Dailey]

MSK and Bidinotto:

~ Hmm...maybe you caught me on something there. 'Book-wise', have only read Kelley's The Evidence of the Senses. Have to get back to you on this AFTER I check his books on these subjects. NOT that I've only gone on 'hearsay' re Kelley's arguments on the subjects; I went only by *my interpretation* of his Truth and Toleration essay. Clearly, that's not enough to go by, or, I...interpret...the content differently from you. In O'ist circles...what's new?

LLAP

J:D