bmacwilliam

Bob,

What is most revealing is that you called your wife "someone else"... So, you either have low regard for her, or - I repeat - you don't understand rational selfishness.

An investment in her future is a selfish desire on your part - now. Twist as much as you want, but which is more important to you: the money you spend, OR her long-term security (and your peace of mind)?

Altruism pertains to the unknown, unvalued, anonymous 'someone' - not to child, mother, business partner, friend - or wife. Anybody you value is a selfish value.

The only way your argument works is (more or less your words)

a) My wife is NOT another person

b) Investing in another's future is a selfish act

You accuse me of "twisting"?? C'mon now

Life insurance is selfLESS? "So I don't hear her complain" is selfISH?

You don't get selfishness at all.

Really? Well, the picking up of socks may be a trite example, but life insurance is clear. Life insurance is a cost that I incur now and that I will NEVER benefit. Not calling that selfLESS is just silly wordplay. It is clearly altruistic. One must work for the money that exclusively will only benefit someone else - by definition. You can't weasel selfishness that far.

Now look at your examples and rethink.

What appears a compromise between two extremes to you, is merely day-to day- negotiation, or short term pragmatism. And entirely necessary, when we lose sight of the 'big picture' for a few moments.

Exactly my point! You have to be partially altruistic - "entirely necessary" - or you have a "pragmatic" problem - the big picture gets lost. Ahhhh, yeah....that's what I'm saying...."Compromise", "negotiation" - wordplay.

And no, per my example, the first loss of self led me on a slippery slope - it was unending and destructive... there's no compromise.

Tony

Well, good luck with that...

Bob

Bob:

That was another clanking piece of self destructive behavior that I sensed and did not share with the folks that I met at NBI in the late '60's.

I did not find it a successful pattern to base a long term love relationship, or marriage on.

And, in essence, once again, Ayn did not, apparently, practice what she "preached," if the observers of their marriage are accurate.

This behavior is, of course, typically human and rampant amongst the preacher and philosopher class. Werner Erhart of the est and Landmark Forum movement is a typical example.

Adam

I knew someone who did the Landmark thing. Don't know much about it other than the person in question seemed to exhibit some strong 'cultish' behaviour afterward.

But I'm not clear on what you mean by "That was another clanking piece of self destructive behavior that I sensed"

Could you explain?

Thanks,

Bob

I once gave a close relative of mine my savings for some property investment.

I didn't do it out of love in the Objectivist sense: A feeling of compassion, closeness, gratitude. No, I think I didn't even like that person at the time.

My motivation was the moral code of self-sacrife that you are so fond of. I thought it would make me good person. It would somehow mean something.

The result was hatred, first of that relative, then of myself for feeling that way.

I bet you would never behave like I did. You wouldn't give all you have to a person you don't even like.

Stupidity != Altruism

When you think of self-sacrifce you think of a mother who loves her child. Such a mother would self-sacrifice when she *didn't* care for her child.

Hmmm.... So the only criteria for when a mother should care for a child is when she really loves her child?

What about if she only likes it a lot? Or just a little? Or not at all? Or the days the child is misbehaving?

Maybe its not the kind of child you have to feed every day.

Clear, transparent nonsense.

Bob

The truth is a little self-sacrifice is a good thing (think about your mother).

One would hope she would rather have loved you.

Exactly, the Objectivist concept of loving someone else - "It's still all about me". Weak, very weak.

Therefore love must come at cost to oneself - otherwise it ain't love?

(Seeing as we're doing one-liners.)

Again, false dichotomy. Love can be, often is, and perhaps should be, partly self-interested and partly unselfish. Again, you get big problems when you try to operate at the extreme selfish or sacrificial end - otherwise known as "selfish jerk" and "doormat" respectively. The optimal situation is somewhere in the middle. Some of the things I do for my wife I do selfishly - like pick up my socks etc, so I don't hear her complain, while other things I do are completely selfless, like a life insurance policy. Something by definition that costs me, but which I could never enjoy the benefit.

It seems you've had the "doormat" problems in the past. Not good, but the solution is not to remove all selflessness from your relationships. Try it and see how that works out for you if you don't believe me.

This seems rather obvious.

Bob

The truth is a little self-sacrifice is a good thing (think about your mother).

One would hope she would rather have loved you.

Exactly, the Objectivist concept of loving someone else - "It's still all about me". Weak, very weak.

No system of thought can be rationally very strong while derived from weak foundations. Tossing out the phrase "floating abstraction" does not validate any of the claims, but itself is an example of just that.

No, that's simply not true. You can have an argument that is 100% correct, but ends up with false conclusions because the premises are incorrect. This is what I mean.

Altruism means self-sacrifice.

The truth is a little self-sacrifice is a good thing (think about your mother).

I think it's a blatant false dichotomy to complain that since serving someone else as one's highest purpose leads to self-destruction therefore serving anybody for any portion of ones existence is at best optional, and at worst immoral/evil. This argument absolutely reeks of political motivation and is clearly not based in reality.

I think it's even worse when cornered the vehement anti-altruists resort to the argument of "well, that's not really self-sacrifice because blah, blah, blah...crap".

Bob

In other words, she was wrong. Clearly and obviously wrong. Where have I heard this before?? Bob

Bob, I thank all the gods that she could be wrong sometimes - otherwise I'd have to worship her as superhuman, and I don't do worship.

Cool, fair enough, but may I humbly suggest you don't argue that she was right AND wrong about the SAME issue on the SAME thread please?

Bob

I just read this and thought to myself, am I being unfair to Bob? Is he really interested in discussing the ideas instead of repeating Rand was wrong (crazy, disconnected from reality, etc.) ad nauseam like a parrot?

Dumb idea is dumb.

If a good Objectivist can't be a parent, and a good parent can be an Objectivist, then I think something's wrong no??

Bob

From this it can be inferred that parenthood would qualify as 'altruistic' (in Rand's sense).

Yes, we've been through this already.

What first springs to mind is the possible false dichotomy she was indulging herself in: That egoists can't be parents, or parents, egoists.

Then, as long as egoists are the minute minority, population groups won't be affected. But if they became a majority? By her pronouncement, numbers would dwindle..but she'd have known this, surely?

Also, the puzzling degree of, well - respect - she showed for parenthood; that raised properly, a child would and must divert all of an adult's attention, at a self-sacrificial cost. Raising a child comes with rewards and responsibilities, but it just isn't that hard.

I think this was her own subjective assessment. She didn't appreciate children enough to have any, and never understood parenting, and personally would certainly have been distracted from her work if she had had a child - what would have been her output, then?

But one size doesn't fit all.

Tony

In other words, she was wrong. Clearly and obviously wrong. Where have I heard this before??

Bob

What can you fault in 100% egoism, coupled with 100% good-will(and sometime help) for others, as an aspiration?

Excellent question!

There's actually nothing wrong with this, and in fact, this is my point. I actually agree with this. Micheal can't seem to parse this. The only problem happens in the quibbling over definitions, but this is the crux of it. This quibble is the key.

It is pretty clear to me that you cannot do things "coupled with 100% good-will(and sometime help) for others" without actually commiting the vile mortal Objectivist sin of altruism. You do end up sacrificing a greater value for a lesser value sometimes. But the point is that this is OK sometimes. It's not morally evil or even neutral. It is GOOD to do this sometimes. I am with you here, but I do not pretend to define these clear altruistic actions away.

What I don't buy is the dismissal of these actions as not being 'real' altruism. "My love for my husband means I please him really just for my own selfish reasons" and other nonsensical backflips. I call bullshit on this because it is bullshit.

What is also an interesting question is why I believe she did this. I don't like the answer, although admittedly this part of my assessment is somewhat speculative.

Bob

I don't mind people disagreeing with Rand or criticizing her. But when people graft meanings on to her words that she didn't mean, and they leave out her own meanings, their arguments are nothing to take seriously.

Show me how it's better (in any frame of reference of your choosing) if all of us practice pure egoistic action - consistently, compared to say 90% egoistic, 10% altruistic.

Simple question.

Oh, and by 'graft meanings on to her words that she didn't mean' I assume you refer to the actual quotations of her own words I provide???

Bob

That, now, you rationalize a 'selective' altruism (by making it "optional") - and naturally so, because you wouldn't have survived til today if you practised it constantly, and consistently? ("conferring a survival advantage to another"... etc, etc.)

Firstly, no. I do not argue for making it optional. My point was that I have not heard a reasonable argument for the complete dismissal of or the 'optional' status of altruism.

In fact if we didn't receive altruism 'constantly, and consistently' during our younger years, indeed none of us would be here.

That you have not put forward a single sensible, philosophical, argument for altruism?

The irony is rather amusing considering it RAND who argues philosophically FROM nature (reality). But when that nature is in fact misidentified, instead of adjusting your conclusions you attack the applicability of reality to philosophy. Perhaps you think this is 'slick' or something, I don't know. But its simply BS.

The idea above applies to your other so-called arguments. You argue that reality isn't applicable. Ain't gonna fly.

Bob

This works just fine for both purposes.

Bob,

No it doesn't. But I'm not going to argue over something so obvious. I start by reading dictionaries, not opinions of people with agendas, for my definitions.

Dictionaries? You're kidding right? Rand's definition of altruism is in line with a dictionary? Hardly.

Rand: "The irreducible primary of altruism, the basic absolute, is self-sacrifice—which means; self-immolation, self-abnegation, self-denial, self-destruction"

Biology: "Survival benefit to someone else at a survival cost to the individual'

If we stay away from the "evil" vs "good", then these definitions are quite clearly compatible. Rather obviously.

Almost any dictionary, including ones for kids, comes with multiple definitions for words.

So what? Those are the two definitions I explicitly state I am dealing with. There is no ambiguity.

We seek different big-picture values.

Seems so. I look for a little thing called truth. Haven't figured out what you're up to....

Bob

Okay, typically most people argue against Rand's meta-ethics, or the "Life to Value" argument. For more on this, see Robert Nozick's "On The Randian Argument"

Or just this:

Man's life is the standard of value.

What kind of life? Why, the life of a good Objectivist of course!

All the Objectivist reading I've ever done on this topic says the same thing. IMHO, Objectivism is interesting and rationally/logically very strong, yet founded upon very weak (or just flat out obviously wrong) foundations.

This is not the only foundational problem, but in and of itself is enough to kill it before it even starts.

Describe a philosophy that includes partial altruism as a "good" thing, and you'll have one that truly reflects reality. Ignore this, and it's all just a giant intellectual fantasy - a floating abstraction.

Bob

Tony,

There are several definitions for altruism. One of those is biological and another is philosophical. Look it up and you'll see.

Bob consistently uses the biology definition for philosophy and essentially says, "Gotcha," usually followed by a comment about how cuckoo Rand was.

Translation: Rand mucks with definitions to fix the argument so that she can't lose. The specific biological definition I use is perfectly adequate - "conferring a survival advantage to another at a survival cost to oneself". This works just fine for both purposes. Rand stressed reality. Biology is reality.

Cuckoo? No. She was wrong and I believe deliberately manipulative.

People have pointed out the differences several times, but he keeps on keeping on. Must be a different drummer he's marching to or something.

Anyway, he's done this so often, I stopped paying attention to it.

Michael

Translation: There is no reasonable argument against this so I've stopped trying.

Bob

Still waiting for a decent answer to this....

Your view of the nature of man is severely skewed to the pre-cognitive and pre-voltional - and pre-moral.

Tony

The problem here is that you and Michael consistently fail to adeqately address is why certain elements of reality are skipped, or at least glossed over. It's not that we're a slave to our animalistic impulses. This is a strawman. The question is why we should arbitrarily discount some elements of our nature and embrace others? Where's the justification for dismissing altruistic tendencies (or at the very least making them optional) but making the egoistic impulses the mandatory and the 'good'? It's clear that both are a part of us. It's also clear that these altruistic tendencies do NOT lead to ruin as Rand would have us believe and have important, perhaps even indispensable value.

Is it a coincidence that the elements that lead to a failure of Rand's politics are dismissed? No way. No friggin' way.

Bob

It's a fallacy which we see come up often - that hard-wiring is intrinsically 'good'. No, it just gives us good sensations. "Pleasurable", as you say. It can't be our guide or authority.

Tony

"Intrinsically good" doesn't matter, only the "intrinsic" part is what I'm commenting on.

The problem I have is with the 'human nature' part of this. Good or bad doesn't matter for this. What "is" matters. It is in our nature to be altruistic, clearly. But now somehow only the selfish motives become the good. That's a leap I cannot take.

<speculation> Rand had to take this leap and ignore reality, because if she didn't, her politics fail. Ultimately I think this was most important to her, and I don't like that.</speculation>

Bob

We were hard-wired to father/mother the maximum amount of off-spring possible in our primitively short life, yes. That's where it stops.

Separately, any consideration of our culture, or philosophy dwindling and dying out is not metaphysical; it's cognitive, and rational. Just thought I'd be clear on this.

We, each of us, are not *hard-wired* to consider the survival of the species, or culture; we just want to make babies.**

Tony

I don't think so. I think that taking the more gene-centric approach is a better fit to reality.

I think our "altruism" correlates quite well to genetic closeness. Other than your spouse (who is important for obvious reproductive reasons) we generally trend to act altruistically in inverse relation to kin distance. This explains family bonds, extended family relationships, tribalism, racism among other behaviours and is quite indeed hard-wired into us according to recent studies.

Ignoring this, to me simply does not make sense.

"We, each of us, are not *hard-wired* to consider the survival of the species, or culture; "

I think this is quite demonstrably incorrect.

"The results were showing that when the volunteers placed the interests of others before their own, the generosity activated a primitive part of the brain that usually lights up in response to food or sex. Altruism, the experiment suggested, was not a superior moral faculty that suppresses basic selfish urges but rather was basic to the brain, hard-wired and pleasurable."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/27/AR2007052701056.html

A cogent argument for going childless, which if taken seriously would mean the extinction of our species in under a hundred years (give or take). Someone has to take the initiative and make babies or mankind is finished. Is that altruism? Or is that survival?

I have done my bit for the human race. Four children of the flesh and five grandchildren. Of True Blue Objectivists follow Rand's thinking then Objectivism will become extinct rather soon.

The best test for a set of idea is working out the consequences of following them. By that criterion, the consequence of following Rand to the letter and utterance is extinction.

Ba'al Chatzaf

I agree. My position all along that you cannot even begin to describe human nature without recognising the fact (rather obvious too I think), brought to light in your example above as well, that humans must and should spend part of their time/life/energy etc, working in an altruistic sense where they confer a survival advantage to others at a survival cost to themselves. The key is in the balance of these competing interests where neither extreme is consistent with our nature. The altruism in this sense might not be pure Randian altruism, but it's close enough and it simply cannot be dismissed IMHO.

I believe her brand of egoism is not in agreement with reality. In fact it means DEATH !!! - As you've illustrated and as she would probably describe any other dissenting positions.

Bob

I think (but not sure) that even in Shayne's imaginary voluntary utopia that there will be at least some kind of Government of some small(er) size. No problem for me, I'm with him so far.

But...

What about a government contract for say...office space. Doesn't matter what product or service the Government is seeking. Anyway, a voluntary transaction between the administrator responsible for picking the office space and the property owner takes place where the administrator gets a 5% piece of the revenue ongoing - a kickback. Say what you want about this bribery, but it is certainly voluntary for both parties.

What about bribing a contract ajudicator? What about a lobbyist and his mutual-voluntary payments to government officials?

Should we point the guns? Gentle pursuasion? When does a voluntary transaction warrant gun-pointing? Certainly somewhere because you complain that big-business lobbying is a big problem? But it's clearly voluntary for all parties involved.

Bob

All he needs to do is list some websites from companies that are selling custom stock to the public.

Ninth, the fact that you found a website that sells stocks does nothing...

...

A very dishonest reply. I've asked several times how Valve can legally offer the particular kind of security that they have expressed a desire for and Merlin has failed to answer. That is because there is no answer. It is illegal. So another epithet technically applies to Merlin. I don't know why Brant complains about calling things by their right names. Merlin is a fascist, and he is either dishonest or is completely incompetent at reading.

Shayne

Pathology is the only word that comes to mind. Both Merlin and I have explained (and I have offered several concrete examples) of existing companies with concentrated disproportionate voting rights for founders and IPOs structured with different share classes (Google) to accomplish precisely what Valve seems to want to do (retain creative control). Yet you accuse Merlin of dishonesty and not being able to read.

Either we're not clear on Valve's reasoning (maybe they just don't want any other owners around them at all) or they couldn't get underwriting, or maybe something else. But, if all they want to do is retain creative control then there is clearly no legal barrier.

There's something wrong with you that you'd spew such accusations. Accusations of transgressions that you yourself commit not more than a few minutes previously. Don't think the obvious connection is a coincidence.

Is this opposite day or something?

Bob

After adopting a pleasing or popular theory, we tend to notice only that evidence which seems to support it, while ignoring all counter-evidence, however cogent and abundant, that might conflict with our theory.

Great post in general George, and this in particular rings very true. Point out some "counter-evidence" to Shayne and you get a biological equivalent of a blue screen; complete with the nonsensical stack dump and all.

To add to this, I think we too often forget that to have any sort of productive argument or discussion we need to proceed from a point of mutual agreement first, then pinpoint where the diversion occurs. I think many people, for a variety of reasons, refuse to agree on anything whatsoever lest their much invested position be threatened in any way whatsoever.

Bob

Many of the people who were scammed by Madoff weren't idiots. He came highly recommended by their rich friends. Not everyone's a sophisticated investor, and he had a good reputation.

If you're not a professional investor, why would you invest?

Life savings are not to be invested, but saved. No single person can have a reputation that warrants a trust with life savings.

Gold, real estate, currency in savings accounts with banks older than a hundred years.

I have a thousand times more sympathy with the old lady that stores her bucks in the cookie jar and it gets stolen than with people who invest their savings while not being investors. Investor is a profession.

"If you're not a professional investor, why would you invest?"

The vast majority of investors are not professional investors. Think pensions...

"Life savings are not to be invested, but saved."

False, nobody/very few could ever retire without investments.

"Gold, real estate, currency in savings accounts with banks older than a hundred years."

Real estate is a relatively risky investment. It is not savings. It is not safe. Trust me on this one...

"Investor is a profession."

No, not only does almost everyone invest, almost everyone NEEDS to invest.

If I had to choose one word to describe capitalism, it would probably be 'risk'. Risk is the cornerstone of capitalism. It is necessary.

Bob