Settling the debate on Altruism

[Rich Engle]

I think companies like Keating's were, though created, very prophetic creations. They pale by comparison to some of the things that have emerged.

Interesting point about her bringing up a "benevolent universe." For one thing, this is a fundamental mode of thought in certain religions (Unitarian Universalism, for one). I think it ultimately gets down to metaphysics, in the end, but weird ones. I like to, and continue to, think of the universe as benevolent, but it is taxing. It is more of a mindset thing; what part of the universe you want to be in. Consider the alternatives: one would be neutral, which kind of makes you philosophically agnostic, if you get me. The other is to say it is malevolent, and if you go that way, that's all you find.

It stands out as an unusual positive in her writing, and yes, seems to conflict with her established general stance. I think.

r

[BaalChatzaf]

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Therefore, beware before hastily judging self-attributed altruists as unethical. The fact is that empathic benevolence will never be self-described in comfortable and selfish Ojectivist terms.

It seems to me that any theory of altruism (or selfishness) that has to be explained away or defined away is basically flawed.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[merjet]

The child's welfare is in the parents' self-interest by virtue of being something they value. They act to keep that value (child), so taking care of the child is in their self-interest.

Well, of course it is. It is also the child's interest, which is something you either can't or refuse to accept.

[Brant Gaede]

[Brant Gaede]:

If we want floating definitions we can talk about this forever to no point.

Please give an example of a "floating definition".

It's just when different participants in a discussion have different working definitions for key concepts. Thus the definition floats around from one to another depending on who is talking.

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

Politics is derived from an ethical base but that ethics is first in a person or there simply is no base.

"Politics is derived from an ethical base"? I suppose you are referring to Rand's statement "Every political system is based on some code of ethics."

Does such a statement not imply that ethics are a subjective choice?

I'd like to discus an example with you because from your posts I infer you have been there. (served in Vietnam)

"Dulce et decorum est pro partia mori" was an Old Roman saying by the poet laureate Horace.

A political statement based on "ethics" so to speak. The obvious purpose of the ethics was to make it easier for the soldiers to accept the realistic prospect of dying in battle. Dying in battle for one's country was even sold as "dulce" ('sweet') and the self-interest aspect, the personal reward for the alleged "altruistic" act was the "decorum" ('honor').

Imo such manipulative propaganda is as alive today as it was back then. What do you think?

It's much worse today because back then there was national service so the government didn't have to sell you anything except if you weren't going to be drafted you could enlist and choose a specialty. Except for the draft I don't think I would have ever enlisted, but you couldn't get on with your life until your obligation was out of the way. No decent jobs were available. If you had trouble in college and wanted to take a break you might be drafted. Earn some money to pay for your education? Same thing. A lot of people went to college to avoid the draft and stayed to get advanced degrees for the same reason. I think school teachers were exempt. If you convinced the powers that be that you were a homosexual you got a pass, except your draft status that employers would look at would reflect sexual deviancy. Homosexuals seldom acknowledged any such thing therefore. You were a complete fool to say you were when you weren't. There were other exemptions. Joe Namath of the New York Jets avoided the draft because he was allergic, supposedly, to the dye used in military fatigues. Yeah, right. Muhammad Ali refused induction on religious grounds and was stripped of his title for four years until the Supreme Court ruled in his favor (1971). Refusing induction could get you sent to Federal prison. It must have been a felony too boot.

I'm not getting into whether ethics is a subjective choice at this time. It's a variation of the the self-interest discussion.

--Brant

[tjohnson]

[Brant Gaede]:

If we want floating definitions we can talk about this forever to no point.

Please give an example of a "floating definition".

It's just when different participants in a discussion have different working definitions for key concepts. Thus the definition floats around from one to another depending on who is talking.

--Brant

This just happened in another thread. Micheal says the objectivist use of reason is different from the standard use. I responded saying that was not a good idea - if you want to communicate with people its best to stick to conventional meanings as much as possible.

[tjohnson]

It's much worse today because back then there was national service so the government didn't have to sell you anything except if you weren't going to be drafted you could enlist and choose a specialty. Except for the draft I don't think I would have ever enlisted, but you couldn't get on with your life until your obligation was out of the way. No decent jobs were available. If you had trouble in college and wanted to take a break you might be drafted. Earn some money to pay for your education? Same thing. A lot of people went to college to avoid the draft and stayed to get advanced degrees for the same reason. I think school teachers were exempt. If you convinced the powers that be that you were a homosexual you got a pass, except your draft status that employers would look at would reflect sexual deviancy. Homosexuals seldom acknowledged any such thing therefore. You were a complete fool to say you were when you weren't. There were other exemptions. Joe Namath of the New York Jets avoided the draft because he was allergic, supposedly, to the dye used in military fatigues. Yeah, right. Muhammad Ali refused induction on religious grounds and was stripped of his title for four years until the Supreme Court ruled in his favor (1971). Refusing induction could get you sent to Federal prison. It must have been a felony too boot.

I'm not getting into whether ethics is a subjective choice at this time. It's a variation of the the self-interest discussion.

--Brant

I would have left the country rather than be drafted into the military and go to Viet Nam. I can't think of anything more immoral than a government forcing it's citizens to kill innocent people.

[Christopher]

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Therefore, beware before hastily judging self-attributed altruists as unethical. The fact is that empathic benevolence will never be self-described in comfortable and selfish Ojectivist terms.

It seems to me that any theory of altruism (or selfishness) that has to be explained away or defined away is basically flawed.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Objectivism is just such a theory requiring explanation. The issue here is communication.

We perceive and understand the world through various means. The types of those perceptions and understandings differ greatly from an epistemological standpoint. Ultimately, there's a big difference between knowing the path and walking the path, so-to-speak.

[Xray]

[Brant Gaede]:

If we want floating definitions we can talk about this forever to no point.

Please give an example of a "floating definition".

It's just when different participants in a discussion have different working definitions for key concepts. Thus the definition floats around from one to another depending on who is talking.

--Brant

This just happened in another thread. Micheal says the objectivist use of reason is different from the standard use. I responded saying that was not a good idea - if you want to communicate with people its best to stick to conventional meanings as much as possible.

That was an excellent post you wrote over there, GS.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Micheal says the objectivist use of reason is different from the standard use. I responded saying that was not a good idea - if you want to communicate with people its best to stick to conventional meanings as much as possible.

GS,

This is incomplete. You actually attributed the wrong meaning to Rand's term, then proceeded to explain why that meaning was wrong in her use of it, which she of course did not use. (btw - I suggest reading Ron Merrill on Rand's different meanings of the word "reason.")

What you play is a silly game.

I could do that with oodles of terms from The Count where his meaning differs from the common one and you would cry foul in a heartbeat.

What do you think of a person who does that and tries to taunt others with his own ignorance? I know what I think.

Michael

[tjohnson]

This is incomplete. You actually attributed the wrong meaning to Rand's term, then proceeded to explain why that meaning was wrong in her use of it, which she of course did not use.

I don't attribute anything. I see a word and I remember what it means (or look it up if I'm not sure) then someone tells me it means something else in objectivism. It reminds me of a Steve Martin routine where he said if you want to play a dirty trick on your kid teach them how to talk wrong. Btw, I would be interested in seeing you find some example of this in general semantics. I think Korzybski went to great pains to select language that was consistent with existing meanings.

[Brant Gaede]

It's much worse today because back then there was national service so the government didn't have to sell you anything except if you weren't going to be drafted you could enlist and choose a specialty. Except for the draft I don't think I would have ever enlisted, but you couldn't get on with your life until your obligation was out of the way. No decent jobs were available. If you had trouble in college and wanted to take a break you might be drafted. Earn some money to pay for your education? Same thing. A lot of people went to college to avoid the draft and stayed to get advanced degrees for the same reason. I think school teachers were exempt. If you convinced the powers that be that you were a homosexual you got a pass, except your draft status that employers would look at would reflect sexual deviancy. Homosexuals seldom acknowledged any such thing therefore. You were a complete fool to say you were when you weren't. There were other exemptions. Joe Namath of the New York Jets avoided the draft because he was allergic, supposedly, to the dye used in military fatigues. Yeah, right. Muhammad Ali refused induction on religious grounds and was stripped of his title for four years until the Supreme Court ruled in his favor (1971). Refusing induction could get you sent to Federal prison. It must have been a felony too boot.

I'm not getting into whether ethics is a subjective choice at this time. It's a variation of the the self-interest discussion.

--Brant

I would have left the country rather than be drafted into the military and go to Viet Nam. I can't think of anything more immoral than a government forcing it's citizens to kill innocent people.

I enlisted in 1964 to go to photography school. Vietnam was just heating up. Only a small percentage of military ever see combat. I volunteered for Special Forces in Basic Training and after light weapons went to Jump School then Ft. Bragg, NC. There were/are a number of SF MOSs (Military Occupational Specialty) but only two were available except to senior non-commissioned officers: communications and medical. At first I chose commo then switched to medical because it was more interesting and challenging and would keep me in training longer--almost a year--and I would go to Ft. Sam Houston in San Antonio to start on temporary duty (TDY). Before we left--there were about 50 of us--our commanding officer addressed us in a fury about not fucking up in Texas because he was responsible for what we did (party, party, party). Apparently something bad happened with a previous class. (A year later this Lt. Col. was still at Bragg and some medics were assigned to clean his office at night. He had a rack of pipes. Let me just say they--not me--got their revenge in a way only medics could think of, but he never knew what that was. The stupidest thing an officer can do is fuck over his enlisted men.) After Ft. Sam we were given a list of military hospitals for on the job training and I asked for Ft. Gordon, GA. Shortly after we got there Eisenhower had a heart attack at Augusta and we volunteered to help take care of him. When I first saw him he was in a blocked off corridor in this old wooden hospital, asleep with what must have been one of the first heart monitors ever showing his heart beat. This once most powerful man in the world looked like the lonliest you could imagine. He was still a five-star general. The next night they had him in a huge suite. After a week the brass sent down the prettiest army nurse they could find to help out on my shift. 13 days after his incident he was put on a train and shipped up to Walter Reed. Next I returned to Bragg and we were tested on our medical knowledge and suddenly half of us were gone. When I graduated from "Dog Lab" (they now use goats) there were only 16 of us left. I still get upset and mad thinking about "Dog Lab." What I didn't understand then was we were all dogs to be potentially used, abused, killed and discarded in "Vietnam Lab." In jump school in March 2005 a training NCO told us they were going to deploy conventional forces to Vietnam--this was a rumor turned out to be true--and I thought of the +30,000 dead in Korea and how they stopped that conflict because Korea was a peninsula and they could draw a defensible line across it, but you couldn't do that in Vietnam. I wondered if in a few years we'd have +30,000 dead in Vietnam. They can't be that stupid, I thought. They'll find a way to avoid that. Korea must have taught them something. Wrong, wrong, wrong. As I rode on the bus leaving Benning for Bragg I could see the troops of the First Cav. Air Mobile in and around their barracks--the same group in that Mel Gibson movie that got chewed up big time--and wondered how many I was looking at would be killed.

I went to Vietnam knowing I might be killing communist aggressors, not "innocent" people. I'm willing to kill communists for the same reason I'm willing to kill Nazis. I'm talking about state-sanctioned aggression against innocent people. However, this was not a rational endeavor for me--or to be in the military at all. Millions of others can say the same thing.

--Brant

Edited April 19, 2009 by Brant Gaede

[Backlighting]

It's much worse today because back then there was national service so the government didn't have to sell you anything except if you weren't going to be drafted you could enlist and choose a specialty. Except for the draft I don't think I would have ever enlisted, but you couldn't get on with your life until your obligation was out of the way. No decent jobs were available. If you had trouble in college and wanted to take a break you might be drafted. Earn some money to pay for your education? Same thing. A lot of people went to college to avoid the draft and stayed to get advanced degrees for the same reason. I think school teachers were exempt. If you convinced the powers that be that you were a homosexual you got a pass, except your draft status that employers would look at would reflect sexual deviancy. Homosexuals seldom acknowledged any such thing therefore. You were a complete fool to say you were when you weren't. There were other exemptions. Joe Namath of the New York Jets avoided the draft because he was allergic, supposedly, to the dye used in military fatigues. Yeah, right. Muhammad Ali refused induction on religious grounds and was stripped of his title for four years until the Supreme Court ruled in his favor (1971). Refusing induction could get you sent to Federal prison. It must have been a felony too boot.

I'm not getting into whether ethics is a subjective choice at this time. It's a variation of the the self-interest discussion.

--Brant

I would have left the country rather than be drafted into the military and go to Viet Nam. I can't think of anything more immoral than a government forcing it's citizens to kill innocent people.

I chose to succumb to the draft. The other 2 alternatives were Federal prison or flee to Canada. Fortunately I was not sent to Vietnam. I served most of my time in Japan, operating a printing press.

Edited April 20, 2009 by Las Vegas

[tjohnson]

I chose to succumb to the draft. The other 2 alternatives were Federal prison or flee to Canada. Fortunately I was not sent to Vietnam. I served most of my time in Japan, operating a printing press.

Yes, well I wouldn't have took that chance. Luckily I was already in Canada.

[tjohnson]

I went to Vietnam knowing I might be killing communist aggressors, not "innocent" people. I'm willing to kill communists for the same reason I'm willing to kill Nazis. I'm talking about state-sanctioned aggression against innocent people. However, this was not a rational endeavor for me--or to be in the military at all. Millions of others can say the same thing.

I realize no one goes into war thinking they are going to kill innocent people, but it invariably happens. In some sense you were all innocent people, even the soldiers on both sides, since you were sucked in by propaganda into thinking that war can solve problems. :no:

[Alfonso Jones]

[Xray]:

There you have it: "vanity" "greed" "ruthless egotist " Rand judges Keating. And THAT is supposed to be "selfless" ??

If you believe that, then going by the logic, the sentence "What a selfless man! A vain, greedy, ruthless egotist!" would not make you wonder?

If you want to understand what Rand is saying about this, you're going to have to seek to understand the definitions she is using. Words have meaning - - - and the emotional content you choose to attach to a word may not be the author's meaning. To argue against Rand's use of a term based on a definition of a word you choose to use, when Rand has specifically defined the term as she uses it, is a sure recipe for remaining confused.

Read the quote from Rand above carefully to see at least one misunderstanding in your post of my very short quote from Rand.

I'm not talking about "Rand's sense" because I don't accept the her claim of selfless man. I say it's impossible. This is the issue. Self-interest is always present. I read Rand's words, but see no objective validation of such a selfless man existent. Therefore, "Rand's sense" is irrelevant until a selfless man is shown to exist. Only then will I be convinced that self-interest is not 100% of the time.

The issue does not depend how much I read of Rand's beyond the present points. The issue is most direct and clear. Keating asked for Roark's help.

What motivated this action? If not self interest, what?

The action of asking Roark for help had to be motivated by something didn't it? If not motivated by self-interest, what is left but non self-interest?

How does non self-interest motivate an action?

If you're not talking about "Rand's sense" then what does it mean to talk about what she said, and to try to interpret it? Are you just playing word games?

Bill P

[Alfonso Jones]

According to Rand's definition a value "is that which one acts to gain and/or keep". But with that definition altruism is impossible, as Xray correctly observes, as the fact that the altruist tries to gain something implies automatically that this "something" is to him the higher value. Rand tries to circumvent this by claiming that there is an objective hierarchy of values, but then we are in fact back at the biological definition, in which individual survival is the criterion.

Rand then makes the same switch as in her "from is to ought" argument: instead of basing the notion of value on the objective notion of "mere survival" she does base it on "survival as man qua man", "survival according to the nature of man" (read: "survival in accordance with Objectivist principles"), which is, as Xray observed, Rand's personal subjective standard. Peter Keating may not flourish because he doesn't act according to Objectivist principles, but Peter Keating is not a real person, he's a character in a novel. In real life there are enough examples of people who definitely are not living according to Objectivist principles, but who are flourishing nevertheless. And in her zeal to condemn everything that could be interpreted as altruistic behavior, Rand just uses a different name for such behavior in cases when even she can't really object to it: she then calls it "benevolence".

Thanks Dragonfly for your comments which express in clear words what it is about. ITA agree with your assessment of the issue.

Peter Keating may not flourish because he doesn't act according to Objectivist principles, but Peter Keating is not a real person, he's a character in a novel.

So true. But wouldn't you believe it - Rand actually wrote in the afterword to Atlas Shrugged:

"I trust you to that no one will tell me that men such as I write I about don't exist. That this book has been written - and published is my proof that they do." (end quote)

Proof of what?

Does she think such men actually "exist" in reality just because she invented them in her book? Rand can tap dance around the truth all she wants, it does not change one iota the fact that Keating & Co are fictional characters only, and therefore "exist", technically speaking, on the same level as e. g. Rumpelstilzkin, Raskolnikoff, Spiderman or Nancy Drew - as mere creations of the author's imagination.

And in her zeal to condemn everything that could be interpreted as altruistic behavior, Rand just uses a different name for such behavior in cases when even she can't really object to it: she then calls it "benevolence".

Rand even speaks of a "benevolent" universe - as if the universe were a volitional entity.

Xray -

Do you REALLY AND SINCERELY mean to maintain that you think Rand was saying that the characters in the novels were actual, living entities? Read it again. She is saying that people SUCH AS SHE WRITES ABOUT EXIST - and that is demonstrated by the fact that the novel was written and published. She is talking about real, heroic people.

And, with regard to the benevolent universe premise - - - enough has been written to make it unnecessary to misunderstand or misrepresent the term as you have done.

Disagree with Rand - find, that's your right. You are absolutely free to do so. But it is rather useless behavior to come onto OL, where many have substantial familiarity with Rand and her thought, and to misrepresent her so badly.

Bill P

[Brant Gaede]

Xray.

If you are basically obdurate on these subjects you are a de facto troll here.

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I don't attribute anything. I see a word and I remember what it means (or look it up if I'm not sure) then someone tells me it means something else in objectivism.

GS,

You sure did since you have been told several times by many different people what several specific meanings are in Rand's works and you keep repeating the same error by ignoring those meanings and attributing others to her words and pretending she uses the ones you assign. I would agree with you if this were the first time, but you are showing a pattern of refusing to understand just to be argumentative.

I don't mind disagreement with Rand, but you are better than that. I know you are more intelligent than these word games suggest. I do admit that this cheap profundity and master of the obvious crap is easier to post about, since no one has to think very much. But it goes nowhere. I truly wonder what the payoff is for doing this...

btw - I suggest you take a look at any dictionary. You will not see a sole "what a word means." You will see several definitions of what a word means. Often the meanings will be diametrically opposite. The way you are acting right now, you are pretending that a word only has one generally accepted meaning, or that if you explain what meaning you are using, this is somehow wrong. But it's not wrong. It's being conceptually clear.

One day I will delve into general semantics. I have other things I need to finish first.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

I went to Vietnam knowing I might be killing communist aggressors, not "innocent" people. I'm willing to kill communists for the same reason I'm willing to kill Nazis. I'm talking about state-sanctioned aggression against innocent people. However, this was not a rational endeavor for me--or to be in the military at all. Millions of others can say the same thing.

I realize no one goes into war thinking they are going to kill innocent people, but it invariably happens. In some sense you were all innocent people, even the soldiers on both sides, since you were sucked in by propaganda into thinking that war can solve problems. :no:

"Sucked in by propaganda" doesn't begin to describe or understand the 1950s and 1960s. In the late 1950s I went as a teenager to a lecture at the University of Arizona by a US AF General on thermonuclear warfare. A 30 megaton nuclear bomb detonated at 30,000 feet over NYC would burn to a crisp everything in a circle encompassing Washington and Boston. I wanted to absolutely destroy or negate any murdering genocidal totalitarian country that would make such a threat to the United States. I've seen natural beauty. I've hiked and floated the Grand Canyon. Seen the American West. Nothing compares to what I saw at night in 1960 from the window of my airplane with four reciprocating engines beating as I flew into La Guardia first flying over lower Manhattan with its lights ablaze--nothing! I was willing to fight and die for that! Still am. I could go to war again. I am an American soldier-warrior to the morrow of my bones.

When the likes of me are gone everybody left will be hamburger. Not much safety in Canada. All its major cities might as well be American. Look how close to the border they are. If you don't fight and knock the bastards down they'll just fuck all over you!

--Brant

the nicest guy you could hope to meet

won't fight for Obama

Edited April 20, 2009 by Brant Gaede

[tjohnson]

I know you are more intelligent than these word games suggest.

Now there's something you do repeatedly, the "you're better than this" condescension thing. Sorry, I guess I'm not better than this after all.

One day I will delve into general semantics. I have other things I need to finish first.

I won't hold my breath.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Now there's something you do repeatedly, the "you're better than this" condescension thing.

GS,

When you waste the time of intelligent people by playing word games but pretending you are actually discussing an idea, is there any better response than condescension? And what do you expect anyways? Do you really expect to be respected for playing word games under the guise of discussing ideas?

Respect is earned from me. I don't prostitute it.

But I like to appeal to the good in folks. For instance, I acknowledge that you are intelligent, even if you are treating others with indirect disrespect. On other Objectivist boards, they have other reactions to this. I don't do that because I don't like nastiness.

In my heart, I actually do not feel condescension. I feel irritation because of the repeated mind-games and your lack of willingness to even read Rand's works.

But the fact is that I do know you are better than you are acting.

So I say it.

Setting this low-level intellectual behavior (playing at discussing ideas) aside, I sincerely believe you have good character. I would have no problem leaving my kids in your care for a while. I actually trust you whereas there are several in the Objectivist world who can recite chapter and verse on the ideas, but I don't trust them.

If you feel all this is condescending, so be it. I have strong deeply-thought-out opinions and I will not apologize for them. I particularly have a very negative one of your behavior when your good part is not guiding you.

I demand nothing of you to earn my respect that I do not demand of myself.

Michael

EDIT: There is something I want to make sure is clear. I wrote, "I feel irritation because of the repeated mind-games and your lack of willingness to even read Rand's works." This might imply to some readers that I want you to read Rand at all costs. That's not the case. I don't care whether you read her or not. I do object to you lecturing people on what Rand meant and where she got it wrong—or flat out stating that an Objectivist idea is false—without reading Rand or even trying to understand what the idea means. It's wrong to do that, and yes, you are better than that.

[Xray]

If you're not talking about "Rand's sense" then what does it mean to talk about what she said, and to try to interpret it? Are you just playing word games?

I'm not playing any word games. I'm serious about this. Imo Rand's opposition selfish vs altruistic is an artificial construction because we are all constantly motivated by self-interest which is a natural condition.

Why do you think Keating asked Roark for help? What was his motive if not self-interest?

[Xray]

Read it again. She is saying that people SUCH AS SHE WRITES ABOUT EXIST - and that is demonstrated by the fact that the novel was written and published.

But they "exist" as fictional characters only.

She is talking about real, heroic people.

She said that in her novels, she wanted to create a universe in which she herself would like to live in.

Just because Rand invented those characters does not mean the same types of heroes exist in real life. A type like d'Anconia for example is so removed from reality that it borders on the absurd imo.

Disagree with Rand - find, that's your right. You are absolutely free to do so. But it is rather useless behavior to come onto OL, where many have substantial familiarity with Rand and her thought, and to misrepresent her so badly.

I went strictly by what Rand said.

Do you consider the "heroic people" in her the novels as role models you would like to emulate in "real" life?

Edited April 20, 2009 by Xray

[Selene]

Thanks for your service, Brant

Adam