Rand On Altruism

 

On Page viii of her book, The Virtue Of Selfishness, Ayn Rand blasts altruists: “Altruism declares that any action taken for one’s own benefit is evil. Thus the beneficiary of an action is the only criterion of moral value—and so long as that beneficiary is anybody other than oneself, anything goes.”

 

My response: “The converse of what she writes above is moral truth—as an overall  emphasis, with some modest qualifying, allowing some pursuit of altruist aims to be valuable if subordinate in priority: any action taken for the benefit of another is evil. Any action that benefits the self is good, as long as it is not selfish or ruthlessly imposed on neighbors. Self-interest is virtue; selfishness is not. Rand anticipates that anything goes, so great wickedness unfolds under the cover of being for the sake of others.

 

Rand continues: “Hence the appalling immorality, the chronic injustice, the grotesque double standards, the insoluble conflicts and contradictions that have characterized human relationships and human societies throughout history, under all the variants of the altruist ethics.”

 

Her egoistic criticism of ethics is sweeping and enlightening, I believe.

 

On the bottom of Page viii and on Page ix, Rand continues: “Observe what this beneficiary-criterion of morality does to a man’s life. The first thing he learns is that morality is his enemy; he has nothing to gain from it, he can only lose; self-inflicted loss, self-inflicted pain and the gray, debilitating pall of an incomprehensible duty is all that he expect. He may hope that others may occasionally sacrifice themselves for his benefit, as he grudgingly sacrifices himself for theirs, but he knows that the relationship will bring mutual resentment, not pleasure—and that morally, their pursuit of values will be like an exchange of unwanted, unchosen Christmas presents, which neither is morally permitted to buy for himself. Apart from such times as he manages to perform some act of self-sacrifice, he possesses no moral significance: morality takes no cognizance of him and has nothing to say to him for guidance in the crucial issues of his life; it is only his own personal, private ‘selfish’ life and, as such, it is regarded either as evil or, at best, amoral.”

 

My response: Morality is referred to by her as self-interested action wherein the beneficiary is solely or mostly the self, not others. He is steered away from a moral life of doing his own thing, sacrificing himself for duty to others, the community, the nation. He is an achiever, a producer, and he gives to others, but most are lazy and unproductive, so he does not get back what he gives to them.

 

All end up resenting each other, and none can give to the private self, an interest regarded as amoral or evil.