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 | Thursday, September 24, 2009 at 8:08:27 mst
Comment ID: #1
Name: Gideon Reich
E-mail: gideon.reich(at)gmail.com
URL: http://armchairintellectual.blogspot.com
What a great interview! |
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| Thursday, September 24, 2009 at 8:17:29 mst
Comment ID: #2
Name: ymous
Bravo! Encore! |
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| Thursday, September 24, 2009 at 12:34:43 mst
Comment ID: #3
Name: jsterl
Wow!!
What a powerfully concise and comprehensive 36 minute overview of THE Problem. I haven't read this copy of TOS yet but look forward to doing so. Along with Craig's idea of separating those things that don't belong together such as Mother Teresa and the Maserati declining parents, he also begins to connect those things that DO belong together, such as both the christian and secular movements in altruism, and the republicans AND democrats in politics. I couldn't help thinking of the religiosity of the environmentalist movement when he was describing "mother natures" gift of volition for what other purpose than... self-sacrifice. Most of the followers of this movement don't even understand that they AND George Bush AND Barack Obama are all part of the same philosophical base contradiction. How dare we group them together! (facetiousness intended)
Amazing discussion! |
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| Thursday, September 24, 2009 at 18:31:47 mst
Comment ID: #4
Name: Craig Biddle
URL: http://www.theobjectivestandard.com
A quick clarification: When Diana asked me in the interview about the pro-altruism arguments that I discuss in my latest essay, I began my reply by mentioning that many people who aim to defend capitalism believe *rights* are justified by religion. I then got ahead of myself and failed to connect this to the point that many of these same people also believe that self-sacrifice is justified by religion. What I intended to say there is that just as religion offers no rational argument for rights, so it offers no rational argument for self-sacrifice"because religion offers no rational arguments for anything: It is a dogma. It offers only commandments, such as “Thou shalt not kill,” and fables, such as the story of Ananias and Sapphira, which are supposed to scare people into submission.
Thanks for the interview, Diana, and best success with your excellent podcasts! |
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| Thursday, September 24, 2009 at 22:01:24 mst
Comment ID: #5
Name: Dan Schwartz
Excellent interview. I'm a little unclear on one thing, so I thought I'd play Devil's Advocate. On the question of why altruism HAS to lead to statism, it is pretty clear that this is true of those who hold to altruism consistently. But I'm still not quite sure what to make of the Adam Smith sort of argument. Take Henry Hazlitt, for instance. The suggestion in the interview, if I understood correctly, was that this sort of capitalist is implicitly egoistic. I'm not sure why that has to be the case. Consider the utilitarian argument:
1. Each of us ought to do what promotes the most overall happiness of the society, regardless of whether it is in our personal interest.
2. Capitalism is the political-economic system which will lead to the greatest overall happiness (based on arguments by Smith, Hazlitt, and others which seem not to depend on egoism)
3. Therefore, each of us ought to advocate for capitalism.
You might be worried that people who don't do what they ought will have their rights infringed, but I'm not so sure. After all, given (2), initiating force would be detrimental overall, so it doesn't seem anyone would be forced to do their duty.
Another possible concern is that premise (2) actually CAN'T be fully justified without some appeal to egoism. But if that's so, I don't really see where egoism comes in. (Granted, the premise, as stated, relies on the invalid concept of some "overall happiness," but clearly Hazlitt has arguments that people are better off under capitalism. Those arguments aren't worthless.) |
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| Thursday, September 24, 2009 at 22:25:03 mst
Comment ID: #6
Name: Dan Schwartz
Just to add one thing. In some moral theories, it is possible to distinguish between the standard of value and the decision procedure one should use to guide one's choices in pursuit of that value. A utilitarian might say, for instance, that the overall happiness is the standard of value, but he might think that the way each of us furthers that standard is through egoistic thinking. This doesn't seem like an implicit reliance on egoism. |
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| Thursday, September 24, 2009 at 23:24:04 mst
Comment ID: #7
Name: PMB
Good questions Dan. There's much to say on this, but I'll confine myself to a few points. The crucial point is that while some individuals can be altruists and uphold capitalism, they are being inconsistent. Altruism cannot be reconciled with capitalism; the view that man has no right to exist for his own sake contradicts the political system that recognizes and upholds man's right to exist for is own sake. What happens, therefore, in a culture that upholds altruism is that you, over the long run, you see it implement that ideal more and more consistently (unless the trend is reversed).
Now why couldn't an altruist culture recognize that capitalism leads to the altruist end of the greatest welfare of mankind? Because that's *not* altruism's end. Altruism's end, it's goal, it's ideal is death. A given individual can be confused about that, but that's irrelevant to the logic of altruism, and the way it works in a culture.
One further point to keep in mind: part of what happens with altruism is that it distorts one's conception of the individual, of selfishness, and as a result, it distorts their economics. Thus, even on the practical level, the altruist, or people who accept certain altruist premises, have trouble seeing that capitalism is advantageous. (This is why it's wrong to say, as many Objectivists do, that everyone knows capitalism is practical, they just don't know it's moral. They *don't* know it's practical--if only!--but they don't know that, in large part because of their mistaken moral premises.)
Hope that gives you a lead to the answer. |
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| Thursday, September 24, 2009 at 23:36:40 mst
Comment ID: #8
Name: Dan Schwartz
"Now why couldn't an altruist culture recognize that capitalism leads to the altruist end of the greatest welfare of mankind? Because that's *not* altruism's end."
Yes, I agree, but I'm considering someone for whom that IS the end--not strictly speaking an altruist, but not an egoist either.
" A given individual can be confused about that"
I don't see where the confusion is. A utilitarian could concede your definition of altruism and say that he's not an altruist.
"Thus, even on the practical level, the altruist, or people who accept certain altruist premises, have trouble seeing that capitalism is advantageous."
This seems promising; it amounts to the thought that somehow my premise (2) above depends on egoism. But I still don't see where the dependence lies. I know people like Hazlitt tend to be inconsistent in their advocacy for capitalism, and I know that their altruist premises lead OTHERS towards statism in the long run, and that this is the cultural effect of their altruism. But I don't see any logical implication from this sort of utilitarianism to statism. |
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| Friday, September 25, 2009 at 0:48:03 mst
Comment ID: #9
Name: Sajid
In response to #6:
It is impossible to be an altruist and advocate capitalism consistently. I think the argument runs like this:
I am an altruist who advocates capitalism because it is better for other people. However, capitalism demands that one make money by acting in his own self-interest. But since I am an altruist I am not acting in my self-interest. Thus I am not a capitalist.
Basically the only way to advocate capitalism from an altruistic perspective is to advocate it for other people. This inevitably leads to martyrdom, which is a symptom of a collectivist society.
If you want to say "I am acting in my self-interest because acting in my self-interest is more altruistic and does more good than living for others", well if this is not a contradiction in terms then I don't know what is.
This is the fallacy of the stolen abstraction. It is implementing a capitalist system of economics without bothering to understand what it means, what such a system says about human nature and the philosophical implications of capitalism as not just an economic system but a *political* system.
Your specific question was to find a way to show that altruism always leads to collectivism. While I haven't shown that, what I have tried to show is that it is impossible for an altruist to argue for a capitalist society. And if a society is not capitalist, then it is either collectivist or anarchist. |
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| Friday, September 25, 2009 at 4:28:48 mst
Comment ID: #10
Name: Andrew Dalton
E-mail: andrew.s.dalton(at)gmail.com
URL: http://witchdoctorrepellent.blogspot.com
A market-friendly altruist may accept that capitalism achieves the greatest good for other people *in some circumstances*. That last qualifier is important, and you can see evidence of it in how mainstream politicians reacted to the recent economic crisis. When the going got tough, they quickly jettisoned their lip service to capitalism (or more correctly, the freer aspects of our mixed economy) and demanded more controls.
An Objectivist considers sacrifice impractical not only because it's bad for the person making the sacrifice, but also because it's bad for those who receive the values being sacrificed instead of attaining those values on their own. An altruist, in contrast, sees self-sacrifice as practical for *somebody*, even if it's not the most economically efficient method. In his view, it's a reliable fallback. Self-interest may be permitted as long as its outcomes meet certain conditions; otherwise, self-sacrifice is always there to save the day.
Sacrifice is always "Plan B" for an altruist. Conservatives and liberals differ merely in how quickly they go to Plan B. |
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| Friday, September 25, 2009 at 13:15:05 mst
Comment ID: #11
Name: Dan Schwartz
On the logical implication from utilitarianism to statism. After thinking about this further, I think it's key that a moral theory cannot exist in a vacuum. It depends on certain metaphysical and epistemological assumptions. Those assumptions must be factored in when considering where a utilitarian must ultimately end up. |
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| Friday, September 25, 2009 at 18:51:54 mst
Comment ID: #12
Name: William H Stoddard
E-mail: whswhs(at)mindspring.com
URL: http://whswhs.livejournal.com/profile
In dealing with the views of economists, and of Enlightenment thinkers such as Smith and Jefferson, it's important to be clear about what's meant by "altruism." Objectivism often gets criticized by defining altruism not as generosity, or good will, or sympathy, but as total self-denial and self-contempt. This is ironic, in that that is exactly what Comte, who coined the word, meant by it; and Kant's deontological ethics has a similar spirit, seen for example in his claim that even dying to save a friend's life had no moral worth as self-sacrifice, because one cared about one's friend and wanted him to live, and so was acting from inclination and not from pure duty. But on the other hand, when, for example, Adam Smith's "Theory of the Moral Sentiments" based morality on sympathy for other people, Smith was not talking about selflessness or pure duty; he was talking about emotions toward other people that Kant would not have hesitated to class as inclination and thus as morally worthless. Smith may not have been able to clarify the proper relationship between self-interest and benevolence, but I think his ideas have to be understood as closer to misunderstood benevolence than to altruism as Kant, Comte, and their sort presented it.
As to utilitarianism in economics, I've had the experience more than once of arguing against utilitarian recommendations of harming or depriving one person to confer a greater good on another person, or a lesser good on a sufficiently large number of people, and being taken to be advocating deontological ethics of absolute rules followed for their own sake. It appears that many people, including many economists, understand self-interest as meaning the pursuit of whatever one desires, without placing the desires in any context; and they think that the choice is either to deny self-interest for absolute rights and duties, or to accept self-interest and achieve ethics by giving equal weight to everyone's interests (in effect, holding a vote on which interests are in the majority). The idea of a nonsacrificial pursuit of self-interest makes sense to them only as a constraint or limit on self-interest. It's quite foreign to them to suppose that rightly understood self-interest can be achieved only nonsacrificially . . . that it really is not in anyone's interest to be a thief, a slaveowner, or a dictator.
So you end up with a neat double trap. On one hand, if you affirm rights, that affirmation is understood to be a rejection of self-interest in favor of binding moral obligations; and then you can just as well argue for a binding moral obligation to feed the hungry or heal the sick. On the other, if you affirm interests, then you are taken to be in favor of government making utilitarian calculations about "a dollar is worth more to a poor man than a rich man" and moving assets around to get them to the people who need them most.
I tend to favor emphasizing, from the outset, both the central role of self-interest in morality and the point that rightly understood self-interest is not to be attained at other people's expense. |
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