It’s time to get stupid. I’ll be smart in the morning.

1. Everyone should take the course of action they prefer over all the alternatives, with moral and other-regarding considerations included in preference.

2. The Kantian/Puritan claim that an action is only virtuous if you would rather not do it is false.

3. The most virtuous life is also the life that will (in the end) make you happiest, even if it involves taking actions one would not take if one excluded moral and other-regarding considerations.

4. There are no legitimate considerations in taking action other than one’s own personal gratification.

The problem with #1 is that it is hard to see how anyone could act otherwise, so it can’t be a guide to action. #2 is reasonable (although Rand clearly did not take the time to understand Kant before she criticized him). #3 is a venerable claim of the Western philosophical tradition, but it seems empirically false. #4 is what Rand is popularly taken to be saying, but I take it Objectivists don’t really defend.

I decided that the main take-home message of Objectivism is that it’s okay to live for yourself, to pursue what makes you happy. Lots of philosophies argue that you can do that, but there’s no moral merit to it and you’re only moral insofar as you live for others. No need to feel guilty about living for yourself, or enjoying life.

As for the conditions Rand put on when you can help others in TVOS–I think those are mainly illustrations of when it’s not altruistic/purely self-sacrificial. If you’re not losing much by helping other people, it’s not much of a sacrifice; as Peter said, having to eat at home a couple of extra nights a month isn’t really a substantial cost. Her point is that you shouldn’t feel obligated to put substantial costs on yourself and make yourself miserable for the benefit of others.

On a related note, I’ve noticed that the sanest and most reasonable Christians among my friends, and the ones most tolerant of atheism, are the ones who believe that Christianity and following God’s Word is the way to make themselves happy. The most balanced version of Christian ethics is that God gives men rules because he wants them to be happy, and following his guidelines is the best way to be happy. These Christians don’t feel like they’re making sacrifices by being religious and hewing to a code of ethics; they feel like I’m hurting myself by not following these ethics, since they’re the way to be happy. For that matter, in some cases they have a point–I’m not religious, but some of the advice the Bible gives is just generally a good idea (being generally nice to people, don’t get upset by others’ good fortune, etc).

Sorry for rambling. I guess the upshot is Rand was a little nuts, but had some good ideas; one of the most important (though not necessarily original) was the idea that it’s okay to live yourself, and you have no generalized obligation to live for others; and that fewer people realize that last than you might think.

I went back and re-read the relevant essay in TVOS, and her position is actually closer to your description than I remember. She says it’s ok to help others, but only if you can afford it and only for emergencies (i.e. not to alleviate poverty or other non-emergency conditions).

I also don’t think you’re being fair to Rand.

She explicitly said that she wasn’t just talking about life, but about the life of man qua man; which she took to mean using reason to choose and pursue values.

Yes, one may not maximize his happiness by being super-rational all the time, but I think she was right that flourishing human lives require freedom to creatively solve their problems, and coercion hurts them.

The race doesn’t always go to the swiftest, nor the battle to the strongest, and the use of reason doesn’t always lead to the most happiness.

But…that’s the way to bet.

Good reply but I have to disagree once again. I don’t think Rand would tell me it’s immoral to give to the tsunami victims (but for the life of me I can’t find my copy of The Virtue of Selfishness to quote her directly).

However, I’ve got a copy of George Reisman’s Capitalism right in front of me. He was a student of Rand (and actually of Mises as well) and considers himself an Objectivist. He clearly states that giving to complete strangers is in fact moral as by helping them out “we see a confirmation that we can be successful and happy, and so we feel better as a result.” He references the VOS in a footnote at the end of this paragraph and throughout the discussion goes into much more detail.. If you have time head over to his website (www.capitalism.net) where you can access his entire book in pdf format. This discussion on charity is on page 334.

As for the definition of altruism, and Will can correct me if I’m wrong, but it’s my understanding that Kant, who Rand viewed as her nemesis in philosophy, believed that all moral acts were dictated by duty (sacrifice). Yet if an act was performed out of duty but the person performing the act received any kind of pleasure from it, then there would be no moral credit given to the action. That is what Rand was fighting. It’s absolutely true that people “rarely make themselves miserable on purpose” and her message was don’t feel guilty about that fact. Sacrafice is not the source of virtue.

Of course most of my knowledge on Kant’s ethics comes from third party sources as I have not read his work myself, so let me know if I am misrepresenting his views.

I got the impression that motive, rather than action was the important thing. For Rand, a philanthropist motivated to be altrustic because he likes doing it is A-Ok. A philanthropist motivated to be altrustic because he believes he has a duty to be or because he doesn’t believe he is the rightful owner of his money is not ok.

No?

Frankly, I think you’re interpreting Rand’s philosophy charitably. I’m pretty sure that Rand would tell you that it’s immoral to give money to the tsunami victims unless they were friends of yours, and therefore in the position to potentially benefit you in the future.

If “altruism” simply means “doing things that make you unhappy,” then virtually no one is an altruist. In that case, it’s not even clear what the word means, since people rarely make themselves miserable on purpose. Rand thought there was an objective fact of the matter about what is and isn’t in your self-interest that’s not determined by whether it makes you happy. So even if you get more satsifaction from helping tsunami victims than from eating out twice a month, she would say that you’re engaging in “whim worship,” and that a truly moral (that is, selfish) person would spend the money on himself, not strangers halfway around the world. I think she would say that sending money to a tsunami victim you don’t know is altruism even if gives you a warm fuzzy feeling.

Frankly, I think your charitable interpretation of Rand’s views are a lot more appealing than Rand’s actual views. And actually, the implicit sense of life in her novels is closer to your interpretation than her explicit philosophy. Rand was always much more talented as a writer and polemicist than she ever was as a philosopher.

It sounds to me like you picked up the positive aspects of Rand’s philosophy, and simply ignored the pinch-souled, dogmatic aspects that make humorless Randroids so annoying. Which is, I think, to your credit. There’s a lot to like about Rand’s sense of life that I don’t think her explicit philosophical positions really captured.

With regards to pursing the welfare of others, I don’t interpret her philosophy the way you do. Clearly anytime you help others it involves a “sacrifice” of money, time, and/or effort. Does this mean that Rand was against charity and helping others? No. What she was against was the idea that using your time, money, effort and getting nothing out of it was the source of virtue.

In your own example you state that these people “have a happy and satisfying life”. By definition then they are getting out more than they are putting in. That’s not a sacrifice. Let’s say you have $150 and can spend it on a X-box or loan it to a friend that has fell on hard times and is in dire need of cash. Now critics of Rand often argue that being moral in her view would be spending the money on an X-Box for yourself, as anything less would be a sacrifice. But this isn’t true. Not giving it to your friend would represent that you have no concept of the word friendship in the first place. This can be extrapolated to all mankind. When the tsunami hit South East Asia sending $50 to Oxfam isn’t a sacrifice if it means I eat in instead of out twice that month. It means I value human life, even the life of complete strangers, and I want to help them as they were struck by this unforeseen natural disaster that could have happened to anyone. I mean think of it, I’ve spent countless dollars going to movies to get the pleasure of watching fictional characters succeed and better their lives in ficitional situations. It would almost be sick not to think that I wouldn’t get more pleasure when receiving an update from Oxfam explaining how my money is helping real people overcome this real and horrific tragedy.

But I should also say that the thought that someone might be dependent on the misfortune of others for their happiness is disturbing. A true source of happiness must come from the fulfillment of your goals, sharing that excitement with the ones you love, and of course sharing in their accomplishments as well.

As for her belief that taxation is theft even when it only goes to support institutions that support individual rights, I agree with that statement. Do I believe that this means that we should overthrow the government and accept nothing less than voluntary forms of taxation such as lotteries and contract insurance? No it doesn’t. But I do keep in the back of my mind that the initiation of force is wrong. Why not start by first trying to move the system to one where our tax dollars are going to funding institutions that protect individual rights, (not agribusiness, etc.) and see if in the long run such government funding might be possible? Maybe I’m too idealistic on this one but a government that is funded by voluntary means, at the minimum, seems like a moral goal to keep in the back of our minds, even if completely impractical in today’s political environment.

I should also note that before a real Objectivist pipes in that I’m misrepresenting Rand, I admit I might very well be. But I’ve definitely been influenced by her greatly as she explained a moral case for freedom more clearly to me than Mises, Hayek, or Friedman ever did. For that I’m indebted to her.

What you’ve laid out is a relatively banal account of the enlightenment, liberal tradition. Plenty of non-Objectivists subscribe to most or all of those propositions without being an Objectivist.

Rand’d philosophy was a lot more specific and provocative than a mere commitment to reason and individualism. To take just one examples, she held that choosing to pursue the welfare of others at one’s own expense is immoral–even if you have a happy and satisfying life doing so. Personally, I think that’s just wrong. There are plenty of people who devote their lives to helping others, and they lead happy, fulfilling lives doing so.

Similarly, she doesn’t merely hold that the purpose of government is to protect individual rights. She makes the stronger claim that that is government’s only legitimate purpose, and that, moreover, taxation is theft even when the taxes are used to protect individual life. That simply doesn’t follow from the general principle that individuals are ends in themselves.

Rand’s work certainly sounds some worthwhile notes– rationality, individualism, an admiration for excellence–a sense of life she compellingly expounded in The Fountainhead. But she didn’t stop there– she went on to develop a very detailed philosophical framework that doesn’t withstand logical scrutiny, much less empirical evidence.