RoR: Forum

Marty,

I really like the example of how you handled this discussion. But what is as disturbing to me as is the morality of altruism, is the lack of correct identification of altruism from "experts." I just received a book in the mail: Pathological Altruism, and am disappointed -- so far -- in the philosophic acumen (or rather, the lack thereof) of the various authors of the various chapters.

For example, in chapter 5, David Brin says that he thinks having a firm ideology is essentially the same thing as having a drug addiction -- no different neurologically than being hopped-up on narcotics. The implication is simple and he even admits it. We don't let stupor-filled druggies drive cars, or hold government offices -- so we should figure out a way to scientifically prove that firm ideology is akin to being on drugs, so that we can disempower/disenfranchise those people with firm ideologies. After reading the whole chapter, I can only imagine that when he speaks of ideology, he speaks of capitalists -- especially radicals for capitalism (i.e., firm ideologues). In order to preempt popular criticism of such a politically-minded, scientific program -- he says that, in the beginning of the research, we won't seek to "cure" anybody.

But how come that doesn't make me feel better about it?

:-)

Also, in chapter 10, Robert Burton says that moral conviction -- indeed, that all certainty -- is not a conscious choice, and that it actually comes from subconscious, evolutionary neurology which just happens to trick you into having a moral conviction, or a certainty, about anything at all. Ugh! I should ask him if he is certain about his conviction that these subconscious, neurological pathways are behind all of the certainty -- and all of the moral convictions -- in the world.

:-)

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 1/05, 6:16pm)

Post 1

Thursday, January 5, 2012 - 7:03pm

It is a trend... To use 'science' (or really pseudo-science) to bypass moral, philosophical, economic, or political arguments. It is at the heart of climate change politics, it is what we see in arguments like those Ed mentioned: "...having a firm ideology is essentially the same thing as having a drug addiction -- no different neurologically than being hopped-up on narcotics... With Climate Change they have software models to carry their "science" - with this anti-ideology we are going to see claims to locate concepts in the neurologically. I suspect that we will see more and more attempts to misuse genetics, epigenetics, neurology, etc. to attack principles without using principles.

Post 2

Thursday, January 5, 2012 - 7:38pm

For example, in chapter 5, David Brin says that he thinks having a firm ideology is essentially the same thing as having a drug addiction -- no different neurologically than being hopped-up on narcotics. The implication is simple and he even admits it.

Ed,

unless there is solid evidence for such claim it should be treated as arbitrary. I am sure you know what treatment the arbitrary claims deserve. I found out after I read Peikoff's Objectivism in which he states that it should be dismissed without further discussion as nothing have been said. I think the people who don't know that should be briefly educated about the reasoning behind it.

It was a great consciousness-raising experience because before I thought there were only true, false or possible propositions. But the arbitrary ones are not even possible.

The great thing about science is that eventually it rejects all these arbitrary claims. I guess there has to be a critical mass of scientists who are not corrupt by their irrational ideology - their drug.

Post 3

Friday, January 6, 2012 - 6:45am

Steve,

It is a trend... To use 'science' (or really pseudo-science) to bypass moral, philosophical, economic, or political arguments. It is at the heart of climate change politics ...

... I suspect that we will see more and more attempts to misuse genetics, epigenetics, neurology, etc. to attack principles without using principles.

Good points. These guys are radicals for pragmatism, they are "anti-principled." M. Scott Peck once said that there were 4 stages of spiritual growth:

1) unprincipled heathen
2) dogmatist
3) rational skeptic
4) communal mystic

Under that scale, which itself is admittedly not quite right, I'm tempted to put these guys down as unprincipled heathens -- grabbing after whatever it is that their heart-strings have told them to grab after, and doing so in an unprincipled, opportunist fashion. It is an instance of the ends justifying the means (in the same way that all grand atrocities were instances of the ends justifying the means).

Ed

Post 4

Friday, January 6, 2012 - 6:58am

Sam,

It was a great consciousness-raising experience because before I thought there were only true, false or possible propositions. But the arbitrary ones are not even possible.

Good point, though I'd say it's even better to say that the possibility for the arbitrary is not even "check-able." In other words, we can't check on its truth-value, in order to determine if it is right or wrong. This is because it isn't tied anywhere to reality.

The great thing about science is that eventually it rejects all these arbitrary claims. I guess there has to be a critical mass of scientists who are not corrupt by their irrational ideology - their drug.

Hah! Yeah, their reasoning does work against them like that. If you claim that all firm conviction is unreasonable, you have to hold that conviction pretty loosely (or carefully) -- because the "conviction-police" might be around the corner, ready to snatch you up, and take you to the "philosophy-detox" center:

Sargeant Wilson:
Officers Brandt and Jenson, who is this that you are bringing into custody?

Officers:
It's Ed Thompson.

Sargeant Wilson:
What is his crime?

Officers:
He was "philosophizing."

Sargeant Wilson:
In the usual, legally-allowed, willy-nilly sense?

Officers:
No, he was developing an actual ideology.

Sargeant Wilson:
Take him away! He is a threat to the community at large, just like Socrates was!

:-)

Ed

Post 5

Friday, January 6, 2012 - 10:33am

Marty,

Great article! I especially liked this part:

If you find yourself engaged in a conversation with an altruist, challenge him with questions that will reveal his hypocrisy. If he lives in a large house, ask him if he will take in ten immigrant workers living in squalor. Does he drive an expensive car? He can drive a used car and donate the money saved to the poor. And how immoral is it to spend $5,000 on a vacation when that money could be better spent (barf!) on poor people.

It hints at another point of Rand's: that it is impossible to live the altruist philosophy with any consistency, and stay alive. True altruism requires that you let yourself be devoured for another's benefit as soon as possible.

So most followers of the creed seek to balance their lives. Sometimes they act altruistically, and the rest of the time they act (at least partly) in their own self-interest, assuaging their consciences as they do so by feeling guilty about it and ever more loudly preaching altruism.

Gotta love the irony.

Post 6

Friday, January 6, 2012 - 1:11pm

Marty,

Taking it a step farther... given that the metaphysical root of self-interest is in the life of the individual, then the great compromise being called for by altruism is to find some middle ground between life and death. Like trying to find the middle ground between nutritious food and poison.

The call of the altruist is that he only wants to take part of your life... for now, and a little more next time. But life, at its root is self-generated, self-supporting action and you can't 'give' that to another - they have to have a self that is acting in their interest... that is self-supporting.

This is another way of seeing that parasites don't add to the sum of the life-fulfilling actions. One productive person producing at rate x plus one productive person producing at .5x will be less when the first person gives up some production to the other, because that recipient won't increase in productivity, only in consumption.

Since altruism enforced (at the gun of the government) isn't charity, just theft, and given that private charity won't help in a real sense unless the end result is an increase in the sum of productivity, we can see that private individuals who choose to give relatively small (non-sacrificial) benefits of a kind that are likely to increase the productivity of the recipient are the only forms of charity that make sense ("Teach a man to fish....").

All of those systems that reward merit, like the free market economic system, the laws that protect property, the way schools teach that reward real achievements, the positive expectations of parents towards children, etc., when they are all knit together as the environment we live in, will do more than any attempt to evangelize for giving or sharing or equalizing of results - even the most rational and intelligently organized collection of charities could never match a good appreciation for personal successes- built in to the systems.

Post 7

Friday, January 6, 2012 - 5:41pm

Very well said Steve.
As an objectivist I find it appalling how not only how many people believe whole heartedly in altruism to one degree or another but when you try to explain how intrinsically evil the doctrine is and why at best they look at me with scorn and label me selfish, to outright threats of physical violence! (I have had one person exclaim that people like me should be shot.)

Post 8

Friday, January 6, 2012 - 6:52pm

Thanks, Jules. Funny how often altruists want to use violence against people that argue against being victims of forced sacrifices.

Post 9

Friday, January 6, 2012 - 9:42pm

So when surrounded by irrational wolves(and sheep) hell bent on not only their own self destruction through altruism but on ours as well calls for more sacrifice from all around them what does one do?

Seems to me that hiding in plain sight is becoming more difficult day by day.
How do you educate people that have denounced their use of the mind in favor of mysticism and faith even though they are not even aware that the worship of death is their ideal state of being?

One of my favorite "fantasy books " is the sword of truth series because of the way Terry Goodkind was able to encapsulate objectivist ideals in a fantasy setting. The imperial order is indeed growing...

It is ironic the number of mystics that believe in the whole mayan calender end of the world scenario..ironic in that it is their beliefs that are one of the things making it possible to throw us back into the middle ages.

I do not believe that it is enough to get people to read atlas shrugged.
There is soooo much garbage polluting the average persons minds. How does one not only point out how and why rational thinking is in their best interest but how does one spark that lightbulb to go on so they integrate it on a visceral level?
Creating randroids isn't the answer obviously. Being able to quote principles is meaningless if people who are not used to thinking for themselves just swallow it whole like any other dogma is useless because the next flavor of the week might look more appealing if that lightbulb is never actually turned on.

I guess what I'm pondering is how to make objectivism more appealing to those who have been indoctrinated by altruism for so longggg.

Its kind of heartbreaking leading a horse to water only to see it wither of dehydration...

Post 10

Saturday, January 7, 2012 - 11:03am

Sorry, this is a rather synthetic issue. I know many liberals, but none who think we are "altruistic." There are circumstances in a complex society where it is in one's self interest to eliminate the worst poverty of a given group or socio economic strata.

Yep, I know the value of free enterprise quite well, yet those such as Heyek understood that there are still losers, and that there should be a safety net, not out of altruism, but to preserve the libertarian system. I would not give up my eye to save an unknown blind person, even though the loss of a single eye is dramatically less of a handicap than the blindness that would be cured. But I just wouldn't do it.

Here's where radical libertarianism goes wrong, that organs of unknown deceased are not mined for use for those who may benefit, even thought such organs will soon be turned into food for bacteria. Here simplistic ideology becomes unproductive. This assault on "altruism" is over-broad and eliminates rational consideration of complex issues.

Post 11

Saturday, January 7, 2012 - 3:35pm

Al,

Where altruism is applied politically, it violates the rights of the individual. If left to the private realm, anyone can choose to be selfish or altruistic, but some people don't see it that way and want to use force to get their altruistic sacrifices. And the first thing sacrificed is the adherence to individual rights.

If we have a right to free speech, then it is at the price of those times when idiots or nazis choose to speak. If we shut them up, it is a good thing at the moment since they clearly had nothing worth hearing, but it can only be done by abandoning the right to free speech. There will never be such short term gains worth destroying individual rights over.

The simple fact is that if individual rights are not treated as absolute, then they won't be treated as absolute... that is they will be up for subjective, arbitrary interpretations which will eventually be made in an ad hoc, whim of the moment fashion.

There are, or should be, two assaults on altruism. One is on the moral philosophy that proclaims others above self, and the other is on the political application of altruism in which stealing from one person for some purpose that is purported to benefit others.

As to Hayek, he wasn't perfect. He should have realized that private charity will always be a better provider of a moral safety net than government could be. You wrote, "There are circumstances in a complex society where it is in one's self interest to eliminate the worst poverty of a given group or socio economic strata." If it is in the person's self-interest, than nearly all such people will agree and donate. If they don't agree, what we have is an elite attempting to force people to do what they don't want to. And it will involve taking things from them, including some degree of freedom. And it will stand as a form of tyranny despite any claims by the elites who hold the gun, that it is in their self-interest. It will always come back to the same place: Who owns your life? You or the government? Who decides what is in your self-interest? You or some elites in government?

Post 12

Saturday, January 7, 2012 - 8:47pm

Well put, Steve.

Ed

Saturday, January 7, 2012 - 9:13pm

Thanks, Ed.

Monday, January 9, 2012 - 6:40pm

I am glad that my article generated an interesting discussion.

Under the thin veneer of altruistic "morality," the Nazis were able to secure the vote in Germany, 1933. Hitler obtained much mileage from his slogan, "Everything for the state - nothing for the individual." I must lay some of the blame on Christianity for paving the way for the success of this evil idea. Christianity places a halo on the selfless saint while putting horns and a tale on the "greedy" businessman.

Recall the dictum that it will be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven.

It is a shame that so many people who rejected Christianity retained its built-in altruism.

The very idea that we are created by a deity, undercuts the premise that each of us owns his life and is entitled to pursue his own happiness.

It took me about two years of reading Rand to finally accept her ideas - the difficulty being my years of religious training. I don't think it is a coincidence that I abandoned religion and altruism at the same time.

Post 15

Monday, January 9, 2012 - 7:22pm

As I remember, Hitler stood firmly with Christianity in the beginning. And only later did he throw it under the bus seeing the church as a possible obstacle to total power.

I believe today that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator.

- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1 Chapter 2
-------------

Anyone who dares to lay hands on the highest image of the Lord commits sacrilege against the benevolent creator of this miracle and contributes to the expulsion from paradise.

- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf Vol. 2 Chapter 1
-------------

To do justice to God and our own conscience, we have turned once more to the German Volk.

- Adolf Hitler in speech about the need for a moral regeneration of Germany, February 10, 1933
------------

I soon realized that the correct use of propaganda is a true art which has remained practically unknown to the bourgeois parties. Only the Christian-Social movement, especially in Lüger's time, achieved a certain virtuosity on this instrument, to which it owed many of its success.

- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1 Chapter 6
------------

For how shall we fill people with blind faith in the correctness of a doctrine, if we ourselves spread uncertainty and doubt by constant changes in its outward structure? ...Here, too, we can learn by the example of the Catholic Church. Though its doctrinal edifice, and in part quite superfluously, comes into collision with exact science and research, it is none the less unwilling to sacrifice so much as one little syllable of its dogmas... it is only such dogmas which lend to the whole body the character of a faith.

- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf Vol. 2 Chapter 5
-------------

I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so.

- Adolf Hitler, to General Gerhard Engel, 1941
-------------

The fact that the Curia is now making its peace with Fascism shows that the Vatican trusts the new political realities far more than did the former liberal democracy with which it could not come to terms. ...The fact that the Catholic Church has come to an agreement with Fascist Italy ...proves beyond doubt that the Fascist world of ideas is closer to Christianity than those of Jewish liberalism or even atheistic Marxism...

- Adolf Hitler in an article in the Völkischer Beobachter, February 29, 1929, on the new Lateran Treaty between Mussolini's fascist government and the Vatican
--------------

"We demand freedom for all religious confessions in the state, insofar as they do not endanger its existence or conflict with the customs and moral sentiments of the Germanic race. The party as such represents the standpoint of a positive Christianity, without owing itself to a particular confession...."

- Article 20 of the program of the German Workers' Party (later named the National Socialist German Workers' Party, NSDAP)

Post 16

Monday, January 9, 2012 - 9:46pm

Yes in the beginning he pandered to everyone that would lend him an ear.
Promising the world to the labor unions if they backed him and saying he would make sure that employers were kept in line.
He promised the business owners that if he were in power he would limit the impact of labor unions.

In the end he rolled them all under the bus..

Post 17

Monday, January 9, 2012 - 10:57pm

At a certain point evil can be so concentrated and so predominate that it is goes beyond nihilism's absence of values to valuing destruction - death motivated - it becomes the bus that everything goes under it. That was Hitler's bus.

Post 18

Tuesday, January 10, 2012 - 8:19am

Jules,

Yes in the beginning he pandered to everyone that would lend him an ear.
Promising the world to the labor unions if they backed him and saying he would make sure that employers were kept in line.
He promised the business owners that if he were in power he would ...

Whoa! ... For a second there, I thought you were talking about Obama!

A pretty simple mistake, on my part, I guess.

Ed

Post 19

Tuesday, January 10, 2012 - 12:23pm