When we launched this blog, I promised that one of its functions would be to combat misrepresentations of Ayn Rand’s ideas when they appeared in noteworthy places in the media.
The following comments on this post were preserved:
Shortly after the original publication of this post, Denise C. publicly responded: I have no memory of you at UIUC, nor does my husband. For the record, I too was in the Philosophy Department at the same time my husband was, and it seems odd that you were unaware of that. My appointment was split between Philosophy and Psychology. I don't see that you were enrolled in any of my courses on reasoning and decision-making, nor any of my husband's philosophy courses.
As is apparent from your comment and those of other Rand fans in this thread, Rand aficionados seem to resort to the same complaints when Rand's "objectivism" is summarized and analyzed, namely, that she is misunderstood or misquoted. I assure you neither is the case here. The summary of objectivism is accurate, and the quotes I posted were not taken out of context. (Click on the links to go to the original sources.)
Rand did indeed believe altruism was a biological impossibility, and that is because she knew precious little about evolutionary biology or ethology. Her loathing of altruism, and by extension, cooperation, stemmed in part from her hatred of Soviet communism and the hardships that particular brand of collectivism had imposed on her, her family, and her country.
If you were a Philosophy major, then you must be aware that "objectivism" is not taken seriously as a philosophical theory primarily because it is grounded in many misconceptions of biology, psychology, and human nature.
I gave two examples in the article of what happens when Rand's philosophy is implemented into policy. There are many, many more, with equally dismal outcomes.
Meanwhile, had you taken any of my courses, you would have learned a good deal about evolutionary biology, about human evolutionary history, about game theory and economic theory, and about human nature. You would have learned that fairness and "other regarding behavior" has been incorporated into modern economic theory. You would have learned about the necessity of taking into consideration not only one's own desired outcomes but those of others, and the dangers that ensue when that latter are ignored.
But there is still time. I recommend you pick up a copy of Good Thinking (2012, Cambridge) for a summary of what you missed.
I mentioned that we may have met at the U of I to establish some level of academic cordiality. I didn't specify your affiliation at the U of I because I couldn't remember whether it was a joint appointment and I didn't have reason to think that detail to be relevant to the exchange. In any case, it's likely that all of our memories have faded because this was such a long time ago. I finished my Ph.D. in 2007, which was only right after both you and Robert arrived.
The purpose of my post was to call attention to a misrepresentation of Rand's philosophy broadly construed, not to a particular quotation. I did not say that your quotations were out of context because they are not.
You say "Rand did indeed believe altruism was a biological impossibility," but, unfortunately, you don't actually provide evidence for that claim, either here or in your original article. The quote about collectivism doesn't speak to the possibility or impossibility of altruism, but to the undesirability of collectivism. The journal entry quotation doesn't address any question about altruism, but raises the question of whether a social instinct must influence human action. If anything Rand is implying that it doesn't, in the sense that one can be "born social" (i.e., be biologically pro-social) but make choices to resist this inborn instinct. That's pretty far from saying altruism is impossible. And in any case, the quotation doesn't actually answer the question it raises.
I gave you reliable sources distinguishing Rand's ethical egoism from the theory of psychological egoism from a book published by a prominent academic press in my post. You have not disputed these sources. Rand certainly maintained ethical egoism, but rejected psychological egoism. I can give you more evidence. Here, for instance, is a statement against psychological egoism that appeared in her book *The Virtue of Selfishness*:
"The basic fallacy in the 'everyone is selfish' argument consists of an extraordinarily crude equivocation. It is a psychological truism a tautology that all purposeful behavior is motivated. But to equate 'motivated behavior' with 'selfish behavior' is to blank out the distinction between an elementary fact of human psychology and the phenomenon of ethical choice. It is to evade the central problem of ethics, namely: by what is man to be motivated?" ("Isn't Everyone Selfish?," 1964, pg. 58 )
Incidentally, this criticism of psychological egoism is an extraordinarily common criticism among philosophers. You can see it described in a standard text on the topic, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy's entry on egoism, here:
Obviously, if Rand maintains that not everyone is selfish, this implies that some people are selfless. Rand thought altruism was all too possible, but it was a choice she recommended against. Rand loathed altruism not because she thought it was impossible, but because she thought it was evil. Whether she is right to think that is a separate matter that we were not discussing.
You suggest that Rand's philosophy is not taken seriously by philosophers, which I am well aware of. I write for the blog of the Ayn Rand Society, which is a professional society affiliated with the American Philosophical Association. The membership of the ARS is professional philosophers. We are aware that the majority of our colleagues do not take Rand seriously. It's our purpose to change this, by raising awareness about the actual content of her ideas, which one must have actual knowledge of her texts to appreciate.
This will be my last comment in response to you, because I'm a bit disconcerted by the overall tenor of your response. In several places you imply that if I had only taken your classes, I would understand why Rand's philosophy is wrong. To begin with, this was never a conversation about whether Rand is right, but one about the actual content of her ideas, right or wrong. But second, I must say that I find your insinuations here condescending. In what code of professional etiquette does one professor speak to another professor as to a student and suggest if only he had taken her classes, he would realize the error of his ways? I attempted to establish academic cordiality and made a sincere attempt to demonstrate that you were misinterpreting a philosophic text. I did not make any personal attacks. I'm sorry that others in my comment thread may have done so, but I have very little control over what gets posted here.
Sincerely,
Ben
Greg S. also responded to Denise C.: You say that fans of Rand complain that she is being misunderstood or misquoted. Such complaints are common about every controversial figure, and they’re very often correct. It’s also commonplace in exchanges among academics for one to accuse the other misunderstanding his or someone else’s view. Isn’t the reason for this is obvious? It is difficult to get another person’s view right, when one is very unsympathetic it. We’re prone to caricatures of views and people we have contempt for, and so we need to work hard to correct for this bias. It’s true that people can take advantage of the resulting confusion by perpetually complaining with no evidence that they’re being misunderstood. But that is not what has happened here.
Ben gave evidence that you were misinterpreting Rand in specific ways. Instead of acknowledging the evidence, you responded with condescension. Is this how you ordinarily reply when junior academics criticize your work? Ben says that you spoke to him as to a student, but I’ve had students who advanced views that I thought were wrong (or even disreputable or dangerous), and I can’t imagine responding to them by saying (in effect) that they wouldn't be so ignorant if they'd taken more of my classes. It makes me wonder how you deal with the students who praise Rand in your office. Your article treats them as an object of bemusement, rather than of genuine concern, and it shows little interest what reasons (however mistaken) they might have for regarding Rand differently than you do.
As to the content of your post: What Rand opposes under the name of “altruism” is not every action that takes other people’s interests into consideration in any way; it is the view that one should “live for others” (as Comte put it), sacrificing one’s own interests to theirs. In a few places Rand does say that she thinks it is impossible to implement this principle with full consistency, and in that sense she thinks that altruism is impossible. But she certainly thinks that self-sacrificial behavior is possible, and indeed common. If she didn’t there’d be no reason for her to rail against it.
But what she’s railing against is not all forms of “other regarding behavior”—not if that phrase is understood so widely as to include all cases “of taking into consideration not only one's own desired outcomes but those of others.” I don’t know of any thinker who has ever denied that such behavior is possible or good. (Even crude amoralists, which Rand was not, recognize that one must take others interests into consideration, if only to manipulate them.) Among the forms of non-sacrificial other-regard Rand endorsed were respecting other’s rights (which is mentioned in one of the passages you quote), treating them justly (which extends beyond respecting their rights), and relationships of friendship and love which (as she puts it) involve “incorporating the welfare” of the loved one “into one’s own hierarchy of values, then acting accordingly.” She also endorsed a general attitude of benevolence among people, which she thought was precluded by altruism (as defined in the last paragraph). There are, of course, questions one can raise about whether these actions and attitudes are really non-sacrificial (as Rand maintains) or about whether her conceptions of these actions and attitudes are correct. But, unless I'm misunderstanding you, that's not what you're doing in your post.
Also, I should mention that it was not Rand's view that, if the influence of altruism was removed, people would just naturally find themselves motivated to act as she thinks they should. She thinks the sort of life she advocates is natural in the sense that it is uniquely consistent with the requirements of human nature, not in the sense that it comes naturally to us. It is something that needs to be discovered and learned over time (as does knowledge of medicine or nutrition).
The following comments on this post were preserved:
Shortly after the original publication of this post, Denise C. publicly responded: I have no memory of you at UIUC, nor does my husband. For the record, I too was in the Philosophy Department at the same time my husband was, and it seems odd that you were unaware of that. My appointment was split between Philosophy and Psychology. I don't see that you were enrolled in any of my courses on reasoning and decision-making, nor any of my husband's philosophy courses.
As is apparent from your comment and those of other Rand fans in this thread, Rand aficionados seem to resort to the same complaints when Rand's "objectivism" is summarized and analyzed, namely, that she is misunderstood or misquoted. I assure you neither is the case here. The summary of objectivism is accurate, and the quotes I posted were not taken out of context. (Click on the links to go to the original sources.)
Rand did indeed believe altruism was a biological impossibility, and that is because she knew precious little about evolutionary biology or ethology. Her loathing of altruism, and by extension, cooperation, stemmed in part from her hatred of Soviet communism and the hardships that particular brand of collectivism had imposed on her, her family, and her country.
If you were a Philosophy major, then you must be aware that "objectivism" is not taken seriously as a philosophical theory primarily because it is grounded in many misconceptions of biology, psychology, and human nature.
I gave two examples in the article of what happens when Rand's philosophy is implemented into policy. There are many, many more, with equally dismal outcomes.
Meanwhile, had you taken any of my courses, you would have learned a good deal about evolutionary biology, about human evolutionary history, about game theory and economic theory, and about human nature. You would have learned that fairness and "other regarding behavior" has been incorporated into modern economic theory. You would have learned about the necessity of taking into consideration not only one's own desired outcomes but those of others, and the dangers that ensue when that latter are ignored.
But there is still time. I recommend you pick up a copy of Good Thinking (2012, Cambridge) for a summary of what you missed.
Cheers!
Denise D. Cummins, PhD
Ben B. responded to Denise C.: Dear Denise,
I mentioned that we may have met at the U of I to establish some level of academic cordiality. I didn't specify your affiliation at the U of I because I couldn't remember whether it was a joint appointment and I didn't have reason to think that detail to be relevant to the exchange. In any case, it's likely that all of our memories have faded because this was such a long time ago. I finished my Ph.D. in 2007, which was only right after both you and Robert arrived.
The purpose of my post was to call attention to a misrepresentation of Rand's philosophy broadly construed, not to a particular quotation. I did not say that your quotations were out of context because they are not.
You say "Rand did indeed believe altruism was a biological impossibility," but, unfortunately, you don't actually provide evidence for that claim, either here or in your original article. The quote about collectivism doesn't speak to the possibility or impossibility of altruism, but to the undesirability of collectivism. The journal entry quotation doesn't address any question about altruism, but raises the question of whether a social instinct must influence human action. If anything Rand is implying that it doesn't, in the sense that one can be "born social" (i.e., be biologically pro-social) but make choices to resist this inborn instinct. That's pretty far from saying altruism is impossible. And in any case, the quotation doesn't actually answer the question it raises.
I gave you reliable sources distinguishing Rand's ethical egoism from the theory of psychological egoism from a book published by a prominent academic press in my post. You have not disputed these sources. Rand certainly maintained ethical egoism, but rejected psychological egoism. I can give you more evidence. Here, for instance, is a statement against psychological egoism that appeared in her book *The Virtue of Selfishness*:
"The basic fallacy in the 'everyone is selfish' argument consists of an extraordinarily crude equivocation. It is a psychological truism a tautology that all purposeful behavior is motivated. But to equate 'motivated behavior' with 'selfish behavior' is to blank out the distinction between an elementary fact of human psychology and the phenomenon of ethical choice. It is to evade the central problem of ethics, namely: by what is man to be motivated?" ("Isn't Everyone Selfish?," 1964, pg. 58 )
Incidentally, this criticism of psychological egoism is an extraordinarily common criticism among philosophers. You can see it described in a standard text on the topic, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy's entry on egoism, here:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/egoism/
Obviously, if Rand maintains that not everyone is selfish, this implies that some people are selfless. Rand thought altruism was all too possible, but it was a choice she recommended against. Rand loathed altruism not because she thought it was impossible, but because she thought it was evil. Whether she is right to think that is a separate matter that we were not discussing.
You suggest that Rand's philosophy is not taken seriously by philosophers, which I am well aware of. I write for the blog of the Ayn Rand Society, which is a professional society affiliated with the American Philosophical Association. The membership of the ARS is professional philosophers. We are aware that the majority of our colleagues do not take Rand seriously. It's our purpose to change this, by raising awareness about the actual content of her ideas, which one must have actual knowledge of her texts to appreciate.
This will be my last comment in response to you, because I'm a bit disconcerted by the overall tenor of your response. In several places you imply that if I had only taken your classes, I would understand why Rand's philosophy is wrong. To begin with, this was never a conversation about whether Rand is right, but one about the actual content of her ideas, right or wrong. But second, I must say that I find your insinuations here condescending. In what code of professional etiquette does one professor speak to another professor as to a student and suggest if only he had taken her classes, he would realize the error of his ways? I attempted to establish academic cordiality and made a sincere attempt to demonstrate that you were misinterpreting a philosophic text. I did not make any personal attacks. I'm sorry that others in my comment thread may have done so, but I have very little control over what gets posted here.
Sincerely,
Ben
Greg S. also responded to Denise C.: You say that fans of Rand complain that she is being misunderstood or misquoted. Such complaints are common about every controversial figure, and they’re very often correct. It’s also commonplace in exchanges among academics for one to accuse the other misunderstanding his or someone else’s view. Isn’t the reason for this is obvious? It is difficult to get another person’s view right, when one is very unsympathetic it. We’re prone to caricatures of views and people we have contempt for, and so we need to work hard to correct for this bias. It’s true that people can take advantage of the resulting confusion by perpetually complaining with no evidence that they’re being misunderstood. But that is not what has happened here.
Ben gave evidence that you were misinterpreting Rand in specific ways. Instead of acknowledging the evidence, you responded with condescension. Is this how you ordinarily reply when junior academics criticize your work? Ben says that you spoke to him as to a student, but I’ve had students who advanced views that I thought were wrong (or even disreputable or dangerous), and I can’t imagine responding to them by saying (in effect) that they wouldn't be so ignorant if they'd taken more of my classes. It makes me wonder how you deal with the students who praise Rand in your office. Your article treats them as an object of bemusement, rather than of genuine concern, and it shows little interest what reasons (however mistaken) they might have for regarding Rand differently than you do.
As to the content of your post: What Rand opposes under the name of “altruism” is not every action that takes other people’s interests into consideration in any way; it is the view that one should “live for others” (as Comte put it), sacrificing one’s own interests to theirs. In a few places Rand does say that she thinks it is impossible to implement this principle with full consistency, and in that sense she thinks that altruism is impossible. But she certainly thinks that self-sacrificial behavior is possible, and indeed common. If she didn’t there’d be no reason for her to rail against it.
But what she’s railing against is not all forms of “other regarding behavior”—not if that phrase is understood so widely as to include all cases “of taking into consideration not only one's own desired outcomes but those of others.” I don’t know of any thinker who has ever denied that such behavior is possible or good. (Even crude amoralists, which Rand was not, recognize that one must take others interests into consideration, if only to manipulate them.) Among the forms of non-sacrificial other-regard Rand endorsed were respecting other’s rights (which is mentioned in one of the passages you quote), treating them justly (which extends beyond respecting their rights), and relationships of friendship and love which (as she puts it) involve “incorporating the welfare” of the loved one “into one’s own hierarchy of values, then acting accordingly.” She also endorsed a general attitude of benevolence among people, which she thought was precluded by altruism (as defined in the last paragraph). There are, of course, questions one can raise about whether these actions and attitudes are really non-sacrificial (as Rand maintains) or about whether her conceptions of these actions and attitudes are correct. But, unless I'm misunderstanding you, that's not what you're doing in your post.
Also, I should mention that it was not Rand's view that, if the influence of altruism was removed, people would just naturally find themselves motivated to act as she thinks they should. She thinks the sort of life she advocates is natural in the sense that it is uniquely consistent with the requirements of human nature, not in the sense that it comes naturally to us. It is something that needs to be discovered and learned over time (as does knowledge of medicine or nutrition).