All of Ayn Rand’s own examples of rational self interest were irrational and against her interests.
Yes, they were. She was a shallow, ego-driven, willfully ignorant reactionary.
But that has nothing really to do with rational self-interest as an idea.
It’s such an easy philosophy to mock because it’s just really stupid.
Except that it’s not.
What’s stupid is the plainly irrational choices that are made and ascribed to “rational” self-interest.
True rational self interest would involve creating cooperative structures that give a safety net if anything goes wrong.
Exactly.
So the simple fact of the matter is that when someone argues against those safety nets, they aren’t actually arguing from a position of rational self-interest.
When people use the phrase rational self interest they’re overwhelmingly meaning what Ayn Rand called rational self interest. If you take the words literally, they apply to any political philosophy as no one’s trying to design a system against their own interests. The disagreements come from people disagreeing what their interests are and how they can feasibly have them fulfilled, not because they don’t want their interests fulfilled. No one else bothers using the phrase because it’s obviously the goal and stating that would be entirely redundant, but risk making it sound like you were advocating for something Randian.
no one’s trying to design a system against their own interests.
Well, to an extent that can be in a political philosophy.
Certainly rational self interest is factored in as to “affordability”. E.g. you support some benefit that you, personally, will never ever benefit from but it just seems the right thing to do, even if it may cost you 0.01% of your income, because that seems pretty affordable for someone else to benefit. Generally, people have voted explicitly against their self-interest.
Now the point can be made about welfare sorts of programs that it is a matter of self interest. That the small amount you lose in contributing is a small price for making everyone else contribute in case you need it. This case can be made for a lot of these scenarios, but the fact remains folks do vote against ‘rational’ self interest in various other ways.
I’m not sure that doing something that only directly benefits other people but makes you feel better about yourself as you’ve done something good (or less bad as you’ve not spent the money on something you’d have felt guilty about) isn’t in your self-interest. Other kinds of making yourself feel good count.
It’s rational to make yourself feel more good. That’s the final outcome of every aspect of self-interest that isn’t solely to remain alive. If the intention is to act solely in the self-interest of an emotionless unfeeling human-shaped robot:
it’s very silly as such an entity doesn’t exist and wouldn’t care about its own interests if it did.
it’s inconsistent with many other things Rand advocated for that only make someone feel better, but do so through hedonism rather than charity.
it’s such a terrible model for real humans that it can’t inform us of what’s good for humans.
But that has nothing really to do with rational self-interest as an idea.
But that’s the stance that proponents of ‘rational self-interest’ have settled on. It’s not just a mindset, it’s an ideology. The mindset you have in mind may make sense, but the ideology it has become does not, and that is what people are making fun of.
But that’s the stance that proponents of ‘rational self-interest’ have settled on.
No - it’s the stance that people who want to self-affirmingly publicly proclaim their hatred of Rand have assigned to proponents of rational self-interest.
That’s the heart of my criticism - people don’t discuss or debate the idea - they just trip over each other in their rush to be the one to most vividly proclaim their hatred of Rand. Hating Rand is like a hip internet leftist membership badge, so every time her name comes up, everybody who wants to solidify their image as a hip internet leftist rushes in to say, “Hey! Look at me! Look at how much I hate her! That means I’m one of you!”
And since the hatred comes first, everything else is shaped to accommodate it. Like, for instance, misrepresenting the idea of rational self-interest so that it becomes something easily condemned so that it can be added to the list of reasons to hate Rand.
I think what I’m describing is fundamental to both of them, that most of the differences between the two philosophies are at the peripheries, and that far and away the most significant difference between the two is that one was proposed by Rand, who’s a designated target for people eager to earn hip internet leftist cred through a public display of unequivocal hatred, and the other was proposed by Stirner, who’s someone that most are only vaguely aware of, if at all.
There is more nuance to both philosophies than the spark-notes take away if “Rational self interest”. Which if that in itself is what you’re arguing for, and along the paths you’re arguing, Egoism explicitly talking about the voluntary coming together of individuals to temporarily work together towards common goals makes a better baseline than Objectivism’s zero-sum view on human interactions.
Certainly there’s more nuance to them. As I said, I think that “rational self-interest” is fundamental to both of them - it’s nothing close to the sum of either one.
And for the record, I have zero respect for objectivism and a great deal of respect for egoism.
But that’s really beside the point. I’m not arguing for or against either one. My point has been explicitly about the underlying concept of rational self-interest in and of itself, and specifically the fact that it’s consistently misrepresented by its critics (or more precisely by Rand’s critics, who incorrectly ascribe the idea to her and her alone).
I can see it being very frustrating if people’s first response to ideologies close to you is dunk on Rand rather than actually engaging with what you’re trying to say.
I think a better critique of “rational self interest” if you’re looking for one would be that it can be argued to be either too widespread to have meaning (the flip side of “I don’t agree with them/am starting from different axioms thus they’re irrational”), or too narrow and thus never actually employed.
It is a shame that other Rational Self-interest philosophies don’t get their time in the sun… While Rand I hear is still required/recommended reading in some schools.
An advantage of writing fiction to articulate your ideas I suppose.
I mostly like “rational self-interest” as a sort of framing device.
I believe egoism to be a fact. I think every choice that * every* person makes is self-interested, even those that appear to be entirely altruistic.
Presuming that to be true, there are two things that I consider vital - that people are aware that that’s what they’re doing, and that they focus on doing it as rationally as possible.
And yes - “rational” is a slippery concept. The details are elusive at best, and much more to the point, necessarily subjective (which IMO is the part that Rand most vividly got wrong and Stirner, by contrast, got right). But while that means that a sort of universal formalization of the concept would be difficult at best, I tend to think it’s not necessary - that if people essentially stay within the guardrails of “rational self-interest” and maintain some measure of intellectual honesty and sound critical thinking, whatever it might all shake out to be couldn’t help but be at the very least more broadly good than bad, and certainly more broadly good than the various delusional authoritarianisms to which we’re subjected.
Yes, they were. She was a shallow, ego-driven, willfully ignorant egotist.
While I agree that she’s had an overall negative effect on society, I wonder if her world view more came from trauma of living in the Soviet Union and (falsely) assuming that the exact opposite had to be good
The problem being that it wasn’t the exact opposite. In fact, they had a lot of things in common. The leaders of both being self-interested megalomaniacs who desired control of all things around them.
The leaders of both being self-interested megalomaniacs who desired control of all things around them.
That’s easer to point out after the fact. I wouldn’t be surprised if the USSR was hitting all of their citizens with propaganda much like the US used to do with the “Land of the Free” saying
It was definitely a reaction to living under an authoritarian regime. The problem was that the reaction wasn’t “I don’t want this to ever happen again”, it was “I want to be the one in charge”.
Do you have anything meaningful to add, or just want to call people names because they’re not immediately agreeing with everything you say?
Says the guy that added snark into the conversation for absolutely no reason. If you want people to be civil to you then you should treat them in kind.
Yes, they were. She was a shallow, ego-driven, willfully ignorant reactionary.
But that has nothing really to do with rational self-interest as an idea.
Except that it’s not.
What’s stupid is the plainly irrational choices that are made and ascribed to “rational” self-interest.
Exactly.
So the simple fact of the matter is that when someone argues against those safety nets, they aren’t actually arguing from a position of rational self-interest.
The philosophy hasn’t failed - they have.
When people use the phrase rational self interest they’re overwhelmingly meaning what Ayn Rand called rational self interest. If you take the words literally, they apply to any political philosophy as no one’s trying to design a system against their own interests. The disagreements come from people disagreeing what their interests are and how they can feasibly have them fulfilled, not because they don’t want their interests fulfilled. No one else bothers using the phrase because it’s obviously the goal and stating that would be entirely redundant, but risk making it sound like you were advocating for something Randian.
Well, to an extent that can be in a political philosophy.
Certainly rational self interest is factored in as to “affordability”. E.g. you support some benefit that you, personally, will never ever benefit from but it just seems the right thing to do, even if it may cost you 0.01% of your income, because that seems pretty affordable for someone else to benefit. Generally, people have voted explicitly against their self-interest.
Now the point can be made about welfare sorts of programs that it is a matter of self interest. That the small amount you lose in contributing is a small price for making everyone else contribute in case you need it. This case can be made for a lot of these scenarios, but the fact remains folks do vote against ‘rational’ self interest in various other ways.
I’m not sure that doing something that only directly benefits other people but makes you feel better about yourself as you’ve done something good (or less bad as you’ve not spent the money on something you’d have felt guilty about) isn’t in your self-interest. Other kinds of making yourself feel good count.
Hence why they like to specify “rational” self interest.
It’s rational to make yourself feel more good. That’s the final outcome of every aspect of self-interest that isn’t solely to remain alive. If the intention is to act solely in the self-interest of an emotionless unfeeling human-shaped robot:
But that’s the stance that proponents of ‘rational self-interest’ have settled on. It’s not just a mindset, it’s an ideology. The mindset you have in mind may make sense, but the ideology it has become does not, and that is what people are making fun of.
No - it’s the stance that people who want to self-affirmingly publicly proclaim their hatred of Rand have assigned to proponents of rational self-interest.
That’s the heart of my criticism - people don’t discuss or debate the idea - they just trip over each other in their rush to be the one to most vividly proclaim their hatred of Rand. Hating Rand is like a hip internet leftist membership badge, so every time her name comes up, everybody who wants to solidify their image as a hip internet leftist rushes in to say, “Hey! Look at me! Look at how much I hate her! That means I’m one of you!”
And since the hatred comes first, everything else is shaped to accommodate it. Like, for instance, misrepresenting the idea of rational self-interest so that it becomes something easily condemned so that it can be added to the list of reasons to hate Rand.
I think what you’re describing is more wheelhouse of the less often talked about Egoism of Stirner, than the Objectivism of Rand.
I think what I’m describing is fundamental to both of them, that most of the differences between the two philosophies are at the peripheries, and that far and away the most significant difference between the two is that one was proposed by Rand, who’s a designated target for people eager to earn hip internet leftist cred through a public display of unequivocal hatred, and the other was proposed by Stirner, who’s someone that most are only vaguely aware of, if at all.
There is more nuance to both philosophies than the spark-notes take away if “Rational self interest”. Which if that in itself is what you’re arguing for, and along the paths you’re arguing, Egoism explicitly talking about the voluntary coming together of individuals to temporarily work together towards common goals makes a better baseline than Objectivism’s zero-sum view on human interactions.
Certainly there’s more nuance to them. As I said, I think that “rational self-interest” is fundamental to both of them - it’s nothing close to the sum of either one.
And for the record, I have zero respect for objectivism and a great deal of respect for egoism.
But that’s really beside the point. I’m not arguing for or against either one. My point has been explicitly about the underlying concept of rational self-interest in and of itself, and specifically the fact that it’s consistently misrepresented by its critics (or more precisely by Rand’s critics, who incorrectly ascribe the idea to her and her alone).
That’s all very fair and sensible.
I can see it being very frustrating if people’s first response to ideologies close to you is dunk on Rand rather than actually engaging with what you’re trying to say.
I think a better critique of “rational self interest” if you’re looking for one would be that it can be argued to be either too widespread to have meaning (the flip side of “I don’t agree with them/am starting from different axioms thus they’re irrational”), or too narrow and thus never actually employed.
It is a shame that other Rational Self-interest philosophies don’t get their time in the sun… While Rand I hear is still required/recommended reading in some schools.
An advantage of writing fiction to articulate your ideas I suppose.
I mostly like “rational self-interest” as a sort of framing device.
I believe egoism to be a fact. I think every choice that * every* person makes is self-interested, even those that appear to be entirely altruistic.
Presuming that to be true, there are two things that I consider vital - that people are aware that that’s what they’re doing, and that they focus on doing it as rationally as possible.
And yes - “rational” is a slippery concept. The details are elusive at best, and much more to the point, necessarily subjective (which IMO is the part that Rand most vividly got wrong and Stirner, by contrast, got right). But while that means that a sort of universal formalization of the concept would be difficult at best, I tend to think it’s not necessary - that if people essentially stay within the guardrails of “rational self-interest” and maintain some measure of intellectual honesty and sound critical thinking, whatever it might all shake out to be couldn’t help but be at the very least more broadly good than bad, and certainly more broadly good than the various delusional authoritarianisms to which we’re subjected.
Thanks for the response.
You’re most welcome.
Guess I’ll see you sometime in the comments of an altruism vs. selfish satisfaction of doing a good deed post.
I agree with much of all you’ve said in theory, and you have a consistent ideology and that’s, in my opinion, the most important starting point.
While I agree that she’s had an overall negative effect on society, I wonder if her world view more came from trauma of living in the Soviet Union and (falsely) assuming that the exact opposite had to be good
The problem being that it wasn’t the exact opposite. In fact, they had a lot of things in common. The leaders of both being self-interested megalomaniacs who desired control of all things around them.
That’s easer to point out after the fact. I wouldn’t be surprised if the USSR was hitting all of their citizens with propaganda much like the US used to do with the “Land of the Free” saying
They were, yes.
See? Another similarity.
It was definitely a reaction to living under an authoritarian regime. The problem was that the reaction wasn’t “I don’t want this to ever happen again”, it was “I want to be the one in charge”.
How to be an insufferable cunt in 1 easy step!
How to dismiss a discussion you don’t like the direction of in one easy step!
Do you have anything meaningful to add, or just want to call people names because they’re not immediately agreeing with everything you say?
Says the guy that added snark into the conversation for absolutely no reason. If you want people to be civil to you then you should treat them in kind.