Ayn Rand, Adam Smith and I agree on the virtue of “selfishness”. This is much deeper than you may think.

The word “selfishness” is misleading. I avoid using it. I use “enlightened self-interest” instead. Similarly, Adam Smith used this concept even as he was clear that it is self-interest that drives a society toward morality and wealth. Enlightened self-interest is the highest form of self-interest, which encompasses what is commonly known as altruism. This concept is based on a strategic game theoretic conception of human rationality. There is a longer term perspective embedded into this concept.

However, Ayn Rand was bold enough to assert that “selfishness” is a virtue. She, however, meant something QUITE DIFFERENT to what is commonly understood. And few have cared to understand.

For instance, the author of this article writes:

One time, at dinner, I complained that my brother was hogging all the food.

“He’s being selfish!” I whined to my father.

“Being selfish is a good thing,” he said. “To be selfless is to deny one’s self. To be selfish is to embrace the self, and accept your wants and needs.”

It was my dad’s classic response — a grandiose philosophical answer to a simple real-world problem. But who cared about logic? All I wanted was another serving of mashed potatoes.

This is a gross misrepresentation of Ayn Rand. It is important that anyone who critiques Ayn Rand at least try to understand her.

Here’s a blog post I wrote some time ago, exploring Ayn Rand’s concept: The virtue of selfishness: an exploration of the concept. The following paragraphs are KEY to understanding Rand.

The Objectivist ethics holds that the actor must always be the beneficiary of his action and that man must act for his own rational self-interest. But his right to do so is derived from his nature as man and from the function of moral values in human life – and, therefore, is applicable only in the context of a rational, objectively demonstrated and validated code of moral principles which define and determine his actual self-interest. It is not a license “to do as he pleases” and it is not applicable to the altruists’ image of a “selfish” brute nor to any man motivated by irrational emotions, feelings, urges, wishes or whims.
 
This is said as a warning against the kind of “Nietzschean egoists” who, in fact, are a product of the altruist morality and represent the other side of the altruist coin: the men who believe that any action, regardless of its nature, is good if it is intended for one’s own benefit. Just as the satisfaction of the irrational desires of others is not a criterion of moral value, neither is the satisfaction of one’s own irrational desires. Morality is not a contest of whims.

If you don’t understand Rand, you should avoid talking about Rand.

There is great similarity between Adam Smith and Ayn Rand, and what I believe in. These are ideas about liberty, morality and accountability. There is AMPLE space within these ideas to assist others, to GENUINELY care for others.

I’m citing a few extracts from my draft manuscript, The Discovery of Freedom (which I’ve not had time to revise since over one year now):

One of my friends (who doesn’t’ understood me) asked: ‘Can we not build a society on something more admirable than selfishness?’

But I am talking about enlightened self-interest. Doing the best we can for ourselves (ethically – at all times) is the best way forward for all societies. The more we improve our skills, the better the quality of services we provide others, the more the society benefits, the more the rewards we receive. Note that if everyone helps himself or herself (ethically), there would be no poverty nor any need for charity, or even the police. We can’t possibly do better for ourselves without first doing good for others (since others pay us for the services we perform). Serving oneself is therefore compatible with serving others. If, instead of being self-interested, we were to live for others’ sake, then things would get seriously distorted. The society would step into the quicksand of moral confusion, incompetence and hypocrisy, and would lead to poverty, ill-health, and distress.

Classical liberalism does not preach morality. It is non-intrusive. In this calm, natural manner, it leads to desirable – what can be classified as moral – outcomes. For only by serving others’ interests can we hope to maximise our own interest. Self-interest in this sense does not movitate ‘selfishness’, for such narrow interest will be self-defeating, nor its counterpart at the ‘national’ level: mercantilism or jingoism. Instead, it involves our rational evaluation of (long-term) consequences of our actions, which necessarily leads us to respect others and to help them so they may help us in turn.

Altruism is part of enlightened self-interest because it generally involves indirect, strategic ‘selfishness’. Much altruism is strategic, hence consistent with narrow self-interest. We may, for instance, benefit through ‘salvation’ or just feeling good. Or we might undertake charity to reduce our angst at the existence of poverty. Thus, even though it might appear to a casual observer that I have paid an excessive price for the dubious privilege of trying to reform India and rid it of poverty, I do so because doing the right thing gives me mental satisfaction. So is it altruism or  just self-interest?

BOX

Altruism, enlightened self-interest, and sacrifice

            Ayn Rand wrote that ‘“Sacrifice” is the surrender of a greater value for the sake of a lesser one or of a nonvalue’, and that may refer to a situation where ‘something [is] given up or lost’[1]. When we say that ‘the soldiers of the Allied forces sacrificed their lives for our future’, we do so because of we belief think that the soldiers got nothing in return (but death, being the end of everything), in lieu of a thing of infinite value (life). But is such a view justified?

            First, the soldiers (unless they were conscripted) were fighting for something they cared for – the free society – and were acting as responsible citizens. The value they received (when alive) from the belief that they were fighting for a country they loved – was compensation for the likelihood of death in battle. Note also that the soldiers received a competitive salary (and, presumably, upon their death, a pension for their family). Other value received from their job included good health from exercise, deep friendship with fellow soldiers. We would be hard pressed to suggest that a voluntary act of fighting a war is sacrifice. What we choose to do for ourselves or for our beloved ones (or country) is not sacrifice. Calling it ‘sacrifice’ would demean our sentiments. As Ayn Rand wrote:

Any action that a man undertakes for the benefit of those he loves is not a sacrifice… Concern for the welfare of those one loves is a rational part of one’s selfish interests. If a man who is passionately in love with his wife spends a fortune to cure her of a dangerous illness, it would be absurd to claim that he does it as a “sacrifice” for her sake, not his own, and that it makes no difference to him, personally and selfishly, whether she lives or dies.

            What now if I forego an expensive dinner I had planned, and donate the savings so made to charity?  That I am being altruistic can’t be doubted. But I’d suggest that this does not amount to sacrifice because I get a warm glow in return; a feeling surely of equal or greater value to what I give. In any event, the moment we truly care, sacrifice does not exist.

If one’s friend is in trouble, one should act to help him by whatever nonsacrificial means are appropriate. For instance, if one’s friend is starving, it is not a sacrifice, but an act of integrity to give him money for food rather than buy some insignificant gadget for oneself, because his welfare is important in the scale of one’s personal values. If the gadget means more than the friend’s suffering, one had no business pretending to be his friend.[2]

            We can only sacrifice when we do something we don’t want to do. But if we do such a thing, then we either violate our self-interest or are (likely) being compelled, bot of which can’t happen in the free society. As Ayn Rand further noted:

The virtue involved in helping those one loves is not “selflessness” or “sacrifice,” but integrity.  Integrity is loyalty to one’s convictions and values; it is the policy of acting in accordance with one’s values, of expressing, upholding and translating them into practical reality.  If a man professes to love a woman, yet his actions are indifferent, inimical or damaging to her, it is his lack of integrity that makes him immoral. The same principle applies to relationships among friends.

            A ‘sacrifice’ is an action we have voluntarily chosen, an action based on one’s values, then it is an act of integrity. Clearly, the term ‘sacrifice’ is very misleading. I prefer ‘enlightened self-interest’ to clarify that everything we do voluntarily must necessarily be in our interest, else we wouldn’t do it. So if parents tell their children: ‘We sacrificed for you’, and therefore demand obedience or care in return, we should (while obeying them and caring for them out of the moral sense of duty) ask them: ‘Who forced you to do it?’ Parents must either want to have their children (in which case what they do for them can’t be a sacrifice), or not have them in the first place. They can’t eat the cake and have it too!

            Now we can look at the dictionary meaning of this word. Sacrifice is defined as the ‘[d]estruction, surrender, or foregoing of anything valued for the sake of anything else, esp. a higher consideration’[3] [emphasis mine]. This is a confusing definition where ‘higher consideration’ presumably represents some abstract moral valuation. Let’s say I give up something of value (say, my time or my money) that is worth X to me, and receive something I value Y in return, where Y ranges from 0 to ∞, with varying probabilities.

                In general, when we receive something of equal or greater value than what we give, that cant’ be called a sacrifice. In a market transaction, when we ‘give up’ Rs. 100 for a movie ticket, we get at least Rs. 100 worth of value in return (we usually get back more than Rs. 100 in value, the difference between what we value and what we pay being consumer surplus). Receiving Y ≥ X by ‘giving up’ X clearly involves no sacrifice: it is a bargain. Therefore trade-off of the following sort are not sacrifice: ‘We must sacrifice watching TV today to study and work for good results in the exam tomorrow’. Delayed gratification is not sacrifice, but a rational way to smooth lifecycle consumption, a pure display of self-interest.

 

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[1] [http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sacrifice]

[2] Rand, Ayn, 1964, ‘The Ethics of Emergencies’, The Virtue of Selfishness, New York: New American Library, pp.45-46. – cited in Hospers, John, An Introduction to Philosophical Analysis, Bombay: Allied Publishers, 1977 [1967: Prentice Hall] reprint, p. 602.

[3] Chambers 20^th Century Dictionary, 1983 edition.