[MikhailKravtsov]

I hope the degree of interest in the daily news that skyrocketed in winter is declining.

I want to return to the serious topic we were approaching in January and discuss:

What is altruism in Objectivism?

I am afraid that too many people often understand altruism in a very simple way: as a help to another person for free, without any bargain and value exchange. You can hear that from those who only heard something about Ayn Rand as well as from her deep admirers on that forum. I’d been very close to that belief myself before starting this post.

The first important thing I want to mention is that for Rand, altruism is not an interaction between people, but an ethical (or, rather, non-ethical) ideology:

Altruism declares that any action taken for the benefit of others is good, and any action taken for one’s own benefit is evil.

“Introduction,” The Virtue of Selfishness, viii

Rand blames altruism in making moral judgments based on the object of action. This argument sounds relatively weak for the Objectivism founder since the fundamental priority of individual human life requires to declare any action taken for one’s own rational benefit as good and moral.

HB: That’s a meta-level criticism, one about the methodology. Her actual analysis of altruism is in Galt’s speech, where she shows that it is the Morality of Death. I can’t imagine anything stronger than that.

Rand emphasizes that altruism is dangerous due to its common wide use in manipulating others.

HB: She may say that somewhere, but that’s not what she emphasizes. Recall that on the Donahue show, he asks what’s wrong with altruism and she answers: what’s wrong with suicide.

In my understanding, it is fine for an Objectivist to help others as long as he gets something of comparable value in exchange – which may well be his own pleasure feeling about that help – and he is sure he is not manipulated in the process.

HB: That’s in the right direction but what if the pleasant feeling about helping comes from his acceptance of altruism? Feelings aren’t the standard. The issue is whether he is a good person who deserves being helped.

The proper judgment on what the rational benefit is appears to be the key point for altruism recognition and makes avoiding it one of the most complicated tasks for a rational person. Altruistic ethics is the most slaughter thing out there. The simple way of defining altruism as “giving away a value in trade for nothing” in fact supports it by hiding the full complexity of the problem.

HB: I don’t see the problem, let alone the complexity.

I think that the difficulty of altruism issue is well shown in Atlas Shrugged, where John Galt is helping others throughout the whole book, risking his own life for the benefit of the people he would never have a chance even to meet.

HB: Huh? Who? Where in the book?

And yet he says:

I swear — by my life and my love of it — that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.

Let me finish with Dr Peikoff’s words:

You may and should help another man, or befriend him, or love him, if in the full context you—your values, your judgment, your life—are upheld thereby and protected. The principle of your action must be selfish. You may never properly accept the role of selfless servant to others or the status of sacrificial animal.

OPAR 239

/sb

[marrbru]

Re: Mikhail Kravtsov’s post 54750 of 5/25/25

Isn’t the problem of altruism primarily created by the issue of coercion in social and political contexts? 

HB: Not at all. Rearden’s family, for instance, made his home life hell, but no coercion was involved.

Outside of these contexts, it is extraordinarily difficult to judge another’s behavior as altruistic, even if they profess to be acting for others.

HB: True, and normally, it’s not a worthwhile thing to try to do.

When I help others, that is my focus; my own gratification is present, but in the background.  There’s no need to mention it or even think about it.  I believe that’s the case with most people.  But deciding when it’s desirable to help others is, as you note, rife with complexity—because, truth be told, a huge portion of our lives, on all levels, requires that we help others according to our professed values.  Doing so is sometimes unpleasant, inconvenient, distressing, and painful.

HB: Can you give an example? I think you must be misidentifying some interactions with others.

Galt’s devotion to saving the world could easily (by a non-Objectivist) be interpreted as altruism.  And what about his readiness to commit suicide to prevent Dagny being tortured? 

HB: That’s explained in detail in the novel, including: “‘I don’t have to tell you,’ he said, ‘that if I do it, it won’t be an act of self-sacrifice.'”

Or Howard Roark’s willingness to spend 10 years in jail as a tribute to his country—even if it ceases to exist! 

HB: But he’s trying to avoid that possibility. He accepts the risk.

One must realize that a life based on a readjustment of concepts like “selfishness” and “happiness” can entail quite a lot of pain, e.g., years of excruciatingly difficult work, suicide, prison, etc.  Deciding whether such things are ultimately in one’s self-interest is, to put it mildly, “one of the most complicated tasks for a rational person.”

HB: I don’t get it. Greatly dramatic conflicts, which the author works hard to create in a novel, are pretty darn rare in life. And what’s the alternative to acting egoistically? Acting semi-suicidally? Would Roark have been better off if he’d been willing to compromise, adjust to the world of Toohey, forget about Dominique (as Peter did)?

Look at it this way, lots of people are deliberately spending dollars to get back dimes; is it hard or complicated to stop doing that? You might answer: it brings social disapproval. Which gives rise to the question: disapproval by whom? By those who have mistaken moral ideas (which, incidentally, they can’t begin to defend or even properly to articulate).

/sb

[ragnite]

Re: Bruce Marr’s post 103716 of 5/25/25

“Altrusim is the soul killer” to paraphrase the Bene Gesserit from Dune. As an ethical system, its corruption begins with the individual. The politics we see are just its concrete destruction at scale.

Altruism is practiced best when you identify that which you value and give it away. Kant only wants you to select actions from which you derive no benefit. The most “objective” actions are those where you experience a loss. “We are not rich by what we possess but by what we can do without,” writes Kant in “On Education.”

Rand writes in “Faith and Force”:

The irreducible primary of altruism, the basic absolute, is self-sacrifice—which means; self-immolation, self-abnegation, self-denial, self-destruction—which means: the self as a standard of evil, the selfless as a standard of the good.

You can see such corruption in the concept of ego as identified by some psychologists and athletic coaches. They will say “That’s your ego getting in the way” rather than say “You’re defending a self-image that is not rational.” They think that if that pesky self were denied, you’d kick just a little bit harder or allow yourself to play for the team rather than the bravado of stardom.

I think the acceptance of altruism is why we see so many professional athletes give the sign of the cross before they kick the field goal. The athletes who pray face an unexamined conflict. To improve, he needs to identify his weaknesses and develop the automatized skills to play at speed. To be motivated, he needs to value his life and know that he is worthy of living. His creed demands the opposite. It demands renunciation. He thinks he can pay his debt off by sending some of his money into a charity foundation. But there’s always the thought that he didn’t do enough sacrifice. His nights are filled with anxiety and self-doubt.

/sb

[ChuckButler]

Re: Mikhail Kravtsov’s post 54750 of 5/25/25

I had some of the same questions and confusions as Mr. Kravtsov when I began studying Objectivism, and found Tara Smith’s books Ayn Rand’s Normative Ethics and Viable Values extremely helpful. FWIW.

/sb

[MikhailKravtsov]

Re: Chuck Butler’s post 103719 of 5/26/25

Thanks, I shall read it. Got the Normative Ethics already.

/sb

[MikhailKravtsov]

Re: Mikhail Kravtsov’s post 54750 of 5/25/25

Great thanks to our valuable host for his in-post remarks, but how am I supposed to answer it? I proceed below.

On John Galt helping others:

All his story in the novel is about his work for the benefit of other people of reason. He talks to them and evacuates them to the valley. Supposedly, in all cases, their conversation is the first time Galt contacts that person. Well, it might be that each time he has conducted such profound research about the person, he is absolutely sure about the individual’s virtues and the quality of his values. Sounds a bit too much like a fairy tale to me, but OK.

I can find no excuse for John in his telling the speech on the radio. He rationally risks his own life and that of his beloved woman to try and give a chance to turn to reason for no one knows how many people he would never meet. Maybe many million of them, and maybe just 2-3 individuals. How can he know in advance?

What happens next in the novel looks like a most narrow escape for John Galt from a literal sacrifice for an unknown quantity of unknown people of unknown virtues. Navalny sacrificed himself in a very similar situation about a year ago.

 

Let me put it briefly why I find the altruism issue worth deeper discussion:

1. All aggressive wars used altruist-collectivist ideology. I dare say you can’t make people start killing others without it. And it happens today, right now. It is not just the question of sportsmen’s achievements, it is about human lives, and plenty of them.
2. “Altruistic” values are backed not only by a long prevailing tradition in human thought, but by our biological nature too. All that makes many of the living unprotected from that ideology.
3. I am afraid there are no simple “razors” to identify altruism in human actions that we can use ourselves or recommend to others.
4. Manipulation may be one obvious exception. When you are asked to sacrifice for your friends/ compatriots/ tribe/ creed/ whatever – run away, here it is.

/sb

[GordonGregory]

I find it difficult to reconcile the Objectivist definition of altruism and the common usage by most people (selfishness has a similar distinction between definition and usage, but is easier to clarify: rational self-interest, acting on one’s values, and not trampling on others’, there is no conflict between rational actors, etc).

The vast majority of people see helping others as a good, but do not see it as reneging on their own values, but value the things that they help with.  For example, a strong community is valued by many; many people have collectivist values; not to mention that tribalism has some survival benefit outside a rights-protected environment.  Homelessness, want, hungers, suffering, inequality are all held as negatives and thus acting against them is seen as acting on their values.  Most of their premises are in error, as are most of their solutions — many in fact make it worse — but they are still acting on their definition of their values whilst calling it altruism.

On the other hand, it is clear that such other directed action is not the blind altruism of Objectivist definition. The leftist collectivist is not going to be altruistic to the right-wing collectivist, thus it is not a matter of blindly putting others before yourself.

Re: Bruce Marr’s post 103716 of 5/25/25 and HB comments within.

When I help others, that is my focus; my own gratification is present, but in the background.  There’s no need to mention it or even think about it.  I believe that’s the case with most people.  But deciding when it’s desirable to help others is, as you note, rife with complexity—because, truth be told, a huge portion of our lives, on all levels, requires that we help others according to our professed values.  Doing so is sometimes unpleasant, inconvenient, distressing, and painful.

HB: Can you give an example? I think you must be misidentifying some interactions with others.

I get pleasure out of helping people and solving their problems, but much in the same way as solving any problem. I enjoy caring for people, hence why I am suited to my job.  This is me following my values, but to most people they would call it altruism.  It is, however, dependent on me getting paid, though if I am being paid a wage, I am willing to go the extra mile for people without extra payment.

The problem as always is definition v usage.

/sb

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