The Virtue of Selfishness - Pick this Apart

[Prannon]

Alright, so I recently started a thread on another site talking about what the Healthcare bill is all about and stuff. I mostly focus on trashing the misinformation that's been going around about the bill. One person responds to me, and in the course of our discussion he says that greed and selfishness are good qualities that ought to be encouraged.

I went to his profile and managed to find this short essay on human selfishness, here reproduced for you to pick apart.

I am selfish. Too selfish to drop a dollar in a beggar's cap, too selfish to care about the homeless on the street, too selfish to have any desire to help drug addicts come clean, too selfish to help a disadvantaged person live a normal life.

These are characteristics of a selfish person.

My selfishness runs deeper than that, however.

I am too selfish to want to rule the world, no matter the benefits it brings me - for I want my life to be mine and mine alone.

I am too selfish to lie - for I would not settle for being somebody other than me, for living a life besides the one I am living.

I am too selfish to steal - for I want to know that what is mine is mine by my own effort, built to my standards, by my virtue.

I am too selfish to hate - for my life and my time are too important for such nonsense.

I am too selfish to envy - again, because my life and my time are too valuable.

I am too selfish to be racist - because the money of a black man is as good as the money of a white man, because his effort is worth nothing less, because I want the best - regardless of what colour it takes.


I am too selfish to be anything less than the person I am - and too selfish, yes, to deal with people who do not live to my standards to any degree except the necessary. I am selfish - but because I am selfish, I will never break my moral code, because it is mine, and of exceedingly high quality. I will not stain my soul, so to speak, to save yours.

The men who drop the nuclear bombs will not be selfish people, for it is the realm of selflessness, of blind belief in something greater than yourself, which would grant them the moral authority to do so. Evil in its purest form is not the realm of the selfish, who value themselves - it is the exclusive domain of the selfless, who don't.

Greed in the hands of the selfish produces good - because they are not willing to contort their minds and their bodies to achieve their ends. I work for a living, I serve others, in the name of my greed - and we all profit. That is the virtue of selfishness. Given name, it is Capitalism.

Collectivism, in all its attendant forms, does not eliminate greed - it eliminates selfishness. It eliminates self. It eliminates responsibility, integrity, personality, and all of the attendant forms of selfishness - it doesn't eliminate needs, or desires, or any of the attendant forms of greed. Selflessness is the unnamed vice, known by its fruits, but unnamed by its deed.

I'll post a link if asked. I mostly think he's taking good human qualities, like intelligence, responsibility, and objectivity, and rebranding them as selfishness to make them look good.

[Nephtys]

I'm pretty sure the author of that doesn't exactly understand the common meaning of 'selfish'. Here's a hint: Just because it's related to 'self' doesn't mean it's 'selfish'. Non-sequiteurs about completely unrelated concepts (lying? really?) don't mean anything. This is pseudo-philosophical doubletalk.

Watch, I can do it too.

I'm too selfish to eat Tuna Sandwiches - My sense of self needs no fish to sustain itself.

That makes about as much sense as the author's 'hate' bit. Likewise, the second to last premise makes NO sense at all. Greed in the hands of the selfish DOES NOT produce good. I could want to enslave every human being on earth to satisfy my desires for more. How is this a good thing in the slightest? Obviously, the author has ZERO understanding of the word Selfish, and instead is substituting mentally some other concept altogether.

The final point about collectivism is also nonsensical. I am a member of more than one collective. It's called society. It's called a family. It's called a company. And those things do not eliminate 'responsibility, integrity, personality'. What? So being part of a 'collective' makes me unable to be a person of responsibility? That's almost funny, considering the existence of every human group construct.

This kind of absolute black/white blanket statement found in the last paragraph, and indeed through the entire article is utterly meaningless. It shows if anything, an intellectual void and fishing for 'answers' the author wants, instead of actually expressing real thought on the topic.

[Formless]

I am selfish. Too selfish to drop a dollar in a beggar's cap, too selfish to care about the homeless on the street, too selfish to have any desire to help drug addicts come clean, too selfish to help a disadvantaged person live a normal life.

Haven't I've heard this song somewhere?

These are characteristics of a selfish person.

My selfishness runs deeper than that, however.

I will now proceed to gush libertarian bullshit all over the place to prove my Randroid credentials.

I am too selfish to want to rule the world, no matter the benefits it brings me - for I want my life to be mine and mine alone.

Enjoy being a friendless nobody, then.

I am too selfish to lie - for I would not settle for being somebody other than me, for living a life besides the one I am living.

So... in other words... you lack ambition? Man, what a loser. This isn't about selfishness, it sounds more like depressed emo trash. Not to say depression can't go hand in hand with selfish thoughts, but still.

I am too selfish to steal - for I want to know that what is mine is mine by my own effort, built to my standards, by my virtue.

So no giving this guy any presents at Christmass. It would crush his poor sensitive soul.

I am too selfish to hate - for my life and my time are too important for such nonsense.

Hate is generally a waste of time, true. But I don't see the connection to selfishness. Are you sure these qualities are linked to your selfishness, or are you just throwing anything and everything against the wall that you would like to ascribe to your personal self centered philosophy and hoping no one notices?

I am too selfish to envy - again, because my life and my time are too valuable.

Again, this reads more like what he's thinking of is depression, not selfishness. I mean, what do you occupy your time with, and how would that activity qualify you as selfish? You're just an apathetic waste of skin who thinks he's being edgy by regurgitating Atlas Shrugged.

I am too selfish to be racist - because the money of a black man is as good as the money of a white man, because his effort is worth nothing less, because I want the best - regardless of what colour it takes.

Now this statement is just plain inconsistent-- if the effort of a black man is worth something to him, then how can he claim he is selfish and that his virtues come from selfishness? His real creed should read "I don't care, unless I do. Or Rand says I do. Or the Republican Party says I do."

I am too selfish to be anything less than the person I am - and too selfish, yes, to deal with people who do not live to my standards to any degree except the necessary.

Then you should become a hermit, and spare us all your stuffy libertarian bullshit.

I am selfish - but because I am selfish, I will never break my moral code, because it is mine, and of exceedingly high quality.

Bullshit. You haven't outlined any kind of moral code to speak of. Or is it too precious to you to explain what it is to our undeserving ears?

I will not stain my soul, so to speak, to save yours.

The feeling is somehow mutual. But don't think you are anything but the exception, being that you are a waste of air and carbon.

The men who drop the nuclear bombs will not be selfish people, for it is the realm of selflessness, of blind belief in something greater than yourself, which would grant them the moral authority to do so.

Capitalism invented the Hydrogen Bomb and numerous other nice ways to kill people. Methinks you might want to get your head out of your ass and look around you because the world doesn't work the way you think it does.

Evil in its purest form is not the realm of the selfish, who value themselves - it is the exclusive domain of the selfless, who don't.

Tell that to the millions of people who need food, but do not have it, while you sit there at your computer with a whole kitchens worth of food that's likely going bad. Cretin.

Greed in the hands of the selfish produces good

It produces Mafia Dons, idiot. You call extortion and racketeering "good?"

because they are not willing to contort their minds and their bodies to achieve their ends.

Easily disproven simply by reading the news, preferably the "true crime" stories. You are the exception to the rule. I hope.

I work for a living, I serve others, in the name of my greed - and we all profit. That is the virtue of selfishness. Given name, it is Capitalism.

Told you he was a randroid. Capitalism, the only economic/political/moral system where you have to pay to have your legs broken. Or rather, pay to have them fixed. Wait.... no I meant what I said the first time.

Collectivism, in all its attendant forms, does not eliminate greed - it eliminates selfishness. It eliminates self. It eliminates responsibility, integrity, personality, and all of the attendant forms of selfishness - it doesn't eliminate needs, or desires, or any of the attendant forms of greed. Selflessness is the unnamed vice, known by its fruits, but unnamed by its deed.

It doesn't matter to me that every single moral philosopher ever thinks I'm a fucking moron or that biologists, anthropologists, psychologists, sociologists and just about anyone else with half a brain wonders what the fuck I'm smoking, just as long as I stay the path and keep repeating passages from "Atlas Shrugged" every morning everything will be juuuuuuusst fine.

Here's hoping you live a long and fruitless life, worm. And for the love of fuck, don't have any kids. Or any sex, for that matter. The only person who matters to you is you, so clearly belonging to a family would be selfless, collectivist, and thus evil.

[defanatic]

I'm pretty sure the author of that doesn't exactly understand the common meaning of 'selfish'. Here's a hint: Just because it's related to 'self' doesn't mean it's 'selfish'. Non-sequiteurs about completely unrelated concepts (lying? really?) don't mean anything. This is pseudo-philosophical doubletalk.

Watch, I can do it too.

I'm too selfish to eat Tuna Sandwiches - My sense of self needs no fish to sustain itself.

I'm gonna go with this. If you are really too selfish, you don't care how you get there, but so long as you end up feeling good or better off than you were previously.

You can't just redefine words to mean whatever you want them to mean.

Even more ridiculous:
I'm too sexy to eat Tune Sandwiches - My sense of sexy needs no fish to sustain itself. And hurts.

[Darth Wong]

Oh come on, this guy is just distorting the word "selfish" to make it support any random moral ethos that he chooses to tack onto the end of it, in a transparent attempt to rehabilitate the word "selfish". You could use this absurdly dishonest technique to say "I am too selfish to be any less generous to the poor, because I refuse to compromise my principles" and apply that to health care.

[Hamstray]

I am too selfish to steal - for I want to know that what is mine is mine by my own effort, built to my standards, by my virtue.

What does this guy do for a living? Seems like he is obviously too selfish to pay taxes or partake in any sort of trade. Is he a hermit who plants his own crops? If so why doesn't he just shut up and keep his thoughts to himself instead of using technologies intended for social networking?

The average person can't afford medical treatment and hence should be selfish enough to support social medicine. I know I do, I'd probably already be dead otherwise (thankfully it's not an issue in my country).

[Prannon]

Debating with this guy, I realize I'm a little out of my league knowledge wise. I honestly don't know much about the details of Ayn Rand's philosophy or why it's so bad. Is there any thread or book or essay where her philosophy is summarized and picked apart well?

[Samuel]

Debating with this guy, I realize I'm a little out of my league knowledge wise. I honestly don't know much about the details of Ayn Rand's philosophy or why it's so bad. Is there any thread or book or essay where her philosophy is summarized and picked apart well?

Aside from the disturbing thread on one of the groundings for Objectivism (a serial killer- now we know why it comes off as sociopathic), the main problem is it doesn't work in the real world. People need to make sacrifices to the common good in order for society to function. Why would a selfish man be a soldier for instance?

Or you can type in critiques of libertarianism and read the essays that pop up.

[Covenant]

This guy is hard to debate because he's not making sense, and willfully recoloring terminology to fit the definition he wants and then using that as evidence that he's correct. Catch that? He's not demonstrating the value of selfish behavior, he's stating that certain behaviors are selfish, then stating that selfishness is a moral good because greed + selfish = good.

There's no evidence for this, he's simply stating it.

First step in any debate when you get one of those "Wait, what the fuck is happening here?" moments is to pause and examine your opponent's suppositions and fundamental points. If you cede all this stuff to him by not addressing it then yeah it can be rough to debate, because you've allowed him through no fault of your own to simply spin his own definition of reality.

His actual assertions, such that when people act according to their own desire without regard for others (selfish) in pursuit of personal accumulation of value (greed) produces a good, and not ill, is factually wrong. It's not even close to being a debatable point, there's enough observable evidence to the contrary. I'm defining ill in a more objective ethical sense than some subjective moral framework bullshit like he does, but as I'll say below, I believe he's using a sociopathic form of "freedom from empathy" justification. His other core assumption that believing in something greater than yourself is in fact the main 'break' with selfishness that leads to ruin is, in fact, a core component of capitalism.

Without an ability to understand that people who work together are more valuable and productive for that group you can't create a business. He may protest and say each worker works only for himself, but a corporation functions as a group, not as a bunch of individual components. By it's own design, the greedy and self-interested would in fact learn to work as a group in order to perform complex tasks or they would be steamrolled under by people greedy and self-interested enough to swallow their pride and make a corporation.

So he' really an enemy of capitalism, since he believes no corporate formation is morally right, due to there being an agreement between parties that forms a group interest more important than momentary individual interest. The battle would be over semantics, but it's true, or at least true enough to show that none of what he says makes any sense. He's arguing for a sociopathic (environmental induced lack of empathy) form of anarchy. Honestly, unless you want the practice, don't even deal with him.

[Prannon]

Aside from the disturbing thread on one of the groundings for Objectivism (a serial killer- now we know why it comes off as sociopathic), the main problem is it doesn't work in the real world. People need to make sacrifices to the common good in order for society to function. Why would a selfish man be a soldier for instance?

I did some thinking about it tonight - couldn't sleep - and actually I seemed to understand why it wouldn't work. On the most basic grounds, Objectivism and Rational Self Interest make some sense. For example, it is in my rational self-interest to eat, or I would starve. It is an objective fact that I will die if I do not eat because the cells in my body will not receive the nutrients they need to continue functioning.

But once I get past that, things get a lot more ambiguous. In order to eat, I need to work and make money. It is in my rational self-interest to have a job so that I can earn my money. It is an objective fact that you cannot earn money without a job. However, supposing that I can't get a job because none are available, what am I to do? It is still in my rational self-interest to eat or I will die.

I can actually make several choices. I could steal my food, although that likely wouldn't serve my self-interest because I would run afoul of the law and likely come to some sort of harm. I could try and go to charity, but what is charity but other people ignoring their own rational-self interest? What does it matter to them that I am starving and without work? I don't serve their interests by existing, and giving me money or food would only be a waste of their own resources that they could better spend on their own interests. Any Objectivist would quickly find themselves de-converted in that kind of situation.

[Covenant]

You could become a farmer!

But yeah, this is the thing. Stealing is in fact in your self-interest. Being caught isn't, but stealing allows you to get food now which is important to insure that there is a later. Plus, you'd probably rather be fed in prison than starve on the street, yes? Assuming there's no charity to fall back on, there's no incentive not to steal if you can't get a job, since it's either depravity and death or loss of freedom and marginally better living conditions.

[Formless]

Basically, just like Cogito Ergo Sum is true, but only tells you that you exist and nothing more, Enlightened Self Interest only tells you about the necessity of having a moral code in order to survive. It does not tell you what kind of moral code to adopt, and a quick look at the facts will tell you that selfishness and narcissism are not virtuous-- millions of thieves, robbers, pirates, tyrants, gangsters, and other sociopaths throughout history are proof of that. Meanwhile the randroid assertion that "collectivists" (BTW, that word alone tells you where he picked up this shit, as no one else uses the term) are the source of all evil is so laughable he deserves to be spit in the face for even suggesting it. I guess the altruistic person who decided to put chlorine in the water so your teeth won't fall out is evil now? I guess the inventor of vaccines that keep us all from dying of polio and smallpox is evil now? I guess the people who put reflectors on highways so you can drive on them at night without going off the road by mistake are evil now? The OSHA, who makes sure the workplaces of factory workers everywhere that make the consumer products randroids live their lives to accumulate, is evil now? No, if it weren't for altruistic "collectivists" these ungrateful, addle brained randroids wouldn't be able to live in a first world country where books like "Atlas Shrugged" could even be written. They owe their lives to altruism and collectivism. By his own axiom "I want my life to be mine and mine alone" he's got quite a bit to pay back to society before he has the right to tell society to go fuck itself. As it is he's basically no better than a freeloader who won the genetic/economic/historical lottery with a stolen ticket. He doesn't deserve to lick your boots.

Besides, no matter how much it scares this type of egotistical sociopath, most people do have empathy. If you want to make yourself happy, how about trying to make someone else happy? They might just return the favor, and you will both feel good about yourselves. In other words, for most people altruism is directly in their self interest. That is a fact.

[Drooling Iguana]

I can actually make several choices. I could steal my food, although that likely wouldn't serve my self-interest because I would run afoul of the law and likely come to some sort of harm. I could try and go to charity, but what is charity but other people ignoring their own rational-self interest? What does it matter to them that I am starving and without work? I don't serve their interests by existing, and giving me money or food would only be a waste of their own resources that they could better spend on their own interests. Any Objectivist would quickly find themselves de-converted in that kind of situation.

You could vote and campaign for more social programs from your government that would allow you to eat even when you don't have a job. You might be successful, too, as the poor have outnumbered the rich in pretty much every society in the history of humanity.

The problem with Randian "self-interest" is that it actually means that we should just let the rich act in their own self-interest while the poor bend over and take it up the ass.

[Eframepilot]

According to that philosophy, there is nothing wrong with killing if you can get away with it. In fact, murder is a virtuous act if you can extract some profit from it. And as mentioned, Ayn Rand admired the serial killer William Edward Hickman:

"Other people do not exist for him, and he does not see why they should," she wrote, gushing that Hickman had "no regard whatsoever for all that society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own. He has the true, innate psychology of a Superman. He can never realize and feel 'other people.'"

Yay sociopathy!

[Kanastrous]

What does this guy do for a living?

I doubt he does anything, for a living. Most people with any real experience earning their way through the world probably wouldn't have come up with something like that.

[Spyder]

Conservative Post Modernist, more common then you'd think.

[Darth Wong]

I have never really heard a satisfactory response from proponents of "enlightened self-interest" to the simple question:

If all morality flows from self-interest, then where does the "enlightened" part of enlightened self-interest come from?

If anyone knows of an answer, please let me know.

[Samuel]

It means that they exclude certain types of self interest (eating other people) arbitrarily.

[Darth Wong]

It means that they exclude certain types of self interest (eating other people) arbitrarily.

Obviously. I'm just wondering if any of them have ever attempted to directly answer this question instead of trying to distract from it. I would be curious how they would justify it.

[Kanastrous]

Perhaps it's sort of along the lines of self-interest meaning get every last fish out of the water right now, and ''enlightened' self-interest means leaving just enough so that there will be fish next season. The enlightened part is knowing when to stop your rapaciousness just shy of actual self-destruction.

[Darth Wong]

Perhaps it's sort of along the lines of self-interest meaning get every last fish out of the water right now, and ''enlightened' self-interest means leaving just enough so that there will be fish next season. The enlightened part is knowing when to stop your rapaciousness just shy of actual self-destruction.

Except that this doesn't really cover "enlightened" at all. Ayn Rand used "enlightened self-interest" as a way of deflecting accusations that her objectivist moral code would sanctify a complete lack of sympathy for other human beings. What you're talking about is just long-term self-interest vs short-term self-interest.

It's not difficult to show that there are plenty of situations where actions which are tremendously destructive to society can benefit an individual, and that (contrary to Randian dogma), the individual will not necessarily pay a personal long-term price for this. Randian ethical dogma hinges on the notion that it's in everyone's self-interest to consider the greater good, because failure to do so will come back to haunt you. The problem is that reality does not conform to this expectation.