Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 I'm Scott Schiff with the Atla Society, introducing our senior scholar, Dr. Richard Salzman here, sharing his seven most common smears against self-interest. Uh, I'm gonna put a link to a previous piece he has on the subject. And while Richard is giving his thoughts, uh, you know, feel free to raise your hands, uh, with questions. We'll bring you up to the stage to ask when he is done, uh, with his opening. And again, I, I encourage you to share the room. Richard, thanks for doing this topic. What are the seven most common smears against self-interest?
Speaker 1 00:00:36 Well, thank you, Scott. I, uh, wanna start with a brief motivation, which is, uh, self-interest and egoism as an ethic is so central to the objective, uh, objectiveist philosophy that I, um, I think it's very important to be able to identify ways that it's either dismissed or caricatured or, or misrepresented. And, um, I think you'll see after I give this kind of, uh, classification that you'll, you'll see it if you haven't already almost everywhere. But these have to be, uh, understood, identified, rejected. I think this seven I'll give you are, uh, really helpful in terms of, uh, disentangling the rational view from the, the non-rational view. And let me just also say that it's, it's often forgotten that the subtitle to, uh, Iran's Introduction to Objects epistemology, it does have a subtitle, and it's called A New Concept of Egoism. Now, this reminds us that, and she actually says it in the essay.
Speaker 1 00:01:41 It's not as if she was the first one to advocate Egoism, uh, but she had a specific take on it, uh, by class, by saying it has to be rational egoism. And many of the caricatures I'll and smears, I'll, I'll give you tonight, uh, basically come from a, uh, reluctance or an unwillingness of people to bring rationality into the, to the story. Now, I'm just gonna list them right here, right off the top of those taking notes, and then I'll elaborate on each. Here are the seven. That self-interest is automatic myopic, atomistic, materialistic, hedonistic, antagonistic, and finally, sadistic. Sadistic as in sadism.
Speaker 1 00:02:41 Uh, now maybe the first thing you'll notice is that there's a kind of rhyming here, or, and I did that purposely as I thought about the classification scheme I wanted to provide. I wanted it to be memorable. And, um, I also ordered these in a way that you'll find that as you go through the list, some of the later caricatures count on a compendium of other caricatures, uh, in generally. So the first ones I give you will be kind of a brazen, just straight off the top wrong. But then as we go through the list, the subsequent ones will be a little more complicated, a composition of other errors you'll see. So, again, to repeat the first one, automatic, the second one myopic the third atomistic, the fourth materialistic, five hedonistic, six antagonistic, seven sadistic. So let's go through these, um, as briefly as I can.
Speaker 1 00:03:39 I'm only gonna go for about 20 minutes here. The first one, self-interest as automatic. Now, this is the idea that everyone is automatically selfish, that it's inbred, that we're hardwired to be that way, that we have a quote, instinct for self-preservation, something along those lines. So there's various ways to put it, but there's a, in the virtue of selfishness, actually, there's an essay by Brandon, Nathaniel, Brandon, isn't everyone selfish, uh, dealing with this issue? Now, in philosophy, the technical term for this is actually psychological egoism. Psychological egoism. And there were thinkers prior to Rand who basically advocated this actually going all the way back to the 1840s. There's a, a thinker called Sterner Max Sterner who believed in this, but others did as well. It's contrasted with ethical egoism. So this is the objective issue, the objectiveness view of ethical egoism, meaning that it has to be chosen, that our self-interest has to be discovered, that we have to learn what's in our self-interest.
Speaker 1 00:04:44 Then we have to learn how to enact, uh, through using the virtues, um, and, and how to act in ways that, uh, advance our self-interest and advance our values and advance our lives. So it's not gonna be automatic. And one way of looking at this also would be to say, well, what about self-destructive behavior? Uh, suicide, uh, alcoholism, uh, again, in the realm of, to the extent chosen it, there, in fact, a long line of human, uh, history has a lot of war and self, uh, self-destructive behavior. So, so just on the surface of it, the idea that self-interest would be automatic as seems to defy the facts of reality. But here's another way of looking at it. If it were true actually, that everyone pursued their self-interest automatically, then it wouldn't even enter the realm of morality. The whole point of morality is these are, is is that it's you have choice and you could do ill or good, you can do evil or good.
Speaker 1 00:05:46 And the idea of automatic takes it out of that realm. So it's like a beating heart. It would be like saying, my heart beats automatically. And it is true that human bodily functions and physiologies are automatic to a large extent. They automatically are geared to self-preservation. But as thinking beings and conceptual beings, uh, that's not automatic. We have to choose. So, um, it, it is interesting because to the extent someone says self-interest is automatic, there should be no denunciations of self-interest. It would be as weird as denouncing the, uh, yeah. For those of you interested in philosophy, the psychological egoism is usually described as descriptive, e egoism, just saying, well, that's how, what people do, where ee or ethical egoism is called normative egoism. So the first, whether as the first allegedly describes the second prescribes. So, uh, that's one automatic. Uh, let's move to the next one.
Speaker 1 00:06:45 And, and again, if you have questions about this or wanna, uh, more on this, um, say in the q and a, the next one, myopic, this one's very common, I think, um, myopic short range, range of the moment. Uh, the myopic view is that there's, people are concrete bound. That the, that the rational self, excuse me, that the self-interested person is, uh, that they're very short range. Uh, we get these, uh, stories about the fly by night operators, you know, he lists of, of longer term consequences. They're arbitrary, they're all over the place. Um, they're ignorant of the harm they inflict. They, they don't give a damn about their reputation. Reputation is an asset. They don't care about their self-esteem. I mean, what about the power of self-confidence and self-esteem? Um, that seems to be out the window for this view. So it's a very common view, even the adoni that you, you know, honesty is the best policy, um, that is seen as well.
Speaker 1 00:07:46 No, the sch egoist is not gonna care about that. Um, so the myopic having to do with long range versus short range and, and understanding and, and thinking through the consequences of one action, one's action one. So one of the caricatures and smears of self-interest is that the self-interested per person is myopic. Now, by the way, before I go through all these, in the back of your mind, think to yourself, what would be the possible basis for making these mistakes? And the underlying theme you'll see running through it is they do not have rationality or reason guiding the actor, you know, so, so of course it takes rationality and reason and forethought and impressions to some degree, to to live a longer range existence, right? But if you say, well, reason is no part of the human story or the human equipment, then, uh, myopic.
Speaker 1 00:08:40 Now notice, uh, um, animals are myopic. I mean, yeah, they plan to some degree. The squirrel gathers nuts before the winter, but it's all automatic to them, and they truly are, uh, short range about it. They don't, don't think long range like humans do. So the, so the basic distinction between humans and animals is lost on this, uh, smear. So automatic myopic what's next? Animistic animistic is the idea that you wanna be a hermit, that you wanna live alone, that you don't care about social, um, society or dealing with others. So the loner, the the person all by themselves, isolated, solitary, even soloistic, a very common smear, a very common character of self-interest, that the self-interested person is within themselves. Uh, sometimes this is, uh, expressed as narcissism, but we'll set that aside for now. But that's the idea. Adamistic nonsocial later revolves into antisocial. But now, what is it lacking here? That the recognition that there's enormous, uh, potential benefits, self-interested benefits that people get by interacting with others, by being in a, now, in a particular type of society, if it's a, if it's a self-sacrificing, uh, cannibalistic para society, no. But, uh, if it's a rational civilized one, yes, it's enormous values to be gained by being in a social setting. And, uh, the adamistic view, just to characterizes self-interest, is not caring about any of those things.
Speaker 1 00:10:20 Next, materialistic also very common now, but materialistic, I hear mean not the materialism and philosophy, but, uh, concerned only with, uh, money concerned only with, uh, the commercial realm and monetary realm, uh, the workaholic, the, uh, the greedy money chaser. Um, what is it missing here? You know, that that self-interest would be operative in, uh, noncommercial realms like, uh, family or friendship or romance, or even the way you spend your leisure time and recreation, that there's a self-interest in gathering around ourselves, people we love and interacting with them. And, um, you know, so anything having to do with the non-commercial realm, this, this premise or this smears the idea that it's only, it's not just only in the commercial realm that, but that our people are obsessed with the commercial realm to the exclusion of these other, uh, important realms. Another way of looking at this is, if you thought of three main realms, commercial, that's when you're in the marketplace, say, working, exchanging, um, but we're also beings that, you know, go home at night and have a household.
Speaker 1 00:11:39 But we're also beings in the political realm. We just had, uh, elections in America. So we act in the, in the arena of politics. And this particular, uh, caricature that self-interest is only materialistic leads to things like saying, well, in the political realm, certainly politicians are not self-interested. They're public servants, they're selfless servants of the electorate. And, um, they, they, since they're not in it for money, um, they, they, you know, they can't be, uh, in any way criticized, uh, for being selfish. Now, same thing in the household. It's argued that, well, why don't you go back to the home? You put up with all sorts of crazy family behavior, irrational family behavior. You bail out, uh, certain siblings or others who are reckless. And again, it's the idea that self-interest only is in the commercial realm, not on these others. That clear error, hedonistic, hedonistic is the idea that the self-interested person only cares about pursuing pleasure, and that they're somewhat arbitrary about it.
Speaker 1 00:12:49 And, uh, by the way, notice how this sounds of, well, it also builds on the idea of myopic. You know, I'm gonna get drunk tonight, and who cares about flunking the exam tomorrow? So it, so it, the hedonistic view is not only that you only pursue pleasure even to your detriment, but that's your myopic about it. Cuz you don't look for, you don't look forward to see, well, if I get drunk, I'm gonna have a hangover even going the other way. I'm not gonna, uh, I'm not gonna incur near term pain, say like a root canal, even though there's a long term benefit, uh, healthy teeth. So, um, but, but hedonism, lyness, all those kind of things very commonly attributed to self-interest as if it's in the self-interest of a person, uh, to, uh, engage in drunkenness or reckless behavior or, uh, promis you all the kind of things that, um, Mandeville years ago wrote about private vices, but somehow being transformed into public virtues under competition.
Speaker 1 00:13:54 So egoist as hedonist, you're probably familiar with that one. Um, again, a falsehood. Now the last two seem related, but the first antagonistic, this is the sixth on my list, antagonistic i, is just the idea that one's self-interest conflicts with clashes with is at odds with the self-interest of others. That there's inherent conflicts of interest among egoists. And sometimes this is portrayed as well. Self-interested people are competitive. They're, you know, they want to kill the other or bankrupt the other or hurt the other. They only see themselves as, um, being benefit if they hurt the other. Sometimes in game theory, this is referred to as zero sum game activity, sometimes negative, some my gain is your loss. Uh, it's very common in being used as a critique critique of say, free trade or critiques of, uh, market activity. But a very common one, antagonism, uh, the feeling that the, the only way you can get kindness and benevolence in regard for others is to be non egoistic.
Speaker 1 00:15:05 To not care about your own interests and to care about only the interest of others. This one, I think, actually incorporates most of the, many of the prior ones. So, you know, the idea that egoism is automatic, well, that, that's, in other words, that's interpersonal conflicts unavoidable. It's inevitable or myopic meaning, uh, you know, potential ways of cooperating aren't visible to people. So they're gonna be antagonists, uh, even animistic that, you know, resentment over having to act in a social setting in the first place. And certainly a hedonistic, sometimes hedonistic is in, is interpreted and takes the form of, uh, shaden Freud, you know, the, the, the taking pleasure in the suffering or mis portion of others. That's a very common view that that is attributed to a self-interest when it is cursed, not in one's self-interest to do that.
Speaker 1 00:15:58 Finally, sadistic. Um, you'd be surprised in the literature, there's a lot of literature showing, or I should say claiming to show that the self-interest person is literally sadistic. Um, it obviously, uh, one of the harshest criticisms of egoism, but this comes up usually in, in issues of crime and punishment, burglars, rapists, murderers, we know are commonly described, uh, as selfish as loaners, as sadistic loaners. Um, Robert Hare, I, I show in my essay, a criminal psychologist, uh, has written a common trait of psychopaths, he says is egocentricity, which is closely associated with a profound lack of empathy and an inability to construct a mental and emotional facsimile of another person on call, uh, in business school, uh, dealing with CEOs and remember, egoism or self-interest. The commercial manifestation of that is the profit motive. And one of the reasons the profit motive is seen as suspect morally is because self-interest is so profit motive is just the commercial manifestation of that, or the pursuit of happiness.
Speaker 1 00:17:18 Not so much a commercial, but a personal thing. The pursuit of happiness, a personal manifestation of self-interest. So corporate executives typically are, because they're in this profit maximizing shareholder maximizing mode are often, um, caricatured this way. So I'm quoting here another notable medical. These are alleged medical studies of corporate executives, psychological studies, quote, um, corporate executives relative to the general public exhibit. A psychopath psychopathy was positively associated with in Hs. Ratings of charisma and presentation style, such as I get this creativity, good strategic thinking, communication skills, but negatively associated with ratings of responsibility and performance, including being a team player and a management are not, uh, the idea that the self-interested person, uh, is sociopath, not so, so, in other words, not just likely to be a loaner or isolated, but with this premise of antagonism when they come in contact with others, knowing and being taught maybe that the antagonism is inevitable, uh, see it as eat or eat, be eaten.
Speaker 1 00:18:41 Um, and so it's just presumed that that's how they act in a sociopathic way. I'll stop there. Uh, but I wanna leave you with the kind of flavor when this is all added up and you just like turn to a, you would think you could just like turn to a book on, uh, you know, an academia typical student would get a philosophy course in ethics. There's a, a book called Elements of Moral Philosophy by, uh, James Rachels. And, uh, you know, it has all the different kind of moral codes in it. And one of 'em is covered as chapter six, uh, the last time I checked called Ethical egoism. But now here are some excerpts from that, uh, university textbook. He says, Rachel says, quote, ethical eism is simply a wicked view, incompatible with a principle which expresses the social political ideal of human freedom.
Speaker 1 00:19:40 And elsewhere in the chapter he says that anyone who accepts ethical egoism will be forced to abandon that principle. The right thing for anyone to do on any other occasion is whatever would promote his own interest, no matter how detrimental other people's interests would be affected. That's, you see why you'd say it has to be abandoned cuz you'd spend every day fighting everybody and trying to hurt them by his premise. Uh, each of us would have to take the attitude that other people simply don't matter, except insofar as they're useful to us. Any finishes with egoism is a quote, pernicious doctrine, which goes against some of our most central moral beliefs. Um, it that's interesting because, uh, it's a chapter on ethical egoism, and if you look closely, it has many of the caricatures that I've gone through. It is just not a very scientific, fair, objective way of handling, uh, egoism.
Speaker 1 00:20:46 And, uh, you know, this has bad effects on, uh, all the things that egoism undergirds, including, by the way, rights is a great chapter by, uh, Tara Smith and her book on moral philosophy and political and political rights that rights are egoistic. She has a whole chapter, the Egoism of Rights, when someone claims I have a Right to my life, my liberty, my property pursuit of my happiness, a very difficult set of rights to defend if the person is not end in themselves. If instead they're seen as a means to the end of others, or frankly, if they're irrational and pursue their interest in these, uh, seven, uh, wrong ways. So I'll draw a line there and be glad to take questions and comments. And, and as Scott, as Scott said it, there's a link to it, academic treatment of this, but I think it's, I think you'll still find it readable, um, but it goes into much more greater detail and with other implications. So if those of you wanna read further, there's a 30 page, well, not a 30, I think it's a 15 page paper I did on this in an academic. Thank
Speaker 0 00:21:56 You. Uh, welcome that, uh, we'll go ahead to Ron, I'll defer to him. And then, uh, I've got some questions, but we encourage others, uh, to ask questions as well. Go ahead, Ron.
Speaker 2 00:22:07 I thank you Scott. Uh, Richard, I am an entrepreneur. One of my corporations made it to a billion dollar acquisition in today's dollars. Starting from zero in my hands were the company had no employees but me.
Speaker 1 00:22:24 Congratulations,
Speaker 2 00:22:26 <laugh>. Thank you. Uh, I, so I hang out with entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs, and one of the most common themes, this is all very in line with everything that you were just saying. One of the most common themes is that a venture either aspires to wealth, paying off the shareholders, uh, who get wealthy and so on, or it's designed for charitable purposes and to help the public good. This false alternative, this very nasty per pernicious false alternative is so ridiculous in my view. Cause if you look at the, I call it qualities of a great venture, the kind of things that someone would be paying attention to as an aspiring entrepreneur or should be paying attention to, if their only interest were getting wealthy, the number one thing they should, well number, the number two thing they should be paying attention to is, is there a giant potential market, a giant potential market? Are there millions of of people, even conceivably billions of people who, and this is the criteria, number one, who have the fundamental human need a great market and great wealth as a result of it, is rooted in identifying some fundamental human need. Usually people don't, you know, there's no market. People don't know it's a, a fillable need. There is no felt need, there are no competitors.
Speaker 0 00:24:16 Go ahead. There's another criteria.
Speaker 2 00:24:19 Yeah, I, there are half dozen criteria, but I'm just,
Speaker 0 00:24:22 You know, give 'em a chance to answer the que maybe kind of summarize it.
Speaker 2 00:24:30 I, I'm making a, I'm not trying to summarize the criteria, I'm just making the point that for two of the most important criteria require you doing massive good in the world in order to get wealthy. They are not mortal enemies, they're not in opposition, they're in harmony. Let me pause there.
Speaker 1 00:24:56 Thanks Ron. We have others,
Speaker 0 00:25:02 Uh, Starman you want to go ahead and ask your question? Thank you for joining us. I don't know if you're able to unmute.
Speaker 2 00:25:12 Great. No, no feedback to what I said. Not a word.
Speaker 1 00:25:15 Well, well, I'm not sure what, was there a question, Ron? I'm, you're talking about what motivates an entrepreneur and, um, I understand that the desire to create wealth and it's not at odds with generating public good. I'm just trying to, I'm, I'm not clear how to sh you know, tie that to my seven smears of self interest.
Speaker 2 00:25:36 No, you, you summarized my point nicely. I'll leave it
Speaker 1 00:25:39 At that. Oh, okay. Thanks Ron.
Speaker 0 00:25:42 Thank you. Go ahead, star, man.
Speaker 3 00:25:46 Hi guys. Um, yeah, uh, thanks for the, um, delivery, Richard.
Speaker 1 00:25:51 You're welcome.
Speaker 3 00:25:52 Um, I, I, I think I missed about five minutes of it, but you know, I, I caught most of it. Um, um, I kind of have my own breakdown of it, but yeah, I guess I'll start with my questions. Uh, my first question is, uh, if, which in, in two parallel worlds with, uh, I'm gonna use Europe now with two Europes, and in parallel world, a you had the history of Europe as yeah, you've pretty much had it like, you know, history of, um, warfare, conquest, uh, reconquest, and, you know, just constantly like a, just constant churning of, uh, conquest. And in parallel world B, you had the same Europe with the same groups, but instead of warf there, they adopt, they decided to just focus maybe, I guess on trade, um, minimum conquest, but you know, just more focused on trade and I guess, um, you know, interconnecting with each other. So in these two parallel worlds, which do you think Europe would be much more advanced? A or B?
Speaker 1 00:27:20 Well, I guess I would say b if it's less war like and more peaceful.
Speaker 3 00:27:26 Okay.
Speaker 1 00:27:28 That,
Speaker 3 00:27:29 Okay.
Speaker 1 00:27:30 That surprise you or you thinking differently or I think you said up world, which is war of all against all versus one that's more civilized. I would say the second is better. I'm not sure that's as much to it
Speaker 3 00:27:45 Actually agree. But I've had, I, I've heard a lot of people argue for the, um, first scenario Uhhuh, that, you know, in a, uh, a world where there was, you know, just high competition, that that would be more advanced.
Speaker 1 00:28:03 Uhhuh,
Speaker 3 00:28:04 I agree that with more cooperation that world, more corporation will actually be more advanced. Because if, and, and, and, and I say this because, um, if you look at the history of Europe, you know, even looking say, uh, from the 14 hundreds to the hundreds, 500 solid years of endemic warfare, or should I even start from the Sumerian kingdoms going back 5,000 years?
Speaker 1 00:28:34 That's, that's, I would say that's a bit off topic, but I think what I wanna would, would, it might be beneficial for me to just say, cuz you're talking about this, I alluded to it, competition versus cooperation. It comes up a lot in these caricatures with the general idea, meaning that being that the egoist or the self-interested person is competitive, but specifically with the, the idea that they wanna beat the other. So, uh, so on the other hand, we have this conception of capitalism where it's competitive aspects lead to excellence, lead to, uh, people trying to do their best. And, um, I think one of the more interesting things about egoism is that to the extent the rational egoist is not preoccupied with others, they're, they're much more focused on how they can improve themselves or their business to go back to Ron's point. And, um, they're not in that regard, other oriented, which should be more of the altruistic view.
Speaker 1 00:29:47 And there's certainly not of the view that if they do well, they're vanquishing arrival rather they're eclipsing arrival. So if, if Coke, you know, outperforms Pepsi, it doesn't mean Pepsi is vanquished, it just means Coke has more sales than Pepsi. But that kind of competitive spirit is very healthy and it's only in these caricatures that it's presented as, um, nasty. And you could say that this actually, uh, feeds into some of the goofy things we see in, for example, in, uh, antitrust enforcement and antitrust laws, where the presumption is that a competitive winner, uh, necessarily did harm to a, a loser, so to speak, in the field. And so they attack the winners. Uh, if they didn't have these smears, if they didn't have these caricatures of self-interest, they wouldn't go there. They wouldn't assume that, uh, as they tend to do. So I, I hope that helps that in personal affairs, uh, it is generally believed quite falsely that cooperation isn't in anyone's self interest, the coopera that the cooperative person or the cooperative group is the one that is caring more about others than themselves. And that's just not true. Um, so I don't want to dig too deeply into altruism, which is the alternative, uh, counter the rival to egoism. But I do cover that, uh, a bit in my essay.
Speaker 0 00:31:17 Great. Thank you for that. Uh, Patrick, welcome to the stage. You able to unmute, give you a chance. There's sometimes you have to, I don't see, you may have to leave the room and come back because I don't see the, uh, button. You may not have it at the bottom right. So when that happens, you have to leave and come back. Oh, there you go. Patrick, it looked like you were able to unmute. Go ahead.
Speaker 4 00:31:48 Sorry, my first time. So I apologize for the delay. I have a, um, question about, uh, self-interest, um, versus the common understanding, um, or often confusion about it. Uh, typically meaning self dealing or a person who has a contractual or just some kind of a moral obligation to a larger group, whether it's a company or a, some kind of a group or the just society in general. Can you explore just our language on the issue of self-interest and versus someone that is typically meaning self dealing as opposed to just a general rational self-interest or long run self-interest or enlightened self-interest.
Speaker 1 00:32:45 That's really good, Patrick. The, uh, that's good. Uh, self dealing is definitely has a bad connotation. As a broad overview of this, I would say something like, um, the trader principle, t d e r that ran named the trader principle as the ideal of human interaction, and not just in business affairs and commerce, but, and contracting as you put it, but generally including in romance and friendship and things like that, is the idea that there's mutual benefit, mutual advantage. Uh, the traders, uh, trading value for value aren't necessarily gonna have the same benefit, but they both benefit, but they may benefit unequally and there should be no envy, uh, in, you know, regarding whether there's unequal benefit. But self dealing in usually is the idea that you're in a contract and you're, you're concerned only is with your gain, and you feel somehow that, um, you need to, um, um, what, what would be the word to deny the benefits to the other side?
Speaker 1 00:33:51 And that's just not rational contracting. I, if you're conscious of the value you get from trading with a, a business partner or a long time business supplier, that this, again, going back to myopia versus long range, the long range approach is more remunerative. And, um, so you wouldn't want gauge in self dealing. Other aspects of this, Patrick, that might come up you hear a lot is, and especially in group activity and and contracting is shirking or free riding. This is the idea that the selfish person in a group will be lazy and negligent and have others carry the load. And again, if you understand that you're in a group or you're in a contracting situation for mutual benefit, there's no rational self-interest in doing that. First, I would say primarily it hurts your self-esteem. So it isn't just the issue of, you know, you might be found out or something like that, but it's just bad for your self-esteem is cause you, you're not fooling yourself, you know that you are not contributing, uh, you know, in the way that, uh, you promised uh, to do so.
Speaker 1 00:34:59 Um, and, and this reminds me also of just issues of reputation. This comes up all the time in business, but also in personal affairs. Your reputation is very important. It's part of your character and it's, it's understood and crafted by a series of interactions with other people. And, uh, you know, so it's part of character, but, but in business you see things like branding or warranties, various ways that businesses show and signal that they're credible and then credible over a long period of time. But, but, but people do these with their personal ations as well. There's a great essay actually, uh, in the capitalism, the Unknown Ideal by Greenspan called, uh, the Assault on Integrity. And it's a fascinating articles cuz he actually argues for not having regulation, which sounds like a radical position, but the idea is, well that doesn't mean businesses would do just anything they want to you that there, that there's an asset, a business, a demonstrable business asset associated with being credible and keeping your promises and developing a reputation and a brand over time, very valuable. So I hope that helps.
Speaker 0 00:36:18 Great, thank you for that. Uh, jp welcome to the stage.
Speaker 5 00:36:23 Thank you, Scott. Um, Richard, I wanted to ask you, because this is something that often comes in debates on, um, on self-interest, um, um, when, when you ask your, your, um, your opponent to, to formulate an act that is, uh, 100% selfless and, uh, disinterest and completely 100% altruistic, um, you finds often takes, uh, several, if not one, several examples in which, uh, any human action is self-serving to some extent. Is there such a thing as a truly selfless altruistic act in human action? Thanks.
Speaker 1 00:37:14 That's a good question, jp. Now, um, this comes up a lot actually. So if you say, this is, I think a version of the idea that it's automatic, but it's like a semi version of it, because the idea is, well, no one could be, um, truly altruistic all the time. And by, by this I mean in the go comb sense, either one, he's the one who coined the term altruism, it was not kindliness or benevolence toward others or concern for others, but engaging in self-sacrifice. And the answer is no, you could not do it 100% because you would be totally disinterested in your own wellbeing and you'd go out of existence. So this gets to the issue of still, if it's held up as a standard and yet you cannot practice it consistently, this leads to guilt. It leads to people saying, well, I should not be self-interested.
Speaker 1 00:38:08 I should be selfless, but I'm told that I shouldn't be. So I'm kind of smuggling in some self-interest or, or, or to cover this up, we have the word today what virtue signaling, what's virtue signaling it, it's the idea that altruism is the virtue and you signal that you care about not your own interest, but those of others and those, particularly of those least in that you're least interested in. So they have to be far away in the concentric circles of your life. Um, why is that signal, why are they signaling that instead of actually doing it? Because it's self-destructive? But, um, you know, people still do engage in self-destructive behavior taking a, a less, uh, violent view of it instead of saying destructive, how about negligent? That is much more common, right? Where you see someone not taking care of themselves so they're not actually, you know, cutting their wrists, so to speak, but they're just not taking care of themselves.
Speaker 1 00:39:04 They're not remain, and I don't mean just to mean physically. Um, I mean, they're not, uh, planning their lives or, or caring about cultivating their careers or cultivating their friendships or cultivating their romances. Uh, it it, it's not direct, you know, taking a knife to yourself obviously, but it, but it is a form of selflessness and it is a form of self destructiveness. People can die in slow motion, so to speak. So, um, I hope that helps. But yeah, if you're in a debate with someone and you're criticizing self-sacrifice and they use that, I, that's the way I would handle it. It's, they'll try to say to you that everyone is technically selfish because you, you can't show me that they're technically always selfless. I think it's just like a flip side version of the art, the argument that it's automatic. By the way, by the way, I'm, I'm curious to if it's anyone out there in the seven that I named, if, if you're in the audience and you're thinking, well, there's an eighth or ninth or 10th, I'm always interested in, uh, hearing alternatives that I may have missed.
Speaker 0 00:40:14 Good. Um, and we wanna encourage people to come up to the stage. Um, I, you know, for the automatic argument, what about the idea that it may not be automatic, but that as we become more prosperous, that it becomes almost natural to become philanthropic, even though some then conflate that with altruism and wanting to force others to be as generous as they feel?
Speaker 1 00:40:42 Uh, that's a good question. I don't know if it relates directly to the caricature that, um, that self-interest is automatic, but I do believe there's a rational explanation for the, to what you just named Scott. And cuz I have seen this in business people, or actually just anyone who's been successful in life and let's presume and let's just de stipulate that their success has been, you know, largely earned and due to their rational planning and stuff like that. And, you know, not due to theft or exploiting other people, I find that those kind of people, as they become more successful and wealthy, I and you could say they become more philanthropic. They become more concerned about spending their wealth not on, you know, know business ventures only, but on call it charitable causes that that is done, if it's done right. And I think it can be done right, it's done selfishly, the, there's a value you see out there, uh, you know, maybe you give to the Atlas Society cuz you see the value of the Atlas Society.
Speaker 1 00:41:51 I think there's a lot of gratitude and appreciation that comes from people who have been successful and, you know, in a free country. And as they become to learn what it is exactly that contributed to that, how to sheer gratitude gratefulness. I I consider that a, you know, one of the minor virtues, I I wouldn't put it up with this top seven, but, but people should be, uh, grateful. It's a kind of form of justice, uh, a type of justice where you're judging that, I'm glad this happened to me. I I'm glad, uh, this thing and I want to contribute to it and promote it. Um, so those kind of things to me are all self interested. But I'm, I'm not trying to answer the question in the sense of, see, I can show you that even philanthropy is self-interested. A lot of philanthropy is not anyone who gives money away, you know, in, in defiance of their career.
Speaker 1 00:42:44 You know, feeling like, uh, well, I'm gonna fund something, you know, the complete opposite of what what made me successful would obviously be engaged in, in, um, self destructive behavior. I think a lot of business people who give to universities, for example, they're all ma mater, and to the extent they know the alma mater say is anti-capitalist, and yet they succeeded in a capitalist setting. You know, I think that is in many ways a self-destructive, uh, thing that the, they're promoting ideas and systems that are at odds at how they succeeded. Um, but, uh, philanthropy, interestingly, filo means love and it means love of humans. And I think a selfish self-interested ethic that, that the objective is deserves a view of philanthropy hasn't been written about much, although Iran's last, uh, public talk to businessmen, sanction of the victims does have a section on the self-destructive behavior of them funding their own enemies. So, uh, she certainly was not against the, and we shouldn't be against the idea of, um, giving our wealth away to things that are valuable to us and avoiding sending it to destructive, um, foes
Speaker 2 00:44:02 Wonderful essay. The Ethics of Emergency emergencies obviously has been read by her invoking that.
Speaker 1 00:44:16 Yeah. So that, that's on a list of things that people could write about the rational basis for philanthropy from an objective perspective, guideposts for the wealthy, giving their money and their time and attentions to, um, good causes, good in the sense of pro reason, pro individualism, pro civilization, pro capitalism, pro America,
Speaker 0 00:44:41 You know, um, in, uh,
Speaker 1 00:44:43 By the way, can I just mention quickly, it's a very interesting phenomenon and totally due to self, I'm sorry, Scott, I just wanted to insert a lot of philanthropy of rich people comes from, um, uh, tragedies in their own life that seem random. Now here's an example. Suppose a wealthy executive, the wife dies of a rare blood disease. It's very common for that person, the, the wealthy man to spend money and, and leave money for that cause to either open up a hospital wing or a research center because it was so personal to them that they lost a loved one to this disease. Now, I would say that's a very selfish, in the sense of it really means something to 'em. They're not just sending it to any disease. Now, since diseases and tragedies and things like that happen, you could say, you could say randomly so that no rich person, you know, is immune from losing things like this. It, it is an interesting phenomenon that over time, uh, rare cases and rare diseases and things like that do get funding not from government, but from rich people who experience the same kind of personal tribulations and setbacks that we all do. Sorry about that. Sorry Scott.
Speaker 0 00:46:02 That's all right. I was just gonna say, I don't know if you saw the, uh, men who built America on History channel, but uh, they actually presented, uh, Carnegie and Rockefellers being in competition, and even when it got to their philanthropy, they were trying to kind of outgive each other. So, you know, you see that kind of latter stage, uh, competition and self-interest work in a, a way that, uh, you know, created a lot of libraries and schools
Speaker 1 00:46:33 Yes, well put and concert halls like Carnegie Hall and things like that. Yeah, but they gave their money to, well, Carnegie Mellon is a university, but the university was much more pro capitas when the money was given than it is now. But, uh, yeah, when you think of it, universities, libraries, the arts, symphony halls, things like that, um, I'm sure, you know, I'm sure you could see those guys looking at that and saying, this is what contributes to civilization. You know, or I wish when I was a young kid, I had access to a library like this, or a schooling like this, or a concert hall like this. So that was, to me, very rational giving. But there, there was a phenomenon in the late 1890s called the Social Gospel, where there was a mix of religious motivation and business thinking that I have to quote, we hear this today, give something back to the community.
Speaker 1 00:47:24 And now to the extent that phrase means I took something from the community, it's, uh, like, it's like absolution. And that would not be the proper motive. But if it's more this motive I had before I mentioned before of the benevolence of just feeling so good about having had a successful life and why not spend the money on other values that might make it possible for others to rise up from rags to Rich's stories and, and, and scholarships, all sorts of things like that, a very rational basis for giving. I, I wonder also stress for those, uh, the issue of ego, egoism and rash, uh, and self-interest. I wanted to stress, because I don't think I did enough that the main question in egoism versus altruism is the beneficiary. It's, uh, the, the idea of self-interest and egoism is that the individual should be the primary beneficiary of their own moral actions.
Speaker 1 00:48:22 And notice I said primary not exclusive. So egoism does not require that nobody else benefits from your self-interest, but that your goal and your motive should be that you are the main beneficiary, the primary beneficiary, and you don't wanna sacrifice that to others. But some, sometimes a caricature has it as you're the sole beneficiary of your moral actions, and that's not a requirement of egoism. But the other thing to stress here is the virtues themselves are the seven virtues, you know, rationality, independence, honesty, integrity, on through, um, those are ways of carrying out, uh, this primary focus. So the two are slightly, they're not overlap, they're not synonymous, uh, in the objective literature. So be aware of that too. When you study the philosophy that the first argument for, and you do have to validate egoism. It isn't just, you can't just be assumed, but it is prior, really prior to the issue of now what particular practical virtue should I be, um, using to achieve my self-interest to achieve these values in a primary way?
Speaker 1 00:49:32 Um, I just wanted to make that distinction. Altruism, of course, sets it off as your only moral. If your goal is to have others, not just be the primary beneficiary of your actions, but that you do so in a way that actually you feel pain, you feel suffering, you're not, you're not just being charitable in giving away some of your surplus to things you love. The altruist demands that the person give till it hurts. It has to hurt for it to be truly moral in the altruist sense. And more than that, you know, if you just give your money to your kids in an estate that's considered selfish, it still has some selfish aspect to it, right? So if you think of concentric circles around, you know, from family to friends, to mere acquaintances, to strangers, to actual enemies, the altruist code demands that you give your money to enemies or that you give your efforts to enemies. Whereas within that smaller concentric circle, the ego approach is certainly yes, if family and friend members are, are friends and others are of value to you, is perfectly selfish to give help,
Speaker 0 00:50:44 Something to think about and, uh, traditional views of altruism. But right now I wanna welcome, uh, ATLA Society Senior scholars, Steven Hicks, to the stage. We're glad to have you here. Welcome.
Speaker 6 00:50:57 Thanks, Scott. I, I enjoyed your, uh, presentation, Richard, uh, nicely, nicely articulated list of seven. What do you think of this as a possible, uh, eighth candidate? Um, the idea being that if we, uh, take self-interest, then we're not gonna get any sort of universal set of moral principles because people are too different. Uh, and self-interest amounts to a kind of subjectivity doing what you think is good for you, but people are going to be all over the map. And so people who are then serious about ethics in the sense of there being universal moral principles, they'll say, well, there have to be these universal moral principles. So we can't base them on any sort of subjective grounding. And so self-interest is just, uh, uh, not going to be the right way to get there. And it's not that we're really wanting people to be sacrificing and altruistic and so on. More that we're going to say ethics is first going to be about these impersonal universal principles, and then within that we'll try to make some room for self-interest.
Speaker 1 00:52:11 Well, I like, thank you, Steven. I I really like that actually. And I've heard that, and I'm looking at my list and I'm not sure I can shoehorn that into any of my seven. So yes, and I, I think the, the idea of a universal set of moral principles, if we, uh, tell me if you disagree with this, if we, um, go to the objectives approach and says, well, listen, life, human life is the standard of value and rationality and reason, you know, our, our unique faculty reason unique to humans, that is gonna give us the kind of universality we need. But of course, each person's life will be the purpose. Their happiness is the purpose. Um, so life is the standard, but happiness is the person. And as the purpose in each person's, uh, happiness will, will see a different path for different route. But yeah, I have seen that. And um, you're saying that that can be classified as a caricature of self-interest, that it,
Speaker 6 00:53:15 Right. Cause you know, as you're, as you're nicely doing in your presentation, before we can say what self-interest is, we have to say what we think the self is, and that people say, well, the self is materialistic, or the self is this, that, and the other thing. Yeah. So in this case, um, the, the caricature would be to say self-interest means some sort of deep subjectivism. And from deep subjectivism, you can't get that. So the proper alternative would be, you know, as you started to say, well, the proper understanding of what the self is, is that there's a universal human nature, and yeah, therefore universal values can be built from that. So strikes me as a, at least a candidate for an eighth caricature.
Speaker 1 00:53:56 Yes, I agree. And I'm also thanking Steven of the way rand, uh, and other objectives have set up the objective approach to this versus, okay, so versus what historically there's been a, an appeal to the mystic, the social and the subjective. So, you know, God says it's right, or society says it's right, or I say it right, I say it's right cuz I just feel that it is, you're also reminding me of cons, hope and requirement, right? That there be a universal appeal that the, uh, and I, I think I've often seen that when I talk to religious people and they hear about the objective, its ethics, they'll say, oh, I like the fact that it's not subjectivist. I like the fact that it's absolutist, absolutest, <laugh>. And then, and then they'll say, oh yeah, but it's second. It's not est cause God is dictating, it's absolutist cuz human nature dictates, so to speak as you put it. Um, so maybe that's another way of looking at it, but that's very good. Thank you for that. Very good.
Speaker 0 00:55:01 Great. Um, you know, I guess with, uh, heist Dick, I know for me growing up, you know, I I would sometimes test the consequences, like if I didn't turn in a paper and, you know, I was like, oh, I still graduated the class. And so that's some of what happens and, and, uh, maybe even distorts what's in our long term self-interest sometimes.
Speaker 1 00:55:27 Yeah. And, and also another interpretation, Scott, of hedonism, and you could go through all this list and say, well, the real error here is exci reason and exci rationality. So how does hedonism do that? Because of its emphasis on feelings as primary, I'm feeling the pleasure and the enjoyment, that's all I need. And, uh, that's all that's necessary. And so reason is out, reason a rational is out for that reason. Same thing on, um, you know, uh, automatic au automatic number one. I mean, just excise is reason in the sense of, well, you don't have to choose, it's automatic like the beating of your heart. So that one just excise is the faculty from the start. But all of them basically make, I think my theory is they come to this error because there's no conception of rationality to go with any of these formulations. You know, whether it's Mya, the myopic thing, same with thing, right? Iran says the anti conceptual mentality, the concrete bound mentality, the range of the moment, all those, all that language she uses, where, where she's basically saying it's not human to be short range, to be myopic is it's, it's literally not human. And yet this caricature exists. Uh, well that's what the egoist, uh, is. Um, so
Speaker 0 00:56:51 Yeah, that's good. Uh, real quick, with the time we have antagonistic, I mean, I think it's Marxism or even altruism more broadly, you know, with the fixed pipe fallacy, that's what pits groups against each other.
Speaker 1 00:57:07 Yeah, very much so. So, uh, interestingly, the Marxist, uh, philosophy, denigrates reason, you know, it has poly logic. There's bourge logic and there's labor logic and stuff like that. And so there can't even be a quote meeting of the minds because in that philosophy, the minds are different depending on class, depending on, uh, relation to the means of production. So yes, not too farfetched that you would get a theory of everyone clashing with everybody else. And in the beginning, of course, it was just capital versus labor. But as that, uh, was exposed for the ridiculousness, it was, we now have cultural Marxism. So the antagonism is, you know, men versus women and blacks versus white and old versus young and, and all those ways. So it's just, uh, a different form of antagonism. But yeah, the, the, the idea that antagonism is rife, um, you know, unless we become selfless clones in a collectivist ideal, the alternative for them is constant, constant clash, constant antagonism.
Speaker 0 00:58:15 Right. Well, um, this has been a great subject. Uh, it's a great segue in our last moment. I, I wanna make an appeal to, uh, rational self-interest. The Atlas Society is trying to raise enough revenue to cover, uh, next year's expanded events to promote rand's ideas to young people in creative ways. Um, it's gonna be a nail bite right down to the final days of 2022. But, uh, for donations made this year, a major donor agreed to match all brand new donors, uh, full match. So $5 means $10 to our student initiatives. Uh, all lapse donors, if you haven't donated since 2019 or longer, then your gift will also be fully matched. So $5 equals $10 for programs. Uh, even all current donors, anything you give over your 2021 giving will also be matched. So, uh, as you evaluate your year end philanthropic goals, I hope you'll take into account the, the full scope and impact and, and decide to, uh, invest in the Atla society and your end of year giving plans. Um, you know, but, uh, in, in the same spirit of, uh, altruism, uh, and, and not, uh, encouraging that, you know, invest but not until it hurts <laugh>. Yeah, right. So, uh, great, well thank you everyone for participating. And, uh, Richard, uh, you've got, uh, Tuesday you've got coming up about, uh, the election. So, uh, we've got a shortened week with Thanksgiving, but uh, we'll look forward to that. Great. Thank you Scott. Thank you everyone for tonight. Thanks.
