Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 Yeah. So we'll here we are. And, uh, quite a lively room coming together. Um, I see our founder, David Kelly, uh, chairman of the board of trustees, Jayla pear, my favorite regular Melanie and, um, Scott. So, um, I'm going to, and of course, Roger, our rock star, Roger, one day, I'm going to have to ask you about your profile pic. Is that really you or should I recognize who it is? Um, but anyway, it looks like, uh, we've got a good crowd coming in. So Rob tell us enlightened self-interest. Why and why now,
Speaker 1 00:00:49 W w why now is, I think it's a perennial topic, but I also, it's inspired by some things that are just seen in the fairly recent past, uh, one of the things that inspired this, the thought of doing this topic is I was, uh, reviewing a book by, uh, by Tom Nichols, uh, discover our own worst enemies. I think it's called, they're just basically trying to say what what's gone wrong with society. What do we need to fix? Why are, why are we going off the rails, the usual kind of topic? And he, the interesting thing is he spends a lot of time talking about our problem is selfishness with too much selfishness, and then casually in passing at another point, he says, well, our society, you know, it's obvious our society runs on an enlightened self-interest and then it goes on and talks about other things I say, well, wait a minute, how does, how does he not connect these two things?
Speaker 1 00:01:37 If, if our society runs on enlightened self-interest why does he talk about that anywhere else? Why does he mention it only in passing on something that's supposed to diagnose the ills of our society? You would think if, if we had a society that runs on the principle of enlightened self-interest, that should be the main topic, the central topic of any attempt to, to discuss these issues. But you could sort of see how people come from this background, where they've been told selfishness is bad. Selfishness is not just evil as the essence of evil is selfishness. And so at the same time, you know, enlightened self-interest is, is in fact how most people live. It is the, it is in fact what our society runs on. And most of the people who spend their lives, the time denouncing selfishness, they also follow some form of enlightened self-interest, you know, they are not, uh, uh, uh, you know, for the most part, you know, they're not living as a monks in a cell, uh, you know, uh, uh, having drink.
Speaker 1 00:02:41 Cause to me, only the very bare necessities, so survivals, they can spend all their time serving others. They act on their own self interest. They have jobs, they have careers that they pursue because they enjoy it. They have, you know, they get paid, they have houses, they have spouses. They have, you know, they have all the good in life that they're enjoying. And yet at the same time, if you ask them, you know, what's, what's really bad. They'll say selfish, this is really bad. So it's this weird sort of thing where everybody lives one way, but they refuse to, or cannot bring themselves to acknowledge that that's how they live. And for the few times they can't bring themselves to acknowledge it like that in that Tom Nichols book, uh, where he says, oh, well, you know, obviously our society runs on enlightened self-interest. They can't bring themselves to analyze that and to say, well, let's, let's spend a whole book talking about what is enlightened self-interest what is it that makes it enlightened?
Speaker 1 00:03:37 What are the principles behind it? They can't bring this out to take it seriously enough to, to really analyze it. Uh, one of the other things that popped out again about me and th uh, to me, I bought this, and this has been a constant of the pandemic. I started again recently, I wrote an article about this a little less than a year ago, uh, which is people saying people who are the, these are people who are advocates of wearing masks or advocates of getting the vaccine, who will say people who don't do it are selfish. Now I want to just not bring up the issue of masks and the efficacy of mastering the efficacy of the vaccine. I made the mistake of bringing up the vaccine on, on, on Twitter this morning. And I've got the, uh, the wake up people crowd in my mentions would say, I'm Schilling for big pharma or something.
Speaker 1 00:04:24 Anyway. So aside from that, I want to say to someone to look at the form of the argument, right? So if you were an advocate, if you want people to get vaccinated, if you want them to wear masks, if you want them to do whatever it is, and yet you tell them that not doing that is selfish. What you're saying is it is in your interest not to do the thing that I want you to do it. And I, I put it out in this article. I did last year, I pointed out how, how self-defeating and undermining this argument is that you're basically, you're trying to get people to get the vaccine by telling them it's Ingersoll interest, not to take it. And so it, but the reason why, and if you actually put the argument to people that way, if you told them this is the argument you're making, they would probably say, no, no, no, that's not what I meant. But here's the thing what's happened is that the idea of selfishness as being evil and as the defining characteristic of evil has so steeped into their consciousness, that whenever they want to say something's bad, whenever they think something is bad, that it's immoral and they want to make it really strongly that I think they self just the word that pops into mind.
Speaker 1 00:05:40 It basically
Speaker 0 00:05:41 I'm running in and out. So just make sure your, your wifi is up close by. Okay.
Speaker 1 00:05:49 Sorry to interrupt. Well, I know my, my wifi is terrible. I'm actually depending on my cell phone reception. Um, but anyway, so the, uh, by putting our thinking is that, uh, selfish has become this word for, if I want to call something evil, I want to really emphasize it. It's really something super bad, selfish, selfish as the word people, people leap for without really thinking very much about the actual implications of what it means. Now, this is in contrast to the way things used to be. So it used to be that enlightened self-interest now, as Objectivists were advocates of rational self-interest is the phrase we use 200 years ago. The phrase that was used was enlightened self-interest, uh, or sometimes called a self-interest properly. Understood. And so I've got a great one of my favorite quotes from Alexis de Tocqueville and democracy in America. And he's talking about, uh, how, uh, uh, he says the, the doctrine of undiluted self-sacrifice is something that quote, uh, that more or less quote, no longer venture to suggest for consideration any talks about how, uh, how widespread the idea of self-interest properly understood is in America.
Speaker 1 00:07:03 So he says, is the quote here, the doctrine of self-interest properly understood is not new, but it is among the Americans of our time that are just coming to be universally accepted. You hear it as much from the poor as from the rich, the Americans and Dre spending almost every act of their lives on the principle of self-interest properly understood. It gives them pleasure to point out how an enlightened self-love continuously leads them to help one another and disposes them freely to give part of their time and wealth for the good of the state. I think that in this, they often do themselves less than justice for some times in the United States, as elsewhere. Once he's people carried away by the disinterested spontaneous impulses, natural to man, but the American is hardly prepared to admit that they do give way to emotions of this sort.
Speaker 1 00:07:48 Now you see his standards are coming in there. He thinks a self-sacrifice is good. So he's saying, well, the Americans don't give themselves enough credit cause they will go out and sacrifice themselves, uh, sometimes. And, but he's pointing out that among the Americans it's, it's, you know, they, they won't want, they don't want to admit they ever do that. They want to explain everything they do can be explained by self-interest properly understood. And this goes back even before Tocqueville, um, a friend of mine, I, I never tire of, of promoting this book cause I think it's really helpful. Uh, a friend of mine did a really interesting book called father of Liberty, and it's about, uh, uh, getting Jonathan Mayhew. He was a new England preacher in the late 18th century. Uh, he died just before a few years before the American revolution, but he influenced a lot of the, uh, the Boston, uh, crowd that would go on to, to have a leading role like John Adams and people like that who had the leading role in the revolution.
Speaker 1 00:08:41 And, uh, he preached a version of self-interest properly understood, um, a quote from Jonathan Mayhew, who from what is, this is a preacher giving sermons, right? But this said, wait, its way into, uh, the religious doctrines of, of America in the 18th century. And so one of the sermons, he says, we find by experience that we are all capable of being happy or miserable to a great degree, pain and pleasure at least are private and personal things. And even they, the arrogant to themselves, the right of judging for us do not pretend to feel for us also. Now if that be of any importance for us to be happy for ourselves, it is of importance to judge for ourselves also for this as absolutely necessary in order to are finding the path that leads to happiness. And he concludes by saying virtue is what we are under obligation to practice without the consideration of the being of a God or of an afterlife barely for its apparent tendency to make mankind happy at present.
Speaker 1 00:09:36 Now this is a disturbance by the way, he's telling you that you don't even need God to have morality. Um, so this gives you an idea of how this is, you know, a sermon he's preaching of like 1750 or something, or a 60 around 1760. So this is a very widespread view. This idea of self-interest properly understood may who uses the term rational, happiness. I mean, when you read the stuff about Mayhew, it's interesting. Cause it's, so it's almost like he saw almost a pro to objectivist in some of the arguments that he makes. Um, it gives me an idea of, of the direction we might've taken now as to why we didn't take that direction. I came across an interesting article a while back about, uh, called altruism comes to America. Now altruism was originally developed as a very, very specific, um, moral theory by a guy named August comp, the French philosopher in the early 19th century.
Speaker 1 00:10:27 So about the time that Tocqueville was writing this stuff about the Americans, this guy back in France, this guy August compt was coming up with a theory of altruism and it means other ism. It means the idea that, you know, not just self sacrifice, but total complete self sacrifice, the idea that you shouldn't pursue your own interests at all. Uh, and, um, that you should only do things that would benefit and only do things only solely for the benefit of others. And this idea came to America and it sort of, it sort of took over and it became a reached a point now where it became synonymous with morality and it took over and I've read an interesting article done in the early 20th century by a philosopher, looking at tracing the influence of comps theories as they come to America. And from what I can tell is that it spread and became universal because it split it to two different strains.
Speaker 1 00:11:23 Each one, which adopted, which is that on the sort of cultural left, the socialists absorbed altruism into the communists and socialists and collectivist philosophies because it fits perfectly with them. You know, the w you will sacrifice for the good of the workers. And then at the same time, the religious establishment absorbed and adopted altruism as a philosophy because it fit with the religious message. You should be like Christ on the cross. You should sacrifice everything for the sake of others. All right. So this idea of self-interest properly understood, sort of died out by the end of the 20th century and the 19th century and became replaced. And it reached the point we're at now where people will mention it in passing, but nobody will really give it serious consideration. So I think we need to give it a, we need to, I think we need to grasp this history that it has the long history of, uh, enlightened self interest in America, and then give it some serious thought as well. What does that mean? How does it work? And then I've got some things to say, as we get into the discussion about how that relates to how it's slightly different from, uh, and how it's, but how it's also similar to the objectivist concept of rational. Self-interest
Speaker 0 00:12:37 Excellent. So, uh, want to remind everybody, we're going to record this. We also have the autoplay on, so you'll be able to go back and give it a listen. And we would love to, uh, to get your questions, your comments, your disagreements. Uh, I know we have at least one social worker in the room. So how does this apply to your profession? Uh, how did, how did this apply to your personal life? And, um, yeah, so David, uh, you wrote a whole book on rugged individualism, which dealt apartment.
Speaker 2 00:13:16 Uh, yes. Thanks JAG. Thanks Rob. That's a great historical background. Um, the, the idea of enlightened self-interest is a term that we've considered. And, um, uh, I spent some time looking up the, uh, passage from Deauville is of course, you know, really interesting. Um, but I think, I think there's a subtle difference and it makes a difference that enlightened self-interest is normally conceived as, um, it, it says people who, who is this actually in, uh, from a Wikipedia article. So, but it was, it was well, well done. Um, it enlightened self interest. It's a philosophy stating that persons who are, who act to further the interest of others or the groups they belong to ultimately serve their own self interests. And I think that's aligned with, uh, Tocqueville's conception and the article. Um, actually it goes on to distinguish after brand's view of, of a rational self-interest and I, the way I interpreted it is that the idea of enlightened self interest plays a little bit into the altruist game of saying, well, yeah, uh, you, you serve others, but actually that helps yourself as opposed to the objective is view, which is you serve yourself and, um, your own self interest.
Speaker 2 00:14:51 And part of that self interest is, um, what I have termed benevolence. Um, and, uh, it goes beyond a level because, you know, it goes to civic mindedness and taking responsibility for political, um, activity, um, in service of all the, you know, serving the goal of freedom, which is, which is in our rank, but it starts the rational self-interest starts with the idea of self-interest and then says pursue it rationally and rationally when you work that out means a whole bunch of things about virtue. And I would say living in Evelyn's Reza, enlightened self interest, it kind of switches the polarity here and starts with the idea of serving others. Um, Nope, Coco was describing, you know, private, voluntary, um, community help and others and civic associations, but not state. So, uh, but still serving others and then, and, but then explaining it, yeah, this is really in my self interest. So that, that's the, one of the reasons I've been reluctant to use that term. Um, but I'll, I'll just throw that out as a consideration. Um, Rob, I imagine it's on your, that issue. That point is already on your agenda somewhere.
Speaker 0 00:16:23 Thanks, David. Rob, do you want to take that on or can we get to some of the others here?
Speaker 1 00:16:30 Um, I'd like to defer, I was trying to talk and I realized I was muted. Uh, I'd like to maybe defer it and will I definitely have more to say on that, and I think what David's on the right on the same track as I am. Uh, but I'd like to hear from a couple other people on this too. I, I think what I will say to David is I liked the fact that the concept of enlightened self-interest is out there. It has centuries of history behind it. So I think it's really good to say it to, to, to take advantage of that, to say, look, this is a whole moral philosophy that existed for centuries, that people took very seriously and then use that to bring up the conversation. Well, let's, you know, what is it, what, what would it mean for self-interest to be enlightened? What is it that enlightens it? And I think that's where the term enlightened self-interest, it's vague. It doesn't, it doesn't explain by what principle is your self interests enlightened, and that's where we need to, but it's an opportunity for us to make that case, but I'd like to hear from other people,
Speaker 0 00:17:27 Roger,
Speaker 3 00:17:29 Hey Jennifer. So my, my question is, uh, it, it feels like we're splitting hairs here and that whether we're using the term, um, rational self-interest or enlightened self-interest, um, it, at the end of the day, we're, we're still talking about egoism and, and the, and the idea that, um, you know, th th that our self-interest is what's critically important and that we're, we're not compelled to help others, unless that does serve our self-interest. Th th the old saying is, is that, uh, egoism is altruism. And so I just wonder, like, if we're getting too fancy with the words, and if maybe that, uh, egoism, which has interesting connotations to some people, uh, where they almost have a gag reflex, uh, when they hear the word, because they, you know, they, they think ego, they think egotism. And, uh, and so it, it makes it, it puts people off, which I don't mind that as a starting point, uh, because it, it, I think that spawns an interesting conversation, which gets us to the same point, which is, you know, talking about our own self-interest and how everything we do, uh, if not in our rational self-interest is really irrational and immoral.
Speaker 3 00:19:04 And, and I'm just kind of curious why, uh, why the need for the fluffiness of words here?
Speaker 1 00:19:13 Yeah. I think it's interesting question. I, you know, I think you can get to hairsplitting because the enlightened self-interest, like I said, it's a little vague, but it's not wrong. And if you actually look at like Jonathan Mayhew that, you know, looking at seven sermons, that famous sermons he gave, there's a lot of stuff in there that I think we would, we would totally agree with. So I think the problem is not so much the terminology, but here's the, here's the reason why the terminology become, does become important is I do think, especially, you know, in that Tocqueville quote there, that they meant a little something different from it by enlightened self-interest than we meant. And also, I want to point out, you said egoism is altruism as one of the formulas there that basically by doing good things for yourself, you will also end up benefiting other people, but here's the problem for, and this is especially looking at it from the philosophical perspective, you know, for the philosopher, you do have to split the hairs.
Speaker 1 00:20:04 So you do have to go to the exact words. And the reason for that is that all she was with sometimes used now and this sort of loose way of sitting make meaning, well, anything that helps another person. So, you know, if you smile at somebody, a wave and you, and you make them feel a little bit better, that's altruistic, or if you help an old lady across the street, that's altruistic, you know, it's anything, uh, anything that could possibly be a benefit, another person is altruism, but the thing is for the first hundred years, and that term, when that term existed, it was, you know, that's not a term that just sort of, it was in the language from time and Memorial, that term was created. It has specific context for a specific purpose, and it was to promote an ideology that says you cannot pursue your yourself interest at all.
Speaker 1 00:20:49 And I really recommend this is, uh, it's, it's a little loose and it's, uh, it's, it's not, it doesn't go as deeply as I would like, but it was, uh, if you, if you, uh, if you Google altruism arrives in America, you'll find this article from Louis, bud, uh, duke university, uh, uh, professor, uh, it's from 1956, but he goes to his history and it gives you a little taste of it because there was a whole, there were these altruists societies that existed, and there were, um, these people who wrote whole books and, and whole, uh, uh, you know, the long fictional treatises about, uh, sort of ideal communities, uh, uh, ideal altruist communities who were based on this idea that nobody would ever do anything on their self-interest. Uh, it reminds me of, uh, I've done a little research into the, I don't know if you've done some of this or not, but you may have done some of that David as well.
Speaker 1 00:21:44 I did some research into the origin of the term individualism, and I found out that the individuals and began as a pejorative, it was actually the, the, the roots of it in America. At least if I think there's an earlier use in France, but in, in French, but in America, the roots of it are from, uh, a, one of these communes that was formed called in, in new harmony Indiana. And it was this, uh, this communist must be done on these sort of socialist principles. And they identified it in their newsletter for their commune. Uh, they identified that, uh, the enemy, the thing that they were against was individualism. And that was the problem. If everything is too much concern for the wellbeing and personal judgment of the individual. And the fascinating part about the history is that this commune went through the usual history of these things, the life cycle of these things, it burned out about three years and ended in bitterness and recriminations.
Speaker 1 00:22:38 And most of the people went on and continued to advocate exactly the same ideas with no change, not having learned a single thing, but one guy coming out of that. And I can never remember his name. He's not a well-known person, but one guy came out of that. Ashley took drew the conclusion from it that, wait a minute, our mistake was, we were a guest individualism and he went on, no, he had some crackpot economic notions, but he went on to promote the idea that individualism was a good thing and was part of, sort of baked turning individualism into this sort of laudable, you know, the way we use it today. Good old American individualism. He was part of that. And it came from coming out of this commune where they thought that individual's almost the worst thing. And he realized what a mistake that was. So that's why I think sometimes, sometimes splitting the hairs is, is, is, is useful in that regard.
Speaker 2 00:23:28 And it's worth noting here that, um, as you say, individualism was coined by the, the term coined by the enemies of individualism as was the term capitalism. Um, so we're laboring under, uh, as advocates of both of those principles laboring under the, uh, uh, you know, it kind of conceptual reversal. Um, but we're, we're, we are doing the conceptual reversal by saying these are great things, good things. Um, but we still have that burden of their, the negative connotations, um, imposed on them by their enemies.
Speaker 0 00:24:12 Thank you, David. Great, great question. Roger, Melanie, what is the topic mean to you now to unmute yourself if you can, and as you're trying to do that, Scott Scott.
Speaker 4 00:24:40 Hi there. Thank you. Good topic. Um, I, um, I'm interested in the idea if, uh, you know, cause I'm fascinated by the history and what you were talking about with comp and, uh, you know, if there's just something where, uh, in our history that as you know, we started to have a certain level of, uh, material wealth that the beginnings of the industrial revolution were providing that, uh, it was just natural for people to start thinking, gee, I, I want to help others. And then, you know, as these preachers were even becoming more rational in their own way, if it led to just like a power vacuum and that's why altruism became like the new basis in a way for socialism.
Speaker 1 00:25:29 Yeah. I think this actually goes back even deeper, which is, you know, we, we all come out of what does the sort of, I won't say natural, but the primitive organization for most human societies is tribalism, right? You are a part of a tribe. You're part of a family and you all sort of gathered together. You rallied together as a collective and, and, you know, as tribalism in, in the good sense of you have this community support that you give these people, these people who are near and dear to you, who are supporting you, whom you're cooperating with, who are working together, but it's also tribalism in the bad sense, which is, you know, my tribe versus your tribe. People splitting into groups and having their identity be formed by their loyalty to the group. And I think that's all deep into the whole history of mankind and a lot of our earliest moral theories come out of that tribal background and have that tribal element to it that, you know, you have to, you can't just be pursuing your own interests.
Speaker 1 00:26:34 You have to sacrifice for the greater good of the whole, for the state, for what have you. So, you know, the earliest moral philosophers, you get guys, you know, get Plato who's comes up with an ideal society and ideal Republic in which, uh, everyone is sort of regimented for the, for the good of the state on, on sort of quasi Spartan model, uh, of society, uh, where, uh, you know, self-interest is viewed as, uh, something has to be subordinated to the greater good of the state. So it's an issue that people have is struggling with and going back and forth on, uh, over, you know, since, since the beginning of the time that since the beginning of philosophy. So this is the beginning of the time that we became self-aware about these issues. We've had these two things on the one hand, we know our survival depends on, uh, independent individuals sometimes who were able to go out and, you know, do, uh, who are able to go out and do things that other people can't do who are able to, uh, uh, come up with new ideas.
Speaker 1 00:27:38 And the fact that people have to want to be a, have to be rewarded for, uh, for doing unusual things and for accomplishing unusual things. And that benefits everyone. So there's the individually that that element of individuals was there. And if you look back at the entry Greeks, even, you know, even the worst of the anti grease, even somebody like Play-Doh, there were still an implicit egoism in there, somewhere buried in there because this, you know, the, there were still a sense that you, as an individual would want to be happy and that's okay. It really takes Christianity to take that idea of you shouldn't even want to be happy and just, and to begin imposing that. And that's really the achievement of the early centuries of Christian achievement. If you want to call it that of the earliest centuries of Christianity is they create this monastic ideal of these guys going out in the desert and starving themselves and, you know, taking vows of silence and all the stuff of that, the measure of your virtue is how much you, uh, attack yourself and, and, and make yourself miserable.
Speaker 1 00:28:40 That's really the addition of Christianity that brought it in there. And that's the, the other worldliness of Christianity. The, the idea that you should not be oriented at all to anything in this world, you should be oriented entirely to another world, but this is how it goes all the way back, that you have elements of individuals and then all of its of tribalism elements of, um, sort of supernatural wisdom. And I think that's where this, this Tocqueville quote comes in is that Tocqueville is the guy who's very much on the fence on this he's on the edge because the whole book, he talks, it, he raced with a lot of aberration of the American approach, but he himself is, you know, a, basically a Catholic with sort of medievalist sympathies, uh, feudalist sympathies, um, coming from the French context. So you can see what he's doing here is, is he treats enlightened.
Speaker 1 00:29:30 And I think to some extent, this is how the doc, what the doctor was at the time. He treats it as sort of a compromise, a middle ground between as a way of sort of trying to synthesize an element individuals and with an element of self-sacrifice or of ant of collectivism, you know, that you, uh, you, uh, will, uh, give part of your time and wealth for the good of the state. There's the sort of, for the good of the state of the, sort of the collectivist formulation, but at the same time, you'll say, oh, but it's also somehow benefits me. And sometimes that somehow could be a little vague. So I think it was an attempt to sort of try to find a solution between these two opposing ideologies, these two opposing ideals by finding a kind of a compromise. And I think what's different between that and this, the spirit of it that's different between that.
Speaker 1 00:30:19 And the objectivist idea of rational self-interest is that we're not trying to do that compromise. We're trying to come up with a way to integrate, to come at it from a perspective where you, where we can say, no, you can act in a way that's fully in your self-interest, but because it's your rational, self-interest, it's your long-term self-interest therefore that doesn't mean, you know, being a D-list and burning everything down. It means that you also take consideration for, you know, you want to live in a free society. You want to live in a society where, uh, where there's law and order, et cetera. So you will voluntarily restrain yourself from doing certain things. You will volunteer. Uh, you will volunteer to help in certain ways to make that society function, but you do it, you know, but, but the, the question of what's the most important thing has been settled. You're doing it because in the long-term, this is in your self-interest. So it's a way to sort of wrap the objective objectivist concept. Isn't as more like, we're not trying to make a compromise between two opposing ideas. We're trying to show how you can have a benevolent society based just on the one idea of, of doing what is in your self-interest, but what is rationally in your self-interest?
Speaker 5 00:31:37 All right, Melanie, you know how to unmute now I did it. Um, so this is such an interesting discussion as so many of these discussions are, but I did want to speak up because I am probably the only social worker in the audience. And, um, I would like to point out that, uh, in search, in social work, we are trained to practice self care and to practice, um, you know, um, uh, boundaries and not, uh, crossing the line where we become, uh, declared it in our work. And that one is expected to, uh, to, to get a lot of self-esteem and wonderful things from being a social worker. And I would like to out, there are other professions like this, like, uh, doctors and nurses and people in the military and, uh, EMT workers, um, who also have that same philosophy. They do a certain amount of service, but this, uh, this is their profession. They feel good about it. So sometimes I feel like social workers, uh, get a bad rap and are seen as either self-sacrificing or looking for power, trying to dominate other things. Um, so I'm just clearing up. So, uh, social works reputation here. Thank you.
Speaker 1 00:33:25 You know, when it comes to social worker, I also point out, and I'm sure that you might want to expand on this, that when it comes to the help that you're giving to those other people, one of the things that you have to be doing is to help is to helping them get, if you actually want to help somebody, you have to help them get to the point where they're able to act in their rational self-interest that is you. You don't want people, somebody who become permanently dependent, uh, or, uh, um, uh, or, you know, are permanently a ward of the state. If they're at all capable of being able to support themselves or to, or to, uh, to take charge, take control of their own lives and their own situation, uh, that you, you're not looking for them to become selfless in that sense.
Speaker 5 00:34:12 Well, thank you for pointing that out. That is absolutely true. And helping people realize, uh, their goals, you're, you're not having to realize your goals and to be more independent and more productive, or to be able to manage independently. It's definitely the goal. Uh, of course there are, you know, there are lots of different circumstances, but, um, that's, that's very true. Thank you for bringing that up.
Speaker 1 00:34:43 The one thing I find interesting in the last 10 or 15 years is there's just been, you know, something that has been part of a objective, the objectivist arguments and part of Iran's literature for a long time is this idea of these sort of pathological altruist relationships, where, uh, you are, you help you quote unquote help somebody else out, but you w what you really want is for them to be dependent on you. Uh, and, uh, she wrote a whole play, um, uh, it's called think twice, you wrote a murder mystery when that I I'm trying not to give too much away because it's worth reading, uh, or, or seeing it performed if it's ever performed. Uh, but the, the premise of it is that a guy's murdered and the guy who's murdered is, has this reputation of being a great philanthropist. And so initially the guy who's investigating, it says, well, this is going to be, you know, it's going to be hard to tell who could possibly have a motive to kill this guy and what he finds out, what he gets in there is everybody has a motive to kill him.
Speaker 1 00:35:41 Cause all because, because he only, he gives his charity in this pathological way reach. It gives it in a way to sort of control other people and make them dependent on him and divert them from what they really want to do. And so it turns out everybody had found the guy resents him because he's been pathological in the way that he's, he's, he's, he attempts to help people in a way that hurts them. And, uh, I've seen the fascinating thing she wrote that play if I can go 1940s. Uh, and the thing I think is interesting about that is in recent decades, I started to hear the use of the term pathological altruism. Uh, somebody wrote a book on that subject and also toxic charity. So these are constants that people are coming up that are trying to explain that phenomenon of, and I think it usually the explanation is that the person who's giving the charity or the person who's, uh, being pathologically altruistic is more concerned with how they feel them with their position of power over and control over the other person.
Speaker 1 00:36:44 And they don't really care about whether it actually is in the interest of that. What they're doing is actually helping the other person, uh, or not. So they're more, they're more focused on, I get the sense of power. I get a sense, I get a boost, the self-esteem where it makes me feel more excited about how they feel or the sense of superiority that it gives them. Now, I think that they can go a lot to be added to that. You go farther in the analysis by bringing in iron rans analysis of this, which is that, you know, rational self-interest is, is the natural and to be an unexpected Saint for Mo for all people. And that altruism, to the extent that it's taken as this idea of making people dependent and making people not pursuing their own self-interest, uh, that, that the, the object of your help is also not supposed to pursue his self-interest that's when it becomes pathological. I think she can offer a deeper level of analysis to that.
Speaker 0 00:37:41 Thanks, Rob. And thank you, Melanie. Richard,
Speaker 6 00:37:47 Thank you, Rob. This is a fascinating and I, your earlier exchange or date with David on enlightened. I mean, at least enlightenment means reason that it comes from the enlightenment. So I don't have as much a problem with, uh, you know, calling an enlightened self-interest and reaching back to that lineage, especially in today when there's a counter enlightenment or post-modernism. But I did notice when I read my de Tocqueville on self-interest, he, he, at one point actually said it counters individualism, and it's self-interest is something like small acts of sacrifice, not big ones. So it's a very mixed message. But, um, for that time it was amazing. I just wanted to point out something that might be interesting to the discussion and Rob, um, there is in Peikoff in par three cases, uh, where he says, this is why we need to modify these words.
Speaker 6 00:38:41 And this gets back to what Roger said about is this hairsplitting. So in three cases, he says, he's talking about self-interest and he says, rational self-interest and then he discusses it. And he says, unfortunately, it's a redundancy, but necessary today. Then later he says, let's say fair capitalism. He uses the same words. He says, it's a redundancy, but a necessary one in today's linguistic chaos. Then later, uh, earlier actually individual rights. He says, that's a redundancy, uh, although necessary in today's intellectual chaos. I find that very, I've always found that very interesting, but what he's basically saying is as rational self-interest is the only kind of self-interest, there's no such thing as irrational self-interest and he'd say there's no such thing as anything other than less, a fair capitalism, you know, what are we here today? There's crony capitalism and state capitalism and welfare capital, and same thing with individual rights, right? He said, no, they, they only belong to individuals. Uh, neither two groups nor to pieces of individuals like a, a fetus. So I just wanted to bring that in there because I think that helps the issue of why are we bothering with the modifier? Are we just hairsplitting or in pickups? Casey was like, oh no, this is absolutely necessary in today's, uh, conceptual, uh, chaos, that's it?
Speaker 1 00:40:01 Yeah. You know, I think it's, it's interesting that, you know, part of the purpose though, of the concept of rational putting the rational and self-interest, you know, philosophy, we spend a lot of our time doing necessarily redundancy where, where it's like, we have to put an extra word in there because there's so many common misinterpretations of the concept, you know, cause you've gone thousands of years coming out of the primitive tribal, uh, societies that we came out of, there are countless concepts that human beings developed so early on in our development that they didn't quite get it right. You know, they knew they needed this concept, but they didn't, couldn't quite conceptualize it properly. And then all sorts of wrong conceptualizations of it or misconception realizations of it built up over centuries and centuries. So when you get the right version of the idea, you then have to put all these extra terms on to explain it because you have to differentiate it from all the sort of missed, uh, uh, attempts at getting the concept.
Speaker 1 00:41:07 Uh, and I think that definitely applies to self interest. And one of the reasons you put it on there is too is the fact that there are people who have the concept of the self-interest as being short range. Self-interest, you know, that the, the, the self-interest of the criminal, the self-interest of the con man, the self-interest of the, uh, the, uh, the persons that are grabbing, whatever, they, you know, the manipulator who grabs whatever he can on the short term. And, you know, like I said, you know, when that argument earlier about people, you know, being told you, not getting a vaccine is selfish. There are a lot of people who taken that seriously and said, well, if that's selfishness, I'm going to be selfish. Right? So I ran bait this point, actually, that if you say self-interest is evil people who include that evil in their self-interest, it's not quite, she hasn't quite used that terminology, but it's words close to that.
Speaker 1 00:41:58 That if you, if you tell people selfish, selfishness is evil, they will conclude that evil is in their self-interest. So they take things that actually are bad to do, and they will say, oh, that must be what selfishness says. So I going to be selfish. So that's part of the rescuing campaign she's doing with rational self-interest is saying, all right, to expect them to actually be in your self interest. You actually, you have to think through that's the rational, but you have to think through all the consequences, you have to think through those consequences over the longterm and over the big picture. And then you will see that, you know, robbing a bank is not in your self-interest. And if it'd mean, once everything's FAP wants to contest that we'll have a week out of our long discussion about bank robbery. I I'd love to have that.
Speaker 1 00:42:45 Um, but the point being that that's part of the reason you need the concept of rational self-interest is to differentiate it from various forms of irrational self-interest that people have accepted and pursued over, over, over time. Uh, and I think that's what the, one of the reasons that like rational self-interest better than enlightened self-interest for self-interest properly understood is it is more specific about, by what means are you enlightening your concept of self-interest by what means are you properly understanding it? So it has by means of reason, uh, which implies, you know, the, the, you're thinking through the consequences of your actions that you're looking at the longterm, you're looking at the big picture. So I think it carries a more precise idea, whereas I think enlightened self-interest or self-interest properly understood can be more of a vague idea to mean, well, it's a compromise between self and it's, self-interest enlightened by various forms of all by, by, uh, by an element of altruism, by a compromise with altruism in the Compton sense as well. That's why I think that those terms are more likely to be misunderstood, whereas rational self-interest has the benefit of being more precise.
Speaker 0 00:43:59 Thank you. Uh, all right. We're going to pull rank a little bit here with the chairman of the board of the outlet society, without whom none of us would be here. Jay LoPaire has actually a similar background to Melanie having been steeped in the altruist roots of, uh, Catholic Louisiana. J
Speaker 7 00:44:20 Yeah. I'm still getting over some of that. Um, Rob, the, the context for, uh, communicating and tagging on to what said about, uh, terms being redundant, but necessary in, in our mission, we, we mentioned reason, but then we also mentioned ethical and benevolent. Self-interest the purpose. There was to clarify exactly the points that you've just framed, that that reason alone doesn't seem to get some people pass the it's still in your interest to, you know, via, uh, ethics and not a grant the same, you know, respect for rights to others. Uh, any thoughts on that?
Speaker 1 00:45:09 Oh yeah. I think there's all sorts of ways in which, depending on the context of your talking in that, that, like I said, these useful redundancies are grist for the mill, because so many of these, so many terms have been misunderstood and, and I'd read talks about the, the, the, was it the epistemological chaos that we have that, but I think that chaos is just, it's partly, you know, our particular era, there've been a number of prominent and influential philosophers who have muddled a lot of these ideas, but I also think it's just part of human is part of human history, right? That you have, it's sort of like, you know, there's all sorts of ideas you encounter as a kid, right? You're the Diaz, you encounter words and concepts you encounter when you're eight years old, 10 years old, 12 years old, we long before you're old enough to independently think, think them through and make them very exact, but you have, but it's a necessary concept.
Speaker 1 00:46:04 So you acquire some version of that concept based on, you know, where you come, people around you, what they say, gleaning the best version of that as you can from, from the context in which you grow up and then later on, you have to go back and re-examine it and say, well, what does that, what does selfish really mean? You know, is it really a bad thing? You know, maybe you were told your entire life's being self-interest is bad. You might have to go back and reevaluate that. But I think that, you know, what the individual has to do is basically what, what human humanity, as a whole has had to do, that there's all sorts of concepts that we had to develop. And we get our first grasp of, you know, 3000 years ago or 4,000 years ago when we were, you know, the state of human knowledge was so primitive that we couldn't possibly have fought through it in a really exact and precise way. And it would be, would have been very strange if we'd gotten it right the first time. So it's sort of natural that you're gonna have every really big, important concept in human life is going to have this 3000 year history to it, of various different versions of the idea. And many of which are wrong that you're getting, going to have to come up with various explanatory things to, to, to, um, to differentiate yourself from that history.
Speaker 7 00:47:18 Yeah. And I think, I think that that's kind of capturing the essential point because I don't think our, of what self-interest, or is, has changed to a deviant, what is, what is difficult out how to explain that in a condensed version. So depending on the context of your audience or what your purpose is, it seems to me that enlightened self-interest rational, self-interest, you know, ethical benevolence, self-interest, all those things are part of that redundancy that's needed, uh, depending on what you expect to be the, the most important aspects of what you're trying to communicate. Is that a fair way to think about it?
Speaker 1 00:48:02 Yeah, I think so. And I like to Richard's point earlier about how one of the reasons I've become more likely to use the phrase enlightened self-interest is there's been this burst of activity in the last three or four years of greater interest in the enlightenment and people embracing the legacy of the enlightenment, you know, the, the 18th century philosophy as, um, as an answer to both the, you know, the woke left and the, uh, sort of a liberal or nationalist, right. And the nationalist read is very much against the enlightenment. The religious right guys are very much against the enlightenment. They hate the enlightenment. Um, so the idea of you've got people like Steven Pinker and, and, and even on the right, you have Jonah Goldberg, uh, who are more or less advocating enlightenment ideas. So coming and saying enlightened self-interest, which has this phrase to rate out of the enlightenment out of the 18th century. Uh, I think as a way to sort of provide this little entree to people like that, to say, you know, you really should reconsider this issue of altruism. And self-interest because that that's tied into this enlightenment legacy that, that I think people are beginning. Some people at least are beginning understand that this enlightenment legacy is really important and we need to understand it better and, and, and, uh, sort of revive it. So connecting into that, I think, you know, enlightened self interest gives you that opportunity to start that conversation of connecting to that trend.
Speaker 2 00:49:30 Um, Jen, if I can make a quick point before we move on, I've got another 10 minutes and I do want to get to P yes. Okay, great. Um, a good point. It, in, uh, in, in philosophy, in courses on ethics that virtually every textbook you open, we'll start out with a discussion of equalism, which had treats as, um, non rational, just pursuing subject of self interest. And the whole point is, and I've talked to many people in the fields and teach us stuff. The obvious point is let's get past this stupid theory and get into the real ones it's still so common. Um, so in terms of the, uh, you know, the modify, a rational and even rational versus enlightenment, I look, I'm a philosopher. I, I split hairs for a living, um, kind of a professional philosophical Barbara issue comes to me. I work really up there, but, um, the, uh, but also one of the problems with enlightened, the concept of enlightened self interest is in the era in which the term was coined in use was people had, despite the, you know, the grand jury of the concepts of individual rights and individualism and free markets, um, that all came, uh, came, um, online more than some appeared initially, uh, you know, in the century before half centuries, before and after 1800, um, they had not escaped.
Speaker 2 00:51:14 The ultra was baggage that came with the, with religion and revisions even among atheists. And so, you know, um, I'll reference one, um, David Mayer, uh, late David Merrick, professor of law gave a Bret lecture. Uh, once for us, I called the unfinished work of the American revolution. And it was about the lack of a clear view was basis for it. So, um, that said, uh, I'll yield the for you.
Speaker 0 00:51:53 Thank you, JP. Thank you for your patience.
Speaker 8 00:51:57 Thank you, Jennifer. So my question is probably one of those chicken and egg, uh, what was first probably what was first collectivism or altruism. And the second part is when did we go wrong, really with this code of ethics that, uh, the west Holt, I used to attribute it to the, um, Marxist-Leninist movement. Um, and then I stumbled into the works of, uh, uh, a very wise Spaniard, right in the name of Antonio Scotto on the enemies of commerce volume one when he traces the ethics of altruism all the way back to Jesus and Christianity and, and the episode when he throws all the merchants out of, out of the market place. Um, that's probably when the west got the Judeo Christian tradition began vilifying gain interest, profit, um, wealth. And, and so if that's the case, isn't it, uh, a huge, a very tall order to bring it all down?
Speaker 1 00:53:24 Uh, yes, absolutely. I agree. It is a very tall order. Well, I think the thing is this, these are issues, like I said, go back to the very beginning of human self-awareness. So if you ask, which came first altruism or collectivism, I would say what came first was tribalism look, and it came and tribalism came from the fact that we were all out there living in tribes, uh, as hunter gatherers, you know, three, four, or even maybe 10,000 years ago before the first cities were built, we were all out there living in tribes. And the tribal ethos was part of human social organization from the very, very beginning. And then in disentangling that, from that, and the battle between, well, we need individuals to be self-reliant. We need individuals to be creative. We needed to have just those to be, to come up with new ideas.
Speaker 1 00:54:15 Um, we need individuals to be able to, you know, to enjoy their own, to, to be able to pursue their own interests or I'll, you know, nothing will get done. All of that is those are issues we've been worrying about and going back and forth on for a very long period of time. And one of the things I find interesting about the concept of enlightened self-interest and its popularity in the seventh, in the 18th century and its long roots going back, you know, you can see bits of it in Aristotle and, and, and other thinkers. Uh, other ancient thinkers is that it's, it's, it's astonishing to me that that that view ever came to be as prominent as it was. So, you know, you say we have a long, we have thousands, 10,000 years of history to overcome in terms of fighting that sort of tribalist version.
Speaker 1 00:55:06 Uh, but on the same as by the same token, uh, we also have the good news is we also have a couple thousand years of history of people making better arguments and trending towards the idea of rational self-interest even if sometimes it's compromised or vague or it's not quite there. Um, uh, so we also that's, I think the important thing about the concept of enlightened self interest is to see that in terms of disentangling this issue and making it more precise and more exact, a lot of progress was already, has already been made through thousands of years of history. And then we could sort of reclaim that and use that and connect to that and hopefully take it the very last next step to, to clarify those concepts even further.
Speaker 0 00:55:57 Thank you. And we're saving the best for last, no pressure.
Speaker 9 00:56:05 Oh, hello everyone, Rob and everyone. Um, yeah, I just wanted to make a quick comment, to be honest, um, about what, uh, Rob's comments a few while back amongst the people, um, about the toxic collectivism and all that stuff. Um, I totally agree. I think very often, sorry, uh, toxic altruism that you mentioned. I think sometimes those are the thickest mosques in our society. Um, uh, giving flap, philanthropy, collectivism, um, you know, the good charity purse and again, not all, I mean, some are well-intentioned, but very often it hides something and it dependency, um, actually there's, uh, someone called Dr. Ramani, who's a big hits on YouTube right now. And she talks about the collective narcissist, um, which is very interesting because, you know, you have your boisterous narcissist, like a Trump-like figure, but that kind of easy to spot and, you know, what's coming. Whereas the collective narcissist is actually in a way more kind of dangerous because they seem all good on the outside. Um, and it just reminds me a lot of Touhy. Um, I thought that might be interesting for you guys to check out at some point.
Speaker 1 00:57:35 Yeah, I definitely will. It sounds interesting, you know, I think he is a great character because, um, one thing I noticed, uh, talking about it recently is that, uh, that there are other characters somewhat similar to him in other literature at that time. Uh, so those who've read 1984 were, might remember the character of O'Brien who's sort of the algebra Tooey of, of that story. And so I think it's interesting that there was this sort of, uh, uh, educated and pseudo, idealistic, uh, collectivist. Who's actually evil down to the core. Uh, who's actually motivated by lust for power. And that was a sort of a type that people were beginning to noticed, especially in the early 20th century, when you had these fascists and communists, uh, ideologies that arose where you have this, you know, the great man speaking for the people and we have all these sacrifices, it has to be done for the people, but then you notice it's really about the power, the lust for power and the, and the bullying, the narcissism of that particular person. Uh, so that sort of hidden and specifically that sort of intellectualized hidden, I'm just here as a humble servant to the people kind of narcissist, I think it was a as a type of character that people needed to try to figure out and to is of course Iran's great contribution to that.
Speaker 9 00:58:58 Yeah. And even on a more modern time, I mean, not as extreme as that, but, you know, I mean, in Hollywood, there's plenty. I mean, Harvey, Harvey Weinstein gave 10 million to the Clintons. He went on the women's March, the women's March as a goods women's rights and the irony of what he really was. Um, that's the thing I think with collective Altru or sorry, a toxic altruism as you call it, the most can be thicker. And so it's nearly more evil in a way, but I think,
Speaker 1 00:59:34 Yeah, and I really recommend if you can find it, there's a book called the early iron Rand that has her play think twice, which has a variation on that theme.
Speaker 0 00:59:47 All right. Thank you Thomas. I do see your hand up, but we are past hour. Um, and unless, uh, I thought I saw professor Stephen Hicks his hand up, but, um, it's not, then we are going to end it. I, you guys are playing to my altruist weaknesses when you send me the last minute requests to speak because I feel bad. Uh, but um, I want to thank Rob, uh, for this, uh, great topic and thank our founder, David Kelly for joining, uh, our senior scholar, uh, Richard Saltzman also for joining, um, and everybody for all your great questions and engagement, um, facet, especially, I thought that was fascinating. We're going to check it out. Could merit its own whole, uh, clubhouse discussion. So, uh, I want to also, uh, let you guys know we are going to be back here on Thursday, uh, with our founder, David Kelly, um, he is going to be talking about fact versus opinion.
Speaker 0 01:00:58 Also, if you're interested tomorrow, I'm going to have a live webinar with John massage. He is the founder of replica, which is a, a coding community, um, platform, but that is not so much what brought him to our attention. He, uh, had a threat as a, as a immigrant who came to America with nothing but credit card debt. Uh, and then recently became a citizen. He had a thread on Twitter, um, 10 things I love about this country, which, uh, went viral and sparked a whole, a lot of interesting feedback. So I'm going to be talking to him about that tomorrow. And, um, and then yes, also, uh, professor Salzman is going to be having eight morals and markets conversation, uh, believe on cryptocurrency, the economics and politics of cryptocurrency that's coming up on Thursday. So if you check out the outlet societies, um, events page, you'll see all of the great things we've got planned for you. And, uh, look forward to seeing you then.
