The Virtue of Selfishness by Keith Lockitch
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- Everyone knows that selfishness is evil, right? But what if our concept of “selfishness” is completely mistaken? From Ayn Rand’s perspective, “selfishness” does not mean what people typically think it means. And a central tenet of her philosophy is that, properly understood, selfishness is actually the essence of virtue.
Recorded at AynRandCon - Europe in London on April 2, 2022.
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For me objectivism is just benevolent selfishness
Tocqueville came up with this concept 3 generations before Ayn Rand was born. He did so by studying Americans: “In the United States hardly anybody talks of the beauty of virtue, but they maintain that virtue is useful and prove it every day. The American moralists do not profess that men ought to sacrifice themselves for their fellow creatures because it is noble to make such sacrifices, but they boldly aver that such sacrifices are as necessary to him who imposes them upon himself as to him for whose sake they are made.”
Alexis De Tocqueville in “How the Americans Combat Individualism by the Principle of Self-Interest Rightly Understood.“
That potent combination of American self-regard and other-regard, the understanding of when the two coincide completely, and the resulting understanding of how to act rightly-these permit human survival and human flourishing. These understandings explains how Americans created the greatest military and economic power in the history of the world in less than 200 years.
I think we humans will achieve true virtue and wonderful lives for all when we come to the point of being able to create human habits that eviscerate the difference between selfishness and unselfishness. When we treat those two imposters just the same.
whane commenting on the use of "selfishness" Rand wrote "For the very reason that makes you afraid of it". All the persons you mentioned are Altruist: Sacrificing others to himself -- But still using sacrifice. The egoist does NOT need sacrifice, nor does he want any part of it, or even seeing persons being sacrificed; i.e. having their personhood diminished. Rand did use a dictionary definition but it was a second one
To show the effect Rand had, and to try and cash in on it, in the '90's, Rush Limbaugh tried to make a very artificial and, ironically, self-serving in the negative sense, distinction between "selfish" and "self-interest", using the classic definition for "selfish" and ourt definition for "self-interest"
I was there in London 😎
34:40
Good for you, you selfish bastard 🤪
If "selfishness" is defined as "a concern for one's own welfare or advantage at the expense of or in disregard of others," as Keith Lockitch does, (Ayn Rand, in the introduction to The Virtue of Selfishness instead says: "the exact meaning and dictionary definition of the word “selfishness” is: concern with one’s own interests." I do not know if the common definition for "selfishness" has changed since then, but she does not add a qualification of "at the expense of others" or any other similar qualification), then "selfishness" and "self-interest" are not equivalent, such that either term implies "at the expense of others." If "selfishness" is self-interest at the expense of others, then "selfishness" is at the expense of others, but self-interest may or may not be at the expense of others. And yet several times Dr. Lockitch claims, basically, that the two terms are equivalent, that both "selfishness" and "self-interest" imply concern with one's own interests *at the expense of others*. But the two terms (concepts) are not equivalent on the basis of the definition of "selfishness" that Dr. Lockitch uses. (They are on the basis of the definition that Miss Rand uses.)
There's nothing wrong with identifying self-interest at the expense of others as bad (and self-interest not at the expense of others as good). It suggests the need for a term for self-interest not at the expense of others, but it does not suggest that self-interest is inherently "selfish" (or "selfishness") as in concern with one's own interest at the expense of others.
There's still a package-deal involved with the term "selfishness," but that is because, as Miss Rand points out in that introduction, altruism holds that it is the beneficiary of a value or action that is the essential issue of morality - anything done for others is good, and anything done for oneself is evil, according to altruism. That necessarily means that concern with one's own interest is evil, whether or not it is at the expense of others.
Q & A: 24:32
American practicality combined the unique advantages of American individualism with the American habit of joining and creating organizations freely. These seem like opposites, but they are not. Utility, practicality, pragmatic decision-making lies at the core of American success. And thus, Americans avoided the ruinous mistakes of European ideologies: "Montaigne said long ago: 'Were I not to follow the straight road for its straightness, I should follow it for having found by experience that in the end it is commonly the happiest and most useful track.' The doctrine of interest rightly understood is not then new, but among the Americans of our time it finds universal acceptance; it has become popular there; you may trace it at the bottom of all their actions, you will remark it in all they say. It is as often asserted by the poor man as by the rich."
Alexis De Tocqueville in “How the Americans Combat Individualism by the Principle of Self-Interest Rightly Understood.“
I love Ayn Rand and her philosophy. Do you guys get a PhD in being boring before becoming a speaker at ARI?
Bc you're so interesting?
You're welcome to join the OAC and try it yourself.
The *only* good thing I can say about this presentation was: it wasn't Yawwon Bwook. :)
I *could* say that ARI desperately needs to get better spokespersons - but I won't.
ARI - by their own admission - serves *no* purpose. They have explicitly disavowed their former pretentions of representing "authorized" Objectivism (Peikoff yawping about how others should "Drop out of OUR movement" in the "fact and value" essay, for example).
ARI only really does two things:
1. They make "Objectivism" look stupid and cultish to non-Objectivists
and
2. Occasionally, they end up Inadvertently spawning *other* "Objectivist" organizations (Atlas Society, Objective Standard Institute etc.) - which *also* fail to "advance Objectivism" effectively.
ARI is a desperate, sad, failing organization, and Tal Tsafany is delusional if he actually believes that *anybody* (other than the worst sort of Randroids) would have any interest whatsoever in going to an "Ayn Rand Museum" to look at her blue-green pillows, tiger pictures and oversized jewelry while listening to "Tiddlywink music".
Ayn Rand's attempt to de-stigmatize the term "selfishness" failed, and ARI's attempts to shove "her" idiosyncratic re-definition of the term down the mass culture's collective throats will *continue* to fail for exactly the same reasons.
The most amusing - and telling - part of the entire fiasco is the fact that Carl Barney (the former ARI board member) was actively involved with the "church" of Scientology. There are some rather "ominous parallels" between the "Church" of Scientology and the Ayn Rand institute - whether anybody wants to acknowledge that fact, or not.
Want to see how "effective" ARI has been at "advancing Objectivism" over the 37 years since it was founded (1985)?
newrepublic.com/article/154705/last-ayn-rand-acolytes
Ayn Rand once said that a bad "defense" of correct ideas was "worse than plain silence".
ARI has spent the last 37 years damaging Ayn Rand's reputation and making Objectivism look stupid and cultish - and inept "presentations" like Lockitch's really aren't an "improvement" in any substantive sense of the word.
Put bluntly: ARI *sucks*
I'm right - deal with it.
Ayn Rand being a Jew thought what of Israel? Obviously a very selfish thing, but not to Ayn Rand who called the Palestinians essentially savages.