Brainpolice : Objectivism, Altruism

Judeo-Christian Morality vs. The Free Society

Brainpolice — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 02:21:00 GMT

I'd like to explain why I think that traditional judeo-christian morality does not synch up very well with the principles of liberty and does not provide a beneficial cultural framework for a free society. In many ways, I'm not going to be saying anything particularly new here, as this criticism has essentially already been made by both Friedrich Nietzsche and Ayn Rand in their own respectively unique ways, although of course I'm going to be putting this into my own words and expressing it from my own perspective which is both similar to that of Neitzche and Rand and altogether my own. Unfortunately, most people and most libertarians for that matter are not particularly familiar with the substance of this kind of criticism of judeo-christian morality or at least do not entirely grasp what the meat of the issue is.

The Devaluation of the Earthly

To start off, let's consider the implications of the general concept of an afterlife in judeo-christian tradition. According to this view, this life is only a test or a transitional stage. What ultimately matters is that which allegedly lies beyond. As a consequence, the life and time that we have on this earth in the now is devalued. The concept of the afterlife basically posits that the only real purpose of life in the here and now is to prepare for the afterlife. In the grand scheme of things, earthly matters are more or less characterized as meaningless or insignificant. The earthly may even be construed as immoral. Salvation is construed as lieing outside of material existance and consequentially material existance starts to lose its meaning and significance.

The picture gets even more gloomy when we introduce the concept of original sin, which is basically a sweeping declaration of ancestral guilt for all of mankind. Apparently everyone is guilty from birth and "the flesh" is somehow inherently bad. And the most fundamental feature that makes us human, I.E. free will, is characterized as the source of evil in the world. Yet while a free willing agent most certainly is capable of evil, free will is neutral to morality and could also lead to good. Furthermore, morality as such couldn't exist without free will, as without agency there is no responsibility for one's actions. Interestingly, the fatalistic implications of the notion of god as the first cause and watchmaker contradicts the concept of free will. The notion that god has a "divine plan" that will inevitably pan out throughout the course of history cannot be reconciled with the notion that human beings have some kind of free will.

Leaving the meaning and implications of free will aside (I'm leaning towards some kind of compatibalism on the general free will question at the moment), the implications of the concept of original sin and the afterlife are fairly silly. What's implied is that since we are all inherently sinners, we must spend our entire lives paying off this debt we have allegedly incurred. Hence, we have a whole slew of unchosen positive obligations. We are supposed to feel guilty for being "of the flesh" and for having biological drives and psychological motivations. Allegedly it is an imperative that we strive to deny or suppress much of the fundamental characteristics of what makes us human in this life as a path to a gauranteed ticket to the afterlife.

The Seven Deadly Sins

Consider the 7 deadly sins: pride, avarice, lust, anger, gluttony, envy and sloth. Before I go into an analysis of these individually, consider this: has there ever been a point in your life when you did not feel any of these emotions at all? No, these are all traits that pretty much describe some fundamental aspects of what it means to be a human. And that leads us to another realization: most of these are emotions or feelings, ones which all of us experience at some point or another, although of course they can be manifested in terms of agency. In either case, quite clearly the implication of this is that it is essentially impossible for us to exist as humans qua humans without "sinning". Furthermore, all of these "sins" have one thing in common: avoiding them constitutes self-denial or self-sacrifice. It's all meant to imply that that which has to do with the self is somehow evil.

Why is pride considered a sin? If anything, is self-esteem not a good thing? What is wrong with being proud of one's accomplishments? Putting forth pride as a sin is a rather sweeping declaration that ignores the positive side of pride, I.E. individual self-esteem based on one's actual merits. Pride as such is not necessarily the same thing as narcissism. The narcissist is not proud of their actual self or their actual merits and accomplishments. Rather, they have created a fantasy world in which they have merits and accomplishments that aren't really theirs. The narcissist does not hold themselves up, they push everyone else down. But should we therefore abandon pride altogether out of the fear of narcissism and essentially propose that all self-esteem and pride-driven self-improvement is evil?

What about avarice, which may be substituted with the term "greed"? We must first note once again that by itself it's just a motivation or emotion, I.E. the desire to have more of something or to keep the plentiful amount that one already has. As realized in agency, it would mean the pursuit of more or the pursuit of holding on to what one already has. It is easy to see how the more socialistic interpretations of christianity may draw from this. But once again it is far too sweeping to consider this inherently immoral. Why is wanting to keep what you have immoral? Why is pursueing more immoral? Does the actual means by which one does this irrelevant, or should distinctions be made between various ways of obtaining plenty or hoarding what one has? Is there no distinction between claiming that which is others and merely pursueing more for yourself in a voluntary or mutual way? And by what standard does one determine how much is too much? Once again, this sin reduces to the notion that the self and its gratification is somehow evil.

What about lust, which is usually meant to imply sexual desire? Why is it immoral to have sexual desire, and how can one possibly be a human being without experiencing this in some form or another, especially when one is young? Is sexual desire not a fundamental biological drive within us? It certainly seems far to sweeping to consider all sexual desire immoral. While rape may be immoral, voluntary sexual interactions between adults isn't. While promiscuous sexual interactions may be unhealthy for the individual in the long-term, it hardly makes any sense to proclaim it to be inherently evil. In either case, if everyone lived their lives as total prudes then the human race would slowly start to die off. There is, afterall, a connection between sex and the propogation of the species. On an interesting note, this sin contradicts the dictim "be fruitful and multiply", so obviously victorian prudism isn't the only possible interpretation.

Why is anger considered a sin? Perhaps anger can be misdirected or lead to immoral behaviors, but it need not be so. Anger is an emotion that everyone experiences in one form or another at some point in their life. And how can one possibly not be angry at injustice or immorality? There are times when anger can be a rather good thing, a way for one to release pent up energy or frustration without necessarily hurting anyone else. It would be absurd to expect people, especially people that are in rather dire situations, to go through life smiling and being slap-happy all the time. And sometimes anger goes along with honesty. Sometimes the alternative to expressing anger or frustration is to lie to people just to keep a facade going. I'd rather be both angry and brutally honest to someone then to perpetuate a false sense of comfort which merely enables what is actually a bad situation.

Why is gluttony considered a sin? I find this to be perhaps the most silly of the 7 deadly sins, since at face value it has to do with nothing but food, although of course it can be construed to imply that one shouldn't take recreational drugs (although I've always thought that food is a drug in a sense). As a motivation or desire, gluttony simply means to want another cookie from the cookie jar. While eating or drinking too much can obviously lead to obesity and some major health problems, it hardly makes any sense to make minimalism in eating and drinking habits a moral imperative. Are we really going to call fat people immoral? I'd rather live in a free and prosperous society full of fat slobs who munch on junk food all day than an unfree and unprosprous society where everyone is surprisingly physically fit.

The case of envy is a bit more complicated then the others. Envy may be characterized as the desire to have something that someone else has. It is often used interchangably with jealousy, but there is a bit of a distinction. Once again, taken simply as an emotion or desire to have something that someone else has, I don't necessarily see anything wrong with envy. I want an extremely talented group of musicians to play with and lots of studio equipment and I don't have it but Steve Vai does, therefore I suppose I envy the guitarist Steve Vai. That doesn't mean that I'm going to try to steal his band or his studio equipment. It's simply that he has something that I want and that I probably will never have. Should that stop me from pursueing my dreams and trying to obtain those things for myself? I think not.

What about sloth? Sloth may be another word for laziness or leisure. Of course I can easily see how this can be a bad thing in that a lazy person may be dependant on others and do little or nothing for themselves, hence showing a lack of responsibility and ability, but I would hardly consider it immoral. For one thing, some people are this way due to their nature, sometimes because of a very real mental or physical handicap. And even when a perfectly capable person chooses to be lazy, that is their perogative. I'm not going to consider someone immoral for wanting to take a long break from working and spend their time in leisure instead. Surely it would be absurd to consider it a moral imperative that people be working and productive at all times. We're human beings, not robots. I can envision a slave-master cracking a whip at a slave and calling them slothful for taking a break from the hard physical labor that they are forced to do.

All of these alleged sins can be and have been propogated in negative ways. Pride as a sin can be used to crush people's self-esteem. Avarice or greed as a sin can be used to keep people poor or to discourage economic mobility. Lust as a sin can be used to keep the women for oneself or as a method of population control. Anger as a sin can be used to perpetuate dishonesty and to enable bad relationships. Gluttony as a sin can be used to keep people hungry, to essentially starve people. Envy as a sin can be used to discourage people from pursueing their dreams. Sloth as a sin can be used to foster compulsory labor. When they are taken to their logical conclusion and consistantly applied, they amount to the total denial of self-interest, desire and personal well-being. Taken as absolutes, they would require people to be mindless automatons with no trace of humanity.

Altruism As Slave Morality

Let's take a look at the concept of altruism. Altruism is posited in one form or another by most organized religions. It essentially proposes that the individual has an unchosen positive obligation to serve others and that their fundamental purpose in life is to serve others. On the flip side, self-interest is essentially demonized as immoral. This is a very warped view when broken down rationally. Unfortunately, criticism of altruism is often misunderstood because in most people's minds altruism is the same thing as benevolence and empathy, but nothing could be further from the truth. Altruism as an ethic implies unchosen positive obligations. If an individual does not live up to this positive obligation they are viewed as immoral rights violators and they are supposed to be compulsed to live up to the obligation. Afterall, an ethical theory without imperatives wouldn't be functional. In either case, actually choosing to be kind or giving to other people is not fundamentally altruistic because it still involves agency and a genuine desire on the part of the person to benefit another. In true acts of kindness and giving, the emphasis is not on denying oneself but to benefiting another, and the benefit may even be mutual.

Altruism actually leads to nihilism, and the problem of nihilism is something that both Nietzsche and Rand were trying to avoid in their own unique ways (and while Nietzsche was in some ways an immoralist while Rand was quite clearly a moralist, Nietzsche nonetheless essentially proposes a form of egoism as his personal morality). The logical end of altruism is the total devaluation of the self to the point of absolute selflessness. Your life, your values and your property are deprived of value and meaning and you're expect to act as if they don't exist or don't matter. Of course, from my perspective selflessness is impossible both ontologically and psychologically. The self follows from one's very existance as an individual human being and a human beong's fundamental psychological motivations are inward and personal. However, the attempted implementation of altruism as an ethic does have very real effects.

The notion of unchosen positive obligations, whether it be to a deity, a family or an entire society, is inherently incompatible with negative rights and individual sovereignty. Every positive obligation, to the extent that it is not chosen or not a genuine debt, implies a negative rights violation as soon as it is enforced. The result is that people are coerced to associate with other people and to provide goods and services for other people. The individual is forced to sacrifice their own values, their life and their property, regaurdless of their circumstances and regaurdless of their consent. Altruism is at the heart of both communitarianism and dictatorship. In communitarianism, the individual's life and values and property is sacrificed to "the community" or "the majority". In dictatorship, the individual's life and values and property is sacrificed to the dictator and more people can potentially be effected. In either case, in all cases altruism is the morality obligatory upon what amounts to slaves, sometimes subtley and sometimes quite blatantly.

It's important to note that all of this self-sacrificing, self-denying morality has historically been encouraged by people in political and religious power to get the masses to be complacent or obedient. The masses are discouraged from pursueing their own values and bettering their own lives. What largely goes unnoticed is that this is used to benefit the values and lives of various groups of elites. The masses are encouraged to follow a morality of servitude, and when there are servants there are masters. This is what Nietzsche meant when he drew a distinction between "slave morality" and "master morality". Slave morality functions as an ideology that masters or rulers can propagate on to get the masses to accept their enslavement to them as a moral imperative. The masters or rulers, of course, don't actually follow slave morality. They are its beneficiaries. It is just a convenient mentality to propogate to the masses, an apologetic device meant to make it so that servitude seems like a moral imperative. In practise, the masses engage in self-denial to the benefit of a small group of rulers and associated elites. Hence, it's a parasitic relationship.

If the principle of altruism were universally applied to all human beings, and of course it never is and it would be impossible to do consistantly enforce it in the real world, the implication is that everyone is eachother's slave. Since this cannot be realized in practise, since it defies fundamental facts about human existance, motivation and behavior, what one ends up with is at least two distinct classes of people: the masters and the slaves. Quite likely, the attempt to implement altruism will lead to more of a plural latticework of master-slave relationships while still not reaching the consistant extreme of enslaving everyone to eachother. But usually the slaves outnumber the masters by far or a select elite of people function as masters to a much greater degree than anyone else does, and therefore altruism most often leads to some kind of oligarchy, even if it is a mildly democratic oligarchy. Altruism has historically been an apologetic and enabler of both religious and political tyranny.

Master morality, as I interpret it, amounts to hedonism and "might makes right". Master morality should not be construed as the proper alternative to slave morality, nor is it necessarily the polar opposite of slave morality in a certain context. While master morality is not altruistic, master morality is most certainly not any kind of rational egoism. It is anomie or lawlessness, since the masters are not subject to their own rules. Master morality entails an outwardly oriented sense of self that justifies imposing oneself onto others, sometimes using altruism as a ruse or a mask to hide behind. Rational egoism involves an inwardly oriented sense of self that merely justifies being free from the imposition of others, being at liberty to voluntarily pursue one's self-interest and values without restraint. The rational egoist proclaims that noone else may rule over them, but simultaneously they do not claim to rule over anyone else. Rulers don't believe this or function in this way. They claim the right to rule over others while superficially and hypocritically trying to demand that noone else rule over them.

Judeo-Christian morality essentially proposes slave morality as a solution to master morality. In its zeal to oppose hedonism and anomie, it provides a false alternative that only enables the hedonism and anomie of certain people while devalueing everyone else. A society that is dominantly filled with people who accept slave morality will not have the necessary mindset or attitude to resist the yoke of tyranny. It provides the perfect atmosphere for rulers to arise and dominate the naive masses. The cultural framework of a free society must contain the personal sense of value and purpose necessary for people to actively free themselves, otherwise their lack of confidence and their lack of any genuine sense of self-worth and personal value will enable tyranny. It's time to reject both slave morality and master morality to persue some meaningful alternatives.

Walter Block: Wrong on Religion

Brainpolice — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 15:13:00 GMT

Walter Block recently wrote an article at LewRockwell.com on the topic of religion and state. He critisizes what he considers to be an irrational hatred of religion that many libertarians have apparently inherented from Ayn Rand. While he is an atheist himself, he defends the premise that religion is a bulwark against the state. He has a tendency to occasionally make very counter-intuitive claims. Block writes:

"Why pick on religion and the family? Because these are the two great competitors – against the state – for allegiance on the part of the people. The Communists were quite right, from their own evil perspective, to focus on these two institutions. All enemies of the overweening state, then, would do well to embrace religion and the family as their friends, whether they are themselves atheists or not, parents or not.

The main reason religion sticks in the craw of secular leaders is that this institution defines moral authority independently of their power. Every other organization in society (with the possible exception of the family) sees the state as the source of ultimate ethical sanction. Despite the fact that some religious leaders have indeed bowed the knee to government officials, there is a natural and basic enmity between the two sources of authority. The pope and other religious leaders may not have any regiments of soldiers, but they do have something lacking on the part of presidents and prime ministers, greatly to the regret of the latter."

While he certainly has a valid point in that religion and the family have the potential to be competitors against the state, I think that he neglects important aspects of what the libertarian strong atheist's criticism of religion really is. Firstly, we see a very clear ideological relationship between the two. Statism and theism tend to rest on very similar if not identical premises: that without a "higher power" or "higher authority" (either god or the state) there can be no order or morality, that human society must have been and must be deliberately planned by a designer, that knowledge must be held and selectively passed down from an elite (either the clergy or intelligence bureaucrats) who are exclusively able to properly interpret relevant texts, that floating abstractions (either a deity, a society or a nation) really do exist and that one must sacrifice their values and lives to them, that self-interest is a sin, and so on.

In short, as far as I can tell, statism is a religion in and of itself. Does this vindicate the other religions? No, it doesn't. If anything, it shows how close the relationship between the two really is, a relationship that is much closer than your "Christianity is the historical source of liberty in the west" claiming libertarian would be willing to aknowledge (I find that claim to be disingenuous and misleading nonsense, by the way). I see a very clear relationship between most of traditional religious morality and the morality put foreward by most brands of statism. It's precisely what Nietzsche called "slave morality" or what Ayn Rand identifies in her own unique way as "altruism". One's own values, general well-being and happiness is de-emphasized while servitude to an ideal and to others is put foreward as being the greatest virtue. The moral themes of traditionalist Christianity and much of statism are clearly interwoven.

Statism relies in large part on the exploitation of the religious impulse, both directly and indirectly. If anything, a country full of extremely devout religion people are good pickings for state recruitment and obedience. Indeed, not only do states rely on rituals and symbolism that may dupe even the most atheistic zealot, but sometimes they rely directly on the rituals and symbolism of certain religions. Many if not most politicians put themselves foreward as being devoutly religious and pander to the religious community all the time, and in large part the religious masses fall for it, especially in America. Religious institutions are in large part in patronage with the state, despite the thin veneer of separation of church and state that exists in America. In terms of what is being said at the pulpit, American Christianity in particular has become increasingly political, whether preachers function as cheerleaders for militarism and neoconservatism or conduits for the message of state-socialism.

Another issue, a historical issue, has to do with the rise of the state as an institution in relation to the family and organized religion. The fact of the matter is that these two institutions are historically at the root of state power. The state grew out of them in more primitive times. In some cases, they were literally the same institution. The earliest governments were familial and hereditary. Out of the family comes the tribe (an extended family) and out of the tribe comes the most primitive forms of government, which paved the way for monarchy. Furthermore, many of the earliest political leaders were simultaneously religious leaders. In the most primitive form the shaman served this function. Much of organized religion itself can easily be seen as creations of the state in the first place, particularly with respect to the judeo-christian religions. In the case of Christianity, I see it as a construct of the Roman state to gain obedience and unity.

Historically, and even in contemporary times, religion most definitely has not functioned as a competitor of the state, and even to the extent that it has it has most often been a statist competitor in and of itself. The state and organized religion have had a synergetic relationship from the very beginning, and even when religious institutions are more independant they have the potential to become states in and of themselves. Competition between authoritarianisms isn't a good kind of competition. As any anarchist should be aware of, substituting one form of authoritarianism with another doesn't really solve anything. Substituting the church for the secular state doesn't necessarily imply an increase in freedom. I see no reason why what may very well amount to a church-state, even if comparatively small, is an improvement over a secular state. I think what Block fails to see is that the primary issue is with arbitrary authority, and religion is included under this general umbrella.

As Stefan Molyneux has brilliantly argued (although the argument is not entirely his own; it's not as if he invented this concept), the psychology of the family is directly linked to the psychology of the state. People's ideological support for the state can in many ways be linked to a subconcious attachment to their parents, an imposed feeling of guilt and fear, a sort of unchosen positive obligation for life to one's parents. The psychology of the typical citezen in relation to the state can in some ways be seen as representative of the psychology of the person who is abused by their family and yet enables their own abuse. The exact same sentiments of servitude and obligation that many people hold with respect to the family is merely blown up on a larger scale with respect to the nation, society and state. The problem of statism can be seen as the inevitable outgrowth of family-worshop.

Reading further into the article, Block goes on to write this howler (italics mine):

"Such is my own position. I reject religion, all religion, since, as an atheist, I am unconvinced of the existence of God. Indeed, I go further. I am no agnostic: I am convinced of His non-existence. However, as a political animal, I warmly embrace this institution. It is a bulwark against totalitarianism. He who wishes to oppose statist depredations cannot do so without the support of religion. Opposition to religion, even if based on intellectual grounds and not intended as a political statement, nevertheless amounts to de facto support of government."

Surely you cannot be serious in your claim that "opposition to religion...amounts to de facto support of government", our dear Mr. Block? Surely you jest? This is utter nonsense, and you know it. You can't seriously be trying to pull the wool over our eyes to this extent. An ideological opposition to religion in and of itself has nothing to do with government. And neither does an activist and yet apolitical opposition to religion constitute support of government. My own opposition to religion is entirely apolitical in its means; it's not like I'm lobbying the government and encouraging it to shut down churches and burn Christians at the stake. To assert that an atheist anarchist is a defacto supporter of government for being passionate about atheism is downright silly on its face. I'm frankly insulted by this statement. I also wonder how Block, who says that he is an atheist himself, can not see how he would be a "defacto supporter of government" according to his own statement here.

As a side note, despite Block's intention to connect all or much of this anti-religious sentiment to Ayn Rand, I myself did not gain my anti-religious perspective from Ayn Rand and did not enter libertarianism through Objectivism. I've had a distrust of religious authority long before I had even heard of libertarianism. Furthermore, I think that Block is being misleading in implying that the people he is critisizing make hatred of religion a fundamental principle. No, the dislike of religion is merely an implication of a broader principle against arbitrary authority and in favor of reason. Opposition to religion is not a first-principle for anyone in question here. On the contrary, it follows from something much more fundamental. Hell, even opposition to the state is not necessarily a first principle. In either case, the implication the opposition to religion is the primary focus of any of the people in question is simply false, including in the case of Rand herself. It was never the primary focus, only an implication of a much more fundamental philosophical framework.

I have a lot of respect for Walter Block, in fact he's one of my favorite contemporary libertarians, but occasionally when he writes a piece like this I lose a bit of that respect.

Objectivism and War

Brainpolice — Sat, 31 May 2008 18:47:00 GMT

So the other day an Objectivist wrote this gem at their blog:

"On this Memorial Day, I would like to honor the three men of the American Civil War who understood the terrible need for total war: President Abraham Lincoln, General Ulysses S. Grant, and General William T. Sherman. Their vigorous prosecution of the war preserved the Union, the very first nation founded on the principles of individual rights -- and, at the time, the only such nation. In so doing, they ended the most loathsome violation of rights ever known to man: chattel slavery. Without them, without the brave Union soldiers who fought under them, America would not exist today.*

So thank you, Mssrs. Lincoln, Grant, and Sherman. We are forever in your debt."

While a properly revised view of the so-called "civil war" renders this view highly absurd (since the civil war was not primarily fought over slavery so much as tariffs and secession, the war was essentially a case of the government attacking its own civilian population, Lincoln was a racist who more or less supported slavery and advocated deporting freed slaves back to Africa, Lincoln eggregiously violated the personal rights of both northerners and southerners alike in the process of executing the war, etc.) my concern is more broadly with what has unfortunately become the cliche objectivist view of warfare. Reading the commentary on this blog post by some of the objectivists is illuminating and disturbing.

Objectivists tend to blur the distinction between genuine defensive force and pre-emptive force or outright blatant initiations of force. They view outright invasions of territories as justified acts of "defense" or "retaliation". Due to this warped view of the legitimacy of force, many Objectivists not only legitimize the bulk of wars in America history, they also legitimize our current wars and call for further foreign interventions in places like Iran and Venezuela. This is absolute lunacy! Objectivists have apparently soaked up neoconservative premises with respect to foreign policy. And they have the pompous audacity to do so in the name of "reason", "objectivity", "individualism". Unfortunately, what they are really doing is diving head first into a sea of irrationalism and collectivism.

Objectivists assert that a tyrannical government loses its rights or legitimacy (which is true enough at face value, although all governments are tyrannical and illegitimate in my definition) and conclude that they may be "retaliated" against. From the standpoint of the people tyrannized over by the government, I agree that they can rightfully retaliate against their own government. The problem is that the objectivists draw insane conclusions from a seemingly true premise, as they seem to think that if a foreign government is "tyrannical", this justifies other governments not only "retaliating" against them but invading entire foreign territories and waging total war against not only the foreign governments but the civilian populations. This is an absurd justification for initiating force against innocent bystanders. It also opens up a subjective can of worms in which different governments are treated as being better or worse relative to eachother, and legitimizing otherwise illegitimate governments in the process.

Apparently objectivists have no qualms whatsoever with targeting entire civilian populations. They rationalize this by essentially saying that those within the "country" of the "bad guys" bear moral responsibility for what their government does. This is a blatantly collectivist viewpoint. Someone who just so happens to be born within the territory of a tyrannical government is not responsible for what some powerful men in an ivory tower do. Punishing people for the crimes of others is not justice, it's a monstrous injustice. Blaming and exercising force on entire populations within a territory for the actions of their governments, which they essentially have no control over, is collective guilt. Objectivists are supposed to be the ultimate opponents of collectivism, yet when it comes to foreign policy they appear to be die-hard collectivists, treating entire "nations" as bearing responsibility for the actions of a few powerful men within them. In the objectivist paradime, innocent bystanders can legitimately be murdered in the crossfire of conflicts between governments.

What is the objectivist response to libertarian criticisms of their highly disingenous pro-war views? They straw man libertarians as being pacifists. This is intellectually dishonest. Now, it is true that a libertarian can be a pacifist, but if one is intellectually honest it should be rather clear that what libertarians fundamentally oppose is not all force but the initiation of force and consequentially most libertarians are not pacifists. Most libertarians fully advocate self-defense. The problem is that what objectivists advocate is not self-defense but pre-emptive force and outright initiations of aggression. The accusation that libertarians advocate just sitting there and allowing oneself to be aggressed against by foreign entities is absurd. At least from the standpoint of the average America, they haven't been aggressed against by any foreign people. The objectivist view is totally warped, as it is the America government that is aggressing against the average people within foreign territories. It is precisely those people, the people the objectivists favor attacking, who have the moral right of self-defense.

It is interesting how objectivist premises that are correct in and of themselves at face value can be turned around to critisize objectivists, since objectivism as a political doctrine contradicts its own ethical theory in many ways. What immediately comes to mind is their criticism of altruism, which I more or less agree with myself. It is my contention that objectivists hold an altruistic view of the military. That is, they seem to buy into the nationalistic premise that soldiers (particularly ones from your own country) are virtuous and sacrifice themselves for the sake of our freedom. In this view, our freedom depends on the sacrifices of allegedly brave men in the military and in the state apparatus. In my understanding, the objectivist view of warfare and foreign policy actually contradicts rational egoism, properly understood.

Another contradiction is between the objectivist ideal of government and what they support with respect to currently existing governments. One of the more admirable traits of the objectivist political doctrine is that it is opposed to taxation. Yet the stance of objectivists on currently existing issues fully support making use of tax-funded government institutions like the military. How can people who proclaim that taxation is evil out of one side of their mouths simultaneously claim that tax-funded institutions are legitimate and advocate that they take particular policies? If objectivists were consistant, they would advocate the liberty of anti-war people to refuse to pay for their wars.

But while objectivism is supposed to be about objectivity and reason, consistancy is not a word that describes its political doctrine. The word hypocrisy describes it much better.

Definitions

Brainpolice — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 05:08:00 GMT

So I put together some relatively witty definitions of my terms. If you're not offended by at least one of these, then you are awesome!

Constitutionalism - The belief that a piece of paper drafted and signed by a tiny aristocracy of men is a legitimate perpetual contract that makes the government voluntary on the part of those within a society that did not sign the document and limits the powers of governmental agents for all of eternity.

Minarchism - The belief that there can be a government limited to the protection of rights without violating rights in and of itself; the belief that all goods and services should be provided by the free market yet somehow the principle magically doesn't apply to the defense and arbitration industry.

Democracy - The belief that the government is controled by the people simply because every few years they get to punch a hole in a piece of paper with the names of a few rich and powerful men on it.

Nationalism - The belief that imaginary lines on a map constitute real and meaningful property boundaries; the belief that territories have human traits or personalities of their own; the belief that immigration is the spawn of satan.

Objectivism - The belief that the initation of force is wrong yet somehow it is permissible to arbitrarily invade Iran and Venezuela because "we" have oil interests there; the belief that only romanticism is real art; the belief that you can eliminate taxation and still have a "government".

Political Libertarianism - The belief that the state is inefficient and immoral yet for some strange reason the state is the only viable means by which we can bring about liberty; the belief that democracy is tyrannical yet we must use it to our advantage.

Paleoconservatism - The belief that conservatism was hijacked by leftists and communists and that the "true conservatives" are those who support protectionism and white nationalism; the belief that you're more conservative than those creepy neocons yet somehow you support just about as powerful of a government as they do.

Christianity - The belief that the path to salvation lies with devotion of one's life to a Jewish zombie hippie who is his own father.

Satanism (Laveyan) - The belief in the writtings of a former carnie con artist who haphazardly threw together the ideas of Ayn Rand and Aleister Crowley, incoherant ramblings on the Enochian key and rhetoric to drawn in rebelious teenagers.

Zionism - The belief that because your people were nearly liquidated once, you have an inherent right to liquidate others and forcibly remove them from their own territory.

Religion - The belief that fairy tales from centuries or millenia ago passed down through shaky oral tradition and written down by fallable men are actually absolutely true and codes to live one's life by.

Collectivism - The strange belief that groups have a mind of their own yet their component parts don't.

Altruism - The belief that self-destructive servitude for the sake of others is the greatest virtue; the belief that everyone should mutually be slaves to eachother.

Epistemological Subjectivism - The belief that all truth claims can be reduced to mere personal opinion or preferance, yet somehow this view isn't a mere opinion in and of itself.

Epistemological Nihilism - The belief that there is no such thing as truth, yet somehow it is true that there is no such thing as truth.

Statism - The belief that it is not only moral but necessary for a particular group of individuals to do that which is openly aknowledged as being immoral and not necessary for everyone else to do; moral hypocrisy at the institutional level.

Primitivism - The strange belief that living in a cave or mud-brick hut or as a hermit in the woods is preferable to modern industrial society; the romantisization of long gone tribal and hunter-gatherer societies (in which life was nasty, brutish and short) as peaceful and prosperous utopias.

Welfarism - The belief that the poor can be helped by giving them back a tiny chunk of what was originally stolen from them and keeping them in a state of dependancy on the government; the bribery of the lower classes.

Inflationism - The belief that all problems can be solved by simply printing up more money, despite overwhelming evidence that the arbitrary creation of new money creates problems in and of itself.

Monetarism - The belief held by a bunch of Chicago School economists who think that they are free market proponents but really are quasi-Keynsians.

Anarcho-Syndicalism - The belief that corporations are evil yet somehow corporate dominated, government chartered and cartelized unions are the path towards a free and stateless society.

Hobbesianism - The belief that a highly pessemistic view of human nature that entails war of all against all justifies absolute control by the state, despite the fact that the state is made up of *gasp* human beings.

Radical Environmentalism - The belief that the planet itself has intrinsic value and that human beings are inherently evil parasites on the face of the planet; the modern religion of nature-worshop.

Globalism - The strange belief that large-scale conflict and war would end if only we put all political power in the hands of a singular oligarchal institution with control over everyone in the entire world.

Animal Rights - The belief that non-human entities deserve human rights; the belief that chickens and bumble bees should be equal before the law; the attempt to liberate the unliberatable.

Marxism - The belief that some crazy rich German guy has predicted an inevitable egalitarian future and has mapped out the path towards the liberation of all poor and working people through the work of a benevolent dictatorship.

Racism - The strange belief that a particular roll of the genetic dice entitles and requires one to completely separate themselves from others with another particular roll of the genetic dice; the collectivism of bubble-headed bigots.

Altruism Doesn't Exist

Brainpolice — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 04:50:00 GMT

Is it really possible for someone to engage in a completely selfless act? A rational exploration of the question must lead to a negative rather then affirmative answer. For isn't it the case that no matter what action one engages in, it involves their selves and some kind of motivation on their part? So long as the individual in question could be said to have a motivation for acting, even if this motivation is a benevolent one, it cannot be said that they are acting in a truly selfless manner. So long as one has conciousness, so long as one is self-aware, one cannot truly be selfless. In order to be selfless one would have to cease to exist altogether, or by the very least enter an inhuman state in which one has no volition. But such a state of being is not how human beings work. It could only be used to describe non-concious forms of life such as a plant.

Altruism is not an objective description of human actions so much as a rationalization used to compel people into engaging in certain actions. It is certainly true that one could engage in an action that benefits another rather then oneself, but such an action could not take place without the deliberate concious effort and motivation of the individual in question. If a benevolent act towards another is truly voluntary, then it cannot be said to be genuinely altruistic because in such a scenario the individual actually percieves the act to be in their self-interest at least on a psychological level. That is, they desire to give to others. A genuine desire originates within the individual themself. Satisfaction is obtained upon the fulfillment of the desire, even if the desire is to fulfill a percieved positive obligation towards another.

So long as human beings act to remove a source of dissatisfaction, it could not be said that they act in a void of self-interest. They act in the persuit of satisfaction, which is their percieved self-interest. They employ means for the purpose of obtaining desired ends. The statement that humans act in self-interest on a fundamental level and that human beings are rational animals does not mean that humans will always make correct choices, that the ends they desire are necessarily logical and ethical, or that the means they employ in the persuit of such ends are the proper or most efficient ones toward obtaining their goals. It is merely a description of how human action works, that human beings are volitional creatures with goals and the capacity to choose among means for the purpose of obtaining their goals.

On one hand, every single person is rational in the sense that they possess the faculty of reason and are self-aware. They have the ability to freely make choices. In this sense of the word, noone can be more rational then anyone else because this is merely a description of our fundamental natures. On the other hand, in terms of their actual beliefs and choices, noone is consistantly rational if we are using rational to mean in accordance with objective reality and their actual best interest. People make all sorts of choices that can easily be demonstrated to be harmful to them, and people believe plenty of things that are not in accordance with objective reality. In this sense of the word, some people are simply more rational then others, make more coherant arguements and better choices. But when libertarians describe human beings as inherently being rational, we are using the first sense of the word, not the second. It would be disingenous to act as if we are argueing that everyone is consistant in their beliefs, sharp as a bell and makes wonderful lifestyle choices.

Altruism cannot be a logical description of human action because it contradicts the fundamental nature of how humans act. That is, no rational agent, in the general way in which rationality is defined, can possibly act in a manner that is entirely detached from motivation or desire. No human being is actually an altruist precisely because they are human beings. It would seem to be the case that the insights of praxeology and psychological egoism demonstrate this beyond the shadow of a doubt.

The Decline of Morality in the West

Brainpolice — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 00:51:00 GMT

I believe in objective secular morality, founded on reason and universalism. I think a common mistake is the idea that if we ditch religion, we must fall back on moral relativity. Then the religious people feed on this and get to accuse secular people of being nihilists or hedonists. But I think that an objective secular morality can easily be formulated without relying on an appeal to authority, wether that be an appeal to a deity or an appeal to government. In some ways, I share a lot in common with the philosophy of the Objectivists (Ayn Rand's philosophy), although I think they make some wrong turns and draw some erroneous political conclusions.

I think that morality has declined in the west because we have abandoned reason for secular forms of faith (often political ones). We are not taught to value ourselves. Rather, we are taught to value an endless array of group-identities. Thus, instead of identifying ourselves as individuals we think of ourselves as a part of imaginary collective constructs, such as political groups, races, nations, economic classes, and so on. Out of the crises of meaning brought on by the relative fall of medievalist religion, we have sought meaning in the wrong places. And the persuit of science has unfortunately lead us down a path that leads people to erroneously accept determinism, thus denying free will. We need a new enlightenment.

The philosophy of self-sacrifice (altruism) has been widely accepted in varying forms. But this philosophy is erroneous and destructive at its root. What are the logical implications of universally applying the philosophy that the primary reason for living is to sacrifice oneself for the sake of others? The logical implication is mutual self-destruction. If the purpose of life is to sacrifice it, then in effect life has no real value. So this altruism ends up leading us in a nihilistic direction in practice, to deny the existance of truth and the genuine "self". In place of our genuine identities as individuals, we have identified with archetypes.

The solution, then, lies in the rediscovery of reason and the self. This requires the purging of false collectivist constructs, which obscure who we really are as individuals. While the enlightenment may have lead to the decline of religious absolutism, this does not suffice to solve the problem. Tearing down one false god and replacing it with another is hardly an improvement. In the abscence of hardcore belief in a diety, people have turned to governments to provide the exact same function. The false gods of government and nation-hood must be questioned altogether. Only then will needless conflict and moral deprivation start to subside.

A Defense of Rational Egoism

Brainpolice — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 07:05:00 GMT

Defining Rational Egoism

Wikipedia defines rational egoism as follows:

"Rational egoism is the pursuit of one's own, accurately perceived, self-interest. The term may refer either to the philosophical view that it is always in accordance with reason to pursue self-interest (a view closely related to ethical egoism) or to the behavioral postulate that people actually act in accord with their own, accurately perceived, self-interest (a particular version of psychological egoism)."

It goes on to more specifically define Ayn Rand's take on rational egoism:

"Ayn Rand's philosophy, Objectivism, links its rational values directly to egoism. Her book The Virtue of Selfishness explains in depth the concept of egoism. The version of rational egoism defined by Rand consists of the principle that pursuing personal interest is rational, and not seeking personal interest is irrational.

In Rand's view, there is no greater moral goal than achieving happiness. Rational egoism, however, is not an excuse to act on every whim or emotional impulse, because it is irrational to desire what one has not earned. Happiness requires objective principles, like moral integrity and a respect for the rights of others."

The Problem with Altruism

There is much trouble with the idea that one has a positive moral obligation to serve others, while doing things to benefit yourself is somehow an "evil" (this overlooks the fact that one engages in mutually beneficial relations with others and acts of benevolence precisely out of their self-interest; mutual self-interest). If I have a positive obligation to serve others, then those others are effectively my master, and I am their slave. If acting for the interest of my self-preservation and happiness is a sin, then I am effectively commanded to abstain from happiness and sacrifice my life. But the rational egoist does not proclaim that everyone should live in total social isolationism or do whatever they want, all they are saying is that everyone should engage eachother in a mutually beneficial manner out of mutual self-interest.

If altruism was consistantly applied, there would be no human beings left, since everyone would sacrifice themselves to eachother and do nothing for themselves. Altruism as a philosophy cannot be universally applied to all human beings, let alone one human being, unless we consider it a philosophy of mutual self-destruction. A selfless person is one that does not exist. So at the end of the day, while the logical implications of consistantly following altruism are horrid, perhaps the more important point is that there is no such thing as an altruist, since everyone possesses self-awareness (no matter how low-intensity this self-awareness may be) and inherently must act to benefit themselves. I do not know of any single human being in the past or present who acts in a purely self-sacrificing manner to serve others. And I do not know of a single act of genuine kindness or benevolence that is not done out of self-interest on a fundamental level.

The rational egoist does not oppose individuals giving to and helping eachother, what is opposed is the use of force to make people do so against their will and self-interest. What is opposed is parasitism, where one individual or group is forcefully coerced to sacrfice to the benefit of another individual or group. This is the exact opposite of social cooperation: it is the method of theft and phony philanthropy. The rational egoist clearly sees that the best way to benefit people is for them to work together voluntarily in their self-interest so that all parties gain. True philanthropy results from cooperation. If the methods to one's well-intended ends are not cooperative, if they are coercive, then this is not true charity, but rather a destructive act that disintegrates the social order.

The Universalism of Rational Egoism: Harmony of Interests

In short, it is impossible to separate voluntary social interaction or "social cooperation" from self-interest. "Social cooperation" stems directly from self-interest and could not exist without it. One may try to counter the arguements for rational egoism by claiming that people may act in their self-interest in a way that harms or unjustly controls others, but this would not actually be an action in one's self-interest. William Graham Sumner said it best: "If I want to be free from any other man's dictation, I must understand that I can have no other man under my control." Herbert Spencer also understood this when he stated that people respect the rights of others in direct proportion to their respect for their own rights. If one wishes no harm to be done to themselves, as a prerequisite, they must not harm others. This is simply the defacto result of universally applying the principles.

There in fact is no conflict between people's rational self-interest and remaining ethical. In a self-interested sense, I don't harm other people because I realize that it establishes a precedent that will return to haunt me. And my empathy for others stems from my regaurd for myself, so there is nothing contradictary between self-interest and charitable acts either. In either case, if the principle of individual sovereignty holds true, then it must be universally applied to all human beings. And if it is universally applied to all human beings, then each individual must effectively be shielded from invasion/aggression by the other. The non-aggression principle represents this quite well. For the non-aggression principle leaves each individual free to persue their self-interest without infringing on the liberty of anyone else.

Rational egoism and the non-initiation of aggression go hand in hand. The rational egoist does not steal from others because they wouldn't like to be stolen form. A parasite eventually destroys its host, which destroys itself. And the rational egoist is concious of the fact that they can actually benefit more in the long-run through voluntary trade. The rational egoist has no compeling reason to go around assaulting and murdering others who have not threatened their lives or property. They realize that they would be destroying the very social order that benefits them, which will diminish their utility in the long-run. Of course, if people are sovereign self-owners, then in order to be logically consistant the criteria once again applies universally. While the rational egoist refuses to recognize any positive obligations to others, they do not demand such obligations from others either. While they refuse to be enslaved by others, they also do not enslave others.

Rational Egoism Applied: The Ethics of Being a Solider

I reject the idea that soldiers are virtuous altruists who sacrifices themselves for the sake of my freedom. Put in plain, albiet uneasy to swallow terms, a non-drafted solider is someone who is willing to murder for the state. I do not respect this, nor do I find it virtuous in any way. This fact is often obscured with the idea that a non-drafted soldier is someone who is willing to sacrifice their lives for the state (which I find irrational to begin with), but it is never aknowledged that they are people who are willing to take the lives of others for the state as well. Let me make it plain and clear: you have no altruistic duty to sacrifice for me, and I do not want your sacrifice. Nor will I bow down and worshop you.

I empathize with soldiers only to the extent that they are forced into such a position against their will. This is especially true in the case of a draft, which is involuntary servitude and thus unethical at the root. But to the extent that soldiers may willingly choose to murder for the state, I do not empathize at all. This being said, I can relate to the idea that soldiers could be viewed as pawns for the higher-ups, since it is the generals and politicians who ultimately send them off to foreign lands and centrally plan such endeavors. But the old "I was just following orders" precedent will not fly with me. You could very well not follow immoral orders if you have the courage to. That's what takes true courage. There is nothing rational about sacrificing oneself to benefit rulers.

Conclusion

The consistant application of rational egoism may lead to some controversial yet absolutely logical implications. Rational egoism is a commonly misunderstood philosophical position in that it is often miscontrued as sanctioning hedonism and unbridled narcissism, but this is not the case if one actually understands what it means and implies. It should not be confused with the style of near-nihilistic egoism espoused by the likes of Max Stirner. It is not "might makes right". Properly understood, it is a philosophical basis for a voluntary ethic in human interaction. For there is ultimately nothing more rational and more beneficial to the individual then universally applied liberty.