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August 07, 2007

Ezra Klein comments on Ayn Rand

Ezra Klein, a prominent liberal blogger, recently posted the following:

Reading this perfectly serious attempt to lay out Ayn Rand's objections to utilitarianism, I'm reminded of how utterly astonishing I find it that anyone takes her seriously. Listen to this stuff: "The irreducible primary of altruism, the basic absolute, is self-sacrifice - which means: self-immolation, self-abnegation, self-denial, self-destruction - which means: the self as a standard of evil, the selfless as a standard of the good."

Do people really find that compelling?

Ezra is one of the most intelligent and fair-minded liberal bloggers out there, so I thought I'd take his question at face value and respond, with the following in his comments section:

Hi Ezra,

As a regular reader of your blog, I thought I'd chime in to say that I do find Rand compelling.

Yes, I first discovered Rand when I was fairly young, when I was about 17. Interestingly, I had already read a lot of philosophy by that time. I had just finished reading A Theory of Justice and considered myself to be a pretty serious advocate of Rawlsian liberalism. So I wasn't exactly approaching Rand as a complete know-nothing.

I only picked up The Fountainhead in the first place because I thought writing an essay for the Ayn Rand Institute's contest would be an easy way to help pay for college. I didn't expect to agree with Rand's philosophy. But I actually ended up liking the book, and didn't even bother entering the essay contest. I later started to read her nonfiction, including books by her students, and found their arguments compelling. That is the main reason I continue to like her.

There's been a lot of Rand-bashing in the blogosphere as of late, regarding the motivations of the people who read her and what they're trying to rationalize. I think it's unfounded:

http://www.noumenalself.com/archives/2007/07/im_kind_of_a_ph_1.html

Sanpete mentions an Objectivist philosophy grad student who doesn't fit the stereotype of obnoxious "selfishness." I've met many of these non-stereotypical Rand admirers in my travels through the Objectivist movement. But WB Reeves is correct that Objectivists "range from princes of character...to venal buffoons of the lowest rank." The same is true, I imagine, for individuals who adhere to many ideologies.

There is some confusion in this comment section about how Rand's advocacy of selfishness could be consistent with an Aristotelian approach to virtue. I could say a number of things here, but instead I'll just point Ezra's readers to *Ayn Rand's Normative Ethics: The Virtuous Egoist*, a recent book from Cambridge by Professor Tara Smith:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0521705460

Not exactly 17-year-old fare. But to give a short answer myself: I think you'll find that Aristotelian ethics in particular would find the concept of an ethics of self-sacrifice to be incredibly alien. Aristotle thinks that the virtuous man is a lover of self. And this is compatible with love for others: we have friends, Aristotle says, because they are like "another self." Aristotle's ideas are not entirely consistent with Rand, but there is a significant amount of overlap.

Likewise, Ayn Rand though that self-interest was a far richer concept that is conventional to believe. Self-interest is not reducible merely to economic calculus, but is constituted instead by values like reason, productive work, and self-esteem. This includes the values of love and friendship. The boundaries of the self are wider than many would admit, but they are not infinitely elastic. There is still such a thing as self-sacrifice, and it is morally corrupt. It is a virtue to give up money to help your sick wife. It is a vice to sacrifice that money to help a stranger's sick wife and let your own die.

As for those who are contending that Rand's philosophy was just some kind of response to her life under communism: She denied this, and her biography suggests that she held many of her central ideas before the 1917 revolution. Surely her experience in Russia informed her worldview, but it certainly didn't stop her from critiquing the ills of American society that she encountered when she got here, even though it was the anathema of Soviet Russia. Careful readers of The Fountainhead will notice a Sinclair Lewis-style satire of American commercial culture.

NS

I encourage other Objectivists to add their own polite and evenhanded comments.

Posted by admin at August 7, 2007 02:19 PM

Comments

Posted by: Jake Young at August 7, 2007 06:52 PM

Posted by: Dan Edge at August 10, 2007 11:16 AM

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