Category Archives: Ethical Egoism

Where to Stream

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt has always had a flirtationwith academia. Specifically, therainbow-colored sitcoms first two seasons were based around Greek philosophys biggest hits. Season One, which followed Kimmy (Ellie Kemper) as she emerged from an underground bunker, grappled with the crushing weight of the real world, and then returned to the bunker to save her fellow mole women was a beat-for-beat comedic re-enactment of Platos cave allegory and Season Two dug into Aristotles katharsis. NowSeason Three isproving that Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt is the smartest show on television right now.

In previous seasons, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidts interest in philosophy was always conveyed via metaphors and slapdash allusions, but in Season Three, it enters the spotlight.Daveed Diggs plays Kimmys love interest, Perry, an earnest philosophy student who encourages Kimmy to study the great thinkers of history. And so, after a fluke meeting lands her a full scholarship to Columbia University, Kimmy becomes a philosophy student. An entire episode is devoted to her fumbling her way through the morality of utilitarianism only to have her philosophy professor point out the fallacy of it all. Philosophy is dumb, he says after running through the pros and cons of Kant and ethical egoism (the latter of which gets a wink from Titus). The season ends with Kimmy applying utilitarianism to areal life quandary: would she give her life up to save pedestrians as a crossing guard? Other episodes deal with the concepts of justice and religious morality. Another episode features her joining Perry in an ill-conceived rap about Platos Phaedo. Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidtcant talk about philosophy enough.

In fact, the entire arc of Season Three can be summed up as Kimmy and her friends confront their personal moral philosophies. Everyones core belief system is shook and everyone must confront change. Titus (Tituss Burgess) has to come to grips with the fact that his (almost objectivist??) selfish outlook on life has handicapped his relationships with others and his ability to self-improve. Lillian (Carol Kane) has to learn how to accept change both in the neighborhood and in her personal life. Finally, Jacqueline (Jane Krakowski) fully evolves from a vapid trophy wife into a self-actualized, three-dimensional woman who puts causes she believes in over the approval of the Manhattans elite. Seriously! While other comedieskeep their main characters in the same mindsets season after season, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt has challenged its protagonists to their very core. The comedy comes from the very human, and often existential, growing pains.

The jokes have also gotten smarter. The barbs were always sharp, but now its like the show is trying to outsmart its own audience in a way that can only be described as peak Tina Fey. I mean,naming a community college the Robert Moses College for Whites Everyone might be the deepest scholastic jab Ive seen in a sitcom since 30 Rock dropped that Jack Donaghey won the Amory Blaine Handsomeness Scholarship to Princeton. (The UKS reference is to Robert Moses renowned racism as exposed in the Pulitzer Prize-winning tome The Power Broker, and the 30 Rock joke is a dig at F. Scott Fitzgeralds other great literary hero, an aimless Princeton student who was indeed, very handsome.)

A lot of the seasons best moments come from nuanced explorations of big tent issues. Complicated topics like feminism and safe spaces and religion get deconstructed with wit, and yes, warmth. Many of these issues were brushed offin the service of punchlines in prior seasons, sparking bits of backlash. And so, the fact that these topics are included in the plot this year show that the shows writing staff has been doing some soul-searching of its own. Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt is a show that is constantly appraising itself in much the same way as its characters. So its kind of as self-actualized as a 13-episode half hour long comedy series can get.

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt may enjoy pop culture jokes and absurd set pieces, but its comedy is rooted in the most profound philosophies of our civilization. Its ability to balance these contradictions only further illustrates the depths of its wisdom and how gosh darn smart the show really is.

Stream Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt on Netflix

More:

'Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt' Season Three Proves It's The Smartest Show On Television - Decider

From all interrogations in symposia, lectures, workshops, conferences, submissions of policy makers and independent opinions of parents and parent teachers associations, Nigeria is in dire need of quality education characterised by duty, moral obligation and moral commitment different from the status-quo. Quality education can be defined as formal learning in schools, polytechnics and universities squarely related to individual well-being, competence, rights, duties, obligation, aspirations and national goals, a kind of integrated and holistic development of the individual and the society. Absence of quality education makes nonsense the ideal of individuals and societys developments leading most often than not to violence, poverty, unemployment, corruption, graft, unaccountability and political instability. The cause and course are historically and vertically decipherable and horizontally clear and reducible. The dramatic fall in the quality of education is not an idea, not a myth but a reality which is a subject of contemporary history and sociological anthropology. We live by it and we live in it but paradoxically most us pretend not to be aware while pointing accusing fingers to their next neighbours. The historical and the anthropological nature of the phenomenon which calls for a synthetic apriori surgery, objective and sensible analysis is simply a reminder of the myopic, narrow minded straight jacket and suicide driven complexity of western capitalism which, though is being strenuously combated by the inventors, the western and U.S.A governments, is irresponsibly and unaccountably being used or allowed to inflict unbounded mortal injuries on Nigeria and African countries.

As we swim through this turbulent ocean of search, cognition, apperception and rediscovery of our cultural destiny anthropological re-definition of history is one solution to lack of quality education and another is the synchronic or structural analysis of the way out of the accumulated deposits of history, bourgeois elitism and satanic technology, or rather western monotheism, absolutism and imperialism

One monumental cause of disabled education in Nigeria is the failure of our successive governments to capture the price or negative side effects of western civilisations, and cushion them, as the originators have been doing, in the management of our educational and development polices. If our governments received or followed western styled systems discriminatively, we would have benefited qualitatively from western civilisations, just as they did with our African Egyptian civilisations, and achieved a synthesis of the African and western to become one of the bastions of glowing and expanding cultures.

Capitalism and liberal democracy is an expanding universe of an idea, the bastion and torchlight of western civilisations, which has enslaved most African nations in a box, a highly limited universe, an analogy of a prison yard or a demonic stronghold under the watchdog of capitalism, the Lucifer. The Lucifer, capitalism, an idea, demon itself, has the freedom to parade and monitor those it has kept in prison while the in-makes of the prison yard have no freedom and have no alternative source of life and energy. They have no idea any longer, for theirs had been killed by a strong idea. Yet the Bible warned us to fear most the power that kills our bodies and souls and fear less the one that kills only the body. But here is the demon, capitalism that has killed the African soul, even stolen it for its own chemistry and alchemy leaving the in-mates of African prison yard with no alternative while they intensively and extensively, from the collections of cultural artifacts from all parts of world, search for alternatives to their economies and education that suffer the headache or side-effects of their own capitalism.

The anthropological anatomy of Nigerian failed education, the pedagogy of the colonial education is, therefore, lack of alternative inherent with the in-mate in the prison yard and the only solution is to recapture the African soul and grant her freedom to search for contemporary alternative to contemporary educational problems. Historically speaking, capitalism breeds the knack to get rich quick, corruption and indiscipline. These side-effects of capitalism are rapidly pulling down Nigerian universities and schools while it is seriously being checked in the country of capitalist origin (U.S.A).

There are a number of unethical non-pedagogic and non-epistemic issues which underline the foundation of failed education programme in Nigeria. The liberal democratic reforms or growth which expanded the democratic specie for higher institutions has yielded a multiplier effect of vices that accompany individualism, free market forces and primitive competition. The underlying vices are corruption, graft, unaccountability, impunity, mediocrity and erosion of quality assurance in Nigerias higher institutions.

These vice chancellors know and sustain it either unconsciously or consciously, advertently or inadvertently, former ministers of education and former Heads of State, perhaps, not conscious enough to reflect upon their own educational back grounds are carried away by the paraphernalia of offices; but definitely the average rational Nigerian in the street or in the re-mote villages natural habitat knows this but could not reach out even to his local governments chairman because of outrageous gaps or alienation caused by the overarching power, dominion and surreptitious security, nor could he get to the local government quarters because of high transportation cost and bad road. These are moral burdens of the oppressed in the society stifled and blighted from their capacity to contribute to knowledge growth in their environment. This is, by all means, a case of disallowing the citizenry from participating in knowledge sharing and when the suppression of a peoples latent skills and knowledge goes on unabated the height of absurdity is reached when rebellion in forms of Boko Haram, insurgency, robbery, social and political crises and instability sets on.

Education substantiates the moral worth of an individual as a moral and rational agent grounded in the Immanuel Kants categorical imperative which treats man as an end (Kant, 1788). Certain contraries or antinomies are negations of this moral worth of the individual. Nigerias educational failure would continue to subsist unless these negativities are challenged by ethical, cultural and epistemic solution

Firstly, the appointment and promotion of teachers from the primary schools through the secondary schools to the universities has been drastically compromised since 1980s. Stake holders of education in Nigeria have alleged that people from nowhere are lifted out of social or pecuniary interests and appointed lecturers whose primary contribution is to become professors and Head of institutions the way they were appointed. The traditional and excellence yardstick of epistemic and cognitive endowment decipherable from undergraduate school continuous assessment and final year results has been shortchanged by extraneous considerations and impunity. Strange category of conversion of administrative staff, primary and secondary school teachers, staff relations and wards and so on and so forth into academic positions in the universities has drastically jettisoned the irreducible minimum for academic appointments. This conversion absurdity has impetuously and pathologically dissipated the rigorous intellectualisation of the fetus of Higher Education in Nigeria.

Secondly the idea of institutional and university autonomy is like a blanket power vested on the heads of institution to appoint lecturers and professors without pause, which at any rate is justified by the currency of bourgeois autonomy properly construed, where professorship, according to critics, is lacking in international content in most Universities in Nigeria. Perhaps, the National Universities commission needs to seek for a redefinition of what makes a Professorship and who or what identifies it and in what context. This is the critical and dialectics juncture where most Vice Chancellors or Professors are found to be least qualified because those who go for equity must go with clean hands. The deontological ethical problem of Higher Education in Nigeria is, therefore, that the fingers of the managements are dripping with filths and cankerworms totally devoid of equity, honesty and justice of knowledge power.

Thirdly that some Universities allegedly reject some professors for appointments for sabbatical or substantive positions based on lack of merit only portrays poor quality of some Nigeria professors and teachers as well as that teaching and research is questionable in some University where conference sponsorship, TET Fund grant, Committee membership, Directorship, Deanship and Headship depend on your political portfolio or affiliation with the Vice-Chancellor.

Universities and other Higher Institutions are the ideal places for recognition of intellectual powers, creativity and pedagogy. But the opposite is the case in Nigeria. Battle-cry trails appointments in the universities and so merits are relegated to background. Quota and favoured appointments and professors are most often the gifted for the battle-cry for positions.

Fourthly, increasing population and expansion of number of universities are not being managed to correspond in geometrical proportions to the quality of education instead it has brought a rapidly alarming rate of educational corruption; as this phenomenon has released unmerited lecturers and teachers who cannot afford to sit down for at least one minute to ponder, cogitate on problem predicate, yet the system appoint and promote lecturers and professors indiscriminately every year. Fifthly, sorting-out, bribery and favoritism in higher institutions of learning are a society induced, a symptom of primitive and barbaric capitalism. A streaming population of unrestrained youths falls into the lap of ethnic, sectional and sectarian generated corrupt lecturers in order to grease the elbow of get certificate quick syndrome in our universities, some of which has been reduced to the status of Business centres.

The problem of Nigeria education has passed the level of describing it as facing challenges but is in a state of near irreversible chaos which however, can be paradoxically and mutably be re-written in new education history and constitution for our country. When a piece of history gets to its dead end only a revolution can re-define it.

It is against the above background that the National University Commission and the Ministry of Education need to express the rational and retro-active win to re-fashion our educational system that will meet the challenge of future Nigeria. First, funding, discipline and merit should be the defining principles of educational, academic and administrative actions in tertiary institutions. This will be enhanced if true academics and not politicians in academic gowns are appointed Heads of institution.

Secondly, corporate sector, individuals and business organisations participations in educational sector as players and partners have become imperative in the contemporary lopsided society and economic meltdown. Nigerias value system need to be attacked positively to avert the trend where social responsibility is a phobia, where egoism is philosophy and where politicians spent millions in a failed Senatorial election and millions in a failed House of Assembly election.

Thirdly parent teachers associations should be elevated to a corporate and responsible level and accordingly headed by responsible and influential personalities who can reduce or unmaske Heads of institutions and their lecturers in the discharge of their real duties. We can discern this sense of duty from Bill Gates financial and moral support to the American federation of teachers and whose speeches to the teachers on 2010/7 are reported thus:

We have made public schools our top priority in the United States because, we believe, as you do, that nothing is more important for Americas youth and nothing means more for the future of the country If great teaching is the most powerful point of leverage, how are we going to help more teachers become great (Bill Gates, 2010).

This sermon on educational reform from within the world greatest liberal capitalist society and from the richest man and capitalist bastion in the world is a testament that capitalism can reform itself in a deontological way and that the self-inflicted unethical practices in the Nigerias liberal capitalist economy is both paradoxical and absurd.

Fourthly, as a matter of educational policy government should initiate a road-map in a revolutionary manner that would redefine the goal of Nigerias educational system which is currently only organized for the industrial age, a hang-over from colonialism and western mentality and cataclysmic jump over knowledge based economy; when indeed the west moved from knowledge economy to organized industrial age. The jump to education organized for industrial age without first of all meeting the demands of education based on knowledge economy is a fallacy: a blind action without premise that has set African educational system, especially the Nigerian on the perpetual teeth of failure and somersault.

Fifthly, good governance is the bottom line answer to educational failure in Nigeria without which democracy will not be sustained and corruption triumphs. In a corrupt country even private initiative in education will be corrupt. The table is tumbling, to use Professor Peter Okebukolas inaugural lectures apt description of the state of education in Nigeria, is a requiem for the dearth of the deontological and normative foundation of education in Nigeria.

There is an adage that says that anything worth doing at all is worth doing well. Democracy and good governance must go along with social responsibility and private sector initiative and participation in education. Beyond this, Higher Education must have an epistemological and normative chain with the primary and secondary education awash with duty, moral obligation and moral commitments on both the part of teachers, their environment and stakeholders. Education should be seen as the bedrock of political stability, employment, value chain and wealth creation.

Dukor is Professor of Philosophy at Nnamdi Azikiwe University and President/ Editor in-chief of Essence Library.

This post was syndicated from The Guardian Nigeria Newspaper | Nigeria News and World News. Click here to read the full text on the original website.

Do you something awesome to share with the world? Click here to share

Do you ever have any question about anything you wish to ask and get answer? Click here to ask

Follow us on twitter @NigeriaTodayNG

Also, Like us on facebook

Read the rest here:

Ethical issues in Nigeria's higher education and governance - Nigeria Today

Selfies and participation trophies may not be the downfall of society. Courtesy photo

By Monica Sanchez

Millennials are the worst, right? Theyre annoying and overbearingly doing some kind of action that irks the dark recesses of societys soul. What must be done about this incessant Millennial problem that is spreading its infectious ideology across the globe?

Its rather difficult to come up with a wholly effective solution to the Millennial problem, but lets think radically for a moment on how to go about handling such people and what they represent. Quite simply, accept it. All these grievances being echoed on repeat dont exactly give Millennials any credit whatsoever, and as human beings, Millennials at the very least have some redeeming characteristics.

So lets reevaluate five common grievances about Millennials that are actually character strengths:

Theyre always on their phone.

Hello and welcome to the present, where career networking is now accomplished through social networking. Millennials are always on their phone not just to show how lit their night was on Snapchat but to build and maintain positive relationships with others and reach out to people or companies they normally would not be able to communicate with.

While the phone and social media naysayers might feel the need to interject with Why dont you just meet them in person?

In the working world, thats not always possible due to time constraints and conflicting schedules. Keeping in contact with people via texts and social media is more convenient and reliable for the working Millennial who may be juggling two jobs, a masters program, and even a child.

Staying on top of social media communication is also a great way for Millennials aspiring towards a specific career to get their start. See the past Millennial Feed article: Why Employers Want Millennials With Social Media Skills.

Because Millennials use their phones incessantly for career networking, they have built an aptitude for immersive learning that other generations have not completely caught onto yet. Walk into a random office on any given day, and you will inevitably be a witness to someone calling a Millennial for help with a computer issue. Phones are the gateway device to immersive learning, and the griping and grievances about Millennials on their phones must end if they are constantly sought after for their technological skills.

Theyre entitled because they were given participation trophies as kids.

Surprisingly, participation trophies have led to intrinsic motivation within Millennials. Because Millennials have been told that they were valued as children, it made them significantly more optimistic and confident than children who did not receive the same level of attention or appreciation.

As a result, they have caused Millennials to want to complete a task or try something new not out of the prospect of a possible reward or an answer to Whats in it for me? Instead, those horrid golden prizes have caused Millennials to complete tasks in order to gain enjoyment and pleasure from simply participating in various activities. Active participation is a nostalgic reminder of their childhood, and nostalgia is a dictator that rules a large portion of most peoples choices throughout life. In this case for Millennials, that strict dictatorship is a positive factor in their lives because nostalgia can lendmuch-needed context, perspective, and direction (Psychology Today), which it has by laying the foundation for the desire to achieve intrinsic rewards through simple participation.

A common complaint about participation trophies that reverberates throughout older generations is that they are sole contributor of the downfall of the Millennial generation. The complaints heard across the country go as follows: Participation trophies make kids afraid of failure, or participation trophies make them feel entitled to everything.

On the contrary, those participation trophies have given Millennials confidence to seek new experiences, chase different opportunities, and try new activities, even if they may not exactly be good at them.

And Millennials are not so hopelessly delusional as one might think. They are aware that they will not just magically get everything that they want because they were told theyre special once after a soccer game when they were eight years old.

Most importantly, participation trophies have also taught Millennials how to show appreciation and respect for others no matter who they are, which is a contributing factor as to why Millennials care so much about social justice. A person who feels entitled and superior to others would not even think twice about social justice.

They have no respect for authority.

Millennials lack of blind obedience to authority obviously makes them the most disrespectful generation to ever have existed. How dare they question anything!

While its unthinkable that Millennials, as human beings, would have curiosity and feel compelled to wonder why things are the way they are, its important to note that this behavioral trait is not unique to Millennials alone. Curiosity is a personality component that applies to the youth in every generation.

Plus, being able to question things is a trait that society should want Millennials to have too. In fact, St. Edwards University claims that great leaders know that the path to exceptional growth and performance often requires upending existing ideas to choose a new path, noting examples such as Michael Dell, founder and CEO of Dell, and Pope Francis, who both questioned the status quo in their respective fields.

Questioning the status quo demonstrates that the Millennial generation can think critically about difficult situations and will ultimately lead them to generate alternative solutions to societal problems. Millennials have the skills to become leaders of the future, and it all begins with questioning authority. And Millennials will continue to do so because they dont simply accept whatever is happening to them. Their posts on social media and active participation in political protests prove just that. At the end of the day, people should want Millennials to be leaders and not followers.

Theyre selfish and self-absorbed.

Every side has its story, and from the Millennials point of view, their so-called selfishness and self-absorbed behavior is simply a positive sense of focus.

Yes, Millennials love to post what theyre doing with their lives online, especially their accomplishments. Millennials goals are important to them. They like talking about and sharing their goals with others via social media because it helps keep them focused on working towards achieving them. And when they finally achieve those goals, isnt it a reasonable concept that people might possibly be proud of their accomplishments in life?

Millennials are also aware that its a cruel world, and the philosophy of ethical egoism states that people ought to do whatever action maximizes ones own self-interest (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, a person can be morally right if they positively achieve such an action without detrimentally harming the well-being of others.

In a competitive job market, Millennials already know that they need to do whatever it takes to survive, even if they have to resort to tactics of ethical egoism and annoy people with their goals and accomplishments by showcasing them online.

Theyre unrealistic.

Oh, Millennials and their unrealistic expectationswhen will they learn that humanity is not allowed to have dreams, goals, or any hope for something better in life?

What some people might label as unrealistic optimism and expectations, Millennials will refer to as positivity. This strange but ancient concept is vital to peoples mental and physical health. Harvard Health Publications states that optimism helps people cope with disease and recover from surgery. And the University of Rochester Medical Health Center informs the public that optimistic people tend to live longer and have better physical and mental health than pessimistic people.

Its important to find ways to stay positive just to maintain basic mental and physical health in order to keep trudging on because life is hard! Thats an obvious statement that shouldnt bear repeating. But with all the frustration directed towards Millennials high levels of optimism, society seems to need a reminder that optimism is actually a good trait to have. So if some Millennials are a little more optimistic than the average person, then let them be for their own well-being.

Millennials have had to swallow a lot of criticism and hold their tongues at times in order to avoid being labeled as disrespectful and rude. But George Orwell had it right in relaying that every generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it. Perhaps, Millennials will be regurgitating similar phrases of negativity and bitterness when youth has shed itself of them too.

Hopefully, that is not the case and Millennials will learn, based on their experiences, to end this detrimental cycle of blatant ageism. But it is only human nature to comment and react negatively to things we find unpleasant due to a lack of comprehension. Moving forward, lets avoid holding onto personal bias and be more willing to learn from each other, for every generation has invaluable wisdom to offer.

Read the original post:

Are These 5 Grievances About Millennials Character Strengths? - monroviaweekly

Psychological Egoism and Ethical Egoism

Sandra LaFave West Valley College

Psychological Egoism

Psychological egoism is the claim that people always act selfishly, to foster their own self-interest or happiness. Psychological hedonism is the claim that people always act to attain their own pleasure and avoid pain. Psychological hedonism is also called the pleasure principle.

In these notes, Ill give arguments against psychological egoism. However, the same arguments apply against psychological hedonism.

Is psychological egoism a fact (a true claim)? If it is true, ethics is in trouble, because most traditional ethical systems demand at least occasional altruism (unselfish behavior). If psychological egoism were true, altruism would not be possible. We would have to explain apparent (what appears as) altruism as self-interest. For example, we wouldnt say Mother Teresa is altruistic; wed say that shes self-interested. Shes using the poor to attain her own long-term spiritual goals.

In fact, people who think psychological egoism is true (such as Thomas Hobbes and Ayn Rand) often use it as a premise in an argument to deny the validity of traditional ethics altogether:

1. (Psychological egoism): People always and invariably act to foster their own self-interest.

2. Traditional ethical systems demand at least occasional altruism (non-self-interested behavior).

3. In demanding altruism, traditional ethical systems are demanding the impossible. (They might as well demand that people fly.)

4. Any ethical systems that demands the impossible is silly and stupid.

5. Traditional ethical systems are silly and stupid.

6. We should adopt a more realistic system, ethical egoism, which demands that we pursue self-interest.

But psychological egoism is a surprisingly weak claim. If it is false, then the above argument against ethics is unsound. Here are some reasons not to take psychological egoism seriously.

Critique #1: Psychological egoism is not true, on face value, in a simple, naive sense. That is, it's easy to think of counterexamples cases that falsify the generalization that all human acts are selfish, i.e., cases of people acting unselfishly. It certainly appears that people sometimes act in ways that are not in accord with their own interests: the soldier who falls on the grenade to save his buddies, the person who runs into the busy street to save a child about to be run over, etc. Psychological egoism is only true if you adopt what Rachels calls the strategy of redefining motives. That is, you insist on claiming that people are really acting selfishly even when they appear to be acting unselfishly.

But this strategy has two problems. First, if all human actions are self-interested, then self-interested actions become, by definition, identical with actions. That is, these two expressions denote exactly the same set of actions, and thus are substitutable for each other. It then becomes impossible to disprove the claim that all human actions are self-interested, because the claim, after substitution, becomes a vacuous tautology: All human actions are human actions.

Try to imagine what it would take to disprove the claim that all human actions are self-interested. The claim would be definitely disproved if we could come up with one human action that wasn't self-interested, i.e., a counterexample. But if by definition all human actions are self-interested, there can be no possible counterexample. If there are no possible counterexamples, then the claim all human acts are self-interested is not falsifiable. If the claim is not falsifiable, then according to the verificationist criterion, the claim is meaningless.

So the claim all human acts are self-interested is either tautologous (true by definition, and therefore uninteresting, like All circles are round) or unfalsifiable (and therefore meaningless).

Besides, even if the egoist still insists on claiming that all human acts are self-interested, the egoist must deal with the puzzling fact that some acts appear to be non-self-interested. Now the anti-egoist could say, Okay, I still think you egoists are wrong to say there are no unselfish acts. But even if there arent any, your position is no threat to ethics. There are still the self-interested selfish acts and the self-interested acts that appear to be unselfish. Saying all human acts are self-interested doesn't make that empirical distinction go away. And that empirical distinction is where ethics can start. Well grant for the sake of argument that all human acts are self-interested, and then simply say that ethics sometimes demands that people perform those self-interested but seemingly unselfish acts. The claim that all human acts are self-interested is no problem, as long as some acts appear altruistic. And they do.

Critique #2: Self-interest and interest in the welfare of others aren't necessarily incompatible. One might be perfectly self-interested and look out for the interests of others e.g., a shopkeeper who never cheats his customers simply because he knows honesty is good for business.

Critique #3: Psychological egoism relies on an oversimplified conception of human motives. Of course it is true that we often get satisfaction or good feelings from acting unselfishly. But it is not necessarily true that we perform unselfish acts solely for the sake of that satisfaction. P1 commits a fallacy assuming that given two events E1 and E2, E2 occurring after E1, that E2 was the intended result of E1. But everyone knows the following argument is not valid; its a kind of post hoc fallacy:

P1: E2 happens after E1

C: E2 is the intended result of E1.

Suppose, for example, that you are a soldier and you save your friend's life in combat, and you also happen to receive a medal for that. Call E2 your receiving the medal, E1 your act of saving your friend's life. It does not follow from the fact that you received the medal (or self-satisfaction, or good feelings, or whatever) after saving your friend's life that your intention in saving him was to get the medal. Similarly, it doesn't follow that if you get some good feelings or self-satisfaction after saving your friend's life that you saved his life in order to get those good feelings. You didnt save your friend in order to feel good; rather, you feel good because you saved your friend.

Another example: you see your child run into a busy street. A car is driving very fast toward the child. You see that you can save the childs life if you run out into the street and grab the child in your arms. Realizing this, do you now stop and calculate how much happiness youll receive if you save the child? Do you say to yourself, Gee, it would make me feel really good to save my child. So I guess Ill do it! No. You feel good after saving the child because you saved the child. You didnt save the child in order to feel good.

In general, you feel good when you get things you already value. You dont derive the value of something by estimating how good youd feel if you had it. Its goodness doesnt come from that; rather, your good feelings about having it come from the fact that you think its good, independently of whether you have it.

Ethical Egoism

Hobbes argued that psychological egoism implies ethical egoism. In other words, Hobbes claimed that the following argument is sound:

P1: (Psychological egoism or hedonism): People always and invariably act as to foster their own self-interest, in accordance with self-love, or the pleasure principle, etc.

C: (Ethical egoism): People should always act so as to foster their own interests.

Ethical egoism has never been a mainstream view in ethics. Here are some counterarguments:

1. The ethical egoist conclusion (people should always act so as to benefit themselves) not only does not follow from psychological egoism (the premise) but is actually inconsistent with it! The ethical egoist thinks we should pursue self-interest because we cant help but do so. But if we must pursue self-interest, as the premise states, then whats the point of saying we should? If psychological egoism is true, we cant act any other way. In other words, ethical egoism only makes sense if psychological egoism is false, i.e., if we have a genuine choice.

2. The premise of the argument (psychological egoism or hedonism) is highly questionable, for the reasons given in the first part of this handout. If you reject psychological egoism, then the argument for ethical egoism is unsound because its premise is false.

3. Ethical egoists think that people will be happiest if they look out for themselves and not concern themselves with others But is this where true human happiness lies? Many other writers e.g., Erich Fromm, John Stuart Mill, and most major world religions claim that as a matter of fact, people who systematically disregard the interests of others are not as happy as people who maintain caring relationships. So, for example, selfish Mr. Burns on The Simpsons isnt cant be be as happy as Marge Simpson.

4. Ethical egoists such as Ayn Rand often talk as though theres a conflict between my happiness and the happiness of others. This seems just false. The happiness of others is not inconsistent with my happiness; in fact, the happiness or well-being of others might be a necessary component of my happiness. Happiness is not a zero-sum game: its not like theres only so much happiness to go around, so that if I get some, somebody else loses some! This is whats wrong with Harry Brownes big red ball argument. Its clearly a dubious analogy.

5. It's not clear how an ethical egoist would act as a moral advisor or moral judge in cases where the egoist's happiness is involved. Suppose I am an ethical egoist, so I believe that everyone ought to act for his/her own benefit. Say Terry wants to have sex with you, and youre thinking about it, but you're not really sure it's a good idea, so you and Terry discuss it. Suppose Terry knows it would be better for you if you didn't sleep with Terry; but Terry also thinks it would be in Terrys interest if you did. Now you ask Terry what you should do. What answer does Terry give, supposing Terry is an ethical egoist? Remember Terrys view is that everyone ought to act to benefit him/herself. Does Terry give you the advice that benefits you or the advice that benefits Terry?

6. Some writers say ethical egoism is ultimately inconsistent. To be inconsistent is to be guilty of self-contradiction. So the argument against egoism is that ethical egoists must ultimately contradict themselves. Since self-contradiction is a big problem in logic, showing that someone is guilty of it is an excellent refutation technique.

To show that egoists are guilty of self-contradiction, the argument is: suppose everyone were consistently selfish (selfish all the time), and, as often happens in life, some misfortune arises and the egoist now needs the unselfish help of another. If everyone is a consistent egoist, the egoist wont get the help he needs. So in the interests of self-interest, an egoist must reject egoism, at least sometimes; in other words, the egoist must be inconsistent. The egoist really doesnt want everyone to be selfish all the time, because ethical egoism, if adopted universally, would lead to undesirable social consequences.

Interestingly, in Egoism and Moral Skepticism, James Rachels argues that ethical egoism is not inconsistent. You can explore that interesting argument yourself.

7. According to Rachels, the best argument against ethical egoism is its unacceptable arbitrariness. The egoist arbitrarily assumes his interests come before those of other people. But as a matter of fact, no one person matters that much more than others. Egoism is like racism. Racism assumes that the interests of one race count more than the interests of others, for no good reason (i.e., arbitrarily). Likewise, egoism assumes that the interests of one person count more than the interests of others, for no good reason.

How Egoism Might be True

This deep egoism would also be true if seeking the good of others were, as a matter of fact, the major and most gratifying source of happiness for people. Is it? Note that this question (What makes people happiest?) appears to be empirical, and thus resolvable one way or the other using ordinary methods of observation and experiment. Do you think it's really an empirical matter? If it is, what are the facts?

Original post:

Psychological Egoism and Ethical Egoism

This article is adapted fromAQ'sspecial issue on the U.S.-Mexico relationship. To receiveAQat home,subscribe here.

I recently asked a group of mostly American students to identify important military figures in wars involving the United States. They easily produced names from the War of Independence, the Civil War and World War II. But they went blank trying to remember heroes from other wars, including one in particular: the Mexican-American War of 18461848. Most could sing the opening line from the Marine Hymn, From the Halls of Montezuma but none knew where it came from.

Are there some wars that nations prefer to forget? Such collective amnesia is odd, since the Mexican-American War marked such a pivotal moment in the history of both countries. The story is certainly better known in Mexico, which lost half its territory in the war and still remembers the nios heroes, a group of teenage cadets who bravely resisted the U.S. invasion of Mexico City and then leaped to their death off the barricades of Chapultepec Castle rather than surrender to the gringo invaders. But overall, on both sides of the border, the war is viewed mostly with regretand, perhaps, as a cautionary tale on the unique perils of picking a fight with ones neighbor.

For the United States, the war heralded the triumph of Manifest Destiny while also nurturing the 19th-century notion of the invincible Anglo-Saxon man, destined to rule over lesser peoples, brown and black. With the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo that ended the war, the United States increased its size by more than a thirdvirtually all of the American Southwest. But what most altered U.S. history was the consequent debate on whether the annexed territories should become free or slave states, a debate that helped trigger the American Civil War.

Several distinguished Americans condemned the war. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau and Walt Whitman censured it on ethical grounds. Abraham Lincoln argued that it had no legal justification. William Lloyd Garrison, abolitionist par excellence, summed the war up as follows:

If ever war was waged for basest ends, By means perfidious, profligate and low, It is the present war with Mexico, Which in deep guilt all other wars transcends.

Perhaps the most withering criticism of the war can be found in Ulysses S. Grants memoirs, where he writes that (The) occupation, separation and annexation (of Texas) were, from the inception of the movement to its final consummation, a conspiracy to acquire territory out of which slave states might be formed for the American Union. It was an instance of a republic following the bad examples of European monarchies, in not considering justice in their desire to acquire additional territory. A page later, he affirms that (The) Southern rebellion was largely the outgrowth of the Mexican war. Nations, like individuals, are punished for their transgressions. We got our punishment in the most sanguinary and expensive war of modern times. In sum, Grant saw the Civil War as a divine retribution for what the U.S. did to Mexico.

If the United States chooses not to remember the war, Mexicans remember it too wellbut with a mixture of pride and shame. In addition to the courageous nios hroes, they can take pride in the guerilla tactics of Father Jarauta, who repeatedly disrupted Winfred Scotts supply lines. They might also remember the Patricios, the Irish-American soldiers who defected to Mexico rather than fight against fellow Catholics, as well as the countless Mexican campesinos forced to fight under incompetent generals like Antonio Lpez de Santana. General Grant writes of these men:

The Mexican army of that day was hardly an organization. The private soldier was picked up from the lower class of the inhabitants when wanted; his consent was not asked; he was poorly clothed, worse fed, and seldom paid. He was turned adrift when no longer wanted. With all this I have seen as brave stands made by some of these men as I have ever seen made by soldiers. (The Mexicans) stood up as well as any troops ever did. The trouble seemed to be the lack of experience among the officers, which led them after a certain time to simply quit, without being particularly whipped, but because they had fought enough.

But the real embarrassment for Mexico is that their leaders failed to play to their advantages. The United States launched two invasions: one from Texas under General Zachary Scott and another from Veracruz on the eastern coast under General Winfred Scott. The Yankees were better equipped and better trained. But this alone cannot explain how they were able to cover hundreds of miles over difficult terrain before occupying Mexico City. What best explained their victory were the divisions within Mexican society, which in broad strokes consisted of three major groups: anticlerical liberals set on limiting the powers and capping the wealth of the church; conservatives who wanted to restore traditional rights to the church; and a third group, overlapping with the Catholic faction, who wanted to bring a monarch from Europe to govern Mexico. General Scott was particularly good at exploiting these divisions. For example, he bought supplies and gained free passage through Puebla merely by promising Puebla Catholics that he would respect the rights of the Churchabout which he probably could not have cared less.

Mexican historian Heriberto Fras, in his book La Guerra Contra los Gringos, basically agrees with Grants diagnosis of the weaknesses of the Mexican army, writing that, From that moment (of the first battle) there spread throughout the army the most abominable dissension, one of the principal causes of the bloody catastrophes of that war of cursed memory. He goes on to condemn the repugnant and execrable egoism of the Mexican generals, who could never agree on a coordinated plan.

Arguably, Mexicos side of the story may best be found in a series of historical novels such as Guillermo Zambranos Mxico por Asalto, Francisco Martn Morenos Mxico Mutilado, Patricia Coxs El Batalln de San Patricio, or Ignacio Solares La Invasin. Particularly interesting in Solares novel are his attempts to draw parallels between General Scotts advance toward Mexico City and Hernn Corts march toward Tenochtitln. Both accomplished their goals by taking advantage of divisions within the local populace.

Since that fateful day in 1848 when Mexico signed away half of its territory, relations between the United States and Mexico have seen ups and downs. One recalls the sentence attributed to Mexican President (and autocrat) Porfirio Daz: Poor Mexico. So far from God and so close to the United States.

In the last several decades, things seemed to be improving. The United States benefitted enormously from undocumented Mexican labor, and Mexican-descended U.S. citizens contribute much to the American mosaic. Similarly, NAFTA, for all its flaws, has benefitted both countries. But we should not forget that fatal war of the late 1840s and the fact that when things go badly, conflicts have a way of bringing out some of the worst in both countries.

Excerpt from:

Here's What Happens When the US and Mexico Fight - Americas Quarterly

[Here, Professor Matt Zwolinski provides three essays that argue there are problems with Ayn Rands Objectivist philosophy. After each, Professor Stephen Hicks responds with an essay of his own that clarifies and defends the Objectivist point of view.]

Ayn Rand is, quite famously, an advocate of ethical egoism the idea that each individuals own life is the ultimate standard of value for that individual. She is also, quite famously, an advocate of individual rights the idea that each individual has a morally protected sphere of freedom against which other individuals must not intrude. Figuring out how, or whether, these two things fit together is one of the major puzzles involved in making sense of Rands philosophy. If my life is the standard of morality, then why should I refrain from interfering with your freedom if doing so will advance my interests?

In her synoptic statement on rights, Rand makes the following series of claims:

If man is to live on earth, it is right for him to use his mind, it is right to act on his own free judgment, it is right to work for his values and to keep the product of his work. If life on earth is his purpose, he has a right to live as a rational being: nature forbids him the irrational.

But there seems to be a fallacy of equivocation going on here. In the first three uses, Rand uses the term right to assert that certain actions are morally permissible (its not wrong to do them) or even obligatory (it would be wrong not to do them).[i] So, for example, when Rand says that it is right for man to work for his values, she seems to mean at least that it is not wrong for him to do so, and perhaps more strongly that it would be wrong for him not to do so.

Rands fourth usage of the word right, however, is significantly different. When she says that man has a right to live as a rational being, she is not merely saying that it is right for man to live as a rational being. She is saying that man has a right to live as a rational being. And these are two very different claims.

To have a right is to have a certain kind of claim against others. That claim could be a purely moral one (in which case the right is a moral right), or it could be one enforceable by law (in which case it is a legal right). It could be a claim against others that they perform certain positive actions such as repaying a debt (in which case it is a positive right), or it might simply be a claim that others refrain from performing certain kinds of actions like taking ones property without ones consent (in which case it is a negative right).

The important point, for our purposes, is that rights in this sense are claims on other people. To say that one person, A, has a right against another, B, doesnt say much at all about what it would be wrong or right for A herself to do. What it says, instead, is that it would be wrong for B to act (or fail to act) toward A in certain ways.

If any person has a right, then as a matter of moral logic, some other person must have a corresponding obligation.

And this is the puzzle for Rand and her followers: Where exactly are these obligations supposed to come from? In order to remain consistent with egoism, it seems that Rand must claim that As right against B must be grounded not in As interests, but in Bs. In other words, B only has an obligation to refrain from interfering with A if it is good for B to do so. But as Mike Huemer has argued, its very hard to see why this restraint will always turn out to be in best interests of B.

It certainly doesnt look that way in lifeboat cases like the situation described in Joel Feinbergs story of the lost hiker cases that I think are not as easily dismissed as Rand believed them to be. But we dont need to go to the lifeboat to find cases that give us reason to doubt Rands claim. Even in ordinary life, there would seem to be plenty of situations in which B can advance his real, rationally defensible interests by violating As rights: stealing her lost wallet, lying on a resume he submits to her business, or littering on her property.

We dont need to go to the lifeboat to find cases that give us reason to doubt Rands claim.

Objectivists must, for each and every one of these cases, deny either that (1) the action is actually a rights violation, or (2) that Bs interests would actually be advanced by the violation. In certain cases, this might work B might not correctly anticipate the guilt he will feel after stealing, or his chances of being punished. But whether the expected costs of a rights-violation outweigh the expected benefits is an empirical question. And as far as I can tell, neither Rand nor her followers have given us sufficient reason to believe that the answer to that question is always going to be that they do.

Two points are most important here, one about content and one about method.

At first sight, rights do seem egoistic: I have a right to my life, my liberty, my property, and as a matter of robust, jealously-guarded principle I want those rights to be respected by others.

At first sight, rights do seem egoistic.

Rand in particular argues that our rights are based in our needs and capacities as human beings. Human life is a process of thinking, producing, and consuming, and to survive and flourish each individual must take responsibility for the process. The creation and consumption of human value requires freedom of thought and freedom of action individuals need to think and discover what is good for them, they need to act on their knowledge to produce those good things, and they need to consume the goods they produce.

In a social context, other people can be beneficial to the process: we can learn from each other, act jointly to be more productive, and trade to mutual advantage as consumers.

But other people can also be threats to the process: censorship, kidnapping, enslavement, theft, and so on undercut the affected individuals ability to think, act, and consume. Those actions are therefore social wrongs, on principle, so their opposites are social rights.

That is what Rand means in the lines in which right is repeated, which Professor Zwolinski sees as problematic (paragraph 2): rights are a type of moral principle; they are part of a family of concepts that link individual right to social right to political right. The connection is maintaining the identification of what is moral in each increasingly-narrow context.

But, as Zwolinski questions (paragraph 6), why does it follow egoistically that I should respect others rights? I want my rights to be respected by others, yes but why should I want others rights to be respected by me? Where does the principled commitment to universal and symmetrical application come from?

Rand argues that as human beings we are not able to survive by instinct or by range-of-the-moment action. We are rational beings, and we survive and flourish by making principled, categorical identifications and acting on them. I need to be self-responsible. I need to be productive. I need to plan long-range. And I need to do all of that in a world in which much of my living is social. So what principles should I adopt in my dealings with others?

So the relevant questions about respecting others rights are these:

Rands answer to all of those questions is Yes. Moral self-education, then, hopefully guided and encouraged by good parenting and other socialization, is a matter of thinking through those questions and testing various answers to them in ones dealings with family members, neighborhood kids, schoolmates, and others as one growsuntil one is in a position to conceptualize and commit to principles as a mature individual.

Rational egoism is thus Rands grounding of political rights.

(This is not yet to presuppose answers to questions about emergency situations, whether to be a selective predator, how to deal with non-respecters of rights, determining degrees of violations of rights, or the status those not capable of grasping principles. Rands theory of rights is about contextual principles applied with practical wisdom; its not one of contextless absolutes to be mechanically followed. So more needs to be said.)

Rands theory of rights is about contextual principles applied with practical wisdom.

The emphasis on rational above indicates that for Rand epistemological matters are central to normative issues, for Rand is in a minority of thinkers who so emphasize the importance of fundamental philosophy. This brings us to a second important point.

Permissible to Whom? In characterizing Rands position, Zwolinski asks at one point (paragraph 3) whether the claim of rights is to be interpreted as permissible or obligatory. That distinction should give us pause, for what kind of morality frames things in terms of permissions and obligations?

If we are to speak of permissible, then we should ask from whom we are seeking permission; and if we are to speak of obligatory, then we should ask to whom or what we are so obligated. Yet if we know anything about Rands ethics, then we should sense that we such a taxonomy is alien to it.

The point is that when interpreting a thinkers position, it is weak methodology to state a thinkers claim, interpret it by a distinction taken from some other philosophical framework, note that the resulting mix makes no sense, and then criticize the original claim.

Other moralities distinctions may be useful in criticizing a thinkers position after one has figured out what it is. But when initially trying to interpret a position, we should beware of importing highly abstract distinctions from foreign moral theories.

Ayn Rand was a firm believer in property rights, holding them to be essentially a corollary of the right to life. After all, if the right to life is a right to act in order to preserve ones life, then this right would be ineffectual if man did not also have the right to the product of his action to that which he has produced.

The problem is that everything we produce is, ultimately, made out of raw materials that were not themselves produced by anybody. So even if its easy to justify why I should be morally entitled to the cake Ive baked out of the flour and butter I owned, its not so easy to justify why I should be morally entitled to the patch of land I simply found and quickly put a fence around. In political philosophy, this is known as the problem of original appropriation.

The problem of original appropriation strikes many philosophers as serious because of the seemingly zero-sum nature of natural resources. Theres only so much land to go around. Therefore, whatever land you take and claim as your own leaves less land for me. Your interests might be served by your act of appropriation, but mine seem to be set back. Original appropriation, it has seemed to many philosophers, involves a real conflict of interests between the appropriators and everyone else.

Original appropriation, it has seemed to many philosophers, involves a real conflict of interests.

Now, I think there are ways out of this problem the most promising of which is developed in a wonderful essay by David Schmidtz. But Rand herself never grapples with the problem directly.

I suspect the reason why is that she didnt see it as a genuinely serious problem. Rand did not believe that land and other natural resources were the true source of value. And thus, one persons appropriation of some of that stuff did not really set back the interests of others in any serious way.

Mind and Value For Rand, mans mind is the fundamental source of values that sustain his life.

For Rand, mans mind is the fundamental source of values that sustain his life.

Physical stuff by itself can be no aid in mans survival unless it is first understood by the mind and then put to work through deliberate, rational, productive action. Before man figured out what to do with it, crude oil was a pollutant, not a value. It was the human mind that transformed oil from an annoyance into a resource.

I think that there is a tremendously important insight in this analysis of value. But I also think its possible to stretch that insight too far. And I think that Rand, unfortunately, is guilty of doing precisely this.

After all, even if its true that nothing of value would exist without the human mind, its equally true that nothing (or at least almost nothing) of value would exist without physical resources for the mind to operate on. Both the human mind and physical resources are thus necessary for the production of value. Objective value is an aspect of reality in relation to man. So without the reality, or without the man, there is no value.

Thus, even if we accept Rands idea that natural resources have no intrinsic value in themselves, we must nevertheless recognize that they are a necessary component in the production of value. And so when we take those natural resources and put a fence around them, we are depriving others of something important. We are depriving non-owners of the liberty they once possessed to use that resource in their own productive activities. We are imposing upon them an obligation to refrain from using that resource without our consent an obligation that we will enforce with the use of physical violence, if necessary. And this calls for justification.

I am enthusiastic supporter of property rights. And thus I do believe that such justification can be provided. But and here I return to my earlier point about rights and egoism providing a justification to one person of another persons property right in X would seem to require doing more than simply showing how such rights are good for the first person. Since As property right imposes an obligation on B, we need to show how such an obligation is good for B as well. If As property right in X is good for A but bad for B, then for B to respect that right would be an act of self-sacrifice, and fundamentally incompatible with his rational pursuit of his own self-interest.

Professor Matt Zwolinski raises a fun and deep issue about property rights. It has a long history before Rand, with Locke and Rousseau staking out near-opposite positions, and with post-Rand thinkers such as Robert Nozick and David Schmidtz making strong contributions.

Why did Rand not engage with it? I agree with Zwolinski that from the perspective of her robust creation ethic, it is either trivial or a non-problem. So the question is whether it really is a problem and/or a more serious one than she judged.

Value results from raw materials plus human agency. How much comes from each? Raw materials can be more or less plentiful, and human agency can be more or less creative. So we can play around with the variables by considering examples.

So if one emphasizes the value-adding power of human creativity, as Rand and her great near-contemporary Julian Simon are noteworthy for doing, then one acquires an opportunity mindset. The issue of raw materials becomes more trivial, as intelligent people can always create value out of what is available.

But if one is struck by a relative scarcity of certain raw materials, then, as Zwolinski points out, one is pushed into a zero-sum mindset, and that mindset tends to seeing others gains as its deprivations and others rights as imposing unwanted obligations.

Perspectives on Property Two points are worth making here, so lets work with the most popular examplelandto get to the core assumptions, for as always in philosophy the basic assumptions are the most important.

As always in philosophy the basic assumptions are the most important.

Suppose I look at the Manhattan skyline, as Rand did from her apartment. Do I see opportunities for me, given what others have done with the land? Or do I see deprivation, as others got to Manhattan Island long before I did and acquired it all for themselves? If I scale out to the United States as a whole, I find that almost half of its land is owned by local, state, and federal governments and the rest by private individuals and organizations all of it acquired long before I immigrated. Should I say that opportunities have been taken away from me and/or that obligations have been imposed on me?

The first important point about such examples is one made by Locke in the Second Treatise, where he states that he who appropriates land to himself by his labour, does not lessen but increase the common stock of mankind. (I see Schmidtz as working out in more welcome detail what was only sketched by Locke.)

If, for example I had arrived in 1600 in what is now New York, then some opportunities would have been available to me then that are not available now. True. But some opportunities are available now that were not available then. At which time was the net value of the opportunities greater? If the net opportunities are greater now, then the language of deprivation and imposition is misplaced. (And if my goal is to acquire land in New York, then that opportunity is still available to me, as it has a lively real-estate market.) So property rights are win-win, contrary to the zero-sum thinkers.

But here is what I take to be the second and deeper point. We can speak of the mutually-beneficial nature of property rights, and that is a value of them to each of us. But that value of property rights should not be taken as part of the justification for initial appropriation, because raw materials in their unowned state are not items to which anyone has a claim.

Here we can take Rousseau as the foil, with his famous line against appropriators that initially the fruits of the earth belong to us all. His assertion is that, prior to property rights, we all have a claim in common to everything that exists, so anyone who appropriates incurs an obligation to make good on his or her lessening the common stock held by the rest of us.

But initially the raw materials of the universe are unowned, not owned in common, which means that nobody has any sort of claim to them with respect to anyone else. Its the difference between saying:

and

To put the point in metaphysical terms, when one comes into existence, one has no claims on anything in the world. A just-born child has no entitlements with respect to the world at large, including both the as-yet unowned raw materials and the properties of others.

The childs parents have obligations to provide for it on its growth journey to adulthood, but the governing assumption is that everything has to be earned. That includes that first breath of air the child appropriates from the commons by his or her own effortfor which the child need present no justification. At the same time, the preexisting property arrangements are not an imposition upon the just-born child that must be justified to the child.

Ayn Rand endorses a form of the libertarian nonaggression principle, which holds that the use of force should properly be banished from human relationships. For Rand, force is evil because it prevents individuals from acting according to the dictates of their own reason.

Thus, force violates mans fundamental right to life his right to act in pursuit of his values according to his own judgments, uncompelled by the judgment of any other. As Rand puts it, To violate mans rights means to compel him to act against his own judgment, or to expropriate his values. Basically, there is only one way to do it: the use of physical force.

Force violates mans fundamental right to life.

For Rand, then, the basic political principle of the Objectivist ethics is: no man may initiate the use of physical force against others. But how exactly are we to understand the meaning of the key term force in this principle?

Traditionally, libertarians and Objectivists have taken one of two broad approaches to defining force. One approach, which we can call the moralized approach, defines force in terms of an underlying theory of rights. The other approach, the nonmoralized approach, defines force in a way that makes no essential reference to rights or other moral terms.

To see the difference, imagine a case in which A violates Bs rights, but does so without so much as physically touching B. Perhaps B leaves his car unlocked on the street, and A lets himself in and drives away with it. Has A initiated force against B? If we accept the nonmoralized definition of force, we will have to say no. After all, A didnt touch B at all. The only way we can explain the way in which As action affects B is in terms of the property right B has in his car. But if this is our basis for claiming that A has initiated force against B, then we are implicitly relying on a moralized definition of force. As action initiates force against B because it violates Bs (moral) rights.

It matters a great deal which of these understandings Objectivists rely on to inform the nonaggression principle. But neither understanding is entirely without its own peculiar difficulties. If, for instance, we accept a nonmoralized definition of force, then we abandon the tight, conceptual connection between force and the violation of rights, and must accept the possibility that some violations of rights will not involve the initiation of force, and the possibility that some cases of the initiation of force will not involve rights-violations.

Neither understanding is entirely without its own peculiar difficulties.

And this means that we must take seriously the socialist argument that property rights themselves involve the initiation of force. After all, if I put a fence around a piece of land and threaten to arrest anybody who walks across it without my consent, it certainly looks like Im initiating force when I grab a peaceful trespasser and slap a pair of handcuffs on him. The only way to deny that my action constitutes the initiation of force, it seems, is to argue that it was really the trespasser who initiated force. But that move is available only if we abandon the nonmoralized conception of force, and adopt a moralized understanding instead.

Suppose we do that. Adopting a moralized definition of force allows us to explain why the individual who steals someones car is initiating force, and why the landowner who enforces his property right isnt. So, so far, so good. But the moralized approach to force comes with a serious drawback of its own.

For if we define the initiation of force in terms of the violation of rights, then we cannot define the violation of rights in terms of the initiation of force, lest we be guilty of circular argument. In other words, if we say that force is just any activity that violates individual rights, we cannot turn around and then say that our rights are to be understood in terms of freedom from the initiation of force.

Both ways of understanding force, then, appear to generate problems for Rands use of the nonaggression principle. And Rands frequent claim that force severs the connection between mans mind and his actions seems to lead to further difficulties: Is the claim that force eliminates our ability to act on the dictates of our reason or merely that it limits it? The former claim is quite implausible, but the latter forces us to notice that a great number of other things also limit this ability, such as, well, other peoples property rights.

As I have argued at greater length elsewhere, the non-aggression principle is a poor basis on which to build a libertarian philosophy. But for the reasons described above, Rands invocation of it appears to be especially problematic.

Lets start with four scenarios involving a man running on a field who is suddenly tackled to the ground by another man.

In case 1, the tackled goes to jail. In case 2, the tackler and tackled try again. In case 3, the tacklers team is penalized. In case 4, the tackler goes to jail.

Professor Zwolinskis questions about force and rights again raise issues of content and method. Lets focus on the method issues, as they are more relevant to his apparent puzzles. Zwolinski is in at least broad agreement with Rand that individual rights exist but has questions about how she derives them that seem to me driven by a methodological tangle.

In the four scenarios above, the physical actions are identical one man tackles another to the ground yet they have very different consequences. Understanding why those consequences are normatively appropriate requires attending to the broader complex context within which those actions and consequences occurred.

That in turn means that the proper place to start is not by specifying contextless definitions of force (e.g., as moralized or non-moralized) and then trying to deduce correct answers about particular circumstances. The method is not to present an abstract dichotomy of definitions, ask for a commitment to either, and then find a problematic case for whichever one is chosen.

Zwolinski is certainly correct that non-moralized definitions wont work, and his objection here seems a variation on the classic Is-Ought problem: if we define force only non-morally, then we will face a gap when we want to define rights as moral principles. And at the same time we of course should heed Zwolinskis warning about using moralized concepts in circular ways.

But the key content point is that all human action is moralized. We are always in a context of judging good and bad, right and wrong, better or worse. Consequently, by the time we get to high philosophy and are identifying principles such as rights, we are deeply embedded in moralized contexts.

We are always in a context of judging good and bad, right and wrong, better or worse.

(In his closing paragraph, Zwolinski was perhaps speaking loosely in saying that the NAP is a poor principle upon which to base a libertarian philosophy. But certainly Rands invocation of something like an NAP is not basic to her philosophy. Its not even basic to her ethics or to her social philosophy. Rather it is a derivative, specifying a bridge principle between ethics and social philosophy and politics.)

Actions necessary for human life Yet as Zwolinski also properly states, Rand begins by specifying the individual actions that are necessary for human life (thinking, production, etc.). She identifies ways in which others actions can be beneficial to our lives (teaching, friendship, economic trade, etc.). Then she identifies the types of actions by others that interfere with those necessary actions and within that very broad category she identify the subset of interferences that are major enough to justify physical retaliation (theft, rape, kidnapping, assault, etc.).

The process is empirical, and at each stage of identification an argument from cases is necessary to establish the principle involved. We see this argument, for example, among philosophers about defining that final category of cases in which the retaliatory principle kicks in where exactly is the demarcation?

John Stuart Mill offers the broader Harm Principle (On Liberty, I.9) while Rand specifies the narrow initiation-of-physical-force principle. Mill eschews the rights label while Rand embraces it. But the method for both is inductive by investigating a large number of particular cases and abstracting the relevant similarities and differences. Or to put it in modern-philosophy epistemological terms, their approach is empirical-and-bottom-up-abstraction rather than rationalist-abstract-definitions-and-downward-branching-decision-trees.

But even here initiation of force is all by itself not a definitive guide, as many initiations of force are legitimate. Parent initiate force regularly with their infants every time the kids diaper needs changing he or she is man-handled (or woman-handled) without consent.

Parent initiate force regularly with their infants every time the kids diaper needs changing.

Boxers are encouraged to initiate massive physical force upon each other until the bell rings. If you see your girlfriend about to step in the path of an onrushing bus, you will grab her and haul her back.

So we always need to identify what legitimate values are being pursued or possessed and by what means. Then we can exercise judgment whether the initiation of physical force in a particular case is an inappropriate interfe

[i] This is what analytic philosophers refer to as the deontic status of an action.

See the original post:

Debate: Is Ayn Rand right about rights? - Learn Liberty (blog)

KUALA LUMPUR: Satirism is not a Malaysian culture and those who are knowledgeable should not use their intelligence to belittle others Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said today.

He said media companies should not use intellectual egoism on sensitive matters that may cause further harm to the society.

He said this in reference to the actions taken by the Home Ministry towards a specific media agency, which has since apologised for their actions.

If we are someone who is knowledgeable and we only use it to poke fun at another person, even if its called satire, thats intellectual egoism.

Maybe it is allowed and considered ethical in other cultures but it is not the Malaysian culture, he said during a press conference after giving a lecture at the Intan Public Policy Ministerial Forum Session today.

A cartoon depicting Dewan Rakyat Speaker Tan Sri Pandikar Amin Mulia and Pas President Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang as two monkeys sitting on a tree named Act 355, while a group of monkeys fight under it, was published by Chinese Daily Nanyang Siang Pau on April 9.

The daily has apologised since then and admitted that the cartoon was inappropriate for public viewing.

See the rest here:

Ahmad Zahid: Satirism is not a Malaysian culture - Yahoo News - Yahoo News

The notion of hedonism conjures up images of alcohol-fuelled pool parties rather than bookish old blokes holding theoretical discussions. But this much-maligned philosophy has its roots in ancient Greece and has been defended famously by Enlightenment thinkers such as Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill.

By making pleasure an end in itself, hedonism was sure to have its ethical opponents. However, traditional objections to the philosophy are ill-founded, argues Trinity College Dublin lecturer Ben Bramble.

At the outset, he says, it is important to understand that hedonism is a theory of well-being not a charter for selfishness. Simply put, hedonism says that your well-being is fully determined by your pleasures and pains; any two people identical in their pleasures and pains would be identical in their levels of well-being.

The major competitor to hedonism, he explains, is desire-fulfilment theory. Desire-fulfilment theory says that what is good for you is fundamentally, not good feelings but, having the sort of life you want.

To see the difference between these theories, ask yourself: Is pleasure good for you because you want it? Or do you want it because you are in some sense responding to the fact that it is good for you? I think it is the latter. Pleasure is good for us, not because we want it, but just because of how it feels. A pleasurable life would be good for us whether we wanted it or not.

Hedonism does not have many public advocates these days. What prompted you to mount a defence of it? Ben Bramble: I am defending hedonism mainly just because I think it is true.

Like other philosophers, I am interested in getting at truth for its own sake. But I also think that arriving at the right theory of well-being is extremely useful for certain practical matters. How can we know how to live well if we do not know what is good for us all in the first place?

JS Mill famously said it is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied. Do you agree? A popular criticism of hedonism is that it seems to entail that the life of a pig could be higher in well-being than the life of a normal human, providing that the pig has many intense pleasures of, say, slopping around in the mud, lying in the sun, eating its fill, etc.

Mill argued that hedonism does not entail this. In particular, he argued that there are pleasures that human beings can feel that add more to well-being than any amount of the only pleasures pigs can feel.

What are these higher pleasures? They include pleasures of love, learning, aesthetic appreciation, and so on. I agree with Mill.

Now, you might wonder, how can a hedonist consistently hold this view? Mustnt she say that the best life is simply the one with the most pleasure? The answer, I believe and here I depart from Mill has to do with diversity. Diversity of pleasure matters in and of itself. And there is much greater diversity available, I believe, in the higher pleasures than in mere bodily ones. Bodily pleasures, most of the time, are just more of the same.

The point here, it is important to emphasise, is not that bodily pleasures necessarily get boring or stop being pleasurable - though they often do. It is that purely repeated pleasures - pleasures that bring nothing new to our lives in terms of their quality - are, in and of themselves, a waste of time. This is not to say that bodily pleasures are unimportant.

Even purely repeated bodily pleasures can help us carry on in life, and so can act as a kind of oil for our joints. The point is rather that with only such pleasures, we would be missing out on the richest and most varied pleasures available - and, I would add, some of the most pleasurable.

Acceptance of a refined form of hedonism may be reasonable but is it the best way of approaching ethical matters? Hedonism, as Ive said, is just a theory of well-being. By itself, then, it has nothing to say about how we should live. Importantly, it does not say we should live so as to maximise our own self-interest-that (false) theory is called egoism.

I think we should combine hedonism with utilitarianism, the theory on which we should live so as to maximise the well-being of all sentient creatures, including non-human animals. Combining these views, we get the appealing conclusion that we should live so as to help all creatures feel good and avoid feeling bad.

Why is this appealing? Every other theory of how we should live is committed to saying that there are at least some occasions when we should choose something that doesnt maximally improve the feelings of sentient beings ie occasions when we should forgo making some particular individual feel better in favour of doing something that makes nobody feel better. That strikes me as highly counterintuitive.

Does your theory of hedonism have broader implications for how we should treat animals? As I mentioned earlier, I think hedonists should distinguish between mere bodily pleasures and higher pleasures of love, learning, aesthetic appreciation, etc. Bodily pleasures have their place, but higher pleasures have special value.

For this reason, pigs and most other non-human animals, who cannot experience these higher pleasures to the same degree humans can, are cut off from living especially fortunate lives. This is a great shame for pigs, etc.

That said, there are many pleasures, and pains, that non-human animals can feel. This means that they can have lives that can go better or worse for them. So, it is absolutely vital that we take their interests into account.

I think that the way we treat animals today most clearly, in the meat industry is so bad that it is hard to fathom. Meat tastes good, yes. But this benefit to us is infinitesimal when compared to the incredible suffering we inflict on animals to get it. Future generations, I suspect, will look back at us with profound dismay.

ASK A SAGE:

Question: Why is so much public debate unmannerly?

Mary Wollstonecraft replies: Virtue can only flourish amongst equals.

Read more here:

In defence of hedonism - Irish Times

LOsservatore Romano/Pool Photo via AP

Given the widely acknowledged fact that countries and populations enjoy wealth and prosperity precisely to the extent that they embrace capitalism, why does Pope Francis call capitalism the dung of the devil and jet around the globe aiming to rid the world of it?

Economists and other intellectuals have spelled out at great length the overwhelming historic evidence in support of the fact that capitalismthe system of individual rights, limited government, and rule of lawis the political-economic cause of prosperity. And one need not read lengthy books to get the message. Journalists regularly report on the relevant facts in bite-sized pieces that any active-minded person can fit together into an edifying mosaic over time.

In just the past few days, in anticipation of Pope Franciss visit to the United States, several prominent thinkers have published articles packedwith evidence showing the life-serving nature of capitalism. George Will, for instance, writes: The capitalist commerce that Francis disdains is the reason the portion of the planets population living in absolute poverty ($1.25 a day) declined from 53 percent to 17 percent in three decades after 1981.

Alex Epstein writes that, thanks to technologies made possible by relatively free markets,

Since 1980, the world has increased its use of coal, oil, and natural gas by over 80 percentbecause that is the most cost-effective way to produce energy. At the same time, the average life expectancy of our worlds 7 billion individuals has gone up 7 years7 years of precious life! Every other metric of human well-being has also improved, from income to access to health care to nourishment to clean water access. The most growth has been among the poorest people in the world.

Specifically in regard to climate change, which is one of the Popes favorite problems to blame on capitalism, Epstein adds:

According to the international disaster database, climate-related deaths are down 98 percent over the past 80 years. In 2013, there were 21,122 such deaths worldwide compared to a high of 3.7 million in 1931, when world population was less than a third of its current size.

Donald Boudreaux observes that capitalism is historys greatest force for raising the living standards of the masses, noting that Pope Francis somehow misses this:

Prior to the Industrial Revolution, the average person lived on about $3 per day (reckoned in 2015 dollars), and each denizen of todays developing countriesthose places touched least by capitalismscrapes by on $7 per day. In contrast, the average person in todays market-oriented industrialized world lives on $110 per day, and the average American lives on $150. Now, thanks to capitalism, billions of us . . . live lives that not even the most powerful Byzantine or European potentate dared dream of just a few hundred years ago.

Such economic facts are indisputableas is the economic theory that explains them.

Ever since Adam Smith founded the science of economics in the 18th century, his ideas and those of countless other economistsfrom Jean-Baptiste Say to Ludwig von Mises to Henry Hazlitt to Thomas Sowellhave shown how and why free markets enable mass production of goods and services, vast creation of wealth, and prosperity for everyone who is able and willing to think, work, and trade.

The profound practicality of capitalism can be seen further in the Index of Economic Freedom, which has been compiled annually since 1995 by The Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal. The Index records various ways in which countries with more freedom (i.e., closer proximity to pure capitalism) enjoy greater wealth and prosperity than do those with less freedom (further proximity). Unsurprisingly, the Index shows that people in countries such as Hong Kong, Singapore, New Zealand, and the United States live markedly better lives than do people in countries such as Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, and North Korea.

Given the myriad easily accessible facts and logical explanations showing over and over again that capitalism is the social system of human flourishing, there simply is no way today for a professional intellectual concerned with economicsnot to understand this truth at least to a substantial extent.

Why then does Pope Francis insist that capitalism is the dung of the devil and that we must eliminate or at least sharply curtail this wretched thing?

The Pope sees fit to make such claims because religionwhether Catholicism, Protestantism, Judaism, or Islamis, in principle, opposed to the very things that capitalism legalizes and veneratesmost notably, in this context, the selfish pursuit of profit and the right to keep and use the product of ones effort.

The Bible is chock full of passages that oppose these pillars of capitalism. In the Old Testament, for instance, God says, I command you to be openhanded toward your brothers and toward the poor and needy in your land (Deuteronomy 15:11). In the New Testament, Jesus says, Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you . . . do not demand it back (Luke 6:30). The love of money is the root of all evil (Timothy 6:10). It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God (Matthew 19:24). And so on.

A particularly illuminating instance of biblical opposition to property rights is the story of Ananias and Sapphira, the central theme of which is that we have a divinely ordained duty to distribute all property in service of the common good. In the story, the unacceptably selfish couple attempts to keep a portion of their own earnings rather than share the entirety of it with the community. The result? God strikes the couple dead. His divine will for the people was that they had all things common . . . and distribution was made unto each, according as anyone had need (Acts 4:3235). (If that sounds familiar, its because Karl Marx later said essentially the same thing: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.) Ananias and Sapphira violated Gods will by attempting to keep some of their property, and God killed them.

Religious leaders over the ages have acknowledged the plain meaning of such passages: God forbids people to selfishly keep and use the product of their effort; He requires that everyone serve the common good; He, in effect, demands socialism. As theologian Nels Ferre explains, according to the Bible, All property is Gods for the common good. It belongs, therefore, first of all to God and then equally to society and the individual. When the individual has what the society needs and can profitably use, it is not his, but belongs to society, by divine right.1 Saint Thomas Aquinas writes, men should not treat things as exclusively theirs but use them for the good of all, ready to share them with those in need.2 And theologian Charles Lincoln Taylor Jr. explains, the [biblical] codes of law forbid selfishness; they issue unremitting condemnation of the use of property for self advantage; and they demand service and sacrifice to the community. No man is to arrogate to himself that which should contribute to the honor and welfare of his neighbor.3

What does all of this say about capitalismthe social system that recognizes, upholds, and protects property rights? What is the relationship between capitalism and religion? Theologian Emil Brunner sums it up neatly:

Capitalism is such a perversion of the divine order of creation, that we would feel obliged to assert its economically ruinous character even if . . . all the experts were to say the opposite. An economic system which contradicts the divine order to such an extent must prove the ruin of the people; this is a fact which none can gainsay. Here we are dealing not with technical questions but with the fundamental ethical question: can we . . . affirm a system which, as such, in its very foundations, is opposed to morality? Or to express it otherwise: have we any right to allow the experts to convince us that only this systemwhose anti-moral character we knowis in a position to provide humanity with the satisfaction of its daily needs?4

Whatever else religious scripture says, and whatever contrary assertions may be found therein, it is clear on this point: The selfish pursuing, keeping, and using of wealth is contrary to Gods will and is thus immoral. Consequently, any social system that legalizes and promotes such immoral behavior (as capitalism clearly does) is viewed by serious religionists not only as immoral but also as impracticalregardless of all historic evidence and expert analysis to the contrary. Capitalism cant provide people with their daily needs, the religious logic goes, because the system contradicts the divine order of creation. Empirical facts and the writings of von Mises cantoverride biblical scripture and the words of God.

Of course, not everyone takes religion as seriously as do popes and professional religionists. Most religious people try to find a middle ground between the scriptural demands for selfless behavior and the factual requirements of human life. And most religionists who try to defend capitalism do so either by acknowledging the selfish nature of the system and accepting the need to compromise their moralsor by obfuscating the selfish nature of the system and seeking to make it look unselfish.

The former tack, which can be seen in the arguments of many conservatives, is succinctly summed up by Michael Novak:

While recognizing that no system of political economy can escape the ravages of human sinfulness, [capitalism] has attempted to set in place a system which renders sinful tendencies as productive of good as possible. While basing itself on something less than perfect virtue, reasoned self-interest, it has attempted to draw from self-interest its most creative potential. It is a system designed for sinners, in the hope of achieving as much moral good as individuals and communities can generate under conditions of ample liberty.5

As I point out in Capitalism and the Moral High Ground, this tack amounts to the claim that by freeing sinners to pursue their reasoned self-interest, capitalism taps into the creative potential of these depraved souls and thereby achieves moral good. I further note there: To concede the immorality of a social system is to concede the argument for it.

The other tackthe effort to obfuscate the selfishness of capitalism and to make it look unselfishcan be seen in the arguments of many conservatives and some libertarians as well. Walter Williams, for instance, in a recent video titled Is Capitalism Moral?, goes through all manner of linguistic acrobatics to claim that capitalism is not really about selfishness or hunger for money, but rather is about incentivizing people to serve their fellow man. (There is much good in Williamss video, as there is in his work generally. My objection here is to his denial ofthe plain fact that capitalism is a system of and for self-interested action.)

A particularly direct instance of the effort to shroudthe selfish nature of capitalism can be seen in a famous passage from Ralph Barton Perry, which Rush Limbaugh quotes approvingly on his radio program:

The fundamental idea of modern capitalism is not the right of the individual to possess and enjoy what he has earned, but the thesis that the exercise of this right redounds to the general good. This justification is necessary if the institution of private property is to be defended against the charge of selfishness.6

This approachdenying that capitalism is about selfishness and insisting that it is really about the general good or the common good or the likeis worse than hopeless because it makes those who employ the approach appear to be pretending that facts are other than they are (which is in fact what they are doing).

As Ayn Rand demonstrated at great length in various books, essays, and letters, the idea that capitalism can be morally justified on a collectivist premise and defended on the grounds of the common good is futile and ludicrous. The effort, writes Rand, amounts to this:

Dear pinks [i.e., socialists], our objective, like yours, is the welfare of the poor, more general wealth, and a higher standard of living for everybodyso please let us capitalists function, because the capitalist system will achieve all these objectives for you. It is in fact the only system that can achieve them.

This last statement is true and has been proved and demonstrated in history, and yet it has not and will not win converts to the capitalist system. Because the above argument is self-contradictory. It is not the purpose of the capitalist system to cater to the welfare of the poor; it is not the purpose of a capitalist enterpriser to spread social benefits; an industrialist does not operate a factory for the purpose of providing jobs for his workers. A capitalist system could not function on such a premise.

The economic benefits which the whole society, including the poor, does receive from capitalism come about strictly as secondary consequences, (which is the only way any social result can come about), not as primary goals. The primary goal which makes the system work is the personal, private, individual profit motive. When that motive is declared to be immoral, the whole system becomes immoral, and the motor of the system stops dead.

Its useless to lie about the capitalists real and proper motive. The awful smell of hypocrisy that accompanies such a [lie] is so obvious and so strong that it has done more to destroy capitalism than any Marxist theory ever could. It has killed all respect for capitalism. It has, without any further analysis, simply at first glance and first whiff, made capitalism appear thoroughly and totally phony. . . .

Do not underestimate the common sense of the common man and do not blame him for ignorance. . . . He cannot untangle the philosophical contradiction of defending capitalism through the common goodbut he knows its a phony.7

Capitalism is the social system of self-interest, and the only way to defend this system on moral grounds is to embrace and defend the morality on which it logically depends: the morality of self-interest.

To defend capitalism on these grounds, however, we must repudiate all philosophies that undermine these grounds, which means: We must repudiate religion.

Pope Francis is right about one thing: religion and capitalism are utterly at odds. Its either-or: faith, altruism, and statismor reason, egoism, and capitalism.

Endnotes

1. Nels Ferre, Christianity and Society (New York: Harper & Row, 1970), p. 226. 2. Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, a concise translation, edited by Timothy McDermott (Allen, TX: Christian Classics, 1989), p. 391. 3. Charles Lincoln Taylor Jr., Old Testament Foundations, in Christianity and Property, edited by Joseph F. Fletcher (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1947), pp. 2223, 30. 4. Emil Brunner, The Divine Imperative: A Study In Christian Ethics, translated by Olive Wyon (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1947), p. 426. 5. Michael Novak, From the Spirit of Democratic Capitalism, in Essential Neoconservative Reader, edited by Mark Gerson (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1996), p. 127. 6. Ralph Barton Perry, Puritanism and Democracy (New York: The Vanguard Press, 1944), pp 310311. 7. Ayn Rand, Letters of Ayn Rand, edited by Michael S. Berliner (New York: Dutton, 1995), pp. 25960.

Related:

Sign up to receive our free weekly newsletter.

See the original post here:

Pope Francis, Religion, Capitalism, and Ayn Rand - The Objective Standard

God grant me the serenity

To accept the things I cannot change;

The courage to change the things I can;

And the wisdom to know the difference.

Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups are more immoral than individuals.

Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail

Many years ago in the kitchen of my grandparents home, I read on a wall-mounted plaque the words of wisdom written by Reinhold Niebuhr in the above quotation. I would learn many years later that Niebuhr was a great theologian and social philosopher of the 20th century. Niebuhr often described himself as a Christian realist and even his well-known prayer quoted above reveals something of the core and wisdom of his Christian realism. That is, Niebuhr would consistently argue for reform to promote social justice, but within the limits and constraints of human nature and its contingencies. Social justice would provide provisional and not ultimate solutions. His thought represented a reaction against nave and utopian reform efforts in late 19th- and early 20th-century America.

His ideas have influenced millions conservatives and liberals alike. Presidents Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama have specifically identified Niebuhr as an important intellectual influence. Similarly, and perhaps even more significantly, Martin Luther King Jr. studied Niebuhrs thought while at Crozer Theological Seminary and Boston University. And, yet, Niebuhrs thought cannot be categorized simplistically as liberal or conservative. There is no ideological category for his thought as a whole, though some elements could be called liberal and other elements could be called conservative.

The King quotation reflects further evidence of Niebuhrs realism in approaching questions of the common good. Derived from Niebuhrs Moral Man and Immoral Society (1932), King was invoking Niebuhrs teaching that in every group there is less reason to guide and check impulse, less capacity for self-transcendence, less ability to comprehend the needs of others, and therefore more unrestrained egoism than the individuals who compose the group reveal in their personal relationships. Writing from jail, King was arguing from his own experience that Niebuhrs teaching was accurate and true that groups supporting racial segregation were much more difficult to persuade otherwise than persuading individuals alone of this injustice.

Niebuhr linked empirically observable group dynamics to his Christian realism and argued that generally group egoism and pride is more difficult and virulent than individual egoism and pride. Group loyalties can become so strong that conformity to group norms defines individual virtue. In contrast, the individual standing alone has a greater capacity to check egoism, appeal to an ethical standard and render a more impartial and ethical judgment.

Niebuhrs argument continues to have relevance. Although groups of all stripes are important to America, Niebuhr reminds us from a theological perspective emphasizing pride and egoism that there are potential group dynamics and pressures running contrary to the common good. When class, sectarian, ethnic, gender or any other basis for group identity demands increasing levels of commitment and loyalty, the pressures to belong to the group may well override the individuals responsibility for independent, critical thought. This is a formula for pluralistic divisiveness rather than the promotion of the common good and national unity. And so, yes, we celebrate the pluralistic diversity of groups in America, but we remember Niebuhrs caution that selfish and divisive egoism is not confined to the individual, but actually even more accentuated with groups.

As we personally reflect on our own group associations, may we have the wisdom to know the difference between those group actions that are egoistic, selfish and self-serving and those group actions which we all applaud in contributing to our common good.

Ed Yager is a professor of political science at Western Kentucky University.

Ed Yager is a professor of political science at Western Kentucky University.

Original post:

Reinhold Niebuhr and our common good - Bowling Green Daily News