Egoism and JusticeAnswering Glaucon’s Challenge

Jeffrey Borrowdale

Atlas Society Summer Seminar

July 2011

Prolegomena

• Am I an Objectivist?– Metaphysics: Objective

mind-independent reality, naturalism, materialism

– Epistemology: Reason as only the guide to truth, value of empirical science

– Ethics: Rejection of August Comte’s altruism, values of life, liberty, property

– Politics: Capitalism

– Aesthetics: Romanticism

Comte’s Altruism

• A selfless duty to others is the purpose of life

• Self-regard as evil or suspect

But is egoism it’s proper replacement?

Egoism

• Morality is a matter of maximizing one’s own enlightened self-interest.

– Real vs. apparent

– Long-term vs. short-term

• The moral is the rational

• Morality as mere prudence

Gyges’ Ring

• A lowly shepherd finds a ring which gives him the power of invisibility

Gyges’ Ring

• Gyges uses the ring to seduce the Queen and usurp the Kingdom

• Grave-robbing• Adultery• Assassination

Gyges’ Ring

• Justice requires restraint, sacrifice of self-interest

• People only act justly because they fear punishment (personal, social, legal)

• Punishment depends on detection

• Gods can be bought off with sacrifice

The completely rational man will seek to be unjust where possible, just when necessary

• Injustice is always better...if you can get away with it!

• Justice is only instrumentally good in some cases– High chance of being

caught– Severe consequences

Glaucon’s Conclusion:

It’s best to seem just but be secretly unjust.

Actual justice is a necessary evil.

Glaucon’s ChallengePlato’s Response

• Glaucon’s Challenge: Prove justice is better than injustice

• Plato says injustice– subordinates reason

to desire, dehumanizes

– is the sign of an unbalanced or diseased mind

Glaucon’s ChallengePlato’s Response

• Plato says injustice– makes us a slave to

our desires– robs us of freedom

• Free choices are made through rational deliberation, not compelled by desire

Critique of Plato’s Response

• Man is an animal– Dualist assumptions– Denigration of the

body and its desires– Philosophy as

practice for death

Critique of Plato’s Response

• Disease account relies on primitive, pre-scientific model

• Anti-social behavior as “sick” = a hidden normative judgment, assumes “proper function” - naturalistic fallacy

Plato’s ResponseCritique

• Reason itself– cannot motivate– chooses means, not

ends• Weakness of will is a

conflict between two desires, not reason and desire

Rand’s Answer: Natural Rights

• Rights stem from Man’s nature as a living being

• Virtue entails respecting life, reason and freedom generally, as values

• Hypocrisy requires false consciousness

“You can’t derive an ought from an is.”- David Hume

• Such and such are the facts of the situation, so one ought to do X.

• Related “naturalistic fallacy” - x is natural, therefore x is good.

• Values as pragmatic guides to survival and happiness?

“Life is exploitation.”- Friedrich Nietzsche

• Living things exploit other living things and their environment to further their own ends

• Survival of the fittest• The Law of the Jungle• Man is a predator• Why not prey on weak

men?

If holding truth, human life, liberty and happiness as values create prohibitions against force or fraud, why don’t they also create altruistic moral requirements to advance these values for others?

• Obligations to render aid and promote the general welfare, even sacrifice for it, (especially where the cost to me is small but the benefit to the group is large), serve Man’s survival and flourishing also.

What is generally good for humanity generally isn’t always good for me in every particular case

• What Man requires for the furtherance of his life and happiness vs. what this man requires

• Rigid, exceptionless ethical principles based on Man’s nature don’t obviously serve my particular interests

• Lost wallet example

What is generally good for humanity generally isn’t always good for me in every particular case

• Egoism like utilitarianism is a teleological theory

• Flawed criticisms of utilitarianism don’t work against egoism either– Since your action will

always depend on the particulars of the case, it is a form of moral relativism

– It’s too difficult to calculate the consequences

What is generally good for humanity generally isn’t good for me in every particular case

• Rules of thumb: practical guidelines which serve a general principle in most cases

• Rules of thumb are a means to an end, not an end in themselves

• When the rule doesn’t serve its purpose, you break it

“It’s irrational for you to violate the rights of others while not wanting others to violate your rights.”

• “What if everybody acted like that?”

• “You should treat others as you’d like to be treated.”

• “You should respect the same rationality in others as exists in you.”

• “How would you feel if someone did that to you?”

• Kant’s “contradiction in concept” is not a true contradiction!

Pejorative terms like hypocrite, thief, criminal, liar, etc. beg the question and amount to emotionally

charged rhetoric

• Hypocrisy creates a false consciousness only if rights are treated as Kantian absolutes

• Guilt arises only if you are not serving your self-interest, e.g. if you get caught

Weak Arguments

“The weed of crime bears bitter fruit...crime does not pay!”

Most career criminals are not rational

We only see the ones who get caught

Mao, Stalin didn’t pay

Weak Arguments

• The assumption that immorality will always lead to worse consequences– Naïve– Mystical (e.g. a

personification of justice as a force, like karma

– Assumes a perfect Platonic world where justice is a law which cannot be violated without tragic effects

Weak Arguments

• Two choices: deal with others via reason or force/fraud - must choose one– Why deal with all the same

way?– Why all the time and in

every case?– Equivocates on “not using

reason” - not using rational persuasion vs. not reasoning or being irrational

Weak Arguments

• Two choices: deal with others via reason or force/fraud - must choose one– Reason and force are

not opposites, voluntary cooperation and force are

Squaring Egoism with Justice

• Hobbesian enlightened self-interest

• Promoting a system of government to protect your rights and to obey the law when necessary

• Whether you should obey how good the State is at catching and punishing people generally and the particulars of the case

Squaring Egoism with Justice

• Humean sentiments of sympathy and benevolence

• I irrationally associate the sufferings of others with my own suffering even when there is no direct causal connection

Squaring Egoism with Justice

• Evolutionary psychology and man as a social animal

• Morality based on blood and kinship, abstracted to “all men are brothers.”

Squaring Egoism with Justice

• Pragmatic considerations: injustice as impractical most of the time in modern American society

• Social and legal structures generally reward good behavior

Squaring Egoism with Justice

• Even petty crime has serious consequences

• Consistent bad behavior will ostracize you

• Large consequences can make even a small risk not worthwhile

Squaring Egoism with Justice

• Good character, self-esteem, psychological realities and relationships

• The way to win friends and influence people is by following objectivist virtues

Conclusions

• Must a satisfactory egoist account of justice show that it is always rational to be just?– Platonic perfection– Values as practical guides vs. absolute abstract

principles which are ends in themselves– Integration with natural human sentiments - it feels

good to have and espouse values of reason and liberty (though espousing unpopular values may also lead to negative consequences)

– Justice pays for most people much of the time and it’s in most people’s interest to perpetuate conditions in which this continues to be true