Ayn Rand on the Genealogy of Altruism by Ben Bayer

Ayn Rand made abundantly clear that the morality of altruism had no basis in reason. Where then, if not from logical arguments, did it originate? It is not enough to point to irrational philosophies: the ultimate question is, where did philosophers get the idea? This talk will explore Ayn Rand’s own views on the motives that led thinkers to adopt this irrational morality. The talk will also examine how her views on this subject developed and deepened between the writing of The Fountainhead and her later nonfiction essays. It will also compare her views to Nietzsche’s views in The Genealogy of Morals, which are similar in certain respects but profoundly different in others.
Recorded live on July 3, 2022 as part of the Objectivist Summer Conference.
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[@kathryndawson3500]

Your breakdown of the subject has clarified aspects of altruism and its existence for me...and especially why it continues to exist.

[@danielpazos5884]

I’m

[@SpacePatrollerLaser]

@@danielpazos5884 The intellect is a wonderful thing. It can cleave into the heart of a star like a mighty great sword and, once there, it can disect the tiniest subnuclear particle better than the finest obsidian scalpel. But it cannot do it by itself. the target, star or subnuclear particle must be selected, the intellect must be configured; mighty sword or fien scalpel The intellect must be brought to, and operated on, the target. This process requires another faculty. That faculty is the mind which is why it is volitionally activated. Adult thinking is the mastery of the art of using that mind. a kid can be wicked smart, but he or she is still a kid

[@frankrockefeller3038]

Excellent framework. Clarified so much in psychological and philosophical thinking.

[@2Oldcoots]

Brilliantly insightful! Thank you sir.

[@aeomaster32]

Good to see Objectivist ideas radiating out into the intellectual universe. Well done Ben Bayer and ARI.

[@AHappyAvocado]

Wonderful lecture by a great speaker!

[@doisloftis7104]

Thanks, Ben. A great deep dive into understanding the roots of altruism.

[@jaywilliams49]

Hello Dois I am so sorry if this sounds weirds but you wrote such a nice and wonderful comment on here and I like your comment. I can tell you're a very positive person. If it's okay with you I would love to be friends

[@Paul...Ego_sum_ergo_aedifico]

I just want join the others here in thanking Ben for this talk. I appreciate the question and the answer on Wynand as an Attila in the context of Toohey the witch doctor. I also liked the question on the motivation arising from fear. On alturist philosphers, I would appreciate hearing more on the late leftist G. A. Cohen.

[@kathryndawson3500]

Thanks!

[@SpacePatrollerLaser]

Actually, I was not afraid of Toohey in the sense that he could succeed and destroy civilization. I felt sorry for him after that speech of his. Read or listen to that speech where he lays it all out. What else could you feel for him The answer to Eric's question: You can't: You can lead a horse to water; but you cannot make it drink: You can lead a soul to reason, but you cannot make it think

[@YashArya01]

"You can lead a soul to reason, but you cannot make it think." Love this formulation.

[@shekfu]

I think altruism appeals precisely for the reason that it cannot be practiced and that gives people a moral get out of jail free card. "You can't be good allll the time". I'm only 12 minutes in but let's see what Ben says...

[@shekfu]

29:10 this is along the lines of what I was getting at

[@matthewstroud4294]

Unreachable perfection, very Platonic.

[@thememaster7]

Thanks

[@looper2586]

Really really good lecture

[@TheRageaholic]

Altruism doesn't factor in for people who oppose abortion. Ayn Rand herself argued the proper function of government was the protection of rights, life and property. Holding to that thesis, someone who believes that a life is murdered during abortion doesn't hold any altruistic view whatsoever. They expect the minimum protection afforded anyone else.

[@ExistenceUniversityDramaClub]

A fetus cannot have rights. To assign a fetus rights is irrational. It also neglects the actual life of the living, breathing, acting, woman to give her body's natural action more "life" than her herself. To protect rights, the government would have to protect her, not just her organs. Her organs don't get protection at the sake of enslaving her.

[@dougpridgen9682]

It doesn't matter whether they hold an altruistic view or not. Sacrificing an actual human, the pregnant woman (by proscribing abortion), for the sake of a potential human, the embryo, constitutes a coercive act violating the woman's right to choose not to have a child. Last I checked, embryos lack the ability to make choices, and cannot therefore be said to have rights. Most people don't hold conscious philosophical convictions, they inherit altruism and never think to question it. Not being aware that this is an altruistic act isn't the same as it not being one. If you have your own idiosyncratic definition of altruism, then you are talking about something different. The word was coined by Auguste Comte and literally translates to "otherism", prioritizing the needs of others above oneself, and that is the definition used in philosophy. More than that, saying that all killing is murder is like saying all dogs are German shepherds. What about self-defense, or hunting for food? Egoists do not agree that abortion is murder, although it is killing. If you get sick and kill the germs invading your body by taking medication, resting, and recuperating, would you consider that murder?

[@Mr.Witness]

Their view of a fetus possessing rights is rooted as is their neglect of the mother as the living being which has rights and the fetus is inside of. Ayn Rand also made the point that rights arise from a context . One may ask themselves on a desert island full of fetuses would you NEED rights? If it was you and a bunch of fetuses would you need rights?

[@TeaParty1776]

@@Mr.Witness If fetuses were created by God, they could kill you. ;

[@TeaParty1776]

@@dougpridgen9682 Anti-abortion is the demand to sacrifice the mother, not to protect the fetus. Anti-abortion is based on mystical pseudo-rights, not rights as rational freedom of action in society. Mystical pseudo-rights are an anti-concept intended to destroy rights as mind-based. Ie, stop thinking about the mother's rights. Think only of her duty to sacrifice. Basically, altruism is the choice to evade independent thought and action for, as Rand so powerfully said, moral cannibalism. Each self-destructive altruist will _know_ that somebody else will relieve his self-created suffering. That _know_ is important, maybe basic, because its a spiritual insurance policy for self-destructive altruists. Thus the frequent whining demand for compassion by Christians, altruists, Buddhists and, presumably, others.

[@BenjaminHare]

Wonderful lecture. Incredibly informative. Where is Ben currently teaching? Can I take a class from him?

[@louiselamontagne2322]

An extremely important lecture!!! Excellent.

[@vladanlausevic1733]

Very insightful talk about altruism, thanks

[@science212]

The concept of reciprocal altruism, by Robert Trivers, is very important to evolucionary biology. Trivers is professor at Rutgers University.

[@michaelmatisse2808]

I have been practicing altruism for 35 years and it has never been reciprocated outside of some rare occasions. That is why I came to objectivism, I was fed up of the lack of reciprocity. People took what I had to give and left and continued their life as if I was not there. Altruism made me a slave in the sense of Nietzsche slave morality. I do not know if altruism works for others but it did not work for me. There was no reciprocity.

[@davidvanmersbergen5335]

Lots of conjecture about the motivation and psychology of pro-lifers, WITHOUT any evidence...how rational. Way to go and commit logical fallacies of generalization and strawman..Has he ever engaged prominent pro-life advocates and understood the arguments? I doubt it.

[@YashArya01]

I think the point is that advocates such as Stephanie Gray and Trent Horn are exceptions. A typical pro-lifer does not understand their arguments, they do take it on faith/authority.

[@davidvanmersbergen5335]

@@YashArya01 Again a generalization fallacy by mentioning a 'typical pro-lifer'. And using the strawman argument as Ben Bayer has shows he has not studied the plethora of pro-life advocates and arguments out there. These arguments are available to 'typical pro-lifers' He has no evidence that pro-lifers don't like people enjoying/having sex.

[@dougpridgen9682]

@@davidvanmersbergen5335 Is English not your first language? To call sacrificing a pregnant woman (who doesn't want a child) to an embryo "pro-life" is a disgusting contradiction in terms. How does it advance the woman's life?

[@davidvanmersbergen5335]

@@dougpridgen9682 How did you conclude ESL? By spelling or grammar errors? Your reasoning ability is flawed. My comments address the generalization fallacy & irrationality of imagining pro-lifers don't like knowing other people have sex as a motivation for their position. Your shift in position/argument or deflection from my statement cannot be concluded by what I wrote (another logical fallacy) and requires no response.

[@dougpridgen9682]

@@davidvanmersbergen5335 My conclusion is based on the fact that you don't speak coherent English, as is evident in your reply. Whether that is by choice or because you lack the ability is unknown to me.

[@patrickmcguire1988]

Good talk. But, in the instance regarding the group of people who apposes abortion, the lecturer just not have the full input on this subject to arrive at the correct conclusion. The lecturer does not understand that abortion is a gross disrespect for human life; not acknowledging God and God’s spirit working in and through the human form. Opposition to abortion does not spring from envy and fabricated altruism, on the part of the opposer. This lecturer can grow himself via cultivation of the Supra rational form of knowledge that exists within himself, even while at this point in time he has no awareness of it.

[@aeomaster32]

All arguments start from a basic premise. Clearly, if a premise is based on a belief in a God's wishes, and that a soul exists at conception, the resultant conclusions will be very different to one who does not accept such foundations. I can see why a religious person is against abortion when I understand the foundation of his argument - God's will. At the same time, I expect the same understanding from the believer, regarding his understanding why a non-believer has a different conclusion. The real argument is the premises involved, not the conclusions.

[@TeaParty1776]

The unfocused mind is the Devils playground.

[@thephilosophicalagnostic2177]

It's perfectly obvious where altruism came from. Biology. Our earliest ancestors HAD to help one another intensely if anyone was to survive. Think of the tightly-knit hunter-gatherer bands. Emerging moral strictures helped those people to survive, have children, have grandchildren and so on...right up to us. Did Ayn Rand take biological necessity seriously? I wonder.

[@YashArya01]

"Our earliest ancestors HAD to help one another intensely if anyone was to survive." Where do you get the idea that Ayn Rand was against us helping one another?

[@ExistenceUniversityDramaClub]

What part of survival of the fittest is collectivist? Which animal in evolution sacrifices itself and it's children for other animals?

[@dougpridgen9682]

When our ancestors took materials from the environment to fashion tools and weapons, are you suggesting this was somehow a collective thought process, a Borg-like hive mind activity? How about when we graduated to agriculture, or when Aristotle discovered logic? All thinking is an individual act. Collaboration, learning from others, and the division of labor is not altruism, nor is benevolence or kindness (which altruism makes impossible).

[@TeaParty1776]

Altruism is self-sacrifice, not benevolence or trade for survival. It means _otherism_. The altruist is morally irrelevant. Only his sacrifice is morally relevant. Even the people he may help are morally irrelevant. Without sacrifice, conventional morality would not be concerned. The farmers who grow the food you eat for your money are selfish, not altruist. Curiously, their selfishness furthers your life. For millenia, the advocates of sacrifice recognized it as a loss for the sacrificer. You rationalize the evasion of mans life. How did the Aztec ritual sacrifice of cutting out a heart aid the survival of the heartless person?

[@thephilosophicalagnostic2177]

In real life, altruism is a win-win. "The best place for an Eskimo to put extra whale meat is in another Eskimo's mouth." Hunter-gatherers couldn't hoard. They could carry only so much as they migrated to follow the herds. So, they had to share. Therefore, I contend, altruism was a biological necessity for almost all human beings back to when the first ones became human. I suspect Ayn Rand's contentions about modern altruism are based purely on the doings of modern-day leftists (It takes breaking eggs to make an omelet), not the doings of most folks. Otherwise, how do you explain the genuinely physical feelings of gratification when we do a good turn or witness someone else doing so? If altruism was evil, we would never feel gratification.

[@thereignofthezero225]

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