By Peter @Newton Bell, 3 January 2017

I've always stayed away from Ayn Rand's writing, but figured I would give some of it a try this holiday season after hearing Mr. Doug Casey say that the "Virtue of Selfishness" was influential for him. I can see how Doug found it so influential, as it is a fairly ambitious and compelling piece of philosophy. As with most pieces of philosophy, I found a lot to disagree with but also found some encouraging ideas.

You can find a short summary of the essay in the picture above. The Ayn Rand website has a lot of content that helps make the essay more approachable. You can even listen to a recording of Mrs. Logic, herself, reading the essay here.

The main weakness I see in the essay is a certain type of intellectual arrogance that I encounter from time to time. When Rand supposes that we can conceive of the fundamental purpose of life and the right way to live, I start to get suspect. As a mathematician, I know that there are things we are not well equipped to imagine. I also know that we can also fool ourselves by proving statements about things that may not exactly exist. I don’t mean to be a mystic, but who are we to suppose that we understand the mysteries of the world?

Rand was infamous for asking new acquaintances: "Tell me your premises."  Well, I would take issue with her claim that she uses a scientific approach to ethics. It's not one that I recognize. I don’t see the humble process of assembling observations, specifying hypotheses, and careful testing. I know that it's hard to do all of that in analytic philosophy, but I would point out that one of the main sources of evidence Rand uses is actually things said by John Galt, the lead character from her novel "Atlas Shrugged". That intrigues me to no end, but doesn’t exactly convince me that she has the key to some of the most important aspects of the human experience.  

For the record, I see a similar intellectual arrogance in the writing of J.M. Keynes. From what I've read of The General Theory, most of his arguments seem to start by assuming that things work just so. I've done a fair amount of writing along those lines, myself, but try to emphasize the limitations of the conclusions rather than the conclusions themselves.  

In contrast to Rand and Keynes, I see intellectual humbleness in F.A. Hayek and G. Soros. For Hayek, it is explicit. You can see it in the famous quote: "The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design" and his Prize Lecture: The Pretence of Knowledge. For Soros, the humbleness I am speaking of is in the idea of reflexivity, which is a fascinating catchphrase for a circular relationship between cause and effect. I am inclined to think that these circular relationships are pervasive to the human experience, even in our own minds, and I would love to hear what Rand would say about that.

Rand's description of the Virtue of Selfishness is, not surprisingly, very individualistic. In particular, it emphasizes the individual's growth and learning as a key feature of humanity. She compares humans and animals to make the point, saying:

For man, the basic means of survival is reason. Man cannot survive, as animals do, by the guidance of mere percepts. A sensation of hunger will tell him that he needs food (if he has learned to identify it as “hunger”), but it will not tell him how to obtain his food and it will not tell him what food is good for him or poisonous. He cannot provide for his simplest physical needs without a process of thought. He needs a process of thought to discover how to plant and grow his food or how to make weapons for hunting. His percepts might lead him to a cave, if one is available—but to build the simplest shelter, he needs a process of thought. No percepts and no “instincts” will tell him how to light a fire, how to weave cloth, how to forge tools, how to make a wheel, how to make an airplane, how to perform an appendectomy, how to produce an electric light bulb or an electronic tube or a cyclotron or a box of matches. Yet his life depends on such knowledge—and only a volitional act of his consciousness, a process of thought, can provide it.

I will concede that reason is a basic means of survival, but I do not agree that only a volitional act of consciousness can provide knowledge. Where else do we find knowledge? I would say: "Society".  

Social conventions, norms, and expectations provide a great amount of learning for individuals. I am not advocating for the "greatest good for the greatest number," but just saying that the argument Rand makes for pleasure and pain as signals of right and wrong at the individual level also operates on a social level. The social practices that develop in response to these experiences provide a sort of learning for individuals.

I am not equipped to really debate this point in all the proper language that Rand uses, but my impression was that she does not give enough credence to the power of our shared knowledge for shaping our lives. There seems to be something there as even Rand recognizes the importance of society near the end of the essay when she says "The two great values to be gained from social existence are: knowledge and trade," but it is too little too late, in my opinion. In passing, let me point out that these social conventions I am speaking of are subject to the profoundly objective force of evolution.

  

There were a lot of things I liked in "Virtues of Selfishness", particularly in the middle where Rand really seems to get going with her own ideas. For example, the excerpt below spoke to me as particularly clear and original thinking:

The three cardinal values of the Objectivist ethics—the three values which, together, are the means to and the realization of one’s ultimate value, one’s own life—are: Reason, Purpose, Self-Esteem, with their three corresponding virtues: Rationality, Productiveness, Pride.

Value is that which one acts to gain and/or keep—virtue is the act by which one gains and/or keeps it.

Productive work is the central purpose of a rational man’s life, the central value that integrates and determines the hierarchy of all his other values. Reason is the source, the precondition of his productive work—pride is the result.

Rand goes in for a few pages there and I found the writing to be inspiring. I didn’t necessarily understand all of it, but it conveyed a sense of compelling action that was encouraging. The phrase "think globally, but act locally" came to mind as a way of describing the way she combines self-interest and community service in that middle part of the essay.

This middle part of the essay appealed to me because the ideas seemed relatively straightforward, like they would make sense to a broad audience. Rand used some big words, which were loaded with meaning, but the thrust of the argument still seemed to be accessible. For example, "rationality" can be a controversial word amongst economists, but who cares what they think; most of us have a pretty clear sense of the rules of the road, at least, for most situations that we actually encounter in our lives.

And why do we know the "rules of the road" for most situations we encounter? Why do we have that familiarity with our own world? One part is learning from our own experiences, but another part is the experiences of others. 

What about the actions and ideas that society imposes on the individual? Rand seems to suggest that these are universally problematic, but my sense is that they reduce the number of things we actually have to think deeply about, which is a good thing!

I have read enough Ray Dalio to be committed to a perception of reality, but when Rand says "The virtue of Rationality means the recognition and acceptance of reason as one’s only source of knowledge" I have to disagree. I, for one, don’t want to have to use reason to generate all my own knowledge. I want to learn from others' past success and failures. I want to use my own emotion as a signal of something I can barely articulate. I also don’t expect myself to be correct all the time! 

Rand doesn’t quite say that she wants to be correct at all times, but I suspect that she is inclined in that direction and I think that is somewhat problematic because it forgoes the opportunity to learn from your own mistakes.

Rand writes that it is bad to go through life like a zombie and calls for "total commitment to a state of full, conscious awareness, to the maintenance of a full mental focus in all issues, in all choices, in all of one’s waking hours". I'm sympathetic to that idea, but not to the degree that Ayn Rand took it in her personal life. I wonder what she would say if someone told her to "take it easy".

In all, I see some of the best parts of humanity in the Virtue of Selfishness. The creative forces of purpose and productiveness fit nicely with the guiding structures of reason and rationality. Her emphasis on self-esteem and pride are a great way to bring it all back to our humanity. And yet, I was left wondering if Rand had an almost inhuman standard of discipline that would cause us to miss out on some of the best parts of being human with all the wild chance that the world gives us.