How can self-interest truly be rational

[Brian Howell]

Can somebody please explain how "rational self-interest" doesn't lead to destructive conflict? After all what is rational for me may place me in strong opposition to you. Consider situations of resource scarcity. Let's take water, since we're in the middle of a drought. My rational self-interest is based on my recognition that I'm brilliant and highly productive, thus I should ensure sufficient water for my purposes, even though it leaves others severely wanting. But wait, you too may find yourself in the same position. So, do we rationally resolve our competing needs? Can we determine who offers more to themselves or to society? By what metrics? (The drought could be over and we both might be dead before we overcome such an impasse.) Or is it incumbent upon us for the lessor to rationally recognize his rank and position within the Scale of Elites, or that her need is ever so slightly less than mine, and, groveling appropriately, withdraw to join the thirsting, unwashed masses, as the dust clouds swirl, obscuring them from view? 

It seems to me that objectivism—what little I know of it, admittedly—is a justification for and a form of social—and perhaps even—biological Darwinism. Which, lead to a reasonable conclusion, could very likely end up in a virtual feudal state with its financially and opportunistically suppressed serfs serving their plutocratic lords.

(Yes, I'm using very loaded language here. I like the imagery.) 

[Craig Good]

On Sep 10, 2015, at 14:39 PM, Brian Howell <bdho...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Can somebody please explain how "rational self-interest" doesn't lead to destructive conflict?

It’s possible to rationally arrive at incorrect conclusions, for one thing.

I think here the problem is with a narrow view of “self-interest”. Zoom out to get enough context and I think many of your objections are mitigated.

For example, if I let the state run out of water it’s also going to affect my food bill and every other service I need or want which ultimately relies on a water supply.

I think context is important to evaluating the “great man” theory of history as well. Take Musk: While it’s true that his enterprises have benefitted from government, every penny government spends is taken from the productive people of the private sector.

This may seem like a tangent, but it occurs to me that I’ve been in similar debates about screenplay and story. Some argue for character, others for plot. I (thanks to some good teachers) now opine that those words describe exactly the same thing only from different points of view.

Great men have inarguably had great effects on history. But they couldn’t have done so outside of the context in which they operated.

Of course, Musk’s story also reminds me of a favorite Dizzy Dean quote: “If you can do it, it ain’t braggin’.” I’ll admit to being a big fan of what he and his people have done, if not a sycophant of the man himself. (I took an astonishingly convincing test drive last weekend.)

I also have Steve Jobs stories.





--
--Craig WWJGD?
clg...@me.com http://www.craig-good.com

When governments fear the people there is liberty. When people fear
the government there is tyranny. -- Thomas Jefferson

[David Fetter]

On Thu, Sep 10, 2015 at 02:39:33PM -0700, Brian David Howell wrote:
> Can somebody please explain how "rational self-interest" doesn't
> lead to destructive conflict?

I'm pretty sure I can show that it has to lead to destructive
conflict.

> After all what is rational for me may place me in strong opposition
> to you.

Yep. The fact that selves' interests can and do conflict pretty well
scotches the idea that this could ever be settled without force on
that basis.

> Consider situations of resource scarcity. Let's take water,
> since we're in the middle of a drought.

Yes, let's. If I'm an alfalfa farmer, I have a perfectly rational
self-interest in taking my extremely subsidized water and producing
with it a crop which is also subsidized. Why would I ever to
different? As has been discussed on this list before, the alfalfa
crop in California consumes water at about the same order of magnitude
that California's cities do. The difference is that this water goes
to help a number of people measuring in the dozens in the case of
alfalfa, and in the millions in the case of cities, but that goes to
the question of what metrics we're using and how we're choosing them.

> Or is it incumbent upon us for the lessor to rationally recognize
> his rank and position within the Scale of Elites, or that her need
> is ever so slightly less than mine, and, groveling appropriately,
> withdraw to join the thirsting, unwashed masses, as the dust clouds
> swirl, obscuring them from view?

The idea of pure rationality was put to bed almost a decade before
Alice Rosenbaum (Али́са Зиновьевна Розенбаум, if you want to be
pedantic), er, excuse me, "Ayn Rand," looked at the world of 1939 and
decided that the Cause to which she would dedicate her life would be
that rich shitbags whose gains were pretty exclusively ill-gotten were
being insufficiently toadied to.

It was put to bed by a mathematician named Gődel, who basically proved
that logic itself had issues that couldn't be papered over.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del's_incompleteness_theorems

> It seems to me that objectivism—what little I know of it,
> admittedly—is a justification for and a form of social—and perhaps
> even—biological Darwinism. Which, lead to a reasonable conclusion,
> could very likely end up in a virtual feudal state with its
> financially and opportunistically suppressed serfs serving their
> plutocratic lords.

You'll notice, if you slog through those tweaker[1] rants, that there is
scant mention of children or of childhood. This is by no accident.

Rational self-interest gets all muddy and moral-looking when caring
for defenseless people for decades is essential to the survival of the
species. Muddy and moral is pretty well the antithesis of the
crystalline certainty Ms. Rosenbaum marketed so successfully.

> (Yes, I'm using very loaded language here. I like the imagery.)

Might as well. The people opposing you ever so rationally are doing
the same.

[1] Alice's massive amphetamine habit
<http://randwatch.blogspot.com/2011/03/was-ayn-rand-drug-addict.html>
is a sufficient explanation for what you see both in her writings and
in her behavior. Ranting on and on with great certainty, delusions of
grandeur, etc., etc., etc.
--
David Fetter <da...@fetter.org> http://fetter.org/
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Skype: davidfetter XMPP: david....@gmail.com

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[Brian Howell]

Thanks, David. I've never been able bring myself to read Rand's books. Every adult I meet who speaks highly of them seems to be an ideologue and a proselyte, and that just turns me off. Well, I did read a bit of Atlas Shrugged, in a moment of profound curiosity. I found her writing style in a word, awful. The book sits, moldering on my shelf.

Hmmm, I didn't think of Godel in this context. I need to expand my thinking. 

--

Brian Howell
www.linkedin.com/in/bdhowell

[Craig Good]

I enjoyed “Shrugs” and “Fountainhead”. She’s not a great novelist. She’s not a complete philosopher. But I liked a lot of the polemics. That long speech about money is a treasure. And I’m comfortable with using hyperbole to make a point. Many of her points are quite fair, and what my friends have called my “high negative inductive reactance” makes me cheer at the way she punctures some sacred cows. Maybe the best way to describe her is as a very good caricaturist who just needed an editor.

I’d like to think I’m not an ideologue, but everybody thinks that about themselves.

On Sep 10, 2015, at 17:20 PM, Brian Howell <bdho...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Thanks, David. I've never been able bring myself to read Rand's books. Every adult I meet who speaks highly of them seems to be an ideologue and a proselyte, and that just turns me off. Well, I did read a bit of Atlas Shrugged, in a moment of profound curiosity. I found her writing style in a word, awful. The book sits, moldering on my shelf.

--
--Craig WWJGD?
clg...@me.com http://www.craig-good.com

This aphorism would be seven words long if it were six words shorter.

[Scott Hotes]

On Thu, Sep 10, 2015 at 2:39 PM, Brian Howell <bdho...@gmail.com> wrote:

Can somebody please explain how "rational self-interest" doesn't lead to destructive conflict? After all what is rational for me may place me in strong opposition to you.

This is the "tragedy of the commons".  While strategies for recourse are known for certain narrow cases, there is no (known) general logical way around this.

 

It seems to me that objectivism—what little I know of it, admittedly—is a justification for and a form of social—and perhaps even—biological Darwinism. Which, lead to a reasonable conclusion, could very likely end up in a virtual feudal state with its financially and opportunistically suppressed serfs serving their plutocratic lords.

I will hazard to guess that the aspect of Objectivism you are finding fault with is what might be more clearly stated as:  "the proper moral purpose of one's life is the pursuit of one's own happiness, or, as you say, rational self-interest".  As a political corollary, this would lead one to supporting individual rights in order to pursue said happiness.

One way to approach your thesis that such a philosophy, if carried to its natural conclusion would be a "virtual feudal state", is simply to consider past history.  For example, we could look at recent failed states that have fallen into this kind of dystopia and consider the underlying "philosophy" associated with them.  This is in fact what Hayek did in "The Road to Serfdom", with contrary results.  It would be redundant for me to paraphrase this work, it is freely available online.  On the other hand, societies where personal liberty has flourished can also be found (would it be biased of me to include Greek Republicanism and the founding of the United States here?)

A separate concern could be the basic idea that on the face of it, holding up as primary one's own happiness sounds selfish, and thus counter to a healthy community.  This is a common (and I believe relatively easily abated common) concern.  What Rand is getting at here is not "happiness" in the sense of, say, material greed, but rather (and this would best be garnered in the context of her writing which was quite prolific) the happiness associated with what you might call "creating".  The concept that at our core human beings are driven by a desire to do, to extend, to improve, to do something new, something original, and in this context, to "be great".  And in this context, historically there have been quite effective attempts by the state to curb or disallow this kind of desire.  In particular, Rand escaped Bolshevik Russia and in many ways Objectivism lays out a philosophical groundwork that states might consider as a path to avoiding the same pitfalls.

Viewing from a different perspective, Rand fought against a societal ethic that held "altruism" above all else.  Many people incorrectly interpret this to mean that it is never right to help someone in need.  Again, in the context of her writing this is patently false.  Her goal here (and this is the primary thesis of The Fountainhead, which is really a vehicle for adapting this thesis into fiction) is to ward off the idea that all human endeavor must be measured against it's immediate association with "the common good".  The "crabs in a bucket" problem is over-simplified, but useful here.  If what we do, how we think, how we act is constantly measured against the common good, then this truly does lead to a dystopia.  Manifested for example in Bolshevik Russia and Mao's China.

Scott

[Jack Saunders]

Craig -- I imagine such a columnist today would greatly enlivening the debate on the Times Opinion page. I can hear her tersely answering the convincing pleas for pity on behalf of the war-ravaged, various victims of discrimination, the poorly raised, etc. churned out by the paper's black and gay columnists.

While Ross Douhat can always be relied upon to bring in the best data showing that charitable public policy rarely achieves much, Rand would skip data, going directly to the empirical worthiness of the strong, ipso facto, she would argue.

Let resources flow naturally -- to the strong...who build systems that guide the surplus to themselves. Those who can't figure out how to play that game couldn't make productive use of such capital in any case.

Today, sadly, the only authors willing to argue the pure Randian line are made to seem like foolish no-nothings-- and Anne Coulter is an obvious example. She simply lacks the intellectual chops to carry off that Darwinian stuff. Not even David Brooks will go anywhere never Rand. Classy cruelty is a hard act to bring off with the consistent panache that is necessary to survive in mass media. I'm sure Fox would love to find one. Think Frank Underwood's wife on House of Cards.

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[Jack Saunders]

Godel's Incompleteness Theorem
-- having scanned the wiki link, I humbly advance the competing Saunders Theorem:

"Things are pretty much what they seem to be."

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[Craig Good]

Oh, that made my day. Just imagining an Ayn Rand column. I wouldn’t have to agree with a word she wrote to enjoy the prospect tremendously.

Back when Ann Coulter stuck to her area of expertise, namely constitutional law, she was pretty good, and a decent flame thrower. Fourteen years ago she kind of went off the rails. Now she’s a caricature of her former self.

I still love her three-word summary of the constitution: “Politicians are bad.”

On Sep 11, 2015, at 14:06 PM, Jack Saunders <Jack...@pacbell.net> wrote:

> I imagine such a columnist today would greatly enlivening the debate on the Times Opinion page.

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