Ayn Rand is such an interesting but bizarre figure to me. Lately I've been studying libertarian philosophy more and more, and also with the nature of the political climate in the US, what she is saying is starting to make more and more sense.
She's a controversial figure and I still don't agree with everything she says, but she's someone worth studying.
I glossed over her originally in university ages ago but her philosophy somewhat horrified me when I first encountered it. The values she held seemed to contradict so many of my own at the time. I ended up largely dismissing her views back then without comprehending them in the slightest.
This is for people like my former self who were confused about what she had to say. As a disclaimer, I'm still learning more about her and am far from an expert on Objectivism. Consider this a MyTake from a former dummy on the subject who is still a bit of a dummy but slightly less so.
If nothing else, I'd like to point more people in her direction whether you agree with her or not.
History
As a brief history, Ayn Rand was born in Russia in 1905. She experienced a revolution which lead to the establishment of the first communist government under Vladimir Lenin. Under this government, she and her family experienced dire conditions after her father's pharmaceutical business was confiscated.
She later emigrated to the United States under a visa which was granted to her. In the US, she managed to procure various jobs and eventually became a writer and a philosopher who developed her philosophy of Objectivism. She passed away in 1982 at the age of 77.
This is a very brief summary of her history which glosses over many details, but the crucial part is that she experienced, firsthand, the differences between a communist government and a capitalist one.
Objectivism
There are many aspects to Objectivism and they get into complex philosophical subjects which always give me a headache. As a result I only want to focus on a few parts.
Ayn asserted that the highest moral state of man is for him to pursue his rational self-interest.
What?! This part confused me terribly. I always considered the whole basis of morality to revolve around empathy, sympathy, and altruism. The word, "morality", seemed hollow to me if it was to revolve around self-interest.
She also condemned altruism as immoral. What she meant by this is that she considered it immoral to make a man believe that his primary duty and virtue is to make sacrifices on behalf of others.
She didn't necessarily condemn a man for being charitable and helping others, only the act of making him believe this was his primary duty.
If the person to be saved is not a stranger, then the risk one should be willing to take is greater in proportion to the greatness of that person’s value to oneself. If it is the man or woman one loves, then one can be willing to give one’s own life to save him or her—for the selfish reason that life without the loved person could be unbearable.
Yet some of her views could be considered cold-hearted.
If the person to be saved is a stranger, it is morally proper to save him only when the danger to one’s own life is minimal; when the danger is great, it would be immoral to attempt it: only a lack of self-esteem could permit one to value one’s life no higher than that of any random stranger. (And, conversely, if one is drowning, one cannot expect a stranger to risk his life for one’s sake, remembering that one’s life cannot be as valuable to him as his own.)
For Ayn, everything had to trace back to a form of rational self-interest. We should be able to rationalize that our actions, even if they are altruistic in nature, will somehow benefit us personally in the grand scheme of things.
No Initiation of Force
Before going further into self-interest, Ayn strongly asserted that the initiation of force was irrational. Anything irrational is immoral according to Ayn (the self-interest must be rational).
This is a crucial counterpart since it constrains our possible behaviors even when pursuing a rational form of self-interest. We cannot coerce other people using the initiation of force to behave the way we want. To do so would violate our primary directive, so to speak.
As she put it, using force would go against the "mind" of the individual. It would prevent the other party from being able to act on his rational self-interest. We would deprive this individual of the ability to act morally, so to speak, by coercing his actions.
Keep in mind that the emphasis is on the initiation of force. Ayn wasn't necessarily against using force as a form of defense.
Rational Self-Interest
So what is rational self-interest exactly? It's exactly what it means but it's deeper when we think about it. I might think it's to my self-interest to engage in self-destructive behaviors and snort cocaine and get wasted every day. That would definitely serve my immediate self-interests.
However, if I try to rationalize it on a deeper level, it doesn't take long for me to realize that this isn't going to lead to my prosperity and happiness in the grand scheme of things. It becomes apparent quite quickly when I think about it that it won't take too long before that leads to a lifetime of regret.
Capitalism
Ayn Rand considered capitalism to be the most moral economic and political system of them all. Remember that she experienced a sharp contrast between communism and capitalism firsthand.
Again she considered this the most moral system. She wasn't necessarily considering it to be the most efficient system, but simply the greatest from her moral standpoint.
Her philosophy was obviously inspired heavily by capitalism and how she revered it. The reason is quite obvious: capitalism and the free market operate on rational self-interest and consensual agreement. It involves no initiation of force. It doesn't try to make men feel as though their duty is to sacrifice on behalf of others.
It even rewards greed, and I think Ayn Rand actually considered greed to be a virtue.
The free market operates on rational self-interest of thinking individuals who make consensual exchanges.
1) There's the greed of the producer who competes against other producers. He wants to maximize profit, but is kept in check through healthy competition. He exchanges goods and services with the consumers for money.
2) There's the greed of one in the employment of the producer. He works cooperatively and consensually with his employer but is driven by greed for higher wages. He exchanges his time and labor for money with his employer.
3) There's the greed of the consumer buying the produced goods and services. He wants the highest-quality goods and services at the lowest possible price. He exchanges money with the producer.
The entire capitalist system is driven by self-interest, greed, and consensual exchanges. This is effectively a polar opposite of the communist state which operates on selflessness, a lack of greed, and involuntary actions driven by the initiation of force.
My interpretation is that this is at the heart of Ayn's framework of morality. So much of how she thought started to click with me when I understood her love of capitalism and why she placed it on a pedestal.
1) Her love of capitalism is why she favors self-interest, private property, and greed, as long as everything is consensual and divorced from the initiation of force.
2) Her hatred of communism is why she has a distaste for selflessness, lack of private property, lack of greed, and despises the initiation of force.
Controversy
Needless to say, Ayn was a most controversial figure.
She was also an atheist and deeply opposed faith as an enemy of reason.
On top of this she held discriminatory views towards homosexuals, for example. However, true to her philosophy, she nevertheless endorsed rights to protect homosexuals against discrimination by government, opposing laws such as those that forbade sodomy.
This is consistent with her philosophy that initiation of force is immoral. Even though she had a distaste for homosexuality, she saw it as immoral to utilize government, and therefore initiate force, to criminalize their behavior.
Nevertheless, she likewise was opposed to laws in the private sector that forbade employers from hiring homosexuals or any other minority group since that would force them to act against their self-interests. This wasn't necessarily because she was against employers hiring minority groups.
To the contrary, she was against forcing employers to involuntarily hire minority groups. She wanted to allow them to act in their self-interest without anyone stopping them through force.
This last part about allowing employers to discriminate isn't necessarily discriminatory towards minorities. It is easy to become outraged, but if we force employers to hire certain groups of people, not only are we acting immorally by initiating force through law, but we are benefiting the discriminatory employer that way.
If we consider a sexist male employer, for example, if he fails to hire a highly-skilled female worker, he suffers a heavy cost as a result of his discrimination. Such a skilled worker may find work elsewhere and put him out of business. If we force him to hire her, then he no longer suffers any loss and has a better chance of staying in business. We ended up helping the bigot with such a law, not hurting him.
I'm not sure if this was Ayn's intentions when she opposed forcing employers to hire people who belonged in certain minority group, but at the very least she was true to her philosophy of avoiding the initiation of force.
Conclusion
Ayn Rand is a most unusual figure. I glossed over many aspects of her and her philosophy in favor of zooming into some parts of personal interest.
We don't necessarily have to agree with her on everything, but she's a useful figure when it comes to challenging our points of view.
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