Transcript egoism_and_justice

Egoism and Justice
Answering 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. shortterm
• 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 Challenge
Plato’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 Challenge
Plato’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, prescientific model
• Anti-social behavior as
“sick” = a hidden
normative judgment,
assumes “proper
function” - naturalistic
fallacy
Plato’s Response
Critique
• 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