The Fountainhead & Atlas Shrugged

[Gustaf]

I've read Atlas Shrugged. I found it quite interesting, although unconvincing and badly written.

[Gustaf]

One thing that seems pretty clear... she really didn't like women did she?

Perhaps she just didn't like the characteristics traditionally associated with women by people like you, you male chauvinist.

 

[Gustaf]

Her notion of objectivism doesn't hold very well philosophically at all. At its core moral egoism doesn't really make sense. And I mean that not in a moralizing way but on pure logical grounds.

[Gustaf]

At its core moral egoism doesn't really make sense. And I mean that not in a moralizing way but on pure logical grounds.

Could you expand on this?

Essentially, you can say that people ought to keep their own money even if they want to give it away. But that is pretty dumb. Alternatively you can say that people should just do what they actually do (since people sort of by definition do what they want) but that isn't a prescriptive moral theory. Rand sort of goes back and forth between the two in Atlas Shrugged. You can perhaps argue that people are brainwashed and that this should override what they think they want, but such a line would be the same kind of moralizing Rand is criticizing.

[Gustaf]

At its core moral egoism doesn't really make sense. And I mean that not in a moralizing way but on pure logical grounds.

Could you expand on this?

Essentially, you can say that people ought to keep their own money even if they want to give it away. But that is pretty dumb.

Yes, nor does it really sound like moral egoism.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Max Stirner wrote that people always do what's in their interest, but because they often do so without admitting to themselves that that's why they do it (for example, by saying that they donate to charity because it's "the right thing to do", rather than because donating to charity makes them happy, and being happy is in their interest), people's thoughts and actions are confused and contradictory. Those who recognize that self-interest is the be-all and end-all of life, and actually think and act accordingly, are called "voluntary egoists", while everyone else is called an "involuntary egoist".

Then it still isn't much of a prescriptive moral theory, just a description of why people do what they do.