Objections
to Objectivism
Is
Stealing Selfish?
Copyright
© 2001 by John
Ku
Ayn Rand as
Confused Kantian
One
thing to note about prisoners' dilemmas is that the impermissible, or
at least disfavorable, action is always parasitic upon the more
favorable one. That is, one only benefits from engaging in it on
condition that others generally refrain from doing so. This naturally
seems to suggest that this be the very grounds by which we condemn
such actions. Anyone who has taken so much as an intro to ethics
class should recognize by now that this is the basis of Kant's
deontology. According to his first formulation of the categorical
imperative, one ought always "act only according to that maxim
whereby one can at the same time will that it should become a
universal law." The maxim, "I shall steal in order to gain
more property," however, cannot be universalized without running
into a practical contradiction since if everyone were to steal, one
would not be able to gain more property. Thus, an action such as
stealing involves willing oneself to do some action while at the same
time willing that others not do so. Yet, from a reflective
standpoint, there is no morally relevant difference between oneself
and others so this is inconsistent. If we were to put this
explanation in terms of rights we might expect it to sound something
like this:
Since the only rational base of individualism as an ethical principle is the requirements of man's survival qua man, one man cannot claim the moral right to violate the rights of another. If he denies inviolate rights to other men, he cannot claim such rights for himself; he has rejected the base of rights. No one can claim the moral right to a contradiction. (Virtue of Selfishness, p. 135)
Lo
and behold! This is exactly the line of reasoning Ayn Rand endorses!
Again let me stress that she is not arguing that violating the rights
of others will in fact, have a significant impact on the extent to
which others violate one's own rights. This is implausible. She is
not appealing to consequences – or if she is, then they are
hypothetical rather than actual. But for precisely this reason, she
is no longer an egoist. The egoist is a
consequentialist seeking to maximize his self-interest. Given that
whether or not others are likely to steal from him is not
significantly affected by whether he steals from others when he can
get away with it, it is in his interests to do so. Appealing to
universalizability and rights will do no good since rights are a
moral concept and so, for him, no one can have a right that it is not
in his self-interest to respect. And why should he care what would be
in his self-interest in a world where everyone acted as he did? Maybe
if he actually lived in such a world he would have a reason not to
steal, but he can observe reality and note that this is not so. Of
course, some of his actions effect how others treat him in return so
you may end up with some pretense of decency, but surely this is not
the case in such instances that he can get away with it.
As
Eric Mack points out in The Philosophic Thought of Ayn Rand,
Rand uses this type of argument quite often in more subtle forms. Her
entire defense of rights seem to rest on such general statements as
"everything man needs has to be discovered by his own mind and
produced by his own effort." (Virtue of Selfishness,
p. 23) The only reading that
will make such a statement true is to take "man" as meaning
man the collective or man the species. Since, much of this criticism
is taken directly from Mack's essay, I may as well allow him to speak
for himself:
By focusing on man in general when considering the aptness of some mode of behavior for survival, Rand in effect is asking whether the general practice of this mode of behavior would be beneficial to the members of a community of such practitioners. . . If some mode of behavior works for some individuals only if other individuals shun that way of acting, e.g., if, like predation, it is parasitic upon nonpredatory production, then its general adoption would not enhance survival prospects. Hence, it is judged to be bad in any individual who practices it. Ironically, in this argument Rand implicitly adopts the Kantian stand that for an action to be morally right it must be of a sort in which any rational being can engage. A given individual is not to wonder whether his predation might be advantageous because, in fact, others are engaged in nonpredatory production. (The Philosophic Thought of Ayn Rand, p. 141)
And so, once again, in order to defend a plausible morality, Rand had to resort to borrowing arguments from altruist moralities, in this case, Kant's criterion of universalizability, which I contend not only goes beyond the scope of self-interested reasons but is actually incompatible with egoism by leading to a contradiction similar if not identical to the one G. E. Moore points out in section 59 of his Principia Ethica. The ethical egoist must hold first that his own interests are the sole good while also endorsing others to hold their own interests as the sole good. There may yet be ways to avoid the contradiction that seemingly results from multiple values all being endorsed as the sole good although Moore would probably beg to differ, but if we add in there the criterion of universalizability then it seems that it commits the egoist to this contradiction. That is, if by acting on or stating some maxim, "I shall do x," I must also will that everyone else do x in order to be consistent then it seems that as an egoist pursuing my self-interest as the ultimate value, I must will that everyone else pursue my self-interest as the ultimate value as well while as an ethical egoist, I must at the same time will that everyone else pursue their self-interest as the ultimate value. Surely, then, it must be inconsistent for an ethical egoist to also be an adherent to Kant's requirement of universalizability. Unfortunately for Rand, this denies her one of the primary ways by which she argued that such actions as theft and murder are not in one's self-interest.
To Ayn Rand as Confused Humean