Objections
to Objectivism
Is
Stealing Selfish?
Copyright
© 2001 by John
Ku
Ayn Rand as
Rule Egoist
So
far, I have argued that ethical egoism fails to accord with our most
basic moral intuitions. Evaluating every major Objectivist reply and
finding them wanting, I conclude that the act of stealing is indeed
selfish and that therefore, egoism fails to condemn it as immoral. In
short, it fails to be a morality. There is, however, one last resort
available to Objectivists by appealing to rule egoism as distinct
from traditional act egoism. Under rule egoism, the rightness of an
action is determined by the consequences not of the action itself but
of the general rule it follows.
Thus, though it may be admitted that any particular act of stealing
may be beneficial to oneself, it can be argued that making it a
general rule to act by will not be in one's self-interest.
Even
if rule egoism is able to provide a viable morality which I
definitely have my doubts about, there are two major objections that
it would still face. First is the notoriously difficult question of
why an act should be judged by the consequences of adopting it as a
general rule as opposed to the consequences of the act itself. Even
if some action is usually against my rational self-interest,
if I know that in this particular case, it is in my
self-interest to do so, what plausible account could explain why I
ought not to? This is a familiar objection against the move from act
utilitarianism to rule utilitarianism and as a result, most modern
day utilitarians are act utilitarians. Second, and not altogether
unrelated to the first, how is a rule to be understood? What degree
of specificity would the relevant rules require or forbid?
Rand's
probable reply to the first and in fact, the main support for
interpreting Rand as a rule egoist is found primarily in her
discussion of "principles:"
A principle is "a fundamental, primary, or general truth, on which other truths depend." Thus a principle is an abstraction which subsumes a great number of concretes. It is only by means of principles that one can set one's long-range goals and evaluate the concrete alternatives of any given moment. It is only principles that enable a man to plan his future and to achieve it. (Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, p. 144)
Elaborating on this, Leonard Peikoff says in Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand:
To avoid any breach between action and thought, a man must learn the proper principles, then follow them methodically, despite any unwarranted pleas or demands from any source, inner or outer. Integrity isolates this aspect of the moral life; it is the virtue of acting as an absolute on (rational) principle. It is the principle of being principled. (p. 260)
Although neither of
them explicitly applies this to defending rule egoism most likely
because they did not realize the inadequacy of act egoism, it is a
fairly common Objectivist response to arguments against egoism as
well as a quite natural progression from the said passages. Rules
ought to be the fundamental concern of ethics, according to this
argument, because of its epistemic and psychological priority.
Because of the very structure of man's consciousness, "concrete
problems cannot even be grasped, let alone judged or solved, without
reference to abstract principles." (The Ayn Rand Letter,
I, 1, 3) So, it is only fitting that the abstract principles should
be judged by their consequences and judgments of particular actions
derived only from them.
Taking this answer to our first
objection, however, has unfortunate consequences for the answer to
the second. If the reasons we should primarily evaluate principles
and rules are the conceptual needs of man's consciousness, then we
should expect the specificity of such principles also to be dictated
by our conceptual needs and follow closely the actual line of
reasoning and intentions formed during the deliberation prior to an
act. But if this is the case, then it is unlikely that rule egoism
will fare any better in accounting for the basic intuitions of
morality than act egoism did. Since all but the most simple-minded
humans are able to grasp complexities beyond atomistic imperatives
such as "Do not steal," and "Do not lie," the
rule embodied by an act of stealing would not be "Always steal"
but rather more of the form, "Do not steal unless you are
reasonably certain you can get away with it," thus placing us in
no better a position as we were in before.
Furthermore, any
attempt to bar the inclusion of conditional clauses into the
understanding of a rule would not only fail to coincide with the
justification for switching to rules but would also completely
undermine the plausibility of the resulting morality. If a kidnapper
asks where one's child is, it seems unquestionably permissible to lie
to him. The Objectivist answer is that one may lie if it is necessary
to protect one's values from criminals. (See Objectivism:
The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, p.
275) But then, there is no way to exclude a condition such as "unless
you can get away with it" without also excluding this exception
for lying through the structure of a rule itself. And as we have seen
by now, appealing to the consequences of such a rule is not very
promising either.
Essentially, even if it is true that one
must judge concretes by reference to principles, those principles, if
they are to have plausible moral implications or fit with the
explanation for why we need to judge by principles, must allow enough
specificity that it ultimately suffers from the same flaws as act
egoism.
To How You Can Eat Your Cake and Have It Too