dr_who@umcp-cs.UUCP (08/21/83)
This article contains information that I felt should be appended to my article entitled "It's Impossible," which I wrote a week ago. I want to explain why I think that selfishness, as I conceive it, is not compatible with full-fledged caring about others. I elaborate below on statements which I made earlier. From Paul Torek, July 10 (my first submission on "altruism"): If I give to a loved one FOR THE SAKE OF my own pleasure I expect to get from doing so, then something is missing -- the love. "For the sake of" should be changed to "SOLELY for the sake of", in case it's not clear that's what I meant. I think that the expression "for the sake of" is pretty clear here; basically it means "having in mind the purpose of". Why do I think that "something [the love] is missing"? Because I think that there is a conceptual conflict between, on the one hand, the idea of loving someone, and, on the other hand, the idea of giving to them solely for the sake of a benefit to oneself (or a third party). Think about two people who do good things for Jones, one of whom (Smith) loves Jones and the other of whom (Taylor) doesn't. Think about how you can tell the difference -- think about what the difference IS. I submit that the difference is that Smith acts for the sake (at least partly) of Jones's welfare, but Taylor doesn't. Taylor cares about Jones's welfare, but only *derivatively*, rather than at a fundamental level. Taylor cares about Jones's welfare only because Taylor believes that Jones's welfare contributes in some way to his [Taylor's] own. Taylor would not care but for this belief. Smith's caring does not hinge on such a belief. From my article of Aug 7, 7:54 a.m.: ...if you really care about someone's welfare, intrinsically and not just as a means to your own, then you fail to be a good Objectivist. You cannot say, "I will care intrinsically about this person's welfare because (for the object, aim, [or intention]) it will make me better off." If that is the only object or aim, then you are failing by that very fact to care intrinsically about the other! ... I will try to give an analogy next time. This is another attempt to point out the conceptual conflict between selfishness and caring. I believe that a selfish person must say the very thing which I say above that "You cannot say", if it is to be possible for the selfish person to love. Now, I agree that it DOES make you better off to care fundamentally about others -- paradoxical as that may sound. The problem is, there is no way to get there (caring) from here (selfishness). As long as you take your own welfare as more basic in the hierarchy of intrinsic and extrinsic values -- which is what I interpret selfishness as doing -- you don't love. Put differently: as soon as you love, you cease to regard your welfare as being important in a *more fundamental* way. Here's the analogy, to support my claim that "there's no way to get there from here." Suppose you are promised $10,000 to be awarded at 2 a.m. tomorrow if you *intend* at 2 a.m. to drink a mild poison at 3 a.m. You do not have to actually drink it -- just intend to. The poison causes a headache which you value at -$100. The headache is the only effect. The promisers of the $10,000 are totally honest and trustworthy and sincere. They are able to tell for certain whether you have the specified intention. You know all these facts for certain. You are not allowed to use "tricks" such as getting someone to hypnotize you to drink it, or making a promise to someone to drink it, etc. I submit that you cannot intend to drink it, because you will always be tempted by the thought of intending at 2 a.m. but not drinking at 3 a.m. Please note that the fact that you WOULD be better off IF you intended to drink, does not make it POSSIBLE to so intend. Similarly, I claim that the fact that you WOULD be better off if you loved, does not make it possible for one who thinks selfishly. From my July 10th article: Objectivists tell us that our *individual* lives are the basis of all values; that selfishness is a virtue and a requirement of rationality. Love and friendship are not really counterexamples to this thesis, they say, because we benefit from love and friendship. But it is most emphatically NOT the benefit *I* get that serves as my [sole] reason [motive] for loving, or being a friend to, somebody. NOR COULD IT BE. If I started looking to [thinking of] MY benefit as the [*]only[*] reason [objective] for anything, love and friendship would slowly be eaten away by that attitude. Bracketed items have been added for clarity. Unlike the first statement I quoted, this one makes an empirical claim rather than a conceptual one. Thus, I really have two impossibility theses; one conceptual, one empirical. Perhaps it will be denied that love and friendship, and the actions associated with them, should be done with the ultimate (selfish) justification in mind; rather, one simply loves, and then in reflective moments asks whether the love is (selfishly) justified. However, this constitutes a conflict in attitudes: it is not possible to restrict the selfish attitude to the times when it is convenient. It requires suppressing the selfish attitude when not thinking about whether the love is justified, and suppressing the love when thinking about it. Willingness to abandon the love or friendship when it ceases to serve self-interest is required by selfishness, but that willingness will destroy the love. (That love and friendship will be slowly eaten away by the selfish attitude is my empirical claim -- it is a claim about human psychology.) --Paul Torek, U of MD College Park p.s. this article was written before reading Tom Craver's reply to the articles which I wrote last week.