Big Think via Public Reason:
Love is about self-interest at all levels. You choose to be with another person because you gain something from that relationship, etc. In The Virtue of Selfishness, I seem to recall a passage describing "true love" in the context of a man whose wife is on the brink of death. The husband learns that there is a way to save her, but it would require that he loose his own life. Now, on most accounts, this would be a selfless act, should the man sacrifice his life for that of his beloved's. But Rand doesn't look at it this way. She reinterprets this scenario in terms of self-interest: the man is rational and acts rightly in giving up his life for his wife, because it would contradict his love for her to do otherwise. If he truly loves her, than to have a life without her would be of less value than the one he currently enjoys. By giving up his life, he doesn't sacrifice it for anyone but himself, since it is a more desirable ending to having to suffer without his spouse.
I'm not convinced that this captures everything about love about which we should be concerned. After reading a lot of Rand - including a fascinating 1964 interview with Playboy - I feel like there is something seriously lacking. I try to be more open-minded than most within the philosophical world when it comes to consider Rand's arguments, and I think she has a lot to offer. That said, I think there is a lot about love in our lived experience which is inexplicable on an Objectivist approach. Certainly, the idea of the instrumentality of love and erotic desire isn't anything new. Plato, in Symposium and Phaedrus, discusses how eros inspires in the lover an ascending insight into the Forms. His motivation, it would seem, is self-interested.
But Platonic love of this variety also requires that the lover inspire in his beloved the philosophical way of living for the beloved's benefit. I suppose this, too, could be construed as self-interested because it is allows for more meaningful discourse between the lover and the beloved - an important feature of the relationship and its ability to serve the good of the lover in ascending towards noetic insight, etc. Or it could even be seen as a mark or reciprocity (though not equality) within the relationship - it's simply a "trade" of services. I don't think this would be accurate, nor would Plato think so. Indeed, in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, and with the introduction of Christianity, the lover is expected to will the good of the other for the other's own sake. The mark of true love is an interest in seeing the betterment of the beloved, regardless of the benefit which one might receive.
Ultimately, then, the problem with Rand is her reclassification of everything as self-interestedness. She makes a sort of category mistake. Let's return to the hypothetical of the man with the dying wife. I find it hard to conceive of his life as anything but sacrifice for the simple good of his woman. How can we really say that he experiences a benefit in death, which cannot even be considered a good? The momentary happiness he gains between his decision to "pull the trigger" (assuming he's using a gun to do the deed) and the moment when he dies seems of inconsequential value compared to the greater happiness he could acquire in the long-run should he not die. Once you're dead, it is all over, at least in this life. (NB: At this point, Rand would call me an irrational mystic, and probably leave the room.) If one were serious about being self-interested, then staying alive, rebuilding one's life, and finding another lover seems the more ethical decision. The man who is so impassioned that he chooses to kill himself appears to be irrational. And it wasn't as if Rand was a big believer in monogamy - just read Atlas Shrugged, or even better, a biography of her own life - so any argument that this was his "soulmate" isn't going to be convincing to an Objectivist.
This is a major problem with Rand. Everything is somehow derived from "Existence exists" and "A = A." If we only act ethically when we act in self-interest, then every ethical dilemma is exceedingly simple to resolve. But I'm not so certain that our world is full of such stark choices. And I'm certain that love, whether amongst men, or between God and men, is a little more complicated, even mysterious, then Rand is willing to admit.
With Internet romance sites catering to virtually every interest . . . you'd think there would be something for philosophy fans. Well, there is, but the pickings are extremely limited. If you're a devotee of the greed-preaching Tea Party inspiration known as Ayn Rand, and you think total self-reliance is compatible with romance, you are in luck.My favorite is probably the Hannah Arendt suggestion:
AmorousArendtians.com - "Spice up your vita activa"Apparently, there is also an on-line dating website for Objectivists. Really. It has nearly 30,000 user profiles! All jokes aside, I think Rand's philosophy of love is . . . interesting. It is easily misunderstood, as is most of Rand's work. Selfishness, as an Objective understands it, is more like rational self-interest. Unlike a pure altruist, the properly selfish person doesn't sacrifice himself to others, or reduce himself to a mere means. This is all highly simplified, but I think it conveys the general idea of Rand's basic ethical principle; it isn't all about doing what every you want like some hedonist or libertine.
Love is about self-interest at all levels. You choose to be with another person because you gain something from that relationship, etc. In The Virtue of Selfishness, I seem to recall a passage describing "true love" in the context of a man whose wife is on the brink of death. The husband learns that there is a way to save her, but it would require that he loose his own life. Now, on most accounts, this would be a selfless act, should the man sacrifice his life for that of his beloved's. But Rand doesn't look at it this way. She reinterprets this scenario in terms of self-interest: the man is rational and acts rightly in giving up his life for his wife, because it would contradict his love for her to do otherwise. If he truly loves her, than to have a life without her would be of less value than the one he currently enjoys. By giving up his life, he doesn't sacrifice it for anyone but himself, since it is a more desirable ending to having to suffer without his spouse.
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| I suppose this isn't a terribly flattering photo... |
But Platonic love of this variety also requires that the lover inspire in his beloved the philosophical way of living for the beloved's benefit. I suppose this, too, could be construed as self-interested because it is allows for more meaningful discourse between the lover and the beloved - an important feature of the relationship and its ability to serve the good of the lover in ascending towards noetic insight, etc. Or it could even be seen as a mark or reciprocity (though not equality) within the relationship - it's simply a "trade" of services. I don't think this would be accurate, nor would Plato think so. Indeed, in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, and with the introduction of Christianity, the lover is expected to will the good of the other for the other's own sake. The mark of true love is an interest in seeing the betterment of the beloved, regardless of the benefit which one might receive.
Ultimately, then, the problem with Rand is her reclassification of everything as self-interestedness. She makes a sort of category mistake. Let's return to the hypothetical of the man with the dying wife. I find it hard to conceive of his life as anything but sacrifice for the simple good of his woman. How can we really say that he experiences a benefit in death, which cannot even be considered a good? The momentary happiness he gains between his decision to "pull the trigger" (assuming he's using a gun to do the deed) and the moment when he dies seems of inconsequential value compared to the greater happiness he could acquire in the long-run should he not die. Once you're dead, it is all over, at least in this life. (NB: At this point, Rand would call me an irrational mystic, and probably leave the room.) If one were serious about being self-interested, then staying alive, rebuilding one's life, and finding another lover seems the more ethical decision. The man who is so impassioned that he chooses to kill himself appears to be irrational. And it wasn't as if Rand was a big believer in monogamy - just read Atlas Shrugged, or even better, a biography of her own life - so any argument that this was his "soulmate" isn't going to be convincing to an Objectivist.
This is a major problem with Rand. Everything is somehow derived from "Existence exists" and "A = A." If we only act ethically when we act in self-interest, then every ethical dilemma is exceedingly simple to resolve. But I'm not so certain that our world is full of such stark choices. And I'm certain that love, whether amongst men, or between God and men, is a little more complicated, even mysterious, then Rand is willing to admit.
1 comment:
I found your blog through Facebook and have enjoyed reading your posts.
I disagree, however, with your criticism Rand's example from the "Virtue of Selfishness." As I see it, it isn't so much that the man "benefits" from dying, as that he considers dying to be the "least bad" option. If we look at it that way, then his actions are perfectly consistent with rational self-interest--it is pretty easy to think of examples where going on and living without the person he loved would be much worse, from his self-interested perspective, than simply dying so that she could live.
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