To Mr. Klein: Why I Find Ayn Rand Compelling

Rand really does have stuff to offer to just about everyone. I found stuff in Ayn Rand that I agree with and I'm pretty sure I oppose just about everything she stands for (for the record the book I read was the Fountainhead.)

The main objection most people have to Ayn Rand is her cavalier treatment of so many philosophical subjects. For instance, proclaiming "existence exists" as the axiom your philosophy is based on. I certainly would agree with Ayn that many philosophers seem to be more interested in word games than coming up with useful insights, but I also recognize that metaphysics is a bit too complicated to be resolved by handwaving and tautologies.

There is also the propensity of both Rand and her so-called "intellectual heirs" for tossing around accusations of "irrationality" and "collectivism" at just about anyone who they disagreed with. She leveled such accusations herself at Kant, when it was that very philosophical icon who originated her main "individualist" slogan ("Man is an end in himself, not a means to the ends of society"). Attacking Karl Popper is also one of her descendants hobby-horses, even though Popper agreed with Rand on more philosophical issues than any other modern philosopher I can think of.

Tyler,

I think that those are reasonable criticisms, and I must say that I always found her ethics more appealing than her metaphysics. She and her followers illustrate one of the paradoxes of philosophy in that in their desire to be completely consistent, they tended to go extremes and to underestimate the contributions of others where they differed only only small points.

On the other hand, I will defend her on the grounds that she tried very hard to make philosophy a more general and less academic pursuit. This is probably the source of much of the controversy surrounding her, but I would like to see more philosophical conversations in the general public.

What does being a neuroscientist have to do with the existence of "pure alturism", whatever that actually means?

Neurology hasn't identified mechanisms for jealousy, optimism or charity, but these all exist.

Neuroscience -- or I guess more properly biology -- has to do with altruism in two senses. 1) From a evolutionary perspective, why and under what circumstance do altruism and cooperation exist? As all species have been evolutionary selected to maximize fitness, cooperation and altruism must be justified according to evolutionary standards. 2) How is altruism neurologically implemented? For that matter how is ethical behavior? The neural systems that identify the objects to whom altruism should be directed and the manner that they assess the relative value of different actions is a reasonable neuroscientific consideration.

And while it is true that neuroscientists have not completely specified the mechanims for jealousy, optimism and charity, we recognize them as separate cognitive processes each subject to scientific analysis.

In essence, I see no reason why I shouldn't apply what I know about the brain to practical considerations about the world.

I find her absolutism to be damning. The intelligent, the capable, the violent, the ignorant, and the incompetent represent far too few pigeonholes for an accurate classification of social participants. Rand engaged in near comic-book oversimplifications (and you do too).

The environments she developed as settings for her novels were very generous: plenty of frontier opportunities, and no acknowledgement of zero-sum games, of 6.5 billion people competing for finite resources.

She has recognized only direct physical coercion, failing to understand the coercion of even a single degree of removal, like the coercion that occurs during the negotiation of the best price to toss a rope to a drowning man.

Despite claims that devil-take-the-hindmost is necessary for the greatest good, she is functionally wanting in some of those intangibles that most of us really want included in the social matrix. Compassion is chief among them.

Take an Objectivist approach to your family life. Ayn seems to have done just that, and was a despicable spouse and parent.

To Rand, unlike many philosophers, reality is not a distraction from what is otherwise an intellectual exercise.

Could you possibly elaborate on this? Which "other philosophers?" And just what counts as "philosophy ... for living in reality?" Certainly, I can think of my own "many philosophers" who claim to be engaged in work relevant to the more-or-less concrete details of life, et cetera. Is this enough, or do their ideas actually have to be in some way practicable as well?

However, as a neuroscientist, I am not aware of any evidence that pure altruism exists; thus, she makes a substantive point.

I take issue with this sentence for two reasons. First: I'm inclined to think that the idea of "pure" altruism is at bottom vacuous and simply inconsistent with the notion of acting in general. Its inclusion here can only serve to muddle the issue. Second: as Rand was presumably making something like a moral judgment when she wrote about altruism, I'm not sure how any empirical facts about altruism could possibly have any bearing on whether she was making a "substantive point" or not. Murder is wrong; that humans instinctively recoil at the sight of a mutilated corpse does not make that statement more true. At best, it provides a context in which the meaning of moral statements about murder can be more thoughtfully considered.

"1) From a evolutionary perspective, why and under what circumstance do altruism and cooperation exist? As all species have been evolutionary selected to maximize fitness, cooperation and altruism must be justified according to evolutionary standards."

Must it? This rather reminds me of Richard Dawkins decision to live "childfree". How would you "justify" that in evolutionary terms? What evolution seems to have given us is such an incredibly flexible thinking-organ that we can freeely choose exceptionally non-adaptive lifestyles. That could (but rarely does) include a life of pure self-sacrifice.

However, as a neuroscientist...

Frankly, I can't see how, as a neuroscientist, you can actually attribute any credibility to Rand, since she argues practically against the entirety of modern neurosciences which tell us how information is processed time and time again before we actually can consciously address it in any fashion. She also argues against modern scientific method, which disagrees with her significantly on issues of "reality" -and contradict your notion that philosophy -of which philosophy of science is a discipline- doesn't concern itself with reality.

Not the least, I'd urge you to consider why Rand is near-unknown outside the US. Do you seriously want to proclaim scientists and scholars of all kind in the rest of the world to be daft?

Some comments on the novels. I have read Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead and in both the characters seem too unreal. The 'heroes' never doubt and have answers to all the problems(including those you're discussing) right from their birth. The plots are too simplistic, as Phil says. One can't identify with any of the characters and so the story doesn't make much sense. The best comparison seems to be with fables.

Many people have told me to read Ayn Rand, but the quotes I have seen have always scared me off. She seems a very poor writer.

Take the quote in the post as an example, clumsy and over the top.

I read a quote from Atlas shrugged where she desperately tried to show by means of a caricature why it is evil to receive according to need and to perform according to ability. She used a factory as an example.

The pity was that from line one what she described had nothing to do with the premise. She described how the workers needs were ignored, their labour taken advantage of - the smart ones were set on hard physical labour etc.

When I read that caricature I didn't know it was Rand that had written it and dismissed it as the fevered imaginations of a 12 year old uneducated libertarian, but no it was the great Ayn Rand.

I guess it is wrong to judge a writer just because a couple of pages in one of her books sucks big time, but somehow my time has always been to precious to waste on more of her silliness.

"1) From a evolutionary perspective, why and under what circumstance do altruism and cooperation exist? As all species have been evolutionary selected to maximize fitness, cooperation and altruism must be justified according to evolutionary standards."

Rand defines altruism in a very specific way that has nothing to do with cooperation (which is fully compatible with Objectivism). Altruism is the premise that we live for the sake of others; that the benefit of others is our moral purpose.

This is not mere kindness; this means it is our moral duty to always put the interests of others above our own, and that it is wrong to benefit ourselves. This is patently wrong as judged by even the most basic standards: who will be *receiving* these benefits if *everyone* lives for others, since there won't be anyone left to be selfish and accept things for themselves? The evolutionary benefit of this is nil, and will in fact result in the gradual descent of civilization, which is precisely the thesis dramatized in Atlas Shrugged.

On the other hand, cooperation means two or more people agreeing to an arrangement, ostensibly for mutual benefit. This the main benefit of society, and it does not in any way contradict the Objectivist ethics.

A purely off-the-cuff observation: the folks I know who like Ayn Rand best are the folks who need her most -- in other words, those who, by dint of being basically nice, decent people, have at some point in their life been exploited by others, and could probably use someone explaining to them that they really should shore up their sense of self-worth. In that respect, I think she's exactly the tonic her many adoring fans were looking for, regardless of the ultimate / absolute truth of her thoughts on these matters. (I think this is also why some people call her "watered-down Nietzsche")

Jake, your 3 bullet points are very nicely put. It's obvious you've actually read and understood the material, which is not always the case!

I'd like to take issue with one point, namely the idea that "Objectivism as a movement -- particularly in its later years -- can be reasonably defined as a cult".

Although I understand the basis for this statement, IMO this is a mistaken notion and is primarily the result of an embittered few of the "excommunicated", rather than actual behaviors of Rand or the current people at the Ayn Rand Institute (ARI). Specifically, I believe that two of Rand's former colleagues, Nathaniel and Barbara Branden, are significant sources of this idea, and they have managed to negatively color Rand and Objectivism for years now.

For those of you who don't know, Nathaniel Branden was a psychiatrist and partner with Rand in forming the Nathaniel Branden Institute, which promoted and taught Objectivism and at which he was a lecturer. At one point, Nathaniel became romantically involved with Rand, and later, while still involved with her, he pursued an affair that he and his wife (!) both hid from Rand. On top of that, he allowed Rand to engage in what amounted to protracted psychotherapy sessions to try to figure out what was "wrong" with him and why he could no longer express his "love" for her. Once she found, out, she rightly broke all ties with him. This man and his wife wasted untold stretches of this unique and productive woman's life in a deliberate deception.

Later, the Brandens both published "tell-all" books about their years with Ayn Rand, which are part "history", part confession, and part bizarrely twisted and insincere paean to Rand. For example, while they profess that she is great at certain points, they proceed to paint her as a neurotic, bitter autocrat. These people were longtime associates of Rand, so their statements inevitably have some impact.

Thankfully, however, there is a third book on the topic called "The Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics" by James S. Valliant that corrects the distortions of the Branden accounts. It is based on interviews and Rand's personal journals from the time, and paints an entirely opposing picture. What one finds is that the negative attributes they ascribe to Rand are actually better ascribed to them: that Nathaniel is the guy who craves a crowd of eager groupies, was the autocrat, and is the source of the bitter attitude falsely assigned to Rand. One sees how incredibly patient she was, how earnestly she wanted to help, and what a tragedy it was that she was deceived, and then maligned by these 2 people. Although I never fully accepted the Brandens accounts, this book made me realize how I had nonetheless allowed their accounts to color my view of Rand for the worse, and I was glad to be corrected.

As for Leonard Peikoff and other Objectivist scholars, there have been occasional breaks with colleagues for them also. Personally I think Peikoff only too clearly sees things for what they are, and when he sees that something is wrong, that's pretty much it for him. I'm not going to begrudge him his judgments.

Objectivism is also a philosophy that emphasizes consistency (Hobbes' famous comment notwithstanding) and the idea that morality has a real practical use in life, so moral judgment goes with the territory. In applying moral principles, Objectivism distinguishes between errors of judgment and actions that are wrong; mistakes can be corrected through learning/discussion. When someone understands what is right, yet does not act to achieve it, a negative moral judgment is in order. However, this represents allegiance to principles, not people, so the charge of "cult" does not apply; mere agreement with an authority does not make someone a cult member.

All that philosophy is well and good, but the end result is Rand, more then any other philopher (outside of maybe Nietzsche), has a tendancy to turn her followers into !@#holes.

I know, I know, those are just college freshmen, but if something is so easy to misinterpret, then isn't there a problem?

If you want to make a case for Rand, saying that "she is one of the few philosophers -- and I call her that even though she does not have the imprimatur of the philosophy establishment -- who seriously addresses the issue of reality" is a bad way to start. Is there a philosopher at all, not matter how bad or feeble, who doesn't seriously address the issue of reality? Or, more plainly, reality - from asking about the logic of speech acts to asking about processes. I can see that you might prefer Rand for addressing the issue of reality in a way you find justified, or better than other philosophers, but - and here is the problem with Rand - mere comparison is never good enough. No, reality had to wait 50,OOO years after homo sapien got up on his feet, and then four thousand years from the time the Chinese started noting down ideas, to the birth of one pulp novelist before we could get down to brass tacks.

Please, don't write things like that! It is painful. And it is why Rand seems more cult than school - you do not hear, say, Whiteheadians say no other philosopher dealt with the issue of reality. This isn't because they are modest. It is because they have... a grasp of reality, which includes intellectual history. When the first statement in defense of Rand is so out of bounds, so unbelievable, it is hard to grant her followers a lot of leaway. They would have to come up with a story about this marvel, the human creature that never came up with a theory of reality before, even as he was busily inventing machines and discovering gravity and such.

Jake young wrote:

"I may not agree with Rawls and Bentham..."

Jake points out how Ayn Rand got Pragmatism all wrong. She also got Utiltarianism all wrong by identifiying it with the writings of Bentham. Bentham was indeed the founder of Utilitarianism, but it has undergone significant changes and developments at the hands of Mill, Hare and (most recently) Peter Singer.

I am not sure if I would trust a philsopher who grossly misunderstood the writings of other philosophers. Like her nemesis Marx, she seems to me what Daniel Dennett called a "stupid reductionist" who reduces everyone to a few precepts, which may have some valuable insights in themselves, but lack the richness and depth of a truly fruitful philosophical system.

I mean, Utilitarianism has Bentham, Mill, Singer etc, Pragmatism has Pierce, James and Dewey, even Marxism had adherence from quite a respectable group of philosophers. Who has Objectivism got besides Ayn Rand? Who is developing and maturing her philosophy?

Re: Who is developing and maturing her [Rand's] philosophy?

Outside academia, one can name Peikoff, as he wrote down her philosophy (which was no mere act of transcription), and has given countless lectures on a whole myriad of subjects. But that's too obvious, I suppose. Of more interest to me, personally, is Harry Binswanger, who is most seen commenting on cultural and political issues, but whose research strengths in epistemology and consciousness contrast with Peikoff's main interests in ethics, and are very original, and extremely insightful.

[Aside: Quibbles about philosophers being less legitimate if they are "outside academia" are not relevant if one already recognizes Rand as a philosopher, who was always outside academia.]

Inside academia, the most notable include Tara Smith (UT Austin), who has published on Rand's ethics in articles and books (including with Cambridge University Press). There is Robert Mayhew (Seton Hall), who works in classics and philosophy, notably on Plato. There is Allan Gotthelf (presently at Univ of Pittsburg) an internationally recognized authority in Aristotle. Jim Lennox is at Pitt also. I am less familiar with his work, but it also is around Aristotle and philosophy of biology.

Both Smith and Mayhew have published quite a lot on Objectivism in addition to or in combination with their other research interests. Some of this is in articles or books; some is in lecture format on CDs. There has been a gradual transition away from the lecture-recording format to the more widely accessible formats of books and articles as interest in Rand's philosophy has increased.

There have been many barriers to pursuing academic research on Objectivism, not least of which has been hostility to Objectivism (or its basic tenets) in philosophy departments. This is evidently slowly changing. I'm also told that Objectivists are "notoriously slow writers." Peikoff has said he edited every page of "Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand" eight times before sending it to the publisher, including a single round focusing exclusively on his usage of the words 'and' and 'or'. I wish more intellectuals wrote and edited that carefully, thoroughly, and deliberately. But anyway.

There are several other researchers scattered in academia, and a steadily increasing number of graduate students planning to work in or around philosophy, with Objectivism as a core interest and/or perspective (both in the US and abroad, I should note, although Objectivism is still mainly an American phenomenon).

Interested people might also want to look at the members of the Ayn Rand Society, a sub-group of sorts of the American Philosophical Association. There is also the recently-started journal The Objective Standard, which seeks to expand, apply, analyze etc. Objectivism in academic and cultural matters, but assumes no fluency in the philosophy or jargon of Objectivism. (And it's very and specifically jargony, as the multiple hashings of the word 'altruism' in this post suggest).

Hope that helps.

"I wish more intellectuals wrote and edited that carefully, thoroughly, and deliberately. But anyway." It might have helped if Ayn Rand had written more carefully, as opposed to making her arguments through straw-man fictional characters. In any case, I find her identification of altruism with evil to be monstrous. The rights and duties of the individual in society is a highly developed theme in modern philosophy and there is much more subtle, probing and trenchant work on the subject than anything Ayn has to offer. What she does have to offer, however, is a theoretical rationalization for selfishness. Given the neo-liberal hegemony in American politics, where people reflexively believe that any act of compassion is automatically counter-productive, a philosopher who identifies compassion with evil is eminently useful. From my point of view, too much compassion is not a problem in the world.