October 11, 2000 2:11 PM



Bill wrote:



> I am referring to his argument that egoism is self-contradictory or
> self-refuting. Rob argues that one may be better off living in a world in
> which everyone commits himself to sacrificing his life for the sake of
> others in an emergency, because if everyone followed this policy, everyone
> would maximize his chances for survival. Rob stipulates that we cannot
> avoid acting on the commitment, once it is made. He imagines that everyone
> takes an "altruism pill", which programs him to follow through on his
> sacrificial commitment. Based on this example, Rob concludes that since it
> could well be in our interests--could well maximize our chances of
> survival--to commit ourselves to the sacrifice of our lives under certain
> conditions, egoism is self-refuting.



[The example to which Bill is referring can be found at http://oocities.com/amosapient/egoism.html. The important section, though others are also relevant, is headed "The Third Problem: Egoism Undermining Itself", about two-thirds of the way down the page.]



You seem to be focusing on the wrong feature of what the altruism pill does in the example. Following the original example, I said,



What's essential about the altruism pill is not that you cannot abstain from following through on the commitment once it is made, but that taking it is a step that results in altering motivations. For the real-world analogue, the relevant question is whether some step or steps that one has a self-interested reason to take could result in changing one's motivations so that one is no longer entirely self-interested.



Saying this assumes that there are some motivations that one could have that are not self-interested, even if one came by them in a self-interested way. I'll spell this out a bit more below.



> Is this a valid argument? Well, either it's in one's interest to commit
> oneself to a policy of "sacrificing" one's life for the sake of others in an
> emergency or it isn't.



Of course.



> If it is, then one's commitment is egoistic, because
> it constitutes the surrender of a lesser value for a greater one. The
> lesser value would be the choice to preserve one's life instead of
> surrendering it for the sake of others, and the greater value would one's
> own increased chances of survival. Alternatively, if it is not in one's
> interests to make this commitment, then, of course, making it would not
> be egoistic.
>
> So I don't see how, based on Rob's example, egoism can be said to undermine
> itself. What am I missing?



What you're missing is the importance of the distinction between self-interested motivation and self-interested outcomes. Making the commitment is self-interested: you increase your chance of survival thereby. It doesn't follow that, once you have made the commitment, your motivation then is (entirely) self-interested. To be clear about this, you need to distinguish self-interested outcomes and self-interested motivation. Consider this diagram:



 

Serves One's Interests

Does Not Serve One's Interests

Self-Interested Motivation

A

B

Non-Self-Interested Motivation

C

D



Note first that there are real examples for all four of the categories. For category B, at least by way of accident, it is possible for someone to take an action with some self-interested motivation and, even though he has not made a mistake--that is, it is reasonable for him to act in the way he does--the actual outcome may be against his interests. Second, for category C, it is possible that someone takes action with some non-self-interested motivation but that the actual outcome serves his interests. (I take it for granted that examples in which self-interested motivation leads to a self-interested outcome [A] and in which non-self-interested motivation leads to an outcome against the agent's interests [D] are easy to come by.)



Second, note that if you have an account of what is in a person's interests, then it is possible to reasonably sharply divide what is in one's interests from what is not. For an egoist, the account of self-interest will have to be provided by what I have elsewhere called his basic or core values. In terms of those values, a self-interested outcome can be defined as one that promotes or at least does not harm the core values. This has to be treated as relative to the other options the agent has available. If the available options are limited to ‘bad' and ‘worse', then ‘bad', though it would involve harm to the core values, would still count as a self-interested outcome, since the only alternative is something that involves greater harm to the core values.



Third, note that the kinds of motivations collected under the heading of ‘self-interested motivation' may be reasonably unified, presumably by having some kind of reliable connection to self-interested outcomes, but there is no such unity to the class of non-self-interested motivations. They are a grab-bag with no particular unifying feature except that they are not self-interested. Many different things can fit here, including concern for the interests of others, self-hatred, hatred of others, devotion to the glory of God, commitment to institutions and so on. To say that some motivation is not self-interested is not, in my book, to praise it. Nor, for that matter, is saying that some motivation is self-interested equivalent to condemning it. Whether action or motivation deserves praise, condemnation or something else is just a different question, and to be settled on different grounds, than whether the motivation is or is not self-interested. Self-interested motivation is often a good thing. Non-self-interested motivation is often a bad thing. Objections to egoism, at least of the kind I would make, are objections to a narrow and false theory of what matters morally; they are not objections to self-interest per se nor endorsements of anything, whatever it might be, that happens to be opposed to self-interest. (As I have pointed out before, this is entirely standard usage among moral philosophers. Hardly any moral philosopher believes in what Rand called "altruism".)



With these points in hand, we are prepared to approach the central issue. Remember that I have said that an egoist is someone who takes his (non-moralized) interests to be of ultimate value (for himself). You have elsewhere said that you consider that an acceptable definition. The interests in question are, most fundamentally, the basic or core values. If anything else counts as an interest, it is because of its relation to those basic or core values. I have also said that taking his interests to be of ultimate value involves at least allowing them to have veto power over any other concerns. That is, the egoist will not knowingly, deliberately, act in a way that harms his interests if he has any other, more self-interested, option available. I take that to be essential to egoism and to self-interested motivation. (That is, it's a necessary condition for self-interested motivation. It may not be sufficient if there is any non-self-interested motivation that satisfies the condition.)



The motivation for an action is not self-interested or not wholly self-interested if the agent would knowingly and deliberately take the action when (a) it would harm his interests and (b) he has some other option that is better in terms of his interests. (If you disagree with that, if you think that a person's motivation in some action may be entirely self-interested but that he may nevertheless knowingly and deliberately act against his own interests when some more self-interested option is available, then I suggest that you're using "self-interest" [and "egoism"] in a highly non-standard way. If that's your position, then, to avoid confusion, you should simply substitute other terms and quit calling your position a version of egoism.)



The main point of the previous paragraph is that there is an essential relation between being an egoist and having self-interested motivation. If a person is so motivated that he is willing (knowingly and deliberately) to act against his interests when there is some more self-interested option available, then he is not an egoist. Return to considering now the situation in the thought-experiment I proposed. A person is faced with a choice in which he can either take or refrain from taking a step that will result in altering his motivations (this is what the "altruism pill" stood for). If he takes the step, his life-expectancy will be greater than if he does not. Taking the step and not taking the step otherwise bear equally on his interests: neither is better or worse for his interests than the other. If we assume that increased life-expectancy is in his interests, then he should, in terms of his interests, take the step. Taking the step can be accounted for by--indeed is required by--entirely self-interested motivations. He could only have a reason for not taking the step under the conditions stipulated if he were already not entirely self-interested.



Suppose that he does then take the step--which he must do if he is an egoist. Taking the step, though, leads to a change in his motivations. It results in his being willing to risk or give up his life in order to save at least two others. So, if he should find himself in a position where this is possible, he will knowingly and deliberately take action which reduces his life-expectancy. That is, he will refuse to let considerations of his interests have veto power over proposed courses of action, and therefore he is no longer an egoist.



In other words, for the envisioned agent, egoism undermines itself. Egoism tells him to take a step that, once taken, will result in his no longer being an egoist. Since egoism is a universal theory -- that is, since it says that everyone ougght to be an egoist--the existence of even one agent who ought not to be an egoist (or, more precisely, who ought to do something that results in his ceasing to be an egoist) shows that egoism is false. And, of course, it is.



 Rob



P.S. Below is an extended excerpt from private correspondence (with minor editorial changes) designed to illustrate the point. The person to whom it was written was making the mistaken claim that any motivation for which a self-interested reason could be given counted, ipso facto, as a self-interested motivation.



------



Let me illustrate by considering a character who lives by a principle that (I hope!) you won't take seriously. I'll call him the Bottom Liner. The Bottom Liner guides his action by consideration of "the bottom line"--money or monetarily denominated assets. He thinks that the only thing that matters in life is the impact on his bottom line. I'm not supposing that he's stupid or unable to take risk or investment opportunities into account. He's perfectly willing to spend more in the present for a higher future pay-off. He's also capable of making hard choices when the best he can do is minimize losses to the bottom line.



Now, saying that he's a Bottom Liner isn't enough to tell how he decides in particular cases. For the moment, I am going to assume that he's a calculating Bottom Liner. He makes a habit of making decisions, whether large or small, by trying to figure out how they will impact his bottom line. Of course, he doesn't literally calculate everything. He doesn't engage in calculation to decide whether it will pay to get out of bed when the alarm goes off (and whether it will pay to calculate whether it will pay and ...). Some things are settled by standing policies. (By standing policies, I mean policies that have been settled upon by calculation at some point. The Bottom Liner may also just have fallen into certain habits that amount to regularities in his behavior, but are not matters of standing policy. Both habits and policies may, from time to time, be reviewed to assess or reassess their impact on the bottom line.) In others, it just doesn't occur to him to calculate, or a decision has to be made when there isn't time for calculation. Still, it is his habit to calculate whenever he notices that an option, not already settled by a standing policy, may have an impact on his bottom line.



Suppose that at some point it occurs to him to consider the impact of being a Bottom Liner on his bottom line. Initially, since he is a calculating Bottom Liner, this will involve assessing the impact of being a calculating Bottom Liner upon his bottom line. He will have to calculate what the bottom-line impact of being a calculating Bottom Liner is. One possible though not very likely outcome of the assessment is that he will conclude that being a calculating Bottom Liner is what's best for his bottom line. A more likely outcome is that he will discover that his constant calculating is bad for his bottom line. It has costs of various kinds that may well outweigh any prospective payoff. If this is the result of his calculation, he will revise the policy or habit of constantly calculating. He will still assess options solely in terms of the bottom line, but will adopt various heuristic devices to determine when calculating does or does not serve his bottom line. He will become a more sophisticated Bottom Liner.



Something like this is apparently what you think my anti-egoist argument amounts to--an argument for being more sophisticated in the pursuit of one's interests. If that were all there is to it, you'd be quite right that it isn't an argument against egoism. But that is not all there is to it, for, to continue the parallel, there's another possible outcome of the Bottom Liner's assessment. He may discover that being a Bottom Liner is bad for his bottom line. That is, it may be the case that people who guide their actions by some (specific) different principle, one that counts some other factor or factors than impact on the bottom line as relevant to their decision-making, typically do better on the bottom line. Perhaps, people who are not Bottom Liners are more likely to be trusted and therefore more likely to be offered profitable opportunities.



If that is the upshot of his assessment, the Bottom Liner will have reasons in terms of the bottom line for ceasing to be a Bottom Liner. The reason will speak to him in terms of what he cares about as a Bottom Liner, but after he has understood that that is really the outcome of the assessment, he can no longer remain a Bottom Liner. (It does not matter whether he decides to change his behavior and attitudes in consequence of the new assessment or not. If he does, he will no longer be a Bottom Liner because he will think that something matters besides the bottom line. But even if he does not, he will no longer be a Bottom Liner, for he will, at least in this case, be refusing to do something that he knows is supported by considerations of impact on the bottom line. At this point, it may be that failure to follow the argument or dishonesty or self-deception can keep him from admitting or realizing that he's no longer a Bottom Liner (or no longer a consistent Bottom Liner), but they will not keep it from being true.



It is this third type of case that is parallel to the argument I presented against egoism, and it is the possibility of a case of this kind that undermines the suggestion that what I am really doing is arguing for some more sophisticated version of egoism.



Now, to repeat what I said elsewhere, I take egoism to be the thesis that, for each person, his own (non-moralized) interests are of ultimate value. At minimum, whatever an egoist may do, he may not, consistently with being an egoist, knowingly act against his interests or treat any other consideration than his interests as being or being part of what has ultimate value.



From that point, the argument is straightforward and proceeds in parallel with the case of the Bottom Liner. It is possible for egoistic assessment to yield the conclusion that being an egoist does not serve one's interests as well as some alternative. This would amount to saying that those who consider something (in particular) other than or additional to their own interests as having ultimate value actually (typically) do better in terms of their interests. With only slight alterations, what I said above about the case of the Bottom Liner applies here as well:



If that is the upshot of his assessment, the egoist will have reasons in terms of his own interests for ceasing to be an egoist. The reason will speak to him in terms of what he cares about as an egoist, but after he has understood that that is really the outcome of the assessment, he can no longer remain an egoist. It does not matter whether he decides to change his behavior and attitudes in consequence of the new assessment or not. If he does, he will no longer be an egoist because he will think that something matters besides his own interests. But even if he does not, he will no longer be an egoist, for he will, at least in this case, be acting in a way that he knows is against his interests. At this point, it may be that failure to follow the argument or dishonesty or self-deception can keep him from admitting or realizing that he's no longer an egoist (or no longer a consistent egoist), but they will not keep it from being true.



------
Rob Bass
rhbass@gmail.com
http://oocities.com/amosapient





Comments? I'd love to hear!

 

 

To Objectivism: Assorted Commentary

 

To Other Stuff