Ayn Rand's Morality
Lessons for Altruists From an Egoist
(Warning: mild to moderate Atlas Shrugged spoilers ahead. Nothing that would really ruin the book, I think.)
I'm sort of embarrassed to admit that I like Atlas Shrugged. It seems beloved by the most extreme and annoying kind of conservative or libertarian.1 But I'm something of a libertarian myself, and a bit of an estranged one at that. Very few people in my family or (IRL) friend group are particularly sympathetic to this way of thinking, so I've been looking to learn a bit more about my newfound intellectual heritage, so to speak. Atlas Shrugged seems like a rite of passage, so I decided to pick it up, and I must admit I'm glad I did!
So what's this book about? I knew very little going in myself. I'd heard it evangelizes capitalism and selfishness, but that's about it; plot-wise I knew nothing. I knew a little more about the author—Ayn Rand—but not much. I knew she started a bit of a cult around her philosophy. I knew she fled the Soviet Union to escape communism. Curiously, from some cursory reading I also knew she argued that altruism was immoral. Not just stupid or irrational: immoral. That I could really could not wrap my head around, which is another reason I was curious to read the book.
There are a few key morals that Rand advocates in her book. A lot of it's pretty uncontroversial, like the virtues of hard work, reason, and freedom. Others are more contentious. One big point she emphasizes is that money is not evil. She goes even further, in fact, and argues that money is a virtue. To some extent, I agree; earning money can often be a good metric of the value you've produced for society. But Rand does not think in terms of producing for the common good, and she argues that earning money is the highest virtue of all, which seems to go much too far.
The most controversial theme in the book is of course the claim that altruism is immoral. Interestingly, I found her argument for this remarkably coherent! Essentially, she views altruism as a form of exploitation—exploiting oneself for the benefit of others—and rejects all such exploitation as immoral. Ultimately I disagree because I have a much more consequentialist outlook, and because I seem to place more value on bodily autonomy than she does. To fully understand the context of her argument, we should learn a little bit more about the story.
As an aside, you might think that nobody really needs to hear this, because we already live in a greedy consumerist society. But remember that for every piece of advice, there's somebody who needs to hear the exact opposite. So sure, lots of people could stand to care less about money and more about others. But many other people have a strong instinct that money is icky and evil and corrupts everything.
In fact, I think an important lesson from effective altruism is that most people's altruistic instincts are actually plenty strong; they just don't apply them effectively. Part of this stems from an unwillingness to think of things in terms of money, because money is icky and evil and corrupts everything. People don't want to think about the dollar value of a life, and this makes them worse at using money to help people. A healthy respect for money is actually important to doing good.
Also, some people feel guilty about making money. My wife, for instance, feels greedy if she asks to be paid more than $10/hour to clean a friend's house. I think it's useful for people like her to understand that it's okay to make money, and sometimes might even be good!2
Finally, if like me you're concerned about doing good in the world, and there is some sense in which altruism is immoral, shouldn't you want to know about it? Might there be something we're doing wrong? Let's take a look.
Atlas Shrugged
The heroes
Most of the book consists of three main heroes: Dagny Taggart—the protagonist—and Hank Rearden and Francisco d'Anconia—the love interests (and heroes in their own right).3 All three are business magnates. Taggart runs a railway, Rearden a steel company, and d'Anconia a copper mine. All three are exceedingly fair, honest, intelligent, and hard-working. And lastly, all they care about is making money. Thus, they embody Rand's highest ideals.
I've read some criticisms of Atlas Shrugged here and there, and a common one is that all her heroes are unrealistically perfect. This is basically true, but I love them anyway. They're legitimately awesome and virtuous, plus as a literary device, they convey Rand's ideals better than she's able to state them herself.
The villains
Left to their own devices, our heroes would be thriving. Unfortunately, they're being held back by an oppressive government and a business world full of incompetent morons. At least, that's how the book portrays it. Another major criticism of Atlas Shrugged is that all the villains are one-dimensional and cartoonishly evil. This is definitely true too. But also, Ayn Rand villains are real, so you can't fault her too much.
Her villains extract value from all the producers in society, while simultaneously showing disdain for the very qualities which allow them to produce: hard work, ingenuity, and intelligence. To demonstrate such qualities is to put oneself above others, while her villains preach strict equality (with themselves still sitting at the top of the power ladder, of course). They revile profit as exploitation, yet it's precisely this profit which they tax to keep the government running and to line their own pockets.
In the name of equality, the most efficient producers increasingly face the most draconian regulations. On the other hand, business owners who focus more on knowing the right people in government rather than producing can get special exceptions. As a result, the economy starts to falter. And the more it struggles, the firmer a grip the government tries to get on it. Eventually they pass a law barring any change in production levels, all hiring and firing, any new innovations, etc.
The monologues
The absolute cardinal sin of this book which I hate hate hate is the monologues. They're so bad. The book will be going along quite nicely, when suddenly the spirit of Ayn Rand possesses one of the heroes, turning them into a mouthpiece for her philosophy. Rand would benefit greatly from focusing a bit more on "show, don't tell". When she simply shows her heroes living out her philosophy, they seem strong and honorable. But when she has them state it explicitly, it sounds like the ramblings of a madwoman.
The first of these monologues I remember is from Francisco d'Anconia. He's attending a party of progressive elites and overhears one of them suggest that money is the root of all evil. He then goes off on a five page rant, insisting not only that money isn't evil. He declares that money is the highest of all virtues (emphasis my own):
“If you ask me to name the proudest distinction of Americans, I would choose—because it contains all the others—the fact that they were the people who created the phrase 'to make money'... Americans were the first to understand that wealth has to be created. The words 'to make money' hold the essence of human morality... Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for your own destruction."
In fairness to Rand, she makes an interesting distinction between making money and merely acquiring it: the former necessitates the creation of wealth. It means you must have done something of value. Thus she views the making of money as a direct measure of all the good produced in society.
This argument has some holes. First, it's not always true that just because you got paid, you must've done something of positive value; take selling drugs to an addict as a classic example. But even if we grant that producing wealth is always good, her argument doesn't address the opposite claim, that we can only do good by producing wealth. If I simply help a friend and ask for nothing in return, there's no money to track my good deed. Is this worthless in Rand's eyes? It would seem so. But it's not addressed in this monologue, while she still concludes that money is "the root of all good".
It's frustrating because she has a core of a good point, but she overplays her hand and takes it too far. The huge uninterrupted text is also intensely unpleasant to read. To top it all off, she writes the party attendees as comically incapable of giving an intelligent response:
“Senor d'Anconia," declared the woman with the earrings, "I don't agree with you!"
"If you can refute a single sentence I uttered, madame, I shall hear it gratefully."
"Oh, I can't answer you. I don't have any answers, my mind doesn't work that way, but I don't feel that you're right, so I know that you're wrong."
"How do you know it?"
"I feel it. I don't go by my head, but by my heart. You might be good at logic, but you're heartless.”
It's incredibly self-indulgent to have your hero go on such a long rant, only to imagine your opponents as having absolutely nothing of value to say in return.
She has several such monologues in the book, and they're each painful. But the worst one of all is, of course...
This is John Galt Speaking
John Galt is the secret background hero of this book. Throughout, he gradually poaches leading industrialists, encouraging them to abandon society and let the economy collapse. This is the origin of the title, "Atlas Shrugged". The story explores what would happen if the greatest producers in the economy, upon which our society rests, shrugged off this responsibility. What would happen then?
John Galt is the master of this conspiracy. As the economy finally crumbles, he issues a radio address to the nation to explain what he'd done and why. And I shit you not, it's a 60-page monologue. This is possibly the worst thing I've ever seen in a piece of literature. I started to read it, but he just talks in circles, making the same points over and over. I skipped a few pages and found more of the same. So I skipped the whole damn passage and missed nothing of value.
Ayn Rand's Morality
But there was one monologue I liked, and it's how I finally got Ayn Rand. At this point in the story, all business transactions must be approved by the federal government. They've explicitly prohibited Hank Rearden from selling Rearden Metal, a special alloy of his own creation. He ignores this directive and sells it in secret. Eventually he is caught and goes to trial.
His trial is my favorite part of the book. Probably you should just read it. It's actually much less of a monologue than the others, and it's also much shorter, which may be part of why it's better. But it's still a clear case of Rand using one of her heroes as a mouthpiece, and yet this time it works on me.4
TLDR: Rearden refuses to recognize his act as a crime and will not cooperate with the court. He's willing to acquiesce to the law, insofar as the law says that if he violates it, his business may be seized and he may be placed in prison. He tells them to get on with it. But he will not hand them his Metal nor will he walk into a jail cell. They will have to take it by force, as is their legal right. He will not help them pretend to the public that this is anything other than what it is. The judges are aware that the public won't perceive them as the good guys if they carry out such an act of force, which puts them in a bind.
That's all great enough on its own, but then Rearden goes on a little monologue where he explains his own moral philosophy:
"I work for nothing but my own profit—which I make by selling a product they need to men who are willing and able to buy it. I do not produce it for their benefit at the expense of mine; I do not sacrifice my interests to them nor do they sacrifice theirs to me; we deal as equals by mutual consent to mutual advantage—and I am proud of every penny that I have earned in this manner."
...
"I could say to you that I have done more good for my fellow men that you can ever hope to accomplish—but I will not say it, because I do not seek the good of others as a sanction for my right to exist, nor do I recognize the good of others as a justification for their seizure of my property or their destruction of my life."
...
"If it were true that men could achieve their good by means of turning some men into sacrificial animals, and I were asked to immolate myself for the sake of creatures who wanted to survive at the price of my blood, if I were asked to serve the interests of society apart from, above and against my own—I would refuse. I would reject it as the most contemptible evil, I would fight it with every power I possess, I would fight the whole of mankind, if one minute were all I could last before I were murdered, I would fight in the full confidence of the justice of my battle and of a living being's right to exist."
This is when I understood Rand, and it's why I wanted to write this. The first thing to understand is that she's a deontologist. This was immensely clarifying for me. We can see this in how Rearden would choose a minute of his own survival over all of mankind, based on his fundamental right to life. Property rights are similarly inviolate to Rand.5 I suppose I found this surprising because I'm used to econoliterate-type libertarians who argue using something akin to utilitarian logic. But Rand does not come from this perspective at all.
Secondly, consider that on conventional deontology, it's wrong to sacrifice the needs of one for the needs of the many. We do not rob banks and give it to the poor. We do not sacrifice the man on the train tracks. Rand simply extends this logic to oneself. Just as you would not exploit another for the sake of the many, do not exploit yourself. She understands "altruism" to mean the sacrifice of your own interests for the benefit of another and frequently refers to it as "self-immolation".
Consider Rearden's example. If I buy something from you, I'm not committing an act of charity, benefitting you at my own expense. I'm doing it because I value the good more than the money, and I'm benefitting myself. Likewise, when you sell to me, you're not giving away the item to your own detriment. You're doing it because you want the money more than the good! This situation, in which we both benefit, is the highest good according to Rearden. It's strictly better than either of us benefitting at the other's expense. Frankly, this is a much more coherent moral position than I ever expected to get out of Ayn Rand.
Ayn Rand's Morality is Incoherent
Okay, but it's not that coherent. For one thing, the mutualism that Rearden lays out explicitly contradicts what Rand says elsewhere. She is very clear that the highest good is to pursue one's own self-interest, independently of the interests of others. This is the essence of ethical egoism. Thus she can't consistently hold that mutual beneficence is what makes trade good.
In a similar vein, as discussed earlier, she makes a distinction between earning money and acquiring it. Earning money means you have actually produced something of value, rather than appropriating someone else's. In Rand's view, the former is ethical, while the latter is not. But what can be the justification for this distinction if not that it's good to produce for society?
I suspect a Randian might say something like, if everyone tried to extract value from others, then there would be no producers left and society at large would collapse. But this still seems to be arguing in terms of the public good. And it's not clear why a savvy person shouldn't preach altruism to the masses while secretly looting themselves, if one's self-interest is all that matters. Yet this is precisely what characterizes Rand's villains.
Her philosophy as stated also places surprisingly low value on autonomy. This isn't necessarily incoherent, but it's strange for a libertarian icon. In my view, if someone gives their informed consent, it becomes immensely more palatable to sacrifice their well-being for the sake of others. It seems Rand does not agree. She discusses robbery and charity as if they were morally equivalent! Then again, she's clearly in favor of a police force to prevent theft, while I seriously doubt she would want the state to interfere to prevent people from giving to charity. But I can't see how she'd justify the difference.
Lessons for Effective Altruists
Is there anything for altruists to learn here? I think so. I find this view of mutualism quite appealing, even if it wasn't quite what Ayn Rand believed. Those with an altruistic bent may be too quick to allow a situation where one party sacrifices for another, rather than searching for more mutually-beneficial options.
Open borders might be a good example. This policy would massively benefit the impoverished, and even the rich countries as well, if you buy Bryan Caplan's arguments. EAs are sympathetic to this policy, but I think our minds go less naturally to such a mutually beneficial solution. Mine does at least. If someone is in trouble, my first instinct is to ask what I can do to help, not to wonder how we can both help eachother. I've been in EA for a while and heard a lot of talk about fixing poverty, but open borders as a solution wasn't really salient for me until Caplan.
There's also a view somewhat common in progressive circles (albeit not really among EAs) that the amount of money an individual or company has earned represents how much value they've extracted from the world. When capitalism is working at its best, though, this instead represents the value they've added to the world.
(Okay, technically something more like economic surplus would be a better measure, but this is still closer the truth than the extractive view, and Rearden's little speech gives an intuitive understanding of why: because trade is mutually beneficial. And of course capitalism doesn't always work at its best, but there's still a significant truth here worth absorbing.)
Rand's point of view also recommends caution in exploiting yourself. EAs definitely talk about this and recommend being careful about burnout and overworking yourself. But it's an interesting lens to consider that exploiting yourself may actually be immoral, not because it makes you less effective at helping others, but because of what you're doing to yourself. EAs maintain some deontological protection against exploiting others. Perhaps we need a bit more of this toward ourselves.
Can you tell I've fallen in love with the em dash?
Admittedly everyone literally claps at the end, but you can only ask for so much.
She also explicitly satirizes utilitarianism elsewhere in the book.