this post was submitted on 30 Nov 2024
855 points (97.1% liked)
Comic Strips
12972 readers
2785 users here now
Comic Strips is a community for those who love comic stories.
The rules are simple:
- The post can be a single image, an image gallery, or a link to a specific comic hosted on another site (the author's website, for instance).
- The comic must be a complete story.
- If it is an external link, it must be to a specific story, not to the root of the site.
- You may post comics from others or your own.
- If you are posting a comic of your own, a maximum of one per week is allowed (I know, your comics are great, but this rule helps avoid spam).
- The comic can be in any language, but if it's not in English, OP must include an English translation in the post's 'body' field (note: you don't need to select a specific language when posting a comic).
- Politeness.
- Adult content is not allowed. This community aims to be fun for people of all ages.
Web of links
- [email protected]: "I use Arch btw"
- [email protected]: memes (you don't say!)
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
There is more nuance to both philosophies than the spark-notes take away if "Rational self interest". Which if that in itself is what you're arguing for, and along the paths you're arguing, Egoism explicitly talking about the voluntary coming together of individuals to temporarily work together towards common goals makes a better baseline than Objectivism's zero-sum view on human interactions.
Certainly there's more nuance to them. As I said, I think that "rational self-interest" is fundamental to both of them - it's nothing close to the sum of either one.
And for the record, I have zero respect for objectivism and a great deal of respect for egoism.
But that's really beside the point. I'm not arguing for or against either one. My point has been explicitly about the underlying concept of rational self-interest in and of itself, and specifically the fact that it's consistently misrepresented by its critics (or more precisely by Rand's critics, who incorrectly ascribe the idea to her and her alone).
That's all very fair and sensible.
I can see it being very frustrating if people's first response to ideologies close to you is dunk on Rand rather than actually engaging with what you're trying to say.
I think a better critique of "rational self interest" if you're looking for one would be that it can be argued to be either too widespread to have meaning (the flip side of "I don't agree with them/am starting from different axioms thus they're irrational"), or too narrow and thus never actually employed.
It is a shame that other Rational Self-interest philosophies don't get their time in the sun... While Rand I hear is still required/recommended reading in some schools.
An advantage of writing fiction to articulate your ideas I suppose.
I mostly like "rational self-interest" as a sort of framing device.
I believe egoism to be a fact. I think every choice that * every* person makes is self-interested, even those that appear to be entirely altruistic.
Presuming that to be true, there are two things that I consider vital - that people are aware that that's what they're doing, and that they focus on doing it as rationally as possible.
And yes - "rational" is a slippery concept. The details are elusive at best, and much more to the point, necessarily subjective (which IMO is the part that Rand most vividly got wrong and Stirner, by contrast, got right). But while that means that a sort of universal formalization of the concept would be difficult at best, I tend to think it's not necessary - that if people essentially stay within the guardrails of "rational self-interest" and maintain some measure of intellectual honesty and sound critical thinking, whatever it might all shake out to be couldn't help but be at the very least more broadly good than bad, and certainly more broadly good than the various delusional authoritarianisms to which we're subjected.
Thanks for the response.
You're most welcome.
Guess I'll see you sometime in the comments of an altruism vs. selfish satisfaction of doing a good deed post.
I agree with much of all you've said in theory, and you have a consistent ideology and that's, in my opinion, the most important starting point.