Metaethics, Egoism, and Virtue: Studies in Ayn Rand's Normative Theory

Nietzsche and Rand as Virtuous Egoists

87 i n the public mind, to be an egoist is to be immoral; in the philosophical mind, to be an ethical egoist is to adopt a form of immoralism. Yet as far as this equation goes, there is a problem in the interpretation of both Nietzsche and Ayn Rand. Both are self-styled egoists, yet the writings of both are replete with virtue and vice concepts, which are used substantively in the development of their moral views. In recent work, Tara Smith (2006) has gone a long way to resolving this conundrum. For her, there is a moral view that is a nontraditional form of virtue ethics, namely, virtuous egoism. This, according to Smith, is the view of Ayn Rand. I shall suggest that under one interpretation of virtuous egoism, virtuous egoism is also the view of Nietzsche. To argue this, we need to understand the notion of virtuous egoism, which in turn requires clarity about the possible forms of ethical egoism itself as a putative moral view. There are two important dimensions along which versions of ethical egoism can be understood. The first concerns the application of the view to individual actions or, alternatively, to the pattern of one’s life as a whole. Along the second dimension, egoistic views vary according to whether the egoism applies to motives or intentions of one’s actions solely or to concepts such as benefit or sacrifice, which are not reducible to monietzsche and rand as Virtuous egoists christine sWanton gotthelf text4.indd 87 8/27/10 11:31 AM 88 ■ christine sWanton tives or intentions. I shall distinguish three versions of ethical egoism which are by no means exhaustive: (E1) An agent should always be motivated by her own self-interest when she acts. (E2) An agent should never sacrifice her own interests for the interests of another when she acts. (E3) An agent should not organize her life as a whole around sacrifice for the sake of others, nor should her life exhibit a pattern of self-sacrifice. (E2) does not entail (E1) for the following reason. Consider a mother who looks after her children well. She is not motivated by self-interest in so doing. However, in incurring costs, she may or may not be sacrificing her own interests for those of another. A sacrifice is not here understood simply as a cost. In Ayn Rand’s sense, assumed here, a sacrifice occurs when one surrenders something of greater objective value to oneself for something of lesser objective value to oneself (VOS 50, cited in Smith 2006, 39). Assume that in looking after her children the mother does not sacrifice something of greater objective value to herself for something of lesser value, even though such care incurs considerable costs. Because of bonds of love, her own interests are bound up with the interests of her children. She has conformed to (E2) even though not to (E1); (E2) does not entail (E1). (E3) does not entail (E2) for the following reason. Consider a soldier who lays down his life for his country. He is called upon to make the ultimate sacrifice. Now let us assume that, as Aristotle appears to recognize, even dying gloriously on the battlefield in a just war is a sacrifice in the sense defined above. (E2) has been violated. Yet, let us imagine, our soldier who has laid down his life for his country has not organized his life around self-sacrifice, because until he died, let us say, he was not characteristically sacrificing something of greater value to him than something of lesser value. The privations of the military life were costs, but not sacrifices in the sense defined. (E3), then, does not entail (E2). Corresponding to the three notions of egoism defined above are three notions of altruism, namely: (A1a) One is sometimes permitted to be motivated by the interests of others. gotthelf text4.indd 88 8/27/10 11:31 AM nietZsche and rand as Virtuous egoists ■ 89 (A1a) is simply the negation of (E1). However, according to Tara Smith, Rand’s target is not the negation of (E1), but rather a much stronger version of altruism, which might be expressed as: (A1b) One must always be motivated by the interests of others when one acts. According to Smith: “E. J. Bond characterizes altruism as the policy of ‘always denying oneself for the sake of others.’ Burton Potter presents altruism...