This material is taken from a chapter in my book, "The Logical Fallacy of Altruism" which is published on Amazon. You can find it at: https://amzn.to/3QZT0lY
Altruism is essentially three false premises. The first is that productive and egoistic man is a zero. The second that re-distribution of man’s product is good and the third is that the values taken from productive man actually help the needy.
The truth is that the producer, the
working individual, is not a zero. His adherence to the evidence of his senses
and to reason is a strength and his individualism means he has rights that
should not be violated.
Re-distribution harms the producer by
making life harder for him. There is no moral justification for the
re-distributor, the moral authority, to steal his product.
Finally, altruism forces the receiver into
dependence. This fact of dependence is what makes the receiver incapable of
surviving on his own. In other words, making a man a dependent on the products
of others destroys him and any prospect he has of a better future.
The key to the damage done by altruism is
the propaganda invented by Plato, Hume, and Kant that the individual is
incapable of knowing reality and his mind is incompetent to learn and use
knowledge. This is the lie (the Big Lie) of altruism that must be challenged
with vigor and reason.
Once we discover that altruism is both a
falsehood and an arbitrary demand, we can establish a society that liberates
man’s ego and gives it a proper respect in society. This means recognizing that
the production of values is good and that values have the role of improving
man’s life – all men’s lives. Values can only be produced by the mind which
means the key feature of the ego is the mind’s ability to engage in reason. Men
should never be made to feel guilty for wanting to use their minds. In fact,
the ego and reason are the sources of all good in life.
Another way of making the argument for the
ego is to recognize the economic fallacy called the “zero/sum” transaction. The
zero/sum transaction implies that in every trade there is a winner and a loser.
This fallacy is a mainstay of socialism and communism. Altruists hold that
capitalism is evil because there are so many losers in society, and this is
because of capitalist exploitation. Capitalism (or freedom) is seen, as an
opportunity for the “victor” to take from the “loser” by swindling him out of
his values or property. The “zero/sum” argument is itself a fallacy. There is
no connection between capitalism and losing in life. Capitalism, by leaving men
free to decide for themselves, is the catalyst for success in life because men
are creatures of reason possessing volition. This means all men are able to
correct their errors and move on to succeed. Making mistakes in life is the
catalyst for success.
There are no winners and losers in
capitalism; there are only winners who think and produce, and to the extent
that individuals choose not to think and produce, they make themselves losers.
Yet, as self-correcting individuals, even men who make wrong decisions are
still left free to move forward to success by adopting the principles that make
them stronger – production and reason.
This zero/sum anti-capitalist premise lies
at the heart of the exploitation theory of socialism and communism and
represents a main argument for the destruction of capitalism. Yet, the truth is
that, in a true trade, each party seeks his own self-interest based upon what
benefits his life. This makes every transaction into a win/win. Each partner to
a transaction sees a different benefit and, generally, does not enter into a
trade unless he obtains a value. There is no loser in a transaction in which
every party clearly knows what is to his self-interest. If he knows that a
trade is not in his self-interest, he declines it. This is how reason works in
a capitalist society. No socialist, communist, or fascist society brings this
win/win perspective to trades because the social justice they seek causes
zero/sum transactions to permeate and sabotage free trade and violates the
rights of individuals.
In a free society, the specific product
that each person possesses (money or goods) is equal to the product the other
trader possesses. For instance, one trader rents a home and is safer against
the weather – so paying the rent is worth it. He buys a television set and can
enjoy his time watching stories or keeping up with the news. He buys a lobster
and enjoys a good meal. One party receives the value inherent in the product while
the other party receives the value inherent in money which enables him to save
or trade that money for other products. To assert that all trades are zero/sum,
then, means that the social critic preaching altruism is lying about mutual
trade to mutual advantage.
Certainly, not every trade is beneficial
to both parties. There are sometimes bad trades in which one party deceives another
– but, in truth, the deceiver in these bad trades eventually loses trust among other
traders while the loser gains a better understanding that will aid him in
future transactions. Yet, in the vast number of trades, in a free-trade
society, millions upon millions of win/win trades are consummated hourly. Over
time, honesty in capitalism tends to overwhelmingly benefit product quality and
human thriving.
The large number of win/win trades prove
why capitalism and freedom are far superior to socialism, communism, and
fascism. These isms are based upon the altruist lie that government should
control the economy and turn the tables on capitalism by regulating who is a
winner and loser. Yet, we have learned that a proper moral society should never
be based upon forced sacrifice. The zero/sum trade occurs most often in socialism,
not capitalism. There are too many examples in history about the devastating
consequences of forced altruism. Capitalism enables the production of values
while socialism destroys values, consumes them, and then throws them away,
never to be invested again.
Altruists have lied about individualism
and egoism for centuries. They have portrayed individualists as thieves when,
throughout all of human history, it is the altruists who have stolen values and
justified that theft through religious arguments (the word of God) and the
vicious materialist (anti-capitalist) ideologies that distort history and
existence.
There is no inductive process, no use of
reason, that can find valid arguments to justify altruism. Because altruism is a
moral philosophy that is both arbitrary and untrue, the only thing a rational
man, or a rational society, can do is conclude that man can only survive by using
his mind and that he should be free to do so if he is to live in a good society
and thrive. He arrives at this egoistic morality by looking at facts, seeking
truth and developing principles of action based upon his own survival.
Altruism should be dismissed “without
thought”[1]
Indeed, the acceptance of the logical fallacy of altruism can lead to a
devastating intellectual and moral trap for the individual. Whenever you accept
the unreal as valid, you are trapped in the realm non-existence, non-facts and the
zero.
The first mistake most people make is thinking
in a concrete-bound way. This means they pursue values as things that have
little value for them in a human sense. They pursue things without looking at
the conceptual nature of thinking and knowing. Altruism wipes out all logical
deliberation and puts the individual in the position of a frightened animal
seeking anything (any act or any thought) that will help him escape the guilt
and hatred inflicted on him by the moralists of altruism. He becomes an animal trapped
in the process of deductive reasoning from floating abstractions (God, sin, the
spiritual, the unreal and the unprovable).
Inductive reasoning would have you look at
facts and interpret them through a process of validation or verification –
checking the facts of reality to determine the truth in reality; whereas
deductive reasoning would have you seeking answers from already accepted false notions
that do not correspond to reality – which means that altruism is based upon
false, unchecked premises and puts man in the position of acting without
thinking; of acting to sacrifice one’s values without judging whether the sacrifice
brings about a good or moral result.
This also means that the demand for
altruism (self-sacrifice) cannot be reduced. There must always be more
sacrificing. It must always grow – because there is no connection to reality
with altruism. The false premises of altruism are: 1) that taking values from
the productive individual is a good act. 2) that re-distributing values is fair
and 3) that the recipient of those values is an innocent victim. Altruism is a
false moral concept that requires the individual to shut his mind (through
prejudice) before he acts. Altruism is not only an anti-concept (morally), it
is anti-syllogism (faulty deductive thinking).
Because altruism is based upon faulty deduction,
it is total sacrifice, and can only be total sacrifice. Once you get on that
wagon, it keeps rolling and never stops; you will always be sacrificing. They
may ask for a small amount from you at first, and claim that nothing more is
required but that is not true. Once they ask for a small amount, they will
always ask for more because they will never admit that their solution is false.
If a small amount does not work, for the altruist, he will never admit that his
premises are false; he will always insist that he needs more sacrificing, more
theft in order to make altruism work. The fact that altruists will never stop
asking for sacrifice, that it never solves the so-called problem, should be
proof to you that altruism does not work to solve the problems of the so-called
victim.
The result of this faulty reasoning always
leads to their assertion that the amount of giving you do is only based upon
the amount of guilt they impose upon you, and there is no stopping that guilt
from growing ad infinitum. Guilt is not quantifiable when it comes to the realm
of morality. Once you accept unearned guilt, then there is no stopping the
wagon; the guilt will grow and the demand for sacrifice will grow. Altruism
does not function without guilt.
This brings up the importance of egoism.
Egoism is the opposite of altruism and in order to bring about the victory of
altruism, egoism must be destroyed completely, the egoist must be accosted by
so much guilt that he must be led to believe that egoism is evil. The altruist
must convince the egoist that he is guilty and worthless if he deigns to hold on
to his values. Remember, altruism is the idea that others are superior to the
individual which means the individual must come to believe that he is worthless
when compared to others.
Yet, egoism is truly the answer to the
plight of the so-called needy. Love of the ego is a moral inducement for the
needy to solve his own problems out of love for himself and those he or she
loves. A healthy ego will keep the individual from becoming needy. If altruists
truly cared for the needy, if they truly cared to solve the problems of the
needy, they would encourage and teach men to be self-sufficient and scream to
high heaven about the value of capitalism and egoism. They would insist that
capitalism replace collectivism and altruism. But they do not do this, and this
should inform you about their illogical thinking when it comes to moral action.
So, if they ask for only a small amount of
sacrifice, that is the beginning of your eventual intellectual and physical
destruction – altruism is total and complete, and altruism can only succeed by
destroying your ego – your self-respect and self-love.[2]
Next comes the false notion that the good
(altruism) is intrinsically good. This destroys the mind’s understanding of
both reality and morality, and it makes any act of sacrifice into a false goodness.
If you take altruism as a serious, validated concept, you have to obliterate all
concepts in your mind (such as your ego, your love of self) as altruism’s intrinsically
evil opposite.
In the realm of fundamental moral
principles, altruism cannot exist within the same moral context as egoism – the
two principles are diametric opposites. One principle confronted by its
opposite must wipe out the other. This is why altruism cannot be accepted
piecemeal or part of the way – eventually it will wipe out all other moral
principles and take over all human valuing.
In reality, altruism wipes out all
principles, not just egoism. Principles such as justice, rationality,
independence, productivity, integrity, pride, and honesty must be sacrificed
piecemeal until they are also destroyed by altruism. This is because all the
above are virtues of egoism and based on objective reasoning.
Altruism doesn’t want your goods; it wants
all of your values including your mind which is the source of knowledge and virtues.
It asks you the following pointedly:
·
Who are you to claim that you do not want justice for the poor?
·
Who are you to claim that the poor should think rationally and produce
for themselves?
·
Who are you to think that using your own independent judgment makes you
better than a mentally addled individual who needs help?
·
How vicious is it to feel pride for what you have accomplished when
someone else has not accomplished it?
·
What makes you think that honesty and integrity matter when it comes to people
who are poor because they have made a mistake in life and/or violated positive moral
principles?
·
Who the hell do you think you are to compare yourself to other people?
·
How can you deny yourself the need to feel moral for helping others?
For altruists, the only true virtue is
giving. Which means that, for altruism, your only goal should be to die.
Needless to say, if you accept giving as
virtue, how can you live when these virtues are the source of life? When you
give, it is never enough if you keep some for yourself. In fact, if you don’t
give everything you should be punished and ostracized for withholding something
from your gift. How could you be so selfish to not being totally selfish?
Altruism is false as a metaphysical
concept. It has no function in reality; it violates the principle of teleology
because it has no end in mind except the end of absconding with the productive
man’s values. As an arbitrary demand, it has no conceptual foundation in the
real world. The arbitrary is the anti-reality; it has no real purpose in life
except to replace the reasonable and the real.
Altruism is thus based upon rationalism,
the use of concepts that have no foundation in reality. The source of
rationalism is the misuse of the process of deduction – which falsely consists
of drawing conclusions from faulty premises. Such false premises cannot be
connected to reality and this makes the injustice of taking from the productive
person an arbitrary act with no justification.
“If you have one instance of unreason, you
destroy reason across the board.”[3]
“Only reality, which includes other
peoples’ rational statements, can properly lead to any cognitive quest.”[4]
“Any civilization ruled by the arbitrary,
and usually, the arbitrary starts with what letter: “f” for faith, which is
just a religious variant for the arbitrary. Wherever there is widespread faith,
that is the acceptance of absence of evidence, there is widespread poverty and
misery as against the few (examples) of logic and abundance. And to equate with
egoism, the epistemological absence of the arbitrary is pure selfishness. If I
don’t have evidence, I throw it out of my mind. I won’t spend one second of my
precious life on the whole world’s babbling. In other words, I come first in epistemology
too.”[5]
(Parenthesis mine)
If we are to understand the fallacy of
altruism, we must look at the syllogism (using valid premises) that is the
anti-thesis of altruism. If we understand that the “taking” aspect of altruism
is what makes it evil, we can validate the idea of altruism’s evil through the
following false syllogism:
Premise 1: Altruism is the taking of
rightfully own property. (The establishment of this truth requires only
observation. The false premise is that the producer does not own his own product)
Premise 2: Theft of privately owned
property is morally justified by God. (This is a commonly known moral false
premise based in rationalism.)
Conclusions: Altruism is good. (The
acceptance of this conclusion is accomplished when we justify lives being harmed
or destroyed by the taking of values from productive people. We can look at the
failures of socialist states, the poverty into which they descend and, we can
also look at the numerous examples of genocide and mass murders that are done
in the name of sacrificing people and we conclude that it is altruism that
causes poverty and needfulness. It causes the poverty of the productive
individual whose property is stolen from him.
This improperly premised syllogism is no
small matter. As with all false statements, there is much harm that will come
from holding altruism to be moral or good.
On the other hand, egoism is your demand
that men treat you with respect and you expect that they do not covet your values.
Egoism is your expectation of reason from others; your expectation that men
give you credit where credit is due, that they love the good in you so you can
love the good in them.
You get none of this with altruism.
Altruists tell you that you have evil within you – when, in reality, the evil
is in the actions of those men who would use altruism to steamroll your moral
standards by making you question your value and making you hate yourself.
There is no justification for assuming the
worst in men and for assuming that men deserve cruelty and mistreatment when
they have done nothing wrong. To fight altruism and its theft of values, you
should fight for your love of yourself and your right to live in a world where
you fear no man especially charlatans and fraudsters.
Most people are embarrassed over seeking
self-interest. They flinch and crouch when they are accused of being selfish. Altruism
has so permeated our culture that many take for granted the idea that sacrifice
is moral. And as a means of their self-defence, they crouch even lower and
admit that profit is evil. They keep giving and giving and giving.
Yet, I do not agree. Self-interest is no
vice. It is a moral value derived from man's nature as a being who survives by
reasoning. If a man is to survive, he must be free to take those actions that
are necessary for that survival and he should never feel guilty for his love of
self. If a man survives well, that is no cause for punishment or guilt. It is
no crime to act for one's self-interest so long as one does not impede the
actions of others who are seeking their self-interest. This is the
essence of reason applied to action.
Man is not a cell in a larger organism, not
an ant, nor a wretch in a universe of scarcity. He is an independent entity
with an independent thought process and with needs that he is free to discover
and fulfill. There is no universal law that states he is morally responsible
for the well-being of all other human beings. There is only a moral law that
states he is responsible for his own interests and all other acts are optional.
The altruist, of both left and right,
would be appalled at such statements as my last few. To this individual, man is
a beast, a zero mentality, who must be kept from destroying himself and others.
For the altruist, brow-beating man with guilt-inducing statements, making man
feel guilty for being man, offering punishment and commanding man to serve, is
the only way to keep man from going back to the jungle. This is their version
of law and order.
But man is not a mindless brute. The
altruist's view of man as a sacrificial animal is inapplicable to man. No
pet-keeper would think of applying such methods to his domesticated animals. Yet,
man, the most advanced creature on this earth, the being capable of reason, and
characterized by volition, is to be treated like a wild animal and ruled by
fear and bluff. A doctrine of love altruism is not. More appropriately,
altruism is a whiplash to the back.
A morality of self-interest is not a morality for the loner. It is a philosophy for a normal healthy person who seeks to survive on earth. It is a philosophy of life, and man's societies are worth living in only to the extent that egoism is translated by law into the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Copyright Robert Villegas 2021
[1]
Leonard Piekoff – “a situation in which thought is not possible”
[2]
For an excellent discussion of altruism and its war against egoism, see
Objectivism through Induction lecture course by Dr. Leonard Piekoff
[3]
Objectivism through Induction by Leonard Piekoff (lecture course).
[4]
Ibid
[5]
Ibid
