This is my fifth response to the “Objecting to Objectivism” podcast/video by Matt Dillahunty and Russell talks about Ayn Rand’s objectivism and some of its problems. The Atheist Experience is a weekly cable access television show in A…all » Russell Glasser from the Atheist Experience, a cable-access television show in Austin, Texas. In case you haven’t read the previous posts, I started this series about a month to offer some corrections to some of the inaccuracies in their presentation of Objectivism. This time, the subject that I’ll be addressing is Teaching and the Profit Motive.

During the show, Dillahunty suggests that choosing teaching as a profession runs contrary to the ideas exposed by Ayn Rand. According to Dillahunty, since teaching pays less than other professions, Objectivists who value the “profit motive” must choose the non-teaching professions. He also states that if teachers can derive happiness from teaching others, then it’s valid for others to be altruistic so long as helping others brings them happiness, too. And on top of this, he thinks that Ayn Rand’s decision to use her knowledge to spread her philosophy instead of using it to make more money contradicts her own philosophy.

Before I start, I should make sure it’s known: There are Objectivist teachers. And from what I hear, they are darn good teachers.

Objectivists in education

Around 48:30 in the show, Dillahunty started…

Dillahunty: Here’s where I start to see internal conflicts with this idea that comes out, perhaps not explicitly in opposition to altruism, but certainly implicitly in opposition to it, and yet advocates self-interest and seeking personal happiness. If, in fact, you were to look at more of a “what’s best for me?” world-view then I don’t think we’d have people teaching.

Glasser: Right.

Dillahunty: Because you’ve gained some knowledge, and why would you then accept sub-standard pay and conditions to teach when you could use that knowledge in order to earn?

The fastest answer I can offer is to say that money isn’t everything, even to an Objectivist. People have their own interests and goals, and satisfying those goals (i.e. living your life) will have different results for different people. Some people may choose professions that they love and that also earns them a large amount of money, and sometimes they’ll choose professions they love and earn little money. Even Howard Roark himself sometimes struggled to earn money. According to Objectivism, it is completely rational for someone who has a legitimate interest in teaching to pursue that profession, even if he or she could make more money doing something he hates.

Leonard Peikoff addressed this in Chapter 8, titled “Virtue,” in Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, emphasis mine:

Wealth, to give another example, is a moral value. But this does not imply any categorical imperatives, such as: “Amass as much money as possible,” or “The richer you become, the more virtuous you are.” A given individual may choose, for good reason, to pursue a line of work that brings in little money. This is an optional matter, as long as the individual does have a good reason. The reason might be the fact that, given his interests, it offers him the fullest scope for the creative use of his mind. He may not, however, properly forgo a lucrative career because he is lazy, or fears to provoke the jealousy of his friends, or wants to show off his nonaffluence to Francis of Assisi or John Kenneth of Cambridge.

For some people, teaching is the type of work that matches their interests. And those interests might not be an altruistic desire to help random children, either. I’m not one of those people, though, so I did a little research. I’ve read a few great articles on education written by an Objectivist, Lisa Van Damme, so I ran a quick search for some writing of hers that might explain it better than I. It didn’t take long. From an interview in EducationNews in April of 2008, she was asked what interests her about education and teaching. Here’s a small exerpt from her answer:

Though in a sense I stumbled upon my career, with that out-of-the-blue call from California, it is the perfect integration of my love of children and my passion for philosophy. I have the opportunity to contemplate, research, write about, and then apply my most deeply held philosophic convictions to the proper education of children, and then the joy of observing the results in year after year of students.

I don’t know what research Dillahunty and Glasser did before their show on Objectivism, but they obviously missed a lot. Try reading what Dillahunty asserted about Objectivism again. Is it true? Were those criticisms specifically addressed in the same book that was referenced in the same show? Could an Objectivist, even one without an interest in teaching, have been able able to offer a rational, non-altruistic reason why one might want to be a teacher?

Profit motive

Dillahunty continued (emphasis mine, as always):

Dillahunty: And especially if you have specialized knowledge. This philosophy seems to promote the idea of specialized knowledge to help each individual rather than community knowledge that would help the society as a whole and thereby help each individual.

Glasser: In fact, from what I’ve gathered from reading a lot of Ayn Rand’s books, a big characteristic of evil people in the Ayn Rand universe is that they do something without a profit motive.

Dillahunty: Well, the type of contradiction that I was actually getting to was that Ayn… is doing that. Yes, ok, she wrote a book and she made money for it. But there’s no guarantee that she’s going to get profits from it. She is teaching people her particular philosophy. And if it is somehow ok for her to do that, or for someone to teach and make some profit rather than use that knowledge and make more profit…

I don’t understand, at all, what Dillahunty means when he says that Objectivism promotes the idea of specialized knowledge to help the individual. Objectivism holds that productive work, which usually includes educating oneself, as a very good thing, but I don’t see why the knowledge one gains is considered “specialized” and an alternative to “community knowledge” (whatever that is…). This is a good example of an assertion about Objectivism from Dillahunty or Glasser that deserved some sources and further explanation.

The profit motive is something that Ayn Rand specifically talked about, though, and Glasser is correct that some of the bad guys in Ayn Rand’s books denounced the profit motive. However, I think he’s incorrectly latching on to a monetary profit, as if earning money for its own sake should be a motive. Which, of course, disregards the fact that Objectivism is a philosophy for living on earth, not hoarding money, and that living and satisfying one’s goals requires consuming value that one has produced. Leonard Peikoff addressed the profit motive in Chapter 11 of OPAR when he stated (emphasis mine):

The “profit motive,” speaking broadly, means a man’s incentive to work in order to gain something for himself—in economic terms, to make money. By Objectivist standards, such a motive, being thoroughly just, is profoundly moral.

Like Leonard Peikoff stated, in economic terms it means to make money, but we’re not talking in just economic terms when we’re talking about what one should do with one’s life. At that level, the “something for himself” that Leonard Peikoff is talking about could be anything a rational individual values (a big family, a happy marriage, a successful law career, a fancy sports car, etc.), and profit motive is that individual’s incentive to work towards obtaining it.

Doesn’t it sound strange initially to think how the concept “profit motive” can be applied to things like marriage and family? Well, if those are things that *you* value, if you understand that it’s a good thing to work for your own values, and if you acknowledge *you* must work to obtain and maintain them, it doesn’t sound quite as sinister. It’s good to work for the things you want!

Altruism as a source of happiness

I need to use the above quote from Dillahunty again, but with a different emphasis this time:

Dillahunty: Well, the type of contradiction that I was actually getting to was that Ayn… is doing that. Yes, ok, she wrote a book and she made money for it. But there’s no guarantee that she’s going to get profits from it. She is teaching people her particular philosophy. And if it is somehow ok for her to do that, or for someone to teach and make some profit rather than use that knowledge and make more profit… if they derive happiness from teaching, if they derive happiness from sharing this information, then one can also derive happiness from truly altruistic acts, and therefore if I am working towards my own self-interest that includes my happiness, then altruism can’t be written off as a bad thing.

At this point, it might help to define some terms. Not in order to steer the conversation in a particular manner, but just to define how Ayn Rand used some of the words Glasser and Dillahunty are also using. The Objectivist definition of a few words, like “happiness” and “altruism” might offer a more accurate picture of what Objectivism stands for. And that’s what the two were trying to do, right?

First, altruism. From Howard Roark’s courtroom speech, Ayn Rand wrote:

Altruism is the doctrine which demands that man live for others and place others above self.

In Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, Ayn Rand added:

Many people believe that altruism means kindness, benevolence, or respect for the rights of others. But it means the exact opposite: it teaches self-sacrifice, as well as the sacrifice of others, to any unspecified “public need”; it regards man as a sacrificial animal.

As for happiness, Leonard Peikoff gave Ayn Rand’s definition in a chapter in OPAR titled “Happiness:”

“Happiness,” in Ayn Rand’s definition, “is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one’s values.”

He added (emphasis mine):

When happiness is said to proceed “from the achievement of one’s values,” this does not mean that it follows from the gaining of any ends, rational or otherwise. If a man holds and achieves rational values, he will be happy as a result, and his happiness will reflect the fact that his course of action is pro-life. If he holds irrational values, however, he may attain a particular, out-of-context goal(s); but he cannot “achieve his values,” because irrational values, involving as they do inbuilt contradictions and chronic clashes with reality, cannot be achieved.

If you take these two definitions and add in the fact that Objectivism holds that man’s life is the standard of value when it comes to determining right and wrong (which I addressed in my first OTO response), the answer to the question why Objectivism “writes off” altruism as a valid goal to work towards should be pretty clear. If your own life should be your main concern, it’s obvious that altruism is a bad thing because it states the exact opposite: Everybody except you should be your main concern. And if sacrificing yourself — i.e., giving up your life for the sake of others — makes you happy that’s a bad thing, too, because sacrificing yourself is the exact opposite of living your life.

The end

Like my previous posts about this show, I’ve spent most of my time just addressing the inaccuracies in Glasser and Dillahunty’s presentation of Objectivism. I haven’t validated any of the Objectivist positions, and I’m sure that the average person (let alone Glasser and Dillahunty) would still have objections to the Objectivist position. Still, I hope that after reading this that average person would at least have a better understanding of what Objectivism stands for, which frankly would be more than anybody who watched the “Objecting to Objectivism” show.

It would take many more posts to try to correct the entire show (it was almost a 90 minute show), and I’m not going to take this that far. I have one more post in my queue, and I’ve saved the most groan-worthy false statement made about Ayn Rand and Objectivism for last. Next up: Judging a book by its cover!

Part 1: Objecting to Objectivism – The King’s Rational Self-Interest?
Part 2: Objecting to Objectivism – Cooperation
Part 3: Objecting to Objectivism – Objective Reality
Part 4: Objecting to Objectivism – The Train Scene
Part 5: Objecting to Objectivism – Teaching, Altruism, and the Profit Motive
Part 6: Objecting to Objectivism – Did Ayn Rand Read Kant?
Part 7: Objecting to Objectivism: Matt Doesn’t Like the Book He Didn’t Read