### Why Be Moral?
1. Good for me, and Morally good | (justice?)
2. Not Good for me, but Morally Good | (saving child's life)
2. Good for me, but not Morally Good | (killing enemies)
2. Not Good for me, and not Morally Good | (murder-suicide)
### Plato, the Ring of Gyges
- (1) Good for something else (exercise, medicine); (2) Good for its own sake (pleasure) and (3) Both (knowledge, sight, health) -- Is justice 1 or 3?
- If one could be invisible, "No man would be of such an iron nature that he would stand fast in justice" (500).
- Perfectly unjust and a reputation for justice, vs. perfectly just and a reputation for injustice
### Plato, the Ring of Gyges
- The just person is beautiful, the divine part ruling the bestial
- The unjust person is hideous, the bestial part ruling the human
- It is better to get caught and punished for injustice
### Egoism ("Objectivism")
- Mystical morality: a code imposed by God's whim
- Social morality: a code imposed by society's whim
- Where they agree is opposing practical and moral, truth and goodness
### Thesis: Morality requires self-interest and life
- I argue that morality is mind and life.
- "To remain alive, he must think" (506)
- Life is good, death evil
- "It is only a to a living entity that things can be good or evil" because only living things are fragile, vulnerable, destructible
- A rational being must act according to values
- The ultimate value is "Man's Life"
### Thesis: Morality requires self-interest and life
- Acting contrary to your life is irrational and suicidal"Rational being or suicidal animal"
- "Man's life is the *standard of morality* but your own life is its *purpose*" (507)
- Happiness is the "successful state of life"
### Objection: "Morality" requires you kill yourself
1. It seems that morality requires you suppress your happiness and self-interest for the sake of helping others.
- "A doctrine that gives you, as an ideal, the role of a sacrificial animal seeking slaughter on the altars of others, is giving you *death* as your standard" (507)
- Man is not merely an animal following instincts (508)
### Objection: "Morality" requires you kill yourself
- "Sweep aside those hatred-eaten mystics, who pose as friends of humanity and preach that the highest virtue man can practice is to hold his own life as of no value" (508)
- "The good of others" is a "magic formula that transforms anything into gold"; the mere intention baptizes your actions, as long as it is non-good for me.
- "If *you* wish it, it's evil; if others wish it, it's good."
### Objection: "Morality" requires you kill yourself
- "As this double-jointed, double-standard morality splits you in half, so it splits mankind into two enemy camps: one is *you*, the other is all the rest of humanity" (509)
### Objection: "Morality" requires you kill yourself
- "Consolation prize and booby-trap": your joy comes from giving it up to others; protecting your life by protecting all others
- Rand: *Why?* (509-10)
### Objection: "Morality" requires you kill yourself
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### Discussion
* Your questions?
### False dilemma
- Rand "assumes that absolute altruism and absolute egoism are the only alternatives." (515)
- Egoism might be the best *means* to altruism or altruism the best *means* to egoism
- Altruism may be forbidden, permitted, or obligatory
### Four criticisms
>"To preach egoism is to practice altruism" (Chesterton)
### Four criticisms
1. Brian Medlin: egoism advises inconsistent outcomes (I want best for me, and I want you to want not the best for me)
2. Publicity:
3. Paradox of Egoism: to become a successful egoist, one must become an altruist (to some extent) by being a friend, lover, etc.
4. Counterintuitive Consequences: Helping others at my own expense is morally wrong. Saving someone else, or millions of others, and getting nothing in return would be morally wrong.
### Summary
> "[Egoism] cannot consistently publicize itself, nor often argue its case. It tends towards solipsism and th eexclusion of many of the deepest human values, such as love and deep friendship. It violates the principle of fairness, and, most of all, it entails an absolute prohibition on altruistic behavior."
### Evolution
- What then is the role of self-love in morality?
- Evolution has been used to justify exploitation and genocide
- Evolution can also be used to justify altruism
- How might that work?
### Gene Replication
- Suckers (altruistic morality)
- Cheaters (egoistic morality)
- Grudgers (reciprocal morality)
Suckers help anyone, even those who hurt them back. Cheaters only help other Cheaters. And Grudgers help other Grudgers, as well as Suckers, but not Cheaters (518)
### Response
- There is no obligation to be manipulated ("be wise as serpents, harmless as doves")
- There also a greater obligation to closer friends, family
- Avoid both extremes (520)
### Discussion
- True or false: everyone is an egoist
- Laurence Thomas argument against egoism