Brian Ghilliotti

 
Introduction to Philosophy
 
Middlesex Community College
 
Reading Response 3

 5/7/2018

The course readings provided for Ayn Rand focus on her work Ethical Egoism

and the Virtue of Selfishness. This work primarily focuses on her criticisms of the

concept of altruism, which is a philosophical system that emphasizes a complete

disregard of one’s self for the selfless concern of other’s well being.

On page 636 of her work, Rand best summarizes her disdain for altruism with the

following statement:

“By elevating the issue of helping others into the central and primary issue of ethics,
altruism has destroyed the concept of any authentic benevolence or good will among
men. It has indoctrinated men with the idea that to value another human beings an act
of selflessness, thus implying that a man can have no personal interest in others -that to
value another means to sacrifice oneself- that any love, respect, or admiration a man
may feel foremothers is and cannot be a source of his own enjoyment…

Rand rejects the notion putting everyone else before one’s self, or ego. Rand believes

that this approach to life will lead people nowhere. At the very worst, these people will

allow themselves to be manipulated.

To Rand, placing one’s ego, or self-centered interests, before others is more

rational since it best promotes self preservation. Without self preservation, how can

anyone effectively help anyone else in any capacity? However, placing self-interest at

the expense of others is not rational either; if everyone pursued their egotistic self

interests in this manner, society will self-destruct.

 The reading selections provided for Nietzsche focus on his most famous work,

Zarathustra. This work emphasizes development of the ego, or self, and suggests that

human ego cannot develop into a higher state without some sort of conflict. This higher

state is known as the “overman”. Nietzsche, like Rand, are both hostile toward any

ideology, institution, and process that requires a de-emphasis on the human ego and

individuality. For Nietzsche, he was concerned about the growing power of the state and

the industrial revolution processes that helped it grow.

To Nietzsche, these institutions wanted to destroy the sense of human ego and

individualism, facilitating total subservience to these institutions, and thus greater and

easier control. By doing this, any will on the part of humanity to sustain struggle, and the

development of the “overman”, would be repressed. He perceived such institutions as

regressive forces, not progressive. This contrasts with the general consensus of

Victorian era that modernity was a positive force. His experiences in the Franco-

Prussian War probably reinforced his views that modernity was more of a regressive

force, rather than a progressive one.

Nietzsche came from a strict religious up bringing, and there is some evidence

that he grew to reject his indoctrinations through his Zarathustra. This put in sin with

Rand on the issue of altruism. The following quote from Zarathustra (page 16) makes

seemingly mocking references to altruism as it is promoted in the Bible:

“I love him whose should is so overfull so that he forgets himself, and all things are in
him: thus all things spell his going under.”
This very succinctly summarizes Rand’s hostility toward the value of altruism. They

seem to agree on many points where the individual should receive greater emphasis

than the needs of the general good. They both see this as a back door route toward

complete control and repression of the individual will to grow and develop. Their primary

difference, I would argue, is their perception of modernity. Rand generally holds

modernity as a good thing, as long as it is a function of sustaining and developing

individual ego. These ideas are strongly emphasized in her works like Atlas Shrugged.

Nietzsche would be a little more skeptical of the growing power and threat that

modernity poses against individuality. We see this issue today, with the constant stories

we hear in the media of corporations, governments, and governments use of

corporations to violate personal privacy.