I have no idea why you turned up in my feed but very well argued, could I just say about Rand, her family were victims of Communism, she therefore analysed the core of collectivism and the subsequent anti-human brutality. She argued that Altruism was that core reason. ie. Altruism makes man a sacrificial animal and if all men had self esteem there could be no collectivist regimes. Altruism is often argued for as if it is just charity, Rand makes the distinction that it is not, she asserted that the idea that man should put others before themselves is immoral. The pragmatic arguments, that helping others is good for both parties is an acknowledgement of reciprocity which is a part of human evolution, to help those around you for your group benefit. I believe Rand would argue this as being rationally self interested. Abraham Lincoln said 'you cant help the poor by being one of them', I think this is an important pragmatic point , that you cant help others without first helping yourself but Rand makes only a moral argument. Immoral people also use the cloak of Altruism for personal benefit but that's a whole other subject.
Wow- thanks for the feedback, glad you found the argument interesting! I hadn't done as much in-depth research into Rand in terms of the origins of her ideologies and beliefs so thanks for highlighting these to show a less pessimistic translation of her views on altruism than the one I presented in the video (maybe I'm a little biased...). I think its often hard to see these things in black and white as whether to never or always help those around you and its often hard to distinguish how literal this is supposed to be put into practise into everyday life, though perhaps in saying this I have broken down the whole point of my video 😅😅. I would say though that, for me personally at least, that helping others can never be fully and completely immoral as even if you recognise that it is going to help you or your wider circle, it doesn't diminish the initial altruistic act to begin with. I also think that Rand's argument of altruistic behaviours being 'immoral' because you starve that person of self development is also a dangerous argument as it is evident not 100% of society has the capacity to do develop themselves, as I touched on in the video. I feel like this argument has links back to dangerous racial/ colonial sociological theories of the 18th, 19th and 20th Centuries where survival of the fittest was seen as the best way to progress society (not just ours in Europe), often leading to marginalised minorities who were considered a 'burden' to the process in creating an idealised vision of society as the ones who were justified to fall behind (as a nice way of putting it). So anyway, personally I feel like only a small minority abuse altruism for their own personal benefit, as well as how only a small number of those at the receiving end are stunted in their development- but it cannot be ignored that these do coexist and occur regularly in our society.
@@hopewhitten5937 the nazi soldiers were altruists, serving the "common good". So are the Russian soldiers invading UA. If everyone was fully selfish, we would not have large scale wars because there wouldn't be servile slaves to fight them.
11th sub :^)
I have no idea why you turned up in my feed but very well argued, could I just say about Rand, her family were victims of Communism, she therefore analysed the core of collectivism and the subsequent anti-human brutality. She argued that Altruism was that core reason. ie. Altruism makes man a sacrificial animal and if all men had self esteem there could be no collectivist regimes.
Altruism is often argued for as if it is just charity, Rand makes the distinction that it is not, she asserted that the idea that man should put others before themselves is immoral. The pragmatic arguments, that helping others is good for both parties is an acknowledgement of reciprocity which is a part of human evolution, to help those around you for your group benefit. I believe Rand would argue this as being rationally self interested. Abraham Lincoln said 'you cant help the poor by being one of them', I think this is an important pragmatic point , that you cant help others without first helping yourself but Rand makes only a moral argument. Immoral people also use the cloak of Altruism for personal benefit but that's a whole other subject.
Wow- thanks for the feedback, glad you found the argument interesting! I hadn't done as much in-depth research into Rand in terms of the origins of her ideologies and beliefs so thanks for highlighting these to show a less pessimistic translation of her views on altruism than the one I presented in the video (maybe I'm a little biased...). I think its often hard to see these things in black and white as whether to never or always help those around you and its often hard to distinguish how literal this is supposed to be put into practise into everyday life, though perhaps in saying this I have broken down the whole point of my video 😅😅.
I would say though that, for me personally at least, that helping others can never be fully and completely immoral as even if you recognise that it is going to help you or your wider circle, it doesn't diminish the initial altruistic act to begin with.
I also think that Rand's argument of altruistic behaviours being 'immoral' because you starve that person of self development is also a dangerous argument as it is evident not 100% of society has the capacity to do develop themselves, as I touched on in the video. I feel like this argument has links back to dangerous racial/ colonial sociological theories of the 18th, 19th and 20th Centuries where survival of the fittest was seen as the best way to progress society (not just ours in Europe), often leading to marginalised minorities who were considered a 'burden' to the process in creating an idealised vision of society as the ones who were justified to fall behind (as a nice way of putting it).
So anyway, personally I feel like only a small minority abuse altruism for their own personal benefit, as well as how only a small number of those at the receiving end are stunted in their development- but it cannot be ignored that these do coexist and occur regularly in our society.
@@hopewhitten5937 the nazi soldiers were altruists, serving the "common good". So are the Russian soldiers invading UA. If everyone was fully selfish, we would not have large scale wars because there wouldn't be servile slaves to fight them.
@@janneroppola_supersigmai guess that’s one way to look at it but I don’t think I agree with you there.