Altruism and Selfishness -- A Rejoinder to Ayn Rand and her Libertarians

I don't buy the idea that we perform all selfless acts (so misdefined by the detractors) because we gain some inchoate utility or satisfaction from it, thereby making the act inherently selfish. I believe in genuine altruism. The satisfaction I gain from helping others waxes and wanes. My personal motivation to perform a selfless act has no direct correlation to the enjoyment I receive from it. While part of why I do good things is to reinforce and become a certain type of person, the effects on myself and within myself are collateral. The duty to do what is right and the love I hope to develop towards others is the key motivator.

Redefining all altruism as selfishness not only has very little informational value (it seems ultimately tautologous), it also threatens to weaken one's motivation by canceling out most of the collateral benefits. People lose desire to do what is right if they are convinced it's all selfish anyway. There is an inherent beauty in knowing what one is doing creates no direct benefit for self. Oftentimes, the beauty is greatest when the personal benefits are the least. Recasting all acts as personal aggrandizement or utility enhancing destroys that beauty and makes the world a very cold and sterile place indeed.

Get Some Satan For Free

I was eating lunch at one of my favorite restaurants today, a little kebab place down the street from my school, when these five Arabic men sit down next to me. One produces from his pocket five or six pictures of semi-nude women with stars on their nipples and phone numbers emblazoned across the bottom of the card. He passes these around to his friends who laugh and ogle the women between mouthfuls of basmati rice, and he proceeds to tell them about his trip to Las Vegas a few days ago.

“You know, people say that Satan lives up on the Hill. Man, I saw Satan just the other day. He’s got a big house, a nice car, beautiful women. I’m telling you, Satan has got it all. People are trying to live their lives, are trying to be good so they can to heaven. Satan is in Sin City right now and he’s already got his heaven.”

The man telling the story then pointed to the cards and laughed.

“They’re just out there on the streets, giving out Satan. You can get Satan for cheap. My friend, he got some Satan for free. I can’t believe it. He convinced her to give him some Satan for free.”

Abortion -- It's not murder

And fetuses are just parasites on the inside of a woman's body. It's not a life, it's a choice, right?

Babies show signs of crying in the womb
Fri Sep 9, 2005 11:35 AM ET
By Amy Norton
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - An infant's first cry may occur not in the delivery room, but in the womb, researchers have found.

With the help of video-recorded ultrasound images, the investigators found that a group of third-trimester fetuses showed evidence of "crying behavior" in response to a low-decibel noise played on the mother's abdomen.

Fetuses showed a "startle" response to the noise, along with deep inhalations and exhalations, an open mouth and a "quivering" chin -- all signs of crying.
The behavior, seen in 11 fetuses, began as early as the 28th week of pregnancy.

It was only by chance that the researchers made their observations, said study co-author Dr. Ed Mitchell of the University in Auckland in New Zealand.
The ultrasounds and noise stimulation were performed as part of research looking into the effects of maternal smoking and cocaine use during pregnancy.

At first, the researchers thought the fetal responses they saw might be seizures, Mitchell told Reuters Health.

But when they took a closer look at the video recordings, they realized the fetuses' behavior was analogous to an infant's crying.

It's not surprising that fetuses this age would show such behavior, Mitchell said, since premature infants born even earlier than the 28th week of pregnancy can cry.

"But it had never been observed or recognized for what it is," he said of the fetal crying.

Mitchell and his colleagues report their findings in the Archives of Disease in Childhood: Fetal and Neonatal Edition.

The researchers first noted the crying behavior in an ultrasound of a 33-week-old fetus. When the stimulus -- noise and vibration akin to a rumbling stomach -- was placed on the mother's abdomen, the fetus "startled" and turned its head. That was followed by heavy breaths, jaw opening and chin quivering, according to the researchers.

Subsequent ultrasounds found similar behavior in 10 fetuses, all 28 weeks old and up, that lasted for 15 to 20 seconds after the noise exposure.

"This phenomenon," the researchers write, "suggests a prenatal origin of crying."

The findings have developmental implications, according to Mitchell and his colleagues. To "cry," they note, the fetus would need not only the movement capability, but also the necessary sensory and brain development to process the offending sound and recognize it as something negative.

In a recent, controversial study, researchers at the University of California, San Francisco concluded that fetuses are unlikely to feel pain before the 29th week of pregnancy. It's believed, Mitchell noted, that the "pain pathways" in the brain begin to develop between weeks 23 and 30.

Terror and Its Apologists

In its modern manifestations, terror is the totalitarian form of war and politics. It shatters the war convention and the political code. It breaks across moral limits beyond which not further limitation seems possible. For within the categories of civilian and citizen, there is not any smaller group for which immunity might be claimed. Terrorists make no such claim anyway and they kill anyone. Despite this, terrorism has been defended, not only by the terrorists themselves, but also by philosophical apologists writing on their behalf. It is said, for example, that there is no alternative to terrorist activity if oppressed peoples are to be liberated. Those who make these arguments, I think, have lost their grip on the historical past. They suffer from a malign forgetfulness, erasing all moral distinctions with the men and women who painfully worked them out.
-- Emanuel Gross, Thwarting Terrorist Acts by Attacking the Perpetrators or Their Commanders As an Act of Self-Defense: Human Rights Versus the State's Duty to Protect Its Citizens, 15 Temp. Int'l & Comp. L.J. 195, 233 (2001).

Observation

It seems to be a fashion these days to criticize without providing any useful alternatives. Some want to find fault without contemplating how it could have been different or how it could have been done better. In other words no solutions, just blame.

Those people must have another agenda. Sounds like a surefire formula for paralysis.

Our Media System is Your Fault

The media is a reactive market with an ever increasingly elastic demand-side economy. The media will continue to present all news as controversy until the taste of Americans values truth over entertainment. Once boredom is less a sin than inaccuracy and unfairness, then the media will present a clearer picture of reality.