Friday, September 09, 2011

Rand & Human Nature 7

Love. Rand's most sophisticated theory of love appears in The Romantic Manifesto:

Love is a response to values. It is with a person’s sense of life that one falls in love—with that essential sum, that fundamental stand or way of facing existence, which is the essence of a personality. One falls in love with the embodiment of the values that formed a person’s character, which are reflected in his widest goals or smallest gestures, which create the style of his soul—the individual style of a unique, unrepeatable, irreplaceable consciousness. It is one’s own sense of life that acts as the selector, and responds to what it recognizes as one’s own basic values in the person of another. It is not a matter of professed convictions (though these are not irrelevant); it is a matter of much more profound, conscious and subconscious harmony.
Many errors and tragic disillusionments are possible in this process of emotional recognition, since a sense of life, by itself, is not a reliable cognitive guide. And if there are degrees of evil, then one of the most evil consequences of mysticism—in terms of human suffering—is the belief that love is a matter of “the heart,” not the mind, that love is an emotion independent of reason, that love is blind and impervious to the power of philosophy. Love is the expression of philosophy—of a subconscious philosophical sum—and, perhaps, no other aspect of human existence needs the conscious power of philosophy quite so desperately. When that power is called upon to verify and support an emotional appraisal, when love is a conscious integration of reason and emotion, of mind and values, then—and only then—it is the greatest reward of man’s life.


Because many men and women nowadays seek sexual partners who share common interests, Rand's account of love, at least on superficial acquaintence, may appear to have an aura of plausibility around it. However, Rand's theory of romantic love relies very heavily on her theory of emotions and her belief in a "conscious intregration of reason and emotion." Neither of these theories can boast a particularly strong accordance with reality. Since emotions are not automatized value judgments, but are rather at least partially the result of innate inclinations; and since, moreover, the perfect integration of "reason and emotion" is impossible due to the fact that the brain is made up of competing subsystems; and since, most importantly of all, men and women are innately different: all these facts stand in the way and prevent Rand's ideals about love from ever being fully realized. How love actually works in the real world is somewhat different than how Rand imagined (or perhaps desired) that it should work. Common interests may be a component in romantic love; but the notion that an individual falls in love primarily with a "sense of life" does not really accord either with common experience or scientific evidence.

Love, just like sex, has a biological foundation which Rand tends to ignore. As the David Desteno and Piercarlo Valdesolo, authors of Out of Character, contend:

...romantic love actually helps us solve an important evolutionary problem. How do you know your partner will remain committed to you and your children (and you will remain committed to her or him) in the face of constant temptation? How do you ensure he or she won't run off with the sexy tennis pro, leaving the kids vulnerable and unprovided for? Love, for lack of a better phrase, is the answer...

Several studies have found a reliable link between a man's level of testerone and mating effort; the higher the testerone, the more effort expended not only in finding a mate but also in competing with rivals for her affection. On the flip side, studies have also found that once a man is in a committed relationship, lower testerone is associated with monogamy. In one, Matthew McIntrye and colleagues measured the testerone levels of men in committed relationships and then had them report their interest in having sex with other women. As it turned out, those with higher testerone levels reported having more interest in playing the filed, while those with relatively lower levels were more comfortable with commitment... And because, as we've noted, women are so adept at (subconsciously) picking up subtle cues that signal high testerone, this can be a good marker of whether that guy across the room is Mr. Right or Mr. Right Now. [75-76]


Rand's "sense of life" construct can in some ways can be regarded as an attempt to explain, on the basis of her own philosophy, the "subtle cues" that trigger love interest. The problem is that individuals aren't really capable of having the sort of consistent sense of life that Rand takes to be an ideal, precisely because the mind doesn't work that way. Furthermore, the emotional system, precisely because it relies on a very complex interaction of partially innate predispositions and "acquired" dispositions, does not easily fit a simple category such as Rand's "benovelent" sense of life.

Yet this barely scratches the surface with what is wrong with Rand's approach on this issue. In practical terms, Rand's sense of life manifests itself as various emotional responses to works of art. Presumably, therefore, if one falls in love with a person's sense of life, one is falling in love with their emotional responses to works of art. We would expect, then, to find in long-term love relationships a very strong correlation in the aesthetic tastes and evaluations of the romantic couple. Such strong correlations are rarely found in common experience; nor has scientific research been able to find evidence of them. What we find, instead, is that couples in long-term relationships feel the same or similar about some things, and different about many others. The near complete unity in aesthetic evaluations envisioned by Rand is rare and unnecessary for love to flourish and last.

Rand's view of romantic love, due to its fanciful character, is potentially mischievous and destructive. It posits a false ideal which, if followed with intransigence, can lead to trouble. Since men and women are, in many ways, very different, it is unlikely that a given individual is will actually run across someone of the other gender complete (or even nearly complete) unanimity of professed and subconscious convictions. And those who insist on nothing less than a "conscious and subconscious harmony" with their love interest will probably spend their life alone, as such a person almost certainly doesn't exist.

Furthermore, there exists no evidence that an individual's sense of life is in fact indicative of monogamous inclinations. Yet, from a biological perspective, that would appear to be the functional basis of love. The world must be peopled. Sex and love appear to have arisen with the human psyche primarily for the purposes of reproduction. The fact that Rand completley ignores this side of the issue in her account of love tells us more about Rand herself than it does about the role love plays in the lives of most human beings.

16 comments:

Govi said...

Oxytocin levels are also thought to play a major part in romantic love and they can also be temporarily chemically increased. Ayn Rand looks quite a bit like someone with low oxytocin but high testosterone.

One odd thing though, if Randism is supposed to follow from the objective facts of nature, why did Ayn Rand, as a DNA based sexually reproductive organism never express a desire to have children, nor any regret at not having children? If you're going to argue that what one ought to do automatically follows from the objective facts of nature, then one would be making a fairly suicidal mistake by not reproducing and denying one's nature as a living thing. The objective facts of life are not about sustaining one's own life, which no matter what you do comes with an expiration date, but are about reproducing.

Govi said...

(Where "Desire to have children" does not include an indirect and unconscious desire, i.e. her quite obvious interest in hot, steamy coitus scenes)

Francois Tremblay said...

"The world must be peopled."

As an antinatalist who has just started to read your blog, I'd be VERY interested to hear your evidence for this statement...

gregnyquist said...

As an antinatalist who has just started to read your blog, I'd be VERY interested to hear your evidence for this statement...

There's a bit of misplaced literalism here. The phrase "the world must be peopled" is not meant as a moral statement about conscious willing or the desirability of having people in the world (although most people would prefer the world to be peopled in the sense that they would oppose the extermination of mankind). It's a bit of literary license (it's actually a quote from Shakespeare) meant merely to describe the strong instinctive forces that "must" exist in ordre for the human race to persist.

Francois Tremblay said...

Oh, I see. All right. I was hoping for a natalist argument, but... oh well. :)

Govi said...

I wonder what would result if one were to really rigorously insist on objectivist ethics etc. from what actually is: natural selection, and not what one wishes for. I don't think it would be anything anyone would want to consciously follow. Individualism would have to go to the trash bin, as individuals in natural selection are just temporary and disposable containers for genes, and the whole notion of a self is nothing more than an occasionally useful epiphenomenon. Romantic love likewise has got to go as epiphonemenal to the real thing, mate selection, and genetic calculations of the likely success of offspring. Hardly the stuff to inspire hordes of teenagers.

Francois Tremblay said...

You're forgetting about Ayn Rand's inalienable belief in free will (the brain is made out of magic!!!).

Ken said...

Free will doesn't mean I can control my stomach's secretion of pepsin, or my eye's dilation response to light, or any of hundreds (thousands?) of other autonomic processes. As Govi said in the first comment, current research shows that part of what we call "falling in love" is also autonomic, caused by chemical cues. You can't help feeling attracted to (or repulsed by) someone when your body finds them chemically (in)compatible, although your mind can choose to override this judgment.

Francois Tremblay said...

So where's your free will then? Where does it hide behind all these automatic processes? Is it in quantum physics? Is it in some puff of soul?

Govi said...

I did say it wouldn't be a philosophy you would want to follow, or organize a society on. Free will may or may not exist, but it's kind of a necessary assumption to have if you want to do things like punish someone who commits a crime. That would be hard to do if you tried to deduce a morality based on the observable fact that all living things are temporary containers for genes whose main purpose is not to continue their own life, but to move those genes on to other temporary containers, and if possible, the more containers the better.

I think the question of nature or nurture can really be resolved for good when we can tinker with our programming enough to become post-Darwinian, to for example, love who we choose regardless of what our oxytocin levels are, or get rid of emotions like jealousy.

Francois Tremblay said...

"Free will may or may not exist,"

It doesn't exist.

"but it's kind of a necessary assumption to have if you want to do things like punish someone who commits a crime."

Well, it's true that you can't justify punishment as a social ideal anyway, regardless of your position on free will. So your example is very badly chosen. But we need to do something about real crimes, yes. If a machine in a factory is malfunctioning and may end up killing people, would you not try to turn the machine off? If so, then why do you think free will is necessary to explain this concept?

"That would be hard to do if you tried to deduce a morality based on the observable fact that all living things are temporary containers for genes whose main purpose is not to continue their own life, but to move those genes on to other temporary containers"

Sorry, but no... these are not "observable facts." Evolution is an unintelligent, unguided process, and it does not confer purpose on anything. And natalism is, to be kind about it, complete bullshit on any ethical or factual level.

Govi said...

I didn't mean to endorse natalism at all.

The point I'm making here (and that was first popularized in Richard Dawkins' "The Selfish Gene in the 70's) is that in a strictly Darwinian biological sense, you can know with great certainty that the function of living things is to propagate their genes. It does not mean at all that evolution is a guided or intelligent process nor does it refer to "purpose" as a moral or philosophical purpose or a conscious mission. Rand got it completely wrong when she claimed the purpose of living things is to sustain their own individual lives. In a gene centered, rather than an individual organism or group centered view of evolution, altruism, including killing yourself for the sake of others, is entirely rational and desirable (not necessarily "good" in a moral sense) as long as its for genetically close relatives like offspring, or for reproduction. Thus male arthropods like mantises and spiders will readily mate with females who kill and eat them, because their life's purpose is reproduction, not continued existence.

Knowing the purpose of life in terms of natural selection still doesn't make it any less pointless in a philosophical sense. Natural selection doesn't give you any moral tips about what is philosophically "good." The whole enterprise of trying to derive morality from natural facts is IMO doomed to failure even when your natural facts are, unlike Rand's, actually correct.

This is a link to an article on Richard Dawkins that explains
http://www.math.kth.se/~gunnarj/AAPORTFn/EVO/evo011114.html

Govi said...

As far as free will goes, my point is that we all have to believe and act as if we have it, even if intellectually we might know that it doesn't exist. If a car dealer sells you a bad car, I think it's highly unlikely that you would respond by saying "oh he can't be held responsible for that, he had a bad childhood" (for social constructionists), or "oh he can't be held responsible for that his genetic background means he can't help it" (for genetic determinists).

Francois Tremblay said...

It seems like you didn't read what I wrote; I already answered the point about moral responsibility. Do you object to what I said, and if so, why?

Govi said...

An assumption of free will is necessary, and even institutionalized at least in Anglo-American law (i have no idea what the law is like where you live). Manslaughter, the unintentional killing of a person through negligence, first degree murder, and second degree murder are all distinguished by the degree of free will assumed to be behind the act.

As far as evolution goes, yes I agree it's an unguided process, but that doesn't mean life is. Life is guided by genes. Richard Dawkins '"The Selfish Gene" is a great explanation of this particular view.

Francois Tremblay said...

Yes, I am aware of the Selfish Gene metaphor- it's a metaphor, at best. Taken literally, it's just not scientific.


"Manslaughter, the unintentional killing of a person through negligence, first degree murder, and second degree murder are all distinguished by the degree of free will assumed to be behind the act."

We were talking about free will as in "the brain is made of magic," not free will as in "no one is holding a gun to my head." Now you're equivocating.

For the sake of this discussion, let's call the first "volition" and the second "freedom of action."

Evaluating the conditions of a crime requires us to look at the freedom of action of the individual at that point in time. But it has nothing whatsoever to do with volition.