How I Became a Critic of Objectivism 3

Our understanding of what constitutes “human nature” can come from at least three sources: personal experience, literature, and scientific investigation. I knew early on that Rand’s view of human nature had serious problems. I had read Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment and The Idiot right before I read Atlas Shrugged, and I couldn’t help noticing how shallow and tendentious Rand’s view of human nature is compared to Dostoevsky’s. The human beings who populate Atlas are little more than ideological caricatures. They is little, if any, of the stuff of real life in them. They are all gesture and speechifying, ---- mere empty vessels, bloodless and without soul.

But how does one demonstrate such a thing? Human nature, in the traditional conception passed down to us by the great poets, historians, and philosophers of Western Culture, consists of innate tendencies of behavior—tendencies which Rand explicitly denies in Galt’s speech—but which are distributed unequally and in varying degrees throughout the species. One trick Objectivists use to dismiss the traditional conception of human nature is to try to interpret it through the prism of their unique versions of essentialism. Rand believed that the objects of knowledge, what she called concepts, where defined by “essential characteristics without which the [existental referents of these concepts] would not be the kind of existents they are.” Rand’s doctrine of essentialism can be a little confusing because Rand regarded essences as “epistemological” rather than “metaphysical.” They were products of thought rather than reality; yet they somehow referred to objects and attributes in reality. The upshot of this essentialism, whether “metaphysical” or “epistemological,” is that the attributes that make a thing what it is have to be universal. They have to apply to every manifestation of the concepts’ real world referent. Rand regarded “rationality” as the essence of the concept man because all men were, she claimed, rational (at least potentially). Now the tactic used in regards to human nature is to claim that if a given innate tendency of behavior isn’t shared by absolutely everyone, then it can’t be part of human nature. And since not many innate tendencies of character are shared by everyone, that leaves the concept high and dry.

Rand & Human Nature 3

Moral Philosophy = Rationalization. There are convincing and powerful reasons to believe that nearly all that passes for what might be called exhortive, "normative" ethical philosophy is almost certainly rationalization. The first strong hint that this might be the case was unconvered by Hume, who persuasively demonstrated that, logically speaking, it was invalid to derive an ought conclusion from two is premises. Hume further demonstrated the psychological impossibility of generating moral ends from "reason" alone; that in the absence of some desire, sentiment, or other natural and emotive need, no moral end could arise.

The second strong hint comes from George Santayana, who, in his demolishment of Moore's ethical philosophy (as limned by Russell) , noted that all arguments for morality committed the ad hominem fallacy:

That good is not an intrinsic or primary quality, but relative and adventitious, is clearly betrayed by Mr.Russell's own way of arguing, whenever he approaches some concrete ethical question. For instance, to show that the good is not pleasure, he can avowedly do nothing but appeal "to ethical judgments with which almost every one would agree." He repeats, in effect, Plato's argument about the life of the oyster, having pleasure with no knowledge. Imagine such mindless pleasure, as intense and prolonged as you please, and would you choose it? Is it your good? Here the British reader, like the blushing Greek youth, is expected to answer instinctively, No! It is an argumentum ad hominem (and there can be no other kind of argument in ethics); but the man who gives the required answer does so not because the answer is self-evident, which it is not, but because he is the required sort of man. He is shocked at the idea of resembling an oyster. Yet changeless pleasure, without memory or reflection, without the wearisome intermixture of arbitrary images, is just what the mystic, the voluptuary, and perhaps the oyster find to be good.

The third strong hint was noticed, among others, by Pareto when, in his mammoth work investigating the relation between conduct and belief, Trattato di sociologia generale, he noticed that most moral philosophies were devoid of specific ethical content. For this reason (among others), our conduct could not be governed by a moral philosophy, since the purpose of moral philosophy is not to provide guidance (how could it when little or no specific conduct can be deduced from it?), but to coddle and flatter human sentiments. (For Pareto's analysis of Kant's ethics, see here.)

Objectivism & Politics, Part 42

Individual Rights 1: Theory and practice. Rand tells us, in her usual ex cathedra manner, that “the right to life is the source of all rights” Let us ignore the obvious question What is the source of the right to life? and instead focus on the practical side of this question. What is the practical source of rights? where do they come from in practice? This is a distinction conveniently ignored by Objectivists, who live in a land of idle fancy where things can come into existence merely by wishing them to exist. Wouldn’t it be nice, the Objectivist thinks to himself, if people didn’t commit acts of aggression against one another? Of course it would be nice. So, like magic, Rand’s individual rights strut upon the stage, dressed up in Rand’s wonderfully vague and hollow rationalizations, expecting to be realized without any real blood, sweat, or tears being shed for them!

When we turn our heads back to the real world, we see no such individual rights: at best, we see weak approximations of these rights, limping about with all kinds of wounds and sores on them. Worse, we notice, on the other side of the scale, something more ominous. Consider what the historian Thomas Carlyle noted when scanning the French Revolution: “With endless debating , we get the Rights of Man written down and promulgated: true paper basis of all paper Constitutions. Neglecting, cry the opponents, to declare the Duties of Man! Forgetting, answer we, to ascertain the Mights of Man;—one of the fatallest omissions!”

Where in all of Objectivism is this question of Might ever approached in a non-wishful-thinking, adult manner? It is the easiest thing in the world to talk about rights or scribble about rights on a piece of paper or build castles-in-the-air about rights in society. But to make such rights actually exist in the world of fact, so that individuals universally abide by them, that is a much more difficult task, and all the talking and scribbling and arial castle building in the world won’t ever surmount the difficulties involved.

In the real world, matters stand as Pareto describes them in The Mind and Society:

So as between the various social classes no principle of right can be found to regulate the division of social advantage. The classes that have the greater strength, intelligence, ability, shrewdness, take the lion’s share. It is not clear how any other principles of division could be logically established and even less clear how once they were established logically they could be enforced or applied in concrete. Every individual certainly has his own principle for a division that would seem ideal to him. But such a principle is nothing more than an expression of individual sentiments and interest which he comes to conceive as a “right.” [§1509]

The key point in Pareto’s disquisition concerns the difficulties of enforcing or applying any theory of rights in practice. To enforce such a theory requires the threat (and perhaps use) of violence. More than that, it requires greater force than is applied on behalf of other theories regulating the division of social advantage. Given everything we know from history about human nature, there are no compelling reasons to believe that Rand’s notions about individual rights will ever be applied in the practical affairs of men. It is a theory concocted by intellecutals who have no practical experience in the real world of politics and who therefore have no clue how to apply their theories in practice.

Rand herself focuses nearly all her attention on the theoretical side of the question, as she operates under the illusion that, if she merely provides the best rationalization possible for her theory, the practical side will take care of itself. This demonstrates a lack of judgment about human affairs that is appalling in someone as intelligent as Rand. Yet this is not the worst of it. Not only did Rand fail to provide any solution to the practical side of the problem; her theoretical solution, as I shall demonstrate in future posts, is itself riddled with gaping logical holes.

Objectivism & Politics, Part 40

Altruism’s influence on politics. In Objectivism, “altruism” is serves as the primary ideological scapegoat for the ills of American political and economic policy. "From her start, America was torn by the clash of her political system with the altruist morality,” Rand insisted. “Capitalism and altruism are incompatible.”

This viewpoint would seem to go against the more commonly held view (at least among political realists) that “altruism” does not figure prominently in either the motivations of politicians or in the voting public. Politicians and voters give lip service to altruism, but their primary motivation is usually some form of self-interest.

This view was well expressed by Pareto in the following observation:

A politician is inspired to champion the theory of "solidarity" [a 19th century variant of altruism] by an ambition to obtain money, power, distinctions. Analysis of that theory would reveal but scant trace of his motives, which are, after all, the motives of virtually all politicians, whether they preach white or black. [Politicians make use of principles] that are effective in influencing others. If the politician were to say, "Believe in solidarity because if you do it means money for me," they would get many laughs and few votes. He therefore has to take his stand on principles that are acceptable to his prospective constituents…. [Mind and Society, §854]

In other words, politicians say what they think their listeners want to hear. So they speak in vague generalities that are calculated to appeal to common sentiments. They talk of “change,” of “service” to one’s country, of need for “accountability.” Sometimes they are even, on a conscious level, sincere. They may believe in the vague ideologies that these expressions represent superficially—that is, they may have a sentimental connection to the rhetoric in which these ideologies are expressed. But their behavior is primarily motivated by concerns of self-interest (particularly status concerns). After all, politics is a rough, competitive sport; if the politician doesn’t look after his interests, he will lose his position to a less scrupulous rival. Political survival, in most (though not all) instances, easily trumps any “altruistic” principles that the politician may harbor.

What about the supporters of the politician? If, in order to get elected, the politician must appeal to the altruistic sentiments of the electorate, doesn’t this suggest that altruism still plays a major role in the political farce? Again, we must be careful not to be taken in by superficial appearances. As I will explain in more detail in the next post, the primary motivation for the electoral class in a democracy usually revolves around self-interest. Individuals may wax eloquent about altruism and service to strangers all they like; but at the end of the day, their own needs, along with the needs of their loved ones, are going to occupy most of their attention. Admiration of “altruism” is, in most people, a kind of literary indulgence. One admires it in others and occasionally puts it in practice in the form of a bit of charity toward others; but the sort of "self-sacrificial," live-entirely-for-others" behavior denounced by Rand and her disciples is an exceptional occurrence. Rand is denouncing what is almost a phantom.

The Objectivist scapegoating of altruism is connected to another strange doctrine: what could be called the “transperancy of motives” principle:

[The motives that drive history] are not hidden; they scream out at you [writes Peikoff]. People do not disguise their actions, not in essence and not on a historical scale; rather, in a real sense, people have integrity: nations practice what they preach. In this sense, I do not believe that hypocrisy is a factor in history. [“Philosophy and Psychology in History”]

Peikoff, however, in his contributions to this subject, is guilty of confirmation bias. He focuses solely on those instances in which politicians appeal to altruistic sentiments, while ignoring the very many appeals politicians make to self-interest. This is so obvious that one wonders how it is that Objectivists don’t notice it. Politicians are constantly promising things: more jobs, lower inflation, lower taxes, less corruption in government, assistance for those in need, bailouts for wealthy investors, subsidies for the medical care of the elderly, etc. etc. Appeals to altruism are merely added to these appeals to self-interest in order to make the whole business seem less sordid and mercenary. It is odd that Objectivists seem incapable of understanding this.

Objectivism & Politics, Part 39

Moral argument for capitalism. In The Mind and Society, Pareto makes the following observation:


Theories of “natural law” and the “law of nations” are another excellent example of discussions destitute of all exactness. Many thinkers have more or less vaguely expressed their sentiments under those terms, and have then exerted themselves to link their sentiments with practical ends that they desired to attain. As usual, they have derived great advantage in such efforts from using indefinite words that correspond not to things, but only to sentiments… “Natural law” is simply that law of which the person using the phrase approves; but the cards cannot be so ingenuously laid on the table in any such terms; it is wiser to put the thing a little less bluntly, supplement it by more or less argument. [§401]

What Pareto says about “natural law” applies, by analogy, to Rand’s “moral argument for capitalism,” which is merely a series of loose assertions expressing Rand’s political preferences. It proves nothing beyond Rand’s emotional attachment to certain political convictions. It is rationalization through and through, with the vagueness of lofty abstractions used to carry forth what fact and logic could never have supplied.

Let us take a look at Rand’s argument:

The action required to sustain human life is primarily intellectual: everything man needs has to be discovered by his mind and produced by his effort. Production is the application of reason to the problem of survival . . . .

Since knowledge, thinking, and rational action are properties of the individual, since the choice to exercise his rational faculty or not depends on the individual, man’s survival requires that those who think be free of the interference of those who don’t. Since men are neither omniscient nor infallible, they must be free to agree or disagree, to cooperate or to pursue their own independent course, each according to his own rational judgment. Freedom is the fundamental requirement of man’s mind.

Rand begins with the usual vague truisms: human life, she insists rather sententiously, "depends" on the mind. Very well. She belabors the obvious, but that's okay. It's preferable to what she does next, when she declares, without clarifying what on earth she is talking about, that “production is the application of reason to the problem of survival.” Uncritical people fall for this kind of rhetoric; they fail to notice the egregious vagueness of the term reason. What, after all, is this “reason” that Rand and her disciples pontificate about ad nauseum? How does one distinguish between an individual allegedly using Rand’s “reason” and an individual using some other cognitive method, such as intuition or the scientific method? Objectivists still haven’t gotten around to providing a detailed, empirically testable description of this obscure faculty. Instead, the most they provide is vague descriptions in which reason is defined in terms of other indistinct words, such as their claim that reason “integrates man’s perceptions by means of forming abstractions or conceptions” and “the method ... reason employs ... is logic.” None of these descriptions tell us how reason integrates perceptions, or what Rand means by “logic”; nor do they allow us how to empirically test Rand’s assertions about “reason.” They are little more than a series of arbitrary claims, their dubiety masked by their inexactness.

Yet the difficulties embedded in Rand’s vague concept of reason pale in comparison to the much worse difficulties that confront us when we examine the next step in her argument, where she argues that “freedom is the fundamental requirement of man’s mind.” Here, again, we run into the problem of vagueness. What does Rand mean by the term “freedom”? Her disciples would probably say: “She means laissez-faire capitalism.” Very well. Why didn’t she just say so right from the start? The answer, again, is fairly simple: she used the more generic (and vague) term freedom because if she claimed that laissez-faire is “a fundamental requirement of man’s mind,” her argument would clearly go against obvious facts known by nearly everyone. As Rand and her followers are the first to admit, pure “laissez-faire” capitalism has never existed; yet this has not prevented all kinds of amazing scientific and technological advances, all of which can be vaguely attributed to the human mind (though not necessarily to “reason,” as we shall see). So it turns out that laissez-faire is not a “fundamental” requirement of man’s mind”: any sort of free enterprise, even one as “heavily” regulated as the American version, will do.

Rand’s argument has yet another glaring weakness. If we identify Rand’s “reason” with some type of formalized thinking (and after all, Rand invites us to make such identification with her claim that “logic” is the “method employed by reason”), then we have to reject Rand’s claim that “production is the application of reason to the problem of survival.” In point of fact, processes of production require a great deal more cognitive skills than can be encompassed by merely formalized thinking. Indeed, it is debatable whether formalized thinking plays much of a role in in most of the decisions involved in directing the processes of production—i.e., decisions involved in allocation of capital, where entrepreneurship comes into play. Business decisions require facing uncertainties that cannot be resolved by formal “reason.” As economist Frank Knight pointed out in Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit: “The powers and attributes of [economic] leadership form the most mysterious as well as the most vital endowment which fits the human species for civilized or organized life, transcending even that power of perceiving and associating qualities and relations which is the true nature of what we call reasoning.” The uncertainties and complexities facing the entrepreneur are so daunting that logic and reason break down: the entrepreneur must rely on his “intuition.” Market processes are therefore not merely “an application of reason to the problem of survival”; they also rely heavily on “intuition” and “trial and error.” As Knight explained:



...when we try to decide what to expect in a certain situation, and how to behave ourselves accordingly, we are likely to do a lot of irrelevant mental rambling, and the first thing we know we find that we have made up our minds, that our course of action is settled. There seems to be very little meaning in what has gone on in our minds, and certainly little kinship with the formal processes of logic which the scientist uses in an investigation. We contrast the two processes by recognizing that the former is not reasoned knowledge, but "judgment," "common sense," or "intuition." There is doubtless some analysis of a crude type involved, but in the main it seems that we "infer" largely from our experience of the past as a whole, somewhat in the same way that we deal with intrinsically simple (unanalyzable) problems like estimating distances, weights, or other physical magnitudes, when measuring instruments are not at hand.

To sum up: Rand’s “moral” argument for capitalism, to the extent that we can decipher any kind of distinct empirical content in at all, oversteps obvious facts. Rand in her argument appears to be guilty of conflating “freedom” with laissez-faire capitalism; in any case, her implication that survival requires freedom from “interference” (i.e., laissez-faire) is obviously contradicted by facts known to everyone (i.e, by the fact that, despite the absence of laissez-faire, we’re still alive). Nor is Rand’s assertions about “reason” empirically sound; for, in practical matters, men rely far more on “intuition”; nor is it clear, given the uncertainties and complexities faced in ordinary business, that it could be otherwise, since formalized systems of thought can’t handle great complexity and uncertainty.

Objectivism & Politics, Part 26

Politics of Human Nature 10: Humanitarianism and cowardice. For Rand and her followers, it is quite obvious why altruism is counter-productive and harmful:

Observe what this beneficiary-criterion of [the altruist] morality does to a man’s life. The first thing he learns is that morality is his enemy: he has nothing to gain from it, he can only lose; self-inflicted loss, self-inflicted pain and the gray, debilitating pall of an incomprehensible duty is all that he can expect. He may hope that others might occasionally sacrifice themselves for his benefit, as he grudgingly sacrifices himself for theirs, but he knows that the relationship will bring mutual resentment, not pleasure-and that, morally, their pursuit of values will be like an exchange of unwanted, unchosen Christmas presents, which neither is morally permitted to buy for himself. Apart from such times as he manages to perform some act of self-sacrifice, he possesses no moral significance: morality takes no cognizance of him and has nothing to say to him for guidance in the crucial issues of his life; it is only his own personal, private, “selfish” life and, as such, it is regarded either as evil or, at best, amoral.

In Rand’s analysis, the practical effects of altruism are logically derived from her rather extreme definition of the term (i.e., that altruism means “ man has no right to exist for his own sake”). Since (as I noted in the previous post) few if any humanitarian/altruists would accept Rand’s definition, her analysis is of little value. It tries to determine matters of fact almost exclusively on the basis of logical deductions from principles hardly anyone holds, and which very few ever follow in practice. A more detailed examination of the actual facts will show that the practical effects of altruistic and other so-called “humanitarian” doctrines tend to run along somewhat different lines. If we examine what happens in the real world of fact when humanitarians dominate the ruling class of a society, we discover that the principle danger of humanitarianism arises, not necessarily from the “self-sacrificial” rationalizations expressed in extreme forms of the doctrine, but often from the cowardice of the typical humanitarian. For it would appear that humanitarianism holds a particular appeal to the pusillanimous type of individual. Humanitarian doctrines serve as a kind of cover or fig leaf for cowardice, as if the humanitarian is trying to convince himself and others that he appeases violent criminals and his nation’s most dangerous enemies not out of cowardice, but out of love and pity for mankind.

Pareto explains how these humanitarian sentiments can lead to violent overthrow of a ruling class:

Let us imagine a country where the governing class, A, is inclining more and more in the direction of humanitarianism…. Such a country is on its way to utter ruin. But lo, the subject class, B, revolts against the class A. In fighting A it uses the humanitarian derivations so dear to the A’s, but underlying them are quite different sentiments, and they soon find expression in deeds. The B’s apply force on a far-reaching scale, and not only overthrow the A’s but kill large numbers of them—and, in so doing, to tell the truth, they are performing a useful public service, something like ridding the country of a baneful animal pest…. The country is saved from ruin and is reborn to a new life….

If the class governing in France [under Louis XVI] had had the faith that counsels use of force and the will to use force, it would never have been overthrown [in the French Revolution]…. Had Louis XVI not been a man of little sense and less courage, letting himself be floored without fighting, and preferring to lose his head on the guillotine to dying weapon in hand like a man of sinew, he might have been the one to do the destroying. If the victims of the September massacres, their kinsman and their friends, had not for the most part been spineless humanitarians without a particle of courage or energy, they would have annihilated their enemies instead of waiting to be annihilated themselves. [§2191]

While Pareto might be criticized for seeming a bit too eager to see humanitarians exterminated, this does little to effect his main point. Nor should we let Pareto’s focus on revolutions cause us to think that the cowardice of humanitarians does not pose a threat to the West. In America there is little chance of a violent revolution. But this does not mean that the dominance of humanitarians in America’s ruling elite does not pose a threat to the social order. For external threats still exist and must be faced resolutely. And humanitarianism, even when it doesn’t completely oppose defending the country against its enemies, nevertheless cannot help undermining and demoralizing the will to fight.

In her political writings, Rand tended to focus almost exclusively on the “social legislation” effects of the humanitarian/altruist sensibility. While there exists an obvious and significant nuisance value to much of the laws and social programs favored by our dear humanitarians, the more serious threat stems from the squeamishness many of these humanitarians experience when it comes to using force to defend the social order from enemies both foreign and domestic. As James Burnham put it:

Most liberals [i.e., humanitarians] … are foxes rather than lions. They belong to the types, professions and classes who seek their ends by shrewdness, manipulations and verbal skills. What tends to happen, therefore, when liberals become influential or dominant in the conduct of a nation’s affairs, is that the government tries to handle the difficulties, dangers, issues and threats it faces by those same methods … and to shy away as much as possible and as long as possible from the use of force. In fact, liberals tend to employ the social agencies of force—police and army—as above all instruments of bluff. Their actual use of force, which will always be necessary no matter what the theory, becomes erratic and unpredictable, the result not of a prudent estimate of the objective situation but of their own impatience, panic or despair. [Suicide of the West, 293]

Now while Objectivists such as Peikoff seem to share Burnham’s disdain of the liberal humanitarian’s squeamishness about using force, Rand’s conviction that all social pathologies stem from abstract “premises” once again darkens rather than enlightening the understanding. Believing that liberal humanitarianism is caused by the acceptance of the premise of altruism (as defined by Rand), Objectivists think they can combat its pernicious effects by demonstrating the absurd and immoral consequences of the premise of extreme self-sacrifice. Unfortunately, humanitarian cowardice is not caused by the premise of self-sacrifice. On the contrary, cowardice, to the extent that it is not innate, is primarily caused by soft living. Cowardice can only be cured, if it can be cured at all, by strenuous discipline and experience in battle. Trying to change it by arguing against it’s so-called premises is silly and a waste of time.

Objectivism & Politics, Part 24

Politics of Human Nature 8: Asceticism. At one point in his Mind and Society, Pareto notes that the “principles from which the humanitarian doctrine is logically derived … express in objective form a subjective sentiment of asceticism.” And indeed, for Pareto, asceticism constitutes another important aspect in the humanitarian sickness which afflicts many individuals in modern society. But what, precisely, is this asceticism? Is it a theory or premises, as it is according to Objectivism, that has been absorbed into an individual’s subconscious, where it wreaks havoc on the individual’s "psycho-epistemology"? No, it’s nothing of the sort. Pareto describes asceticism as “sentiments that prompt the human being to seek sufferings or abstain from pleasures without design of personal advantage, to go counter to the instinct that impels living creatures to seek pleasurable things and avoid painful things.” Does this asceticism arise, as implied in Objectivism, from accepting the premise of altruism and self-sacrifice? Again no. Pareto regards asceticism as an offshoot of the residues of sociality.

Acts of asceticism are quite largely acts originating in residues related to living in society that continue functioning when they have ceased to have any utility and acquire an intensity which carries them beyond the point where they might be useful. The residue of asceticism must, in other words, be classified with residues of sociality, and frequently represents a hypertrophy of sentiments of sociality….

All [the] varieties of asceticism, when exacerbated by their [derivations], and when efforts are made to enforce them upon others, are the source of huge amounts of suffering that have afflicted, and continue to afflict, the human race. The fact that people tolerate such suffering, and sometimes even accept them voluntarily instead of rejecting them and stamping on those who promote them as on poisonous snakes, shows conclusively how powerful the sentiments corresponding to them are. Really they are perversions of the instinct of sociality, and without that instinct human society could not exist.

Now while an Objectivist can at least agree with Pareto’s negative assessment of these sentiments of asceticism, Pareto’s attitude toward their existence is very different from that of Rand and the partisans of her philosophy. Pareto sees these sentiments as part of a certain type of human nature. Most people have sentiments of sociality. Such sentiments are necessary to the social order. But unfortunately, in some people, these sentiments are perverted. Even worse, in many other individuals, there exists a kind of sympathy for such sentiments, so that instead of rigorously opposing the baneful practices that arise as a consequence of this asceticism, people tolerate them, sometimes even praise them. Since all of this is rooted in sentiment, rather than in theory, it cannot be eradicated by arguing with it. Indeed, like stupidity and mendacity, asceticism, along with sympathy for ascetic practices, has existed throughout human history and probably will always exist. It’s simply part of the human condition; and while sensible people will fight it the best they can, it would be foolish to believe that much progress can ever be made against this congenital disease of human psycho-pathology.

Now there may be some congenital optimists out there who are under the illusion that, because the ascetic practices of the pre-modern times have long ago disappeared in the West, that there actually has been progress against this sentiment. This is, however, a very superficial way of regarding the issue. The old practices of asceticism, it is true, have, thankfully, disappeared. But they have given way to new practices which, although not nearly as intense, are in some respects worse. The Christian ascetics were primarily inner-directed. They voluntarily chose to whip themselves or reside for years on the summits of pillars or engage in other equally senseless practices. Modern ascetics tend to be far more outer-directed. They wish to inflict their urge for self-sacrifice on others. This we see quite clearly, for example, in the countless follies of radical environmentalism, particularly in relation to the global warming hysteria, which is being used by our modern ascetics as a pretext for forcing pointless sacrifices on the leading nations of the West. One can hardly imagine a more silly, stupid, and senseless piece of legislation than Obama’s cap and trade plan. It would be much better for society if, instead of trying to pass such legislation, our modern ascetics, like the ascetics of old, preferred self-flagellation and years on top of columns.

Rand would have us believe that she provided the solution to this problem of asceticism and “self-sacrifice” in her arguments for egoism and against altruism. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Although Rand’s strictures against altruism, when they include the baneful types of asceticism and humanitarianism noted by Pareto, are largely justified, Rand is not content with confining her denunciations solely to the most palpable abuses. By polarizing the entire issue as a conflict between egoism on the one side and the most extreme and horrid form of altruism on the other, she denies (at least by implication) the more reasonable positions that flourish between these two extremes. Since most human beings are not capable of the sort of “rational” or “enlightened” selfishness advocated by Rand, the advocacy of egoism, to the extent that it has any influence at all, will likely cause more harm than good. A society that was either destitute or weak in such sentiments of sociality as charity and concern for the feelings of others would not be a pleasant place in which to live. Concern for others, desire for the approbation of others, admiration for charitable acts all serve as useful counterweights to the more selfish passions of mankind. Belittling or making light of these sentiments of sociality hardly helps advance the cause against the abuses of asceticism and “self-sacrifice.”

Objectivism & Politics, Part 23

Politics of Human Nature 7: Psychology of humanitarianism. In Philosophy: Who Needs It, Rand makes the following assertion:

It is obvious why the morality of altruism is a tribal phenomenon. Prehistorical men were physically unable to survive without clinging to a tribe for leadership and protection against other tribes. The cause of altruism’s perpetuation into civilized eras is not physical, but psycho-epistemological: the men of self-arrested, perceptual mentality are unable to survive without tribal leadership and “protection” against reality. The doctrine of self-sacrifice does not offend them: they have no sense of self or of personal value-they do not know what it is that they are asked to sacrifice—they have no firsthand inkling of such things as intellectual integrity, love of truth, personally chosen values, or a passionate dedication to an idea. When they hear injunctions against “selfishness,” they believe that what they must renounce is the brute, mindless whim-worship of a tribal lone wolf.

While there is an element of truth in this analysis, it over-simplifies to the point of distortion. In the first place, Rand’s notion of “altruism” is itself problematic. Rand defines altruism as the view that “man has no right to exist for his own sake.” Yet we would be hard pressed to find many defenders of altruism willing to accept such a view without serious reservations. This means that Rand undercuts her case right from the start. Philosophers and ethicists define altruism in many ways, but few would go so far as to claim that human beings have no right to ever exist for their own sake. As the Oxford Companion to Philosophy puts it: “Nor … does the the possibility of altruism mean that it is a constant moral necessity: an altruist can allow that in most circumstances I can act far more effectively on my own behalf than can any other person.”

Rand’s main error here is to assume that altruism is a theory that can be logically applied. But this is not the case at all. Individuals whose desire to help the “poor and downtrodden” causes them to support harmful social policies are not motivated by some distinct ethical theory which they logically apply to social conditions. Their support for harmful social legislation is driven almost entirely by emotions, many of a strongly narcissistic cast. Nor are these emotions themselves a product of prior ideas or “premises,” as Rand would have us believe.

Rand comes much closer to the truth when she links altruism with tribalism. Altruistic sentiments probably have their origin in man’s tribal past (for the obvious evolutionary reasons). But Rand’s disgust with tribalism causes her to caricature it to the point of serious distortion. Contrary to what Rand claims, men of pre-historic times were not the mindless, fearful, self-sacrificing altruists she portrays them as being.

A more plausible theory of the psychology of humanitarianism was provided by Pareto in his Mind and Society. Pareto regards humanitarianism as a product of multiple sentiments. “In individuals sentiments are always more or less complex, sometimes very much so,” he warns. Humanitarianism may derive from several residues acting in concert. One such residue is that of “self-pity extended to others.” Pareto’s analysis goes as follows:


If people are unhappy and are inclined to lay the blame for their woes on the environment in which they live, on “society,” they are apt to view all who suffer with a benevolent eye. That is not logical reasoning; it is a sequence of sensations. If we try to state them in rational form we deprive them of the very thing that gave them force and efficacy—their indefiniteness. Bearing that in mind, one may, roughly, state the reasoning corresponding to such sensations as follows: “I am unhappy, and ‘society’ is to blame. So-and-so is unhappy, and so ‘society’ must also be to blame. We are comrades in misfortune, and for my comrade I have the indulgence that I should have for myself: he has my pity.”


Something more or less of the kind figures in the humanitarianism of our time. People in poor economic circumstances are convinced that “society” is to blame. By analogy, the crimes of thieves and murderers are also felt chargeable to “society.” So thieves and murderers come to look like comrades in misfortune worthy of benevolence and pity. “Intellectuals” are convinced that they are not playing a sufficiently important role in the social hierarchy; they envy people of wealth, army officers, prelates, in short all others of higher social rankings. They imagine that criminals and the poor are also victims of the same classes. They feel that in respect they are like them, and therefore feel benevolence and pity for them. [§1138-1139]

There are, to be sure, other residues, other sentiments, other psychological complexes that can lead to humanitarianism. Not only that, different motives may operate in different people. What is crucial to understand is that humanitarianism (or Rand’s “altruism”) is not the product of a reasoned-out theory. Refuting the theory of “altruism” (or the “theory” of humanitarianism) will have little, if any effect, on those who subscribe to these doctrines, for the simple reason, that strong emotions, many of them containing an innate component, are the primary causes of these pernicious psychological complexes.

Humanitarianism is worthless from the logico-experimental point of view [wrote Pareto], whether because it has no slightest intrinsic soundness of a scientific character, whether especially because even if, on an assumption devoid of any probability, it had some points of soundness, that fact would not help as regards spurring human beings to the requisite activities.... A similar judgment may be passed upon the work of our “intellectuals” as leading to few results that are beneficial and to many that are very bad; because, from the standpoint of sentiments, [intellectuals] shut their eyes to realities as the latter stand reflected in many sentiments that they condemn from failure to grasp their role in society; and because, from the standpoint of logico-experimental science, they reason not on facts but on derivations, and from the latter draw, by a logic inopportunely thorough-going, inferences altogether at war with facts.

This is precisely what Rand and her disciples are guilty of: they reason, not on facts, but on derivations (and distorted derivations, at that). The consequences is that, while there may be a grain of truth in Rand’s melodramatic denunciations of “altruism,” it is so vitiated with distortion and error that her analysis is much less valuable than otherwise would be the case. As Pareto concludes:

Some people now vainly imagine … that they can effectively check the progress of [the non-scientific, non-rational doctrine] they are fighting by refuting its derivations. Others find those theories so absurd that they disdain giving a thought to them…. But usually [these critics] are to be found adopting other derivations that are in no way better than the ones they reject [as Rand and her disciples do, in adopting the derivations of Objectivism]. It occurs to few, one might say none, to ignore derivations altogether and apply themselves exclusively to facts and the relations that obtain between them. [§1859]

Objectivism & Politics, Part 21

Politics of Human Nature 6: The Problem of Aggression. I suggested in my previous “Objectivism & Politics” post that Rand had failed to present a solution to the “problem of the man of force,” a problem which can be subsumed under the broader “Problem of Aggression.” How do you deal with individuals who, for one reason or another, seek to use violence to attain wealth and status? “To ask whether or not force ought to be used in society, whether the use of force is or is not beneficial, is to ask a question that has no meaning,” wrote Pareto; “for force is used by those who wish to preserve certain uniformities and by those who wish to overstep them.” §2174

The only way to prevent the initiation of violence is by a countervailing source of violence—preferably, by a constitutional state under the rule of law. But this solution itself is problematic, for reasons that have to do with the tendency of free governments to come under the sway of people who are not good at using force. Consider how Pareto frames the issue:

Suppose a certain country has a governing class, A, that assimilates the best elements, as regards intelligence, in the whole population. In that case the subject class, B, is largely stripped of such elements and can have little or no hope of ever overcoming the class A so long as it is a battle of wits. If intelligence were to be combined with force, the dominion of the A’s would be perpetual… But such a happy combination occurs only for a few individuals. In the majority of cases people who rely on their wits are or become less fitted to use violence, and vice versa. So concentration in class A of the individuals most adept at chicanery leads to a concentration in class B of the individuals most adept at violence; and if that process is long continued, the equilibrium [of society] tends to be come unstable, because the A’s are long in cunning but short in the courage to use force and in the force itself; whereas the B’s have the force and the courage to use it, but are short in the skill required for exploiting those advantages. But if they chance to find leaders who have the skill—and history shows that such leadership is usually supplied by dissatisfied A’s—they have all they need for driving the A’s from power. Of just that development history affords countless examples from remotest times all the way down to the present. [§2190]

Now Pareto wrote that passage nearly a hundred years ago, before the advent of tanks and tear gas and other such devices that make is very much easier to control violent crowds. So one could argue that Pareto’s framing of the issue no longer applies to contemporary domestic politics. But even if it no longer applies domestically, there is still the issue of foreign aggression, which remains as serious as ever:

These considerations must to some extent be applied to international relations. If the combination-instincts are reinforced in a given country beyond a certain limit, as compared with the instincts of group-persistence, that country may be easily vanquished in war by another country in which the change in relative proportions has not occurred…. People who lose the habit of applying force, who acquire the habit of considering policy from a commercial standpoint and of judging it only in terms of profit and loss, can readily be induced to purchase peace; and it may well be that such a transaction taken by itself is a good one, for war might have cost more money than the price of peace. Yet experience shows that in the long run, and taken in connexion with the things that inevitably go with it, such practice leads a country to ruin. [§2179]

In other words, a commercial society, a society dominated by people who live by their wits and have become increasingly habituated by market forces to think almost exclusively in terms of profit and loss, becomes, over time, less fit for using force to defend the country and prevent the “initiation of force” by foreign aggressors.

Consider, in this respect, the threat posed to the United States by Iran. It may be thought Iran, a country governed by zealous yet primitive Islamic clerics, could not possibly pose any serious threat to America. Not necessarily so, however. There are reports of the Iranians attempting to shoot scud missile from ships in the Caspian Sea. Why would they be doing such a thing? The speculation is that they are rehearsing an Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) attack against the United States. Such an attack would cripple, if not destroy, America’s electronic infrastructure. According to Dr. William Graham, the former White House science adviser under President Ronald Reagan, “70 to 90 percent of the population would not be sustainable after [an EMP] attack.”

Why is it that the United States is so vulnerable? At least part of the reason is that people have acquired “the habit of considering policy from a commercial standpoint and of judging it only in terms of profit and loss.” The U.S. electronic infrastructure could be hardened to withstand EMP attacks; such hardening, however, would cost billions of dollars and require massive government interference, in the form oversight, of the commercial electronic infrastructure. In other words, defending a nation against EMP weapons is not compatible with the small government, laissez-faire, anti-tax ideals embalmed within the Objectivist politics. Nor is it compatible with the ruling elite generated within nations dominated by a market-based economy, where Pareto’s “combination instincts” dominate the ruling elite at the expense of group-persistence sentiments, and men of courage and force are marginalized by lawyers, bureaucrats, capitalists and entrepreneurs.

Objectivism & Politics, Part 19

Politics of Human Nature 4: Lions and Attila. In For the New Intellectual, Rand introduce the archetype of Attila, whom she describes in the following terms:

The man who lives by brute force, at the whim and mercy of the moment, lives on a narrow island suspended in a fog of the unknown, where invisible threats and unpredictable disasters can descend upon him any morning. He is willing to surrender his consciousness to the man who offers him protection against those intangible questions which he does not wish to consider yet dreads. [14-15]

In addition, Rand claims that Attila fears reality, that he holds his consciousness “on a subhuman level and method of functioning,” that his “brain is a jumble of concretes unintegrated by abstractions, that he is motivated, “not by thoughts, but by feelings and whims, and that he feels “secretly inadequate to the task of dealing with existence.”

By forming her archetype of Attila, Rand at least can be given credit for recognizing the problem posed by men of violence. But her description of this archetype, particularly in comparison to Machiavelli and Pareto, strikes one as a hopelessly distorted caricature—a product, not of honest reflection on the facts of history, but of mere wishful thinking and moral indignation.

Although Rand is guilty of grossly distorting and exaggerating the defects of the lion, of the man of force, this does not mean that men who correspond to this ideal type aren’t generously endowed with problematic characteristics.

Here’s a list of characteristics which often go hand-in-hand with the willingness and ability to use violence: (1) Faith and religion; (2) Obssession with “honor” and “saving face”; (3) Intolerance; (4) Willingness to use force to maintain various uniformities, such as customs and other “prejudices”; (5) Neophobia; (6) Belief in hierarchical domination (i.e., caste system); (7) Dogmatic adherence to “non-contextual” absolutes.

There exists no necessity, no heavy-hand of determinism, that forces these characteristics to go together; yet, because they are in many respects complementary, if you find two or three of these traits in an individual, you’ll probably find two or three more. There are probably profound evolutionary reasons at the bottom of this. During the long period when human beings foraged for food and chased animals with spears, tribes fought among each other for access to resources and women. The anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon, who studied the fierce and violent Yanomamo people of the Amazon rainforest, documented that in their frequent warfare and raiding, men who had participated in a killing had more wives and offspring than those who had not. The initiation of violence, when pursued strategically by a disciplined, unified army of warriors, brings with it a genetic payoff that would be selected over evolutionary time. But note: it’s not just any type of violence that is selected. Random violence by lone individuals, or chaotic violence by random collections of individuals, will likely be put down by any group united in strong sentimental bonds. What might these bonds consist of? Religious and tribalistic sentiments, mainly. Tribes would be united by ancestor worship and filial and tribal bonds. Their willingness to fight would be buttressed by strong notions of honor and self-sacrifice. In short, here we see the evolutionary roots of Pareto’s group-persistence residue. All these characteristics—tribal bonds, mania for personal honor, ancestor worship (or worship of gods associated with tribe), discipline, submission to tribal ideals, and the willingness to fight and kill and die for the tribe—would provide an evolutionary advantage to those tribes that were strong in them, so that over time these characteristics would become conjoined and reinforced by natural selection.

Now fast forward to the modern era, when a new type of survival strategy has become prominent: the strategy of intelligence and innovation. It was difficult for intelligence to break free from the thralldom of taboo and violence, but once cunning individuals succeeded, through alliances of convenience with violent leaders, to build strong political and social communities, out of which the seeds of civilization could sprout and grow, intelligence became more and more important, until, in our modern, technological world, it has become paramount, the surest path to wealth and status. But even so, there still exist many individuals who have inherited the a genetic endowment fashioned by hundreds of thousands of years of violence and tribalistic, group-persistence sentiments. Many of these individuals won’t respond to “reason” or any other attempts at civilized persuasion. They resent the modern world and its emphasis on change and innovation. Lacking the intelligence and emotional make-up necessary to flourish in this world, they find themselves condemned to occupy a lower position in society while individuals less courageous, less religious, less “honorable” than themselves rise above them in the social scale.

How, then, does Rand propose to deal with these individuals? After all, it’s not as if she denies their existence: her archetype of Attila, distorted as it may be, shows that she nevertheless recognized that this ideal type posed a threat to her political ideals. In my next post I will discuss how she proposed to deal with the man of force and intimidation whom she derided as "Attila."

Objectivism & Politics, Part 18

Politics of Human Nature 3: Lions and foxes. Machiavelli, in The Prince, makes the following observation:

You must understand that there are two ways of contending, by Law, and by force: The first is proper to men; the second to beasts; but because many times the first is insufficient, recourse must be had to the second…. Seeing, therefore, it is of such importance to a Prince to take upon him the nature and disposition of a beast, of all the whole flock, he ought to imitate the Lion and the Fox; for the Lion is in danger of toils and snares, and the Fox of the Wolf: so that he must be a Fox to find the snares, and a Lion to fright away the Wolves…

Machiavelli’s archetype of the fox (roughly) corresponds to Pareto’s combination-instinct residue; while the archetype of the lion (roughly) corresponds to Pareto’s group-persistence residue. What Pareto adds to Machiavelli’s archetypes (besides more accurate delineation of the archetypes) is an important insight alluded to in the last post. Machiavelli’s ideal is that the Prince combine the cunning of the fox with the strength (i.e., the ability and willingness to use force) of the lion. “But such a happy combination occurs only for a few individuals,” notes Pareto. “In the majority of cases people who rely on their wits are or become less fitted to use violence, and vice versa.” In other words, people (particularly rulers) tend to be either lions or foxes.

Pareto developed this theory from his extensive knowledge of history. Particularly influential was the conflict between Athens and Sparta during the Peloponnesian War. Athens is a typical example of a state governed by foxes, while Sparta is a typical example of a state governed largely by lions. The cultural and political elite of Athens were remarkably individualistic and innovative; indeed, it was these attributes that helped make this city state the cradle of Western civilization—the birthplace of European literature, philosophy, and political theory. Sparta, on the other hand, was a cultural backwater. Innovation in Sparta was a crime. The individual counted for very little, his initiative strangled in a web of custom and religion. Yet in the Peloponnesian war, Sparta conquered Athens.

Pareto’s view of “instinct-combination” and “group-persistence” residues was partly devised to try to explain how a sophisticated, cultured, individualistic “advanced” society like Athens could ever lose a war to a “tribalistic,” uncultured, “primitive” society such as Sparta (or Macedonia and Rome, which also conquered Athens). It seems rather counter-intuitive that the more advanced polity should ever lose to the less advanced. Yet history is replete with examples of the less advanced conquering the more advanced in war. Here’s merely a short list thrown together at the spur of the moment:

1. Sparta over Athens
2. Macedonia over Athens
3. Rome over Athens
4. Rome over Carthage
5. Barbarians over Rome
6. Mongols over China
7. England over France (100 years war)
8. Spain, Austria, France over Renaissance Italy
9. Roundheads over Cavaliers (English Civil War)
10. French Revolutionists over Old Regime
11. Prussia over France (Franco-Prussian War)

The fact that there are many counter examples in the other direction is of no relevance to the point at issue. After all, one would expect the more advanced nation to prevail in nearly all cases. What is surprising (and in need of explanation) is how the less advanced ever prevails.

How would Objectivism explain the victory of the less advanced over the more advanced nation, of the lion over the fox? Objectivism would probably attribute it to bad philosophical ideas in the fox. Yet this is not convincing, because in most cases, the less advanced nation, governed by lions (i.e., group-persistence residues) will cherish even worse philosophical notions. The ideas predominant in Periclean Athens, whatever flaws or “contradictions” they may have exhibited, were clearly superior to the “tribalistic” and “superstitious” notions prevailing in Sparta. Athens was much more individualistic and “rational” (at least in its philosophy) than Sparta. So how did Sparta defeat Athens?

Pareto gives a couple reasons:

It is plain enough that what was lacking in Athens was such a balance between the combination instincts and the residues of group-persistence that while the combination-instincts encouraged adventure, the group-persistences would supplement them with perseverance and firmness of resolve required for success in the schemes imagined...

Athens had generals of the greatest ability at that time, but she could neither keep them nor take advantage of them…. Where sentiments of group-persistence are not very strong, people readily surrender to the momentary impulse without giving adequate thought to the future, forgetting the larger interests of the community under the sway of uncontrolled appetites. The Athenians cared little for their generals. They tormented them, persecuted them, condemned them, lost them through fault of their own. The lessons taught by past experience are of no avail for the future, there being no sense of group-persistence.

A third prominent reason for Sparta’s victory over Athens is the individualism prevailing in Athens (an indication of a weakening of group-persistences) eroded discipline and the stability of command (as is evinced by how the Athenians treated their generals). Discipline, hierarchy, willingness to serve a leader are qualities advantageous in battle (and which are strengthened by group-persistence sentiments).

A fourth prominent reason for Sparta’s victory stems from the courage and staunchness in battle provided by group-persistence residues. While the Athenians were capable of displaying courage in battle, no one fought as bravely or as with as much determination as the Spartans, who placed honor above all other considerations, including those of self-preservation. Pareto repeatedly identified group-persistence residues with the willingness and the ability to use violence. Where group-persistence residues are intense, people have a “living” faith: that is, they have ideals they are willing to die for (rather than just argue about).

In Pareto’s vision of human nature, rationality doesn’t have much to do with conduct, “for human beings are guided primarily by sentiment.” Therefore, in order to motivate human beings to defend their country and avoid the disastrous effects of pursuing self-interest in a non-rational way, some type of sentiment is required to spur “human beings to the required activities.” In this respect, “the chief utility of the sentiments of group-persistence is the resistance they offer to harmful inclinations of individual interest and to the impetuous sweep of passions.” But the very utility provided by group-persistence residues is itself problematic, since the group-persistence residues have produce other effects that Objectivists (among others) will deplore. These other effects be the subject of my next post.

Objectivism & Politics, Part 17

Politics of Human Nature 2: Residues. In my posts on Pareto I have introduced the concept of residue, which is the stable or common element in social conduct corresponding to some fairly permanent human impulse or sentiment. Pareto lists six types (or “classes”) of residues, but I will confine the analysis in this post to only two of them: (1) Instinct for combinations; and (2) Group-persistences.

James Burnham in his book The Machiavellians summarizes these two residues as follows:

Instinct for combinations. This is the tendency which leads human beings to combine or manipulate various elements taken arbitrarily from experience. Many magical practices are a result of its operation: the manipulations to control weather and disease, to bring good luck, the supposed efficacy assigned to certain numbers … and so on. Supposed connections are established between certain events, formulas, prayers, or words, and good or bad luck, happiness or terror or sorrow. At a complex level it is this residue that leads restless individuals to large-scale financial manipulations, merging and combining and re-combining of various economic enterprises, efforts to entangle and disentangle political units, to make and remake empires.

[These residues] also impel men to “system-making”—that is, to elaborate logical or rather pseudo-logical combinations of ideas and mental elements in general, to theologies and metaphysics and ideologies of all sorts. Thus it is this class of residue that chiefly accounts for “derivations,” expressing man’s need to make his own behavior seem rational.

Group-Persistences. When once any combination has been formed, forces come into play to keep that combination sustained and persisting. These are, one might say, “conservative” forces, present among animals as well as human beings, and sometimes referred to as “social inertia.” They express themselves, for instance, in the powerful feeling that the family or the tribe or the city or the nation is a permanent and objective entity. So strong are they that the dead and the not-yet-living are included in the supposedly persisting unit, and we thus have all the many forms of ancestor-worship, belief in immortality, and social provisions made for a posterity that will not exist until all living persons are long dead. “Family pride,” “class solidarity,” patriotism, religious zeal are all quite direct modes of these residues.

They account also for the feeling that “property” becomes a permanent part of a man’s being, so much so that certain objects are even placed with the dead body in the grave, or for the “love of the native soil.” In another direction, they give persisting life to abstractions and personifications. Gods and heroes and Platonic Forms and “natural law” and “progress” and “the state” and “the moral will” and many other creatures of the dynamic human imagination [such as Rand’s “logic”] are endowed with substance and enduring reality.

These [group-persistence] residues, as Pareto describes them, are usually accompanied by a willingness to use force in order to maintain the solidity and persistence of the entities in question—to “save the nation,” or the “true faith,” for example. [209-211]

It is important to keep in mind a few caveats when dealing with these two classes of residues. First, they neither apply to everyone nor explain everything people do. They are, however, important in understanding certain social phenomenon, particularly the tendency in society for ingenuity and innovation to conflict with faith and force. And second, these residues apply in varying degrees to different people. While most human beings manifest these two classes of residues in some degree, the tendency is for individuals to manifest more of one than the other. And finally, a word of warning: one should not get caught up with the phrases Pareto sometimes uses to identify these residues. When Pareto calls “Class 1” residues the “instinct for combination,” he is not introducing any kind of theory of instincts. He is merely noting that very many human beings throughout history behave as if there were such an instinct. Pareto is not terribly interested in the cause or origin of the conduct: only with the conduct itself.

There is one psychological assumption, however, that Pareto does make about his residues: namely, that they have a non-rational origin. Residues are ultimately the manifestations in conduct of motives, and all motives, as I explained in my last post, are and must be non-rational in origin. This does not mean that residues can’t motivate rational activity. The combination-instinct residue helps motivate scientific activity and business enterprise, both of which Pareto would regard as rational. But it also motivates alchemy, astrology, magic, and “metaphysics,” all of which Pareto would classify as non-rational.

The most important clash between Pareto’s theory of residues and Rand’s vision of human nature arises from the notion that these residues have alternating strengths and weaknesses that make them better fit for dealing with certain types of problems rather than others. Individuals, for example, who are strong in combination-instinct residue tend to be good at using their wits and are thus better fit in dealing with problems requiring intelligence. Individuals strong in the group-persistence residue tend to be good at using force and thus are better fit in dealing with problems requiring violence.

Rand, when inventing her heroes, ignored this notion that there trade-offs between various traits of character. She gave her heroes every trait that she admired regardless of whether they went well together or not. Thus her heroes are not only immensely intelligent, but, when called upon, they are courageous and (or so we would assume) good at applying force (one them, after all, is a pirate). Thus, her heroes can handle any situation, because they can always draw upon the requisite characteristic.

In the real world, however, it is rare for individuals to be good at everything. Just as there exists a division of labor in society, there exists a division of talents and capabilities. To reach distinction in the use of one’s wits, one must devote most of one’s time to cultivating one’s practical intelligence and judgment. To reach, on the other hand, distinction in applying force, one must devote most of one’s time cultivating one’s talents in developing skills appropriate for intimidation and violence. Now individuals will tend to cultivate their innate strengths, so that if an individual is born with a high IQ, he will tend to favor intellectual skills at the expense of athletic or military endeavors, while those who are innately athletic and courageous will tend to develop such skills related to bullying, intimidation, fighting, sports, etc. Individuals tend to develop those innate abilities and talents by which they can distinguish themselves among their peers and thus enhance their status.

The division of talents and capabilities plays an important role in the determination of the social order. A society requires a ruling elite that can draw upon a wide array of skills and abilities. Unfortunately, the tendency in societies is for elites to become increasingly dominated by the skill sets associated with either the instinct for combinations or group-persistence residues, rather than the skill sets for both.

Objectivism & Politics, Part 14

Interests and spoliation. In many of the previous “Objectivism and Politics” posts, I have slowly been building the case against Peikoff’s assertion that “Philosophy shapes a nation’s political system.” The main pillars of my argument are: (1) The influence of non-rational factors, such as Pareto’s residues, on political conduct; and (2) the inability to determine political ends via rational means (i.e., Hume’s is-ought gap). Yet we must consider one other major factor in the determination of political conduct: interests.

In society, the interests of men often conflict. The interests, for example, of members of the ruling elite often conflict with the interests of ruled masses. Since there exists no absolute harmony of interests, divisions exist within society that cannot be resolved by “reason.”

Few political thinkers have understood the fact of conflicting interests in society better than America’s founding fathers. As James Madison wrote in The Federalist:

The latent causes of faction are … sown in the nature of man…So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts. But the most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property. Those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society. A landed interest, a manufacturing interest, a mercantile interest, a moneyed interest, with many lesser interests, grow up of necessity in civilized nations, and divide them into different classes, actuated by different sentiments and views. The regulation of these various and interfering interest forms the principal task of modern legislation, and involves the spirit of party and faction in the necessary and ordinary operations of the government.

According to Madison, factions based on sentiments and interests are part of the human condition. There is nothing that can be done to make them vanish. They will always exist in society.

Objectivism attempts to counter Madison’s view of the inevitably of faction with the assertion “that there are no conflicts of interest between rational men.” [OPAR, 236] Now on the face of it, this seems like a hopelessly naive view. If you are an auto worker making $70,000 a year working in a GM plant, isn’t it in your interest for the government to bail this company out and allow you to continue making your handsome salary until you retire? If so, then your interest conflicts with taxpayers and consumers of automobiles. If you are a company specializing in environmental products, isn’t it in your interest to have the government support legislation which, in effect, forces businesses to become buy your products? If so, then your interest conflicts with consumers, who now have to pay more for products that fall under environmental regulation. If you are unable to afford health care, isn’t it in your interest to have the state force medical facilities to treat you if you are ill? If so, then your interest conflicts with taxpayers and with other consumers of medical goods.

So how does Objectivism deal with such conflicts of interest? By the very simple but controversial strategy of claiming that such interests are not “rational.” According to the implied logic of the Objectivist position, it is not rational for a GM autoworker to support the bailout of the company he works for, even if the only viable alternative for him is to take a low paying service job; nor is it rational for a company specializing an environmental products to support environmental legislation, even though, in the absence of such legislation, the company will almost certainly go out of business and its stockholders will come away empty handed; nor is it even rational for a poor person unable to afford health care to desire forced medical care on his behalf, even if the alternative means death. Consequences are of little importance in determining the rationality of interest. What is important is that individuals do no violate the political and social ideals of Objectivism.

One of the most critical assumptions behind the Objectivist denial of conflicting interests between “rational” men is the notion that it is not in the interest for one individual to exploit or despoil another because, sooner or later, this will lead to a complete despoiling of the productive classes, resulting in impoverishment for every one. While there is always a danger of the despoilers killing the goose that lays the golden egg, there is no guarantee that this will happen. All human societies, past and present, have featured a certain amount of spoliation of the many by the few; yet some of these societies have flourished for hundreds of years.

How is this possible? How can spoliation occur without wiping out wealth altogether? The main reason for this stems from a kind of asymmetry of motivation that exists between the despoilers and the despoiled. As Pareto explains: 


It is a curious circumstance, and one meriting attention, that men are often observed to act with much more energy in appropriating the property of others than in defending their own. As we have noted elsewhere, if, in a nation of thirty million, it is proposed to levy one franc per annum on each citizen and to distribute the total to thirty individuals, these latter will work night and day for the success of this proposal, while it will be difficult to get the others to bestir themselves sufficiently to oppose the proposal, because, after all, it is only one franc! Another example: it is proposed to establish a ‘minimum salary’ for the employees of public administration. The people who in consequence of this measure will receive an increase of salary are perfectly aware of the advantage this proposal has for them. They and their friends will exert themselves all they can for the success of the candidates who promise to provide them with this manna. As for the people who are going to have to pay for this salary increase, each of them has great difficulties in working out what this is going to cost him in tax, and if he manages to access it, the amount seems of small significance. In most cases, he doesn’t even think about it…. One of the hardest things to get tax payers to understand is that ten times one franc makes ten francs. Provided the tax increases occur gradually, they can reach a total amount which would have provoked explosions of wrath had they been levied at one swoop.

Spoliation therefore seldom meets with a really effective resistance from the despoiled…. Rules for the distribution of goods … have to be applied by human beings, and their conduct will reflect their qualities and defects. If today there are arbiters who always decide against persons belonging to a certain class and in favor of persons belonging to certain other classes, there will very likely be ‘distributors’ in this society of tomorrow who will share out the loaf in such a way as to give a very little piece to A and a very big piece to B. [Les Systèmes Socialistes, Vol 1, ch 2]

Now while Objectivists may, if they wish, denounce those who engage in spoliation as “irrational,” such condemnations are not likely to prevent the spoliation from taking place. The term “irrational” in this context is merely an epithet of abuse. Objectivists, when using it, are clearly involved in an argumentum ad hominem. If an individual is given the opportunity to enrich himself at the expense of more productive individuals, why is it rational for him to abstain? If selfishness is a virtue, shouldn’t an individual seek to enrich himself in any way he can? As long as runs no great risk of retribution, his self-interest would appear to demand the use of every means at his disposal.

Once we grasp the motivational and situational logic of spoliation in society, it becomes clear that, as Madison warned us, “the latent causes of faction” are in fact “sown” in the nature of man and society. Rand’s assertion that no conflicts exist between rational men is irrelevant nonsense. Because of the asymmetry of interests between the despoilers and the despoiled, it is idle to denounce spoliation as “irrational.” Whether irrational or not, those who benefit from it are not going to give up their ill gotten gains without a fight. This means that in every society there will always exist powerful vested interests that will use every means at their command to support spoliation (and oppose Rand's "laissez-faire"). In short, there will always be factions, including, most ominous of all, factions in support of spoliation. Nor will these vested interests go away merely because Rand claimed she solved the problem of universals. Reality doesn’t work like that.

Objectivism & Politics, Part 11

Philosophy as derivation 2: Rand’s Ethics. In my last “Objectivism and Politics” post, I quoted Pareto’s devastating analysis of Kant’s famous categorical imperative. One thing that struck me as I wrote the post was how well many of Pareto’s criticisms of Kant would apply to Rand’s ethical reasonings. And so I decided, as a kind of thought experiment, to try to imagine how Pareto would have criticized Rand. Where applicable, I have tried to use Pareto’s own words, often following his exact phrases and sentences. Of course, it goes without saying that Pareto would have done a better job than I have. But it’s still rather fun to try to imagine Pareto commenting on Rand. So here goes:

Notorious is an ethical argument imagined by Rand and still admired by her disciples. It is Rand’s argument that “man’s life” is the “ultimate value,” and there are plenty of Objectivists who pretend to understand the logic behind it, though they can never make it clear to anyone who insists on remaining in touch with both logic and reality. Many followers of Rand have accepted her argument in order to retain their personal morality and yet be free of the necessity of having it depend on a personified deity. Of course, morality may be made to depend upon Jupiter, upon the God of the Christians, upon the God of Mohammed, upon the will of that most estimable demoiselle Milady Nature, or upon the “Objectivist” ethics of Rand. Whatever it is, it is all the same thing. Rand expresses the conclusion of her argument in a phrase, to wit: “Man’s life is his ultimate value, or man’s life qua man.” A customary trait in all such formulae is that they are so vague in meaning that one can get out of them anything one chooses. And for that reason it would have been a great saving of breath to say, “Act in a way pleasing to Rand and her disciples,” for “man’s life qua man” will in the end be dispensed with anyhow.

The first question that comes into one’s mind as one tries to get some definite meaning into the terms of Rand’s formula is (1) whether the phrase “man’s life” means that the individual values only his own life; or (2) whether "man’s life" refers to all human lives, irrespective of who is doing the valuing. In other words, is Peter supposed to value only his own life as the ultimate end, or is he also supposed to regard the lives of all human beings as ultimate values?

To judge by Rand’s commitment to egoism, she seems to accept the first interpretation, even going so far as to insist that a man’s “own life” is “the ethical purpose of every individual man.” Yet this violently contradicts the whole purpose of Rand’s ethics, which is to provide an “objective” morality based on “reason” (after all, it is the Objectivist ethics, not the Relativistic ethics). Something that is “objective,” like an “objective” fact, is true in the same way for anyone who grasps it. If, for example, the date of Christopher’s Columbus’ discovery of America was different for different people, this date could not be regarded as an “objective” fact, since it’s truth would be different for different people. The same analogy would appear to hold with an “objective” value: this, too, also has to be the same across the board. But if the individual’s life is only an ultimate value to himself, man’s life, in this sense, cannot be regarded as an “objective” value; for every individual would have a unique “ultimate” value (Peter’s life would be Peter’s ultimate value, Sarah’s life would be Sarah’s ultimate value, Paul’s life would be Paul’s ultimate value, but Sarah’s or Paul’s life would not be an ultimate value for Peter). How can an objective value, whether “ultimate” or otherwise, be different for every human being?

Rand’s phrase “man’s life” contains yet another ambiguity which we must attempt to resolve. The term life can, and frequently is, used in several different senses. It may mean, for example, merely “being alive” (i.e., survival); or it could refer to the period in which a person or organism has or will be alive; or it could refer to a person’s activities or fortunes or manner of existence. What sense of the word life is Rand using when she declares her ultimate value?

Rand seems, at least initially, to subscribe to the survivalist sense of life. Throughout the first portion of her essay, she discusses what is necessary for “man’s” survival. She even goes so far as to suggest that ethics is a science that tells human beings how to survive. “What are the values [man’s] survival requires?” she asks. “That is the question to be answered by the science of ethics.”

Nevertheless, after giving us “man’s life” (in the survivalist sense) as the ultimate value of her ethical system, Rand begins presenting us with other ultimate values, which come bobbing up no one knows from where: "[M]an’s survival qua man ... does not mean a momentary or a merely physical survival. [But wait a minute! Here Rand is qualifying what she means by man’s life. It’s not survival after all, but something else!] It does not mean the momentary physical survival [isn't all survival physical?] of a mindless brute, waiting for another brute to crush his skull [what about the "mindless brute" whose survival is longer than "momentary"?]. It does not mean the momentary physical survival of a crawling aggregate of muscles who is willing to accept any terms, obey any thug and surrender any values, for the sake of what is known as “survival at any price,” which may or may not last a week or a year. [What about “survival at any price” that lasts for decades?] 'Man’s survival qua man' means the terms, methods, conditions and goals required for survival of a rational being through the whole of his lifespan—in all those aspects of existence which are open to his choice. "

As usual with ethical arguments of this sort, they end up raising more questions than they answer. To begin with, where did this “survival of a rational being” come from? Why wasn’t it mentioned earlier? And why is the survival of a rational being the only type that can qualify as an ultimate value? Why should non-rational men be excluded? Is it because only rational men can survive? If so, then rationality is merely a means to survival. So isn’t it redundant to suggest that only a rational man’s life is the ultimate value? And how is one supposed to distinguish a rational man from a non-rational one? If the non-rational one’s don’t survive, this suggests that everyone alive must be rational. Or does Rand merely mean to suggest that non-rational individuals will not live as long as the rational ones? But how does she know this? Where is her evidence?

It is rare for Rand to provide evidence for any of her assertions, and when she does, the evidence is usually vague or dubious. Human beings, she writes “cannot survive by attempting the method of animals by rejecting reason and counting on productive men to serve as their prey. Such looters may achieve their goals for the range of the moment, at the price of destruction: the destruction of their victims and their own. [Why does she suggest (or imply) that all looters necessarily reject “reason,” or that they seek to destroy their victims?] As evidence, I offer you any criminal or dictatorship.”

Well that certainly narrows it downl! She offers us “any” criminal or dictatorship! But in doing so, she immediately forfeits her case. For history is replete with dictators and even criminals who, despite Rand, refuse to destroy both themselves and their victims and live well beyond the range of the moment. Plenty of criminals, gangsters, autocrats, dictators have thrived to a ripe old age and prospered despite all their plunderings and assorted villainies. The aristocracies of Europe were essentially formed from sanguinary marauders. Many a great fortune, even among Rand’s favorite class of capitalists, is founded, at least in part, on some shady dealing or another, little distinguishable from outright plunder.

To complicate matters further, we soon find Rand shifting the ground of her argument once again. She tells us, without batting an eye, that “the achievement of his own happiness is man’s highest moral purpose.” Since she earlier insisted on man’s “own life as the ethical purpose of every individual man” and “man’s life” as his “ultimate value," how can happiness be seen as “man’s highest moral purpose”? What possible difference can exist between “ultimate value” and “highest moral purpose”? Such inconsistencies are not noticed, because people reason on sentiments and not by logic.

In order to get around these equivocations in Rand’s ethics, one would have to reason as follows and say, “Although man’s life qua man may be his ultimate value, please do not let yourself be deceived by such phrases as ‘man’s life’ or ‘ultimate value.’ To say ‘man’s life’ and ‘ultimate value’ is just Rand’s way of saying. In reality, man’s highest moral purpose is his own happiness, which he can best attain by trying to survive in a ‘rational’ manner—that is, by forming concepts in a ‘proper’ way and pursuing many other fine virtues that will be explained to you at the proper time and place.” That much granted, one might just as well, from the logico-experimental standpoint, do away with “man’s life qua man” altogether, for it is thrown overboard in any event. But not so from the standpoint of sentiment. The appeal to “man’s life” serves the purpose of flattering egoistic sentiments and giving the hearer or reader the satisfaction that there should be an absolute norm which is superior to captious wranglings and petty human altercations—something established by Nature and “reason”; and then that sum of sentiments whereby we vaguely sense the utility of the principle that the decisions of judges should be made with reference to such rules and not against or in favor of any given individual.

The larger point in this exercise is to demonstrate that Rand’s ethics appeals, not to logic or fact, but to sentiment. No one who is intent on fact and logic will ever be convinced by the string of equivocations and non sequiturs that passes for the Objectivist ethics. Those who are convinced by such reasonings are led astray by their own sentiments, which blind them to the glaring weaknesses in Rand’s arguments. From these considerations we can conclude that the Objectivist Ethics is a mere derivation from sentiment; and as such, must be reckoned a secondary factor behind an individual's conduct, with little power, on its own initiative, to affect the social or political order.

Objectivism & Politics, Part 10

Philosophy as derivation 1: Kant’s Ethics. In my last “Objectivism and Politics” post, I introduced Pareto’s theory of residues and derivations as an explanation for non-empirical theories. When an individual, either out of ignorance or arrogance, refuses to keep in touch with reality, his thoughts have no other guide than his own emotions, sentiments, inclinations, etc. Since the emotional element is the prime determinant in all non-empirical thinking, Pareto called this element the residues. The less important element, the resulting theory, Pareto called derivations.

Now since most of what passes for philosophy is built largely on non-empirical speculation, this means that most philosophy must be regarded as a mere derivation. If this is true, then the Objectivist contention that “Philosophy shapes a nation’s political system” must be inaccurate. How can philosophy, which, as a mere derivation, is a secondary phenomenon, shape a nation’s political system? Obviously, if Pareto is correct, the role of philosophy in shaping a nation’s politics must take a backseat to other elements, such as the congenital sentiments and interests of human beings.

What reasons do we have for thinking that Pareto is correct and Rand and her disciples wrong on this issue? There are any number of reasons for siding with Pareto on this issue, not the least of which is the empirically irresponsible nature of much that passes for philosophy. Remember, if our thoughts are not guided by facts and experience, then they almost certainly will be guided by our sentiments. And when our sentiments bring forth our thoughts, we are rationalizing.

Pareto, in his massive Mind and Society, analyzed one theory after another, demonstrating how most non-empirical theories can only be accounted for as derivations from sentiment. At one point, he discusses the ethical theories of the philosopher Rand held responsible for the worst evils of the modern age, Immanual Kant. Pareto demonstrates clearly the rationalistic, even childish character of Kant’s principle ethical theory:

Famous is the metaphysical entity imagined by Kant and still admired by many good souls. It is called the categorical imperative, and there are plenty of people who pretend to know what it is, though they can never make it clear to anyone who insists on remaining in touch with reality. Kant’s formula reconciles, as usual, the egoistic with the altruistic principle, which is here represented by “universal law,” a notion pleasantly coddling to sentiments of equality, sociality, and democracy. Many people have accepted Kant’s formula in order to retain their customary morality and yet be free of the necessity of having it dependent upon a personified deity. Of course, morality may be made to depend upon Jupiter, upon the God of the Christians, upon the God of Mohammed, upon the will of that most estimable demoiselle Milady Nature, or upon Seine Hoheit the Categorical Imperative of Kant. Whatever it is, it is all the same thing. Kant gives still another form to his phrase, to wit: “Act as if the maxim of your conduct were to become, by your will, a universal law of nature.” A customary trait in all such formulae is that they are so vague in meaning that one can get out of them anything one chooses. And for that reason it would have been a great saving of breath to say, “Act in a way pleasing to Kant or his disciples,” for “universal law” will in the end be dispensed with anyhow.

The first question that comes into one’s mind as one tries to get some definite meaning into the terms of Kant’s formula is whether (1) the “universal law” is dependent upon some condition; or (2) whether it is unrestricted by any condition of any kind. In other words, can the law be stated in either of the follow ways? 1. Every individual who has the traits M ought to act in a certain manner. 2. Every individual, regardless of his traits, ought to act in a certain matter.

If the first form of the statement be adopted, the law itself means nothing, and the problem then is to determine which traits M it is permissible to consider; for if the choice of traits is left to the person who is to observe the law, he will always find a way to select traits to allow him to do exactly as he chooses without violating the law. If he wants to justify slavery, he will say with Aristotle that some men are born to command (among them, of course, the gentlemen who is interpreting the law) and other men are born to obey. If he wants to steal, he will say that it may very well be a universal law that he who has less should take from him who has more. If he wants to kill an enemy he will say revenge can easily be a universal law; and so on.

To judge by the first application that Kant makes of his principle, he would seem to reject that interpretation. Making no distinctions between individuals, he concludes that suicide could not be a universal law of nature.

So let us look at the second interpretation (where no distinctions or limitations in individuals are recognized). Kant’s reasoning might seem able to stand after a fashion. But there is another trouble with it. Before it could stand, the whole human race would have to constitute one homogeneous mass, without the least differentiation in the functions of individuals. If distinctions are admitted, it is possible for some men to command and others to obey; but not if distinctions are not admitted, for there can be no universal law that all men should command and no one obey. A man wants to spend his life studying mathematics. If distinctions are in order, he may do so without violating the Kantian law, since it may well be a universal law that a person possessing certain traits M should spend his life studying mathematics, and that a person not possessing those traits should till the soil or otherwise employee himself. But if distinctions are not allowed, if, as in the case of the suicide, one refuses to divide individuals into classes, there can be no universal law that all men should spend their lives studying mathematics, if for no other reason, for the very good reason that they would starve… Such implications are not noticed, because people reason on sentiments and not with the facts before their eyes.

As metaphysicists habitually do, after giving what he says is to be a single principle, Kant begins filling out with other principles, which come bobbing up no one knows from where. In a third case that he considers, still another individual “finds himself possessed of certain powers of mind [Those are qualifications, conditions. Why were they not mentioned in the case of the presumptive suicide? Why was it not said in his case, “A person finds himself possessed of a certain nature whereby life for him is a painful burden and not a pleasure”?] which, with some slight culture, might render him a highly useful member of society; but he is in easy circumstances and prefers amusement to the thankless toil of cultivating his understanding and perfecting his nature.” Kant wants to know whether the latter can be a universal law. The answer is in the affirmative: … “It is impossible for any one to will that such should become a universal law of nature, or were by an instinct implanted in his system [The formula does not mention any such “instinct.”]; for he, as [an] Intelligent [being], of necessity wills all his faculties to become developed, such being given him in order that they may subserve his various and manifold ends and purposes.” Here we have a principle altogether new: that certain things are given us (no one knows by whom) for certain ends and purposes.

In order to reason in that fashion one would have to modify the terms in Kant’s formula and say: “Act only on a maxim that it would be your will at the same time to have become a universal law. However, do not let yourself be deceived by the possessive ‘your.’ To say ‘your will’ is just my way of saying. In reality it is something that must necessarily exist in a man, full account being taken of the capacities with which he is endowed, of his designs and purposes, and of many other fine things that will be explained to you at the proper time and place.” That much granted, one might just as well, from the logico-experimental standpoint, do away with “will” altogether, for it is thrown overboard in any event. But not so from the standpoint of sentiment. The appeal to “will” serves the purpose of flattering egoistic sentiments and giving the hearer or reader the satisfaction of having it reconciled with his sentiments of altruism. And other sentiments are also stirred by the maxim of “universal law”: first, a feeling of satisfaction that there should be be an absolute norm which is superior to captious wranglings and petty human altercations—something established by Nature; and then that sum of sentiments whereby we vaguely sense the utility of the principle that the decisions of judges should be made with reference to such rules and not against or in favor of any given individual…

Theologians scan the heavens for the will of God, and Kant for the will of Nature. There is no escaping such speculations, which are as alluring as they are difficult and imaginary. “As regards the natural constitution of an organized being,” says Kant, “a being, that is, that has been constituted with the view to living, it is a fundamental position in all philosophy that no means are employed except those only that are most appropriate and conducive to the end and aim proposed. [A reminiscence of the time-honored theory of final causes.] If then the final aim of nature [What on earth can that be?] in the constitution of man (i.e., a being endowed with intelligence and will) had been merely his general welfare and felicity [These are arbitrary assertions about arbitrary purposes and intentions of an arbitrary entity.], then we must hold her to have taken very bad steps indeed in selecting reason for the conduct of life.”

This whole argument develops by arbitrary assertions relating to altogether fantastic things. The only word to describe it is childish; and yet many people have accepted it and many still do, and it is therefore evident that with them it can only be a matter of sentiments that are agreeably stimulated by that sort of metaphysical poetry. [§1514-1521]

Pareto raises several important points to consider in relation to Objectivism and their view of Kant’s influence: 



1. How can something so vague and childish lead to the totalitarian mass murder of the 20th century? Since one can read into Kant’s ethical theories anything one wants, how can it lead to anything specific?
2. Pareto notes how Kant ethics reconcile altruistic and egoistic sentiments. Kant, therefore, is not exactly the great prophet of altruism and self-sacrifice that Objectivists make him out to be. There is an egoistic side to Kant which Rand and her disciples conveniently ignore.
   
3. The absurdities in Kant's theory are so glaring that it becomes fairly obvious that its appeal must be to sentiments and not to any kind of logic or practical good sense. The acceptance, of it, therefore, assumes a previous sentiment (or collection of sentiments), in the absence of which the theory would never have been accepted. Therefore, the sentiments, the residues, are what causes people to accept Kant, rather than it being the other way around (as implied by Objectivism). 

The attempt by Rand to turn Kant into a scapegoat for most of the evil’s of the world becomes increasingly implausible once we understand that much of Kant’s philosophy (particularly his ethics) is a mere derivation which can lead to no specific conduct. Contrary to what Rand and her disciples claim, refuting Kant will not change the political order: it will have no change at all. Kant's ethics have been effectively criticized repeatedly without having the slightest impact on the course of history.