Questions Regarding Rational Egoism

Question

I was reading this article and I have many questions : https://iep.utm.edu/egoism/

1. What does Rand mean by the concept of "selfless selfishness"?

2. What exactly does rational mean in rational egoism? How is it different from ethical egoism? How does "reason" dictate that one's interests should/should not govern one's actions? Isn't reasoning just a tool to figure out how to get to a particular end in scenarios.

3. What does it mean for "reason may invoke an impartiality clause"? In the case where a teacher gives easy grades students to make grading easier for her, why would a Randian reject the teacher's free-riding being rational? Doesn't the free-riding benefit her? Aren't rational egoists only concerned about self-interest and not altruism? Furthermore, why is it "irrational" for a man to fight for a woman and ignore her right to choose?

4. What does this passage mean : "In summary, even within the confines of the Prisoner’s Dilemma the assumptions that differing options be offered to each such that their self-interest works against the other can be challenged logically, ethically and judicially. Firstly, the collective outcomes of the game can be changed by the game master to produce a socially and individually optimal solution – the numbers can be altered. Secondly, presenting such a dilemma to the prisoners can be considered ethically and judicially questionable as the final sentence that each gets is dependent on what another party says, rather than on the guilt and deserved punished of the individual."?

5. What does it mean for some egoists to reject the possibility of fixed or absolute values that individuals acting selfishly and caught up in their own pursuits cannot see and how does that relate to rational egoism?

6. What does this passage mean : "Rand exhorts the application of reason to ethical situations, but a critic may reply that what is rational is not always the same as what is reasonable. The critic may emphasize the historicity of choice, that is, she may emphasize that one’s apparent choice is demarcated by, and dependent on, the particular language, culture of right and consequence and environmental circumstance in which an individual finds herself living: a Victorian English gentleman perceived a different moral sphere and consequently horizon of goals than an American frontiersman. This criticism may, however, turn on semantic or contextual nuances. The Randian may counter that what is rational is reasonable: for one can argue that rationality is governed as much by understanding the context (Sartre’s facticity is a highly useful term) as adhering to the laws of logic and of non-contradiction." What is the difference between reason and rationality also???

7. Also in last passage, it discusses : "Egoists also stress that the implication of critics’ condemnation of self-serving or self-motivating action is the call to renounce freedom in favor of control by others, who then are empowered to choose on their behalf. This entails an acceptance of Aristotle’s political maxim that “some are born to rule and others are born to be ruled,” also read as “individuals are generally too stupid to act either in their own best interests or in the interests of those who would wish to command them.” Rejecting both descriptions (the first as being arrogant and empirically questionable and the second as unmasking the truly immoral ambition lurking behind attacks on selfishness), egoists ironically can be read as moral and political egalitarians glorifying the dignity of each and every person to pursue life as they see fit. Mistakes in securing the proper means and appropriate ends will be made by individuals, but if they are morally responsible for their actions they not only will bear the consequences but also the opportunity for adapting and learning. When that responsibility is removed and individuals are exhorted to live for an alternative cause, their incentive and joy in improving their own welfare is concomitantly diminished, which will, for many egoists, ultimately foster an uncritical, unthinking mass of obedient bodies vulnerable to political manipulation: when the ego is trammeled, so too is freedom ensnared, and without freedom ethics is removed from individual to collective or government responsibility. Egoists also reject the insight into personal motivation that others – whether they are psychological or sociological “experts” – declare they possess, and which they may accordingly fine-tune or encourage to “better ends.” Why an individual acts remains an intrinsically personal and private act that is the stuff of memoirs and literature, but how they should act releases our investigations into ethics of what shall define the good for the self-regarding agent." Just clarifying, but is it possible for someone to be considered an egoist if they believe following a ruler or politics blindly will enhance their personal welfare? Thanks.

Answer 1

I'll only address your question 4.

What does this passage mean : "In summary, even within the confines of the Prisoner’s Dilemma the assumptions that differing options be offered to each such that their self-interest works against the other can be challenged logically, ethically and judicially. Firstly, the collective outcomes of the game can be changed by the game master to produce a socially and individually optimal solution – the numbers can be altered. Secondly, presenting such a dilemma to the prisoners can be considered ethically and judicially questionable as the final sentence that each gets is dependent on what another party says, rather than on the guilt and deserved punished of the individual."?

The crux of the statement is the clause "even within the confines of the Prisoner's Dilemma". If this means: "within the context of game theory", then the statement is false and misleading - perhaps based on a misunderstaning of game theory or its purpose. If it means "within the context of how game theory is used as model of social interaction in biology and in social sciences (psychology, sociology, economy)" then it's also false and misleading.

In the context of game theory, Prisoner's Dilemma is just a formal game, an idealized representation -- a model -- of a very particular social interaction where the outcome depends on the independent choices of two (or more) subjects. "Changing the collective outcome" makes no sense in this context. Doing so could indeed -- trivially -- change the analysis and the possible stable outcomes, but this is because the game would have been changed. (It's like criticizing chess on "logical" grounds since in chess it's not possible that both players win.) When the model is applied to actual social interactions, it also makes no sense to speak of "changing the outcome" - if so, you'd be applying a different model. Moreover, there is no "game master" in that case. (You could argue that a model disregards certain aspects or is not appropriate as tool to get more insight or to predict how people will act in particular actual scenarios - but that's a completely different kind of criticism.)

"Presenting such a dilemma..." suggests that the game as such is actually presented to prisoners. This could indeed be seen as questionable. In principle, in the non-repeated version of the game, where the prisoners are not able to communicate with each other, the dominant strategy is to Defect. So, it is in each's subjects best interest to Defect, whatever the other subject does. The only stable outcome, the Nash equilibrium, is the outcome where both Defect. In other words, if this kind of game would be played with actual prisoners for actual stakes, it could perhaps be seen as a weird form of entrapment (though this is by no means self-evident). But the suggestion that Prisoner's Dilemma has anything to do with actual prisoners is also nonsense. Again, it's a purely formal model. (For other possible stories that illustrate the dilemma, see for instance the real-life examples in the wikipedia entry.)

The point of this model is to show clearly that in this very idealized, game-like scenario, acting "rationally" -- in the narrow sense of acting in own's own best interest -- will lead to an outcome that is worse than another possible outcome if we assume that all participants are also acting "rationally". In other words, Prisoner's Dilemma clearly demonstrates a breakdown of rational decision making (again using "rational" in that rather narrow, special sense of the word).

What makes the dilemma interesting is first of all that it (the repeated version of the game) does indeed model salient features of many social scenarios. So, it is an extremely useful model that highlights salient features of certain pretty common scenarios. And secondly, that in those scenarios, subjects will actually often choose the Cooperate option - though they will also often be prepared to stop Cooperating if the other Defects. (In formal terms: The repeated game is equivalent to a metagame. And in the full metagame the outcome where both players Cooperate can also be shown to be a stable equilibrium, resulting from a strategy that can be informally decribed as "if (as long as) you Cooperate, I will also do so, but otherwise I will Defect". See, for instance Nigel Howard, Paradoxes of Rationality. Theory of Metagames and Political Behavior (1971).)

Answer 2

Quote from the referenced article.

The answers will depend on an account of free will. Some philosophers argue that an individual has no choice in these matters, claiming that a person’s acts are determined by prior events which make illusory any belief in choice. Nevertheless, if an element of choice is permitted against the great causal impetus from nature, or God, it follows that a person possesses some control over her next action, and, that, therefore, one may inquire as to whether the individual does, or, should choose a self-or-other-oriented action. Morally speaking, one can ask whether the individual should pursue her own interests, or, whether she should reject self-interest and pursue others’ interest instead: to what extent are other-regarding acts morally praiseworthy compared to self-regarding acts?

I think the argument is rather silly. Human animals almost always work for “endorphins”.

Whatever relieves our pain, relieves our fears, gives us pleasure and satisfaction. But the nature of our actions could be judged as selfish or altruistic. It does not matter, it does not change our egoistic underlying goal: to get "endorphins".