Sam Harris
Okay, next question, given the popularity of Ayn Rand on the
right can you give your best refutation of Objectivism?
Sam Harris
Well, you know, I haven't spent a lot of time reading Rand.
I found her novel more or less unreadable and I've read some of her essays.
I've read some of her interviews.
My basic issue with her ethics is that she seemed not to
understand that pro-social emotions like compassion were a real source of
well-being even for quote selfish people.
The stark opposition between selfishness that she thought
was rational and altruism that she thought was delusional or masochistic that I
think is psychologically untrue and ethically unhelpful.
I think a wisely selfish person more and more begins to
recognize that he or she is committed to the happiness of other people and is
right to be that their happiness redounds to his own happiness that is a more
mature a more enlightened form of ethics than any I've ever heard Rand espouse.
It is also more enlightened and mature than attend to fans
of Rand espouse so whatever Rand herself believed those who are drawn to her
philosophy often strike me as malignantly selfish and un-illumined by a larger
picture of just how good life could become right if we also saw that we were in
this together.
