Happiness and cruelty/help

Answered by William Thomas

Objectivism does not oppose the giving or receiving of gifts, although Ayn Rand did dramatize the idea of "give" being a forbidden word in her fictional utopia of Galt's Gulch in Atlas Shrugged. Rand did this to make a point about the fact that giving is like the icing of human affairs: it is pleasant enough to do, but should never be the motivation or principle expectation of a person. A society without giving-- but with loans, insurance, and trade-- can thrive and prosper. A society premised on giving and receving --through taxes, extortion, welfare dependency, regulation, and the like-- will collapse under its own weight. In the context of a society that reject altruism as a standard of moral value, Objectivism is not opposed to generosity towards the people and causes one values, and it holds that those honored with gifts should receive them with good grace and seek to reciprocate how they may.

Objectivism is not a hedonist ethics. It does not hold that one should seek pleasant emotions come what may. Rather it holds, with Aristotle, among others, that happiness is normally the emotional result of a life well lived. Ayn Rand's insight was that the values from which we derive our happiness should have their basis in the source of values itself, which is life. The Objectivist ethics is a morality of rational selfishness, centered on man's life as a rational being as the standard of value, and each person's life as the ultimate value for him or her.

In this context, Objectivism holds that our lives and thus our long-term happiness are best served by living as productive and independent individuals who treat others according the principle of trade. Cruelty as such does not enhance one's life and does not contribute to a rational happiness. And a focus on the well-being others, to the exclusion of a focus on one's own needs, is self-sacrifice, and is not compatible with a rational happiness either.

No doubt many people are able to embrace anti-life values and achieve forms of positive emotion, at least for a time, from their evasions of what they fear or from the the achievement of their narrowly-conceived goals. Does the success and well-being of others that we care about make us happy, or is it providing a distraction from the emptiness and futility of our own lives? For that matter, do we really care about those we work to make happy? Does cruelty toward and power over others give us confidence and a sense of mastery of our situation (which are good things, objectively speaking), or do they allow us to flee from our lack of confidence and lack of ability to gain real values from others on their own terms?

Ayn Rand envisions man as a being who can live in first-hand contact with reality, making independent choices and supporting his own life, and respecting others as independent beings with their own lives to live. Independent man seeks to live life to its fullest, not seek cheap kicks or the false gratitude of dependents.