Ayn Rand and Special Needs Kids
Posted by richrobinson 11 years, 1 month ago to Philosophy
A customer just saw my Who is John Galt shirt. He said he wrote a paper in college called "An Objection to Objectivism". He said in an Objectivist world special needs kids would all be gassed. He objected to Rand only valuing those who were the best and brightest and not caring about the rest. He was clearly passionate about the issue so I respectfully disagreed and he said the books are interesting and that was his only objection. I was surprised and perplexed as to how he came to that conclusion. Any thoughts???
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I see nothing in the two Rand books I've read to indicate she was saying you must not help someone even if you want to. She was saying don't do it if you don't want to. These critics have a hard position to defend-- they're saying they want to force help from someone who does not want to give it.
My reading of Rand is she would say if you're taking care of a special needs kids and you hate it but are doing it anyway for the approval of others or fear someone will hurt you if you don't, this is not right. You're not doing something positive for that child. You should find someone else to do it. Maybe someone else enjoys doing it, not out of an obligation or fear, but it's just what they like doing. They should be the one doing it. I'm curious if the Rand critic would say no one would want to do it without being forced, shamed, or cajoled into caring for the kids.
I also reject the claim about "only valuing those who the best and the brightest". If he reads Rand, he'll find she rejects having one authority on human merit. Her hero in Fountainhead designed houses that most people thought were ugly, and consequently his design firm could barely afford the rent on a tiny office. He had to do manual construction work to pay the bills. The entire establishment thought he was a joke for much of the book.
Contrary to what the guy who wrote the paper said, Rand values these special needs kids as much as anyone else, as much as the supposed "best and the brightest". Her villains, like Peter's mom, are the ones who say we should be obsessed with the supposed best and the brightest.
"To illustrate this on the altruists’ favorite example: the issue of saving a drowning person. If the person to be saved is a stranger, it is morally proper to save him only when the danger to one’s own life is minimal; when the danger is great, it would be immoral to attempt it: only a lack of self-esteem could permit one to value one’s life no higher than that of any random stranger. (And, conversely, if one is drowning, one cannot expect a stranger to risk his life for one’s sake, remembering that one’s life cannot be as valuable to him as his own.)
If the person to be saved is not a stranger, then the risk one should be willing to take is greater in proportion to the greatness of that person’s value to oneself. If it is the man or woman one loves, then one can be willing to give one’s own life to save him or her—for the selfish reason that life without the loved person could be unbearable."