Galt's Gulch

Was Einstein an Altruist?

Posted by ShrugInArgentina 9 years, 10 months ago to Philosophy
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"Only a life lived for others is worth living." Albert Einstein

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  • Posted by Technocracy 9 years, 10 months ago
    Nowadays we have two completely different kinds of altruism...

    Type 1, is individual altruism which they fund themselves and do for their own reasons. Generally seeking nothing in return.

    Type 2, is coercive altruism, where they have a cause and they aggressively attempt to get us to buy into their cause. Promoting your cause is ok I suppose, but when you start picking my pocket to fund your cause it is no longer OK. It is about power at that point, not about whatever cause they purport. These types turn into giant organizations and get sweetheart deals with the government. And soon they get a lot of their funding from the government. i.e. Red Cross, Planned Parenthood.

    It is called altruism but they never skip an opportunity to line their own pockets. Just look at the meager percentage of every donated dollar that actually makes it into the hands of the people they are trying to help.

    Type 1 I am fine with, its your money, spend it as you like. If it makes you feel good about yourself in the doing, enjoy it.

    Type 2 on the other hand is prettied up extortion. When you FORCE people to fund your cause it is no longer ok, just another example of forced wealth redistribution.

    Biggest offender in type 2? Anything where the only reason you ever hear for their trying to pick your pocket is...."Its for the children"

    Children are their parent's responsibility, not the populace in general.

    $20 says groups are already forming non-profits and "charities" for the illegal alien children pouring across the border as we speak.
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    • Posted by ShruginArgentina 9 years, 10 months ago
      What you are describing in the first part of your post sound more like :"charity" than "altruism" to me.

      Altruism is defined as the unselfish regard for or devotion to the welfare of others while charity is defined as the act of giving money, food, or other kinds of help to people who are poor, sick, etc.

      Charity is an act and is not coercive, but taxation and robbery are. Those who support taxation for in the name of the "welfare " of some at the expense of others may pretend to be altruists, but sometime that is not what they are.

      Charity is an individual or group "action" which can involve different motives while altruism is a moral principle which defines an individual's purpose in life

      Some (especially "religious") individuals preach altruism as a moral obligation but if it is "forced" on anyone it is not altruism.

      You are probably correct that "groups are already forming non-profits and "charities" for the illegal alien children pouring across the border" but the reasons they are able to enter at all are far more egregious


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  • Posted by richrobinson 9 years, 10 months ago
    That's a tough one Shrugin. If he got value out of helping others then it wouldn't be altruistic would it?
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    • Posted by $ MikeMarotta 9 years, 10 months ago
      Albert Einstein was indeed an altruist. It is why in the Edward Herrmann reading, Dr.Robert Stadler has such a nice German accent. Whether he was evil or misinformed is for you to judge. At the opening of _Atlas Shrugged_, Hank Rearden also accepted altruism as being identical with morality. You cannot expect someone to know what they cannot know; and Einstein died two years before Atlas Shrugged was published. He might still have not been influenced. Rand challenged 2500 years of moral teaching. Before her, Nietzsche, Max Stirner, and one or two other "individualists" were incomplete and largely incorrect, working from the wrong premises. So, just about everyone was an altruist.

      Your excuse that he "got value out of helping others" misses the essential point. It was belabored by Ayn Rand and nicely summarized by Nathaniel Branden in "Isn't Everyone Selfish?" in _The Virtue of Selfishness_. It is not that "got value" what _what_ value he got.

      Myself, Albert Einstein is all right, even if he was an altruist. I feel the same way about Richard Feynman.
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    • Posted by Technocracy 9 years, 10 months ago
      There are many kinds of value...

      If the value you are seeking is purely self-satisfaction, or something similar, that would be altruistic.

      Economic value on the other hand tends to strangle altruism once the economic value becomes more of a focus than the the original altruistic goal.
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    • Posted by $ Abaco 9 years, 10 months ago
      Good point. Most of my own work is to help others. If I wasn't paid for it, I'd go surfing instead.
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      • Posted by $ MikeMarotta 9 years, 10 months ago
        Which of Ayn Rand's works have you read? Are you familiar with _The Virtue of Selfishness_? It is true that no one except Robinson Crusoe is really "self-employed" and that market success comes from meeting the needs of many other people. And, in business, we have both internal and external customers. However, that is not the essential or fundamental consideration in morality. Doing something because you "want to" regardless of the reasons _why_ you choose is not selfishness. Egoism begins with your life as your standard of value. As you say, if you were not paid, you would do something else. We all make choices, short-term, long-time, lifetime... Basically, if what you are doing for a living is not as much fun as surfing, you should investigate your philosophical axioms.

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        • Posted by $ Abaco 9 years, 10 months ago
          Had to read that twice.

          I can't feed my kids if I go surfing all day. I enjoy feeding my kids. I also enjoy market success...a lot. I enjoy many things. Surfing isn't selfishness (at least I never thought about that), and I wouldn't do it to enjoy any market success (just to have fun and load my shorts with salty sand).

          I hope I'm making sense. I often communicate in very simple terms - this being an example. The older I get, the more I resemble Hank Hill...

          I recently acquired "The Virtue of Selfishness" and hope to read it soon, too. I've read Atlas Shrugged.
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        • Posted by ewv 9 years, 10 months ago
          I think he only meant to say that helping others is a normal part of the economy, for which he expects to be paid, so it isn't the same thing as making it an ethical purpose in place of your own values.
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          • Posted by $ MikeMarotta 9 years, 10 months ago
            Yeah, I got that. And I liked his reply. I just wanted to be clear on this because we get a lot of "intuitive altruists" nice people who are socially benevolent and personally productive who fall into the common error of equating "altruism" with "benevolence." Again, for Einstein and millions of others that might have been true as Rand was not even born when he was an adult.
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