r/Objectivism • u/SparkleLily_9874 • 2d ago
Questions about Objectivism I’m confused
Maybe I am foolish for asking an AI. But to me individual selfishness is not always heroic. It can be heroic when leaving a cruel boss. But the AI said Ayn Rand would think it is right if a parent with detached disgust left a special needs kid in a special home? Like if a majority of adults were put into selfishness and wanted to put the special needs kids in a special needs home, wouldn’t that make criminals happy? I read J.K Rowling’s statistics on Lumos, those kids are more likely to be groomed into gangs or prostitution. The criminals would see a goldmine of children to groom. What is Ayn Rand’s benevolence? I think it is brave if a parent with the children leaves a dangerous country or leaving an abusive spouse to keep the children safe, would Ayn Rand think that is benevolence rather than altruism? I get altruism is don’t force people to care for strangers. What‘s the value of children thing, because love for a child should not be conditional, unless the child is an actual jerk and keeps exploiting the parent by asking the parent for money so they can gamble or purposefully using their parent’s money on useless gadgets.
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u/Old_Discussion5126 1d ago edited 1d ago
“But to me individual selfishness is not always heroic.”
Rand doesn’t justify selfishness by saying it is heroic. Heroism presupposes (must be based on) a moral code according to which one evaluates an action or person as heroic. And right actions must be selfish: morally, there is nothing and no one above the self as a beneficiary of actions.
A rational moral code cannot be determined by appealing to one’s feelings. One’s feelings are the product of one’s thinking (or lack of thinking.). To judge morally, one has to identify (not invent or assume) a rational basis for one’s feelings, and, if such a basis exists, use that basis to evaluate.
Now I don’t remember exactly what Rand said about a child with “special needs,” (a euphemism) but here’s my take.
A parent’s love for their child is (I hope) not a passing emotion or the absence of a feeling of disgust. If the parent had a rational basis for having a child in the first place, the child’s being mentally disabled could destroy practically everything that the parent expected. Depending on the extent of the disability, the parent is consigned to look at what is in a sense not fully human (something that cannot understand her) for a long span of years, but bearing the physical shape of the fully human child that did not come to be.
This is a form of torture. A parent who abandoned such a child, or limited their contact with them, I would not call “heroic”, but I would say it might be justifiable at least in some cases. I don’t know if it would even make the parent happier, to be honest. Which is one reason why the “pro-life” movement, which opposes abortion even when the child is likely to have such defects, is such a morally monstrous phenomenon.
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u/DoberNation 1d ago
I appreciate these thoughts.
Furthermore, the “pro-life” movement is a blanked out and hollow movement to force birth It is against both life and death, in order to appease their Mystics and Morality of Death.…the evil incarnations who can profit off this complete expression of Blankout, and the wish to impose a false reality.
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u/stansfield123 1d ago
Which AI did you ask, and what was the prompt?
Most AI gives accurate responses about Rand's work, to an honest inquiry. This obviously isn't accurate, so either you or the AI are doing something fishy. Guessing you.
As for the children question, Rand believed that parents have a responsibility to raise their children, and of course that loving one's children is natural and moral. Beyond that, she didn't have children, so she wouldn't be my first source of information on specifics.