There’s been some talk recently about the congruence between the ethics of self interest and the practice of defending the rights of others. Conor Friedersdorf, responding to a silly and mis-aimed attack on liberatarianism published in Slate, points out that many libertarian activists spend their time defending the rights of others, and this is proof that libertarians aren’t all selfish jerks.
As an Objectivist libertarian who makes a living defending the rights of others and working for a non-profit institution, I have to agree with Jonathan Pearce’s take on this; Friedersdorf’s article is correct that libertarians are not the merely self-centered, appetitive creatures that liberals like to claim we are, but it would also be wrong to conclude that we defend the rights of others out of selfless concern for other people. As Pearce notes,
The pursuit of rational, long term self interest—the words “rational” and “long-term” are crucial—are totally congruent with spending time and money to support the genuine freedoms of others. After all, as any Rand “sycophant” would argue, if we do not defend freedoms with a bit of effort, and go into bat to defend causes that are important, even if they are unpopular, or appear weird, then they will find themselves in a very lonely place if their own freedoms are attacked. A genuinely selfish person, who holds his own life and flourishing as his ultimate value and cultivates the virtues to achieve it fully (reason, independence, honesty, pride, productiveness, justice and integrity), will want to see freedom expand. The cost of spending a bit of time lobbying, arguing and campaigning is, for such a person, outweighed by the long term benefits. The individual benefits if the total sum of liberty is increased, in obvious and not-so-obvious ways. For the Rand “sycophant”, the real stupidity would be to ignore the wider world and its problems.
That’s right. I litigate on behalf of the rights of others for two reasons. First, for the reasons Pearce argues—because I believe it to be an effective way of defending truths in which I have a personal stake—and second, because I love the law and have found in this a way of most effectively combining my interests and expressing myself. Because I believe these are objectively rational purposes, and require no sacrifice of my self-interest, I see no conflict between this and Rand's conception of selfishness.
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