In Defense of Selfishness

In Defense of Selfishness Plot Summary

Introduction

Morality shapes our culture and our lives. In every civilized society, some ethical code guides human interactions, even if many disagree about its implementation. In our world, the dominant moral framework is altruism—the principle that self-sacrifice for others constitutes virtue while pursuing one's interests is morally suspect. Whenever we hear exhortations to "give to the homeless," "preserve the safety net," or "reduce inequality," we're encountering the code of self-sacrifice. Most people accept this code, even if they don't consistently follow it. Those who fail to comply may feel guilty, but few challenge the premise that others' needs should take precedence over their own interests. This moral framework deserves critical examination. The analysis offered challenges conventional wisdom about altruism and selfishness—not just how we evaluate them, but what these concepts actually mean. Using vivid real-life examples, philosophical analysis, and historical perspectives, the argument systematically dismantles common beliefs: that altruism promotes social harmony, that it underlies basic virtues like honesty, that love and friendship are rooted in self-sacrifice, and that selfishness inevitably leads to predatory behavior. By rigorously examining these premises, we discover that continual social conflicts arise not from insufficient altruism in our lives but from its overwhelming presence, and that an alternative ethical framework based on rational self-interest can create a genuine harmony of interests among people.

Chapter 1: The False Dichotomy: Selfishness vs. Predation

The concept of selfishness has been systematically misrepresented in our culture. When most people hear "selfishness," they immediately picture a brainless brute who rapes and pillages at will, or perhaps a scheming con man who callously cheats widows and orphans. This distorted image portrays selfishness as equivalent to predatory behavior—as if pursuing one's interests necessarily meant victimizing others. But selfishness merely means concern with one's own interests. It refers to caring about one's own life and seeking to improve it. Consider the many people who support themselves through productive effort without victimizing anyone: the diligent clerk who works for his paycheck, the college student who studies rather than parties, the athlete training tirelessly to become a champion, or the inventor devoted to creating a better product. These individuals all act selfishly—they pursue their own goals to enhance their lives—but they don't benefit at others' expense. The confusion between selfishness and predation serves a strategic purpose. By creating this package-deal, altruism's advocates obscure an essential distinction between producers and predators. The concept of selfishness that should identify the behavior of an honest producer is instead used to identify only the behavior of unprincipled parasites. This deliberate obfuscation presents a false alternative: either sacrifice yourself to others (altruism) or sacrifice others to yourself (predation). The possibility of honest, non-predatory self-interest disappears from our conceptual vocabulary. This distortion extends to other key concepts. When someone postpones immediate gratification for greater long-term rewards—such as forgoing leisure to build a career—this is mislabeled as "sacrifice" rather than recognized as farsighted self-interest. Similarly, love and friendship are wrongly described as self-sacrificial when they actually represent discriminating relationships with people who bring value to one's life. True selfishness includes both material and spiritual values; it encompasses the full range of personal interests that make life worth living. The authentic conception of selfishness is exemplified by Howard Roark in Ayn Rand's novel The Fountainhead. As an innovative architect who refuses to compromise his vision despite immense pressure, Roark demonstrates that selfishness means regarding your life as precious and remaining loyal to your own judgment and values. It means striving to achieve the best possible to you, not by exploiting others, but by creating your own achievements through productive effort and trade.

Chapter 2: Rational Self-Interest: The Foundation of Authentic Morality

Rational self-interest provides the proper foundation for moral principles. Unlike the stereotype of selfishness as mindless emotionalism, genuine self-interest requires strict adherence to reason. Life is conditional; reality imposes specific requirements that cannot be evaded through wishful thinking or momentary whims. The pursuit of self-interest demands a rational, principled approach to living—one that integrates present actions with future consequences. Consider honesty. From an egoistic perspective, honesty isn't a duty we owe to others but a requirement of our own well-being. The dishonest person constructs a phony world around himself, making the truth a perpetual threat. Like a rudderless ship in a minefield, he flounders amid lies, desperately trying to avoid collision with reality. Each fabrication requires additional falsehoods, creating an unsustainable web of deception. Whether stealing money or affection, the perpetrator must pretend he's entitled to what he fraudulently obtains. But since nothing exists except reality, there's nowhere for the dishonest person to find sanctuary. Reality itself becomes his enemy. Other moral principles serve similar functions. Justice requires judging people according to what they are—what they are in reality, not in fantasy. It's in your interest that productive geniuses be rewarded rather than penalized, and that dangerous criminals be punished rather than employed in positions of trust. Integrity—loyalty to your convictions—means standing firmly by what you know, rather than abandoning your views because others disapprove. All valid moral principles call for fidelity to truth; they demand placing no consideration above reality and the judgment of your reasoning mind. Contrary to the common belief that self-interest and moral principles conflict, rational egoism maintains they are inseparable. Principles provide the indispensable guidance for achieving genuine self-interest across one's lifespan. The unprincipled individual, by contrast, shrinks his intellect to focus only on immediate sensations. He refuses to integrate his current actions with future consequences—a path that inevitably leads to self-destruction. The drug addict, obsessive gambler, and career criminal all manifest this short-sighted mentality. Altruism, meanwhile, actively undermines moral principles by making them contingent on others' needs. Should you be honest? Not if lying spares someone's feelings. Should you act with integrity? Not if compromise serves others' needs. Should you be just? No, show mercy instead of judgment, regardless of what people deserve. Altruism's core message is that the absolute factor in ethics is need—specifically, needs that can only be fulfilled through someone else's sacrifice. Under rational egoism, in contrast, people enjoy a harmony of interests. They do not seek the unearned, so there are no demands for sacrifice. They respect others' rights because they understand their own lives depend on the inviolability of rights. They deal with others through trade, offering value for value, to mutual benefit—not by mooching or looting.

Chapter 3: The Myth of the 'Public Interest' and Collectivist Thinking

The concept of "public interest" serves as altruism's political face. It attempts to make self-sacrifice seem practical by suggesting that when we serve the "public," we somehow benefit ourselves as members of society. But scrutiny reveals this concept lacks clear definition. What exactly constitutes the public interest, and how is it distinguished from "special" or "private" interests? We're told the public interest serves "society as a whole" while private interests benefit only selfish individuals. But this merely restates the question. Why is a city-owned park considered a benefit to the public while a private shopping center is not? Why does a municipal library serve the public interest but a private movie theater doesn't? Is it about the number of people served? Hardly—private enterprises like Disney World or commercial television reach far more people than most public facilities. The essence of the public-private distinction lies in the method of provision: public interest projects are those where non-users are compelled to pay for what they don't use. When a profit-making entity charges customers for services, the arrangement is dismissed as "narrowly private." But when people receive something without paying its full cost, a "public good" is supposedly being served. The public interest requires that the link between payer and beneficiary be broken—some must pay without benefiting while others benefit without paying. This approach makes calculating personal benefit impossible. You cannot know whether the value you receive from a public park is worth what you're paying through various taxes. Indeed, making such assessments impossible is precisely the point of public interest projects. What we do know is that these government-backed initiatives would not exist if people were free to choose whether to fund them, and that they represent a net loss of all the goods and services people would have preferred to purchase with their own money. The public interest doctrine rests on collectivist thinking. Collectivism holds that the group is primary and the individual merely a means to the group's ends. It views individuals as having no independent existence but as interchangeable cells of the "social organism." Under collectivism, everything you achieve—your income, your ideas, even your life itself—belongs to and is at the disposal of the collective. This philosophy traces back to Hegel, who believed individuals should be absorbed into a cosmic "Spirit" embodied in the state. According to Hegel, "the state has supreme right against the individual, whose supreme duty is to be a member of the state." Today's social policies reflect this mindset. Social Security, for instance, doesn't save your money for your retirement but puts all funds into a collective pot. The implicit premise is that there are no individual workers, only transposable cells serving the social organism. Collectivism denies individual choice in favor of a mystical "general will." Hegel claimed that individuals "do not know what they will" and that only the collective possesses the "profound apprehension and insight" to determine what's good. Thus, your true interests are supposedly represented by bureaucratic decisions, not your own judgment. This explains why regulators feel justified in overriding consumer preferences about everything from television programming to retirement planning. The public interest is not what interests the public. It is whatever the spokesmen for the collective declare it to be. In this system, lobbying inevitably flourishes as pressure groups compete to be considered "the public." Since there's no objective way to determine whether something is in the public interest, decisions are entirely arbitrary, creating the perfect environment for influence-peddling.

Chapter 4: Individual Rights and Freedom: Incompatible with Altruism

The altruist code fundamentally contradicts the principle of individual rights. Since altruism obliges you to subordinate yourself to others, it cannot regard you as an independent, autonomous being. Under altruism, your status is that of a servant—a servant to others, a servant to the collective. A servant has no rights, only duties. Nothing of yours is off-limits to the collective, since a superseding claim always belongs to those who need it. To have a right means to be free to act on your own authority, by your own sovereign judgment, without outside interference. Rights exist in opposition to permission. As John Locke stated: "Every man has a property in his own person; this nobody has any right to but himself." But altruism's champion, Auguste Comte, explicitly rejected this view: "It cannot tolerate the notion of rights, for such a notion rests on individualism... Rights, then, in the case of man, are as absurd as they are immoral." Some defenders of altruism, especially conservatives, try to reconcile freedom and self-sacrifice. They argue that while you are morally obligated to sacrifice for others, you still have the full political right to choose whether to meet that obligation. This position contradicts altruism's foundations. To recognize a right to choose would concede that your life belongs fundamentally to you—but according to altruism, it belongs to others. As Pope Paul VI expressed it: "You are not making a gift of your possessions to the poor person. You are handing over to him what is his." The denial of rights under altruism parallels religion's denial of autonomy. Religion teaches that we have a duty to serve God and that divine punishment awaits those who disobey his commandments. Similarly, altruism declares that you exist to serve an entity above yourself, and if you don't comply voluntarily, you will be compelled by legal punishment. Both views rest on faith rather than reason—faith in the divine or faith in the collective. Only by upholding reason can one uphold independence and freedom. A thinking person forms conclusions by his own judgment and doesn't substitute someone else's consciousness for his own. He requires from people only to be allowed to follow his own mind—to choose his goals, produce his values, and trade with others. The link between reason and freedom is evident throughout history: when societies are dominated by mysticism, freedom suffers; when reason prevails, freedom thrives. Individual rights secure this freedom. The right to life means the freedom to engage in self-generated, self-sustaining action. It means you should be free to take actions necessary for furthering your life, to follow your judgment in pursuit of your goals. Since life is impossible without the results of one's actions, this includes the right to property. Your only obligation toward others is to acknowledge their possession of the same rights you have and to refrain from violating them. Rights can be violated only by physical force—action taken against someone without consent. Force disables the victim's tool of survival: his mind. It stops him from acting by his own choice, compelling him to obey commands instead of following his judgment. A free society categorically bars initiated force while requiring retaliatory force against those who initiate it—a task delegated to government.

Chapter 5: The Regulatory State: Sacrificing Rationality to Need

The welfare state views man as essentially helpless. Since people are deemed incapable of meeting their needs without others' sacrifices, they must be not only ministered to but directed by the collective. This belief that people cannot be trusted to make rational decisions underlies the vast regulatory apparatus that restricts our actions "for our own good." Paternalism pervades government interventions. Whether prohibiting self-service gasoline stations, requiring restaurants to post caloric content regardless of customer demand, or banning large sugary drinks, the premise is the same: individuals cannot know what's good for them. As behavioral economists claim, our "inner Homers" (referencing the impulsive character from The Simpsons) prevent rational thinking. Only government guardians can protect us from ourselves. This notion of man's intellectual impotence has been promoted by philosophers from Plato to today's postmodernists. They've constructed a picture of consciousness as inherently distorting reality, of logic as inadequate, of rational certainty as impossible. Consequently, we need parental figures to guide us—not to protect us from fraud, but from our own deficient brains. Consider the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). When it declares a drug hazardous, it doesn't seek your agreement but imposes its decision regardless of your judgment. Its function is not to provide information you might voluntarily consider, but to say "no" and force compliance. The FDA exists not to protect you from deception, but to prevent you from judging what's good for you. This was vividly illustrated when the FDA removed Lotronex, a drug for irritable bowel syndrome, from the market after some users developed side effects. Despite hundreds of thousands of patients finding relief with the medication, they were prevented from making their own risk assessments. As one patient lamented, the drug "was a miracle medicine for me," yet he was forbidden to use it because regulators decided his condition wasn't "serious enough" to warrant the risks. Proponents claim government regulation is necessary because profit-seeking manufacturers would otherwise sell unsafe products. But this ignores that reputation is a business's most vital asset. In a free market, companies that allow shoddy products face ruin, while those offering safe, effective products thrive. When safety matters most to customers, companies have the strongest incentive to establish trustworthy reputations. The profit motive doesn't make businesses oblivious to safety—it makes conscientious attention to quality most profitable. Regulators, conversely, face perverse incentives. As former FDA commissioner Alexander Schmidt observed: "I am unable to find a single instance where a Congressional committee investigated the failure of the FDA to approve a new drug. But the times when hearings have been held to criticize our approval of a new drug have been so frequent that we aren't able to count them." Regulators focus on avoiding blame for saying "yes," not on the suffering caused by saying "no." The paternalists have it backward: self-interest demands logical, long-range thinking, while the "public interest" standard makes objective thought impossible. If you have a life-threatening disease, wouldn't self-interest motivate you to find the best treatment? Wouldn't you be guided by facts pertaining to your long-range interests? Only when decisions are made by "disinterested" third parties do we see the irrational prevail—as when the FDA withdraws a cancer drug helping certain patients because it didn't help "the population as a whole."

Chapter 6: The Psychological Costs of Selflessness

Altruism demands the sacrifice not just of material assets but of intellectual ones as well. The selfless individual is permitted no personal convictions—the people in need have the right to decide how you should dispose of everything you possess, whether in your wallet or your brain. Cognition itself is a supremely selfish act. Every evaluation—every identification that something is good for you—is an act of cognition. When you sacrifice a value, you surrender the cognitive conclusion that the thing in question is a value. According to altruism, we must adapt our perception of reality to accommodate others' needs. We must not endorse ideas that the needy find objectionable. Thus, prison guards in Canada were forbidden to wear stab-proof vests because this would signal to prisoners that they were considered dangerous. A publisher rejected a reading passage about a blind man's mountain climb because it suggested blindness was a disadvantage. A British school excluded the Holocaust from its curriculum to avoid confronting anti-Semitism among Muslim pupils. The fully selfless man harbors no personal convictions. Just as his standard of good is whatever others want, his standard of truth is whatever others believe. He does nothing that will elicit disagreement. He is their deferential servant in both thought and action. This surrender of the mind is intrinsic to altruism's very acceptance. Since there's no rational justification for subordinating your life to others, the person who espouses self-sacrifice does so on faith. He believes in altruism because authorities—his mother, pastor, teachers, the social consensus—have declared it indisputable. Faith is the suspension of one's rational faculty, the means by which one relinquishes control and allows others to shape one's thoughts. Concomitant with the demand to sacrifice your mind is the demand to sacrifice your self-esteem. Don't take pride in yourself—be humble. Don't be self-assertive—be self-deprecating. Don't think your life is precious—it's just sacrificial fodder. Christianity instills this message through the doctrine of Original Sin: "Man is made of mud and ashes... Why are you proud, O mud?" Modern intellectuals deliver a more nihilistic version: man is an insignificant piece of protoplasm in a senseless universe where rationality is a mirage and achievement a delusion. The psychology of selflessness explains history's most destructive acts. In the Jonestown mass-suicide, over 900 Americans drank poison at their leader's command. They had surrendered their judgment to him, calling him "Dad" and taking orders without question. A journalist who studied the tragedy noted that the victims "were altruistic... They had a need to join an organization where they were doing something meaningful." Similarly, Nazi functionaries like Adolf Eichmann explained their willing participation in genocide: "From my childhood, obedience was something I could not get out of my system... It was unthinkable that I would not follow orders... Living in such a way reduces to a minimum one's own need to think." The commandant of Auschwitz concurred: "I had been given an order and I had to carry it out... Whether this mass extermination of the Jews was necessary or not was something on which I could not allow myself to form an opinion." These individuals achieved near-complete selflessness. Their dominant characteristic was a refusal to activate their minds. The only way they could perpetrate such evil was to suspend their power of comprehension. They simply blanked out, allowing their minds to be molded by others' assertions. They became zombies who committed atrocities while insisting that they were merely following righteous orders.

Chapter 7: Altruism's Ultimate Goal: The Destruction of Values

The advocates of altruism exhibit varying degrees of understanding of their creed. At the more innocent end are those who uncritically believe that some must be sacrificed for "society as a whole." But the theorists and intellectuals of altruism—those who grasp the full implications of the code—have a different motivation. They advocate self-sacrifice not as a means of benefiting anyone, but as an end in itself. Consider mandatory community service for high school students. Students may assist hospital patients, but they cannot pay professionals to provide the same service, even if this would better help the patients. Nor can they fulfill requirements if they're paid for their work. The measure of diploma-worthiness is the student's willingness to sacrifice, not the actual help provided to others. Similarly, while Mother Teresa receives praise for comforting the sick, profit-seeking corporations that have alleviated suffering through antibiotics, vaccines, and genetically modified crops are scorned as exploitative. Altruism dispenses moral approval in proportion to the loss suffered by the sacrificer, not to any gains enjoyed by recipients. The biblical Abraham is venerated for his willingness to kill his son simply because God commanded it—an act that would benefit no one. When altruists campaign against income inequality, their aim is not lifting the poor but dragging down the rich. They show no moral indignation when everyone is equally impoverished; socialist countries elicit their admiration despite lower standards of living. But if the Western poor improve their lives while the rich improve more, altruists express outrage. The headline "Nation's Wealth Disparity Widens" frames a 25% rise in the lowest income group's net worth as deplorable because the highest incomes rose faster. This motivation reflects altruism's inability to define the good except as self-sacrifice. When you ask what constitutes the good according to altruism, the answer is: "You should do, not what is good for you, but what is good for your neighbor." But what is the good of your neighbor? Whatever is good for his neighbor, which is whatever is good for his neighbor, ad infinitum. The only meaning that can be attached to "good" becomes the act of self-sacrifice itself. Altruism is a code of disvalues. It leeches off your pre-existing values and says: "Whatever you've chosen to value, surrender it." From your bank account to your convictions, from your organs to your integrity—if it's important to you, you must give it up. The highest value, according to altruism, is to give up your highest values. This approach enables the worst actions of enviers and haters. The egalitarian levelers wish to destroy not just high incomes but any value achievement. Do you regard beauty as good? They demand equal time for the ugly. Do you admire eloquent speech? They insist oratory contests include deaf-mutes using sign language. Do you think a society of reason and freedom is better than one of superstition and slavery? They prohibit such "non-egalitarian value-judgments." Even health becomes a target. The "neurodiversity" movement opposes curing autism, claiming it's merely "an alternative form of brain wiring." Advocates against cochlear implants that cure deafness condemn parents who seek the procedure for their children, arguing that deafness is "a cultural identity" that shouldn't be "cured." Altruism upholds parasitism, declaring that mooching is moral but independence and self-reliance are not. Yet nature requires productiveness; it doesn't permit consumption without production. The code of self-sacrifice destroys producers by removing their incentive to create, while simultaneously destroying the recipients' motivation for self-improvement. It teaches dependents that sustaining their lives is not their responsibility but others' duty. Every choice advocated by altruism contradicts life's requirements: parasitism over productiveness, dependence over independence, self-abnegation over self-esteem, equality over achievement, need over desert, government control over freedom. Fundamentally, it's a prescription for human extinction—a code under which all must eventually be bled dry.

Summary

The ultimate ethical choice confronting every individual is stark: either we have a right to our own existence, or we don't. Either we're morally entitled to pursue our own well-being, or we must subordinate it to others' demands. This is not a question of finding some middle ground—principles cannot be compromised without being destroyed. When police confront a burglar and allow him to keep half his loot, they don't preserve 50% of private property rights; they nullify them completely. Rational selfishness means valuing your life and happiness above all else—not as a short-term indulgence but as a principled commitment requiring reason, independence, productivity, and integrity. It means understanding that your life is an end in itself, too precious to surrender to others' demands. It means rejecting both the false alternatives of sacrificing yourself to others or sacrificing others to yourself. Instead, it means living by reason and trade, seeking your values while respecting others' rights to do the same. This approach creates genuine harmony among people, allowing each to flourish according to their abilities and choices. When we discard the dogma that we exist to serve others—when we reclaim the moral right to our own lives—we discover that genuine happiness is possible, that prosperity doesn't require sacrifice, and that the interests of rational individuals don't conflict. We find that life doesn't consist of endless emergencies requiring sacrifice, but of opportunities for achievement, growth, and joy.

About Author

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Peter Schwartz

Peter Schwartz is the author of the book In Defense of Selfishness: Why the Code of Self-Sacrifice Is Unjust and Destructive (Palgrave Macmillan, June 2015).He's a former Chairman of the Board, and currently a Distinguished Fellow, of the Ayn Rand Institute in Irvine, CA. He writes and lectures extensively on topics ranging from ethics and political philosophy to environmentalism and multiculturalism. He's been frequently interviewed on radio and TV, by such personalities as Geraldo Rivera and Thom Hartmann. Other books he's written: The Foreign Policy of Self-Interest: A Moral Ideal for America (ARI Press), Libertarianism: The Perversion of Liberty (ARI Press) and The Battle for Laissez-Faire Capitalism (Intellectual Activist). He was the founding editor and publisher of The Intellectual Activist (1979-1991), a periodical that covered political/social issues from a pro-individual rights orientation. From 1987-2003 he was president and editor-in-chief of Second Renaissance Books, a publisher and distributor of titles promoting the value of reason, individualism, science, technology and capitalism.In addition, he is the editor and contributing author of Ayn Rand's Return of the Primitive: The Anti-Industrial Revolution (Meridian), and co-editor of Objectively Speaking: Ayn Rand Interviewed (Lexington Books).For more information about his writings and talks, and to follow his blog, please visit: www.PeterSchwartz.com

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