Sacrifice is not love.

"Love and friendship are profoundly personal, selfish values: love is an expression and assertion of self-esteem, a response to one's own values in the person of another. One gains a profoundly personal, selfish joy from the mere existence of the person one loves. It is one's own personal, selfish happiness that one seeks, earns and derives from love.

A selfless, disinterested love is a contradiction in terms: it means that one is indifferent to that which one values.

Concern for the welfare of those one loves is a rational part of one's selfish interests. If a man who is passionately in love with his wife spends a fortune to cure her of a dangerous illness, it would be absurd to claim that he does it as a sacrifice for her sake, not his own, and that it makes no difference to him, personally and selfishly, whether she lives or dies.

Any action that a man undertakes for the benefit of those he loves is not a sacrifice if, in the hierarchy of his values, in the total context of the choices open to him, it achieves that which is of greatest personal (and rational) importance to him. In the above example, his wife's survival is of greater value to the husband than anything else that his money could buy, it is of greatest importance to his own happiness and, therefore, his action is not a sacrifice.

But suppose he let her die in order to spend his money on saving the lives of ten other women, none of whom meant anything to him—as the ethics of altruism would require. That would be a sacrifice. Here the difference between Objectivism and altruism can be seen most clearly: if sacrifice is the moral principle of action, then that husband should sacrifice his wife for the sake of ten other women. What distinguishes the wife from the ten others? Nothing but her value to the husband who has to make the choice—nothing but the fact that his happiness requires her survival."

Ayn Rand, The Virtue of Selfishness


Tags: Ayn Rand, the virtue of selfishness, love, friends, sacrifice, morality, philosophy, ethics, rational egoism, happiness

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[hhtwbps]

and this is why there is heartbreak, and divorce because these new age ridiculous theories., selfishness has NOTHING to do with love. if all you care about is yourself you deserve to be alone.

[SevenStringShredHead]

@jakejumpover the title of this video is "sacrifice is not love" not "being an asshole is good"

you don't seem to get the difference and that's why i called it a stick man argument

in any case you are not arguing anything relevant to this video or what i have said and your weak Hitler comparison is indicative of a losing case

[jakejumpover]

The fact is that if it is selfish it's not love.

[jakejumpover]

@SevenStringShredHead It's funny that modern psychology dictates that the rational side of our brain is actually just a function to justify our subjective mind. You see it in me easily but in yourself and others with this philosophy with difficult because of your own subjective bias and the limitations of your organic matter. I suffer from the same fate but at least recognize it. It's fighting our mechanics, fighting the selfishness that separates us from beasts without it there is no separation

[jakejumpover]

@SevenStringShredHead Which one the asshole who wants to justify being an asshole one? Actually its a good argument that you have no answer for because the one thing that bad people with bad character have in common whether they are Utilitarian or Hitler is they think their views better the world when all they do is justify their own rotten way of effecting people negatively.

[jakejumpover]

Do people who agree with this philosophy truly believe this would make the world a better place?

[SevenStringShredHead]

@jakejumpover i've seen some weak stick man arguments in my time but that tops them all

[jakejumpover]

@SevenStringShredHead And the entire philosophy is based upon justifying selfishness. An asshole who doesn't want to admit they are an asshole is still an asshole. At least the rest of us assholes dont try to say we are doing the world a favor by being assholes. That would make us stupid self denying assholes. I seriously pity people who follow this in their daily lives. Living in a cold world where the only joy they feel is by giving into selfish temptations. Theres a lot missing there.

[natritious1]

what does "organic portal" mean?

[SevenStringShredHead]

@jakejumpover you're trying to use your own subjective definition of morals to attack a philosophy focused on objectivity