"Morality is About Personal Profit..."

A bit nauseating to think that anyone could actually believe such swill, let alone have the cojones to actively promote it, but heartening to note that people in the street - even in our ethically numb generation - overwhelmingly recognize it as high-toned horse puckey (brought to you by the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights... which seems to be more about encouraging individual wrongs).

Comments

[Patrick]

Ha! I wouldn't put our insufficient love of material wealth and profit very high on the list of modern problems. In fact, that we live in a society full of material goods (albeit usually cheap, shoddily-made ones) and still lust after more wealth makes it look like wealth won't eventually lead to joy. Which means this "new" morality isn't nearly as good as the "old" morality.

Also from the editorial:

"The fact that earning money is ignored by most moralists, or condemned as the root of evil, is telling of the distance we must travel."

Aha! I figured out the problem! This guy hasn't *read* the Book of the Genesis, where the root of evil isn't making money: it's mistaking yourself for God.

Well, geez, if you won't read the books, how can you criticize the "old ethics"?....Haha...(Of course, I'm sure he has read the Old Testament: his argument just isn't good.)

[John Kasaian]

Oh the sorrow of the super rich and powerful!

I Got dem Billionaire Blues

(1st verse)
I got me a jet plane duh duh duh duh duh
And a charitable foundation duh duh duh duh duh
UN calls me up
and asks me to save a third world nation

(chorus)
Thats why I gots the billionaire , dem ol' billionaire blues duh duh duh duh duh!
Can't get no one to worship meeee
'cept on reality TV duh duh duh duh duh!

(2nd verse)
MSN writes about me, duh duh duh duh,
and Oprah thinks I'm swell, duh duh duh duh duh!
But I can't get dat old Pope, duh duh duh duh duh
To kneel and kiss my hand, so well....
(chorus)

Don't cha know duh duh duh duh duh
Don't cha know we need a new god duh duh duh duh duh!
Got rid of the old one, and I know I'm just right for the job! duh duh duh duh duuuuuuh!

[Michael Baruzzini]

Wow. I hope these guys don't have any kids, and if they do I'll be praying for them.

http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1994/02/10

[Maucher]

I find it interesting that 3 out of the 4 scientist metioned had a belief in God. The fourth (Darwin) threw his faith away. Morality comes from God not material items, it does not make sense in a "survival of the fitest" world. I hope and pray this man and those like him come to there senses before there material wealth is taken from them. The only thing that can not be taken from us is our faith in God, so we must hold on to it dearly.

[Beadgirl]

Can you imagine being married to people who think this way? Particularly one of the commentators, who described altruism as "anti-life morality." How can you love someone if you only ever put yourself first? What does love mean to the Ayn Rand types?

[The Pachyderminator]

Holy scat. That article is bad in so many ways it seems like it must be a joke, even though it isn't. The beginning is such a laughable series of cliches that I hardly know whether to deride it or praise it as a perfect archetype of classical naive materialism. And then when it rolls on to its stunning conclusion, it offers no arguments in favor of its interpretation of morality as the pursuit of personal profit, except to observe that "scientists in their laboratories" (which is just silly) and "Thomas Jefferson in his Declaration" (which is foolish and ignorant) did not tell us differently.

I also notice they pass lightly over the questions of whether making money will make a person happy (let alone "washing machines, air conditioning, indoor plumbing, airplanes and on and on"), and whether what they are advocating is an effect a world where the powerful prey ruthlessly on the weak, taking the moral high ground as they do it. "I'm the owner of the sweat shop while you're a lowly worker. That makes me more succesful than you, and therefore a better person. Down, dog, you deserve what you're getting. And so do those poor slobs on the streets of Calcutta - they have no morals at all." The more you think about it, the more absurd it becomes. This is obviously one of the most horrific messages ever preached, but I can't muster any righteous indignation until I stop laughing.

[Pat B]

You don't have to be a distributist to find the idea repulsive.