Harmony of Interests

The Objectivists contend that there is a harmony of interests between all rational individuals. That is, when interests are properly understood, it will be seen that there is no difference between the interests of any two individuals. This claim is surprising to many people. However, in order to come up with a persuasive system of moral and ethical values there would have to be some harmony of interests. If individuals have divergent interests, then they might want to support different systems of moral and ethical values. A moral philosophy has to come up with reasons why individuals should support one system over another.

For religious people God provides the harmony of interests. Every individual will be interested in carrying out the will of God so as to secure a favorable place in the next life. The problem with this approach is that it fails to produce consensus. In order for it to work people must agree on the will of God. Since God is unseen, widespread agreement about God's will is difficult, if not impossible. Hence belief in the supernatural doesn't solve our problem.

Strictly speaking, it is not necessary that there be a harmony of interests in all things in order for there to be a basis for consensus on moral and ethical values. There need only be a harmony of interests with respect to the choice of which system of moral and ethical values to follow. People only need to agree on how to tell the difference between right and wrong. As long as each individual has an incentive to support the same system of moral and ethical values, then the fact that people might not be inclined to agree on other matters won't prevent us from coming to an agreement about ethics.

The advantage to taking this more limited approach to the harmony of interests is that it is much easier to show exactly why there is a harmony of interests in this area. In order for a system of moral and ethical values to be effective, it will need to have widespread public support. When we assign blame and credit to the actions of other people, we will be interested in having other people share our opinions. If I blame someone for something that other people don't have a problem with, then my efforts are more likely to damage my own reputation than that of this other individual. Thus large numbers of people must have a reason to support the same system of moral and ethical values. If they fail to support a particular rule, then it will be harder for them to use that same rule to protect themselves or people that they care about.

One obstacle to understanding this harmony of interests is that people imagine that a system of moral and ethical values must describe an ideal state of the world. John Rawls asserted that a system of moral and ethical values would be incomplete if it failed to do this. I don't agree with him. In order for a system of moral and ethical values to be complete it need only describe when blame and credit should be assigned. A utopian approach to ethics is actually quite harmful.

It would not contradict my approach to say that it would be in the best interests of some individual to break the rules. However, that same individual would have an incentive to support the same system of moral and ethical values which would condemn this violation.