There is a fundamental moral difference between a man who sees his
self-interest in production and a man who sees it in robbery. The evil of a
robber does not lie in the fact that he pursues his own interests, but in
what he regards as to his own interest; not in the fact that he pursues his
values, but in what he chose to value; not in the fact that he wants to
live, but in the fact that he wants to live on a subhuman level (see “The
Objectivist Ethics”).
If it is true that what I mean by “selfishness” is not what is meant
conventionally, then this is one of the worst indictments of altruism: it
means that altruism permits no concept of a self-respecting, self-supporting
man—a man who supports his life by his own effort and neither sacrifices
himself nor others. It means that altruism permits no view of men except as
sacrificial animals and profiteers-on-sacrifice, as victims and parasites—that
it permits no concept of a benevolent co-existence among men—that it permits
no concept of justice.