Objectivism starts to appear to me to be utilitarian and selfish.
Selfish*, yes, Utilitarian, definitely not...
Utilitarianism is a union of hedonism and Christianity. The first teaches man to love pleasure; the second, to love his neighbor. The union consists in teaching man to love his neighbor’s pleasure. To be exact, the Utilitarians teach that an action is moral if its result is to maximize pleasure among men in general. This theory holds that man’s duty is to serve—according to a purely quantitative standard of value. He is to serve not the well-being of the nation or of the economic class, but “the greatest happiness of the greatest number,” regardless of who comprise it in any given issue. As to one’s own happiness, says [John Stuart] Mill, the individual must be “disinterested” and “strictly impartial”; he must remember that he is only one unit out of the dozens, or millions, of men affected by his actions. “All honor to those who can abnegate for themselves the personal enjoyment of life,” says Mill, “when by such renunciation they contribute worthily to increase the amount of happiness in the world.”
As for
Selfishness:
The meaning ascribed in popular usage to the word “selfishness” is not merely wrong: it represents a devastating intellectual “package-deal,” which is responsible, more than any other single factor, for the arrested moral development of mankind.
In popular usage, the word “selfishness” is a synonym of evil; the image it conjures is of a murderous brute who tramples over piles of corpses to achieve his own ends, who cares for no living being and pursues nothing but the gratification of the mindless whims of any immediate moment.
Yet the exact meaning and dictionary definition of the word “selfishness” is: concern with one’s own interests.
This concept does not include a moral evaluation; it does not tell us whether concern with one’s own interests is good or evil; nor does it tell us what constitutes man’s actual interests. It is the task of ethics to answer such questions.
...
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.
In the book the point is made that we belong to a community and are tied to each other through an "ecology". The fault with that as I see it is that the ecology mentioned in the book is a part of our social interactions but the author applies it to our economic interactions - this is a main flaw that many socialists make.
You may, or may not, find the following relevant to your observation:
A man thinks and works alone. A man cannot rob, exploit or rule—alone. Robbery, exploitation and ruling presuppose victims. They imply dependence. They are the province of the second-hander.
...
The choice is not self-sacrifice or domination. The choice is independence or dependence. The code of the creator or the code of the second-hander. This is the basic issue. It rests upon the alternative of life or death.
The code of the creator is built on the needs of the reasoning mind which allows man to survive. The code of the second-hander is built on the needs of a mind incapable of survival. All that which proceeds from man’s independent ego is good. All that which proceeds from man’s dependence upon men is evil. -
ARL, Selfishness
For me I am my brothers keeper because according to my God my fellow travelers are not strangers but are fellow children of God, I have a duty to love them as much as myself. Additionally, their heavenly father wants what is best for them and it makes Him happy when they are cared for. As a person who is grateful to my God and loves my God I would want to make Him happy by helping them. I am confident that all of that could be expressed in terms of objectivism since my happiness is a part of all of that.
Must you sacrifice yourself to the good of others in order to serve God and make him happy?
What is the moral code of altruism? The basic principle of altruism is that man has no right to exist for his own sake, that service to others is the only justification of his existence, and that self-sacrifice is his highest moral duty, virtue and value.
Do not confuse altruism with kindness, good will or respect for the rights of others. These are not primaries, but consequences, which, in fact, altruism makes impossible. The irreducible primary of altruism, the basic absolute, is self-sacrifice—which means; self-immolation, self-abnegation, self-denial, self-destruction—which means: the self as a standard of evil, the selfless as a standard of the good.
Do not hide behind such superficialities as whether you should or should not give a dime to a beggar. That is not the issue. The issue is whether you do or do not have the right to exist without giving him that dime. The issue is whether you must keep buying your life, dime by dime, from any beggar who might choose to approach you. The issue is whether the need of others is the first mortgage on your life and the moral purpose of your existence. The issue is whether man is to be regarded as a sacrificial animal. Any man of self-esteem will answer: “No.” Altruism says: “Yes.” -
ARL, Altruism
Do you consider your right to exist contingent upon your service to your fellow man?
If you really believe you must love all of mankind as much as you love yourself, then you would have to feel guilty about whatever accomplishments you've made that improved your own life while the whole of mankind did not see an equal benefit as a result of your own, individual, effort.
But I think that the spirit of the way the two points of view are expressed does make a difference; the same actions if the result of brotherly love or the result of benevolent self interest has a completely different flavor in each case. (did that last bit make sense? In fact I felt compelled to add the word "benevolent" just to make objectivism appear less selfish)
Rand explains it as "rational self interest" and based on your use of the word "selfish" (wanting to make it appear "less selfish"), you would seem to accept the Altruist conceptualization of Selfishness as a synonym of evil, a word that suggests immorality, rather than seeing selfishness as an Amoral (neither moral or immoral) word that describes an individual's interest in one's own self.
As Rand points out, acting within the bounds of your own rational self interest (selfishly) does not preclude acts of kindness or generosity, it merely precludes sacrificing yourself to others, or others to yourself.
