Furthermore, unless you are a parent trying to indoctrinate your child or a leader of an ideological group trying to indoctrinate your followers, moralization is unlikely to help you to effect change. Recall what psychoanalyst Nancy McWilliams had to say about the effects of moralization: "The self-righteous quality of this particular transformation of impulse makes others regard it as either amusing or vaguely unpleasant." Consider the Buddhist alternative and its paradoxical implications for psychotherapy. I volunteer for a suicide prevention hotline. I speak to some of the most immoral people in our society. I speak to people who evade reality by taking drugs, abusing their spouses and children, not working and instead spending their days lying in bed fantasizing about a better, different life rather than working to create a better, different life. Many of these people disrespect others' rights and end up destroying their own lives. In other words, these are profoundly evil people, by the Objectivist definition of evil. Suppose I were to say to them what Leonard Peikoff says about people who commit suicide in Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand: "A man who would throw away his life without cause, who would reject the universe on principle and embrace a zero for its own sake-such a man, according to Objectivism, would belong on the lowest rung of hell" (247-8). Let me repeat this, because I think it's an important point. Suppose I were to say to one of my suicidal clients, "If you kill yourself, you belong on the lowest rung of hell." This kind of comment, at best, would lead the person to hang up and, justifiably, not call back, because my comment would be anything but therapeutic. At worst, this kind of comment could lead someone who already feels quite demoralized to feel so demoralized that it could be the straw that breaks the camel's back and drive the person to suicide-instead of hanging up the phone, he could hang himself. Nathaniel Branden writes about this sort of thing in a section on moralism in "The Benefits and Hazards of the Philosophy of Ayn Rand":

Even if what people are doing is wrong, even if errors of morality are involved, even if what people are doing is irrational, you do not lead people to virtue by contempt. You do not make people better by telling them they are despicable. It just doesn't work. It doesn't work when religion tries it and it doesn't work when objectivism tries it.

I agree with Branden and would go even further-moralism is not just wrong in practice; it is wrong in principle. Peikoff might say that I'm being unfair. It wouldn't make sense for me to make this comment, he might say, if I'm trying to help the person. So suppose I keep the thought to myself. There's still a problem: The main technique used in suicide prevention is nonjudgmental empathic listening and mirroring of a person's experience (and there is empirical research to show that the most effective therapists are the most empathic). I ask you, how could I possibly listen nonjudgmentally and empathically if Peikoff's moralistic words were ringing in the back of my mind? This example makes clear how moralism is incompatible with objective morality. Let's analyze this situation from an egoistic point of view. My goal, as a suicide prevention counselor, is to prevent suicide, help clients to feel better, and help to improve clients' mental health. In this case, moralization-even if only in my mind-thwarts my ability to effect change. But are my goals even valid, from an egoistic point of view? I'm not being paid for this challenging work. Is it self-sacrificial? No-far from it. From a traditional Objectivist perspective, the most we could say is that I'm acting in accordance with the virtue of benevolence, contributing to the productivity and rationality of others, thereby creating a society in which I want to live. But this is, in fact, a very small part of why I enjoy working for the suicide prevention hotline. The primary reason I enjoy it is because I have compassion for and empathize with the people I talk to on the line, no matter how evil they might be. I can see myself in a client's shoes by virtue of the fact that we're both human beings and I vicariously enjoy helping to relieve their suffering and to help create psychological health and happiness. In this case-as in many others-my self-interest goes hand in hand with giving something of value to others.