Thus when the total context is considered, the critics of speculation are entirely mistaken in their assumption that speculative profits are won at the expense of disaster victims; on the contrary, free-market speculation eases the negative impact of such events. Unfortunately, those who are most inclined to assume that profits can only be obtained through exploitation—namely, altruists (cf. p. 3.8:2)—will be unlikely to be swayed by such arguments. Since the altruist's first concern is typically consciousness rather than reality (pp. 3.5:9-11), such analyses are regarded as irrelevant and even offensive. The guiding moral principle of the adamant altruist is that the self-interest of the more "fortunate" must be subordinated to the needs of the suffering; consequently, profiteering in such situations must be eliminated, regardless of the effects of such a policy on its victims.

Praxeology alone cannot answer such moral questions, which are the province of ethics. (Altruism was already shown to rest on false metaphysical and epistemological premises in Section 3; for a summary, see pp. 3.5:7-11.) What praxeology can expose is the practical consequences of a policy based on the principle of altruism. In practice, this principle is injurious even to its alleged beneficiaries, the needy and the suffering—for it is not only the strong and the able who must be sacrificed to the god of altruism, but all of humanity.