The Virtue of Selfishness | Ayn Rand | An Excellent Collection of Essays on Objectivism

The Virtue of Selfishness | Ayn Rand | Secret questions, pointedly answered.

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The Virtue of Self...

	The Virtue of Selfishness Ayn Rand Signet, 1964 - 176 pages average customer review:based on 125 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

An Excellent Collection of Essays on Objectivism

This book contains an excellent collection of essays on Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism and is appropriate for anyone seeking to obtain a deeper understanding of her philosophy beyond reading her novels. A few of the best essays contained within include:

* The Objectivist Ethics -- this is Ayn Rand's presentation of her ethics of rational egoism (i.e., rational self-interest).

* The Ethics of Emergencies -- this is where Ayn Rand discusses how her philosophy applies to many "lifeboat" situations.

* Man's Rights -- in this essay, Ayn Rand discusses what individual rights are and where they come from. Specifically, she argues that rights come from the nature of man (not from divine origin, society or law) and what they mean in practice.

* The Nature of Government -- this essay contains Ayn Rand's view on government's as an agency of force, how the only proper purpose for a government is to safeguard the rights of men, how the only legitimate functions of government are those necessary to preserve individual rights (i.e., police force, army and a court system) and the necessity for a strong, central government to serve as a final arbiter on the use of retaliatory force. This last point is in stark contrast to various anarcho-capitalists such as David Friedman and Murray Rothbard.

* Government Financing in a Free Society -- this essay discusses Ayn Rand's view that in a truly free society, all government financing should be voluntary. However, she does indicate that embracing a system based entirely on voluntary financing would be one of the last steps on transitioning to a truly free (i.e., laissez-faire capitalist) society.

* Racism -- in this essay, Ayn Rand eloquently argues how not only is racism immoral and stupid, but holding racist views is also bad for the holder.

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Secret questions, pointedly answered.

Spinning your wheels trying to understand existence? Maybe you have accepted some mad premises. Madness is resultant of refusing to think. Reality if fundamentally and irredeemably natural and therefore subject to causality, and therefor subject to human reasoning. The devil is in the details, and in this light, she has fought the devil himself. No mystic can say as much.

The Liberal Journal?

I am a great fan of the writing of Ayn Rand. I was very surprised when I looked this book up on Amazon and found, by way of description, only a review of the book by The Liberal Journal. Anyone with the least sense of logic and awareness of what Ayn Rand writes about should see the glaring flaw in offering a review by a group that represents the antithesis of what Ayn Rand stands for as a description of the book. Hello Amazon...are you listening?

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How Selfish

I find myself again reviewing a book by Ayn Rand that I quite liked. I am not a philosophy major so I won't be arguing about the soundness of her metaphysics or epistemology. I will simply say that while I don't agree with everything she has to say (few would) she makes very interesting observations. Her essay on the concept of human rights as a way to subjugate rulers to moral law is spot on. Her definition of sacrifice is also more logical than another one proposed in another review. Her idea that capitalism is the only free economic system borders on tautological and her support of property rights is a rarity amongst modern "thinkers". Again, while I don't support everything she said (I am still debating the idea of absolute morality, as if morality was something we can discover like the laws of physics) I think she makes strong arguments for personal freedom and the proper relation between a government and its governed.

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