Ayn Rand (1905—1982)

Ayn Rand was a major intellectual of the twentieth century. Born in Russia in 1905 and educated there, she immigrated to the U.s.a. subsequently graduating from university. Upon becoming expert in English and establishing herself as a writer of fiction, she became well-known as a passionate advocate of a philosophy she chosen Objectivism. This philosophy is in the Aristotelian tradition, with that tradition'southward emphasis upon metaphysical naturalism, empirical reason in epistemology, and self-realization in ethics. Her political philosophy is in the classical liberal tradition, with that tradition's emphasis upon individualism, the ramble protection of individual rights to life, liberty, and holding, and limited government. She wrote both technical and popular works of philosophy, and she presented her philosophy in both fictional and nonfictional forms. Her philosophy has influenced several generations of academics and public intellectuals, and has had widespread popular entreatment.

Regarding human nature, Rand said, "Human being is a beingness of self-made soul." Rand believes human beings are not born in sin or with destructive desires; nor do they necessarily acquire them in the form of growing to maturity. Instead 1 is born morally tabula rasa (a blank slate), and through one'due south choices and actions ane acquires one's character traits and habits. Having chronic desires to steal, rape, or kill others is the result of mistaken development and the acquisition of bad habits, just as are chronic laziness or the habit of eating likewise much junk nutrient. And just as one is non built-in lazy but can past one's choices develop oneself into a person of vigor or sloth, so also one is non born antisocial but can by one's choices develop oneself into a person of cooperativeness or conflict.

Table of Contents

  1. Life
  2. Rand's Ethical Theory: Rational Egoism
  3. Reason and Ethics
  4. Criticisms of Rand's Ideals
  5. Conflicts of Involvement
  6. Rand'due south Influence
  7. References and Farther Reading
    1. Primary Sources
    2. Secondary Sources

i. Life

Ayn Rand's life was often as colorful as those of her heroes in her best-selling novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. Rand first made her name as a novelist, publishing We the Living (1936), The Fountainhead (1943), and her magnum opus Atlas Shrugged (1957). These philosophical novels embodied themes she later developed in nonfiction class in a series of essays and books written in the 1960s and 1970s.

Born in St. Petersburg, Russia, on Feb 2, 1905, Rand was raised in a heart-class family unit. As a child, she loved storytelling, and at age ix she decided to become a writer. In school she showed bookish promise, peculiarly in mathematics. Her family was devastated past the communist revolution of 1917, both by the social upheavals that the revolution and the ensuing civil war brought and by her father'due south chemist's beingness confiscated by the Soviets. The family moved to the Crimea to recover financially and to escape the harshness of life the revolution brought to Petrograd. They later on returned to Petrograd (the new name given to St. Petersburg past the Soviets), where Rand was to attend academy.

At the University of St. petersburg, Rand concentrated her studies on history, with secondary focuses on philosophy and literature. At university, she was repelled past the dominance of communist ideas and strong-arm tactics that suppressed gratuitous research and give-and-take. As a youth, she had been repelled by the communists' political programme, and at present an adult, she was also more than fully aware of the subversive effects that the revolution had had on Russian society more broadly.

Having studied American history and politics at university, and having long been an admirer of Western plays, music, and movies, she became an admirer of American individualism, vigor, and optimism, seeing them equally the opposites of Russian collectivism, decay, and gloom. Not believing, however, that she would be free nether the Soviet system to write the kinds of books she wanted to write, she resolved to leave Russia and go to America.

Rand graduated from the University of St. petersburg in 1924. She then enrolled at the Country Institute for Movie theatre Arts in order to study screenwriting. In 1925, she finally received permission from the Soviet regime to get out the state in order to visit relatives in the United States. Officially, her visit was to be brief; Rand, however, had already decided not to render to the Soviet Union.

After several stops in western European cities, Rand arrived in New York City in Feb 1926. From New York, she traveled on to Chicago, Illinois, where she spent the next half-dozen months living with relatives, learning English, and developing ideas for stories and movies. She had decided to go a screenwriter, and, having received an extension to her visa, she left for Hollywood, California.

On Rand'south second day in Hollywood, an event occurred that was worthy of her fiction. She was spotted by Cecil B. DeMille, i of Hollywood's leading directors, while she was standing at the gate of his studio. She had recognized him every bit he was passing by in his automobile, and he had noticed her staring at him. He stopped to ask why she was staring, and Rand explained that she had recently arrived from Russian federation, that she had long been passionate about Hollywood movies, and that she dreamed of being a screenwriter. DeMille was so working on "The King of Kings," and gave her a ride to his movie set and signed her on as an extra. During her 2nd week at DeMille's studio, another meaning issue occurred: Rand met Frank O'Connor, a immature actor too working every bit an actress. Rand and O'Connor were married in 1929, and they remained married for fifty years until his death in 1979.

Rand worked for DeMille every bit a reader of scripts and struggled financially while working on her own writing. She also held a diversity of non-writing jobs until in 1932 she was able to sell her first screenplay, "Ruby-red Pawn," to Universal Studios. Also in 1932 her first stage play, "Night of January 16th," was produced in Hollywood and later on on Broadway.

Rand had been working for years on her kickoff significant novel, Nosotros the Living, and finished it in 1933. However, for several years it was rejected past various publishers, until in 1936 information technology was published past Macmillan in the U.S. and Cassell in England. Rand described We the Living as the nigh autobiographical of her novels, its theme being the brutality of life nether communist dominion in Russian federation. We the Living did non receive a positive reaction from American reviewers and intellectuals. It was published in the 1930s, a decade sometimes called the "Red Decade," during which American intellectuals were often pro-communist and respectful and admiring of the Soviet experiment.

Rand's next major project was The Fountainhead, which she had begun to work on in 1935. While the theme of Nosotros the Living was political, the theme of The Fountainhead was ethical, focusing on individualist themes of independence and integrity. The novel'southward hero, the architect Howard Roark, is Rand'south offset embodiment of her ideal man, the man who lives on a principled and heroic scale of accomplishment.

As with We the Living, Rand had difficulties getting The Fountainhead published. Twelve publishers rejected information technology earlier information technology was published by Bobbs-Merrill in 1943. Again not well received by reviewers and intellectuals, the novel however became a all-time seller, primarily through give-and-take-of-mouth recommendation. The Fountainhead made Rand famous every bit an exponent of individualist ideas, and its standing to sell well brought her financial security. Warner Brothers produced a movie version of the novel in 1949, starring Gary Cooper and Patricia Neal, for which Rand wrote the screenplay.

In 1946, Rand began work on her most aggressive novel, Atlas Shrugged. At the time, she was working part-time as a screenwriter for producer Hal Wallis. In 1951, she and her married man moved to New York Metropolis, where she began to work total-fourth dimension on Atlas. Published past Random House in 1957, Atlas Shrugged is her about complete expression of her literary and philosophical vision. Dramatized in the form of a mystery almost a human being who stopped the motor of the world, the plot and characters embody the political and ethical themes get-go developed in We the Living and The Fountainhead and integrates them into a comprehensive philosophy including metaphysics, epistemology, economics, and the psychology of love and sex activity.

Atlas Shrugged was an firsthand all-time seller and Rand'due south last work of fiction. Her novels had expressed philosophical themes, although Rand considered herself primarily a novelist and only secondarily a philosopher. The cosmos of plots and characters and the dramatization of achievements and conflicts were her cardinal purposes in writing fiction, rather than presenting an abstracted and didactic set of philosophical theses.

The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, however, had attracted to Rand many readers who were strongly interested in the philosophical ideas the novels embodied and in pursuing them further. Among the earliest of those with whom Rand became associated and who subsequently became prominent were psychologist Nathaniel Branden and economist Alan Greenspan, after Chairman of the Federal Reserve. Her interactions with these and several other key individuals were partly responsible for Rand's turning from fiction to nonfiction writing in social club to develop her philosophy more systematically.

From 1962 until 1976, Rand wrote and lectured on her philosophy, now named "Objectivism." Her essays during this menstruum were mostly published in a series of periodicals: The Objectivist Newsletter, published from 1962 to 1965; the larger periodical The Objectivist, published from 1966 to 1971; and then The Ayn Rand Letter, published from 1971 to 1976. The essays written for these periodicals class the core fabric for a serial of nine nonfiction books published during Rand's lifetime. These books develop Rand's philosophy in all its major categories and use it to cultural issues. Peradventure the most significant of these books are The Virtue of Selfishness, which develops her ethical theory, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, devoted to political and economical theory, Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, a systematic presentation of her theory of concepts, and The Romantic Manifesto, a theory of aesthetics.

During the 1960s, Rand'due south most significant professional relationship was with Nathaniel Branden. Branden, writer of The Psychology of Self-Esteem and later known as a leader in the self-esteem movement in psychology, wrote many essays on philosophical and psychological topics that were published in Rand's books and periodicals. He was the founder and head of the Nathaniel Branden Plant, the leading Objectivist institution of the 1960s. Based in New York Urban center, the Nathaniel Branden Institute published with Rand'due south sanction numerous periodicals and pamphlets and sponsored many lectures in New York that were then distributed on tape effectually the United states and the rest of the world. The rapid growth of the Nathaniel Branden Institute and the Objectivist motion came to a halt in 1968 when, for both professional and personal reasons, Rand and Branden parted ways.

Rand continued to write and lecture consistently until she stopped publishing The Ayn Rand Letter of the alphabet in 1976. Thereafter she wrote and lectured less as her husband's wellness declined, leading to his death in 1979, and equally her own health began to refuse. Rand died on March half dozen, 1982, in her New York Metropolis apartment.

ii. Rand's Upstanding Theory: Rational Egoism

The provocative title of Ayn Rand'due south The Virtue of Selfishness matches an equally provocative thesis almost ethics. Traditional ideals has always been suspicious of self-interest, praising acts that are selfless in intent and calling amoral or immoral acts that are motivated past self-interest. A self-interested person, on the traditional view, will not consider the interests of others and so will slight or harm those interests in the pursuit of his ain.

Rand's view is that the verbal contrary is true: Self-involvement, properly understood, is the standard of morality and selflessness is the deepest immorality.

Self-involvement rightly understood, co-ordinate to Rand, is to encounter oneself equally an end in oneself. That is to say that one'due south own life and happiness are one's highest values, and that one does not exist as a servant or slave to the interests of others. Nor do others be equally servants or slaves to one'south own interests. Each person's own life and happiness are their ultimate ends. Self-interest rightly understood also entails self-responsibleness: One'south life is ane'south ain, and so is the responsibility for sustaining and enhancing information technology. Information technology is up to each of us to determine what values our lives crave, how all-time to achieve those values, and to human activity to achieve those values.

Rand's ethic of self-interest is integral to her advocacy of classical liberalism. Classical liberalism, more often chosen "libertarianism" in the twentieth century, is the view that individuals should be free to pursue their own interests. This implies, politically, that governments should exist express to protecting each individual's freedom to exercise so. In other words, the moral legitimacy of self-interest implies that individuals have rights to their lives, their liberties, their belongings, and the pursuit of their ain happiness, and that the purpose of government is to protect those rights. Economically, leaving individuals costless to pursue their ain interests implies in turn that only a capitalist or gratuitous market economical arrangement is moral: Free individuals will use their time, money, and other property equally they come across fit, and volition collaborate and merchandise voluntarily with others to mutual reward.

3. Reason and Ethics

Fundamentally, the means by which humans alive is reason. Our capacity for reason is what enables us to survive and flourish. We are not born knowing what is good for usa; that is learned. Nor are we built-in knowing how to achieve what is good for u.s.; that as well is learned. It is by reason that we learn what is nutrient and what is poison, what animals are useful or dangerous to united states of america, how to make tools, what forms of social organisation are fruitful, and then on.

Thus, Rand advocates rational self-involvement: Ane's interests are not any 1 happens to feel similar; rather it is by reason that one identifies what is in one's interest and what is not. By the use of reason ane takes into account all of the factors one tin place, projects the consequences of potential courses of action, and adopts principled policies of activeness.

The principled policies a person should adopt are called virtues. A virtue is an acquired graphic symbol trait; it results from identifying a policy every bit good and committing to acting consistently in terms of that policy.

Ane such virtue is rationality: Having identified the employ of reason as fundamentally good, the virtue of rationality is being committed to acting in accordance with reason. Another virtue is productiveness: Given that the values one needs to survive must exist produced, the virtue of productiveness is being committed to producing those values. Some other is honesty: Given that facts are facts and that one'southward life depends on knowing and acting in accord with the facts, the virtue of honesty is being committed to awareness of the facts.

Independence and integrity are too core virtues for Rand's account of self-interest. Given that one must call back and act by one's own efforts, beingness committed to the policy of independent action is a virtue. And given that one must both place what is in 1's interests and human activity to achieve it, the virtue of integrity is a policy of being committed to acting on the footing of 1'southward beliefs. The opposite policy of assertive one affair and doing another is of course the vice of hypocrisy; hypocrisy is a policy of self-destruction, on Rand's view.

Justice is another core self-interested virtue: Justice, on Rand's account, means a policy of judging people, including oneself, according to their value and interim appropriately. The opposite policy of giving to people more than or less than they deserve is injustice. The final virtue on Rand'south listing of core virtues is pride, the policy of "moral ambitiousness," in Rand'due south words. This means a policy of being committed to making oneself be the all-time ane can be, of shaping one's character to the highest level possible.

The moral person, in summary, on Rand'south account, is someone who acts and is committed to acting in their best self-involvement. It is by living the morality of self-involvement that one survives, flourishes, and achieves happiness.

4. Criticisms of Rand'southward Ideals

Every attribute of Rand'due south philosophy is subject to lively criticism and debate, merely her normative views are the ones most focused upon.

From the broadly defined conservative correct, the main criticisms are (a) that Rand's metaphysical naturalism involves an atheism that undercuts religious metaphysics, (b) that her potent accent upon empirical data and reason undercut epistemologies based on faith and tradition, and (c) that her normative individualism undercuts the commands of duty, obligation and selflessness that are necessary for achieving social values. From the left, once more defined broadly, the chief criticisms are (a) that Rand's individualism atomistically isolates each of u.s. from 18-carat society, (b) that her advocacy of free markets enables stiff-versus-weak exploitation, and in left-postmodern critique (c) that her philosophical fundamentals commit her to an untenable foundationalism and authoritarianism.

Here we will focus only on the arguments over Rand's business relationship of cocky-interest, which is currently a minority position and bailiwick to potent criticism from both the philosophical left and the philosophical correct.

The contrasting view of cocky-interest typically pits it against morality, holding that one is moral only to the extent that one sacrifices i's cocky-involvement for the sake of others or, more than moderately, to the extent one acts primarily with regard to the interests of others. For example, standard versions of morality will concur that 1 is moral to the extent one sets aside one'south own interests in guild to serve God, or the weak and the poor, or society as a whole. On these accounts, the interests of God, the poor, or society as a whole are held to exist of greater moral significance than one'due south own, and so accordingly one's interests should be sacrificed when necessary. These ethics of selflessness thus believe that one should see oneself fundamentally as a servant, as existing to serve the interests of others, not one'south own. "Selfless service to others" or "selfless sacrifice" are stock phrases indicating these accounts' view of appropriate motivation and activity.

One core difference between Rand's self-interest view and the selfless view can be seen in the reason why most advocates of selflessness recollect cocky-interest is dangerous: conflicts of involvement.

5. Conflicts of Interest

About traditional ethics have conflicts of involvement to be fundamental to the man status, and take ethics to be the solution: Basic ethical principles are to tell united states of america whose interests should exist sacrificed in order to resolve the conflicts. If there is, for example, a fundamental conflict between what God wants and what humans naturally want, then religious ideals will make fundamental the principle that human wants should be sacrificed for God's. If there is a fundamental conflict between what society needs and what individuals want, then some versions of secular ethics will make fundamental the principle that the private'due south wants should be sacrificed for society's.

Taking conflicts of interest to be cardinal almost always stems from i of 2 beliefs: that human being nature is fundamentally destructive or that economic resource are deficient. If homo nature is fundamentally subversive, then humans are naturally in conflict with each other. Many ethical philosophies get-go from this premise—for instance, Plato's myth of Gyges, Jewish and Christian accounts of original sin, and Freud's business relationship of the id. If what individuals naturally desire to do to each other is rape, steal, and kill, and so in order to have society these individual desires need to exist sacrificed. Consequently, a basic principle of ethics will exist to urge individuals to suppress their natural desires so that society can exist. In other words, self-interest is the enemy, and must exist sacrificed for others.

If economic resources are scarce, then in that location is non enough to go effectually. This scarcity then puts human being beings in central conflict with each other: For one individual'south need to exist satisfied, another's must be sacrificed. Many upstanding philosophies begin with this premise. For example, Thomas Malthus'southward theory that population growth outstrips growth in the food supply falls into this category. Karl Marx's account of capitalist society is that barbarous competition leads to the exploitation of some by others. Garrett Hardin's famous use of the lifeboat illustration asks united states of america to imagine that society is like a lifeboat with more people than its resources tin support. And and then, in club to solve the problem of destructive competition the lack of resources leads us to, a bones principle of ethics will exist to urge individuals to cede their interests in obtaining more than, or even some, then that others may obtain more or some and society tin can exist peacefully. In other words, in a situation of scarcity, self-interest is the enemy and must be sacrificed for others.

Rand rejects both the deficient resources and destructive human nature premises. Human beings are non born in sin or with destructive desires; nor do they necessarily acquire them in the grade of growing to maturity. Instead one is born morally tabula rasa ("bare slate"), and through one's choices and deportment one acquires one's character traits and habits. Every bit Rand phrased it, "Man is a beingness of self-fabricated soul." Having chronic desires to steal, rape, or kill others is the result of mistaken development and the acquisition of bad habits, simply equally are chronic laziness or the habit of eating too much junk food. And just as one is not born lazy only can past i's choices develop oneself into a person of vigor or sloth, one is not built-in antisocial but tin can by one's choices develop oneself into a person of cooperativeness or conflict.

Nor are resources scarce, according to Rand, in any fundamental way. Past the use of reason, humans can discover new resources and how to use existing resources more than efficiently, including recycling where appropriate and making productive processes more efficient. Humans take, for example, continually discovered and developed new free energy resources, from animals to wood to coal to oil to nuclear fission to solar panels; and there is no end in sight to this process. At any given moment, the available resource are a fixed amount, but over time the stock of resources are and accept been constantly expanding.

Because humans are rational they tin can produce an always-expanding number of goods, and so human being interests exercise not fundamentally disharmonize with each other. Instead, Rand holds that the exact opposite is truthful: Since humans can and should exist productive, human interests are deeply in harmony with each other. For example, my producing more corn is in harmony with your producing more peas, for by our both existence productive and trading with each other we are both ameliorate off. It is to your interest that I be successful in producing more corn, just every bit it is to my interest that you lot be successful in producing more peas.

Conflicts of interest practise exist within a narrower scope. For case, in the immediate present available resources are more than fixed, and so competition for those resources results, and contest produces winners and losers. Economic competition, however, is a broader form of cooperation, a social style to allocate resource without resorting to physical force and violence. By competition, resources are allocated efficiently and peacefully, and in the long run more resources are produced. Thus, a competitive economical arrangement is in the self-interest of all of us.

Accordingly, Rand argues that her ethic of self-involvement is the basis for personal happiness and costless and prosperous societies.

6. Rand's Influence

The impact of Rand'southward ideas is difficult to mensurate, but information technology has been big. All her books were all the same in impress as of 2017, had sold more than than xxx million copies, and connected to sell approximately one one thousand thousand copies each year. A survey jointly conducted by the Library of Congress and the Book of the Month Order early on in the 1990s asked readers to proper noun the book that had most influenced their lives: Atlas Shrugged was second simply to the Bible. Excerpts from Rand's works are regularly reprinted in college textbooks and anthologies, and several volumes accept been published posthumously containing her early writings, journals, and messages. Equally an outsider with iconoclastic views, Rand'south influence within the academic world has been limited, though academy printing books and scholarly articles about her work go on to exist published regularly. Outside the bookish world are several institutes founded past those influenced by Rand. Noteworthy among these are the Cato Establish, based in Washington, D.C., the leading libertarian think tank. Rand, forth with Nobel Prize-winners Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman, was highly instrumental in attracting generations of individuals to the libertarian movement. Too noteworthy are the Ayn Rand Institute, founded in 1985 by philosopher Leonard Peikoff and entrepreneur Edward Snider and based in California, and The Atlas Society, founded in 1990 by philosopher David Kelley and based in Washington, D.C.

7. References and Farther Reading

a. Chief Sources

  • Rand, Ayn. Atlas Shrugged. Random House, 1957.
    • Rand's magnum opus of fiction.
  • Rand, Ayn. Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal. New American Library, 1967.
    • A drove of 20 of Rand'south essays on politics, history, and economic science. Too includes two essays by psychologist Nathaniel Branden, three by economist Alan Greenspan, and one by historian Robert Hessen.
  • Rand, Ayn. The Fountainhead. Bobbs-Merrill, 1943.
    • The novel of individualism, independence, and integrity that fabricated Rand famous.
  • Rand, Ayn. Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology. New American Library, 1979.
    • Rand's theory of concept-formation. Includes an essay by philosopher Leonard Peikoff on the analytic/synthetic distinction.
  • Rand, Ayn. Philosophy: Who Needs It. Bobbs-Merrill, 1982.
    • A collection of Rand'due south essays on the nature and significance of philosophy, including her critiques of other thinkers such as Kant, Aristotle, Rawls, and Skinner.
  • Rand, Ayn. The Romantic Manifesto. Earth Publishing, 1969. Paperback edition: New American Library, 1971.
    • A drove of Rand's essays on philosophy of art and aesthetics.
  • Rand, Ayn. The Virtue of Selfishness. New American Library, 1964.
    • A collection of fourteen of Rand's essays on ethics. Also includes five essays by psychologist Nathaniel Branden.
  • Rand, Ayn. We the Living. Macmillan, 1936.
    • Rand's first novel, prepare in the Soviet Union in the years following the Russian Revolution.

b. Secondary Sources

  • Badhwar, Neera, and Long, Roderick T. "Ayn Rand," The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2010/2016.
    • Two philosophers present an overview of Rand'south life and work in the major areas of philosophy, with special attention to several major disagreements amidst philosophers working inside Objectivism.
  • Binswanger, Harry. The Biological Basis of Teleological Concepts. Los Angeles, CA: A.R.I. Press, 1990.
    • Written by a philosopher, this is a scholarly piece of work focused on the connection between biology and the concepts at the roots of ethics.
  • Branden, Nathaniel. The Vision of Ayn Rand: The Basic Principles of Objectivism. Cobden Press, 2009.
    • A comprehensive overview of Rand's philosophy based on the lecture serial presented under Rand's auspices in the 1960s.
  • Branden, Nathaniel, and Branden, Barbara. Who Is Ayn Rand? New York: Random House, 1962.
    • This book contains essays on Objectivism'southward moral philosophy, its connexion to psychological theory, and a literary written report of Rand's novel methods. It contains an boosted biographical essay, tracing Rand's life from birth upward until her mid-50s.
  • Burns, Jennifer. Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right. Oxford University Press, 2009.
    • Written past a historian, a scholarly give-and-take of Rand'south ambiguous relationship with free market place, libertarian, and bourgeois movements.
  • Gotthelf, Allan and Salmieri, Gregory. A Companion to Ayn Rand. Wiley-Blackwell, 2016.
    • The editors have compiled a series of scholarly entries on all of the major elements of Rand'southward philosophy.
  • Gotthelf, Allan and Lennox, James. Concepts and Their Role in Cognition. University of Pittsburgh Press, 2013.
    • Ten philosophers fence Rand'due south epistemology, with focused articles on her theories of perception, concepts, and scientific method.
  • Gotthelf, Allan and Lennox, James. Metaethics, Egoism, and Virtue: Studies in Ayn Rand'south Normative Theory. University of Pittsburgh Press, 2010.
    • Eight philosophers debate Rand'due south upstanding theory.
  • Hessen, Robert. In Defence force of the Corporation. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution, 1979.
    • An economic historian, Hessen argues and defends from an Objectivist perspective the moral and legal status of the corporate form of business organisation organizations.
  • Hicks, Stephen. "Ayn Rand and Gimmicky Business Ideals." Journal of Accounting, Ideals, and Public Policy three:i, 2003.
    • A philosopher explores the implications of Rand's ethics for the foundations of business ethics.
  • Hicks, Stephen. "Egoism in Nietzsche and Ayn Rand." Journal of Ayn Rand Studies x:2, 2009.
    • A philosopher compares and contrasts the positions that underlie Nietzsche'due south and Rand's theses on egoism and altruism.
  • Kelley, David. The Evidence of the Senses. Billy Rouge: Louisiana State Academy Press, 1986.
    • Written by a philosopher working within the Objectivist tradition, this scholarly work in epistemology focuses on the foundational role the senses play in human cognition.
  • Mayhew, Robert. Ayn Rand'due south Marginalia. New Milford, CT: Second Renaissance Books, 1995.
    • This volume contains Rand'southward critical comments on over 20 thinkers, including Friedrich Hayek, C. S. Lewis, and Immanuel Kant. Edited by a philosopher, the book contains facsimiles of the original texts with Rand's comments on facing pages.
  • Peikoff, Leonard. The Ominous Parallels: The End of Freedom in America. New York: Stein & Twenty-four hours, 1982.
    • A scholarly work in the philosophy of history, arguing Objectivism's theses about the part of philosophical ideas in history and applying them to explaining the rise of National Socialism.
  • Peikoff, Leonard. Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand. New York: Dutton, 1991.
    • This is the kickoff comprehensive overview of all aspects of Objectivist philosophy, written by the philosopher closest to Rand during her lifetime.
  • Rasmussen, Douglas and Douglas Den Uyl, editors. The Philosophic Thought of Ayn Rand. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1984.
    • A collection of scholarly essays by philosophers, defending and criticizing various aspects of Objectivism's metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and politics.
  • Reisman, George. Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics. Ottawa, IL: Jameson Books, 1996.
    • A scholarly work by an economist, developing free-market capitalist economic theory, specially that coming out of the Austrian tradition, and connecting information technology to Objectivist philosophy.
  • Sciabarra, Chris Matthew. Ayn Rand, The Russian Radical. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Printing, 1995.
    • A piece of work in history of philosophy, this volume attempts to trace the influence upon Rand's thinking of dialectical approaches to philosophy prevalent in nineteenth century Europe and Russia. Also an introduction and overview of the major branches of Objectivist philosophy.
  • Smith, Tara. Ayn Rand's Normative Ethics: The Virtuous Egoist. Cambridge University Press, 2006.
    • A scholarly work by a philosopher on Rand's meta-ideals and its application in normative ideals.
  • Wilkinson, Will, editor. "What's Living and Dead in Ayn Rand'southward Moral and Political Thought?" Cato Unbound, 2010.
    • Four professors of philosophy—Douglas B. Rasmussen, Michael Huemer, Neera K. Badhwar, and Roderick T. Long—discuss and debate the current state of Rand scholarship.
  • Zwolinski, Matthew. "Is Ayn Rand Right about Rights?" Learn Liberty, Apr 2017.
    • A philosophy professor argues that Rand'southward theory of private rights is bailiwick to 3 major criticisms.

Author Information

Stephen R. C. Hicks
E-mail: shicks@rockford.edu
Rockford University
U. S. A.