Ayn rand biography summary example

Mayhew, Robert b. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press. Essays on Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead. Essays on Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. McConnell, Scott New York: New American Library. Murnane, Ben Murray, Charles Spring Claremont Review of Books. Archived from the original on May 13, Retrieved May 16, Offord, Derek Russian Shorts Kindle ed.

London: Bloomsbury Academic. O'Neill, William F. Peikoff, Leonard Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand. New York: E. Objectively Speaking: Ayn Rand Interviewed. Popoff, Alexandra Ayn Rand: Writing a Gospel of Success. Jewish Lives. New Haven: Yale University Press. Pruette, Lorine May 16, The New York Times. Rand, Ayn September The Objectivist.

Rand, Ayn []. Atlas Shrugged 35th anniversary ed. We the Living 60th Anniversary ed. New York: Dutton. Register, Bryan Utopian Studies. Riggenbach, Jeff Fall Rosenthal, Bernice Glatzer Fall Rudoren, Jodi May 15, Archived from the original on May 26, Retrieved June 14, In Shook, John R. The Dictionary of Modern American Philosophers. London: Thoemmes Continuum.

Ayn Rand Society Philosophical Studies. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. Sciabarra, Chris Matthew Fall Sciabarra, Chris Matthew January Philosophical Books. Sciabarra, Chris Matthew December Sciabarra, Chris Matthew Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical 2nd ed. Sciabarra, Chris Matthew July Seddon, Fred July Sunstein, Cass R. Chicago: Open Court Publishing.

Vidal, Gore Rocking the Boat. Boston: Little, Brown. OCLC Reprinted from Esquire , July Wang, Amy X. March 27, Archived from the original on August 9, Weinacht, Aaron Weiner, Adam []. Weiss, Gary Wozniak, Maurice D. Krause-Minkus Standard Catalog of U. Stamps 5th ed. Iola, Wisconsin: Krause Publications. Younkins, Edward W. Burlington, Vermont: Ashgate Publishing.

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Philosophy portal. This article is part of a series on. The virtues are thus united or reciprocal. Each virtue is defined partly in terms of a recognition of, and appropriate responsiveness to, some important fact or facts, a recognition and responsiveness understood by the agent to be indispensable for gaining, maintaining, or expressing her ultimate value.

Rand states that charity is not a major virtue or moral duty b ; likewise, presumably, kindness, generosity, and forgiveness. What is never morally appropriate is to make a sacrifice, that is, to surrender something of value to oneself for the sake of something of less or no value to oneself. It is appropriate to help a stranger only in an emergency, and only when the risk to our own life or well-being is minimal c: 43— This should not be taken to imply that helping a stranger is always morally optional, regardless of the circumstances.

Charity understood thus is a virtue because it is an expression of the generalized good will and respect that all normal people have towards others as creatures who share with them the capacity to value c: 46— By acting charitably, people actualize this sense of kinship, without sacrificing their own well-being. At any rate, the argument from identification can also be used to justify charity towards strangers in non-emergency situations, for example, towards those who are permanently disabled and unable to care for themselves Badhwar forthcoming.

And indeed, as recent scholarship has revealed, in her own life Rand was often extremely generous, not only towards friends and acquaintances, but also strangers. The question arises why Rand thinks that charity, kindness etc. A deeper reason, however, might be her conception of people as essentially agents rather than patients, doers rather than receivers, self-sufficient rather than dependent.

In Atlas Shrugged , Dagny offers support to a heart-broken and despairing Cheryl Taggart who, in the past, has treated Dagny with scorn, and Hank Rearden generously supports his exploitative family before he realizes their exploitativeness. Just as rationality, a focus on reality, is at the heart of every virtue, so irrationality, evasion of reality including self-deception , is at the heart of every vice.

Hank Rearden, in Atlas Shrugged , is the great innocent living under a burden of unearned guilt because of his mistaken sense of honor and a family interested only in manipulating and using him. Cheryl Taggart is killed by the too-sudden revelation that the man she loved and admired as the embodiment of her ideals is a fraud—and that the world is full of such frauds.

As already indicated, Rand justifies virtue in both instrumental and non-instrumental terms, though without distinguishing between them. The instrumental arguments show the existential and psychological rewards of virtue and costs of vice. In her depiction of her heroes, Rand shows her conviction that virtue creates an inner harmony and serenity.

Virtue also makes one trustworthy, and thus enables mutually beneficial interactions with others. Further, like Sartre, Rand holds that no evasion is completely successful, because the truth constantly threatens to resurface. His lack of integrity and of esteem for reality results in a lack of self-love or self-esteem and, indeed, of a solid self.

For example, it is possible for a small injustice to lead to great rewards, especially since others are willing to shrug off or forgive occasional transgressions. Again, even if every wrongdoing carries psychological costs, these might sometimes be outweighed by the long-term psychological and existential costs of doing the right thing as Rand herself suggests in her portrayal of the embittered Henry Cameron and Stephen Mallory in The Fountainhead.

Rectitude is partly constitutive of genuine happiness because it expresses the right relationship to reality: to existence, to oneself, and to others. For the same reason, it is partly constitutive of a self worth loving, an ideally human or rational self. Any value gained at the price of rectitude is only the simulacrum of genuine value.

In a variety of conceptually interconnected ways, then, virtuous individuals are necessarily better off than those willing to take moral short-cuts. Of course, this non-instrumentalist justification of virtue depends on the prior instrumentalist justification, viz. If justice or kindness were systematically bad for human beings, leading to disease and death, they would not be virtues.

If rationality routinely led to an early demise, no one would value rationality. But this does not entail, as Salmieri seems to think, that the ultimate value is literal survival Salmieri All it entails is that the virtues be compatible with survival in normal circumstances. For it is easy to see that if justice or kindness systematically led to deep depression, and rationality routinely sucked the joy out of life, only the rare misery-lover would value his life, or the virtues.

Survival is a necessary condition of a happy life as well as an unhappy one , not an ultimate value. Another example concerns two minor characters in We The Living who risk — and lose — their freedom and lives for resisting the new communist regime. Note, however, that Rand does not think that we are morally obligated to martyr ourselves to fight evil.

All we are obligated to do is not be complicit in evil, or betray our values. My act does not adequately express the virtue of justice if I give you your due solely or primarily because acting justly is good for me rather than because I recognize and respect your moral standing, your entitlement to be treated justly. Nor does my helping you when you need help adequately express goodwill or kindness if I help you solely or primarily because acting benevolently is good for me.

The root of the problem is that, although Rand rejects psychological egoism, she seems to regard genuine goodwill towards, or love of, others as an offshoot of proper self-love, as though there were no independent source of love for others in human nature. This is where her metaethics and ethics differ most starkly from that of Aristotle.

Altruism is also the reason why so many sympathize with, or even praise, bloody dictatorships that proudly proclaim that the sacrifice of the individual is a necessary and noble means to the goal of the collective good Rand a. As such, it is also profoundly immoral. Altruism leaves us without any moral guidance in our everyday lives and gives morality a bad name.

What, then, is the psychological explanation for the widespread equation of altruism with morality? The theorists and preachers of altruism are motivated largely by a desire to control and manipulate others by playing on their guilt. Some altruists are altruists because their mentalities are still frozen in a tribal past when survival required the sacrifice of some for the sake of others b.

Rand herself rejects a zero-sum picture of human relationships, so long as everyone in the relationship acts rationally. The philosopher who responds negatively to her work finds many biased and simplistic interpretations of philosophers and philosophical doctrines, including her claim that she is the first to consistently defend a morality of rational self-interest, all other philosophers having defended either altruism or mysticism Pojman Not only actually shooting someone, but also threatening him with a gun, is an act of force.

The non-initiation of force against others is the basic moral principle guiding our interactions with others, whether in a political society, or in the state of nature. This political principle binds not only individuals in their interactions with each other, but also, importantly, the government. But what exactly is a right? Individual rights are the means of subordinating society to moral law.

These rights are based in human nature, and are basically rights to actions, not to things or outcomes, and they can be violated only through the initiation or threat of force, or through fraud. The right to life means…the freedom to take all the actions required by the nature of a rational being for the support, the furtherance, the fulfillment and the enjoyment of his own life.

Such is the meaning of the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Like other libertarians, both right market and left egalitarian , Rand opposes state regulation of morality, as well as forced service to the state, whether military or civilian. She criticizes both conservatives and liberals as these terms are understood in American politics for wanting government to control the realm they regard as important: the spiritual or moral realm in the case of conservatives, and the material or economic realm in the case of liberals b.

Both sides thus betray a lack of understanding of the fact that human beings need to be free in both realms to be free in either. Critics have pointed out that if we have rights only because we need them for our survival and happiness, then we have no right to take actions that are contrary to our survival and happiness, such as blindly following a guru instead of thinking for ourselves, living off others because we prefer the life of a couch potato to fending for ourselves, wasting our property instead of using it wisely, or, most obviously, committing suicide Mack ; Zwolinski Yet the freedom to do only that which is morally good or rational is no freedom.

This need and the fact that we value our survival and happiness is the source of rights. As Rand says elsewhere:. A right is the sanction of independent action. Rand b Everything said so far shows that Rand believes that individuals have rights even in a state of nature, or a society without a government. In any case, Rand takes back her controversial statement by reiterating her earlier view that:.

A is A and Man is Man. Onkar Ghate and Harry Binswanger both defend this view. Ghate uses two scenarios involving individuals in a state of nature. Suppose you are by yourself on a desert island, and you domesticate a pig. Then someone from a neighboring tribe steals it. Do you have a right to retaliate by stealing some of his property, or stealing from his relatives?

Again, suppose Robinson Crusoe and Friday are strangers sharing an island, and Crusoe invents a superior spear. Does Friday have a right to copy it? Of course the tribe and you might not be able to reach a resolution satisfactory to both of you. Their view seems to imply that if the Founding Fathers had been shipwrecked for 5 years on a desert island, they could not have come up with a Bill of Rights that defined the limits of their liberties vis-a-vis each other, or set up a fair system of adjudication in the event of a dispute.

As many scholars have pointed out, starting in the 11th C, merchants from various countries created the body of law called the Law Merchant in order to protect foreign merchants not protected by the local laws Benson ; see the entry on law merchant at libertarianism. The Law Merchant was uniform throughout Europe, and enforced by courts also created by merchants in European cities, without the involvement of any European government.

Rand argues that the only just social-political system, the only system compatible with our rational nature and with the right of individuals to live for their own sakes, is capitalism , b , that is,. State regulation of the market, she argues, is responsible for corrupting both state and market institutions, just as political regulation of religion or religious regulation of politics , wherever it exists, corrupts both state and religious institutions.

Regulation creates the opportunity for the trading of favors between politicians and religious leaders, and politicians and businesses. She does, of course, praise capitalism or semi-capitalism for creating widespread prosperity, but this feature is itself explained only by the fact that it leaves individuals free to produce in peace.

She holds that for a short period in the nineteenth-century America came closer to a laissez-faire system than any other society before or since, but that capitalism remains an unknown ideal. Some critics complain, however, that in her non-fiction c Rand does not always recognize the aristocrats of pull in the real world—business leaders who lobby politicians for subsidies for themselves and restrictions on their competitors Rothbard ; Johnson In such a society, competition and opportunity will flourish, and prevent concentration of power in a few hands.

Is it true, however, that rational interests cannot conflict, or that, if they do, it follows that rights must also conflict? We think that whenever two or more people have a rational interest in one good, there is potential for conflict, and sometimes that potential is actualized. Interest in Rand's works resurfaced alongside the rise of the Tea Party movement during President Barack Obama 's administration, with leading political proponents like Rand Paul and Ted Cruz proclaiming their admiration for the author.

In , the Ayn Rand Institute announced that more than , copies of Atlas Shrugged had been sold the previous year. Having originated at Toneelgroep Amsterdam in the Netherlands, van Hove's version featured his performers speaking in Dutch, with their words projected onto a screen in English. We strive for accuracy and fairness. If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us!

Nikki Giovanni. How Did Shakespeare Die? A Huge Shakespeare Mystery, Solved. Shakespeare Wrote 3 Tragedies in Turbulent Times. The Mystery of Shakespeare's Life and Death. William Shakespeare. Objectivism and Later Years Around , Rand met with a college student named Nathan Blumenthal, who changed his name to Nathaniel Branden and became the author's designated heir.

Ayn rand biography summary example

At age six she taught herself to read and two years later discovered her first fictional hero in a French magazine for children, thus capturing the heroic vision which sustained her throughout her life. At the age of nine she decided to make fiction writing her career. Thoroughly opposed to the mysticism and collectivism of Russian culture, she thought of herself as a European writer, especially after encountering Victor Hugo, the writer she most admired.

During her high school years, she was eyewitness to both the Kerensky Revolution, which she supported, and—in —the Bolshevik Revolution, which she denounced from the outset. In order to escape the fighting, her family went to the Crimea, where she finished high school. When introduced to American history in her last year of high school, she immediately took America as her model of what a nation of free men could be.

When her family returned from the Crimea, she entered the University of Petrograd to study philosophy and history.