“I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.” – Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
The discipline of philosophy, in academic circles, is unanimous about very little. On the work of Ayn Rand however, an uncharacteristically united opinion is held. With no knowledge of her or her work, a cursory brush through the scholarly institutions will leave one with the impression of the woman as little more than a hypocritical novelist, and the work as, at best, simplistic drivel and at worst, poison to the very soul of man.
In my opinion this presentation does a grave disservice to a philosophy which deserves discussion at the very highest levels of academia, and consideration in the minds of every critical thinker on earth. In this article I will provide an overview of who Ayn Rand was, and what her philosophy entails. I will not be offering a detailed defence or rebuttal in favour of her arguments here, although I will likely do so in the future. It is also necessary to provide the disclaimer that I am by no means an expert on these matters – for context I am currently studying Rand and philosophy in general. If you are looking for an in depth or academic presentation of these ideas I defer to Rand herself, whose key works I will reference here.
The Woman –
Ayn Rand was born in Petrograd, Russia in 1905 to a middle-class family. Her father being a successful pharmacist. She excelled at school, writing works of fiction by the age of eight and engaging in frequent political debates with friends. This all changed with the advent of the Russian revolution when communism swept to control of the politics and culture of the nation. Her father’s business was confiscated, and the family fled to Crimea where she graduated from high school. It was at this early age that she settled upon reason as the paramount human value, an assessment likely born out of observing the senseless brutality of those early years of communist rule. In 1921 the family returned to Petrograd, where they lived in conditions at times nearing poverty, and a far cry from the comfort they had been used to before the revolution.
In 1926, after graduating from Petrograd State University, Rand escaped the horrors of the Soviet Union and moved to the United States. It is said that her initial view of the Manhattan skyline caused her to cry, a feeling which likely served as an inspiration for her ecstatic descriptions of American architecture in her later novels. She initially set out to write screenplays, and achieved some success in this regard. After a period of working in Hollywood she published her first novel, We the Living, and it was from here that her notoriety as a writer of philosophically and politically charged fiction took off.
Her most famous works are The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, both of which espouse her controversial philosophy of objectivism. These novels offer rich immersion into a world of symbolism, ranging from explicit statements of quotable magnitude, to carefully woven metaphor. Presented through larger than life characters which serve to embody the essence of objectivist philosophy, the world and narrative illustrate the contradictions in our own lives and the structure of modern society.
In addition to this she published a number of academic essays, which detail her beliefs in a more scholarly (if somewhat less engaging) manner. I would personally recommend reading the short article The Virtue of Selfishness for an introduction to her core ethics.
The Philosophy –
What Rand offers in objectivism is little short of life itself. Crucially, the life of the individual: that means you, and no one else. In discussions of morality and ethics, we have grown accustomed to speaking of the human race as a whole, and one which is viewed, not from within, but from without. We take the perspective of the omniscient observer, judging the actions of ourselves and others abstractly, and against some standard which exists not on earth, not in individuals but either in a realm of pure reason or pure religion.
Rand rejects this way of viewing ethics as destructive and nihilistic. A true Enlightenment thinker, she grounds the standard of life here on earth, here in reality, it being the only source of knowledge available. To look upwards for a value, or for knowledge regarding the nature of reality, invokes a standard which is fundamentally unknowable and unattainable, putting you in the company of theists and mystics. Instead, Rand views reality as the standard itself, and reality is comprised of individuals rather than groups or platonic ideals.
We observe that we are individuals every minute of every day, it requires a deep contrivance of philosophy to believe otherwise – however this is not the view most people adopt when the topic of ethics is brought up. People live for themselves at a subconscious level, indeed it is counter to our very nature to do otherwise, but when the realm of politics or philosophy is brought up people feel some inexplicable duty to argue against their own interests and advocate the sacrificing of their own values to those of others.
It is this conception of sacrifice which Rand takes aim at most aggressively, holding figures such as Kant and Plato as the main culprits of promoting what she terms “moral cannibalism”. Think of your own moral code, your own set of values which you call upon to make the really tough decisions and note whether it is your own existence, your own happiness which acts as the standard. If not, ask why. Did you come to this formulation of self-sacrifice through a considered, neutral assessment of reality? Or was it something you have always implicitly excepted, never truly challenged for fear of being labelled ‘egotistic’ or ‘selfish’?
“Ideas are the motor of history” – Ayn Rand
Rand believed that the works of philosophers determine the direction of culture, and their ideas form the basis of people’s values, whether the individual is aware of the root of their ideals or not. With this in mind, it is interesting to dwell on some of the beliefs we all hold, for example about politics, the economy and human nature, and try to decipher why we think the way we do, whether we can truly justify the beliefs which guide the way we act, judge others, and vote in elections. Rand attempts to highlight the impact philosophy has on our lives and encourage us to think critically when considering our values and beliefs, as you may well be under the influence of various thinkers you’ve never even heard of.
Rand herself admits to being heavily influenced by Aristotle, who in her view laid out the case for reason itself, and grounded philosophy here on earth. Indeed, Rand has often framed the philosophical history of the western world as essentially a conflict between the rival viewpoints of Plato and Aristotle. Plato arguing for idealism and the notion of innate knowledge, Aristotle rejecting this, and contending that reality is the only source of knowledge, and only discernible through empirical observation.
Rand’s work has been largely dismissed by the academic gatekeepers in society, despite gaining a significant following both during and after her lifetime in less scholarly circles. Having read some of the critiques of her work – bearing in mind my relative lack of expertise, being a mere student – I have yet to come across a serious challenge to the core argument Rand forwards. Of course, in the murky realm of ethical philosophy, there exists a multitude of perspectives and approaches, most of which offer a whole different world view with foundations in a whole different set of axioms and premises. I by no means profess to have an answer to every moral thinker out there, I have simply never come across any school of thought or specific thinker who offers arguments as convincing, and ideas as uplifting.
In short, Ayn Rand argues that the happiness of the individual is the only value a human being should rationally aim towards. And that sounds pretty damn good to me.
Read more about Greek philosophy and its influence on the western world:
https://jb-talks.com/plato-or-aristotle-the-great-debate-of-western-philosophy/