Objectivism (Ayn Rand)

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Objectivism is a philosophy[1] developed by Ayn Rand in the 20th century that encompasses integrated positions on metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, politics, and aesthetics.[2]

Contents

[edit] Brief overview

My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.

—Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged 35th anniversary edition[3]

Ayn Rand characterized Objectivism as "a philosophy for living on earth," grounded in reality, and aimed at defining man's nature and the nature of the world in which he lives. Rand initially expressed these ideas in her novels The Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged, and other works. She further elaborated on them in The Objectivist Newsletter, The Objectivist, The Ayn Rand Letter, Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, The Virtue of Selfishness, and other non-fiction books.[4]

Objectivism holds: that reality exists independent of consciousness; that individual persons are in contact with this reality through sensory perception; that human beings can gain objective knowledge from perception through the process of concept formation and inductive and deductive logic; that the proper moral purpose of one's life is the pursuit of one's own happiness or rational self-interest; that the only social system consistent with this morality is full respect for individual rights, embodied in pure laissez-faire capitalism; and that the role of art in human life is to transform man's widest metaphysical ideas, by selective reproduction of reality, into a physical form—a work of art—that he can comprehend and to which he can respond emotionally.

[edit] Etymology

Objectivism derives its name from the idea that both knowledge and values are objective: neither intrinsic nor subjective. According to Rand, concepts and values are not intrinsic to external reality, nor are they created by the thoughts one has. Rather, valid concepts and values are, as she wrote, "determined by the nature of reality, but to be discovered by man's mind."[5]

Rand chose Objectivism as the name of her philosophy, saying her ideal term to label a philosophy based on the primacy of existence, Existentialism, had already been taken.[6] The word is capitalized to distinguish it from other philosophical positions to which the term "objectivism" has been applied.

[edit] Objectivist Principles

[edit] Metaphysics: objective reality

Main article: Objectivist metaphysics

Rand's philosophy is based on three axioms: the Axiom of Existence, the Law of Identity, and the Axiom of Consciousness. Rand defined an axiom as "a statement that identifies the base of knowledge and of any further statement pertaining to that knowledge, a statement necessarily contained in all others whether any particular speaker chooses to identify it or not. An axiom is a proposition that defeats its opponents by the fact that they have to accept it and use it in the process of any attempt to deny it".[3] As Leonard Peikoff noted, being perceptually self-evident, Rand's argumentation "is not a proof that the axioms of existence, consciousness, and identity are true. It is proof that they are axioms, that they are at the base of knowledge and thus inescapable."[6]

Objectivism states that "Existence exists" (the Axiom of Existence) and "Existence is Identity." To be is to be "an entity of a specific nature made of specific attributes."[3] That which has no attributes does not and cannot exist. Hence, the Law of Identity: a thing is what it is. Whereas "existence exists" pertains to existence itself (whether something exists or not), the law of identity pertains to the nature of an object as being necessarily distinct from other objects (whether something exists as this or that). As Rand wrote, "A leaf cannot be all red and green at the same time, it cannot freeze and burn at the same time. A is A."[3]

Rand held that when one is able to perceive something, then one's "Consciousness exists" (the Axiom of Consciousness), consciousness "being the faculty of perceiving that which exists."[6] Objectivism maintains that what exists does not exist because one thinks it exists; it simply exists, regardless of anyone's awareness, knowledge or opinion. For Rand, consciousness is an inherently relational phenomenon, as she puts it, "to be conscious is to be conscious of something," so that an objective reality independent of consciousness must exist first for consciousness to become possible, and there is no possibility of a consciousness that is conscious of nothing outside itself. Thus consciousness cannot be the only thing that exists. "It cannot be aware only of itself — there is no 'itself' until it is aware of something."[7] Objectivism holds that the mind cannot create reality, but rather, it is a means of discovering reality.[8]

Objectivist philosophy regards the Law of Causality, which states that things act in accordance with their natures, as "the law of identity applied to action."[3] Rand rejected the popular notion that the causal link relates action to action. According to Rand, an "action" is not an entity, rather, it is entities that act, and every action is the action of an entity. The way entities interact is caused by the specific nature (or "identity") of those entities; if they were different there would be a different result.[6]

[edit] Epistemology: reason

Main article: Objectivist epistemology

The starting point of Objectivist epistemology is the principle, presented by Rand as a direct consequence of the metaphysical axiom that "Existence is Identity," that Knowledge is Identification. Objectivist epistemology[8] defines how one can translate perception, i.e., awareness acquired through the senses, into valid concepts that identify the facts of reality.

Objectivism rejects philosophical skepticism and states that only by the method of reason can man gain knowledge (identification of the facts of reality). Objectivism also rejects faith and "feeling" as means of attaining knowledge. She defined "reason" as "the faculty that identifies and integrates the material provided by man's senses."[9] Although Rand acknowledged the importance of emotion in humans, she maintained that emotion was a consequence of the conscious or subconscious ideas one already holds, not a means of achieving awareness of reality.

Rand held that there is no "causeless knowledge," and on this basis argued against any form of mysticism, which she defined as "the acceptance of allegations without evidence or proof, either apart from or against the evidence of one's senses and reason." She continues, "Mysticism is the claim to some non-sensory, non-rational, non-definable, non-identifiable means of knowledge, such as 'instinct,' 'intuition,' 'revelation,' or any form of 'just knowing.'"[10] According to Rand, to reach "knowledge" beyond what is given in sense-perception requires both volitional effort and adherence to a specific methodology of observation, concept-formation, and both inductive and deductive logic. A belief in "dragons" or "elves," however sincere, does not oblige reality to contain "dragons" or "elves," and a process of "proof" establishing the basis in reality of any claimed item of knowledge (if it cannot be directly observed) is a prerequisite to establising its truth.[11]

On similar grounds, Rand rejected the arguments traditionally made by epistemological skeptics who argue against the possibility of knowledge "undistorted" by the form or the means of perception. According to Rand, like anything else, consciousness—any consciousness—possesses a specific identity and operates by a specific method. Rather than disqualifying an item of knowledge, awareness of its causal antecedents and a discrimination of the form from the object of awareness actually identifies its relationship to reality. Such an argument, according to Rand, amounts to saying: "man is limited to a consciousness of a specific nature, which perceives by specific means and no others; therefore, his consciousness is not valid; man is blind because he has eyes––deaf because he has ears––deluded because he has a mind––and the things he perceives do not exist because he perceives them."[12]

For Rand, consciousness, like anything that exists, must possess identity, and its operation requires a causal means of adhering to reality, such as logic. Unlike logic, mystical revelation, Tarot Cards, or any other equivalent of a Ouija board, simply bypass the requirement of demonstrating how it connects its results to reality, and such "methods," according to Rand are not a "short cut" to knowledge at all, but a "short-circuit" destroying knowledge.[13] By the same token, that consciousness has an identity, far from disqualifying its product, only grounds it in reality, and the skeptics' claim would invalidate the operation of any consciousness, whatever the means and form it utilized.

To defend and explain her position on reason, she developed a theory of sense-perception that distinguishes between the form and object of perception, holding that the form in which an organism perceives is determined by its physiological means of perception but that in whatever form it perceives, what it perceives—the object of its perception—is reality. She rejected the Kantian dichotomy between "things as we perceive them" and "things as they are in themselves." The validity of the senses, she held, is axiomatic; sensations, being physiologically determined, cannot make "mistakes" or err when transmitting the facts of reality. Apparent errors, such as in "optical illusions", she regarded as errors in the conceptual identification of what is seen, not in the seeing itself. Sense data is still valid even though it may be misinterpreted by the one experiencing it. However, sensations are not the basis of man's knowledge. Sensations are integrated as perceptions, and it is only at the level of perceptions that the foundation of epistemology lies. Perception, she argued, is the automatic result of a causal process, infallible, and provide the basis for the non-automatic, fallible processes of conceptual interpretation and inference that is the sphere of reason.[14]

Rand was neither a classical empiricist (like Hume or the logical positivists) nor a classical rationalist (like Plato, Descartes, or Frege). She disagreed with the empiricists mainly in that she considered perception to be simply sensation extended over time, limiting the scope of perception to automatic, pre-cognitive awareness. From this perspective, as well, she categorized so-called "perceptual illusions" as errors in cognitive interpretation due to complexity of perceptual data. She held that objective identification of the values of attributes of existents is obtained by measurement, broadly defined as procedures whose perceptual component, the comparison of the attribute's value to a standard, is so simple that an error in the resulting identification is not possible given a focused mind. Therefore, according to Rand, knowledge obtained by measurement (the fact that an entity has the measured attribute, and the value of this attribute relative to the standard) is "contextually certain."

Perhaps Ayn Rand's most distinctive contribution in epistemology is her theory of concept-formation. She observed fundamental links between concepts and mathematics and held that concepts are properly formed by a process of measurement omission. Rand uses "measurement" here in the broad sense of comparing any quantitative or qualitative relationship, even such things as the intensity of love, not just physical measurements such as mass, time, or distance.

"According to Objectivism, concepts 'represent classifications of observed existents according to their relationships to other observed existents.' To form a concept, one mentally isolates a group of concretes (of distinct perceptual units), on the basis of observed similarities which distinguish them from all other known concretes (similarity is 'the relationship between two or more existents which possess the same characteristic(s), but in different measure or degree'); then, by a process of omitting the particular measurements of these concretes, one integrates them into a single new mental unit: the concept, which subsumes all concretes of this kind (a potentially unlimited number). The integration is completed and retained by the selection of a perceptual symbol (a word) to designate it. 'A concept is a mental integration of two or more units possessing the same distinguishing characteristic(s), with their particular measurements omitted.'" [15]

"...the term 'measurements omitted' does not mean, in this context, that measurements are regarded as non-existent; it means that measurements exist, but are not specified. That measurements must exist is an essential part of the process. The principle is: the relevant measurements must exist in some quantity, but may exist in any quantity."[16]

Rand did not consider the analytic-synthetic distinction to have merit. She similarly denied the existence of a priori knowledge.[17] Rand also considered her ideas distinct from foundationalism, naive realism, or representationalism (i.e., an indirect realist who believes in a "veil of perception") like Descartes or John Locke.

A strong advocate of Aristotelian logic, she titled the three parts of Atlas Shrugged with the names of three axioms used in Aristotelian logic: "A is A," "Non-Contradiction," and "Either/Or", three Laws of Thought known to the Ancient Greeks. The first is the law of identity, the second is the law of non-contradiction and the third is the law of excluded middle.[18] In regard to inductive logic, she held that her theory of concepts would provide the basis for a new approach to validating inductive generalization, and Leonard Peikoff has attempted this development.[19]

Objectivist epistemology, like most other philosophical branches of Objectivism, was first presented by Rand in Atlas Shrugged.[3] It is more fully developed in Rand's 1967 Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology.[8] Rand considered her epistemology and its basis in reason so central to her philosophy that she remarked, "I am not primarily an advocate of capitalism, but of egoism; and I am not primarily an advocate of egoism, but of reason. If one recognizes the supremacy of reason and applies it consistently, all the rest follows."

[edit] Ethics: rational self-interest

Main article: Objectivist ethics
Individualism
v • d • e

Rand's ethical egoism, her advocacy of "rational selfishness," is perhaps her most well-known position. In The Virtue of Selfishness she gave an original validation of her moral code, claiming to have bridged the infamous gap between "Is" and "Ought"—or between facts and values. Beginning by asking "What are values?" and "Why does man need them?", she argues that the concept of "value" implies an answer to the questions, "Of value to whom and for what?" Thus, the existence of values depends upon the existence of an alternative in the face of which a being must act. "Where no alternatives exist, no goals and no values are possible."[20]

According to Rand, there is only one type of being which acts in the face of an alternative: living organisms. She writes: "there is only one fundamental alternative in the universe: existence or non-existence—and it pertains to a single class of entities: to living organisms. The existence of inanimate matter is unconditional, the existence of life is not: it depends on a specific course of action... It is only a living organism that faces a constant alternative: the issue of life or death..." Objectivism defines life as the process of self-generated self-sustaining activity. All living organisms, Rand held, act to gain values—i.e., the items their survival requires––and every living organism has specific requirements for its survival determined by its very nature, factually determined values. The survival of the organism is the ultimate value to which all of the organism's activities are aimed, the end served by all of its lesser values, and the objective standard by which its well-being may be determined. It is the nature of the organism itself which determines what is "good for" it or "bad for it." In Rand's terms: "It is only the concept of 'Life' that makes the concept of 'Value' possible," and, "[t]he fact that a living entity is, determines what it ought to do."[21]

Integrating with this is Rand's view that the primary locus of man's free will is in the choice: to think or not to think. "Thinking is not an automatic function. In any hour and issue of his life, man is free to think or to evade that effort. Thinking requires a state of full, focused awareness. The act of focusing one's consciousness is volitional. Man can focus his mind to a full, active, purposefully directed awareness of reality—or he can unfocus it and let himself drift in a semiconscious daze, merely reacting to any chance stimulus of the immediate moment, at the mercy of his undirected sensory-perceptual mechanism and of any random, associational connections it might happen to make."[22] According to Rand, therefore, possessing free will, human beings must choose their values: one does not automatically hold his own life as his ultimate value. Whether in fact a person's actions promote and fulfill his own life or not is a question of fact, as it is with all other organisms, but whether a person will act in order to promote his well-being is up to him, not hard-wired into his physiology. "Man has the power to act as his own destroyer—and that is the way he has acted through most of his history."[23]

As with any other organism, human survival cannot be achieved randomly. The requirements of man's life first must be discovered and then consciously adhered to by means of principles. This is why human beings require a science of ethics. The purpose of a moral code, Rand held, is to provide the principles by reference to which man can achieve the values his survival requires.[24] Rand defined "ethics" as "a code of values to guide man's choices and actions—the choices and actions that determine the purpose and the course of his life.

Since reason is man's means of knowledge, it is also his greatest value, and its exercise his greatest virtue. "Man's mind is his basic tool of survival. Life is given to him, survival is not. His body is given to him, its sustenance is not. His mind is given to him, its content is not. To remain alive he must act and before he can act he must know the nature and purpose of his action. He cannot obtain his food without knowledge of food and of the way to obtain it. He cannot dig a ditch––or build a cyclotron––without a knowledge of his aim and the means to achieve it. To remain alive, he must think."[25]

For Rand, all of the principal virtues are applications of the role of reason as man's basic tool of survival: rationality, honesty, justice, independence, integrity, productiveness, and pride—each of which she explains in some detail in "The Objectivist Ethics."[26]

For man, it is, specifically, the conceptual faculty which is his tool for survival, according to Rand. An organism that possesses a faculty of sensation relies on its pleasure-pain mechanism; an animal that operates at the level of perception can use its perceptions to instinctively go through its essentially cyclic life; but a human being must rely on an integrated whole of his perceptual (rooted in sensations) and conceptual faculties.

Ayn Rand also claimed that in humans, who are conscious organisms, the motivation to pursue life is experienced as the pursuit of a conscious state—the pursuit of happiness. Indeed, in her one-sentence summary of Objectivism, Ayn Rand condensed her ethics into the statement that man properly lives "with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life." According to Objectivist epistemology states of mind, such as happiness, are not primary; they are the consequence of specific facts of existence. Therefore man needs an objective, principled standard, grounded in the facts of reality, to guide him in the pursuit of this purpose. Rand regarded happiness as a biological faculty evolved from the pleasure-pain mechanism of pre-human animals. This faculty functions as an instrument providing a continuous measurement of how successful one is at meeting the challenge of life. As she wrote in The Virtue of Selfishness (23, pb 27)

Just as the pleasure-pain mechanism of man's body is an automatic indicator of his body's welfare or injury, a barometer of its basic alternative, life or death—so the emotional mechanism of man's consciousness is geared to perform the same function, as a barometer that registers the same alternative by means of two basic emotions: joy or suffering.

Although Rand sometimes referred to the Objectivist ethics in particular as "selfishness," as reflected in the title of her primary book on ethics, The Virtue of Selfishness, she did not use that term with the negative connotations that it usually has, but to refer to a form of rational egoism.:

“ To live, man must hold three things as the supreme and ruling values of his life: Reason, Purpose, Self-esteem. ”

Unlike many other philosophers, Ayn Rand broadened the scope of ethics to include the derivation of principles needed in all contexts, whether one is alone or with others. She argued against the claim "that morality is social and that man would need no morality on a desert island—it is on a desert island that he would need it most."[27] In her novels, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, she also emphasizes the central importance of productive work, romantic love and art to human happiness, and dramatizes the ethical character of their pursuit.

The morality of Objectivism is based on the observation that one's own choices and actions are instrumental in maintaining and enhancing one's life, and therefore one's happiness. Rand wrote:

"Man has been called a rational being, but rationality is a matter of choice — and the alternative his nature offers him is: rational being or suicidal animal. Man has to be man — by choice; he has to hold his life as a value — by choice; he has to learn to sustain it — by choice; he has to discover the values it requires and practice his virtues — by choice.
"A code of values accepted by choice is a code of morality."[3]

There is a difference, therefore, between rational self-interest as pursuit of one's own life and happiness in reality, and what Ayn Rand called "selfishness without a self"—a range-of-the-moment pseudo-"selfish" whim-worship or "hedonism." A whim-worshipper or "hedonist," according to Rand, is not motivated by a desire to live his own human life, but by a wish to live on a sub-human level. Instead of using "that which promotes my (human) life" as his standard of value, he mistakes "that which I (mindlessly happen to) value" for a standard of value, in contradiction of the fact that, existentially, he is a human and therefore rational organism. The "I value" in whim-worship or hedonism can be replaced with "we value," "he values," "they value," or "God values," and still it would remain dissociated from reality. Rand repudiated the equation of rational selfishness with hedonistic or whim-worshipping "selfishness-without-a-self." She held that the former is good, and the latter evil, and that there is a fundamental difference between them.[28] A corollary to Rand's endorsement of self-interest is her rejection of the ethical doctrine of altruism—which she defined in the sense of August Comte's altruism (he coined the term), as a moral obligation to live for the sake of others.

Rand defined a value as "that which one acts to gain and/or keep." The rational individual's choice of values to pursue is guided by his need, if he chooses to live, to act so as to maintain and promote his own life. Therefore, Rand did not hold that values proper to human life are "intrinsic" in the sense of being independent of one's choices, or that there are values that an individual must pursue by command or imperative ("reason accepts no commandments"). Neither did Rand consider proper values "subjective," to be pursued just because one has chosen, perhaps arbitrarily, to pursue them. Rather, Rand held that valid values are "objective," in the sense of being identifiable as serving to preserve and enhance one's life, writing, that "the 'good' is an aspect of reality in relation to man." Some values are specific to the nature of each individual, but there are also universal human values, including the preservation of one's own individual rights, which Rand defined as "conditions of existence required by man's nature for his proper survival."[3]

Objectivism holds that morality is a "code of values accepted by choice." According to Leonard Peikoff, Rand held that "man needs [morality] for one reason only: he needs it in order to survive. Moral laws, in this view, are principles that define how to nourish and sustain human life; they are no more than this and no less."[6] Objectivism does not claim that there is a moral requirement to choose to value one's life. As Allan Gotthelf points out, for Rand, "Morality rests on a fundamental, pre-moral choice:"[29] the moral agent's choice to live rather than die, so that the moral "ought" is always contextual and agent-relative. To be moral is to choose that which promotes one's life in one's actual context. There are no "categorical imperatives" (as in Kantianism) that an individual would be obliged to carry out regardless of consequences for his life.

Rand observes:

"Nothing is given to man on earth except a potential and the material on which to actualize it. The potential is a superlative machine: his consciousness; but it is a machine without a spark plug, a machine of which his will must be the spark plug, the self-starter and the driver; he has to discover how to use it and he has to keep it in constant action. The material is the whole of the universe, with no limits set to the knowledge he can acquire and to the enjoyment of life he can achieve. But everything he needs or desires has to be learned, discovered or produced by him––by his own choice; by his own effort; by his own mind."[30]

[edit] Politics: individual rights and capitalism

Objectivist politics begins with ethics: the question of if, and if so why, a rational agent needs a set of principles for living his life. The proper answer to ethics tells a rational individual how to preserve his individual rights while interacting with, benefiting from cooperation with, and trading with other individuals in society.[3] That is, it determines the principles which constitute a moral social system.[31]

Rand's defense of individual liberty integrates elements from her entire philosophy. Since reason is the competent but sole means of human knowledge, it is therefore humanity's most fundamental means of survival. Also, thus, the effort of thinking and the scrupulous use of reason are the most basic virtue of an ethics governed by the requirements of human life. The threat of coercion, however, neutralizes the practical effect of an individual's reason, and whether the force originates from the state or from a criminal, the coerced person must act as required, or, at least, direct his thought to escape. According to Rand, "man's mind will not function at the point of a gun."[32] To put this conversely: freedom "works" because it liberates human reason. Just as freedom of expression is a prerequisite for a vibrant culture, and the development of science and art, so a free market generates new and ever better products and services, as the range of consumer goods and technological innovations in capitalist societies demonstrates, according to Rand. Thus, she argued for the "separation of state and economics in the same way and for the same reasons" as she argued for "the separation of state and church."[33]

Reason being a capacity of the individual, creative innovation, by its nature, requires the individual to have the freedom to do things differently, to disagree, to buck the trend or consensus, if necessary. According to Rand, therefore, the only type of organized human behavior consistent with the operation of reason is one of voluntary cooperation. Persuasion is the method of reason, a faculty which demands reality be the ultimate arbiter of disputes among men. By its nature, the overtly irrational cannot rely on the use of persuasion, cannot permit the facts to decide differences, and must ultimately resort to force in order to prevail as means of coordinating human behavior. Thus, Rand saw reason and freedom as correlates––just as she saw mysticism and force as correlates.[34]

Since reason is "man's basic tool of survival," Rand held that an individual has a natural moral right to act as the judgment of his or her own mind directs and to keep the product of this effort. In Rand's view, this requires that the initiation of physical force and the acquisition of property by fraud be banned. She agreed with America's Founding Fathers that the sole legitimate function of government is the protection of individual rights, including property rights. The purpose of objective criminal and civil law is to protect the individual from the coercion of others, while the purpose of a constitution and Bill of Rights is to protect the individual from the coercion of the state (historically the greatest violator of individual rights in Rand's estimation). Government may use force, that is its essence, but to do so legitimately it must never act as the aggressor––it may use force only in response to an initiation of force, e.g. theft, murder, foreign aggression. Rand did not believe that a free society, one in which all interaction was thus rendered voluntary, would make anyone rational––rationality cannot be compelled and is an exclusive capacity of the individual––but freedom does allow those who are rational and productive to achieve at their highest capacity.[35]

As a result, Objectivism holds that the individual possesses inalienable rights—the rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of his own happiness.[36] "Rights are moral principles defining and sanctioning a man's freedom of action in a social context" [28]. Government is the institution with a monopoly on the use of physical force in a given geographical area, so the issue is whether that force is to be used to protect or to violate individual rights—i.e., whether the government uses force only in retaliation or whether it initiates force against innocent citizens. Under laissez-faire Capitalism, the government is restricted to using retaliatory force, to protect individual rights—which means the only proper functions of the government are "the police, to protect men from criminals; the military forces, to protect men from foreign invaders; and the law courts, to protect men's property and contracts from breach by force or fraud, and to settle disputes among men according to objectively defined laws."[37]

Objectivism holds that the rights of other human beings are not of direct moral import to the agent who respects them; they acquire their moral purchase through an intermediate step. An Objectivist respects the rights of other human beings out of the recognition of the value to himself or herself of living in a world in which the freedom of action of other rational (or potentially rational) human beings is respected. One's respect for the rights of others is founded on the objective value, to oneself, of other persons as actual or potential partners in cooperation and trade. According to Rand, the enormous benefits of vastly increased knowledge and wealth are possible in an organized society, but only one in which rights are protected.

Objectivism holds that the only social system which fully recognizes individual rights is Capitalism[38]—as Rand understood it:

When I say "capitalism", I mean a full, pure, uncontrolled, unregulated laissez-faire capitalism...[28]

Rand includes Socialism, Fascism, Communism, Nazism,[39] and the Welfare State, as systems under which individual rights, including private property rights, are not legally protected. "To deny property rights means to turn men into property owned by the state. Whoever claims the 'right' to 'redistribute' the wealth produced by others is claiming the 'right' to treat human beings as chattel."[40]

As Rand was an advocate of free market capitalism, she rejected many "conservative" positions on philosophical grounds. Rand strongly advocated legal abortion[41]. She also opposed involuntary military conscription[42], the "draft," and she opposed any form of censorship, including legal restrictions on pornography.[43] Rand opposed racism, and any legal application of racism, and she considered affirmative action to be an example of legal racism.[44]

Rand also strongly opposed the nascent Environmentlist Movement of the 1960s as being hostile to technology and, therefore, to humanity itself––and thus leading America towards "a new Dark Age."[45]

Far from regarding capitalism as a dog-eat-dog pattern of social organization, Objectivism regards it as a beneficent system in which the innovations of the most creative benefit everyone else in the society (although that is not its justification). Indeed, Objectivism values creative achievement itself and regards capitalism as the only kind of society in which it can flourish.[46]

[edit] Aesthetics: metaphysical value-judgements

See also: Romantic realism

The Objectivist theory of art flows from its epistemology, by way of "psycho-epistemology" (Rand's term for an individual's characteristic mode of functioning in acquiring knowledge). Art, according to Objectivism, serves a human cognitive need: it allows human beings to grasp concepts as though they were percepts.

Objectivism defines "art" as a "selective re-creation of reality according to an artist's metaphysical value-judgments"—that is, according to what the artist believes to be ultimately true and important about the nature of reality and humanity. In this respect Objectivism regards art as a way of presenting abstractions concretely, in perceptual form.

The human need for art, on this view, stems from the need for cognitive economy. A concept is already a sort of mental shorthand standing for a large number of concretes, allowing a human being to think indirectly or implicitly of many more such concretes than can be held explicitly in mind. But a human being cannot hold indefinitely many concepts explicitly in mind either—and yet, on the Objectivist view, needs a comprehensive conceptual framework in order to provide guidance in life.

Art offers a way out of this dilemma by providing a perceptual, easily grasped means of communicating and thinking about a wide range of abstractions.

Objectivism regards art as an effective way to communicate a moral or ethical ideal. Objectivism does not, however, regard art as propagandistic: even though art involves moral values and ideals, its purpose is not to educate, only to show or project.

Moreover, art need not be, and usually is not, the outcome of a full-blown, explicit philosophy. Usually it stems from an artist's sense of life (which is preconceptual and largely emotional).

Rand held that Romanticism was the highest school of literary art, noting that Romanticism was "based on the recognition of the principle that man possesses the faculty of volition."

What the Romanticists brought to art was the primacy of values… Values are the source of emotions: a great deal of emotional intensity was projected in the work of the Romanticists and in the reactions of their audiences, as well as a great deal of color, imagination, originality, excitement, and all the other consequences of a value-oriented view of life.[47]

The term "romanticism", however, is often affiliated with emotionalism, to which Objectivism is completely opposed. Historically, many romantic artists were philosophically subjectivist. Most Objectivists who are also artists subscribe to what they call romantic realism, which is how Ayn Rand labeled her own work.[48]

[edit] Intellectual impact

The Fountainhead Cafe, a coffee shop in New York City inspired by Objectivism. The sign reads "Eat Objectively, Live Rich".
See also: Criticisms of Objectivism

Ayn Rand's ideas are often supported with great passion or derided with great disgust, with little in between.[49] Some of this comes from Rand's challenging fundamental tenets of the Judeo-Christian tradition, and some may be due to her own all-or-nothing, take-it-or-leave-it approach to her work. She warned her readers that, "If you agree with some tenets of Objectivism, but disagree with others, do not call yourself an Objectivist; give proper authorship for the parts you agree with — and then indulge any flights of fancy you wish, on your own."

Objectivism has been largely ignored or harshly criticized by academics. Because of Rand's criticism of contemporary intellectuals,[50] Objectivism has been called "fiercely anti-academic."[51] David Sidorsky, a professor of moral and political philosophy at Columbia University, says Rand's work is "outside the mainstream" and is more of an ideological movement than a well-grounded philosophy.[52]

In recent years Rand's works are more likely to be encountered in the classroom than in decades past.[51] The Ayn Rand Society, dedicated to fostering the scholarly study of Objectivism, is affiliated with the American Philosophical Association's Eastern Division.[53] Since 1999, several monographs were published and a refereed Journal of Ayn Rand Studies began.[54] In 2006 the University of Pittsburgh held a conference focusing on Objectivism.[55] In addition, two Objectivist philosophers (Tara Smith and James Lennox) hold tenured positions at two of the fifteen leading American philosophy departments.[56] Objectivist programs and fellowships have been supported at the University of Pittsburgh[57] University of Texas at Austin[58] and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.[59]

Rand is not found in the comprehensive academic reference texts The Oxford Companion to Philosophy or The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy. A lengthy article on Rand appears in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy;[60] she has an entry forthcoming in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy,[61] as well as a brief entry in the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy which features the following passage:

The influence of Rand’s ideas was strongest among college students in the USA but attracted little attention from academic philosophers. … Rand’s political theory is of little interest. Its unremitting hostility towards the state and taxation sits inconsistently with a rejection of anarchism, and her attempts to resolve the difficulty are ill-thought out and unsystematic.

Allan Gotthelf (chairman of the Ayn Rand Society)[62] responded unfavorably to this entry and came to her defense.[63] He and other scholars have argued for more academic study of Objectivism, viewing Rand's philosophy as a unique and intellectually interesting defense of classical liberalism that is worth debating.[64]

Despite the claims of critics, such as William F. Buckley, Jr. who called her philosophy "stillborn", Ayn Rand's books remain popular, selling over 400,000 copies per year.[65]

[edit] Monographs and essays

Main article: Bibliography of work on Objectivism

Prominent Objectivist Leonard Peikoff, published Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (E. P. Dutton), a comprehensive survey of Ayn Rand's philosophy. Objectivism is central to Ronald Merrill's introductory monograph The Ideas of Ayn Rand (Open Court Publishing), as it is to Chris Matthew Sciabarra's Ayn Rand: the Russian Radical (1995, Pennsylvania State University Press). Other survey works on Rand's philosophy include: Objectivism in One Lesson by Andrew Bernstein, Ph.D., (2009, Hamilton), Ayn Rand by Tibor Machan, Ph.D., (2000, Peter Lang) and On Ayn Rand by Allan Gotthelf, Ph.D., (1999, Wadsworth Philosophers Series).

Monographs on specific aspects of Objectivism include: The Evidence of the Senses (1986, Louisiana State University Press) and A Theory of Abstraction (2001, The Objectivist Center Press) by David Kelley; The Psychology of Self Esteem by Nathaniel Branden (1969, Nash); The Biological Basis of Teleological Concepts (1990, The Ayn Rand Institute Press) by Harry Binswanger; Viable Values (2000, Rowman & Littlefield), Ayn Rand's Normative Ethics: the Virtuous Egoist (2006, Cambridge University Press) and Moral Rights and Political Freedom (1995, Open Court Publishing) by Tara Smith; The Capitalist Manifesto, by Andrew Bernstein (2005, University Press of America); What Art Is: the Esthetic Theory of Ayn Rand (2000, Open Court Publishing) by Louis Torres and Michelle Marder Kamhi; The Other Side of Racism (1981, Ohio State University Press) by Anne Wortham; and Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged: A Philosophical and Literary Companion (2007, Ashgate) by Edward Younkins.

The comprehensive Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics by George Reisman (1996), attempts to integrate Objectivist methodology and insights with both Classical and Austrian economics.

A series of essay collections on the philosophical and literary dimensions of Rand's novels, edited by Robert Mayhew, have been published: Essays on Ayn Rand's We the Living (2004), Essays on Ayn Rand's Anthem (2005), Essays on Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead (2006), Essays on Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged (2009) (Lexington Books).

[edit] References

  1. ^ So identified by sources including:
    Hicks, Stephen. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2006), s.v. "Ayn Rand" Retrieved June 22, 2006.
    Smith, Tara. Review of "On Ayn Rand." The Review of Metaphysics 54, no. 3 (2001): 654–655. Retrieved from ProQuest Research Library.
    Encyclopædia Britannica (2006), s.v. "Rand, Ayn." Retrieved June 22, 2006, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
    One source notes: "Perhaps because she so eschewed academic philosophy, and because her works are rightly considered to be works of literature, Objectivist philosophy is regularly omitted from academic philosophy. Yet throughout literary academia, Ayn Rand is considered a philosopher. Her works merit consideration as works of philosophy in their own right." (Jenny Heyl, 1995, as cited in Mimi R Gladstein, Chris Matthew Sciabarra(eds), ed (1999). Feminist Interpretations of Ayn Rand. Penn State Press. ISBN 0-271-01831-3. , p. 17)
  2. ^ Rand, Ayn. Introducing Objectivism, in Peikoff, Leonard, ed. The Voice of Reason: Essays in Objectivist Thought. Meridian, New York 1990 (1962.)
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Rand, Ayn (1996). Atlas Shrugged (35th Anniv edition). Signet Book. ISBN 0451191145. 
  4. ^ Rubin, Harriet (2007-09-15). "Ayn Rand’s Literature of Capitalism". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/15/business/15atlas.html. Retrieved on 2007-09-18. 
  5. ^ Rand, Ayn. "What Is Capitalism?". Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal. p. 23. 
  6. ^ a b c d e Peikoff, Leonard (1993). Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand. Meridian. ISBN 978-0452011014. 
  7. ^ Gotthelf, Allan (2000). On Ayn Rand. Wadsworth. 
  8. ^ a b c Rand, Ayn (1990). Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology. Meridian. ISBN 0-452-01030-6. 
  9. ^ Rand, Aym, "The Objectivist Ethics," The Virtue of Selfishness, New American Library, 1964.
  10. ^ Rand, Ayn, "Faith and Force: the Destroyers of the Modern World," Philosophy Who Needs It, Bobbs-Merrill, 1982, p.75.
  11. ^ Smith, George, Atheism: the Case Against God, Prometheus, 1989, first pub. 1979, essentially explicates the Objectivist position on religious belief.
  12. ^ Rand, For the New Intellectual, Random House, 1961, p. 31.
  13. ^ Rand, For the New Intellectual, Random House, 1961, p. 223; Peikoff, Leonard, Objectivism: the Philosophy of Ayn Rand, Dutton, 1991, pp. 182-185.
  14. ^ For more on Rand's theory of sense-perception see also Kelley, David, The Evidence of the Senses (Louisiana State University Press, 1986).
  15. ^ 'Peikoff, Leonard, “The Analytic-Synthetic Dichotomy,” Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, 131
  16. ^ Rand, Ayn (1990). Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology. Meridian; for more on Rand's theory of concepts see also Kelley, David "A Theory of Abstraction" and "The Psychology of Abstraction," Cognition & Brain Theory vol. vii, no. 3 and 4 (Summer/Fall 1984), and Rasmussen, Douglas, “Quine and Aristotelian Essentialism,” The New Scholasticism 58 (Summer, 1984)
  17. ^ Peikoff, Leonard, "The Analytic-Synthetic Dichotomy," in Peikoff and Binswanger, edits., Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, expanded second edition, New American Library, 1990, pp. 88-121.
  18. ^ Peter A. Angeles Dictionary of Philosophy, p. 167, Harper Collins, 1992 ISBN 0-06-461026-8
  19. ^ Peikoff, Leonard, Objectivism: the Philosophy of Ayn Rand, pp. 73-109 and pp. 136-7, A Dutton Book, 1991 ISBN 0-525-93380-8 ; Peikoff, Leonard, Objectivism Through Induction (lecture series) [1] Accessed April 4, 2009; as of 2008, Peikoff is writing a book called The DIM Hypothesis, where he defines what he sees as the three approaches to integration in human thought and applies the hypothesis to physics, philosophy, education, politics and other fields. He estimates that it "will be published in several years, probably in 2010." Leonard Peikoff's official website. Accessed March 2, 2008.
  20. ^ Rand, Ayn, "The Objectivist Ethics," The Virtue of Selfishness.
  21. ^ Rand, Ayn, The Virtue of Selfishness, 1964, New American Library, p. 18. ISBN 0-451-16393-1; for more on Rand's metaethics see Binswanger, Harry, The Biological Basis of Teleological Concepts, The Ayn Rand Institute Press, 1990, and Smith, Tara, Viable Values, Rowman & Littlefield, 2000.
  22. ^ Rand, The Virtue of Selfishness, p. 21; for more on Rand's theory of volition see Binswanger, Harry, "Volition as Cognitive Self-Regulation," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, vol. 50, issue 2, December, 1991, pp. 154-178; Branden, Nathaniel, The Psychology of Self-Esteem, Nash, 1969, chapter 4; and, Smith, Tara Ayn Rand's Normative Ethics, p.64.
  23. ^ Atlas Shrugged, p. 931.
  24. ^ Peikoff, Leonard, "Why Should One Act on Principle?" The Intellectual Activist, Feb. 27, 1989, vol. 4, no. 20.
  25. ^ Rand, Atlas Shrugged, "This is John Galt Speaking."
  26. ^ On Rand's normative ethics see also Smith, Tara, The Virtuous Egoist: Ayn Rands Normative Ethics Cambridge University Press, 2006 ISBN 978-0521860505 .
  27. ^ Rand, Ayn, "This is John Galt Speaking," For the New Intellectual, Random House.
  28. ^ a b c Rand, Ayn, The Virtue of Selfishness. Signet Book, 1964.
  29. ^ Gotthelf, Allan. On Ayn Rand, Wadsworth, 2000, p. 84
  30. ^ "The Objectivist Ethics," p. 23.
  31. ^ Rand, Ayn, "Philosophy: Who Needs It", Philosophy: Who Needs It.
  32. ^ Rand, Ayn, Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal, "Let Us Alone!", p. 141.
  33. ^ Rand, Ayn, The Virtue of Selfishness, "The Objectivist Ethics," p.37; see also, Bernstein, Andrew, Objectivisim in One Lesson, Hamilton Books, 2009.
  34. ^ Rand, Ayn, "Faith and Force: the Destroyers of the Modern World," lecture delivered at Yale University on February 17, 1960, at Brooklyn College on April 4, 1960, and at Columbia University on May 5, 1960, reprinted in Philosophy: Who Needs It, as chapter 7, Bobbs-Merrill, 1982, pp. 58-76 .
  35. ^ Rand, Ayn, The Virtue of Selfishness, New American Library, 1964, chapter 12, "Man's Rights", and chapter 14, "The Nature of Government"; see also, Locke, Edwin, The Prime Movers: Traits of the Great Wealth Creators, AMACOM, 2004.
  36. ^ Rand's understanding of the nature of individual rights is defended in Tara Smith, Moral Rights and Political Freedom, Open Court 1997; see also D. Rasmussen and D. Den Uyl, Liberty and Nature, Open Court, 1991.
  37. ^ Rand, Ayn. Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal. p. 73. 
  38. ^ Rand, Ayn. "What Is Capitalism?". Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal. 
  39. ^ Peikoff, Leonard, The Ominous Parallels, Stein & Day, 1982.
  40. ^ http://www.aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/socialism.html
  41. ^ Rand, Ayn, "Of Living Death," reprinted in Peikoff, L., edit., The Voice of Reason: Essays in Objectivist Thought, New American Library, 1988, chapter 8; and see "Ayn Rand," Playboy Interview, Vol II, Golson, G. Barry, edit., Perigee, 1983, p. 17 (March 1964).
  42. ^ "Ayn Rand," Playboy Interview, Vol II, Golson, G. Barry, edit., Perigee, 1983, p. 23 (March 1964).
  43. ^ Rand, Ayn, "Censorship: Local and Express," reprinted in Philosophy: Who Needs It, Bobbs-Merrill, 1982, pp. 211-231.
  44. ^ Rand, Ayn (1999). "Racism". Return of the primitive: the anti-industrial revolution. Australia: Meridian. p. 182. ISBN 0-452-01184-1.  ; see also, Wortham, Anne, The Other Side of Racism, Ohio State University Press, 1981.
  45. ^ Rand, Ayn, "The Anti-Industrial Revolution," reprinted in The Return of the Primitive, Schwartz, P., edit., Meridian, 1999, pp. 270-290.
  46. ^ Rand, Ayn, Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal, edit., (New American LIbrary, 1966); see also Bernstein, Andrew, The Capitalist Manifesto, University Press of America, 2005, and Reisman, George, Capitalism: a Treatise on Economics, Jameson Books, 1996.
  47. ^ Rand, Ayn, "What is Romanticism?," The Romantic Manifesto
  48. ^ See also, Thomas, William, edit., The Literary Art of Ayn Rand, The Objectivist Center, 2005. ISBN 1-57724-070-7, Holzer, Erika, Ayn Rand: My Fiction Writing Teacher, Madison Press, 2005, and Torres, Louis, and Kamhi, Michelle Marder, What Art Is: the Esthetic Theory of Ayn Rand, Open Court, 2000.
  49. ^ Leonard Doyle. "Guru of greed: The cult of selfishness". http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18551.htm. Retrieved on 2008-05-08. 
  50. ^ For Rand's severe critique of the 20th century's "intellectual bankruptcy," and what she believed led to it, see Rand, Ayn, For the Intellectual, title essay, Random House, 1961; however, Rand did give qualified endorsement of the work of certain contemporary thinkers, e.g., Aristotle, by John Herman Randall and Reason and Analysis by Brand Blanshard.
  51. ^ a b McLemee, Scott (September 1999). "The Heirs Of Ayn Rand: Has Objectivism Gone Subjective?". http://linguafranca.mirror.theinfo.org/9909/rand.html. Retrieved on 2007-07-20. 
  52. ^ Harvey, Benjamin (2005-05-15). "Ayn Rand at 100: An 'ism' struts its stuff". Rutland Herald. http://www.rutlandherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050515/NEWS/505150346/1014. Retrieved on 2007-07-20. 
  53. ^ "Proceedings and Addresses of The American Philosophical Association – Eastern Division Program" (PDF). 2006. http://www.apa.udel.edu/apa/publications/proceedings/v80n1/public/80_1_public.pdf. Retrieved on 2007-07-25. 
  54. ^ Sharlet, Jeff (1999-04-09). "Ayn Rand has finally caught the attention of scholars: New books and research projects involve philosophy, political theory, literary criticism, and feminism". The Chronicle of Higher Education 45 (31): 17–18. 
  55. ^ "Concepts and Objectivity: Knowledge, Science, and Values" (PDF). http://www.pitt.edu/~hpsdept/news/news/ConceptsObjConf2006.pdf. Retrieved on 2007-07-20. 
  56. ^ Philosophy departments of the United States, ranked by the Philosophical Gourmet Report,
  57. ^ http://www.pittmag.pitt.edu/summer2004/cornerstones.html
  58. ^ New fellowship for study of objectivism established at The University of Texas at Austin | The University of Texas at Austin
  59. ^ Carolina Development, UNC-Chapel Hill
  60. ^ "Ayn Rand at the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy". 2006. http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/r/rand.htm. Retrieved on 2007-07-20. 
  61. ^ "Table of Contents". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://plato.stanford.edu/contents.html#r. Retrieved on 2008-06-15. 
  62. ^ Ayn Rand Society
  63. ^ "The Entry on Ayn Rand in the new Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy". http://web.archive.org/web/20000229050116/http://aynrandsociety.org/#The%20Entry%20on%20Ayn%20Rand%20in%20the%20newRoutledge%20Encyclopedia%20of%20Philosophy. Retrieved on 2007-07-20. , Archive copy at the Internet Archive
  64. ^ Uyl, Douglas J. Den (1998). "On Rand as philosopher" (PDF). Reason Papers 23: 70–71. http://www.mises.org/reasonpapers/pdf/23/rp_23_5.pdf. Retrieved on 2007-07-20. 
  65. ^ "Rand's lesson endures". 2007. http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/opinion/columnists/reiland/s_518319.html. Retrieved on 2007-08-18. 

[edit] See also

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