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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
What's Wrong with Ayn Rand's Objectivist Ethics

What's Wrong with Ayn Rand's Objectivist Ethics

Armstrong, Ari

Paperback

Philosophy

ISBN10: 0981803032
ISBN13: 9780981803036
Publisher: Lightning Source Inc
Published: Nov 9 2018
Pages: 222
Weight: 0.58
Height: 0.47 Width: 5.51 Depth: 8.50
Language: English
An engaging discussion and critique of Rand's metaethics and ethics. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in Rand. -Jason Brennan (When All Else Fails, Against Democracy)

Ayn Rand bases her morality of selfish egoism on a flawed conception of value, argues Ari Armstrong in What's Wrong with Ayn Rand's Objectivist Ethics. Values are not, as Rand has it, inherently oriented to an organism's survival, either for people or for living things broadly. Rather, people experience certain things as ends in themselves and value some things (such as having and raising children) for reasons other than to advance their survival.

Although Rand and her advocates seek to make sense of the biology of values, the nature of human life, ends in themselves, happiness, and moral virtues, ultimately their efforts do not rescue Rand's theory.

Further, Rand's theory cannot adequately explain why a person should consistently respect others' rights, avoid free riding, and engage civically. Armstrong, long an Objectivist before concluding that Rand's moral theory has intractable problems, proposes an alternate way to conceive of a person's ultimate value, one that recognizes many of Rand's insights while making more room for the interests of others.

The book offers insights and challenges for those who are new to Rand's ideas as well as to those who have long studied Rand's philosophy. The work dives deeply into the literature on Rand's moral theory, for those interested, with detailed notes and an extensive appendix exploring major works on the topic.

The book includes the following chapters:

1. Ayn Rand's Selfishness

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