Table of Contents

I. Ayn Rand: A Writer’s Life (2)

II. Ayn Rand Summarizes Her Philosophy (9)
III. Art in Education, Ayn Rand (13)
□ The Example of Mr. X
□ Sense of Life, Morality and Conventional
Morality
□ The Morality of a Child - the Experience of
Looking up to a Hero
□ The Wall of Repression
□ The Three Schools of Ethics
IV. Philosophy: Who Needs It, Ayn Rand (23)
V. The Philosophy of Objectivism, Leonard Peikoff (39)
VI. Is Man Free or Determined? Leonard Peikoff (43)
VII. The Beauty of Ayn Rand’s Ethics, Craig Biddle (49)
VIII. Identity Politics vs. the Law of Identity, Craig Biddle
(53)
IX. Religion Versus Subjectivism, Craig Biddle (59)

BIBLIOGRAPHY (66)

ABOUT AYN RAND CENTER EUROPE (67)

 CHAPTER I
“Ayn Rand: A Writer’s Life”

“I decided to be a writer at the age of nine,” Rand recalled later

in life, “and everything I have done was integrated to that
purpose.” It was an immensely important choice for her and for
the world. It would lead her to flee her native Russia; to master
the English language; to become the bestselling novelist with
the publication of The Fountainhead and then Atlas Shrugged;
to defy mainstream public opinion on the left and the right; to
create a new philosophy called Objectivism; and to forge a
controversial legacy that is still hotly debated today, many years
after her death.

Rand’s ideas and writings are more popular than ever, and her
novels and books are discussed in high-schools, coffee shops,
university classrooms. In 1999, the United States Postal Service
issued an Ayn Rand stamp.

How did Rand become such a famous writer? By a passionate

dedication to her ideas, and to her chosen career.

2
 A Motive to Write: Hero Worship
“The simple truth is that I approach literature as a child does. I
write – and read – for the sake of the story.”

The girl who would later assume the pen name of Ayn Rand was
born in Tsarist Russia on February 2nd, 1905, as Alisa
Rosenbaum. Her father owned a pharmacy shop and her mother
was a homemaker and socialite. Young Alisa was a bright child
who taught herself to read at the age of six. Soon after, she was
learning French and devouring detective stories in the children’s
magazines her mother bought for her.

She recalls when she fell in love with one hero: “1914 was a big
turning point in my life… Now I remember one illustration that
impressed me was a picture of an Englishman you see standing
at the wall with a sword or something, waiting for someone…
but this hero, and his name was Cyrus, was the perfect drawing
of my present hero. Tall, long-legged, with leggings the way
soldiers wore, but no jacket – just an open collared shirt torn in
front… sleeves rolled at the elbows, and hair falling down one
eye. The elements, the appearance of my bromide, about my type
of men were completely taken from realization.”

3
From the age of 12 and for the next 3 years, this hero presented
to her a vision of mysticism that removed her from the real-life
concerns and anybody who tried to engage in conversations with
her.

At one point in her life she visited England with her family.
There she saw posters of lovely dressed girls. Inspired by them,
she would tell stories to her sister back at the hotel room. And
suddenly, a thought struck her: “This is what writers do, all the
time.” And she knew her course was set for life. She wanted to
create stories about people and events she could later admire and
look up to.

With her choice to become a writer now made, fiction writing

occupied more and more of Alisa’s time and energy. At school,
she wrote short novels during classes she thought boring. Soon
Alisa discovered the novels of Victor Hugo, and her world
4
widened to encompass the vast dramatic tapestries he wove in
such masterpieces as Les Misérables and Ninety-Three, along
with romantic geniuses such as Edmond Rostand. Her comment
on Hugo was: “One would have to have lived on some pestilent
planet in order to fully understand what his novels – and his
radiant universe – meant to me.”

As for her artistic awareness, she was captivated by French and

Viennese operettas, and she fell in love with cinema, still in its
silent infancy.

“I decided to become a writer – not in order to save the world,

nor to serve my fellow men – but for the simple, personal,
selfish, egotistical happiness of creating the kind of men and
events I could like, respect and admire.”

As she grew to adulthood, Alisa became increasingly aware that

she had been born into a country whose culture and political
system held in contempt the ideals of individualism she
cherished.

When Alisa was 12, she heard the opening gunshots of the
Russian Revolution from her apartment window in St.
Petersburg. The idea shaping this revolution was that the
individual must live for others, for the state, and sacrifice
personal happiness for the good of the collective. Soon, Russia
descended into a communist dictatorship.

5
This was the beginning of the 20th century totalitarianism, which
eventually killed millions of people in Russia, Germany, China
and elsewhere. But long before the perpetration of these
atrocities, Alisa was morally outraged by the very idea of
collectivism, by collectivism’s denunciation of the individual.
She saw its essence as an attack on the most intelligent, able,
and heroic among men – and to attack the heroic was to attack
Alisa personally.

In contrast to the increasingly bleak prospect of life in Russia,

Alisa’s high-school studies included an introduction to the
United States of America, the world’s foremost society of
individualism.

“From the earliest age, I had the impression, even before the
Revolution, that culture, civilization, anything which is
interesting as I would have put to me, is abroad… I didn’t begin
to even discover America until about the last years of
high-school. Before that, America wasn’t mentioned in
Geography books. I didn’t even know about the Declaration of
Independence… about capitalism. All I knew is that that’s a
country of individualism.”

In college, Alisa majored in history, to gain knowledge for her

future writing and philosophy, to help her shape her value
system. But as communists took over the University of

6
Petrograd, her outspoken hostility to their ideas left her in fear
for herself and her family.

On graduation, she enrolled in film school and thought about

becoming a Soviet screenwriter, incorporating into her scripts
her individualistic ideas. She even went so far as to present a
fellow film student, a loyal communist, with a writing sample
along those lines. But the student could tell there was something
odd about the story and its theme, and Alisa soon concluded that
she had no future in Soviet cinema.

On January 17th 1926, with the help of her family, 20 year-old

Alisa Rosenbaum embarked alone on her journey to America.
She would never return to Russia.

Many years later, when she became politically active and started
giving speeches to the American audiences, hecklers sometimes
greeted her thick Russian accent with jeers, asking what right
did a foreigner have to talk about America. “I chose to be an
American,” she would have responded defiantly, “what did you
do, besides having been born?”

Fearful that her family, still trapped in Russia, would be

punished for her intransigent anti-communism, Alisa adopted
the pseudonym Ayn Rand for her new, writer’s life in America.
She traveled by boat to New York City, then by train to Chicago
for her six-months stay with her
7 relatives, and finally by train to
8
Hollywood, California. At the studio of famed director Cecil B
DeMille, one of Rand’s idols, she applied for a job but was told
that there were no openings. Then, on her way out of the front
gate, it was as if she had suddenly stepped into the pages of an
exciting Ayn Rand story. She met DeMille at the gates of the
studio, presented herself, and DeMille invited her to be his
junior screenwriter.

As a junior screenwriter for DeMille, Rand was able to compose

scenarios for the silence screens, using her limited English
skills. And so her adventure as Ayn Rand began.

“I did not attempt to write professionally,” she later recalled,

“until I knew what I was doing and felt that I was ready.”

9
 CHAPTER II
“Ayn Rand Summarizes Her Philosophy”

At a sales conference, preceding the publishing of Atlas

Shrugged, Ayn Rand was asked if she could present the essence
of her philosophy while standing on one foot.

And so she did.

- THE ESSENCE -

She said:

□ One is “Metaphysics”, with the underlined “Objective

Reality”;
□ Two is “Epistemology”, underlined “Reason”;
□ The combination of the two is number Three: “Ethics”,
underlined “Self-Interest”;
□ Above all is Four: “Politics”, underlined “Capitalism”.

In a simpler language, that would mean that Objective Reality is

described as “Wishing won’t make it so.” Reason – “You can’t
eat your cake and have it, too”. Self-interest is “Man is an end in
himself”. Four, Capitalism, “Give me Liberty, or give me
Death”.

If you were to have these consistencies as the base of your

convictions, you would have a philosophical system of your life.

10
But to approve and apply such consistencies requires you to
have volumes of thought.

That is why philosophy cannot be discussed while standing

neither on one foot nor on two feet on both sides of every fence.

This goes to the entirety of Politics, and how Objectivism is

understood.

The philosophy of Ayn Rand states that Reality exists as an

objective absolute. Facts are facts. It is independent from
humans’ nature: fear, wishes.

Reason, in a facultative manner, is man’s only means of

perceiving reality, his only source of knowledge, guide to action
and basic needs of survival.

By self-interest, man – every man – is an end in himself, and not

the means of the ends to others. He must exist for his own sake,
not sacrificing himself for others, nor sacrificing others for
himself.

The pursuit of his own rational self-interest and of his own

happiness is the highest moral purpose of his life.

The ideal political and economic system is “Laissez Faire

Capitalism” – It is a system where men deal with one another,
not as victims and executioners, nor as masters and slaves, but
as traders by free voluntary exchange to mutual benefit. It is a
system where no man can result in obtaining something by
physical force, and no one can initiate such action against
others. The government acts as man’s policeman for protecting
his rights. It uses physical force11only in retaliation and only
12
when man used physical force, such as criminals or foreign
invaders.

In a system of full capitalism, which has not yet happened, there

should be a clean separation between state and economy, as well
as there is separation between state and church.

The United States is where capitalism, as the system, originated.

Throughout human history, such a system showed
unprecedented achievements and progress. Politically, man has
hts own right to life, his own liberty and his own pursuit of
happiness, which means man owns the right to exist for his own
sake. That was America’s implicit moral code which was not
formulated explicitly. To Ayn Rand, America along with
capitalism is being destroyed by lack of a moral base. Its
destroyer: the morality of Altruism.

According to Altruism, man has no right to exist for his own

sake. Service to others is the only moral justification of his
existence. Self-sacrifice is his highest moral duty.

The political expression of altruism is collectivism or

“Statism”, where man’s life and work belongs to the state, to
the society, a group, a race, a nation. The State may dispose of
him in any way it pleases, for the sake of any tribal or collective
good.

“From her start, America was torn by the clash of her political
system with the altruist morality. Capitalism and altruism are
incompatible; they cannot coexist in the same man or in the same
society. Today, the conflict has reached its ultimate climax.”
13
The choice is clear-cut. Either a new morality of rational self-
interest, with its consequences of freedom, justice, progress and
man’s happiness on earth, or the primordial morality of altruism
with its consequences of slavery, brute force, stagnant terror and
sacrificial furnaces.

You can see the examples clearly in Soviet Russia, where 21

million political prisoners are force labored in constructing
government projects, and die of planned malnutrition. Human
life was cheaper than food. Other examples are mass gas-
chambers in Nazi Germany, terror and starvation in Red China,
hysteria of Cuba.

Ask yourself whether any of it would be possible if men had not

accepted the idea that man is a sacrificial animal to be
immolated for the sake of the “public good”.

Read the speeches of political leaders of those same countries,

and ask yourself what arguments would be left to them if the
word “sacrifice” was not regarded as a moral ideal, but as the
anti-human evil, which it is.

14
 CHAPTER III
“Art in Education”
by Ayn Rand

At one of her speeches, Ayn Rand talked about education,

subtitling it as “regretfully the annihilation of ethics in
education”.

– The Example of Mr. X –

She has used the example of “Mr. X” to represent the desolate
tiring face of a 26 year old male, who had a degree in
engineering but no energy to move further. Due to anxiety, he
couldn’t even move from an inconvenient apartment. Due to
staying at a job he had outgrown, he stagnated, doing the same
“dull uninspiring” routine. He couldn’t have a stable romantic
relationship, his friendships were crumbling and he could not
know why.

When Ayn Rand had met him, he was undergoing

psychotherapy, looking for causes of his struggle. He had a
decent, and some might say ‘above average’ childhood. He
didn’t have any traumatic events in the past; he didn’t live

15
during the period of war. Yet he was still a “grey spread of ashes
that has never been on fire.”

Ayn then asked him what he was in love with, not whom. He
replied “Nothing”, yet he mentioned he had a favorite toy. In
some other point of time, she asked him about a political event
which happened to be irrational and indifferently “evil” – she
asked him whether or not it made him indignant, whether he
was annoyed or had felt angry. He replied that he couldn’t feel
indignation about anything.

Yet he told her a story – there was once a semi-romantic movie

that he saw, which made him feel certain emotions for a brief
period. He spoke about it like one 26-year-old should: excited,
his face alive, sparkled eyes. He described his feelings to be of
compassion towards an industrialist within the movie, who was
passionate and had a dedicated vision of his work. Mr. X was
not solely admiring a single character. He described it as seeing
a different kind of universe. He said “it was what I wanted life
to be”. Yet he became dull again, and with tortured wastefulness
said that he felt guilty for having felt that moment. What he
actually felt was cold shudder. Whatever was the root of his
problems, this was a key. It was a symptom of moral treason,
not morality: to what and to whom can a man be willing to
apologize for the best within him, and what can he expect of life
after that?

16
That which ultimately saved Mr. X was his commitment to
Reason. He held Reason as an absolute, that helped him endure
the struggles of psychological health. His determined
perseverance, along with his psychologists, helped him win his
battle.

Today, he has moved further, being successful as he ever could,

achieving much along the way.

There are countless similar cases, in many forms, like a secret

torture chamber in men’s souls, with occasionally unrecognized
cries which become silent shortly after, again and again. In such
cases, the person is both the victim and the killer.

– Sense of Life, Morality and Conventional

Morality –
For man, his childhood and adolescence, romantic art is his
major source of a moral sense of life. Years later, that source
often stays as his only experience of it. It is important to note
that this is not his only source of morality, but of a moral sense
of life.

The sense of life is a pre-conceptual equivalent of metaphysics,

a subconscious emotional appraisal of man’s nature and the

17
nature of reality, which sums up a man’s view of relationship to
existence.

Morality is an abstract conceptual code. It is a code of values,

guiding man with choices and actions - actions which determine
man’s purpose and course of life. The process of a child’s
development consists of acquiring knowledge, which requires
the development of his capacity to grasp and deal with ever
widening range of abstractions. This involves two interrelated,
however different, abstractions, two hierarchical structures of
concept – the cognitive (knowledge and facts of reality) and
normative (evaluation of facts).

The cognitive forms the foundation of science, and the

normative forms ethics and art. Cognitive is somewhat half-
aided throughout one’s childhood, whilst the normative is
destroyed. The child, once surviving the moral barbarism, has to
find a way to preserve and develop his own sense of values.

Conventional morality is not concerned with why one’s

childhood ought to be this way, but rather it is concerned with
imposing a set of rules upon him.

18
 – The Morality of a Child
- the Experience of Looking up to a Hero –
Where can a child learn the concept of moral values and of a
moral character, in whose image he will shape his own soul?
Where can he find material evidence from which to develop
normative abstractions?

He is not likely to find a clue in the chaotic bewildering,

contradictory evidence, offered by the adults in his day-by-day
experience. In order to abstract, identify and judge the moral
characteristics of an adult, it becomes a task beyond a child’s
capacity. Such moral principles that he is taught to recite are to
him abstractions and with no connection to reality.

The major source and demonstration of moral values available

to a child is romantic art, particularly romantic literature. What
it offers him is not a moral set of rules, not an explicit didactic
message, but an image of a moral person that is the concrete
abstraction of a moral ideal. It offers a complete, directly
perceivable answer, to the very abstract question which a child
can sense but cannot yet conceptualize. What kind of person is
moral and what kind of life does he lead?

It is not the abstract principles that the child learns from

romantic art, but the precondition and the incentive for the later
understanding of such principles. A view of life motivated and
dominated by values; a life in which
19 men’s choices are
20
practicable, effective and crucially important. That is a moral
sense of life.

Romantic art is his profound personal discovery, which is an

inspiring pleasure. The cognitive and normative in a child would
integrate in harmony during the period of child’s growth into an
adult. The idea of playing a cowboy at the age of 7 may become
a detective at 12 and a philosopher at the age of 20, from comic
strips to mystery stories and at the end “to the great sunlit
universe of romantic literature, art and music”, as explained by
Ayn Rand.

– The Wall of Repression –

Normative science is science which projects a value goal and a
series of steps, of choices, towards that value goal which is clear
to an individual. For a child, it is necessary for it to have
intellectual assistance or at least a chance to find its own way. In
today’s culture, he is given neither. A child is being punished at
the first signs of his emerging sense of moral barriers, from
outright prohibition to threats, anger, class indifference,
mockery, condemnation. Catchphrases such as “Life is not like
that” and “Come down to earth” best summarize the motives of
the “attackers” of a child’s romanticism. In most cases, the child
represses his values and gives up. It is rare that the child
represses the attacks and keeps 21 living in his own private
22
universe. What he is surrendering is morality. His spirit is not
broken by one sudden blow, but it is left to bleed to death by
thousands of small scratches. An intelligent child knows that he
is unaware of many intricacies of adult life, and is eager to learn
it along the way. An ambitious child is incoherently determined
to make something important of himself and his life. So when
he hears threats such as “Wait until you grow up”, it is his
virtues that have turned against him, his intelligence, his
ambition, and whatever respect he might feel for the judgment
of his elders.

It is up to the adults to help the child, even the adolescent,

understand that what he feels and loves is an abstraction, to help
him break through into the conceptual realm, but they
accomplish the exact opposite. They stifle his moral ambition
that is his desire for virtue, which is his self-esteem. They arrest
his value development on a primitively literal concrete bound
level. They explain it as being blown into space without a
helmet, whilst disintegrating Martians with a rail-gun, and that a
child should better give up such notions if he is ever to make a
respectable living. And they finish him off with such gems of
argumentation such as “don’t pretend that you never had a cold
and that you are better than the rest of us”. It is obvious that they
exhibit an uncontrollable rage, not the romanticism that the child
presents. The child concludes subconsciously that all emotions
as such are dangerous, that they are the irrational unpredictably
destructive element in people. This
23 is the last brick in the wall of
24
repression which a child erects to bury his own emotions. When
all emotions are stifled, one remains – fear. The element of fear
was used in the process of a child’s moral destruction from the
start. Fear of others and their thoughts. Fear of independence, of
responsibility, of loneliness, as well as self-doubt and the desire
to be accepted – to belong.

– The Three Schools of Ethics –

As he grows up, his immorality is reinforced and reaffirmed.
What is he offered when he reaches college? He is offered, in
essence, three schools of ethics – the mystical, the will of God
as the criterion of ethics; the social, which holds that the good of
the society is the criterion of ethics; the subjectivist, which
dispenses with criteria and, in fact, with ethics.

The mystical school tells him that he is depraved by birth,

tainted with original sin, that selfishness is his blackest fault,
that self-sacrifice is the highest virtue and that he must suffer on
earth in order to earn rewards beyond the grave. That means that
the purpose of ethics is to prepare him for death, and not to
guide him in living.

The social school tells him that he is a servant; that he is born to

serve; that the only moral justification of his existence is being
of service to others, that self-sacrifice is the highest virtue and
25
that ethics condemns him to a life sentence of hard-labor, to

26
achieve the happiness of others. That means that the purpose of
ethics is the happiness of everyone except himself.

An eager young mind seeking the guidance of Reason cannot

take the supernatural seriously, and is impervious to the ethics of
mysticism. It does not take him long to perceive the
contradictions and the self-abasing hypocrisy of the social
school of ethics. The only influence these two schools may have
on him is to reinforce his skeptical indifference to ethics and
confirm explicitly the dichotomy he had sensed – the practical
versus the moral.

The notion that morality is not merely impractical but

impracticable, that it demands self-torture and self-destruction,
that if one wants to be practical, that if one wants to live, one
must reject all thought of moral values and forget all moral
ideals. But the worst influence of all in his psychological
context is the subjectivist school.

In one variant or another, ethical subjectivism is the ruling

doctrine in today’s universities, and therefore in today’s society.

It permeates and suffocates every aspect of our culture. It is the

product of epistemological agnosticism of the revolt against
reason, which has been gathering momentum since Immanuel
Kant, and is now the raging mainstream of modern philosophy.

Notions such as: reason is impotent to know things as they are,

reality is unknowable, certainty27is impossible, knowledge is
28
mere probability, truth is that which works, mind is a
superstition, logic is a social convention… These are the
wreckage, the “flotsam and jetsam”, the useless and discarded
objects of thought, which are tossed about by that mainstream.

Ethics, according to the subjectivist school, lies outside the

province of Reason. It is the province and the exclusive
monopoly of feelings. Ethics, they declare, is a matter of
subjective preference that is an irrational choice. It is nothing
but an unwarranted command, or an arbitrary postulate, or an
emotional commitment. Ethical propositions, they declare, have
no cognitive meaning and are merely a report on one’s feelings
or the equivalent of emotional ejaculations.

An emotion divorced from Reason and from the facts of reality

– an emotion whose cause one does not know and does not care
to discover – is a whim. United in their hatred of Reason, the
three schools of ethics agree that which is the ultimate standard
of morality, and they fight one another only over the question of
whose whim: Gods, societies or one’s own.

29
 CHAPTER IV
“Philosophy: Who Needs It”
by Ayn Rand

Disclaimer: The following essay was originally

published in The Ayn Rand Letter, later on becoming a structural
part of Ayn Rand’s Philosophy: Who Needs It. The entirety of
the following essay was written down by listening to a recording
of a lecture that she gave for the graduating class of the United
States Military Academy.

30
31
Since I am a fiction writer, let us start with a short story.

Suppose that you are an astronaut whose spaceship gets out of

control and crashes on an unknown planet. When you regain
consciousness and find that you are not hurt badly, the first three
questions in your mind would be: Where am I? How can I
discover it? What should I do?

You see unfamiliar vegetation outside, and there is air to

breathe; the sunlight seems paler than you remember it and
colder. You turn to look at the sky, but stop. You are struck by a
sudden feeling: if you don’t look, you won’t have to know that
you are, perhaps, too far from the earth and no return is possible;
so long as you don’t know it, you are free to believe what you
wish – and you experience a foggy, pleasant, but somehow
guilty, kind of hope.

You turn to your instruments: they may be damaged, you don’t

know how seriously. But you stop, struck by a sudden fear: how
can you trust these instruments? How can you be sure that they
won’t mislead you? How can you know whether they will work
in a different world? You turn away from the instruments.

Now you begin to wonder why you have no desire to do

anything. It seems so much safer just to wait for something to
turn up somehow; it is better, you tell yourself, not to rock the
spaceship. Far in the distance, you see some sort of living
creatures approaching; you don’t know whether they are human,
32
33
but they walk on two feet. They, you decide, will tell you what
to do.

You are never heard from again.

This is fantasy, you say? You would not act like that and no
astronaut ever would? Perhaps not. But this is the way most men
live their lives, here, on Earth.

Most men spend their days struggling to evade three questions,

the answers to which underlie man’s every thought, feeling and
action, whether he is consciously aware of it or not: Where am
I? How do I know it? What should I do?

By the time they are old enough to understand these questions,

men believe that they know the answers. Where am I? Say, in
New York City. How do I know it? It’s self-evident. What
should I do? Here, they are not too sure – but the usual answer
is: whatever everybody does. The only trouble seems to be that
they are not very active, not very confident, not very happy –
and they experience, at times, a causeless fear and an undefined
guilt, which they cannot explain or get rid of.

They have never discovered the fact that the trouble comes from
the three unanswered questions – and that there is only one
science that can answer them: philosophy.

Philosophy studies the nature of existence, of man, and of man’s

relationship to existence. As against the special sciences, which
34
35
deal only with particular aspects, philosophy deals with those
aspects of the universe which pertain to everything that exists.
In the realm of cognition, the special sciences are the trees, but
philosophy is the soil which makes the forest possible.

Philosophy would not tell you, for instance, whether you are in
New York City or in Zanzibar (though it would give you the
means to find out). But here is what it would tell you: Are you in
a universe which is ruled by natural laws and, therefore, is
stable, firm, absolute – and knowable? Or are you in an
incomprehensible chaos, a realm of inexplicable miracles, an
unpredictable, unknowable flux, which your mind is impotent to
grasp? Are the things you see around you real – or are they only
an illusion? Do they exist independent of any observer – or are
they created by the observer? Are they the object or the subject
of man’s consciousness? Are they what they are – or can they be
changed by a mere act of your consciousness, such as a wish?

The nature of your actions – and of your ambition – will be

different, according to which set of answers you come to accept.
These answers are the province of metaphysics – the study of
existence as such or, in Aristotle’s words, of “being qua being”
– the basic branch of philosophy.

No matter what conclusions you reach, you will be confronted

by the necessity to answer another, corollary question: How do I
know it? Since man is not omniscient or infallible, you have to
discover what you can claim as36knowledge and how to prove the
37
validity of your conclusions. Does man acquire knowledge by a
process of Reason – or by sudden revelation from a supernatural
power? Is Reason a faculty that identifies and integrates the
material provided by man’s senses – or is it fed by innate ideas,
implanted in man’s mind before he was born? Is Reason
competent to perceive reality – or does man possess some other
cognitive faculty which is superior to Reason? Can man achieve
certainty – or is he doomed to perpetual doubt?

The extent of your self-confidence – and of your success – will

be different, according to which set of answers you accept.
These answers are the province of epistemology, the theory of
knowledge, which studies man’s means of cognition.

These two branches are the theoretical foundation of philosophy.

The third branch – ethics – may be regarded as its technology.
Ethics does not apply to everything that exists, only to man, but
it applies to every aspect of man’s life: his character, his actions,
his values, his relationship to all of existence. Ethics, or
morality, defines a code of values to guide man’s choices and
actions – the choices and actions that determine the course of his
life.

Just as the astronaut in my story did not know what he should

do, because he refused to know where he was and how to
discover it, so you cannot know what you should do until you
know the nature of the universe you deal with, the nature of
your means of cognition – and 38 your own nature. Before you
39
come to ethics, you must answer the questions posed by
metaphysics and epistemology: Is man a rational being, able to
deal with reality – or is he a helplessly blind misfit, a chip
buffeted by the universal flux? Are achievement and enjoyment
possible to man on Earth – or is he doomed to failure and
disaster? Depending on the answers, you can proceed to
consider the questions posed by ethics: What is good or evil for
man – and why? Should man’s primary concern be a quest for
joy – or an escape from suffering? Should man hold self-
fulfillment – or self-destruction – as the goal of his life? Should
man pursue his values – or should he place the interests of
others above his own? Should man seek happiness – or self-
sacrifice?

I do not have to point out the different consequences of these

two sets of answers. You can see them everywhere – within you
and around you.

The answers given by ethics determine how man should treat

other men, and this determines the fourth branch of philosophy:
politics, which defines the principles of a proper social system.
As an example of philosophy’s function, political philosophy
will not tell you how much rationed gas you should be given
and on which day of the week – it will tell you whether the
government has the right to impose any rationing on anything.

40
The fifth and last branch of philosophy is esthetics, the study of
art, which is based on metaphysics, epistemology and ethics. Art
deals with the needs – the refueling – of man’s consciousness.

Now some of you might say, as many people do: “Aw, I never
think in such abstract terms – I want to deal with concrete,
particular, real-life problems – what do I need philosophy for?”
My answer is: In order to be able to deal with concrete,
particular, real-life problems – i.e., in order to be able to live on
Earth.

You might claim – as most people do – that you have never been
influenced by philosophy. I will ask you to check that claim.
Have you ever thought or said the following? “Don’t be so sure
– nobody can be certain of anything.” You got that notion from
David Hume (and many, many others), even though you might
never have heard of him. Or: “This may be good in theory, but it
doesn’t work in practice.” You got that from Plato. Or: “That
was a rotten thing to do, but it’s only human, nobody is perfect
in this world.” You got that from Augustine. Or: “It may be true
for you, but it’s not true for me.” You got it from William James.
Or: “I couldn’t help it! Nobody can help anything he does.” You
got it from Hegel. Or: “I can’t prove it, but I feel that it’s true.”
You got it from Kant. Or: “It’s logical, but logic has nothing to
do with reality.” You got it from Kant. Or: “It’s evil, because it’s
selfish.” You got it from Kant. Have

41
you heard the modern activists say: “Act first, think afterward”?
They got it from John Dewey.

Some people might answer: “Sure, I’ve said those things at

different times, but I don’t have to believe that stuff all of the
time. It may have been true yesterday, but it’s not true today.”
They got it from Hegel. They might say: “Consistency is the
hobgoblin of little minds.” They got it from a very little mind,
Emerson. They might say: “But can’t one compromise and
borrow different ideas from different philosophies according to
the expediency of the moment?” They got it from Richard
Nixon – who got it from William James.

Now ask yourself: if you are not interested in abstract ideas,

why do you (and all men) feel compelled to use them? The fact
is that abstract ideas are conceptual integrations which subsume
an incalculable number of concretes – and that without abstract
ideas you would not be able to deal with concrete, particular,
real-life problems. You would be in the position of a newborn
infant, to whom every object is a unique, unprecedented
phenomenon. The difference between his mental state and yours
lies in the number of conceptual integrations your mind has
performed.

You have no choice about the necessity to integrate your

observations, your experiences, your knowledge into abstract
ideas, i.e., into principles. Your only choice is whether these
principles are true or false, whether
42 they represent your
43
conscious, rational conviction – or a grab-bag of notions
snatched at random, whose sources, validity, context and
consequences you do not know, notions which, more often than
not, you would drop like a hot potato if you knew.

But the principles you accept (consciously or subconsciously)

may clash with or contradict one another; they, too, have to be
integrated. What integrates them? Philosophy. A philosophic
system is an integrated view of existence.

As a human being, you have no choice about the fact that you
need a philosophy. Your only choice is whether you define your
philosophy by a conscious, rational, disciplined process of
thought and scrupulously logical deliberation... – or let your
subconscious accumulate a junk heap of unwarranted
conclusions, false generalizations, undefined contradictions,
undigested slogans, unidentified wishes, doubts and fears,
thrown together by chance, but integrated by your subconscious
into a kind of mongrel philosophy and fused into a single, solid
weight: self-doubt, like a ball and chain in the place where your
mind’s wings should have grown.

You might say, as many people do, that it is not easy always to
act on abstract principles. No, it is not easy. But how much
harder is it to have to act on them without knowing what they
are?

44
Your subconscious is like a computer – more complex a
computer than men can build – and its main function is the
integration of your ideas. Who programs it? Your conscious
mind. If you default, if you don’t reach any firm convictions,
your subconscious is programmed by chance – and you deliver
yourself into the power of ideas you do not know you have
accepted. But one way or the other, your computer gives you
print-outs, daily and hourly, in the form of emotions – which are
lightning-like estimates of the things around you, calculated
according to your values. If you programmed your computer by
conscious thinking, you know the nature of your values and
emotions. If you didn’t, you don’t.

Many people, particularly today, claim that man cannot live by

logic alone, that there’s the emotional element of his nature to
consider, and that they rely on the guidance of their emotions.
Well, so did the astronaut in my story. The joke is on him – and
on them: man’s values and emotions are determined by his
fundamental view of life. The ultimate programmer of his
subconscious is philosophy – the science which, according to
the emotionalists, is impotent to affect or penetrate the murky
mysteries of their feelings.

The quality of a computer’s output is determined by the quality

of its input. If your subconscious is programmed by chance, its
output will have a corresponding character. You have probably
heard the computer operators’ eloquent term GIGO – which
45
46
means: “Garbage in, garbage out.” The same formula applies to
the relationship between a man’s thinking and his emotions.

A man who is run by emotions is like a man who is run by a

computer whose print-outs he cannot read. He does not know
whether its programming is true or false, right or wrong,
whether it’s set to lead him to success or destruction, whether it
serves his goals or those of some evil, unknowable power. He is
blind on two fronts: blind to the world around him and to his
own inner world, unable to grasp reality or his own motives, and
he is in chronic terror of both. Emotions are not tools of
cognition. The men who are not interested in philosophy need it
most urgently: they are most helplessly in its power.

The men who are not interested in philosophy absorb its

principles from the cultural atmosphere around them – from
schools, colleges, books, magazines, newspapers, movies,
television, etc. Who sets the tone of a culture? A small handful
of men: the philosophers. Others follow their lead, either by
conviction or by default. For some two hundred years, under the
influence of Immanuel Kant, the dominant trend of philosophy
has been directed to a single goal: the destruction of man’s mind,
of his confidence in the power of Reason. Today, we are seeing
the climax of that trend.

When men abandon Reason, they find not only that their
emotions cannot guide them, but that they can experience no
emotions save one: terror. The 47
spread of drug addiction among
48
young people brought up on today’s intellectual fashions,
demonstrates the unbearable inner state of men who are
deprived of their means of cognition and who seek escape from
reality – from the terror of their impotence to deal with
existence. Observe these young people’s dread of independence
and their frantic desire to “belong,” to attach themselves to some
group, clique or gang. Most of them have never heard of
philosophy, but they sense that they need some fundamental
answers to questions they dare not ask – and they hope that the
tribe will tell them how to live. They are ready to be taken over
by any witch doctor, guru, or dictator. One of the most
dangerous things a man can do is to surrender his moral
autonomy to others: like the astronaut in my story, he does not
know whether they are human, even though they walk on two
feet.

Now you may ask: If philosophy can be that evil, why should
one study it? Particularly, why should one study the
philosophical theories which are blatantly false, make no sense,
and bear no relation to real life?

My answer is: In self-protection – and in defense of truth,

justice, freedom, and any value you ever held or may ever hold.

Not all philosophies are evil, though too many of them are,
particularly in modern history. On the other hand, at the root of
every civilized achievement, such as science, technology,
progress, freedom – at the root49 of every value we enjoy today,
50
including the birth of this country – you will find the
achievement of one man, who lived over two thousand years
ago: Aristotle.

If you feel nothing but boredom when reading the virtually

unintelligible theories of some philosophers, you have my
deepest sympathy. But if you brush them aside, saying: “Why
should I study that stuff when I know it’s nonsense?” – you are
mistaken. It is nonsense, but you don’t know it – not so long as
you go on accepting all their conclusions, all the vicious catch
phrases generated by those philosophers. And not so long as you
are unable to refute them.

That nonsense deals with the most crucial, the life-or-death

issues of man’s existence. At the root of every significant
philosophic theory, there is a legitimate issue – in the sense that
there is an authentic need of man’s consciousness, which some
theories struggle to clarify and others struggle to obfuscate, to
corrupt, to prevent man from ever discovering.

The battle of philosophers is a battle for man’s mind. If you do

not understand their theories, you are vulnerable to the worst
among them.

The best way to study philosophy is to approach it as one

approaches a detective story: follow every trail, clue and
implication, in order to discover
51who is a murderer and who is a
52
hero. The criterion of detection is two questions: Why? And
How? If a given tenet seems to be true – why? If another tenet
seems to be false – why? And how is it being put over? You will
not find all the answers immediately, but you will acquire an
invaluable characteristic: the ability to think in terms of
essentials.

Nothing is given to man automatically, neither knowledge, nor

self-confidence, nor inner serenity, nor the right way to use his
mind. Every value he needs or wants has to be discovered,
learned and acquired – even the proper posture of his body. In
this context, I want to say that I have always admired the
posture of West Point graduates, a posture that projects man in
proud, disciplined control of his body. Well, philosophical
training gives man the proper intellectual posture – a proud,
disciplined control of his mind.

In your own profession, in military science, you know the

importance of keeping track of the enemy’s weapons, strategy
and tactics – and of being prepared to counter them. The same is
true in philosophy: you have to understand the enemy’s ideas
and be prepared to refute them, you have to know his basic
arguments and be able to blast them.

Today’s mawkish concern with and compassion for the feeble,

the flawed, the suffering, the guilty, is a cover for the
profoundly Kantian hatred of the innocent, the strong, the able,
the successful, the virtuous, the53confident, the happy. A
54
philosophy out to destroy man’s mind is necessarily a
philosophy of hatred for man, for man’s life, and for every
human value. Hatred of the good for being the good, is the
hallmark of the twentieth century. This is the enemy you are
facing.

The assignment I gave myself for tonight is not to sell you on

my philosophy, but on philosophy as such. I have, however, been
speaking implicitly of my philosophy in every sentence – since
none of us and no statement can escape from philosophical
premises. What is my selfish interest in the matter?

I am confident enough to think that if you accept the importance

of philosophy and the task of examining it critically, it is my
philosophy that you will come to accept. Formally, I call it
Objectivism, but informally I call it a philosophy for living on
Earth. You will find an explicit presentation of it in my books,
particularly in Atlas Shrugged.

You have chosen to risk your lives for the defense of this
country. I will not insult you by saying that you are dedicated to
selfless service – it is not a virtue in my morality. In my morality,
the defense of one’s country means that a man is personally
unwilling to live as the conquered slave of any enemy, foreign
or domestic. This is an enormous virtue. Some

55
of you may not be consciously aware of it. I want to help you to
realize it.

Since I came from a country guilty of the worst tyranny on

earth, I am particularly able to appreciate the meaning, the
greatness and the supreme value of that which you are
defending. So, in my own name and in the name of many people
who think as I do, I want to say, to all the men of West Point,
past, present and future: Thank you.

56
 CHAPTER V
“The Philosophy of Objectivism”
By Leonard Peikoff

There is no question more crucial to man than the question

“What is man?”, what kind of being is he and what are his
essential attributes.

In the history of thought, many philosophers and artists have

claimed to answer these questions – to look at man and to report
on his nature. Their reports have clashed through the ages:
Aristotle for instance defined man as the rational animal; Plato
and the medieval have looked at man and saw a drooling flesh
encasing a soul yearning for supernatural salvation; Shakespeare
in his plays presented a man as an aspiring but foolish mortal,
inevitably defeated by a tragic flaw; Immanuel Kant saw a blind
duty ridden chunk of unreality in permanent hawk to the
unknowable; Victor Hugo saw a self-confident, purposeful
valuer, undercut by a malevolent universe; Hegel saw a half-real
fragment of the state; Freud looked at man and claimed to see an
excrement dripping pervert. Ayn Rand looked at man (not men),
and saw the possibility of Howards Roark and John Galt.

57
What kind of philosophic questions did Ayn Rand and all the
others mentioned have to answer in order to define their view of
man? Is man a rational being, and if so, what does this mean?
What is Reason? Is man an autonomous entity who functions
and survives as an individual, or does his survival depend upon
erasing his individuality and merging into a group? Is man an
integrated being of mind and body, or is there a clash, a
dichotomy between these two elements? Does man possess any
irrational elements by his nature, such as mystic enzyme or
inexplicable instincts or a supernatural conscience? And if the
answer is that there are no inherent and irrational elements, then
what about emotions? Is man a puppet shaped, moved, defeated
by forces beyond his control – by God, or society or his genes,
etc.? Or is he the shaper and a master of his own destiny? Is
philosophy a luxury, or a necessity to man by his nature, and if
so, what is it necessary for? Such are the questions of the
upcoming topic, which is man’s metaphysical nature.

Man’s metaphysical nature portrays his essential enduring

attributes, including above all his basic relation to reality. In
other words, those other fundamental attributes which every
human being possesses, in every era and country, by the very
nature of the human being.

This is a metaphysical and not an evaluative subject. We are

concerned now with a factual question: what, in fact, is the
essence of human nature? All value judgments presuppose and
58
follow from a view of man’s metaphysical nature. Without such

59
a view, whether it’s conscious or subconscious, explicit or
implicit, but without such a view no one could enter the fields of
ethics or politics or aesthetics or practical decision-making of
any kind. Until you know in some terms what you are, you
cannot know whether you should be selfish or just or free.
Whether you should get a job or pay your debts, or go on
welfare. All these and ten thousand other ethical practical
aesthetic issues are derivatives. Their root is the nature of man.

The issue of man’s nature, however, is not the base of

philosophy. You can see this yourself if you consider the many
contradictory views of man’s nature that have been put forward
through the ages, and that I’ve touched on at the outset. The
reason for these differences is that one’s view of man depends
on more fundamental questions. It depends on one’s view of the
nature of reality as such. That’s metaphysics as I’ve just defined
it. Also, it depends on one’s view of man’s means of knowledge.
That is epistemology. That is the branch of philosophy which
studies the nature and means of human knowledge.

In this regard, you can think of the issue of man’s nature as the
center of any philosophy, and at the very beginning of
philosophy are metaphysics and epistemology. As a
consequence, one reaches a view of man’s nature. Then, as an
expression, as an implementation of this view, one reaches

60
answers to the evaluative questions – questions regarding ethics,
politics, aesthetics, etc.

Ethics is a branch of philosophy, which defines the code of

values, to guide human choices and actions. Politics is the
branch of philosophy which studies the nature and the proper
functions of government. Aesthetics is the branch of philosophy
concerned with the nature and proper standards of art.

Now, if you see the place of man’s nature in an organized

systematic philosophy, you will see that all philosophic roads
either lead to the nature of man, or they lead from it.

I begin with such notions because nothing, not even its ethics,
reveals the essence of any philosophy more eloquently than its
view of man. If we have the Objectivist view of man before us,
at the outset, that will serve as a beacon and guide to us.
Thereafter, we have a shining goal that we want – first to reach
and validate and then to implement and apply practically.

61
 CHAPTER VI
“Is Man Free or Determined”
By Leonard Peikoff

I want to turn to and just touch on one particular topic, which is

closely connected to the issue of emotions and it bears directly
on the issue of man’s metaphysical nature. Is man
metaphysically a pawn of factors outside of his control or is man
the master of his own destiny? In other words, the issue that
goes in philosophy under the name of determinism versus free
will.

Determinism is a theory that everything happens, including

every thought, feeling and action of every man. Is necessity
necessitated by previous factors and they in turn by previous
factors and so on – all the way back – so that nothing in the past
or present could ever have happened differently from the way it
did, and everything in the future is already pre-set and
inevitable? Hence is why determinists add that no man is to be
held responsible for his actions; it has no sense to blame or
praise him for anything. As against this, the theory of free will
holds in broad terms that man has the power of choice or
volition. That he is an independent, autonomous being. That he

62
is not a puppet of destiny. He is a being responsible for his
choices and for the actions which flow from them.

On this issue, Objectivism advocates the free will theory in a

very specific form. Like the theory of free will, determinism has
been advocated in many different forms in the history of
thought. Determinists have said that man is the product of God’s
plan or conditioned reflexes… What all these varying
interpretations of determinism agree on is one point, that man is
determined. In other words, that he is a product of factors
outside of his power to alter and control.

Many people today feel and act on their free will, but they also
tend at certain points in time to fall in the lines of determinism.
Why do people also incline to determinism? It is not just the
bombardment of deterministic theories in philosophic history.
There’s also something else – something that rings a bell to a
great many people… when they hear deterministic claims,
which makes them feel “helpless”, as if they are moved by some
force …what force? Well, what many people would answer is
emotions. That is the connection that I have already mentioned
at the beginning.

Most people who accept determinism, whether it is all the time

or sometimes, do so largely because of the following: when they
look at their own selves or their lives, they see that they are out
of control, and they are so insignificant part because they cannot
explain nor account for their own
63 feelings and desires. It seems
64
to them that their emotions are inexplicable entities – as if
voiced on them by some power they cannot fathom or control,
and therefore they are not masters of their actions or destiny, but
by that extent they feel like puppets pulled by strings, moved by
urges, passions, hatreds, loves, pleasures that come they know
not from where.

In a word, to view that emotions are independent from the mind,

and therefore that one is a helpless pawn moved by
uncontrollable forces, this is one of the most potent weapons of
the determinists in gaining comments.

I would like to focus on two deterministic points:

The first one says that man is a product of heredity, which

comes in a variety of forms. Man is born with certain genes or
glands or physiological structures, etc. Some sort of innate
factors like these, which determine everything essential about a
man. That’s why I’m calling it the “heredity” view.

The second common version is the view that man is a product of

his environment. That he may be born without any innate factors
shaping his character, but that his character is the product of
society, of social condition.

Now I noticed that both of these versions have an element in

common – both in their commonly accepted forms fail to
recognize the role of ideas in the generation of emotions. The
heredity schools sees emotions65
as a product of inherited
66
physiological structures and processes – it treats them as factors,
not of thoughts or ideas. As an Objectivist, you would drop this
school of thought with the following: if it is all innate, then there
is hereby an existence of innate ideas, values, judgments, etc.

As for the environmental school, it too, in its common popular

version, treats emotions as independent of the mind. It regards
emotions as the product not of innate physiological factors, but
in effect of sensations or percepts. How, according to the
environmentalists, does society get to you? By what means does
it shape and mold your character? Most of these people find that
man has only one primary means of contact with the external
world, including therefore with society, which is sense
perception. So as they construe the process, you see people, you
watch their actions and hear their pronouncements. This goes for
some time. And after the bombardment of such sensory data, the
result is that you build a certain emotional pattern and a certain
character – which, they say, is the product of society. What did
this school leave up? Again, ideas. People cannot force you to
accept a conclusion against your own judgment, without your
voluntary agreement. They cannot implant concepts in your
brain by surgery. Who does the interpreting and evaluation?
Who forms relevant ideas? Who does the thinking in such a
scenario? Not society, which cannot think for you. The mind is
an attribute of the individual. So you form ideas, and you are
the only one who can. That implies that you are the source of
67
your emotions. Your conclusions, not the conclusions of the
society. Not the environment, but your mind.

The Objectivist school of thought says the following: man is

born without innate ideas, and when he reaches the conceptual
level, he is the sovereign. The choices affect his conclusions he
comes to; the ideas he accepts; the value judgments he forms;
the actions he takes and the emotions he feels.

So if we use the term ‘soul’, to mean your mind and its basic
values, then in the words of Galt: “As man is a being of self-
made wealth, so he is a being of self-made soul.” In this view of
light, man metaphysically is an independent, autonomous entity,
an entity who creates his own character.

This is one cardinal reason why Objectivism views man,

metaphysically, as an efficacious (successful or productive)
being, a being who can achieve his values here on Earth, and
can achieve happiness and fulfillment. There are many reasons
underlying this conclusion, and this is one of them. The one
condition needed is for man to be in control of his own person,
his own character and mind, of his inner world. Otherwise, man
is a helpless puppet, unintelligible to himself and ruled by a
mindless destiny.

So if emotions are products of thought and if thought is

volitional so that man has sovereignty over the operation of his
mind, then he is a being of self-made soul. But is man such a
68
69
sovereign? Is the mind volitional? Is free will true, and what
exactly is its nature? And how do we know all this?

A metaphysical view of man’s nature, whether it’s the

Objectivists view or any other, requires a deeper philosophic
validation. Whether we say that man survives by Reason, or
thinks as an individual, or is an integrated entity of mind and
body, or feels as a result of what he thinks, all of it rests on an
implicit foundation, on a definite metaphysics and epistemology
– which is why Ayn Rand’s view of man’s nature is unique. It is
unique because her basic philosophy is unique. Men did not see
man the way Objectivism sees you, because thinkers have not
held the fundamental premises of Objectivism, but are usually
opposites, which can be followed by the role of philosophy in
human life.

70
The following texts are written by Craig Biddle, the editor of “The Objective
Standard” and, above all, our friend at Ayn Rand Center Europe.

CHAPTER VII
“The Beauty of Ayn Rand’s Ethics”
by Craig Biddle

Ayn Rand opposed the morality of self-sacrifice, which is

inherent in most philosophic systems and all religions. She
advocated instead a morality of self-interest – the Objectivist
ethics – which, as she explained in her essay “Causality Versus
Duty,” is neatly summed up by the Spanish proverb “God said:
‘Take what you want, and pay for it.’”

Rand was an atheist, so her use of “God” here is metaphorical.

By “God said” she means “reality dictates.” She is referring to
the immutable fact that if you want to achieve an effect (an end),
you must enact its cause (the means). This is the law of
causality applied to human values. Our values – whether a
wonderful career, a romantic relationship, good friendships, life-
enhancing hobbies, or political freedom – do not come to us
automatically, nor do we pursue them automatically. If we want
these things, we must choose to act in certain ways and not in
others. This is the way reality is. This principle is an absolute.
“God said.”

71
“Take what you want” refers to the fact that human values
are chosen. The realm of human values – the realm of morality
– is the realm of choice. A proper morality is not about “divine
commandments” (there is no God) or “categorical
imperatives” (there’s no such thing) or “duties” (they don’t
exist). Rather, it is about what you want out of life and what you
must do to get what you want. A proper morality is a set of
principles to guide your choices and actions toward a lifetime of
happiness.

Importantly, as Rand emphasized, this does not make morality

subjective. What promotes a person’s life is dictated not by his
feelings divorced from facts, but by the factual requirements of
his life and happiness – given his nature as a human being. Just
as a rabbit can’t live and prosper by jumping off cliffs, and just
as an eagle can’t live and prosper by burrowing underground, so
a person can’t live and prosper by acting contrary to the
requirements of his life.

We are complex beings of body and mind, matter and spirit, and
the requirements of our life and happiness derive from both
aspects of this integrated whole. If we want to know what these
requirements are, we must identify the relevant facts. Given our
nature, we need certain values in order to live and prosper. We
need material values such as food, clothing, shelter, and
medicine; we need spiritual values,
72 such as self-respect, self-
confidence, friendship, and romantic love; and we need

73
political values, such as the rule of law and political freedom –
which enable us to pursue our material and spiritual values.
Consequently, in order to live and prosper, we must uphold and
employ the one fundamental value that makes our identification
and pursuit of all our other values possible: reason.

Reason is our means of observing reality, forming concepts,

identifying causal relationships, avoiding contradictions, and
forming principles about what is good and bad for our life.
Reason is our only means of knowledge and our basic means of
living. Thus, if our goal is a lifetime of happiness, we must
uphold reason as an absolute; we must be rational as a matter of
principle.
1 2

Being rational doesn’t mean never erring ; humans are fallible

beings, and occasional errors are part of life. Nor does it mean
repressing or ignoring one’s feelings; that would not be rational,
as feelings are a crucial kind of fact. Rather, being rational
means committing oneself, as a matter of principle, to
identifying the available and relevant facts concerning one’s
alternatives in life, to acting on one’s best judgment given what
one knows at any given time, and to correcting any errors one
commits if and when one discovers them.

Seen in this light, “Take what you want” doesn’t mean: “Go by
your emotions without respect for facts and logic.” It means:

74
1 Erring – having to do something wrong;
2 Fallible – to be capable of making mistakes or being wrong;

75
“Use your rational judgment to figure out which goals and
courses of action will result in a lifetime of happiness, and
proceed accordingly.” It means: “Take what you rationally
want.”

“Pay for it” refers to the fact that if we want to achieve our
goals, we must work to achieve them, we must enact their
causes. So says the law of causality. This is not a burden but a
blessing: Choosing values and working to achieve them –
whether a career in computer programming, a romantic
relationship with the girl or guy of our dreams, a sailing trip
around the world, or a summer home in the Catskills – is not a
process to bemoan. It is part and parcel of living a wonderful
life.

A proper morality is a crucial tool for living and loving life, and
the Objectivist ethics is just such a morality. Its values of
reason, purpose, and self-esteem – along with its virtues of
rationality, productiveness, honesty, integrity, independence,
justice, and pride – are, one and all, in service of this end. They
are our means of taking what we want and paying for it.

Such is the beauty of the Objectivist ethics.

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 CHAPTER VIII
“Identity Politics vs. the Law of Identity”

Identity politics is an assault on all things good.

All things good.

This is because it is an assault on the most fundamental

principle of all – the law of identity.

The law of identity is the principle that everything in existence

is something specific; everything has properties that make it
what it is; everything has a nature: A thing is what it is. A rose is
a rose. A person is a person. An individual is an individual.

To see the breadth and depth of identity politics’s assault on the

law of identity, we need only visit the websites of
the Democratic and Republican parties.

The home page of the Democrats’ website says nothing of

individuals or individual rights. Rather, it has the header
“People,” under which we find a list of various collectives, each
with its own link. And, as Mark Lilla observes in his book, The
Once and Future Liberal: After Identity Politics, “each link
77
78
takes you to a page tailored to appeal to a distinct group and
identity: women, Hispanics, ‘ethnic Americans,’ the LGBT
community, Native Americans, African-Americans, Asian-
Americans and Pacific islanders,” and so on. “There are
seventeen such groups, and seventeen separate messages.”

The homepage of the Republicans’ website is no better. It

includes such groupings as “Black Republican Activists,” “GOP
H i s p a n i c s , ” “ R N C Wo m e n , ” a n d “ A s i a n P a c i f i c
Americans” (not to mention “GOP Faith,” a subject for another
day).

According to today’s Democrats and Republicans, a person’s

identity – who he is, how he thinks, what he values, what
matters to him – is determined not by his choices and actions,
but by the collective to which he supposedly “belongs.”

That’s the theory. That’s identity politics. That’s the notion that
has taken over and consumed much of today’s political
discourse.

And it patently contradicts all observable facts.

When we look at the world and the people in it, we see that
people are individuals – each with his own body, his own mind,
his own life. We observe that people choose either to think or
not to make that effort. We know – by means of observation and
logic – that when an individual thinks for himself rather than
deferring to some group to which
79 he supposedly belongs, his
conclusions and values are his. They don’t belong to his group.

80
They belong to him. They are not determined by his group.
They are products of his own thinking and choosing.

Identity politics denies all of this. It denies the autonomy of the

individual. It denies that he can think and value for himself. It
says, in effect, “You are not an individual with your own body,
your own mind, your own life. Rather, you are a cog in your
collective – your gender, your race, your class. Thus, your
collective determines what you think, what you value, and what
you should do.”

Naturally, on this view, when people or politicians want to

appeal to a person’s values or get his vote or the like, they
appeal not to the values that a rational individual would have –
values such as freedom to think and act on his own judgment, or
better understanding of the problems in education or health care
or the economy, or clarity on the causes of violence in certain
neighborhoods. Instead, they appeal to the values that, in their
view, he automatically has because of the group to which he
belongs.

In my open letter to advocates of identity politics, I showed that

the basic principle of this creed is, in essence, the same basic
principle underlying National Socialism – the idea that people’s
thoughts and values are determined not by their own choices and
actions, but by their “kind” – meaning their race, class, sex, or
the like.
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Here we can see a deeper truth: Identity politics is an all-out
assault on the law of identity. It holds that an individual is not
an individual, that his mind is not his mind, that his values are
not his values, that he is not an autonomous being but rather a
cog in a collective.

But all of that is observationally false.

You are not your group. You are you. You are not your color.
You are you. You are not your race, or gender, or social class.
You are you. You are an individual. You have a mind. And your
mind is your means of thinking, understanding, choosing values,
and coming to conclusions.

Granted, not everyone thinks for himself. Many people are

second-handers. But even second-handers have their own brains
and are capable of thinking for themselves. They are individuals
with minds, regardless of whether they acknowledge the fact or
engage their minds. And they are responsible for their thoughts,
ideas, and values – even if they adopt them secondhand from
others.

A person can think or act in a second-handed manner. But he

cannot think or act as anything but an individual person. The
law of identity won’t let him.

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Nor will the law of identity permit identity politics to make
sense. It doesn’t make sense. It contradicts everything we know
to be true. It is false.

People are individuals. It’s the law.

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 CHAPTER IX
“Religion Versus Subjectivism”

In one of his books, “Loving Life: The Morality of Self-Interest

and the Facts That Support It”, Craig Biddle precisely described
religion and subjectivism, with a powerful message about
“sacrifice”.

“Whatever their disagreements, both sides of this argument

accept the idea that your basic moral choice is to be guided
either by faith or by feelings. In other words… religion or
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subjectivism… each calls for human sacrifice 3 and leads to
human suffering – both physical and spiritual.” Such is a saying
of God or of a social moral code.

Craig Biddle describes the notion of religion to be of faith, ipso

facto, without being supported by facts. “Don’t place yourself,
your personal
4 values, your own interests, your will, above those
of God.” , because if you are selfish and don’t ‘listen to God’s
will’, you’re committing a sin. This is the first of sacrificial
moral codes, that Biddle describes as being in a moral obligation
to do, according to religious faith in the almighty, however
painful it might be, spiritually or physically. God’s will is good.
Human judgment, however rational yet against God’s will, is
bad.

Such is the thinking of Robert C. Mortimer: “When a man’s

conscience tells him a thing is right which is, in fact, contrary
5 to
God’s will, his conscience is false and telling him a lie”

“In short, the basic moral tenet of religion is that obedience to God must be
absolute – calls for human sacrifice and all.”, Craig Biddle

Craig is not surprised by the notion that, due to the sacrificial

nature of religion, many turn to subjectivism, which he

3 “Loving Life, The Morality of Self-Interest And The Facts That Support It”, Craig Biddle, p.3
4 Ibid, p.4
5 Robert C. Mortimer, Christian Ethics (London: Hutchinson’s University Library, 1950), p.8
85
describes in two forms, as ‘personal subjectivism’ and ‘social
subjectivism’. Personal refers to the mind of an individual,
whilst the social to the “mind” of the collective.

There are examples throughout history that negate the positive

aspects of such subjectivist “ideals”. Social subjectivism can be
referred to in the historical context: think of the Nazi Germany
or Stalin’s Russia. It is imperative that you sacrifice yourself for
the sake of your culture, nation, and country. “According to the
Nazis, to feel Hitler’s mystical authority… is to know it – and
6

feeling it is the only way to know it.” Such is the historical

example of a collective, social subjectivism.

In a sense, to be selfless, to be altruistic, is to become moral and

to selflessly serve others. To follow the words of God,
according to religion, is to be moral. To religion, it is God that is
your authority, for social subjectivism, it’s “society”.

But even denying this notion can lead to equally bad aspects of
human nature, which can be seen through personal subjectivism.
Someone can act according to their feelings and thoughts, being
convinced that they are doing the right thing for themselves.
This is a hedonistic approach which makes those people utter “I
feel like doing that”. This sort of behavior can be seen in

86
6 “Loving Life, The Morality of Self-Interest And The Facts That Support It”, Craig Biddle, p.17

87
criminals and psychopaths, who robb or murder. “Hedonism is
7

just glorified personal subjectivism.”

And what of social subjectivism? During Nazism, people “just

believed” in what they were told. It was the “community” that8
had the highest value, and ones’ sacrifice the “greatest virtue”.
They believed in that which they did not understand. So in the
name of the all mighty God, or in the name of the proletariat or
in the name of the “common good”, the people were convinced
that there was no other moral duty other than to be selfless and
sacrificed for the goals of the community or the “politically
correct” group, such as gender, class, race, etc.

But the biggest of them all to date is the one omnipotent God,
the one for whom the sacrifice is a selfless virtue. But why is the
sacrificial notion morally accepted or encouraged? Throughout
human history, many have “sacrificed” themselves in His name,
for its “higher purpose”. Clear example is the Crusades. And
while this is an example where believers fought against non-
believers, we should not forget about the fact that even believers
belonging to the same religion have arguments amongst
themselves, calling each other “defects”, “extremists”,
“cultists”. And each of them claims that their religion is the only

88
7 Ibid, p.12
8 Ibid. p.18

89
true religion, but none can prove their creed, none can prove that
9

others are wrong. “They all just feel it.”

“If we believe in absurdities, we shall commit atrocities.”

- François-Marie “Voltaire” Arouet

Last but not the least, Craig Biddle further puts the emphasis on
personal subjectivism – “the creed of common criminals,
sundry lowlifes, and creatures10 of prey that sacrifice people
because, well, they want to.”

In today’s times, much of the society turns to the ethics of social

subjectivism. As Craig describes it, it is the “altruistic pill” that
is coated with “hedonistic sugar” to be put forth as
11

“utilitarianism”. So says the book by John Stuart Mill

(Utilitarianism): “…actions are right in proportion as they tend

to promote happiness.” And so one should ask if altruism is
moral? Should you sacrifice yourself by serving others? If so, is
being good not good for you?

Craig breaks this down by the following example: “Consider a

young girl who dreams of becoming a great physicist. She needs
to learn from the best minds in the field. She cannot
compromise: if she does, she will not make it. But suppose that
90
9 Ibid, p.21
10 Ibid, p.22
11 Ibid, p.23

91
one day a General visits the girl’s school and tells her and her
classmates:

“Listen, you’re going to be a real citizen in this country.”

“What do you mean?” asks the little girl.

“You have to serve,” says the General, “you have to do

something in service to your community.”

“What do you mean? Exactly how must I serve?”

“By tutoring younger children…” says the General.

“But why? …What about the fact that I want to be a great

physicist, not a social worker? …What about the basic
principles of America? Don’t I have the right to my own life and
the pursuit of my own happiness?” asked the persistent and
brave young girl.

“If you want to know what violated my rights, it was the integral
calculus, not community service” quips the General.

The girl asked for reason, yet he has not given her one. She
asked why, but was not told why. Instead, he evaded to answer
by using sarcastic comments. He could not have given her a
straight answer because there is no rational justification for what
he says she, and her other classmates, must do. There is no
justification for self-sacrifice.

92
He can appeal to her as an alleged authority, whether it is
himself or some higher authority, such as “God” or society. And
what if he succeeds? What if he uses force? Then her life is, in
principle, slavery.

Craig Biddle finishes this story with the following thought: “I

submit that for an adult to sacrifice himself is immoral – but12for
an adult to force or encourage the sacrifice of a child is evil.”

He returns to the point of personal subjectivism – such people

are miserable people, yet they are considered ‘selfish’. He asks
whether that is an appropriate label for them and he concludes:

“Neither bloody murderers, nor big-time bank robbers… are

selfish – not in the true meaning of the term. Blindly following
one’s feelings – evading, ignoring…of one’s actual, long-term
well-being – is not in 13 one’s best interests. Irrationality is not

selfish; it is selfless.”

One’s true selfishness is to consist of thinking logically and

acting on rational principles towards both material
14 and spiritual
goals. “Being selfish consists in being rational.”

Yet, he explains, if to be moral is to be selfless, but it is practical

to be selfish (such as in the example of breathing), then life is

12 Ibid, p.24-27
13 Ibid, p.29
93
14 Ibid, p.30

94
an “obscene paradox”. There is a necessity of a “non-sacrificial
morality, a code of values that accounts for the actual,15 long-

term, material and spiritual requirements of human life” Yet he

mentions that such foundation is thought to be impossible to
find. So is one’s choice to either sacrifice oneself (to either
religion or society) or sacrifice others (by means of personal
subjectivism), masochism or sadism? Neither of them is a good
alternative.

Craig concludes the chapter on religion versus subjectivism with

the following thought:

“If we want to live happily – if we want to pursue our values

guiltlessly, with integrity – we need a third alternative; we need
to discover a natural, provable, objective standard of value on
which to base it… There is a non-sacrificial code of morality
16 –
and an objective standard of value on which it is based.”

15Ibid, p.30
16 Ibid, p.31
95
 BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. The Beauty of Ayn Rand's Ethics, Craig Biddle - https://
www.theobjectivestandard.com/2010/12/the-beau ty-of-
ayn-rands-ethics/
2. Identity politics vs. the Law of Identity, Craig Biddle -
https://www.theobjectivestandard.com/2018/08/identity-
politics-vs-the-law-of-identity/?fbclid=IwAR2mCdSUz
RT2lnKv1_PHXYlxQ4HEPfaTE9rAAxuaN_iIXOtV9L
MDNpjTmxE
3. Loving Life: The Morality of Self-Interest and the Facts
That Support It, Craig Biddle, 2002.
4. ARI Campus Courses
a. Ayn Rand, A Writer’s Life
b. Rand Summarizes Her Philosophy, Ayn Rand
c. Art in Education, Ayn Rand
d. The Philosophy of Objectivism, Leonard Peikoff
e. Is Man Free or Determined, Leonard Peikoff
f. Philosophy: Who Needs It, Ayn Rand

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 ABOUT US

Ayn Rand Center Europe is a non-profit organization,

established in 2016, originally founded under the name Balkan
Objectivist Center. For the past four years, the organization has
grown from a small local think-tank to a renowned organization
operating all over Europe. In order to reflect that growth, the
name changed from Balkan Objectivist Center to Ayn Rand
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Our team is passionate about the work that we do and is eager
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