Objectivism

"Objectivist philosophy" redirects here. For other uses of the term, see Objectivism.

Objectivism is the philosophy developed by the Russian-born American philosopher, writer, and novelist, Ayn Rand (1905–1982). 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.

Rand originally expressed her philosophical 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.

The name "Objectivism" derives from the principle that human knowledge and values are objective: they are not intrinsic to some inaccessible reality, nor created by the thoughts one has, but are determined by the nature of reality, to be discovered by man's mind. Rand chose the name because her preferred term for a philosophy based on the primacy of existence, existentialism, had already been taken.

Philosophy

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.

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

Metaphysics: objective reality

Rand's philosophy begins with three axioms: existence, identity, and 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." As Leonard Peikoff noted, Rand's argument "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."

Objectivism states that "Existence exists" and "Existence is Identity." To be is to be "an entity of a specific nature made of specific attributes." That which has no attributes does not and cannot exist. Hence, the axiom 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."

Rand held that since one is able to perceive something that exists, one's consciousness must exist, "consciousness being the faculty of perceiving that which exists." 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." Objectivism holds that the mind cannot create reality, but rather, it is a means of discovering reality.

Objectivist philosophy derives its explanations of action and causation from the axiom of identity, calling causation "the law of identity applied to action." According to Rand, it is entities that act, and every action is the action of an entity. The way entities act is caused by the specific nature (or "identity") of those entities; if they were different they would act differently.

On this basis of its metaphysical principles, Objectivism rejects belief in God, the supernatural, and "every 'spiritual' dimension, force, Form, Idea, entity, power, or whatnot alleged to transcend existence."

Epistemology: reason

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. 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." 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.'" 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 establishing its truth. 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 by a specific process and in a specific form is inherent in objective knowledge.

The attack on man's consciousness and particularly on his conceptual faculty has rested on the unchallenged premise that any knowledge acquired by a process of consciousness is necessarily subjective and cannot correspond to the facts of reality, since it is "processed knowledge... . [But] All knowledge is processed knowledge — whether on the sensory, perceptual or conceptual level. An "unprocessed" knowledge would be a knowledge acquired without means of cognition.

Kant's arguments to the contrary, according to Rand, amount 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." 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. 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 the 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: sense-perception, being physiologically determined, cannot make "mistakes" or err in responding to 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.

Simple 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.

One aspect of Rand's epistemology is her theory of concept-formation, presented in her Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology. 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.'".

"...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."

Rand did not consider the analytic-synthetic distinction to have merit. She similarly denied the existence of a priori knowledge. 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. An admirer of Aristotle's achievements in logic and epistemology, she titled the three parts of Atlas Shrugged ("A is A," "Non-Contradiction," and "Either/Or") in tribute to him.. The title sections appear to refer to three laws of logic: the law of identity, the law of non-contradiction and the law of excluded middle. 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.

Ethics: rational self-interest

Rand defines morality 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." Rand maintained that the first question isn't what should the code of values be, the first question is "Does man need values at all- and why?"

According to Rand, "it is only the concept of 'Life' that makes the concept of 'Value' possible," and, "the fact that a living entity is, determines what it ought to do." 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..." 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.

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." 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."

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. Rand summarizes:

If [man] chooses to live, a rational ethics will tell him what principles of action are required to implement his choice. If he does not choose to live, nature will take its course. Reality confronts a man with a great many 'must's,' but all of them are conditional: the formula of realistic necessity is: 'you must, if -' and the if stands for man's choice: 'if you want to achieve a certain goal'

Rand's explanation of values presents the view that an individual's primary moral obligation is to achieve his own well-being - it is for his life, and his self-interest in it that an individual ought to adhere to a moral code. Egoism is a corollary of setting man's life as the moral standard. 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 referred did not use the term "selfishness" 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.

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." 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 primary virtue in Objectivist ethics is rationality, as Rand meant it "the recognition and acceptance of reason as one's only source of knowledge, one's only judge of values and one's only guide to action."

Rand's egoism rejects subjectivism. There is a difference between rational self-interest as pursuit of one's own life and happiness in reality, and whim-worship or "hedonism." A whim-worshiper 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-worshiping "selfishness-without-a-self." She held that the former is good, and the latter evil, and that there is a fundamental difference between them.

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." The essence of Objectivist ethics is summarized by the oath her Atlas Shrugged character John Galt adhered to:

"I swear -- by my life and my love of it -- that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine."

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. That is, it determines the principles which constitute a moral social system.

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." 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."

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.

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 coercion by others, while the purpose of a constitution and Bill of Rights is to protect the individual from coercion by 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 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, as rationality cannot be compelled and is an exclusive capacity of the individual. Nonetheless, freedom does allow those who are rational and productive to achieve at their highest capacity.

As a result, Objectivism holds that the individual possesses inalienable Rights: life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of one's own happiness. "Rights are moral principles defining and sanctioning a man's freedom of action in a social context" . 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."

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—specifically, what Rand described as "full, pure, uncontrolled, unregulated laissez-faire capitalism." Rand includes Socialism, Fascism, Communism, Nazism, 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." 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.

As Rand was an advocate of free market capitalism, she rejected many "conservative" positions on philosophical grounds. Rand strongly advocated legal abortion. She also opposed involuntary military conscription, the "draft," and she opposed any form of censorship, including legal restrictions on pornography. Rand opposed racism, and any legal application of racism, and she considered affirmative action to be an example of legal racism. More recent Objectivists have argued that the Christian right poses a threat to individual rights, and have argued against displaying religious symbols (such as the Ten Commandments) in government facilities and against faith-based initiatives. Objectivists hold that religion is incompatible with American ideals and oppose the teaching of "intelligent design" in public schools.

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

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, including one's metaphysical value-judgments. 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," absent which, Rand believed, literature is robbed of dramatic power.

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.

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.

Intellectual impact

Main article: Objectivist movement

According to Rick Karlin, academic philosophers have generally dismissed Rand's ideas and have marginalized her philosophy. Online U.S. News and World Report columnist Sara Dabney Tisdale called Atlas Shrugged "sophomoric," "preachy," and "unoriginal." Because of Rand's criticism of contemporary intellectuals, Objectivism has been called "fiercely anti-academic." 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.

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

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; she has an entry in the Dictionary of Modern American Philosophers and one forthcoming in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 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.

Noted Aristotle scholar Allan Gotthelf (chairman of the Ayn Rand Society) responded unfavorably to this entry and came to her defense. 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.

Criticisms

William F. Buckley, Jr. called her philosophy "stillborn." Raymond Boisvert, a philosophy professor at Siena College, has opined that Rand's theories are out of sync with the complex interrelationships and interconnected systems of modern life. Chris Matthew Sciabarra in Ayn Rand; the Russian Radical, attempts to show that Rand eschewed dualistic oversimplification and embraced multi-dimensional analyses.

In the essay "On the Randian Argument," Harvard University philosopher Robert Nozick is sympathetic to Rand's political conclusions, but does not think her arguments justify them. In particular, his essay criticizes her foundational argument in ethics, stating that to make her argument - that one's own life is, for each individual, the ultimate value - sound, one needs to explain why someone could not rationally prefer dying and thus having no values. Thus, he argues, her attempt to defend the morality of selfishness is essentially an instance of begging the question. Nozick also argues that Rand's solution to David Hume's famous is-ought problem is unsatisfactory (as do others). Professors Douglas Rasumussen and Douglas Den Uyl contend Nozick's article itself had misstated Rand's case.

Psychologists Albert Ellis and Nathaniel Branden have argued that adherence to Objectivism can result in hazardous psychological effects. Following Rand's expulsion of him from her circle, Branden accused Rand and her followers of "destructive moralism," something he reports having engaged in himself when he was associated with Rand, but which he now claims "subtly encourages repression, self-alienation, and guilt."

Another scholar, Fred Seddon, has pubished Ayn Rand, Objectivists, and the History of Philosophy (2003) which deals with Objectivism's handling of some major figures in the history of philosophy including Plato, Augustine, Hume, Kant and Nietzsche.

Post-Rand development

See also: Bibliography for Ayn Rand and Objectivism

Since Rand's death, others have attempted to restate and apply her ideas in their own work. In 1991, prominent Objectivist Leonard Peikoff published Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, a comprehensive restatement of Rand's philosophy. Chris Matthew Sciabarra discusses Rand's ideas and theorizes about their intellectual origins in Ayn Rand: the Russian Radical (1995). Surveys such as On Ayn Rand by Allan Gotthelf (1999), Ayn Rand by Tibor R. Machan (2000), and Objectivism in One Lesson by Andrew Bernstein (2009) provide briefer introductions to Rand's ideas.

Some scholars have focused on applying Objectivism in more specific areas. David Kelley has expanded on Rand's epistemological ideas in works such as The Evidence of the Senses (1986) and A Theory of Abstraction (2001). In the field of ethics, Kelley has argued in works such as Unrugged Individualism (1996) and The Contested Legacy of Ayn Rand (2000) that Objectivists should pay more attention to the virtue of benevolence and place less emphasis on issues of moral sanction. Kelly's views have been controversial, with critics arguing that he contradicts important principles of Objectivism. Another author who focuses on Rand's ethics, Tara Smith, stays closer to Rand's original ideas in such works as Moral Rights and Political Freedom (1995), Viable Values (2000), and Ayn Rand's Normative Ethics (2006).

The political aspects of Rand's philosophy are discussed by Andrew Bernstein in The Capitalist Manifesto (2005). The comprehensive Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics by George Reisman (1996) attempts to integrate Objectivist methodology and insights with both Classical and Austrian economics. Other writers have explored the application of Objectivism to fields ranging from art (What Art Is by Louis Torres and Michelle Marder Kamhi, 2000) to teleology (The Biological Basis of Teleological Concepts by Harry Binswanger, 1990).

Works cited

• Peikoff, Leonard (1991). Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand. New York: E. P. Dutton. ISBN 0-452-01101-9.
• Rand, Ayn (1996) [1957]. Atlas Shrugged (35th anniversary paperback ed.). New York: Signet. ISBN 0-451-19114-5.
• Rand, Ayn (1964). The Virtue of Selfishness (paperback ed.). New York: Signet. ISBN 0-451-16393-1.
• Rand, Ayn (1990). Binswanger, Harry; Peikoff, Leonard (eds.). Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology (second ed.). New York: Meridian. ISBN 0-452-01030-6. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |lastauthoramp= ignored (|name-list-style= suggested) (help)

See also

• Objectivist movement
• Libertarianism and Objectivism

External links

• Ayn Rand Institute: The Center for the Advancement of Objectivism
• Capitalism.org
• The Atlas Society: The Center for Objectivism
• The Objectivism Reference Center