Ayn Rand
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Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> World Literature -> United States -> Classics -> Rand, Ayn
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Philosophy -> Ethics & Morality
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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 125
Average rating: 4.0 of 5
How Selfish 4 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.
I find myself again reviewing a book by Ayn Rand that I quite liked. I am not a philosophy major so I won't be arguing about the soundness of her metaphysics or epistemology. I will simply say that while I don't agree with everything she has to say (few would) she makes very interesting observations. Her essay on the concept of human rights as a way to subjugate rulers to moral law is spot on. Her definition of sacrifice is also more logical than another one proposed in another review. Her idea that capitalism is the only free economic system borders on tautological and her support of property rights is a rarity amongst modern "thinkers". Again, while I don't support everything she said (I am still debating the idea of absolute morality, as if morality was something we can discover like the laws of physics) I think she makes strong arguments for personal freedom and the proper relation between a government and its governed.
Adolescent, juvenile philosophy 1 out of 5 stars.
4 of 23 people found this review helpful.
Objectism appeals to an adolescent mind. An individual who has thought about self, non-self, life, meaning, spirituality, materialism ... in any meaningful way cannot but come to the realization that Rand's philosophy is woefully superficial and juvenile. Or so one might hope...
People who are ardent devotees of Rand always seem to impress me as a bit odd. Their personalities and characters seem shallow, robotic, cold, underdeveloped but at the same time they appear smug and self-satisfied.
It is ironic that most Rand followers are intelligent, but not really. It truly does take an intelligent mind to convulute what is intuitive truth and combined with the ruse of so-called logic and rational thinking, build an artifice only a clever but misguided child might.
Rand's raison detre is the concept of "self". But what is the "self"? Rand superficially believes the self begins with one's personal mind or consciousness. And from there, all her "selfish" ethics follow. In her world, everything begins and ends with "self". In other words, the small little world encased in her tiny head.
To be sure, the "self" is the individual. This is not false. And therefore, it is logical that ethics should stem from this source and fountain.
But it's also not all true, either.
This is why Rand appeals to the adolescent. An adolescent is one who is yet maturing from childhood, growing into an adult individual. And this growing into his own is exciting. He is enthralled with his growing independence. His growing awareness of his individuality is exhilerating. To him, his little self is the beginning and end to all things.
But as adolescents grows older, most realize at some level that the "self" is not binary. As the ancient philosophers, mystics and sages before us have realized, the "self" is really a continuum. There are no clear lines. There is no beginning or end. No real boundaries; just those you create.
True wisdom comes when one is able to transcend the conventional, narrow definition of "self" that Rand defines and limits one's self to being.
Does a wider conception of self entail a politics and society empty of individual rights, liberties and freedoms? Of course not. Only a child would come to such a conclusion.
Contrary to Rand, a society that respects individual rights and liberties is possible concomitantly with a culture/philosophy that realizes that the "self" can be and is larger than the individual flesh and bones that encases our egos. It can be a society that respects not only individuals but peoples, nature and everything in the world... to fulfill and seek out their happiness in their own unique way while at the same time, helping each other without the need or expectation of "self interested benefit" in the narrowest sense.
Indeed, unlike Rand, whose ethics are driven by "self-interest"; the ethics of a "larger self" are driven by love and charity. But unlike Rand, the latter would realize that the two are really the same thing inasmuch as love is the enlargement of the self to include others in that idea of self, until ultimately, the binary notion of self disappears altogether.
Logically, then, loving others is really loving one's self inasmuch as one comes to realize that "I" am "you" and "you" are "me".
This realization however comes not by logic alone but intuitively. But it should not be dismissed because of that. All knowledge is first intuitive, until it is rationalized, categorized and logically made sense of by the conscious mind. However, what is intuitively obvious is sometimes mashed up into something else entirely by clever but juvenile minds.
Should self-interest in the Randian sense then play no part in our ethics? No. But in moderation.
If self is a continuum, then our ethics should reflect this. What I do, I do for myself, my family, my friends, my neighbor, for mankind and for the world in general. The mature individual realizes that ethics cannot be constructed based on the narowest definition of self alone. But neither can it be defined based solely on any one particular definition of self as well -- whether that be family, friends, tribe or nation. The mature, rational individual should keep all things in balance; and in this balance, his ethics follow.
I am "self" in the narrowest sense; but my "self" also exists in the widest sense that includes "you" and "everything" else. And when this is realized, "self-interest" = "your-interest" = "our interest" = "all interests" = love = transcendence.
