Playboy Interview: Ayn Rand
A 1964 interview of Ayn Rand from Playboy magazine.
Galt’s statement is a dramatized summation of the Objectivist ethics. Any system of ethics is based on and derived, implicitly or explicitly, from a metaphysics. The ethic derived from the metaphysical base of Objectivism holds that, since reason is man’s basic tool of survival, rationality is his highest virtue. To use his mind, to perceive reality and to act accordingly, is man’s moral imperative. The standard of value of the Objectivist ethics is: man’s life — man’s survival qua man — or that which the nature of a rational being requires for his proper survival. The Objectivist ethics, in essence, hold that man exists for his own sake, that the pursuit of his own happiness is his highest moral purpose, that he must not sacrifice himself to others, nor sacrifice others to himself. It is this last that Galt’s statement summarizes.
Kottke Note: Rand is nothing if not decisive and consistent in her answers…except where she contradicts herself. (Aside: I would love to read a blog written by Fake Ayn Rand where she reviews current movies. Someone start that up, please.) For more on Rand, see EA 09/16/07. [via link]
Errant Aesthete
Q: What natural gift would you most like to possess?
Ethics and metaphysics arise not from thin air, but from the character and attitude of those who propose them. Alas, Rand’s were rather mean, and so she missed the fact that reason is but one of man’s basic survival tools (along with love and insight/imagination); and rationality but one of our highest virtues (along with mercy and forgiveness). A life spent only pleasing oneself is just as unbalanced as a life spent only pleasing everyone else. Through most of human history, man lived tribally. Bonds of love, affection and mutual support sustained our survival at least as much as personal ambition or individual enterprise.
On average, life is not optimally successful by embracing one extreme or the other, but rather by finding balance. Any metaphysics worth a damn seeks a mind at peace, a heart of joy, and a balanced life. To the extent that sole selfishness or sole selflessness fail to enable those goals, they fail as a basis for ethics.
So beautifully, eloquently and thoughtfully said. Thank you for taking the time to comment.
I just started reading Alan de Botton’s ‘How Proust Can Change Your Life‘ (my prelude to Marcel’s 4300 page masterpiece) and found this notion of the pursuit of one’s own happiness that Rand advocated so fervently, cleverly and ingenuously dismissed in the first chapter, the first paragraph:
“There are few things humans are more dedicated to than unhappiness. Had we been placed on earth by a malign creator for the exclusive purpose of suffering, we would have good reason to congratulate ourselves on our enthusiastic response to the task. Reasons to be inconsolable abound: the frailty of our bodies, the fickleness of love, the insecurities of social life, the compromises of friendship, the deadening effects of habit. In the face of such persistent ills, we might naturally expect that no event would be awaited with greater anticipation than the moment of our own extinction.”
This brief and fanciful excerpt does not do this theme sufficient justice, although I think Ms. Rand herself could have found the humor in this from a man (Proust) who lived the whole of his life as an apology. Perhaps she simply required a bit more charm, whimsy, and affection in her own life and may have learned much had she followed the counsel of someone who had difficulty stepping out of bed.