Ayn Rand

Ayn Rand was a Russian-born American novelist and philosopher who founded the philosophy she called Objectivism. Born Alisa Rosenbaum in Saint Petersburg, she emigrated to the United States in 1926 and worked as a screenwriter before her novels The Fountainhead (1943) and Atlas Shrugged (1957) made her famous. In essays such as The Virtue of Selfishness (1964) she defended rational self-interest as the basis of ethics and laissez-faire capitalism as the only just social system. Academic philosophers have mostly criticised her arguments, but her influence on American libertarian politics has been large.

Key ideas

• Reality exists independently of minds, and reason is our only means of knowing it.
• Each person should act for their own rational self-interest; Rand called this the virtue of selfishness.
• Altruism, understood as a duty to sacrifice oneself for others, is in her view morally wrong.
• Laissez-faire capitalism is the only social system that fully respects individual rights.

Major works

• The Virtue of Selfishness (1964)
• The Fountainhead (1943)
• Atlas Shrugged (1957)
• We the Living (1936)
• Anthem (1938)

In the Book corner

• The Virtue of Selfishness 1964 · Beginner
  A collection of essays setting out the ethics of Objectivism, the philosophy Ayn Rand had dramatised in her novels, some by her…

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