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Ayn Rand, what did she believe exactly?

Posted: Sat May 25, 2019 11:18 am
by Red
brimstone and I briefly brought up Ayn Rand. I have an idea of what Rand's 'Objectivist' philosophy (self-interest is the only way to morality), and I mistakenly thought that Rand and her cronies believed that altruism was immoral (as a moral system they think it's wrong, but not necessarily in and of itself).

I know that a lot of members of the Slaughter House Discord server are Randroids, but no way in hell am I going back there.

Any good literature to read on Rand that was not written by Rand?

Re: Ayn Rand, what did she believe exactly?

Posted: Tue May 28, 2019 1:43 pm
by glaringCephalopod
The SEP article on her is pretty good: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ayn-rand/

Re: Ayn Rand, what did she believe exactly?

Posted: Tue May 28, 2019 4:37 pm
by Red
Thanks glaring, I'll give it a read (it's pretty long)!

Any thoughts on Rand here?

Re: Ayn Rand, what did she believe exactly?

Posted: Wed May 29, 2019 1:44 pm
by glaringCephalopod
She's bad. The philosophy essentially starts with self-survival and use of reason being the highest values, but then claims that reason can only be violated if someone uses force against you because you cant use reason at the barrel of a gun. Therefore initiating force is bad, but defending your property doesn't count. The fact that you can't use reason if you're starving and have no way of getting food without stealing or working for extremely low pay either is completely ignored, which is the root of all the problems with her philosophy. Altruism isn't necessarily immoral but trying to force it would be since that's initiating force.