talkObjectivism.com

On the talkcast recorded June 24th, 2007, Brandon and I talk about the first essay in “The Virtue of Selfishness” called “The Objectivist Ethics”. The essay talks about the core values and virtues of Objectivism. It closes with a very short description of how they apply to a political system, but mainly focus on man as an individual.

Ayn Rand starts off by defining ethics and morality. Basically, she says it’s a code of values that someone uses to determine what is good and what is evil. The standard of value is an organism’s life.

“An organism’s life is its standard of value: that which furthers its life is the good, that which threatens it is the evil.” - The Virtue of Selfishness, Ayn Rand p.17

On page twenty-five, she applies this idea to rational man. She clarifies that we differ from animals by our ability to further our understanding of good and evil with reason. It is not just what will threaten our lives that is evil, evil is also that which threatens our (rational) values. Values should not be based off of whims; they should be based off of man’s ability to understand, rationally, what is in his or her self-interest.

This is only a taste of what is in the essay. There is so much information covered, it would take me more then a few minutes to talk about it here. Brandon and I discussed the whole thing on the show recorded on TalkShoe.com. After listening, if you think there is a point we missed, feel free to leave a comment and we will discuss it.

The essay we are going to discuss next week (July 1st) is the title essay in “Philosophy: Who Needs It?”. It is only $7.99 at most book stores, so there is no excuse not to read it.