Roderick Long on Ayn Rand

by Will Wilkinson on January 20, 2010

Over at Cato Unbound, Rod Long commences “The Winnowing of Ayn Rand.” Rod seems to sign on to and endorse the eudaimonist interpretation of Rand’s ethics, natural teleology and all. But (as anyone who followed Unbound’s corporatism issue will know), Rod thinks historical capitalism is corporatist by nature and that the non-aggression principle implies that only a stateless society can have a really free market. Importantly, Rod points out along the way that Rand, far from being a philosophical lightweight, anticipated several central strains of contemporary philosophical thought.

Michael Drake

Can you sketch how you think Rand's theory of virtue (as outlined by Long) flows from the ground of purely self-interest? For instance, to say that moral virtue consists in a due regard for the "nobility and independence of spirit" that (say) Howard Roark posseses is (as I see it) to concede that there are values exogenous to (or at least analytically independent of) self-interest that ought to guide our moral deliberation and choice. And the more Randians try to harmonize paradigmatic moral behavior with egoism by appeal to these independent moral concepts, the less it looks anything like egoism.

Full disclosure: I think Rand is a philosophical hack. But I am genuinely interested in your view on this particular question.

Patrick

Childs argues that any state at all is inconsistent with deeper Objectivist principles.

It would not be the first time Objectivist principles were inconsistent. How can this even be argued, do these people just ignore the book that Rand wrote on this?

ClayBarham

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TGGP

jetpen, yeah I know Objectivism is officially minarchist. Childs argues that any state at all is inconsistent with deeper Objectivist principles.

Freddie:
If we can distinguish the "left" from "liberals", hardly any of the latter accepted Marx in the first place. Ayn Rand on the other hand is one of the founding mothers of the modern libertarian movement (even if Rothbard irritated her enough to reject the label). Tuccille wrote "It Usually Begins With Ayn Rand". Liberals don't have an equivalent "It Usually Begins With Karl Marx". I think Jonah Goldberg may have a point about John Dewey being the real tainted source there (though it doesn't usually begin with him either, more like his disciples).