Rand, Ayn (1905–1982)

Ayn Rand was born Alissa Zinovievna Rosenbaum in St. Petersburg, Russia. Attracted by the United States' ideals of freedom and individualism, Rand fled from the Communist U.S.S.R. in 1926. Shocked to find much of the American public unappreciative of their freedom and their country's founding values, Rand set about writing philosophical novels intended to inform and inspire a broad readership about the wonders of individualism and capitalism and the dangers of collectivism and central planning.

Her early Broadway play Night of January 16th and her two earlier novels We the Living and Anthem paved the way for Rand's two enormously influential works of fiction. The Fountainhead recounts innovative architect Howard Roark's struggle and ultimate success maintaining his individualism and integrity in a world predominantly peopled by imitators and manipulators. Rand considered her penultimate novel Atlas Shrugged to be the complete statement of her Objectivist philosophy. In it, the hero John Galt and other brilliant American capitalists withdraw from a crumbling, increasingly regulated economy. Without their creative force, the economy teeters on disaster. Of the more than 25 million copies of Rand's fiction and nonfiction works purchased to date, Atlas Shrugged accounts for more than 5 million.

Rand holds that ethics must be conceived as a logical component of a philosophical worldview. Thus, before explaining her ethical theory, she argues for metaphysical realism and for reason as humans' only epistemology. Only then does she enter the realm of ethics or how humans should conduct themselves. Following Aristotle, she believes that ethics relate to the appropriateness or goodness of humans' behavior as humans. Because our epistemology shows us that living things pursue life and that humans' fundamental means of survival is reason, people should behave rationally and develop themselves to their fullest potential. The only political system that allows humans the freedom to live and to engage one another rationally is free market capitalism. Rand, thus, offers the field of business ethics one of the strongest available arguments for free markets.

While Rand has strong opinions on the subject of rights, she is not a “rights theorist.” Unlike theorists like Robert Nozick, she does not see rights as the foundation of ethics, but ethics as the foundation of rights. Ethical people will strive to build their own characters whether alone or dealing with other people; thus, they will have no rational incentive to engage in force or fraud. Only when dealing with the irrational do people need the protection of rights.

This distinction formed the basis of Rand's disagreement with Libertarianism. She saw this political position as founded on floating rights, ungrounded in broader philosophy. This divergence ultimately precipitated a rift among Rand's adherents that both broadened and deepened ongoing Objectivist research. Dr. David Kelley, by engaging in dialogue with the Libertarians, sanctioned their untenable position, according to Rand's [Page 1758]intellectual heir, Dr. Leonard Peikoff. Therefore, Kelley was expelled from what was then the solitary Randian association, the Ayn Rand Institute, which strove to protect, promulgate, and promote Rand's original ideas. Kelley's response was to open in 1989 what is now the Objectivist Center, in Washington, D.C., a think tank working to develop, refine, and apply Objectivism. Many Libertarians now ground their political positions in Rand's Objectivist philosophy.

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