Ayn Rand's concept of rational selfishness and moral purpose

Moral Environment

Ayn Rand's The Ethics of Emergencies speaks about the value of selfishness or self-interest. Although "selfishness" might seem negative at first, Rand's explanation makes quite a bit of sense. Rand speaks about selfishness as a rational process in which a person sets his/her hierarchy of values and lives according to those values in order to achieve the moral purpose of life: one's own happiness.

Summary of The Ethics of Emergencies

According to Ayn Rand's The Ethics of Emergencies, the moral purpose of life is to achieve one's own happiness. Describing her belief in Objectivism in 1962, Rand stated, "Man -- every man -- is an end in himself, not the means to the ends of others. He must exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself. The pursuit of his own rational self-interest and of his own happiness is the highest moral purpose of his life" (Rand, Introducing Objectivism, 2012). Rand rejects "altruism," which can be defined as "unselfish concern" (Dictionary.com LLC, 2012), and believes that the ethical basis for altruism is a "malevolent universe" metaphysics. "Malevolent universe" metaphysics, which Rand also rejects, holds that "man, by his very nature, is helpless and doomed -- that success, happiness, achievement are impossible to him -- that emergencies, disasters, catastrophes are the norm of his life and that his primary goal is to combat them" (Peikoff, 2012). According to Rand, given the moral purpose of achieving one's own happiness, sacrifice is neither morally required nor admirable. The rational principle of conduct to adhere to this moral purpose is to always act in accordance with the hierarchy of your values. Rand believes that the virtue called "selfishness" requires: "(a) a hierarchy of values set by the standards of one's self-interest, and (b) the refusal to sacrifice a higher value to a lower one or to a nonvalue" (Rand, 1964, p. 55).

Conclusion

A moral person could be tempted to reject the ideas in Ayn Rand's The Ethics of Emergencies, until that person examines Rand's explanation. For Rand, the moral purpose of life is to achieve one's own happiness and an individual should rationally establish a hierarchy of values based on self-interest and adhere to that hierarchy. In some cases, that would mean "live and let die" because helping the other person will conflict with our self-interest. In other cases, that would mean helping another person because his/her well-being serves our self-interest. Applying that to today's moral environment, it is possible for any rational person or community or nation to help another person or community or nation and still be approved by Ayn Rand's moral philosophy.