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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...
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).
Application of Rand's Ideas to Today's Moral Environment
We might tend to think of "selfishness" as a strictly bad thing. Applying Rand's ideas to today's moral environment, it first appears that Rand is telling us to "live and let die": strive only for ourselves and let others fail, sink and die. Sometimes that might be true, depending on the hierarchy we have set according to our own self-interest. However, as Rand also…
Works Cited
Dictionary.com LLC. (2012). Altruism. Retrieved on June 10, 2012 from thesaurus.com Web site: http://thesaurus.com/browse/altruism?s=t
Peikoff, L. (2012). Malevolent universe premise. Retrieved on June 10, 2012 from aynrandlexicon.com Web site: http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/malevolent_universe_premise.html
Rand, A. (1964). The Ethics of Emergencies. In A. Rand, & N. Branden, The Virtue of Selfishness (pp. 49-56). New York, NY: New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA), Inc.
Rand, A. (2012). Introducing Objectivism. Retrieved on June 10, 2012 from aynrandlexicon.com Web site: http://aynrandlexicon.com/ayn-rand-ideas/introducing-objectivism.html
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