FREE ESSAY ON AYN RAND: HER LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY

AYN RAND: HER LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY

AYN RAND: HER LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY
Ayn Rand was a novelist and philosopher who influenced many people's way of thinking in
very profound ways. She was born in Russia in 1905 and came to America at the age of
twenty-one where she published her first novel, We The Living, in 1936. The Fountainhead
was published in 1943 and brought Ayn Rand international fame. Although she considered
herself primarily a fiction writer, she realized that in order to create heroic fictional
characters, she had to identify the philosophic principles which make such individuals
possible. Later, she also expressed her philosophy in nonfiction form.
Ayn Rand named her philosophy "Objectivism" and described it as a philosophy for living
on earth. Objectivism is an integrated system of thought that defines the abstract
principles by which a man must think and act if he is to live the life proper to man. Ayn
Rand was once asked if she could present the essence of Objectivism while standing on one
foot. Her answer was:
Metaphysics: Objective Reality
Epistemology: Reason
Ethics: Self-interest
Politics: Capitalism
She then translated those terms into familiar language:
"Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed."
"You can't eat your cake and have it, too."
"Man is an end in himself."
"Give me liberty or give me death."
According to Ayn Rand, reality, the external world, exists independent of man's
consciousness, independent of anybody's knowledge, beliefs, feelings, desires or fears.
This means that A is A, that facts are facts, that things are what they are - and that
the task of man's consciousness is to perceive reality, not to create or invent it. Thus
Objectivism rejects any belief in the supernatural - and any claim that individuals or
groups create their own reality.
The theory of Objectivism also tells us that man's reason is fully competent to know the
facts of reality. Reason, the conceptual faculty, is the faculty that identifies and
integrates the material provided by man's senses. Reason is man's only means of acquiring
knowledge. Thus Objectivism rejects mysticism (any acceptance of faith or feeling as a
means of knowledge), and it rejects skepticism (the claim that certainty or knowledge is
impossible).
According to the theory of Objectivism, man is a rational being. Reason, as man's only
means of knowledge, is his basic means of survival. But the exercise of reason depends on
each individual's choice. According to Ayn Rand, "That which you call your soul or spirit
is your consciousness, and that which you call 'free will' is your mind's freedom to
think or not, the only will you have, your only freedom. This is the choice that controls
all the choices you make and determines your life and character." Thus Objectivism
rejects any form of determinism, the belief that man is a victim of forces beyond his
control (such as God, fate, upbringing, genes, or economic conditions). 
Rationality is man's basic virtue, and his three fundamental values are: reason, purpose,
self-esteem. Man - every man - is an end in himself, not a means to the ends of others;
he must live for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing
others to himself; he must work for his rational self-interest, with the achievement of
his own happiness as the highest moral purpose of his life.
Objectivism rejects any form of altruism - the claim that morality consists in living for
others or for society.
Ayn Rand also describes the relationship between her philosophy and politics. She
explains that, the basic social principle of the Objectivist ethics is that no man has
the right to seek values from others by means of physical force - i.e., no man or group
has the right to initiate the use of physical force against others. Men have the right to
use force only in self-defense and only against those who initiate its use. Men must deal
with one another as traders, giving value for value, by free, mutual consent to mutual
benefit. The only social system that bars physical force from human relationships is
laissez-faire capitalism. Capitalism is a system based on the recognition of individual
rights, including property rights, in which the only function of the government is to
protect individual rights, i.e., to protect men from those who initiate the use of
physical force. Thus Objectivism rejects any form of collectivism, such as fascism or
socialism. It also rejects the current "mixed economy" notion that the government should
regulate the economy and redistribute wealth.
According to Ayn Rand, "Art is a selective re-creation of reality according to an
artist's metaphysical value-judgments." The purpose of art is to concretize the artist's
fundamental view of existence. Ayn Rand described her own approach to art as "Romantic
Realism": "I am a Romantic in the sense that I present men as they ought to be. I am
Realistic in the sense that I place them here and now and on this earth." The goal of Ayn
Rand's novels is not didactic but artistic: the projection of an ideal man as an end in
himself - not as a means to any further end.
Every book by Ayn Rand published in her lifetime is still in print, and hundreds of
thousands of copies are sold each year, so far totalling more than twenty million.
Several new volumes have been published posthumously. Her vision of man and her
philosophy for living on earth have changed the lives of thousands of readers and
launched a philosophic movement with a growing impact on North American culture.