Metaethics, Egoism, and Virtue

Studies in Ayn Rand's Normative Theory

The Ayn Rand Society Philosophical Studies series will further the serious study of Ayn Rand, placing her in the history of philosophy and helping to demonstrate the originality and depth of a philosopher who is still often overlooked.
Michael S. Berliner, Founding Director, Ayn Rand Institute

Philosopher-novelist Ayn Rand (1905–1982) is a cultural phenomenon. Her books have sold more than 25 million copies, and countless individuals speak of her writings as having significantly influenced their lives. In spite of the popular interest in her ideas, or perhaps because of it, RandÆs work has until recently received little serious attention from academics. Though best known among philosophers for her strong support of egoism in ethics and capitalism in politics, there is an increasingly widespread awareness of both the range and the systematic character of RandÆs philosophic thought. This new series, developed in conjunction with the Ayn Rand Society, an affiliated group of the American Philosophical Association, Eastern Division, seeks a fuller scholarly understanding of this highly original and influential thinker.The first volume starts not with the metaphysical and epistemological fundamentals of RandÆs thought, but with central aspects of her ethical theory. Though her endorsement of ethical egoism is well-known—one of her most familiar essay collections is The Virtue of Selfishness—the character of her egoism is not. The chapters in this volume address the basis of her egoism in a virtue-centered normative ethics; her account of how moral norms in general are themselves based on a fundamental choice by an agent to value his own life; and how her own approach to the foundations of ethics is to be compared and contrasted with familiar approaches in the analytic ethical tradition. Philosophers interested in the objectivity of value, in the way ethical theory is (and is not) virtue-based, and in acquiring a serious understanding of an egoistic moral theory worthy of attention will find much to consider in this volume, which includes critical responses to several of its main essays.

200 Pages, 6 x 9 in.

January, 2014

isbn : 9780822962724

about the editors

Allan  Gotthelf

Allan Gotthelf (1942–2013) was Anthem Foundation Distinguished Fellow for Research and Teaching in Philosophy at Rutgers University. He is the author of On Ayn Rand and Teleology, First Principles, and Scientific Method in Aristotle’s Biology, and coeditor of Philosophical Issues in Aristotle’s Biology and Ayn Rand: A Companion to Her Works and Thought. He was a founding member of the Ayn Rand Society and the Ayn Rand Society Philosophical Studies book series.

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Allan  Gotthelf
James G. Lennox

James G. Lennox is professor of history and philosophy of science at the University of Pittsburgh. He is the author of Aristotle: On the Parts of Animals I–IV and Aristotle’s Philosophy of Biology: Studies in the Origins of Life Science. Lennox is coeditor of Philosophical Issues in Aristotle’s Biology; Being, Nature, and Life in Aristotle: Essays in Honor of Allan Gotthelf; and Concepts, Theories, and Rationality in the Biological Sciences.

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James G. Lennox