Synopsis
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, RandĘs 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 RandĘs 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 RandĘs 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.
About the Author
Allan Gotthelf (Editor)
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.
James G. Lennox (Editor)
James G. Lennox is professor emeritus of history and philosophy of science at the University of Pittsburgh. He has published widely on Aristotle, Charles Darwin, and evolutionary biology. His books include Aristotle: On the Parts of Animals I–IV, a translation and commentary in Oxford’s Clarendon Aristotle Series, Aristotle’s Philosophy of Biology in the Cambridge Studies in Philosophy and Biology Series, Aristotle on Inquiry, and many coedited volumes.
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