A Study Of An Rande 's Individualism

In this paper, I take Ayn Rand’s ideology of individual as anobject to interpret individualism from a new perspective. AynRand is a famous American writer, philosopher and thinker, andalso a creator and advocate of the movement of Objectivism in1960s. I choose to research Ayn Rand’s individualism, one reasonis that she had an unique personal experience. She was born inRussia, and her father’s possessions were nationalized twice.After settled in the United States, Ayn Rand studiedindividualism deeper with her distinct institutional lifeexperiences. The other reason is that Ayn Rand’s individualism isbased on life and she set life as the logical starting point for herresearch. Today, compared with the era in which Ayn Rand was,both the social background and the ideological background havechanged a great deal, but the idea of Ayn Rand’s individualismstill has a unique value——the query and concern of life isalways the most fundamental subject of human being.The logical starting point of Ayn Rand’s ideology ofindividualism is just the human life, because only one’s life is hisown. In her view, life makes the value of life possible; life makesthe obtaining of value necessary; life is the standard todistinguish good from evil; life itself is the ultimate value. Then,how to achieve this ultimate value of life? Ayn Rand thoughtpeople achieve it by reason, goal and self-esteem. So there arethree corresponding virtues along the way to realize the value oflife: rationality, creativity and pride. If life itself is the ultimatevalue, whether such a process of realizing it will harm others’interests? Ayn Rand held a negative attitude to it. She emphasizeda rational self-interest, and thought that the existence of everyliving being is its end in itself, rather than a means for otherpurposes, or the interests of others. So one has to live for himself,neither sacrificing himself for others nor sacrificing others forhimself. And living for oneself means that obtaining their ownhappiness is human’s highest moral goal. While altruism is notthe same in this case. If people treat each other as equal trader, human’s reasonable interests will not conflict with each other.The principle of transaction is the only ethical principle ofrationalism. What kind of political and economic system isneeded to ensure the realization of such social relation? AynRand’s answer is: a full, pure, uncontrolled Faire-Capitalism. So,according to this idea, the paper starts it’s study.