The Virtue of Selfishness

by Ayn Rand

Since nature does not provide man with an automatic form of survival, since he has to support his life by his own effort, the doctrine that concern with one’s own interests is evil means that man’s desire to live is evil—that man’s life, as such, is evil. No doctrine could be more evil than that.

What is morality, or ethics? It is a code of values to guide man’s choices and actions—the choices and actions that determine the purpose and the course of his life. Ethics, as a science, deals with discovering and defining such a code.

“Man has been called a rational being, but rationality is a matter of choice—and the alternative his nature offers him is: rational being or suicidal animal. Man has to be man—by choice; he has to hold his life as a value—by choice; he has to learn to sustain it—by choice; he has to discover the values it requires and practice his virtues—by choice. A code of values accepted by choice is a code of morality.”

Since reason is man’s basic means of survival, that which is proper to the life of a rational being is the good; that which negates, opposes or destroys it is the evil.

Since everything man needs has to be discovered by his own mind and produced by his own effort, the two essentials of the method of survival proper to a rational being are: thinking and productive work.

that which is required for man’s survival qua man. It does not mean a momentary or a merely physical survival. It does not mean the momentary physical survival of a mindless brute, waiting for another brute to crush his skull. It does not mean the momentary physical survival of a crawling aggregate of muscles who is willing to accept any terms, obey any thug and surrender any values, for the sake of what is known as “survival at any price,” which may or may not last a week or a year. “Man’s survival qua man” means the terms, methods, conditions and goals required for the survival of a rational being through the whole of his lifespan—in all those aspects of existence which are open to his choice.

Irrationality is the rejection of man’s means of survival and, therefore, a commitment to a course of blind destruction; that which is anti-mind, is anti-life.

never resigning oneself passively to any flaws in one’s character—by never placing any concern, wish, fear or mood of the moment above the reality of one’s own self-esteem.

rejection of the role of a sacrificial animal, the rejection of any doctrine that preaches self-immolation as a moral virtue or duty.

If a man desires and pursues contradictions—if he wants to have his cake and eat it, too—he disintegrates his consciousness; he turns his inner life into a civil war of blind forces engaged in dark, incoherent, pointless, meaningless conflicts (which, incidentally, is the inner state of most people today).

rational selfishness—which means: the values required for man’s survival qua man—which means: the values required for human survival—not the values produced by the desires, the emotions, the “aspirations,” the feelings, the whims or the needs of irrational brutes, who have never outgrown the primordial practice of human sacrifices, have never discovered an industrial society and can conceive of no self-interest but that of grabbing the loot of the moment.

It is only on the basis of rational selfishness—on the basis of justice—that men can be fit to live together in a free, peaceful, prosperous, benevolent, rational society.

The only proper, moral purpose of a government is to protect man’s rights, which means: to protect him from physical violence—to protect his right to his own life, to his own liberty, to his own property and to the pursuit of his own happiness. Without property rights, no other rights are possible.

“You have been using fear as your weapon and have been bringing death to man as his punishment for rejecting your morality. We offer him life as his reward for accepting ours.”

Self-esteem is the consequence, expression and reward of a mind fully committed to reason.

An unobstructed consciousness, an integrated consciousness, a thinking consciousness, is a healthy consciousness. A blocked consciousness, an evading consciousness, a consciousness torn by conflict and divided against itself, a consciousness disintegrated by fear or immobilized by depression, a consciousness dissociated from reality, is an unhealthy consciousness.

There is no greater self-delusion than to imagine that one can render unto reason that which is reason’s and unto faith that which is faith’s. Faith cannot be circumscribed or delimited; to surrender one’s consciousness by an inch, is to surrender one’s consciousness in total.

The root of selfishness is man’s right—and need—to act on his own judgment.

An irrational morality, a morality set in opposition to man’s nature, to the facts of reality and to the requirements of man’s survival, necessarily forces men to accept the belief that there is an inevitable clash between the moral and the practical—that they must choose either to be virtuous or to be happy, to be idealistic or to be successful, but they cannot be both. This view establishes a disastrous conflict on the deepest level of man’s being, a lethal dichotomy that tears man apart: it forces him to choose between making himself able to live and making himself worthy of living. Yet self-esteem and mental health require that he achieve both.

“Sacrifice” is the surrender of a greater value for the sake of a lesser one or of a nonvalue. Thus, altruism gauges a man’s virtue by the degree to which he surrenders, renounces or betrays his values (since help to a stranger or an enemy is regarded as more virtuous, less “selfish,” than help to those one loves). The rational principle of conduct is the exact opposite: always act in accordance with the hierarchy of your values, and never sacrifice a greater value to a lesser one.

Since one’s own happiness is the moral purpose of one’s life, the man who fails to achieve it because of his own default, because of his failure to fight for it, is morally guilty.

One’s sole obligation toward others, in this respect, is to maintain a social system that leaves men free to achieve, to gain and to keep their values.

The fact is that men do not live in lifeboats—and that a lifeboat is not the place on which to base one’s metaphysics.

values,

not disasters, are the goal, the first concern and the motive power of his life.

He chooses and/or identifies his desires by a process of reason, and he does not act to achieve a desire until and unless he is able rationally to validate it in the full context of his knowledge and of his other values and goals. He does not act until he is able to say: “I want it because it is right.”

he does not regard any moment as cut off from the context of the rest of his life, and that he allows no conflicts or contradictions between his short-range and long-range interests.

Needless to say, a rational man never distorts or corrupts his own standards and judgment in order to appeal to the irrationality, stupidity or dishonesty of others.

A rational man knows that one does not live by means of “luck,” “breaks” or favors, that there is no such thing as an “only chance” or a single opportunity, and that this is guaranteed precisely by the existence of competition. He does not regard any concrete, specific goal or value as irreplaceable. He knows that only persons are irreplaceable—only those one loves.

Because a genuinely selfish man chooses his goals by the guidance of reason—and because the interests of rational men do not clash—other men may often benefit from his actions. But the benefit of other men is not his primary purpose or goal; his own benefit is his primary purpose and the conscious goal directing his actions.

The selfishness of a man who is willing to die, if necessary, fighting for his freedom, lies in the fact that he is unwilling to go on living in a world where he is no longer able to act on his own judgment—that is, a world where human conditions of existence are no longer possible to him.

Man’s emotional mechanism is like an electronic computer: man has the power to program it, but no power to change its nature—so that if he sets the wrong programming, he will not be able to escape the fact that the most self-destructive desires will have, for him, the emotional intensity and urgency of lifesaving actions. He has, of course, the power to change the programming—but only by changing his values.

There are, broadly, five (interconnected) areas that allow man to experience the enjoyment of life: productive work, human relationships, recreation, art, sex.

The pleasure of using one’s consciousness properly, and the “pleasure” of being unconscious, are not the same—just as the pleasure of achieving real values, of gaining an authentic sense of efficacy, and the “pleasure” of temporarily diminishing one’s sense of fear and helplessness, are not the same.

For the rational, psychologically healthy man, the desire for pleasure is the desire to celebrate his control over reality.

the kind of art works one responds to, depends on one’s deepest values and premises.

To preserve an unclouded capacity for the enjoyment of life, is an unusual moral and psychological achievement. Contrary to popular belief, it is the prerogative, not of mindlessness, but of an unremitting devotion to the act of perceiving reality, and of a scrupulous intellectual integrity. It is the reward of self-esteem.

A compromise is an adjustment of conflicting claims by mutual concessions. This means that both parties to a compromise have some valid claim and some value to offer each other. And this means that both parties agree upon some fundamental principle which serves as a base for their deal.

There can be no compromise between a property owner and a burglar; offering the burglar a single teaspoon of one’s silverware would not be a compromise, but a total surrender—the recognition of his right to one’s property.

Today, however, when people speak of “compromise,” what they mean is not a legitimate mutual concession or a trade, but precisely the betrayal of one’s principles—the unilateral surrender to any groundless, irrational claim.

There can be no compromise on moral principles. “In any compromise between food and poison, it is only death that can win. In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit.” (Atlas Shrugged.)

One must never fail to pronounce moral judgment.

There is, however, a court of appeal from one’s judgments: objective reality.

To judge means: to evaluate a given concrete by reference to an abstract principle or standard.

When one pronounces moral judgment, whether in praise or in blame, one must be prepared to answer “Why?” and to prove one’s case—to oneself and to any rational inquirer.

one must speak up in situations where silence can objectively be taken to mean agreement with or sanction of evil.

Moral values are the motive power of a man’s actions.

In tones ranging from astonishment to sarcasm to anger to indignation to hysterical hatred, the doctrine is thrown at you in the form of an accusatory: “Surely you don’t think in terms of black-and-white, do you?” Prompted by confusion, helplessness and fear of the entire subject of morality, most people hasten to answer guiltily: “No, of course, I don’t,” without any clear idea of the nature of the accusation. They do not pause to grasp that that accusation is saying, in effect: “Surely you are not so unfair as to discriminate between good and evil, are you?”—or: “Surely you are not so evil as to seek the good, are you?”—or: “Surely you are not so immoral as to believe in morality!”

Observe, in politics, that the term extremism has become a synonym of “evil,” regardless of the content of the issue (the evil is not what you are “extreme” about, but that you are “extreme”—i.e., consistent).

The unanswered and unanswerable question in all of their “desirable” goals is: To whom?