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To: jonno

Love = altruism. Selfishness, not love, is the definition of virtue. Thus, no love for Dagny.


102 posted on 05/31/2005 1:13:15 PM PDT by B-Chan (Catholic. Monarchist. Texan. Any questions?)
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To: B-Chan
Love = altruism.

Rand's works explain in great detail why there is no equivalence between the two concepts:

"Altruism holds that no man has the right to exist for his won sake, that service to others is the only justification for his existence, and that self-sacrifice is his highest moral duty, virtue, and value...The American political system was based on a different moral principle: on the principle of a man's inalienable right to his own life - which means: on the principle that man has the right to exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself, and that men must deal with one another as traders, by voluntary choice to mutual benefit." -- Conservatism, An Obituary, Ayn Rand, 1960

Altruism is a philosophy that gave us Nazi death camps and Soviet gulags - it has nothing to do with romantic love, which is the very definition of a voluntary exchange.

110 posted on 06/01/2005 7:00:42 PM PDT by Mr. Jeeves ("Violence never settles anything." Genghis Khan, 1162-1227)
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