RE: I can’t see what difference it makes.
Well I think I can.
If we simply exist because of nature, then our ultimate end is the same regardless of whether we decide to be like Ayn Rand or Osama Bin Ladin.
Since one’s destiny is ultimately unrelated to one’s behavior, you may as well just live as you please. As Dostoyevsky put it: “If there is no immortality then all things are permitted.”
On this basis, a writer like Ayn Rand is absolutely correct to praise the virtues of selfishness. Live totally for self; no one holds you accountable!
Indeed, it would be foolish to do anything else, for life is too short to jeopardize it by acting out of anything but pure self-interest. Sacrifice for another person would be stupid.
In which case, I don’t see why either desiring to subscribe to Ayn Rand’s philosophy or not would matter in the end if her idea of how we came into being is right.
For in Ayn rand’s universe, REAL good and evil, rationality or irrationality do not exist. There is only the bare valueless fact of existence, and there is no one to say you are right and I am wrong.
BTW, I get the impression Henderson never read Atlas Shrugged. If somewhere he says he did and offers some kind of interpretation or critique, I’ll stand corrected.
Oh, nonsense. You obviously don't know a thing about Rand's philosophy but just upchuck bits and pieces you've read.
Rand believed that man's only moral obligation is to himself and to those to whom he freely obligates himself. If people followed that dictum, we would be much better off as a society.
Wouldn't you agree?
FReepers who wish to comment on Rand's philosophy would do well to put "Atlas Shrugged" back on the bookshelf and read one of her dozens of non-fiction books and a couple of her hundreds of essays.