Ayn Rand's Normative Ethics

The Virtuous Egoist

Tara Smith author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Cambridge University Press

Published:3rd Apr '06

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

This hardback is available in another edition too:

Ayn Rand's Normative Ethics cover

Explains the fundamental virtues that Rand considers vital for a person to achieve his objective well-being.

Explains the fundamental virtues that Rand considers vital for a person to achieve his objective well-being: rationality, honesty, independence, justice, integrity, productiveness, and pride. Tara Smith examines what each of these virtues consists in, why it is a virtue, and what it demands of a person in practice.Ayn Rand is well known for advocating egoism, but the substance of that instruction is rarely understood. Far from representing the rejection of morality, selfishness, in Rand's view, actually demands the practice of a systematic code of ethics. This book explains the fundamental virtues that Rand considers vital for a person to achieve his objective well-being: rationality, honesty, independence, justice, integrity, productiveness, and pride. Tracing Rand's account of the harmony of human beings' rational interests, Smith examines what each of these virtues consists of, why it is a virtue, and what it demands of a person in practice. Along the way she addresses the status of several conventional virtues within Rand's theory, considering traits such as kindness, charity, generosity, temperance, courage, forgiveness, and humility. Ayn Rand's Normative Ethics thus offers an in-depth exploration of several specific virtues and an illuminating integration of these with the broader theory of egoism.

'The first detailed and scholarly study of Rand's conception of virtue, Tara Smith's Ayn Rand's Normative Ethics: The Virtuous Egoist is an important and timely book.' Robert Mayhew, Philosophical Books
'The issues raised by this book are manifold and provocative.' Helen Cullyer, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

ISBN: 9780521860505

Dimensions: 232mm x 161mm x 25mm

Weight: 650g

330 pages