Ayn Rand’s contradictory life?

Via Muse Free, I came across this article in the NY Times by Adam Kirsch. From the article
When Bennett Cerf, a head of Random House, begged her to cut Galt’s speech, Rand replied with what Heller calls “a comment that became publishing legend”: “Would you cut the Bible?” …
In fact, any editor certainly would cut the [...]

Trials in The Fountainhead

I have been very busy at work lately and have fallen behind on my usual reading schedule but I took the time to read this piece by Prof Hornstein (via Ayn Rand in India). It is a good analysis of the significance of the two trials in ‘The Fountainhead’. Definitely worth reading.

The scope of free will

I was debating the issue of anarchy and was directed to this article (pdf) by Prof. Moshe Kroy which highlights some fundamental differences between Rand’s philosophy and Rothbard’s including the scope of free will.
According to Rand’s theory of human freedom, man’s only fundamental freedom, the sole domain in which he is capable of being a [...]

Democracy and anarchism

Aristotle The Geek has written a partial response to the debate on my previous post. He writes
What is an “unfree” market? Let me ask the question the other way round – what is a “free” market? It is a market in which the State does not interfere (the only “interference” would be of the enforcement of [...]

Why should values be agent-relative?

Heumer’s critique of Ayn Rand’s ”The Objectivist Ethics” begins with
…premise 1 [Value is agent-relative; things can only be valuable for particular entities] begs the question.
One of the central groups of opponents Rand is facing is people who believe in absolute value, and not just agent-relative value. The absolutist view is that it is possible for some things [...]

Hypotheticals, egoism, intuition and Heumer

Via this debate on Aristotle The Geek’s blog, I came across this critique of Ayn Rand’s essay “The Objectivist Ethics” on Michael Heumer’s website. After reading through the mind-numbing (primarily because of its length) critique and disagreeing with it, I took a look at some other pages on his site and found this critique of egoism. Heumer is [...]

Ayn Rand’s novels

For some time, I have been thinking of writing a series of posts on “Atlas Shrugged”. What I took away from it, why I was so influenced by it, why I enjoyed it. So I was delighted to discover the comment thread on Aristotle The Geek’s post Dry Humor that featured an excerpt from “The [...]

Aspiring for a developed India

A commentator (call him X since he did not disclose his identity) wrote:
Consider India, which is a developing nation with majority of its population still below the poverty line. If we aspire for a developed India, every Indian must be educated . It is only by (good quality and free) Government schools one can achieve complete [...]

Poverty

What is poverty? What are its causes? Is it a personal problem or a social problem or a political problem? Whose responsibility is it? What actions are needed to eradicate it?
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines poverty as
1 a: the state of one who lacks a usual or socially acceptable amount of money or material possessions b: [...]