Objections to Objectivism: critiques of Ayn Rand from a moderate Patrick Szalapski

Do we need other individuals to override our will, our purpose, or our judgment in order to promote our own life? Does Ayn Rand simply overreact to postmodernism? Is Objectivism mostly modernism repackaged? Where does our understanding of reality come from? How well does Rand argue for Objectivism? How does Objectivism compare and contrast with Christian theology?

Do individuals need the will and overriding judgment of others to be their best selves? Is there really, as Ayn Rand says, no place for society to override and correct my self-interest? Can I know myself well enough to assert my own will? Guest Zach Schmitt joins to help answer these questions and also tells us more of Ayn Rand's origins and contrasts her with Walker Percy and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

Is rational self-interest sufficient as a basis for morals and indeed all philosophy? What does Rand mean by rational self-interest? How must I decide what is rational? Is our rational self-interest often obvious? Is rational self-interest enforcable or at all self-enforcing? Is rational self-interest persuasive? Can it change the hearts of evil men, or at least lead them into less evil? Plus, taking potshots using Ayn Rand as ammo, and considering the context of the non-initiation-of-force principle.

Is the non-aggression principle wise or naive? Can the idea that those who initiate force are always in the wrong be the foundation for all ethics? Plus, a Washington Post article by Jennifer Burns proclaims Ayn Rand's ideas dead.

Objectivism is Ayn Rand's philosophy that she claims can be derived from Aristotle's basic axioms of logic, specifically, from the idea that A=A--that existence is identity. Reason, purpose, and self-esteem are paramount, and the meaning of life is to be happy through rational self-interest.