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Dishonesty Without Lies
Dishonesty Without Lies

Dishonesty consists not merely in uttering falsehoods, but in attempting to produce false understanding. And because context is indispensable to human cognition, the deliberate manipulation of context is itself a form of epistemic corruption.

The Package-Deal Fallacy in Government Regulation of Pharmaceuticals by Harrison Borough
The Package-Deal Fallacy in Government Regulation of Pharmaceuticals by Harrison Borough

The regulation of pharmaceuticals in Australia - and everywhere else - relies on packaging two fundamentally different phenomena under the single concept “regulation”: the legitimate prevention of fraud, and the coercive restriction of voluntary exchange. A rights-respecting legal framework would punish deception, contamination, negligence, and false advertising while leaving peaceful individuals free to produce, prescribe, purchase, and consume substances voluntarily.

The Proper Function of Reason & Emotion
The Proper Function of Reason & Emotion

Since emotions are automatic, one cannot be held morally responsible for merely experiencing them. However, one is responsible for how one deals with them. A person has a self-interested obligation to identify his emotions accurately, particularly when they are unexpected or in tension with his explicit convictions. Such tensions indicate a disjunction between professed and actual values. To resolve them, one must determine what value was perceived to be at stake, whether it is in fact at stake, and whether it ought to be valued at all.

“The Impracticality of Pragmatism” by Janar Takis
“The Impracticality of Pragmatism” by Janar Takis

For four years Western leaders feared escalation from Russia and delayed decisive action. In doing so they helped create a far more dangerous situation: a hardened Russia supported by authoritarian allies.

This outcome was not inevitable. A principled strategy would have recognized the nature of the regime from the beginning. Dictatorial aggression cannot be “managed.” It must be defeated.

“Anyone who fights for the future, lives in it today.”

- Ayn Rand

Black and white portrait of a woman with short hair, looking directly at the camera with a slight smile.

The Australian Centre for Objectivism was founded to advance Objectivism in Australia though educational and cultural engagement.

We promote the study and application of Ayn Rand’s philosophy through university initiatives, regular city meetups, and public events - building a lasting institutional presence for Objectivism in Australia.

Photo: © Leonard Peikoff, photograph by Talbot

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Ayn Rand, For the New Intellectual

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What is Objectivism?

Ayn Rand was once famously asked to summarise her philosophy while standing on one foot. She embraced the challenge and replied:

“Metaphysics: objective reality. Epistemology: reason. Ethics: self-interest. Politics: capitalism.”

  • Reality is an objective absolute that exists independently of anyone’s consciousness. Everything that exists has a definite identity and is a part of this reality. There is no “other” reality, universe or dimension outside of existence. All entities act in accordance with their nature. A thing cannot act against its nature (this would require it to be not what it is, which would be a contradiction).

  • Our means of perception are inerrant and function automatically, supplying the raw material from which we form all our knowledge. Reason - “the faculty which identifies and integrates the material provided by man’s senses” - does not function automatically and must be directed by choice and in a state of focus. If one chooses to think and follows an objective method of cognition, one may achieve conceptual knowledge. Only individual minds can think - there are no collective brains. The purpose of knowledge is ultimately the advancement of one’s own life.

  • The objective requirements of every individual’s life are the source - and the standard - of all his/her values.

    Values do not exist apart from individuals; values do not come from any mystical source, such as God, nor from any social source, such as society.

    Objectivism advocates egoism - the view that each individual should be the moral beneficiary of his/her own actions. Altruism (self-sacrifice) is evil.

    Objectivism recognises that what is, in fact, to one’s own benefit can only be determined by reason - and not by fear, revelation, or emotional whim.

    Rand defined “happiness” as “the state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of values.”

    The achievement of one’s own happiness is the highest moral purpose of one’s life.

  • Capitalism is “the political-economic system based on the recognition of individual rights”. Unlike all other systems, capitalism protects individual rights by banning the initiation of force from all human relations. Under capitalism, each individual is free to act on the judgement of his/her own mind to produce values. One trades with others, who produce different values, by voluntary consent and to mutual benefit.

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