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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.

The Assassination of Ali Khamenei
The Assassination of Ali Khamenei

The United States was absolutely justified in killing Ali Khamenei. It was a good and moral act. Khamenei was one of the most evil political leaders on earth. Since taking power in 1989, he presided over a regime that systematically oppressed the Iranian people. His government relied on torture, imprisonment, and murder on a massive scale long before the recent protests.

Value as Objective and Relational
Value as Objective and Relational

According to this traditional dichotomy, values either exist apart from valuers (intrinsicism) or do not exist in any philosophical sense, representing only psychological dispositions (subjectivism). Rand defends an objective account of values. On this view, certain things are objectively values to a living organism. A value is something a living organism “acts to gain and/or keep.” The standard of value is the individual’s own life. For human beings, the purpose of that life is happiness.

“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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New Intellectuals Wanted!

“Who are to be the New Intellectuals? Any man or woman who is willing to think. All those who know that man's life must be guided by reason, those who value their own life and are not willing to surrender it to the cult of despair in the modern jungle of cynical impotence, just as they are not willing to surrender the world to the Dark Ages and the rule of collectivist brutes.”

Ayn Rand, For the New Intellectual

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Student Membership

Support the advancement of Objectivism in Australia today

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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.

Learn Objectivism
Learn Objectivism