Ayn Rand’s philosophy (as she explains in her diaries and an unfinished novel) was based on an admiration for men who did not have the capacity to care about their fellow human beings.

We call those types “socipaths” and “serial killers”, not “examples of manliness”.

I have read your comment and also did some reading into Ayn Rand and her philosphy of Objectivism. I have to say that I disagree with your arguement. If it was not for the sacrifices of others (police, military etc) then we would not be living in a world where you have the right to free speech. I believe that sacrifice to be one of the highest values of humanity. I have done it for the last 25 years in more ways than one and I am proud of my service/sacrifice to others. The ideology of pursuit of ones own happiness and not sacrificing for others is a self centred and selfish way to exist. Please do not think that this comment is a direct attack on your belief as it is not. I just truly believe that without sacrifice civilization could not exist.

Kindest regards

“there is nothing whatsoever honorable, or virtuous, or one’s-life-supporting–or manly–about self-sacrifice–to anything or anyone”

Ayn Rand came to this philisophical conclusion after *others* sacrificed to have her sent to the United States. There is more manliness in self-sacrifice then anything she ever did. Were it not for the willingness to self-sacrifice, I wouldn’t exist.

You said, “There simply isn’t a military on the planet that operates under such a highly-developed ethic, even when it’s to our own detriment.”

An ethics that calls for one to act in a way that is to one’s detriment, in ANY situation, –especially in combat–is NOT AT ALL one that is conducive to one’s well being or survival.

A universally applicable code of ethics/morality is possible when it is derived from an objective (reality-based) understanding of the nature of human beings and the nature of the metaphysically real world and universe in which they live.

The objective standard of such a code is a person’s own life, that is, that which is objectively required for one’s own life/survival.

That which is objectively conducive to one’s life is the good; that which is objectively detrimental to it is the evil.

Examples of what are objectively conducive to one’s own life are one’s legitimate rights to one’s own life, personal liberty, private property (regardless of the type and the amount), freedom of contract and association, and pursuit of one’s own happiness.

Any code of ethics that calls for one do act in any way that is detrimental to one’s own life/survival is an ethical code that is unfit for human life, and if one values one’s own life, one discards such a code as one would spit out poison or rotten food.

Most people are introduced to the subject of morality and ethics via religious indoctrination of one sort of the other, beginning in childhood, and every code of religious morality advocates and demands that one engage in self-sacrifice because the standard of such moralities is some (non-existent) god(s)’ approbation, or the approbation of these fictional entities’ representatives or mouthpieces on earth (catholic popes and Warren Jeffs come immediately to mind).

Secular statist moralities, such as those enforced in absolutist monarchies and totalitarian dictatorships, hold that the standard of the good is sacrificing oneself to The Monarch, The Great Teacher (Mao Tse-tung), The Dear Leader
(Stalin, Kim Jong-il), The Nation, The People, The Race, The State, or The “Common Good”.

What statist and religious moralities both have in common is self-sacrifice, and the ethical code that you describe, JeffC, obviously has self-sacrifice at its root, on account of the implicit expectation that it be practiced even in a context that makes doing so detrimental to oneself.

For your own sake–and for the sake of those in your life whose presence in it you value–you had better check the premises of that ethical code to which you subscribe because it is fundamentally, dangerously, flawed, for it requires that you sacrifice yourself, and there is nothing whatsoever honorable, or virtuous, or one’s-life-supporting–or manly–about self-sacrifice–to anything or anyone !

For starters, I suggest you read “The Objectivist Ethics” by Ayn Rand, carefully and thoughtfully.

Also, John Galt’s speech from Rand’s novel “Atlas Shrugged”

And “Human Action” by Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises.

I wish you enjoyable, challenging, thought-provoking reading, and good thinking !