Altruism’s influence on politics. In Objectivism, “altruism” is serves as the primary ideological scapegoat for the ills of American politi...

In an excellent essay , Michael Huemer, one of the most rigorous critics of the Objectivist ethics, offers some alternative answers for the...

Moral argument for capitalism. In The Mind and Society , Pareto makes the following observation:
 Theories of “natural law” and the “law o...

Natural disasters and state assistance. Does the government have a role in helping people whose homes have been destroyed or severly damage...

Over at Amazon in comments on Jennifer Burns' bio we find this useful summation of how realistically Objectivists view Rand's achie...

Politics of Human Nature 21: Conclusion. What can be gathered from this long series of posts on politics and human nature? Mainly, three ma...

If Objectivism is correct, shouldn't the lines on this graph go in the opposite direction? Hat tip: Angry Bear

For nearly every critic of Objectivism there is usually one or two things in Rand’s philosophy that he finds particularly objectionable. For...

Politics of Human Nature 20: Grievance Politics. In any advanced society there will likely be a number of individuals whose political belie...

Jennifer Burns’ taut, perfectly judged new Rand bio is good news for American intellectual history and bad news for the cult wing of Objecti...

Back in October Stephen Cox reviewed Anne Heller's Ayn Rand and the World She Made . Shortly thereafter, Edward Cline reviewed Cox...

Politics of Human Nature 19: Businessmen and the state. In the last post, I examined how economic interests can bias even businessmen again...

Politics of Human Nature 18: Economic interests and “rationality.” The current economic debacle has once and for all refuted the belief in ...

Peter Wehner over at nationalreview.com has written a brief blog post explaining why Rand's philosophy is not compatible with conservat...

Politics of Human Nature 17: Vanity and “social metaphysics.” Closely related to the obsession with preeminence and status is vanity. The p...

Over at Shtetl-Optimised, Scott Aaronson hits on a key problem with critically approaching Rand's meisterwerk - and indeed, Rand's ...