Rand spends a great deal of time in the book demonstrating that the "Golden Rule" is rational, that individual beings living in a society should treat others' lives as valuable to ensure that their own lives are treated likewise.
There are two major problems with Rand's view, one minor and one major.
The minor one is that her argument obviously fails. She tries to prove that
rational egoists would decide the golden rule is best for
their own benefit. This of course is simply false; for a real rational egoist, the best strategy has been noted as early as Plato:
If I am really just and am not also thought just profit there is none, but the pain and loss on the other hand are unmistakable. But if, though unjust, I acquire the reputation of justice, a heavenly life is promised to me. Since then, as philosophers prove, appearance tyrannizes over truth and is lord of happiness, to appearance I must devote myself. I will describe around me a picture and shadow of virtue to be the vestibule and exterior of my house; behind I will trail the subtle and crafty fox...
(This is Adeimantus, in his reply to Socrates, in book II of the
Republic).
Rand cannot claim that what Adeimantus recommends is
morally wrong. She cannot claim that cheating or dishonesty are wrong in themselves, like Plato, since, for her, dishonesty and cheating can only be shown to be immoral if they are shown to be to the cheater's--NOT society's--detriment.
Nor can she claim that the fact that everybody would be better off IF everybody respected the golden rule is makes it a
moral rule that one must obey it. This is Kant, and Rand despises Kant as not being "objective". The egoist cares nothing for society in general, as it is an abstraction; if in a certain actual situation it is better
for the egoist to cheat, he should.
So what is her solution? She is forced, by her denial of moral law as "non-real", to pretend that
as a matter of actual fact, it is always better (At least in the long run) for
the egoist himself to obey the golden rule.
This fantastically absurd view shows how Rand, by comparison, makes Polyanna look like a hard-core, cynical realist. It condemns Rand's philosophy to be "succesful" ONLY in fiction, in particular her own novels, when the author can create a happy ending to the moral egoist obeyer of the golden rule and a bad end to the evil non-egoists.
In real life, of course, Roark and Galt would end up in the poorhouse or the nuthouse.
But this of course is the minor problem. Rand's REAL danger lies not in her philosophy (as unworkable and wrong as it is) but in the emotional and mental attitude her books show:
Her protagnoists value life highly, and sometimes go to great lengths to spare others' lives. There are multiple places where their problems could be solved by simply having specific people killed, but they don't.
Yes, yes, yes, but that is always done for the greater glory of the hero. Those who are saved are tropes; they are saved to show what a morally superior person the objectivist is.
Finally, at the end of the book, Dagny is trying to save the life of a man being tortured to death inside the facility.
(Incidentally, why? For a real objectivist, stopping this torture should only be recommended if she can get something from him.)
She approaches the armed guard instead of simply killing him from a distance. He's in a doublebind - his superiors have given conflicting orders, and he can't judge for himself which of them he should follow. He stands there while Dagny says she'll shoot if he doesn't get out of the way, and fails to decide even to use self-defense or take cover. Oh yeah, Rand's a real brute, isn't she?
Yes, she is. You see, the guard is just as unrealistic as Dangy: would any
real person, no matter what their philosophy, really stand by and do nothing as a woman points a gun to his heart and tells him she's going to shoot him--
because of conflicting orders from his boss?
The guard is not a person (
nobody in Rand's novels ever is anything more than a caricature). Nobody ever acts like that. He is a stand-in to illustrate the pathetic (and evil) weakness of non-objectivists (or more precisely in this case, those who obey orders). He is a lesson, for the reader, of just how despicable non-objectivists are... and how they can and should be treated when push comes to shove.
This is precisely the second, major problem with Rand: her books are propaganda. ALL objectivists are wonderful human beings, ALL non-objectivists vary from the weak and pathetic to the evil--and what's of crucial importance, the objectivists are good simply
because they obey objectivist philosophy, the non-objectivists evil simply
because they do not.
Compare this to those awful Rambo-like movies where the American hero kills thousands of "commie bastards". Of course, it is all justified: they
are attacking him in waves shouting "Die American Capitalist Pig!", so what did you expect him to do? But it is propaganda, since, first, it is simplistic good vs. evil, and what's more, the hero is good
because he is American (And for justice and freedom) and they are bad
because being a communist makes you act evily and murderously.
The moral of such movies is that Americans are good, and communists inhuman savages. The moral of Rand's books are that objectivists alone are good, and non-objectivists,
because they aren't objectivists, are pathetic weaklings at best and can be killed for a higher purpose at worst.
The people in this thread have done nothing but spew nonsense and lies in a display that would be worthy of Uncommon Descent. They deserve nothing but contempt -- and if you're insulted by that contempt, you're worthy of the same.
Well, more precisely, we disagreed and criticized Rand, which means we simply
have to be lying (as Rand is the light of truth and goodness). Which is naturally expected of us--after all, we have shown we aren't objectivists, and we all know what pathetic beings non-objectivists are.
So of course we deserve nothing but contempt--just like the guard Dangy kills--as that is what ALL non-objectivists deserve.
To paraphrase Darth Vader, "Ayn Rand had taught you well".
