Monday, December 10, 2007

Ethics 50 Years After Atlas Shrugged

Copyright © 2007, Barry L. Linetsky, All Rights Reserved

A major paradigm shift in the field of philosophy, including ethics, came in the middle of the 20th Century with the publication of the novel Atlas Shrugged by American philosopher Ayn Rand. This year marks the 50th Anniversary of the publication of Atlas Shrugged, and hence it is timely to revisit her revolutionary perspective on ethics and the challenge her philosophy poses to those who argue for particular ethical viewpoints with disregard for, or ignorance of, her foundational paradigm-shifting philosophic arguments.

If you are seriously interested in business ethics, and have not yet read Atlas Shrugged, you are doing yourself an injustice. If you have heard about Ayn Rand and have not read Atlas out of prejudice, then you are committing a grave intellectual error. The bottom line is that today, any serious discussion of ethics must, at some point, deal with issues Rand raises not only about ethics, but about other related philosophic issues about reality, knowledge, and politics. If one is truly seeking ethical guidance in the form of a rational, principled philosophy, consideration of Ayn Rand’s arguments are foundational, even if in the end one chooses to reject them.

What Rand offered in Atlas Shrugged was a complete rethinking of philosophy as a discipline and its role in human life in all its dimensions, including science, economics, business, politics, and psychology. What is even more astounding is that she presented her discoveries and formulations in the form of art – fiction – which she later followed up in her non-fiction philosophic essays. Her great achievement was her ability to reformulate two thousand years of western philosophy in a way akin to sweeping out the trash that settled into dark corners and cluttered up people’s minds.

Rand was able to challenge to the core a plethora of widely embraced cultural “truths” and paradigms that have been leading thinkers away from truth, understanding, achievement and well-being. In the face of a world gone mad by its acceptance of irrationality, and in the face of an intellectual culture that had virtually abandoned reason as a valid means of acquiring knowledge, Rand offered a rational and meaningful alternative to millions of people where theretofore no viable alternative existed.

Against a vision of nihilism and sacrifice and tribal bloodshed as man’s only hope for survival, she offered a different vision of personal and social renaissance through the efficacy of the human mind to know reality, to reach valid conclusions through reason and logic, to understand the requirements of personal happiness, to achieve that state through the discovery and application of objective ethical principles, and to live in a state of freedom through the organization of individuals into a society that understands the need for, and respects the principle of individual natural rights.

What differentiated Rand from others was that she didn’t just assert her vision and the premises that underlie its foundation. She offered proof – proof that any person, with appropriate effort, could understand and think through for themselves. What she offered was a competing, unified theory of rational philosophic principles that had a stronger theoretical and practical appeal to that which existed (and still exists) as an alternative. She presented philosophy, including ethics, not as a set of disconnected mystical or arbitrary ideas to be accepted on faith or by appeal to experts, nor as interesting irresolvable paradoxes and unanswerable questions to aimlessly ponder, but as a rational, coherent, objective system of thought grounded in reality and logic, with the purpose of serving the well-being of each individual. She demonstrated that man requires freedom of thought and action to live happy and successful lives proper to human beings, as against others who disingenuously argued that it is natural and right for man to live under the authoritarian rule of others who claim through mystical or intuitive means to know what is best, and that ethics requires conformity to authority and the sanctioning of coercion and personal sacrifice to achieve the ends of the dictatorial-minded.

Atlas Shrugged is a world-shaking book about philosophical ideas in action (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_shrugged for an overview). While most people have not heard of the book nor its author, that’s not to be taken as an indication of its popularity or its influence. A 1992 U.S. Library of Congress survey found it to be the most influential book in the United States, second only to the Bible. In 2006, fifty years after its publication, sales of the novel in bookstores topped 130,000 copies! When I checked amazon.com on November 14, 2007, the paperback version ranked an astounding #330 in books.

Today, more than ever, every person that takes business seriously and is searching for rational philosophic guidance against the forced imposition of the irrational, needs to read and heed the philosophic wisdom embedded in Atlas Shrugged.

2 comments:

ingemarson said...

Barry,

Excellent summary. In your profession, do you see an increased interest in Rand's ideas among businessmen?

Anders Ingemarson
Centennial, CO

Barry Linetsky said...

Anders:

Thanks for reading my blog. Do you mind if I ask how you learned about it?

I don't see any indication that Rand's ideas have infiltrated business. Good business practitioners have always valued the identification of reality and reason as the basis for managing their businesses. People don't come to Rand as a way to learn how to be better in business. For that they may go to Peter Drucker, which would be an excellent choice. But even Drucker is rarely read today.

I don't usually talk philosophy with my clients. But I find that people in business are the same as people not in business, which means that they don't take a philosophical approach to issues. I would also say that most business executives and managers don't read anything that they don't have to read. So I doubt that many read philosophy or free-market economics, or about issues unrelated directly to their jobs.

I've explicitly heard from others that executives won't read anything longer than one page. Well, there are some things you can't learn in one page. But more to the point, imagine the kind of mentality that takes that position. That is why so many executives and managers are unsuited for the responsibilities of senior jobs today, and why they are unable to effectively manage their work and lead their workforces.

Best regards,

B.