 According to Rand, there is only one alternative to being rationally self-interested: sacrificing one’s proper interests, either for the sake of other people (which she equates with altruism) or for the sake of the supernatural (which she calls mysticism) (1982a: ch. 7). “The basic principle of altruism”, she argues, “is that man has no right to exist for his own sake, that service to others is the only justification of his existence, and that self-sacrifice is his highest moral duty, virtue and value” (“Faith and Force,” PWNI 61).  Kant’s ethics is a secularized mysticism insofar as it rests on categorical commands and duty for duty’s sake, which is to say: regardless of any earthly desire or interest (1970). An altruistic ethics equates right action with self-sacrifice for the sake of others’ good and immorality with “selfishness”, while saying nothing about the standard of the good (“Introduction”, 1964a: iii; 1974). It thus fails to answer the prior question of what code of values we should follow and why, and provides no motivation to be moral other than guilt over “selfishness”. When taken to its logical conclusion, altruism does not simply tell us that it is “selfish” to pursue our own desires, but also that it is “selfish to uphold… [our own] convictions, … [that we] must sacrifice them to the convictions of others” (Rand 1957 [1992]: 943; Galt’s Speech, Rand 1961a: 142). In foreign policy, altruism is used to justify and gain support for America’s intervention in other countries (1966a). Altruism is also the reason why so many sympathize with, or even praise, bloody dictatorships that proudly proclaim that the sacrifice of the individual is a necessary and noble means to the goal of the collective good (Rand 1966a).