“”Conspicuous by their absence from Rand's list of virtues are
the “virtues of benevolence,” such as kindness, charity,
generosity, and forgiveness. |—Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy| “”How do you read fiction and come up with a
political philosophy? It's fiction! Objectivism is a
"philosophy" formulated by novelist Ayn Rand. It has various
tenets, but is best known for defining self-interest as a moral
virtue. As one might imagine, Objectivism is very popular
amongst those who hold a me-first view of the world. It lets
them say, "Hey, I'm not being a selfish jerk, I'm following a
philosophy!" Objectivism has not met wide acceptance in
academia. When they bother to comment on it at all, academic
philosophers usually dismiss it as a rather juvenile imitation
of a real philosophy. It is nevertheless very popular, and
informs the beliefs of a great many libertarians and assorted
whackjobs. Although it shares some beliefs with conservatism, it
has not had much influence on that branch of politics due to its
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