An excerpt from chapter 7 on The Good from Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand by Leonard Peikoff.
The key to an understanding of ethics lies in its central concept, “value.” Specifically, the key lies in the concept’s existential basis and cognitive context.
This is the proper starting point of the field, which must precede the three issues I mentioned above. The first question to ask is not: what values should man accept? but rather: does man need to judge and select values at all? Is morality necessary or not, and if it is, why?
To answer this question, one must …
Read the rest in Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand.
