Writer · Contemporary
Ayn Rand
1905–1982 · Objectivism
Born Alisa Rosenbaum in St. Petersburg; an atheist who called faith and altruism the two great evils.
Rand's novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged and her essays taught “Objectivism”: reality is objective, reason is man's only means of knowledge, rational self-interest is the proper morality, and laissez-faire capitalism the only just social system. She denounced altruism, collectivism and religion alike, and made the heroic producer her ideal.
Why he matters: Her influence on libertarian and some American Catholic economic thinking is large enough that the Church's teaching on solidarity, the universal destination of goods and the preferential option for the poor (Centesimus Annus 30–43; Compendium 171–184) has to be stated against her explicitly.
Where to be careful
Her atheism and her ethic of self-interest contradict the Gospel's command of charity and the natural law's ordering to the common good; laissez-faire capitalism is condemned (Quadragesimo Anno 88; CCC 2425); she defended abortion; her contempt for the weak is the opposite of the Beatitudes.
Documented positions
Where this thinker stands on each dispute the test covers.