Who is Ayn Rand and why the big debate over Altruism?

Question

Have been see this name around a bit lately, and the other day I went to answer a Q bout it!
But the question was way to long and also the answers so
I left it.
Can anybody explain in simple terms?

Answer 1

Ayn Rand invoked Aristotle back into the philosophical discussion. This is inimical to the interests of relativists, collectivists, existentialists, and others who do not choose "objectivity." Objectivity is inimical to them because it requires admitting there are answers to questions.
She also did what philosophers do: commented on currect events using her unique epistemology and her metaphysics and ethics. She gave answers for questions. For this, she is villified.
She defines "altruism" as the expectation that one will sacrifice some part of himself because society expects it. She said everyone is free to help others, but not out of "social duty." That duty was altruism.
She recognized all the questions that put emergencies in the forefront of the subject: "What if you saw a man drowning, and it might cost you your own life to save him?" and declared that the "ethics of emergencies" were not metaphysically important; it is not a crime to save one's self before saving others.
To give help because you want to is noble if you do it because it serves your own interests while at the same time benefiting others, according to Rand's philosophy of Objectivism. Doing it for one's own benefit is taking the "social duty" out of helping the needy. People don't like that she denies "duty." (Kant gave us the modern definition of duty.)
She has taken the role of Galileo to Copernicus, although I'm not sure she saw it that way. However, Galileo had only to convince the Church; Rand is against all the political correctness in today's world, and in a world that claims there are no answers because nothing can be proven (this is how Kant influenced philosophy on the whole) she was full of black-and-white answers.
She is discussed more in this forum than any other philosopher and it is almost all bad press. But her critics wish to split hairs with her and make the claim that "doing it because it needs done" is not altruism.
It is altruism if: "because it needs done" is inimical to your own best interests. If the need is not inimical to your interests even if it does not coincide with what you believed was your own interest, it is not duty to do it. At that point, you are under no coercion to decide, and thus you have free will to choose. You can not have "free will" under coercive rules of "duty."
Modern philosophers want you to accept "duty" as altruism, but they call altruism "what needs to be done." I.e., they expect it of you.

Answer 2

Please, be very careful once you study Ayn Rand on the concern of altruism. The word replaced into initially the call of a doctrine formulated via a philosopher. In hardship-unfastened utilization, that's a synonym for words like kindness and generosity. to stay away from the confusion, she might have used an expression like "foolhardy altruism," "self-hating altruism," or "neurotic altruism." Her writing makes it seem that purely being form is a bad subject. That replaced into the tip in a assessment revealed interior the conservative mag national assessment.

Answer 3

She is the Russian author of "Atlas Shrugged", it's a book. An old book about something. All I iknow is that there is an old episode of South Park where the town cop, Officer Barbrady learns to read and he is so happy and then someone gives him Atlas Shrugged and he says it's the most awful thing he ever read and vows never to read again.
There should be no debate over Altruism, which basically is the human code of ethics. Treat others how you would like to be treated, the golden rule if you will.

Answer 4

Ayn Rand (1905 - 1982)is a major intellectual of the twentieth century. Born in Russia in 1905 and educated there, she immigrated to the United States after graduating from university. Upon becoming proficient in English and establishing herself as a writer in the U.S., she became well-known as a passionate advocate of her philosophy, Objectivism. Rand’s philosophy is in the Aristotelian tradition, with that tradition’s emphasis upon metaphysical naturalism, empirical reason in epistemology, and self-realization in ethics. Her political philosophy is in the classical liberal tradition, with that tradition’s emphasis upon individualism, the constitutional protection of individual rights to life, liberty, and property, and limited government. She wrote both technical and popular works of philosophy, and she presented her philosophy in both fictional and non-fictional forms. Her philosophy has influenced several generations of academics and public intellectuals, as well as having had widespread popular appeal.

Ayn Rand's life was often as colorful as those of her heroes in her best-selling novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. Rand first made her name as a novelist, publishing We the Living in 1936, The Fountainhead in 1943, and her magnum opus Atlas Shrugged in 1957. These philosophical novels embodied themes she then developed in non-fiction form in a series of essays and books written in the 1960s and 1970s.

Answer 5

Her philosophy aside, Ayn Rand was one of the greatest feminist of her time.