The Montreal Objectivist Club provides a forum for study and discussion of Ayn Rand's philosophy, Objectivism. Our goal is to meet people with a serious interest in Objectivism, discuss current, philosophical and intellectual issues, and enrich our knowledge. The MOC supports, but is not affiliated with, the Ayn Rand Institute and does not claim to represent Ayn Rand or her ideas.
There are no club dues or fees. For more information, please contact us at:
The MOC typically meets the first Monday of every month. Our group usually meets for dinner and a discussion is held on a preselected topic or article of interest. Topics range from philosophy to current events to art (see the List for examples of past discussions).
Next Meeting and Topic
The next meeting will be held on Monday, June 2nd, at 7:00 PM.
Please send email for location and details.
This Month's Topic:
The morality of the quantitative value of life (if one has the control to save 5 people by killing 1 person) Is it right or not?
Events
MOC members have sponsored guest speakers in conjunction with the McGill Universtiy Objectivist Club. Past Speakers have included Dr. Yaron Brook, Dr. Andrew Bernstein, and Dr. John Ridpath. We also periodically organize cultural events such as museum and concert outings
The following quotations are from Ayn Rand's numerous novels and non-fiction books. For more information about her ideas, see the Resources section to the right..
OVERVIEW OF OBJECTIVISM
My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute. --Ayn Rand
My philosophy, Objectivism, holds that:
1. Reality exists as an objective absolute, facts are facts, independent of man's feelings, wishes, hopes or fears.
2. Reason (the faculty which identifies and integrates the material provided by man's senses) is man's only means of perceiving reality, his only source of knowledge, his only guide to action, and his basic means of survival.
3. Man, every man, is an end in himself, not the means to the ends of others. He must exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself. The pursuit of his own rational self-interest and of his own happiness is the highest moral purpose of his life.
4. The ideal political-economic system is laissez-faire capitalism. It is a system where men deal with one another, not as victims and executioners, nor as masters and slaves, but as traders, by free, voluntary exchange to mutual benefit. It is a system where no man may obtain any values from others by resorting to physical force, and no man may initiate the use of physical force against others. The government acts only as a policeman that protects man's rights; it uses physical force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use, such as criminals or foreign invaders. --Ayn Rand
AYN RAND ON POLITICS
Intellectual freedom cannot exist without political freedom; political freedom cannot exist without economic freedom; a free mind and a free market are corollaries. --Ayn Rand, For The New Intellectual; For The New Intellectual
When the common good of a society is regarded as something apart from and superior to the individual good of its members, it means that the good of some men takes precedence over the good of others, with those others consigned to the status of sacrificial animals. --Ayn Rand, What is Capitalism?; Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal
Thinking men cannot be ruled. --Ayn Rand
Individual rights are the means of subordinating society to moral law. --Ayn Rand, Man's Rights; The Virtue of Selfishness
When I say capitalism,I mean a pure, uncontrolled, unregulated laissez-faire capitalism - with a separation of economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as a separation of state and church. --Ayn Rand, The Objectivist Ethics; The Virtue of Selfishness
Every movement that seeks to enslave a country, every dictatorship or potential dictatorship, needs some minority group as a scapegoat which it can blame for the nation's troubles and use as a justification of its own demand for dictatorial powers. In Soviet Russia, the scapegoat was the bourgeoisie; in Nazi Germany, it was the Jewish people; in America, it is the businessmen. --Ayn Rand, America's Persecuted Minority: Big Business, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal
...a society without an organized government would be at the mercy of the first criminal who came along and who would precipitate it into the chaos of gang warfare. --Ayn Rand, The Nature of Government The Virtue of Selfishness
Capitalism demands the best of every man: his rationality, and rewards him accordingly. It leaves every man free to choose the work he likes, to specialize in it, to trade his product for the products of others, and to go as far on the road of achievement as his ability and ambition will carry him. --Ayn Rand, For the New Intellectual
Freedom, in a political context, means freedom from government coercion. It does not mean freedom from the landlord, or freedom from the employer, or freedom from the laws of nature which do not provide men with automatic prosperity. It means freedom from the coercive power of the state--and nothing else. --Ayn Rand
Competition is a by-product of productive work, not its goal. A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others. --Ayn Rand, The Ayn Rand Letter
The right of a nation to determine its own form of government does not include the right to establish a slave society (that is, to legalize the enslavement of some men by others). There is no such thing as the right to enslave. ...It does not matter, in this context, whether a nation was enslaved by force, like Soviet Russia, or by vote, like Nazi Germany. Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a minority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority. --Ayn Rand, The Virtue of Selfishness
Jobs, food, clothing, recreation(!), homes, medical care, education, etc., do not grow in nature. These are man-made values,goods and services produced by men....If some men are entitled by right to the products of the work of others, it means that those others are deprived of rights and condemned to slave labor. --Ayn Rand, The Virtue of Selfishness
The end does not justify the means. No one's rights can be secured by the violation of the rights of others. --Ayn Rand, The Cashing-In: The Student Rebellion, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal
If some men are entitled by right to the products of the work of others, it means that those others are deprived of rights and condemned to slave labor. ... Any alleged right of one man, which necessitates the violation of the rights of another, is not and cannot be a right. ... No man can have a right to impose an unchosen obligation, an unrewarded duty or an involuntary servitude on another man. There can be no such thing as the right to enslave. --Ayn Rand, Man's Rights, The Virtue of Selfishness
Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think. --Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
There can be no such thing, in law or in morality, as actions forbidden to an individual, but permitted to a mob. --Ayn Rand
Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage's whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men. --Ayn Rand
Force and mind are opposites; morality ends where the gun begins. --Ayn Rand
The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights, cannot claim to be defenders of minorities. --Ayn Rand
America's abundance was created not by public sacrifices to the common good, but by the productive genius of free men who pursued their own personal interests and the making of their own private fortunes. They did not starve the people to pay for America's industrialization. They gave the people better jobs, higher wages and cheaper goods with every new machine they invented, with every scientific discovery or technological advance -- and thus the whole country was moving forward and profiting, not suffering, every step of the way. --Ayn Rand
AYN RAND ON ETHICS
An individualist is a man who says: I will not run anyone's life - nor let anyone run mine. I will not rule or be ruled. I will not be a master nor a slave. I will not sacrifice myself to anyone - nor sacrifice anyone to myself. --Ayn Rand, Textbook of Americanism
It is not justice or equal treatment that you grant to men when you abstain equally from praising men's virtues and from condemning men's vices. When your impartial attitude declares, in effect, that neither the good nor the evil may expect anything from you - whom do you betray and whom do you encourage? --Ayn Rand, How Does One Lead A Rational Life in An Irrational Society, The Virtue of Selfishness
Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one's values. --Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
Men have been taught that the ego is the synonym of evil, and selflessness the ideal of virtue. But the creator is the egoist in the absolute sense, and the selfless man is the one who does not think, feel, judge or act. These are function of the self. --Ayn Rand, For the New Intellectual
Since time immemorial and pre-industrial, 'greed' has been the accusation hurled at the rich by the concrete-bound illiterates who were unable to conceive of the source of wealth or of the motivation of those who produce it. --Ayn Rand
Whatever he was - that robot in the Garden of Eden, who existed without mind, without values, without labor, without love - he was not man. --Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
[The proud man] does not demand of himself the impossible, but he does demand every ounce of the possible. He refuses to rest content with a defective soul, shrugging in self-deprecation 'That's me.' He knows that that 'me' was created, and is alterable, by him. -Leonard Peikoff.
Honor is self-esteem made visible in action. -- Ayn Rand, Philosophy: Who Needs
To love is to value. Only a rationally selfish man, a man of self-esteem, is capable of love-because he is the only man capable of holding firm, consistent, uncompromising, unbetrayed values. The man who does not value himself, cannot value anything or anyone. -- Ayn Rand, The Virtue of Selfishness
In any compromise between food and poison, it is only death that can win. In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit. --Ayn Rand, The Anatomy of Compromise, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal
The spread of evil is the symptom of a vacuum. whenever evil wins, it is only by default: by the moral failure of those who evade the fact that there can be no compromise on basic principles. --Ayn Rand, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal
AYN RAND ON THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE
You have no choice about the necessity to integrate your observations, your experiences, your knowledge into abstract ideas, i.e., into principles. Your only choice is whether these principles are true or false, whether they represent your conscious, rational convictions - or a grab-bag of notions snatched at random, whose sources, validity, context and consequences you do not know, notions which, more often that not, you would drop like a hot potato if you knew. --Ayn Rand, Philosophy: Who Needs It, Philosophy: Who Needs It
Rationality is the recognition of the fact that existence exists, that nothing can alter the truth and nothing can take precedence over that act of perceiving it, which is thinking... --Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
The Ayn Rand Institute -- Promotes Objectivism through academic and other programs. Register on the site for access to free audio and video of all of Ayn Rands reocrded lectures.
The Ayn Rand Institue of Canada -- ARI branch in Canada
The Ayn Rand Lexicon -- a searchable compendium of Ayn Rand's writings on hundreds of topics
Ayn Rand Novels -- ARI website dedicated to Ayn Rand's novels. Has video lectures on the novels.
Leonard Peikoff -- Web site of Leonard Peikoff, now with regular podcasts!
Harry Binswanger List (HBL) -- An email discussion group moderated by Harry Binswanger.
Summaries of Objectivism
Introduction to Objectivism and Essentials of Objectivism at the ARI site
Ayn Rand's Ideas at the Ayn Rand Novels site
Philosophy, Who Needs It? -- Text of a speech by Ayn Rand
The Philosophy of Objectivism: a Brief Summary -- 10-page summary by Leonard Peikoff
Article at The Objective Standard
Overview by the Ayn Rand Society of the American Philosophical Association
A guide to various summaries of Objectivism on the web including the above links
Blogs, Journals and Opinion
ARI Media Link -- Editorials from ARI staff writers
Priciples in Practice -- Blog of The Objective Standard journal
Gus Van Horn
Rule of Reason
Noodlefood
TIA Daily -- email blog of The Intellectual Activist journal
Capitalism Magazine
More to come ....
Other links of interest
Two free-market economics think tanks:
Fraser Institute - now with a branch in Montreal
L'Institute economique de Montreal/Montreal Economic Institute
www.geocities.com/montrealobjectivist/