In my own estimation, the following two ideas of Rand’s are original, true, and important.
Concepts
The first is Rand's idea that concepts of any particulars can be fashioned according to a principle of suspended particular measurement values along certain magnitude dimensions shared by particulars falling under those concepts. This conjecture is important as a distinct position in the theory of universals. I have written a little about the precursors of this idea in the history of philosophy in my first essay on Rand's theory; see §III “Measure and Matter” of “Capturing Concepts” in Objectivity (V1N1). The conjecture has implications for metaphysics; see my essay “Universals and Measurement” in Journal of Ayn Rand Studies (V5N2). I continue to develop the measurements-omitted theory of universals and to put it to work in problems current in metaphysics and in the philosophy of mathematics and science.
Values
The second is Rand's idea that value occurs only on account of the existence of life. Where there is value, there is life; and where there is life, there are values. I have not published work in this area, though you will find remarks of mine in this area in internet posts. I would like to say just a bit about the history of this idea right here. The first thinker who really got some grip on this idea was a philosopher who was probably as unknown to Rand as he is unknown to most philosophers today. His name is Marie-Jean Guyau. His theory of ethics was individualistic, against Utilitarianism, and purely secular. His book presenting this theory is A Sketch of Morality without Obligation or Sanction (1885). Nietzsche read this work in spring and early summer of 1885 and promptly changed his old tune as to the nonexistence of a secular, objective basis of his own ethic. There was Guyau—"Brave Guyau" as Nietzsche calls him—setting out a purely secular and individualistic and rational ethics based on a broad principle of biology. Guyau's ethics is not egoism. After 1885 Nietzsche began to insist uniformly that his own ethics was based on a principle of biology, although one different from Guyau's. It would be a good project to compare the different conceptions of life, at all its levels, held up by Guyau, Nietzsche, and Rand and the different moral theories they derive from these different conceptions of life.
Each of these three philosophers developed a theory of value in general, and human chosen values in particular, around various general features of living activity. All three knowingly relied on the science of biology in their own age. All were trying to be sensitive to that science in their theories of value and of what one should or should not do.
Both Rand and Guyau described their theories as the first true ethical theories based only on scientific facts. The casting of certain values as norms based on biology and psychology need not be nothing but a scientific casting in order to be a wholly rational casting. Which features of the biologically given and the psychologically given are stressed by a value theorist needs to be watched and remembered by the consumer.
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