From The Ayn Rand Society's "Ayn Rand and Objectivism: An Overview:"
"Rand’s concept of man as a heroic being – her vision of human beings as able to achieve great things, and of the universe as open to their efforts -- is a hallmark of her thought, and certainly a significant part of her widespread appeal. Happiness she holds to be the emotional state that results from the achievement of objective values. Such values and the means to them can only be identified by reason, and Rand holds that they cannot be achieved without such virtues as independence, integrity, honesty, justice, productiveness, and pride."
...and...
"Rand identifies three cardinal values: Reason, Purpose, and Self-esteem, with the corresponding virtues of Rationality, Productiveness, and Pride. Reason is our means of survival. Rationality is the acceptance of reason as one’s only source of knowledge and guide to action. Rationality requires a person to do his own thinking (independence) and stay true to it in action (integrity). It requires honesty – the refusal to fake reality – because the unreal does not exist and can be of no value. It requires justice – the moral evaluation of others – because rational, productive people are good for us, while irrational parasites are worthless or dangerous.
"Survival requires an all-encompassing purposefulness, with all of one’s other purposes integrated to a central productive purpose. Productiveness is the application of reason to the creation of the products and services necessary for survival. To define and achieve rational purposes, a person must be certain of his competence and worth – he must achieve self-esteem. This requires the virtue of pride – a commitment to living up to the highest rational standards. Thus Rand calls pride “moral ambitiousness.” It is, in effect, productiveness applied to one’s character: “as man is a being of self-made wealth, so he is a being of self-made soul.”
I recommend reading the entire article: "Ayn Rand and Objectivism: An Overview."
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