Welcome to The Objective Standard
The source for essays and commentary from an Objectivist perspective.
Personal flourishing, social harmony, and political freedom depend on objective standards of good and bad, right and wrong. The Objective Standard is dedicated to identifying and applying such principles.
We hold that:
Reason, the faculty that identifies and integrates the material provided by man’s senses, is our only means of acquiring and validating knowledge—including knowledge of values and morality. Neither faith nor feelings can serve this purpose. “Just believing” or wanting something to be true doesn’t make it so.
The objective standard of morality is the factual requirements of human life, which include the methods, principles, and conditions necessary for human beings to survive and thrive. Because people are individuals—each with his own body, his own mind, his own life—each individual’s own life is his own ultimate value. He is morally an end in himself, not a means to the ends of others.
If human beings want to live, they must pursue their life-serving values—neither sacrificing themselves to others (altruism), nor others to themselves (predation), nor anyone to any group or tribe (collectivism). Human life doesn’t require human sacrifice; it requires thinking, producing, and trading value for value by voluntary exchange to mutual benefit.
There are no conflicts of interest among rational people; human beings can and should live in peace and harmony. To do so, they must uphold rational, life-based principles, such as: use your mind, think for yourself, don’t pretend that facts are other than they are, produce values, seek win-win relationships, judge people rationally and treat them accordingly, recognize and respect individual rights. All conflicts of interest—from interpersonal to international—are consequences of individuals or nations violating such principles.
Each individual has a moral right to act on his own judgment for his own sake—and to keep and use the product of his effort—so long as he does not violate the same rights of others by initiating physical force against them (directly or indirectly). This is why slavery is factually immoral and properly illegal. And it’s why all kinds and degrees of initiatory physical force against human beings should be outlawed. People can live fully only when they are fully free.
The only legitimate function of government is to protect individual rights by banning the use of physical force from social relationships, and by using force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use. All laws should be based on individual rights and geared toward their protection. Laws that violate rights should be repealed as rapidly as feasible. Every step toward full protection of individual rights is moral. Every step away from it is immoral.
These standards and related ideas constitute the core of TOS’s philosophy, Objectivism, which was created by Ayn Rand. For a primer on the philosophy, see What Is Objectivism? To see its principles applied to cultural trends and current events, subscribe to The Objective Standard.
Who We Are
Founders: Craig Biddle, Sidney J. Gunst Jr.
Editor in Chief: Craig Biddle
Managing Editor: Thomas Walker Werth
Assistant Editor: Angelica Walker-Werth
Contributing Editors: Andrew Bernstein, Timothy Sandefur
Executive Director: Sarah Biddle
General Manager: Eran Boodnero
Production & Design: Thomas Walker-Werth, Pete Masterson
Audio: Sean Saulsbury
Web Development: Eran Boodnero
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