Part 3 of Ayn Rand’s Philosophy Decoded: Replies to Recent Criticisms of the Objectivist Ethics

Part 3: What Did Rand Have to Say About Practical Reason and Practical Wisdom?

 

In recent essays comparing Ayn Rand with other Aristotelian ethical thinkers, Douglas Rasmussen and Douglas Den Uyl (hereinafter R&D or D&R, as per work cited) noted that Rand’s ethics is more individualistic in character than some of the others. This, they say, “seems to call in turn for an emphasis on practical wisdom, since different contexts of action may allow for legitimately different forms of acting among individuals” (R&D 2023a, 336–337).

Rand as the quintessential individualist philosopher of the 20^th century would certainly have wanted to embrace the idea of “legitimately different forms of acting among individuals,” as well as forms of acting by individuals, as long as those forms were rational (or man qua man). But what do we actually know about her views on practical reason and practical wisdom? Rand is not given to luxuriating in Aristotelian or Thomistic terminology, any more than practitioners of the latter are comfortable navigating and reading between the lines of her idiosyncratic formulations.[1]

Indeed, Edward Younkins (2023) has pointed out that while R&D’s “Individualistic Perfectionism adds virtues such as practical wisdom (prudence)…to the Objectivist list of virtues…Rand does not mention practical wisdom.” Winton Bates (2023), too, wonders whether Rand recognized either practical wisdom or its foundation, practical reason.[2]

Lacking clear statements from Rand about practical reason and practical wisdom, what might we be able to infer about them from her writings?

Lacking clear statements from Rand about practical reason and practical wisdom, what might we be able to infer about them from her writings? This, of course, requires that we are clear on exactly what practical reason and practical wisdom are. So…[3]
 

1. To begin with, what is practical reason and what is practical wisdom? Aren’t these terms redundant? Is there even such a thing as impractical reason or impractical wisdom, anyway? And what is wisdom (as against reason or rationality or simple common sense)?

Most readers already know what reason in general is, but a reminder won’t hurt. As Ayn Rand succinctly defines it, “reason is the faculty that identifies and integrates the material provided by man’s senses.” (This definition can be found everywhere that fine Randian non-fiction products are sold.)[4] For Rand, this fundamental human characteristic is not just a merely theoretical indulgence or luxury, but something of vital practical importance: “For man, the basic means of survival is reason.” Accordingly, she urges people to be rational by recognizing and accepting that “reason [is] one’s only source of knowledge, one’s only judge of values and one’s only guide to action.”[5]

R&D (2020) have a more expansive definition that may also be helpful here: “human reason (considered both speculatively and practically) is not the source of moral guidance, but the tool for discovering what human flourishing for an individual is and how it is to be realized” (38). Also, in D&R (2016), they say that the human rational faculty

fundamentally involves the power to grasp the world in conceptual terms—that is to say, the power to form classifications, develop theories, formulate hypotheses, come to judgments, derive conclusions, reflect on various subjects (be they in the past, present, or future), make evaluations, develop purposes, and plan actions. This capacity is expressed in speculative reasoning (the pursuit of truth) and practical reasoning (the pursuit of human good). (231)

So, there we have the basic Aristotelian distinction between thought (pursuing truth) with the guidance of speculative (or theoretical) reason and action (pursuing the good) with the guidance of practical reason.[6] R&D (2020) further clarify: “It is only by exercising one’s own speculative and practical reason in an excellent manner (that is, by being speculatively and practically wise) that one comes to know, and one achieves, in their proper determinate form or manner the generic goods and activities that constitute the actualization of those potentials that make one a whole, complete, mature human being” (112). So, speculative/theoretical reason may be thought of simply as know-that, or understand-that, while practical reason is know-how—and in the present case, knowledge specifically of what the good is vs. how to achieve the good.

It may be helpful to think about this technical distinction of “speculative vs. practical” instead in more commonplace terms such as “principle vs. practice” or “theory vs. application.” You study geometry and learn the Pythagorean theorem and equation. Then, as a farmer or homeowner who wants to build a triangular shaped fence (with a right angle between two of the sides), you can either measure all three sides to be fenced and go right to Home Depot—or you can measure the two smaller sides, square those lengths, add them, and take the square root of that sum, which gives you the length of the third, longest side (the diagonal), and then you can go to Home Depot. In either case, you know how much fencing to buy, but the second method requires less legwork and lets you show off your math skills. The second method is an application of theoretical reason (theoretical geometry) aka practical reason (applied geometry).[7]

We can see that although Rand does not employ the standard Aristotelian terminology, the distinction between the speculative (thought) and the practical (action) is right there.

From this, we can see that although Rand does not employ the standard Aristotelian terminology, the distinction between the speculative (thought) and the practical (action) is right there in the above quoted passage from “The Objectivist Ethics:” “reason [is] one’s only source of knowledge, one’s only judge of values and one’s only guide to action” (emphasis added) However, Rand does not divide reason into two or three separate faculties, instead simply noting that reason is one’s tool for knowing, evaluating, and guiding one’s actions. She thus views reason more like a Swiss Army Knife than two or three separate tools. And to be sure, D&R (2016), citing Aquinas, hold the same view: “speculative and practical reason are not two separate powers,” but are instead merely reason concerned on the one hand with truth and on the other with what is good.[8]

Rand herself would concur. In discussing the catch phrase “This may be good in theory, but it doesn’t work in practice,” she states (1974):

What is a theory? It is a set of abstract principles purporting to be either a correct description of reality or a set of guidelines for man’s actions. Correspondence to reality is the standard of value by which one estimates a theory. If a theory is inapplicable to reality, by what standard can it be estimated as “good”? If one were to accept that notion, it would mean: a. that the activity of man’s mind is unrelated to reality; b. that the purpose of thinking is neither to acquire knowledge nor to guide man’s actions. (14)

Even so, the question persists: does Rand recognize the difficulty posed by challenges in how to use reason to guide one’s real-life choices and actions, how to achieve the good—as opposed to simply identifying the good? Does she offer any useful advice in meeting such challenges? As we will see in the third section below, she does.

We will also see that Rand’s guidance is hardly less specific—and thus hardly less “practical” in the sense of useful—than that offered by R&D, and thus subject to only the same general kinds of caveats as their rather abstract Aristotelian-Thomist ethics. Den Uyl (1991) confirms this rather vividly: “the generic goods and virtues of human flourishing are not like recommended daily allowances for vitamins and minerals. Their weighting, balance, or proportion cannot be read off of human nature like the back of a cereal box and applied equally across all individuals as if individuals were merely repositories for them” (37–38).

Now, note that Den Uyl is saying what his and Rasmussen’s ethics is not—namely, a detailed manual with detailed, concrete guidance, or even a “how-to” treatise. Instead, R&D (2020) state, “the proper weighting of the goods and virtues of human flourishing” requires each individual “to discover the proper balance (or ‘mean’) for themselves” (40).

This requirement of “proper weighting” in order to discover “proper balance” sounds quite similar to Rand’s (1963) urging people to consult their personal value hierarchy when trying to decide about “when and whether one should help another person” (52). She even speaks, in that context, of “the practical implementation of friendship, affection, and love [and of] the generalized respect and good will which one should grant to a human being in the name of the potential value he represents” (53, emphasis added).

Even so, it’s clear that Rand acknowledges that such decisions are not easy, especially when some degree of personal risk is involved, above and beyond the cost of time and money. You really do have to know your value hierarchy and think about not only how you weigh and balance the risks and rewards, but also the importance of the people and things under consideration.

That’s where wisdom—and practical wisdom in particular—comes in. Wisdom, however (at least for Randians) is less well-defined than reason. Paraphrasing Rand’s reference ([1966–67] 1990) to Bertrand Russell, we “kinda know” what “wisdom” means (50). Socrates strained mightily just in order to help his fellow Athenians discover what wisdom was not, and it would be helpful to straighten out these concepts so that they’re not used in a confused and muddled way.

Ryan (2013) offers a very comprehensive discussion of theories of wisdom, ending with her own view of wisdom as “deep rationality,” which amounts to having a wide range of mostly justified beliefs on various academic subjects including especially living rationally and is committed to living that way, with no pretensions to being infallible. I think, however, that the analysis that D&R offer (2016) is superior in pinpointing just what is required cognitively and morally for one to be wise. They break it down to three dimensions which, they say, applies to both speculative and practical wisdom.

Wisdom in general, according to D&R, must include (1) a deep understanding of, or insight into, not only the world around one, but also “one’s own nature, opportunities, and dispositions,” (2) an active exercise of one’s reason in pursuing such insight and living accordingly (which makes it an instrumental virtue), and (3) a fixed disposition, through habitual exercise of one’s reason, to use it more or less consistently—as a readily available skill for moral living, as it were. These three factors capture the sense in which wisdom is a virtuous way to act, as well as the sense in which wisdom is a fixed character trait, a steady disposition to act virtuously, both of which draw from and contribute to one’s overall understanding/insight into life and the world.[9] The idea is that if one makes enough wise choices in pursuing knowledge or flourishing (truth or the good), one will be firmly and reliably insightful about the world and, hopefully also, one’s life.

Now, practical wisdom in particular, D&R say, is “the excellent use of practical reason” and is thus “the central integrating virtue of a flourishing life.” However, they also say that practical wisdom is “the intellectual faculty for judging the best course of action for particular individuals in specific circumstances.” So, which is it? A separate faculty from practical reason, or just the correct or excellent use of it? Their main statements are not decisive.

On the one hand, D&R say “Practical reason is the intellectual faculty employed for guiding conduct. Practical wisdom is the excellent or proper use of this faculty” (55). Here, practical wisdom does not sound like a faculty, but instead the good use of that faculty. It has the same sense as saying that running efficiently (without causing trauma and injury) is not a separate faculty from running, but instead the excellent, well-developed use of one’s ability to run.

On the other hand, they say: “Practical wisdom’s excellent use of practical reason pays attention not only to effective deployment of practical reason, but also to the nature of the ends or goals being pursued. Practical reason considers the appropriateness of ends; a good choice of ends to be evaluated is evidence of practical wisdom’s having been deployed. Hence, insights into the nature of the appropriateness of the ends are what transform reason into wisdom, depending upon the strength and perceptiveness of the insight” (56). Here, practical wisdom does sound like a separate faculty, something that is doing things like “excellently using” and “considering” and being what reason is transformed into—as though running and running correctly were two different faculties or skills, and the former skill is transformed into the latter. (Leaving nothing in between?)

I think that the first version is the better one, seeing practical wisdom as initially a virtue in the sense of a wise action, and then later settling into a virtue in the sense of a wiseness of character. You act wisely enough times and well enough, and you become wise.[10]

 
2. Is practical reason or practical wisdom “good in itself,” independently of human cognition?

Upon reading Younkins’s essay, Bates (2023) has weighed in and registered his agreement with R&D and Younkins that things can be basic goods or “generic goods” for an individual human being, even if he or she does not evaluate, seek, and consume them. Thus, Bates says, Ayn Rand was wrong in not recognizing (the capacity for) practical wisdom as a “basic good.” More specifically, on Bates’s view, Rand was wrong to regard the good in general (and thus, practical wisdom in particular) as not actually good for some individual until it was evaluated, sought, and in some way utilized (consumed, reserved for later, etc.) by that individual.[11]

The argument that Bates seems to find objectionable is this: if things that really exist can’t be good in themselves, but only as evaluated by a living human being, then the capacity for practical reason—which really exists—cannot be a good in itself either, but only as evaluated by a living human being. Bates’s approach in attempting to refute it is not clearly laid out, but it appears to rely on a reductio ad absurdum. By denying the consequent, he would be positing something that is not proven (practical reason is good in itself) to prove that anything whatsoever can be good in itself—and therefore that there really is such a thing as mind-independent good in general.

By this approach, Bates might wish to persuade us to think that surely there is something wrong with the view that the good is mind-dependent, because look: by assuming that the good in general is mind-dependent, we’ve deduced that practical reason in particular is only good if we evaluate it as being so for us and go after it, and not simply because it is good by its very existence and nature. Unfortunately, this has no more relation to truth than to posit that “this cow is purple” in order to prove that “all cows are purple.” What remains to be demonstrated is that the cow (or any cow) is purple—and mootatis mootandis[12] that practical wisdom (or any human good) actually is good in itself, i.e., good apart from any human’s evaluation of it—instead of simply potentially good, pending someone’s discovery that it can serve some rational survival need. Without that demonstration, the logic can’t establish the truth of the desired conclusion.

The logic doesn’t get better if we instead deny Bates’s antecedent. If we say things that really exist can be good in themselves (apart from an evaluation by a living being), then the (real) capacity for practical wisdom can be a good in itself as well. The conclusion, Bates might suggest, is something that no one can reasonably deny. Practical wisdom just is good in itself, so our logic seems to have led us to the truth, and therefore…what? Oh…the antecedent must be true; things must be really good in themselves. But this logic doesn’t work any more than it did for denying the consequent. Bates would have assumed what he wishes to prove, and thus this form of the argument begs the question.

What is needed is not tortured attempts at trying to prove what you are assuming, but instead a careful look at the facts. Among these is the fact that there is a real and important distinction between something potentially having a certain attribute and actually having that attribute.

Let’s make it easier by talking about something less nebulous than practical wisdom, something like, oh, how about water. It is an undeniable fact that water by its actual existence and nature is such that it can potentially quench someone’s thirst, but that it is actually thirst-quenching only when someone drinks it. But by its existence and nature, water is also such that it can potentially drown someone.

So, at most, all we can say is that water is only a potential good (and also a potential bad) until consumed, at which point, there are not one but four possibilities: (1) it has no effect at all, in which case it is neither actually good nor actually bad (e.g., you drink some water even though you’re fully hydrated and not thirsty and you suffer no ill effects), (2) it has some positive effect on the consumer, in which case it is actually good (your clothing is on fire and you use water to put out the fire), (3) it has some negative effect on the consumer, in which case it is actually bad (e.g., you swim in a crocodile-infested river), and (4) it has both a positive and a negative effect on the consumer, in which case it is actually good in one respect and actually bad in another respect (e.g., your clothing is on fire and you jump in the crocodile-infested river in order to put it out).[13]

Water, in itself, prior to being evaluated and sought and consumed, is neither good nor bad, but only potentially good or bad (or both or neither)

To summarize what by now may be obvious: water, in itself, prior to being evaluated and sought and consumed, is neither good nor bad, but only potentially good or bad (or both or neither), depending on the context—and it is only actually good or bad (or both or neither) once it is evaluated, sought, and consumed. Furthermore, this is just a specific case of the general principle of actualism: anything whatsoever has the potential to be good or bad or both or neither, but is only potentially so until actually evaluated, sought, and consumed. That is Rand’s (and my) actualist position about the good, and it does not deny the essential partial truth of the potentialist position preferred by R&D, Younkins, and Bates—namely, that the actual existence and nature of something is the basis of its being potentially good, bad, both, or neither.

What, then, of Bates’s claim that Rand’s hero, John Galt, “suggests that it is good for humans to have the capacity to exercise practical wisdom”? (I am not aware of any place where Galt says or suggests this, but let’s assume it is so for the sake of discussion.) Doesn’t this conflict with her “objective theory” of the good, in which she “rejects the idea that good can be an attribute of things in themselves”—and that “having the capability is only good when it is used to make evaluations according to a rational standard of value”? Doesn’t this deny the obvious fact that “the capacity to exercise practical wisdom…is a good attribute for an individual to have, irrespective of how it is used”? And therefore, isn’t it good in itself to simply have that capacity even if, in retrospect, you later come to regret how you used it in some instances? He concludes: “there is no reason to doubt that the potential to exercise practical wisdom is good.”

Well, I for one would doubt it, at least without appropriate qualification. Here’s why. As Rand defined it, value is “that which one acts to gain and/or keep.” We might gain it and not keep it, as that glass of water we pour ourselves to drink—or that skill or talent that we allow to wither away without proper maintenance and use. However, we might gain it and keep it, as those bottles of water we keep in storage for an emergency—or our various skills and talents (including practical reason and practical wisdom) that we develop and use at various times throughout our lives.[14]

Indeed, as we see from economics, values (things sought) are often not consumed immediately. but instead are set aside from present consumption (i.e., saved) for later possible use. Practical wisdom is one of a great number of such things and abilities that we seek to gain during our lives and that we keep in readiness for when we might need to use them. However, they are not good in themselves, but only insofar as they can be used to meet a survival need of some kind. Happily practical wisdom, unlike a gallon of milk, is a “renewable resource,” but it is no more an actual good until consumed than is the milk in your refrigerator.

Like Younkins, Bates prefers the “less ambiguous approach” whereby R&D recognize “different grades of actuality.” But as I argued previously (part 1 and in note 4 herein), the “first and second grades of actuality” jargon is just a more technical-sounding way of saying “potential and actual.” Yes, we can affirm that all first grades of actuality are unactualized potentials (powers) of actual things, and that all second grades of actuality are actualized potentials of such things. But why isn’t it sufficient to acknowledge that every actual potentiality is a potential actuality? Color me simplistic, but I see no need for such stilted terminology as “grades of actuality” especially since there appear to be only two grades of it. The Scholastics are welcome to it.

So, in reply to Bates’s urging that “there is no reason to doubt that the potential to exercise practical wisdom is good,” I would make this qualification: there is no reason to doubt that the potential to exercise practical wisdom is potentially good. Or potentially bad, or potentially both, or potentially neither. Context matters.

For those who need an example of how exercise of practical reason can be bad, this should suffice. Suppose you’re standing in the middle of the street and a speeding truck is bearing down on you. The absolutely worst thing you could do in such a situation would be to dither around and try to figure out how to exercise practical wisdom. Jumping the hell out of the way is not practical wisdom. It’s sheer self-preservation.[15]
 

3. There is a lingering concern about whether Rand even recognized need for, or even such a capacity as, practical wisdom. As Bates asks: “Did Ayn Rand recognize the capacity to exercise practical wisdom as a basic good?”

It’s a reasonable question whether Ayn Rand considered the role of accumulated experience in making progressively better decisions. But absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Maybe a reading of her journal and letters would reveal some tell-tale situations and relationships in which she revealed her thought processes in applying practical reason excellently.

However, I think we can do better than that. We actually have ample evidence from writings Rand published during her lifetime, from which we can form a judgment about whether she had thoughts about practical reason and about using it excellently (practical wisdom).[16]

The problem is that the evidence is not based on her straightforward statements of the terms, but from reading between the lines, i.e., on an inference from (1) what Rand said in “The Ethics of Emergencies” and other essays and (2) what she said about pride (= moral perfection). The whole idea of the latter is getting better and better about your thinking and acting (rationality and productivity), and the former was Rand’s exercise in how to exercise the virtues of justice or integrity in applying your hierarchy of values in certain situations, which certainly counts as practical reason (i.e., reason applied to action).

Similarly, I think we can say that her essays about exercising moral judgment and not compromising one’s principles are also about practical reason—and that accordingly, pride/moral ambition applied to justice and integrity  would be two examples of excellently using one’s practical reason. The same applies to her essay on “conflicts” of men’s interests.

So, reading Ayn Rand between the lines,” we have to conclude that she jolly well did have things to say about practical reason and practical wisdom.

So, reading Ayn Rand between the lines,” we have to conclude that she jolly well did have things to say about practical reason and practical wisdom. You just have to put two and two together, which is really not that hard once you reflect on it and don’t expect her to shift over to the Aristotelian/Thomist glossary just to humor the academic folks and lose half her readers in the process!

Granted, Rand did not write a comprehensive manual on how to apply your ethical principles in real-life situations any more than R&D did, and she left a lot as “an exercise for the reader,” but a lot of what you need is right there in her writings.[17]

This points to an underlying communication problem in translating between different conceptual systems—specifically, here, in linking up the terminology for the Aristotelian-Thomist and the Randian conceptions of value and the good.

On the one hand, some Aristotelian-Thomists think that Rand tends to reify the good, i.e., to subordinate all those really good things out there in reality to her concept of the good, and thus to commit the Platonist fallacy of confusing logic or concepts with reality. For their part, the Randians would reply that the Aristotelian-Thomists seem to be reifying the potential, i.e., subordinating the actual good of a thing as obtained and utilized to that thing’s unutilized potential good, and thus to commit the Platonist fallacy of placing the actual good outside of an individual human’s conscious experience (aka another garden-variety form of “intrinsicism”).

Again, I must say: ladies and gentlemen, please, you’re all cool and attractive. None of you is a Platonist. You are just engaging in cross-talk with your preferred glossaries and forgetting that there is somewhat of a language barrier in communicating between various flavors of Neo-Aristotelian ethics. Perhaps prudence would call for some crash courses in TSL and RSL.[18]
 
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Notes

[1] Making a fair and accurate comparison between Randian and neo-Aristotelian-Thomist doctrines requires that one become “bilingual” in a manner similar to that required in studying Kant in the original German, Aquinas in the original Latin, or Aristotle in the original Greek (or each of them in really competent translations that are not compromised by a doctrinal agenda). When commentators are not able or willing to make the required time and effort, distortions and misrepresentations are too often the result. Scholar cave (in the same sense as caveat emptor).

[2] Bates appears to conflate practical reason and practical wisdom in referring to the latter as “a thing in itself.” Since Den Uyl and Rasmussen (2016) state that “practical wisdom is the excellent use of practical reason” (55), it is thus an action, one’s using the faculty of practical reason excellently. Further, the thing-in-itself here is the individual using that power (faculty) of practical reason excellently, so practical reason is not a thing-in-itself either, but an attribute of a thing (person).

[3] I am indebted to Vinay Kolhatkar for his editorial assistance.

[4] Such as in Rand 1961, 22.

[5] In his Treatise on Law, ([c. 1265–1273] 2000), Aquinas similarly says: “the rule and measure of human acts is reason, which is the primary source of human acts…. For it belongs to reason to order us to our end, which is the primary source regarding our prospective action …. And the source in any kind of thing is the measure and rule of that kind of thing …” (1).

[6] And just as human speculative reason is not the source of intellectual guidance, but the tool for discovering what human knowledge is for an individual and how it is to be realized, so too, as R&D tell us (2020), human practical reason…is not the source of moral guidance, but the tool for discovering what human flourishing for an individual is and how it is to be realized” (38, emphasis added). The source of moral and intellectual guidance, of course, is reality. And just as it is the reality of the situation, the knower, and the general character of human knowing that determines what epistemic norms (and especially, what logical principles) are to be employed or followed, similarly it is, as R&D (2020) put it, “the reality of the situation, the agent, and the general character of human flourishing that determines what ethical norms are to be employed or followed” (38).

[7] Yes, I know that in deriving the theorem from the axioms/postulates, you have to apply logic, so even theoretical geometry has that practical/applied aspect, but it’s applied logic, not applied geometry.

[8] See D&R 2006, 249–250 n4.

[9] See D&R 2016, 54–61.

[10] In this respect, Rand apparently only regards virtue as an action and not a settled disposition or character trait. This would seem to flow from her ethical focus on action as primary, as well as her belief that habits, even moral traits, can be undone in an instant by simply exercising one’s free will the wrong way. You may have a good track record as a moral person, but tell one lie and you go back to Square One and have to build up your virtue account all over again. It’s not as simple as saying some “Hail Mary’s” and then sinning no more (until the next time).

[11] The last part is important. The Mother Knows Best Theory of good-by-proxy does not—or at least, should not—apply to autonomous adult individuals; and it’s a reasonable and rebuttable presumption that Rand would have agreed. I have long objected to this X-is-good-for-you-even-if-you-don’t-agree concept of the good. Not only does it gloss over the crucial potential-actual distinction, but it also slides too easily into the I-know-that-X-is-good-for-you-even-if-you-don’t-agree. Whether Mom or some statist bureaucrat or some armchair philosopher is the “I” involved, it is not a theory becoming to a philosophy of individualism.

[12] Pun intended.

[13] I am expanding upon the approach Leonard Peikoff uses (1989) in his example about sunlight.

[14] However, it is only in relation to their potential later use that we refer to them as goods, and this is a derivative usage of the term “good,” which only has meaning in relation to a thing’s actual use. It is only when and as we actually use them that such potential goods, such gained-and-kept values, become actual goods. Otherwise, we conflate the potential with the actual, and wipe out the distinction. And then we see philosophers and their commentators (such as Younkins) trying to reintroduce the distinction with wordy locutions such as “first order of actuality” (i.e., potential) and “second order of actuality” (actual). This is not an improvement!

[15] I suppose that one might use practical wisdom in one’s armchair and project using lightning-fast self-protective responses when confronted with immediate mortal danger. That would probably be the prudent thing to do!

[16] See, for instance, Rand 1962a, 1962b, 1962c, 1963, and 1964a.

[17] Easy for me to say, coming up with this revelation after only 57 years of reading Rand!

[18] Thomism Second Language and Randianism Second Language.

References

Aquinas. [c. 1265–1273] 2000. Treatise on Law. Trans. Richard J. Regan. Indianapolis: Hackett.

Bates, Winton. 2023. “Did Ayn Rand Recognize the Capacity to Exercise Practical Reason as a Basic Good?” Freedom and Flourishing (December 9). Online at: https://www.freedomandflourishing.com/2023/12/did-ayn-rand-recognize-capacity-to.html.

Bissell, Roger E. 2020. “Eudaimon in the Rough: Perfecting Rand’s Egoism.” The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies 20, no. 2 (December): 452–478.

______. 2023. “Ayn Rand Decoded: Replies to Recent Criticisms of the Objectivist Ethics, Part 1: Come, Let Us Beat Our Mountains into Molehills.” The Savvy Street (November 27). Online at: https://www.thesavvystreet.com/ayn-rands-philosophy-decoded-replies-to-recent-criticisms-of-the-objectivist-ethics/.

Den Uyl, Douglas J. 1994. The Virtue of Prudence. New York: Peter Lang.

Den Uyl, Douglas J. and Douglas B. Rasmussen. 2016. The Perfectionist Turn: From Metanorms to Metaethics. Edinburgh, UK: Edinburgh University Press.

Peikoff, Leonard. 1989. “Fact and Value.” The Intellectual Activist 5, no. 1 (May 18): 1–6. Online at: https://peikoff.com/essays_and_articles/fact-and-value/.

Rand, Ayn. 1961. “The Objectivist Ethics.” In Rand 1964b, 13–39.

______. 1962a. “How Does One Lead a Rational Life in an Irrational Society?” In Rand 1964b, 82–86.

______. 1962b. “Doesn’t Life Require Compromise?” In Rand 1964b, 79–81.

______. 1962c. “The ‘Conflicts’ of Men’s Interests.” In Rand 1964b, 57–65.

______. 1963. “The Ethics of Emergencies.” In Rand 1964b, 49–56.

______. 1964a. “The Cult of Moral Grayness.” In Rand 1964b, 87–92.

______. 1964b. The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism. New York: New American Library.

______. [1966 – 67] 1990. Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology. Expanded 2^nd edition. Edited by Harry Binswanger and Leonard Peikoff. New York: New American Library.

______. 1974. “Philosophical Detection.” In Rand 1984, 12–22.

______. 1982. Philosophy: Who Needs It. New York: New American Library.

Rasmussen, Douglas B. and Douglas J. Den Uyl. 2020. The Realist Turn: Repositioning Liberalism. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave-Macmillan.

______. 2023a. “On Grounding Ethical Values in the Human Life Form.” The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies 23, nos. 1–2 (July): 328–340.

______. 2023b. “Three Forms of Neo-Aristotelian Ethical Naturalism: A Comparison.” Reason Papers 43, no. 2 (Fall): 14–43. Online at: https://reasonpapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/rp43-2-rasmussendenuyl.pdf.

Ryan, Sharon. 2013. “Wisdom.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Online at: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wisdom/.

Younkins, Edward W. 2023. “Objectivism and Individualistic Perfectionism: A Comparison.” The Savvy Street (October 19). Online at: https://www.thesavvystreet.com/objectivism-and-individualistic-perfectionism-a-comparison/.