Top Highlights

• She argued that altruism is not the basis of good will toward others, and more: that altruism is incompatible with benevolence.
• As a result, many Objectivists feel alienated from the people around them, keenly aware of their faults but not their potential for good, more comfortable pulling weeds than making the flowers grow.
• I will show, however, why benevolence is essentially a commitment to achieving a positive value, and why it is a major virtue, comparable in many respects to productiveness.
• Insofar as benevolence means a commitment to behaving peacefully toward others, respecting their rights and giving them what is due, it is an issue of justice, which is a selfish virtue, not an act of altruism.
• If self-esteem is an objective human need, then we cannot see ourselves as means to the ends of others—we cannot accept the premise that someone else’s need is a moral claim on our efforts and resources, overriding the use of those efforts and resources for our own benefit—without coming to see other people as threats and feeling hostility toward t...