Man’s Life as the Standard of Value in the Ethics of Ayn Rand and Aristotle by Gregory Salmieri

“Man’s life,” wrote Ayn Rand, “is the standard of morality.” Aristotle was the first to identify the proper standard of morality as the distinctly human form of life—the life of a rational animal. But Rand and Aristotle have importantly different views of what the human form of life is—in particular, about why reason is a value and how it relates to the faculties and the needs that human beings share with other living things. This talk explores the similarities and differences between these two ethicists. Recorded live at Ayn Rand Con Europe 2023