Is There a Proof of Ayn Rand’s Ethics?

In this New Ideal video Q&A session, I respond to a question about Ayn Rand’s ethics from a reader named Sophia, who writes:

I am a high school student in 10th grade who has recently become interested in philosophy through writing an essay on the history of Western philosophy for my Latin class. After being recommended to Objectivism, I read through some of Ayn Rand’s essays such as “The Objectivist Ethics” and “Introducing Objectivism” in order to begin to acquaint myself with her philosophy. After much consideration and thought, I have become quite interested by her epistemology and ethics and would like to perform a more detailed analysis of her ideas in these areas. I am trying to find a step-by-step proof of her ethics in particular, but I have only found proofs outlining her ideas made by critics of hers. If any such accepted step-by-step proof of Objectivism exists, then I would be quite grateful if you could please provide me with the information on how to obtain it.

I hope you find my answers informative and thought-provoking. If you have follow-up questions on these issues, please don’t hesitate to send them my way, using our New Ideal comment form.

To explore this topic further, listen to a lesson called “An Inductive Approach to Philosophy” on ARI Campus.