M-W-F, 5:00 – 5:30 pm ET
Ayn Rand’s historic speech, “The Objectivist Ethics,” is a marvel of compression. This pair of courses brings to light the 7/8 that, iceberg-like, lie under the surface.
(Course 1 covered the base and proof of the Objectivist ethical system, including Rand’s answer to Hume’s infamous “is”-“ought” problem and the step-by-step progression of her proof that man’s life is the standard of morality.)
This second course covers the rest of the speech—paragraphs 61 – 106. This part presents the normative content of Rand’s ethics: the full meaning of rational selfishness, the three cardinal values, the seven virtues, and why the political expression of the Objectivist ethics is laissez-faire capitalism.
The essay breaks neatly in half: paragraphs 1 through 60 cover “meta-ethics,” that is, the nature of morality as such and the proof of one’s moral code. The second half of the essay explains the content of her egoist code.
This second half took Ayn Rand less than 30 minutes to deliver (at the University of Wisconsin, Madison in 1961); my class includes 6 hours of lecture, plus more than 3 hours of Q & A to help you fully grasp and appreciate its historic integrations.
This course has two sub-goals 1. to identify the essay’s “mechanics”—Rand’s startlingly original methodology; 2. how to confront the text—how to mine the subsurface gold that Rand’s writing always contains.
Both courses use a novel format: short classes with more frequent meetings, to maintain the momentum. We meet three times a week, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, at 5 pm ET, for half-hour classes. After each class is a Q & A of at least 15 minutes. Only written questions submitted in advance are answered—to have the best, essentialized, on-topic questions.
The class is presented on Zoom. You can attend live or watch/listen to recordings on your schedule. Video recordings are available online, and audio-only recordings are available in an easy-to-access podcast form.
PRICING
12 classes, each is 30-minutes plus Q & A:
$600
$425 for those who bought Course 1.
26 classes
$1150 saving $175 by buying both courses as a combo.
Price range: $425.00 through $600.00
