[Music] miss Rand you have said that your primary purpose in writing is to project the ideal man for those who may not have read Atlas Shrugged and have not yet met Hank Rearden or John Galt how would you describe the ideal man well it actually it took me about 700,000 bored I know it in Atlas Shrugged to describe him so it's impossible to give a description but I could tell you only the essential characteristics above everything else a rational man a rational man rational man a man guided exclusively by reason an independent man and a man of great self-esteem I would name these three as distinguishing characteristics the essential ones are what I regard as an ideal man mm-hmm so a rational man and would depend upon nothing except his own reason for determining his actions exactly no belief and or no no no belief and anything he couldn't see or touch certainly no belief as faith no faith in anything but reason is the Faculty which identifies and integrates the material provided by your senses so you don't smell or touch with your reason there's regrets the material which your reason integrates into concept and certainly an ideal man would never permit himself to act on the guidance of emotions or to act without knowing exactly what he's doing if he's guided by reason this will be the first to consequence you will always know what he is doing and why and he will not add blindly and he would not act up because he felt like it so my idea menon to me this is one of the worst most immoral actions that anyone can permit himself to say I did it because I felt it's quite all right to feel but feelings are not tools of cognitions are not guides to reality and you keep your feelings to yourself feelings are the consequences of salt and action not the primaries vilify the guy if I didn't do it because I felt like it why did I do it I did it because because you felt now you see how that language is because you concluded contentiously that this is the right thing to do right for whichever goal you're undertaking you decide what you want rationally and you choose rationally what steps you will take to pursue that goal so that if you take a given action you do it because you think it is right does man have should he have any concern for other men you say individual you say concern is a very loose term what would you mean by it well certainly most of us are brought up by an ethic that says that we are our brother's keeper I would say we most certainly are not could not be and should not attempt to be the only concern men should have for other men is respect for their rights and men should never expect another man to sacrifice for him nor should he sacrifice himself for other men he should respect the independence and the rights of others and never take part in any form of enslavement political enslaved but outside of that he's not responsible for other men and should never permit them to assume they're all of responsibility for him he should not submit to force not exercise force he should not ask others to leave for his sake nor should he ever live for the sake of others he should treat others as traitors but that is if two men agree on a given dealer as they want to cooperate that finds a trade value for value voluntarily without sacrifice on either part they both serve their rational self-interest if they deal with each other if they don't want to deal with each other it should not be forced to and you place the emphasis upon rational and their rational self-interest oh yes certainly I place that emphasis on every singers because that which is proper for you on a rational basis cannot be proper for you on any other basis and therefore all your rights rest on your nature as a rational being if you want to claim any kind of rights you cannot claim them for your feelings only for your mind and the actions I regard as moral are only the ones based on rational goals and rational motives the others are immoral and in your philosophy totally immoral you means us the nuts that are judged upon reason yes so the charity in this sense based upon emotion would not be moral charity is a very marginal issue one of my main tenets is that charity should never be a duty and when you want to help someone else it is proper it's not evil provided you do it on the basis of his value because he's a good person who suffers through no fault of his own because he's a friend of yours because he's a victim of injustice those are all helping values but never on if you grant a man charity on the ground of his claws he is not accidental misfortune but a misfortune brought about by his own evil then that that kind of help I had to regardless how does the the concept of love love for one another fit into this philosophy addition we start with romantic love because I don't quite understand the romantic love certain is a part of your novels it's very God is the most properly selfish emotion says you fall in love as a person because you regard him or her as a value and because they contribute to your personal happiness now you couldn't fall in love with a person by saying you mean nothing to me I don't care whether you live or die but you need me and therefore I'm in love with you if someone offered rob of that kind everyone would regard that as a deadly insult that isn't love therefore romantic love is a selfish emotion it is the choice of a person as a great value and what you fall in love with is the same values which you choose embodied in another person that's romantic love and that is profoundly properly selfish now any lesser form of love such as friendship affection is the same thing in effect you grant a feeling of affection to those whom you have concluded our values your response to others is on the basis of values and if they're no good then you feel the appropriate emotion of contempt our values absolute is read a good or evil is earning and what you need most value I would say values are contextual they depend on the context of a given situation now there are unfortunately too many people who are part good part bed well that's their problem but what morality would demand of them is to struggle to the best of their ability to be good and never do evil consciously if a man does it I would regard him as completely good if he never does evil conscience in deliberately however if he does just one action which he knows to be wrong but permitted to himself then he is evil absolutely the rest is only a matter of time you've written that the concept that the concept of God is morally evil why I didn't say it's morally evil no not in those words I said it's false false I said it's a fantasy doesn't exist mm-hmm I would say religion can be very dangerous psycho epistemologically in regard to the working of a man's mind face is dangerous because a man who permits himself to exempt some aspect of reality from reason and to believe in a God even though he knows he has no reason to believe in a God there is no evidence of it a God's existence that is the danger psychologically that man is not going to be rational or will have a terrible conflict it is wrong in that way however let me say I certainly recognize anyone's right to have any religions they want them their legal right moral moral or philosophical is it's a different issue for many people religion is a way of explaining the mysteries of life the unknown things do you recognize no mysteries I don't believe that that lack of knowledge is a license to start inventing fantasies man certainly is not omniscient and I believe he should stay within that which he knows act on his knowledge and constantly tried to expand his knowledge it's not necessary to be omniscient I don't think there are mysteries it's a wrong term there are a great many things which men doesn't know and that's what the progress of science is now edges for to learn more and more but not to invent an explanation for what you do not know miss around you're an atheist are you always an atheist dude or did you grow up with religious training at all or no I had practically no religious training my parents were formerly had their religion but fortunately didn't impose don't mean any serious way and I was about 13 when I decided I'm an atheist and that was that was there any thing that brought you to this no just simply thinking on the subject and my main reason was it it is wrong to believe anything for which there is no evidence and also the fact that I resent religious morality which tells man that he's an inferior being and not he is not as far as he knows he's the highest creation in civilization or the highest being and the idea of accepting on face some ineffable being who is superior to you in every way even though you cannot aspire to that perfection that is just a formula for psychological inferiority complex for self abasement and I saw no reason for men to accept it that's as early as 13 I still think so but I know it much more clearly now romantic art presents to men what he might be and ought to be that is it presents an ideal and tells men this is the essential nature of men and you as a human being can become that if you wish so that are in that sense romantic art is model building not however and I am emphasized that not for the purpose of improving or teaching you read something to your readers not teaching or not teaching art should never be the didactic that's a secondary issue that's pure gravy the primary purpose of art is contemplation for its own sake so that the purpose here is for the reader to see what greatness man is capable of is and to be inspired by said so Atlas Shrugged then and any one of the heroic characters Hank Rearden or John Galt or Francisco these give me a model of the kind of person I might be if you wish but that isn't my purpose in writing by saying my purpose is for you to look those people and to enjoy the spectacle I want to return for just one moment to religion and the ethic and in which so many of us were raised of course religion is used by some people as a as a way of facing the idea of the inevitability of death how do you feel about that as an Objectivist that is how you feel about death is it I doesn't concern me in the least because I won't be here to know it mm-hmm don't you see that that's the worst thing about this and I what I regard as the worst human tragedy is to lose someone you love that is terribly hard but you are on this if you finish you finish my purpose is not to worry about death but to live life here on on earth now do you find joy in that life oh yes very much so what are the sources of joy achievement achievement and romantic love my husband those are the two great eras in life career and romantic love thank you very much thank you