COMING UP AT ATLAS SUMMIT 2014: How John Galt earns his freedom
By Alexander R. Cohen
“On this material, profit-chasing earth,” John Galt tells us, man must create the values he needs if he seeks to live. That takes virtue. And in order to do it, man needs rights.
That much is standard Objectivism.
But what Objectivism hasn’t explicitly recognized is that a political system committed to rights is itself a value, a value that takes a distinctive kind of virtuous action to create.
By identifying productiveness as a virtue, Ayn Rand elevated the material support of one’s life, which other philosophers had slighted, to a matter of profound moral importance. But she failed to acknowledge, as other philosophers had, the moral importance of the pursuit of the common good.
 In practice, of course, Objectivists, beginning with Rand herself, have done a lot of work to make our societies freer. And Rand’s fictional heroes take great personal risks in the cause of freedom. But Objectivist theory has not lived up to our practice.
This year, at the Atlas Summit, I’m going to argue for a virtue concerned with the common good—the objective good that is truly common to everyone in a political society: the legal protection of individual rights.
It’s the virtue by which John Galt earns his freedom. I call it patriotism. Read more >
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