Rating: 
Summary: A great motivator
Review: The book is a gem... one that efficiently kills even the last traces of complacency, instills confindence, is a great motivator, a driver of change and progress. It is a must read for any-one and everyone who dreams to make a lasting contribution to the world. Rand does take you to the extreme - you do at times feel it isn't really this binary -- Let that pass as an author's license. Focus on the message, the philosophy -- and that is what makes the book worth its weight in gold.
Rating: 
Summary: A clear explanation of the ethics of objectivism
Review: This book focuses on the ethics of the philosophy of objectivism. Rather than being a book with chapters, it is a selection of articles which cover various questions, such as what selfishness is, the ethics of charity and voluntary help, the false dichotomy of altruism and selfishness, and what the theory of Objectivism actually is. This is a good place to start to learn about the philosophy of objectivism as it concentrates on the philosophy itself rather than applying it to real-world examples. For those who wish to know more about objectivism applied, the books "Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal", "The Anti-Industrial Revolution", and "Why Businessmen Need Philosophy" would be more relevant. Whether one disagrees with the philosophy or not, the articles in this book are clearly written, simple to understand, and passionately argued. Some parts are flippant, particularly with reference to the dismissal of the ideas of other philosophers, and Rand does not truly manage to justify why objectivism is actually objective [see Nozick's book Socratic Puzzles). Nevertheless, this book is worth reading if you are interested in this area of politics and philosophy.
Rating: 
Summary: A perversion of Jewish ethics
Review: Our Sages held that each person should keep a piece of paper in one pocket reading, 'The world was created for my sake', and a piece in another pocket reading, 'I am but dust and ashes'. Each statement, it was said, should be taken out and read as a corrective - the first to overhumility, the second to an excess of pride. Ayn Rand (born Alyssa Rosenbaum) had only one pocket. As a result her secular morality is a one-sided perversion of Jewish ethics. There is certainly an important place for what Rand would have called 'egoism' - proper concern for one's own well-being - and Judaism certainly does not advocate what she called 'sacrifice'. However, her contemptuous dismissal of charity and benevolence as of merely marginal ethical importance is altogether at odds with the Jewish emphasis on tzedakah. It should not take much 'Jewish learning' to see that practising the 'Objectivist' ethic leads directly to a hypertrophy of pride and self-concern. That is why the 'Objectivist' cult is so heavily slanted against communal concerns and so thoroughly blind to the goal of interpersonal harmony. But it is also why there will never be an actual 'Objectivist' *community* - and why 'Objectivists' will therefore never find personal fulfillment. According to Judaism, the individual and the community are not opposed to one another, but each finds its proper fulfillment in the other. Not so 'Objectivism', which - following its false Messiah - regards community as of only secondary importance and elevates the 'self' to the status of an idol (as a replacement for the G-d that Miss Rand rejected). As far as interpersonal relations are concerned, 'selfishness', in and of itself, is no more a virtue than is 'altruism'. Genuine virtue is to behave justly toward *both* oneself *and* others (in accordance with the mitzvot), thus fostering both individual well-being and communal harmony. But neither of these goals can be achieved by itself. Miss Rand's personal history is evidence enough of that.
Rating:
Summary: A brilliant book?
Review: Mrs. O'Connor's (nee Rosenbaum) "The Virtue of Selfishness" is an unoriginal, hopelessly confused, ruthlessly illogical presentation of a morality that has never been thought legitimate by anyone past adolescence: a morality of pure self-interest, which expressly forbids direct concern for the well-being of anyone but oneself and calls the result "virtue." Many people are incapable of questioning the stale doctrine of false autonomy they learned in O'Connor's books or in Objectivist study groups. It is precisely to encourage that type of mentality that Mrs. O'Connor wrote her "treatise" - which is actually no such thing, but merely a collection of short topical essays by two "giants" who considered themselves not bound by "conventional" morality: Mrs. O'Connor herself, and her adulterous lover Nathan Blumenthal ("Nathaniel Branden"), twenty-five years her junior.
Rating:
Summary: A brilliant book.
Review: Miss Rand's "The Virtue of Selfishness" is anoriginal, brilliantly clear, ruthlessly logical presentation of amorality that has never been thought possible: a morality of individualism, which does not require the sacrifice of anyone to anyone. Many people are incapable of questioning the stale doctrine of sacrifice they learned in church or school. It is precisely against that type of mentality that Miss Rand wrote her treatise.
Rating:
Summary: Huh?
Review: Who is this muttonhead from Jacksonville who says, "The negative reviewers below insist that self-sacrifice is necessary"? I just read all of those negative reviews and didn't find a single one advocating "self-sacrifice." I did find several who thought (correctly) that Rand had given a bad definition of sacrifice. Do ALL Objectivists lapse into Randy jargon at every hint of criticism? Can ANY of them represent an opposing position accurately?
Rating:
Summary: Interesting...
Review: If you ever wished to attempt to justify narcissism, this is the book for you. If you look beyond her self congratulatory style, her obvious anti-religious attitude, and her lack of originality, you can see what appears to be some kind of reformed hedonism. I believe initially she truly wanted to attempt the development of a Rational Individualist Philosophy, but she was incapable of the task, and this was the result. If not, she was completely inarticulate. Therefore, if you are a Narcissist, you'll love Ayn Rand. If you aren't, anything by Ayn Rand will most likely look like the rantings of a lunatic. Me, I'm in the latter group.
Rating: 
Summary: Rights don't reduce to self-interest
Review: Here's the entire problem in two sentences: "Why not sacrifice others? Because, says Rand in this book, it is *not* to one's self-interest to conduct one's life thusly." I suspect most of us would say that the reason not to sacrifice others is that it's an immoral way to treat _others_. (And please note that it is warmongers, dictators, and tyrants who disagree.) It's genuinely good to know that it's not in one's own "interest" to treat people this way either, but I don't think Rand gave a very coherent account of such "interest." Be that as it may, the suggestion that we should respect other people's rights solely because it is in our _own_ interest to do so is a simple and straightforward denial of the meaning of "rights." Nor can benevolence be reduced to an enlightened form of self-regard (as Rand intimates in this volume and as David Kelley argues at length in _Unrugged Individualism_). Benevolence aims directly at the well-being of someone other than oneself, and it is strictly immoral on an ethic that maintains (as Rand's does) that, morally, the beneficiary of every one of my actions _must_ be myself. There is a curious asymmetry in Rand's (re)definition of selfishness. If selfishness is the rational pursuit of one's own rational good, then altruism, by parallel (re)definition, ought to be the rational pursuit of someone else's rational good. But no: "altruism" is identified with the belief that one person's good requires another person's sacrifice -- even though, by Rand's own account, this view is also part of the common understanding of selfishness. This view should indeed be rejected; Rand is quite right that your rational well-being and mine are mutually reinforcing. But "selfishness" (even in Rand's sense) doesn't follow. The proper conclusion should be that benevolence is rational and safe. Unfortunately this volume is vitiated by its ill-advised attempt to demonstrate (in the lead essay) that anyone failing to practice the Objectivist ethic is not merely unethical but literally _subhuman_ and even _subanimal_. Having spent some time and effort considering the implications of this view, I have reduced my rating of this book from five stars to three.
Rating:
Summary: Rand's ideas are right, but there is just no rationale
Review: I'm yet another countless highschool debater who has read Rand to use as a tool in debate, and to grasp a better concept of her ideas. After I read this book, I realized why there is such a big stigma associated with her name. She presents pretty straightforward ideas, but for most of them, the claims go unwarranted. No wonder why she said she was the only one who could understand her philosophy, I mean, at times she tries to rationalize blaring contradictions in the convictions that she holds do dear. Even if some of her ideas are right on, it's hard to justify them because she makes no sense at times. Granted, I have only read this book and Anthem, unless there is something I am missing it seems to be a leap of faith. People were continuously excommunicated from her cult for questioning her ideals. I now know why they did that. By the way, isn't a postage stamp a sign of the government? I thought they are used to collect revennue....hmm....
Rating:
Summary: THE MOST ETHICAL VISION
Review: The negative reviewers below insist that self-sacrifice is necessary. So does every warmonger and dictator. Sacrifice means, and always meant, personal loss for others' gain; else it means nothing. Distinctively, all tyranny requires a pro-sacrifice ethics - tyrants want to receive sacrifice. In sharpest contrast to this, Ayn Rand in <The Virtue of Selfishness> upholds man - i.e., the individual person - against tyranny, by defining "a new concept of egoism" (to quote the book's subtitle). It is a no-sacrifice ethics. Evidently, this is so new that reviewers steeped in conventional ethical ideas feel personally challenged enough by it to misrepresent it. They accuse her of advocating the violation of others' rights. What she actually advocates in this book is a principled life eschewing sacrifice, in which one "neither sacrifices oneself to others, nor sacrifices others to oneself." Why not sacrifice others? Because, says Rand in this book, it is *not* to one's self-interest to conduct one's life thusly. She says one might certainly *feel* it is but one's *feelings* cannot determine what one's genuine, long-term interests are. And she goes on to define an ethics based on reason. She calls this morality "rational self-interest" - or "selfishness," which is intended to represent her defiance of the pro-sacrifice approach. (This approach asserts that sacrifice is unavoidable because, it says, self-interested action can include violating others' rights; thus self-interest is maligned. But Rand denied it, and identified this view as being based on philosophical subjectivism or on mental illness.) Philosophical subjectivism is jettisoned from ethics at the outset. Now about a political system based on her ethics. Rand insisted that other people in general are valuable to one because trade with them (in terms both of physical goods and of personal virtues) can be enormously beneficial to one's proper life. Since the fundamental requirement of man's living and thriving in society, she says, is freedom from physical coercion, the imperative of politics is to bar the initiation of physical coercion. Her politics is loud and clear: leave other people alone - allow them to function freely - do not initiate physical compulsion against them or let them initiate it against oneself. In her view, government is an agency of standardizing the retaliatory use of force against those who initiate physical compulsion. (See "Man's Rights" in <Virtue>, and see her book on politics, <Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal>.) All these exceedingly noble - and realistic - ideas, if practiced, would transform the world for the better. That prospect repulses the tyrannical not only because their vocation of collecting sacrifices would be at an end, but also because the unjustified monopoly on morality held by their best helpers - the religious - would then be broken at long last.
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