Home Forums Reply To: How can one practice the Objectivist virtues in an irrational society?

#30869
Jon Hersey
Member

The purpose of morality is to enable you to flourish, not to demand, as an out-of-context absolute, that you act in a certain way. If, in a particular and abnormal context, the normal application of a moral principle would do irreparable harm to your life and would, on net, be a sacrifice of your values, then rational egoism says: don’t do that!.

Recall, though, that the virtues are simply applications of rationality to specific contexts / areas of life. If you’re ongoing situation requires that you flout the normal requirements of reason, that is not sustainable. You might, like Kira, going along with it for awhile, trying not to rock the boat too hard; but life/reason demands that, also like Kira, you try to escape the anti-life situation or otherwise subvert the thing that is subverting your life.

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