Objectivist Morality

I started a thread (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=3729170) about whether Objectivism is a religion, since the followers sometimes seem very cultish. "jthegreat" responded that Rand did great works in the field of ethics.

I was wondering what you all thought about Objectivist Morality. Here is Rand's summary:

[ QUOTE ]
My morality, the morality of reason, is contained in a single axiom: existence exists—and in a single choice: to live. The rest proceeds from these. To live, man must hold three things as the ruling values of his life: Reason—Purpose—Self-esteem. Reason, as his only tool of knowledge—Purpose, as his choice of the happiness which that tool must proceed to achieve—Self-esteem, as his inviolate certainty that his mind is competent to think and his person is worthy of happiness, which means: worthy of living. These three values imply and require all of man's virtues…
— Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged.

[/ QUOTE ]

References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objectivist_ethics
http://www.objectivistcenter.org/objectivism/faqs/wthomas_faq-ethics.asp

[deepdowntruth]

The quote you provided is from a fictional character in a novel in a specific literary context. To praise or dismiss Ayn Rand's contribution to ethical theory, and/or its rigor or importance, on the basis of this one paragraph would be a mistake. (Similarly for any other philosopher and one selected out-of-context paragraph.)

There are excellent sources for a fuller treatment of AR's ethics:

1.) Her article "The Objectivist Ethics" in The Virtue of Selfishness;

2.) Chapters 6-9 of Leonard Peikoff's book Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand;

3.) Tara Smith's book Viable Values which presents and develops AR's meta-ethics in a more scholarly way and fends off contemporary objections and mis-interpretations.

4.) Harry Binswanger's book The Biological Basis of Teleological Concepts which also presents certain aspects of AR's meta-ethics from a more scholarly perspective.