Douglas Den Uyl and Douglas Rasmussen on Ayn Rand: What She Gets Right and Where She Goes Too Far

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We’ve talked about objectivism before on the podcast, but that was fairly introductory. Today, for the first time ever, I host two guests on the podcast to discuss the limitations of objectivism and where it fails to depict the good life. We talk about how they got interested in Rand’s thought, how they philosophically dealt with works that were mostly fiction, and where their philosophy, individualistic perfectionism, diverges from Rand’s and fills in some important blanks. 

Den Uyl is a resident scholar at Liberty Fund, and Rasmussen is a professor emeritus in philosophy at St. John’s University and senior affiliated scholar at the Center for Economic Inquiry at Creighton University. Together, they have written extensively on the subject, including editing a collection called The Philosophic Thought of Ayn Rand. They’ve written a lot on the topic at the Journal for Ayn Rand Studies. Den Uyl has a book on the subject, titled The Fountainhead: An American Novel.

Want to explore more?

• Jennifer Burns on Ayn Rand and the Goddess of the Market, an EconTalk podcast.
• Timothy Sandefur on Freedom's Furies, a Great Antidote podcast.
• Caroline Breashears, Adam Smith, Ayn Rand, and the Power of Stories, at Econlib.
• Craig Biddle on Philosophy and Objectivism, a Great Antidote podcast.
• Dianne Durante on Innovations in Sculpture, a Great Antidote podcast.

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