Abstract

This chapter discusses a pair of interrelated theses that are hallmarks of Objectivism: the benevolent universe premise and the heroic view of man. These theses are dramatic consequences of the defining essentials of the philosophy, and they are central to the sense of life conveyed by Ayn Rand's novels. The benevolent universe premise permeates all her novels, and much of her non‐fiction, but it seems that she first conceptualized this view under this name sometime in the 1940s. The benevolent universe premise is what Rand calls a metaphysical value‐judgment. It is metaphysical in that it answers a question about the nature of the universe. The chapter briefly describes the heroic view of man, looking not at the content of Rand's view of heroism, but at how this view of heroism colored her view of humanity and of specific human beings.