I am profoundly opposed to the philosophy of hedonism. Hedonism is the doctrine
which holds that the good is whatever gives you pleasure and, therefore,
pleasure is the standard of morality. Objectivism holds that the good must be
defined by a rational standard of value, that pleasure is not a first cause,
but only a consequence, that only the pleasure which proceeds from a rational
value judgment can be regarded as moral, that pleasure, as such, is not a guide
to action nor a standard of morality. To say that pleasure should be the
standard of morality simply means that whichever values you happen to have
chosen, consciously or subconsciously, rationally or irrationally, are right
and moral. This means that you are to be guided by chance feelings, emotions
and whims, not by your mind. My philosophy is the opposite of hedonism. I hold
that one cannot achieve happiness by random, arbitrary or subjective means. One
can achieve happiness only on the basis of rational values. By rational values,
I do not mean anything that a man may arbitrarily or blindly declare to be
rational. It is the province of morality, of the science of ethics, to define
for men what is a rational standard and what are the rational values to pursue.