The Objectivist ethics proudly advocates and upholds rational
selfishness—which means: the values required for man’s survival qua
man—which means: the values required for human survival—not the values
produced by the desires, the emotions, the “aspirations,” the feelings, the
whims or the needs of irrational brutes, who have never outgrown the primordial
practice of human sacrifices, have never discovered an industrial society and
can conceive of no self-interest but that of grabbing the loot of the moment.
The Objectivist ethics holds that human good does not require human
sacrifices and cannot be achieved by the sacrifice of anyone to anyone. It
holds that the rational interests of men do not clash—that there is no
conflict of interests among men who do not desire the unearned, who do not make
sacrifices nor accept them, who deal with one another as traders, giving
value for value.