Customer Reviews

Loving Life: The Morality of Self-Interest and the Facts that Support It

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1 star:		(2)

 

 

The material abundance and individual freedom that is the hallmark of capitalism rests on upon the ethics of self-interest, but today perhaps no code of morality is more misunderstood and maligned. In a profound yet easily accessible text, Craig Biddle demolishes the conventional wisdom that holds sacrifice as a moral ideal and offers the honest reader a compelling alternative.

Through examples drawn from today's headlines, historical analysis and the thoughtful examination of leading intellectual thinkers, Loving Life clearly demonstrates that morality is a matter not of divine revelation or social convention or personal opinion-but, rather, of the factual requirements of human life and happiness. Biddle shows how a true morality is derived logically from observable facts, what in essence such a morality demands, and why it is a matter of pure self-interest.

Loving Life exposes the baseless nature of the various moralities that call for human sacrifice and lead to human suffering and shows how a true morality is derived logically from observable facts and what such a morality implies-personally, socially, and politically. With clarity and elegance, Biddle demonstrates the principles, values, and virtues that are essential to human life and happiness; and he defines and defends the social and political conditions that are required for people to live together as civilized beings.

This book is the perfect book to give to a friend or relative who needs an intellectual jumpstart in their lives.

Loving Life: The Morality Of Self-Interest And The Facts That Support It by Craig Biddle is a challenging, informative, thoughtful treatise about the true meaning of ethics. Putting forth that morality does not come from God, social convention, personal opinion, or limiting oneself to what is culturally accepted, but rather embodied in reason, logic, cause and effect, and understanding the importance and value of human life and happiness. Loving Life is a fresh voice of reason about truly living well and pursuing happiness within ethical bounds that are righteous for the best reason of all - because they are rationally constructed out of respect and love for all other human beings. Loving Life is very highly recommended reading for both students of ethics and morality, as well as the non-specialist general readers with an interest in philosophy.

The primary virtue of the this book is a complete demolition of the typical Conservative claim that without God there is no morality. Craig Biddle does an excellent job of refuting all sides (the religious and personal or social subjectivist) of that particular mistaken proposition in all their manifestations and proves his points both with authoritative quotes from the various advocates and helpful examples that serve to clarify the ideas in a manner far better than I've seen in virtually all presentations of this sort.

In addition Mr. Biddle does not just stop there but spends the rest of the book presenting the proper alternative to the false God/Anything Goes dichotomy -- a morality based of reason and principled self-intest. He shows how morality can be derived from facts and what the specifics of such a fact-based morality would look like. He concludes by outlining the essential principle of politics -- individual rights.

A clear, simple and highly enjoyable presentation of the morality of self-interest. "The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live." -Ayn Rand
Morality is a code of values, based on certain requirements of human survival. The author shows how a proper morality must be based on certain facts of reality, facts that makes human life and happiness possible.
It's your life! Are you living it? For your own well-being and happiness - or somebody else's? The ideas presented in this book have the power to change your life. What are you waiting for? Go get this book - now!

"If you want to live your life to the fullest, if you want to achieve the greatest happiness possible, this book is for you. It is about the essential means to that end: a proper code of values--a proper morality." Thus begins _Loving Life_, and the rest of the book lives up to this claim.

_Loving Life_ gives you two crucial values. It a) shows how morality is a matter of objective fact, not subjective whim or religious dogma and b) shows you clearly and concretely the meaning of the morality of rational self-interest and how to use it to improve your life.

If are already familiar with rational selfishness/the Objectivist ethics, this book--with its many illuminating descriptions and examples--will give you a greater understanding of the morality.

Unconditionally recommended.

_Loving Life_ is an excellent short introduction to Ayn Rand's ethics, particularly for people who find her writings too condensed or too polemical. Unlike the convoluted and rationalistic writings typically produced by academics, Craig Biddle's writing is clear and engaging. His plethora of examples not only illustrate the ideas under discussion, but also show their real-life importance.

I particularly enjoyed Biddle's discussion of physical force as invalidating an individual's judgment in Chapter 7 since so many people struggle to understand that point. (I had some minor technical quibbles with the book, most notably the confusing structure in the discussion of the virtues of rationality and productiveness. Those problems are unlikely to cause any significant confusion in the mind of the reader, however.)

I can highly recommend the book for someone curious about Ayn Rand's ethics.

Craig Biddle has done an outstanding job of making objectivist ethics understandable for the beginner. He has shown what happens with a faulty premise through, recent and not so recent history. Also he has shown that greed, which is just a "desire to want", is a good thing if you want to enjoy your life. We all have a desire to want food, a mate, a house, a car, a breath of air and a life. If you want to know what is needed to enjoy life, this can be a place to begin.

This book is a great introduction to Objectivism. It is a good bridge between the Fiction and non-fiction. An Objectivist will find nothing new in this book, but it is a great re-enforcer of Ayn Rand's works; a fantastic book for those "peaked" by the ideas presented in the Fiction works. It is clearly written and a fast read. Buy ten and give them to friends.

Over the past year I have been trying to increase my knowledge of Objectivism by making a commitment to studying the fundamentals of the philosophy. At times this has been difficult due to my lack of philosophical training, but, _Loving Life_ has made a tremendous impact on my learning. It is the most clear and concise representation of Ayn Rand's morality of self-interest that I have read to date. Craig Biddle does an excellent job of explaining the different aspects of it in layman's terms, and for that, I am very thankful.

The Ayn Rand Institute offers a recommended reading list for those who want to learn more about Objectivism. I think _Loving Life_ should be placed right before Leonard Peikoff's OPAR for those who want to gain a clearer understanding of Objectivism's moral fundamentals before going into more detail that OPAR offers.

If you've just recently discovered Ayn Rand's works and are looking for a good starting point for studying her philosophy, Craig Biddle's _Loving Life_ is a most excellent choice.

This book is written in a style that is not only very clear, but allows the reader to move along quite nicely. It is a philosophy book written by an author that obviously knows the philosophy quite well, but it is not written in the style of an academic. It is packaged for the reader who wants to know about Objectivism but who is not ready to tackle OPAR. I bought it for my son, started reading it to get a good idea of what it is like, and found myself quite engaged. The language is straightforward, the ideas are well built and supported, the examples are numerous, applicable, and are things you might see happening in everyday life.