Ayn Rand Society news: two new books, an upcoming meeting, and a new platform

I’m writing (after a long silence) with some news about the Ayn Rand Society.

The first piece of news is that we have moved our web content and our communications to Substack. This message should be reaching you through that platform. If you were a contributor to the Society for AY 2023-24 or have paid your dues in AY 2024-25, we’ve set you up with a one-year subscription. After that you can contribute simply by re-subscribing annually to our Substack. If you had a recurring subscription to our previous website, this will be cancelled in the coming days so that no future payments are taken via that means.

The next two pieces of news concern our book series with the University of Pittsburgh Press. As of this summer, the series includes Tara Smith’s monograph, Egoism Without Permission. Here’s a description:

Ayn Rand controversially defended rational egoism, the idea that people should regard their own happiness as their highest goal. Given that numerous scholars in philosophy and psychology alike are examining the nature of human flourishing and an ethics of well-being, the time is ripe for a close examination of Rand’s theory. Egoism without Permission illuminates Rand’s thinking about how to practice egoism by exploring some of its crucial psychological dimensions. Tara Smith examines the dynamics among four partially subconscious factors in an individual’s well-being: a person’s foundational motivation for being concerned with morality; their attitude toward their desires; their independence; and their self-esteem. A clearer grasp of each, Smith argues, sheds light on the others, and a better understanding of the set, in turn, enriches our understanding of self-interest and its sensible pursuit. Smith then traces the implications for a broader understanding of what a person’s self-interest genuinely is, and, correspondingly, of what its pursuit through rational egoism involves. By highlighting these previously underexplored features of Rand’s conceptions of self-interest and egoism, Smith betters our understanding of how vital these psychological levers are to a person’s genuine flourishing.

Until now, the series had consisted of three multi-author collections of essays, each related to a different aspect of Rand’s thought. Further such volumes are planned (more on the next one later), and we’d intended for the series to consist exclusively of books of this sort. However, when the Press offered Tara a contract on her book, they suggested that we incorporate it into the series, pointing out that this would aid the promotion of all the relevant books. The Editorial Board agreed, and working with the press we’ve decided to split out series into two streams—edited volumes of the sort we’ve produced before, and single-author books like Tara’s. (You may notice that the visual design of her book has some features that connect it to the rest of the series and some that differentiate it, marking its status as the initial offering in a new sub-series.)

The next collection in the series is now scheduled to be released in the Fall of 2025. Edited by Jim Lennox and myself, it is titled Two Philosophers: Aristotle and Ayn Rand. The volume has been through peer review, and the contracts have been signed. Contributing authors are completing some (minor) revisions, and the completed manuscript will go to the press before the end of the calendar year. Since we did not have an ARS session in the 2023–24 academic year, we are releasing penultimate drafts of three chapters from the book to Society members and contributors whose dues are paid through that academic year. If you fall into either category, you should be able to access the papers now at the above link.

That brings me to my final piece of news, which is that we are holding a session on January 9th at 7:00pm in New York City at the Eastern Division Meeting of the American Philosophical Association. The topic is Valuing and Desires, and the session will explore some of the themes raised in Tara Smith’s aforementioned book.

The speakers will be Steven John Warden, Tara Smith, and myself. Steven is a graduate student at the University of St. Andrews writing a dissertation on valuing. He also was the indexer for Egoism Without Permission, and he is currently visiting at the University of Texas, Austin, where he, Dr. Smith, and I have been regularly discussing values, desires, and related issues. The panel will be an occasion to continue this discussion in a more public and formal form.