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rational selfishness

rational selfishness noun: objectivist position that, in order to promote one's own life, the morally proper beneficiary of one's own rational actions should be oneself.

Noun

rational selfishness (uncountable)

  1. Objectivist position that, in order to promote one's own life, the morally proper beneficiary of one's own rational actions should be oneself.
    • The Objectivist ethics proudly advocates and upholds rational selfishness—which means: the values required for man’s survival qua man—...1961, Ayn Rand, “The Objectivist Ethics”, in The Virtue of Selfishness, Penguin Group
    Synonyms:
    rational egoism
  2. The conviction that it is moral to act for one's own good and that this is rationally in line with a greater good.
    • [Society] has arranged all its parts and offices on the principle that a rational selfishness is the best preservative of peace, and the most efficient agent of progress; ...1870, Francis A Walker, An Oration at the Soldiers' Monument Dedication in North Brookfield, Goddard & Nye.

Synonyms of rational selfishness

Questions about rational selfishness

What does rational selfishness mean?
Rational selfishness means objectivist position that, in order to promote one's own life, the morally proper beneficiary of one's own rational actions should be oneself.
What part of speech is rational selfishness?
Rational selfishness is a noun.

Words near rational selfishness in the dictionary

  1. rational horizon
  2. rational horizons
  3. rational number
  4. rational numbers
  5. rational root theorem
  6. rational selfishness
  7. rational symptom
  8. rational symptoms
  9. rationale
  10. rationales
  11. rationalia

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: rational selfishness (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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