I'll start with Rand's own words. In this famous and brief column, she introduces Objectivism's essential concepts. I've chosen to reproduce this column in "courier" font, to set it apart from the other quotes and text on this page.

So What Is Objectivism, and Does it Apply to Me?

[The first portion of this text was written by me in response to a query. It continues with text adapted from Leonard Peikoffs' work.]

Strictly speaking, a philosophy -- a morality -- that is valid for any human must, therefore, be valid for all humans, since we are stipulating that it may apply to anyone. So yes, Objectivism applies to you, if you choose to recognize it. (You don't have to, of course. The choice is yours.)

Objectivist morality is derived from objective reality. That is, what one ought to do is derived from what is. Because Objectivism holds that reality exists and is the same for all human beings (rather than being the product of their subjective senses, and thus different for all humans), any morality derived from that reality must be the same for all humans, as there is no substantive difference, metaphysically, among human beings (barring brain damage or illness, of course, which would affect one's capacity to use reason).

(If we are to attempt to make a case that all human beings are substantively, metaphysically different, on what grounds would we classify them all as humans? Being able to apply the label, "human being," implies that they are, in fact, equal in a metaphysical sense.)

Now, to follow a philosophy of rational self-interest is to reject the morality of altruism, which states that the highest good is the contained within the greatest self-sacrifice. Altruism is very much entrenched in our culture, and in most cultures. When most people speak of what is "moral," they are speaking of traditional altruist morality.

To live, according to Objectivism, is not simply to continue drawing breath; it is to live according to the principles of human survival. Chief among these is rationality, but the other major principles of human survival are purpose (without which life, lived as an end unto itself, would have no point -- no reason to be lived as such) and pride or self-esteem, the feeling of worth that is an integral component of purpose.

Now, it's true that most times we act out of instinct. We don't always think before we act. In those cases we must evaluate the morality of an action after the fact. I assert that over time, your instincts can be trained to follow the morality you have adopted and to which you adhere.

The key concept here is the rejection of the morality of altruism. Rational self-interest could indeed be viewed as, "Every man for himself," but there is an important restriction: the initiation of force is morally wrong, for it is the rejection of reason. And since Objectivists must first recognize reason as humans' only means of knowledge (and our only means of judging what is moral in the context of observing and integrating into concepts the facts of objective reality) and rationality as the primary principle of human survival, to reject reason would be to contradict their own philosophy. They are thus constrained to act rationally; to engage in self-contradiction is to be irrational.

So, to sum up:

1. Objectivism applies to all human beings because it applies to any human being occupying the metaphysically given. That which we are metaphysically granted is reality, and it is the same for all human beings (regardless of their awareness of it).

2. Objectivism is a philosophy of self-interest that rejects the moral assumptions of altruism, but Objectivists are constrained by the principle of non-initiation of force.

Leonard Peikoff's Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand contains a lucid description of the concepts on which I've touched here. I'll break it down roughly by subject.

The Axioms of Objectivism

Most philosophers have left their starting points to unnamed implication. The base of Objectivism is explicit: "Existence exists -- and the act of grasping that statement implies two corollary axioms: that something exists which one perceives and that one exists possessing consciousness, consciousness being the faculty of perceiving that which exists."

Existence and consciousness are facts implicit in every perception. They are the base of all knowledge (and the precondition of proof): knowledge presupposes something to know and someone to know it. They are absolutes which cannot be questioned or escaped: every human utterance, including the denial of these axioms, implies their use and acceptance.

The third axiom at the base of knowledge -- an axiom true, in Aristotle’s words, of "being qua being" -- is the Law of Identity. This law defines the essence of existence: to be is to be something, a thing is what it is; and leads to the fundamental principle of all action, the law of causality. The law of causality states that a thing’s actions are determined not by chance, but by its nature, i.e., by what it is.

It is important to observe the interrelation of these three axioms. Existence is the first axiom. The universe exists independent of consciousness. Man is able to adapt his background to his own requirements, but "Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed" (Francis Bacon). There is no mental process that can change the laws of nature or erase facts. The function of consciousness is not to create reality, but to apprehend it. "Existence is Identity, Consciousness is Identification."

The philosophic source of this viewpoint and its major advocate in the history of philosophy is Aristotle. Its opponents are all the other major traditions, including Platonism, Christianity, and German idealism. Directly or indirectly, these traditions uphold the notion that consciousness is the creator of reality. The essence of this notion is the denial of the axiom that existence exists.

In the religious version, the deniers advocate a consciousness "above" nature, i.e., superior, and contradictory, to existence; in the social version, they melt nature into an indeterminate blur given transient semi-shape by human desire. The first school denies reality by upholding two of them. The second school dispenses with the concept of reality as such. The first rejects science, law, causality, identity, claiming that anything is possible to the omnipotent, miracle-working will of the Lord. The second states the religionists’ rejection in secular terms, claiming that anything is possible to the will of "the people."

Neither school can claim a basis in objective evidence. There is no way to reason from nature to its negation, or from facts to their subversion, or from any premise to the obliteration of argument as such, i.e., of its foundation: the axioms of existence and identity.

Metaphysics and epistemology are closely interrelated; together they form a philosophy’s foundation. In the history of philosophy, the rejection of reality and the rejection of reason have been corollaries. Similarly, as Aristotle’s example indicates, a pro-reality metaphysics implies and requires a pro-reason epistemology.

What is Reason, and Where Does it Fit?

Reason is defined by Ayn Rand as "the faculty that identifies and integrates the material provided by man’s senses."

Reason performs this function by means of concepts, and the validity of reason rests on the validity of concepts. But the nature and origin of concepts is a major philosophic problem. If concepts refer to facts, then knowledge has a base in reality, and one can define objective principles to guide man’s process of cognition. If concepts are cut off from reality, then so is all human knowledge, and man is helplessly blind.

This is the "problem of universals," on which Western philosophy has foundered.

Plato claimed to find the referent of concepts not in this world, but in a supernatural dimension of essences. The Kantians regard concepts (some or all) as devoid of referents, i.e., as subjective creations of the human mind independent of external facts. Both approaches and all of their variants in the history of philosophy lead to the same essential consequence: the severing of man’s tools of cognition from reality, and therefore the undercutting of man’s mind. (Although Aristotle’s epistemology is far superior, his theory of concepts is intermingled with remnants of Platonism and is untenable.) Recent philosophers have given up the problem and, as a result, have given up philosophy as such.

Ayn Rand challenges and sweeps aside the main bulwark of the anti-mind axis. Her historic feat is to tie man’s distinctive form of cognition to reality, i.e., to validate man’s reason.

According to Objectivism, concepts are derived from and do refer to the facts of reality.

The mind at birth (as Aristotle first stated) is tabula rasa; there are no innate ideas. The senses are man’s primary means of contact with reality; they give him the precondition of all subsequent knowledge, the evidence that something is. What the something is he discovers on the conceptual level of awareness.

Conceptualization is man’s method of organizing sensory material. To form a concept, one isolates two or more similar concretes from the rest of one’s perceptual field, and integrates them into a single mental unit, symbolized by a word. A concept subsumes an unlimited number of instances: the concretes one isolated, and all others (past, present, and future) which are similar to them.

Similarity is the key to this process. The mind can retain the characteristics of similar concretes without specifying their measurements, which vary from case to case. "A concept is a mental integration of two or more units possessing the same distinguishing characteristic(s), with their particular measurements omitted."

The basic principle of concept-formation (which states that the omitted measurements must exist in some quantity, but may exist in any quantity) is the equivalent of the basic principle of algebra, which states that algebraic symbols must be given some numerical value, but may be given any value. In this sense and respect, perceptual awareness is the arithmetic, but conceptual awareness is the algebra of cognition.

Concepts are neither supernatural nor subjective: they refer to facts of this world, as processed by man’s means of cognition.

The Standard of Value for Objectivism is the Promotion of Human Life. Why?

Life as the standard of value for ethics is fundamental to our very existence. We exist; to continue existing, we must pursue that which promotes our existence.

The question cannot be reduced any farther because to exist is fundamental and axiomatic. To explain, I am going to use freely text adapted from the work of Leonard Peikoff (an Objectivist philosopher and heir to Objectivism's founder). Apologies to him, of course, if I'm not doing his work justice.

The key to an understanding of ethics lies in its central concept, "value." Specifically, the key lies in the concept's existential basis and cognitive context.

This is the proper starting point in the field...The first question to ask is not, [what standard of value] should man accept? but rather: does man need to judge and select values at all? Is morality necessary or not, and if so, why?

...Like every concept, "value" is reached and defined on the basis of observation. One must isolate a group of similar concretes, then integrate them into a new mental unit. The crucial datum here is the fact of goal-directed action.

[Objectivist-based ethics] defines "value" as "that which one acts to gain and/or keep." "Value" denotes the object of an action. It is that which some entity's action is directed to acquiring or preserving.

"Value" presupposes an answer to the question: of value to whom and for what? It presupposes an entity capable of acting to achieve a goal in the face of an alternative. Where no alternative exists, no goals and no values are possible.

Living organisms are the entities that make value possible. They are the entities capable of self-generated, goal-directed action -- because they are the conditional entities, which face the alternative of life or death. They are thus the only kind of entities that can (and must) pursue values.

[Objectivist-based ethics] describes the alternative of life or death as fundamental. Fundamental means that upon which everything in a given context depends. There is only one fundamental alternative in the universe: existence or non-existence -- and it pertains to a single class of entities: to living organisms.

The alternative of existence or non-existence is the precondition of all values. If an entity were not confronted by this alternative, it could not pursue goals, not of any kind.

Once we remove the alternative of life or death, we remove the possibility of need satisfaction or need frustration, at least on the physical level, since "need" in this context denotes that which is required for survival.

Only an entity capable of being destroyed and able to prevent it has a need, an interest (if the entity is conscious), a reason to act. The reason is precisely: to prevent its destruction, i.e., to remain in the realm of reality. It is this ultimate goal that makes all other goals possible.

Goal-directed entities do not exist in order to pursue values. They pursue values in order to exist.

One simply cannot engage in debates about why one should prefer existence to nothing. Nor can one ask for some more basic value, the pursuit of which validates the decision to remain in reality. The commitment to remain in the realm of reality [to survive, to continue existing, to promote human life] is precisely what cannot be debated; because all debate (and all validation) takes place within that realm and rests on that commitment.

Only the alternative of life versus death creates the context for value-oriented action, and it does so only if the entity's end is to preserve its life. By the very nature of value, therefore, any code of values must hold life as the ultimate value. The ultimate value is the end in itself that sets the standard by which all lesser goals are evaluated. An organism's life is its standard of value: that which furthers its life is the good, and that which threatens it is the evil.

Metaphysically, life is the only phenomenon that is an end in itself: a value gained and kept by a constant process of action. Epistemologically, the concept of "value" is genetically dependent upon and derived from the antecedent concept of "life." To speak of "value" apart from "life" is worse than a contradiction in terms.

Why Is It Wrong To Initiate Force?

Physical force is coercion exercised by a physical agency, such as punching a man or shooting him or stealing his property. Initiating force means to START the use of force against an innocent individual, one who has not himself started its use against others.

Since men do not automatically come to the same conclusions, no code of ethics can escape the present issue. The moralist has to tell men how to act when they disagree (assuming they do not simply go their separate ways). In essence, there are only two viewpoints on this issue, because there are only two basic methods by which one can deal with a dispute. The methods are reason or force; seeking to persuade others to share one's ideas voluntarily, or coercing others into doing what one wishes regardless of their ideas.

When you use force, therefore, you attack a person's body (or seize his property) and thereby negate and dismiss as irrelevant his mind (and his conclusions and wishes).

The function of the mind is to perceive reality by performing a process of identification, and integrating the identified evidence into a context in accordance with the rule of an objective methodology (reasoning). This process presupposes a sovereign, volitional consciousness and must be performed egoistically, individualistically, and independently. It cannot, therefore, be forced.

To initiate force -- to, essentially, order a man to accept a conclusion against his own judgment -- is to order him to accept as true something that, according to what he knows, is not true (is either arbitrary or false). This amounts to ordering him to believe a contradiction; it is like demanding him to believe read is green, or 2 + 2 equals 5. One can torture an individual and force him to say these things, but one cannot make him truly believe them. Volition pertains to the act of initiating and sustaining the process of thought. A creature of volitional consciousness -- man -- cannot will himself to accept as true that which he sees to be baseless or mistaken.

Force thus makes a man act against his judgment. The virtue of rationality requires one to think, and then to be guided by his conclusions in action. Force clashes with both these requirements. Force used to change a man's mind acts to stop his mind (and thus make it inoperative as the source of his action). Force used to change a man's action shoves his mind (and thus its process of cognition) into the trash heap of the purposeless.

He who initiates force to change another's mind, therefore, works to detach his victim's consciousness from reality and therefore from life. He who initiates force to change another's action works to detach his consciousness from life and therefore from reality.