2019 Year 12 IB Extended Essays

Ayn Rand’s Objectivism and John Rawls’ Theory of Justice

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Introduction

From a broad perspective, the 20 th century witnessed the clash of ideologies for social

and political systems. Towards the latter half of the century, philosophers in the United

States found that their theories were quickly adopted as political manifestos. This essay

focuses on two prominent American philosophers whose theories influenced the

political agenda, namely Ayn Rand and John Rawls. Rand’s and Rawls’ political

philosophies found traction with the two dominant U.S. political parties; the

Republicans and Democrats respectively. The problem is that the theories of Rand and

Rawls have been distorted in the political mainstream. Therefore, this essay reassesses

their theories from the original works and a focuses on the question of to what extent is

the neo-liberalist theory of Ayn Rand relevant for the 21 st Century?

My analytical methodology is twofold. First, I philosophically analyse the reasoning of

Rand and Rawls and then compare the two from a rationalist perspective. Rand argues

that Man’s, “own happiness [is] the moral purpose of his life,” and hence, government

power should be limited. 1 By contrast, Rawls asserts that society should constitute,

“free citizens holding equal basic rights and cooperating within an egalitarian economic

system,” therefore, promoting government intervention. 2

Second, I use empirical evidence from three case studies to assess Rand’s and Rawls’

theories. A suitable range of social justice approaches are found in the United States,

1 Rand, A., 1957. Atlas Shrugged. 1st Edition ed. New York City: Random House. 2 Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2019. John Rawls. [Online]

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