Program
Program subject to change.
Friday, September 11
Registration Opens
Opening Reception
Welcome Remarks
September 11 and the Radicalness of Objectivism
Why America Failed After 9/11 – and the Radical Philosophy of Success It Needs
Q&A
Evening Reception
Saturday, September 12
The Morality of Capitalism
Details
If we want to take back our freedom and reclaim our moral right to the pursuit of happiness, then as Ayn Rand identified, we must understand and champion capitalism and the fact-based morality of rational self-interest at its foundation. In this talk, Ben Bayer will provide a primer on how to do just that.
Break
Reason vs Faith
Details
Lunch
Are You the Next Objectivist Intellectual?
Details
Break
Q&A Panel
Evening Social Event
Sunday, September 13
The Morality of Selfishness
Details
Ayn Rand was full of radical ideas, but none cuts against the grain more than her characterization of selfishness as a virtue. Thousands of years of moral teaching and conventional wisdom tell us that being a good person means being willing to sacrifice your own selfish interests for something else—be it the demands of God, society, family, tradition, a cause, or a principle.
Those who have bristled at such calls for sacrifice have generally been amoralists. What could it even mean to make a Virtue of Selfishness and advocate a “morality of rational self-interest”?
It means articulating for the first time the principles that “every man lives by—at and to the extent of such time as he doesn’t spend destroying himself.” These are the principles by which a person can define and achieve his own happiness. And they form the basis of all that is good in human relationships and societies.
This lecture is an introduction to the one moral philosophy that grasps that “the purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live.”
Break
How to Change the World (And Your World While You’re at It)
Details
Lunch
Free Will: You Run Your Own Mind
Break
Q&A Panel
Closing Remarks
Explore Austin on Your Own
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