Gregory Salmieri > Quotes

“Nothing in reality demands that one choose between one’s money and one’s life, or between the destruction of one’s business and a payoff to the mafia, or as Rand will argue, between paying a fine and obeying a government regulation.2 By compelling a choice in the face of an artificial, arbitrarily constructed alternative, a coercive threat derails reality-based practical reasoning, which is grounded in the necessity of taking specific kinds of action in order to maintain and nourish one’s life.”
― Gregory Salmieri, Foundations of a Free Society: Reflections on Ayn Rand's Political Philosophy

“The sense in which she holds that it is in one’s self-interest to be moral is that it is in one’s interests as a human being; and in order to live a viable life each of us must define our own specific interests and values according to that standard—the principled, long-range requirements of a human life as such.”
― Gregory Salmieri, Foundations of a Free Society: Reflections on Ayn Rand's Political Philosophy