Ayn Rand not only defended rational selfishness and rejected the ethics of sacrifice; she held a revolutionary view of the essential nature of selfishness. "The most selfish of all things," she wrote, "is the independent mind that recognizes no authority higher than its own and no value higher than its judgment of truth." This lecture explores the relationship between reason and selfishness in her ethics. It shows that reason does not merely prescribe selfishness; rather, a commitment to reason is the essence of selfishness. Dr. Wright also presents a new perspective on the difference between an objective and an intrinsic theory of value.