There was a recent discussion about benevolence in Diana Hsieh's comment section. I was surprised by one senior Ayn Rand fan who actively dissed benevolence, indicating she much preferred justice.
Rand didn't think there was an opposition between justice and a proper benevolence toward other people. In a 1943 journal entry, she wrote: "Not love—but a benevolent neutrality as your basic attitude to your fellow men. The rest must be earned by them. Justice, not mercy."
I'm not saying she thought of benevolence as an important virtue, the way David Kelley does. But, within the context of a free society, she thought "good will toward men" was a good thing.
In "A Nation's Unity", she wrote: "Benevolence is incompatible with fear. It is only when a man knows that his neighbors have no power forcibly to interfere with his life, that he can feel benevolence toward them, and they toward him—as the history of the American people has demonstrated."
Is it a virtue? I'm not quite sure.
But liberty lets it endure.
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