How does Max Stirner’s egoism compare to Objectivism?

Stephen Hicks, Ph.D.

July 10, 2023

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min read

Question: How does Max Stirner’s egoism compare to Objectivism?

‍Answer: Well, Objectivism holds that individuals’ lives are their own, that their self-responsibility is to use their reason to formulate their values and a strategy for achieving them. Socially, Objectivism holds with the trader principle that rational individuals can interact voluntarily to mutual benefit, and that should be the norm in society. By contrast, Stirner is an anti-rationalist. He holds that one’s reason is a subjective, constraining capacity that we have that holds back one’s true self-development. Consequently, in Stirner’s account, one has to take an adversarial stance not only against society with all of its arbitrary rules and restrictions, but also against one’s own reason and emotions very often, which he sees as undermining true development. He’s an anarchist egoist in contrast to Rand’s objectivist egoism.

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About the author:

Stephen Hicks, Ph.D.

Stephen R. C. Hicks is a Professor of Philosophy and a Senior Scholar for The Atlas Society.

He is author of The Art of Reasoning: Readings for Logical Analysis (W. W. Norton & Co., 1998), Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault (Scholargy, 2004), Nietzsche and the Nazis (Ockham’s Razor, 2010), Entrepreneurial Living (CEEF, 2016), Liberalism Pro and Con (Connor Court, 2020), Art: Modern, Postmodern, and Beyond (with Michael Newberry, 2021), Eight Philosophies of Education (2022), and Lectures on the Philosophy of Politics (Spanish translation, Publicaciones del Orden Espontáneo, 2026). He has published in Business Ethics Quarterly, Review of Metaphysics, and The Wall Street Journal. His writings have been translated into 20 languages.

He has been Visiting Professor of Business Ethics at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., Visiting Fellow at the Social Philosophy & Policy Center in Bowling Green, Ohio, Visiting Professor at the University of Kasimir the Great, Poland, Visiting Fellow at Harris Manchester College of Oxford University, England, and Visiting Professor at Jagiellonian University, Poland.

His B.A. and M.A. degrees are from the University of Guelph, Canada. His Ph.D. in Philosophy is from Indiana University, Bloomington, USA.

In 2010, he won his university’s Excellence in Teaching Award.

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