Love is a response to values. The amoralist’s actual self-appraisal is revealed in his abnormal need to be loved (but not in the rational sense of the word)—to be “loved for himself,” i.e., causelessly. James Taggart reveals the nature of such a need: “I don’t want to be loved for anything. I want to be loved for myself—not for anything I do or have or say or think. For myself—not for my body or mind or words or works or actions.” (Atlas Shrugged.) When his wife asks: “But then . . . what is yourself?” he has no answer.

Autore: Ayn Rand