The listing of the virtues offered here is parallels that presented by Ayn Rand in Atlas Shrugged (New York: Dutton, 1992), 35th anniversary ed., pp. 1017-21 (more information). These virtues obviously overlap to a large extent. In particular, "thinking" and "rationality" seem almost indistinguishable. As interpreted here, the former refers to the practice of focusing the mind, of striving for awareness and mental clarity, while the latter denotes the application of that practice to all the issues of one's life. David Kelley has argued persuasively that benevolence should also be included among the virtues of the rational egoist. See Unrugged Individualism: The Selfish Basis of Benevolence (more information). As already observed, a benevolent world-view is a natural consequence of the egoist ethics (p. 3.8:1-4). While Dr. Kelley's suggestion is not disputed, our discussion in this introductory course is limited to the most basic egoistic virtues.