Edward Wayne Younkins

Edward W. Younkins is a Professor of Accountancy and Business at Wheeling University, Executive Director of its Institute for the Study of Capitalism and Morality, and the founder of of the university’s undergraduate major in Political and Economic Philosophy. He is also the founding director of the school’s Master of Business (MBA) and Master of Science in Accountancy (MSA) programs. He earned a Ph.D in Accountancy from the University of Mississippi and earned state and national honors on the Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and Certified Management Accountant (CMA) exams, respectively. Dr. Younkins also received the Outstanding Educator Award for 1997 from the West Virginia Society of CPAs. He is on the editorial boards of Reason Papers and Libertarian Papers, the advisory board of the Journal of Ayn Rand Studies (JARS), the board of trustees of The Savvy Street, and is series editor of Capitalist Thought: Studies in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics for Lexington Books. The author of numerous articles in accounting and business journals, he has also published in many free-market-oriented journals. He has authored or edited a dozen books including his trilogy of books on freedom and flourishing: Capitalism and Commerce, Champions of a Free Society, and Flourishing and Happiness in a Free Society.

Articles

Human Nature, Flourishing, and Happiness: Toward a Synthesis of Aristotelianism, Austrian Economics, Positive Psychology, and Ayn Rand’s Objectivism
Libertarian Papers Edward Wayne Younkins

Abstract: This article presents a skeleton of a potential paradigm of human flourishing and happiness in a free society. It is an exploratory attempt to construct an understanding from various disciplines and to integrate them into a clear, consistent, coherent, and systematic whole. Holding that there are essential interconnections among objective ideas, the article specifically emphasizes the compatibility of Aristotelianism, Austrian Economics, Positive Psychology, and Ayn Rand’s Objectivism arguing that particular ideas from these areas can be integrated into a paradigm of human flourishing and happiness based on the nature of man and the world. Such a paradigm will help people to understand the world and to survive and flourish in it. It is hoped that the paradigm will grow and evolve as scholars engage, question, critique, interpret, and extend its ideas. Our goal is to have a paradigm that accords with reality and there is always more to learn from reality.

 

*Edward W. Younkins

Unity and Integration in Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged
Libertarian Papers Edward Wayne Younkins

Abstract: This article makes an argument for Atlas Shrugged as a highly unified and integrated novel. All of the sections of the paper explain how integration and unity are embodied in Atlas Shrugged. Part one discusses the philosophical and literary structure of Rand’s masterpiece. The next section is concerned with issues of political economy. Section three then examines Rand’s techniques of characterization and character development as demonstrated in Atlas Shrugged. The following part analyzes the philosophical speeches. The final major part considers Atlas Shrugged as a means for social change. The conclusion then discusses Atlas Shrugged as the manifestation of a fully-integrated philosophical novel.

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