Some of its themes include the identification and validation of egoism as a rational code of ethics, the destructiveness of altruism, and the nature of a proper government.

[5] Philosophy professor Max Hocutt dismissed the phrase "the virtue of selfishness" as "rhetorical excess", saying that "without qualification and explanation, it is too paradoxical to merit serious discussion".

Rand proposed a collection of articles to be titled The Fascist New Frontier, after a Ford Hall Forum speech she had given criticizing the views of President John F. Kennedy.

She rejected this request and dropped Random House, as well as ending her friendship with Cerf, choosing New American Library as the publisher for her new book.

The Virtue of Selfishness bore a different title and did not include her piece on Kennedy; he had been assassinated before it was released, making the point of the essay moot.

[12] Rand scholar Mimi Reisel Gladstein described the collection of essays as "eclectic" and "appealing to interested nonacademic or nonspecialist readers as well as to the more serious student of Objectivism".