from http://anthemfoundation.org/for-professors/objectivism-brief-summary.html

Objectivism is the first philosophy to identify the relationship between life and moral values. “Ethics,” writes Ayn Rand, “is an objective, metaphysical necessity of man’s survival—not by the grace of the supernatural nor of your neighbors nor of your whims, but by the grace of reality and the nature of life.”

The standard of ethics, required by the nature of reality and the nature of man, is Man’s Life. “All that which is proper to the life of a rational being is the good; all that which destroys it is the evil.”