A friend forwarded a copy of a talk by Ron Merrill that addresses "Eddie's Enigma." The talk opens with this quote from Atlas Shrugged, speaking of Eddie Willers:

". . . he still thought it self-evident that one had to do what was right; he had never learned how people could want to do otherwise; he had learned only that they did. It still seemed simple and incomprehensible to him: simple that things should be right, and incomprehensible that they weren't." [p. 6]

Ron Merrill then points out:

'It is Eddie Willers who introduces us to this enigma, the enigma of human irrationality. [...] but this question, unlike the others raised by the book, is never answered. At the end of the book we know with luminous clarity what is right to do; what seems more incomprehensible than ever is, how people could want to do otherwise.'

Ron Merrill's talk proposes a reason for human irrationality: our evolutionary hertiage from the primates. He names these the Primate Principles, which derive from the herd nature our primate ancestors. I won't list the three Primate Principles here, but they are essentially foundations for behavior that we would call irrational, but which well served our primate ancestors.

His conclusion for what we should do from this is to "arrange our lives, as much as possible, so as to avoid the necessity of relying on will [by 'will' Merrill means personal effort to be rational. -sxn]. This means, so to speak, working around the Primate Principles." One way to do this is to "place far more emphasis on organization of community activities among Objectivists. And we should emphasize not just intellectual but social community." This includes adding more of a family focus to Objectivist events.

I recommend reading this article for Merrill's full argument.

www.monmouth.com/~adamreed...Enigma.htm