The man without a purpose is a man who drifts at the mercy of random feelings or unidentified urges and is capable of any evil, because he is totally out of control of his own life. In order to be in control of your life, you have to have a purpose—a productive purpose . . . . The man who has no purpose, but has to act, acts to destroy others. That is not the same thing as a productive or creative purpose. | Playboy Interview With Ayn Rand

Unpublished Passages:

PLAYBOY: Philosophers have offered world systems in the past, often with frightful and frightening consequences—slavery, inquisitions, purges, etc. Isn't there something in the very nature of philosophical system-building that leads to intolerance? Don't world views, because they try to be all-inclusive, because they are so neat and seemingly simple, attract and encourage fanaticism?

RAND: Surely you don't mean to say that knowledge and consistency are dangerous, but ignorance and inconsistency are safe? It is irrationality that leads to fanaticism, and inconsistency that leads to destruction. Man cannot escape the fact that he needs a philosophy. The only question is: what kind of philosophy is it? If one man believes consistently in production, and another man believes consistently in robbery, the nature and the consequences of that consistency will not be the same. The atrocities you mentioned were caused by philosophy—by the wrong kind of philosophy. They were caused by the irrational influence of what, in a generalized sense, I can call the Platonist school of thought.

After the Q&A on women's roles and careers, the following exchange occurred, which Rand chose to delete in the proof stage. She may have realized that she hadn't fully answered the question, and that to provide a complete explanation briefly would be difficult or impossible.

(...)

PLAYBOY: What about discriminate and selective indulgence in other activities—drinking, for example, or gambling? Are these immoral?

RAND: To begin with, those are not in the same category as sex. Drinking, as such, is not immoral, unless a person is a drunkard. Merely taking a drink is hardly a moral question. It becomes an immorality only when a man drinks to the point where it stifles and stunts his mind. When a man drinks in order to escape the responsibility of being conscious, only then is drinking immoral. As to gambling, I wouldn't say that a person who gambles occasionally is immoral. That's more a game than a serious concern. But when gambling becomes more than a casual game, it is immoral because of the premise that motivates it. The passion for gambling comes from a man's belief that he has no control over his life, that he is controlled by fate, and, therefore, he wants to reassure himself that fate or luck is on his side.