Man as Self-Made, Free Will, and Ayn Rand as Parent: Another Look

Man as Self-Made, Free Will, and Ayn Rand as Parent:

Another Look

by Eric Paul Nolte

I recently expressed my wish that Ayn Rand had become a parent, because I surmise that had she reared children, this experience might have enriched her view of man as a being of self-made soul.

I expressed the opinion that we are not entirely beings of self-made soul, because we are clearly delivered into the time and place of our birth as if by a roll of the cosmic dice, which endows us with a wide range of traits that limit our horizon severely.  However it is also clear to those of us who have studied the matter from an Objectivist perspective that every normal human is endowed with the power to think or not, or turn one’s attention from one thing to another.  This power of choice, the freedom to think, is in fact the very power of free will.  

So we do have the power of free will by which to guide the unfolding of our gifts, such as they are, and this is the most crucial human trait.

I suspect Rand might have worried that by not affirming Homo sapiens as beings of entirely self-made soul, she would be opening herself to the charge that she was denying free will and affirming the view of man as a helpless pawn in a deterministic universe.

But as Rand herself points out, free will is an aspect of human nature, granted to us by the law of causality.  As she says, free will does not contradict the deterministic laws of science, it is the embodiment of a power granted to us by our nature.

Neither did I intend to suggest the ironic point that had Rand been a parent, she would have been forced to come to the conclusion at which I would have hoped to see her arrive.  I agree that it is not necessary to have personal experience of many things in order to arrive at a true understanding of those things.  

For example, one needn’t actually be a parent in order to know with certainty that the moment babies arrive on the planet they are already endowed with a fully formed temperament and a matching style of learning that is unlikely to change radically as a result of subsequent experience.  Neither must one have been a parent in order to know with certainty that some poor blighted soul, born into a cruelly oppressive culture and with an IQ of 70, will not likely enjoy the same power to fashion one’s own soul as that of a genius born into an auspicious time and place.  Nor should it be controversial that the range of human potential embodied by these two children does not mean that they lack free will.  By our nature as human beings, all of us are born with this, our most singular and fundamental trait, the power to choose to think, the power of rationality.  What I am asserting here is that human beings cannot enjoy the power to fashion ourselves without a wide range of genetic and environmental constraints on our potential.  

In short, to be a being of entirely self-made soul is not in the cards for Homo saps, but any normal person is endowed with the power to choose to think, and this makes all the difference in the world!

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