Is Ayn Rand's Free Will.....?

Question

IS Ayn Rand's view of Free Will and how she presents it in her philosophy coherent? Or are there "gray"/ambiguous parts?

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Now the Objectivist theory of free will maintains the freedom of the will together with the law of causality, without resorting to the sort of redefinition of "freedom" that Locke, Hobbes, and others have found necessary. Objectivism affirms our freedom in the strong sense, in which "A course of thought or action is 'free,' if it is selected from two or more courses possible under the circumstances."(7) Unlike the previous views, however, the Objectivist theory does not assume this means our free actions are uncaused. Rather, when one performs a free action, the action is caused (generally, by one's values and factual beliefs), but other actions are still possible, because it is up to one which possible causes are operative in oneself....
Taken from: http://home.sprynet.com/~owl1/rand3.htm

...Finally, Objectivism makes two observations about the validation of the theory of free will. Rand does not attempt to give a positive proof that our wills are free. Rather, in the first place, she observes that the fact of free will is available to introspection. Each of us can observe that he can focus his consciousness, or relax it. We can pay attention, or not. It would be out of place to ask for a proof of this fact, in the same way that it would be out of place to ask for a proof that trees exist, if you are standing in front of one, looking at it -- not because the fact is unknowable, but because it is known directly, rather than needing to be derived from something else.

Second, Rand argues that it is not possible consistently to deny that one has free will. Every human choice and every evaluation presupposes it. One cannot deliberate about something, unless one thinks it is within one's power to do it or not do it; one also can not say that something 'should' or 'shouldn't' be done, unless it is possible for it to be done or not be done. Consequently, if one is deliberating about whether to believe in free will or not, then one is already committed to its existence. Nor can the determinist tell us that we should accept determinism. Nor can he claim that he is advocating determinism because it is true -- since on his view, he is advocating determinism only because some blind factors beyond his control force him to advocate it. Thus, the determinist's position appears to devolve into incoherence, as soon as he tries to assert it.(10) This is not, strictly, a proof of the freedom of the will, however.(11)

What it shows is that, in order to argue about free will (even to deny it), one has to already implicitly know that one has it; therefore, one must have learned it by some means other than argument -- in particular, Rand holds, one learns it by direct observation.

oohh.. looks like Ayn Rand has many fans...

Answer 1

She was a narcissistic, hedonistic witch!!....One simple question...where in her writings does she allow love to come into her closed little dirty world....she was a freak, severely affected financially, psychologically and philosophically by the Russian Revolution...she then in her youth, in Hollywood, CA used her body to get the things she coveted. until she grew old and began to write....she and her philosophy of greed and selfishness are better off DEAD!!!!

Answer 2

I'd like to state that I'm an Objectivist, and I certainly endorse Rand's view of free will.

The most impressive and understandable version of Objectivist free will that I know of is presented in "Objectivism: the Philosophy of Ayn Rand" by Leonard Peikoff, and so I refer you to that book in order to grasp more of the details in favor of free will.

The only "gray" area that I know of is not an issue that philosophy directly deals with, but science does: what IS the relationship between the mind and the brain? By that I mean that philosophy will have to wait until science figures out the answer, similar to the solution of the "stick in water problem" (Science discovered that "refraction" is the cause of the seeming illusion).

Once you understand Rand's view of free will, it becomes evident that there is a causal relationship between the thoughts one wills, and the corresponding actions, which means that there is a causal relationship between mental and physical actions. I don't think this "gray" area counts as an argument against Objectivist free will, it's more like a lack of evidence, the kind of evidence that all the other theories of free will need as well.

And to be literal, Rand did not consider her view of "free will" or volition to be a theory: she did not think that it could be proved, and after about 14 months of on-and-off reflecting over the issue, I think I agree with her. She regarded volition as axiomatic, after using introspection to validate its status as such, regarded it as one of the bases for any proofs.

For instance, I would argue that forming concepts is itself a volitional process, although most of us as children (and even into adulthood and beyond) do not self-consciously analyze the process, like philosophers do; and yet proofs in general involve relating a conceptual claim to the self-evident, the data of perception. Basically, there would be no "proofs" without concepts, and concepts would be impossible without volition.

So to conclude, I find Rand's version of free will the most intelligible of all the views (including Determinism, Compatiblism, Libertarianism, and Indeterminism), and that it is coherent as far as the evidence accounted for it philosophically. I think for a complete understanding of free will, we need to know the scientific relationship between the mind and the brain, but I think in the end we'll simply discover another form of causality, one that in many ways is unique compared to the rest of reality, but still causal because it is the mind or the person's *self* that is the cause.

Thanks for your time.

Answer 3

In Rand's scheme of issues each man or woman is provoked to be effective, he's given the prospect to realize this, and if he performs excellently he's rewarded.The dynamic at at play right it incredibly is the distinctiveness of the guy and his skill to be effective, very diverse from the Marxist thought of the guy because of the fact the averaged guy or woman - featureless and constantly leveled.

Answer 4

"A major source of confusion, in this issue, is the failure to dintinguish metaphysical facts from man-made facts--i.e., facts which are inherent in the identities of that which exists, from facts which depend on the exercise of human volition. Because man has free will, [Nothing gray there, I'd say] no human choice--and no phenomenon which is a product of human choice--is metaphysically necessary. In regard to any man-made fact, it is valid to claim that man *has* chosen thus, but it was not inherent in the nature of existence for him to have done so: he could have chosen otherwise. [This negates the murder argument in your link.]
"Choice, however, is not chance. Volition is not an exception to the Law of Causality; it is a type of causation."

Answer 5

Ayn Rand is an Ugly *** retarded *****, why are you takeing her seriously?