Unfinished_Symphony

If you've seen the videos of feral children, you know they don't speak. According to Objectivist Epistemology, a concept is not fully formed until a word is associated with it, and, if I'm not mistaken, the word must be uttered. So, if feral children don't speak, does that mean they have no concepts? If they have no concepts does that mean they don't think? How would we classify the type of cognitive actions a feral child makes (if any)? We have the faculty of reason but perhaps there's no metaphysical guarantee that this faculty will develop after birth. Maybe a feral child can be compared to someone who is born with mental defects - in both cases they're both limited with concept formation but one is limited from birth (nature) the other is limited from neglect (lack of nurture). So, a feral child meets the basic requirements of human, but that's it. Its as low a standard of human life possible while still being human. So, if a human is raised by wolves and survives until almost adolesence or beyond, doesn't learn to speak, is metaphysically limited in his choices of actions and things he can learn (not that he can't, there's just no one around to teach him), then is his cognitive action at a non-human level? Where is the line between volition and instinct? If humans have no instincts than what do we call the mode of function in a feral child? Can it be volitional actions that, albeit limited, mimic the appearance of what we call instinctual behavior in animals? Do you have to have concepts to be volitional? What can we really say about these kids? Its a human raised by animals. We're saying animals have instincts, humans have volition and focus but no instincts. Man needs reason in order to survive. Is a feral child a case of a human who survives with out concept formation? He has to take some action as he grows and those actions have to make sense, it has to preserve his life. It doesn't appear that the wolves are doing everything for them, they seem to learn to fend for themselves. These actions would require some rudimentary understanding. What would that be if not concepts? Instincts? "Concepstincts"? Do we need a new word? It gets confusing.

I don't see any conflict with objectivism and homosexuality. Objectivism is just reason. There's nothing irrational about homosexuality. Is there? If you are gay then you probably know that its natural. Leonard Peikoff has said in his podcasts that nearly all attempts to correct sexual orientation are in vain. Its not clear what the cause of sexual orientation is - is it nature, nurture, both? In either case, and as Peikoff has said in his podcast, at some early age, orientation, however it comes about, gets locked in. I am familiar with what Rand has said about homosexuality and I think we have to remember to separate the woman from the philosophy. She was opinionated. She had subjective value judgements. If you listen to enough stories from people who knew her, including Peikoff, she had a tendency to want to prove objective value to the things she subjectively valued. I understand that because aren't all of us guilty of that attempt at one time or another? We tend to want people to like what we like and agree with us. Also, remember that during most of Rand's life homosexuality was considered a mental illness. It was on that list, remember? It didn't get removed until some time in the 70's, I believe. She died in 82? So, who knows what she ended up thinking about gays toward the end of her life. And I'm not aware of any specific reasons why she thought they were "disgusting." I surmise she thought sodomy was disgusting or something like that. Who knows. Doesn't matter.

I'm not clear on how we know animals have absolutely no volition. How would we know an animal to have volition if it existed? How would that appear any different to us than an animal behaving strictly automatically? Seems more like a question for science, not philosophy. This was a very lively debate, didn't read all of it but quite a bit. I guess I'll check back to see if anyone has an answer.