Did Ayn Rand think children did not possess reason?

[Jill]

If so, where did she say it? Is it in her epistemology?

[softwareNerd]

What triggered this question? Knowing that would help understand the context.

From my memory, the place that Rand has written most extensively about children's reasoning/thinking was in her essay titled "The Comprachicos" (in the collection "The New Left", later re-titled "The Return of the Primitive")

In summary, Rand's view about what children could and could not do are not unique or radical. For instance, take the specific question "do children possess reason". What exactly are you asking? For instance, older elementary school kids can reason lots of things pretty well within the small scope of their awareness. On the other hand, a new born baby cannot even identify simple discrete objects, let alone reason about those objects. All that is obvious, so I assume you mean something else by your question.

Are you asking if they possess the faculty that can be used for reasoning? Here the answer is yes and no. Of course, healthy children are born with brains and the apparatus that will allow them to observe, learn and develop their brain's capacity. However, it does have to be developed. Everything has to be learnt, from the simple process of observation to the slightly more complex processes of making simple inductions and deductions.

Here is a relevant quote from "The Comprachicos":

"Give me a child for the first seven years," says a famous maxim attributed to the Jesuits, "and you may do what you like with him afterwards." This is true of most children, with rare, heroically independent exceptions. The first five or six years of a child's life are crucial to his cognitive development. They determine, not the content of his mind, but its method of functioning, its psycho-epistemology. (Psycho-epistemology is the study of man's cognitive processes from the aspect of the interaction between man's conscious mind and the automatic functions of his subconscious.)

At birth, a child's mind is tabula rasa; he has the potential of awareness—the mechanism of a human consciousness—but no content. Speaking metaphorically, he has a camera with an extremely sensitive, unexposed film (his conscious mind), and an extremely complex computer waiting to be programmed (his subconscious). Both are blank. He knows nothing of the external world. He faces an immense chaos which he must learn to perceive by means of the complex mechanism which he must learn to operate.

[A is A]

If so, where did she say it? Is it in her epistemology?

These examples should indicate that she thought children possessed the rudiments of reason and rapidly learned to use words and concepts. In other words, I believe she held they possess reason once they are able to learn words and talk.

All Quotes from ITOE (The Obj. Research CD).

When a child observes that two objects (which he will later learn to designate as "tables") resemble each other, but are different from four other objects ("chairs"), his mind is focusing on a particular attribute of the objects (their shape), then isolating them according to their differences, and integrating them as units into separate groups according to their similarities.

This is the key, the entrance to the conceptual level of man's consciousness. The ability to regard entities as units is man's distinctive method of cognition, which other living species are unable to follow.

-----------------

Man's mathematical and conceptual abilities develop simultaneously. A child learns to count when he is learning his first words.

Let us now examine the process of forming the simplest concept, the concept of a single attribute (chronologically, this is not the first concept that a child would grasp; but it is the simplest one epistemologically)—for instance, the concept "length." If a child considers a match, a pencil and a stick, he observes that length is the attribute they have in common, but their specific lengths differ. The difference is one of measurement. In order to form the concept "length," the child's mind retains the attribute and omits its particular measurements. Or, more precisely, if the process were identified in words, it would consist of the following: "Length must exist in some quantity, but may exist in any quantity. I shall identify as 'length' that attribute of any existent possessing it which can be quantitatively related to a unit of length, without specifying the quantity."

The child does not think in such words (he has, as yet, no knowledge of words), but that is the nature of the process which his mind performs wordlessly.

------------------------

A child is not and does not have to be aware of all these complexities when he forms the concept "table." He forms it by differentiating tables from all other objects in the context of his knowledge. As his knowledge grows, the definitions of his concepts grow in complexity. (We shall discuss this when we discuss definitions.) But the principle and pattern of concept-formation remain the same.

The first words a child learns are words denoting visual objects, and he retains his first concepts visually. Observe that the visual form he gives them is reduced to those essentials which distinguish the particular kind of entities from all others—for instance, the universal type of a child's drawing of man in the form of an oval for the torso, a circle for the head, four sticks for extremities, etc. Such drawings are a visual record of the process of abstraction and concept-formation in a mind's transition from the perceptual level to the full vocabulary of the conceptual level.

----------------------------

In the process of forming concepts of entities, a child's mind has to focus on a distinguishing characteristic—i.e., on an attribute—in order to isolate one group of entities from all others. He is, therefore, aware of attributes while forming his first concepts, but he is aware of them perceptually, not conceptually. It is only after he has grasped a number of concepts of entities that he can advance to the stage of abstracting attributes from entities and forming separate concepts of attributes. The same is true of concepts of motion: a child is aware of motion perceptually, but cannot conceptualize "motion" until he has formed some concepts of that which moves, i.e., of entities.

The first concepts a child forms are concepts of perceptual entities; the first words he learns are words designating them. Even though a child does not have to perform the feat of genius performed by some mind or minds in the prehistorical infancy of the human race: the invention of language—every child has to perform independently the feat of grasping the nature of language, the process of symbolizing concepts by means of words.

Even though a child does not (and need not) originate and form every concept on his own, by observing every aspect of reality confronting him, he has to perform the process of differentiating and integrating perceptual concretes, in order to grasp the meaning of words. If a child's brain is physically damaged and unable to perform that process, he does not learn to speak.

-------------------------------

After the first stage of learning certain fundamentals, there is no particular order in which a child learns new concepts; there is, for a while, a broad area of the optional, where he may learn simple, primary concepts and complex, derivative ones almost concurrently, depending on his own mental initiative and on the random influences of his environment.

The pattern is as follows: when a child grasps the concept "man," the knowledge represented by that concept in his mind consists of perceptual data, such as man's visual appearance, the sound of his voice, etc. When the child learns to differentiate between living entities and inanimate matter, he ascribes a new characteristic, "living," to the entity he designates as "man." When the child learns to differentiate among various types of consciousness, he includes a new characteristic in his concept of man, "rational"—and so on. The implicit principle guiding this process, is: "I know that there exists such an entity as man, I know many of his characteristics, but he has many others which I do not know and must discover." The same principle directs the study of every other kind of perceptually isolated and conceptualized existents.

[Jill]

Thanks for these.

[Jill]

What triggered this question is that Objectivist parenting doesn't seem to have evolved to respect children as equal human beings, that is, as individuals with the right to live by the judgement of their own minds.

[Ifat Glassman]

What triggered this question is that Objectivist parenting doesn't seem to have evolved to respect children as equal human beings, that is, as individuals with the right to live by the judgement of their own minds.

Children need guidance and training from an adult. Training in proper methods of thinking, living and learning. In that sense, they are not equal. Children ask a lot of question, they look up to their parents for answers. They themselves justly consider adults to be their intellectual superiors. I think that if a parent tries to treat a child as equal, and instead of supplying answers just leave the child to develop on his own, it will only leave the child with questions and confusions, rather than contributing to the child's development.

I think a child's self esteem comes from being able to achieve things, and feel he has the right tools to live, and not from being treated as an equal. A parent can make a child feel loved and still be his intellectual superior and provide him guidance and I think this is the best for a child.

[A is A]

What triggered this question is that Objectivist parenting doesn't seem to have evolved to respect children as equal human beings, that is, as individuals with the right to live by the judgement of their own minds.

What context is "judgment of their own minds" placed in, and what context is "the right to live" exercised? Children don't have the knowledge necessary to make certain political choices pertaining to these issues, but within their level of knowledge, they certainly should have the right to use their judgment. The rudimentary use of reason and the full development of one's ability to use it in certain contexts are two different issues. An adult who chooses not to work suffers the consequences of being homeless. A child cannot be held to the same standard since it doesn't have the knowledge or capability to make such choices. A child's rights expands as its ability to exercise its reason develops.

[Jill]

I can agree that children need lots of help and advice from their parents. I don't agree that age necessarily brings intelectual superiority. If there's a disagreement between a parent and a child, the parent could be wrong.

By equality I mean that this Ayn Rand quote applies to children too:

Everyone has the right to make his own decision/s, but none has the right to force his decision on others

[KendallJ]

I can agree that children need lots of help and advice from their parents. I don't agree that age necessarily brings intelectual superiority. If there's a disagreement between a parent and a child, the parent could be wrong.

By equality I mean that this Ayn Rand quote applies to children too:

A similar question was raised in TOS in the context of letting children decide what their own educational curriculum should be. Lisa Van Damme has a good reply which I thought was very good.

http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/issues...ers-replies.asp

What is the relevance of age and intellectual superiority? In other words, what does being right have to do with possession and excercise of the rational faculty?

I certainly agree with your observation as regards an adolescent, but that is a time at which parents consciously begin shifting responsibility and control over their children. I would most emphatically disagree with your assessment for the average 5 yr old.

[Jill]

An adult who chooses not to work suffers the consequences of being homeless. A child cannot be held to the same standard since it doesn't have the knowledge or capability to make such choices. A child's rights expands as its ability to exercise its reason develops.

I think not letting a child suffer the consequences of not working has to do with the moral responsibility the parents chose for themselves towards the child, not with the child's capability to make choices.

[softwareNerd]

What triggered this question is that Objectivist parenting doesn't seem to have evolved to respect children as equal human beings, that is, as individuals with the right to live by the judgement of their own minds.

Are you getting this from observing some people who are Objectivists? I ask, because your questions sound very hypothetical rather than being about some real-life situation. If they are based on some real-life example, it is tough to say whether any particular instance of making decisions for a child is rational or not...i.e., without knowing the particulars. Secondly, there's really no such thing as "Objectivist parenting". I prefer to think of "rational parenting". Similarly, there is no such thing as "Objectivist programming" or "Objectivist investing". One has to be rational about such things, and some people who are sympathetic to Objectivism might less than rational in some areas of their lives.

Here is a real-life example, that I personally observed a few months ago (name changed to protected the spoiled). Tommy (5 years old) wakes up and declines all the options that his mom offers him for breakfast. He says he wants soda. From past experience, his mom knows that he can go through days drinking soda and eating chips (don't ask!). Mom tries to sell a few things: when froot loops prove to be boring, a chocolate-covered cereal bar is positioned as being really yummy. Within minutes Tommy is getting louder, verging on the hysterical. Mom offers a bargain: if Tommy has some cereal now, he can have soda a little later. That's the last straw: how dare mom try to force him to postpone his enjoyment of soda. He is on the floor, kicking and screaming.

It would be highly irresponsible for a parent to let the child decide everything for himself. Kids simply do not know the consequences of their actions. At some age, they can somewhat understand in intellectual terms, but still cannot fully appreciate the significance of the long-term in a way that allows them to weigh those consequences against the short-term. If you let kids decide everything, we'll end up with obese kids who hang about watching TV and playing games all day. We will end up with adults who curse their parents for letting them waste so many years of their lives, by allowing an ignorant kid make all their decisions.

After taking care of the child's immediate survival needs, the most important job of a parent is to ensure he helps the child grow into rational human being. Bringing up a child trained in letting his emotions and a short-term focus guide his life does not achieve this end. Of course, if one decides everything for a child, and dictates it in the form of "you will do this because I say so", that would be an error of the opposite type. You end up with an irrational child of a different type. Those two are the choice between breeding an physically unhealthy, ignorant hippee-kid versus breeding a physically healthy, knowledgable but irrational fascist kid.

Most rational parents (non-Objectivists by the droves) easily reject this apparent dilemma. They ensure their kids have as much choice as possible within the context of what is reasonable, including allowing their kids to make some choices that they know are simply wrong (assuming there aren't serious or long-term consequences). In addition, they also ensure that they constantly increase the scope of choices their kid can make as they grow up. On the other side of the dilemma, when they insist that the child does something, they try to explain why, so that the child realizes that injunctions are not random and unexplained, but are based on reason. This teaches the child the right epistemology by which he understands that there is a way to challenge any command: reason. In my own experience, my child will sometimes counter my reasoning by offering a solution of his own, that meets the background reasoning but ends up with an implementation he prefers.

A simplified way of thinking of a child's age is this: before being born, he is like something you own; and at some stage (13? 21? ) he is a full-fledged adult. In between, he is moving from one to the other. He may not be moving like that in the sharp-line world of law. However, thats is how he is moving in terms of his own capability.

back to real-life example, there are few Objectivist parents who blog about their experiences and seem to be very rational parents. Much more "meat" is available on those blogs.

[wilicyote]

In parenting, there is an aspect that is often lost on children, especially in this society. The parent is paying for everything. In light of that, the child has no right to force it's "want" onto the parent. To hijack the example of "Tommy"; if Tommy can do something productive, offer it to his fellow man, then trade for a soda (or the money to buy one), then his right to drink it is going to be difficult (but not impossible) to challenge morally. Most children, even in their teens, are far from this stage of independance.

I have found in the parenting of my four children, all of whom are in or nearing adulthood now, that this particular aspect was the most important one to keep in mind. It constitutes the moral leverage a parent has to affect the actions of their child. If, from this point of view, the objective of the parent is to prepare a child to be an objective reasoning adult, all other aspects of parenting can be worked out.

It is worth pointing out that the greatest obstacles to the parenting of my children has not been the child themselves, but our society. It fills their minds with all sorts of irrational ideas, places all sorts of legal and social obligations on the parent which are irrational or even insane, and creates a ton of additional work for the parent which is unnecessary.

[Jill]

I am familiar with this idea. Is this something you learned from Ayn Rand? I really want to learn what were her ideas on children and parenting.

[prosperity]

Most rational parents (non-Objectivists by the droves) easily reject this apparent dilemma. They ensure their kids have as much choice as possible within the context of what is reasonable, including allowing their kids to make some choices that they know are simply wrong (assuming there aren't serious or long-term consequences). In addition, they also ensure that they constantly increase the scope of choices their kid can make as they grow up.

I don't have children yet, but I imagine it may be something like...in the fall, the child wants to wear shorts and a t-shirt to school. This is out of the question. So, you give the child a choice of maybe 2 or 3 outfits but simply control the choices to ones you find acceptable.

I'm guessing this could be done in reverse for issues where you are going to let the child fail based on a decision you know is wrong but figure they have to learn it themselves.

[softwareNerd]

So, you give the child a choice of maybe 2 or 3 outfits but simply control the choices to ones you find acceptable.

Yes, things like that. Basically if a parent asks himself: why am I telling my kid to do XYZ, there's (hopefully) a reason. It is that underlying reason that is the primary. So, in your example, "wear this" is specific, but "wear something warm" is more primary. One can peel back multiple layers. For instance, underlying "wear something warm" may be "stay warm", and there may be other ways to accomplish that, and so on.

[Jill]

I want to know Ayn Rand's ideas on children and parenting.

[Jill]

Is this something Ayn Rand advised in any of her books and lectures? If she didn't advise this directly, how does it follow from her philosophy?

[A is A]

I want to know Ayn Rand's ideas on children and parenting.

Unfortunately, she's not around to ask her.

Is this something Ayn Rand advised in any of her books and lectures? If she didn't advise this directly, how does it follow from her philosophy?

Not that I know of.

It follows by implication and application of her ideas to concrete situations. Parenting is not a philosophic issue.

[~Sophia~]

In parenting, there is an aspect that is often lost on children, especially in this society. The parent is paying for everything. In light of that, the child has no right to force it's "want" onto the parent. To hijack the example of "Tommy"; if Tommy can do something productive, offer it to his fellow man, then trade for a soda (or the money to buy one), then his right to drink it is going to be difficult (but not impossible) to challenge morally. Most children, even in their teens, are far from this stage of independance.

It is not who pays for things. A parent of a young child actor is still his guardian and thus rightly has the control over this child's choices. That child, properly, should not be allowed to spend the money he has earned on whatever he wishes at the moment. In reverse, just because I pay the bills does not mean that I have the right to subject my kid to irrational rules - if I wished.

[softwareNerd]

Is this something Ayn Rand advised in any of her books and lectures? If she didn't advise this directly, how does it follow from her philosophy?

As I noted in an earlier post Rand did not talk about child-rearing to any extent. She has written a little bit about the topic of early learning, and Montessori education, but it is very little.

It follows from her philosophy only in the the very broad notion of man as a rational being: which is in contrast to (say) a ultra-religious view on the one hand and an "anything goes" view on the other.There are some ultra-religious folk who think most of their kid's knowledge should come from their holy text. There are ulta-nihilists who think kids should be left completely to their own devices. These types of things can flow from a philosophy, because a philosophy postulates views about the general nature of the world and man, and it postulates views about what is important. Not sure what other types of things can flow from a philosophy.

[K-Mac]

Although it's not specifically about child rearing, I just read the essay Art and Moral Treason in The Romantic Manifesto where Rand discusses the upbringing and development of a child. I found it quite interesting.

[Ifat Glassman]

I can agree that children need lots of help and advice from their parents. I don't agree that age necessarily brings intellectual superiority. If there's a disagreement between a parent and a child, the parent could be wrong.

That's true, but the meaning of "intellectual superior" is not that an adult could never be wrong and that a child is always wrong. It's simply that an adult is more trained in thinking, and has more knowledge.

By equality I mean that this Ayn Rand quote applies to children too:

It applies to children in relation to other children or adults, but not in relation to parents taking actions to protect and bring up their kids.

So long as a parent is taking actions restricting the child's decisions, but that are objectively for the child's well being - it is a necessary and justified part of parenting.

For example, young children are unaware of physical dangers and often parents have to limit their movements (like say, if they want to touch a hot stove or go walking in a driveway).

Or suppose a child does not yet understand the concept of theft, and he decides to take something from another child/adult - it is proper that the parent not allow him to act on his decision.

This is something I know for a fact Ayn Rand supported too (from listening to her intellectual heir - Leonard Peikoff's course).

Other than that, to answer your question, she considered children to have a developing rational faculty, in need of guidance and training in proper thinking. You can read her article "the comprachico of the mind" that softwarenerd quoted from to get a better idea.

Edited February 23, 2009 by ifatart

[wilicyote]

It is not who pays for things. A parent of a young child actor is still his guardian and thus rightly has the control over this child's choices. That child, properly, should not be allowed to spend the money he has earned on whatever he wishes at the moment. In reverse, just because I pay the bills does not mean that I have the right to subject my kid to irrational rules - if I wished.

Would you be willing to, through the process of reduction, explain how you tie this to Objectivism. In other words, state your primaries. The specific reason why I ask this is that I have tried and failed. This may be a commentary on my intellect.

[softwareNerd]

Would you be willing to, through the process of reduction, explain how you tie this to Objectivism. In other words, state your primaries. The specific reason why I ask this is that I have tried and failed. This may be a commentary on my intellect.

The primary is that, a young child does not have the reasoning and long-range thinking of an adult. This is a biological observation. Philosophy needs to make itself consistent with this observation.

Of course, an adult may be irrational and short-range too, but -- with the exception of people covered by the legal definition of insanity -- adults are left free to act on that irrationality, because we assume this is an act of full-fledged adult choice. On the other hand, we cannot assume that a young child has adequate knowledge and integration to make choices. Nothing in Objectivism (as a philosophy) will lead one to the idea that children are not fully capable: this is a specific question from Biology. Nevertheless, it is completely consistent with Objectivist to state the following: the baby in the Gerber advertisement does not have the rational capacity to make any long term choices for himself.

[wilicyote]

Wow, it seems this child is getting younger all the time. I think this is because there is a real problem determining at what age a child can reason well enough to be treated as a human with All the attendant rights afforded humans. Obviously this age is different with every child and, I would argue, many adults today have stilll not reached this point. Herein lies the problem. It is a significant problem, not one to just be brushed away. It entails many issues; such as who decides when that time has arrived, the parent, the child, someone else? I can guarantee you that each of these three options will give you drastically different results.

The primary that "the young child does not have the reasoning and long-range thinking of an adult", is not sufficient. Some adults don't have the reasoning and long-range thinking of other adults either. The difference is merely one of degrees.

While I agree that philosophy must make itself consistent with this observed reality. This observation, in and of itself, is not sufficient justification for one human dictating the actions of another. Don't get me wrong. I am not saying that there is not a reason that a parent has the authority. I am saying we have not yet answered why correctly. Any of you who have teenagers know EXACTLY what I am talking about.

This is a tough nut to crack, and I have not given up yet, but the seed is still not within my grasp.

BTW, I said "through theprocess of reduction," for a reason. As soon as you do this you will see why.

Edited February 24, 2009 by wilicyote