One of the first questions we tackled at the beginning of my first philosophy class was "what makes the human race unique?" We instantly think that this question is so easy, a child could answer it. Yet our pride is speaking before our reason when we think so. When we re-address the question, we're left debating - for an extensive amount of time - the specific qualities, behaviors, and characteristics that make us unique.
Most left-minded thinkers instantly jump to the idea of morality, where they will claim that humans are the only ones that have it and understand it. But the answer hardly has any solid data to back it up. Few experiments have been conducted on animals to thoroughly conclude that other species either do or don't have an understanding of right and wrong. On the other hand, this is primarily because we're not even sure how to go about such a feat. In what manner should we conduct the experiment? What should the test subjects be? How long? In what kind of environment? Though these questions can be answered with random variables, the most difficult part of the experiment would be translation. Do you speak dog? I don't.
By far, the most interesting and appealing response to the question of "what makes us unique" was provided by Ayn Rand in her novel Atlas Shrugged. During John Galt's speech, the enigmatic mastermind explains:
“A being of volitional consciousness has no automatic course of behavior. He needs a code of values to guide his actions. ‘Value’ is that which one acts to gain and keep, ‘virtue’ is the action by which one gains and keeps it. ‘Value’ presupposes an answer to the question: of value to whom and for what? ‘Value’ presupposes a standard, a purpose and the necessity of action in the face of an alternative. Where there are no alternatives, no values are possible.
“There is only one fundamental alternative in the universe: existence or non-existence-and it pertains to a single class of entities: to living organisms. The existence of inanimate matter is unconditional, the existence of life is not; it depends on a specific course of action. Matter is indestructible, it changes its forms, but it cannot cease to exist. It is only a living organism that faces a constant alternative: the issue of life or death. Life is a process of self-sustaining and-self-generated action. If an organism fails in that action, it does; its chemical elements remain, but its life goes out of existence. It is only the concept of ‘Life’ that makes the concept of ‘Value’ possible. It is only to a living entity that things can be good or evil.
“A plant must feed itself in order to live; the sunlight, the water, the chemicals it needs are the values its nature has set it to pursue; its life is the standard of value directing its actions. But a plant has no choice of action; there are alternatives in the conditions it encounters, but there is no alternative in its function: it acts automatically to further its life, it cannot act for its own destruction.
“An animal is equipped for sustaining its life; its senses provide it with an automatic code of action, an automatic knowledge of what is good for it or evil. It has no power to extend its knowledge or to evade it. In conditions where its knowledge proves inadequate, it dies. But so long as it lives, it acts on its knowledge, with automatic safety and no power of choice, it is unable to ignore its own good, unable to decide to choose the evil and act as its own destroyer.
“Man has no automatic code of survival. His particular distinction from all other living species is the necessity to act in the face of alternatives by means of volitional choice. He has no automatic knowledge of what is good for him or evil, what values his life depends on, what course of action it requires. Are you prattling about an instinct of self-preservation? An instinct of self-preservation is precisely what man does not possess. An ‘instinct’ is an unerring and automatic form of knowledge. A desire is not an instinct. A desire to live does not give you the knowledge required for living. And even man’s desire to live is not automatic: your secret evil today is that that is the desire you do not hold. Your fear of death is not a love of life and will not give you the knowledge needed to keep it. Man must obtain his knowledge and choose his actions by a process of thinking, which nature will not force him t9 perform. Man has the power to act as his own destroyer-and that is the way he has acted through most of his history."
So what is it that Mr. Galt is trying to get at here? What does he mean by volitional consciousness? The answer, folks is actually quite simple: We can choose evil. We can also choose to simply not care; to ignore what's going on around us, despite the fact that someone nearby could use our attention or our assistance. And if our "instinct" tells us to do one thing, we can decide, instead, to choose our own path and go against that gut feeling.
