The Bald Eagle Experiment
Imagine two bald eagles. The first bald eagle is held in a zoo in California. Three times a day, the zookeeper visits the bald eagle, providing it with some of its favorite food, such as fish, rats, chicken, and quail. Whenever the bald eagle feels sick, a veterinarian visits it within a couple of hours, giving it all the medicine it could possibly need to ensure that it quickly recovers. In addition, twice a month, a groomer visits the bald eagle to clip its claws, clean its ears, and cut, shampoo, and style its plumage.
The second bald eagle lives in the Rocky Mountains in Montana. This bald eagle lacks all the things which the first one has. Every morning when it awakens, it has to leave its nest to hunt for prey. After all, no one will provide it with food. Sometimes, while on its hunts, this bald eagle hurts, or even breaks, its wings and its claws. Since there are neither veterinarians nor groomers around, though, it returns to its nest and rests there to heal and recover.
Yet there is another, more fundamental difference between the lifestyles of these two bald eagles. The second one, in effect, has something which the first one lacks, namely freedom. Living in a cave rather than in a cage, it can leave its nest and freely roam over its natural habitat, the American landscape, whenever it is in need of food, water, or air.
Which of these two bald eagles do you think lives a better life? The caged one in the Californian zoo or the free one in the Montanan Rockies? And how does this comparative story relate to us qua human beings?
After all, given their particular nature, human beings are different from bald eagles. In contrast to bald eagles (and all other animals), man is not only the rational but also the volitional animal. Animals other than man are preprogrammed by nature. They automatically and (quasi-)mechanically pursue that which is good for the species to which they belong. Man, in marked contrast, has free will. By using his mind, he can project alternative courses of actions into the future and select among alternatives. So how does the bald eagle experiment relate to the human experience?
The first difference between these cases is that the Californian bald eagle did not choose to live in a zoo. Rather, it was taken there by humans for some reason. With the exceptions of criminals and hostages, human beings typically build their own cages. In free countries, state-worshippers and power-lusters vote for socialist and communist policies, thereby gradually giving up their own liberty and freedom. In dictatorships, brainwashed subjects blindly accept the edicts of the dictator, thereby giving up the sovereignty of their own judgment. In doing so, these people volitionally build their own cages and voluntarily walk into them to be controlled and ruled.
While it is tragic to witness these cases of people who deliberately sacrifice themselves and their liberty, the fact that humans have free will should not be lamented, though. It is certainly true that bad ideas lead to bad consequences. Yet it is equally true that good ideas lead to good consequences. This insight reveals the second difference between the two cases. In contrast to the bald eagle, man does not have to remain a victim of fate. Rather, he can choose to become a master of destiny. Just as the bald eagle did not will to be caged, so it cannot will to break its cage and escape. Qua volitional beings, humans, in marked contrast, have the power not only to build cages and enslave themselves and others but also to break them and free themselves and others.
Perhaps, your original reaction to the bald eagle experiment was a mood of jubilation when reading about the free bald eagle and a feeling of grief when contemplating the fate of its caged counterpart. If so, how much more important and noble would it be to stand up for the liberty of humans (rather than for the liberty of bald eagles) and to celebrate all those self-reliant and independent people who struggle against all odds, break through boundaries, and flourish? Maybe, they might even become our exemplars and motivate us to fight for our values, actualize our potential, and realize our dreams.
At the same time, the bald eagle experiment also shows us that, unlike determined bald eagles, humans who enslave themselves and/or others do bear moral responsibility for their actions. Thus, what morality demands is that fighters for liberty should feel not grief but contempt for those people who claim that they have a ‘right’ to enslave others. After all, it is the state-worshippers and the power-lusters who have convinced their subjects to gradually give up their liberty. Nothing but a clear and firm stance against their statist ideas and a celebration of capitalism and liberty can ensure that we regain our freedom.
Perhaps, though, your original reaction to the bald eagle experiment was a feeling of security when reading about the caged bald eagle and an evocation of fear when contemplating the fate of its free counterpart. If so, you might want to wonder why you think that your insecurity should give you a moral ‘right’ to cage those who actually want to be free? In addition, enslaving others will not bring you any happiness. If American philosopher Ayn Rand is right in arguing that “[h]appiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of [your] values,”1 remaining passive while caging those who can actually create values will not make you flourish. Living a self-reliant and independent life might seem frightening to some. Yet despite the loneliness and fear one might feel while creating a life of one’s own, identifying one’s values independently and achieving them oneself is ultimately the only way to personal fulfillment and happiness. As American author Stephen King puts it, “Some birds are not meant to be caged, that’s all. Their feathers are too bright, their songs too sweet and wild. So you let them go, or when you open the cage to feed them they somehow fly out past you. And the part of you that knows it was wrong to imprison them in the first place rejoices, but still, the place where you live is that much more drab and empty for their departure.”2
At the same time, the bald eagle experiment also illustrates that humans often have a romanticized vision of what a life of security would actually look like. After all, there is a third (though less fundamental) difference between the caged bald eagle and the caged human being. While describing the bald eagle in the Californian zoo, I purposely presented an idealized picture of its existence. Unfortunately, most caged animals do not live in luxurious zoos, in which they are treated with extraordinary care. What is more, though, is that even a caged animal in an average zoo is better off than basically any subject of any collectivist state. Unlike the caged bald eagle, the average communist victim does not have access to a healthy diet, private healthcare, or fancy spa treatments.
What the bald eagle experiment shows us is that we have to make a choice. And this choice is clearcut. Either to fight for a capitalist system under which people can freely pursue their dreams at the risk of failure—or to advocate for a collectivist system under which people can experience a counterfeit sense of security at the expense of liberty. Either the ‘danger’ of the American landscape or the ‘comfort’ of a Russian gulag. Either to be a healthy bird and to fly—or to be a caged one and to die.
Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged (London: Penguin, [1957] 2007), 1014, and Ayn Rand, “The Objectivist Ethics,” The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism (New York: Signet, [1964] 2014), 31.
Stephen King, Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption (New York: Scribner, [1982] 2020), 103.