Free Will

[Pyrrho]

How is a purely immaterial will any better? You still have the same problems.

Maybe. I don't have any clear conception of how a will might operate that isn't subject to the same problems that the constraints of physical laws impose; perhaps, however, self-determination need not be random. Can a will act on accord of its own self-willingness in which its exertion is neither necessary as a result of immediate antecedent causes nor involuntary impulses? It's a possibility that I'd like to maintain, at least as a matter for further consideration. The best I can currently entertain at this point, the most intelligible notion of something that strikes me as genuine freedom, is that perhaps human intuition includes foreknowledge of a range of possibilities in which one actually is completely free to pursue whichever course it ultimately decides upon - either because a particular path appears the most reasonable, or feels the most satisfying, or promises to serve as a worthy test of fortitude, or has the potential to forge an identity (an act of protest, say), or even because it considers irrationality a right to be exercised.

The thing is, what seems most reasonable or desirable is going to depend on the observed and believed characteristics of the situation, combined with the individual's desires and reasoning abilities.  That all involves pre-existing conditions that are not a matter of the individual choosing.

One never starts from nothing and then chooses; there is always the situation and whatever characteristics the actor has.  And those initial characteristics of the actor are not chosen by the actor, nor does the actor choose the universe in which the actor acts.

I don't know really. Why does one of these sometimes agree with my will, at other times not? Am I responsible for that judgment? Is it something of a symbiotic relationship with my genes, environment, past choices, etc.? Or does it ultimately transcend all of that, and coincide instead with a natural affinity to reason, sometimes present in the conscious intellect, sometimes absent; sometimes embraced, other times ignored? Maybe it boils down to the ends: self-preservation, on one level, of the body, on another, the inner "self", on yet another, the will. Or perhaps its all about pleasure; or freedom. Even these seem like choices to be considered to some extent.

In normal speech, we tend to say that someone acts freely if he does as he wills, and is not forced by something external to him at that moment.  (This is the idea presented in the opening post.)  But there is no reason to suppose that what he wills can magically escape the normal way the universe works.  My hand example is meant to draw this out, even if you do find someone acting as one normally would not, due to his abnormal circumstances.  But even that exception to what one normally does fits with the idea that one acts due to what one is and the circumstances one is in.  His demonstration of his bravery serves a purpose (even if they had just killed him anyway, as noted in my previous post).  His action would make no sense if the general idea of sticking one's hand in a fire was not normally highly undesirable and normally not what someone would do.  Its extreme nature was, in fact, essential to the point, essential to his purposes at that time.


It might also be worth pointing out that the practical implications of this are such that no further freedom is necessary (even if we had a coherent idea of what that "further freedom" was).  When we have identified someone as being willing to kill other people under unacceptable circumstances (because the person is caught doing this), then we lock them up for the protection of the remainder of society.  How the person became dangerous is irrelevant to this.  Though it may be relevant to how to stop other such actions in the future, but only if it follows some rules or laws of nature or some pattern.  If it is purely random or otherwise unpredictable, there would be nothing to be done about it.  But we know that people's actions are not completely unpredictable, and that the more we know about the person, and the situation of the person, the better we can predict what the person will do.  That we know from observation of people's behavior, not from some a priori consideration.