Simplified freewill.

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

Ok, I thought I’d put down in writing my view on freewill (I tried on someone else’s thread but it got locked).

I’m sure that none of us wish to be utterly freed from outside forces (ie ,dead- non-existent), so really we do not want the will to be absolutely free.We want the will to be free to make the right choice between those options that are available.

Here are a couple of things I said on the locked thread…

" I think that self control is the best description of what we mean by freewill, a strict(ish) morality is an expression of self control, that is freedom of the will to control impulses etc.The will belongs to the intellect rather than our impulsive natures (if we are wise)…knowledge leads to freedom…ergo, truth is connected to freedom."

“… I see freedom as an active choice, not something you just fall into…like being immoral (any cunt can do that).When you just go with impulses you are not free in the sense that you are a slave to nature.Morality subjects your will to your intellect, ie , the bit of you that is above an animal (nature).Animals are not free, they are slaves.”

In other words, our freedom lies in our ability to choose between available options.The best guide as to which is the best option is knowledge, ergo knowledge/truth frees us (or if you prefer, gives us what we should reasonably want).

At it’s simplest, freewill is best expressed as self control based on knowledge.

2

This is true. Our will is also not entirely “free” because it needs a reference point (our desire for food, water, sex, companionship, power, etc.)… However, the manner in which we pursue that which isn’t “free” (our basic primal drives) is mostly for us to determine. We have the ability to deny our drive for food, water, sex, and companionship (although the longer we go without them, the more difficult it may become)

I agree with all of this as well. Our ability to choose between available options is “free will”; the available options, however, might not always be up to us to determine.

3

I would classify this not as free will, but as a sophisticated will, a will made conscious. The problem remains:

4

I agree that our available options may well be restricted, however they can certainly be expanded by knowledge ,eg, a society with a large knowledge database can offer more choices to it’s citizens.

5

Schopenhauer made a basic mistake because all sane men want the same thing .We all want that which is best for any given situation.Knowledge frees us to pursue that which is the best way forward.Obviously only a mad man/idiot doesn’t want knowledge. :wink:

6

“A man can do what he wants, but not want what he wants.”

I think schopenhauer got it right here, his mistake was in seeing it as a problem. Because the alternative doesn’t make sense. Talking about an I that causes the will just shifts the problem to the question of who or what causes that I, and can go all the way into infinite regress if you’re only satisfied if you find a free or uncaused first cause.

So why not just run with your will.

7

I think I might have credited Schopie with seeing it as a problem. I’m not sure he did. He’s just right that we want what we want and that’s it. So yes, the best thing we can do is run with it. I agree, and I think that’s also what Nietzsche made of it. Schopenhauer himself seems to be more mistrustful about the will. He speaks of a moderate will as preferable. Nietzsche likes strong, excessive wills.

I think that the OP is more or less in accordance with Schopenhauer.

8

The point I made is that we all want the same thing (that which we think is best), however if we accept that our ideas may be wrong then we are sometimes able to learn the truth about the matter.In other words , provided we accept we are not the source of truth, we can learn to want what is right (best).So we can learn to change some of our desires through knowledge of what is truly best.

I think this is just common sense… we can learn that our desire for a particular outcome (etc) will not fulfil our needs as we would hope, we learn otherwise. :banana-dance:

9

Chester,

I think you’re mixing things up.

Will has to come first. What is best or right isn’t something you can learn about seperate from what you want (Or maybe you could, in a way, but then you are just learning how to follow someone elses will). And truth doesn’t change what we want, it just changes the way we go about getting what we want.

Jacob,

I agree. Thanks for clarifying.

10

He didn’t make that mistake at all. However, it’s an empty statement unless there is a single best thing.

If you’re dying of thirst and there is a bottle of water nearby, it’s best to drink it.

If you have to decide who to vote for, you need to assemble your thoughts on various matters, assign weighting to those subjects’ values, investigate which candidate best represents your interests, then examine to what extent they can be trusted and able to carry out their pledges. Only the investigation of candidates is really about knowledge; knowledge also plays a secondary role in guiding the intuition for the last stage, but the first part is about will.

Then you have to accept that someone/something else is the source of truth. And if you do so, you cannot know the truth of the matter yourself, so you can only do so because they say so. So you have already stepped beyond the bounds of reason (by delegating truth to another), and you’re into revelation or intuition. Knowledge in that case doesn’t free you, it enslaves you.

11

I’m still not sure why you need to be either moral or imoral to be free surely free will means doing what though wilt not what is right or wrong or otherwise?

If you are religious then I can understand why you would think free means what God wills, but if not then as an atheist or other it makes little sense to the definition to place conditions on your freedom like that, surely that just makes you less free.

I am only free if I am morally responsible/morally irresponsible? Do you see what I mean it makes no sense.

Better to say you will do what you want and what you will, but that it is freely chosen at least if not acted on, only if it is both.

Freedom of speech for example implies that you should be responsible for what you say, but it is not necessary to be responisble in what you say at all for it to be free speech.

12

This seems straightforward to me.

I want the sandwich, I learn that someone has spat in it, I no longer want the sandwich.Note that acquired knowledge has altered my desire, now my want involves not eating the sandwich.My opinion of the best want has changed through the acquisition of knowledge .

As I have said , certain desires are innate and good, they do not enslave us (necessarily) in any negative ways, those desires are “wanting the best out of a situation” and wanting “useful knowledge”.The latter frees us to pursue the former.

13

I think to be immoral basically means to lack self control. The immoral stuff is what we like to do if we surrender our intellect to animal drives (and such).

I guess it means that I believe part of you is enslaved by animal drives (me too), the free part of you is your reasoned , moral mind.

14

Maybe I’m unique in this for this particular board, but I am certainly capable of second order desires. For example, I currently want to want to quit smoking. I value not-smoking because of the health benefits over smoking, but I have a first order desire to smoke, and this conflict results in me wanting to want to quit smoking. Now, if old Schopie means that we cannot decide what we want, as in I cannot decide to have the first order desire to quit smoking, then he has misunderstood what a want is, or rather he is asking for a type of freedom that does not apply to wants.

You see, a want is, more or less, the feeling of being compelled to something. But, what possible role could freedom have in a feeling. I don’t see Schopie lamenting that I’m not free to feel hot and cold, and that this lamentable fact somehow informs free will. The case is, rather, that I am, under normal circumstances, free to put myself in conditions of either being hot or being cold. That is, it requires a misunderstanding of both freedom and “hot and cold” for someone to think that we lack freedom because we cannot feel hot and cold at will. Likewise, it’s not the case that I am not free(in the relevant sense) to impose a want on myselfg, because wants are not under the scope of a reasonable definition of freedom, in the same way that feeling hot and cold isn’t. What I am capable of, however, is arranging conditions so that I will passively obtain the first order want.

How do I do this? I smoke 40 cigarettes straight untill it makes me sick, I constantly read literature about how horrible cigarette smoke is, I surround myself with messages about quitting smoking, I have my friends refuse to hang out with me if I’m going to smoke, I have me girlfriend threaten to break up with me, I tell myself over and over that I want to quit smoking untill it becomes habituated and is a first order want. If I don’t want to be cold, I light a fire.

The point is, ofcourse, that a want is a constituent part of the will, it plays an integral role in volition, and so it is preposterous to demand volitional control over it. It gets everything backwards.

15

Well I’d say addicts don’t want their drug, they feel as though they need it.So the want to stop has to be stronger than their feeling of need.I bet a million quid would do it. :smiley:

16

I have a hard time buying this. It might make sense if you could convince us that things associated with our animal drives are all immoral, and vice versa, but I think you’d have an uphill struggle. Take, for example, a mother caring forher child. This act is almost certainly suspect to some of humankinds most basic ‘animal drives’ - so by your theory it would surely be immoral. But it just isn’t.

Similarly, you’re theory would put sex, including sex for the sole purpose of procreation, to be on the ‘immoral’ list. How is this feasible? How can you argue that in a morally perfect world, no one would procreate?

Finally, I can’t see much of an argument anywhere to suggest that everytime we are acting intellectually, we are acting morally. When Lenin ordered the suppression of the Orthodox churches - I have little doubt in my mind that his actions were immoral. But was this not an entirely intellectual game he was playing? It seems to me that if any actions at all can be said to be ‘free’ from influence from our animal drives - then the ordering of the suppression of the orthodox church because of a deep seated belief in Marxism would certainly be one such action. So your theory would render this a perfectly moral action - but I find this problematic (as will others who value basic human rights).

Basically, I think your distinction is unworkable.

17

And on the schopy quote - does anyone have a page/book reference. I can’t really make sense of the quote out of context.

18

Ok, some natural drives do pass intellectual scrutiny, ie , they are good and productive. When a natural drive is known to be negative but we do it purely because we want to, that is enslavement.

So in other words, we can use our intellect to decide whether an inclination (natural or not) is good.That means that an animal drive has to be subject to reason (the intellect) in order to be free.

People like Lenin may believe they are engaged in the intellectual pursuit of truth, when in fact they are not, they are surrendering their intellect to immoral drives (in this case hatred).

19

Yes, the accounts I’ve seen of free will and second order desires say things like “the second order resonates all the way up”, to try and stop the infinite regress. You know, like all you have to do is actively align yourself with the desire to avoid the infinite regress. There is something to be said for it though, since the problem really only arises if you don’t want to want what you want, so if second order always forces yourself to actively align with wanting or not wanting a first order want, then it should end.

But, I think the entire line of reasoning is mistaken, as in it’s a non problem, because a definition of free will that is concerned with such things is going to place wants as a constituent part of free will, which means there is no reason to think wants themselves are subject to free will. They inform it, rather than being influenced by it.

20

I agree Brevel it is not dependant, it is just an extra self imposed condition. By all means morality is important, but it has nothing at all to do with freedom or will.