Akadeemia
Eurozine
Akadeemia
2011-05-15
Abstracts for Akadeemia 5/2011
Toomas Paul
Freely meandering choice
The author discusses the dispute between two theologians -- Erasmus of Rotterdam and Martin Luther -- on the limits of humans' existential choices and the role of personalities in determining their fates. The sixteenth century thinkers did not deal with the abstract "freedom of will" as such but with the question whether the human, after falling into sin, is free to choose and to do good deeds. The dispute concerned the principal question of soteriology.
In his work De libero arbitrio diatribe sive collatio (1524), Erasmus as a balanced and cautious humanist criticized Luther's radical and antisocial standpoint, and defended the traditional view of the Catholic Church that humans have been given free will by which they can choose the route to eternal blessedness or turn away from it. In his response De servo arbitrio (1525), Martin Luther, who had become the leader of the Reformation, agreed that humans have freedom of choice in matters below them (in inferioribus), but in connection with God or matters concerning blessedness or perdition, there is no free will: people are prisoners of either God's or Satan's will, being their dependents and slaves. This severe admission was, with inevitable logic, related to the principle of the Reformation "grace alone" (sola gratia), which put an absolute end to the business of granting indulgences.
If we consider cultural history as a process la longue durée, the illusory "freedom of will" seems as clear as "happiness" or "justice". People continue to live in the world of meandering abstract concepts constructed by themselves. The continuation of the old dispute -- although metaphysics has been banished from philosophy -- is an example of the vitality of universals, to be more exact, of their adaptability.
Present-day psychologists go even further than Luther and doubt the arbitrariness of choice in everyday matters. Although humans can remember their intentions, they are aware only of adopted decisions, not how these decisions were reached -- such useless information is not saved in the read-only memory of the brain. Such deletion, or to be more exact, overwriting, enables us to deceive ourselves and to believe that we are the masters of our own decisions.
"Freedom" is recognized inevitability; even in the best case, it is so to say internal inevitability, i.e. a compulsion derived from convictions.
Immanuel Kant
Critique of practical reason: Conclusion
Eduard Parhomenko
Afterword
The text is famous for its first paragraph, particularly for its initial sentence: "Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and reverence, the more often and more steadily one reflects on them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me." This, one of Kant's best-known sentences, was cast into the bronze memorial tablet that was unveiled near his grave in Königsberg on his 100th death anniversary in 1904. In 1993 the memorial tablet was restored in a bilingual version -- in German and Russian.
The sentence summarizes elegantly and concisely the two main areas of Kant's philosophy -- nature and morals. The decisive factor here is how Kant, in the period of his mature or so-called critical philosophy, sharply contrasting these two areas, still views them in their togetherness, thus enabling people to transcend from nature to morality.
In a short comment, the translator explains that the contrasting and entwining of nature and morality, which powered Kant's thinking, originates in his childhood when his mother referred to the experience of moral goodness expressed in the divinity and beauty of nature. A similar experience is expressed in Kant's early or pre-critical works (e.g. Universal Natural History and Theory of Heaven (1755), particularly in the view of the nightly starry sky he describes there. From the viewpoint of history of philosophy, such linking of morality with a certain kind of experience of nature, which is particularly manifested in the admiration of the beauty and majesty of the heavens, may have its origins in ancient authors, including Seneca whom Kant read avidly.
In Kant's philosophy of his mature or so-called critical period, including Critique of Practical Reason, such an immediate link between morality and nature would be unthinkable -- physics and morality are different realms. A precondition for the freedom enabling a moral act or the causality of freedom is the ability to start a new series of causality, independently of natural causality. When observing nature -- the physical sky -- the human feels futile and humiliated in confrontation with its infinity. Simultaneously, however, he feels even more elevated as a moral being who honours and admires the freedom to initiate laws that he can follow (autonomy). Thus, the beauty and grandeur of the starry heavens can now be discussed only in a figurative sense.
Thomas Hobbes
Leviathan: Of the liberty of subjects
Hobbes discusses the nature of liberty under sovereign power and says that liberty means the ability to act according to one's will without being physically hindered from performing that act. Only chains or imprisonment can prevent one from acting, so all subjects have absolute liberty under sovereignty. Although the contract and the civil laws mandated by the sovereign are "artificial chains" preventing certain actions, absolute freedom and liberty still exist because the subjects themselves created the chains. Subjects write the social contract and are the authors of the sovereign's power. Thus, Hobbes argues, the subject is responsible for all hindrances to his actions and therefore cannot complain.
In the state of nature, liberty did not exist, because actions were hindered by fear of death and fear of the power of others. In the Leviathan, fear and power are still present, but because the subject has consented to give them to the sovereign to use as tools, the subject has attained absolute liberty. That is, the subject is an author of the sovereign's power and is accordingly responsible for the sovereign's actions. Therefore, even if the sovereign imprisons or kills the subject, the subject has been personally responsible for his own fate. Hobbes concludes that freedom can only truly exist under a sovereign power authorized by its subjects.
But considering the more common understanding of liberty -- namely, that the subject may rightfully resist or disobey a sovereign's commands if he or she so chooses -- Hobbes determines that such liberty goes back to the laws of nature. A subject has the right of self-preservation and is never bound to injure himself, put himself in danger of death, kill himself or injure another (the sovereign may rightfully punish or kill the subject for disobedience, but the subject then has a right to defend himself). However, for nothing else may the subject rightfully resist the sovereign, because such resistance detracts from the sovereign's ability to protect the commonwealth.
If the sovereign is no longer able to fulfil the function of protection, then the soul has left the body of the Leviathan, the commonwealth has collapsed, and the subjects are no longer bound by contract to the sovereign. However, at this point, they have returned to the state of nature and must create a new contract or be imprisoned by fear and horror.
Kaarel Tarand
Free will and the last daily paper
Tarand dissects the manifestations of free will in the press and their relations with moral responsibility. First, he doubts the ethicality of the statement that if media were selective in mediating the truth, this would mean a quick end to democracy and the society would become immoral and self-destructive. This can be merely journalistic self-defence. Editorial staff really possesses free will and no editorial office acts in the conditions of complete predestination. Sometimes the value of silence should also be appreciated, as silence does not mean lying.
Thereafter, Tarand describes how the first Estonian daily, Postimees, was founded 120 years ago. Inarguably, the leading person behind this was Karl August Hermann whom history writers have forced into the background: the legendary Jaan Tõnisson appeared only later. Conditions were unfavourable -- there was no money, no qualified labour and no expectant market or demand by readers. One of the peculiarities of the era was that the newspaper was edited and published by the absolute top of the Estonian society whose intellectual abilities surpassed those of their readers. When Hermann decided to "strive for the greatest benefit to the Estonian people", his biggest rivals decided to become rich quickly by offering light entertainment instead of educational writings.
What gets the attention of editors and readership in 2011? Certainly not on what was described above. Should anyone ask, the editors would reply that this is the reader's wish, the demand of the market, or maybe a guideline in the code of ethics compels them to be servants to someone or something. Thus, the major part of the editors' decisions may seem to be determined by external factors, and the editors' free will and right to choose do not seem to have any living space in that system.
In this context, what could be the publishing date of the last Estonian daily newspaper? The daily is not needed for entertainment -- as 120 years ago, a weekly publication would be sufficient for that. The daily paper as a phenomenon would only have hope for life if free will, a new Hermann and after him, a new Tõnisson would appear. Everything else would be a will-less road.
Indrek Reiland
Freedom of action, freedom of will, freedom of choice
I aim to provide an overview of prevalent work on free will, in contemporary philosophy. I first describe David Hume's concept of free will, later adopted by Moritz Schlick and J. J. C. Smart, and argue that it is best to be thought of as a correct theory about what freedom of action consists in. I then describe Harry Frankfurt's and Gary Watson's influential concepts of free will and argue that these are best to be thought of as more or less correct theories about what freedom of will consists of. I finally describe Thomas Reid's and Immanuel Kant's concept of free will that was later adopted by Roderick Chisholm and argue that it is best to be thought of as a correct theory of what freedom of choice is. I conclude by sketching an argument presented by Friedrich Nietzsche and later by Galen Strawson that aims to show that we cannot have the sort of freedom that is necessary for moral responsibility independently of whether we live in a determinist or an indeterminist universe and by discussing Peter Strawson's claim that the question whether we have the sort of freedom that is necessary for moral responsibility is not very important.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Excerpts from his works
Jaanus Sooväli
Afterword: Genealogy and phenomenology of will
Although the aphorisms presented are isolated from their context, they still enable us to sketch some essential features of Nietzsche's treatment of will.
In Nietzsche's thinking as a whole, (free) will in its traditional sense is an illusion that has certain historical and psychological roots. At that it would be essential to note that no phenomenon, e.g. will, never has only one cause, one great origin (Ursprung), there are several causes (Herkünfte) which need not even be directly interrelated.
Likewise, one of the reasons for the emergence of free will might be the inclination of (primitive) people to see everything in isolation, i.e. each act of will is viewed as isolated from everything that precedes or follows it, and, therefore, it seems natural that will itself should be causal. One of the reasons for seeing all things in isolation should lie in the language (subject, predicate, isolated words, etc.) -- there are still supposed to be people who believe that language can embrace the essence of things.
In aphorism 19 from the book Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche presents a psychological-phenomenological analysis of an ordinary experience of will. First, Nietzsche says there that will is something complicated that constitutes a unity only in words. Will also includes, first, a multitude of feelings, then the imperative thought and the affect of command. Thus, the "willer" is simultaneously giving orders and subordinating to them, but with the synthetic concept of the ego, we seem to be deceiving ourselves about this obvious duality. This means that usually one wants something when the effect of a command can be expected, but when the command, contrarily to the decider's opinion, did not cause that effect. Thus, not only fulfilling a command is determined by motives one is not aware of, but also the imperative thought as one of the most essential components of will.
In conclusion, one might say that, in Nietzsche's words, will, as revealed in all the aphorisms translated, is something secondary, something epiphenomenal.
Harry Frankfurt
Freedom of the will and the concept of a person
In Frankfurt's view, one essential difference between persons and other creatures is to be found in the structure of a person's will. It seems to be peculiarly characteristic of humans, however, that they are able to form what he calls "second-order desires".
Many animals appear to have the capacity for what Frankfurt calls "first-order desires", which are simply desires to do or not to do one thing or another. No animal other than man, however, appears to have the capacity for reflective self-evaluation that is manifested in the formation of second-order desire. In situations of the latter kind, the author calls second-order desires "second-order volitions" or "volitions of the second order". Now it is having second-order volitions, and not having second-order desires generally, that he regards as essential to being a human. For it is only in virtue of his rational capacities that a person is capable of becoming critically aware of his own will and of forming volitions of the second order. The structure of a person's will presupposes, accordingly, that he is a rational being.
There is a very close relationship between the capacity for forming second-order volitions and another capacity that is essential to persons -- one that has often been considered a distinguishing mark of the human condition. It is only because a person has volitions of the second order that he is capable both of enjoying and of lacking the freedom of will. The concept of a person is not only, then, the concept of a type of entity that has both first-order desires and volitions of the second order. It can also be construed as the concept of a type of entity for whom the freedom of its will may be a problem. This concept excludes all wantons, both infrahuman and human, since they fail to satisfy an essential condition for the enjoyment of freedom of the will. And it excludes those supra-human beings, if any, whose wills are necessarily free.
Just what kind of freedom is freedom of will? Just as the question about the freedom of an agent's action has to do with whether it is the action he wants to perform, so the question about the freedom of his will has to do with whether it is the will he wants to have. It is in securing the conformity of his will to his second-order volitions, then, that a person exercises freedom of will.
Benjamin Libet
Do we have free will?
The initiation of the freely voluntary act appears to begin in the brain well before the person consciously knows he wants to act. Is there, then, any role for conscious will in the performance of a voluntary act? Potentially available to the conscious function is the possibility of stopping or vetoing the final progress of the volitional process, so that no actual muscle action ensues. Conscious-will could thus affect the outcome of the volitional process even though the latter was initiated by unconscious cerebral processes. Conscious-will might block or veto the process, so that no act occurs.
Admittedly, to be conscious of the decision to veto does mean one is aware of the event. Perhaps we should reconsider the concept of awareness, its relation to the content of awareness, and the cerebral processes that develop both awareness and its contents. Libet's own previous studies have indicated that awareness is a unique phenomenon in itself, distinguished from the contents of which one may become aware.
Still the question has not been answered yet whether our consciously willed acts are fully determined by natural laws that govern the activities of nerve cells in the brain, or whether acts and the conscious decisions to perform them can proceed to some degree independently of natural determinism.
Libet's conclusion about free will, one genuinely free in the non-determined sense, is then that its existence is at least as good, if not a better, scientific option than is its denial by determinist theory. Given the speculative nature of both determinist and non-determinist theories, he does not see any reason for not adopting the view that we do have free will (until some real contradictory evidence may appear, if it ever does). Such a tolerant view would at least allow us to continue our studies in a way that accepts and accommodates our own deep feeling that we do have free will. We would not need to view ourselves as machines that act in a manner completely controlled by the known physical laws.
Jan-Christoph Heilinger
Is there an evolutionary explanation to the formation of human freedom?:
On the place of humans in nature
The present-day discussion on freedom of will is greatly influenced by recent years' achievements in genetics and neurology. In the discussion, some attempt to depict freedom as an illusion, while others are of the opinion that new knowledge does not threaten people's subjective conviction that they have free will and can act freely.
Heilinger, on the contrary, supports the evolutionary theoretical viewpoint. In the light of this, radical answers seem to be too simple; it is more interesting, from both phylo- and ontogenetical viewpoints to study which conditions, elements and (preliminary) forms characterize the phenomenon that we as humans can subjectively experience as freedom. This view also enables us -- differently from the simple dichotomous approach -- to differentiate between several stages of freedom.
Thus, the discussion on human freedom can be seen in the context of the all-embracing internal connection between the animate world and nature. If freedom exists, it should be possible to demonstrate how it has developed and how it can survive considering the laws of nature. If we could more precisely understand the independence of living systems under the regularities specific to them, it would be possible, as a result, to draw cautious parallels between self-organization in animate nature and self-determination of socially functioning humans. This would make it possible to bring together biological and social models of description. Thus, human freedom (which is always expressed in social self-determination) would prove to be a complicated irreducible form of behaviour in life. This way, freedom would also have is place in the evolution of life. The result of that kind of study might be called the natural history of freedom.
Moreover, in this context freedom does not so much mean the possibility that a person might have behaved in one or another way in a certain situation but the possibility of independence rather, which allows us to regard the acting person ("the actor") as the initiator of acts in the direct sense of the word.
"All kinds of rumours are going around...":
Reports about the situation in Estonia in 1943-1945. Part IV
We publish summaries about the situation in Estonia in the last years of the German occupation, the beginning of the second Soviet occupation, and about the fate of Estonian refugees. The reports intended for Estonian diplomatic representatives in Finland and Sweden (in 1943-1944 also for the Finnish General Staff) were mainly compiled by journalist Voldemar Kures (1893-1987). He interviewed refugees, monitored letters from Estonia, newspapers, radio programmes, etc.