|
|
||
 |
|
|
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||
|
Essays, Opinion, & Commentary |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
TABLE OF CONTENTS Ethical Proof - Metaphysical Proof
Nothing, perhaps, makes us more convinced of the freedom of our will than our experiences about right and wrong. We experience joy and satisfaction in many of our actions, because we are conscious that we have done something "morally good" and have "performed our duty." On the other hand we experience remorse and repentance, because we have done something "morally wrong" and have "neglected our duty." We feel in ourselves the presence of a sense of obligation and of responsibility. We know that we ought to do something and that it is within the power of our will to do it or not to do it. If we do it, we have the experience of joy and satisfaction; if we do not do it, we have the experience of remorse and repentance. We know, beyond objection and dispute, that we are bound by the law in our conduct; but we also know that we are not forced by this moral law. We can, but we need not, obey the moral law. Conduct of such a sort, however, involves free will. Without the existence of the freedom of choice in such matters, such an attitude toward our own conduct would be both ridiculous and irrational. If the acts of our will are as necessarily determined as the falling of a stone or as the course of an electric current, then there should be no experience of a difference between right and wrong acts; all acts are equally necessary. We have, however, the definite experience of blameworthiness and praiseworthiness with reference to many of our acts, and we make a clear-cut distinction in this regard. If we unknowingly and unintentionally injure someone in his person or property, we naturally deplore the fact and express our regret; but we do not feel guilty of any wrong, because we did not will the harm done. If we break a leg in an unavoidable accident, we are sorry; but we do not really reproach ourselves. But if, contrary to our better judgment, we are reckless, fall, and thereby suffer a serious hurt, we feel remorse for our rash action, clearly perceiving that we ought not to have done it and could have avoided it. Such an attitude, however, has sense only under the supposition that our will is free in its decisions and not intrinsically determined in its acts. The universal conviction of mankind is in accord with our personal experience in this respect. So is Common Sense, Critically Examined and Expanded. All nations and individuals speak of their freedom, of their immunity from necessity. All languages express ideas of right and wrong, virtue and vice, command and permission, merit and demerit, natural defects and culpable delinquencies, praise and blame, reward and punishment, appeal and threat, etc. All men thereby give expression to the conviction that we possess freedom of the will.
Such actions and laws would be foolish and useless, if man has no free will and cannot help acting as he does. This universal conviction of mankind cannot be explained except by the fact that the evidence for free will is inescapable and irrefutable. And please note: The practical life of the determinist is also proof for the freedom of the will. Like Metaphysical Idealism, determinism is an unlived and unlivable doctrine. In their dealings with other people and in their personal conduct, determinists behave, not on the supposition that man in all his decisions and actions is controlled by an inexorable determinism, but in a manner which is patterned on the conviction that man is indeed the lord and master of his conduct. In other words, the determinist is living a lie; he or she is saying one thing but acting contradictory to what is said; he or she is affirming one thing in theory and the opposite in practice; to put it bluntly, the determinist is a con artist promoting a philosophical fraud. The structure of society is based on the principle of free will and responsibility, and the determinists not only expect others to live according to this principle but do so themselves.
Determinist are determinists on theoretical grounds; in actual life they accept the freedom of the human will just like the rest of us. Since all men, including the determinists themselves, behave according to the principle of free will, what could possibly be assigned as the cause for this universal conviction and behavior?
The cause can only be rational insight, and this must be based on truth, because human nature cannot lead man into an irresistible error in something which affects his essential well-being and happiness. We have a further proof of the freedom of the will in the very nature of the will itself. The will is a rational appetency. It's proper and connatural object is the good as such; to this it cannot be indifferent. Since happiness is the fullness of good, the will must desire it and strive for it; in this regard it is not free. Similarly, whatever is perceived by the intellect as a good in every respect, as an essential means to happiness, irresistibly draws the will in its direction. The reverse is also true. The will cannot desire the evil, provided it is apprehended by the intellect as an evil and proposed as such to the will. Whatever is perceived to be an evil in every respect, must be rejected by the will; here, too, the will is not free. The will, by its very nature as a rational appetency, must strive for the good as such. So far, then, as the intellect perceives something good in an object, it is desirable; and the will can desire it and strive for it. So far as the intellect perceives something disagreeable in an object, it is undesirable; and the will can turn away from it and reject it. Now, there is no creatural object which is an absolute good in every respect; all objects have limitations and deficiencies of some sort which make them more or less undesirable. In as much as every object contains some good, the will can desire it; and in as much as it contains some deficiency, the will can reject it. Since a creatural object is neither absolutely good nor absolutely evil, the will can desire or reject it, depending upon whether attention is centered on it as a good or as an evil. All creatural objects, whether material or spiritual, being partially good and partially not good, the will can strive for them under the aspect of their desirability or reject them under the aspect of their undesirability; the will is not constrained in either direction. In fact, because of this dual aspect of all creatural things, the will is not compelled to act at all. Even the act of volition itself can be apprehended by the intellect as something partially good and partially not good, so that it lies within the power of the will to exercise volition or not to exercise it. The only object to which the will is irresistibly drawn is the absolute good. Concretely, this is the Infinite Good, namely God. However, the will can desire only what the intellect perceives and proposes. If our intellect, while we sojourn here on earth, could perceive God as He really is in all His infinite perfection and goodness, we would be conscious that He constitutes our ultimate and essential happiness in an infinite measure. Unfortunately, we have no adequate concept of God. As Michael Maher rightly observes in his Psychology: Empirical and Rational: "The inadequate and obscure notion of God possessed in this life, the difficulty of duty, the conflict of man's pride and sensuality with virtue, all make the pursuit of our true good disagreeable in many respects to human nature, so that we can only too easily and freely abandon it." It thus happens that the will is able to love God or not to love Him, to seek Him or not to seek Him, to desire Him or to reject Him. Hence, the freedom of the will is the result of man's rational nature, which enables him to have the notion of a universal good that is desirable in every respect and also the notion of particular goods that are partly desirable and partly undesirable. Because of this dual character of particular goods he can decide to exercise or not exercise his power of choice with regard to them, and this is freedom of exercise; he can prefer one particular good to another particular good, and that is freedom of specification; he can choose between the morally right and the morally wrong, and that is freedom of contrariety. |
|
|
Enrich Your Life With a Philosophy Book... Enrich Your Life With a Philosophy Magazine...
|
|
|
|
|
|
||
|
|
||
[Homepage] [Newsletter] [Search] [Support the Academy] [Link to Us] [Contact the Academy] [Citing Articles from Our Website] [Privacy Policy & Disclaimer]
Copyright 1998-99, 2000-01, & 2002-03 by The Radical Academy. All Rights Reserved.