esk@wucs.UUCP (Paul V. Torek) (11/20/84)
[as promised, my definition (with argument to back it) of freedom] What does it mean to say that human thought is free? Let's examine a particular sort of thought that is one of the clearest cases of reasoning -- inference. What can it mean to say that a person is free in inferring form premise(s) P to conclusion C? This cannot mean that her inference is an empirical contingency, which no doubt it is. There is a possible situation in which a person is unsure about whether it is a correct infer- ence. Whether she decides to make the inference or not, however, she may recognize the intellectual obligation to infer correctly, in accordance with a rule, though she does not know which is the correct rule in the given case. Uncertain inferences, even if correct, are partial failures; so are with- holdings of inferences for fear of error. We cannot reasonably take decid- ing to infer with subjective risk of error as a paradigm of freedom in thought. Suppose now that a person knows a rule of inference which makes it correct to infer from P to C. In such a case it is highly implausible to say that her freedom in inferring so consists in the fact that she has an ability not to. A person's inferring in accordance with a rule known to her to warrant the inference is surely the exercise of an ability, but her not inferring in accordance with a known rule cannot properly be said to be such an exercise. It rather indicates the lack of an ability or a failure to exercise one. Besides, it makes no sense to say that a person, even knowing it correct to infer from P to C, decides not to. I submit that the only plausible explication of freedom of inference is that one is exercising an ability to do so without impediments. To say that a person is *free to infer* correctly and knowingly is tho say that she *has* an ability to do so; to say she is *free in inferring* is to say that she *is exercising* such an ability. The concept of inference is not a purely psychological concept; it has essential reference to logical norms. The concept of ability itself is normative: that which one is said to be able to do is represented as a task such that one's performance of it can be evaluated by some normative criteria. It has been held by some, notably by existentialists like Sartre, that man has no "essence", that even rationality is something to be chosen. Does this view entail that a person who knows, say, the rule of modus ponens is free not to follow it? Rejection of a norm, logical or moral, is itself a rational act insofar as it is based on reasons. But it is the intention of the "norm-nihilists" to claim that a person is free to reject all norms *tout a` coup*, that is, rationality itself. Apart from the psychological improbability of such rejection, there is logical incoherence in its idea. The existentialists mean that a person may reject all norms in the sense that she may will, decide or choose not to *recognize* anything as a norm. What the norm-nihilists want to claim is that a person is free to consider as genuine options, and to choose between, rationality and irrationality; that the freedom with which to so choose is in itself neither rational nor irrational. But is the notion of such freedom coherent? Rationality is definable eminently in terms of the possession and/or exercise of an ability to conform to norms; irrationality is definable in terms of impediments, natural or acquired, to the development and/or exercise of such an ability. But we are presumably not allowed here to understand the "pre-rational" freedom in the latter terms. No wonder that the existentialists have to resort to such obscure notions as nothingness or negativity in describing freedom. Representation of rationality as an option along with irrationality is paradoxical because, if adequate, the representation would involve a recognition of the norms of rationality as governing the act of representation itself. One cannot reject norms en masse without removing the conditions of the possibility of thinking. If, per impossibile, such rejection of norms were successful, there would remain at best a bare, stuctureless consciousness. Neither rationality nor irrationality would remain as options to choose consciously between. Suppose that there were phenomenologically detectable cases of a person rejecting all norms and choosing irrationality. This supposition would not compel us to accept the description of such cases as manifestations of freedom. It is possible, and more plausible, to describe them as cases of severe psychological disturbance. The phenomenon of "choosing" irrat- ionality is more aptly thought of as a mode of irrationality. Cases of irrationality, unfortunately, do occur often enough. But they are not to be called chosen. Is freedom in thought as we interpret it compatible with determinism, i.e. with the idea that all human thought and action is governed by non- probabilistic causation? Suppose that a person is so constituted that he never makes mistakes in thinking. Suppose also that this felicitous condition has a deterministic causal explanation. Should this lead us to say that she is unfree in thinking as she does? By no means. A harmony of a person's rule-conforming mental activities and the causal mechanism underlying them is to be celebrated rather than deplored! The causal necessity of her conformance with norms explains, *does not in the least derogate from*, her possession of such an ability or exercise of it. Results of these reflections on freedom in thinkings can be applied to moral freedom. A person who is morally free without qualifications is one who knows ethical norms and invariably conforms to them on each occa- sion to which they are relevant. Unlike norms of thinking, granted, norms in the moral sphere are difficult to determine; the universal validity of moral norms is subject to constant debate. But along with epistemic rationality, moral rationality can be liberally characterized in terms of having a conception of a norm in general, adopting or at least being dis- posed to adopt a best justified, consistent set of norms, and conforming or at least being disposed to conform to such norms in action. There is no clear differentiating line between freedom of thought and action; both are aspects of human rationality. In describing thinkings we saw that they cannot be represented except as realizations of norms of rationality or deviations from them. Is this true of action also? The conception of a person as a rational being implies at least that she is able to conceive of norms of behavior and to represent her behavior, intended or committed, as conforming to or deviationg from relevant norms. Agency is this capacity for normative evaluation of behav- ior. And freedom is the possession of an optimal degree of this capacity and an optimal realization of it. In sum: freedom of thought and of action are consistent with deterministic causal explanation of both. We can have our science and free will too. --Paul Torek (with help from an article by Chin-Tai Kim), ihnp4!wucs!wucec1!pvt1047 Please send any mail directly to this address, not the sender's. Thanks.