jon@qusavx.UUCP (Jon Lewis) (10/23/84)
It was Hegel who gave what I believe to be the first step in the right direction with regard to ascertaining free will. His philosophy required that no one could act freely unless they were in possession of the truth. This obviously leads into a huge morass of epistemological and ontological debates, but nevertheless makes an essential point: you cannot be said to be acting freely if your actions are being determined or channeled by some other forces, EVEN IF you are totally unaware of these influences. A good example would be the upcoming presidential election. If a democracy can legitimately take that title, there must be a chance for individuals to exercise their free will and vote for whomever they wish, yet for a number of reasons (political, economic, and ideological), there are constraints upon whom the electorate considers to be viable candidates. Only two candidates were given the chance to debate one another in a heavily publicized event, and virtually no news time is spent presenting ALL sides of the upcoming election (instead, the two party system is portrayed as showing BOTH sides, which assumes there are only two possible positions, which, if true, also assumes that the two parties represent the correct two alternatives). Jurgen Habermas makes much the same point in discussing what he calls 'the ideal speech situation'. Simply put, he means that a debate cannot be won on the strength of the argument unless both sides have defined the problem objectively (and similarly) and so long as the question of unequal access to power does not enter in. As long as debates are over issues which the two debaters define differently and as long as the two sides have differing access to the exercise of power (which happens occasionally, but usually those with overwhelming power at their disposal refuse to debate, and in fact have marshalled public support of their right to that power in such a manner that debate is unthinkable), then no one can freely choose the winner in the argument. Therefore, the debate which I 'freely' watch and from which I 'freely' choose whom I believe the more persuasive speaker is in fact predefined and my 'free' choices constrained in many ways, even though I may be entirely unaware of them. Ergo, knowledge is the path to freedom. Perhaps I can discuss what constitutes knowledge later, when I have a free moment . . .