“Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you...” -- Jean-Paul Sartre= (the compatibilist)
“Only the educated are free…” -- Epictetus= (the philosopher)
“Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose…” -- Janis Joplin= (the drug addict)
In this paper I will attempt to explicate Harry G. Frankfurt’s compatibilist concept of Freewill from his essay: ‘Freedom of Will’. I argue against accepting this account of freedom because it does not take into appropriate consideration possible freedom inhibiting factors.
Realizing that “the concept designated by the verb ‘to want’ is extraordinarily elusive” (p83) Mr. Frankfurt sets out to give an account of how freedom is grounded in a persons’ autonomous will. He posits an arrangement of different order desires and volitions that are meant to show how a compatibilist concept of freedom is possible. That is, how freewill can exist in a world governed by natural law.
There is a first order desire: this is taken to mean that we desire to perform an act (want to do something). I want to do a line of cocaine. The concept of true ownership of this desire is dubious at the very least. In other words, is this really my will? For an individual can want to do something that they do not desire, and conversely one can desire to do something that they really don’t want to do. All this is possible, and Harry G. Frankfurt’s conceptual web of categorical desires is meant to (arguably) show that, as persons, we are ultimately the source of our will. For an example I can desire to snort a big fat line of cocaine, yet it seems I can also not really want to snort that line because I have an overriding desire to not lose my family, which is what will happen if my wife catches me. Although we can really say that I want to do the line more than I desire to keep my family, but ultimately that I desire to see my 2 boys grow up over the next 20 years more than I desire to get silly for a 20 minute fix. These conflicting desires must conceptually be resolved somehow, not just because we know that eventually we decide to do one thing or another. But irrelevant to what we end up doing, we want to know if ultimately we had the will to do otherwise.
To make sense of all that, Frankfurt conceptualizes another level of desires. Second order desires--they override first order desires. A second order desire is the desire to desire to do something, that is, I desire to desire to watch the game. Not only do I desire to act (first order), but I also have the desire (second order) to have that desire to act. At the outset this looks as though it might really be our will then. But as shown in the example (p84) a person can have a second order desire, yet not really want to act on it. The physician can have the second order desire to desire drugs as a drug addict would, believing it would provide some insight into what a drug addict feels, yet still not want that second order desire to be carried through to its end in action.
The true source of our will to act cannot therefore be second order desires. Enter the second order volition. The second order volition is not only a second order desire to have a desire but to have that desire and also want that desire to be successful, in that it is carried through to its end in action. In this way we can have many competing first and second order desires to act, but ultimately even if we don’t always do what we really want to do, we have ownership of our will. If I formed a second order volition to keep my family, yet still snorted a big fat line, we could say I succumbed to a desire against my will (the overwhelming addiction to cocaine). He goes on to stipulate that it might be “logically possible however unlikely”, (p86) that there could be an agent with only second order desires and not any second order volitions--a creature such as that, in his view, would not be a person (in the technical sense). Frankfurt uses the term ‘wanton’ to describe these beings.
A wanton is an agent that although they possess a first order desire is not a person because they lack the ability to form second order desires in the form of volitions. This is how it works. There are two drug addicts. The physiological condition that causes their addiction is constant in both, as is the fact that they both end up succumbing to their desires to take the narcotics. However, the conceptual process is very different between the two. One addict hates the fact he is a ‘crack-head’ and desperately tries to be otherwise. This addict has conflicting first order desires. In addition to desiring to do the drug, he also desires not to do it. Moreover, he has a second order volition to not take the drug. Although, in the end because of a physiological addiction he succumbs to his desire to take the drug, we know that it was not his will to do so. Here we have an unwilling addict. The Wanton, on the other hand, is a drug addict who simply doesn’t care that he is an addict. He acts directly on his first order desire to take the drug without ever forming any second order volitions. Frankfurt is quick to point out this agent is still a fully rational being, in the sense that if he experiences problems getting his ‘crack’ he will deliberate and so on. He will make excuses, lie, cheat, steel, and tell everyone what they want to hear to carry those first order desires to their end. In answering the question if he is really free, we must say no. Mr. Frankfurt equates his concept of wanton with animals and those that blindly follow their “urges” to act. (p87) These beings are not truly free on account of what he gives is required to actually own ones will--for it is to own your will, and not necessarily to just do what you want that seems to be his goal with this compatibilist view of freedom (Because someone doing nothing that they want to do can still own their will, and someone doing everything they ever want to do can still not be free, in other words: not the source of their own will).
However, there seems to be a substantial problem with postulating this as a robust version of freedom in which we can truly ground the ownership of our will. The obvious attempted upshot of this view is to pave the way for holding people responsible for their actions in case we live in a deterministic world. The primary concern we might want addressed is where the ‘value-sets’ that form these desires and volitions come from. After all, is it not those so-called preferences that provide the basis for forming desires in the first place? Do they not have some part to play in our ownership of will? Question: if at some distant time before an agent knew better, before the agent had a choice, certain conditions in the world made it so this person could not help but form a certain second order volition, do we still want to say that their will is truly their own? Would the person’s present volitions still be taken as truly their own will? If so, then this seems like an unsurpassable flaw. In the end, that is why I stopped doing cocaine: Because I was fortunate enough to have been brought up by a single mother who did her best not to instill many negative second order volitions whilst I was a child…before I knew better. I will leave before I instill negative second order volitions in my boys before they have a choice, because of some stupid powder.
Read about philosophical concept of tautology.
On more easy note: if you make a statement you should to prove it or to show the logical chain behind the statement, tell me why you are failed to demonstrate any.
_________________ Your Admin, Gene. -=People who ask our advice almost never take it. Yet we should never refuse to give it, upon request, for it often helps us to see our own way more clearly. =-
Hmmm, me thinks tautology is not so much a philosophical concept as it is a grammatical one…The logical chain in that “A” paper I wrote a number of years ago in university is easy to follow, albeit I argue Mr. Frankfurt’s conceptualization of compatibilist freedom of will—anyone who understands the significance of trying to reconcile a concept grounding freewill in a universe causally determined by natural law will not have a problem following the logical chain.
Personally I agree with a more robust theory of freewill such as Immanuel Kant’s notion of transcendental freedom.
Don’t mean to come across as a know-it-all, but I think that the only thing that is going to forever rid me of cocaine is getting back into “school mode” …during the 7 years at post secondary I was really well behaved...like maybe snorted 1.5 grams total in 7 years…
I firmly believe reason will play a big role in many peoples exit from this shitty environment.
Hmmm, me thinks tautology is not so much a philosophical concept as it is a grammatical one…
Very well, than it would be easy for you to understand tautology in philosophy.
If A and B is not present, you shouldn't prove that A is not present nor B is not present.
If B is equal C + D, not necessary means you should prove that if B is not present, than C and D is not present nor you need to prove if C is not present, than B is not present. B can be B itself not the combination of C+D.
If free will consist of ownership and choice (decision)and etc. the absence any of them is not guarantee the absence of free will.
The willing is not mean wanting, if you are willing to do something, you are not automatically want to do it. Free will is when you have to choose A|B or C+D or to make a choice between A |B |C| D and you choose only one(A or B or C or D)or can choose any combination (for instance A+C+B, or all available A+B+C+D) you only will be limited on the number of available choices or available combination or you will be limited to numbers of draws (Numbers of Draws should be equal or grater than available choices or available combinations), but not by decision itself.
When it comes to philosophy, I belong to the materialism.
So, A, B, C or D if you have as a choices to be made, will always be available despite what you are going to choose. After choosing A,B,C or D you are not eliminating the other choices nor you eliminating the choice that had been already made. No matter what you choose, the A, B, C or D will be present at all times. The choice that you are making maybe influenced by many environmental factors, however if you have a choice, you are free to make one, or you are free to abstained of making one. If enviroment is affecting your choice, it is means you have different degrees of the same choice or different choices. Choice is means freedom, degrees of the choice also mean freedom.
Shall I continue?
_________________ Your Admin, Gene. -=People who ask our advice almost never take it. Yet we should never refuse to give it, upon request, for it often helps us to see our own way more clearly. =-
I’m not sure I understand what you mean by A, B, C and D choices? Have you googled “Frankfurt’s level of desires”? Because all he is trying to do is develop a model of what freewill might be. He, much like you, is also a materialist, (meaning he believes that all material in the universe is made of one substance, as opposed to dualists like Descartes who believed mind was a second substance). The reason he (Frankfurt) is called a “compatibilist” is because in philosophy “materialists” used to find it difficult to believe in freewill. This was because of “cause and effect”. If all there is in the universe are the movement of electrons, then our choices would only be an illusion. Because on that model the only choice would have been made by the so-called “un moved mover” …that is, in the beginning of the universe. Every subsequent event and/or choice is simply only cause and effect.
However, in philosophy, “materialists” who are a “compatibilist” believe that although we live in a universe ruled by “cause and effect” freewill is still possible, that is, freewill is compatible with materialism. Frankfurt’s theory was very basic and only deals at the conceptual level of thought and is not a robust theory that would be required for an ethical theory in philosophy to rest on.
As I said before, I am a Kantian. I am more of an idealist than a materialist. However, years ago when I was a materialist (and an alcoholic), I was also a “hard–determinist”…that is, I did not believe in choice. Then I studied Kant, and his philosophy saved me.
And reason it self, will save me this time (7 days coke free-not even an urge yet)
I enjoyed blowing the dust off my old philosophical education…
I’m not sure I understand what you mean by A, B, C and D choices?
Being materialist, I can make the mathematical model and therefore my analysis will be easy to follow and logic can be traced.
Quote:
I enjoyed blowing the dust off my old philosophical education…
The pleasure is all mine. Keep your mind busy, it is one of the keys...
_________________ Your Admin, Gene. -=People who ask our advice almost never take it. Yet we should never refuse to give it, upon request, for it often helps us to see our own way more clearly. =-
You know what I love most about this thread? It just goes to show that cocaine don't give a flying f..k if you have a university degree or if you are a dumpster diver, if you are a doctor lawyer beggerman or thief.
Cocaine touches every walk of life. No social economic group is safe from this drug. I wrote a fabulous paper in my second year of university but it meant absolutely nothing when I was in the grips of my addiction.
Oh sure I thought I was better than for a LONG LONG time in the arrogant,terminal uniqueness of my addition. Thirty some odd years wasted in the BIG LIE COCAINE... a great way to stay up all night writing those fabulous papers.
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Posted:Apr 06, 2008 - 05:25 PM
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