scholarly journals Necessity, Responsibility and Character: Schopenhauer on Freedom of the Will

2012 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 431-457 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Janaway
Keyword(s):  
Individual Agent ◽  
Human Actions ◽  
Freedom Of Will ◽  
Freedom Of The Will ◽  
The Will ◽  
The Individual

AbstractThis paper gives an account of the argument of Schopenhauer's essay On the Freedom of the Human Will, drawing also on his other works. Schopenhauer argues that all human actions are causally necessitated, as are all other events in empirical nature, hence there is no freedom in the sense of liberum arbitrium indifferentiae. However, our sense of responsibility or agency (being the ‘doers of our deeds’) is nonetheless unshakeable. To account for this Schopenhauer invokes the Kantian distinction between empirical and intelligible characters. The paper highlights divergences between Schopenhauer and Kant over the intelligible character, which for Schopenhauer can be neither rational nor causal. It raises the questions whether the intelligible character may be redundant to Schopenhauer's position, and whether it can coherently belong to an individual agent, suggesting that for Schopenhauer a more consistent position would have been to deny freedom of will to the individual.

Free Agent or ‘Conscious Automaton’? Contrasting Interpretations of the Individual in Spencer's Writing on Social and Moral Life

2003 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Offer
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Social Evolution ◽  
Care Needs ◽  
Philosophical Debate ◽  
Herbert Spencer ◽  
Freedom Of The Will ◽  
Policy Sociology ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Will ◽  
The Individual

Herbert Spencer remains an important and intriguing figure in thinking about political, social and moral matters. At present his writings in relation to idealist thought, social policy, sociology and ethics are undergoing reassessment. This article is concerned with some recent interpretations of Spencer on individuals in social life. It looks in some detail at Spencer's work on psychology and sociology as well as on ethics, seeking to establish how Spencer understood people as social individuals. In particular the neglect of Spencer's denial of freedom of the will is identified as a problem in some recent interpretations. One of his contemporary critics, J.E. Cairnes, charged that Spencer's own theory of social evolution left even Spencer himself the status of only a ‘conscious automaton’. This article, drawing on a range of past and present interpretative discussions of Spencer, seeks to show that Spencerian individuals are psychically and socially so constituted as to be only indirectly responsive to moral suasion, even to that of his own Principles of Ethics as he himself acknowledged. Whilst overtly reconstructionist projects to develop a liberal utilitarianism out of Spencer to enliven political and philosophical debate for today are worthwhile – dead theorists have uses – care needs to be taken that the original context and its concerns with the processes associated with innovation (and decay) in social life are not thereby eclipsed, the more so since in some important respects they have recently received little systematic attention even though the issues have contemporary relevance in sociology.

Free Will, Responsibility, and Blame in Psychotherapy

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tobias Zürcher
Keyword(s):  
Mental Disorders ◽  
Free Will ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Legal Responsibility ◽  
Freedom Of Will ◽  
Patient’S Autonomy ◽  
Freedom Of The Will ◽  
The Will ◽  
Therapeutic Context ◽  
The Relationship

Freedom of the will is not only an issue in the attribution of moral and legal responsibility—it also fundamentally shapes how we look at ourselves and how we interact with others. This is essential in everyday life but even more so in psychotherapy. In the debate on freedom of will, the main controversy is concerned with the relationship between determinism and free will. In this chapter, different positions are presented and discussed. The compatibilist viewpoint, which claims determinism and freedom of will to be compatible, is defended against competing theories and applied to psychotherapeutic work. Mental disorders affect free will in many ways, as is demonstrated by the examples. Nevertheless, a compatibilist approach to free will can be used as a resource to increase the patient’s autonomy. As a result, it is justified and sometimes appropriate within the therapeutic context to ascribe responsibility and, within certain limits, to express blame.

Horses, Pigeons, and the Therapy of Conversion: A Psychological Reading of Jonathan Edwards's Theology

1981 ◽  
Vol 74 (4) ◽  
pp. 337-352
Author(s):  
David R. Williams
Keyword(s):  
Jonathan Edwards ◽  
Freedom Of Will ◽  
Freedom Of The Will ◽  
The Will

Jonathan Edwards expected his inquiry on the Freedom of the Will to be the definitive work on that subject, establishing for all time the truth of predestination on the twin pillars of reason and revelation. He answered every objection of the Arminians with irrefutable scriptural texts, biting satire, and devastating logic. He brought the revolutionary insights of Locke and Newton to the defense of Reformed doctrine, restructuring ancient truths on the foundations of the latest science.The effort was immediately successful. For sixteen years no one dared to publish a rebuttal. Then, in 1770, with Edwards safely dead, James Dana of Wallingford, Connecticut, published An Examination of the Late President Edwards's Enquiry on Freedom of Will.

scholarly journals COVID-19 calls for virtue ethics

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesca Bellazzi ◽  
Konrad v Boyneburgk
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Affirmative Answer ◽  
Western Hemisphere ◽  
Public Response ◽  
Negative Liberty ◽  
Freedom Of The Will ◽  
Global Spread ◽  
The Will ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Restrictive Measures

Abstract The global spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) or coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) has led to the imposition of severely restrictive measures by governments in the Western hemisphere. We feel a contrast between these measures and our freedom. This contrast, we argue, is a false perception. It only appears to us because we look at the issue through our contemporary moral philosophy of utilitarianism and an understanding of freedom as absence of constraints. Both these views can be substituted with more sophisticated alternatives, namely an ethics of virtue and a notion of freedom of the will. These offer a fuller picture of morality and enable us to cooperate with the current restrictions by consciously choosing to adhere to them instead of perceiving them as draconian and immoral. We ask whether we should collaborate with the restrictions and argue that considerations of virtue will lead to an affirmative answer. More broadly, virtue ethics permits to deal with the practical concerns about how an individual should behave during this pandemic, given the current lockdown measures or lack thereof. In section 1, we present how utilitarianism and a notion of freedom as negative liberty support the opposition to restrictive measures. In section 2, we outline an alternative based on an ethics of virtue and a more elaborated notion of free will. In the concluding section 3, we argue that considerations of virtue should guide the individual and public response to the emergency.

DIMENSIONS OF RESPONSIBILITY: FREEDOM OF ACTION AND FREEDOM OF WILL

2019 ◽  
Vol 36 (01) ◽  
pp. 114-131
Author(s):  
Robert Kane
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Experimental Studies ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
Alternative Possibilities ◽  
Freedom Of Will ◽  
Freedom Of The Will ◽  
Ultimate Responsibility ◽  
The Will ◽  
Legal Contexts ◽  
Freedom Of Action

Abstract:In this essay, I distinguish two dimensions of responsibility: (i) responsibility for expressing the will (character, motives, and purposes) one has in action (voluntarily and without constraint) and (ii) responsibility for having the will one expresses in action. I argue that taking both of these dimensions into account is necessary to do full justice to our understanding of moral responsibility and our ordinary practices of holding persons responsible in moral and legal contexts. I further argue that the distinction between these dimensions of responsibility is importantly related to understanding age-old debates about the freedom of the will. For the first dimension of responsibility is historically related to the freedom of action—the power to freely express the will one already has in action. While the second dimension is historically related to the freedom of the will—the power to freely form or shape that will one may later express in action. And I argue that while the freedom of action so defined may be compatible with determinism, the freedom of will, and the deeper responsibility associated with it for forming one’s own will, which I call “ultimate responsibility,” are not compatible with a thoroughgoing determinism. In arguing throughout the essay for these claims and for the need to take into account both of these dimensions to do full justice to our understanding of moral responsibility, I consider ordinary practices of holding persons responsible in a variety of moral and legal contexts, discussing in the process H. L. A. Hart’s “fair opportunity to avoid wrongdoing” criterion for assessing responsibility and blame in legal and criminal contexts, the relevance of recent experimental studies about folk intuitions concerning assessments of responsibility and blame, Harry Frankfurt’s critique of the “principle of alternative possibilities,” the distinction between “will-settled” and “will-setting” actions, and contemporary critiques of the very possibility and intelligibility of an ultimate responsibility for forming one’s own will that would be incompatible with determinism.

scholarly journals Libertas contractus. Paolo Comitoli SJ (1545–1626) on freedom of contract in light of early modern private law

2021 ◽  
Vol 73 (1) ◽  
pp. 181-201
Author(s):  
Piotr Alexandrowicz
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Private Law ◽  
Human Actions ◽  
Freedom Of Contract ◽  
Freedom Of Will ◽  
Voluntary Consent ◽  
The Will

The paper presents the results of research devoted to the concept of freedom of contract in the writings of an early modern Italian Jesuit, Paolo Comitoli. He claimed that freedom of contract was one of the attributes of contracts and it was essential for the consent of parties entering into a contract. He distinguished between three types of this freedom. Freedom of will was a prerequisite in case of any and all human actions including contracts. Voluntariness was tantamount to a requirement for the will of the parties, which led to the consent to the contract, and it was the result of a voluntary decision which was not disturbed by any vices. Freedom of ownership enabled the parties to conduct a transfer of the object of contract in its broadly understood sense. Comitoli’s concept of contractual freedom was an expression of his belief that voluntary consent of the wills of the parties as the foundation of contractual consent was the basis and the main cause of a contract.

Willensfreiheit

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
Freedom Of Will ◽  
Freedom Of The Will ◽  
The Will ◽  
Conceptual Discussion ◽  
The Middle Ages

The freedom of will problem is one of the great philosophical controversies. This particularly applies whenever ideological or religious assumptions guide the discussion. Following the concept of the series “Orient and Occident”, this volume focusses on the presentation of the ancient heritage (Aristotle, Cicero, Epictetus) and its methodical as well as conceptual discussion, critical integration and transformation through Syriac-Christian and Arab Islamic thinkers of the Middle Ages. Contributions to the introduction to the question of freedom of the will, to the anti-Christian perspectivation of the freedom of human will in Nietzsche and to the embedding of the theme in the context of an ancient as well as contemporary philosophy taken as ars vitae complete the volume.

Ibn Khaldun’s Theory of Social Change

1998 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 25-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fida Mohammad
Keyword(s):  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Social Knowledge ◽  
Philosophical Tradition ◽  
Historical Process ◽  
Ibn Khaldun ◽  
Historical Processes ◽  
The Will ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Compare And Contrast

In this article I shall compare and contrast Ibn Khaldun’s ideas aboutsociohistorical change with those of Hegel, Marx, and Durkheim. I willdiscuss and elaborate Ibn Khaldun’s major ideas about historical andsocial change and compare them with three important figures of modemWestern sociology and philosophy.On reading Ibn Khaldun one should remember that he was living in thefourteenth century and did not have the privilege of witnessing the socialdislocation created by the industrial revolution. It is also very difficult tocategorize Ibn Khaldun within a single philosophical tradition. He is arationalist as well as an empiricist, a historicist as well as a believer inhuman agency in the historical process. One can see many “modem”themes in his thinking, although he lived a hundred years beforeMachiavelli.Lauer, who considers Ibn Khaldun the pioneer of modem sociologicalthought, has summarized the main points of his philosophy.’ In his interpretationof Ibn Khaldun, he notes that historical processes follow a regularpattern. However, whereas this pattern shows sufficient regularity, itis not as rigid as it is in the natural world. In this regard the position ofIbn Khaldun is radically different from those philosophies of history thatposit an immutable course of history determined by the will of divineprovidence or other forces. Ibn Khaldun believes that the individual isneither a completely passive recipient nor a full agent of the historicalprocess. Social laws can be discovered through observation and datagathering, and this empirical grounding of social knowledge represents adeparture from traditional rational and metaphysical thinking ...

Grace and Freedom

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard A. Muller
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Reformed Theology ◽  
Divine Grace ◽  
Freedom Of The Will ◽  
Ultimate Cause ◽  
The Will ◽  
Libertarian Freedom ◽  
The Church

Grace and Freedom addresses the issue of divine grace in relation to the freedom of the will in Reformed or “Calvinist” theology in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century with a focus on the work of the English Reformed theologian William Perkins, and his role as an apologist of the Church of England, defending its theology against Roman Catholic polemic, and specifically against the charge that Reformed theology denies human free choice. Perkins and his contemporaries affirmed that salvation occurs by grace alone and that God is the ultimate cause of all things, but they also insisted on the freedom of the human will and specifically the freedom of choice in a way that does not conform to modern notions of libertarian freedom or compatibilism. In developing this position, Perkins drew on the thought of various Reformers such as Peter Martyr Vermigli and Zacharias Ursinus, on the nuanced positions of medieval scholastics, and on several contemporary Roman Catholic representatives of the so-called second scholasticism. His work was a major contribution to early modern Reformed thought both in England and on the continent. His influence in England extended both to the Reformed heritage of the Church of England and to English Puritanism. On the Continent, his work contributed to the main lines of Reformed orthodoxy and to the piety of the Dutch Second Reformation.

Schopenhauer and the Unconscious

2020 ◽  
pp. 496-516
Author(s):  
Stephan Atzert
Keyword(s):  
Sigmund Freud ◽  
Arthur Schopenhauer ◽  
Death Drive ◽  
Central Idea ◽  
The Unconscious ◽  
Pleasure Principle ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Will ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Sabina Spielrein

This chapter explores the gradual emergence of the notion of the unconscious as it pertains to the tradition that runs from Arthur Schopenhauer via Eduard von Hartmann and Philipp Mainländer to Sabina Spielrein, C. G. Jung, and Sigmund Freud. A particular focus is put on the popularization of the term “unconscious” by von Hartmann and on the history of the death drive, which has Schopenhauer’s essay “Transcendent Speculation on the Apparent Deliberateness in the Fate of the Individual” as one of its precursors. In this essay, Schopenhauer develops speculatively the notion of a universal, intelligent, supraindividual unconscious—an unconscious with a purpose related to death. But the death drive also owes its origins to Schopenhauer’s “relative nothingness,” which Mainländer adopts into his philosophy as “absolute nothingness” resulting from the “will to death.” His philosophy emphasizes death as the goal of the world and its inhabitants. This central idea had a distinctive influence on the formation of the idea of the death drive, which features in Freud’s Beyond the Pleasure Principle.

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