Agency and Moral Psychology

This chapter articulates a view of Buddhist agency grounded in the theory of dependent origination. It addresses the Augustinian concepts of caused and uncaused actions. It argues that Buddhist conception of agency and moral evaluation are not grounded in this Western theory of freedom of the will, but of participation in a web of dependent origination, resulting in a deterministic action theory. The chapter explores the implications of this determinism, and the problems that arise from it. Also discussed is the distinction between the self and a person, the concept of twofold self-grasping and the duality it creates

Philosophical Background

This chapter provides a brief overview of certain elements of Kant’s metaphysics and epistemology that are essential background for understanding certain features of his ethical theory. In particular, it presents Kant’s distinction between the ‘world of sense’ or ‘phenomenal world’ and the ‘world of understanding’ or ‘noumenal world’ as a basis for explaining the limits of theoretical cognition which rules out theoretical cognition and knowledge of God, immortality of the soul, and freedom of the will, yet allows Kant to affirm their reality on moral grounds, needed to explain how the highest good is possible. Of importance for understanding certain claims in his work on virtue is the distinction between the phenomenal world and the noumenal world as it applies to human beings. The chapter concludes with reflections on the relation between Kant’s ethics and his metaphysical and epistemological commitments.

Mental Faculties, the Moral Law, and Human Motivation

This chapter addresses the following topics pertaining to Section II of the general introduction to The Metaphysics of Morals: 1. Kant’s conception of the faculty of desire and its relation to the faculties of feeling and cognition; 2. The significance of Kant’s distinction between will and choice in relation to human freedom of the will; 3. The distinction between maxims and imperatives as two fundamental types of practical principle; and 4. Kant’s conception of both nonmoral and moral motivation—the latter fundamental for understanding Kant’s theory of virtue. The chapter establishes Kant’s background ideas on these ideas and faculties and also addresses aspects of his theory of action.

Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics 1113b7–8 and Free Choice

This chapter examines with close textual analysis the philosophical question whether the two famous Aristotelian lines from the Nicomachean Ethics (EN 3.5 1113b7–8) on what is up to us (eph’shēmin) provide any evidence that Aristotle discussed free choice or freedom of the will—as is not infrequently assumed. The result is that they do not, and that the claim that they do tends to be based on a curious mistranslation of the Greek. Thus the sentence that is sometimes adduced as the main piece of evidence for the claim that Aristotle was an indeterminist with respect to choosing (prohairesis) and acting (praxeis, prattein) is no evidence for this claim at all. This chapter is a companion piece to the next one (‘Found in Translation’).

Edwards in the Context of International Revivals and Missions

Edwards’s international influence in revivals and missions is entirely dependent on the reception of his writings. In the context of the early stages of a transatlantic evangelical awakening, Edwards’s efforts to advance the gospel were both immediate and delayed: immediate insofar as his writings, particularly the Faithful Narrative, inspired Scottish Presbyterian and German and Dutch Pietist evangelical contemporaries to promote revival; delayed, insofar as his impact on foreign missions was not felt until the end of the eighteenth and well into the nineteenth century. Edwards’s most important contributions to international missions are derived from his conception of cosmic redemption (An Humble Attempt, A History of the Work of Redemption), his distinction between moral and natural ability (Freedom of the Will), and his presentation of an archetypical missionary model (Life of Brainerd).

Britain and Europe

In Britain and Europe, Jonathan Edwards was first known as a revivalist. Early works such as A Faithful Narrative (1737), The Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the Spirit of God (1741), Some Thoughts Concerning the Present Revival of Religion in New-England (1742), and Religious Affections (1746) brought him international acclaim in the 1740s. Later works such as Freedom of the Will (1754) and Original Sin (1758) extended his reputation in Britain and Europe as a theologian and philosopher. His status as a revivalist and important American thinker depended on the booksellers, printers, and editors who worked behind the scenes to publish his works within his lifetime, and in the decades following his death in 1758. At the end of the eighteenth century, and into the modern era, intellectuals in Britain and Continental Europe began critically analysing Edwards’s thought; some of them celebrated him as an innovative Reformed theologian, with others pronouncing him as an archaic specimen of the past.

Edwards on the Incompatibility of Divine Foreknowledge and Human Free Will

In the book “Freedom of the Will”, Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) put forward a strong ar-gument for theological fatalism. This argument, I suppose, can be considered as the universal basis for discussion between Fatalists and Anti-Fatalists in the 20th century, especially in the context of the most powerful argument for fatalism, introduced by Nelson Pike. The argument of Edwards rests upon the following principles: (a) if something has been the case in the past, it has been the case necessarily (Necessity of the past); (b) if God knows something (say A), it is not the case that ~A is possible (Infallibility of God`s knowledge). Hence, Edwards infers that if God had foreknowledge that A, then A is necessary, and it is not the case that someone could voluntarily choose ~A. The article argues that (i) the Edwards` inference Kgp → □p rests upon the modal fallacy; (ii) the inference „God had a knowledge that p will happen, therefore „God had a knowledge that p will happen” is the proposition about the past, and hence, the necessarily true proposition“ is ambiguous; thus, it is not the case that this proposition necessarily entails the impossibility of ~p; (iii) it is not the case that p, being known by God, turns out to be necessary. Thus, we can avoid the inference of Edwards that if Kgp is a fact of the past, then we cannot freely choose ~p. It has also been shown that the main provisions of the argument of Edwards remain significant in the context of contemporary debates about free will and foreknowledge (Theories of soft facts, Anti-Ockhamism, theories of temporal modal asymmetry, „Timeless solution”). Additionally, I introduce a new challenge for fatalism – argument from Brouwerian axiom.

8. Freedom of the will

Do we have free will? ‘Freedom of the will’ starts by looking at Descartes, whose theology encouraged him to believe that he had free will. His thoughts may have been given by God, but he had the power to assent to them. Hegel’s metaphysics can teach us about his account of freedom. His predecessor Kant was possessed by the idea of moral obligations. Hegel argued that we are free, but that the decisions we make are the result of an idea, reason, or spirit. Finally, there is determinism—the idea that things happen because of causal chains—and compatibilism, the belief that free will and determinism are mutually compatible.