Is the Will Free? A Brief Metaphysical Analysis

The question of whether human beings have free will is an interesting one. One view is that human beings are completely free to make their own choices, undetermined by external factors affecting their decisions, whether those external factors arise by human nature, laws of nature, or God. On the opposite end, there is the view that human beings are completely determined in their choices by these external factors and thus are not capable of making any truly free actions. The reason why I am typing on this keyboard is not because I am freely choosing to, but because of various physical events leading up to this point that is causing me to do so, like a domino effect. A very interesting question that often gets lost in this discussion, however, is what exactly the nature of a ‘will’ is.

Often in contemporary philosophy, the will is depicted as the mind’s steering wheel, completely neutral in its own right but able to direct the parts of the person. The will is perceived as this thing that must be completely free from influence in order to make free decisions. If something causes the will to will X, then X is not willed freely. However, the will is not a neutral faculty, but a power with an object. And by ‘object’ I mean it has a goal or end towards which it points. For instance, in the same way that sight is a power with its object being color in general but only sees particular colors at any given time, the will has as its object the good in general while being presented with particular goods at any given time. Thus, if a will must be completely neutral in order to be free, then the will is not free since it has an inclination to only choose particular goods.

Of course, what this implies is that we are absolutely incapable of choosing evil for the sake of evil. But recall in my post here, evil is not a real thing. All things that exist are to some degree good, and evil is a privation of a due good. That we can only choose good things is not to say that every action is perfectly good. We cannot choose evil because evil does not exist, we can only choose goods that are lesser than other goods. Of course, people choose to do morally reprehensible acts but they do not do so because they view the end as evil, rather, they perceive the end as good and thus will the act. For instance, placing my hand on a hot stove is in no way desirable and thus I will not perform that action. Robbing a bank, however, does have at least some degree of desirability, and thus there is a shimmer of goodness related to it. The act is not evil per se, or absolutely.  

So how are we free in relation to this conception of the will? Well, the ‘will’ itself is not free. The attribute of freedom only applies to choices which are a product of the will. We are beings with a will bent towards choosing the good capable of freely choosing between various particular goods that are presented to us. Freedom of choice is the selection of a means towards some end. The end is always good, but one can choose between means to achieve that end or choose some different end in general. Free choices can only occur when deliberation is present, and deliberation can only be present in beings with rational capacities. Thus, choices that are the product of passions (say, immense anger caused me to punch a hole in my wall) or choices that are the product of coercion are not free. These actions either occur too quickly for deliberation to kick in, or the action is coerced against the will and deliberation of the agent. To be capable of making a free choice is just to make choices that arise out of reason and deliberation.

However, the will, like many other things that exist, is not immune to defects. When we choose lesser goods over higher goods, this is due to a defect of the will. In most cases, people that smoke know how terrible smoking is to the body and that they ought to quit, but they forsake the health of their body for some lower good, say the euphoric feeling they get when nicotine hits their system. Many times a person knows he/she ought to do X but instead chooses Y because Y is more convenient, provides instant gratification, or some other reason. Thus, morally reprehensible actions are the product of a defective will choosing lesser goods over higher goods.

              

I've Got Soul and So Do You

Do you have a soul? Yes, but not in the way that you think. Modern day thinking of the soul depicts it as a “ghost in the machine” sort of way. Your body is this bio-mechanical organism and your soul is this mysterious immaterial substance that, in some way, controls the body but is distinctly separate from it. This view is commonly called substance dualism, or Cartesian dualism (taking after the philosophy of Descartes). In substance dualism, you are essentially an immaterial thinking thing, completely separate from your body. The body, in contrast, is its own substance that is separate from you, but in some way or another, you are able to control this physical body and make it do what your soul wills.

This view is not without its problems. For one, it fails to explain why it is the soul is attached to a particular chunk of matter and can’t freely remove itself from the body and inhabit some other body. If I am a completely separate immaterial substance from my body, the fact that my soul is restricted to my body and only my body remains mysterious. Why can’t I leave this body and inhabit, say, a television? What is it about this body that chains my soul to it? Additionally, how an immaterial soul can interact and command the body is similarly mysterious. Causation in the natural world is almost exclusively dependent on two material things reacting with one another.  Yet the soul, being immaterial, is some how able to transfer some ‘oomph’ (if you will) to the body and cause it to move. As such, the modern conception of the soul is riddled with holes that leave it sinking.

Before discussing the view of the soul that I think is correct, some history is in order. In Latin, the word “soul” is anima. In the Ancient/Medieval era, the term refers to anything alive, or animated. Thus, according to Aristotle and, later on, Thomas Aquinas, you have a soul just by the mere fact that you are alive. Of course, what this implies is that so does every other living thing. Plants have souls, fish have souls, dogs have souls, etc. What makes something a living thing is that it has an intrinsic principle of motion. It is a self-mover, and the soul is this intrinsic principle that moves the body. To be sure, this view of the soul says nothing about whether it is material or immaterial in nature, only that it is what makes the thing in question alive.

Remember that under hylomorphism, every material thing is composed of a substantial form (what makes it what it is) and matter (what it is made of). In animated things, the soul is the substantial form of the thing. Since there are different kinds of living things, there are different kinds of souls. Aristotle breaks down the soul in to three distinct types: the vegetative soul, the sensible soul, and the rational soul.

The vegetative soul is the soul possessed by plants. It is responsible for things like taking in nutrients, growth, reproduction, and so forth. The sensible soul is the soul possessed by nonhuman animals. Like the vegetative soul, the sensible soul can also do things like take in nutrients, grow, reproduce, etc., but it is also capable of receiving sense-impressions. It can do things like hear, smell, taste, react according to instinct, etc. Lastly, the rational soul subsumes the vegetative and sensible soul while also allowing the capacity of rational thought. The rational soul can reason, conceive of universals, abstract and deduce ideas from other ideas, and so forth. This is the soul held by humans and other rational agents (if there are any others).

The Ancient/Medieval view of the soul has no explicit immaterial conception attached to it. Vegetables have souls, but they aren’t a separate immaterial substance that moves the body. The soul is nothing more than what makes the body alive, and no extra metaphysical baggage is necessary. This is not to say, however, that they didn’t believe the soul (at least, the human soul) is immaterial, only that there is nothing about the notion of the soul specifically that leads one to believe it is immaterial in nature. In my previous post I mentioned that the more we study a thing’s behaviors the more we have an understanding of its substantial form. When it comes to the rational soul, the more we look at the behaviors it engages in we learn that the soul of the human being is not like the souls of plants and animals—it has an immaterial aspect to it.

To be sure, this immaterial aspect of the soul is not a completely separate substance in its own right. It is a part of the substance. In substance dualism, there are two separate substances interacting: one immaterial (you) and the other material (your body). In the Aristotelian/Thomistic model, you are completely one substance that is composed of two distinct metaphysical parts—matter and form. There is only one substance, but this substance is dualistic qua composite, not qua substance. This view is called hylomorphic dualism. You are a hylomorphic composite just like every other material thing, except your substantial form has an immaterial aspect to it that other substantial forms don’t. So, what exactly are the reasons to posit the soul of the human being as immaterial? This question will be discussed in a future post. 

Evil Isn't Real--Sorry, Not Sorry

In my previous post, I stated that the goodness of a thing is dictated by a thing’s flourishing and well-being, and a thing’s flourishing and well-being is dependent on its substantial form. For example, an oak tree engages in behaviors that either promote its flourishing (such as taking in sunlight, digging its roots deep into the ground, etc.) or hinder its flourishing (not being able to perform these behaviors because of another tree blocking it or choking it from the ground). Behaviors that promote its flourishing and well-being are deemed as ‘good’ because it allows the oak tree to perfect its form, i.e., being a good example of an oak tree. Any behaviors that hinder it detract its ability to perfect its form and thus it becomes a bad instance of its kind.

To be sure, the fact that it is an oak tree at all, it has at least some degree of goodness. All things behave as to preserve their own existence—existence is a good thing. Hence, all things that exist are to some degree good. Even a sloppily drawn triangle is to some extent a good triangle even though it is not as good as it could be. So, if everything that exists is at its most fundamental level good, where does evil come in? 

Evil, in itself, does not exist. At least, not in the same sense we say that other things exist. A tree exists, puppies exist, cups exist, but there is nothing you can pick up, hold, and say “Here is evil!”. This, at first glance, appears counter-intuitive. There are diseases, viruses, murderers, thieves, cancers, etc. We know evil exists, at least in some respect, so exactly how evil exists needs to be looked at further. Evil is a privation. It is a lack of something that it ought to have. For example, blindness is an evil because it is the lack of a power that is natural to a human being—the power of sight. For a dog to only have three legs is an evil because it lacks a leg it ought to have according to its nature. Dogs, in their natural healthy state, have four legs.

To be sure, to lack something in general is not an evil. I lack the ability to jump up and fly away, but this isn’t an evil because humans aren’t naturally capable of flying. Evil is the privation of a due good. It is a lack of something that is owed to you according to your nature. As such, evil only exists as a privation or defect in some already existing thing. To use the triangle again, to the extent the triangle’s angles do not add up to 180 degrees, it is a defective, albeit good, triangle. It lacks straight lines it ought to have. Evil, at its most fundamental level, is a privation.

But what about things that do appear to be evil but do exist, like cancer and so forth? Here it is important to distinguish between evil in itself and evil for something else. Evil in itself is a privation. However, there can be two things that are good absolutely speaking but evil in relation to each other. Fire, since it exists, is good. A house made of straw, since it exists, is good. But fire is an evil for a house made of straw. The two are good absolutely speaking, but the behaviors of one (in trying to flourish itself) might impede on the flourishing of the other. Thus, cancer engages in behaviors that try to allow it to flourish, but it does it at the expense of the human. It is evil for the human but not evil in itself.

As such, a thing’s substantial form dictates what it is and also how it ought to be. To be lacking something it ought to have is an evil for it, but to the extent it exists at all it is still good in some respect. Hence, when we use words like ‘ought’ or ‘should’, we are describing the way something should be according to its nature. A squirrel ought or should gather nuts for the winter and have four legs because that’s just what healthy squirrels do. If we say that it is an evil for a squirrel to be missing a leg (say due to some animal attack) we are saying there is a way the squirrel should be, and the way it should be is dependent on what it is in its healthiest, most natural state. Any defect from this state is an evil.

This, of course, applies to human beings as well. Blindness (as mentioned previously) is an evil because healthy human beings have eyes that are capable of sight. A limp in the leg is an evil because healthy human beings have legs that should be capable of getting them from A to B. The more we study the behaviors of things the more we discover what constitutes its flourishing and well-being, and thus the more we discover its substantial form. We can therefore state what is evil for it when we have at least some grasp of its substantial form. 

Hylomorphism as a Foundational Metaphysical Principle

I initially intended to write on various topics concerning the nature of evil, but on reflection, I realize many of the views I hold rely on a more foundational metaphysical principle. Meaning to say that what I think about evil and good flow naturally from a principle that grounds both of these concepts, and that principle is what is often called hylomorphism. The word stems from the Greek words hyle (matter) and morphe (form). What this principle states is that all material objects are compounds of matter and form.

To use an example, a glass cup has as its matter the glass and takes on the form of the cup. To be sure, the matter dictates what a thing is made of while the form dictates what it is. There are many objects made of glass that are not cups, and there are many cups that are not made of glass. But when the form (cupness) comes together with matter (glass) they instantiate a particular object—the glass cup.

However, this example is not without its flaws (as most examples and analogies eventually break down at some point). There is a difference between naturally occurring objects and, what are traditionally called, artifacts. Naturally occurring objects are just that—objects that occur in the natural world. Artifacts, in contrast, are objects that do not occur naturally but have their form given to them by an agent. For example, an oak tree is a naturally occurring object but a glass cup is not. The glass cup is made by an agent for an intended purpose, so in this way you can say the form of the thing (cupness) was ‘placed on to it’ so to speak. The oak tree has its form naturally.

As such, one can differentiate between natural objects and artifacts by an appeal to substantial and accidental forms. Substantial forms are naturally occurring and dictate what a thing is, while accidental forms (while they too can be naturally occurring) are properties of the thing that it can do without while still being the type of thing that it is. The oak tree is naturally occurring, but to take down the oak tree and turn it into a table is not. Its natural function isn’t to be a table, rather, its natural function is to absorb nutrients and engage in behaviors that promote its flourishing and well-being. To be sure, it is form that also grounds what is good for a thing, since doing what is good for a thing is just to perfect its form. To use a more precise example, a triangle, according to its form, is a plane-figure in which the total degrees of the angles add up to be 180. A good or more perfect triangle, then, is going to be one that instantiates this form well. A triangle drawn from crayon by a 2-year old will not be as ‘good’ of a triangle as one drawn with rulers by a geometrist (assumingly), as the latter will instantiate that form better than the former.

Likewise, substantial forms come in degrees of goodness and perfection depending on the matter they take on. There are many oak trees, and some oak trees are better than others. There are oak trees that do a great job of absorbing nutrients and others that might fail due to a defect in some way, in which case the latter does not instantiate its form as well as the former.

Humans, of course, are also composed of matter and form (or to use the proper terminology, they are hylomorphic compounds). Thus, since they too have a substantial form, they have a principle that dictates what is good and bad for them. To be sure, ‘good’ and ‘bad’ are dependent on a thing’s nature (or substantial form). Thus, what is good and bad for one thing might not be good and bad for another, since the forms they take are different. It is good for a human being to exercise and eat healthy and bad for them to drink poison and sit around all day eating McDonald’s. Essentially, ‘good’ and ‘bad’ are dictated by a thing’s flourishing and well-being, and what constitutes a thing’s flourishing and well-being is dependent on its substantial form.

There are many reasons why I believe the hylomorphic principle to be true, but that might be a subject for another entry. I just wanted to lay this out there as I think it is important for further entries and the reader to understand where my other ideas come from.

An Introduction to My Blog

First and foremost, I am very thankful to finally have the opportunity to focus on this blog. I have made numerous attempts in the past, but my schooling has always taken priority regarding my reading and writing. Now that my schooling is finished (a PhD is definitely not in the foreseeable future) I can spend my time reading and writing about topics I am genuinely interested in with the freedom I have always wanted. This isn't to say I wasn't interested in the topics I studied during my MA. To be sure, I loved everything I studied. However, when one begins to read and write for the purpose of meeting a deadline or for some other pressure, what seems fun can slowly turn in to work.

The purpose of this blog is to bring back my passion for philosophy and do it freely, without constraints and at my own pace. For the reader (if there is one), feel free to suggest topics or, if I get something wrong or you find something disagreeable (which will happen) leave a comment and we can have a discussion. Right now, my interests have been directed towards the nature of evil and freedom of the will, so the first bulk of my posts will most likely be around these topics.