Month: May 2020

Frankfurt’s discussion of both free will and the definition of “person” relies on a tiered system of desires. At the most basic level are first-order desires, which are desires to do something. These can be effective desires, meaning that the desired action is carried out, or ineffective, meaning that is is not. For instance, my first-order desire to have lunch after I finish this post will likely prove effective, but my first-order desire to visit the Moon will probably remain ineffective for quite some time. This leads to Frankfurt’s concept of the will, which he defines as the first-order desire or desires that are motivating a being’s action at a particular time. Essentially, the will is all of the being’s currently effective first-order desires. The will is important, but even more vital to the questions Frankfurt considers are second-order desires. A second-order desire is the desire to have a first-order desire. Typically, the being with the second-order desire wants to want to do something so that they will actually do it, such as when I want to want to write this blog post because I want it to in fact be written. This is a particular kind of second-order desire called a second-order volition. However, it is not the only type. I do not want to vote for Donald Trump in the upcoming presidential election, but I might want to want to vote for him so that I can better understand the psychology of those who honestly do wish to vote for him. This unusual kind of second-order desire is not particularly important to Frankfurt’s arguments, but it is interesting to consider.

Based on these categories of desires, Frankfurt makes two related points. First, he proposes that the concept of a person be defined primarily as “the concept of a type of entity that has both first-order desires and volitions of the second order.” Second-order volitions, he believes, are the essential quality which separates people from other being which he calls “wantons,” those who do not care which of their first-order desires win out and end up motivating action. Second, he introduces a new concept of “freedom of the will.” A person has this freedom, he argues, when their second-order volitions successfully determine which of their first-order desires become effective and thus translate into their will. A drug addict then might lack freedom of the will, because despite having a second-order volition to not want to take their drug, their first-order desire to take it wins out and becomes their will. Frankfurt’s concept of free will attempts to sidestep questions of determinism, because the source of second-order volitions is irrelevant to whether a person possesses freedom of the will be his definition.

Frankfurt’s concept of freedom of the will is certainly a valuable idea, with a variety of ethical and philosophical uses, but it is quite different from the common meaning of “free will.” It thus seems rather disingenuous for him to attempt to pass it off as a replacement. His “freedom of the will” is an important concept, but its existence does nothing to resolve the question of whether humans make meaningful decisions or have our behavior determined by laws of cause and effect. Personally, I am partially free under Frankfurt’s definition. Sometimes my second-order volitions determine my will, but on other occasions my self-discipline fails and I am motivated by opposing first-order desires. However, this is an entirely separate question from whether I have free will in the traditional sense.

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In order to convince his audience that human behavior is determined, Hume essentially argues that we already act as if it is, making everyday decisions that would be ridiculous if human behavior was not governed by causal determinism. Human behavior, he points out, is widely recognized to be broadly similar even across centuries and continents. People tend to have similar motivations and desires and decision-making processes. The idea of a human society in which everyone acts radically different from these norms is just as unbelievable as a tale of a society consisting entirely of centaurs and pegasi. We accept that the natural world is governed by rigid laws of cause and effect which preclude such fantastical creatures, so why should we not apply the same principle to human behavior and recognize that each action a person takes is the logical result of a variety of causes. Some might point to examples of unusual, irrational behavior with no discernible cause, but Hume replies that
“the internal principles and motives may operate in a uniform manner, notwithstanding these seeming irregularities; in the same manner as the winds, rain, clouds, and other variations of the weather are supposed to be governed by steady principles; though not easily discoverable by human sagacity and enquiry.” In other words, the fact that we cannot always understand the specific causes of a particular rainstorm does not mean we should throw up our hands and conclude that weather is uniquely free from the laws of cause and effect. Rather, we should recognize that we simply do not understand those laws well enough to perfectly understand their operation in every instance. In the same way, human behavior is governed by complex rules which are difficult or perhaps even impossible to fully grasp.

When exploring the implications of the determinism that Hume argues for, I think it is useful to separately examine two possible cases. In one scenario, Hume is right. Human behavior is entirely determined, and thus we do not really make meaningful decisions. All of our actions have discoverable causes. In this case, we cannot choose how we respond to determinism. Our reaction to the idea, how we change our interactions with others because of it, whether they believe it, whether we try to convince them of our position or not, all of these decisions have already been made by the laws of cause and effect. In the other scenario, we are able to make decisions. We can choose whether we believe in determinism or free will, and we can choose how we use this information in our interactions with others. In this case, we should clearly believe the truth of free will and act accordingly, holding ourselves and others as responsible for their actions. Given these two possibilities, it seems to me that there is no reason not to act as though we have free will. If free will exists, then we have made the correct choice. If it does not, there was never a choice to begin with.

In his attempt to prove that the self is an illusion, Hume has two essential premises: that the “self” must be something that remains constant over time and thus unifies the human experience, and that the human mind is a succession of feelings and perceptions that lacks a singular, eternal core. Therefore, he argues, there is no constant “self.” Instead, he believes that a person is “a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and movement.” Living as a human is merely experiencing all of these perceptions in succession, with no core piece that is constant through all of it. Hume argues that we cannot be conscious of any unique self that is separate from our perceptions. When a person is not perceiving anything because they are asleep or dead or otherwise unconscious, there is no distinct self that remains. Whatever identity we do have comes simply from the causal connections between our perceptions that we are capable of noticing because of our memory.

While I essentially agree with the second premise of Hume’s argument, I cannot say the same of the first. It is true that there is no central component of the human consciousness that remains constant throughout unceasingly flux of different perceptions, but this is no reason to conclude that the self is fictitious. There are all sorts of things which exist in the world which have no truly eternal part, and yet we do not say that they are merely illusions because of this. The human body is constantly in flux, losing and gaining molecules so rapidly that almost all of its matter is wholly replaced every few years. Tornadoes have no essential block of air which remains constant within them throughout their existence. A state may gain and lose territory and see its entire population replaced over and over through the generations, but it can still exist despite all that flux. The self is no different. Yes, it is a series of ever-changing perceptions, but those perceptions are inherently linked to one another and separated from the perceptions that make up each other self. They thus make up a distinct unit which is perfectly reasonable to think of as a “self,” and has a real and particular effect on the world. This concept is not an illusion or a fiction, but a very real presence which simply happens to be made up of rapidly changing parts.

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