II.

Philosophical Views

Freedom of the will has necessarily been a concern of metaphysicians, who attempt to formulate theories explaining the nature of ultimate, universal reality and the relationship of human beings to the universe. Some metaphysicians hold that if the universe is rational it must be based on a sequence of cause and effect: Every action, or effect, must be preceded by a cause and must form a part of the unbroken chain of causation extending back to the First Cause, that is, God, or the Divine. An act of absolute free will on the part of a person or an animal is, however, an uncaused act outside the causal chain; to accept the possibility of an uncaused act negates such divine, rational order and makes the universe seem irrational. Viewed in this manner, this question has never been satisfactorily resolved. During the Middle Ages, the inexplicability of free will led to intense argument among religious philosophers and to the famous dilemma known as “Buridan's Ass” (see Buridan, Jean).

The validity of free will has also been a subject of considerable debate among ethical philosophers. It would appear that a system of ethics must imply free will, for the denial of the ability to choose a course of action would seem to negate the possibility of moral judgment. A person without moral judgment is not responsible for his or her actions. In an attempt to resolve this problem, ethical philosophers have taken a great variety of positions, ranging from absolute determinism to absolute libertarianism. The Greek philosophers Socrates and Plato maintained that people could will their own actions, but that those actions alone were truly free that accorded with the good or harmony of the whole. Thus, only a wise action is free. Baruch Spinoza, the Dutch philosopher, reinterpreted free will as self-determination, that is, insofar as a person fits into God’s nature and the world’s own nature. Immanuel Kant, the German philosopher, believed that a person must be free because freedom is a necessary postulate of the moral consciousness; the Kantian categorical imperative is beyond any theoretical analysis. The prevailing philosophical opinion has been that partial self-determination exists, and that, although many considerations other than will are involved in the formation of moral judgments, in certain circumstances a core remains, however small, of creative decision.