I noticed upon recently rereading my last note 'On Women and Visual Culture' that I said "as with arguing with defenders of free will, my first question to those using this description would be 'free from what?'"
I never actually addressed my discussions with defenders of free will in any prior note, so I figured I'd dedicate one exclusively to this concept.
The (non)existence of free will is one of the greatest points of contention I share with my closest friends. And with good reason, as a lot rests on its existence.
For starters, just what is free will? Wikipedia has free will pegged as "the ability of agents to make choices free from certain kinds of constraints." In the Judeo-Christian tradition, these constraints consisted of, first and foremost, God. However, this argument doesn't hold as much relevance today, due to the general intellectual value shift to positivism: empiricism and the scientific method.
As quoted at the beginning of this note, my primary concern with "free will" is with the question of "free from what?" So our will is free from God - so what? Does its freedom from God's will make it truly free? Was/is God the only constraint on our will? Of course not.
What would it take for our will to be free? What constraints remain after our will is free from God's?
I've recently delved into the discipline of psychology snatching a copy of the first-year psych text book from the library in preparation for my Master's. Psychologists would list several constraints on our will, ranging from the behavioral to the "psychodynamic." Most of these influences on our will could be summarized into two main categories of the internal biological/psychological, and the external empirical. Those of you that actually read my notes would probably infer that I'd lean towards to external empirical as among the strongest influences on the will. However, degree of impact of each effector is still subject to research and debate.
Regardless, our internal biological and psychological processes coupled with our external sensory experience, (and our ability to reason and reflect upon it,) influence our will. In many cases, these forces can arguably control it.
In fact, I'd argue that people never exercise an objectively free will - no one can completely escape the former constraints. I have no doubt that there are different degrees of free will, just as the will is subject to different degrees of influence from each effector.
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However, overcoming our internal and external constraints is almost trivial, when most of us are stuck in the pleasure-pain complex. That is, for the vast majority, the forces that influence our wills consolidate in a motivation to enhance and incur pleasure while minimize and eliminate pain. This is the basic system of motivations that we are all born with, and that some of us never truly break free from.
I'd argue that the pleasure-pain mode of decision making is something we grow out of. Its the springboard upon which higher orders of decision making develop.
Due to the nature and proliferation of the pleasure-pain complex, there's only a couple instances where I'd argue someone could truly exercise free will, and most of them involve some form of sacrifice.
Let me explain...
When I talk of free will, the only constraint I can fathom that human beings can overcome is the pleasure-pain mode of decision making. In other words, free will is when human beings make decisions that violate their internal biological and psychological influences.
You do this when you suffer pain for some higher purpose. You do this when you risk your life.
When you violate these internal "values," you feel pain. To consciously incur pain conflicts with our basic built-in structure of decision making.
Now, a hard determinist might at this point quip that even in the former instance, one is not exercising objective free will because they merely acted upon a value that superseded another value. (The latter was my argument for many years as I was a hard determinist) For example, a person could try to sacrifice their life in order to save their child. A biopsychologist would argue that that person's need to keep their DNA flowing just overcame their need to live.
However, if one entertains the former line of argument, then they'd probably have to find a better definition for the word "free" when describing "free will." By definition, a free will needs a constraint to overcome in order to be free.
I'd argue that we ARE born with a set of constraints on our will, in the form of the pleasure-pain complex. And it's possible to overcome these constraints and therefore exercise a "free" will if we do so.
And as I said, this overcoming of the pleasure-pain complex will almost always require sacrifice.
I'm not the only one to have thought this way. One of my personal heroes, Mahatma Gandhi, argued the same line of reasoning. He had religious revelation backing up his argument, but in general he had the same view. Gandhi once said, to paraphrase, "Suffering cheerfully endured, ceases to be suffering and is transmuted into an ineffable joy."
I'm not going to over-step myself here, but Christians who actually understand why Jesus did what he did would have no doubt agreed with both Gandhi and I.
Finally, in my experience and opinion, to truly live a good life: to truly be happy, you need to exercise a free will like the one just mentioned. You're welcome to challenge my opinion.
