display all the ideas for this combination of texts
8 ideas
| 8007 | Aristotle never discusses free will [Aristotle, by MacIntyre] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle never gets involved in the riddles of later philosophers about free will. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE]) by Alasdair MacIntyre - A Short History of Ethics Ch.7 | |
| A reaction: Note that this is a very great philosopher who was intensely interested in the well-springs of human action. 'Free will' never crossed his mind. This is because free will is nonsense. Owen Flanagan is best on this subject (Ideas 5345 and 5332). |
| 12961 | For an action to be 'free', it must be deliberate as well as unconstrained [Aristotle, by Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle has rightly noted that we are not prepared to call an action 'free' unless as well as being unconstrained it is also deliberate. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1111b06) by Gottfried Leibniz - New Essays on Human Understanding 2.21 | |
| A reaction: This is quite an important message for David Hume. I love the respect which Leibniz accords Aristotle, at a time when he was becoming thoroughly unfashionable. This is the nearest Aristotle gets to discussing so-called 'free will'. |
| 4118 | A human being fathers his own actions as he fathers his children [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: A human being fathers his own actions as he fathers his children. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1113b18) | |
| A reaction: Ultimately Aristotle believes that free will is an absolute fact, once influences are stripped away. He should have questioned more deeply. |
| 5338 | Normal free will claims control of what I do, but a stronger view claims control of thought and feeling [Flanagan] |
| Full Idea: The standard view of free will is that I have something like complete control over what I do. A stronger view (not widely held) is that I also have complete control over what I think and what I feel. | |
| From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p. 60n) | |
| A reaction: To claim free control of feelings looks optimistic, but it does look as if we can decide to think about something, such as a philosophical problem. Deciding what to say comes somewhere between thought and action. |
| 5344 | Free will is held to give us a whole list of desirable capacities for living [Flanagan] |
| Full Idea: Free will is said to give us self-control, self-expression, individuality, reasons-sensitivity, rational deliberation, rational accountability, moral accountability, the capacity to do otherwise, unpredictability, and political freedom. | |
| From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p.104) | |
| A reaction: Nice list. His obvious challenge is to either say we can live happily without some of these things, or else show how we can have them without 'free will'. Personally I agree with Flanagan that we meet the challenge. |
| 20192 | Aristotle assesses whether people are responsible, and if they are it was voluntary [Aristotle, by Zagzebski] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle makes the concept of moral responsibility more fundamental than the concept of the voluntary, the reverse of the typical contemporary approach. Given that we hold persons responsible, such acts must be voluntary. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1110-ish) by Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski - Virtues of the Mind 4.2 | |
| A reaction: Good for Aristotle. Whether we hold people responsible or not is widely understood, but whether they are 'free' to act is obscure, and may even be incoherent. We should look at praise and blame, and (above all) excuses. |
| 5332 | People believe they have free will that circumvents natural law, but only an incorporeal mind could do this [Flanagan] |
| Full Idea: Most people believe we have free will, and that this consists in the ability to circumvent natural law. The trouble is that the only device ever philosophically invented that can do this sort of job is an incorporeal soul or mind. | |
| From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], Pref) | |
| A reaction: I think this is exactly right. We currently have a western world full of people who have rejected dualism, but still cling on to free will, because they think morality depends on it. I think morality depends on personal identity, but not on free will. |
| 5345 | We only think of ourselves as having free will because we first thought of God that way [Flanagan] |
| Full Idea: It is unimaginable to me that, despite the feeling that we control what we do, such a strong conception of ourselves as unmoved movers would have been added to our self-image unless we had first conceived of God along these lines. | |
| From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p.107) | |
| A reaction: I think this is right, though there are signs in fifth century Greece of contradictory evidence. The 'unmoved mover' seems unformulated before Plato's 'Laws' (idea 1423), but there is an implied belief in free will a hundred years earlier. |