By this I mean that each individual decides what they will do, based on their beliefs and perceptions. We can never be certain of the future, but we try to cover all the bases and hope for the best. In this sense we are all philosophers, lovers of wisdom.
Today I’m thinking of the concept of human action, and a recent book I read. What motivates our doings and not doings? Do we know? Many, perhaps, have no problem with this question. They do what they must do in order to survive and flourish as much as possible. Still, inevitably, decisions will arrive that are difficult to make.
There seems to be a line that people draw between what they feel or perceive they “must” do, and what is completely up to their choice, and this line constantly changes within a person’s lifetime. On the side of the line where actions seem completely up to choice, the traditional name for our capacity to so choose is “free will.” This means that we are compelled by absolutely nothing but our own deliberation whether to say “yes” or “no,” “do” or “not do” with respect to any proposition whatsoever. We can even act for the sole reason that we want to assert our free will.
Lets take an example. If you are questioned: Does 2 + 2 = 4? You may reply, “No, not today. I don’t want it to be equal to 4. Let it be 4 tomorrow.” Even though you know that 2 + 2 = 4, you are perfectly free to say “no,” if you so choose; and the only reason need be that you want to assert your free will. Of course it may not be a very wise decision, especially if you are going to balance your checkbook or pay the bills. Nevertheless, you are perfectly free in your judgment.
However, the assertion of one’s free will may present a daunting aspect. After all, we are fallible creatures, and the element of chance or uncertainty is ever present in all decisions. It would be pleasant, perhaps, if we sat back and let others make our decisions for us — to be taken care of. This is the paradise of childhood, the time of dependency. We do according to our parents’ dictates, or according to expectations of whatever group with wish we identify. Group solidarity satisfies a deep need for belonging.
Yet adulthood, if ever obtained, implies that one has become one’s s own master. A level of self-control has been achieved. No amount of peer pressure, social dictates, or authoritarian rule may take precedence over our self-rule, unless we choose to make it so. At the same time, we take full responsibility for the choices we make. We do not blame other things or people for our missteps. That would be acting, as Sartre notes, in bad faith, or in Heidegger’s terminology, it would be acting on accordance with the “inauthentic self.” In Freud’s terminology, adulthood means the Ego has come to terms with the Reality Principle, and is not dominated by the hungers of the Id or the demands of the Superego.
In a recent book, “Rethinking the Western Understanding of the Self,” the German philosopher Urich Steinworth, makes this notion of an absolutely free will, the central concept that characterizes Western civilization. More specifically, Steinworth claims that there are two concepts of “self” operative in the West. One, stemming from John Locke in the 17th Century identifies “Self” with consciousness, in which the “self” is a subject. The other conception stems from Descartes and identifies “self” with our power of judgment, or the absolute freedom of the will. It is this latter notion, according to Steinworth, that is worthy of consideration and makes our civilization unique. One notion is the active, autonomous self and the other is the passive subjective self, where actions are predetermined by causes not of our own choice.
So far, Steinworth’s advocacy of the absolutely free will is consonant with the emphasis on the “individual” in the traditional North American mythology. The individual, that brave soul who goes out on her own, conquering all obstacles and makes a world of her own. This notion is generalized to Modernity and the West as a whole. The “self-understanding” of the West is said to be characterized “with belief in the value of the individual and her rational powers and inalienable rights, and with trust in science and technology, production and trade.”
The theory or positing of a feature of human behavior in terms of our capacity for judgment or free will seems to have explanatory value. However there are many objections to the notion. Are we really free? We may say or think what we please, but doing seems to be under constraints that are not in our control. We act normally in order to achieve certain ends, rarely is any deep reflection required. Lets say we act in accordance with our explicit or implicit system of beliefs. Furthermore, let is say this system constitutes our personality or character. Then we may inquire, what is the nature of this system? How does it come about?
Steinvorth supplies evidence for his notion of free-will by tracing the development of it from its inception in Ancient Greece to the present age of technology and secularism, looking at its problematic and promises. The difficulty, at least for me, is that in looking at human development from the point of view of such large abstractions as the “West” and the “East” or “open” versus “closed” societies, one often misses the immense diversity and struggle of the actual individuals that compose the reality of such general terms.
Puzzle
There is a positive integer with four digits, call it N. If you square that number you get a five digit number, call it M. Now the last four digits of M are equal to the original number, N. So can you find N?
Answer to last week’s puzzle
The number is 42857.
