Chapter 119
Will and choice; free will; willing, intending and deciding.
569 passages · 187 principal · Covers the 49 volumes of primary texts
What we mean when we say a man acted of his own will is among the oldest questions in these books, and among the most often reopened. The idea covers willing, intending and deciding: what the will is, whether it is free, what makes an act truly one’s own, and how the will is weakened, divided, trained or surrendered. Pascal announces that the actions of the will differ universally and essentially from all other actions1. Coleridge, as Emerson reports him, holds that the will is what makes a person a person, since we disown an involuntary push as not our act2. Dante’s Beatrice calls liberty of will God’s supreme gift to intellectual creatures3. It is a great idea for the Harvard Classics because responsibility, merit, law, love, conversion and character all depend on how it is answered.
The first question is what willing is. Hobbes gives the boldest reductive answer. Deliberation is the alternating sum of appetites, aversions, hopes and fears4, and will is simply the last appetite in that sequence. It is an act, not a faculty, and he rejects the schools’ definition of it as “rational appetite”5. Acts done from fear are voluntary as well, and a covenant is likewise the last act of deliberation6. Against this stands a line that ties will to reason. Descartes says the will seeks only what the understanding shows to be attainable7. Rousseau’s Vicar holds that will is determined by judgment, and judgment by the intelligent faculty, so the principle of action lies in a free being8. Kant carries this furthest. Will is practical reason, the faculty of acting according to the conception of laws9. It is a causality proper to rational beings, and freedom is its capacity to act independently of foreign causes10. In men, however, the will does not always accord with reason. That is why it is commanded by imperatives, whereas a holy will needs no “ought”11.
A second question is whether we know the will’s power at all. Berkeley’s Philonous makes volition the only conceivable action: when Hylas stirs his finger, the will is active and the motion passive12. Action exists only in spirits13, and we know the author of our sensations by his Will, since they do not depend on ours14. Rousseau is equally sure: he wills to move his arm and it moves, a certainty stronger than argument15. From such felt motion he infers a Will that moves the universe16. Hume grants the sequence but denies the insight. The will commands tongue and fingers but not heart or liver, and the palsied man feels the same power without effect17. The will works through muscles and nerves we know nothing of18. Even its command over our own ideas varies with health and the hour and is learned only by experience19. Darwin adds that habitual actions often run on unconsciously, even against the conscious will20.
The will’s relation to belief and passion is equally contested. Pascal thinks the will shapes belief by turning the mind from aspects it dislikes21, and that most men believe by the will’s attraction rather than by proof22. Hume replies that belief cannot be commanded at pleasure23. Milton’s Adam puts the danger exactly. God left the will free and made reason right, but reason may be deceived by a fair-seeming good and then misinform the will24. After the fall, Understanding and Will are subject to sensual Appetite25.
The great controversy is whether the will is free. Many of the oldest texts already assume responsibility. In Homer, Aegisthus chooses his crime in spite of divine warning26. Socrates sits in prison by choice of the better part, not by the mechanism of his body27. Plutarch reads Homer’s gods as prompting but never overriding human will28. In the Buddhist writings Yama insists that no kinsman or god did the wickedness, but the man alone29. The Koran says every soul is pledged for what it earns30. Augustine supplies the inward certainty: he knows that it is he who wills and nills, and free will is the cause of doing ill31. Dante’s Marco grants that heaven gives a first bent, yet holds that the will, well nurtured, conquers it32. Love may arise from necessity, but the power to accept or reject it is the source of merit33. Milton builds an epic on the point. God made men and angels free because obedience without freedom proves nothing34; they are “authors to themselves”35; and no decree necessitated the fall36. Even Edmund in Lear mocks the idea of heavenly compulsion37.
Fate and fortune press on this freedom from outside. Machiavelli lets fortune govern half our actions but not wholly set aside free will, since men can build embankments against her floods38. Calderón’s Basilio asks whether free will can break fate’s meshes, yet himself forecloses his son’s freedom by imprisonment39. Milton’s fallen angels debate fixed fate, free will and foreknowledge and end “in wandering mazes lost”40. The Gita tells Arjuna that his nature will compel him to fight41. Omar’s ball has no say in right or left42.
The moderns turn necessity into a philosophical thesis. Hobbes calls “free will” meaningless, since freedom is only the absence of hindrance43. Hume argues that volitions follow character and circumstance as regularly as natural events44. Liberty is merely acting as one wills, and the feeling that the will moves loosely misleads us45. The dispute, he says, is largely verbal46. Carlyle laments an age in which Freewill abdicates before a spectral Necessity47. Mill, oppressed by the sense that his character was formed by agencies beyond his control48, finds relief in a distinction. Freewill means a real power to shape our own character, which is unlike fatalism49. Kant gives a different rescue: freedom attributed to the will grounds every judgment of what ought to have been done50.
Christian writers raise a further difficulty, that of grace. The Koran says men may go straight if they please, but please only if God pleases51. Calvin holds man a slave to sin until God frees him52. Pascal asks whether even prayer is in our power when the grace to pray is God’s alone53. He thinks God prefers to incline the will rather than the intellect54. Rousseau, more serenely, says we are free only because God wills it55.
These debates bear directly on judging deeds. Socrates argues that no one knowingly harms himself, so any corruption of the young must be unintentional, and the law does not punish unintentional offences56. Prometheus, by contrast, freely admits he sinned willingly57. Browne makes intention the substance of the act58, and Penn judges errors of will more culpable than errors of judgment59. On compulsion, Augustine says no one does well against his will, even if the deed is good60. Dante’s Beatrice distinguishes absolute from conditional will. Violence cannot quench the absolute will, so those coerced who did not resist are not fully excused61. Don Quixote insists no charm can force the will62. Webster’s Ferdinand likewise denies that love can be compelled63. Manzoni’s Gertrude is the fullest study in these books. Her consent is never openly forced, but fear and shame64, her father’s watching eyes65 and an examiner deceived by her own affirmation66 carry her to a “yes” that her heart refuses67.
The Stoics answer the problem of power from the opposite side: only the will is truly ours. For Epictetus good is “a will such as it ought to be”68. God made the will subject to oneself alone69, and no one can rob or rule it70. Marcus Aurelius adds that a neighbour’s free will cannot harm mine71. Only the rational animal can follow necessity voluntarily72. Confucius says that three armies may lose their leader, but no man can be robbed of his will73. Schiller renews the thought: only death or loss of self-consciousness can take this inner freedom from a man74.
Kant transforms the Stoic claim into the doctrine of the good will. Nothing is good without qualification except a good will75. It shines like a jewel by its volition alone, whatever its effects76, when it can will its maxim as universal law77. Its dignity lies in autonomy. The will is not merely subject to law but is its author78, and every principle that takes the law from objects is heteronomy79. Even the villain, Kant says, recognises the good will as law for his bad one80.
Yet the will is notoriously divided. Euripides’ Phaedra says men know the right but lack the will to strive for it81. Augustine gives the classic analysis. An old carnal will and a new spiritual one struggle in him; a froward will became lust, lust custom, custom necessity82. The mind commands the body and is obeyed, but commands itself to will and resists83. Still, it is one soul divided, not two natures84, and to follow God is simply to will wholly85. Thomas à Kempis finds that to will good is present but to perform it is not86. Rousseau’s Vicar feels himself both free and slave87. Kant sees transgression as an exception made for inclination88. Resolutions prove frail. Alypius’s resolve to keep his eyes shut at the games collapses89. The Player King observes that purpose is the slave of memory90. Andersen’s Prince boasts of a resolute will and breaks his promise91.
Irresolution has its own drama. Hamlet finds resolution “sicklied o’er” by thought92, while Macbeth resolves that the firstlings of his heart shall be those of his hand93. Caesar wavers at the Rubicon94, then casts the die95. Descartes makes firmness in action a rule of method96. Pascal reminds us that we are already embarked and must wager97.
When the will goes wrong, the theologians call it perversion. For Augustine evil is the will turning from the Supreme to lower things98. Dante likens free creatures who swerve to fire falling from a cloud99. Pascal locates depravity in the will’s bias toward self100. Bunyan’s Mr Self-will heeds neither counsel nor example101. Hermes had already charged Prometheus with self-will without wisdom102.
The religious remedy is submission. “Not my will, but thine, be done”103 echoes through Thomas à Kempis, who counsels resigning one’s will wholly to God’s104. It echoes in Pascal’s prayer to accept sickness or health alike105, and in Woolman’s “John Woolman is dead,” meaning the death of his own will106. Woolman likens this subjection to refining silver in a furnace107. Epictetus had reached a similar conclusion by another road: he esteems God’s will above his own108. Dante’s blessed find their tranquillity in God’s will109. Behind this lies a doctrine of the divine will itself. Augustine and Browne identify God’s will with His power110,111, and Pascal makes it the rule of good in place of ours112.
Against surrender stands assertion. Milton’s Satan proclaims an “unconquerable will”113, and Byron’s Manfred makes even torture tributary to his114. Tennyson’s Ulysses remains strong in will though weakened by time and fate115. Emerson praises the hero’s unshaken will116. Mill explicitly sets self-assertion against Calvinist surrender117. Choosing one’s own plan of life, he argues, exercises judgment and firmness118. The Buddhist Sumedha shows a heroic will of another kind, resolving to forgo his own release in order to carry others across119. Education enters here. Locke would make the child’s will “supple” to reason, distinguishing wilfulness from frailty120. Montaigne prefers learning by unforced choice121. Channing finds that toil gives force to the will122. Dana keeps his resolution without a pledge: first a reason, then a resolution, and it was done123.
Several questions remain open across these books. Is will an appetite or a form of reason? Is our felt power of volition knowledge or illusion? Is freedom best won by asserting the self, as Mill and Emerson urge, or by surrendering it, as Thomas à Kempis and Woolman teach? On one point there is wide agreement: whether a deed belongs to a person depends on his will.
Introductory essay written by Claude Opus 5.5 from the outline and the notes on every passage below; quotations are checked against this edition.
See also: Liberty 1b · Cause 6a · Reasoning 7e · Duty 1a
See also: Cause 2c
See also: God 8c · Liberty 1c · Revenge 8b · Justice 10a
See also: Necessity and Contingency 3a
See also: Religion 9b · Family 8e
See also: Duty 1a · Law 3b · Good and Evil 1c · Virtue and Vice 1c
See also: Sin 4b
See also: Sin 7c
See also: Pleasure and Pain 6c · Religion 2a · Emotion 3d
See also: God 3c
See also: Fate 9d · Courage 7c
See also: Punishment 6b · Education 4b
See also: Man 2b
See also: Sin, Duty, God, Necessity and Contingency, Desire, Good and Evil