Free
Free will means the faculty would have the desire to freely determine human and by itself, to act and think as opposed to determinism or fatalism , which asserts that the will is determined in each of his actions by " forces "that require them. or this seems to be at stake in the antinomy of fate or the "necessity" and free will.
The uncertainty principle and chaos theory have provided new evidence in this debate without slicing.
Summary |
The French expression of "free will" does not sufficiently account the indissoluble link which binds to the notion of commitment , relationship appears more clearly in the English phrases (Free Will) and German (Willensfreiheit), which however have the disadvantage of dissolving the notion of arbitrator or choice , the main concept. "Free Will" (liberum arbitrium in Latin) is most often used as a contraction of the technical term "free will of the will." This concept coined by Latin patristic theology, it is no exaggeration to write that was developed to clarify the responsibility of evil, by charging at the creature of God. This appears clearly in the treatise De libero arbitrio of Saint Augustine ( Augustine of Hippo ), based on dialogue Evodius and Augustine. Evodius poses the problem in blunt terms: " God Is not the author of evil ? . If sin is the work of souls and that they are created by God, how God would it not ultimately the author? Augustine answered unequivocally that "God has given His creatures with free will, the ability to do wrong, and even then, the responsibility for sin."
Through free will, God rest impeccamineux (not guilty): his goodness can not be held responsible for any moral evil. But do not you move the problem without solving it? Why did God conferred the ability to sin:
how is it that we do wrong? If I am correct, the argument has shown that we do so by free will. But this free will which we owe our ability to sin, we are convinced, I wonder if the one who created us has made us give it. It seems, indeed, we would not have been exposed to sin if we had been deprived, and it is feared that in this way, God also goes to the author of our evil deeds (De libero arbitrio, I, 16, 35).
Augustine's answer is that the will is good, which man can certainly be abused, but also the dignity of man. Who would not hold hands under the pretext that they are sometimes used to commit crimes? Now this is more true of free will: if you can live a moral being deprived of the use of his arms, we can never reach the dignity of the moral life without free will:
free will without which no one can live well, and you must admit it is a good, and it is a gift from God, and must condemn those who misuse the property rather than to say that who gave that he should not give it (ibid., II, 18, 48).
But the paradox of Augustine, who is also his wealth and why he was able to inspire, within Christianity , of theology so divergent, due to the diversity of its opponents. If it says in the treatise De libero arbitrio, the existence of free will against the Manichaean who attributed responsibility to the divine evil, it is, against the Pelagians , to minimize their role in the work of salvation , under pretext that man, by original sin, lost the use of this option: "Amissa libertas, no liberty" ("lost freedom, freedom zero"). Only the grace , freely granted by God, can then do the work of salvation. Keep in mind this paradoxical position, which means that the Reformers and Catholics could, without contradiction, claim to Augustine in controversy about the respective roles of grace and free will in the work of salvation.
The development Scholastic
The Scholastic has significantly re-elaborated the concept coined by St. Augustine, based on Aristotle. The Greeks were unaware of free will, not the concept of will but rather of a voluntary act, studied in the third book of the Nicomachean Ethics.
In this book, Aristotle defines the voluntary union of two faculties: the spontaneity of desire (to do by oneself), which is the opposite of coercion, and the intentionality of knowledge (act on a cause and knowing the cause), which otherwise is ignorance. So I act voluntarily when:
- a / I act spontaneously (I find then the principle of my actions within myself, unlike the individual who is bound hand and feet taken by the kidnappers), and
- b / I act, knowing what I do (unlike the one that administers a poison to a patient in an honest and administering a remedy, because the pharmacist has switched the labels).
The voluntary and requires the union of spontaneity and intentionality: it is the condition of the responsibility of the individual morality (I can not be held responsible for having left my country when I was kidnapped by aggressors which I found it physically impossible to escape, or when I accidentally crossed a border that was not clearly marked, having had the intention to remain in the country). These Aristotelian analysis were fundamental for the development of the scholastic concept of free will. Christian theologians retain Aristotle's notion of free will as involving the (spontaneous) and the reason (intent), and as the basis of individual responsibility to moral laws, criminal and divine.
Scholasticism traditionally defined as the liberum arbitrium "facultas voluntatis and rations" (faculty of will and reason: cf. St. Thomas Aquinas ( Thomas Aquinas ), Summa Theologica I, q. 82, a.2, obj. 2). This expression is correct if it refers to the collaboration of these two faculties in the genesis of the free act, but wrong in a more technical meaning. Strictly speaking, free will is the power of the will (ibid., q. 83, a. 3); best, it is the will itself as the will makes choices. Free will, in essence, is nothing but the will in the disposal of herself; want is to decide freely, so it be free. The free act addresses the following scheme: will the inclination to be a good (appetitive), which is the end of the action , the reason they desire to deliberate on ways to achieve this property (deliberation), but it belongs to her to choose the means which it deems most appropriate (electio in Latin, which means choice) to achieve this end, to move the body to implement these means (the action itself ), and enjoy the property obtained ( fruition ). So the will (only reason) plays the leading role and she does manage to nothing without the help of reason. In this scheme of action, free will is particularly apparent in the choice, as Thomas Aquinas defined as "actus proprius" (the act or the eminent own act) of liberum arbitrium.
Thomas Aquinas intends to prove the reality of free will in two ways.
- The first is the moral proof, corollary of the moral argument anti-fatalist (see article fatalism ). Man is held morally responsible for his actions, yet this would be impossible if he were not endowed with freedom. The doctrine that denies free will is fundamentally immoral as it is supposed to destroy the very principle of accountability. (That is to say the power of the will to follow its goals, rational deliberation concerning only the choice of medium)
Man possesses free will, or so the advice, exhortations, precepts, prohibitions, rewards and punishments would be in vain (Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica I, q. 83, a. 1, resp. ).
- The second argument Thomist in favor of free will is the study of human action, which differs movements physical (stone necessarily falls down) and actions of animals (animals act according to an instinctive decision, which is not free: the instinct of the wolf grows necessarily follow the sheep). Only man acts from a free trial, which "is not the result of a natural instinct to cover a particular action, but an approximation of data made by the due (...) Accordingly, it is necessary that man has free will, by the very fact that it is endowed with reason "(ibid.). To choose is always determined by the intelligence, between two or more possible that the possibility is not raised by the act of one reason: so it be free.
Reviews
The concept of free will was the subject of three categories of critical theological one (assigned to man a free will, does not deny or at least minimize the role of divine grace in The work of salvation?), the other philosophical (free will not return it not to deny the influence of the causes or motives that determine our choices and actions?), and the final order or Psychoanalytic (the free will is possible only if one is able to dominate his unconscious) or what we call the humanities. The first criticism is motivated by the "predestinationists": it leads to quarrels about predestination characteristics of the Reformation. The second is motivated by the "necessitarianism" (but in a more complex the "rationalism"), fatalism and determinism.
Critical sociological determinism
In sociology, many of coercion (those of Durkheim) oppose the idea of free will. They are of several kinds:
- Legal Coercion: indeed, we are pushed (put) by the law in not wanting to do things, steal, kill ...
- Social Coercion is the practice of certain actions can push individuals with whom one is bound to punish us or even to exclude us from the group. This is what happens when you betray someone for example, was reprimanded.
- Coercion "geography" can not borrow our way highways, or drive a car where there are no roads.
- Coercion of other types: If a person stands up to applaud, it will tend to rise as we ...
Criticism theological controversy on predestination
Free will is one of two possible responses to the question of salvation ( ) as developed by the theologians of the Renaissance. The other answer is predestination in Martin Luther or double predestination in Calvin theologian who opposed the free defended the thesis of the servile will.
More broadly, the question of free will attempt to situate the role of human will in the conduct of a good life (which can lead to salvation) face a God conceived as omnipotent. In this way, the question of free will through the 3 monotheistic religions and the answers each gives merit consideration.
With humanism , Erasmus and Luther share a love of reading and commentary on the Bible with the rejection of the gloss scholasticism. Luther is a "hardliner" while Erasmus is a moderator. Luther hopes to have the support of Erasmus, whose moral authority is so significant in its lawsuit against ecclesiastical authority. But the two men disagree on the concept of free will. Erasmus supports free will, that is to say the man's responsibility before God for his actions. Instead, relying in particular on the doctrine of original sin, the Augustinian monk Luther defends predestination, that is to say, the slave-will and justification by faith, so dear to Paul of Tarsus. So Erasmus and Luther lose all restraint in their polemic. While brother Martin in 1519 said he was "convinced admirer" of Erasmus, he will come to characterize it as "venomous polemic" and "pig of Epicurus , "* a writer" ridiculous, giddy, sacrilege , talkative, sophist, ignorant. "
(*) Epicurean philosopher hedonist is shown followed by a pig by his followers. This animal, in the biblical influence will be taken amiss.
Criticism philosophical problem of freedom of indifference
The philosophical critique of free will is the role of reasons (reasons to choose) in determining the choice and, therefore, action. Am I really free to choose between two objects (and two ends), one that represents a great good, and the other, less well? One of two things.
- Either I choose the greater good: can we then say that my act is free? Is it not rather determined by the motives, or more precisely, by the prevalence of a pattern on the other?
- Either I choose the lesser good, but then how absurd an act as could be free? And if I selected to prove that I'm free, it returns to the first scenario: the desire to establish the reality of my freedom has proved a more decisive reason that the subject preferred. In either case, I would not be free.
To overcome this problem, the doctrine of the second scholastic invented the concept of freedom of indifference. Is called an individual to choose between two identical properties, and therefore indifferent. There is an equivalence of reasons: nothing determines it to prefer one to another. But the will feels it is endowed with spontaneity even in this case, it can be determined to choose from. The act does not then find its explanation in the reasons, nor consequently in the objects, but the subject himself as he is gifted with an ability to act arbitrarily. The concept of freedom of indifference would establish, with the spontaneity of the will, the reality of free will. By extension, freedom of indifference applies to cases where there is no equivalence of reasons: I can very well prefer a lesser good to a greater good, proving that I am the only subject or only because of my actions.
Philosophy rationalist
If Thomism attributes the freewill to Adam in the Garden of Eden, mainly to attribute the origin of evil with the responsibility of the original sin , other philosophers see things from a different perspective, as it situates his reflection before the revolution Cartesian or after. According to Maimonides :
- the knowledge of good and evil is different from the science of right and wrong Maimonides "By reason, man distinguishes right from wrong and this takes place in all things intelligible"
- Guide of the Perplexed, Part 1, chap. 2, Verdier
The good and the bad, the beautiful and ugly are not clear from the intelligible, rational, but of opinion, probable.
As Adam had fully and completely aware of all things known and intelligible, there was in him no right to opinions that s'appliqut likely and even he did not understand them (ibid.). Good and evil did not exist, existed only things understandable and necessary. The loss of this perfect knowledge of all things intelligible which benefit him merging with God made Adam to get a new state, a different world:
- things are known to him otherwise than by reason,
- how he knows is of the opinion contingent that he did: they are beautiful or ugly, good or bad.
For Spinoza, free will is a complete illusion is that man is conscious of his actions but not the causes which impel them to act. Indeed, man is not an "empire within an empire" but part of the infinite substance that is called God or nature.
However, man has much freedom to the extent that he understands with his reason why he acts. Is free who knows he has no free will and acts by the sole necessity of his nature, without being constrained by external causes that cause the passions in him.
"If men were born free, and until they are free, they form no conception of good and evil How to rest today the question of free will?From the Philosophy of Science
Today, modern physics eliminates the knowledge of causes without quantum indeterminacy of the evidence of a random key. Knowledge of causes, even if limited to efficient causes disappears explanations for the benefit of predictive mathematical laws because probabilistic and calculable. .
"Belief in the cause and effect is the superstition "- Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus , 5.1361, Gallimard, Ludwig Wittgenstein
Although, to date, this statement is generalized as the hard sciences where the accidental means which acts not only unjust but also efficient or final lawless calculable probability. The quantum indeterminacy is taken into account the limits of knowledge: that of an impassable limit in practice as in theory regarding the reality in itself. Contrary to reality in itself Kant , this vagueness does not relieve the space non-phenomenal freedom: the probabilistic laws apply in observable phenomena. With regard to the unobservable is the equation of Schrdinger who realizes.
It is generally believed that belief in free will basis implies an ethic of responsibility. Psychoanalysis considers that most of our actions depend more unconscious than our conscious will Free will and assuming Everett
In cases where the assumption of Everett would be based - the assumption that exist parallel universes , which is not established - all possible futures (or more accurately a number of possible futures with the Planck constant in denominator ) every moment of every place in the universe actually occur: there is no random quantum, if a particle seems to randomly choose between two directions, actually there is a universe in which the particle is left and another in which it is right.
Although it is impossible to rule on the validity of the hypothesis of Everett, one can look at as a thought experiment on what terms it would affect the question of free will if it was true: insofar as all possible futures (possible under the laws of quantum physics, which does not mean all future imaginable) occur and where each observer in one of these parallel universes improperly named like being the only paradoxes related to free will are raised by denying the uniqueness of the observer in the future (but not present in his past, hence the asymmetry of these two areas of time). Such a denial is not unique to this thesis and is found in some contemporary philosophers, including Daniel Dennett ( Consciousness Explained ). See David Deutsch.
The theorem of Free Will
Recently (2006) both mathematicians John Conway and Simon Kochen showed a theorem called "free will theorem" Bibliography
- Didier Erasme , Essay on Free Will, 1524 ;
- Martin Luther , De servo arbitrio (Du serf referee), 1525 ;
- Denis Diderot , Jacques the fatalist;
- George L. Fonsegrive, Essay on the free (available at Gallica );
- Arthur Schopenhauer , Essays on the free (available at Gallica ).
- Muhm, Myriam: Abolito it libero arbitrio - Colloquio con Wolf Singer, in: L'Espresso, 19.08.2004 http://www.larchivio.org/xoom/myriam-singer.htm
- Jean-Marc Rouvire , Adam or innocence in person ", 2009, Ed L'Harmattan, See http://www.implications-philosophiques.org/.
Related articles
- indeterminism
- Freedom ;
- Determinism , Fatalism , and Destiny ;
- Divine command theory
- Jrgen Habermas ;
- on the relationship of grace and free will, see Jacobus Arminius.
External Links
- Theorem of free descriptions of this theorem and its consequences on quantum physics and philosophy.
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