free-will as intelligible and as obscure. doing something freely makes sense as opposed to being coerced, but doing something freely in contrast to simply willing is obscure, elaborate and evaluate
ChatGPT said:
This is a rich philosophical topic involving the conceptual clarity and difficulties around free will. Your statement hinges on two contrasting senses:
- Free action as intelligible: We clearly understand what it means to act freely in contrast to being coerced or forced.
- Free action as obscure: It’s much harder to grasp what it means to act freely in contrast to simply willing something—without outside interference.
Let’s unpack both and evaluate the tension between the intelligibility and obscurity.
1. Free Will as Intelligible: Freedom from Coercion
This is the everyday, pragmatic sense of free will. We say someone acted freely if:
- They weren’t under duress or threat.
- They weren’t manipulated or deceived.
- They had the ability to choose otherwise, in practice.
Example: If I choose chocolate ice cream at the store without anyone forcing me or limiting my choices, I acted freely.
This kind of freedom is sometimes called negative liberty or freedom of action, and it’s widely accepted as clear and useful. It underpins legal and moral responsibility. If someone coerces you, we lessen or remove your responsibility. So in this context, free will is perfectly intelligible.
2. Free Will as Obscure: Freedom vs. Merely Willing
Here’s where things get philosophically difficult. Suppose you act without coercion—but still, is your choice really free if it simply arises from who you are, your desires, or your mental state?
The question becomes:
Is “willing” something (i.e., desiring, deciding, choosing) enough for that action to count as free?
Here, freedom is challenged by:
- Determinism: If your will is determined by prior causes (genes, upbringing, brain chemistry), are you really free?
- Randomness: If your will is not determined but random, are you in control?
- Ownership: If your will stems from unconscious desires or manipulation, do you will it, or is it just happening through you?
So, the contrast is not just between freedom vs. coercion, but between:
Freedom vs. causal necessity (e.g., determinism)
Freedom vs. arbitrariness (e.g., randomness)
This is why philosophers like Kant, Sartre, Frankfurt, and Dennett have tried to unpack what it means to be authentically free or responsible.
Evaluation
- The practical concept of free will (freedom from coercion) is intuitive and useful. It forms the basis of ethics, law, and everyday life.
- The metaphysical concept of free will (freedom from causality or even your own psychology) is obscure and possibly incoherent. How can we be the “originators” of our will without falling into randomness or determinism?
Some responses to this tension include:
- Compatibilism (e.g., Daniel Dennett, David Hume):
- Free will is compatible with determinism.
- What matters is that your action reflects who you are and that it wasn’t externally constrained.
- Libertarianism (e.g., Robert Kane):
- Free will requires genuine indeterminacy.
- We need self-forming actions—decisions that define us and are not fully determined.
- Hard Determinism / Skepticism (e.g., Galen Strawson, Derk Pereboom):
- Free will, in any deep sense, is an illusion.
- We can still talk about responsibility in pragmatic ways, but metaphysical freedom is a myth.
Conclusion
The idea of doing something freely as opposed to being coerced is straightforward and foundational in social practice—it’s intelligible.
But the deeper claim—doing something freely in contrast to merely willing it—opens the door to profound metaphysical obscurities about causation, agency, and selfhood.
This tension is at the heart of the philosophical debate on free will. And whether one finds compatibilism satisfying or insists on a deeper kind of freedom depends on what kind of freedom we care about—practical, moral, or metaphysical.
Would you like a summary in bullet points or a diagram showing how these views relate?