Describe a time in your life when you felt truly free.
I finished the section on free will today. Last week I convinced my students (some anyway) that free will is an illusion because humans cannot rise above the laws of nature-- as physical beings, we are subject to cause and effect. Really the only explanation of human freedom comes from religious doctrine. Some of my students became rather dejected over this prospect. If we're not free, what's the point?
Today I turned it around on them. Human freedom (according to Frankfurt's compatibilism) isn't contrary to the laws of nature. Freedom is simply part of how we understand ourselves as persons. Self-identification sets the conditions for freedom, and in turn explains what makes life meaningful. In other words, freedom comes from living according to the aspirations with which we most identify. If I think of myself as an honest person, I will be free insofar as my actions are honest--I'm living as I most want to live, rather than letting fleeting desires rule my choices.
On this view, there are two kinds of desire: those concerned with basic gratification and those closer to our heart. The integrated self manages to bring these in to alignment and thus takes control, actualizing her deepest, most sacred desires for happiness.
It is always interesting to hear what they come up with--graduating high school, getting a college education, taking a break from work, refraining from technology on Sabbath, swimming in the ocean.
Tonight, however, I'm puzzling over the examples that don't fit Frankfurt's example. Beatrice described floating on the water, forgetting about the rest of the world. This does sound like freedom. It also doesn't have much to do with how she (or I) think of myself as a person. Floating in the sea has little to do with who I want to be but it has a lot to do with what makes life worth living.
I'm guess I'm starting to buy the notion that I am not my desires, simple or aspirational. Freedom might be possible without reference to identity or self-control.
I'm still puzzling.
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