![]() Irreducible Freedom: Metaphysical Freedom vs. Individual FreedomA Story by Budimir Zdravkovic![]() Don't ask for references, I am not writing in a professional journal of philosophy. If I was I would not be posting the article here.![]() The individual experiences freedom and believes that his
choices and his actions are his own. He may even be an educated individual and
he might acknowledge that he is composed of living tissue, cells and nerves
which fire and determine his actions. But he still cannot help but feel
responsible for his actions. He felt guilty when he stole his friend’s toy car
in the 1st grade, he experiences that same sense of guilt to this
day even though he consciously knows that he cannot help his own actions if they
are naturally determined. So why does he feel guilty if he cannot help his own
actions? Hard determinists would argue that he should not feel guilty because
his actions are determined and he cannot change them. He is relieved of any
responsibility to change them according to the hard determinist, while the
libertarians would say that the individual could have potentially done
otherwise because he is a free agent. He should feel responsibility and guilt
according to the libertarians. The compatibalists on the other hand believe that the person
could not have done otherwise but he is still free because he is acting in accordance
with his personal motivation. Both approaches, compatibalism and
libertarianism, attempt to provide a philosophical explanation and definition
of free will. However both approaches fail to address the question of how choice
is determined or how actions are determined by the agent. The compatibilist
approach defines freedom as the freedom to act, but the approach does not go
into any further detail of how freedom naturally arises. The compatibilist
approach cannot explain why the individual might feel responsible for his
actions, only that the individual is free as long as he acts in accordance with
his motivation. The libertarian approach is the metaphysical approach which
states that freedom is incompatible with determinism. If there is freedom there
must be alternative possibilities otherwise our actions are determined, and if
there are alternative possibilities in freedom then freedom is incompatible
with determinism. Although libertarianism sets the conditions which are
sufficient for freedom it gives a very mystical and unnatural explanation for
freedom. What determines choice and actions? Where do we break the chain of
determinism? These questions are baffling and one cannot answered them and give
a natural account of how freedom arises. Yet we still experience freedom, our
experiences as individuals lead us to believe that we are free. So these
philosophical arguments about the nature of freedom are either insufficient (as
in the comaptibalist argument) or puzzling (as in the libertarian argument).
But these arguments do not demonstrate that metaphysical freedom and individual
freedom are irreducible. If they did demonstrate this irreducibility both
positions would become irrelevant to our personal experiences with freedom. In order to show this irreducibility we have
to ground freedom in our experience of freedom as opposed to our freedom to act
or the metaphysical nature of freedom. According to Descartes’ definition of
freedom, which corresponds to the metaphysical definition of freedom, we are
free agents as long as we can do otherwise when we must act under an identical
set of conditions. We can ask ourselves, if time machines existed would we be
able to go back in time and change our actions in the past? Would this satisfy
the metaphysical/Cartesian definition of freedom? The answer is no, it would not satisfy the Cartesian
definition of freedom because when we go back in time we still have memories of
that event and knowledge of our past consequences. This would certainly change
the conditions because our cognition and our perception is not the same. For
instance if I use a time machine to go back in time and decide to not write
these words I would be doing so with the memories and past experiences of when
I initially wrote these words. However when I initially wrote these words, I
did not have the same memories and experiences. But with minor modifications the
thought experiment does illustrate that metaphysical freedom and individual
freedom are irreducible. We can imagine the following scenario. Imagine that I could go back in time under the same set of
conditions as the initial ones where my experiences and memories of the past
were completely erased from my mind. If I indeed had free will I could act
otherwise or if I was indeed determined then I would not do otherwise. Either
way I would not know whether I acted otherwise. In order to experience doing
otherwise or taking an alternative action I would have to perceive such a
phenomenon because perception is necessary for experience. I would need to have
the perception of acting under the same set of conditions but doing otherwise
in order to experience the freedom which arises as a consequence of doing so. But one cannot perceive his own actions under an identical
set of conditions, because perception itself is one of these necessary
conditions which needs to be identical, yet perception changes. To perceive
identical conditions one must have first encountered these conditions
previously, but the previous encounter has altered the perception of the
individual in such a way that the individual is able to perceive an identical
set of conditions upon the second encounter. Being that perception is one of
these conditions which needs to be identical, one is never able to truly
perceive an identical set of conditions because with each encounter perception
is altered. On the other hand, if perception remains unaltered after the first
encounter as in the thought experiment above, the individual would not be able
to perceive the second encounter as identical because his perception remain unchanged.
He would experience his second encounter with these conditions in the exact
same way as he experienced the initial encounter. He would not have any
memories or experiences of the initial encounter and if he did take an alternative
action in the second encounter he would not know it and he would not be able to
perceive it as an alternative action. In
other words one cannot have the perception of taking an alternative action or
making an alternative choice under the same set of conditions. Therefore in my
example above I would not be able to experience my own freedom even if I had it
and I could do otherwise. Even if I could do otherwise or take an alternative
route in my history I would never know it or I would not be able to perceive
such a phenomenon because of the nature of perception and cognition. If we cannot know or perceive that we took alternative
actions, we cannot experience metaphysical freedom. This is why the debate
between the libertarians and compatibalists becomes irrelevant, and we could
even go further and say that the debate between free will and determinism is
also irrelevant. We cannot perceive alternative possibilities, we will never know if they truly exist and we
will never know if freedom is truly compatible or incompatible with
determinism. Even if alternative possibilities did exist, they would be
irrelevant to how we experience and perceive freedom. So what is this thing that we call freedom? I do not have
the answer unfortunately. We experience it at the individual level, we
experience being free and we know that certain things feel coercive. Getting
over a drug addiction is a major triumph of one’s individual freedom.
Overthrowing a dictatorial regime is an instance where we feel our actions have
led to greater individual freedom. All I
can say is that we experience individual freedom but it is not reducible to
metaphysical freedom. © 2013 Budimir ZdravkovicAuthor's Note
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Added on September 16, 2013 Last Updated on September 16, 2013 Author![]() Budimir ZdravkovicNYC/Jersey CityAboutI usually mean to say the opposite of what I say. My writing tailors to the bourgeois. more..Writing
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