-Nietzsche, On Truth and Lies in the Extra-moral Sense
Introduction
The common conception of our Plus Ultra era (for let us remember that post modernity is far gone) in regards to freewill is that it exists, that we posses it merely for being humans. But neuroscience, evolutionary theories and intransigent genes prove more and more that we are predetermined to act a certain way. If things are predetermined to happen, where is freedom? And more importantly, where is moral responsibility? For, how can we cast someone into a dark cell for committing a crime when he or she did not choose to commit it? If this is true, there is an imminent danger of science undermining the very foundations of the legal system. Have we then misplaced freedom? Does freedom exists within the concept of mind, of soul, of body?
It is truly amazing that the issue of freewill has been running around the minds, discussions and works of philosophers for so long, wandering in every possible direction. To such an extent, that even this very statement that I am making, regarding the futility of the argument, has already been explored. The results for the frenzied argument are no less unsatisfactory than the initial question; and, from the Pre-Socratics to recent evolutionary philosophers like Daniel Dennett, we find a limited spectrum ranging from white to black with shades of broken gray that awkwardly try and fail to bring Determinism and Freewill into the same realm. May this not be confused at all with a critique to the general argument, for great ideas have been drawn from these contradictions; and it has indubitably been a constant display of the beautiful plumage of the Bird of Minerva. The many philosophers that fall in the ample 2,500 year spam of this dilemma have had much to amount to the grand mountain of the questioned Freewill, and not only this, but to the grander mountain of human intellect. Nevertheless, there are a few thinkers that have, probably due to their extravagances, called my attention more than others. There are a few that have marked the argument is such a way that, although it remains as unsolved as always, it can never be treated in the same way.
The Greeks played one of the most important roles in this issue, given that they started theorizing on it. For this reason we must be very aware and make a necessary reverence to them before we continue to think about freewill. It is precisely from them that the posterior philosophers drew their fundamental ideas. I would like to examine closely some later systems that try to make sense of this ambiguous part of man. Although many of the systems that the different philosophers have developed work within themselves, they seem to be in a taut relationship with the actual logic that involves the concepts of pure determinism and libertarianism; and compatibilism on the other hand only seems possible when compromising essential parts of both theories, which is not surprising, but it is somehow unsatisfactory to our infinite thirst for definite answers.
Saint Augustine
Augustine of Hippo, man of great curiosity, first tries to explain the source of evil. He discusses whether evil is inherent to man or it is learned and then how can we tell whether or not an act is evil. He finds a common element to all evil acts and describes it as lust. “Perhaps then lust (libido) is the evil element in adultery. As long as you look for evil in the overt act itself, which can be seen, you are in difficulty.” He notes that the law is nothing to be guided by, given that many just men have been unjustly punished by the law for their good deeds, but there is an eternal law that is just and that cannot be avoided. He proceeds to explain how knowledge can be the answer for this issue, differentiating it from experience, for experience cannot always be good. We see here how much of the fundamental ideas are taken from classical philosophy, particularly from Plato, who took this concept of Knowledge, paramount and capitalized, from Socrates. Saint Augustine says that the way to reach this knowledge and wisdom is reason, which we need in order to differentiate the good from the evil and to overcome temptation of doing evil, “When reason is master of these emotions (motus animae), a man may be said to be well ordered (ordinates).”
The reason that we might even need all this wisdom is that freedom for Augustine is not the ability to choose, but actually choosing the good over the evil. He will refer to it as good will, “A will by which we seek to live rightly and honorably and to come to the highest wisdom.” He thinks that if one lusts after temporal goods or evil, one is slave to them and therefore not free, “… those who serve temporal law cannot be free of the eternal law from which, we said, are derived all the things that are just or justly changed; and those who abide by the eternal law through good will do not need temporal law.” For Saint Augustine freedom can exist regardless of the capacity of exercising an action, for true freedom is the one of the spirit and the mind, rather than the one of the body.
Leibniz
It is of key importance, when trying to understand Leibniz’s system regarding freedom, to proceed step by step in the attempt to internalize all his reasoning. It is also very important to keep in mind that he was a mathematician and a Christian in the seventeenth century, not as to think condescendingly about some preconceptions of these denominations that have been wiped out the merciless hand of science, but rather to keep in mind a certain idea of infinity and God as a more plausible concept. I would also dare to add the recognition that even a rationalist at the time was much more metaphysical than what the common person is today, as the common person then seems to have been a lot more superstitious than the superstitious person of today. Leibniz’s philosophy in his essays On Freedom and Possibility and On Freedom attempts to create a system in which an all-knowing God and the individual freewill can coexist.
“All things in God are spontaneous”
First he defines the most basic concepts that we need for freewill to be possible, “A volition (voluntas) is an endeavor (conatus) for acting of which we are conscious.” If this exists, then we have the action, “A deed necessarily follows from a volition and the ability (to do it) (facultas).” With this concept of volition, we can understand what will become one of the most important elements of his reasoning: the idea of equals and contradictions, “There is no volition where all of the conditions requisite for both willing and being unwilling (to do something) are equal. Rather there is indifference, that is, even if all of the conditions requisite for acting are assumed, an action can be prevented if the contrary conditions obtain.” This particular passage of On Freedom and Possibility begins to explain the causality of things, and begins to aim towards the concept of unexecuted choice and possibility.
In Leibniz’s world there are two kinds of truths, two principles, “… one, the principle of necessary things, that whatever implies a contradiction is false, and the other, the principle of contingent things, that whatever is more perfect of has more reason is true.” This is essential to understand his theory, since it is within the concept of contingency that he will create space for freewill.
“… I hold a notion of possibility and necessity according to which there are some things that are
possible, but yet not necessary, and which do not really exist. From this it follows that a reason that always forces a free mind to choose one thing over another (whether that reason derives from the perfection of a thing, as it does in God, or from our imperfection) does not eliminate our freedom.” The fact that there is a definite causality for every action, according to Leibniz, does not mean that freedom is sacrificed. Freedom, for him, relies in the possibility alone; in the fact that the contrary of a contingent truth is not contradictory, hence it is not impossible.
Leibniz proceeds to explain God nature and will. God is good and all-knowing, so he must choose the best series of possibilities, “… for only the most perfect exists.” And God produces because he wills to do so, “… you might ask whether God wills by necessity or whether he wills freely, that is, because of his nature of because of his will. I respond that God, of course, cannot will voluntarily, otherwise there would be a will for willing on to infinity. Rather, we must say that God wills the best through his nature.” So, God wills because it is in his nature to will, and in his good nature is also to will for the best possible world to exist.
This might sound very deterministic, because God is willing a series of infinite possibilities and he knows what is to come, but Leibniz says that, “… things remain possible, even if God does not choose them.” And they do because they are contingent, because their opposite does no imply a contradiction. He continues to define what exactly is for him this possibility that yields to freedom, “a possible thing is something with some essence or reality, that is, something that can distinctly be understood. For example, a pentagon would remain possible even if we were to imagine that no exact pentagon ever was or would be in nature.” This makes perfect sense, yet it somehow seems to be lacking the satisfaction of a solved issue, and I think that has a lot to do with the hubris mindset of the contemporary man, but that is another argument.
Leibniz then goes into a commentary on the question itself. “… we can eliminate difficulties concerning the foreknowledge of future contingents.” This is something that the philosopher cannot do. “… God, who foresees the future reasons why some things should exist rather than others, foresees them in their causes with certain knowledge. And indeed, he has certain knowledge of them and formulates propositions that are necessary, given that the state of the world has, once and for all, been settled, that is, given the harmony of things.” The essay On Freedom and Possibility ends with these thoughts and a brief summary of contingent, necessary truths, and possibility. But Leibniz begins to begins to develop an argument that, although it does not drift away from rationalism, enters into a more abstract ground. An explanation that deals with the concept of infinite, timelessness and a God that seems almost as a Russian doll in containing all things.
“I saw that it is common to every true affirmative proposition, universal and particular, necessary or contingent, that the predicate is in the subject, that is, that the notion of the predicate is involved somehow in the notion of the subject. And this is the source (principium) of infallibility in every sort of truth for that being who knows everything a priori. “
But how is it that the action can always be contained in the executioner? How is it that there is a possibility for it to never be executed? These questions would point towards a contradiction, but Leibniz finds his answers, curiously enough, in the mystical concept of Infinity, for although infinity is not necessarily a mystical concept, he speaks of a sort of succession of infinities, an Oriental interconnection of things and beings, with ourselves and with God. “… all creatures have impressed upon them a certain mark (character) of divine infinity, and that this is the source of many wonderful things which amaze the human mind.” “Indeed, there is no portion of matter so tiny that it does not contain a sort of world of creatures infinite in number, and there is no individual created substance so imperfect that it does not act on all others an is not acted upon by all others, so substance so imperfect that does not contain the entire universe, and whatever it is, was, or will be, in its complete notion (as it exists in the divine mind), nor is there any truth of fact or any truth of fact or any truth concerning individual things that does not depend upon the series of infinite reasons; whatever is in this series can be seen by God alone. This is also the reason why God alone knows contingent truths a priori and sees their infallibility in a way other than through experience.”
Leibniz’s attempt on a compatibilism between Determinism and Freewill works within itself but with certain limitations. For several reasons it seems contradictory at times and unsatisfactory at others. It seems very deterministic from the point of view of causality, and because of his concept of a God that is all-knowing. Yet it is very important to understand what he says in regards to God knowing the world as He knows himself. Not everything is predicted, but the causes are understood. He tries to open space for the existence of Freewill by saying that there are an infinite number of possible worlds, which, although they don’t actually exist, they are not necessarily a contradiction to the world that actually exists. This is fascinating, yet it seems to be unsatisfactory to the reason, given our obsessive hunger for factuality.
Kant
Although Immanuel Kant is considered a Rationalist and tries to separate himself completely from the intangibility of metaphysics and the concept of God, still we can see in his thought (although this might just be the mere product of the immanent limitations of the time) a very strong religious influence. He proposes a system that attempts to be universal and absolute, a moral system where good is indispensable and pleasure secondary. In order to find a common denominator for Good, Kant defines reason as an objective and intrinsic thing within the human mind that can judge and choose. He says that Morality cannot be based on circumstantial things nor on the object, but on a more universal truth and he identifies this inherent human element as Reason, which will provide us with the possibility of following Good Will.
Good will is beyond any other attribute that a person can have for, contrary to all other attributes, it cannot have a negative effect. “It is impossible to conceive anything at all in the world, or even out of it, which can be taken as good without qualification, except a good will.” This being the paramount element of his system and with Reason being inherent to the human mind, he tries to create a moral system that stands yonder from all human desires and tangibility. Kant says that we always act according to maxims, and this are divided into the hypothetical imperative and the categorical imperative, which will serve almost as tools for verifying and classifying actions.
First it must be understood the differentiation that Kant makes in regards to the good will and the rest of human aspects, “Intelligence, wit, judgment, and any other talents of the mind we may care to name, or courage, resolution, and constancy of purpose, as qualities of temperament, are without doubt god and desirable in many respects; but they can also be extremely bad and hurtful when the will is not good which has to make use of these gifts of nature, and which for this reason has the term ‘character’ applied to its peculiar quality.” He continues to explain why good will is different from all the other good things within humans, “A good will is not good because of what it effects or accomplishes – because of its fitness for attaining some proposed end: it is good through its willing alone – that is, good in itself.” With these arguments he immediately rules out the golden rule or a Utilitarian concept in order to identify this good. He says that a good act is only good or morally worthy as long as it is done for the good itself, rather than with any sort of objective or for a personal advantage. He also says that there is no way that a person can have the certainty that their acts are morally worthy, therefore they will never know if they are or not moral beings. Although this idea sound blunt and does not satisfy the human pleasure in the least, it is a extremely religious concept, where the moral being (the saint) will never accept that he is a good person but will state the contrary with conviction (though this in the end will bring him more peace). He thinks that more important than to be happy is to be worthy of being happy.
In the way that Kant views the human mind there is a space to choose. Reason is the only implicit thing on all human beings, and we have will, but we have circumstances, passions and desires influencing our decisions. For Kant there is a space where reason absorbs all the information and chooses, rather than deterministic view that suggest that there must be a certain outcome according to the circumstances.
The way that Kant proposes so we might know how to choose the good over the evil is to be aware that we function through maxims. He says that always, before our actions are executed, we create a maxim in our mind that justifies the action that we are about to exercise. After we do this we must filter our idea through the system of the categorical imperative. This consists of thinking of that maxim as a universal law, if this does not create a contradiction it works. “I ought never to act except in such a way that I can also will that my maxim should become a universal law.” Most things are hypothetical imperatives, actions that have to do with the goal or the circumstances, but the categorical imperative serves as one of Kant’s axels in his theory. His most accurate example of a categorical imperative is the example of lying. Here he explains that if we decide to tell a lie under a determined circumstance, we should create a maxim which allows us to lie under certain circumstances. This would create a logical contradiction, given that credibility would be completely shattered and the essential reason for communicating, which is conveying something that will be believed, would be sacrificed. Through this we can see how Kant attempts to provide us a moral system that is beyond its plausibility, but relies solely on the good itself. And it is very hard to conceive, but for Kant this is irrelevant, given that he is only concern with how things should be, rather than how they are.
Nietzsche
Nietzsche escapes denominations. He recognizes the futility of the whole argument, and dribbles its redundance. He inserts a small sliver in philosophy that will make us forever doubt the plausibility of any argument. First, as he usually does, he puts into perspective the whole discussion, “It is certainly not the least charm of a theory that it is refutable; it is precisely thereby that it attracts subtler minds. It seems that the hundred-times-refuted theory of a ‘freewill’ owes its persistence to this charm alone; again and again someone comes along who feels he is strong enough to refute it.” Subsequently he recognizes, therefore escapes, or at least consciously falls into the common faults of the philosopher and his hubris notion of grandiosity, “Philosophers are accustomed to speak of the will as if it were the best-known thing in the world; (…) Schopenhauer only did what other philosophers are in the habit of doing –he adopted a popular prejudice and exaggerated it. Willing seems to me to be above all something complicated, something that is a unit only as a word– and it is precisely in this one word that the popular prejudice lurks, which has defeated the always inadequate caution of philosophers. So let us for once be more cautious, let us be ‘unphilosophical’…”
He recurs to grammar and language in search of explanations, which is a brilliant move, given that all our communication and our understanding of the world is being conveyed through language. In fact, it is quite surprising that other philosophers can even intend to approach truth from any other angle other than linguistics. He says that the whole issue of freewill is ridiculous, “The ‘unfree will’ is mythology; in real life it is only a matter of strong and weak wills.” He says that language is an absolutely arbitrary method and that it is impossible to reach any sort of absolute truth through it; it is amazing enough that we have an inclination to search for it.
Just as there are weak and strong animals in the vast animal kingdom, which we cannot escape, there are weak and strong humans. He proceeds to explain this with the example of the lambs and the bird of prey, “There is nothing very odd about lambs disliking birds of prey, but this is no reason for holding it against large birds of prey that they carry off lambs.” He says that lambs, or the weak, proceed to invent a morality, so as to make the strong feel guilty for their doing. He views the world as ruled by the forces of survival, morality just as an effort for preservation, which is very far from what morality claims to be.
Unless one looks at the issue of freewill from a utilitarian or a strictly political point of view, and takes it as an issue of cooperation and a necessity as it is for Hobbes’ social contract, freewill inevitably remits to the idea of creation, of existence, of causa sui. Nietzsche said that, “The causa sui is the best self-contradiction that has been conceived so far, it is a sort of rape and perversion of logic; but the extravagant pride of man has managed to entangle itself profoundly and frightfully with this nonsense.” If fact, he proceeds to say that there is no such thing as a thing in itself, which is the necessary agent to speak of freewill. He says that essence is nothing but what is left after we peel off all the layers from an onion: inconsolable tears.
Subjective Conclusions
The particular relevance of Saint Augustine, Leibniz, Kant and Nietzsche is very subjective and can be question and changed. All these contributions are rather conceptual, for this they might be condemned and discarded, or overlooked by science. The condemnations of the previous ideas might be a grave mistake. The Plus Ultra man would condemn them for lacking proof, for lacking veracity and factuality, but that would be denying the fact that the human mind has shown all through history an endless inclination towards intangibility.
Augustine redefines freedom completely, taking it to a higher level, detaching it from the body. This idea is a bit extravagant for us, but since we are and perceive everything through our mind, it is rather fair to think of freedom as a faculty of the mind and perception, rather than the mere ability to exercise and action.
Leibniz finds freedom in the concept of possibility, which is no less fascinating, for it gives the necessary practical value to imagination. Not only that, but it is, in a conceptual way, a sort of ancestor of quantum physics.
Kant describes morality as an unreachable podium, but he is not concerned with what 'is', but with what 'ought' to be. And why is it that we care about what 'is' other than vainglory?
Nietzsche begins by questioning everything, including language itself. This from a certain point of view might seem nihilistic and terrifying, but if we are just able to accept fiction as a much more tangible concept; if we are able to recognize that fiction might have more truth than factuality, it might be the most honest sagacity and quite liberating.
It might be my very personal mental circumcision, or a metaphysical obsession, but the conceptual ideas that these philosophers pose seem to be much more satisfactory than a Utilitarian or political solution, where we completely deny the question of freewill, run from it in fear, and decide to implement punishment just for practical purposes. Not that I don’t think some of the more modern ideas are very interesting, in fact I recommend further reading of philosophers such as Galen Strawson and Daniel Dennett. But I do want to note that the abysmal differences that have been drawn between fiction, philosophy, law and science are excessive and irrational. In fact, if we dig deep enough, all those disciplines have more kinship than what it might seem at first. Above all, due to our undeniable nature of subjective creatures, due to our different and meager perceptions, fiction is more part of our truths than what we might think at first. And every morning, as we wake up and give a brief glance to our betraying mirror, stealthy fiction is already there, holding hands with our perception, telling us that there is ultimate truth in that reflection.
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Enrique Pallares H.
Brooklyn, July 2010
The Lion Beaten By The Man
