Freedom and Its Human Face

– Timothy o’Connor helpfully distinguishes between the ‘capacity to choose’ and ‘freedom’ – the former is necessary but not sufficient for an account of free will. The latter, interestingly enough, can be diminished without the former being so.

– Crucial in o’Connor’s account of free will are reasons – reasons that are acted on (desires, belief, what have you) and reasons that are acted for (goals).  Reasons are themselves non-causal, since o ‘Connor is defending agent causation, but they are causally influential. To use his terminology, reasons structure the agent-causal capacity.

– Self-knowledge plays a significant role here – if a person is unaware of the factors and reasons which motivate his action, then he has a lesser degree of freedom than someone who has a greater knowledge of the factors motivating his action – the more self-aware person will be able to reflect on his motivating factors and actions

– Another crucial aspect for his account of freedom is the integrity of self-formation. Citing Robert Grosseteste’s angelic thought experiment (where an angel is formed for an instant with a full set of memories and psychological dispositions- which he doesn’t actually have, having only existed for an instant – and then makes a decision or chooses to act) o’Connor concludes that a person’s history (his/her full set of psychological dispositions, previous choices, character, etc) is a source of freedom.

– This conclusion is reached by noting that in the above thought experiment, the instant-existing angel merely has his ‘history’ as a ‘given’, which as such determines how he will act/choose – this ‘given’ is more or less the factors that shape our choices. If one has a real history, then one also has a ‘given’, but this ‘given’, as we grow and choose and interact with our world and are exposed to all kinds of rich new horizons, is shaped in such a way as to reflect more of our own action. Thus, our ‘given’ becomes becomes more of our own creation, and through our actions in the world our freedom grows.

‘We come into the world with powerful tendencies that are refined by the particular circumstances in which we develop. All of these facts are for us merely ‘given.’ They determine which choices we have to make and which options we will consider (and how seriously) as we arrive at a more reflective age. However, presuming that we are fortunate enough not to be
impacted by traumatic events that will forever limit what is psychologically possible for us, and, on the positive side, that we are exposed to a suitably rich form of horizon-expanding opportunities, the structure of our choices increasingly
reflect our own prior choices. In this way, our freedom grows over time.’ – (Timothy o’Connor, ‘Freedom With a Human Face‘)

– Simplifying that out a bit: as a person grows and chooses they shape some of the factors that shape their choice. All other things being equal, this effectively grows our freedom since we shape our ‘given’ by our own choices. Perhaps an argument can be extracted:

If persons have a histories, they are free

Persons have histories

Therefore, they are free

– While not very convincing, this may serve to show the point being driven towards.