Freedom of the will

Thomas holds a real free will, which he grounds in the intellect: because the will is moved by the good as reason presents it, and no finite good imposes itself on it absolutely, the human being deliberates and freely chooses among the means. But this freedom is not absolute: the will is necessarily borne toward the good in general, it does not choose itself out of nothing, and above all, without grace, it cannot orient itself toward its supernatural end. Hence a measured libertarian position, articulating the creature's freedom with divine motion rather than opposing them.

Summa Theologiae, Ia, q. 83; Ia-IIae, q. 109-114 (grace)

Democritus' determinism, in which atoms fall in parallel lines by an unbroken necessity, makes responsibility impossible and reduces man to a puppet: if all is settled in advance, to blame or to deliberate loses its sense. Epicurus answers with the clinamen, the slight, uncaused and unpredictable swerve by which an atom deviates from its fall at an undetermined moment: he thereby introduces a grain of indeterminacy into matter itself, at the root of compounds, from which an action can emerge that is not wholly the effect of antecedents. The aim is less metaphysical than practical: to save free will, for enslavement to the physicists' fate would be worse even than the fear of the gods.

Lucretius, On the Nature of Things, II, 251-293 (the swerve) · Letter to Menoeceus, 133-134 (better the myths than slavery to fate)

Against the rigorous fate of the Stoics, Epicurus introduces the clinamen, the spontaneous swerve of atoms that breaks the causal chain and makes room for freedom. It is better to follow the myths about the gods than to be a slave to the fate of the physicists, for against fate nothing can be done, whereas with the gods hope remains. The position thus leans clearly toward free will.

Lucretius, On the Nature of Things, book II, ll. 251-293 · Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus, 133-134

Stripped of God and of an eternal future, the absurd man no longer has a destined life to fulfill: this ruin of higher ends sets him free, not with a demonstrated metaphysical freedom, but with the lived freedom of one who expects nothing more from a beyond. His lucid revolt takes up the present and multiplies experiences, without denying that everything around him has its causes: freedom is a way of living the absurd, not a thesis about the will.

The Myth of Sisyphus, Absurd Freedom · The Rebel

The Cynic makes freedom (eleutheria) and self-sufficiency (autarkeia) the supreme good: through exercise and stripping away, he makes himself independent of desires, of opinion and of the blows of fortune. Diogenes means to be the free man par excellence, master of himself because he needs nothing. A freedom more practical than metaphysical: not a thesis about the will, but the conquest of an unconditioned life.

Diogenes Laertius, Lives, VI

Against the naturalism that ranks consciousness among determined processes, phenomenology restores a free subject, an intentional activity that gives meaning to the world and is not reduced to it. Husserl sets the mind against the causality of nature; his heirs, Sartre and Merleau-Ponty, radicalize this motif into an embodied, situated freedom. The movement therefore leans clearly toward freedom, against psychophysical determinism.

Husserl, The Crisis of the European Sciences · Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception

William James rejects the determinist block universe, in which the future would already be contained in the past, in favor of an open world where chance, novelty and choice are real. His argument is as moral as it is theoretical: without genuine alternative futures, regret and effort lose their sense. Through its Jamesian lineage, pragmatism leans toward free will and indeterminism, even if its figures qualify the claim.

James, The Dilemma of Determinism · James, The Principles of Psychology

The analysis of voluntary action and of deliberate choice (prohairesis) presupposes that the origin of action is in us: we are responsible for our acts, of which we are the origin, which grounds praise, blame and punishment. This defence of self-mastery leans toward free will, without thematizing modern determinism.

Nicomachean Ethics, III.1-5

Diogenes makes freedom (eleutheria) the supreme good, but shifts it entirely to the practical side: to be free is not to settle a metaphysical question about the will, it is to make oneself independent of desires, opinion and the blows of fortune through stripping away. The question of free will does not occupy him; his freedom is an existential conquest, the self-sufficiency of the sage who needs nothing. The positioning therefore stays cautious and inferred, the corpus offering no explicit thesis on determinism.

Diogenes Laertius, Lives, VI, 71

Locke locates liberty not in the will (the question "is the will free?" is ill-framed) but in the agent's power to suspend the pursuit of a desire so as to examine and deliberate before acting. This capacity to halt and weigh one's desires leans toward free will, in a careful analysis rather than a clear-cut metaphysics.

Essay Concerning Human Understanding, II, ch. 21 ("Of Power", liberty and the suspension of desire)

Aristotle forges the analysis of the voluntary act: voluntary is that whose principle (arche) lies in the agent who knows the circumstances, as opposed to what is done under constraint or through ignorance. Since the origin of our acts is in us, they are up to us (eph' hemin), and that is why we praise and blame: virtue and vice alike are voluntary. A stance of responsibility, with neither a deterministic system nor a metaphysical free will.

Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, III, 1-5

Confucius divides one's lot between what belongs to Heaven and what depends on us: the span of life, wealth and honors hang on the decree (ming) that the sage welcomes without surrendering to it; but to become fully humane (ren) depends on oneself alone. Outer fortune is thus largely determined, while moral perfection remains the ever-possible work of the will.

Analects (Lunyu), XII.5 and VII.29 · Analects, XX.3

Mill holds our volitions to be caused like every phenomenon, in keeping with the principle of universal causation; but he refuses to read this as fate: character itself can be reshaped by our desires and efforts. This doctrine, which he distinguishes from fatalism, is a compatibilism reconciling causal determinism with an effective moral freedom.

A System of Logic, book VI, ch. 2 (of liberty and necessity)

Confucianism divides one's lot between Heaven and humanity: the span of life, wealth and honors fall under the decree (ming) that the sage accepts, but self-cultivation and virtue depend entirely on the will. Moral betterment is always within reach of whoever wills it, which sets the movement on the side of a moral freedom, against a background of accepted outward destiny.

Analects (Lunyu), XII.5 · Mencius, VII A

True freedom is a self-determination reconciled with necessity: to be free is to will rationally and to recognize oneself in what determines us, not to escape all determination. Hence a compatibilism, equidistant from the indeterminate free will that would choose without reason and the determinism that would deny the will.

Elements of the Philosophy of Right, Introduction §4-7

Stoicism asserts thoroughgoing causal determinism (fate) while holding that our assent is in our power: the classic compatibilist position, illustrated by Chrysippus' cylinder, which rolls from an external push but according to its own shape. The position tilts slightly toward determinism, since fate links all causes.

Cicero, On Fate · Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights, VII, 2

Everything is linked by fate and providence, yet the soul keeps the power to judge and to consent: no event can compel the assent of the ruling faculty. This is Stoic compatibilism, cosmic necessity leaving inner freedom intact; the position leans only slightly toward determinism, since the web of causes enfolds all the rest.

Meditations, VIII, 47 · Meditations, XII, 10 · Meditations, V, 10

All human conduct is governed by the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain; the legislator can therefore act on behaviour by bearing on motives through sanctions, which add a pain or a pleasure to the balance. This psychology of motives presupposes actions determined by their causes, the very condition of the penal calculus working, though Bentham does not thematize the metaphysical question of free will.

An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, ch. III and X (motives and their operation)

Everything is governed by the chain of fate and the necessity of providence. Freedom does not lie in escaping it but in consenting to it through reason, a Stoic compatibilism: cosmic necessity leaves the inner freedom of assent intact.

On Providence, V (God himself is bound by the necessity he once laid down) · Natural Questions, II, 35-38 (fate and the order of causes)

Human conduct is governed by two springs, pleasure and pain, a broadly deterministic psychology that allows behavior to be predicted and reformed through sanctions. Responsibility here is no uncaused free will but is reinterpreted in compatibilist terms: utilitarianism attends to the causes that move wills rather than to their supposed spontaneity.

Bentham, Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, I · Mill, A System of Logic, VI

"Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please, under circumstances they have not chosen": human action is real, yet tightly determined by inherited economic structures. The position leans toward social conditioning without denying all initiative, placing it short of a strict determinism.

Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1852)

Empiricism leans toward compatibilism: freedom is not a will withdrawn from causes, but the power to act according to one's own desires without external constraint. Hume shows that this liberty of action is not only compatible with causal necessity but requires it, for without regular ties between motives and acts there would be neither character nor accountability. The dispute over free will then rests on a confusion of words more than on a genuine mystery.

Hume, An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding, VIII · Locke, Essay concerning Human Understanding, II, 21

The Taoist sage asserts no autonomous will: he acts by wu-wei, non-action, effacing himself to wed the spontaneous course of things (ziran). To will, to force, to impose a self, is to thwart the Tao and exhaust oneself; true freedom is this effortless accord with natural necessity, closer to an assent to the determined than to a conquering free will.

Laozi, Tao Te Ching, ch. 37 and 63 · Zhuangzi

At the empirical level, the embodied self (jiva) is bound by karma and wrapped in maya: its acts bear their fruits and keep it within the cycle of rebirths, a largely determined order. True freedom is therefore not the self-determination of a will, but liberation (moksha), the recognition that the Self (atman) is identical with Brahman, beyond the causal order of acts.

Shankara, Commentary on the Brahma Sutras · Upanishads (Katha, Mundaka)

Nothing springs from an uncaused will: every phenomenon is dependently arisen (paticca-samuppada), and the self that believes itself a free author is itself an aggregate without substance. Yet the Buddha teaches no fatalism, which he reproaches in Makkhali Gosala: intention (cetana) is the act itself, karmically decisive, and it can be transformed through training. The path therefore requires real effort, between the determinism of conditioning and the illusion of free will.

Samyutta Nikaya, XII (dependent origination) · Anguttara Nikaya (refutation of fatalism)

Buddhism holds every phenomenon to be dependently arisen: there is no uncaused will of a substantial self, and the sense of being a free author proceeds from ignorance. But far from fatalism, intention (cetana) is the karmic act par excellence, and it can be trained: the path is a real effort to transform one's own conditioning, between determinism and free will.

Samyutta Nikaya, XII · Dhammapada, I