Is man in his thinking and acting a spiritually free being, or is he compelled by the iron necessity of purely natural law?
To be free does not mean to be able to want as one wills, but to be able to do as one wills. This thought has been stated with great sageness by the poet- philosopher Robert Hamerling. Man can certainly do as he wills, but he cannot want as he wills, because his wanting is determined by motives. He cannot want as he wills?
Two souls reside, alas, within my breast,
And each one from the other would be parted.
The one holds fast, in sturdy lust for love,
With clutching organs clinging to the world;
The other strongly rises from the gloom
To lofty fields of ancient heritage.
FAUST I, Scene 2, lines 1112-1117.
With these words Goethe reveals a characteristic feature which is deeply rooted in human nature. Man is not organized as a self-consistent unity. He always demands more than the world gives him.
When I think about a child, this after all only expresses a relation of my “I” to the child, just as when I feel the beauty of the child. There is a relation between “I” and object in the case of thinking just as much as in the case of feeling or perceiving. Such an objection leaves out of account the fact that only in the thinking activity does the “I” know itself to be one and the same being with that which is active, right into all the ramifications of this activity.
That an action, of which the agent does not know why he performs it, cannot be free, goes
without saying. But what about an action for which the reasons are known? This leads us to the question of the origin and meaning of thinking. When we know what thinking in general means, it will be easy to get clear about the role that thinking plays in human action. As Hegel rightly says, It is thinking that turns the soul, which the animals also possess, into spirit.
Such a firm point led the father of modern philosophy, Descartes, to base the whole of human knowledge on the principle: I think, therefore I am. All other things, all other events, are there independently of me. Whether they be truth, or illusion, or dream, I know not. There is only one thing of which I am absolutely certain, for I myself give it its certain existence; and that is my thinking.
When an agent exercises free will over her choices and actions, her choices and actions are up to her. But up to her in what sense? To simplify the narrative, right now I am putting my thoughts and motives in the lines you have read. However, I can stop conveying my thoughts and be a part of a fictional world within our own fictional world by watching TV series, movies as almost everyone does today. I can just go with the flow with my friends as life was meant for good friends and great adventures... but no... here I am writing the lines you are reading right now... but why? There can be two possible reasons (i) up to me in the sense that I am able to choose otherwise, or at minimum that I am able not to choose or act as I do, and (ii) up to men in the sense that I am the source of my action. However, there is widespread controversy both over whether each of these conditions is required for free will and if so, how to understand the kind or sense of freedom to do otherwise or sourcehood that is required.
Investigation of our own being must give us the answer to the riddle. We must reach a point
where we can say to ourselves, “Here we are no longer merely ‘I’, here is something which is
more than ‘I’.”
References:
https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/relationships/g5055/friendship-quotes/
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/locke-freedom/
https://www.rsarchive.org/Books/Download/Philosophy_of_Freedom-Rudolf_Steiner-4.pdf
https://books.google.com.tr/bookshl=en&lr=&id=iRpkNcRt1IcC&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&dq=free+will&ots=vGJ3tLF_HR&sig=Kkb7Fo6Hlxt_U-mVelvEjnvvQ4A&redir_esc=y
https://www.encyclopedia.com/philosophy-and-religion/philosophy/philosophy-terms-and-
concepts/free-will
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/yes-free-will-exists/
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Philosophy_of_Freedom
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/06/theres-no-such-thing-as-free-will/
480750/
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/apr/27/the-clockwork-universe-is-free-will-an-illusion
https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/free-will
https://philpapers.org/rec/VANAEO
https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/imp/jcs/1999/00000006/F0020008/966
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