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Descartes and Leibniz on Human Free-Will and the Ability to Do Otherwise

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Cecilia Wee
Cecilia Wee*
Affiliation:
National University of Singapore, Singapore117570
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Extract

Both Descartes and Leibniz are on record as maintaining that acting freely requires that the agent ‘could have done otherwise.’ However, it is not clear how they could maintain this, given their other metaphysical commitments. In Leibniz's case, the arguments connected with this are well-rehearsed: it is argued, for example, that Leibnizian doctrines such as the Principle of Sufficient Reason and the thesis that God must will the best possible world preclude that the human could ever do other than she did. The question of whether Descartes can maintain that the agent is able to do otherwise in the face of his wider metaphysical commitments has received comparatively little attention. However, Chappell has recently noted that Descartes's thesis that God is the ‘total cause’ of everything seems to preclude the possibility of human freedom (where this includes the ability to do otherwise).

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 36 , Issue 3 , September 2006 , pp. 387 - 414
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2006

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References

1 Such views are delineated, for example, in Robert Adams, Leibniz: Determinist, Theist, Idealist(Oxford: Oxford University Press 1994); David Blumenfeld, ‘Freedom, Contingency and Things Possible in Themselves,’ Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 49(1) (1988) 81-101; CD. Broad, ‘Leibniz's Predicate-in-Notion Principles and Some of its Alleged Consequences’ in Leibniz: A Collection of Essays (New York: Anchor 1972), 1-18; Lois Frankel, ‘Being Able to do Otherwise: Leibniz on Freedom and Contingency,’ Studia Leibnitiana 15:1 (1984) 45-59; Benson Mates, The Philosophy of Leibniz (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1986).

2 Vere Chappell, ‘Descartes's Compatibilism,’ in Reason, Will and Sensation: Studies in Descartes's Metaphysics, John Cottingham, ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1994) 177-91

3 G.W. Leibniz, T, 303 [Abbreviations: AG = G W Leibniz: Philosophical Essays, trans. Roger Ariew and Daniel Garber (Indianapolis: Hackett 1989); L = G.W. Leibniz: Philosophical Papers and Letters, 2 vols., trans. Leroy E. Loemker (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1956); T= Leibniz: Theodicy, trans. E.M. Huggard (Chicago and La Salle: Open Court 1990)]

4 Leibniz draws a well-known distinction between claims that are absolutely necessary (by which he means that their denial is a contradiction), and claims which are necessary ex hypothesi (where such claims are for Leibniz contingent). In this paper, I have not invoked the distinction between absolute necessity and necessity ex hypothesi — partly for considerations of length, partly because Leibniz's views on what necessity ex hypothesi is may be open to different treatments, but mostly because the distinction does no useful work in the argument I am making. In this paper, I hold that a claim to the effect that ‘Agent A wills that X’ is necessary insofar as its denial is a self-contradiction; it is contingent insofar as it is established that the agent could have done otherwise than she did. The arguments of this paper then rely on the following opposition:

(a) If it is necessary that an agent A wills that X, then it is not contingent (in the sense I've ascribed).

(b) If it is contingent that agent A wills that X (i.e. agent A had the ability to do otherwise), then it is not necessary.

5 AG 61

6 Both Descartes and Leibniz were evidently well-acquainted with the issues involved in these debates. See, e.g., Chappell, ‘Descartes's Compatibilism'; Anthony Kenny, ‘Descartes on the Will’ in Descartes, John Cottingham, ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1998), 132-59; Michael J. Murray, ‘Leibniz on Divine Foreknowledge of Future Contingents and Human Freedom,’ Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 55 (1995) 75-108; Michael J. Murray, ‘Intellect, Will and Freedom: Leibniz and His Precursors/ Leibniz Society Review 6 (1996) 25-60.

7 See, e.g., T 314

8 T 303. For a detailed consideration of the relation between freedom and reason in Leibniz, see, e.g., Pauline Phemister, ‘Leibniz, Freedom of Will and Rationality/ Studia Leibnitiana 23 (1991): 25-39.

9 See, e.g., T 314.

10 See, e.g., Brian Grant, ‘Descartes, Belief and the Will/ Philosophy 51 (1976) 401-19.

11 AT 7:57-8, CSM 2: 40. [Citations of Descartes are from: Oeuvres de Descartes, Adam and Paul Tannery, eds. (Paris: J Vrin 1962) (cited as AT followed by volume no. and page no.); The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, Vols. 1 & 2, John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff and Dugald Murdoch, eds. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1985 & 1984) (cited as CSM followed by volume no. and page no.); The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, Vol. 3, John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, Dugald Murdoch and Anthony Kenny, eds. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1991) (cited as CSMK, followed by page no.)]

12 AT 7: 59, CSM 2:41

13 AT 7: 58-9, CSM 2:41, emphasis mine

14 AT 7:166, CSM 2:117, emphasis mine

15 Kenny, ‘Descartes on the Will,’ 132-59

16 AT 8A: 18-19, CSM 1:205, emphasis mine

17 AT 4: 173, CSMK: 245

18 AT 7:116-7, CSMK: 233-4

19 Kenny, ‘Descartes on the Will,’ 150

20 Ibid., 139

21 Similarly, Descartes's Fourth Meditation claim, discussed earlier, that he ‘could not but judge’ that the cogito is true (AT 7:58-9, CSM 2:41) obviously involves a reference to what had occurred in the Second Meditation. As he writes, his questioning ‘over the past few days’ had led him to the certainty of his existence. As such, this claim refers to a context in which Descartes's mind had clearly been focused on a clear and distinct perception. In such a context, he would have found that he ‘could not but judge’ that the cogito was true.

22 At this point, it may be objected that the reading given above of Descartes's views on free-will may in fact presuppose ascribing an intellectualist position to Descartes. I had argued that the Cartesian agent is in principle able not to assent to a clear and distinct perception, by shifting to another thought (e.g. the thought that it is always a good to express our freedom of will by not assenting to it). But such a defense may assume that the will is determined in its choice by the last practical judgment of the intellect — whether this is the clear and distinct perception or the thought that replaces it.

The reply here is that Descartes does indeed hold that in the case of a clear and distinct perception, the will is inevitably drawn in one direction — so that if one keeps focused on this perception as the last practical judgment, one would be unable not avoid assenting to it. But there is no reason to think that the thought which succeeds the clear and distinct perception is also a clear and distinct perception. For example, it is not obvious that ‘It is always a good to exercise our freedom’ is a clear and distinct perception. If the thought that succeeds a clear and distinct perception is not itself clear and distinct, then the will would not be determined by this last practical judgment. That is, the agent would be in a state of indifference with respect to this last thought, and could have willed otherwise. Thus, the reading I have offered of the Cartesian agent's robustD ability to do otherwise does not presuppose an intellectualist position, in which every choice by the will is determined by the intellect.

23 AT 4:174, CSMK: 245. This claim may suggest that Descartes was a (radical) voluntarist. However, as I have argued, that Descartes is such a voluntarist is ruled out by his claims in the Fourth Meditation and Second Replies. Instead, the claim, read sympathetically, is quite consistent with the robustD ability to do otherwise that Descartes attributes to the free agent. Human free agents have the ‘positive power to follow the worse although we see the better’ insofar as they are never necessitated to do the better (or even the best). Even in the case of clear and distinct perceptions, such agents may ‘follow the worse’ by shifting their attention to some other thought.

24 AT 4:174, CSMK: 245

25 AT 7:57, CSM 2:40

26 AT 4:174, CSMK:245

27 Chappell, ‘Descartes’ Compatibilism,’ 190

28 AT 7:48, CSM 2:49

29 Chappell, ‘Descartes’ Compatibilism,’ 190

30 AT 8A:20, CSM 1 206

31 Ibid.

32 AT 4:314, CSMK:272 33 I owe much of my discussion in this section to Blumenfeld's interesting paper, ‘Freedom, Contingency and Things Possible in Themselves.'

34 T 386-7

35 AG, 45, emphasis mine

36 A.O. Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being: A Study of the History of an Idea (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1950), 173

37 Adams, Leibniz: Determinist, Theist, Idealist, 20. While Adams accepts that much of this criticism of the defense is correct, he points out that the defense helps make clear the difference between Leibniz's and Spinoza's necessitarianism.

38 Blumenf eld himself acknowledges this when he points out that Leibniz's conception of freedom is ‘very weak and restricted,’ and is ‘compatible with an enormously powerful kind of necessity — the very kind, in fact that has troubled his critics most’ ('Freedom, Contingency and Things Possible in Themselves,’ 20). There are other criticisms of this defense, which I will not be examining here. (E.g., Blumenfeld and Adams both note that it is not evident that one can coherently consider the human agent apart from her complete concept, as this defense requires.)

39 See, e.g., Anthony Kenny, The God of the Philosophers (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1979), 78.

40 AT 7:191, CSM 2:134

41 AT 1: 149, CSMK: 24

42 Ibid.

43 AT 1: 152, CSMK: 25

44 AT 4: 118, CSMK: 235

45 AT 7:365, CSM 2:252

46 AT 8A:14, CSM 1:201

47 AT 7: 148, CSM 2:105

48 It would be interesting to explore if the cases mentioned in this section can be accommodated by Bennett's account of Cartesian modality. See Jonathan Bennett, ‘Descartes's Theory of Modality,’ Philosophical Review 103 (1994): 639-67. Bennett sees Descartes as holding a self-contradictory proposition to be one that cannot be conceived as true by the human intellect — but Descartes clearly holds that there are propositions that we cannot conceive as true, but must accept as true.

49 AT 7: 210, CSM 2:273

50 AT 7:137, CSM 2:98

51 AT 7: 152, CSM 2:108

52 AT 8A:20, CSM 1:206

53 Of course, there are aspects of God's willing that the finite human mind is unable to understand — for instance, why this world as it is is the best possible. But the laws of logic themselves by which God determines this to be the best possible world are comprehensible to humans.

54 I would like to thank Annette Baier, Michael Pelczar and C.L. Ten for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper. I would also like to thank an editor and two anonymous referees for the Canadian Journal of Philosophy for their very useful comments and suggestions.