How much free Will is the average human capable of taking responsibility for? Does free Will only work when you really don't have free Will? Is it an illusion anyway you look at it? Does one have choice within the constraints of a society where there are strict rules of conduct? Is rebelling against rules freedom? One would think the purest state of freedom is with anarchy but ironically without society choice would be determined by biology i.e. who is strongest, meanest, etc and of course by who get eaten. Is there true choice in anarchy and chaos?
posted by Anne Coe | 6:54 AM
2 Comments:
Nature is not about chaos. We do find order in the social life of other species despite the fact we rarely talk about their free will.
Thomas Hobbes, of course, wrote about how we would have the warre of all against all, if men (and he meant men, not humans) did not organize, under a sovereign, into a commonwealth. This commonwealth was based upon a social contract in which men agreed to yield power to one man in order to organize themselves so that they could protect, basically, themselves and their own kin. In other words, it was a selfish act, aimed at self-preservation, and not an altruistic one. The link between free will and chaos is not clear, as you say: clearly we could chose anarchy and chaos. I wonder if free will is not a philosophical question, one originally raised by psychology, Freud, and Martin Luther and their ideas of individual egos and ids and direct prayer to god. We are a social species and as such pretty much influenced by conspecifics. We can act in ways that seem to be free will, but my guess is that most of the time acts that we would refer to (had we done them)as based upon free will, would break down into something like acts of simple rebellion, copying someone who is not immediately obvious, immaturity, or expediency.
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