Freedom and Duty

tim wood

Following Kant (and subject to correction on the details), the argument here is that freedom is exactly freedom to do one's duty, and nothing else. If one cannot, then he or she is to that extent not free. Nor is freedom being able to do whatever you like, that being just license or raw capability.

Duty, for the moment, is just what reason tells us ought to done, the doing itself being contingent on the choice to do it. No one, for example, is under an obligation or has a duty to be subject to gravity.

Reason in this context often has reference to Kant's categorical imperative; i.e., roughly, 1) if it's ok for me to do it, then it must be ok for everyone else to do it, 2) I must not use people as means but only as ends, and 3) my actions are of the sort that could be found in heaven.

Duty itself informed by good will.

The details of duty, reason, ought, and the good sometimes not easy to determine, the determination being partly an art, and even sometimes different for different people.

But the purpose here is to draw attention to people who claim as a matter of right under freedom to do what they want; and to the harm they do, potentially to be sure, but too often as a matter of fact.

Such actions, to my way of thinking, are always wrong whether harm or not, and are properly penalized and should be penalized.

One example - many are possible - but with the one I hope to capture the whole idea. Where it is legal, many motorcycle riders do not wear helmets. (As a long-experienced rider I am well aware of the charms of helmetless travel, and recognize that there are limited situations when it is relatively safe - traffic not one of those situations - my bona fides and biases up front.)

But what is wrong with it? Simply the heightened risk of being killed or catastrophically injured in an otherwise minor accident of the sort motorcycles are subject to, at a cost the victim cannot himself bear. That is, he, usually a he, hurts everyone, and some greatly. There can be no such freedom to either cause or unreasonably risk such harm.

And I think the logic of the thing compels agreement. Yes?

Isaac

↪tim wood

A more lovely example could not be presented of deciding in advance what one is going to consider right and wrong and then constructing some pseudo-logical monstrosity to justify it post hoc. Well done. I presume that was your objective...

Echarmion

If one cannot, then he or she is to that extent not free. — tim wood

I am not sure Kant would say that there even are situations where you cannot do your duty. If you cannot do something, it cannot really be considered your duty. What makes your actions free is then choosing your duty.

But the purpose here is to draw attention to people who claim as a matter of right under freedom to do what they want; and to the harm they do, potentially to be sure, but too often as a matter of fact. — tim wood

This is a result of the negative conception of freedom as the freedom to be left alone which has come to dominate in Europe and the US. Here freedom is the freedom from all obligations and duties, mostly imagined as being imposed by the state or, more broadly, society.

I think it's important to consider how both conceptions came to be. Kant starts his from the bottom up. From the theoretical possibility of the freedom of will to it's practical application to the social conditions that create the "state of freedom".

Meanwhile, the "common sense" notion of freedom as freedom from interference is the result of social movements that were concerned with specific instances of interference and violence, from which they generalised.

As a result, the idea of personal freedom is mostly derived from legal concepts, such as the concept that all legal restriction require specific justification, which was then applied more generally to signify freedom.

I think a good way to start to point out why this is problematic is to start with situations that are commonly considered extremely unfree. Chattel slavery is an obvious one. At first glance, one might argue that chattel slavery represents the ultimate imposition of obligations and duties on the slave. But I think it's actually the opposite. Someone who is considered no different from a horse or cow cannot have duties or obligations. Their relationship to others, specifucally the "master", is purely one of naked ability - in this case ability to use force. I think this points towards the conclusion that freedom is not at all freedom from duty.

Isaac

freedom is not at all freedom from duty. — Echarmion

I can't make sense of this proposition, you seem to have used 'freedom' in two different ways and whilst I understand the latter, I'm unclear on the former. in "freedom from duty" I understand freedom to mean 'the absence of constraint caused by...' (in this case duty). But it would make no sense to have this meaning in the former use, since no constraint is given. So what is the use of 'freedom in it's first instance that you're trying to define by it's second use?

Echarmion

So what is the use of 'freedom in it's first instance that you're trying to define by it's second use? — Isaac

You're right, this isn't very clearly written. I'd say there are at least three different definitions for freedom: the theoretical freedom of will, acting in accordance with the principles of freedom and freedom as a result of a certain social organisation.

The latter is the most difficult to pin down, I would roughly describe it as a society that enables it's members to self-actualise to the largest extent possible.

Jack Cummins

↪tim wood

This is an interesting area of discussion as the whole way in which law is sometimes seen as restrictive, while it can be protective too. The example of motorcycle helmets is a good one, and I have known someone who died of head injuries because he was not wearing a helmet.

It is questionable what would happen if some of the laws we had did not exist, such as rules against drink driving and using drugs. Would we be tempted to go and buy skunk weed if it was readily available in the supermarket and many of us end up with drug induced psychosis?

Perhaps we need some restrictions on us to protect us in exploring freedom. Of course, law is not straightforward and static, but evolves in the face of the complexities arising in legal cases.

tim wood

↪Isaac

Appreciation appreciated. Please, sir, may I have some more? As to "pseudo-logical monstrosity," what's the "pseudo," what's monstrous? What error?

I am not sure Kant would say that there even are situations where you cannot do your duty. If you cannot do something, it cannot really be considered your duty. What makes your actions free is then choosing your duty. — Echarmion

I assume you mean situations where you could but choose not to, perhaps discretion. If so I disagree. How often have we heard something like, "He wanted to but wasn't free...". As a practical matter we can't always act in accordance with pure reason and pure freedom, and that means simply that on those occasions we weren't free.

Likely most of us are aware Kant held that acting on desire is acting subject to desire, and being subject-to meaning not free. The "freedom" in freedom from being not the same as in freedom to. Not much, then, of our time is spent in exercises of freedom. The rest his mix of morality and reason.

Is the free person also by virtue of freedom necessarily then the good person? I think so. That makes none of us altogether good, though able to be good on occasion. And these absolute, and not the relative standard that says the better is the good - language being slippery here.

I'd say there are at least three different definitions for freedom: the theoretical freedom of will, acting in accordance with the principles of freedom and freedom as a result of a certain social organisation. The latter is the most difficult to pin down, I would roughly describe it as a society that enables it's members to self-actualise to the largest extent possible. — Echarmion

It seems that "principles of freedom" is central, here. And I think per Kant that would be according to (pure) reason free of desire - whether the will is free depending on how that's defined. A "social organization" that "enables it's members to self-actualize," if in accordance with Kant might be what he'd call heaven.

law is sometimes seen as restrictive, — Jack Cummins

Hmm. Would you agree on another thinking that law must necessarily always be restrictive? Again hmm. It must be in that case that while law can facilitate freedom, one can only be free-from under the law, but never free-to, the law merely being the ground for the possibility of that freedom. Else the law could specify the good, and I am pretty sure it cannot.

Do we find the bad man in this? Might he be he who acts under desire, and whose actions place others at risk or subjects them to costs disproportionate in some sense to the action, and against the interests of the community? "Disproportionate" because the ultimate and inevitable hazard of life is death, and all action entails some risk.

Valentinus

Not using other people as means is easier said than done. As a criterion of decision, one might have to require others to work at something to avoid treating them as an "end" or them becoming subjects of awful people. The model is not self sufficient.

Mww

the argument here is that freedom is exactly freedom to do one's duty, and nothing else. — tim wood

At the finest reduction, this is correct. Just takes a lot of reducing to get there.

Nor is freedom being able to do whatever you like, that being just license or raw capability. — tim wood

And from that, everything else follows.

Theoretically.......

tim wood

Theoretically....... — Mww

I am going to guess you're at an age where at least increasingly if not finally, you see/feel/live the actuality of it - reserving a bit of indulgence once in a while.

Garth

Likely most of us are aware Kant held that acting on desire is acting subject to desire, and being subject-to meaning not free. The "freedom" in freedom from being not the same as in freedom to. Not much, then, of our time is spent in exercises of freedom. The rest his mix of morality and reason. — tim wood

I'm of the opinion that Kant's entire philosophy is built on defining certain things as precisely what they are not, and maybe freedom is one of the best examples of this. I mean, intuitively, there are few things more oppressive for our emotions and our feeling of being free than having some duty imposed on us, especially a duty which we do not also desire to do. Isn't that what you're trying to get at with your helmet example? You have a duty to wear the helmet all the time, but it's unbearable because it restricts your freedom, so you cheat sometimes and take it off. Or is it the case that because there's a law, you don't even have a duty anymore because you are acting under the threat of being punished?

Mww

↪tim wood

Long past the age, actually, and, finally. No need for further investigation.

Indulgence. Ehhhh....granting the authority of a particular moral philosophy doesn’t mean actually living by it. I’m pretty sure I haven't always lived up to the obligations necessarily integrated into mine.

tim wood

↪Garth

All right, what do you suppose freedom is?

Banno

↪tim wood

...there isn't an argument in there, so far as I can see, to which the conclusion is that " freedom is exactly freedom to do one's duty, and nothing else"...

You have a rough definition of duty, a constricting definition of reason, a to-brief discussion of the nature of freedom, one example that leaves out the bit about nothing else; and that's it.

Lock's version fo freedom - liberty, a much better term - is the capacity do act if one so wills, or to not act if one does not will. It is a power to have one's body do as one commands. Given the ubiquity of this account in our world, it will not do for you to simply state that freedom is freedom to do one's duty.

Freedom seems to have little to do with duty.

↪tim wood

I suspect @Garth has something like this in mind...

Echarmion

Lock's version fo freedom - liberty, a much better term - is the capacity do act if one so wills, or to not act if one does not will. — Banno

But this definition of liberty seems fairly useless in practice, because everyone either has this capacity at all times - even at gunpoint - or they never have it. It's only real relevance would be to pathologic changes of the ability to form a will at all.

This leaves out all the practically important questions.

Banno

↪Echarmion

SO fix it.

Echarmion

I mean, intuitively, there are few things more oppressive for our emotions and our feeling of being free than having some duty imposed on us, especially a duty which we do not also desire to do. — Garth

But isn't it also intuitively true that freedom involves the freedom from outside influences? From hunger, outside pressure, social norms? And can we not then go further and conclude that freedom also implies absence of motivations like fear or anger or any equally influential emotions? From there, it's only a small hop over to desires.

Garth

↪tim wood

Well, according to what I am writing:

Freedom is a force which simultaneously determines both self-as-cause and self-as-effect

We can only feel free when we desire something, and upon experiencing emotion related to that desire, realize that our reasons for feeling this way are inadequate. The emotion that is felt falls back into an unexplained form, and consciousness is finally able to ask itself what it truly wants.

We continue to feel free as we plan out or new strategy either to desire something else or to go about getting our desired in a different way. But the feeling of freedom quickly breaks down after that and the thought process after that is indeterminate. Lots of things could happen, like getting frustrated, realizing you didn't really desire that end after all, satisfaction, simply getting distracted, or resignation.

But in that moment, we feel that we are causing whatever happens (self as cause), and that however it affects us is also in our control -- we have a predetermined notion of what will happen, not in the sense that we know exactly what will happen, but we've already made up our mind about how we will let it affect us (self as effect). Imagine a soldier summoning the courage to charge out of the trenches. He might die or might live, but he believes in that moment that he can accept whatever happens.

But isn't it also intuitively true that freedom involves the freedom from outside influences? From hunger, outside pressure, social norms? And can we not then go further and conclude that freedom also implies absence of motivations like fear or anger or any equally influential emotions? From there, it's only a small hop over to desires. — Echarmion

See! This is where Kant is sneaky. I'm not an expert, but I bet if I say that duties arising through the Categorical Imperative are outside influences, we would find that Kant insists this is all a principle of our reasoning and so is an inner influence of some type and not impinging on our freedom.

But actually maybe Kant's idea here is correct, or almost correct. Because I don't think any emotion can be understood without considering what consciousness thinks is good. In fact, our empathy for others doesn't depend very much on reading facial expressions but on predicting the motivations and intentions of others. Maybe if we don't do what is best we won't be free because we'll feel doubt, guilt, remorse, paranoia, etc.

Mww

Following Kant (...) freedom is..... — tim wood

Lock's version (of) freedom.... — Banno

This is no different than re-defining terms to refute an argument, rather than using the terms given by the argument and showing some conclusion of that argument doesn’t follow from them.

Locke’s liberty can never stand anywhere near Kant's freedom. It is dialectically absurd to use Locke to refute Kant, when they have entirely different domains supporting their respective philosophies. Locke, and by association, you and your raising arm, are concerned with empirical actions of the will for general purposes, while Kant is concerned with the pure a priori conditions under which the will acts, and then only those conditions and acts pursuant to a very specific, altogether singular, purpose.

Here’s your Word of the Day: Noogony. Don’t fall for it.

Cheers (?)

Banno

↪Mww

Nevertheless, no argument is offered for the supposed conclusion of the OP.

tim wood

↪Banno

First words of the OP:

Following Kant (and subject to correction on the details), — tim wood

Freedom seems to have little to do with duty. — Banno

↪Banno

First words of the second paragraph of the OP:

Duty, for the moment, is just what reason tells us ought to done, — tim wood

Lock's version of freedom - liberty, a much better term - is the capacity do act if one so wills, or to not act if one does not will. It is a power to have one's body do as one commands. Given the ubiquity of this account in our world, it will not do for you to simply state that freedom is freedom to do one's duty. — Banno

Liberty may well be a better term, because Locke's, apparently, was about liberty, not freedom - according to you. And liberty is just not being subject to constraint by some authority, and with respect to such authority, the ability to do what one pleases Nothing about freedom here,

As you know perfectly well and better than most, Kant's argument roughly was that to be governed by feelings, emotions, desires, is to be not free. Kant thought there were things we can call reason and duty. Duty being what we ought to do, and reason informing us as to what our duties are. And what we ought to do being the right and the good.

I have no argument opposing any notion that the will is required to act. But the map from and by which the will sets its course in this case is reason/duty. Is the person's will thwarted, he not being able to act? That may well be a constraint on both liberty, his will, and his freedom. But this not making them one thing. And if liberty is construed from social obligation, or essentially politics, then freedom is the inner determination of the will by him- or herself alone.

And some duties - maybe all of them - come with an imperative. And if one is prevented for doing, then unfree.

And in mundane terms, I think every adult can find examples of the truth of all of this in his or her own life. We did what we wanted to do, and then regretted it. Or we did not do what we ought to have done, and regretted that. The regret being evidence.

Banno

↪tim wood

You seem to think there's an argument there, but I can't see it. The missing piece seems to be a presumption that doing one's duty is the only thing that one can choose freely; but as soon as this is stated, the contradiction is clear; if one must only choose to do one's duty, then that choice is not free.

tim wood

Freedom is a force — Garth

You mean I am free if I am forced? That leads quickly to paradox: I am free, therefore I am not free. And you appear to consistently refer to a feeling of being free. That feeling may be a clue that freedom is nearby in the woods somewhere, or not, but cannot be freedom itself. Consider (this along the lines of an examples of Kant's): Is God free? Does God want anything? Can God want anything?

tim wood

You seem to think there's an argument there, but I can't see it. The missing piece seems to be a presumption that doing one's duty is the only thing that one can choose freely; but as soon as this is stated, the contradiction is clear; if one must only choose to do one's duty, then that choice is not free. — Banno

I'm sorry you do not see the argument; it seems simple enough to me. Nor does anyone claim you must do your duty. Consider: there is an unconsumed case of Cooper's Extra Stout in your basement, and you desire to drink it. If you drink it was that an exercise of freedom? If in acting on your desire and being able to, that is your freedom, that implies you're just your desires. Which I do not think applies to you, but instead to a child or very defective adult.

But why does anyone do anything? They want to, they have to, or a mix of both. Or circumnavigating both and taking their measure, if one finds therein something that ought to be done, he or she may choose to do it, and that choice, freely made, is free.

tim wood

Noogony — Mww

That's some word!

Banno

it seems simple enough to me. — tim wood

So, set it out clearly for me.

Mww

The regret being evidence. — tim wood

With measurably greater Prussian intellectual verbosity of course, that is Kant’s exact closing stipulation in Groundwork.
————-

That's some word! — tim wood

Context helps, maybe:
“....In one word, Leibnitz intellectualized phenomena, just as Locke, in his system of noogony (if I may be allowed to make use of such expression), sensualized the conceptions of the understanding, that is to say, declared them to be nothing more than empirical or abstract conceptions of reflection...”
————-

Nevertheless, no argument is offered for the supposed conclusion of the OP. — Banno

I already know the argument, so whether or not one is missing here doesn’t affect me much. Tim can handle it alright.

Garth

You mean I am free if I am forced? — tim wood

Since a cause implies an effect and an effect implies a cause, the only way to make sense of them is to have something which simultaneously determines both, which I call "force". A statistical correlation is not evidence of a cause-effect relationship because it is missing the force.

Is God free? — tim wood

I don't know. If God is a self, then he must be free. But selves are not always present in consciousness.

tim wood

Since a cause implies an effect and an effect implies a cause, — Garth

I myself buy the idea - I have to buy it because it's not my idea - that cause-and-effect (CE) is a way of modeling the world and has nothing to do with the world itself although being a useful model. That throws out your notion of a force. Yours all well and orderly for some models, but that doesn't translate to the thing itself. As to understandings of the world based in statistics, as in QM, if it's either QM or CE, it's QM, that assessment having been made before most of us were born.

tim wood

So, set it out clearly for me. — Banno

Let's see if we can start to figure out what freedom is, out of deference to you who do not like definitions. First, it must seem freedom is a something and not a nothing. And such as it is, to be freedom, if it be any kind of capability, it must also be at the same time a capability to not. A corollary is immediate: freedom is a human capability. It may be a capability of some other animals, but that not argued here. And it is no attribute or capability of a perfect God. But it makes little sense to say that such a God is not free, rather it must be that such a God is always already perfectly free, necessarily always immediate and always perfectly good.

Divine freedom, then, a perfection; human freedom aspirational. And it must be that human freedom will never be divine, because the divine is always already finished in its perfection, while human freedom is always contingent.

A contingent capability with the good as its goal.

For anything to be good, there must a reason for its being good, and at the same time it cannot be bad. Reason, then, the guide to the good. The good itself being not ultimately self-destructive and in accordance with Kant's several levels of his categorical imperative.

What is duty? Simply an obligation to act in accordance with the good.

And if a capability, a capability to what? To act. What sort of action? Any action that accords with duty and is consistent with the capacity of the actor to act. Metaphorically, if freedom were being a good soldier, then privates and generals both capable of being equally good soldiers, though of different capacities, and with different duties.

This enough for comment and correction. There are manifest gaps, but none that cannot be filled.

Echarmion

See! This is where Kant is sneaky. I'm not an expert, but I bet if I say that duties arising through the Categorical Imperative are outside influences, we would find that Kant insists this is all a principle of our reasoning and so is an inner influence of some type and not impinging on our freedom. — Garth

Yeah, you may be onto something here. One of the common criticisms of Kant is that he dismisses emotions pretty much out of hand. It was just obvious to Kant that reasoning was a) sufficiently different from emotions to be it's own category and b) should trump pure emotion as a motivation.

On the other hand, it's pretty obvious that some internal motivations must be privileged over others. Otherwise, we'd come to the absurd conclusion that since every influence does at some point turn into an internal motivation, even outside force would be considered "free".

And if we're going to privilege some internal motivations over others, reasoning seems a good candidate to choose.

But actually maybe Kant's idea here is correct, or almost correct. Because I don't think any emotion can be understood without considering what consciousness thinks is good. In fact, our empathy for others doesn't depend very much on reading facial expressions but on predicting the motivations and intentions of others. Maybe if we don't do what is best we won't be free because we'll feel doubt, guilt, remorse, paranoia, etc. — Garth

I always found Kant's idea that freedom is doing what you think is right convincing. What higher expression of your self could there be?

Freedom and Duty

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