The first page or so brings out a strange little paradox for those who insist they have free will: Are you free to act against your own will?

Hence the "Oppression of the will".

Are you free to act against your own will? — Banno

No, because any such act would be an act of will, whether free or not.

Well, she was Heidegger's lover, poor woman. It's not surprising she wondered how she could go on, after that. It must have been a struggle.

My spelling checker insists that she is ardent. (Thanks, @Tom Storm). Too ardent, it would seem.

Hence the "Oppression of the will". — Banno

Yes, of course you can be forced, or coerced, to act against your will.

No... the point is that you are not free because you are not free to do other than you will. The Oppression of the wil.

Word play. The argument is that the notion of freedom is...fraught. Like a square circle.

If you are free to do your will, that counts as freedom in my book. The idea of being free to do other than your will is what might be thought as analogous to a square circle.

If you are free to do your will, — Janus

...the most persuasive arguments for the absolute superiority of inner freedom can still be found in an essay of Epictetus, who begins by stating that free is he who lives as he wishes, a definition which oddly echoes a sentence from Aristotle's Politics in which the statement "Freedom means the doing what a man likes" is put in the mouths of those who do not know what freedom is.

My bolding. Arendt seems to be saying that you do not know what freedom is...

I haven't said that freedom is "living as you wish" or "doing what you like". My point was just that everything someone does, that is not coerced or forced, can be defined as acting in accordance with will.

For example, I might like to drink ten schooners of beer every night, but will not on account of the health consequences. Would you count that as an example of "acting against one's will" or would you say that the will to health is stronger in this case than the will to get pissed, and that it is thus an example of acting according to one's will?

I'd take incontinence of the will to be an entirely different issue.

I haven't said that freedom is "living as you wish" or "doing what you like" — Janus

If you are free to do your will, that counts as freedom in my book. — Janus

I don't see, nor frankly much care, how you make these compatible.

Have a read of the article, and come back when you have something cogent to say.

I was just responding to this, which I don't need to read the article to do:

The first page or so brings out a strange little paradox for those who insist they have free will: Are you free to act against your own will?

Hence the "Oppression of the will". — Banno

So I was disagreeing with the idea, and saying why I disagree, that it is really "a strange little paradox". If you can't think of anything to counter what I've said, and so have to resort to trying to dismiss it as lacking cogency, that is your problem, not mine.

If you can't think of anything to counter what I've said, and so have to resort to trying to dismiss it — Janus

Hmm. I take lack of cogency to be exactly a counter to what you said, and sufficient to dismiss it. You try to force a wedge between what you wish and what you will, when the question is if you are free to do other than what you will.

Not a wedge, but a distinction between different orders of the will. This doesn't deny that one could be acting under the influence of introjected "shoulds", but would that be an example of coercion or willingly accepted values? I think all this shows that the idea of will is far from lucid. I don't think in terms of free will, but in terms of freedom, which just means freedom from constraint. Obviously we are never totally free; I might wish to fly, or visit Venus, for example. So, there are degrees of freedom, no total freedom.

Anyway...

Action insofar as it is free is neither under the guidance of the intellect nor under the dictate of the will although it needs both for the execution of any particular goal but springs from something altogether different which... I shall call a principle.

From the context it is clear she is here speaking of political freedom. What to make of this?

In so far as rationality obliges you to act in some way and not another, your action is not free. In so far as your act is what you will, you could not have done other than you will, and it is not free.

In true existential style, it is only the act that is free...?

Are you free to act against your own will? — Banno

We had no choice in choosing what we will. To that extent, we're not free.

However, we can deny our will. What's the word "no" for? I want to eat chocolate! No, I shan't. To that extent we're free.

Freedom, as far as I know, is by and large resistance in nature. To comply is to go with the flow, driftwood and dead fish do that. To oppose is the defining characteristic of freedom. Consider our will to be oppression, our ability to reject it as freedom. Free will Free won't!

In regard to libertarians who argue that they are kingdoms onto themselves, the essay points to what is missing from their view:

Without a politically guaranteed public realm, freedom lacks the worldly space to make its appearance. To be sure it may still dwell in men's hearts as desire or will or hope or yearning; but the human heart, as we all know, is a very dark place, and whatever goes on in its obscurity can hardly be called a demonstrable fact. Freedom as a demonstrable fact and politics coincide and are related to each other like two sides of the same matter.

If the 'freedom' of individuals cancels the possibility for a public realm, we are in the war Hobbes described as a state of nature. If such a cancellation is not the intention of the libertarians, what are the alternative means to preserve the public realm if it is not recognized as a necessity?

In true existential style, it is only the act that is free...? — Banno

"Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills." ~Arthur Schopenhauer

At the level of the political, compatibilism is operable such that "freedom" consists in the lack of (illegitimate, arbitrary) coercion by any agent (or constraints applied by any agent) that, at minimum, blocks – controls – any other agent's assenting, dissenting or indifferent actions. Corollary: We are free (i.e. "freedom" is the nonzero-sum shared commons ~ Arendt's "public realm") to the degree we free others – everyone – from (illegitimate, arbitrary) coercion, no? :chin:

edit:

"Rights", therefore, are prohibitions on 'practices by the state, businesses & churches which (illegitimately, arbitrarily) coerce individuals (and, by implication, the communities to which they belong)' as the juridical infrastructure for maintaining the inclusivity (i.e. communicativity ~ Habermas, Otto-Apel, Dewey, Peirce) of "the public realm".

Are you free to act against your own will? — Banno

This wording implicates a dualism even too dualistic for me.

"You" and "your will" are identical.

And no, I didn't read your article. I chose not to. My will chose not to. It's all the same. Can my will do other than it did? Yes, unless it's not a free will.

The first page or so brings out a strange little paradox for those who insist they have free will: Are you free to act against your own will? — Banno

The will is the power to resist any action which one is inclined toward. That's why it takes will power to break a bad habit. In this sense, every action is an act against one's will. But the fact that we can resist acting demonstrates that the will is in fact, free. It is the acts themselves, which are not free.

Yes, rather a neat counter, I think. There's more, including the paragraph beginning with "Politically, this identification of freedom with sovereignty is perhaps the most pernicious and dangerous consequence of the philosophical equation of freedom and free will."

Thanks for looking at the article. Onward, to the conclusion...

Well, no, if the activity of a polity that has a monopoly on violenece is to use that violence to violate freedoms, that actually says nothing of an individual's freedom, or their ethics, when such an entity isn't employing such violence. The fact that forces exist that would violate freedom, does not imply humans do not have the capacity to free, or exercise it regularly, as is being demostrated simply by this thread and its responses. That being said, interpersonal freedom requires the recognition of sovererign boundaries between people. That means that even interpersonal ethics, not violating the sovereignty of individual boundaries in this case, begins as an individual recognition. Thus, people are only freee in society when they are ethical at least to that degree. As far as "free will," there is no such thing. There is simply limited agency, or will. My body tells me I am hungry, I can choose between foods. I have homework to do tonight, I can choose which class to tackle first. The universe supplies us with more than enough restrictions to limit our freedom of choice and action. As far as acting against your own will, that's begging the question. Your will is your will, for processes still a mystery to us.

The article relies on a false representation of freedom to produce its conclusion. True freedom, as the possibility to do anything can only exist when one is doing nothing, because as soon as one engages in action one's freedom is restricted by the activity that the person is presently engaged in.

So the author presents a false dichotomy: "We do not envy the freedom a prisoner possesses to retreat into the recesses of their own mind, we envy the person who is free to leave their home, and is safe in doing so, because a system has been politically and socially established to make it as such."

The freedom to leave one's home is not produced by having a political system in place, which allows one to do that safely, it is produced by the fundamental physical fact of the individual having not yet left one's home. And at this point, the person must "retreat into the recesses of their own mind", to decide whether or not it is a good idea to do that, regardless of whether there is an established political system. Whether or not there is an established political system in place is irrelevant to the fact that one must make one's own decision, prior to leaving one's own home, as to whether or not it is a good idea.

It's only when we take this primary, and necessarily prior, freedom for granted, "the freedom a prisoner possesses to retreat into the recesses of their own mind", and make one's own decisions, produce one's own conclusions, that we come up with the idea that the ability to move around in the open, is in some way more enviable than this ability to decide. The ability to prevent oneself from moving around, from going out the door, and make the decision as to whether I ought to move around, considering all relevant factors of safety and whether my needs require such, and decide for myself, when it is safe to do such, is actually far more enviable. This is a necessary requirement for the freedom to go out safely, the established political system is not.

I believe it's a big mistake to try and deceive intelligent people with such faulty arguments. It will only backfire and make them more distrusting of the established system.

Yes, a good way of looking at is that, just because there is the possiblity of my sovererignty being violated, doesn't mean I don't have sovereignty. In the very same manner that you may lose your arm today. does that mean now that arms are merely a social largesse? No, its absurd. My mind and body are restricted to my own usage at all times, irrespective of whether or not entities, with the same restrictions on their own bodies, use force to compel me to do other than my own inner compulsions. And a question: If I am only free because of the political system, are the people that run the political system free? Either way, at the bottom of this self-contradictory mess, you have some people exerting freedom, and limiting the freedom of others so that they may do so. Freedom and sovereignty aren't negated, they are exemplified by this thought experiment.

Freedom is to act in accordance with one's will, desires, interests, or biological compulsion. How the brain generates those interests and desires is a mystery of which we do not require the answer to.

Are you free to act against your own will? — Banno

No, it's my will. Freedom isn't defined by the separation of mind and body, but body from body. My inner compulsions are irrelevant to freedom. Freedom is the ability to fulfill any dominating will within me, without experiencing oppression from without, as my body belongs to me. That's how that works.

lol, this thread title is literally: Freedom is slavery.

This is obviously in tune with the point I've found myself obliged to make a few times recently, that ethics begins not when one considers oneself, but when one considers others. — Banno

So, no, the concept of rights begins as a conceptual method by which to assess your ethical relationship with other individuals. Meaning, ethics isn't dependent on your consideration of others, rights are, which requires the recognition of sovereignty of other individuals. When properly exercised, the only logical conclusion that can be draw is that freedom between people, the recognition of sovereign boundaries between individuals, is the only manner in which to induce a society whose ruling polity doesn't violate individual, or interpersonal ethics (rights). Which, to this day, seems to be something people are having difficulty apprehending. You cannot assert the idea of no sovereignty, and the idea that ethics starts with the consideration of others in the same post, they are contradictory entirely. Either you accept the freedom of others, or you are freedom's violator, you cannot have it both ways.

As far as acting against your own will, that's begging the question. Your will is your will, for processes still a mystery to us. — Garrett Travers

On that point, Arendt agrees with you

This freedom which we take for granted in all political theory and which even those who praise tyranny must still take into account is the very opposite of "inner freedom," the inward space into which men may escape from external coercion and feel free.

Every attempt to derive the concept of freedom from experiences in the political realm sounds strange and startling because all our theories in these matters are dominated by the notion that freedom is an attribute of will and thought much rather than of action.

-Hannah Arendt

When properly exercised, the only logical conclusion that can be draw is that freedom between people, the recognition of sovereign boundaries between individuals, is the only manner in which to induce a society whose ruling polity doesn't violate individual, or interpersonal ethics (rights) — Garrett Travers

[/quote]

Arendt describes that quality this way while discussing ancient polities:

As regards the relation of freedom to politics, there is the additional reason that only ancient political communities were founded for the express purpose of serving the free those who were neither slaves, subject to coercion by others, nor laborers, driven and urged on by the necessities of life. If, then, we understand the political in the sense of the polis, its end or reason d'etre would be to establish and keep in existence a space where freedom as virtuosity can appear. This is the realm where freedom is a worldly reality, tangible in words which can be heard, in deeds which can be seen, and in events which are talked about, remembered, and turned into stories before they are finally incorporated
into the great storybook of human history. Whatever occurs in this space of appearances is political by definition, even when it is not a direct product of action. What remains outside it, such as
the great feats of barbarian empires, may be impressive and noteworthy, but it is not political, strictly speaking.

And so, Mr. Travers, the need for a "guaranteed public realm" is because the appearance and maintenance of "boundaries between individuals" requires more than willing it to be so:

Because of the philosophic shift from action to will-power, from freedom as a state of being
manifest in action to the liberum arbitrium, the ideal of freedom ceased to be virtuosity in the sense we mentioned before and became sovereignty, the ideal of a free will, independent from other and eventually prevailing against them. The philosophic ancestry of our current political notion of freedom is still quite manifest in eighteenth-century political writers, when, for instance, Thomas
Paine insisted that "to be free it is sufficient [for man] that he wills
it," a word which Lafayette applied to the nation-state: "Pour qu'une nation salt libre, il suffit qu'elle veuille Vetre"

My point was just that everything someone does, that is not coerced or forced, can be defined as acting in accordance with will. — Janus

I agree with you to this point, Janus, but when you are forced, you are given a choice too, and you will follow the path of what you will. It coercion or forcing usually involves a threat of something more unpleasant happening to you (general "you") than the degree of unpleasantness of acting in a way you don't want to act.

I don't think I said anything new or original; I am just saying that forcing or coercing still allows one to act according to his will.

In fact a person never acts against his own will.

In the drinking example you provided, according to my point, you do what you will: you decide that the unpleasantness of denying yourself a pleasant intoxicated state is less unpleasant than the unpleasantness of the health consequences.