Free Will in Ancient Thought

*** These lecture notes are works in progress ***

LECTURE NOTES 2

Here are the main points we need to understand to follow Frede's argument.

The Main Points in the Chapter

• Neither Plato nor Aristotle had a notion of the will and so no notion of free will.

• They understand human beings in terms of versions of a tripartite theory of the soul. According to this theory, the soul has three parts (reason, spirit, and appetite). Each has desires.

• These tripartite theories of the soul are part of an explanation of what makes an action ours and thus what makes us responsible for the action.

• Plato and Aristotle did not have a notion of the will because reason in their versions of the tripartite theory does not play two roles. It does not both have a desire to do something and choose between this desire and the desires of the nonrational parts of the soul.

Frede's Lecture (21-26)

⊕ βούλομαι, boulomai, verb, "wish, will."
βούλεσθαι, boulesthai, infinitive of βούλομαι.

βούλησις, boulēsis, noun, "willing" 1. Neither Plato nor Aristotle has a notion of a will. What they do have, though, is a closely related notion, namely, the notion of somebody's willing or wanting something, in particular, somebody's willing or wanting to do something, the notion of boulesthai or of a boulêsis.

What is this notion of "willing"? Why is it not a notion of a "will"?

The answers are going to take some work to see.

2. In Plato and Aristotle [the notion of "willing"] refers to a highly specific form of wanting or desiring, in fact, a form of wanting which we no longer recognize or for which we tend to have no place in our conceptual scheme. ⊕ We tend to think of "reason" as no more than an ability to make inferences and to form beliefs. For Plato and Aristotle willing, as I will call it, is a form of desire which is specific to reason. It is the form in which reason desires something. If reason recognizes, or believes itself to recognize, something as a good, it wills or desires it. If reason believes itself to see a course of action which would allow us to attain this presumed good, it thinks that it is a good thing, other things being equal, to take this course of action. And, if it thinks it is a good thing to do something, it wills or desires to do it. Thus it is assumed that there is such a thing as a desire of reason and hence also that reason by itself suffices to motivate us to do something. ⊕ What view does Frede have in mind when he says that "reason" is "attracted to the truth and the good"?

Consider the attraction to the good first.

The answer to this question, it seems, is that reason includes a process of forming beliefs about what things are good and bad and for forming desires and aversions for these things.

If the "attraction to the truth" is similar, reason includes a process of forming beliefs about the way things are. This is an assumption which is made by Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, and their later followers. They all agree that reason, just as it is attracted by truth, is also attracted by, and attached to, the good and tries to attain it.

According to "Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, and their later followers," in human beings there is a power of the soul that (in translation) these philosophers call "reason."

⊕

This conception of reason as attracted to the good is in part an answer to a question about what contemporary philosophers call "intrinsic desires."

"There is relatively little mystery about the generation of instrumental and realizer desires. These desires are generated by (conscious or unconscious) reasoning processes.... The generation of intrinsic desires is a matter of much more controversy and interest" (Desire, section "3.2 The Origins of Desires," in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).

"[Here are] caricatures of four possible theories of moral motivation, which they label instrumentalist, cognitivist, sentimentalist, and personalist... (72). According to the instrumentalist, 'people are motivated when they form beliefs about how to satisfy preexisting [intrinsic] desires' (74), which lead in turn to the formation of nonintrinsic desires to take specific actions aimed at satisfying their intrinsic desires. When a person has an intrinsic desire, D, and comes to believe that φ-ing will satisfy D, she comes to desire (nonintrinsically) to φ" (Moral Motivation, "5. 5. Moral Motivation and Experimental Psychology," Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).

The instrumentalist view is also called the Humean view. We should not immediately think that we agree with these philosophers about what "reason" is, despite our familiarity with the use of words 'reason' and 'reasoning' in English.

They think that reason by "itself suffices to motivate us to do something."

How this works is a little confusing.

The idea is that we have beliefs about what is good and what is bad. We are able to have These beliefs because we reason, and these beliefs give us desires.

Frede uses "willings" for these desires of reason.

3. In Plato and Aristotle but not in the Stoics, this view of willing, as a form of ⊕

In the Republic, Socrates argues that the soul is tripartite. He argues that the soul has "the reasoning part" (τὸ λογιστικὸν) and that it also has two parts that do not engage in reasoning: "the spirited part" (τὸ θυμοειδές) and "the appetitive part" (τὸ ἐπιθυμητικόν).

In this way, in Frede's terms, the soul has a "rational" part (reason) and two "nonrational" parts (appetite and spirit). desire distinctive of reason, is closely bound up with the view that the soul is bipartite or, rather, tripartite, meaning that, in addition to reason, it consists of a nonrational part or parts. (I will, for our purposes, disregard their specification of two nonrational parts.) This division of the soul is based on the assumption that there are radically different forms of desire, and correspondingly radically different forms of motivation, which may even be in conflict with each other and which therefore must have their origin in different capacities, abilities, or parts of the soul. Thus one may be hungry, and in this way desire something to eat, and hence desire to get something to eat. ⊕

επιθυμία, epithymia, noun, "appetite" This sort of desire is called appetite (epithymia). It is clearly a nonrational desire. One may be hungry, no matter what one thinks or believes. One may be hungry, even though one believes that it would not be a good thing at all to have something to eat. One might be right in believing this. Hence a nonrational desire may be a reasonable or an unreasonable desire. Similarly, though, it might be quite unreasonable for one to believe that it would be a good thing to have something to eat. Hence a desire of reason too might be a reasonable or an unreasonable desire. Therefore the distinction between reasonable and unreasonable desires is not the same as the distinction between desires of reason, or rational desires, and desires of the nonrational part of the soul, or nonrational desires. It is also assumed that, just as one may act on a rational desire, one may act on a nonrational desire. What is more, one may do so, even if this nonrational desire is in conflict with a rational desire.

In Plato and Aristotle, not all desires are willings.

Some desires are "appetitive." I might, for example, have a desire to eat because I am hungry. In the tripartite theory, this desire is a desire of the appetite (the appetitive part of the soul).

This appetitive desire is not the desire reason gives me if I believe it is good for me to eat when I am hungry. Both are desires to eat, but they are different because their origins are different.

Frede's terminology of rational and nonrational can be confusing.

In the tripartite theory of the soul, all desires come from one of the three parts of the soul. Rational desires are the desires that come from reason. Reason is the rational part of the soul because it is the part of the soul that engages in reasoning. Nonrational desires do not come from reason. They come from either appetite or spirit. These are the two nonrational parts of the soul because these parts of the soul do not engage in reasoning.

In the tripartite theory, it is possible for rational and nonrational desires to confict.

Rational desires are reasonable just in case the beliefs they stem from are reasonable.

What does "reasonable" mean here?

Frede is using "reasonable" in the way similiar to how we ordinarily use "rational."

What is the ordinary way we use "rational"?

This is a hard question to answer, but I think we can say this much.

We ordinarily recognize some beliefs as "rational" and some as "irrational." Rational beliefs are ones we form correctly, and irrational beliefs are beliefs we form incorrectly.

An example helps to make this a little clearer.

If I come to believe some object is red because it looks red to me, this belief is "rational." Suppose, however, that instead of looking at the object, I form the believe that it is purple because purple is my favorite color. Believing this is not "rational."

Notice that none of this tell us what beliefs Aristotle would have thought are reasonable.

4. [T]he assumption that, if there is a conflict, one may follow either reason or appetite amounts, of course, to a denial of Socrates' claim that nobody ever acts against his better knowledge or, indeed, against his mere beliefs. So, according to Socrates, if you really believe, whether rightly or wrongly, that it is not a good thing to have something to eat now, you will not be driven by appetite, as if your reason were a slave dragged around by the passions, and have something to eat. Plato's and Aristotle's doctrine of a tripartite soul and different forms of motivation, with their possible conflict and the resolution of such conflict, constitutes an attempt to correct Socrates' position, in order to do justice to the presumed fact that people sometimes, in cases of conflict, do act, against their better knowledge, on their nonrational desire. ⊕ ἀκρασία, akrasia, noun, alternate spelling of ἀκράτεια, akrateia, "want of power, incontinence," In any event, Aristotle in his famous discussion of this presumed phenomenon, called akrasia, or, rather misleadingly, “weakness of will,” is explicitly attacking Socrates' position.

⊕ "Socrates fought against the account [knowledge to be in someone, but be mastered by something else, and dragged around like a slave], in the belief there is no incontinence" (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics VII.2).


"[Socrates’] view [is] that the way we act is completely determined by our beliefs, in particular our beliefs concerning the good and related matters" (Michael Frede, "The Philosopher," 9. Greek Thought. A Guide to Classical Knowledge (edited by Jacques Brunschwig and Geoffrey E. R. Lloyd), 1-18. Harvard University Press, 2000).

“The Stoics revert to Socrates' extreme intellectualism. They deny an irrational part of the soul. The soul is a mind or reason. Its contents are impressions or thoughts, to which the mind gives assent or prefers to give assent. In giving assent to an impression, we espouse a belief. Desires are just beliefs of a certain kind, the product of our assent to a so-called impulsive impression” (Michael Frede, "The Philosopher," 12).

"[The Stoics thought that r]ecognizing something as a good, or even just believing to recognize something as a good, allows one to act, and nothing else does. … The transformation of our animal soul into human reason would render us inactive, if, as part of reason, we did not also acquire a notion of the good. It is only because we now judge certain things to be good that we are motivated to act” (Michael Frede, “On the Stoic Conception of the Good,” 75. Topics in Stoic Philosophy (edited by Katerina Ierodiakonou), 71-94. Oxford University Press, 1999). Here we need to know some history of philosophy. We need to know that Plato (and Aristotle who follows Plato on this point) developed the tripartite theory in opposition to Socrates.

Socrates did not recognize "nonrational" desires. He thought that all desires are rational desires. (This view about desire is sometimes called "Socratic intellectualism.")

Why is it misleading to translate ἀκρασία as "weakness of the will"?

Frede thinks that although Plato and Aristotle believe that there is ἀκρασία, they do not have a notion of a will. So "weakness of will" is misleading translation because it suggests that Plato and Aristotle thought that human beings have a will and that it can be strong or weak.

5. Now, in looking at this discussion [of akrasia] in the Nicomachean Ethics, it is important to notice that it is not focused, as modern readers apparently can hardly help thinking, on cases of acute mental conflict, that is to say, on cases in which we sit there anguished, tormented, torn apart by two conflicting desires which pull us in opposite directions, while we try to make up our mind which direction to take. We tend to read Aristotle in this way, because we have a certain conception of the mind which we project onto Aristotle. But the cases on which Aristotle is focusing are rather different.

What is this "certain conception of the mind which we project onto Aristotle"?

It is a conception of mind in which reason plays two roles. This will become clearer later.

6. Take the case of impetuous akrasia. Somebody insults you, and you get so upset and angry that you let your anger preempt any thought you would have, if you took time to think about an appropriate response. You just act on your anger. Once you have calmed down, you might realize that you do not think that this is an appropriate way to respond to the situation. In general, you think that this is not a good way to act. But at the time you act, you have no such thought. The conflict here is a conflict between a nonrational desire and a rational desire which you would have, if you gave yourself or had the space to think about it.

Frede seems to have in mind the following passage in Aristotle.

"There are two forms of incontinence: impetuousness and weakness. ... The impetuous incontinent is led on by his feelings because he has not deliberated. ... Quick-tempered and ardent people are most prone to be impetuous incontinents. For in quick-tempered people the appetite is so fast, and in ardent people so intense, that they do not wait for reason, because they tend to follow appearance" (Nicomachean Ethics VII.9.1150b).

In "impetuous akrasia," someone reacts to the situation without considering whether the reaction is "appropriate." Had he considered whether this, he would have thought it was not.

"The conflict here is a conflict between a nonrational desire and a rational desire which you would have, if you gave yourself or had the space to think about it."

The "you would have" can be puzzling.

I am not sure of the explanation, but here is one possibility.

Only one part of the soul can be in control at a time. In the case of "impetuous akrasia," the spirited part is in control. So when you react to the insult, you act on a desire from spirit.

How is this spirited desire in conflict with reason?

This desire is not in accord with your beliefs about what is good and what is bad.

What is it for a part of the soul to be in control?

There does not seem to be an answer to this question. A part either is or is not in control.

If, however, we ask how a part comes to be in control, there is an answer.

"Hence the importance, as Plato says, of having been definitely trained from childhood to like and dislike the proper things" (Nicomachean Ethics II.3.1104b).

7. Or look at the very different case of akrasia of appetite. You have the rational desire not to eat any sweets. At some point you decided not to have any sweets. But now a delicious sweet is offered to you, and your appetite may be such that, at least for the moment, it does not even come into your mind that you do not want to eat sweets any more. This again is not a case of acute conflict.

This case (akrasia of appetite) is similar to the one Frede calls "impetuous akrasia."

8. But, whichever cases of akrasia we consider, Aristotle's view is never that, if we are confronted with such a conflict, whether it is acute or not, and act on a nonrational desire against reason, we do so because there is a mental event, namely, a choice or a decision to act in this way. And certainly it is not the case that one chooses or decides between acting on one's belief and acting on one's nonrational desire. For, as we have seen, the way Aristotle describes these cases, they often, if not for the most part, do not even involve an occurrent thought to the effect that it would not be a good thing to act in this way.

This is crucial to Frede's argument.

Aristotle does not think that reason chooses between two desires, its desire and the desire of spirit (in the case of "impetuous akrasia") or appetite (in the case of "akrasia of appetite").

If reason did "choose," then Aristotle would appear to have a notion of the will.

One point in favor of Frede's interpretation is that other than past "training," Aristotle provides no explanation for whether the person acts on a rational or nonrational desire.

Is this Plato's view too?

The claim that there are "rational" and "nonrational desires" enters the Ancient philosophical tradition with the following argument in Plato's Republic. Socrates is the speaker.

⊕ Maybe a model from AI helps provide some insight. As a primitive model of an animal behavior, we can think of the animal mind as consisting of a KB and a MG. The KB contains beliefs. The MG contains maintenance goals. A maintenance goal is a conditional. The antecedent is some state of depletion. The consequent is an achievement goal.

Before the animal is thirty, its mind looks like this

MG: If I am thirsty, I drink
KB:

After the animal perceives it is thirsty, it has a new belief

MG: If I am thirsty, I drink
KB: I am thirsty

The antecedent of the maintenance goal is now a logical consequence of the KB. As part of how the animal mind works, this fact triggers the maintenance goal and gives the animal the achievement goal "I drink."

The animal uses the beliefs in its KB to figure out what to do to make the achievement goal "I drink" true. Once it knows, it acts to achieve the goal and thus to maintain itself by eliminating the state of depletion.

Reason can stop this, but how it happens is not very clear.

One possibility is that reason prevents the maintenance goal from being triggered. Perception changes the KB changes so that it contains the belief "I am thirsty," but this does not trigger the maintenance goal.

Another possibility is that the maintenance goal triggers but reason prevents the achievement of the achievement gaol.

On this second possibility, there seems to be both a rational and nonrational desire. The nonrational desire is the achievement goal to drink. The rational desire is the desire not to drink. Reason stops the achievement goal as part of its attempt to satisfy its desire.   "Thirst itself is in its nature only for drink itself?
  Absolutely.
  Hence the soul of the thirsty person, insofar as he is thirsty, is does not wish anything else but to drink, and it wants this and is impelled toward it?
  Clearly" (Republic IV.439b).

  "Are we to say that some men sometimes though thirsty refuse to drink?
  We are indeed, many and often.
  What then, should one affirm about them? Is there something in the soul of those who are thirsty but refuse to drink, something bidding them to drink and something different forbidding them, that masters ) the thing that bids them to drink?
  I think so.
  And is it not the fact that that which inhibits such actions arises when it arises from the calculations of reason, but the impulses which draw and drag come through passions and diseases?
  Apparently.
  Not unreasonably, shall we claim that they are two and different from one another, naming that in the soul whereby it reckons and reasons the reasoning part (λογιστικὸν) and that with which it loves, hungers, thirsts, and gets passionately excited by other desires, the unreasoning and appetitive part (ἐπιθυμητικόν)—companion of various repletions and pleasures.
  It would not be unreasonable but quite natural" (Republic IV.439c).

Socrates (the character in Plato's dialogue) seems to say that there two desires (a nonrational desire to drink and a rational desire not to drink) present in the soul at the very same time.

He goes on to argue for the existence of spirit as a part of the soul.

⊕
  "Don’t we often notice on other occasions that when desires force someone contrary to his calculation (βιάζωνταί τινα παρὰ τὸν λογισμὸν ἐπιθυμίαι), he reproaches himself and feels anger at the thing in him that is doing the forcing; and just as if there were two warring factions, such a person’s spirit becomes the ally of his reason? But spirit partnering with the appetites to do what reason has decided should not be done—I do not imagine you would say that you had ever seen that, either in yourself or in anyone else.
  No, by Zeus, I would not, Socrates" (Republic IV.440a).

βιάζω, biazō, verb, "constrain, force"

Cf. Euripides, Medea 1079. First performed in 431 BCE.

  "So in the soul, there is the spirited part (θυμοειδές), which is the helper of reason by nature (ἐπίκουρον ὂντῷ λογιστικῷ φύσει) unless it is corrupted by bad nurture?
  We have to assume it as a third, Socrates.
  Yes, provided it shall have been shown to be something different from the reasoning, as it has been shown to be other than the appetitive.
  That is not hard to be shown, Socrates. For that much one can see in children, that they are from their very birth chock-full of rage and high spirit, but as for reason, some of them, to my thinking, never participate in it, and the majority quite late.
  Yes, by heaven, excellently said, and further, one could see in animals that what you say is true" (Republic IV.441a).   "Of the spirit, that with which we feel anger, is it a third, or would it be the same as [one of] these we have distinguished, reason and appetite]?
  Perhaps with one of these, the appetitive.
  But I once heard a story which I believe, that Leontius the son of Aglaion, on his way up from the Peiraeus under the outer side of the northern wall, becoming aware of dead bodies that lay at the place of public execution knew a desire to see them and at the same time was disgusted and turned away. For a time he struggled and veiled his head, but finally, overpowered by his desire, he pushed his eyes wide open, rushed up to the corpses, and cried, ‘There, you wretches, take your fill of the fine spectacle!'
  I too have heard the story.
  Yet, surely, this anecdote signifies that anger sometimes fights against desires, as one thing against another.
  Yes, it does, Socrates" (Republic IV.439e).

Can this passage be understood so that it is consistent with Frede's interpretation?

Leontius became aware of the dead bodies, "knew a desire to see them," and was "disgusted."

This suggests Leontius is thinking about the future. He does not approve of looking at the bodies (believes that looking at them is bad) but thinks that unless he takes steps to prevent it, he will act on his appetitive desire to look at them. So he "turned away."

There is a desire that moves him to take these steps. How does this desire arise?

It seems to arise from reason and spirit somehow working together. Reason believes it is bad to take pleasure in staring at dead bodies, and spirit is disgusted at the thought of doing so.

Leontius, however, ends up looking with "eyes wide open" at the bodies.

Why does this happen?

Appetite is in control in his soul.

The suggestion is not that Leontius chooses between his rational and appetitive desire. It is that he stares because he is carried away by the sort of person he has become.

9. More important, Aristotle himself explicitly characterizes these cases as ones in which one acts against one's choice (prohairesis), ⊕ προαίρεσις, proairesis, noun, "choice" rather than as cases in which one chooses to act against reason. What in Aristotle's view explains that one is acting against one's own beliefs is not a choice which causes the action. It is, rather, a long story about how in the past one has failed to submit oneself to the training, practice, exercise, discipline, and reflection which would ensure that one's nonrational desires are reasonable, that one acts for reasons, rather than on impulse, and hence that, if there is a conflict, one follows reason. It is this past failure, rather than a specific mental event, a choice or decision, which in Aristotle accounts for akratic action.

There are two points here.

This first is that Aristotle thinks we act against our προαίρεσις.

To understand this first point, we need to understand what Aristotle thinks a προαίρεσις or "choice" is. Frede discusses this in 15 and 16. So we will return to this first point then.

⊕ "In children the first childish sensations are pleasure and pain, and that it is in these first that goodness and badness come to the soul; but as to wisdom and settled true opinions, a man is lucky if they come to him even in old age and; he that is possessed of these blessings, and all that they comprise, is indeed a perfect man. I term, then, the goodness that first comes to children 'education.' When pleasure and love, and pain and hatred, spring up rightly in the souls of those who are unable as yet to know by reason; and when, after grasping the reason, they consent thereunto that they have been rightly trained in fitting practices:—this consent, viewed as a whole, is goodness, while the part of it that is rightly trained in respect of pleasures and pains, so as to hate what ought to be hated, right from the beginning up to the very end, and to love what ought to be loved, if you were to mark this part off in your definition and call it 'education,' you would be giving it, in my opinion, its right name" (Plato, Laws II.653a; cf. II.659d). The second point is that Aristotle thinks that what explains why someone acts on an unreasonable nonrational desire is a fact about his past. Frede takes him to think that the person "has failed to submit [him]self to the training, practice, exercise, discipline, and reflection which would ensure that [his] nonrational desires are reasonable, that [he] acts for reasons, rather than on impulse, and hence that, if there is a conflict, [he] follows reason."

10. It should now be clear why Aristotle does not have a notion of a will. One's willing, one's desire of reason, is a direct function of one's cognitive state, of what reason takes to be a good thing to do. One's nonrational desire is a direct function of the state of the nonrational part of the soul. One acts either on a rational desire, a willing, or on a nonrational desire, an appetite. In the case of conflict, there is not a further instance which would adjudicate or resolve the matter. In particular, reason is not made to appear in two roles, first as presenting its own case and then as adjudicating the conflict by making a decision or choice. How the conflict gets resolved is a matter of what happened in the past, perhaps the distant past.

"It should now be clear why Aristotle does not have a notion of a will."

Why?

Aristotle recognizes two possibilities for the history of an action for someone in which there is conflict among the parts of his soul. It can come from reason, or it can come from one of the nonrational parts of the soul. If we ask what determines whether it comes from reason or from one of the nonrational parts, the answer is not that reason chooses. It is that there has or has not been a failure in "training, practice, exercise, discipline, and reflection.”

This is the argument against the will in Aristotle, but Frede takes himself to show something more general: that "[n]either Plato nor Aristotle has a notion of a will" (21):

11. What Aristotle does have is a distinction between things we do hekontes and things we do akontes [Nicomachean Ethics III.1.1111a]. ⊕ ἀεκούσιος aekousios, adjective from ἀέκων

ἀκούσιος is the Attic contraction for ἀεκούσιος

ἀέκων aekōn, adjective, "not of one's own accord"

ἄκων is the Attic contraction for ἀέκων

ἄκοντες, akontes, adjective, plural form of ἄκων

ἑκών, hekōn, adjective, "of own's own accord"

ἑκούσιος, hekousios, adjective from ἑκών

ἑκόντες, hekontes, adjective, plural form of ἑκών

ἑκών looks like a participle (word formed from a verb and used as an adjective), but no verb exists.

When ἑκών is in the predicate position and agrees with the subject, it is translated as an adverb.


"Virtue is about passions and actions. These receive praise or blame when they are of our own doing, but pardon, sometimes even pity, when they are not of our own doing" (Nicomachean Ethics III.1.1109b).

"Now in fact he does it of his own accord [or: it is his own doing]; for in these sorts of actions [such as throwing cargo overboard in a storm to prevent the ship form sinking] he has within him the origin of the movement of the limbs that are the instruments of the action" (Nicomachean Ethics III.1.1110a).

"What is forced, then would seem to be what has its origin outside the person forced, who contributes nothing" (Nicomachean Ethics III.1.1110b).

"Since, then, what is not of one's own accord [or: not one's own doing] is what is forced or is caused by ignorance, what is of one's own accord seems to be what has its origin in the agent himself when he knows the particulars that that the action consists in" (Nicomachean Ethics III.1.1111a). The distinction he is aiming at is the distinction between things we do for which we can be held responsible and things we do for which we cannot be held responsible. Aristotle tries to draw the distinction by marking off things we do only because we are literally forced to do them or because we act out of ignorance, that is to say, because we are not aware, and could not possibly be expected to be aware, of a crucial feature of the situation, such that, if we had been aware of it, we would have acted otherwise. If somebody offers you a chocolate, he might not be aware, and there may have been no way for him to know, a crucial fact involved, namely, that the chocolate is poisoned, such that, if he had known this, he would not have offered it to you. We are, then, responsible for those things we do which we do neither by force nor out of ignorance. Put positively, for us to be responsible for what we do, our action has to somehow reflect our motivation. We must have acted in this way, because in one way or another we were motivated to act in this way, that is, either by a rational desire or a nonrational desire or both.

The late Stoics introduce a notion of the will to explain why it is true that sometimes when we act, we are responsible for what we do. Aristotle does not have a notion of the will. He does, though, believe that sometimes when we act, we are responsible for what we do.

So we can expect Aristotle to have an explanation of this fact.

As part of this explanation, he distinguishes between what we do ἑκόντες and do ἄκοντες.

It is a problem to know how to translate these Greek words in Aristotle. One possibility is that ἑκόντες means "of our own doing" and ἄκοντες means "not of our own doing."

How does Aristotle understand what is it to do something "of our own doing"?

What we do this way has "to somehow reflect our motivation." For this to be true, it must be that what happens stems from a desire from one of the parts of the soul.

How does this connect to responsibility?

Suppose that something happens to you and that this something is connected to something I do. Suppose that I give you something to eat and that your eating what I give you poisons you.

Am I responsible for poisoning you? Aristotle gives us a procedure for deciding.

Did I give you something to eat because I had a desire to give it to you (as opposed to, say, the wind moving me)? If not, then I am not responsible. If I had a desire, then we ask whether I was ignorant of the particulars (that what I gave you contained poison). If I was ignorant, then I am not responsible as long as I am not responsible for my ignorance.

⊕


"Here first of all he [Zeno of Citium, the founder of Stoicism] made some new pronouncements about sensation itself, which he held to be a combination a of a sort of impact offered from outside (which he called φαντασία and we may call an impression, and let us retain this term at all events, for we shall have to employ it several times in the remainder of my discourse),—well, to these impressions received by the senses he joins the act of assent which he makes out to reside within us and to be a voluntary act (in nobis positam et voluntariam)" (Cicero, Academica I.40).

The dictionary entry for Latin adjective voluntarius is "willing, of his or its own free-will, voluntary." 12. Traditionally, and highly misleadingly, Aristotle's distinction is represented as the distinction between the voluntary and the involuntary, and Aristotle's terms hekōn and akōn are translated accordingly. This tradition is ancient. Already Cicero translates hekōn in this way. It reflects a projection of a later conception of the mind onto Aristotle.

Suppose we take Aristotle's distinction between things we do ἑκόντες and things we do ἄκοντες as a distinction between things we do "voluntarily" and things we do "involuntarily."

Why does Frede thinks this way of understanding Aristotle is "highly misleading"?

13. To begin with, we have to keep in mind that Aristotle's distinction is supposed to apply to all beings—for instance, domestic animals, children, and mature human beings—who have been trained or taught or have learned to behave in a certain way and whom we can therefore expect to behave in a certain way. If we hold an animal responsible, scold and punish it to discourage it or praise and reward it to encourage it, we do so not because we think that it made the right choice or that it had any choice. At least Aristotle assumes that the animal, whatever it does, just acts on a nonrational desire, albeit one which may be the product of conditioning and habituation, which may or may not have been fully successful. The same, more or less, according to Aristotle, is true of children. But children begin to have and act on rational desires, and mature human beings should have, and should act on, rational desires rather than on impulse. But when they nevertheless do act on a nonrational desire, again it is not by choice. The nonrational desire in and by itself suffices to motivate us, even when we are grown up. And, as we have seen, even if we act against our rational desire, this does not involve a choice. Thus there is no notion of a will, or a willing, in Aristotle, such that somebody could be said to act voluntarily or willingly, whether he acts on a rational or a nonrational desire. Hence for Aristotle responsibility also does not involve a will, since any form of motivation to act in a given way suffices for responsibility.

This is confusing.

Here is one possibility for what Frede is saying.

Translating things we do ἑκόντες as things we do "voluntarily" suggests that Aristotle believes that we do something of our own accord only if it stems from a rational desire.

This, however, is not something Aristotle believes.

14. But, as I have already indicated, this does not mean that Aristotle does not have a notion of choice. For he says that if one acts on a nonrational desire against one's better knowledge, one acts against one's choice. Indeed, the notion of a choice plays an important role in Aristotle. For he thinks that if an action is to count as a virtuous action, it has to satisfy a number of increasingly strict conditions. It must not only be the right thing to do, one must be doing it hekōn, ⊕
ἐκ προαιρέσεως (ek proaireseōs).

προαιρέσεως is a genitive form of προαίρεσις.

ἐκ , ek, preposition, "from, out of"

προαιρεῖσθαι (proaireisthai) is the middle-passive infinitive of προαιρέω.

προαιρέω, proaireō, verb, "choose"

Aristotle seems to think that a προαίρεσις is a αἵρεσις or "taking" but is a αἵρεσις with qualification.

He thinks it is a taking of one thing before another and that therefore a προαίρεσις is not possible without deliberation.

So a προαίρεσις for Aristotle is a special kind of choice.

"The term itself gives an indication. A προαίρεσις is a αἵρεσις, not unqualifiedly so, but of one thing before another, and this is not possible without reflection and deliberation" (Aristotle, Eudemian Ethics II.1226b).

See also Nicomachean Ethics III.2.1112a. of one's own accord; indeed, one must will to do it. What is more, one must do it from choice (ek prohaireseōs), that is, one must choose (prohaireisthai) to do it, and the choice itself must satisfy certain conditions. Hence Aristotle explains what it is to choose to do something. In doing so, given what we have said, he also distinguishes choosing from willing. This has contributed to a widespread misunderstanding of what Aristotle takes choosing to be. It is often thought that willing and choosing are two entirely different things, that choice is a composite desire, consisting of a nonrational desire to do something and a belief, arrived at by deliberation, that it would be a good thing to act in this way in this situation.

Aristotle "distinguishes choosing from willing."

What is his distinction?

Frede provides the answer in 15 and 16.

15. I hardly need point out that this interpretation in part is driven by a model of the mind according to which our actions are determined by our beliefs and our nonrational desires, and in any case are motivated by our nonrational desires. But this clearly is not Aristotle's view, given his notion of willing. The reason why he distinguishes willing and choosing is not that willing and choosing are altogether different but that choosing is a very special form of willing. One may will or want something which is unattainable. One may will to do something which one is unable to do. One may will something without having any idea as to what one should do to attain it. Choosing is different. We can choose to do something only if, as Aristotle puts it, it is up to us (eph' hēmin), if it is in our hands, ⊕ ἐφ᾽ ἡμῖν, eph᾽ hēmin, "up to us"

ἐπί (epi) is a proposition

ἡμῖν is the dative of the personal pronoun ἡμεῖς ("we")

When ἐπί is used with the dative it, means "with reference to." Hence the traditional translation "up to us."


"In Aristotle [ἐφ᾽ ἡμῖν] becomes something like a technical philosophical term. It will remain in philosophical use throughout antiquity and beyond. But in the course of this history the term comes to be used and to be understood as meaning or at least implying something about the psychological make-up of human beings about the way they act in the way they do, an understanding which means far beyond what it had meant or implied in ordinary language or, I think, in Aristotle. It came to be thought that it meant or implied some kind of freedom of choice or even a free will" (Michael Frede, "The ἐφ ̓ἡμῖν in ancient philosophy," 110. ΦΙΛΟΣΟΦΙΑ 37 (2007) 110-123).

"[W]hat is in our power or depends on us and hence is something we can deliberate about, is defined [in Aristotle] mainly negatively by the fact that it is not already settled, one way or the other, by the causes mentioned [in Nicomachean Ethics 1112a] and positively only by the fact that it is something which can be done or brought about through ourselves (δι᾽ αὑτῶν πρακτῶν, 1112a34)" (Michael Frede, "The ἐφ ̓ἡμῖν in ancient philosophy," 115).


"In these sorts of actions, he has within him the origin of the movement of the limbs that are the instrument of the action, and when the origin of the actions is in him, it is also up to him to do them or not to do them" (Nicomachean Ethics III.1.1110a).

"Choice is not willing, though they appear closely akin. .... We will ends, but choose the means to our end; for example we will to be healthy, but choose things to make us healthy" (Nicomachean Ethics III.4.1111b).

"No one deliberates about eternal things--about the universe or about the incomensurability of the sides and the diagonal. Nor about things that are in movement but always come about the same way, either by necessity, by nature, by some other cause--about the solstice, or the rising of the stars. Nor about what happens in different ways at different times-about draughts and rains. Nor about what happens by fortune--about the finding of treasure. For none of these results could be achieved through ourselves. We deliberate about things that are up to us, about actions we can do. This is what is left. For causes seem to include nature, necessity, and luck, but besides them mind and everything that can be done through ourselves. But we do not deliberate about all human affairs. No Spartan deliberates about how the Scythians might have the best political system (Nicomachean Ethics III.5.1112a).

"If ... we cannot refer our actions back to other origins beyond those in ourselves, then it follows that whatever has its origin in us is itself up to us and according to ourself" (Nicomachean Ethics III.5.1113b).

"When acting is up to us, so is not acting; and when no is up to us, so is yes. So if acting when it is fine is up to us, not acting when it is shameful is up to us" (Nicomachean Ethics III.5.1113b). if whether it gets done or not or happens or not depends on us. Thus one cannot choose to be elected to an office, since whether one is elected depends on others. But one can will or want to be elected to an office.

What is this "model of the mind"?

It seems to be a "model of the mind" in which there are no rationa desires. Beliefs, on this "model," are not sources of motivation. They only supply information.

Aristotle does not have this "model of the mind."

He thinks that a willing is a rational desire and that "choosing is a very special form of willing."

16. Yet choosing still is a form of willing. In Aristotle's view there is a certain good which we all will or want to attain in life, namely, a good life. As grown-up human beings, we have a certain conception, though different people have rather different ones, of what this final good consists of. So in a particular situation we shall, as mature human beings, choose what to do in light of our conception of this final good, because we think, having deliberated about the matter, that acting in this way will help us to attain this good. But this is what willing to do something is: desiring to do something, because one thinks that it will help one to attain something which one considers a good and which one therefore wills or wants. Hence choosing is just a special form of willing. So in Aristotle's account choice does play an important role. But choices are not explained in terms of a will but in terms of the attachment of reason to the good, however it might be conceived of, and the exercise of reason's cognitive abilities to determine how in this situation the good might best be attained.

"[C]hoosing is just a special form of willing."

What does this mean?

In the kind of choosing that is a form of willing, someone

(i) has beliefs about what is good and what is bad
(ii) on the basis of these beliefs, has a goal to achieve
(iii) thinks there are things up to him he can do to achieve this goal
(iv) on the basis of deliberation, thinks that he should do m to achieve the goal
(v) does m if nothing interferes.

Aristotle uses προαίρεσις for the desire to do m.

Here is a more concrete example.

I have beliefs about my present circumstances. Given these beliefs and my beliefs about what is good and what is bad, I form a desire for some end, e. This desire is a rational desire and what Frede calls a "willing." Now I have to figure out how to satisfy this desire. To do this, I deliberate. I think about how I can bring about e by doing something up to me. On the basis of this deliberation, I think that doing m is the thing up to me to do to achieve e. This gives me a desire to do m. This desire is a προαίρεσις. It moves me to do m if nothing interferes.

So choosing is the form the willing takes in the circumstances.

17. Just as there is no notion of a will in Aristotle, there is also no notion of freedom. This does not at all mean that Aristotle has a view of the world which entails that we are not free. Aristotle's view of the world is such that the behavior of things in the celestial spheres is governed by strict regularity dictated by the nature of the things involved. But once we come to the sublunary, grossly material sphere in which we live, this regularity begins to give out. It turns into a regularity “for the most part,” explained by the imperfect realization of natures in gross matter. What is more, these regularities, dictated by the natures of things, even if they were exceptionless, would leave many aspects of the world undetermined. This is not to say that there is anything in the world which, according to Aristotle, does not have an explanation. But the way Aristotle conceives of explanation, the conjunction of these explanations still leaves the world under determined in our sense of casual determination. So in Aristotle's world there is plenty of space left for human action which does not collide with, or is excluded by, the existing regularities. Aristotle appeals to this, for instance, when he explains that choosing presupposes that it is up to us, depends on us, whether something gets done or not. Whether it gets done or not is not already settled by some regularity in the world. What is more, Aristotle's universe is not populated by sinister powers who try to thwart us in trying to live the kind of life which is appropriate for beings of our nature. There is a God whose thought determines the natures and thus the regularities in the world as far as they go, and there are truly angelic intellects who move the planets. They should be a source of inspiration for us. They certainly are not a hindrance to our life [as they are in Gnostic thought].

"Just as there is no notion of a will in Aristotle, there is also no notion of freedom."

Why does Aristotle not think think this?

Not because he thinks that "[w]hether [the action necessary to live a good life] gets done or not is ... already settled by some regularity in the world.

Not because he thinks that the "universe is ... populated by sinister powers who try to thwart us in trying to live the kind of life which is appropriate for beings of our nature"

So why?

18. This bright view of the world with plenty of space for free action should not delude us into thinking that we have, according to Aristotle, much of a choice in doing what we are doing. Let us look at Aristotelian choice again. We can choose to do something, if it is up to us to do it or not to do it. This notion of something's being up to us will play a crucial role in all later ancient thought. And it will often be interpreted in such a way that, if something is up to us, we have a choice to do it or not to do it. But, if we go back to Aristotle, this is not quite so. All Aristotle is committed to is that, if something is up to us, we can choose to do it. We can also fail to choose to do it. But to fail to choose to do it, given Aristotle's notion of choice, is not the same as choosing not to do it. We saw this in the case of akrasia. One can choose to follow reason. But if one fails to follow reason and acts on a nonrational desire, it is not because one chooses not to follow reason and, rather, chooses to do something else. So the choice one makes in Aristotle is not, at least necessarily, a choice between doing X and not doing X, let alone a choice between doing X and doing Y. It is a matter of choosing to do X or failing to choose to do X, such that X does not get done.

Frede does not give the answer yet.

Instead, he returns to the kind of "choice" Aristotle calls a προαίρεσις.

Aristotle does not think that "if something is up to us, we have a choice to do it or not to do it." He thinks we can "choose" to do it or fail to "choose" to do it.

"[I]f one fails to follow reason and acts on a nonrational desire, it is not because one chooses not to follow reason and, rather, chooses to do something else."

This is a little confusing.

If I do not "follow reason," what moves me is not a προαίρεσις. I act on a nonrational desire instead, and the explanation for this is that I did not submit myself to the appropriate training.

Could Aristotle still think I make some sort of choice?

19. What is more, Aristotle's and, for that matter, Socrates', Plato's, and the Stoics' view of the wise and virtuous person is that such a person cannot fail to act virtuously and wisely, that is to say, fail to do the right thing for the right reasons. But this means for Aristotle that a wise and virtuous person cannot but make the choices he makes. This is exactly what it is to be virtuous. ⊕ It seems to follow that virtue and wisdom for Aristotle, although possible, are not an at all common human condition.

This interpretation also raises a question about what happens to the desires of nonrational parts of the soul. As Frede seems to understand Aristotle, the virtuous and wise always act on rational desires because what they do is something they choose to do. Hence the ability to act otherwise or the ability to choose otherwise, if construed in a narrow or strong sense, is not present in the virtuous person, because it is a sign of immaturity and imperfection to be able to act otherwise, narrowly construed. So long as one can choose and act otherwise, one is not virtuous. So Aristotle's virtuous person could act otherwise only in an attenuated sense, namely, in the sense that the person could act otherwise, if he had not turned himself into a virtuous person by making the appropriate choices at a time when he could have chosen otherwise in a less attenuated sense. Unfortunately, this more robust, less attenuated, sense is not a sense Aristotle is particularly concerned with. And the reason for this is that Aristotle thinks rather optimistically that the ability to make the right choices comes with human nature and a good upbringing. But he also, given the age he lives in and his social background, has no difficulty with the assumption that human nature is highly complex and thus extremely difficult to reproduce adequately in gross matter. Thus he has no difficulty in assuming that most human beings are such imperfect realizations of human nature that they have little or no hope of becoming virtuous and wise. He also has no difficulty with the assumption that most human beings lack a good upbringing. We shall see that this way of thinking will increasingly offend the sensibilities of later antiquity.

Aristotle does not believe that if someone is responsible, he could have acted otherwise.

For Aristotle, a human being with "virtue" is responsible for his actions but could not act otherwise if this means that he has a motivation to act other than how he does act.

Now Frede returns to the answer to the question in 17.

Aristotle thinks "that most human beings are such imperfect realizations of human nature that they have little or no hope of becoming virtuous and wise."

How can a human being be an "imperfect realization of human nature"?

Here is a possibility.

Aristotle thinks that human beings naturally develop in certain ways over time. They acquire what he calls "reason" as they become adults. This process does not always reach its natural end. When this happens, the human being is an "imperfect realization of human nature."

20. Aristotle's view leaves plenty of space for unconstrained human action, but it is hardly hospitable, even in principle, to a notion of a free will. In any case, he lacks this notion. For Aristotle a good life is not a matter of a free will but of hard work and hard thought, always presupposing the proper realization of human nature in the individual, and a good upbringing, which unfortunately many are without.

Aristotle has no notion of free will because he has no notion of a will.

Nor does he think that all human beings are free to do what they need to do to live a good life.

He thinks that when a human being lives a good life, this happens because he had "the proper realization of human nature," "a good upbringing," and did the "hard work and hard thought."

What is this "hard work and hard thought"?

The "hard work," it seems, is the work involved in training one's nonrational parts of the soul.

The "hard thought," it seems, is in understanding what is good and what is bad.