Free Will in Ancient Thought

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

LECTURE NOTES 6

This is not an easy chapter. Here are the main points.

The Main Points in the Chapter

• The Platonists and Aristotelians reject the Stoic doctrine of fate. They thought that nothing would be up to us and that we would not be responsible for our actions if everything happens because of fate.

• Alexander of Aphrodisias (Aristotelian in the late 2nd, early 3rd century CE) adapts a notion of "up to us" from an argument Carneades had much earlier pressed against Epicurus and Chrysippus.

• Alexander's understanding of free will has problems.

Frede's Lecture (58-64)

1. ⊕ If we now look at how the Stoic notion of a free will was received by the Stoics' contemporaries, we might think that, given the massive assumptions involved, it would not have much chance to be accepted at all. But it turns out that Christians just after the time of Epictetus were beginning to articulate their beliefs in what they themselves often thought of, and called, a new philosophy. For the most part they found these assumptions highly congenial. Almost immediately, with some modifications they adopted the Stoic notion of a free will. There is no doubt that the belief in a free will became so widespread, indeed for a long time almost universal, thanks to the influence of Christianity.

"Christians just after the time of Epictetus" were receptive to the Stoic notion of a free will.

"There is no doubt that the belief in a free will became so widespread, indeed for a long time almost universal, thanks to the influence of Christianity."

2. But we shall have occasion to consider this in detail when we discuss Origen and Augustine. For now I will restrict myself to a consideration of the Stoics' main philosophical rivals, the Platonists and the Peripatetics. They were prepared to accept, as we have seen, a notion of a will. They were also prepared to accept a notion of freedom and, with a great deal more hesitation, the language of a free will. But they were not prepared to accept many of the assumptions which went with this notion in Stoicism. ⊕ "By fate, I mean what the Greeks call εἱμαρμένῃ--an ordering and sequence of causes, since it is the connextion of cause to cause which out of itself produces anything. It is everlasting truth, flowing from all eternity. Consequently nothing has happened which was not going to be, and likewise nothing is going to be of which nature does not contain causes working to bring that very thing about. This makes it intelligible that fate should be, not the fate of superstition, but that of physics, an everlasting cause of things--why past things happened, why present things are now happening, and why future things will be" (Cicero, On Divination 1.125).

εἱμαρμένῃ, heimarmenē, perfect participle of μείρομαι (μείρομαι, meiromai, verb, "receive as one's portion"), "that which is allotted"

"God is one and the same with Mind, Fate, and Zeus" (Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Philosophers VII. 135). So these rivals had at best a highly modified notion of a free will. The main stumbling block was the Stoic doctrine of fate and an all-encompassing divine providence, or, as we regularly put the matter, the Stoic assumption of a universal determinism.

Frede discusses the Christian reception of the Stoic notion in the next chapter.

In this chapter, he considers "the Stoics' main philosophical rivals: the Platonists and the Peripatetics."

They did not accept the "Stoic doctrine of fate."

What is this "Stoic doctrine of fate"?

"According to the Stoics, everything which happens has antecedent physical causes which form a chain reaching back as far as we care to trace it. ... Stoic fate is the work of an agent, namely, God, whose plan dictates the way the world evolves and changes, including what we ourselves do, down to the smallest detail" (A Free Will 18).

3. To understand the ensuing dispute [about the Stoic doctrine of fate] we have to go back a long time before there was any notion of a free will. The dispute started as a debate about whether it can be said that our actions are up to us (eph' hēmin), or in our power, if they, like everything else which ⊕

ἐφ᾽ ἡμῖν, eph᾽ hēmin, "up to us"

αὐτοπραγία, autopragia, noun happens in the world, are determined by fate. And for the most part it continued to be a debate about this point. But the Stoics' opponents completely disregarded the distinctive features of Stoic determinism, treating it as if it were the kind of determinism Epicurus had rejected. In particular, they paid no attention to the probably Chrysippean distinction between an action which is free (autopragia), and an action which, though not free, we are still responsible for because it was up to us to do it or not to do it and which depended for its getting done on our being this sort of person.

Why did the Platonists and Aristotelians reject the the "Stoic doctrine of fate"?

The debate was "about whether it can be said that our actions are up to us (eph' hēmin), or in our power, if they, like everything else which happens in the world, are determined by fate."

⊕

4. ⊕ Presumably, the opponents disregarded these particular features of Stoic determinism, because they all rejected universal determinism as such, and so the particular form in which it came did not seem to matter much. Also, the particular features of Stoic determinism are so tied up with specifically Stoic beliefs, which the opponents would reject anyway, that they saw little reason to pay particular attention to them. Finally, because the Stoics themselves admitted that there are practically no wise people, the distinction between free actions and forced actions, which we are nevertheless responsible for, seemed rather academic. For all practical purposes the Stoics seemed to claim that, though our actions (inasmuch as we are fools) are not free but forced by fate through the external objects of our desire, we are nevertheless responsible for these actions. That is because, being the people we have become, we gave assent to the corresponding impressions. The opponents found this objectionable.

The Platonists and Aristotelians do not think we are responsible when our assent to impulsive impressions are forced because they do not think our assent is up to us in this case.

5. ⊕ in nostra potestate ("in our power") is the Latin translation of ἐφ᾽ ἡμῖν. They argued that it was a misuse of the notions of "up to us" (eph' hēmin) or “in our power” (in nostra potestate) to apply them to cases where our assent is forced. And they claimed that this Stoic sense of “up to us” was too weak to justify attribution of responsibility to a person. For how can a person be held responsible for something the person is forced to do?

What is the "Stoic sense of 'up to us'"?

Even if our action was not free because it was forced, "we are still responsible for because it was up to us to do it or not to do it and which depended for its getting done on our being this sort of person" (3).

This is confusing to think about.

⊕ "When acting is up to us, so is not acting, and when no is up to us, so is yes. And so if acting, when it is fine, is up to us, not acting, when it shameful, is also up to us; and if not acting, when it is fine, is up to us, then acting, when it is shameful, is also up to us. But if doing, and likewise not doing, fine or shameful actions is up to us, and if, as we saw, doing or not doing them is what it is to be a good or bad person, being decent or base is up to us" (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics III.5.1113b). The idea, it seems, is that the action was up to us because the sort of person we are is up to us. The Stoics back this way of thinking about what is up to us with the assumption about how God arranges things.

6. We can already see which direction the debate was bound to take. The opponents of the Stoics would try to specify a stronger notion of what is up to us, which in their view would justify our attribution of responsibility to a person. But in the end, to elucidate their notion of a responsible action, they would introduce notions of freedom, free action, and free will, which in one sense are much weaker than the corresponding, incredibly strong, Stoic notions.

Frede now turns to an argument that predates the Stoic notion of free will.

7. If we try to trace the debate, we can follow it from Carneades' time, that ⊕ Carneades is an Academic.

Arcesilaus succeeded Crates (the fifth head of the Academy), changed the focus of the Academy (the school Plato founded), and initiated the "New" Academy. Carneades (214-129 BCE) is Arcesilaus' most distinguished successor.

De fato = Cicero, On fate is, the middle of the second century B.C. It needs to be said, though, that our evidence concerning this debate is extremely meager until we come to Alexander of Aphrodisias at the end of the second century A.D. Our main piece of evidence for Carneades and the intervening period is Cicero's short work De fato, which, moreover, is extant only in a highly mutilated form. On the evidence of Cicero, it seems that Carneades tried to do precisely what the opponents had to do, namely, give a new, alternative account of what it is for something to be up to us, which made this a stronger notion.

Carneades offers an "alternative account of what it is for something to be up to us." As an Academic, he offers this account not necessarily because he believes it. He is engaging in dialectic against an opponent.

8. ⊕ "Carneades taught that the Epicureans could have maintained their position with out this fictitious swerve. For, seeing that Epicurus taught that there could be some voluntary movement (motum voluntarium) of the mind, it would have been better to defend that than to introduce the swerve, especially as they cannot find a cause for it. And by defending this they could easily have resisted Chrysippus. For in having admitted that there was no movement without a cause, they would not be admitting that all things that came about did so through antecedent causes. For (they could have said), there are no external and antecedent causes of our volition. We are therefore misusing the common manner of speaking when we say that somebody wants or does not want something without a cause; for we say without a cause to mean without an external and antecedent cause, not without any cause. ... Similarly in the case of the voluntary movements of mind an external cause is not to be looked for; for voluntary movement has this nature in itself, that it is in our power and is obedient to us. And this is not without a cause, for the nature of that thing itself is the cause of that thing" (Cicero, On fate 23).

"Whom, after all, do you consider superior to the man who ... would deride the fate which some introduce as overlord of everything, but sees that some things are necessitated, others are due to fortune, and others through ourselves, since necessity is accountable to no one, and fortune is an unstable thing to watch, while our actions, with which culpability and its opposite are naturally associated, are without an overlord? For it would be better to follow the mythology about gods [according to tradition] than be a slave to the fate of the natural philosophers. The former at least hints at the hope of begging the gods off by means of worship, whereas the latter involves an inexorable necessity" (Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus X.133).

"Moreover, if all movements are invariably linked, if new movement arises from old in unalterable succession, if there is no atomic swerve to initiate movement that can annul the decrees of destiny and prevent the existence of an endless chain of causation, what is the source of this freedom (libera) possessed by living creatures all over the earth? What, I ask, is the source of this volition (voluntas) wrested from destiny, which enables us to advance where pleasure leads us, and to alter our movements not at a fixed time or place, but at the direction of our minds? For undoubtedly in each case it is the individual volition that gives the initial impulse to such actions and channels movements though the limbs" (Lucretius, De Rerum Natura II.251). In considering Carneades' account, we have to keep in mind that he was an Academic skeptic, and that the kind of Academic skepticism he espoused excludes the possibility that he himself endorsed his account. This was part of a dialectical argument to neutralize whatever inclination one may have to accept the Stoic account and so was offered as an equally viable alternative. According to Cicero (XI.23), Carneades criticized Epicurus for introducing a motion without a cause, namely, the swerve of the atoms. In common parlance, Carneades argues, we do say that something happens without a cause or even that somebody wants something or does not want something without a cause. But this is just a manner of speaking. What we mean is that there is no external antecedent cause for what one is doing. This does not mean that there is no cause at all. There is always a cause. It is just that sometimes the cause is internal. For instance, in the case of atoms it is true that they do not need an external antecedent cause to move, let us say, something which gives them a push; rather, they can move all by themselves. But this motion, when they move by themselves, is not without a cause and explanation altogether. The cause lies in the nature of the atom, which is such that the atom can move by itself, on account of its weight. And, Carneades continues, according to Cicero (XI.25), there similarly are voluntary motions of the soul. These are not motions which have their explanation in some antecedent external cause but in some internal cause.

Carneades "criticized" Epicurus.

Epicurus seems to have argued that the atoms swerve.

1. Sometimes when we do something, we are responsible for what we do.
2. If (1) is true, then we have no "overlord" that makes us do what we do.
3. If we have no "overlord" that makes us do what we do, then the atoms swerve.
----
4. The atoms swerve.

Carneades attacks premise (3) in this argument. He seems to invite Epicurus to agree that what follows from the antecedent in (3) is that there are no "external and antecedent causes of our volition" and that this consequence does not entail that some motions do not have "antecedent external cause[s]" and thus that the atoms swerve.

9. ⊕ Now, given the analogy of the atoms, Cicero is surely wrong when he identifies this internal cause as the nature of these voluntary motions. Given the analogy of the atoms, Carneades must have said that these voluntary motions have their origin in the nature of the soul or the organism. It is easy to see what his point must have been. The nature of the soul or the organism is such that, if the organism is depleted, it will want to have something to eat or drink and hence will go to look for something to eat or drink. If, on the other hand, the organism is satiated, it naturally will not want to have something to eat or drink, and, accordingly, it will not go out to look for something. So the organism's or the soul's wanting to have something to eat and its going to get something to eat are not due to any external antecedent cause, an appetizing object out there, which makes it want to have something to eat.

This is a little confusing.

The question is what does Carneades identify as the "internal cause" of the "voluntary motions" in the mind.

Frede thinks that Carneades "must have said" that the "voluntary motions" of the soul have their "origin in nature of the soul." So these motions have a cause, but the cause is not an external, antecedent cause.

10. ⊕ ἑκούσιοι (hekousioi) is a plural form of ἑκούσιος

motus voluntarii = "voluntary motions"

in nostra potestate = "in our power"

ἑκούσιος, hekousios, substantival adjective from ἑκών

ἑκών, hekōn, adjective, "of own's own accord" In trying to interpret these remarks, we should not be misled by Cicero's term motus voluntarii ["in the case of the voluntary movements of mind an external cause is not to be looked for" (XI.25)]. This expression does not refer to a will, let alone a free will, which causes these motions. For we are told what causes them: the nature of the soul or the organism. If they are called voluntary (I presume the Greek would be hekousioi), it is because they are not produced by an external, antecedent cause and in this sense forced on us. They are produced by the nature of the organism. And they are in that sense up to us (see Cicero's expression in nostra potestate [(XI.25)].). If we need something to eat, our nature is such that we will want to have something to eat and will go and get something to eat; if we do not need something to eat, our nature is such that we will not want to have something to eat, and we will not move.

The "voluntary motions" are "are not produced by an external, antecedent cause and in this sense forced on us." Instead, they "are produced by the nature of the organism" and thus "in that sense up to us."

This new "sense [of] up to us" is not the sense of Chrysippus and the Stoics.

11. ⊕ But, to return to Carneades, having a rough idea of his dialectical position, we next have to see how this is supposed to constitute a challenge to Chrysippus's view. The way we have characterized the Stoic view, as described in Cicero's De fato and the way Carneades will have understood it, is this: An appetizing object is out there; this object is an external, antecedent cause, for it evokes in us an agreeable impression; this too is an antecedent cause, for it evokes in us an assent to the impression; and we are responsible, because, given the sort of person we are, we give assent, whether we can help it or not.

Suppose that we do something because we have assented to an impulsive impression.

For the Stoics, both in the case of the wise and in the case of the fool, something in the world causes has to have the impulsive impression. So this impression has an external, antecedent cause. Our assent has an antecedent cause, but this cause is not external. The impulsive impression cause us to assent, "given the sort of person we are."

In the wise, though, unlike in the fool, the impulsive impression does not force our assent.

12. ⊕ Carneades cleverly shifts the Chrysippean paradigm. Having already, in reference to Epicurus, drawn a clear distinction between forced and natural motions of atoms, he seems to assume similarly that the motus voluntarii ["voluntary motions"] of the soul or the organism are to be contrasted with forced motions, meaning motions caused by an external antecedent cause. Whereas Chrysippus had said that giving assent to the appropriate impression makes all ensuing actions up to us or in our power, Carneades distinguishes between those actions in which assent is forced and those in which assent has its origin in our nature, namely, those instances in which it is natural for us to want a certain kind of object. He thus considerably restricts the scope of what is hekousion, or voluntary, and thereby reduces the scope of what we are responsible for, not only in comparison with Chrysippus but also in comparison with Aristotle. In effect, Carneades allows for psychological compulsion to be exculpating in a way it was not for Aristotle.

"Carneades cleverly shifts the Chrysippean paradigm" for understanding "up to us or in our power."

How?

"Carneades distinguishes between those actions in which assent is forced and those in which assent has its origin in our nature, namely, those instances in which it is natural for us to want a certain kind of object."

What does "forced" as opposed to "natural" mean in the distinction Carneades draws?

Forced actions, as Frede says in 13, are those we take "under the spell of the object of [our] desire."

So Carneades "reduces the scope of what we are responsible for."

We are not responsible for the actions if we take these actions because we have become the sort of person who cannot resist chasing after the pleasures it is not "natural" for us to want.

This is not Aristotle's view of responsibility. Nor is it the Stoics.

Aristotle thought that sometimes we are responsible for these actions because sometimes we are responsible for becoming the person we have become. The Stoics thought that we are always responsible of these actions because we are always responsible for becoming the person we have become.

13. ⊕ In this way Carneades also narrows the notion of what is up to us, in relation to both Aristotle and Chrysippus. When Aristotle had said that you can only choose to do what it is up to you to do or not to do, what he had in mind was simply that in these cases the world is such that it depends entirely on you, is completely in your control, whether something gets done or not done. For this it was entirely irrelevant whether you were or were not under such psychological compulsion that you could not but choose to do what you did. All that mattered was that it would not get done unless you did it. But this is now ruled out by Carneades. For something to be up to you, to be in your power, you must not be under the spell of the object of your desire. And this correspondingly narrows down the notion of a choice. You now have a choice only if you are not compelled to want something. But there is still no sign in Carneades of a notion of a will or a notion of freedom or a notion of free will.

Carneades "narrows the notion of what is up to us, in relation to both Aristotle and Chrysippus."

How?

Aristotle thought that an action can be up to us and one we are forced to take because of the person we have become. He thought that "[a]ll that mattered was that it would not get done unless you did it."

Frede does not give the explanation for Chrysippus.

14. ⊕ ἑκόντες, hekontes, adjective, plural form of ἑκών

ἀβίαστος συγκατάθεσις (abiastos synkatathesis)

ἀβίαστος, abiastos, adjective, "unforced, without violence"

συγκατάθεσις, synkatathesis, "approval, assent"

De fato (On fate), Alexander of Aprhodisias


"In late antiquity and beyond [Alexander of Aprhodisias] was regarded as a commentator on Aristotle, and many let themselves be guided by him in what they took to be Aristotle's views. But Alexander looked back on a long tradition of discussing Aristotle and the question of what is in our power, a discussion which also involved the Stoics and Academics like Carneades. As a result his view on what is in our power, as expressed in his De fato is not quite Aristotle's anymore, but heavily reflects this later discussion" (Michael Frede, "The ἐφ ̓ἡμῖν in Ancient Philosophy," 120. ΦΙΛΟΣΟΦΙΑ 37 (2007) 110-23. Reprinted in What is Up to Us?: Studies on Agency and Responsibility in Ancient Philosophy, edited by Pierre Destrée, Ricardo Salles, Marco Zingano. Academia Verlag, 2014).

"As an Aristotelian [Alexander of Aprhodisias] distinguishes between what we do voluntarily and we do by choice. But he draws this distinction in what seems to me a rather un-Aristotelian way. He characterizes voluntary action as due to our giving unforced assent (ἀβίαστος συγκατάθεσις) to an appropriate impression (183, 26-28). But Aristotle did not talk at all about assent. He had talked about something you do which is not forced on you, though you know all the relevant details you can be expected to know. What is more, Alexander seems to identify something we do by choice with something which is in our power in that we have deliberated about it and given it our assent on the basis of a critical scrutiny of reason" (Michael Frede, "The ἐφ ̓ἡμῖν in Ancient Philosophy," 120). Things are different when we now make a jump and look at Alexander of Aphrodisias at the end of the second century A.D. Both Carneades and Chrysippus, it seems, had regarded the notion of what is up to us and the notion of the voluntary (hekousion) as coextensive, except that Carneades had limited both notions by excluding actions done under psychological compulsion. In the case of Alexander, we have a philosopher who can look back on more than two centuries of serious and almost scholastic study of Aristotle by philosophers who regard him as an authority. Aristotle, as we have seen, clearly distinguishes between what we do of our own accord (hekontes) and what we do by choice, because it is up to us. Hence, of course, Alexander will also insist on this distinction, which non-Peripatetics by now had forgotten and were easily confused about. Thus we find Alexander drawing the distinction in a passage we have looked at before (De fato XIV, p. 183, 27ff). But now we should note that he characterizes an action as voluntary (hekousion) if it is due to an unforced assent (abiastos synkatathesis) to an impression. This is clearly Carneades' notion of the voluntary. Furthermore Alexander proceeds to characterize "what is up to us" (to eph' hēmin) more narrowly, as a matter of assent based on a rational evaluation of one's impression. Hence, for Alexander, something's being in our power involves not only, as in Carneades, our assent's not being forced, it also involves a critical scrutiny of our impression.

Now Frede jumps forward in history.

Carneades lived in the 3rd and 2nd century BCE. Alexander of Aphrodisias lived in the 2nd and 3rd century CE.

Alexander is an Aristotelian. Aristotle "distinguishes between what we do of our own accord (hekontes) and what we do by choice, because it is up to us." Alexander has to draw this sort of distinction too.

"For up to us is not to be found in creatures yielding of their own accord to an appearance when it impinges on them and exercising impulse towards what has appeared, but this perhaps is what constitutes and indicates the voluntary. But the voluntary (ἑκούσιον) and up to us (ἐφ’ ἡμῖν) are not the same thing. The voluntary is what comes about from assent that is not forced (ἀβιάστου γινόμενον συγκαταθέσεως), but the what is up to us comes about with an assent that is in accordance with reason and judgment. And for this reason, if something is up to us it is also voluntary, but not everything that is voluntary is up to us. For the irrational living creatures too, which act in accordance with the impulse and assent in them, act voluntarily; but it is peculiar to man that some of things that are brought about by him are up to him" (Alexander of Aphrodisias, De fato XIV).

Alexander says that what we do of our own accord is what we do when we give unforced assent.

To draw an Aristotelian like distinction between what we do of our own accord and what we choose to do, Alexander says that doing something up to us is both doing something of our own accord and doing it by giving our assent to an impulsive impression "in accordance with [our] reason and judgment."

15. Alexander's argument against the Stoics crucially relies on the claim that, given their doctrine of fate, they abuse the notion of “what is up to us” by disregarding the fact that, if something is up to us, its happening or not happening cannot already be settled by the state of the world; in this regard they rely on Aristotle's view of choice. But he also argues that, since the Stoics use the notion of “what is up to us” even when assent is forced (as, according to the Stoics, it invariably is, so long as we are fools), they are misusing the expression “up to us” (De fato XXXVIII, p. 211, 27ff) and doing away with freedom (to eleutheron). In this connection Alexander repeatedly also uses the term autexousion. His treatise almost ends with the remark that a person is in charge (kyrios) of only those actions of which he himself (autos) also has the power (exousia) not to do them. So Alexander explicitly makes freedom a condition for voluntariness and thus for responsibility. In fact, he does so in the sentence referred to in the very terms the Stoics use to define freedom. He thereby also makes freedom a condition for what is up to us. This freedom, though, is not the freedom of the Stoics. That freedom presupposes ⊕ "According to [the Stoics], ... of men the greatest number are bad, or rather there are one or two whom they speak of as having become good men as in a fable, a sort of incredible creature as it were and contrary to nature and rarer than the Ethiopian phoenix; and the others are all wicked and are so to an equal extent, so that there is no difference between one and another, and all who are not wise are alike mad" (Alexander of Aprodisias, De fato XXVIII).

(For the Ethiopian phoenix, see Herodotus, Histories II.73.1 and Pliny the Elder, The Natural History X.2.)



"[T]hose of us who ask [the Stoics] how is it possible for what is up to us to be preserved if all things are in accordance with fate do not ask this putting forward only the name of what is up to us, but also that thing which it signifies, that which is in our power (τὸ αὐτεξούσιον)" (Alexander of Aprodisias, De fato XIV).

"[T]hey say they preserve what is free and in our power (τὸ ἐλεύθερόν τε καὶ αὐτεξούσιον)..." (Alexander of Aprodisias, De fato XVIII).

"The [Stoics] would have ceased from their combativeness in argument and would have concede that what is up to us is free and in our own power and in control of the choice (τὸ ἐφ’ ἡμῖν ἐλεύθερόν τε καὶ αὐτεξούσιον καὶ κύριον τῆς τῶν κειμένων αἱρέσεώς) and doing of opposites in the same circumstances, if they paid attention to what is agreed by all" (Alexander of Aprodisias, De fato XIX).

"There are, then, several sorts of cause, and they say it is equally true of all of them that it is impossible that, when all the circumstances surrounding both the cause and that for which it is a cause are the same, the matter should sometimes not turn out in a particular and way sometimes should. For if this happens there will some motion without cause" (Alexander of Aprodisias, De fato XXII).

"It has already many times been stated and shown in the earlier parts of this work that [the Stoics] do not preserve the up to us (ἐφ ̓ἡμῖν)..." (Alexander of Aprodisias, De fato XXXVIII). that nothing whatsoever can force one's assent. This is why only the wise man is free and why, as Alexander notes (De fato XXVIII, p. 199, 16ff), for the Stoics only one or two people have ever been wise and free. In contrast, Alexander's freedom is of a more limited kind. For him it suffices that over a sufficiently large range of objects which we try to attain or avoid, our action is not compelled by them, and that our assent, in such cases, is not forced.

Alexander thinks that his analysis of doing what is up to us is correct, not the Stoic one.

The rest of Frede's argument is confusing.

Frede highlights the fact that Alexander's "treatise almost ends with the remark that a person is in charge (kyrios) of only those actions of which he himself (autos) also has the power (exousia) not to do them."

Here is the sentence Frede has in mind. "Man is only in control (κύριός) of those things over which he himself (αὐτὸς) has the power (ἐξουσίαν) not to do them" (Alexander of Aprodisias, De fato XXXIX).

Frede's point, as I understand it, is that Alexander thinks that when we do something up to us (something we do of our own accord and by giving our assent in accordance with our reason), we could also have not done the thing.

This, Frede thinks, gets Alexander into trouble.

16. ⊕ The notion of freedom involved here is a relative one. To be responsible for going after a certain object of desire, one must be free relative to that object of desire. There is, of course, nothing in the notion of freedom that Alexander is using which would prevent somebody from being free relative to all objects of desire. Then we would have a will which is entirely free in Alexander's sense of free. But this is not the Stoic sense of free. For in the Stoic sense of freedom, any inappropriate attachment would deprive you of freedom altogether. Nevertheless, one might think that Alexander's notion was more realistic in that it allowed for degrees of being free.

Frede further explains Alexander's relative notion of freedom.

17. ⊕ What is more problematic is how he tries to give positive content to his notion of freedom. If we are not forced by the object of desire to go after that object, what are we positively free to do? Here again Alexander relies on Aristotle's notion that something is up to us if whether it gets done entirely depends on us. But this claim admits of two interpretations. We already saw in the case of Aristotle that the fact that it is up to you to do or not to do something does not mean that you have a choice. It means that you can choose to do something but can also fail to choose to do it, and failing to choose to ⊕ do something does not mean that you choose not to do it. Yet Alexander now, in explicating his notion of freedom, seems to understand freedom precisely in this sense: you can choose to do it, and you can also choose not to do it.

"What is more problematic [than that there are degrees of being free because Alexander's notion of freedom is relative] is how Alexander tries to give positive content to his notion of freedom."

For the Stoics, the "positive" content of our freedom is given by the story about God.

For Alexander, as Frede understands him, the "positive content" is that we can make two choices. We choose to go after the object of our desire, and we can choose not to go after the object of our desire.

18. ⊕ "For nature and habit seem to be the causes in us of choice; but, to the extent to which there is not-being in these, so to this extent there is not-being also in choice. And for this reason we sometimes choose those things of which the cause has not been laid down in us beforehand, on account of the weakness and slackness of mortal nature" (Mantissa).

Mantissa is a supplement to Alexander's On the soul. There is some dispute about whether the author is Alexander or one of his students. In trying to explicate this, Alexander seems to be driven into a hopeless tangle. He is perfectly aware that, according to Aristotle, the virtuous person cannot choose otherwise. This is what it is to be virtuous, to have no trace of a motivation left to act other than virtuously. So Alexander recurs to the fact that there was a point before the virtuous person was virtuous at which he could have chosen otherwise. But this has the consequence that now human freedom, if it involves the ability to choose otherwise, looks like a sign of human weakness, an inference actually drawn by a follower of Alexander's, the author of the Mantissa (chapter XXII). It is clear, at least in part, what motivates Alexander's position. He is so eager to reject determinism that he not only wants to reject determinism from the outside in the form of objects which force our assent. He also wants to reject determinism from the inside. And so, prompted by a Stoic claim to the contrary, he is willing to claim that under identical conditions, both internal and external, that is to say, under the same external circumstances and the same internal conditions of the mind, it is still possible to choose and to act otherwise (De fato [XXII] 192, 22ff). Here we have come very close to Dihle's favored notion of a will which decides or chooses in some mysterious way that is independent not only of the external objects of desire but also of the desires and beliefs of the person.

What is this "a hopeless tangle"?

Aristotle thought that "the virtuous person cannot choose otherwise." Alexander, who is an Aristotelian, tries to stay consistent with Aristotle by saying "that there was a point before the virtuous person was virtuous at which he could have chosen otherwise." This makes "human freedom" look like "a sign of human weakness."

Why does this make "human freedom" look like "a sign of human weakness"?

I am not sure.

Frede also takes Alexander to face a philosophical problem because he "is willing to claim that under identical conditions, both internal and external, that is to say, under the same external circumstances and the same internal conditions of the mind, it is still possible to choose and to act otherwise."

Why is this a problem?

Because he makes our choices have no explanation.

19. ⊕ I am inclined to think, though, that Alexander's position is also the result of what I take to be another confusion. Alexander lived in an age in which there was an enormous concern for justice, a concern that each get what he deserves, instead of some getting what they do not deserve and most not getting what they deserve. When we go back to Aristotle, responsibility, praise, blame, reward, and punishment were not a matter of desert in the way this came to be understood later. Aristotle's idea, like Chrysippus's, is clearly that we take somebody to task for what he is doing, because we want to change his motivation. For this purpose it is quite irrelevant how the person came to be thus motivated or whether he could have helped being thus motivated. We have to keep in mind that Aristotle's notion of responsibility also applies to children and to animals. And we surely are not concerned about whether the animal had much choice in doing what it did. We are concerned that it has still not learned its lesson. We do not ask how it came about that it has failed to do so. We give it another lesson. We encourage and discourage animals, children, and grown-ups for as long as it is appropriate. That is no longer appropriate for the person who is wise and virtuous, who has learned his lesson, but this does not mean that we cannot find what the virtuous person is doing quite wonderful and admirable or that his action lacks merit, just because there is no longer any need for encouragement.

Frede suggests that "Alexander's position is also the result of ... another confusion."

What confusion?

It has to do with what we are doing in praising and blaming.

"Aristotle's idea, like Chrysippus's, is clearly that we take somebody to task for what he is doing, because we want to change his motivation. For this purpose it is quite irrelevant how the person came to be thus motivated or whether he could have helped being thus motivated."

Alexander does not have this "idea."

20. ⊕ When we encourage a child, we are telling the child that it is doing pretty well. By this we mean that it is well on its way to becoming wise and virtuous. Indeed, the child's action is a further step on this road. This is why it has merit. We think that the child for its age is doing admirably. And we think this against the background of what other children of this age in this situation might have done. This does not at all mean that we think that the child's merit lies in the fact that it could also have behaved miserably, as other children might have done, but chose not to behave in this way. It might not even have occurred to the child that it could act otherwise. The merit does not lie in its having made the right choice, when it could have chosen otherwise, let alone in its choice not to act otherwise. The merit lies in its having done remarkably well for a child of this age in this situation, raising expectations about the future. This is why we encourage and reward it.

This can be confusing.

The question is what are we doing when we praise or blame a child.

In the case of praise, we are reinforcing the child's motivation by saying that "it is well on its way to becoming wise and virtuous." In saying this, according to Frede, we are not saying "that the child's merit lies in the fact that it could also have behaved miserably, as other children might have done, but chose not to behave in this way."

Frede goes on to give an argument.

21. ⊕ Just think of a builder who has still not quite mastered the art. Yet the house he has now built is actually pretty good, and so we might praise and reward him. The merit lies in his having done an admirable job for somebody at his stage of mastering the art of building. We are not going to ask whether he could have helped doing this. And we would be positively stunned if he came to ask a reward for having not built a bad house, when he could have chosen to do so.

Frede gives an example against the conception praise he attributes to Alexander.

Suppose that a "builder" tells us that he deserves praise because he could have chosen to build a bad house but did not. Frede thinks that we "would be positively stunned" to hear this.

Why would we be "positively stunned"?

We would be "positively stunned" because the builder misunderstands what he did to deserve praise. He thinks he deserves praise because he resisted the temptation to build a substandard house that would increase his profit at our expense. It might have resisted this temptation, but we praise him for building a "pretty good" house.

22. ⊕ But the notion Alexander seems to have is precisely this—that there is no merit or demerit in what you are doing, unless you could have acted otherwise, indeed unless you could have chosen to act otherwise. You now earn praise and a reward, because you chose to act in the right way, when you could have chosen to act in the wrong way. And from here it will not be a long step to the completely un-Aristotelian, or un-Platonic, idea that what makes your action so virtuous and praiseworthy is that you did not choose such a tempting and appealing alternative, when it was on offer. Indeed, it seems to be Alexander's view that what is meritorious about the virtuous person's virtue and virtuous action is that it is a product of the meritorious choices the person made earlier in his life, when he could still have chosen otherwise.

Alexander thinks that the virtuous person is praiseworthy because earlier in his life he resisted various temptations to act incorrectly. It is these facts that makes what he does praiseworthy now that he is virtuous.

23. ⊕ This is simply wrong. The merit of the virtuous action lies in the action, the choice which led to it, and the motivation which led to this choice. Any earlier actions have merit to the extent that they show the person to be well on the way towards becoming virtuous. They decidedly do not derive their merit from the fact that at this point the person did not choose to take an alternative course of action when it was open for him to do so.

Frede rejects Alexander's explanation of the praiseworthiness of the virtuous person.

24. ⊕ Hence it seems to me that Alexander's notion of freedom as a matter of being, in the same circumstances, able to act and to choose to act otherwise is due in good part to his mistaken notion of due desert. In any case, it is in Alexander that we find the ancestor of the notion that to have a free will is to be able, in the very same circumstances, to choose between doing A and doing B. Unfortunately, though, but also as we would expect, Alexander is not able to provide a coherent account of how such a free will is supposed to be possible.

"It is in Alexander that we find the ancestor of the notion that to have a free will is to be able, in the very same circumstances, to choose" to do something and to choose not to do it.

Frede thinks this conception of free will is philosophically implausible.

25. ⊕ "It should be clear from what I have said that when the Stoics said that it is in our power, or depends on us, whether we act in a certain way or not, they do not mean at that time when we act a certain way, at that time also we could have acted otherwise. For otherwise there would be no explanation for why we act the way we do, and in particular no explanation in terms of us, of who we are, or what we are like. But what is true is that, when we act in a certain way, another person in the same circumstances would or could have acted otherwise. And more importantly, we ourselves could have acted otherwise, if we had not become the sort of person we did become. In fact, we perhaps within limits, still could become the sort of person who would not act in this way in this sort of situation" (Michael Frede, "The ἐφ ̓ἡμῖν in Ancient Philosophy," 118). Alexander got into this tangle mainly for two reasons. First, he did not sufficiently understand Stoic determinism, so he did not see that a choice might be no less free for having a perfectly good explanation in terms of antecedent causes. The wise person would have to be crazy not to make the choice he does, even though that choice is not impossible. But this does not make his choice unfree. Second, Alexander has a mistaken notion of merit, as if merit were a matter of not choosing to act otherwise. If somebody does something remarkable, surely the merit lies in the accomplishment, not in the fact that the person could have chosen to do something quite unremarkable instead. If one writes a review of a book, it surely would be misunderstood if one said that the merit of the book lay in the fact that the author, instead of choosing to write this book, could have chosen to spend the time on the beach. We deserve no credit for not being crazy or for not choosing to do crazy things, and we have no reason for complaint, if we are not free to do crazy things.

"If one writes a review of a book, it surely would be misunderstood if one said that the merit of the book lay in the fact that the author, instead of choosing to write this book, could have chosen to spend the time on the beach."

The remark probably would not be "misunderstood." The reader would probably understand it as a sarcastic way to say that the book was no good and that author deserves no praise for having written it.