> On 2011-08-08, at 4:45 AM, Julio Huato wrote:
>> Carrol Cox wrote:
>>> Freedom is the ability to act without considering the future
>>> results of
>>> the action.
>> Therefore non-human animals are most free. And if we extend the
>> meaning of "action" to include all types of motion, then inanimate
>> matter is absolutely free in the Carrolian sense.
>> In fact, human freedom is based precisely on our consciousness of
>> necessity -- of cause and effect…
I don't know which of these two viewpoints is more nonsensical.
(ad 1) It is quite impossible to act without considering future results.
The very meaning of "action" comports expected future results.
If you jump off a bridge it's because you expect to fall.
If you fall off a bridge that ain't no action--it's an accident.
If you're thrown off a bridge that's an action--but the thrower's action, not your's.
(ad 2) "Consciousness of necessity--of cause and effect" is equally impossible.
To have such consciousness means awareness of the whole chain of cause and effect--ie., of everything that exists and ever has existed in the universe.
In fact, you have no consciousness of the immediate causal nexus determining even your simplest actions.
You freely choose to order vanilla instead of chocolate ice cream. How can you conceivably recognize the "necessity" that determined your choice?
What then is the real relationship between "freedom" and "necessity?" It is dialectical in the most precise sense. Action *presumes* causality because without determinate consequences there is no truly *rational* basis for expectation of consequences--no absolute reason to expect that when you order vanilla ice cream you won't be served a roast pig instead. So everything in the universe--at least everything above the subatomic level--must be presumed to take the form of causality, to be totally determined. However, among those totally determined aspects of the universe is the fact that for every active (ie., animate) life-form all its actions appear to it in the form of freedom, appear to it as chosen--and so, in the determination of all those actions necessarily enters the moment of freedom, of inner- determined choice.
Conclusion: in regard to action as such, "freedom" and "necessity" are opposites as necessary to each other as the two sides of a coin.
Shane Mage
"The soul is the form of the body" (Aristotle)