Freedom in Stout and Grice

by JLS
for the GC

R. O. DOYLE who is working very actively on this matters and I are considering a point made by Stout in his "Manual of psychology" and the earlier "Voluntary action". While Stout (who influenced Grice) uses 'free-will' explicitly in the Manual, he refers to 'freedom' on at least for occasions in "Voluntary Action" -- the crucial quote being the last, where 'freedom' occurs three times, along with an argument that he will use again in the "Manual".


(a) Stout writes in 1896 Mind, "Voluntary Action":


"It is then easy for the partisan of contingent
FREEDOM to point out that the will is often opposed to impulses
which are the strongest in the sense defined. "

(b)

"Now
if we make full allowance for these masked motives, and also
for the strength which a motive may derive from its connexion
with the total mental organisation, it will, I think, be very
difficult for the advocate of contingent FREEDOM to show that,
in forming a resolution, we do not always follow the strongest
motives."

(c)

"If I have explained why the
fixity of will should be out of proportion to the relative strength
of the corresponding desire, I have cut the ground from under
the feet of those who make a case for contingent FREEDOM by
referring to hard cases of volition." -- this is followed by a quote from James.

(d)

"We have to inquire how this consciousness of FREEDOM
arises, and what support it lends to the argument in favour of
contingent FREEDOM. At the outset we must notice that it is
not confined to the case contemplated by Professor Sidgwick.
Wherever there is full and prolonged deliberation, the subject
is up to the time when the decision is formed, under the
impression that it is possible for him to choose either of two
alternative courses of action. The reason is I think plain.
Before he has decided, he does not know what he is going to
do. This is what his indecision means. He must therefore
regard all the alternative ends which he has in mind as possible
objects of volition. But this obviously constitutes no argument
for contingent FREEDOM. We might as well argue that the fall
of a penny is not causally determined, because when we throw
it we do not know whether head or tail will turn up. There is
however a further complication when one of the courses of
action is judged to be reasonable and opposing courses unreasonable.
We here not merely regard it as possible that the
reasonable course may or may not be chosen; we also affirm
that it is what we ought to choose. And this, I take it, means
that it is what we would choose, if the grounds for it were fully
brought home to us, instead of being arrested in their development
by the impulse of the moment, or by desires which, if not
momentary, are at least comparatively isolated in the total
organisation of the self. When we say that we ought to
choose a certain course, we mean, I think, that it would be
chosen by an ideal self. The contrast between the ideal self
and the actual self is in the first place a contrast between the
self as a systematic unity and relatively detached tendencies.
In the second place, it is a contrast between an undeveloped
and a developed self. The development intended is the
development of the self as a whole in the direction at once
of more perfect unity and of greater differentiation. The,
developed self would recognise itself as the goal to which the
undeveloped self was on the whole tending. Thus when we
say we ought to pursue a certain course, we mean that we
should actually decide on pursuing it if we were more completely
what we already are. We mean therefore that there is
in us a possibility of so deciding."

Refs.

Grice. 1948. Meaning
Grice. 1949. Disposition and intention
Grice. 1971. Intention and uncertainty
Prichard 1945. Acting, willing, desiring. In Urmson, ed. Prichard 1968.
Stout. 1896. Voluntary action