By JLS
for the GC
He has some good passages about two-stage model of free will and determinism.
Henry L. Mansel (1820-1871). A professor of metaphysical philosophy at Oxford, his "Prolegomena logica" (1851) was very influential. Cited by Kane in his "Free will and value". Mansel is a libertarian:
"My first and only presentation of power or causality is", he writes, "to be found in my consciousness of myself as willing."
"In every act of volition, I am fully conscious that it is in my power to form the resolution or to abstain."
"And this constitutes the presentative consciousness of free will and of power."
"Like any other simple idea, it cannot be defined."
"And hence the difficulty of verbally distinguishing causation from mere succession."
"But every man who has been conscious of an act of will, has been conscious of power therein."
"And to one who has not been so conscious, no verbal description can supply the deficiency."
That so acute a thinker as Mr. Mill can imagine that he has
saved the principle of causality from the charge of
fatalism" amuses Mandel
"That whatever
happens could not have happened otherwise, unless some-
thing had taken place capable of preventing- it, is indeed
in one sense a perfectly harmless position, but also a
perfectly unproductive one."
"It is the mere truism of the Nursery Rhyme :
There was an old woman lived under a hill,
And if she's not gone she lives there still.
"Examine it closer, and the question at once arises, whence
is this counteracting something to come?
If from myself, from a self-determined act of free will, this concedes the
whole question at issue.
If from an act of will determined by preexisting causes, or altogether from without,
I am still in the iron grasp of Necessity.
If the preventing circumstance, come whence it may, comes as the
certain sequence of antecedent phenomena, I am still the
slave of circumstances:
if otherwise, the whole resemblance
between moral and physical causation vanishes.
But let us go up to the fundamental principle of the
theory itself, Ihe conduct of a man, we are told, is the
invariable consequent of motives present to his mind ; so
that, given the motives and the man's character, we could
certainly predict the action.
Character, it must be observed, is not here to be understood in Aristotle's sense,
as a disposition caused by a series of voluntary acts : it
must be something coeval with the first act of so-called
volition.
At the earliest period at which I am capable of
acting, I possess a character of some sort ; and that character, together with the motives presented, determines
certainly how I shall act.
The plausibility of the theory arises from an ambiguity
in the term "motive".
Tn knowing the jihenomena present
to a man's mind at the moment of any act of volition, is
it included that we are to know their relation to his will?
If so, the supposed prediction is a mere begging of the
question : when I know how he will be inclined to act,
I know how he will act.
If not, the advocate of the
doctrine must succumb to the sophism of the Annus
Buridani, and concede that the unfortunate animal, between two bundles of hay exactly alike, must starve.
The solution of this sophism, supposing, of course, that
the ass in that instance represents a voluntary, and not
merely a spontaneous agent, is likewise the solution of
Mill's argument.
What is meant by two bundles of hay exactly alike ?
They must be indistinguishable by sight, smell, touch, and so forth.
But are objects exactly
similar as regards the senses, therefore exactly similar as
regards the will ?
A lump of salt and a lump of s§gax
may be similar to the eye : are they therefore similar to
the palate ? If taste is not dependent upon another sense,
why may not will be independent of all the senses? If,
on the other hand, the two bundles of hay are to be
exactly similar, as motives in relation to the will, the
argument amounts to the mere truism, that if the ass
does not choose one he will choose neither.
Exactly the same fallacy runs through Mill's theory
of the causality of actions.
The so-called motives are
either a set of phenomena viewed in their relation to the
will, or viewed out of that relation. If the former, the
argument has long ago been refuted by Reid'. The
strongest motive prevails ; but I only know the strength
of motives in relation to the will by the test of ultimate
prevalence ; so that this means no more than that the
prevailing motive prevails. I have no measure of strength
but its effects.
I only know certain things to be motives
at all, by the fact of their ultimate prevalence. If, on the
other hand, the phenomena are considered out of their
relation to the will, my consciousness testifies at once
that my actions are not subject to the same invariable
sequence as physical changes.
I know, that is, whenever
I lift my arm to my head, that it is at that moment in my
power not to lift it.
TWO-STAGE MODEL OF FREE WILL
First stage
"And that, the antecedent circumstances being precisely the same, I may decide not to do
so at any future time.
But, says Mill, this decision of the will is itself a new antecedents
Certainly, a new antecedent to the act.
But with what propriety can it be called a new antecedent to itself?
The question is not whether the act of motion follows certainly upon that of
volition, but whether the act of volition follows certainly upon antecedent circumstances.
--- FIRST "FREE", then "WILL"
Stage 1
The former sequence depends on purely physical laws; and the preventing
causes, such as a stroke of paralysis, are purely physical
also.
Stage 2
But if the latter sequence is invariable also, we
admit, not one new phenomenon, but millions.
Since an
opposite determination of the will can only come in with
its determinant, and the determinant of that determinant,
and so on ad infinitum.
For to suppose that two opposite
volitions can follow from the same determinant is incompatible with the whole hypothesis of causality.
If, on the
other hand, the sequence of volition from given antecedents is variable, what becomes of the power of predicting a man's actions? The contingency of a single link affects all the subsequent portion of the chain.
In reply then to the question. Are our volitions, like Mill says, " the wish is a oew antecedent."
If this term is meant
to ho synonymous with mil, it would he an improvement in language to
change it.
If it is meant to he synonymous with desire, the confusion of
desire with will vitiates his whole argument.
"... other events, the result of causes?
Certainly not, in the
only intelligible senses of the term.
I have only two
positive notions of causation : one, the exertion of power
by an intelligent being ; the other, the uniform sequence
of phenomenon B from A. (A may here stand for a single
phenomenou or a group.
For that antecedent or sum of
antecedents which constitutes the Sufficient Reason.)
The former hypothesis is Fatalism.
If my will results from the coercion of some other intelligence, I am the
slave of Destiny.
The latter hypothesis is Determinism, a necessity no less rigid than fatalism, besides being at
variance with the whole testimony of consciousness and
with the experience of every day.
Besides these two, there is no alternative, but to admit in the fullest sense
the freedom of the will, by denying the applicability of
the principle of causality to human actions.
"This objection, if not removed," says Mill, "would
be fatal to the attempt to treat human conduct as a subject
of science."
Be it so. It is better to accept the consequence than to admit the alternative. But it is fatal only
according to Mill's view of science.
Ethology, as be
conceives it, in relation to individuals, as the science of
characters as they mutt be according to laws of physical
and mental causation, I do believe to be, in its idea and
pretensions, chimerical : but Ethics, as the science of such
characters as they ought to be according to the laws of
moral obligation, remains undisturbed, or rather, more
securely established. It seems to be forgotten by writer*
of tliis school, that these two systems are absolutely
exclusive of each other ; that physical causation and moral
obligation cannot in perfection exist side by side ; and
that where they do coexist, each must be in the inverse
ratio of the other. In proportion as we extend the
domain of Necessity, we must diminish that of Duty;
and. Necessity, notwithstanding all that Mill has
advanced, I still believe to be the inevitable result of
subjecting moral acts to the laws of physical causation.
But Ethology, in relation to classes ofmeriy as affected by
national, professional, educational, physiological, or even
moral circumstances, may notwithstanding attain to a vast
amount of important practical principles and rules ; though
still subject to the influence of individual contingency.
The actuary of an insurance company, if he were to
predict the duration of life of any one individual on the
books of his oflice, would in all probability guess wrong; —
as a matter of fact, it is true, mainly from his ignorance of
physical circumstances ; but as a matter of theory also, if
we allow that the individual in question may falsify the
prediction by a voluntary act of suicide. But if the same
experiment is tried on a sufficiently large scale, opposite
errors will counteract each other, and the general ap-
proximate result attains almost to a moral certainty.
The general results of Ethology, as applied to classes, are
dependent in a great degree on similar circumstances, and
may attain to the same or a higher amount of practical
utility.
------
In Buckle's " History of Civilization in England," the
" statistics of the voluntary actions of mankind'* are
adduced to prove a further conclusion, which not merely
subjects every moral agent to the law of causation, but
apparently exempts him from all personal responsibility.
Rejecting " the metaphysical dogma of free will," as resting on the fallible testimony of consciousness,
Buckle maintains that the actions of men ** vary in obedience to the changed in the surrounding society ;" and " that such variations are the result of large and general
causes, which, working upon the aggregate of society,
must produce certain consequences, without regard to
the volition of those particular men of whom the society
is composed '."
And in applying this doctrine to particular
cases, he carries it out so consistently as to maintain,
" that suicide is merely the product of the general con-
dition of society, and that the individual felon only
(« The above remarks were TOtten before the publication of Dr. M^Cosh's
recent work on the " Intuitions of the Mirid." I do not find anv substantial
difference between the author's \iew, as stated in this later work, and that
previously given in the ** Method ;" though there are some expressions
which tend to confinn my suspicion that the difference between us is more
verbal than real. Thus he asserts, (p. 472.) that " causation in the will is
entirely different from causation in other action ;" a statement in which
I fully concur, only doubting the propriety of calling the former by this
name of causation at all. If there is a causation, though of a different
kind, in moral as well as in physical action, the generic notion of cause
should bo the same in both, the specific features alone being different,
as distinguishing this kind of cause from that. But can any univocal
generic notion be pointed out, amounting to an mlequate conception of
causation as such? If not, the definition of causation, as a common
genus, is not the same in both, and we have not the subdivisions of a
goneric notion, but only the different senses of an equivocal term.
carries into effect what is a necessary consequence of
preceding circumstances." " In a given state of society,"
he continues, '^ a certain number of persons must put an
end to their own life. This is the general law ; and the
special question as to who shall commit the crime depends
of course upon special laws; which, however, in their
total action, must obey the large social law to which they
are all subordinate. And the power of the larger law is
so irresistible, that neither the love of life nor the fear of
another world can avail any thing towards even checking
its operation*." This conclusion he endeavours to support
by the evidence of statistics, " a branch of knowledge
whicb, though still in its infancy, has already thrown
more light on tlie study of human nature than all the
sciences put together^."
It is surprising that this acute writer should not have
seen, that in opposing the evidence of statistics to that of
consciousness, he is comparing together two witnesses
who are not speaking of the same thing.
The fact to
which consciousness bears witness is the freedom of our
own personal actions. The fact which the statistical
evidence is adduced to prove is the recurrence, within
certain limits of greatest and least frequency, of actions
distributed over an entire community. The former evi-
dence tells us nothing directly concerning the actions of
societies ; the latter tells us nothing directly concerning
the actions of individuals. Nay, it is precisely because
the individual actions are not reducible to any fixed law
or capable of representation by any numerical calculation,
that the statistical averages acquire their value as sub-
stitutes. No one dreams of applying statistical averages
to calculate the period of the earth's rotation, by shewing
that four and twenty hours is the exact medium of time,
comparing one month's or one year's revolutions with
another's. It is only where the individual movements are
irregular, that it is necessary to aim at a proximate
regularity hy calculating in masses. To what cause the
individual irregularity is due, whether to the complexity
and minuteness ot the physical conditions of the prohlem,
or to the presence of moral conditions and free agency, —
whether it indicates contingency in the facts themselves,
or only a defect in our means of calculating, — this is a
question which can only be answered by an acquaintance
with the individual objects under examination, and which
gains no elucidation from the statistics of large classea'.
Sir W. Hamilton, in connection with his theory of the
nature of the causal judgment, maintains, that the schemes
of liberty and necessity are both equally inconceivable;
though for the fact of liberty we have, immediately or
mediately, the testimony of consciousness. A free voli-
tion, he tells us, is inconceivable, because we cannot con-
ceive an absolute conimencen^ent : a scheme of necessary
determination is equally inconceivable, because we cannot
conceive an infinite n on -commencement, " As equally
uti thinkable," he says, "the two counter, the two one-
sided, schemes are thus theoretically balanced. But
practically, our consciousness of the moral law, which,
without a moral liberty in man, would be a mendacious
imperative, gives a decisive preponderance to the doctrine
of freedom over the doctrine of fate. We are free in act,
if we are accountable for our actions'."
This theory, though diflFering somewhat in the mode of
reasoning, is in its conclusion similar to that previously
arrived at by Kant. That philosopher, in his third
Contradiction of Transcendental Ideas, arranges in parallel
columns the opposite arguments in behalf of Liberty and
Necessity, with the view of shewing that each is irresistible in its attack upon the other.
Kant too, like Sir
W. Hamilton, maintains that the fact of liberty is
guaranteed by the testimony of the moral law, whose
Categorical Imperative thou shalt^ necessarily implies a
corresponding thou canst^, Kant however denies that the
liberty as a fact can claim the direct testimony of consciousness ; for consciousness in his philosophy is limited to the phenomena existing in space and time; whereas
the freedom guaranteed by the moral law is a purely transcendental idea, subject to no conditions of time, and incapable of being presented in experience'.
And this
conclusion, so far as its negative result, the denial of
a consciousness of freedom, is concerned, cannot be
avoided, so long as we maintain, along with the universal
authority of the principle of causality, the position that
we are not directly conscious of self as a reality, but only
of its several modes and affections. If my first conscious-
ness relative to volition is not that of myself as willing,
but only of will as a phenomenon, — if in the judgment
" I will," there is no consciousness of/, but only of will, —
to this phenomenon of volition I am compelled by the
principle of causality to suppose an antecedent deter-
mining phenomenon ; and to that again another, and so
on ad infinitum.
But this conclusion is no longer forced upon us, if we
admit the existence of an immediate consciousness, not
merely of the phenomena of mind, but of the personal
self as actively and passively related to them. We thus
obtain for the fact of liberty, not merely the indirect
testimony of consciousness through the medium of the
moral law, but the direct testimony by the presence of
the fact itself. I am conscious, not merely of the phe-
nomenon of volition, but of myself as producing it, and as
producing it by choice with a power to choose the
opposite alternative. In this case I am not compelled to
go back to any prior cause whatever. I need not suppose
a prior intelligent cause ; for my only positive notion of
such a cause is myself determining, which does not imply
myself determined. I need not suppose a prior phenomenal
cause ; for I am conscious of the influence of motives as
inclining only, not as necessitating. The whole point at
issue thus turns on the following question, Can the fact
of consciousness expressed in the judgment / will, be
analysed into a relation of phenomena subject to the law
of causality ? Is the principle which we invariably apply
to the sequence of one phenomenon on another also
applicable to the relation of any phenomenon to the one
given cause, myself?
Sir William Hamilton lays much stress on the impossibility of conceiving an absolute commencement. If by
this is meant that I cannot conceive myself standing at
the beginning of all time, out of all relation to any ante-
cedent series of phenomena, it is undeniably true. But
is such a conception needed to render the scheme of
Liberty comprehensible ? Is it not sufficient for me to
know that none of the chronological antecedents stand to
my volition in the particular relation of a determining
cause ? And this is the case, if it is neither given as an
active power coercing nor as a passive phenomenon in-
variably preceding. To say that some antecedent or other
must go before my will, is only to say that I do not stand
at the beginning of all time : but does this imply some
one antecedent which is invariably followed by volition
or some active power, necessitating in each particular
case ?
INDETERMINISM of Stage 1
If, on the presence of the antecedent or group of
antecedents. A, my volition sometimes takes place one
way, and sometimes another, it is not determined in the
same manner as physical phenomena.
If there is not
always present some conscious being, exerting his power
over my will, it is not determined in the same manner as
it determines its own volitions.
But excepting these two
senses, what is meant by determining cause ?
Is there then extant any definition of will which does not imply another will preceding? Perhaps not; but the
fault lies only in the authors of the definitions.
To refute a given definition does not prove the non-existence of
the thing defined.
If liberty itself is a simple fact of consciousness, the error lies in the attempt to define it at all.
The definition will necessarily involve a circle, and upon
that circle, and not on the fact, the antagonist reasons.
But then if the definition and the fact of consciousness are
at issue, the former must give way, not the latter. Now
consciousness tells me, not that my will wills y but that
/ will. Is it necessary to the conceivability of this fact,
that I should be able to analyse it into two constituent
elements, — to place an abstract 1 on one side, and an abstract
will on the other: thus literally fulfilling the satirical
direction for the turbulent puritan's burial, by laying John
apart from Lilburn and Lilburn from John ? Will any
other state or act of mind bear a similar analysis ? Can
I in any case separate the state from the mind and the
mind from the state ; or give any definition which does
'J tiat ojr e&rj:e«t DOtioD of CfiusaJitr arises from tbe
fact j^ven in the detennination of r>iir o»rn Toiitions, is
»u;^et^te>d bv L/x-ke and ebt&bli fried bevoDG ail question
bv Maiiie de Biian. But tb^n arises the quesdon : by
what i^rocebfr do we trai^&cerid our persousil consciousness,
and ackoow ledge, iii relation to tbe cbanjes of the sensible
world, the o|>erati'on of causes other than ourselves I
This process i^ called by De Biian aiid by Rover-Coliaird
a \aturai Induction, a term severelv criticised bv
M. Cousin. Were the process really inductive, he argues,
we Diu^t believe ever^' cause in nature to be like ourselves, voluntary, conscious, and free; and even then,
the belief in question might perhaps be regarded as
universally true within the limits of experience, but
could never rise to the character of a necessary truth.
For a more satisfactory explanation, M. Cousin has
recourse to the principle of causality, which he regards
as a necessary law of the reason, by virtue of which it
disengages, in the fact of consciousness, the necessary
element of causal relation from the contingent element
of my personal production of this or that particular
movement. This necessity, which compels the reason
to suppose a cause whenever the senses or the con-
sciousness present a phenomenon, is the Principle of
Causality".
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