Free Will and Free Choice
(hastily written, but I’ll stand by it)
At first glance, the concepts “free will” and “free choice” seem to mean the same thing. A little reflection shows they are not. We cannot understand “a free choice” without thinking of an object, but we can understand “a free will” without necessarily considering an object. There is also an argument from common experience: It is common in philosophical discussions to hear of people discussing free will, but it is relatively rare that you hear the same persons speak of “free choice” as though it were the same concept.
We speak of “will” when we consider the power of willing separately from the knowledge of an object, and thereby frame our consideration separately from any account of knowledge (whether by sense or reason). But when we consider choice, the object of choice is simply given as known and must be either sought, or ignored, or rejected.
The freedom of the will is best seen when we arrive at it through freedom of choice. It is given that there is some object of the will, regardless of whether we think it is free or not. But notice what happens when we ask about the object, sc. “what is the object that the will relates to?” The answer gets confusing, because there doesn’t seem to be any content to what we meant by “an object” other than it is something that exists. To speak of “objects” as such is to speak of no particular object, but rather only what makes all objects to be objects, sc. that they are apprehended in some way. Any limitation of the freedom of choice could only follow upon a limitation in the species of objects, but to place any limitation on objects would be to loose the very idea that we have of an object, sc. that it is anything that is apprehended. Because we apprehend an object, and we have a will, there is also the necessity of the freedom of the will. Again, The necessity for the freedom of the will follows from the indeterminate character of an object. Because the object of the will, considered as an object necessarily has an indeterminate character, the will must also have an indeterminate character, and so much as this is the case, the will must also be free.
The confusions about whether the will is free always proceed, one way or another, from confusions between sense knowledge, which can only know particular objects, and intellectual knowledge, which can know objects as such, i.e. it can know an object as an object. As soon as this confusion is made, you can sit around and wait for the person to become a determinist.
One confusion often happens when people confuse our willing of a particular thing with our willing of a particular thing qua particular. It is true enough that we may choose some particular thing, but it does not follow from this that we wanted because of its particularity. We can will to grasp it simply as an object, or under the proper account of its being a good thing. In fact, it follows from the truth of “I did it because it’s good” or “I looked at her because she is beautifull” or “I know it because it is true” that the will is free. The only other possibility is to explain the transcendentals away- a task that is unthinkable, unpleasant, and impossible.
(although it can often be spoken of, since we are free)
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Just Thomism 