Causality and Free Will in the Controversy Between Collins and Clarke

Causality and Controversy Free Will in the Between Collins and Clarke WILLIAM L. ROWE INTRODUCTION AT TrIE END Or the seventeenth century John Locke tried to lay to rest the controversy over free will by directing attention to the question whether we are free to do what we will, while pushing into the background the more fundamental question of whether we are free to will what we will. Despite his efforts, however, the more fundamental question was returned to center stage by a number of writers, among them the eminent theologian Samuel Clarke (1675-17~9)Having defined liberty (freedom) as the power to do or forbear doing any particular action as the person prefers or wills, Locke was able both to defend liberty (so conceived) and to allow the particular act of will or preference of the mind to be totally determined by causes within and without the agent. In a revealing passage in the first edition of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding Locke notes that the absolute determination of the will or preference of the mind does not preclude freedom so far as the action flowing from the will or preference of the mind is concerned. But though the preference of the Mind be always determined.., yet the Person who has the Power, in which alone consists liberty to act, or not to act, according to such preference, is nevertheless free; such determination abridges not that Power. He that has his Chains knocked off, and the Prison doors set open to him, is perfectly at liberty, because he may either go or stay as he best likes; though his preference be determined to stay by the darkness of the Night, or illness of the Weather, or want of other Lodging. He ceases not to be free; though that which at that time appears to him the greater Good absolutely determines his preference, and makeshim stay in his Prison? ' An Essay ConcerningHuman Understanding,edited by Peter H. Nidditch (Oxford: Oxford University Press, x975), Bk. II, section 33 (ast edition). [51] 5 2 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY Locke's point in this passage is that the total determination of the will toward staying in prison does not destroy freedom in his sense because/f the person were to will to leave he would be able to leave. It may be true that given the darkness of the night, or illness of the weather, etc., the person cannot choose to leave and, therefore, cannot leave; and also true that the person could leave if he were to choose to leave. Locke doesn't say that the person has the power to leave regardless of what he wills or prefers. The person has the power to leave/fthat should be what he wills or prefers. And this last may be true of a person even though, given the causes that determine the will, the person cannot will to leave and cannot, therefore, perform the act of leaving. Although Samuel Clarke seldom mentions Locke, his own statement of liberty (freedom) may have been written with the above passage in mind. "For the essence of liberty.., consists in his being an agent, that is, in his having a continual power of choosing, whether he shall act, or whether he shall forbear acting. Which power of agency or free choice.., is not at all prevented by chains or prisons: for a man who chooses to indeavour to move out of his place, is therein as much a free agent, as he that actually moves out of his place. ''* Locke characterizes liberty as the power to act (refrain from acting) given a willing (preferring) to act (refrain from acting). 3 Clarke characterizes liberty as the power to will to act or to will to refrain from acting. Undoubtedly, Clarke overstates his case when he suggests that a man in chains is as much a free agent as one who is not in chains. Presumably, his point is that although chains deprive a man of liberty (with respect to a certain action) in Locke's sense, they do nothing to deprive a man of liberty in his sense--for although the chains take away the...