AT The Brussels Journal, Thomas F. Bertonneau reflects on determinism and morality. He examines three Late Antique works, Satyricon, The Golden Ass, and St. Augustine’s Confessions, in light of one of the key tenets of modern liberalism — the notion that we are compelled to sin by external forces.

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Brandon F. writes:

Schopenhauer, the German 19th century philosopher, had interesting things to say on this subject. His is the most in-depth and convincing modern argument against so-called free will. This Wikipedia piece on his prize winning essay on the subject is a good introduction.

Personally I think that since we are the subjects of this question we lack the objectivity to clearly answer it. That is why there are such good arguments on both sides. It seems that we are neither totally free nor totally determined but somewhere between the two extremes. 

Schopenhauer was an atheist metaphysician (God is replaced with blind Will) but his surgical treatment of this subject is very compelling especially when one has lived enough life to reflect on his own character and the way he has reacted to different “stimuli.”

Mr. Bertonneau writes:

Here are a few thoughts in response to Brandon F. 

Several things communicate with one another: Faith is closely related to doubt, which is related to a lack of positive empirical knowledge; acting where there is a lack of positive empirical knowledge means trusting one’s intuition; and trusting one’s intuition is a choice, while choosing itself presumes freedom of will.  I believe that it follows from these precepts that free will, like God, is an item of faith.  Brandon’s precept that, “since we are the subjects of this question [of the freedom of will] we lack the objectivity to clearly answer it,” is another way of putting the same idea.  For Schopenhauer, the individual was not free, as he acted always under the compulsion of the hypostatic “Will.”  That “Will,” moreover, was not rational, so that those compelled by it (that is, all people) could not even console themselves with the thought that the compulsion was purposive.  Thus as Schopenhauer saw things there are two equally depressing alternatives for the subject: to live in the insipid indignity of illusions (like that of free will) or to live in the all-too-certain knowledge that there are no real values or choices or purposes.  Schopenhauer’s prose is beautiful and seductive.  His doctrine, on the other hand, seems to me to be a secular variety of Calvinist predestination, depriving the subject of agency and making free will a repellent mockery.

But if everything in the human purview were a “Representation” and not a reality, then Schopenhauer’s own doctrine would also necessarily be a “Representation” and not a reality, in which case it would have no more persuasive power than any other theory, leaving us free to choose another.

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