self-caused

George Jones, anyone? Like many of us, he struggles with four-day-a-week binge drinking and questionable relationship decisions. Oh, choices.

So, some questions on 'free will'. What an absurd phrase--no definition on what it means to be free, or even what it is to have a will. Thoughts on volition and causation, intermittent discussion on ethical systems.

Take the average person: I want most to be happy. Regardless of whatever I think that means (which may or may not be correct, Aristotle), I will pursue that end. Everything I choose to do falls into this teleology; each step is an action toward the final goal, which is happiness. This teleology does not account for how one treats happiness as an end in itself (refer to Nichomachean Ethics). My favorite example of this is from an intro ethics class I had with one of my very favorite professors. I remember the event distinctly because it was embarrassing.

My wonderfully intelligent, and therefore attractive, professor was spinning sparkles in the minds of his brand new students by asking us ethical questions. Ones that seem harmless enough.. like "Why do you go to the dentist?" His next question was "Rebecca, what do you want from this class?" I, in ignorance and fitful compulsion, blurted out "An 'A'." Sigh.

Of course, he ridiculed my lack of virtue and pointed out, to my horror, that I was treating education (read: knowledge) as a means to an end and not as an end in itself. Travesty. Never again would I make that mistake. A poor decision about what one takes as an end in itself ruins the way one interacts with every other choice. For example, my awful and shameful choice to make knowledge a means to an end (which happened to be a social one, strange) pushed me to treat my reading and studies always as mere means. For the purpose of retaining information, for the purpose of regurgitation in essays, for... you get the idea. Never for itself.

Knowledge is for its own sake, which means that knowledge obtains its goodness from this regenerative, circular nature. Ontology works from the top down--whatever is most real, most good, facilitates the morality of everything below it. For example, Plato's ontology of Forms provides that the form of Goodness (read: Unity, One, Truth..etc) derives its nature from itself, and relies on nothing else for its goodness. Goodness is still perfectly good in the absence of every other thing or idea. In the same way, God is goodness and unity and all perfection (hm) which cannot be added to or subtracted from by anything outside of himself. Goodness is good and real whether things reflect (or partake in) that goodness. God is all goodness and all reality--separate from the existence of anything else.

This has some strange implications...
1. God is entire and whole and complete without any persons in existence. Hm. So does participation in, or recognition of, his goodness add to him? I think not.. but it is interesting.

2. There is no void in God. Way to go, Spinoza. Because this ontology is grounded in all existence being derived from the existence of God, there is no void in God. God lacks nothing and never has excess--therefore, neither does all of existence. Existence that is derived from God is a part of God and acts in unity with him.
sub-implications:
a. No excess and no lack=no driving force of change? But no, don't read this incorrectly. An assertion that there is no lack or excess in God (or anything else that exists, incidentally) does not mean that there is no change in God. As a matter of fact, it provides that there may be constant change, so long as the scales are never tipped, as it were. Think of a favorite professor doodling a huge circle on the board over and over that is filled with tiny circles. Not one void. The tiny circles are us, the world. God is what encompasses all. Now, who would say that we never interact with one another? That there is no string of causation? Of course there is. A model that presents God as this unity provides for a complete (and possibly predetermined?) chain of causality within itself. The parts may move and shift and interact, but the whole remains unchanged.
b. No existence outside of God=everything, material and immaterial, is part and parcel of God. I exist because God does. This leads many a dear mind astray--no, they say, God exists because I do. This mistake is a simple matter of chronology. To claim that God exists because I do (ie, I created God, my worship continues God, religion is a man-centered enterprise, etc) is to claim that the reality of everything that exists depends on me. Au contraire.. you and I will die. Many have done so, many will do so. Although for you, and by you I mean your soul, this world may cease to be relevant.. others will remain. We watch people come and go. The world is by no means a constant, but it is evidence in this case that the existence of absoloutely nothing relies on you. You are on the bottom of the proverbial food chain of reality. Your existence may play a part in the causal chain of other existences (ie, giving birth) but that existence does not continue due to you. Your existence, however, relies solely on the fact that God continues to exist. This is certainly a reading of the implication that involves a certain idealism slant--a bit of Berkeley's watcher-god and a bit of Kant's experiencer-man with a heavy dose of Spinoza's God-substance (read read read it, it's straightforward).

So what do you want?
What it is that you want is what you're taking as an end in itself. Is it knowledge? Virtue? Reason? God? Are they synonymous?
Now, for the wanting.
You want. I want. It's a capacity to first, have a desire and second, exercise your will in accordance with your intellect in order to achieve said desire. =volition.
Oh, yes, we want to be 'independent' creatures with 'unique' and 'free' wills. Blah blah blah. The will is a capacity, an ability, that humans possess. Not just humans, mind you, but also animals and who knows what else. The will is more than a need, more than a weakness. It is a power to have a desire (to have a need, a weakness) and then act appropriately. This is a potentially controversial claim:
1. Is the capacity to act necessary for having a will? Think about good ole Terry Schiavo. She did not possess the capacity to act on her desires, although she retained the capacity to have desires. For example, a desire to live. It's pretty common. Is it your desire to live? Do you act toward that desire? Yep, most of the time. So here we have a crossroads. Is it the ability to act on a desire (in accordance with reason) that is the will? Or is it a blanket ability to desire?
2. And so we split between will and volition..with a sub-split involving intellect. Will is (a)the ability to desire, (b)to evaluate that desire using intellect, (c) to act on desire, (d) to act on desire in tandem with intellect? Also, does the will require intellect? In T's case, could she exercise her intellect (reason)? If so, is that enough to will something? Perhaps the capacity to have a desire is will and acting on that will is volition.
More questions--is the will unlimited? Certainly, you can want anything you please, I suppose. Is the intellect? Oh dear, I'd never accept that.

So what's it about, then? Is your will constrained or expanded by your intellect? In my pursuit of education I am clearly endorsing the latter.

What makes your will your own?
It's another way to ask about 'free will'. I'm guessing that by 'free', most people mean 'belonging solely to oneself'. This sure is insightful, and I think it's true.. just with a bit of tweaking. Here we start to wonder about determinism and whether God decides everything we do and so we can just blame all our shortcomings on his poor planning and thereby escape ethical accountability.

Well, I'll assert that God does know what a person does, and also that he chooses not to interfere. Legally, would he be culpable? Strange that the law books of the USA do not apply to God, because that would be a scandalous trial. Which is exactly what some of us want--taking attention away from my own shortcomings to point fingers at someone else.

There will be claim that God's not interfering with awful decisions is unfair, unloving. How could he let that happen? Yeah, we've heard this one before. Shit happens because God loves people enough to let them be self-determined. Say, for example, that I am your mother. I hover over you and forbid you from all sorts of things and prevent you from making mistakes. You may be without blemish, but of what value? Would you love me? No, I don't think so. You would probably detest me for making your decisions for you, you would probably feel like a puppet on display, you would probably feel like an ant under a magnifying glass. But you see, I'm your mother.. so I don't want you to feel like that. So I let you go and I let you make decisions, good and bad, and I let you enjoy the rewards and deal with the consequences. Not alone, of course--I'll help you learn what's best to do next time or why the decision you made was wonderful, all in time. I won't overwhelm the mind of a child with explanations, but eventually you will understand. And you will be better, fuller, richer, and more able to love for it. You will be self-caused, with no cause outside/external to blame or to take the credit.

Make sense?
There are some lingering questions.. like why enact a system of rewards and punishments. Why enforce a code if the goal is to help the child grow? God, as perfection and goodness and unity, tolerates no separation from himself. There is no existence outside of God, so when a person departs from the spirit and unity of God, he chooses to separate himself from what exists--from what is real. Any separation from unity is an aberration, a choice on the side of non-existence. God does not provide that there is any existence, any goodness, outside of himself. There will be no other.

It should be clearer. Or hopefully less clear, so you'll think about it more.



So, remember.. George Jones, T-Shiv, and hot professors. Something in there about will and God. Yeah.

"I've had choices
Since the day that I was born
There were voices
That told me right from wrong
If I had listened
No I wouldn't be here today
Living and dying
With the choices I made"

XD