The Right Road to Radical Freedom

The Right Road to Radical Freedom

Tibor R. Machan

SOCIETAS

essays in political

& cultural criticism

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Copyright © Tibor R. Machan, 2007

The moral rights of the author have been asserted.

No part of any contribution may be reproduced in any form without permission, except for the quotation of brief passages in criticism and discussion.

Originally published in the UK by Societas

Imprint Academic, PO Box 200, Exeter EX5 5YX, UK

Originally published in the USA by Societas

Imprint Academic, Philosophy Documentation Center

PO Box 7147, Charlottesville, VA 22906-7147, USA

2012 digital version by Andrews UK Limited

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For Judy & Dave Threshie

Acknowledgments

I wish to thank the editors of the Journal of Private Enterprise, The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies, The Personalist, The Hoover Institution Press, and M&M Scrivener Press for permission to use materials in this book they have previously published. I want also to express my gratitude to Dick Wallace or Freedom Communications, Inc., the Pacific Research Institute and Chapman University for their support of my work on this and other projects.

Whether it comes from a despotic sovereign or an elected president, from a murderous general or a beloved leader, I see power as an inhuman and hateful phenomenon. ... I have always looked on disobedience toward the oppressive as the only way to use the miracle of having been born.

Oriana Fallaci

quoted in Margaret Talbot, The Agitator,

The New Yorker (June 5, 2006), p. 59

Preface: Why We Need Philosophy

In what sense is philosophy relevant to everyone’s life?

Although most people have probably not considered how philosophy can or does touch their lives, some simple examples may show this connection. When, in anger perhaps, someone blames the world for his misfortunes, he implies a basic belief - even if he later might wish to modify or abandon it. When someone declares his love of life, in some joyous moment, he, too, is expressing a view of the world in general. Such explicit statements as Everything is relative, Words mean whatever one wishes them to mean, None of us can help what we are, Human existence is without meaning or purpose, and Whatever the majority chooses is what should be done all indicate very broad beliefs - ideas not just about one or two instances of a person’s life or of what he witnesses.

It is sometimes argued, however, that ideas are mere epiphenomenona, or even simply follow actions - William James thought this as do some contemporary neuro-physiologists. But this can be explained by reference to the fact that ideas develop and are not some kind of static object, they are themselves a kind of action and when they occur in a logical sequence, their impact may actually be ahead of them, in a sense, since the logic of the idea is already giving guidance to action. In any case, ideas undoubtedly matter, because even the idea that they do not is an idea with potentially important consequences.

Not Just Gabbing

Philosophy is something quite specific: it is a human activity of a certain kind, not just any variety of gabbing, speculating, or debating. In spite of the many differences among various philosophies, the field itself is specifiable. Philosophy has as its purpose the identification and study of the most basic facts of reality and our relationship to them.

From this abstract statement of what philosophy is we can now move on to fill in some of the details. First of all it will help to give an example of what some philosophers have considered a basic fact, and to suggest how human beings might relate to such a fact in their lives. Basic facts are rarely thought of in our everyday, normal experiences, since they are very obvious - just as on earth we rarely think about gravity, since it affects us always.

To characterize such facts, let us contrast them with the more ordinary kind. We often make note of such facts as that the moon is difficult to see in the daytime because the sun is bright, or that it is raining very hard in the Midwest. Such facts are of limited scope. Although they are simple enough to make evident, many other facts are required before these sorts can be understood and appreciated. In the first case, for example, the facts of the moon’s, the sun’s, and the daytime’s existence are presupposed. Many such facts are encountered each moment, every day, and throughout a lifetime. But these are not basic facts, since they depend on too many other facts.

Specific Facts versus General Facts

A basic or fundamental fact would be something different. It would have very broad scope and would be evident on a very wide scale. For example, let us assume that it is a fact that everything that exists must be composed of material substance, that it must have mass, dimension, and weight. If what we are now assuming were correct, then anything that could exist would be composed of matter. Such a fact, if it were a fact, would have the entire universe as its scope, and all other facts we might encounter would have to include it as a feature, as a background fact.

We, in turn, would relate to existence, to all of reality, in a way that would be directly influenced by this basic fact. Thus, when discussing whether something or other exists or could exist, the answer we would give would depend first of all on whether the proposed item is composed of matter. Suppose now that it is shown that what is proposed to exist is not composed of matter. Then if it were true that everything that exists is composed of matter, we could conclude that the proposed thing simply does not and could not exist. So the assumed basic fact that everything is material relates to human life as a sort of basic guide to what we should accept as possible. If materialism is true, then it is impossible for something to exist that is not composed of matter: therefore, we should not bother with any suggestions to the contrary (except as a curiosity, perhaps).

This is just one illustration of what basic facts might be, and of what sort of inquiries philosophers might conduct.

Why We Need Philosophy

Is there an important role for philosophy in human life?

One aspect of philosophy evident in the ordinary philosophical remarks cited earlier, as well as in all major philosophical systems and schools, indicates the answer to our question. We can already detect the indispensability of philosophy to human life. Recall that all of the statements listed at the beginning of this discussion are very broad in their scope. They cover or refer to many things, many individual events, relationships, actions, institutions, or elements of whatever subject matter they involve. When a person says, Life is nothing but struggle, the meaning of that statement includes all of life, from birth to death, without exception. Words mean whatever one wishes them to mean refers again to all words - even those used to make the statement. You made your bed so you must lie in it refers, metaphorically in this case, to all instances when a person chooses some course of action and is faced with the results.

If someone takes these thoughts seriously, and many do, it is very likely that such an individual’s life will reflect what is meant by them. A person will most likely have an attitude toward, an anticipation of, or a regard for life that conforms to the belief expressed - or to the same belief held in silence. To see the impact of philosophical ideas we need to consider what will happen when a person takes such ideas seriously and lives by them.

Pervasive Impact

It is most likely that those who take such ideas seriously will find their impact evident throughout their lives. This can be so whether the ideas are worked out in great detail or held as firm conclusions without close scrutiny. Even in what might be considered less reflective, less systematically intellectual cultures, there is clear evidence that ideas such as those we have cited have considerable impact - in the form of myths, sayings, religious writings, and the like.

It should also be stressed that virtually everyone has some such general ideas. Whether explicitly stated, self-consciously believed, or merely accepted by habit, such ideas influence one’s life. They sometimes govern entire cultures, even epochs of human history, as is evident today with Marxism throughout a considerable portion of the globe. In the last analysis, for philosophical purposes, the crucial issue is whether these ideas are correct. But their importance cannot be overstated.

We can go through life without ever becoming involved with horticulture, astronomy, or international relations, since these apply only within a limited range and only intermittently (though, of course, widely and often enough when compared with some other concerns). But philosophical ideas, by their nature, apply directly or indirectly to the basic features of existence and human life. For example, the philosophical idea that none of us can help what will happen in our lives pertains to all of everyone’s life! That surely is not a restricted scope, and if the claim is true, it can have considerable bearing on how we should understand ourselves and others - whether, for instance, we can ever meaningfully hold others responsible for criminal activity, credit ourselves or others with achievements, and so forth.

Philosophical Nutrition

As the most general field of inquiry, philosophical concerns reflect on everything people think about and do.

Obviously one can live without explicit philosophical knowledge or convictions. One can also live without strict attention to one’s health. Even without crucial nutrients a person can survive for quite some time. Many of the biological, chemical, psychological, and other requirements of life can be neglected without drastic immediate consequences. Therefore, if the issue is whether one can continue life without philosophy or some of its better contributions, then clearly the answer is yes. But this is not the issue, for one can live without many things that one should secure if they are even remotely possible.

Philosophy touches upon virtually every aspect of life - directly, when someone consciously, knowingly decides to invoke philosophical ideas, and indirectly, when a person absorbs such ideas on hearsay or must deal with others who have done so. Since philosophy focuses on the most basic principles of existence, and on our (proper) relationship to them, its results are of importance to anyone who wants to live successfully.

I: Free Will Reconsidered

Every discussion needs a starting point and this one is no different. Since this work focuses on the topic of freedom, I need to consider whether we are free to think and do as we choose or is our conduct being moved by forces apart from ourselves. This is the old issue of free will or human causal agency or initiative - there are different terms by which those who address it like to name the topic but it is basically the same thing. Do we as individual human beings choose our conduct, at least partly independently, freely?

In a review of my book, Initiative: Human Agency and Society (2000) William Dwyer (2001) assumes that compatibilism is coherent and so he concludes it is a superior account of human conscious life, including morality and the enormous diversity of it all, to that which I offer. Compatibilism can be understood in a variety of ways and Dwyer’s is the most prominent among them. It suggests that although we are moved by forces that impinge on us and we do not initiate anything we do, not in the independent sense, this situation is compatible with moral responsibility. And that is that we are also bound to do certain things in life and avoid doing other things and can be held accountable for either, get praised for the former and blamed for the latter. The idea is that this moral responsibility is compatible with determinism.

There is a less well known yet I’d say more plausible version of compatibilism which holds that yes, we are determined to do what we do but it is we ourselves who do the determining. As when we say, He was determined to win that woman’s heart, no matter what. But this isn’t the kind of compatibilism that Dwyer and many others are championing.

If the kind of compatibilism Dwyer, Daniel Dennett (1984) and others advocate were coherent, if it could make sense of morality and diversity as well as retain its form of determinism, the view would be very interesting and challenging. Alas, in fact compatibilism is simply hard determinism with some soft edges but as such it is not coherent - it eats its cake but still wants to have it, too. In light of this, the agent-causation based thesis of human initiative (or freedom of the human will) I have been defending is superior and thus more worthy of being believed than the alternatives to it. Let me elaborate.

At the very start Dwyer tells us that he thinks that if I chose to be awake to the issues I am now facing, then I must have done so for a reason, which means that the reason determined my choice. Well I do not share this thought, for - not because of - two reasons.

First, making a choice in the sense in which I identify that act - namely, to take the initiative to apply one’s mind to figuring things out in the world - does not require some given, prior reason for me to have done this, not in any specific sense other than that that is the kind of being I am, one that relates to the world via thinking about it and acting in line with the results. This is what I consider a first choice, one that can be made repeatedly - as when one keeps in focus, pays close attention to the world, is continuously awake to it - but it is so fundamental that no prior knowledge is required for it. And there is good precedent for thinking that no such prior knowledge is required for making such a choice - criminal law, in general, assumes that ignorance is no excuse. This means that some matters we ought to come to know and if we have not, that is our fault and we can be held responsible for the negligence involved in not having come to know what we should have come to know. This is evident also in ordinary life, apart from the law, when folks who have failed to consider something blamed themselves by saying, Damn it, I didn’t think, without then saying, Because I believed that not thinking would be justified.

Second, a reason is not anything like a cause, some variable or factor that moves something to end up in a certain state. This is because a reason is a conviction or idea formed by the agent who might not have formed it. So it is the agent who forms a reason for which he or she might take an action.

I may reflect on some issue and form an idea which then I may use to derive some additional idea, including the idea of doing something I may then go ahead and do. At each turn I am free to suspend the thinking process, although I may well cultivate my character