Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 10:10:28 -0500
Subject: Re: M-TH: abortion
From: farmelantj-AT-juno.com (James Farmelant)



On Fri, 6 Feb 1998 01:21:20 -0500 (EST) Justin Schwartz
<jschwart-AT-freenet.columbus.oh.us> writes:
>  <snip>

>The free will problem is poretty intractable. My own inclination is go
>with Rousseau, who hada  lot to say about political freedom and said 
>that
>he wouldn't think about free will and determinism because it made his 
>head
>hurt. I paraphrase, of course. But I think that Kant is right that we 
>do
>have to think of ourselves as free, and with a few exceptions (such as
>dealing with mental illness or the insanity defense in criminal law), 
>I'm
>not sure that metaphysical freedom or determinism have many 
>implications
>for our social, political, or moral thinking.
>
>--Justin

One philosopher who would challenge Justin's contention that
metaphysical freedom or determinism has few implications for our
social, political, or moral thinking is Ted Honderich.  Honderich as a
defender of determinism has long argued that acceptance of a 
determinist outlook has important implications not only for such social
practices as the punishment of criminals but also for the ideologies
used to justify inequalities.  Honderich in his little book on the free
will problem *How Free Are You?* (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993)
sums up what he sees as the political implications of determinism in
the following couple paragraphs:

	What is true of punishment is true to a greater or lesser
	extent with these other institutions or practices.  Here,
	in the place of theories of punishment, there are 
	political and social philosophies.  Some of them have
	within them elements having to do with desert.  At any rate,
	they have within them elements which have to do with the
	actions of individuals taken as owed to Free Will.  The
	truth of determinism requires at least an ammendment
	of these philosophies.  It also requires that we change
	our social institutions and practices in so far as they
	owe to our image of origination.  The response of
	affirmation will also be a political response.

	Is the Left Wing in politics less given to ideas of individual
	desert and more given to ideas of individual need?  
	Is it then less given to attitudess and policies which have
	something of the assumption of Free Will in them?
	So you may suppose.  If that is so, should one part of
	the response of affirmation be a move to the Left in
	politics?  I leave you with that bracing question.

By the way contrary to what Justin seems to be saying I think
that Marx's notion of freedom owes at least as much to Spinoza
(who was a determinist) as it does to Kant or Rousseau.  Also
if it is the case that Marx did not directly address the free
will/determinism question the same cannot be said of Engels.
As Engels put it in *Anti-Duhring*:  "Freedom does not consist in the
dream of independence fro, natural laws, but in the knowledge of
these laws, and in the possibility of making them work towards
definite ends."

		James F.

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