Ontological freedom of the will; it belongs necessarily to the essence of the person. Free will is not merely the absence of external coercion, but the capacity of the person to determine herself — to decide for the good she has cognized or to refuse it. It is an essential characteristic and an archphenomenon: free will cannot be reduced to determinism, neuronal processes, or causal necessity.
Free will is the presupposition of the moral life: only a free person can act well or badly, can bear responsibility and become guilty. It is also the presupposition of personal love — for love that is not free is not love. Free will grounds the right to freedom (cf. Bexten 2017, pp. 150–160).
Freedom as Self-Determination
In the analysis of personal ontology, free will means not the mere freedom of choice between alternatives (libertas indifferentiae), but a deeper self-determination: the person is master of her own acts. She is not determined by her drives, inclinations, or circumstances, but can raise herself above them and act out of insight. This capacity for self-determination presupposes rationality — only one who cognizes the good can freely decide for it — and at the same time affectivity, for the will is motivated by values that are grasped affectively.
The freedom of the person shows itself especially in self-gift: the person can freely give herself to a Thou, place herself in the service of a cause, sacrifice herself for others. In self-gift, free will attains its highest realization — not in arbitrary choice, but in the loving surrender to the good.
Free Will and Determinism
The dissertation defends freedom of the will against all forms of determinism — whether physical, neurobiological, or psychological. Free will is an archphenomenon: it is attested in the immediate self-experience of the person and cannot be “explained away” by causal explanations. Whoever denies freedom of the will thereby also denies the possibility of responsibility, guilt, and moral action — and thus personhood itself.
Free Will and Responsibility
Because the person is free, she is responsible. Responsibility presupposes freedom: only one who could have acted otherwise can be held to account for her deeds. Free will therefore grounds not only the right to freedom, but also the possibility of the moral ought: the person ought to do the good because she can do it.
Necessary and Inalienable
As an essential characteristic, free will is necessary and inalienable. Even a human being who is outwardly unfree — for instance in captivity — ontologically possesses free will. Even where the exercise of free will becomes impossible through illness or unconsciousness, the ontological determination of freedom of the will remains.
Ontological classification:
- Superordinate concept: essential characteristic, archphenomenon
Ontological relations:
- grounds: right to freedom
- is presupposed by: personal love, self-gift, self-mastery
- presupposes: rationality, cognition
Chapter assignment: Chapter 4: Personhood
Sources: Generated by querying the Personhood ontology.
Further sources:
- Thomas Aquinas: Summa Theologiae I, q. 83, a. 1 (De libero arbitrio — man possesses free will).
- Thomas Aquinas: Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 6, a. 1 (the voluntariness of human action).
- Seifert, Josef (1987): Back to ‘Things in Themselves’. A Phenomenological Foundation for Classical Realism. London/New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul (freedom as an archphenomenon).
- Spaemann, Robert: Persons: The Difference between ‘Someone’ and ‘Something’. Translated by Oliver O’Donovan. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.
See also
Freedom, Personal Love, Responsibility, Person, Personhood, Action, Decision, Cognition, Moral Ought, Self-Gift, Rationality, Affectivity, Essential Characteristic, Third Dimension, Second Dimension