Locke, Liberty, & Necessity

For Locke, liberty and necessity are not necessarily at odds. On the spectrum of theories of freedom, he seems to fit best into the compatibilism mold. Here’s how he gets there.

First off, some definitions are in order. It is crucial to note how Locke uses the term power. For him, it means the capacity or ability to act or be acted upon. There are two sorts of power: Passive, the power to be acted upon, and active, the power to act upon. An example of each can be given. Matter has the capacity to be acted upon, while minds have the capacity to act upon something else. Another way of putting it might be passive power is the capacity to be moved, while active power is the capacity to move.

This theory about power relates to freedom in Locke’s conception of the will. He separates himself from many previous thinkers by denying that the will is a thing, a substance. Rather, it is a power, the power to begin or not begin; to act or not to act; to think or not to think. To will something requires that it be volitional, a voluntary act. Under this definition, it would be absurd to ask if the will itself was free or not free. It is not a thing that can be labeled as either.

So what does it mean to be free? It certainly does not require the possibility that all things are equally viable and possible choices. For example, I might will to fly, but being a human being, I am incapable of taking flight. I am bound by necessity to dwelling on the ground. Thus, necessity introduces a sort of limitation to freedom. Necessity can be thought of as a sort of determinate causality. One of Locke’s examples involves the collapse of a bridge. If I am on the bridge when it collapses, it is necessary that I will fall along with it, no matter what a will to happen. In this case I am not free.

Let’s go back to my first example. What if I did not will to fly? In this case, it is both volitional and necessary that I won’t fly. In Book II.11.8, Locke makes it clear how these two variables relate to one another. Without volition there can be no freedom, but volition and necessity are not mutually exclusive. Even if something x is necessary, i.e. nothing else can be done but x, if x is volitionally chosen, x is free. However, x ceases to be free the moment I cease to will x.

Is heaven what we make it?

It’s probably safe to say that we all have, at best, an incomplete picture of what heaven might be like. Perhaps this is due simply to an honest mistake, or the (obvious) fact that we have not been there ourselves. But I would argue that our view of heaven might be most radically flawed when we project our deepest personal and societal desires onto the concept of the afterlife.

In class a few weeks ago, Eryn brought up the story of The Last of the Mohicans. For the Mohicans in the story, the afterlife consisted of “the happy hunting grounds.” While this might just be an Indianism coined by Cooper,[1] the point remains the same: The afterlife is meant to be an idealization of the good life, as envisioned by the Mohicans in the story.

That brings up a question that is relevant for us: Do we believe what we believe because we want to believe it? And is that really a good reason to believe anything, ever? To be more specific, are our beliefs about heaven shaped by rational thought, or do we merely create a self-medicating idea that makes us feel better?

Like I said in a previous post, we can’t really escape our background beliefs, and that is not exactly a bad thing. But we should at least try to understand them, and only accept them if the evidence justifies that we do. Contemplating heaven should be no different. Heaven might very well contain elements that we deeply desire, but that is in no way dependent on what we want. To state the obvious, whatever heaven is like is what heaven is like. Whatever is, is.

I believe that God’s vision for our future, and indeed the future of all of creation, is far grander than making us happy or comfortable. It reaches far beyond our personal wants and the happiness society peddles. While happiness and comfort might very well be results in our true final state, it would be a grave misunderstanding to assume that they are our ultimate end. 

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[1] http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2094/did-native-americans-really-believe-in-the-happy-hunting-grounds

Anastasia and the afterlife

I watched one of my favorite childhood films last weekend, Anastasia. While it somehow garnered a G rating, there is a deep undercurrent from the underworld throughout the whole film, with an undead Rasputin ruthlessly hunting the protagonists, and never mind the revisionist history. Maybe that explains how I turned out, but I digress. The interesting thing here is how a pop culture film depicts some aspects of the afterlife.

In one of the first scenes, Rasputin is shown selling his soul, implicitly to the forces of evil. In another, his bat crony is pulled, shrieking, to where his master is caught “in limbo” because of the unfulfilled curse on the Romanov line. Fire, lava, cold rock and general barrenness are the backdrop for this pitiful realm, with a chorus of demon bugs rounding out the picture.

I find it particularly interesting that this is not really a representation of hell per se. Rasputin isn’t really being punished. Like I said, he is in “limbo.” In Dante’s Inferno, limbo is in the outer circle of hell, reserved for the noble pagans and unbaptised babies. It is not really a place of overt punishment; rather, the virtuous damned are punished by being denied the beatific vision. They are granted some of the peace of heaven, but nothing beyond the grasp of mortal minds.

But the place Rasputin is in, though called limbo, is obviously not at all like the near-paradise Dante imagined, and it isn’t much like a place of torment, either. Rasputin seems to almost rule over the unfortunate realm. He isn’t being punished so much as being denied final rest. And although his body is obviously decaying, it is still capable of being animated in a most… flexible way.

I’m not really sure what image of the afterlife the movie is trying to convey. I’m not really sure that the studio knows, either. It is probably just another case where underworld elements are used more for moving the plot along than making any serious claims on what the afterlife might be like.

Are ideas innate?

In Book I or his Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Locke argues that we do not have innate ideas. He is, of course, famous for his theory of the mind that pictured the mind as a blank slate at birth, as a tabula rasa. His theory is in contrast with that of the continental rationalists, who argue that we are born with some innate knowledge. Early on in the Essay, Locke claims that there are no innate ideas, and throughout Book I he seeks to dismantle various arguments favoring innateness. One of the ideas that he considers likely to be innate is the idea of God. Earlier, Descartes said that the idea of God is imprinted on the human mind as a sort of craftsman’s stamp. However, when Locke evaluates the argument using his measure of “children and idiots,” he finds that the idea of God is not, in fact, innate; it must be taught. The idea of God is not usually present in the minds of children, and when it is, Locke says the idea is a far better representation of the idea of the child’s teacher than of the a God that actually exists.

What the heck is a monad?

Good question. I wonder if Leibniz himself had any clue himself. At any rate, he certainly says a lot of something in his Monadology.

As far as I can tell, monads are to metaphysics as atoms are to the natural order. They are the elementary particles of… everything, utterly simple and indivisible. Naturally, they are eternal and indestructible without divine intervention. When brought together, they form composites. Each is wholly unique. Monads cannot be affected by any outside influence. As such, all cause and effect relationships are illusionary. All are capable of perception, and “see” the universe from their own unique perspective, yet not all monads are minds. Some monads are minds, though. I am a monad, and even God is a monad, the perfect, unlimited monad. In reality, the myriad of monads that is the universe could not be any better. All chaos and apparent evil are really a matter of blurred perception, for “nothing is confused in itself—what’s happening here is that you are perceiving confusedly” (69).