QuestionsAre we free?Doing what we will, but not willing what we will
Are we free?No free will

Doing what we will, but not willing what we will

Arthur Schopenhauer 1788 · 1860Life swings between suffering and boredom.
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What it claims

There is no free will in our acts, and consciousness does not prove otherwise: we can do what we will, but at each moment we can will only one thing. (Schopenhauer places freedom elsewhere: in what we are, our character, not in what we do.)

Why

Each act results from an innate character and a motive acting as a cause: we can do what we will, but not will otherwise.

In short

"Doing what we will, but not willing what we will" is an argument by Arthur Schopenhauer (Essay on the Freedom of the Will, ch. 1 to 3 and 5) on the question "Are we free?" (answer: no free will). Its claim: There is no free will in our acts, and consciousness does not prove otherwise: we can do what we will, but at each moment we can will only one thing. (Schopenhauer places freedom elsewhere: in what we are, our character, not in what we do.). According to AskPhilosophy's logic check (Z3 solver), the conclusion does follow from its 6 premises. AskPhilosophy presents 5 objections, 4 of them with a documented reply, and the original text behind each premise, checked word for word.

Essay on the Freedom of the Will, ch. 1 to 3 and 5
Valid

A Norwegian academy set a prize question: can free will be proved from our self-consciousness? Schopenhauer answered no, and won the prize in 1839. Our consciousness only tells us that we can do what we will. But what we will depends on our character and on the motives that present themselves, as surely as an effect depends on its cause.

P1Free will in the strong sense would mean being able to will something other than what one wills: that a given person, in a given situation, could will one thing or its opposite.
P2Self-consciousness only tells us: "I can do what I will". It says nothing more: it does not tell us that we could have willed otherwise.
P3Every action is the product of two factors: the person's character and the motive that presents itself.
P4Character is innate and does not change: it stays the same all one's life.
P5A motive acts on the will as a cause acts on a body: motivation is only causality passing through knowledge.
P6If the same character meets the same motive, and the motive acts as a cause, only one volition is possible.
Therefore there is no free will in our acts, and consciousness does not prove otherwise: we can do what we will, but at each moment we can will only one thing. (Schopenhauer places freedom elsewhere: in what we are, our character, not in what we do.)

click a premise to reject it

If you accept every premise, logic forces you to accept the conclusion. So the debate is about the premises.
Checked by a logic solver: the premises cannot all be true while the conclusion is false.
Valid with no hidden premise. The reasoning has two parts. P2 disarms the testimony of consciousness: feeling that we can do what we will does not prove we could have willed otherwise. P3 to P6 establish that the will is determined. The points of attack are therefore the definition of freedom (P1: compatibilists say being able to do what we will is enough), the necessity of motives (P5: Leibniz says they incline without forcing) and the never-changing character (P4: education, effort, conversion?). Note: Schopenhauer does not conclude that we are responsible for nothing. For him, freedom and responsibility lie in what we are, not in each of our acts.
Analogy. A weathervane on a well-oiled pivot, in a shifting wind: it turns towards each wind in turn. If it could think, it would believe each time that it could stop wherever it liked. The image is Schopenhauer's: our will turns like this towards each motive our imagination presents, and each time we believe we could fix it there. In reality, the strongest wind wins.

Objections

5

Each objection is a conversation: click to see who replies and where the debate stands.

Descartes 1644 · attacks premise 2

We are so clearly conscious of our liberty and indifference that there is nothing we comprehend more clearly. It would be absurd to doubt what we experience within ourselves.

Schopenhauer replies
Schopenhauer
Schopenhauer quotes this passage in order to reject it: Descartes cuts the knot instead of untying it. What consciousness attests beyond doubt is "I can do what I will". But that contains and decides absolutely nothing about the freedom of the will itself.
Hume (the compatibilists) 1748 · attacks premise 1

By liberty we can only mean one thing: the power of acting or not acting according to what we will. Everyone has this liberty, and it fits perfectly well with the necessity of causes. The rest is a quarrel about words.

Schopenhauer replies
Schopenhauer
That is the everyday sense of the word "free": "I am free if I can do what I will". But in "what I will" the question has already been settled. What is being asked is whether the will itself is free: can you also will what you will?
The debate goes on (our summary) A compatibilist would answer that the question "can you will what you will?" leads to an endless regress, as Schopenhauer himself says. If strong freedom cannot even be conceived, the only freedom that matters is acting on one's will without constraint: that is what morality and law presuppose.
Leibniz (motives incline without necessitating) 1686 · attacks premise 5

Our choices always have reasons, but these reasons incline the will without forcing it. An action can be certain without being necessary: its opposite implies no contradiction.

Schopenhauer replies
Schopenhauer
Schopenhauer quotes Leibniz and replies that such a middle way is untenable. One cannot say that motives determine the will only up to a point, after which it could escape them. Once a motive is granted the power to act, it only has to be stronger to prevail: whoever wavers at a bribe of 10 ducats will give in at 100.
Kant 1788 · attacks the conclusion

If our acts follow necessarily from what precedes them, our "freedom" is no better than that of a turnspit, which once wound up turns by itself. Without real freedom, there is no moral responsibility.

Schopenhauer replies
Schopenhauer
Here Schopenhauer takes up Kant's own solution. We feel responsible, and rightly so. But this responsibility targets the act only on the surface: at bottom it targets our character. It is for what we are that we feel responsible. So freedom lies in our being, not in our acts.
The debate goes on (our summary) A Kantian would answer that the difficulty has only been moved: if my character is innate and never changes, I did not choose it, and it is hard to see why I am responsible for it. Schopenhauer answers that this character is itself the free act of our will, outside time; many readers find that idea very hard to conceive.
Nietzsche 1886 · attacks premise 5

Absolute free will is an absurdity, but so is its opposite. Speaking of causes that "force" the will turns into things words that only serve to describe. The "unfree will" is a mythology: in real life there are only strong and weak wills.

no reply
No reply possible: objection raised in 1886, after the author's death (1860).
What today's voices say
Defend it
Alex O'ConnorArgues that actions driven by wants are not free, because we do not choose our wants.