Friday 5 January 2018

Free Will

Another of my exercises in understanding Stoic concepts, this time on the rather neat approach Stoics have to free will.  Admittedly, the approach is to not talk about it, but rather talk about something better defined: volition.  Volition is the ability to make decisions and act on them.

Stoics believe in a basically mechanistic universe: everything happens because of a chain of cause and effect, governed by rules which we can -- to some extent -- understand; and use that understanding to make better decisions.  The effect that external influences have on individuals depends on their character.

There is a famous analogy called Chrisyppus' Cylinder.  An object -- e.g., a cylinder -- responds to external forces in a manner dependent on its nature.  So a cylinder, at rest on a flat surface, will stay there (Newton's first law).  If something or someone should give the cylinder a push, it will roll.  The push is external to the cylinder (and independent of it) but the rolling is a property of the cylinder -- it is in the cylinder's nature to roll.  It follows that a person is buffeted by any number of external forces and responds according to their nature, whether the force is physical (trip and fall over), biological (grow a beard) or social (shave the beard off).  And if I knew enough about a person and the forces acting on them, their behaviour would be completely predictable.  Thus is life in a mechanistic universe.

But unlike the cylinder, a person is rational, in particular having the ability to reflect on their actions.  This makes it possible for us to change aspects of our character.

For example: on a Friday night not so very long ago I went to the movies to see Thor: Ragnarok.  Before heading into the theatre I bought a large glass of red wine.  To anyone who knows me well, those choices would have been quite predictable: that on a Friday night when I had no pressing obligations I would go to see a movie, that I would see the latest Marvel release (I'm rather keen on them), that I would buy a glass of wine (I like wine), that I would choose red (it is my usual preference) and that I would ask for a large one (those movies are long).

Given the same set of external circumstances (a demanding criterion to be sure, but not an absurd one: Black Panther comes out it in February) and the same internal state, my behaviour would be exactly the same.  But having reflected on the choices I made, I could choose to act differently in the future, swapping cinema for live drama (or staying home), Marvel for indy films, red wine for orange juice.  My character would be thus changed, and I would accordingly respond (slightly) differently to external forces.