Francisco Luiz Pacheco dos Reis Neto

Group 1

Chapter 5 – What Is and What Must Be? Freedom and Necessity

1. Summary:

The chapter aims to expatiate first about necessity and then connect it with the themes of
causality and freedom. In this sense, mathematics as the first necessary truth that instinctively
comes to us must be dissected, and the outcome is its interpretation as an eternal truth that we
associate with the natural world, but which has nothing to do with it. Going further, to fit
mathematics with other possible knowledge, Kant organized it in two categories: analytical,
which does not add any new information about the subject and, by consequence, is always a
priori, and synthetic, the predicate, in this case, adds something to the subject, being possible to
be either a posteriori, the sense-experience statements, and a priori, which is, by Kant, where the
true philosophy should focus. But is this synthetic a priori knowledge even possible? And if it is,
is it after the experience, empiricism, or despite the experience, rationalism? In reality, we just
have a perception of the world, it appears to us as a phenomena fitting in our spatial and
temporal intuitions, and some categories that our mind uses, as the causality, to interpret the
noumena.
Our concept of causality is mainly based on temporal precedence, first cause and then
effect; the contiguity in space and time; and the connection per se of the cause and the effect.
However, we can just say that one follows the other, as constant conjunctions, and not that it
must track. Stuart Mill tries to solve this problem by introducing kinds of regularities with
different types of conditions; first, there is the necessary condition, it says that something is
necessary, but not necessarily uniquely required, in order to some other thing to occur, and the
sufficient condition, a sum of conditions that invariably make the effect to occur. So, the causal
principle, if assumed, could not be refuted, because always the lack of data would be the one to
blame. And this principle is neither true nor false, but something we brought to the world.
However, according to modern physics, a possibility of randomness at the subatomic level is
plausible, then would not it affect the perspectives of causality and freedom in the intelligible
world?
Freedom could be understood in a variety of ways; for example, the lack of limitations in
all means, the freedom-from some circumstances, and is also limited by external and internal
psychological factors. Fatalism tries to answer it by stating that everything that happens is fated
to, indeterminism says that almost all events do have causes, but concerning mainly the human
being, our decisions are influenced by prior conditions, but not entirely. Nonetheless, if we
assume determinism, is it incompatible with freedom? The Theory of Agency tries to conciliate it
by putting man as a self-causing being, who performs the causes with no necessary antecedent
conditions. But, otherwise, would we be just a passing fragment in an intertwined series of
events?

2. What is freedom?

There are many different ways freedom could be interpreted, not only in philosophy but
also in other fields, for example, the freedom of the market, political freedom, freedom of
religion, and intellectual freedom. Furthermore, we could point to the ‘Two Concepts of Liberty’

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of Isaiah Berlin, the negative one, which is the freedom-from, stating the liberty of choices
between different options that we have, and the positive, the freedom to, in this case, concerning
the actual possibility of engaging in the available possibilities. Kant, on the other hand,
conceptualizes freedom, not in a traditional take of freely acting, speaking, and thinking as we
please, but the ability to govern oneself by means of reason only, and not desire, which he
considers a primitive and animalistic instinct. Thereby the theme of freedom and its mere
definition is disputable in general; so this should be analyzed in means of the idea aimed to
transmit and its implications.
Firstly, analyzing the more common concept given to freedom, which could be stated as
the absence of limitation of the act and think, it is already possible to observe something
contestable, that being: why should any kind of supernatural action be included in this concept,
which would include one’s will to teleport, to be invisible, to have any kind of superpower,
shortly? So, just being weaker than Arnold Schwarzenegger would make one less free than him
for his ability to open more pickled cucumber jars? Maybe, because if I need to open the pickled
cucumber jars and I fail, I will not have access to the pickles, and, therefore, a limitation of one’s
possibility to act as one pleases.
Concerning then the freedom to think, if it was as simple as the possibility to think in the
way that one is willing to, no one would be doomed without this freedom at its limit. However,
external influences and internal compulsions could be seen as ways of limiting it. Primarily, of
course, the environment influences each one to be more or less open-minded, have clearer or
unclear thoughts, and all our education processes culminate in a broader or narrower intellectual
possibility of understanding, but, independent of all these, we would always be able to think in
the way we want in a certain given time. On the other hand, if the concept of freedom includes,
as it was said, an absence of limitations, the simple fact of the possibilities in learning being
more limiting, would cause the freedom to also be so. Pertaining the internal compulsions, the
cases of any psychological illnesses, such as schizophrenia, autism, and cerebral palsy, clearly
show how these disorders can limit our way of thinking. Nevertheless, hyperactivity and
attention deficit, for example, could be found in a certain level in a big portion of the population,
and the same with the differences of IQ between people, so would those with a lower level of the
first two and a higher IQ have more freedom than others? If these characteristics influence us to
have a “better” rational thinking mind, it could certainly be the truth.
Now, even though the work to define freedom is not the one to analyze whether we have
it or not, it is pivotal to the investigation of whether there is freedom despite free will and
determinism or not. In respect of free will, despite it existing or not, one is aware of its
possibilities of doing as one pleases, but is it true that one cannot please as one pleases, as
Bertrand Russell observed? If so, freedom would either need to include also the possibility of the
acts being always caused by prior conditions or keep its concept concerning only beings with
“free will”. Moreover, regarding determinism, in which all our actions would be caused by prior
factors, to introduce freedom, in this case, would probably be only introducing a label to a set of
actions described as such, but not the true concept of it.
Kant’s idea of freedom is firstly already, in some kinds, presupposed to reference
ourselves morally responsible and theoretically rational, it meaning the capacity to ratiocinate
not only in the practical domain but also in the pure theoretical one. Subsequently, he presents
the idea of freedom of the will using two different definitions, called the negative one, that is
when one has the ability to initiate an action without alien interference, independently of laws of

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nature, and, therefore, everyone would be able to spontaneously act in accordance to the moral
law. However, for Kant, all causes should act according to laws, so the will itself also should, so
the positive description of freedom would be: “the will’s property of being a law to itself”,
signifying that free will is an autonomous will, and to act autonomously to Kant is to act in
accordance to the categorical imperative, so under this moral law it would be the same as a will.
Consequently, to consider oneself rational is to act freely from alien influences, then follows that
the freedom of will is closely related to the moral law, and the first must be true to all rational
agents for the second to follow, and for this to be practical should be acted in the basis of reason,
not impulses or instinct. Finally, insofar as by regarding ourselves to be rational, it must follow
that we are free.
Hence, Kant’s take on freedom accounts for how rationality is the factor that transformed
us into free beings. In such a manner, the accountability of the problems reported in the previous
paragraphs would no longer be useful; still, the interpretation of what being rational for Kant
meant, and what is the extent of his freedom conception remains necessary. Rational beings
would be the end in themselves and could never rationally agree to act as means to an end, acting
in accord to a practical reason, the capacity of a rational being to act according to principles.
Moreover, the freedom aspect appears as the pure state of our consciousness and its work in a
rational form, so the formerly corporeal limitations of freedom would be meaningless while the
being remains a rational one.
In sum, to arrive at a definition to be used to the term freedom, it is necessary to study the
many ways in which the term has been used, the particular aspects of each of them, and how free
will and determinism could or not fit.

3. My solution to the problem:

To solve the problem of freedom we must first analyze whether the concept is binary,
about having or not having, or of certain degrees of freedom. At first, if freedom is a binate
question, any of our limitations could make us have no freedom at all, or, on the other hand, the
limitations altogether could make us as free as if we had no limitations at all. It should be noted
that any use of a certain level of restraint as a delimitation of whether a being has or does not
have freedom would be considered arbitrary. Clarifying, either a person with a very high degree
of mental disorder, that cannot movement any limbs, is blind, and deaf, but still conscious has
freedom, or some average person, by all means, is not free for not having the best possible IQ,
whatever it may be. In this way, it is clear that the best solution is not the second one, because
even if the possibility of freedom in this world exists, no being would be qualified to have it,
despite a certain God. Now, the first response, although it does not seem suitable, analyzing in
the perspective of freedom as the possibility of acting as one will to, not by the view of the
absence of limitations, then if you are alive and conscious, if not one’s body, at least one’s mind
is still working as one pleases. In this way, an alien being could also see a human being as a
limited being in all means, and, if a person with lots of limitations is not considered to have
freedom, humans would be the same for this alien species.
Putting aside this first possible conclusion, let’s inspect, now, the possibilities of levels of
freedom by establishing the most and least possible rates. To arrive at the freest level definition,
despite appearing easy, there are at least 2 possibilities, considering it as the maximum of a
human being or as the uttermost in all possible ways, if the first, it would be a human with all

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greatest qualities of mind or body, if the second, it would be an omniscient and omnipotent
being. The form to discard the antecedent is imagining that if outsiders make contact with us, and
if they surpass a human by either its mind or body, it would be irrational in a degree of freedom
system to not consider them freer than the freest human being. But, is a structure of levels of
freedom intelligible at all? Comprehending ourselves as flawed beings, a degree of imperfection,
and, therefore, a degree of freedom does not look as unintelligible as it does at first sight.
Additionally, taking into account free will and deterministic theory, it is necessary to
determine if both would be compatible with the concept of freedom. Investigating it, if I have
only the impression of doing what I do as a free will, and actually only a sequence of causes and
effects occurred since the beginning of times that eventually brought us here, am I free, although
the causality determined everything that I am doing and I have ever done? Even with the
argument that being free does not mean uncaused, but a kind of unbidden, if everything is just as
an effect of prior conditions, then it is bid by the causes, so it must be both uncaused and
unbidden. Therefore, in order to have freedom, our existence must have more randomness factors
than an inanimate object and not just a mere illusion that we have free will.
Analyzing Kant’s concept of freedom, the first contested aspect that I will point out is
whether only humans are the ones with freedom or if other beings could have it. By Kant, the
idea of liberty despite reason is not suitable, but the real problem is, if we really know what is
reason, and if so, some animals could have evolved to a certain degree in which it could be said
to have at least the minimum level of rational capacity, and, then, would it be in a certain level
free? Maybe, however, whether it approximates this or not, is not something that would change
our discussion, because if the answer is affirmative, then it would only better illustrate how to
classify our freedom in view of the animals one. Furthermore, the mere concept of the freedom
being intrinsically connected with rationality is attractive, for the reason that all other things in
the world and the universe seem to follow almost perfectly the causal principle, while only the
human beings seem to go beyond this concept, and the this being the only substantial
characteristic that differentiates us.
To combine the conclusions previously reached in light of Kant’s idea of freedom from
the last paragraph, first, it should be decided which one of the both mutually contradictory, the
levels of freedom or the binary one, should prevail as the explanation for the behavior of
freedom. Similarly as observed at last paragraph, to be extended either to different people and
other beings, degrees of freedom would probably best suit, for the reason that even though if we
classify an animal with a certain kind of freedom, as much as its rationality is not compared to
ours, its freedom would be as well not comparable, but existent, and the same reasoning could
the used to unknown alien beings even more capable than us. Moreover, since the aim is to seek
the basic concept of freedom, incorporating partially the Kant’s concept could lean the idea of
both acting and thinking being direct aspects of freedom, and, therefore, just thinking should
overcome, because the reason is caused through it, and acting would just be an effect of the
originator freedom expressed by the mind.
In conclusion, my solution to the problem of defining the concept of freedom take into
account three perspective: first, the acceptance of Kant’s argument that our rationality is what
turn us in free being, so, to define freedom it must be taken as a rational state of mind of a living
thing which enables us to act freely. In addition, freedom could be equivalently superimposed on
a degree scale of rationality, in which the freer will be the being as more rational it is. Thirdly, a
world in which free will is an illusion, and determinism theory is the reality, freedom would be

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impossible. Thus, the sought definition would be: freedom is to think, and, therefore, to act
rationally; and it is as high as rational capability is.

• References:

1. Wolt, Daniel, 2018, Kant on Free Will and Theoretical Rationality, Scielo, accessed on
January 20th, 2022, <http://www.scielo.org.co/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0120-
00622018000100181#aff1>
2. J. Barnard, Matthew, 2019, Power and Freedom in Heidegger’s First Notebook, Taylor &
Francis Online, accessed on January 19th, 2022,
<https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00071773.2019.1690749>
3. Kantian Ethics (Main Concepts), Lumen Learning, accessed on January 19 th, 2022,
<https://courses.lumenlearning.com/sanjacinto-philosophy/chapter/kantian-ethics-main-
concepts/>
4. Hospers, John. An Introduction to Philosophical Analyzes. Prentice Hall, 1997.