KANT'S CRITIQUE OF TELEOLOGY IN BIOLOGICAL EXPLANATION

118 Antinomy of Freedom
phenomena in the material world. Thus the "transcendental idea"
of freedom is the notion that the moral laws of freedom can exercise
causality in the world of appearances. "It is particularly noteworthy
that the practical concept of freedom is based on this transcendental
idea, and that it is the latter in the former that constitutes the real
source of the difficulty which has always surrounded the question of
the possibility of freedom" (B*561). We are thus dealing with an
intelligible (noumenal) spontaneity, not, as in the uncorrected
thesis, with a psychological (phenomenal) spontaneity. The freedom
that initiates a chain of phenomena cannot be psychological for the
latter is itself a phenomenon.
The traditional psychological problem of freedom focused on
the paradigm of indifference. In the classical form of the paradigm
— in the parable of Buridan's ass — a donkey stands between two
equal bushels of oats at equal distances from it and in all respects
equally attractive. The donkey can be compared with a piece of iron
between two equally strong magnets or with a balance in equilibrium;
in such a case the donkey would have to starve to death in the
midst of all this plenty because it has no reason to prefer one bushel
of oats (or in other versions: pile of hay) to the other. This was, for
instance, Spinoza's conclusion. 79 However, most philosophers have
argued either that an entirely symmetric situation is impossible or
that the donkey could choose without grounds for preference.
Leibniz and Clarke debated the question of freedom on the example
of a balance in equilibrium as well as in theological costume on the
question, whether God could create two identical particles of matter
and place them in two different places in otherwise empty space (an
indifferent situation). 80 Neither of them was willing to let Buridan's
ass starve. Clarke takes up the thesis position: an "active agent" has
active principles and can act even in an indifferent situation: 81
But intelligent beings are agents; not passive, in being moved by the
motives, as a balance is by weights; but they have active powers and do
move themselves, sometimes upon the view of strong motives, sometimes
upon weak ones, and sometimes where things are absolutely indifferent.
79 Cf. Spinoza, Ethica, II, Prop. 49. The presentation of Buridan's ass, including
magnets and weights, is based on Bayle's Dictionnaire, "Buridan". Cf also
Leibniz, Theodicée, I, §49, GP VI,129
80 Clarke, 3rd letter §§5-8; 4th letter §§1-2; Leibniz, 5th letter, §§3, 15, 16. Cf.
Freudenthal, Atom, chap. 13.
81 Clarke, 4th letter, §§1-2.