GUIDE TO THE PHILOSOPHY 1938 - 1947.pdf - Rare Books at ...

THE PROBLEM OF FREE WILL
Bearing of the Psychological Analysis upon Concepts of
Will and Reason. What, it may be asked, is the
bearing of theie conclusions upon the question with which
we are immediately concerned the question of the freedom
of the human will and, we may add, of the human
reason? I include reason as well as will since, if there is
to be freedom of choice two conditions at least must be
satisfied; there must be not only a will which can freely
choose between two courses of action that which appears
to be the better, but a reason which can impartially
estimate and freely decide between the relative worths of
the two different courses under choice.
Both these requisites offreedom are denied by the psychological
analysis I have described. Its effect upon die will
1
has already been indicated in a previous chapter; will,
if the psycho-analytic account can be accepted, is a sublimated
form of desire, for the working of which we are
no more responsible than for the promptings of desire
undisguised.
The effect upon reason is, from the point of view of
freedom, no less detrimental. Reason tends to be exhibited
as a mere tool or handmaid of desire. Its function is to
secure the ends which we unconsciously set ourselves, by
inventing excuses for what we instinctively want to do,
and arguments for what we instinctively want to believe.
There is, in fact, at bottom very little difference between
reason and faith; for, if faith be defined as the power of
believing what we know to be untrue, reason is the power
of deceiving ourselves into believing that what we want
to think true, is in fact true.
Reasoning fln^l Ratioittlfafag- We are accustomed to
make a distinction between reasoning and rationalizing.
Reasoning, we hold, is an honest, rationalizing a dis-
honest use of reason. A person who reasons uses his mind
to take impartial stock of the evidence, and permits his
conclusions to he determined by what he finds; he does
*See Chapter IV, pp. 114-116.