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

THE PROBLEM Of PREE WILL 041
thwarting we demand compensation, or instinctive inferior-
itiei and deficiencies, our realization of which leads us to
demand TTfltiiirflnrf*.
If this view of reason is right, the belief in the freedom of
the will must be abandoned. For, if the faculty which is
involved in moral judgment and choice is fundamentally
non-rational, then it is not freely exercised; if feeling
alone can motivate to action, then action is never freely
chosen; if the conclusions of the reason never afford a
sufficient ground for conduct, then conduct is always
determined by non-rational factors.
Self-Determinism Latent in Many Philosophies.
Now many philosophers have adopted views which entail
that the forces which motivate human beings to action
are non-rational, even when they have repudiated the
determinist implications which, if I am right, follow from
these views. Aristotle, for example, as I mentioned in an
earlier chapter, 1 announces that thought itself cannot
motivate movement, and, although he goes on to qualify
the statement and suggests that what he calls practical
thought, practical, that is, as opposed to theoretical or
speculative thought, may motivate to action, his doctrine
of the will certainly lends itself to the view that it is not
reason but desire that determines our actions. 1 Philoso-
phers have used ambiguous phrases such as " rational
desire" to suggest that, when we will to act in a certain way,
or endeavour to obtain certain ends, the elements in our
nature engaged in mqlnng the choice or pursuing the
endeavour are not necessarily irrational, even though they
are essentially emotional or desiring dements. The only
meaning that it is possible to extract from such phrases is
that, while the emotional or desiring parts of our nature
determine our actions, they may on occasion operate in
accordance with the dictates of reason, and so deserve the
title of rational. The philosopher, T. H. Gfeen (1836-
1882), for example, speaks of our desiring or appetitive
1 Scc Chapter IV, p. no. 'See Chapter IV, pp. us, 113.