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

(a) Secondly, all writers are agreed that by freedom of the
will we do not mean mere motiveless caprice. If, then, it is not
my past which always determines myjudgment, the question
must be asked, " What it is that does "? The answer which
has been suggested is that what determines my judgment
in certain cases is the discerned goodness of a particular
end or the perceived reasonableness of a particular course
of action; something, in other words, is seen to be good
and reasonable in and for itself. The validity of this answer
depends upon the admissions (a) that men do possess a
natural bias to do the right and to pursue the Good;
(4) that it is with this predominantly reasonable part
of themselves that they seek to do the right and pursue
the Good; (c) that reason is not a separate and is never
a purely cognitive faculty; when,-therefore, we do what we
judge to be the right thing, and pursue what we judge
to be the Good, it is the reasoning part of our natures that
prompts our endeavours; reason, in other words, has itself
an appetitive side; (d) that, although reason is inclined
to do the right and to pursue the Good, it is never necessitated.
It may be true that we are necessitated by the Good
in general, in the sense that we cannot help preferring
what we take to be better to what we take to be worse, but
we are free not to pursue some particular good. We may
not be able to withhold our assent from the conclusions
ofa chain of argument based upon self-evident assumptions,
but we are certainly not forced to think correctly on a
particular occasion.
If these admissions be granted, then it will, *
I think,
be found difficult to answer the questions, "Can reason
ever motivate action, and, when it does so motivate,
can it be regarded as free ? ", in any sense other than
the affirmative.