Descartes on the principle of alternative possibilities

Journal of the History of Philosophy

Volumn 44, Issue 3, 2006, Pages 377-394

  Ragland, C P ^a  

^a Saint Louis University

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EID: 60949968615     PISSN: 00225053     EISSN: 15384586     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/hph.2006.0049     Document Type: Article

References (42)

1. This terminology follows Harry Frankfurt, "Alternative Possibilities and Moral Responsibility," Journal of Philosophy 66 (1969), 829-39.
2. See Anthony Kenny, "Descartes on the Will," in Cartesian Studies, ed. R. J. Butler (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1972), 1-31;
3. and Jean-Marie Beyssade, La Philosophie Première de Descartes: Le temps et la cohérence de la métaphysique (Paris: Flammarion, 1979), 177-214.
4. See Etienne Gilson, La liberté chez Descartes et la théologie [La liberté] (Paris: Alcan, 1913), 310-19;
5. Alexander Boyce Gibson, The Philosophy of Descartes (London: Methuen, 1932), 332-39;
6. and Michelle Beyssade, "Descartes's Doctrine of Freedom: Differences between the French and Latin Texts of the Fourth Meditation" ["Descartes's Doctrine"], in Reason, Will, and Sensation: Studies in Descartes's Metaphysics, ed. John Cottingham (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), 191-206.
7. See S. V. Keeling, Descartes (London: Ernest Benn, 1934), 186-90;
8. Lucien Laberthonnière, Études sur Descartes in Oeuvres de Laberthonnière, vol. 1 (Paris: J. Vrin, 1935) 418-31;
9. Jean Laporte, "La liberté selon Descartes," Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale 44 (1937): 101-64;
10. Robert Imlay, "Descartes and Indifference," Studia Leibnitiana 14 (1982): 87-97;
11. Georges J. D. Moyal, "The Unity of Descartes' Conception of Freedom" ["Unity"], International Studies in Philosophy 19 (1987): 33-51;
12. James Petrik, Descartes' Theory of the Will (Durango, CO: Hollowbrook Publishing, 1992);
13. and Joseph Keim Campbell, "Descartes on Spontaneity, Indifference, and Alternatives" ["Descartes on Spontaneity"], in New Essays on the Rationalists, ed. Rocco J. Gennaro and Charles Huenemann (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 179-99.
14. On the basis of Descartes's apparent waffling on PAP, Gilson concluded that he had no real theory of freedom, but simply told various interlocutors what they wanted to hear. Focusing on problems regarding PAP, Imlay and Laberthonnière accuse Descartes of holding an incoherent theory of freedom. For similar reasons, Vere Chappell suggests Descartes's theory may be incoherent (Vere Chappell, "Descartes's Compatibilism," in Reason, Will, and Sensation: Studies in Descartes's Metaphysics, ed. John Cottingham [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994], 181). Kenny sees Descartes's theory of freedom as incoherent for different reasons ("Descartes on the will," 30-31).
15. Randal Marlin defends Descartes against Kenny's criticisms, but raises some worries of his own about the coherence of Descartes's view (Randal Marlin, "Cartesian Freedom and the Problem of the Mesland Letters" ["Cartesian Freedom"], in Early Modern Philosophy: Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Politics, ed. Georges J. D. Moyal and Stanley Tweyman (Delmar, NY: Caravan Books, 1985), 195-216.
16. Daniel Dennett, Elbow Room: Varieties of Free Will Worth Wanting (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1984), 131.
17. CSM: John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, and Dugald Murdoch, trans., The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, vols. 1 and 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985).
18. CSMK: John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, Dugald Murdoch, and Anthony Kenny, trans., The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, vol. 3 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991). Translations are from CSM or CSMK unless otherwise noted.
19. Laberthonniere, Études sur Descartes, 430-32.
20. For other versions of this sort of reading, see Gilson, La liberté, 310,
21. and M. Beyssade, "Descartes's Doctrine," 194, 206.
22. Kenny, "Descartes on the Will," 17.
23. Susan Wolf, "Asymmetrical Freedom," Journal of Philosophy 77 (1980): 151-66.
24. Chappell, "Descartes's Compatibilism," 180.
25. For an excellent alternative discussion of indifference as it relates to divine and human freedom, see Dan Kaufman, "Infimus gradus libertatis? Descartes on indifference and divine freedom," Religious Studies 39 (2003): 391-406.
26. For an excellent discussion of these passages and relevant scholastic background, see Tad Schmaltz, "The Disappearance of Analogy in Descartes, Spinoza, and Regis," Canadian Journal of Philosophy 30 (2000): 85-114. Schmaltz argues, in effect, that Descartes's understanding of divine simplicity conflicts with his belief in an analogy between the divine and human wills. Schmaltz may be correct, but it still seems that the Fourth Meditation (coherently or not) posits an analogy.
27. Charles Larmore, who seems to agree with Kenny's reading of the definition of freedom, notes that the similarity between the divine and human will creates a problem for his interpretation, and suggests that the idea of freedom from external determination may provide a solution. See Charles Larmore, "Descartes' Psychologistic Theory of Assent" [Descartes' Psychologist], History of Philosophy Quarterly 1 (1984): 66-68.
28. This passage immediately follows the second clause. The 'for' indicates that it is supposed to explain Descartes's reason for adding the 'or rather' (see M. Beyssade, "Descartes's Doctrine," 198-99). Descartes reiterates that human freedom does not require indifference at AT 7:433 / CSM 2:292 and AT 4:116 / CSMK 234.
29. For more on this topic, see my "Descartes on Divine Providence and Human Freedom," Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 87 (2005):159-88.
30. See Daniel Garber and Michael Ayers, eds., The Cambridge History of Seventeenth-Century Philosophy, vol. 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 1198-99. For an argument that Descartes follows Duns Scotus in claiming that the will always enjoys the power to elicit or not elicit its acts, see Lilli Alanen, "Descartes on the Will and the Power to Do Otherwise" ["Do Otherwise"], in Emotions and Choice from Boethius to Descartes, eds. Henrik Lagerlund and Mikko Yrjönsuuri (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2002) 279-98.
31. nd ed. (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1966), 286, and in Alanen, "Do Otherwise," 294;
32. Moyal, "Unity," 39;
33. and Marlin, "Cartesian Freedom," 207-08.
34. Moyal defends it at length in his "Magicians, Doubters, and Perverts: On Doubting the Clear and Distinct" ["Magicians"], Revue Internationale de Philosophie 50 (1996): 73-107.
35. Campbell, "Descartes on Spontaneity," 180.
36. Laporte advances this sort of interpretation. On this view, Descartes's core condition for freedom is basically the same as Robert Kane's: the will must be the ultimate causal origin of its own acts. See Robert Kane, The Significance of Free Will (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 37-40.
37. Laura Waddell Eckstrom, "Libertarianism and Frankfurt-Style Cases," in The Oxford Handbook of Free Will, ed. Robert Kane (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 310-15.
38. For a very interesting discussion of the normative interpretation of moral necessity, see Lilli Alanen, "Intuition, Assent, and Necessity: The Question of Descartes's Psychologism," Acta Philosophica Fennica 64 (1999): 99-121.
39. For an argument to this effect, see Moyal, "Magicians," 89-91.
40. It is also possible that he intends only to make the descriptive psychological point, and not the normative point at all. This seems to be the reading favored by Larmore, "Descartes' Psychologistic," 61.
41. See Campbell, "Descartes's Compatibilism," 192-94.
42. See my "Is Descartes a Libertarian," forthcoming in Oxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy, vol. 3, eds. Daniel Garber and Steven Nadler (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006).