Free will — what is it?

My relative in her youth had a girlfriend who got married early. Shortly thereafter, my relative noticed that she had a very bad relationship with her husband. He imposed his will on her in everything, did not take her into account at all, and sometimes used force if he was dissatisfied with something. She only wept and endured silently. To a direct question, “Why don’t you divorce him and free yourself from all these bullying?” she replied, “Why? What will I do with my freedom?

Her friend was shocked by such an attitude towards herself and lost interest in her. She felt some kind of emptiness — not only in her life, but also in her personality. And she was right.

How is freedom connected with personality, with a person’s sense of self? Let’s first talk about whether a person can really act on his own accord, or whether his behavior is subject to external circumstances. This is the subject of long-standing discussions of philosophers and specialists in the field of natural sciences.

On the one hand, free will seems obvious when viewed in terms of simple actions: I want to raise my hand and I raise it. However, in this, people do not differ from animals, whose behavior is also not always reduced to conditioned reflexes: they can run wherever they want, not only to escape danger or in search of food, but also out of curiosity.

But do we agree that our free will, which we are proud of, should be equated with the free behavior of animals? Does this not lose something important in the very concept of freedom?

Secondly, many physiologists pay attention to the fact that, with all our desire, we cannot perform actions that go beyond the capabilities of our musculoskeletal system, and make somersaults that are not provided for by the motor skills of the joints.

But, in my opinion, to discuss such restrictions of behavior in the context of free will is as absurd as to argue that we cannot pass through a stone wall with all our desire and, therefore, there is no freedom.

The main manifestation of freedom is a personal choice from a multitude of real possibilities of behavior. At the same time, the factors acting on us can contradict each other or complement each other. What are these factors? Our attitudes, formed in the process of personality development, relationships with other people, momentary impulses and much more. Freedom is not in ignoring these moments, but in the ability to interact with them and form behavior aimed at achieving the goal.

This is the main difference between free will and arbitrariness, when a person does not even try to predict what consequences his actions will lead to. The operating factors do not disappear. Simply ignoring them makes the behavior chaotic and destructive.

The freedom to choose from many potential possibilities is limited only by a holistic sense of oneself, one’s personality, the image of «I». This makes it not limitless, but fills it with meaning. It is this limitation that distinguishes the free will of a person from the arbitrariness and free will of animals, which have a physiological sense of themselves, but do not have an image of «I».

Man cannot be free from himself, he must be in the world with an idea of ​​himself. This, of course, limits the freedom of choice, but it also saves from destructive internal conflicts, and from submission to external pressure, and from a momentary whim.

As Bulat Okudzhava once said to a Soviet official in response to an unacceptable offer: «I may see you for the first and last time, but I have to live with myself all my life.» This is the manifestation of inner freedom, opposing the imposition of someone else’s will.

If a person does not have this feeling of himself and the image of «I» is not formed, he really has nothing to do with the freedom provided to him — it will result in destructive arbitrariness. And in fear of this, he may prefer dependence on others, like the woman with whom I began the story.