The Rudolf Steiner Archive

1. Conscious Human Action

[ 1 ] Is man a spiritually free being in his thoughts and actions or is he under the compulsion of a purely natural law of iron necessity? Few questions have been addressed with as much acumen as this one. The idea of the freedom of the human will has found both warm supporters and stubborn opponents in abundance. There are those who, in their moral pathos, declare anyone to be of a limited mind who is able to deny such an obvious fact as freedom. They are opposed by others who regard it as the height of unscientific thinking if someone believes that the laws of nature are interrupted in the area of human action and thought. One and the same thing is declared here as often the most precious good of mankind as the worst illusion. Infinite subtlety has been expended to explain how human freedom is compatible with the workings of nature, to which man also belongs. No less effort has been made by others to explain how such a delusional idea could have arisen. That we are dealing here with one of the most important questions of life, of religion, of practice and of science, is felt by everyone in whom the opposite of thoroughness is not the most prominent trait of his character. And it is one of the sad signs of the superficiality of contemporary thought that a book that wants to shape a "new faith" from the results of recent natural research (David Friedrich Strauß, Der alte und der neue Glaube) contains nothing about this question other than the words: "We do not have to get involved in the question of the freedom of the human will here. The supposedly indifferent freedom of choice has always been recognized as an empty phantom by every philosophy worthy of the name; the moral determination of the value of human actions and attitudes, however, remains unaffected by this question. I cite this passage here not because I believe that the book in which it appears has any special significance, but because it seems to me to express the opinion to which the majority of our thinking contemporaries are capable of rising in the matter in question. That freedom cannot consist in choosing one or the other of two possible actions at will seems to be known today by everyone who claims to have outgrown their scientific infancy. There is always, it is claimed, a very specific reason why, of several possible actions, one particular one is carried out.

[ 2 ] This seems plausible. Nevertheless, to this day, the main attacks of the opponents of freedom are only directed against freedom of choice. Says Herbert Spencer, who lives in views that are becoming more widespread with every passing day (The Principles of Psychology, by Herbert Spencer, German edition by Dr. B. Vetter, Stuttgart 1882): "But that any one can desire or not desire at will, which is the real proposition lying in the dogma of free will, is of course as much denied by the analysis of consciousness as by the contents of the preceding chapters (of psychology)." Others proceed from the same point of view when they combat the concept of free will. The germ of all statements in this regard can already be found in Spinoza. What he clearly and simply put forward against the idea of freedom has been repeated countless times since then, only usually wrapped up in the most subtle theoretical doctrines, so that it becomes difficult to recognize the simple train of thought that is the only thing that matters. Spinoza writes in a letter of October or November 1674: "I call that thing free which exists and acts from the mere necessity of its nature, and forced I call that which is determined by something else to exist and act in a precise and firm manner. Thus, for example, God, although necessary, exists freely, because he exists only out of the necessity of his nature alone. In the same way, God recognizes himself and everything else freely, because it follows from the necessity of his nature alone that he recognizes everything. You see, then, that I place freedom not in a free decision, but in a free necessity.

[ 3 ] However, let us descend to created things, which are all determined by external causes to exist and operate in a fixed and precise manner. To see this more clearly, let us imagine a very simple thing. For example, a stone receives a certain amount of motion from an external cause that pushes it, and when the push from the external cause has ceased, it necessarily continues to move. This persistence of the stone in its motion is therefore a forced and not a necessary one, because it must be defined by the impact of an external cause. What is true here of the stone is true of every other single thing, no matter how composed and capable of many things, namely that every thing is necessarily determined by an external cause to exist and act in a fixed and precise manner.

[ 4 ] Suppose now, I pray you, that the stone, while it is moving, thinks and knows that it is endeavoring, as much as it can, to continue in the moving. This stone, which is only conscious of its striving and is by no means indifferent, will believe that it is quite free and that it continues in its movement for no other reason than because it wants to. But this is that human freedom which all claim to possess, and which consists only in the fact that men are conscious of their desires, but do not know the causes by which they are determined. Thus the child believes that he freely desires milk, and the angry boy that he freely desires revenge, and the fearful one flight. Furthermore, the drunken man believes that he speaks freely what he would not have spoken if he had been sober; and since this prejudice is innate in all men, it is not easy to free oneself from it. For though experience sufficiently teaches that men are least able to moderate their desires, and that, moved by contrary passions, they see the better and do the worse, yet they think themselves free, and that because they desire some things less strongly, and some desires are easily restrained by the memory of others, of which they often remember."-

[ 5 ] Because this is a clearly and definitely expressed view, it is also easy to uncover the basic error contained therein. Just as necessarily as the stone performs a certain movement on an impulse, so necessarily should man perform an action if he is driven to do so by some reason. It is only because man has a consciousness of his action that he considers himself the free initiator of it. But he overlooks the fact that he is driven by a cause which he must follow without fail. The error in this train of thought is soon found. Spinoza and all who think like him overlook the fact that man not only has a consciousness of his action, but can also have a consciousness of the causes by which he is led. No one will deny that - the child is unfree when it desires milk, that the drunkard is so when he speaks things which he later regrets. Both know nothing of the causes that are at work in the depths of their organism and under whose irresistible compulsion they are. But is it justifiable to lump actions of this kind together with those in which man is not only conscious of his actions but also of the causes that motivate them? Are people's actions of the same kind? Can the actions of the warrior on the battlefield, the scientific researcher in the laboratory, the statesman in intricate diplomatic affairs be placed on the same scientific level as those of the child when it craves milk? It is true that the solution to a task is best attempted where the matter is simplest. But a lack of discernment has often led to endless confusion. And there is a profound difference between knowing why I am doing something and not. At first, this seems to be a self-evident truth. And yet the opponents of freedom never ask whether a reason for my actions, which I recognize and understand, is a compulsion for me in the same sense as the organic process that causes a child to cry for milk.

[ 6 ] Eduard von Hartmann claims in his "Phenomenology of Moral Consciousness" (5. 451) that human volition depends on two main factors: motives and character. If one regards all human beings as equal, or at least their differences as insignificant, then their volition appears to be determined from outside, namely by the circumstances that approach them. But if we consider that different men only make an idea the motive of their action when their character is such as to be prompted to a desire by the corresponding idea, then man appears to be determined from within and not from outside. Man now believes that he is free, that is, independent of external motives, because, in accordance with his character, he must first turn an idea imposed on him from outside into a motive. The truth, however, according to Eduard von Hartmann, is that: "But even if we ourselves first elevate ideas to motives, we do not do so arbitrarily, but according to the necessity of our characterological disposition, thus nothing less than freely". Here, too, the difference between motives that I allow to affect me only after I have penetrated them with my consciousness, and those that I follow without having a clear knowledge of them, is not taken into account.

[ 7 ] And this leads directly to the point of view from which the matter is to be considered here. Can the question of the freedom of our will be posed unilaterally? And if not, with which other question must it necessarily be linked?

[ 8 ] If there is a difference between a conscious motive for my action and an unconscious impulse, then the former will also entail an action that must be judged differently from one that is the result of blind urge. The question of this difference will therefore be the first. And what it results in will determine how we have to approach the actual question of freedom.

[ 9 ] What does it mean to have a knowledge of the reasons for one's actions? Too little consideration has been given to this question because, unfortunately, we have always torn into two parts what is an inseparable whole: the human being. A distinction has been made between the doer and the knower, and only the one who matters above all others has been left empty-handed: the one who acts out of knowledge.

[ 10 ] Man is said to be free if he is only under the rule of his reason and not under that of animal desires. Or also: freedom means being able to determine one's life and actions according to purposes and decisions.

[ 11 ] But nothing is gained by assertions of this kind. For that is precisely the question of whether reason, whether purposes and resolutions exert a compulsion on man in the same way as animal desires. If a rational decision arises in me without my intervention, with the same necessity as hunger and thirst, then I can only follow it out of necessity, and my freedom is an illusion.

[ 12 ] Another saying goes: To be free is not to be able to want what you want, but to be able to do what you want. The poet-philosopher Robert Hamerling characterized this idea in his "Atomistics of the Will" in sharply outlined words: "Man can indeed do what he wants - but he cannot want what he wants, because his will is determined by motives! - He cannot want what he wants? Take a closer look at these words. Is there any rational meaning in them? Freedom of will would therefore have to consist in the fact that one could will something without reason, without motive? But what does willing mean other than having a reason to do or strive for this rather than that? Wanting something without a reason, without a motive, would mean wanting something without wanting it. The concept of will is inextricably linked to that of motive. Without a determining motive, the will is an empty capacity: only through the motive does it become active and real. It is therefore quite true that the human will is not 'free' insofar as its direction is always determined by the strongest of the motives. But, on the other hand, it must be admitted that it is absurd to speak of a conceivable 'freedom' of the will in the face of this 'lack of freedom', which would be to be able to will what one does not want." (Atomistics of the Will, 2nd volume 5. 213 f.)

[ 13 ] Here, too, we speak only of motives in general, without taking into account the difference between unconscious and conscious motives. If a motive has an effect on me and I am forced to follow it because it proves to be the "strongest" of its kind, then the thought of freedom ceases to have any meaning. How can it have any meaning for me whether I can do something or not if I am forced to do it by the motive? What matters first of all is not whether I can do something or not when the motive has acted on me, but whether there are only such motives that act with compelling necessity. If I must want something, then under certain circumstances it is highly indifferent to me whether I can actually do it. If, because of my character and the circumstances prevailing in my environment, a motive is forced upon me that proves unreasonable to my thinking, then I would even have to be happy if I could not do what I want.

[ 14 ] What matters is not whether I can carry out a decision I have made, but how the decision arises in me.

[ 15 ] What distinguishes man from all other organic beings rests on his rational thinking. Being active is something he has in common with other organisms. Nothing is gained by looking for analogies in the animal kingdom to shed light on the concept of freedom for human action. Modern natural science loves such analogies. And if it has succeeded in finding something similar to human behavior in animals, it believes it has touched on the most important question of human science. The misunderstandings to which this opinion leads are shown, for example, in the book "The Illusion of Freedom of Will" by P. Rée, 1885, who (5. 5) says the following about freedom: "It is easy to explain why it seems to us that the movement of the stone is necessary, while the will of the donkey is not. The causes that move the stone are external and visible. But the causes by virtue of which the donkey wills are inside and invisible: between us and the place of their activity is the donkey's braincase... One does not see the causal conditionality and therefore thinks it does not exist. The will, it is explained, is indeed the cause of the rotation (of the donkey), but it itself is unconditioned; it is an absolute beginning." So here, too, man's actions, in which he has a consciousness of the reasons for his actions, are simply passed over, for Rée explains: "Between us and the place of their effectiveness is the brain-shell of the donkey." Rée has no idea, judging by these words, that there are actions, not those of the donkey, but those of human beings, in which the conscious motive lies between us and the action. He proves this a few pages later with the words: "We do not perceive the causes by which our volition is conditioned, therefore we think that it is not causally conditioned at all."

[ 16 ] But enough of examples that prove that many fight against freedom without knowing what freedom actually is.

[ 17 ] It goes without saying that an act cannot be free if the perpetrator does not know why he is doing it. But what about an act whose reasons are known? This leads us to the question: what is the origin and meaning of thought? For without recognizing the thinking activity of the soul, a concept of knowledge of something, thus also of an action, is not possible. If we recognize what thinking means in general, then it will also be easy to become clear about the role that thinking plays in human action. "Thinking makes the soul, with which the animal is also endowed, into a spirit," says Hegel rightly, and therefore thinking will also give human action its peculiar character.

[ 18 ] No claim should be made that all our actions flow only from the sober deliberation of our intellect. It is far from my intention to consider only those actions that arise from abstract judgment as human in the highest sense. But as soon as our actions rise above the realm of the satisfaction of purely animal desires, our motives are always interspersed with thoughts. Love, compassion, patriotism are driving forces of action that cannot be dissolved into cold intellectual concepts. It is said that the heart and the mind take over. Without doubt. But the heart and the mind do not create the motives of action. They presuppose them and take them into their realm. Compassion arises in my heart when the idea of a compassionate person appears in my consciousness. The way to the heart is through the head. Love is no exception to this rule. If it is not the mere expression of the sexual instinct, then it is based on the ideas we have of the loved one. And the more idealistic these ideas are, the more blissful love is. Here too, thought is the father of feeling. It is said that love blinds us to the weaknesses of the loved one. The matter can also be approached the other way round, claiming that love opens the eye precisely to the advantages of the loved one. Many pass by these advantages without noticing them. One person sees them, and that is precisely why love awakens in his soul. What else has he done but form an idea of what a hundred others have no idea of? They do not have love because they lack imagination.

[ 19 ] We may approach the matter as we wish: it must become ever clearer that the question of the nature of human action presupposes the other question of the origin of thought. I will therefore turn to this question first.