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Liberty

Author

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  • François Facchini

    (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

Abstract

Freedom raises questions, on the one hand, about the relationship between human beings and nature (via the question of determinism) and, on the other hand, about the relationship between one human being and another (via the topics of duty and obligation). The response of human beings to the constraints that nature places upon the will is exemplified in technology. The response of human beings to the constraints that can be imposed by other human beings is exemplified by law. Fundamentally, a free action is something done that could have been done in a different way. It is distinguished from a reflex action. A free act or action has three characteristics: (i) it is intentional (an act of will), (ii) it comes with a justification in the form of reasons for acting or motives (one wishes to enjoy looking at a landscape), and (iii) it is not the determinate result of some other act or action. Regarding free action, it is not immediately certain that it exists in reality. Perhaps my reasons for acting or my motives in acting were, after all, determined by my conditions of existence. Determinism develops this doctrine. Everything that happens must happen as it does and could not have happened any other way. The acts of the will are determined by antecedent causes. There are two kinds of determinism: external determinism and internal determinis. Determinism has three consequences: (i) The opposite of the absence of choice is freedom; (ii) determinism denies the being of "non necessitating ends," and the role of free will, entrepreneurialism and imagination in the explanation of human behavior; and (iii) if freedom does not exist, the law does not need to protect it. At the contrario, Affirming the existence of nonnecessitating ends has therefore several consequences. In particular, that restores the place of entrepreneurs as a change agent in the analysis of the dynamics of institutions : culture and law. The entrepreneur has space in which to manoeuver regarding all the laws that do not establish necessitating ends. If human laws, that is, morality and law, have this characteristic, then human beings can liberate themselves from laws that constrain them by refusing to apply them. They have the power to stand apart from their conditioning.

Suggested Citation

  • François Facchini, 2022. "Liberty," Post-Print hal-03453426, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03453426
    DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4614-7883-6_50-2
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-03453426
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