Charles Arthur Campbell's "Free Will"

Free Will By: Charles Arthur Campbell

Charles Arthur Campbell begins Free Will by stating “In the case of the free will problem I think there is a rather special need of careful formulation. For there are many sports of human freedom; and it can easily happen that one wastes a great deal of labor in proving or disproving a freedom which has almost nothing to do with the freedom which is at issue in the traditional problem of free will” (Furman 23). By starting out with this statement Campbell shows that he is a believer in free will, but at the same time he is willing to expect determinism, because he believes the determinism doesn’t disagree with the correct free will, which is moral free will. Campbell believes everyone has moral free will in the form of moral effort. For example if you lived a terrible life, grew up with abusive parents, and never received proper education Campbell argues that when faced with a moral decision, like to steal or not, the person  can put in moral effort and not steal. He believes that your moral effort can change decisions that you make strictly from your inner experiences. 54f

The class was most interested in discussing whether or not humans have a moral dial inside them that they are able to turn using moral effort, as stated by Campbell. The class was split on this idea. Some people believed that no matter your inner experiences are you have the ability to turn your own moral dial and make a decision. Others stated that even if this were true you would be turning the dial based on your environment, heredity, training, and temperament. So even with the existence of a moral dial and moral effort determinism still holds to be true.

Personally I don’t agree with Campbell for two main reasons. First, Campbell never explained where or how people develop morals. If somebody grows up thinking stealing is ok, and part of life, nothing inside of him will encourage him to stop. He won’t put in moral effort, not necessarily because he’s not trying, but he just doesn’t know it’s bad. How can somebody change if they don’t know what they are doing is wrong? Second, I believe in Blatchford’s thinking that every decision that you make is based on your environment, heredity, temperament, and training. This is what makes the most sense, because you can’t make a decision without outside influences. For example if you are about to steal something you think about what people would think if you were caught. This shows that there are outside influences when you make decisions.

Campbell's idea of free will reminds me of Oedipus in Oedipus Rex.  In Oedipus Rex Oedipus appears to exercise free will when he voluntarily decides to run away from Corinth. When he is faced with situation of staying for fleeing, he decides that he is morally obligated to leave, so he does.