Descartes on Degrees of Freedom: A Close Look at a Key Text

In an influential article, Anthony Kenny charged that (a) the view of freedom in Descartes’ “1645 letter to Mesland” is incoherent, and (b) that this incoherence was present in Descartes’ thought from the beginning. Against (b), I argue that such incoherence would rather support Gilson’s suspicions that the 1645 letter is dishonest. Against (a), I offer a close reading of the letter, showing that Kenny’s objection seems plausible only if we misconstrue a key ambiguity in the text. I close by defending Descartes against some related worries of my own about the degrees of Cartesian freedom. I conclude that there is really no good reason to deny that Descartes’ view in the 1645 letter is both internally coherent and a genuine explication of the Meditations’ account of freedom. One of Descartes’ most extended and important ruminations on freedom occurs in a rather mysterious text. 1 Adam and Tannery, the editors of the standard edition of Descartes’ works, classify this text as a part of his 9 February 1645 letter to the Jesuit Denis Mesland. However, they admit that this is just an educated guess about its date and intended recipient. Despite the editorial uncertainties about this text, we can be sure that Descartes wrote it sometime after the Meditations, because the text quotes, and purports to explain, some of the Fourth Meditation’s remarks about freedom. While I acknowledge that it is probably in error, in this essay I will use Adam and Tannery’s name for the text, and— putting editorial problems aside—I will focus on two questions that scholars have asked about the view of freedom Descartes puts forth there: (1) is it consistent with the account of freedom in the earlier Meditations, and (2) is it consistent with itself (internally coherent)? At first glance, the answer to the first question seems obvious: the 1645 letter seems to say things that contradict the Meditations. Because of this, some scholars think that it advances Essays Philos (2013) 14:2 Ragland | 240 a new and different doctrine of freedom. If so, then the 1645 letter is dishonest, for it purports to elucidate the Meditations: Descartes leads his reader to believe that the new view had really been his intention all along. Regarding the second question, in a classic and influential article Anthony Kenny assesses the internal consistency of the 1645 letter and finds it wanting. Descartes claims there (as he also did in the Meditations) that freedom comes in degrees, that some actions are freer than others. He talks, furthermore, as if there is a single scale for measuring the degrees of freedom. But according to Kenny, Descartes invokes two inconsistent scales in the letter. Kenny, who sees the 1645 letter as consistent with Descartes’ earlier view of freedom, takes it to reveal an incoherence that had been present in Descartes’ thought from the beginning. From a philosophical point of view, Kenny’s accusation is the more damning of the two, and the primary goal of this essay is to defend Descartes against it. I will offer a careful reading of the entire letter, showing that Kenny finds an incoherence there only because he misinterprets the text. My secondary goal is to show that the two scholarly questions about this text are connected in a way that has not yet been appreciated: if Kenny’s charge of incoherence were correct, then we would have significantly more reason to suspect Descartes’ honesty in the 1645 letter. But in fact, there is really no good reason to deny that Descartes’ view there is both internally coherent and a genuine explication of the Meditations’ account of freedom. My procedure will be to work through the letter from beginning to end, labeling some sections for reference, and providing commentary to help explain Descartes’ meaning. Part I focuses on explicating Descartes’ distinction between two senses of “indifference”: twoway power over choice vs. motivational equilibrium. Part II focuses on his claim that twoway power necessary for freedom; this claim seems to conflict with his earlier views about freedom, and so can be used to raise questions about Descartes’ honesty. Part III investigates Descartes’ notion of “spontaneity” and his claim that it is inversely proportional to motivational equilibrium. Part IV lays out Kenny’s charge that Descartes’ view is internally incoherent, showing that Kenny’s position seems plausible only if we misconstrue a crucial ambiguity in the text. Part V defends Descartes against some worries of my own (closely related to Kenny’s objection).