Abstract
In this chapter, I will address the philosophical ambivalence of the concept of Willkür in and after Kant. The aim of my chapter is to defend it against the charge of irrationality and mere chance, and to rehabilitate it from a historical and analytic point of view. I will analyze Kant’s use of the word “Willkür” (power of choice), and chronologically follow the semantic and systematic changes in his philosophical work. Finally, I address recent attempts to revitalize the concept of Willkür in the analytic debate by referring to the work of Harry Frankfurt and Robert Kane. I shall argue that we need to distinguish between two kinds of libera arbitria. Whereas the liberum arbitrium indifferentiae can be interpreted in terms of the pejorative sense of “Willkür”—as mere chance—the liberum arbitrium voluntatis equals a reflective kind of Willkür—literal Will-kür (“choice”)—which involves freedom of the will.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
The Cambridge Edition of Kant’s works translates “Willkür” as “power of choice” or “choice.” However, other translations are likewise possible, such as “faculty of choice” or “capacity of choice.”
- 3.
“[L]’obéissance à la loi qu’on s’est prescrite est liberté.”
- 4.
Citations of Kant’s works refer to the volume and page number in the Academy Edition of Immanuel Kant, Gesammelte Schriften (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter and predecessors, 1900 sqq).
- 5.
For a historical and systematic discussion of Kant’s notion of moral respect see Noller (2019b).
- 6.
See Timmermann (2003, 150 sqq).
- 7.
For a discussion of the concept of Willkür in Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals, see Noller (2019a, 858-9).
- 8.
For a historical and systematic discussion of individual freedom and volitional necessity in Kant, Schelling, and Frankfurt see Noller (2020b).
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Noller, J. (2021). Ambivalent Freedom: Kant and the Problem of Willkür. In: Hausmann, M., Noller, J. (eds) Free Will. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61136-1_11
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