Choice, Will, and Freedom

Abstract

Løgstrup gives a phenomenological account of the will, which holds that to will something is not to have a freedom of choice but rather to already have chosen, meaning that the will is always already engaged. The idea of a free will thus rests on a misconception of the concept of the will. This leads Løgstrup to discuss Kant’s conception of the good will, and he considers the discussion between Luther and Erasmus, where Løgstrup sides with Luther: human beings do not have a free will to choose the good, but rather the human will is bound to the self and therefore a will to do evil. Løgstrup examines the concept of will found in Descartes’s fourth meditation, before he turns to a discussion of the concept of will in Kierkegaard and the notion of ‘freedom of existence’. Finally is the problem of determinism and indeterminism.