Freedom of Will and Freedom of Action

Descartes held that the will is perfectly free, "so free in its nature that it cannot be constrained."2 "Let everyone just go down deep into himself," he is reported to have said to Frans Burman, "and find out whether or not he has a perfect and absolute will, and whether he can conceive of anything which surpasses him in freedom of the will. I am sure that everyone will find that it is as I say."3 Not everyone has so found, and one might think: "No wonder! We aren't gods. How could our wills not have their limits, like our digestions? Don't we quite often--or occasionally, at a minimum-have no freedom of will, in some matter or other? And mustn't it be like that? Whatever the will is, or was, mustn't it, under whatever name or names, be good for something? And in our case, mustn't it be something in the world that the will is good for? But if so, its freedom can't be perfect and unconditional. What in the world, that might reasonably be called a freedom, could be so absolute? If the will in the world were some faculty, say, of never mind what, wouldn't it be possible somehow to restrict its exercise? How could that be impossible? No doubt we're free as birds. We know it, God knows how, or as good as know it. Or better than know it, as perhaps we better than know that twice two is four. But how free are birds? Let no bird preen itself on its freedom. There are cages. There are tamers of birds. There's a lesson in birds, namely that a certain modesty about our famous freedom is very much in order, in the order of nature to which we so palpably belong." One might think something like that. Nevertheless, I am inclined to agree with Descartes. And of course I have some company. Foreigners, mostly, but there it is. Not much company, however, as far as I know. Most philosophers seem to think it quite easy to rob the will of some freedom. Thus Elizabeth Anscombe, in an essay called "Soft Determinism," appears to suppose that a man who can't walk because he is chained up has lost some freedom of will. He "has no 'freedom of will' to walk," she says, or, again; no "freedom of the will in respect of walking."4 "Everyone will allow," she says, "that 'A can walk, i.e. has freedom of the will in respect of walking' would be gainsaid by A's being chained up."5 And again, "External constraint is generally agreed to be incompatible with freedom",6 by which she seems to mean: incompatible with perfect freedom of will, because incompatible with freedom of will to do, or freedom of the will in respect of doing, whatever the constraint prevents.