Thomas M Lennon - Descartes Supposed Libertarianism: Letter to Mesland or Memorandum Concerning Petau?

8/11/2019 Thomas M Lennon - Descartes Supposed Libertarianism: Letter to Mesland or Memorandum Concerning Petau?

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Descartess Supposed Libertarianism: Letter to Mesland or Memorandum

concerning Petau?

Thomas M. Lennon

Journal of the History of Philosophy, Volume 51, Number 2, April 2013,

pp. 223-248 (Article)

Published by The Johns Hopkins University Press

DOI: 10.1353/hph.2013.0026

For additional information about this article

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Descartess SupposedLibertarianism: Letter to Mesland

or Memorandum concerning Petau?T H O M A S M . L E N N O N *

descartess view of the will has generally been found problematic and un-

satisfactory, especially by those who have read it, or elements of it, in libertarian

terms. Attempts to repair the theory, even by sympathetic interpreters, seem only

to have aggravated the views putative shortcomingsagain, especially among

those who have read it, or part of it, in libertarian termswhich suggests that the

libertarian reading itself might be unsatisfactory. The aim of this paper is to show

that the linchpin text on which libertarian readings have been based provides no

basis for such readings.

The text is the so-called letter to the Jesuit Denis Mesland of 9February 1645.Among seminal authorsthose most responsible for the proliferation of libertar-

ian readingsAlqui, for example, canonize it as the capital text,1for it is here

that Descartes no longer hesitates over ascribing full libertarian freedom to

humans, such that the will can reject a clear and distinct perception of the truth

even while we are perceiving it as such. Writing in the heyday of existentialism,

alas, Alqui saw this as Descartess metaphysical discovery that man is freedom,

i.e. the desire for Being that he can nevertheless reject.2Gilson sees in this text

a confirmation of concessions made to the libertarianism urged upon him by

Mesland, whereby Descartes lands himself in a formal contradiction.3

Kennyheld that clear and distinct perceptions as such could not be rejected, but on

the basis of the text found libertarian freedom in all other acts of the will. The

upshot for Kenny, however, was that Descartes therefore had two conceptions of

* Thomas M. Lennon is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at The University of Western

Ontario.

Journal of the History of Philosophy,vol. 51, no. 2(2013) 223248

[223]

1Alqui,Dcouverte,342.2Alqui,Dcouverte, 28592.3Gilson, Libert,41820. Gilson takes the opening of this text to be a wholesale capitulation

on Descartess part: Descartess Thomism beats a retreat all along the line; he concedes everything

without being embarrassed over contradictions and ends by falling into Petaus position (421). Of

Petau, much more below.


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224 j ou rnal of the hi stor y o f phi lo sop hy 51 :2 april 2013

freedom that he nonetheless tried to measure on the same scale, thus revealing

an incoherence that was present in the theory from the beginning.4

A feature common to all three of these readings is that Descartess view is in

some sense unstable. According to Alqui, the text is the culmination of a dramatic

evolution in Descartess thoughtan evolution for which Alquis enthusiasm

leads him to existentialist mystification. But nowhere does Descartes announce or

acknowledge any such evolution. Moreover, its only explanation would be inadver-

tence or ineptitude, for it cannot be motivated by any dialectical consideration.

On the contrary, if Descartes ends by allowing doubt of a clear and distinct percep-

tion even while we have it, then his method of doubt never yields the certainty he

claims from iteverything is always dubitable.5As an explanation of Descartess

evolution, Gilsons reading suggests inadvertence or ineptitude, maybe even dis-

simulation.6With his mixed view, Kenny avoids the methodological catastrophe

wrought by Alquis and Gilsons readings, but at the cost of attributing incoher-

ence to Descartes.

These inconveniences are avoided by the most recent defense of the libertarian

reading, by Ragland.7For him, however, the so-called letter is no less capital, both

for its statement of the libertarian position, and also for a distinction without which,

as Ragland acknowledges, Descartess view of the will contradicts his methodologi-

cal principle that the clear and distinct (at least by itself and as such8) cannot be

doubted. Alas, the distinction that Ragland invokes is not to be found in the text,

and thus on his reading Descartess philosophy harbors a contradiction; in fact,

a deeper and graver contradiction than the one perceived by Gilson (see below).

So, a great deal is at stake in this text. In section 1below, therefore, I set out

the text itself, which is important enough, and short enough, to be included here.

My argument depends heavily on a close reading of it. For all its importance to the

libertarian position, however, its statuseven as a letteris highly problematic

from an editorial point of view. If the argument of my paper carries, in fact, it

ought better to be referred to as a memorandum concerning Petau, an author

who figures prominently in the argument below. Here, to beg no questions, one

way or other, I shall just refer to it simply as the Text. I discuss the editorial

problems in section 2.

Nonetheless, the authenticity of the Text is not in doubt, and so some account

of it must be given, especially since Descartes says at the outset of it that he en-

tirely agrees with an unidentified Reverend Father on the topic of free will. In

4Kenny, Descartes on the Will, 31.5See Nelson, Descartess Ontology of Thought, 16364.6

Gilson, Libert, e.g. 422.7C. P. Ragland, Is Descartes a Libertarian? (Ragland provides a nice review of the literature;

5759n49.) The same question, with the same answer to it, appears in his other articles listed in the

bibliography below.8It is on this point that Raglands view differs from Kennys. Kenny thinks that what is clear and

distinct can be doubted only by being made obscure and confused. Ragland thinks that the clear

and distinct can be doubted as such only if we also have in mind a countermotive (Is Descartes a

Libertarian?, 8388).


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225descartes s supposed l ibertarianism

section 3, which begins the philosophical core of this paper, I try to show that it

was the Jesuit Denis Petau that he was agreeing with, and that the view on which

he saw agreement was not libertarianism. Next, I consider what Descartes claims,

at the end of the first paragraph, concerning his ability to suspend judgment

about clear and distinct perceptions, and the context for his claim. For contrary

to my account, many have seen this claim as a clear statement of libertarianism

(section 4). I then turn to the second paragraph of the Text, which I take to be a

continuation of the clarification undertaken in the first paragraph, with an even

more obvious avoidance of a libertarian view of freedom (section 5). A very brief

summary and conclusion ends the paper (section 6).

1 . t h e t e x t . 9

We begin with the Text:

As for freedom of the will, I entirely agree with what the Reverend Father here wrote.

Let me explain my opinion more fully. I would like you to notice that indifference in

this context seems to me strictly to mean that state of the will when it is not impelled

one way rather than another by any perception of truth or goodness. This is the sense

in which I took it when I said that the lowest degree of freedom is that by which we

determine ourselves to things to which we are indifferent. But perhaps others mean

by indifference a positive faculty of determining oneself to one or other of two

contraries, that is to say, to pursue or avoid, to affirm or deny. I do not deny that the

will has this positive faculty. Indeed, I think it has it not only with respect to those

actions to which it is not pushed by any evident reasons on one side rather than the

other, but also with respect to all other actions; so that when a very evident reason

moves us in one direction, although morally speaking we can hardly move in the

contrary direction, absolutely we can. For it is always open to us to hold back from

pursuing a clearly known good, or from admitting a clearly perceived truth, provided

that we consider it a good thing to demonstrate the freedom of our will by so doing.

It must be noted also that freedom can be considered in the acts of the will

either before they are elicited, or after they are elicited. Considered with respect to

the time before they are elicited, it entails indifference in the second sense but not

the first. Although, when we contrast our own judgement with the commandments

of others, we say that we are freer to do those things which have not been prescribed

to us by others and in which we are allowed to follow our own judgement than to dowhat we are prohibited from doing, yet we cannot similarly make a contrast within

the field of our own judgements or our own cognitions and say that we are freer to

do those things which seem to us to be neither good nor evil, or in which we recog-

nize many reasonsprobut as many reasons contra, than to do those things in whichwe perceive much more good than evil. For a greater freedom consists either in a

greater facility in determining oneself or a greater use of the positive power which we

9Although it raises serious questions of translation, to be discussed below, this text is taken ver-

batim from Descartes, CSMK 24446. The only change is in the paragraphing. CSMK follow AT in

introducing two paragraphs beyond the ms (to be discussed in section two below). Here, to achievean interpretatively more neutral text, the original paragraphing has been restored. It suggests that

conceptually there are just two parts to the Text. CSMK make some fifteen changes to Kennys original

translation, almost all of them minor and of no significance here. See Kenny, Descartes on the Will,

2628. One change is an important correction, noted below, and another, also to be noted below,

perhaps evidences a struggle about just what Descartes was trying to say. Original language references

are to Descartes, AT. In an earlier letter, almost certainly to Mesland, of 2May 1644, Descartes indicates

that his attention had been brought to Petaus published views on free will (AT IV.115/CSMK 233).


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have of following the worse although we see the better. If we follow the course which

appears to have the most reasons in its favor, we determine ourselves more easily;

but if we follow the opposite, we make more use of that positive power; and thus we

can always act more freely in those cases which are called or indifferent.

In this sense too the things which others command us to do, and which we would

not otherwise do spontaneously, we do less freely than the things which we are not

ordered to do; because the judgement that these things are difficult to do is opposed

to the judgement that it is good to do what is commanded; and the more equally these

two judgements move us the more indifference, taken in the first sense, they confer

on us. But freedom considered in the acts of the will at the moment when they are

elicited does not entail any indifference taken in either the first or second sense; for

what is done cannot remain undone as long as it is being done. It consists simply in

ease of operation; and at that point, freedom, spontaneity and voluntariness are the

same thing. It was in this sense that I wrote that I moved towards something all the

more freely when there were more reasons driving me towards it; for it is certain that

in that case our will moves itself with greater facility and force.

2 . e d i t o r i a l p r o b l e m s

The text first appeared, in French, in Clerseliers Lettres de Mr Descartes(1657), oc-

curring there between two other texts, also in French, and continuously with them

as if composing a single letter, without date, addressed to Mon Reverend Pre.10

According to handwritten annotations to the third-edition copy of Clerseliers

Lettres in the library of the Institute of France, the first text was written to Mersenne,

on 10May 1630, and the third text was a fragment from what was written, alsoto Mersenne, in July or August of 1637.11Adam and Tannery [AT] accepted the

annotations and, with minor changes of dating, published the texts at face value.12

Which leaves the intervening text. Likely moved by the identifications of the

two other texts, AT initially published it on the off chance that it was a frag-

ment of a lost letter to Mersenne known to have been written on 27May 1641a

surmise supported by the evidence that on 21April of that year he was writing to

Mersenne, at least briefly, about indifference of the will, returning to the topic in

his letter to him on 23June.13At the same time, AT drew attention to an annota-

tion to the text of the Institute copy. Here is the annotation, in somewhat morecomplete form than ATs version of it:

Among Descartess manuscripts I found this article down to the first paragraph of p.

509[of the Clerselier edition], written in Latin with a lot of crossing out and scrib-

bling [there follows a largely illegible comment about something that is difficult

in relation to the fourth Meditation. The annotation then continues:] it might be

conjectured that this article was written after 1640; it is an article that will need to

10Clerselier, vol. 1, Letter 112, 62124.11

The source of these and other annotations to the exemplaire de lInstitut, is, by my assessmentof the calligraphy, Adrien Baillet, author of the first major biography of Descartes (1691), itself the

only source of a significant number of letters; another possibility, however, is Jean-Baptiste Legrand.

A photo-offset edition of this text is now available in Armogathe-Belgioiosa. This third edition was

published in Paris; the Text occurs on pages 5068.12To Mersenne, 6May 1630(AT I.14750). To Mersenne, March 1637(AT I.34751).13To Mersenne, 21 April 1641 (AT III.35865, esp. 360); To Mersenne, 27May 1641 (AT

III.37882); To Mersenne, 23June 1641(AT III.38390, esp. 38586).


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be set aside with the undated letters which do not warrant collecting just because of

the matter of which they treat.14

In an appendix, AT published the Latin version of the Text found not in Clerse-

lier, but in an Amsterdam edition of 1668, whose title page reads, [S]ome letters

written in Latin by the author, some translated into French.15They do so because

of the uncertain source of this text. It is possible, they say, that Clerselier, without

saying so, did a French translation, for his edition, of the autograph seen by the

annotator, but more likely that there were both Latin and French texts in the

autographs, and hence the decision to republish the Amsterdam text, at least as

an appendix. The bases seemed covered.

But then something unexpected occurredwhile preparing their next volume

of correspondence, AT discovered a manuscript copy of the Text in a Latin version

different from the Amsterdam edition. Without saying so, they went back to the

hypothesis that the letter they took to be to Mersenne on 27May 1641was in fact

a French translation, but now of a laterLatin text, written probably to Mesland on

9February 1645. This is the Mazarine Library manuscriptfrom the handwrit-

ing, obviously a copy and not an autographwhich attaches the Text to a letter

written to Mesland, again probably, on that date. The letter to which it is attached

is not on the topic of the will, which is the topic of the earlier letter to Mesland, of

2May 1644, but transubstantiation, the topic of the rest of the letters with which

it was bundled here, as well as that of the other bundles of manuscript copies in

which it is found. Moreover, it is the onlymanuscript of the Mesland letter with

this attachment. The compiler of the Mazarine text accommodated the anomaly

by entitling the bundle, Descartess views sent by him to Mesland on the topic of

the Holy Sacrament and freedom. AT therefore detached the Text, a severance

which anyhow makes sense, given the switch not only of topic, but of language.

The Mazarine manuscript simply moves from the French of the letter on tran-

substantiation to Latin, which by itself would be strange; but there are additional

problems in taking the Text to be a letter to Mesland.

Because they are different, at least one of the Latin texts is a translation (though

conceivably Descartes might have produced two different drafts). Likely it is the

Amsterdam edition, which is known to contain translations from French into Latin,

and which in this case either translates or is translated by Clerseliers French text.

Is Clerseliers the original text therefore? Almost certainly not: (1) Clerselier is

known to have translated Latin texts into Frenchfor the second edition of his

14Dans les ms de M.D. jai trouv cet article jusquau 1er alineade la page 509ecriten latin fort rattur

et griphon . . . on peut conjecturer que cet un article a t depuis lan 1640. Cest un article quil faudra rejetter

dans lendroit des lettres non dates et qui ne meritent destre ramasses qua cause de la matiere dont elles traitent.

At the bottom of the page, another hand adds, Non date. AT also seem to have been stymied by thecalligraphy, and relied on ellipsis. The recent Italian bilingual edition offers the following quite plau-

sible decipherment for the ellipsis: Il est assez difficile de dterminer quand cet endroit a t crit. Nanmoins

comme M.D. cite larticle 14ede la Mditation, 4e. . . .(It is rather difficult to determine when this passage

was written. Nevertheless, since Monsieur Descartes cites article fourteen from the fourth Meditation.

. . .) Descartes, Tutte le lettere,196869n1.15Epistolae Renati Descartes (AT III.7046; with capitalization, punctuation, and italics altered

or added). Lest there be further obscurity, note that AT actually call this an addition to their text.


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first volume (1663), for instance.16(2) There is no reason why the compiler of

the Mazarine manuscript would add a Latin translation to the otherwise French

text. The most plausible conclusion, therefore, is that the Ur-text is the Mazarine

Latin copy, that it was translated by Clerselier, and that the Amsterdam text is a

translation of Clerseliers text.

It is unlikely that this text is a copy of a letter to Mesland. For one thing, Des-

cartes nowhere else wrote to Mesland in Latin. In addition, the rest of his cor-

respondence with Mesland does not offer a natural place for it. This text aside,

there are four extant letters, in French, from Descartes, none from Mesland.17The

first deals with free will, of course, but only as one of at least seven other topics:

two proofs for the existence of God, the difference between the soul and its ideas,

error and the difficulty of learning the sciences, creation of the eternal truths,

transubstantiation, and the difference between abstraction and exclusion.18The

second thanks Mesland for his accurate and sympathetic abstract of the Medita-tionsan occasion, one would have thought, to return to issues of the will. Instead,

the rest of the long letter is occupied by a discussion of transubstantiation.19The

third letter thanks Mesland for his opinion of the Principles, but expresses regret

that he has not read the work closely enough to dispel certain difficulties, which

in any case relate not to the will, but to the scientific, latter parts of the work,

concerning rarefaction, for example. The continuing issue, again addressed,

is transubstantiation.20Finally, the last, touching letter, besides continuing the

discussion of transubstantiation, mentions replies to objections to the Principles;

if the replies are those found in the text appended by AT, they concern only the

theory of distinctions, with no mention of anything connected with the will.21

How to explain the sudden and total disappearance of a topic on which Descartes

is, according to Gilson, supposed to have completely reversed his view? Or was

Mesland simply satisfied, indeed, convinced by Descartess responses on the will?

In any case, the Text was not intended for Mesland.

To whom, then, was the Text written? One possibility from AT is that, though not

written to him, Mesland was the intended recipient throughsomeone else, perhaps

the Jesuit Vatier;22but again, one wants to know why Descartes wrote in Latin.

Although not written to Mesland, perhaps it wasforhim, as Gilson suggests, to be

conveyed to someone else. According to Gilson, the intended recipient, through

Mesland, was a professional theologian (which is why Descartes used Latin), whom

he is inclined to believe was Petau, whose doctrine Mesland seems to have been

keen to conciliate with Descartess. But in the letter itself, Descartes refers to

Petau, by initials, in the third person, thus indicating that he is not the recipient.

16Armogathe-Belgioiosa, xiiixiv.17Gilson (Libert, 39798) thinks that Meslands side of the correspondence story is obvious. But

nuances are certainly lacking, and even substantial questions remain open. Mesland presents the Jesuit

Denis Petaus views to Descartes; but was he trying to convert Descartes to Petaus position, entreatinghim to refute it, or only asking him for his opinion of it? Much more on Petau below.

182May 1644(AT IV.11020/CSMK23136). It is in this letter that Descartes says that he has not

seen what Petau has written about free will. He also says that the difference between his and Meslands

(Petaus) view on indifference is only a verbal one. Of this, more below.19To Mesland, 9February 1645[?] (AT IV.16172/CSMK 24144).20To Mesland, May 1645[?] (AT IV.215, 217/CSMK 24849).21To Mesland, 164546, Descartes to *** (AT IV, 34450/CSMK 27881).22AT IV.172.


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But why even take the Text to be a letter at all? After all, there is no date, no

salutation, no closing, or anything else to indicate a letter. There is no evidence

of its having been sent to anyone. The scribbling and crossing out reported by

Baillet might be telling in this regard, for we have here evidence that Descartes

was struggling with at least the expression of his view. Its lack of clarity mightbe a reason why it was never sent or otherwise published by Descartes, retained

by him only as a memorandum, to be clarified or developed further in case of

a need that in the happy event never arose. (The thesis to be defended below is

that some very intelligent, and sympathetic, interpreters of the Text have gotten

it disastrously wrong.) At a minimum, all this (especially Descartess failure ever

to publish and thereby endorse it as clear statement of a view to which he was

committed) suggests that the Text is a weak platform, indeed, for supporting an

interpretation of anything so dramatic as a conversion to libertarianism, or even

a statement of it, by Descartes.

Still, some things are reliable. For one, the authenticity of the Text is not in

question, especially given the testimony of Baillet. In addition, as will be seen

presently, it is thematically related in so intimate a way with issues introduced in

the 2May 1644letter to Mesland that it is almost certainly posterior to that letter

and connected to it. So some account of it must be given. I shall try to show that

the Text is perfectly consistent with the compatibilist position taken in the fourth

Meditation.

3 . p e t a u

Descartes begins the Text by asserting his full agreement with a certain RP

(Rvrend Pre) on freedom of decision [arbritrii libertatem]. The identity of the

Reverend Father is important, therefore, in establishing Descartess own view.

Baillet thought it was Guillaume Gibieuf, who, as will be seen below, was of great

significance to Descartes on the will.23But it is unlikely that someone who was

charged, as Gibieuf was by his Oratorian superior, Brulle, with the refutationof

Molinism, the main version of libertarianism then on offer, should be the RP in

this text, where the effort is to find some acceptablesense of indifference. In any

case, Descartes had asserted his agreement with Gibieuf much earlier.24Without

much comment, Gilson takes the RP to be Denis Petau.25The reason he gives is

that the likely recipientof the Text was Petau (through Mesland).26But there are

23Baillet, Vie,2:51617. He refers to a number of letters in Clerselier, the sorting of which leads

to this conclusion.24To Mersenne, 27May 1630(AT I.153/CSMK 26). Kenny (Descartes on the Will, 30n68) also

takes the RP to be Gibieuf.

25(15831652), Jesuit, poet, classical scholar, controversialist, professor of philosophy, andtheologian.

26Gilson, 41920n2. Petau receives no mention in the English-language literature on Descartes,

and in the French, by Gilson and Olivier Boulnois, who follows Gilson in attributing to Descartes a

compromised theory; see Le refoulement, 223, 22526, and esp. 229. Jean Laporte (La libert

selon Descartes, 6169) also discusses Petau in this connection, but fails to notice a crucial feature of

Petaus treatment of freedom and indifference. Of this, more below. In the Italian literature, Scribano

(Da Descartes a Spinoza, 6061n26) refers to Petau en passantin this context, but arrives at a conclusion

similar to that of Gilson and Boulnois.


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two issues run together by Gilson: who it was that Descartes refers to in the Text,

and the intended recipient of the putative letter. It might be that the Reverend

Father is indeed Petau, but that the Text was not intended for him or for anyone

else. Had it been a letter intended for him, Descartes would not have referred

to him as he does within the letter. There is another, better argument for Gilsonsconclusion that the RP is Petau, namely, that the views with which Descartes agrees

are to be found in Petau, and nowhere else. We can understand why Descartes

was able to agree with them, for, as will be seen below, they are expressed there in

such a way that Descartes had no need to change his own views in order to agree.27

PetausDe libero arbitrioappeared, in three books, in 1643.28These three books

also appeared the following year, forming books 35of The first six days of the

worlds creation (De sex primorum mundi dierum officio), itself the second section

(220585) of the third volume (906pp.) of a four-part work, the last part of

which is in two volumes (826pp., 804pp.). The overall title is Theologicorum dog-matum(4,252pp. in total).29Buried away in all this, but most important for us, is

what Petau has to say about indifference. Although the term is used repeatedly

throughout the work, it is only at the end ofDe libero arbitrio, when Petau turns his

attention to Jansenius,that Petau offers any definition of what is meant by indif-

ference.30It would seem that precision with respect to indifference is required

27There are two long-standing clues to the importance of Petau for an understanding of Des-

cartess views in the Text, each with circumstances that did not encourage notice by commentators.

One is that Mesland drew attention to his book on the will; see AT IV.115/CSMK 233. But the book

is in Latin and is difficult to find. The other is Gilsons discussion of him. But that discussion, as will

be seen, is partly based on a misunderstanding of Petau, and leads to an uninviting interpretation of

Descartes. In addition, with misplaced modesty, Gilson thought that his book had been superseded

by the work of his student Henri Gouhier, who in fact does not mention Petau; see La Pense religieuse.28It is a rare book, in Paris found only in the Bibliothque de lArsenale. Gilson, apparently un-

aware of this copy, found it necessary to seek it in the Bibliothque de Tours. Recently, Boulnois (Le

refoulement, 225n2) has also written as if the Toulouse copy were the only one extant.29The first part is on God and the properties of God. The second part is on the Trinity. The first

section of the third part is on angels; the third section is on Pelagianism and Semi-pelagianism. Thefourth section is on the Incarnation. The last section appeared in 1650, all the rest in 1644. All of this

is to be found inDogmata theologica. The first two books of The first six days of the worlds creation

deal with the Preadamites and the creation of man. The three books of theDe libero arbitrio are found

in 4:283508. Page references below are to this more accessible edition. There are no obvious differ-

ences of importance here between the various editions.30Gilsons explanation of the deferral is that Petau at that point suffers a philosophical scruple

(Libert, 398)the theologian who avoids philosophy nonetheless realizes, belatedly, that there is a

philosophical ambiguity in his theological argument. However, precisely because the work is so rigidly

focused on applied theological considerations of free will, it is hard to imagine a scruple about such

an abstract question, which in any case could have been allayed by an insertion at the beginning,

even if it came to him late. Gilson invokes this explanation, it seems to me, because his interpretation

of the work as a whole leads him to miss a more obvious one. Gilson thinks that the book is a tissueof texts arranged to make Janseniuss doctrine appear to be other than that of St. Augustine, or any

Church Fathers, and to be that of Luther and Calvin (Libert, 398). The book can, perhaps, be taken

this way, but only if Luther and Calvin are taken as surrogates for Jansenius from the beginning, for

on the face of it the book deals explicitly with them, not with Jansenius, who appears only later in the

work. The exact nature of Janseniuss view on free will was the subject of one of the great debates of

the seventeenth century. Suffice it to say that he held the compatibilist view that grace is necessary

and sufficient for right action, but that the will remains nonetheless free.


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to answer explicit criticism of the Molinist position that had recently been raised

by Jansenius.31

The most important work on freedom and the will in the seventeenth century

came, not from Descartes, Hobbes, Locke, or anyone else, but from Jansenius,

bishop of Ypres. Certainly this is true in terms of the attention his Augustinusdrew, and the controversy it stirred, from the moment of its publication in 1640

into the eighteenth century.32A chapter of the Augustinus set out four absurdi-

ties that necessarily follow from the indifference of contradiction, that is, the

libertarian ability to do or not to do something under the same circumstances.33

What matters here is Petaus response, which focused on one of them. Here is his

close paraphrase of Janseniuss criticism: If the nature of free will [liberi arbitrii]

lies in indifference, it follows . . . that all those things by which the will is dragged

[trahitur] in one or another direction negate free will, because they release [ex-

trahunt] it from the indifference of acting, and determine it [determinate faciunt]

to act or not act, to will or not will. . . . Such are impulses of concupiscence, as

well as all the habits and customs of the soul, whether good or bad, which directly

upset its equilibrium.34By itself, this is no objection. However, it immediately leads

to a very strong objection, namely that on the indifference account of freedom,

both the virtuous, with the habit of doing good entrenched almost to the point

of inability to do evil, and the vicious, with the opposite entrenchment, would be

least free, and therefore least responsible for what they do. This is a particularly

relevant criticism, since it is to be found in Gibieuf, whom Jansenius had read and

supported a decade earlier against the Molinist Jesuits, and with whom Descartes

too had earlier agreed.

According to Petau, indifference is an ambiguous notion, and Janseniuss

arguments against taking indifference to be essential to freedom trade on the

ambiguity. In one sense, indifference is innate, according to nature, and in it is

found the essence of freedom. In the other, it is adventitious, and is something of

a completion of the first.35I shall have a great deal to say about these two senses

of indifference. As a rough guide at the outset, note that my aim will be to show

that the two senses of indifference distinguished by Petau have counterparts in

Descartes, although only one of them appears there as a form of indifference.

What Petau means by adventitious or accidental indifference captures the only

sense of indifference admitted by Descartes, but the way in which Petau expressed

31This explanation better comports with Gilsons own suggestion that theDe libero arbitriowas an

offprint, presumably at least somewhat modified, from the later work of a different purpose, rushed

into print to combat Jansenius.32Jansenius, Augustinus.

33AugustinusIII, bk 7, ch. 14, 33538. See Gilson, Libert, 4067. The first two deal directly, as doesthe last indirectly, with efficacious grace, which would be inconsistent with a freedom that necessarily

includes such indifference. But this connection is precisely the one repeatedly appealed to by those

who argued againstJansenism, those who argued that its conception of grace was mistaken. One mans

modus ponens is anothers modus tollens, so it is to his credit that Petau avoids so central a topic and

instead turns to the third and longest objection, on which, he thinks, the whole pile of objections rests.34Petau,Dogmata theologica, 495.35Petau,Dogmata theologica,495.


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the innate or essentialsense of indifference is the way Descartes expressed what

he meant by the will itself.

The natural or essentialsense of indifference consists in this, that [the will] can

choose one from a pair of opposites, or, when the judgment of reason [arbitrium

rationis] presents one as to be preferred over the other, it can turn to either one,without being drawn by any determining necessity to only one. We take the Tri-

dentine fathers in this way when they say that sic assentiri liberum hominis arbitrium,

ut posit dissentiri, si velit.36We do this without prejudice to either side in the con-

troversy that has exercised the schools with great and subtle genius in preserving

the Catholic truth.37This indifference as generic capability of choice or judgment

between alternatives is essential in that without it there can be no freedom. But it

is Petaus comment on his definition of essential indifference that is of the utmost

importance to an understanding of the Text. What he is saying is that by way of

contrast to his treatment elsewhere of outright heretics such as Luther or Calvin,

his effort here to define the indifference that is natural or essential to freedom

is neutral(if not entirely irenic and conciliatory, for in any case the main point

of the work as a whole is to expose the errors of the freedom-denying views of

Calvin and Luther, by arguing for the Molinist view). His definition is intended

to be nonprejudicial to the intramural debate over the Catholictruth concerning

freedom, which would include at least the Thomists, in addition to the Molinists

to whose view of freedom he in fact subscribes.38

All Catholic views, in fact, should be included if Bayle is right that there are

the only two views anyway, that of the Molinists and that of the Thomists and Jan-

senists.39Taking it in this binary way so as to include even Jansenius is supported

both by Petaus language (alterutra parte), and by his need to include Jansenius

if he intends to show that Janseniuss arguments against indifference as essential

to freedom rest on an equivocation. Otherwise, Petaus definition would just beg

the question. In any case, that Petau deliberately disambiguates indifference in

a way that by itself does not commit him to one side or the other in the Molin-

istJansenist debate is essential to an understanding of both his own position

and Descartess insofar as he expresses agreement with Petau in the Text. When

Descartes says he entirely agrees with what the Reverend Father here wrote, and

then paraphrases Petaus definition of freedom of essential indifference, he is not

relinquishing his view in favor of the Molinist view. For Petaus definition was not

intended to capture only the Molinist view, but to include all the Catholic views,

including the Thomist and Jansenist views. (This is also to say that according to

36Petau seems here to paraphrase canon 4, session 6, of the Council of Trent, which requires

belief that the soul moved by grace can resist, if it so wills (Denzinger,Enchiridion Symbolorum,378).

37Petau,Dogmata theologica, 494.38Laporte (La libert selon Descartes, 66) sees Petau as defining only a Molinist notion of

freedom, hence misses this neutral sense that is crucial to Descartess agreement with it. Instead, to

show how Descartes can agree with Petau, he sees two moments in free will: that of attention and

that of judgment, which is overseen by attention. Judgment can be termed indifferentwhen faced by

determinants in equilibrium; but attention is not determined at all and thus can be termed indifferent.

Alqui (Dcouverte, 28592) had no trouble in showing this tack to fail as a defense of compatibilism.39Pierre Bayle,Dictionaire,art. Jansenius, rem. H.


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Petau, the Council of Trentthe Tridentine Fathersdid not intend to condemn

the Thomist view or any view like Janseniuss, however much Janseniuss view, like

Baiuss just before him, might later have been condemned.) In fact, Petaus defi-

nition of essential indifference reads like a paraphrase of the fourth Meditation,

which raises the intriguing possibility that Petau consciously intended to include

it in his neutral definition.40

In his definitions both of natural and of accidental indifference, Petau takes

no stand as a Molinist. This neutrality becomes even clearer as he uses a textbook

statement of the Molinistindifference that is essential to freedom for a definition

of his own notion of accidentalfreedom. The other indifference occurs when the

will has the power of opting between two things, without turning to either side,

but pushed by an equal impulse to both, which the Greeks call , and the

Latins aequilibrium. It is like a fork in the road, with equally commodious ways to

the destination; we are not impelled in one way rather than the otherinstead,

there is an absolute option of the will in choosing [sed absoluta est ad eligendum

voluntatis optio].41The absolute option of choosing that Petau has just described

is for him not the Molinist power of the will, but the circumstance in which the

will operates, however the will is understood. This circumstance is what Petau

calls the second sort of indifference. This indifference can vary in degree, or

be taken away entirely, with the first indifference remaining whole, it being the

essence of freedom. For the natural affections had from birth, habits entrenched

by repetition, illnesses and disturbances, often impel the will and deflect it into

the opposite direction.42This is the only sense of indifference that Descartes had

recognized, the first sort that appears in the Text.

While essential indifference is had entirely and permanently or not at all,

indifference in the accidentalsense can vary in degree and can be gained or lost

entirely. In general, accidents are said to complete and perfect a nature, whose

operation they facilitate, as the shape of an acorn helps it generate the seedling it

is supposed to produce. To illustrate the ambiguity of indifference, he offers the

case of rationality, which is ambiguous in the same way. In one sense it is essential

to man, constituting his specific difference from other animals, but in another it

is accidental in that it is reduced in the insane and absent in children (but none-

theless completes the nature of those rational in the first sense).

Presumably, accidental indifference is a perfection of the will and facilitates

its operation in the sense that it overcomes the necessity exercised by overwhelm-

ing passion, illness, etc., by opposing to it some other, countervailing passions,

like medicine to restore health, both of which can be understood as a kind of

restoration of equilibrium. In any case, distraction, disruption, and turbulence

are minimized or eliminated more or less in the fashion of the PyrrhonianStoic

40Cf. the Fourth Meditation: [T]he will simply consists in our ability to do or not to do something

(that is, to affirm or deny, to pursue or avoid); or rather . . . we do not feel we are determined by any

external force (AT VIII.57/CSM II.40).41Petau,Dogmata theologica, 494. The main point is not that the will be equally impelled, but that

it not be impelled in one way rather than the other.42Petau,Dogmata theologica, 494.


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adiaphora,43i.e. in the fashion of Descartess method of doubt, which brings about

suspension of belief by confecting a case for the opposite belief. In such a state,

the essential freedom of the first sort of indifference is best in a position to be

exercised. And this is true however that ability to choose one from a pair of op-

posites is understood, whether in Molinist or Thomist/Jansenist terms, for both

sides would agree on the desirability of neutralizing the passions, illness, etc. in

order to act most freely. This seems obvious for the Molinist side, where the will is

free in acting without constraint, but also for the Jansenist side, where such factors

as passion and illness are enslaving consequences of sin that interfere with the

liberating effect of grace. The same is true for Descartes, of course, who seeks the

same neutralized state in order to be affected only by belief-inducing evidence.

With the distinction in hand, Petau is in a position to reply to the criticism of

Cornelius Jansenius, or Jansen (15851638, from 1636Bishop of Ypres), who

objected to taking indifference to be essential to freedom. Recall that on such a

view, according to Jansenius, the virtuous and the vicious would be least free and

therefore least responsible because their entrenched habits of doing good or evil

would make them least indifferent. Petau thinks that even a child would see that

the objection is empty and less than serious.

For the indifference of the will either belongs to its essence [the first kind of in-

difference], or it is reduced and upset by these things [such as passions, which is

the second, accidental kind of indifference]. But only accidental indifference is a

perfection [i.e. an accidental completion] of the will. For the former kind does not

become greater by increase or less by decrease, but once placed in an individual, itis a single thing such that without any determining necessity it consents in one way

so as to be able to dissent if it so chooses [si velit], i.e. so as to move and betake itself[ferri ac movere] in one way or the other.44

This reply does not quite address all the objections raised by Jansenius.45In ad-

dition, Petaus reply raises further objections.46In any case, Petaus response to

Janseniuss fundamental objection is far from being so obvious that even a child

could give it. It certainly did not satisfy Gilson. Petau has so worked on Janse-

43The term was likely conveyed by Cicero; Petau uses it frequently, and is likely the source for

Descartess deployment of it in the Text.44Petau,Dogmata theologica, 495. That indifference in the second sense, of equilibrium, can be

upset by good no less than bad factors indicates that the role of grace for the Molinist Petau would

be to restore the equilibrium and thereby facilitate the wills indifference in the first sense, viz. the

exercise of utterly unconstrained choice. Note also Petaus use of the language both of Trent (si velit,

Denzinger,Enchiridion Symbolorum,378) and the Fourth Meditation (ferri,AT VII.57).45AugustinusIII, bk. 6, ch. 35, 302; see Gilson, Libert, 362. For example, the defenders of indif-

ference as the essence of freedom find themselves in the paradoxical situation, according to Jansenius,

that the stronger our reasons for choosing one way rather than the other, the less freedom we have,such that, if we had a reason for a permanent decision, as does God, our freedom would be altogether

destroyed. Instead, indifference (in the Molinist sense) comes from ignorance of which is the best way

to choose, or from our lack of resolution in adhering to the best way, both of which are indications

not of freedom, but of our corruption and lack of freedom.46Petau,Dogmata theologica, bk. 5, ch. 4, sec. 1, 457. One is the chestnut of (im)peccability. The

problem raised by making freedom rely on indifference in the way Petau does is the trilemma that

either God and the blessed in heaven are capable of sin, or they are not free, or freedom is not a

univocal notion.


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nius in order to refute him that he became somewhat Jansenist himself without

knowing it. One cannot read this chapter of [his] De libero arbitriowithout being

struck by the fact that he accepts the results of Janseniuss critique of freedom of

indifference.47In particular, Gilson continues, he seems to agree that indiffer-

ence is a sign of weakness and uncertainty that diminish freedom. He therefore

incorporated the criticism into Molinism itself. In Gilsons view, either Petau made

significant concessions to Jansenius, or, more likely, he just altered the language

[se payer de mots], leading to a certain incoherence that disoriented Descartes in

his effort to give a logical and precise sense to Petaus doctrine.48A great deal

more than the proper understanding of Petau is at stake. For the failure to note

Petaus deliberately neutral use of indifferenceis the same failure that has led to the

libertarian reading of Descartess expressed agreement with Petau.

As Gilson sees it, the problem lies with the freedom of indifference in the first

sense, when indifference in the second sense is overcome, or even taken away

entirely.49According to Gilson, Petau never specifies what that freedom is, and

he instead equivocates on indifference in order both to subscribe to indifference

as the essence of freedom, and to accommodate Janseniuss arguments against it.

He achieves the latter by acknowledging the arguments, but only against accidental

indifference. But he then fails to specify the sense in which the remaining freedom

allows the will to choose between alternatives. If it is free only in the sense that

it is not externally constrained, then he has answered Jansenius, but he has also

relinquished his own Molinism; if indifference remains, he retains his Molinism,

but he has not answered Jansenius.

What Gilson seems to miss is that Petau deliberatelyleaves open the first sense

of indifference so as to include both(Catholic) sides in the dispute. Only some-

one like Luther, who is alleged to deny free will outright, would be excluded. For

Petaus purposes, it does not matter which explanation is given of indifference

of the first, essential sort. It must include Jansenius, however, lest Petaus reply to

him just beg the question. Obviously, this strategic consideration is important for

an appreciation of Petau; it is no less so for an appreciation of Descartes.

Notice that Descartes does notbegin the Textby saying that he now agrees with

the Reverend Father, and then offer to explain the new opinion to show that he

has changed it. That would have been the procedure of someone who was making

a dramatic change in his view, a change whose occurrence he would have been

quick to make clear and exploit as a basis for cultivating support from the Jesuits.

Instead, he says simply that he entirely (plane) agrees, and then offers to explain

hisopinion, which is the procedure of someone attempting to get the Reverend

Father, or someone urging his view as did Mesland, to see that he ought to be

agreeing with him.

What Descartes is saying in the first part of the Text is that what Petau means by

indifference in the first, essential sense is something that he himself has recognized

all long. Note that what Petau means by indifference is what he expresses with

47Gilson, Libert, 404.48Gilson, Libert,404.49Gilson, Libert,4056.


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the neutral definition of the term in the penultimate, philosophical chapter

ofDe libero arbitrio. It is not his Molinist explanationof the term that he deploys

elsewhere in the work against the heretics. That is, contrary to the argument of

Alqui and others, when Descartes accedes to the nominal definition, he is not

admitting to any change in his view, which he emphasizes with his paraphrase

of Petaus definition, itself a paraphrase of the fourth Meditation. He then goes

on to say that the will alwayshas this power, not just when it is indifferent in the

only sense that he recognizes, namely what the fourth Meditation calls the lowest

grade of freedom, when perception is obscure and confused, but also in clear and

distinct perception because for him the will is at its most free in such perception.

That is, Descartes is not accepting some newversion of indifference, the allegedly

Molinist version, urged upon him by the Jesuits, Mesland, and Petau.

To put it another way, the libertarian interpretation of this text gets the direc-

tion of the logical flow wrong. The point is not to draw a conclusion about clear

and distinct perceptions on the basis of indifference. Specifically, Descartes is not

accepting a Molinist sense of indifference, a new sense for him, and extending

it from what was already taken to be indifferent in his sense to clear and distinct

perceptions, which is the focus of the Text according to libertarian interpreta-

tions of it. Instead, the focus is on the formulation of what for Petau is a sense

of indifferencehis first, essential sensethe formulation which Descartes in

the fourth Meditation used to express his conception of the will itself, which he

then illustrates, in dramatic fashion in the Text, by his claim that it applies even to

clear and distinct perceptions. That the formulation does apply means for him

that such perceptions are both free and voluntary, which was the position of the

fourth Meditation. Descartess point is that he never denied, and that therefore he

is in agreement with Petau, that whenever we are free, we have a positive power of

deciding between contraries, including the case of clear and distinct perceptions.

Now, it might be argued that even in the fourth Meditation Descartes held a

libertarian view (such is the interpretation of Kenny and Ragland), and thus that,

whateverPetau might have intended by his definition of essential indifference,

Descartes was agreeing with the Molinist version of it. To remove the plausibility

of this interpretation, we now turn to the crucial end of the Texts first paragraph.

4 . r e v o c a t i o n

The linchpin of libertarian readings of Descartes is the end of the first paragraph,

particularly the last sentence. Says Descartes, It is always open to us to hold back

from a clear and distinct perception. What does Descartes have in mind with this

holding back? His Latin term is revocare, which topologically can indeed mean

to withhold, the sense given it not only by CSMK and all those who, without com-

ment, cite their translation, but also by Alqui (nous retenir), Gilson (nous arrter),and Clerselier (nous empescher).50All invite us to think of the situation in the causal

terms preferred by libertarian readings. But literally, of course, revocare means

to call back, torecall,with a natural extension to the cognate term, torevoke. This

50Alqui, ed., Oeuvres de DescartesIII.552; Gilson, Libert, 422; Clerselier, AT III.379.


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notion, as when we revoke a license, for example, or a law, is a very different no-

tion from impeding, stopping, or preventing.

The most striking example of Descartess notion in the period is the Revocation

of the Edict of Nantes. Henry IV, the good king, in 1598issued, in perpetuity, an

edict granting Protestants relatively wide rights of toleration. In 1685, Louis XVI,the sun king, on the ground that there were no more Protestants in France and

that the Edict was therefore irrelevant, summarily revokedit. The analogy to what

we can do to a clear and distinct perception is rich. Both involve truths, which

though eternal depend on the will of their promulgator. (Descartes thinks, how-

ever, that God, because of His immutability, will never revoke what we take to be

the eternal truths.)51There is also an analogy to ourrevocation of assent to clear

and distinct perceptions. The French monarchy increasingly neglected the Edict

throughout the century, but this ignoring of it was not the revocation itself. The

alleged irrelevance of the Edict was at best a reason for revoking it. For the Edict

to be revoked, something must be done to it: it must be torn up, or stamped ( re-

fus, as with the famous Salon paintings in the nineteenth century). Likewise, our

clear and distinct perceptions must be altered. Although it is not the revocation

itself, but only a condition for the possibility of revoking, there is but one change

that can be made to a clear and distinct perceptionit can become obscure and

confused, and that change, through deflected attention, does release us from our

constrained pursuit of the clearly and distinctly perceived good and the affirma-

tion of the clearly and distinctly perceived truth.52It is not simply by an act of the

will that we revoke a clear and distinct perceptions claim on us. It is our altered

perception that now allows us to refuse pursuit and affirmation.

Notice too that Descartes alters his language from the fourth Meditation.

While he repeats his language with respect to the first revocation (of pursuit),

he alters the second, no longer referring to an act of affirming (affirmare), but of

admitting (admittenda). Admitting is as good a translation as any alternative, but

needs a commentary. Descartess Latin term and Clerseliers French translation of

it (admettre) both have the sense of allowing to enter (like our admission to a theater,

for example), of recognizing, or granting the right to do so. That is, a clear and

distinct perception is not the assertion by us of a claim, but our acceptance of its

credential. If there is a claim, it comes from the other direction, with a different

sense: the claim of a perceived truth upon our credence. The context is one of

rights and duties, of grants and privileges, where it makes sense to talk of recogni-

tion in the sense of recognizing a claim, and thus too of its revocation, which is

far richer than holding back.

Revocation, after the fact, as opposed to prevention or avoidance, before the

fact, is important because the success of Descartess method of doubt depends on it.

His methodological rule is to doubt until indubitability is found. But indubitability

is not enough; in addition, unshakeability is required for the kind of certainty that

Descartes wantsthe difference between him and the ancient geometers, whose

51Descartes himself deploys the regal metaphor in his earliest avowal of his doctrine of created

eternal truth (To Mersenne, 15April 1630; AT 1.145/CSMK 23).52See the Fifth Meditation (AT VII.69/CSM II.48).


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clear and distinct perceptions were indubitable, but not unshakeable (because

liable to the hyperbolical doubt). To take this unprecedented step beyond them,

Descartes needs to be able to revoke his assent from his merely indubitable clear

and distinct perceptions in order to find the one such perception (that a non-

deceiving God exists) which guarantees all the rest, and without which he wouldnever have true and certain knowledge of anything [de nulla unquam re veram &

certam scientiam],but only shifting and changeable opinions.53Otherwise, to exag-

gerate the point, he is stuck in a circle of indubitabilty that is not yet unshakeable

certainty. More strictly, in Descartess view, clear and distinct perceptions are so

fleeting that it is in maintaining them that the problem lies. Consider an earlier

letter, to Mesland (in which, not incidentally, he refers to a primary text for com-

patibilist interpretations):

It seems to me certain that a great light in the intellect is followed by a great in-

clination in the will; so that if we see very clearly that a thing is good for us, it is

very difficultand, on my view, impossible, as long as one continues in the same

thoughtto stop the course of our desire. But the nature of the soul is such that

it hardly attends for more than a moment to a single thing; hence, as soon as our

attention turns from the reasons which show us that the thing is good for us, and

we merely keep in our memory the thought that it appeared desirable to us, we can

call up before our mind some other reason to make us doubt it, and so suspend our

judgment, and perhaps even form a contrary judgment.54

The main point of the hyperbolical doubt is to provide a basis for the unshakeability

of clear and distinct perceptions that is available thereafter, however infrequentlyand fleetingly those perceptions occur.55

The unprecedented step beyond the ancient geometers is achieved, of course,

by means of the hyperbolic doubt whose resolution yields the unshakeability

Descartes seeks. But just how do we even hyperbolically doubt the indubitable?

On a compatibilist reading, the hypothesis of a deceiving God has the effect of

obscuring and confusing otherwise clear and distinct perceptions, thereby block-

ing their cogency. On a radical version of the libertarian view, by contrast, we

would just do it.56Doubt is a function of the will, and we would doubt as we do

all else. But this account seems ruled out by the proviso that Descartes states atthe end of the Texts last paragraph: we can revoke, provided that we consider

it good thing to demonstrate the freedom of our will [libertatem arbitrii] by so do-

ing. If this libertarian conception of freedom were Descartess, he would issue

no such proviso.57Moreover, in his search for the indubitable, Descartes would

not need to have undertaken the difficult, stage-by-stage method of doubt in the

first Meditation: he could simply have engaged an omnibus doubt of everything

53AT VII.69/CSM II.48; emphasis mine.54AT IV.11516/CSMK 23334. The text to which Descartes refers is found in the Third Medita-

tion (AT VII.252/CSM II.175).55This point is made explicit in the Fifth Meditation (AT VII.6970/CSM II.48).56This would be the pure (or radical in Raglands terms) libertarianism of Alqui.57This is Raglands criticism of the radical libertarianism of Alanen; see Alternative Possibili-

ties, 39293.


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dubitable. (The arguments that Descartes provides for doubt would be at most

psychological motives for doubt, not cogentjustifications for the doubt. More on

this below.) Finally, on this conception of freedom, no such method would reveal

the indubitable anyway, since everything, including clear and distinct perceptions,

would always be immediately and directly dubitable.

The libertarian view is not yet fully dead in the water, however. A better, if less

parsimonious, libertarian view would be the following. First, clear and distinct

perceptions are, at least by themselves, indubitable; if all that I have in mind is

a clear and distinct perception, I cannot doubt it. So certainty can be achieved,

even of the unshakeable sort; andthough this is less obviousthe method to

find it is not otiose. Second, the libertarian will has a pair of roles to play. One,

beforehaving the clear and distinct perception, is to place itself in a position to

be constrained by the clear and distinct perception (rather like Ulysses before

the mast). The other role, whilethe clear and distinct perception is had, is to

suppress motives counter to accepting the truth of the clear and distinct percep-

tion that might otherwise annul its constraint on the will (which operates only

in the absence of such countermotives).58Although there are problems with

this view, it clearly recognizes Descartess claim that it is alwaysopen to us to

revoke. Even while we have a clear and distinct perception, we can revoke just

by failing to suppress the countermotives that are always available to the mind.

The failure of this libertarian view, as we shall now see, lies in the sense in which

it is open to us to do so.

How do we stand to the act of revocation? Gilson tends toward a causal relation

(il est . . . toujours en notre pouvoir des nous arrter), as do CSMK and Clerselier (il

nous est toujours libre de), though much less clearly, more weakly.59 Alqui and

Armogathe-Belgioiosaare somewhere in between.60The libertarian view, however,

explicitly requires the causal sense. For the will is the causal originof its own

acts;61it is open to us to revoke a clear and distinct perception in so far as we can

circumvent its causal constraint. Such circumvention is the point of the proviso:

the intellect represents revocation as somehow good, thus generating a compet-

ing causal constraint (a countermotive).62(This possibility of revoking a clearly

and distinctly perceived good or truth might be imagined as the sin of Satan,

a prideful demonstration of ones freedom in defiance of goodness and truth.)

Descartes, however, is clear and precise: Semper . . . nobis licet nos revocareit

is alwayspermissiblefor us to revoke our pursuit of a clearly known good or from

our admission of an evident truth,provided, of course, that we consider it a good

thing to demonstrate the freedom of our will by so doing. Descartes does not

58This is the libertarian view of Ragland.

59Gilson, Libert, 422; Clerselier, AT III.379. CSMK (maybe Clerselier, too) seem not to know whatto make of licetafter what they might take to be causal possibility talk (K, after all, is Kenny). Hence,

perhaps, the nearly non-commital open to us.60Alqui,Descartes: uvres philosophiques, 552; Armogathe-Belgioiosa, 1969. The translation in

Armogathe-Belgioiosas edition has at least the virtue of preserving Descartess notion of revocation:

Sempre ce possible . . . ritrarci. . . .61Ragland, Is Descartes a Libertarian?, 7475.62Ragland, Alternative Possibilities, 392.


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here discuss what is causallypossible for the will to do. The issue, rather, is what is

permissible. There is no other way of understanding licet.63

An interest on Descartess part in the (im)permissibility of the sin of Satan

would be something unexpected, like a rabbit from the hat. There is one place,

however, where he is very interested in the (im)permissibility of revocation. The

relevant sin is not pride, but irresponsibility. Near the end of the first Meditation,

Descartes insists that his crescendo of doubt there is based on powerful and well

thought-out reasons [validas & meditatas rationes].64This reasonable doubt is by

contrast to that of the skeptics, which is irresponsible. For the skeptics doubt only

for the sake of doubting and pretend to be always undecided. They doubt without

any basis, motivated by a search not for truth, but for ataraxia.65His comment about

his previous beliefs that he has called into doubt is that there is not one of them

about which it is notpermissible[liceat] to doubt.66Still, he says, some of those

beliefs keep coming backno surprise here, for he has not only habitual beliefs,

but clear and distinct perceptions which he cannot resistso he turns his willin

completely the opposite direction and deceives himself by pretendingthat these be-

liefs are not just dubitable, but utterly false and imaginary. And so he supposes

an evil demon. Surely this scenario is what Descartes has in mind with the proviso

of the Text. For a perceived good reason, namely to acquire certainty about the

truth, it is permissible to revoke the credential of clear and distinct perceptions

through an exercise of the will. We thereby test (testari) our will not in a prideful

demonstration of our freedom, but in an effort to achieve an undeniable good. It

is an exercise not of willfulness, but of willingness to seek the true and the good.67

Not incidentally, this reading clarifies the otherwise troubling previous sentence

in the Text. We have, he says, the positive faculty of determining ourselves to one

or other of two contraries even with respect to clear and distinct perceptions:

[W]hen a very evident reason moves us in one direction, although morally speak-

ing we can hardly be borne [ferri] in the contrary direction, absolutely speaking we

can. The absolutepossibility is the permissibility generated by the hyperbolical or

metaphysical doubt in the service of unshakeable certainty. The moralpossibility

concerns the practical generation of that doubt, of which he says that it is very

difficult, hardly possible (vix). So difficult is it that he thinks that he is the first

to bring it off, and it needs the doubly deceiving demon hypothesis in order to

63This is not to say, however, that the whole discussion prior to Descartess last sentence is about

permissibility. Permissibility is invoked only to explain the absolute sense in which revocation is al-

ways available (by contrast to the practical difficulty of actually achieving it). Nor is this to say, on the

other hand, that the previous modal terms should be read in the causal terms required by libertarian

readings. Though the thesis here does not require it be mounted, even that part of the libertarian

reading is open to challenge.64AT VII.21/CSM II.15.65Discourse on Method, 3(AT VI.29/CSM I.125).66AT VII.21/CSM II.1415.67Consider, by contrast, the view of Alqui: With this provision, Descartes seems to revert to the

Thomist thesis according to which one can will only under reason of the good. In fact, [however,]

his thesis is entirely new, and makes freedom absolute: man can, in full conscience/consciousness

[conscience], reject the True and the Good (Descartes: uvres philosophiques, 3:552n1).


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be sustained. (Deception by the demon is hypothesized and the hypothesis itself

requires [self-]deception.)

Notice, too, that the revocation of assent to a clear and distinct perception is

possible in both sensesboth morally (or practically) and absolutely (or meta-

physically). Descartes does not use a distinction between the possibility of their

occurrence to resolve a contradiction between libertarian freedom that allows

us to resist clear and distinct perceptions on the one hand, and on the other his

methodological requirement that clear and distinct perceptions be irresistible.

Apparently taking Descartess term vix to be a negation, Ragland takes it to be

morally impossible to avoid the constraint of clear and distinct perception, thus

satisfying the methodological requirement for achieving certainty, and absolutely

possible to do so, thus leaving room for the exercise of libertarian freedom. But

that is not what the Text says.68

5 . t h e s e c o n d p a r a g r a p h

In the second part of the Text, Descartes deploys a distinction that figured im-

portantly in previous literature on freedom. It must be noted also that freedom

can be considered in the acts of the will either before they are elicited, or while

[sic!] they are elicited.69This distinction had been repeatedly invoked by critics

of the libertarian view held by Petau and his predecessors. The view that freedom

essentially requires indifference entails that we are free only beforewe act, while

competing alternatives are still open to us, and that we are least free whilewe actbecause, with all alternatives but the chosen one closed, we are no longer indiffer-

ent. We return to this preempted freedom criticism at length below. Meanwhile,

to motivate the discussion, it might be noted that Gilson thinks that Descartes

appeals to this distinction in order to be able to hold simultaneously his two

contradictory conceptions of freedom.70Here and in the next section I shall try

to show that the distinction is in fact invoked by Descartes to continue the clarifica-

tion undertaken in the first part of the Text. That is, he uses it to show that in the

only sense in which he deploys the term, indifference is not essential to freedom

and is only its lowest grade, and that what others (read: Petau) might call indif-ference is indeed essential to freedom but must be read in compatibilist terms.

68For more on this issue, see Lennon, No, Descartes Is NotA Libertarian, Oxford Studies in Early

Modern Philosophy, forthcoming.69[V]el antequam elicantur, vel dum eliciantur (AT IV.173). CSMK read dumas after. But afterward

the issue cannot arise except concerning what was true of the wills actions in the past, while they were

being elicited. Cf. Clerseliers French translation: au moment mme quon les exerce(AT III.379). It is hard

to see how this mistake could have been made by Kenny who, worrying that Descartess argument here

might in the end be confused, felt that it involves subtle points about tense and action which it wouldtake us too far around to investigate (Descartes on the Will, 27, 30, 31). Later in the Text, however,

when Descartes changes his language, CSMK get it right (as did Kenny in his article, Descartes on the

Will, 28): But freedom considered in the acts of the will at the moment when they are elicited. . .

(Libertas autem spectata in actionibus voluntatis, eo ipso tempore eliciantur . . . ,AT IV.174).70Gilson, Libert, 424. A charitable reading of what Gilson says would be that Descartes appeals

to the distinction in order to relieve what would otherwise be a contradiction; but this reading would

be a stretch.


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The point that Descartes makes in the first case, before the wills actions are

elicited, is perfectly clear: freedom entails (involvitliterally, envelopes) indif-

ference in the second sense (in which he agrees with Petau), but not in the first

(his own, previous sense). He illustrates and fortifies the point by addressing two

situations which, when properly understood, are in fact alike with respect to theproperanalysis of freedom (according to which indifference in the first sense is not

required), but which, when misunderstood, might suggest the wronganalysis of

freedom (according to which indifference in the first sense isrequired).

The first situation occurs when someone orders us to do something contrary

to our own judgment such that we would not do it spontaneously. This might be

called the external situation because the determinant comes from the outside. We

say that we are lessfree in this situation than when we are allowed (licet!) to follow

our own judgment. What we say is in fact true, but freedom must be understood

in the proper way lest a false account be given of the internalsituation, when onthe basis of perceived reasons it is our judgment that tells us what to do. We are

not thereby made less free than when a balance of reasons leaves the matter un-

decidedthe adiaphoraof the Pyrrhonians. We are more free when there is an

imbalance of reasons leading our judgment in one direction or the other, whether

or not we actually follow our judgment. If we follow our judgment, we are free

because it is easy for us to act spontaneously. We go with the flow, as it were, easily

doing what we are already inclined to do. If we act contrary to our judgment, we

are free because we deploy the positive, more active power of the will, swimming

against the flow, by following the worse although we see the better.71As we say,

we talk ourselves into doing something against our better judgment by deliberately

representing an alternative as somehow better. Failing in this way to follow judg-

ment is, presumably, an exercise of indifference in the secondsense, which occurs

under the same conditions as revoking assent to a clearly perceived truth or good

as discussed above; of this instance of revocation, more below. For now the point

is, once again, that we act with greater freedom, whether in accordance with judg-

ment or contrary to it, than when we are indifferent with a balance of reasons.

With this understanding of freedom in the internal situation, the external situ-

ation can be properly understood. When someone orders us to do something, our

freedom is diminished not because our indifference has been encroached upon,

but precisely because indifference in the sense of balance has been established.

What is it that establishes the balance in the prohibition case? One constraint is

the prohibition which generates the judgment that it is good to do this thing that

we are commanded to do (recall Descartess political conservatism, evidenced in

the first rule of theDiscourses provisional morality72). The balancing constraint

is the judgment that it is difficult to do the thing we are commanded to do (i.e.

we are not inclined to do it, otherwise there would be no balance, and thus no

71This line from Ovid, which Descartes here repeats from his use of it in theDiscourse, has been

read by Ragland, and especially Kenny, as an indication of Descartess libertarianism. When read in

the context of the Discourse, however, it indicates the opposite; see Thomas M. Lennon, Descartes

and the Seven Senses of Indifference in Early Modern Philosophy.72AT VI.23/CSM I.122.


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encroachment on our freedom), and the nearer the balance, the greater the en-

croachment. To put it another way, Descartess view is not just that freedom does

not require indifference in the first sense, but that this indifference of balance is

the only threatto that freedom.73

We turn now to the second case, of freedom while the wills acts are elicited.Though the history of the libertarian view and the preemptive freedom criticism

of the view predate him, Molina is a good place to begin. At the outset of his Con-

cordia, Molina distinguishes three senses of freedom. One is simply opposed to

servitude.74The second sense is opposed to coercion (coactioni): What happens

spontaneously [sponte] is free, whether it happens by natural necessity or not. Thus,

the Fathers generation of the Son is free. This Trinitarian sense is insufficient for

human freedom, however, whatever the Lutherans might say, because children,

the insane, and even beasts, operate spontaneously, but are not free. Thirdly, then,

an agent is said to be free when, with all necessary conditions for acting satisfied

[positis omnibus requisitis ad agendum], it can act and not act, or do one thing such thatit can also do the contrary. And from this freedom by which the agent is thus able

to act, the faculty is said to be free. Because it cannot operate in this way unless pos-

sessed of decision and judgment [arbitrio judicioque rationis], to that extent the facultyis called free decision or free will [liberum abitrium], which is nothing but the will in

which its freedom is formally explicated, and which distinguishes a free agent from

a merely natural agent, which, with all the necessary conditions for acting satisfied,

necessarily acts and does one thing and cannot do the contrary.75

Molina must realize that, as it stands, this view of freedom is open to the preemp-tive freedom criticism, for if I do one thing, it might be argued, it is necessarily

true that I cannot do the contrary. In any case, he himself later raises the criticism

against Ockham76and others, and modifies his original view to accommodate it.

Here is what he says:

Following Gabriel [Biel], Ockham (d. 38, q. 1) and other nominalists asserted that

the will, at the instant that it elicits a volition, it is not free not to elicit it or to elicit

a contrary act, and conversely, at the instant that it does not will, or that it elicits a

non-will [nolitionem], it is not free to will the same object; but only before that instantwas there freedom in it, such that at the same instant it was in a position to will, reject,

or not will concerning the object at all.77

73Clerselier understood this point. Consider his long interpolation at the end of the second sen-

tence of the second paragraph: [T]hat is, before our will chooses [se soit determine], we have the power

to choose [choisir] one or the other of two contraries, but it is not always indifferent; on the contrary,

we only ever deliberate in order to remove ourselves from that state, in which we do not know what

course to take, or to prevent ourselves from falling into it (cited in Descartes, Correspondence,197n2).74He cites 2Corinthians 3:17: [W]here the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. (He also cites

Romans 6and 8.) He just sets this sense asideunfortunately, since it would have been useful to havehis comment on what in fact best represents the view of his later opponents, the Jansenists.

75Molina, Liberi arbitrii . . . Concordia, 8.76I call freedom the power [potestatem] by which I can indifferently and contingently bring about

[ponere] different things, such that I am both able both to cause and able not to cause the same effect,

without there being any difference anywhere beyond that power [potentiam] (Ockham, Quodlibetal

Questions,1:75[slightly modified]).77Liberi arbitrii . . . Concordia, Quodlibetal Questions, 14, art. 13, disp. 24, 1046.


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The argument ascribed to Ockham by Molina, citing AristotlesDe interpretatione,

last chapter (24b79), is that what is, when it is, cannot not be. According to

Molina, the view is not only false, but also dangerous and temerarious, that is,

theologically very problematic. One problem that he sees concerns divine free-

dom: since there is no previous moment before God creates, the act of creatingwould itself be not free.78Similarly, theologians generally believe that the angels

earn merit in the first instant of their creation; but there can be no merit with-

out freedom; hence they must have been free before they were created, which is

ridiculous.79Thirdly, sin would occur before the sinful act. (Descartes rejects

prior-to-act libertarian freedom in his analysis of the internal and external

situations discussed above.)

It is not clear whether any of these arguments apply to Ockhams view, or if

they do whether they might not be answered. All of them, in any case, rely on the

temporal consideration that Molina tries to avoid by appealing to Scotuss notion

of priority by nature. The ability indifferently to will or not is not temporallyprior

to the wills act, but only prior by nature, as any other cause is prior by nature to

its effect (quaevis alia causa suum effectum praecedit).80Although it is exercised at

the same time as the act emanating from the will, the wills freedom is prior in

nature to that act. Using a distinction from Aquinas that was later used by Molinas

opponents (notably Gibieuf and the Jansenists), he concedes Ockhams argument

that it is a contradiction that the will should both act and be capable of not acting,

if the argument is taken in the composite sense (in sensu composito). But taken in

the divided sense (in sensu diviso), there is no contradiction.Whence did Descartes get the distinction between freedom before and during

elicitation? And to what use did he put it? The distinction is not invoked by Petau,

so he had to look elsewhere. There are at least a half-dozen sources on which he

might have drawn. It is not inconceivable that he was aware of Ockham, or one

of the other nominalists, either directly or through the text cited above from Mo-

lina, whose book no doubt was discussed at La Fleche during Descartess tenure

there. Another possible source is Janseniuss Augustinus, which in effect draws the

distinction by appealing to the sensu diviso/compositodistinction (although he does

so to show that, contrary to Molina, a will moved by grace to act is necessitated

to do so, and can do otherwise only in the sense that without the grace it would

have been necessitated to do otherwise).81Descartes might also have picked up

the distinction from Arnauld, who in the few years between the publication of the

Augustinusand the period of the Text was busy defending the Augustinusfrom

attacks on it by Isaac Habert.82The surest and most important source, however,

would be Guillaume Gibieuf.

78Molina, Liberi arbitrii . . . Concordia,105.79Molina, Liberi arbitrii . . . Concordia,105.80Molina, Liberi arbitrii . . . Concordia,105.81Gilson thought that Descartes might well have looked into the Augustinus, at least the parts on

the

Documents

Thomas M Lennon - Descartes Supposed Libertarianism: Letter to Mesland or Memorandum Concerning Petau?