Free Will

I want to talk a little bit about freedom. Free will is a staple of philosophical discussions and I remember being taught in school that Catholics firmly believed in it (and, say what you will about Roman Catholics, when we believe in something, it is firm). "God created man a rational being, conferring on him the dignity of a person who can initiate and control his own actions," so my Catechism reads. "God willed that man should be 'left in the hand of his own counsel,' so that he might of his own accord seek his Creator and freely attain his full and blessed perfection by cleaving to him." I don't know if I am indeed cleaving to my Creator like some sort of spiritual barnacle but it comforts me to think that it is my choice should I want to. 

To any readers who may not know what the Catechism of Catholic Church is, it is a giant user manual for being a Catholic. Unlike my WASP friends, whose religions appear to adopt their tenants based on whatever the dress code is at the country club, Catholics love rules, even better if they are contradictory. So, in the 1980s, the Church took a look at the Ten Commandments and said, "You know, I think we can expand on this a little bit." 3000 pages later, we had a Catechism, a handy reference guide. It covers everything. Renewing your driver's license? Catechism 2296 says "Organ donation after death is a noble and meritorious act and is to be encouraged as an expression of generous solidarity." Feel uncomfortable about singing along to Counting Blue Cars? Here's Catechism 239: "God’s parental tenderness can also be expressed by the image of motherhood..." Good on ya, Dishwalla! Per my Catechism, I know that I can baptize your kid (but only in emergencies. Like most good Catholic writing, it generates more questions than it does answers. Do Catholics believe the Bible is literally true? Yes, but "one can distinguish between two senses of Scripture: the literal and the spiritual, the latter being subdivided into the allegorical, moral, and anagogical senses." Ok, then. If you are wondering how truth, which just a moment ago was one thing, turned out to be apparently five different things at once, you get a little some sense as to why I spent nine years in a school for this and still don't have it down. 

Catholic or not, most people believe in a concept that Christians call "moral liberty," the ability to recognize and choose goodness, as opposed to being driven by our basest desires. The ancient Greeks had no word for religion but they held spiritual beliefs just the same. Plato, for example, thought that the soul had three parts; the appetitive soul, which lived in your stomach, the spirited soul, which lived in your heart, and rational soul, which lived in your brain. The more you were guided by your rational soul, which was informed by facts and reason, the better you were. People solely indulging their appetitive soul were little better than animals, as that part makes decisions based on need only—to eat, to have sex, to consume. The rational soul suggests we can be better than our biology. It's the reason we get married or enter into monogamous relationships, not because it is natural (for primates like ourselves, it is not) but because our rational soul allows us to transcend our natures and be better people. 

Most moral philosophers, secular or otherwise, maintain that free will is an essential truth otherwise people cannot be held accountable for their actions. If your actions are determined, you can't very well catch the blame for them. Studies show that people who believe in free will are more likely to be charitable, more creative, less likely to conform and more willing to learn from their mistakes. Determinism is barely a step from nihilism, a belief that nothing matters. And when nothing matters, what difference does it make whether you do the right thing or not?That's the appetitive soul screaming "Feed me! Sate me! Indulge me now!" with no thought of others and a total rejection of responsibility. Acting through the appetitive soul is not freedom, but a slavish devotion to our worst impulses. 

I can't help but think of this while I watch gun-soaked protestors screaming to "liberate" their home states, rally attendees openly flaunting social distancing rules, and individuals cutting holes in their masks in some sort of performative middle finger to authorities. Dr. Deborah Birx, one of the members of the government's coronavirus task force has called these displays "devastatingly worrisome," warns that "if they go home and infect their grandmother or their grandfather who has a comorbid condition and they have a serious or a very...unfortunate outcome, they will feel guilty for the rest of [their] lives." I want to believe that but, reader, in my more cynical moments, I don't. When you've moved past group obligation so much that you are screaming at a uniformed officer because you know he can't retaliate, you may be beyond feeling guilty about your own actions. Many of the protestors have certainly moved beyond irony, evidenced by the claim that constitutional rights are being infringed while exercising a constitutional guarantee of assembly. A special order of conceited goes to a sign reading "Heil Witmer," comparing Michigan's governor to a leader so paranoid of opposition that his government made it illegal for apes to give the "Heil Hitler" salute—by penalty of death. These protests, both organized and individual, are allegedly about Americans expressing their freedom but they remind me of the screaming my two-year-old does when he doesn't get a cookie. I hope my son will grow out of this defiant-for-defiant's-sake phase but there is increasing evidence that that doesn't happen for everybody.

When people do this—and by "this," I mean wiping their faces on people's shirts for being asked to wear a mask—it is not citizenship, it is not patriotism and it's certainly not freedom. It is just adult toddlers, appetitive souls in flag t-shirts and walking stomachs saying "you're not the boss of me." When I was a kid and was sick, or had a snow day or found any other reason to be home during a weekday, I remember curiously observing daytime tabloid talk shows like Maury Povich and Jerry Springer, which frequently had features on terrible children who smoked and drank and disobeyed their parents. I could never figure out which of the myriad disturbing elements was most fascinating, the children's terrible behavior, the family's willingness to showcase it, or the crowd's glee in booing and jeering seven-year-olds. Little did I know I was watching little freedom fighters in training for a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to tell the world "I do what I want." It's what happens when you believe the worldview of someone who can claim "total authority" but not take any "responsibility at all."

Now, this is just my spirited soul talking, the one in my heart driven by emotion. I am angered by this because I am trying to be responsible while being undercut by selfish jerks who think their haircut is more important than the health of my mother (and theirs). However, my spirited soul makes me grateful, even more than I am angry at the protestors, for ER workers, family doctors and everyone from EMTs to Walgreen's cashiers who are putting themselves at risk to keep things going for everyone, even those in the streets tearing up their masks. Lastly, my rational soul reminds me that only 15% of Americans want social distancing measures lifted at any cost. Most of us are helping each other and will be able to tell our children we acted honorably in this time. The protesters will say they did too, fighting as they are for their "freedom." Perhaps they're right. No one has a monopoly on morality, not a newsletter writer, not a philosopher, not even a book as prescriptive as the Catechism of the Catholic Church. But I am reminded by the words of the principle author of that book, Pope John Paul II who said this in Baltimore in 1995: "Every generation of Americans needs to know that freedom consists not in doing what we’d like but in having the right to do what we ought.” It's that thought that makes me feel more free, even confined in my room, than a person for whom it seems no amount of guns, extreme behavior or paramilitary gear can satisfy his need for immediate gratification. For all his talk of freedom, he should heed Rousseau's word: "The impulse of appetite alone is slavery."