I’ll go further and say free will as a concept is idealist nonsense. Historical materialism offers a much more grounded and meaningful perspective on freedom as a political-economic process.
Slavery (chattel or wage), capitalist exploitation, cishet patriarchal oppression - there are so many real illiberties plaguing humanity right now. Free will is the liberal version of counting angels on a needle
I don't think that free will and historical materialism are necessarily at odds. An individual has free will, just like an individual can go against their class interests - but most of the time, most people will do what they think is the most rational thing to do, which is how you get large groups of people spontaneously working towards the same goals because they share economic interests.
I don’t see how introducing the concept of free will adds any clarity to the examples you gave. Worse, I maintain it serves as a way to smuggle in idealism in analysis which is clearer and more powerful without it.
Is the righteous anger of the hungry masses rising up in revolution an expression of free will or a symptom of a lack of it? Does a bourgeois class traitor driven by empathy and visceral disgust at the injustice of it all have free will? Or one motivated by fear of the rising proletarians?
How many free wills can dance on the edge of a guillotine?
That has nothing to do with free will. People don’t choose whether to follow their interests like they’re flipping a coin. They are influenced by many things including empathy and interests to make whatever decisions, but you could call is “free” will whatever decision they make even if it’s determined. I do think there is a need to fight economism, the thinking that simple things like class are purely responsible for certain decisions.
A materialist conception of free will is very compatible with all that - the potential expressions of will are bound by historical realities, but free will within those bounds is legitimate and real.
It's the placement of where choices are made - a non-free will perspective places them purely on external factors. A free will perspective places some portion of choice within the individual.
The thing is I don’t see how there can be potentialities beyond what happened already. It’s impossible to predict the future, but the amalgamation of all the material factors is purely responsible for the future.
I’ll go further and say free will as a concept is idealist nonsense. Historical materialism offers a much more grounded and meaningful perspective on freedom as a political-economic process.
Slavery (chattel or wage), capitalist exploitation, cishet patriarchal oppression - there are so many real illiberties plaguing humanity right now. Free will is the liberal version of counting angels on a needle
I don't think that free will and historical materialism are necessarily at odds. An individual has free will, just like an individual can go against their class interests - but most of the time, most people will do what they think is the most rational thing to do, which is how you get large groups of people spontaneously working towards the same goals because they share economic interests.
I don’t see how introducing the concept of free will adds any clarity to the examples you gave. Worse, I maintain it serves as a way to smuggle in idealism in analysis which is clearer and more powerful without it.
Is the righteous anger of the hungry masses rising up in revolution an expression of free will or a symptom of a lack of it? Does a bourgeois class traitor driven by empathy and visceral disgust at the injustice of it all have free will? Or one motivated by fear of the rising proletarians?
How many free wills can dance on the edge of a guillotine?
That has nothing to do with free will. People don’t choose whether to follow their interests like they’re flipping a coin. They are influenced by many things including empathy and interests to make whatever decisions, but you could call is “free” will whatever decision they make even if it’s determined. I do think there is a need to fight economism, the thinking that simple things like class are purely responsible for certain decisions.
A materialist conception of free will is very compatible with all that - the potential expressions of will are bound by historical realities, but free will within those bounds is legitimate and real.
As I wrote elsewhere I don’t see how introducing the concept adds anything to a materialist analysis of choices and why we make them.
It's the placement of where choices are made - a non-free will perspective places them purely on external factors. A free will perspective places some portion of choice within the individual.
The thing is I don’t see how there can be potentialities beyond what happened already. It’s impossible to predict the future, but the amalgamation of all the material factors is purely responsible for the future.
I don't really see how that contradicts my position
I agree with what you wrote, but it could be interpreted as more libertarian