A thought experiment challenging Searle's non-reductively materialistic approach to freedom

Searle is an awesome philosopher, but he's highly allergic to God-talk as well as anything even suggesting immortality because of his reluctance to embrace anything that would at all seem dualistic.

He loves to debunk reductionism, and has a lovely way of doing it (for example, the Chinese Room Argument). But the one thing he hates to talk about is freedom. Being true to his experience, he grants that it looks as though we are free. And having disemboweled and given the coup de gras to reductionism, he has none of the reductionists' reason for rejecting freedom. So he claims that we are free, but is uneasy in doing so, for he has nothing to say about why we are free, or how we even could be free.

Theists are not as uneasy with freedom as Searle is, for they can say that God exists, is free and wants us to be free so that we can freely relate to God. For theists, the question "Why freedom?" has an answer, even though the question "How does freedom work?" may still have some difficulties.

In any case, I would like to propose a thought experiment to suggest both HOW we are free and WHY we are free. I am not going to approach the question of whether one could avoid being Cartesian while affirming some sort of immortality. I'll leave that question aside for the moment, as the question I want to discuss comes first: it motivates consideration of the question of immortality. That is, the topic I'll discuss comes first inasmuch as, in my opinion, one has to see it as desirable for the right reason before one can grasp what it really is and what arguments might support it. The usual reasons given for desiring immortality might actually be wrong-headed, lame, whereas the reasons I'll give are better. They are as much better than the "obvious" reasons for desiring immortality as a bona fide philosophical argument for God's existence is in comparison to the klunky, misleading, lame intelligent design arguments for God.

But I am not going to argue that immortality ought to be desired. I am going to argue that union with God--even if for a nano second--is something we already desire, regardless of whether we should or should not do so. And the argument for the claim that we already desire union with God is as follows:

1. having desire for V is a necessary condition for freedom;
2. we display freedom;
3. therefore we have desire for V (where V is something infinitely good)

The thought experiment that I will use to develop premise 1 is as follows:

Imagine an animal that acts some of the behaviors that we associate with freedom. It seems to choose behaviors freely inasmuch as they are directed toward this concrete good X, but it does not choose between good X and other concrete goods. In the situation in which it is confronted with X and Y, this animal is unfree and automatic. So this animal displays a partial or a parochial freedom.

This animal is free, but is it like us? No. That is because we are not determined toward this or that type of good. The freedom we display consists in actions that are motivated by the desire for different ends while choosing between the ends themselves. In choosing between the ends, we display the desire for a goodness rather than this sort of good. We might describe it as global freedom for the sake of those who are allergic to anything Platonistic-sounding. In any case, the good that motivates us has an indefiniteness that allows us to choose between ends. And this indefiniteness can be argued to indicate that the good we ultimately desire is infinite. Add to that the fact that all desire for good is desire for union with the good desired, and you have the fact that we desire union with infinite goodness.

Objection: couldn't we experience two conflicting desires for two incommensurable goods with something unconscious determining what we actually select: it only seems that we have free will.

Reply: if it's unconscious, then you are not choosing it: it's being chosen for you. Only if one broader desire extends to two ends is the act of choosing done by you.

The argument, in a nutshell is that we desire union with infinite goodness; otherwise, we couldn't choose between finite ends.

Epilogue to the argument. Immortality is desirable only if one hopes to be everlastingly united with infinite goodness. Otherwise immortality would be boring as hell.

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