I. Conscious Human Action

Another form of expression runs: To be free does not mean to be able to want what one wants to, but rather, to be able to do what one wants to. The poet-philosopher Robert Hamerling has characterized this thought in sharply outlined words in his Atomistic Theory of Will:[^5] “The human being can, to be sure, do what he wants to—but he cannot want what he wants to, because his wanting is determined by motives!—He cannot want what he wants to? But let us consider these words again more closely. Is there a reasonable sense in them? Freedom of will would therefore have to consist in the fact that one could want something without reason, without motive? But what then does wanting mean other than having a reason for preferring to do, or to strive after, this rather than that? To want something without reason, without motive, would mean to want something, without wanting it. With the concept of wanting, the concept of motive is inseparably linked. Without a determining motive the will is an empty capability: only through the motive does it become active and real. It is therefore entirely correct that the human will is not “free” inasmuch as its direction is always determined by the strongest of its motives. But it must on the other hand be admitted that it is absurd, in the fact of this “unfreedom,” to speak of a conceivable “freedom” of the will which would end up being able to want what one does not want.”