Free Will and the Guiltiness

The contradiction between the existence of inevitable constraints, imposed by divine authority, and human freedom, a contradiction solved by the Stoics by appealing to controlling desires, it is a problem that will stand in the philosophical debate of the future.

 Nowadays we no longer have any mercy for the concept of free will; we know what it really is: the most wicked thing of all the theologians’s tricks, being meant to make mankind “liable” in their sense, that is, depending on them. Here I only provide the psychology of any action “to make liable”.

Wherever liability is sought, what is acting is usually the instinct of judgment and punishment. The doctrine of free will was invented for the purpose of punishment, because it was desirable to impose guilt.

All the old psychology, the psychology of will, was conditioned by the fact that its initiators, priests and the leaders of the old communities wanted to create the right of punishing or wanted to create this right for God.

People were considered “free” so they could be judged and punished, so they could become guilty. Consequently, each act should be considered intentional, and the origin of each act should be considered to be related to consciousness.

from Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols

#concept, #consciousness, #constrains, #contradiction, #controlling-desires, #divine-authority, #doctrine, #existence, #free-will, #freedom, #future, #guilt, #guiltiness, #judgment, #liable, #mankind, #mercy, #philosophical-debate, #problem, #psychology, #punishment, #purpose, #sense, #stoics, #theologians-trics