Liberty, Moral Servitude, and Influence of Will in Formation of Character

Abstract

The text introduces a translation of three chapters of the work Doctrine of the Will. In them, Asa Mahan pursues to show that, contrary to what one might think, the doctrine of Liberty does not generate a spirit of pride, haughtiness, and self-dependence, but encourages the emergence of a spirit of humility and dependence on Divine Grace. To this end, he initially revisits an important distinction between two meanings of the term liberty: liberty understood as the opposite of Moral Servitude, and freedom understood as the opposite of Necessity, an issue that had already been explained in more detail in the previous chapters of Doctrine of the Wil. In this context, Mahan argues that the great mistake of many metaphysicians in Modernity was to take the idea of Liberty of the Will as if it were the opposite of Moral Servitude, and not as the opposite of Necessity, as they should have done for their theories to truly contribute for the understanding of Liberty as an attribute of the human will. Furthermore, the author addresses the issue of Moral Servitude to, subsequently, show that the most important element in the formation of people’s moral character is the voluntary element, and defends that the doctrine of Liberty, in the sense in which he presents it throughout the tractate Doctrine of the Will, when accepted by people, it tends to generate in them a spirit of humility and dependence on Divine Providence, a spirit that, according to him, is the basis of true piety and virtue; and that the admission of this doctrine also destroys the spirit of self-dependence, pride, and haughtiness, whilst the doctrine of Necessity, has tendencies opposite to these.