Connolly, John - Augustine on the Will, or Why Cooperation is an Unnatural Act

04/01/2011

Unpublished paper

The primary question of this paper is a launching point for a discussion about Augustine's troubles with the human will. The question involves why we humans are not naturally given to cooperation-- we are often uncooperative, and even when we do cooperate it is sometimes for ulterior motives, or long-term selfishness. The problem here is part of a general one: why are humans so disposed to irrational, sinful behavior? Author takes a walk through St Augustine's attempts to answer this question.

Author first looks at the book of Genesis, where Eve, then Adam, eat the fruit from the forbidden tree. The trouble for many religious thinkers, especially those who claim that God is both all-good and the creator of all things, is two: why did Eve fall prey to the serpent's guile, and furthermore, why was the serpent so guileful? At first face, it appears that there is a dualistic nature to the universe (good and evil, the Manichean perspective), or that God manufactured the creatures of the earth-- including mankind-- with flaws (this is trouble since God is flawless).

Neither of these options were palatable for Augustine, who tried his hand at a solution early on in On Free Choice of the Will. Augustine talks about the evils we suffer and suggests that some of them we suffer because they are just punishments from the evils we have committed. But of course for punishment to be just, the sinful acts must have been voluntary. This puts the trouble into the Will, which just pushes it back-- didn't God design the human will? Why is it subject to these common defects? Augustine puts forward an answer that the will itself was designed just fine, if used in accordance with reason or is properly 'ordered'. If 'disordered', it leads to sin. Author points out how similar this is to the Greeks. Author then takes an interlude to discuss the relative primitive conception of the Will here-- it is probably similar to what Aristotle considered boulesis-- the choice about what is worth pursuing (ideally using reason in that process). This choice is autonomous, as Augustine insists.

Augustine believes it is good that we have the freedom of the will, since then our positive decisions are with merit-- we could do otherwise. But this leads to the next problem: why would a rational will decide to pursue sin over the orderliness of virtue? This problem, author claims, Augustine has no good solution for. Augustine's first attempt considers such a movement of the will a kind of ex nihilo decision-- an irrationality that comes from nothing. And how can one know the cause of that which comes from nothing? This weird answer author calls "the mystery of the missing motivation". The final book of On Free Choice of the Will, added years later, opens a new line of argument: our wills are hopelessly degraded due to the original sin of our parents, Adam & Eve. Our only chance at salvation lies in the grace of God. This theological solution is bolstered by Augustine's common sense that each human is sinful from the beginning of its existence (birth).

Though this seems to be Augustine's final answer on the problem of deficiencies of the will, the author is not satisfied. Author uses an analogy of a standardized test administered to the populous, but only after tutoring a portion of the demographic while ignoring the rest. It is hardly credible that who passes is not at least influenced by those who do the tutoring. And yet, it is technically true that the untutored fail without coercion and on their own autonomy. However, author argues this is unjust and capricious, not all-loving or perfectly just. Augustine begs off, asking that we accept a 'hidden equity'.

Author then discusses the general element of Augustine's struggle about humankind's proneness to sin. For example, many myths seem to point to a earlier age where sin was not a concern. Can this be squared with Darwinian evolution, which seems to show humans as emerging from a primate ancestor into greater cooperation than ever before? Author takes a suggestion from Jared Diamond's The Third Chimpanzee, which claims that the development of fixed agricultural and pastoral food production was the cause of much cultural change, including the creation of property, a ruling class, war, disease, and even racism. The thesis was that agriculture and animal husbandry diminished nutritional diversity, exposed humans to new diseases, created a fixed source of value that could be effectively controlled-- tempting an elite class, and finally caused societal divisions that destroyed our spirit of cooperation. Author reads the Genesis story of the fall from Eden into Diamond's description of the changes in human culture with the invention of agriculture.