Freedom of Choice by Yves R. Simon

Abstract

710 BOOK REVIEWS Freedom of Choice. By YvES R. SIMoN. New York: Fordham University Press, 1969. Pp. 167. Index. $5.50. Peter Wolff, the editor and chief translator of this volume, while serving as Assistant Director of the Institute for Philosophical Research when that organization was preparing its volumes on freedom, was struck by the paucity of good books dealing with and solving some of the problems of human liberty. Among all the works of contemporary philosophers only one stood out, Traite du librc arbitre by Yves Simon. He wrote to the author about translating and publishing it and found that Simon was revising it himself to appear in a n:ulti-volumed Encyclopedia he was planning on important philosophical problems. Even then Simon, who was incurably ill and knew it, asked Wolff to finish the task if he were unable. This Wolff did with the assistance of Professor Simon's widow, Paule Simon, and Desmond FitzGerald. Simon introduces his subject by analysing some popular notions of freedom: unihibited expression, disorderliness, exuberance, inventiveness, creativity. He shows how the Epicurean theory of "swerve" in the atoms of Democritus, reappearing in the Hcisenburg-Bohr principle of indeterminacy , satisfied many that the basis of human freedom lay in the indeterminacy of matter. The point of the book is to show that this is precisely where the root of freedom does not lie. It is found rather in the superdeterminacy of the will towards the comprehensive good (bonum in communi). The comprehensive good is not an abstraction. A " money-minded " person is one who is interested in things only insofar as they procure money for him. Everything he wants he wants under the aspect of " being financially interesting." So the good all men seek by necessity is not an abstraction. It is embodied in the most fleeting particular objects of desire as well as long-range life projects. It is present in " rest and motion, in contemplation and action, in study ami business, in pleasure and austerity, in the gratifications of the senses as well as those of the spirit, in the ways of justice and those crime." (p. 23) All men seek this. They seek it necessarily. And from this necessary thrust towards the universal good comes dominative power in the will over every particular good. Theories of freedom are basically confused over the difference between this active indifference of the will and the will's passive indifference. Active indifference comes from strength, power, force; it is the indifference of a hard substance cutting through soft, the indifference of the virtuous man to the kinds of trials thrust upon him. Passive indifference comes from weakness, inadequacy, deficiency; it is the indifference of a soft substance receiving a thousand impressions and distortions from a hard, of a weak man trembling before every wind. Those who understand freedom through images of disorder have really confused the passive potentiality of the will with its active power, have BOOK REVIEWS 711 rooted freedom in the area of man's weakness rather than his strength. " By dominating indifference the will is an image of God, by passive indifference it rather is an image of prime matter. Aquinas mentions a philosopher who ' most foolishly ' thought God was the prime matter. Without going so far many people handle analogical intellection so clumsily that they confuse free choice with passive indifference of the will." (p. 120) This is the main argument of the book. It is presented with extraordinary profundity and clarity mixed with that very attractive homely wisdom which made Professor Simon a marvellous teacher. The translation is very fine. In future editions perhaps another word for " indifference" could be found. The paragraph on page 100 beginning" But when there is a question of human action " is confusing, since it really shows a parallel between the practical and theoretical fields rather than the contrast Simon seems to have wanted to show. The word " nonvoluntary " in the last line of page 102 would better be rendered "nonfree" in keeping with what Simon rightly says on page 27 (at the bottom) about the voluntariness of the will's adherence to the comprehensive good. Mortimer Adler in his forward says of the book...