Blog 18 Frankfurt

What does it mean to be a person, according to Frankfurt?

To be a person according to Frankfurt one must be able to possess a second order desire or second order volition. He recognizes that humans are not the only creatures to possess the ability to want / have desires, but we are the only ones that “are capable of wanting to be different in, their preferences and purposes,” (7, Frankfurt).

Explain the order of desires, and how they are related to freedom of will.

There are two types of desires first order desires and second order desires. First order desires which are present in animals and it is presented as “… wanting and choosing and being moved to do this or that… also want to have (or not to have) certain desires and motives,” (7, Frankfurt). This can be put simply as desires to do or not to do. Next are Second order desires, within the branch of second order desires is the second order volition, this is the thought that I want this desire to be (or not be) effective. Being able to think of these different levels of desires is essential to being a person to Frankfurt, but what if someone has “second-order desires but with no volitions of the second order,” (11, Frankfurt)? To Frankfurt this creature would not be considered a person and will now only be referred to as a “wanton” (11, Frankfurt).

Give your own examples of each order of desire.

First order desire: I want to get into UC Davis.

Second order desire: I want to want to be good at the math required for a chemistry major.

Second order volition: I want to graduate from UC Davis with a bachelors of science in biochemistry.

Is this a useful way to understand freedom? Are you currently free, according to Frankfurt’s definitions?

According to Frankfurt yes, I am free because my first order desires match my second order volition. Under Frankforts philosophy a person is free if he is able to “enjoy both freedom of action and freedom of the will. Then he is not only free to do what he wants to do; he is also free to want what he wants to want. It seems to me that he has, in that case, all the freedom it is possible to desire or to conceive. There are other good things in life, and he may not possess some of them,” (17, Frankfurt). A part of me thinks that this is a pretty good way to understand freedom because if you want or desire to do something and you are working towards it and your whole life revolves around said desire or want then you are understandably free since your feelings coincide with your actions. On the other hand I don’t think it is true freedom because every moment is being spent on working towards achieving your desire or want and the thought that just maybe if your feelings and actions don’t flow together then you’re automatically considered not free, I think that if there was more wiggle room to his definition of freedom then it would be perfect but since there isn’t then it is not perfect only just “ok”.

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source: https://thinkingbeings.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/freedom-of-the-will-and-the-concept-of-a-person.pdf