Key Arguments

• Because people are conscious of their volitions and desires but ignorant of the causes that dispose them, they infer that they are free.
• This misinterpretation supports and is supported by teleological thinking about ends and usefulness.

Source Quotes

However, this is not the place to deduce these misconceptions from the nature of the human mind: it will be sufficient here, if I assume as a starting point, what ought to be universally admitted, namely, that all men are born ignorant of the causes of things, that all have the desire to seek for what is useful to them, and that they are conscious of such desire. Herefrom it follows, first, that men think themselves free inasmuch as they are conscious of their volitions and desires, and never even dream, in their ignorance, of the causes which have disposed them so to wish and desire. Secondly, that men do all things for an end, namely, for that which is useful to them, and which they seek.

Key Concepts

• men think themselves free inasmuch as they are conscious of their volitions and desires, and never even dream, in their ignorance, of the causes which have disposed them so to wish and desire.

Context

Ethics I, Appendix, lines 606–734; psychological root of the freedom illusion linked to teleology