Harry Frankfurt

Harry Frankfurt and his alternate possibilities

A few months ago, the American philosopher Harry G. Frankfurt died, 94 years old (1929-2023). I think that many of my readers will not know him, although I have mentioned him a few times in my blogs, but he was one of the most influential American philosophers of the last century and the early 21st century. He had especially a big impact on the discussion whether there is a free will. You simply cannot ignore his view when you are interested in the free will debate.

Free will, so many philosophers say, is all about responsibility: Free will and personal responsibility are two sides of the same coin. Is this true? No, Frankfurt said: We can be responsible for what we do without being free. Take this case (and now I use an old blog):
Jones is in a voting booth deliberating whether to vote for the Democratic or for the Republican presidential candidate. Unbeknownst to Jones, a neurosurgeon, Black, has implanted a chip in Jones’s brain that allows Black to monitor Jones’s neural states and alter them if need be. Black is a diehard Democrat, and should Black detect neural activity indicating that a Republican choice is forthcoming, Black will activate the chip to ensure that Jones will vote Democratic. However, Jones chooses on his own to vote for the Democratic presidential candidate, so Black never intervenes.
In this case, voting for the Democratic candidate was Jones’s own choice, so we can say that Jones was responsible for this choice. Nevertheless, he was not free to vote for the Democratic candidate, for would Jones have wanted to vote Republican, Black would have intervened. The upshot is that responsibility and free will don’t need to go together. But what then free will is about if it is not about responsibility? This blog is not the place to try to answer this question, but by presenting this, what now is called, Frankfurt case, Harry Frankfurt has left his mark on the free will debate. To my mind it is his most important contribution to philosophy.
Another important contribution of Frankfurt to philosophy is his definition what a person is. A person is, so Frankfurt, someone who wants what he or she wants. In order to understand what this means, Frankfurt distinguished first-order volitions and second-order volitions. First-order volitions are simple wants, desires, wishes etc. I like oranges so I want to eat oranges. I like reading so I want to read a book. I like opera so I desire to go to an opera performance. Etc. But do we really want what we want? Do I really want to want to eat oranges? Yes, for they are healthy and tasty. Do, I really want to want to read books? Yes, for reading books is a pleasure and it is good for my mental development. But, say, that I am a drug addict. Every day I want to take a shot of heroin, if not more often. Do I really want to take heroin every day? No, for it ruins my health and it makes me dependent, for I want to have it now or I’ll become sick. So I want to get clean and I ask for help. However, a friend of mine, also a heroin addict, never asks the question whether he wants to get clean. He simply wants to have his shots. What is the difference between us? According to Frankfurt, those people who ask both first-order and second-order questions – like me – are persons. If I succeed to get clean, I am a free person; if I don’t succeed to get clean, I am a person but not a free person: I have asked first-order and second-order questions, but I don’t succeed to act according to my answers (I stay a drug addict, although I don’t want that). However, since my friend doesn’t ask second-order questions, he cannot be a person. Frankfurt calls him a wanton.
For me, these are Frankfurt’s most important contributions to philosophy, but he did more. Among philosophers he is also known as a Descartes specialist. Among the general public he is especially known by his bestseller On Bullshit. In this booklet he defends the view that worse than simply lying is talking bullshit: Talking nonsense (or maybe even truth) without caring whether what you say is true or false. For the speaker (or writer), the only thing that is important is how s/he appears to others or that s/he gets what she wants and reaches his/her goals. Another influential book written for the general public is Frankfurt’s The Reasons of Love. Harry Frankfurt was an analytic philosopher in the first place, and analytic philosophy is typically a kind of philosophy performed in academic circles. However, according to Frankfurt it is also a good method for explaining general issues that are important for the general public. In the book just mentioned Frankfurt gives an analytical and well-understandable explanation of the idea of love.
It will certainly not be difficult to write more about Harry Frankfurt, but with this blog I hope to have made clear that he was a remarkable and influential philosopher, a clear writer and one of the most important American thinkers of the last hundred years.

Sources
Harry G. Frankfurt, The importance of what we care about.
Maarten Meester, “De analyticus van de vrije wil”, in Filosofie Magazine, 2023/12; pp. 54-58.