Explain this passage about free will from Hobart

[lmd9]

Thoughts on Hobart’s arguments for compatibilism, specifically his analysis of power in regards to free will:
Freedom.-In accordance with the genius of language, free will means freedom of persons in willing, just as " free trade " means freedom of persons (in a certain respect) in trading. The freedom of anyone surely always implies his possession of a power, and means the absence of any interference (whether taking the form of restraint or constraint) with his exercise of that power. Let us consider this in relation to freedom in willing. " Can ".-We say, " I can will this or I can will that, whichever I choose ". Two courses of action present themselves to my mind. I think of their consequences, I look on this picture and on that, one of them commends itself more than the other, and I will an act that brings it about. I knew that I could choose either. That means that I had the power to choose either.
What is the meaning of " power " ? A person has a power if it is a fact that when he sets himself in the appropriate maniner to produce a certain event that event will actually follow. I have the power to lift the lamp; that is, if I grasp it and exert an upward pressure with my arm, it will rise. I have the power to will so and so; that is, if I want, that act of will will take place. That and none other is the meaning of power, is it not ? A man's being in the proper active posture of body or of mind is the cause, and the sequel in question will be the effect. (Of course, it may be held that the sequel not only does but must follow, in a sense opposed to Hume's doctrine of cause. Very well; the question does not here concern us.)
Thus power depends upon, or rather consists in, a law. The law in question takes the familiar form that if something happens a certain something else will ensue. If A happens then B will happen. The law in this case is that if the man definitively so desires then volition will come to pass. There is a series, wish-will-act. The act follows according to the will (that is a law,-I do not mean an underived law) and the will follows according to the wish (that is another law). A man has the power (sometimes) to act as he wishes. He has the power (when- ever he is not physically bound or held) to act as he wills. He has the power always (except in certain morbid states) to will as he wishes. All this depends upon the laws of his being. Wherever there is a power there is a law. In it the power wholly consists. A man's pbwer to will as he wishes is simply the law that his will follows his wish. Wlhat, again, does freedom mean? It means the absence of any interference with all this. Nothing steps in to prevent my exercising my power.’
All turns on the meaning of " can ". "I can will either this or that " means, I am so constituted that if I definitively incline to this, the appropriate act of will will take place, and if I definitively incline to that, the appropriate act of will will take place. The law connecting preference and will exists, and there is nothing to interfere with it. My free power, then, is not an exemption from law but in its inmost essence an embodiment of law. Thus it is true, after the act of will, that I could have willed otherwise. It is most natural to add, "if I had wanted to"; but the addition is not required. The point is the meaning of " could ". I could have willed whichever way I pleased. I had the power to will otherwise, there was nothing to prevent my doing so, and I should have done so if I had wanted. If someone says that the wish I actually had prevented my willing otherwise, so that I could not have done it, he is merely making a slip in the use of the word “ could ". He means, that wish could not have produced anything but this volition. But " could " is asserted not of the wish (a transient fact to which power in this sense is not and should not be ascribed) but of the person. And the person could have produced something else than that volition. He could have produced any volition he wanted: he had the power to do so.
1 A word as to the relation of power and freedom. Strictly power cannot exist without freedom, since the result does-not follow without it. Freedom on the other hand is a negative term, meaning the absence of something, and implies a power only because that whose absence it signifies is inter- ference, which implies something to be interfered with. Apart from this peculiarity of the term itself, there might be freedom without any power. Absence of interference (of what would be interference if there were a power) might exist in the absence of a power; a man might be free to do something because there was nothing to interfere with his doing it, but might have no power to do it. Similarly and conveniently we may speak of a power as existing though interfered with; that is, the law may exist that would constitute a power if the interference were away.
But the objector will say, " The person as he was at the moment-the person as animated by that wish-could not have produced any other volition ". Oh, yes, he could. " Could"' has meaning not as applied to a momentary actual phase of a person's life, but to the person himself of whose life that is but a phase; and it means that (even at that moment) he had the power to will just as he preferred. The idea of power, because it is the idea of a law, is hypothetical, carries in itself hypothesis as part of its very intent and meaning-" if he should prefer this, if he should prefer that ",and therefore can be truly applied to a person irrespective of what at the moment he does prefer. It remains hypothetical even when applied.' This very peculiarity of its meaning is the whole point of the idea of power. It is just because determinism is true, because a law obtains, that one “ could have done otherwise ".
Sidgwick set over against " the formidable array of cumula- tive evidence" offered for determinism the "affirmation of consciousness" "that I can now choose to do" what is right and reasonable, "however strong may be my inclination to act unreasonably '.2 But it is not against determinism. It is a true affirmation (surely not, of immediate consciousness but of experience), the affirmation of my power to will what I deem right, however intense and insistent my desire for the wrong. I can will anything, and can will effectively anything that my body will enact. I can will it despite an inclination to the contrary of any strength you please-strength as felt by me before decision. We all know cases where we have resisted impulses of great strength in this sense and we can imagine them still stronger. I have the power to do it, and shall do. it, shall exercise that power, if I prefer. Obviously in that case (be it psychologically remarked) my solicitude to do what is right will have proved itself even stronger (as measured by ultimate tendency to prevail, though not of necessity by sensible vivid- ness or intensity) than the inclination to the contrary, for that is what is meant by my preferring to do it. I am conscious that the field for willing is open; I can will anything that I elect to will. Sidgwick did not analyse the meaning of " can ", that is all. He did not precisely catch the outlook of con- sciousness when it says, " I can ". He did not distinguish the function of the word, which is to express the availability 1 I am encouraged by finding in effect the same remark in Prof. G. E. Moore's Ethics, ch. vi., at least as regards what he terms one sense of the word " could ". I should hazard saying, the only sense in this context. 2 Method of Ethics, 7th ed., 65.
of the alternatives I see when, before I have willed, and perhaps before my preference is decided, I look out on the field of con- ceivable volition. He did not recognise that I must have a word to express my power to will as I please, quite irrespective of what I shall please, and that " can " is that word. It is no proof that I cannot do something to point out that I shall not do it if I do not prefer. A man, let us say, can turn on the electric light; but he will not turn it on if he walks away from it; though it is still true that he can turn it on. When we attribute power to a man we do not mean that something will accomplish itself without his wanting it to. That would never suggest the idea of power. We mean that if he makes the requisite move the thing will be accomplished. It is part of the idea that the initiative shall rest with him. The initiative for an act of will is a precedent phase of consciousness that we call the definitive inclination, or, in case of conflict, the definitive preference for it. If someone in the throes of struggle with temptation says to himself, " I can put this behind me ", he is saying truth and precisely the pertinent truth. He is bringing before his mind the act of will, unprevented, quite open to him, that would deliver him from what he deems noxious. It may still happen that the noxiousness of the temptation does not a1fect him so powerfully as its allurement, and that he succumbs. It is no whit less true, according to determinism, that he could have willed otherwise. To analyse the fact expressed by “ could " is not to destroy it.
But it may be asked, " Can I will in opposition to my strongest desire at the moment when it is strongest ? " If the words " at the moment when it is strongest " qualify " can ", the answer has already been given. If they qualify " will ", the suggestion is a contradiction in terms. Can I turn-on-the- electric-light-at-a-moment-when-I-am-not-trying-to-do-so ? This means, if I try to turn on the light at a moment when I am not trying to, will it be turned on ? A possible willing as I do not prefer to will is not a power on my part, hence not to be expressed by "c I can)". Everybody knows that we often will what we do not want to will, what we do not prefer. But when we say this we are using words in another sense than that in which I have- just used them. In one sense of the words, whenever we act we are doing what we prefer, on the whole, in view of all the circum- stances. We are acting for the greatest good or the least evil or a mixture of these. In the other and more usual sense of the words, we are very often doing what we do not wish to do, i.e.,
doing some particular thing we do not wish because we are afraid of the consequences or disapprove of the moral complexion of the particular thing -we do wish. We do the thing that we do not like because the other thing has aspects that we dislike yet more. We are still doing what we like best on the whole. It is again a question of the meaning of words.
If the initiative for volition is not a wish, what is it? In- determinism says that a moral agent sometimes decides against the more tempting course. He does so, let us say, because it is wrong, the other course is the right one. In other words, the desire to do right is at the critical moment stronger within him than the temptation. No, no, replies indeterminism, it is not that; he sometimes decides against the stronger desire. Very well; " can " meaning what it does, tell us what is the leaning or favourable disposition on the part of the ego, in a case of undetermined willing, toward the volition it adopts; what is that which constitutes the ego's initiatise in that direction,- since it is not a wish? Shall we say it is an approval or con- scientious acceptance? Does this approval or acceptance arise from the agent's distinctive moral being ? That is deter- minism, quite as much as if you called the initiative a wish. But the indeterminist has already answered in effect that there is no such initiative, or no effectual initiative. The act of will causes the physical act but is. not itself caused. This is to deny the presence of power, according to its definition. How has it a meaning to say in advance that " I can " will this way or that ? The self, considering the alternatives beforehand, is not in a position to say, " If I feel thus about it, this volition will take place, or if I feel otherwise the contrary will take place ; I know very well how I shall feel, so I know how I shall will". The self now existing has not control over the future " free " voli- tion, since that may be undetermined, nor will the self's future feelings, whatever they may be, control it. Hence the sense expressed by " I can ", the sense of power inhering in one's con- tinuous self to sway the volition as it feels disposed, is denied to it. All it is in a position to mean by " I can " is, " I do not know which will happen ", which is not " I can " at all. Nay, even looking backward, it is unable to say: "I could have willed otherwise ", for that clearly implies, " Had I been so disposed the other volition would have taken place ", which is just what cannot, according to indeterminism, be said. Surely, to paraphrase a historic remark, our " liberty " does not seem to be of very much use to us.
The indeterminist is in a peculiarly hapless position. The two things that he is most deeply moved to aver, that the free volition is the act of the self, and that the self can will one way or the other-these two things on his own theory fall utterly to pieces, and can only be maintained on the view that he opposes.

[Harbal]

I can't explain it, imd9, I don't know how it got there, I just assumed you posted it.

[HexHammer]

He's talking about "freedom" not "free will".