The Problem of Freedom and Necessity in Human Action

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Introduction One of the most intriguing problems that surfaced itself every now and then in the history of ideas is the problem of freedom and necessity in human action. The phenomenon of human action originates from three interconnected factors: (1) man and the nature ascribable to him, (2) the essential structure of the physical universe in which man acts, (3) the structure of man-to-man relationship. These three integrally linked factors are involved in any mode of human action. For, human action is a mode of relatedness of man to his world and his fellow beings. The present problem is to understand the meaning of freedom and necessity in the context of the struc- ture of human action. It is at the same time the problem giving a basic identification of human action either in terms of the element of freedom or the element of necessity or the relatedness of freedom and necessity in some specific mode.

There are certain essential and universal characteristics of human action which are derived from the three integrally linked factors involved in its production.

The first essential characteristic is that human action emanates from men who are purposeful system.

Human action is a mode of interaction between man and his environment. The existence of man and his environment is a necessary presupposition of any investigation on human action. In our everyday experience, we have direct encounters of men as mobile living objective beings capable of making vitalistic movements and performing a number of varied activities. Man exhibits a wide range of functions. These functions are always associated with an end. The end, in turn, refer to an acting human subject whose end it is. This association, therefore, leads to the assertion of the primacy of human existence as purposeful systems, i.e., capable of producing ends.

The second essential characteristic of human action is that it occurs in a spatiotemporally specified environment.

The environment is a sector of the objective reality with which a man is in a mode of relatedness while acting. That is to say, that sector of the objective reality which is functionally related to man is his environment. The objective reality which man confronts as his environment again consists of two components. One of the components is man-to-man relationship, while the other is the relation of the elements in the physical universe. Both these components together form the strands of one indivisible objective reality, which is at the basis of all human action. Implicit in human action is therefore, inter-human relation and interobjectival relation. The nature of these relations has been conceived differently by various thinkers committed to the resolution of the problem. But all of them accept the presence of such relationships.

The third essential characteristic is purposiveness. Human action being a mode of interaction between men as purposeful systems and the objective reality, is essentially purposive. Attempts have been made to interpret this purposive character of human action from two important standpoints; the structural and the functional. From the structural standpoint, purpose is regarded as inherent in the essential structure of man. From the functional standpoint, the purposive character of human action is exhibited in the setting up and realization of goals, which are the end-points of human act. How these two standpoints are complementary to one another remains to be explored.