Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person

May 27, 2025 | 1,723 words | 9min read

Paper Title: Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person Link to Paper: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2024717 Date: January, 1971 Paper Type: Philosophy Short Abstract: Frankfurt says that freedom of the will means being able to want the desires you actually have and act on. This idea shows why freedom of the will is important, why only humans have it, and how people can still be responsible for their actions even if everything is determined.

0. What is a Person?

Frankfurt begins by criticizing a common philosophical definition of a “person”—specifically P.F. Strawson’s view that a person is simply a being to whom both physical and mental predicates can be applied. Frankfurt argues this definition is too broad, since many animals also have both bodily and mental characteristics, yet we wouldn’t typically consider them persons in the full philosophical sense.

He claims this misuse of the term “person” weakens philosophical discourse by ignoring what makes the concept truly significant: the inner structure of agency and self-reflection that characterizes human life.

Frankfurt suggests that what fundamentally distinguishes persons from non-persons is not species membership, but a certain structure of the will. While many animals have first-order desires (e.g., a desire to eat or run), humans can have second-order desires—that is, desires about their desires. For example, a person can want not to want something, or wish to change their motives.

This capacity for reflective self-evaluation and for forming second-order desires is, for Frankfurt, the defining feature of personhood. It underlies our sense of moral responsibility, identity, and autonomy—making it central to understanding ourselves.

1. What does ‘Want’ mean?

The term “want” is ambiguous, saying “A wants to X” is not very informative, as this could mean many different things depending on context:

• someone might want something unconsciously,
• might deny they want it,
• might not act on it,
• or might have conflicting desires

He differentiates, thus between first-order and second-order desires. A first-order desire is a direct want to do or not do something (e.g., “I want to eat cake”), while a second-order desire is a desire about desires (e.g., “I want to want to eat healthy food”).

He then introduces the concept of the will:

The will is the desire (or set of desires) that actually moves a person to act.

Further, he differentiates between two types of second-order desires:

1. Detached second-order desire: A person may want to have a certain desire without wanting that desire to actually guide their actions. Example: A doctor might want to understand drug addiction better and thus wish to desire the drug—but not to act on that desire. This is a theoretical or experiential interest, not a change of will.
2. Committed second-order desire (or second-order volition): A person wants a certain desire to become their will—that is, the desire that actually determines their behavior. Example: Someone wants to want to focus on work and wants that desire to be effective in motivating their actions.

2. The ‘wanton’ and the Person

Frankfurt distinguishes between persons and wantons based on the capacity for second-order volitions. A second-order desire is a desire about a desire, and a second-order volition is when someone wants a particular desire to be their effective will—the one that moves them to act.

A person is defined as an agent who has second-order volitions. In contrast, a wanton may have first-order desires and even second-order desires, but lacks second-order volitions—meaning they do not care which desires govern their actions. Wantons are indifferent to the structure of their will and make no effort to evaluate or control their motivational hierarchy.

Frankfurt illustrates this with two addicts:

• The unwilling addict has conflicting desires about taking a drug and wants his desire to refrain to be effective—he is a person.
• The wanton addict also has conflicting desires but lacks any concern over which one wins—he is a wanton.

Wantons may reason and deliberate, but they do so only to fulfill their desires, not to reflect on which desires they endorse. Only rational beings can form second-order volitions, and it is this capacity—not mere rationality—that makes one a person.

3. Freedom of the Will and Personhood

He next links personhood to the capacity for freedom of the will, which only beings with second-order volitions can possess. Unlike freedom of action (doing what one wants), freedom of the will is the ability to will what one wants to will—to have one’s effective will align with one’s second-order volitions.

A person is not just a being with second-order volitions, but also one for whom the freedom of the will is a possible concern. Wantons, who lack such volitions, cannot have free will and are excluded from this concern. Similarly, hypothetical beings whose wills are necessarily free are also excluded, since for them freedom of the will would not be a problem.

Frankfurt clarifies that a person’s will is free when it conforms to the volition he wants to have. The unwilling addict lacks this freedom because he is moved by a desire he wishes he didn’t have—his effective will is not the will he wants. In contrast, the wanton addict also lacks freedom of the will, but not because of internal conflict—rather, because he lacks second-order volitions altogether. His failure is passive, a lack of reflective concern.

Frankfurt notes that human beings often experience conflicts even at the level of second-order desires. When such conflict is unresolved, a person may fail to form any second-order volition, resulting in a loss of agency. The person may then become a helpless bystander to their own actions, similar to the unwilling addict but for different reasons.

Although higher-order desires can be extended endlessly (third-order, fourth-order, etc.), this regress can be terminated when a person decisively identifies with a particular desire. This commitment resonates through all higher levels, making further questions about higher-order desires irrelevant.

Finally, he emphasizes that freedom of the will need not involve struggle or deliberation. Some people naturally act in accordance with their second-order volitions, while others may not—regardless of whether this harmony or disharmony occurs through effort or spontaneity.

4. Moral Responsibility

He argues that his theory of freedom of the will makes sense of why we think only humans (not animals) can have it—and why it’s something valuable. Freedom of the will means a person can have the will they want to have. This kind of freedom brings satisfaction, because it allows a person to truly own their desires and actions. Without it, people feel alienated from themselves, like they’re just watching their actions without control.

Frankfurt compares this with other theories, like Chisholm’s, which say freedom means acting without being caused by anything (like a miracle). Frankfurt finds this unhelpful because it doesn’t explain why we’d value such freedom—or why animals wouldn’t have it.

He also challenges the idea that moral responsibility depends on having a free will. He thinks a person can be morally responsible even if their will isn’t free. What matters is whether they acted out of their own desires, even if those desires were determined.

He gives the example of a willing addict—someone whose addiction forces them to want drugs, but who also fully embraces that desire. Their will isn’t free (they couldn’t want otherwise), but they still act freely and responsibly, because they identify with their desire.

Finally, Frankfurt says his theory doesn’t depend on whether the universe is deterministic or not. It could be determined (by causes, chance, or something else) that some people have free wills and others don’t—and that’s not a contradiction.

My Own Thoughts

If, as Frankfurt argues, we as humans are responsible for our actions—even though we have no freedom of will, meaning that in every situation we could not have chosen otherwise—how can he say we are morally responsible?

Because then we would be like robots or machines, following a preprogrammed plan and never deviating from it. And if, in a car factory, a manufacturing robot kills a human because the person accidentally stepped into its path, would we fault the robot? No.

So what is the difference that would justify attributing moral responsibility to humans but not to robots or machines?

Frankfurt’s answer is that the difference lies precisely in the second-order desires that humans possess and robots do not.

But as we also established, not all humans possess the ability to have desires about their desires—for example, infants or people with profound cognitive disabilities. How does this affect them? They are not morally responsible for their actions, and this is not a counterintuitive notion.

If we look at how society—and we ourselves—treat these groups, it becomes clear: infants can’t be prosecuted by law, and if someone profoundly mentally disabled stabs another person, we generally do not hold them morally accountable.

Thus, our societal intuitions about who does and does not bear moral responsibility align perfectly with Frankfurt’s theory.

Background or Why this is relevant?

Why does Frankfurt define the will so weirdly?

It has to do with free will. The traditional argument goes like this:

1. If every act is determined by prior events and natural laws, then we couldn’t have acted differently—because for us to have done so, the prior events and laws would also have had to be different, which they are not.
2. If we couldn’t have acted differently—because no act has a real alternative—then the concept of “will,” as commonly understood (implying choice or freedom), seems to collapse.
3. If there is no such thing as will, then there can be no moral responsibility, since responsibility assumes we could have chosen otherwise.

Frankfurt responds to this dilemma by redefining “free will” in a way that doesn’t rely on the ability to do otherwise. For him, freedom of the will is not about external alternatives but about internal alignment—specifically, whether our actions stem from the desires we want to be motivated by.

He introduces the idea of higher-order volitions: we are free, and morally responsible, when our actions flow from desires that we endorse at a deeper level (i.e., when our first-order desires are in line with our second-order volitions). So, even in a deterministic universe, moral responsibility is preserved because it’s rooted not in alternative possibilities, but in authenticity and self-governance.

By defining the will this way, Frankfurt sidesteps the classic determinism problem and reframes free will as a matter of inner coherence rather than metaphysical freedom.

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