Lockes Volunteer Prison

Locke’s Voluntary Prisoner

          This thought experiment is that a man is asleep and carried into a room and locked in unknown to him. He is locked in a room with someone he has longed to see and talk with. He awakes and finds himself in good company where he stays willingly. Is the man truly free? Is his stay voluntary?

         Is the man truly free? According to deep self compatibilism which states that actions are free if they are caused by desires that are truly our own authentic desires then he is free. You have free will if the action that is happening is by your own free will and it is not forced. I may desire a piece of cake and don’t mind going to the extreme to get it. When I receive the cake I am happy and eat slice after slice right then and there I am free to enjoy this cake. No matter what comes later at that moment I am enjoying cake and that’s all I wanted and desired. If this is true then deep self compatibilism is true.  

          We are then faced with the true dilemma of what is considered free will? Since the person is fulfilling his desires of speaking with someone who he longs to see and speak with and he has not of yet come to the realization that he is locked in, he is enjoying his time in the room. He is just where he wants to be in that moment, no worry no cares then he is indeed free. “So far as a man has power to think or not think, to move or not move, according to the preference or direction of his own mind, so far is a man free.” (Tittle p.17)        

          When considering this thought experiment from an angle of freedom, not of just mind but free physically one begins to wonder is this person truly free?  The view of libertarianism states that human beings have special causal powers and are free to shape the future. You have to have two options to have free will. Yes, this person's stay is voluntary since he prefers to be there but it is not free since he is not capable of leaving. Locke states, “That questions about 'free will' don't make sense 'freedom' and 'will' are two different things: will is the capacity to think of various actions and choose whichever is preferable, whereas freedom is the capacity to actually do as one wills. So the question isn't whether the will is free, says Locke, but whether a person is free" (Tittle, p.17). Wherever any movement or ability to perform are not equally in a man power; wherever doing or not doing will not equally follow when the persons mind is telling it to, then he is not free, though perhaps the action may be voluntary.

                So that the idea of freedom is, the idea of a power in any person to do or abstain any particular action, according to the determination or thought of the mind, by which either of them is preferred to the other: where either of them is not in the power of the person to be produced by him according to his desires, there is not freedom; that person is in need. So that freedom cannot be where there is no thought, no desire, no will; but there may be thought, there may be will there may be desire, where there is no freedom.

        My position on this thought experiment is that is truly hard to be considered totally free if you are locked in a room and you have no idea you are locked in there. What does it mean to be free? Freedom to me means the ability to come and go as you please to have options as to what one wants to do. You can’t believe that being free solely consist of what you desire, when as humans our desires can change and when that happens we need to have an option.  

          When I find out that I am locked in this room and I am not at able to leave, I have no options. Free will allows you choice, so mentally I may be free because I have fulfilled my authentic desires but physically I am restrained in this room until my captors see fit to release me. You have a free will when you have the power to choose. It is something we do daily when I decide to come to class or not come to class these are choices; it’s truly free will. We must remember there are two different aspects of freedom in question here: freedom with regard to actions and freedom with regard to choice.