freedom of will

In the reading “Freedom of the Will And the Concept of a Person” By Harry G. Frankfurt, Frankfurt takes a deeper look into the freedom of will concept. In the beginning it was very confusing because he uses examples that are hard to follow, for example instead of saying actions he says “X” and instead of saying man or people he says “A” and it got really hard to follow. I understood what he was trying to say but he could have done a better job with it. A part that I found really interesting in section II was his description of “second order violations”. His use of the example of the narcotics addicts was used very well; I was able to understand the idea of desire and free will because of that example. I found it interesting to know that addicts do not have freedom of will according to Frankfurt. The addicts are against their will and their will forces them to take the drug. In the reading Frankfurt asked an interesting question that caught my attention “Just what kind of freedom is the freedom of will?” That question had me think, and was later answered by Frankfurt when he said that “ having the freedom to do what one wants to do is not sufficient condition of having free will”. I agree with this that you can have the freedom to do what you want, but in reality you don’t have freedom of will and that we are just a helpless bystander to the forces that move us. Overall this was not one of my favorite readings, but it was an interesting one. There were many strong points that he brought up about freedom of will that liked and he also had points that I disliked.