Comparing Three Consistency-Centered Approaches: Harry Frankfort, Gary Watson, and Mulla Sadra

In the Islamic philosophy and western philosophy, there are various explanations of the consistency between causal necessity and free will. The soul’s agency by manifestation for hierarchal willpowers, presented by Mulla Sadra as an explanation for this consistency, has considerable similarity to the view presented by Harry Frankfurt and Gary Watson (as another type of hierarchal approaches). These similarities are as follows: the role of hierarchal willpowers in strengthening human’s identity, the role of higher order willpowers in controlling the willpowers of the lower order and human’s actions, the hierarchal desires leading to a deep self as the main controller of those desires and willpowers, and no interference of the alternative possibilities (the possibility of available options) in the reality of free will. The important difference between Mulla Sadra’s approach and the two other approaches is that in Frankfurt and Watson’s approach, human’s deep self (as the ultimate origin of willpower) is not truly an essential thing; and this causes their hierarchal approach not to offer an acceptable answer for the drawback of vicious circle of willpowers; but in Mulla Sadra’s approach, this deep self is truly an essential thing that causes the hierarchal willpowers not to continue infinitely. Therefore, while Mulla Sadra’s approach enjoys the merits of Frankfurt and Watson’s approach in explaining the optional nature of willpower and controlling the desires, it lacks their drawback and is a more proper approach for consistency.