The Role of Free Will in American Political Thought: A Case Study of Jefferson, Ideological Determinism, and the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom

Abstract

Penned by Thomas Jefferson in 1777, the original bill for establishing religious freedom followed from an explicit denial of human free will over the content of one’s thoughts. For the bill to pass, though, this clause had to be removed. That the assemblymen chose to drop the anti-free will clause but retain the enacting freedom reflects a longstanding American tradition of ignoring metaphysical commitments by presupposing them. Ironically, this tradition began with Jefferson himself who distanced himself from metaphysics while presupposing what I call “ideological determinism,” the belief that humans are not responsible for their thoughts. Rather than continuing in this tradition of maintaining a public “light-mindedness” concerning philosophical questions, as the late Richard Rorty suggests Americans should, I suggest that philosophical light-mindedness in practice often amounts to the inconsistent exploitation of the public’s presuppositions by power-hungry politicians.