The human will debate between western and Yoruba philosophical traditions

Discourse on human will has a long history in the Western philosophical tradition; in fact, this history is as old as the history of Western philosophy itself. In this regard, the discourse on human will remains evergreen, with changing subject-matter from one period to another. With regard to subject-matter, the discourse on human will has significant implications for other intellectual disciplines that deal with the study of human species. As such, the paper centres on the most recurring debate in the history of the discourse on human will. The paper re-examines the various controversies that have been generated by the question whether the human will is free or not. To date, this question has had serious implications for the way we construe existence in all forms. The paper re-considers the debate within the bounds of two distinct thought-systems in the Western and Yoruba philosophical traditions. Within the context of Western thought, the paper focuses on doctrines that have evolved in the attempt to address or respond to the question whether the human will is free or not. The reason for dealing with doctrines rather than individual scholars is that it avoids the unnecessary repetition of arguments. The paper examines the works of some scholars in the Yoruba tradition who have contributed to the discourse on the fundamental question; however, these contributions misrepresent Yoruba thought. Thus, the paper argues that the question of whether human will is free or not does not arise in the Yoruba philosophical system. Analytical and phenomenological methods of research are adopted in the paper. The analytic approach is important to achieve the twin goal of explanation and clarity of concepts and issues; that is, the method will afford us the opportunity to engage with the literature and subject it to critical exposition. The phenomenological approach is significant as an interpretative tool for interrogating oral account that would properly account for the notion and conception of the human will in Yoruba thought.


Introduction
In the We ern inte lectual tradition, the dominant discourse on the human wi l is whether it is free or not to perform its attributed function of initiating deliberate choice and a ion.In other words, discourse on the human wi l in We ern philosophy has taken the form of a debate among thinkers in a l fields that constitute knowledge, and has been live since antiquity; this debate concerns whether or not the wi l is free in car ying out its attributed duties.

The human will debate between western and Yoruba philosophical traditions
Since this discourse is so dominant in We ern thought, it is interesting to examine Yoruba thought on the same issue in order to e a lish how dominant it is within that culture.Thus it is pertinent to revisit this question as it occurs in We ern philosophy.However, a consideration of a l the thinkers that have contributed to the discourse in one way or another is not possi le because they are too numerous to be accommodated in this paper; therefore, rather than being concern with individual philosopher's contribution to the discourse, we are concerned with the fundamentals that a low us to categorise them into various stances on the question.
In Yoruba thought, the question of whether the human wi l is free or not does not in fact arise; however, this does not mean that this important question eludes people.In fact, from our study, and as we hope to demonstrate, in contrast with the discourse in We ern philosophy, in Yoruba thought the human wi l is paradoxica ly ascribed both free and unfree attributes.That is, a response to the question in Yoruba thought takes the form of quasi-indeterminism.By quasi-indeterminism, we mean that the human wi l is as free as it is unfree, as we l as possessing the a ditional attribute of not exhibiting these traits in some circumstances, namely while initiating decisions and a ions.

The question of the human will in western thought
The doctrines of pre-determinism, determinism, indeterminism, and non-determinism are popular in We ern inte lectual discourse on the human wi l.Principa ly, the question that each one attempts to a dress is whether the human wi l (as a constituent part of human ontology) is free or not to engage in the act of initiating deliberate choice and a ion.As a matter of necessity, it is important to review this question in We ern philosophy in order to demonstrate the claim of each doctrine.
Pre-deter inism (or fatalism) -this doctrine holds that "human choice and a ion have no influence on future events, which wi l be as they wi l be regar less of whatever we think or do" (Craig, 2000, p. 274).This view of pre-determinism su gests one of two things: either that the human wi l has been fixed from the beginning of time, or that the human wi l as ontologica ly conceived (as an immaterial constituent of human nature) is a misconception.
Deter inism (or hard determinism) -this doctrine claims that "human a ions and choices, without exception, are tota ly determined" (Feinberg, 1989, p. 342).This suggests that the process of making decisions and taking a ions is predicta le; that is, a decision does not occur as a first cause, rather it occurs as a result of the pre-existent criteria for a ecific decision's being made having been met.This doctrine denies that we are either in control or capa le of exercising our wi l freely.
Indeter inism (or soft-determinism) -this doctrine holds that as humans, some of our a ions and decisions are functions of human free wi l, while some others are causa ly constrained.Cogently stated: It is only in the human realm that the indeterminist wishes to press his case.Reflex actions are 100 percent caused, since with regard to them we are not active but passive; the only area in which universal causality does not hold is in the realm of actions, the things we do.With regard to these actions -or at any rate some of them -no one will ever be able to predict them, no matter how such physiological and psychological knowledge we get about their antecedent conditions, because the causal principle does not apply to them (Hospers, 1967, p. 324-325).
Here it is clear that indeterminism does not ar ue against determinism completely, but only partia ly.In fact, indeterminism as outline above delineates the boundary of human a ions and decisions that can be determined in distinction from those that are of free wi l.
Non-Deter inism(or freewi lism) -this doctrine is the "belief in freewi l, which amounts to the conviction that human beings are endowed with the capacity for choice of a ion, for decision among alternatives, and ecifica ly that, given an innate moral sense, man can freely discern good and evil" (Marcoulesco, 1987, p. 419).As it ap ears, the doctrine favours absolute freedom of the human wi l, wherein the wi l is not restrained in any form or capacity from initiating decision and a ion.
In other words, sup orters of non-determinism (or the freewi lists) affirm that human decisions and a ions are autonomous choices among a number of possibilities.Against this background, a fundamental tenet of this doctrine is that humans are aware that each and every decision they take and a ion they perform is a free and deliberate initiative of their wi l, rather than the result of some previous events, decisions, or a ions.

The question and some scholars on Yoruba thought
The accounts of most scholars on Yoruba thought with regard to the question of whether the human wi l is free or not clearly show that they are a l cases of misplaced articulations; in other words, these accounts contain many inaccuracies, including the misap lication of terms, mis-utilization of doctrines, failure to properly ap ropriate conceptual equivalences in different cultures (in this case the Yoruba and Western cultures), flagrant imposition of categories of one culture unto another, and so on.Each of these inaccuracies or combinations thereof lead any inte lectual account to be categorized as a case of misplaced articulation.
A consideration of the works of some of these scholars wi l vindicate our claim.For a start, the article "The Yoruba Conception of Destiny: A Critical Analysis" by Samuel Ade Ali is important.In the article, the primary aim is to e a lish that "[o] i is a quasi-metaphysical entity which authenticates the uniqueness of a person in Yoruba thought" (Ali, 1994, p. 100); whether or not he succeeds in this objective is not an issue here; what is of paramount concern is the incorporation of We ern doctrine(s).
According to Ali: Ori and the idea of predestination or human destiny as one of the important tripartite elements constituting the nature of a person in Yoruba […] implies the idea of causal explanatory paradigm in relation to human personality in Yoruba thought and this give rise to several conceptual problems such as the paradox of the alterable and unalterable destiny (1994, p. 100).
In the quote above, we see that there is a clear pro lem of conceptualization; first Ali takes o i in Yoruba thought to be identical with the idea of destiny as it ap ears in We ern thought.Contrary to this view, o i is not identical with destiny; rather it is only a bearer of destiny (Gbadegesin, 2004, p. 314-315).The second pro lem, which is most important for our purposes here, is that the scholar seems to assume one of two things: (i) that the concept of the human wi l eludes the Yoruba people, and therefore, there is no need to demonstrate whether there is a wi l or not in Yoruba thought; and (ii) that the idea of human wi l is implicit in the idea of o i.
As a result of these conceptual pro lems, Ali therefore posits that However, I maintained that the idea of causal determinism suggested by the Yoruba notion of destiny […] is not a rigid one that makes human destiny autobiographically or naturally unalterable.Rather, it is an explanatory paradigm which coheres with the reality of responsibility, freewill and the use of reasoning faculty (1994, p. 100).
In line with this position, he posits that: I propose and defend the claim that the Yoruba are better seen as soft-determinists rather than determinists or fatalists as some scholars on African studies would want us to believe (Ali, 1994, p. 100).
In another article titled "African Conception of Man and the Paradox of Altera le and Unaltera le Destiny in Yoruba Metaphysics" , Ali posits that: In the final analysis, it is argued that the Yoruba people, given their paradoxical no-tion of human destiny, are freewillists.They are because their conception of human destiny regards freedom as well as reason as two features which are not only immanent in the nature of man but are also basic to the survival of man and the actualization of human destiny (2007, p. 48).
In placing the two articles by the same author side-byside, one obvious pro lem is that he claims in the first that the Yoruba system of thought favours soft determinism (indeterminism as explicated at the beginning of this paper), and then that it favours freewi lism (non-determinism) in the second.This inconsistency regards where the Yoruba stands in re ect to the question as treated in We ern philosophy.So this must have been largely due to what the scholar himself identified as the "paradox" in Yoruba thought.
Ali's inconsistency started with his failure to properly identify the Yoruba equivalent of the human wi l.In a dition to this, he employs We ern concepts and terms to inter ogate the Yoruba worldview, which is origina ly chara erized by paradoxes.
In particular, the scholar thinks that o i is or embodies the human wi l.In fact, the scholar sticks to this idea and thinks that it is unnecessary to actua ly investigate whether the Yoruba have any conception of human wi l separate from o i or as a constituent attribute of o i. Unambi uously, we can see clearly that the contribution of this scholar, from a Yoruba per ective, cannot but be regarded as misplaced articulation regarding the question of whether the wi l is free or not.
The articles of Balo un are also of utmost interest to the present work.The first is titled "The Concept of o i and Human Destiny in Traditional Yoruba Thought: A Soft Deterministic Interpretation" and the second is titled "o i as the Sole Determinant of Human Personality in Traditional Yoruba African Thought" .
In the first article, the author's principal concern is "to e a lish and strengthen the ar ument that the Yoruba are soft-determinists in their understanding of and belief in, the concept of o i and human destiny" (Balo un, 2007, p. 117).How far he achieves this aim may not be as important as the arsenal of We ern categories he deploys to inter ogate Yoruba thought regarding o i rather than human wi l.
At the outset, the scholar ap ears to want to demarcate the boundary between discourse on the human wi l and that of o i in Yoruba thought, when he sup oses that "o i [,] which is of immediate concern to us in this paper, represents the individuality element in a person" (Balo un, 2007, p. 118).This sounds very much like an attempt to delineate between o i and the human wi l in Yoruba thought, and this continues to be the case since he asserts that "o i has nothing to do with moral chara er, and as such it does not affect a l of human actions and/or ina ions, in fact, nowhere in any of the ancient Yoruba scriptures is there the claim that moral chara er can be pre-determined by o i" (Balo un, 2007, p. 125).Without any further articulation, this shows that the author is at the point of separating issues of o i from that of the human wi l in order to ap ropriately employ the We ern categories of fatalism, determinism, hard-determinism, soft-determinism, and freewi l.
However, he does not continue with this in subsequent paragraphs, but instead fashions the rest of the article in such a manner as to display misplaced articulation.This misplacement begins to rear its head when the author submits that ''the Yoruba posit the concept of afowofa […] as explanation for some of the pro lems that befa l a person'' (Balo un, 2007, p. 126).
Whatever he meant to say here, we must acknowledge that it is true that the Yoruba people ta k about afowofa (selfcaused); but the author himself fails to realize that afowofa does not just hap en; it is in fact a descriptive word that captures the consequence(s) (particularly negative) of one's deliberate decisions and a ions initiated by one's own wi l.That is, without the human wi l that initiates a ion and decision in a person, any discourse on afowofa wi l not arise, because the concept of afowofa is an indication that a person's wi l must have led the person to a situation or condition that is described as afowofa.
Furthermore, most importantly, Balo un posits that The Yoruba traces the course of some events to the individual person who performs the action and not supernatural force outside of man.Such actions are located in the realm of natural and are empirically observable.It is for this reason that people are punished for wrongdoing because they are believed to be responsible for their actions.This then suggests that in the analysis of the concepts of ori or destiny, the Yoruba falls within the gamut of what is called 'soft-determinism' in metaphysical terms.The nature of ori and human destiny in Yoruba belief is neither fatalism in the strict sense of it, nor hard determinism.The Yoruba conception of human destiny is indeed soft-deterministic in nature (Balogun, 2007, p. 126).
Glaringly, this submission shows that the author himself qualifies the entire contents of his article as misplaced articulation.The first thing we should observe from the above is that in the thinking of this scholar, just like in the thinking of the scholar we considered first, the Yoruba concept of o i is synonymous with the Yoruba conception of the human wi l.Here, we think this is what is largely responsi le for the misuse and mis-ap ropriation of We ern notions (or metaphysical terms, as he ca ls them) of determinism, fatalism, soft-determinism, and so on.
Although, outside this glaring fact of misconception about o i and the human wi l, one would have expected this scholar to be conscious of how these We ern categories should ap ly; in other words, the way the scholar sets out to achieve his aim, never mind the title of the paper, su gest that he is aware that discourse on any of the We ern terms of determinism, indeterminism, soft-determinism, hard-determinism, and fatalism relates to the human wi l.
We now turn to the second article by Balo un, because it "is a fo low up" (Balo un, 2010, p. 1) to the first.In this article, Balo un's thesis is to defend the position that "it is the combinations of the functions of 'o i' […] 'okan' and 'ese' that jointly determine and constitute human personality in Yoruba thought" (Balo un, 2010, p. 1).
In the course of the article he stum les on Kola Abimbola's submission that "discussing 'o i' (Inner head) in relation to moral responsibility and autonomy as some scholars have done is misplaced" (Balo un, 2010, p. 7).Balo un might have then retraced his steps and moved away from further misplaced articulations.That is, he finds a clear enough pointer to demonstrate that discourse on determinism, indeterminism, and the likes in relation to o i instead of the human wi l is misplaced.
In sum, the works of the two scholars that have been considered here (and others not considered) on the issue of whether the human wi l is free or not in Yoruba thought, visà-vis the We ern categories of determinism, indeterminism, and so on, are misplaced on the fo lowing grounds: (i) None of them demonstrates a clear understanding of the Yoruba conception of the human wi l. (ii) No one among them thinks of dichotomizing, or even that there is a dichotomy, between o i and the human wi l in Yoruba thought.(iii) By extension, they a l confuse the ontological nature, status, and function of o i and the human wi l, which they see as synonymous.(iv) Each one mis-utilizes We ern terminology to interrogate an important concept in Yoruba thought; they also impose these terminologies in their exploration of Yoruba thought on the human wi l question.
Thus they perform misplaced articulations.We now move on to an investigative and interpretative articulation of the traditional Yoruba worldview concerning the question of whether the human wi l is free or not in the proper performance of its function of initiating deliberate decisions and a ions in the human person.

Yoruba indigenous knowledge system and the question on the human will
Above, we showed that the word afowofa (self-caused) is descriptive in the sense that it is employed in Yoruba to convey the negative consequences of choices arising from any individual's human wi l.This simply indicates that Yoruba thought favours the position that the human wi l is absolutely free, which is ca led non-determinism in We ern philosophy.This is evident in Yoruba proverbs like 'Boti wu oloju ni i se oju e' (One han les one's eyes as one so desires) and ' A kii pe ki omo e ma d'ete, b'oba ti le da igbo gbe' (No one should stop a child from having leprosy, such child only need to be ready to reside in the forest).
These proverbs clearly show the Yoruba belief in non-determinism because each reveals the exercise of freewi l by individuals; in fact, the second proverb clearly ca ls one to exercise one's freewi l in the form of a readiness to take responsibility for the consequence(s) of one's a ions and decisions.If the consequence(s) of one's a ions/decisions turn out to have negative effect on one, this is where the idea of afowofa comes in, to describe such an effect.
Further sup orting the view that the Yoruba belief on the human wi l question is one of non-determinism, the o u ifa Obara ofun (Adewale-Soma hi, 2009, p. 55-56) gives credence to this in its claim that

Ahere oko a b'idi jeere jeere Agbalagba ejo ni i fi idobale ara re wo'le D'ifa fun Babalawo meta A bu fun Olumoran mefa Nje ta ni agba Imoran ni a nko da, ki a to da Ifa
The hut in the farm with a big buttock Old snake debases itself crawling Divined for three Babalawos Divined for six clairvoyants The day they staged a superiority contest in Ile Ife Who is superior?Ifa is superior Decision must be made first before one consults Ifa The above o u is a clear demonstration that Yoruba thought on the question is better classified as non-determinism, e ecia ly considering the last line of the o u, which states that a decision must be ma e first before one consults ifa.
However, there is evidence su gesting that the Yoruba thought also at times favours pre-determinism, determinism, and indeterminism; that is, evidence abounds in the Yoruba worldview that people think about the freedom/unfreedom of the human wi l in terms of a l the other doctrines of Western philosophy we have considered.
As pre-determinism, Yoruba thought sup orts the doctrine that the human wi l is a constituent part of a person that initiates decisions and a ions that have been fixed in the pre-existent life of that person.Here, a person's wi l acts out scripts that have been written for an her in a pre-existent world; in this sense, whatever decision and a ion is initiated by the human wi l, the outcome wi l always be what has been written.As evidence, it is common among the people to hear proverbs like 'Riro ni ti eniyan, Sise ni t' olorun' (A person ponders and thinks, but the almighty acts accordingly).and Bi a un ata l'o o, Bi a un ata l'olo, Iwa ata ko pa ai' (If pep er is grinded in the mortal or on the grinding stone, none changes the nature of the pep er).
In these proverbs, we can see that the message conveyed in each is that what wi l be wi l be, no matter how hard we endeavour to change the situation.In clear terms, the first proverb states that one's existence is designed to be lived according to the dictates of the designer -the Supreme Being.
In a dition to the above, the o u ifa Ika oturupon (Adewale-Soma hi, 2009, p. 75-76) reveals sup ort for pre-determinism in Yoruba belief in that:

Ka sangbo sansan bi ala aa D'ifa fun ajinife omo Olofin Ka in hooho bi eledun D'ifa fun Sa oyanyan omobin in Ode Owu To i ki won ma ba a ji mi fe Mo fi ide erewere se eke ile To i ki won ma ba a ji mi fe Mo fi ide gbaraga a se ase ilekun Won tun a ji mi fe bee be…
To clear the land fast Divined for Ajinife who was Olofin's son To wa k about naked like an axe Divined for Sadoyanyan, a female citizen of Owu town To prevent being made love to without my consent I bolted my doors with stu ded brass To prevent being made love to without my consent I bolted my doors with large stu ded brass In spite of those precautions, I was sti l made love to In this o u, we can see that a l efforts to prevent a situation from hap ening do not change anything: what is design to hap en actua ly hap ened.
But we also find indeterminism -the doctrine that the human wi l initiates some decisions and a ions freely while some of its decisions and a ions are caused.Yoruba belief also gives sup ort to this doctrine.For instance, the fo lowing proverbs articulate indeterminism in Yoruba thought: Ti a ba wo didun ifon, a o wo 'a d'e un' (If we are to consider the sweetness of scratching the skin, we sha l have to scratch to the bone) and 'Lehin oku la a je akara itufo' (We consume burial's beancake only after the death of someone).
Clearly indicated in the proverbs above is that individuals are free to act as desired, but that there are factors that limit the exercise of this freedom to act.As a point of clarification, the first proverb indicates that there is a limit to our freedom while the second a ditiona ly conveys the message that it is not in our purview to take decisions or a ions in some situations.
Furthermore, the o u ifa Ofun Nogbe (Adewale-Soma hi, 2009, p. 111-112) clearly reveals that Yoruba thought sup orts indeterminism.This is because the o u shows that at some points in time in this material world, individual wi l initiates decisions and a ions that are caused, and at some other points it explores the freedom associated with it.According to this o u: When one is warned And one listens and accepts the warning Life wi l be easy and comforta le for one When one is warned And one re ects and obeys the warning Life wi l be easy and comforta le for one Refusal to listen Refusal to heed warning Ode's Babalawo gave him a fixed ifa medicine When ode was going to the forest for his usual seven days hunting expedition He was advised to make sacrifice So that he would be lessed from the expedition He was forbi den liquor Tribal-marks-on-the-face, citizen of Egba Tribal-marks-on-the-neck, citizen of Ijesa Poro un matuye i child of river go dess Ijaye citizen is going back to Ijaye Senior wife revealed the secret of my true identity In sup ort of determinism -the view that a l our actions and decisions are the results of previous knowa le causes, Yoruba belief also claims that Ai u eki i, a o ko le fi awo re se gbedu' (Without the death of Eki i [a kind of animal], no one uses its' skin to construct the gbedu [a kind of drum]) and ' Adaniloro f'agbara ko ni' (The wickedness suffered by someone make her a stronger person).
These proverbs advance the message that individuals' conduct and decisions derive from determina le causes.This is e ecia ly so in the case of the second proverb because it is impregnated with the idea that the effect of being strong results from the cause of the wickedness that one suffers in the hands of others.Also in sup ort of this view, the o u ifa O unda irete (Adewale-Soma hi, 2009, p. 66-65)  We can see that Yoruba thought is so rich that it also gives sup ort to determinism as a metaphysical doctrine in relation to the question of human wi l.On this note, we may go on and on providing evidence from Yoruba thought that sup orts any of these doctrines in We ern philosophy on the question whether the human wi l is free or not; and this may lead any onlooker to conclude that thought on the issue is inconsistent.
We must point out here that it is not a crime for a cultural inte lectual tradition to be embe ded with evidence and sup ort for multiple doctrines on an issue.The idea of personhood (see Makinde, 2007;Akintola, 1999;Oladipo, 1992;Awolalu andDopamu, 2005 [1979]; Abimbola, 1971;Idowu, 1962, and others) in Yoruba thought has a useful purpose to serve in this sense: the conception of the freedom/unfreedom of the human wi l in Yoruba thought remains salient and paradoxical in this worldview.
The above observation notwithstanding, there is evidence in Yoruba thought that can give credence to a l known doctrines in We ern philosophy; and in spite of the fact that the initiation of decisions and a ions in individuals remains a paradox (both in the pre-existent and physical existence of a person), the Yoruba position on the question can best be described as quasi-indeterminism.
By quasi-indeterminism, I mean that the Yoruba belief is neither for nor against the (im)possibility of a free/unfree human wi l; in other words, the Yoruba belief is devoid of this question.This contention is explicitly e a lished by the Yoruba expression that Aditulaiye, meaning life is paradoxical (or is a paradox).
The paradoxes of life, as held in Yoruba thought, explain the intermittent shifts of the Yoruba position on the question of whether the human wi l is free or not.These alternatives on the question of the human wi l in the material world (even in the pre-existent life of human beings) are not combina le in any of the availa le doctrines in We ern philosophy.Therefore, by quasi-indeterminism, we mean that the elements of freedom and unfreedom (as we l as neither) chara erize the human wi l question in Yoruba thought.

Conclusion
We have examined the human wi l question as it exists in We ern philosophy by demonstrating the various metaphysical doctrines that chara erized the discourse.We ecifica ly articulated that in the We ern inte lectual tradition the question is constituted by four main doctrines: pre-determinism (or fatalism), determinism (or hard determinism), indeterminism (or soft determinism), and non-determinism (or freewi lism).
In the paper, we demonstrated that some of the known analyses of the Yoruba per ective are misleading.These contributions are misleading because scholars have mis-equated the human wi l with o i in Yoruba thought.
In this connection, we are a le to show that the idea of the human wi l is not elusive in Yoruba thought; and o i is not the Yoruba equivalent of the human wi l (see Shitta-Bey, 2014, for the Yoruba equivalent and conception of the human wi l).In sum, the paper has shown that the Yoruba belief in the human wi l question cannot be pinned down to any of the known metaphysical doctrines in We ern philosophy; rather the Yoruba belief on the question is best categorized as quasi-indeterminism.