EleutherIA — Defined term

Libertas Spontaneitatis (Liberty of Spontaneity)

libertas spontaneitatis

Early Modern

Liberty of spontaneity is the school distinction, explicitly reported by Hume in Treatise 2.3.2.1, for freedom to act according to one's will without external violence or obstruction; it contrasts with liberty of indifference understood there as absence of necessity and causes. This form of freedom can be compatible with causal determination, but different early modern authors add different conditions. Aristotle's hekousion and Stoic accounts of assent are useful structural comparisons, not attestations of the Latin term or proof of a direct historical adaptation.

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