Stepping into a new city without a map, or quitting a job to try something completely different, feels like a distinct kind of freedom—yet philosophers have largely ignored it. This project, SPONT, addresses that gap by developing the first comprehensive theory of “spontaneous freedom”: the freedom of acting in ways that are unplanned, unscripted, and unalienated. Current philosophical accounts focus on freedom needed for moral responsibility or autonomous choice, but they miss the familiar, pleasurable experience of spontaneity that pervades art, literature, and everyday life. If successful, the theory could reshape how we think about the self and democratic progress. It also offers a concrete tool for regulating artificial intelligence and digital technologies that use large data sets to predict and shape our choices—systems that quietly erode the very unscriptedness this freedom depends on. The project is primarily fundamental philosophical research, but its insights into non-rationalist theories of the self could eventually inform how we design public spaces, education, and digital environments that preserve room for the unplanned.
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When contemporary moral and political philosophers write about freedom, they are typically concerned with a sort of freedom that is required for a person to be morally responsible for their actions, a sort of freedom needed for autonomous choice, or else a sort of freedom that is conceptually connected to a state's ability to claim legitimate authority. While many of these philosophical accounts of freedom have proven fruitful, none speaks to a way that the word 'freedom' is used in a completely familiar context: the way that setting off to explore a city you have never visited before, opening your sketchbook to a blank page, or quitting your job to take up a new vocation feels free. SPONT develops a novel theory of moral, political, and artistic freedom that will remedy the philosophical neglect of a variety of freedom that pervades literature, music, art, and everyday life. SPONT offers the first comprehensive philosophical account of spontaneous freedom, which is the freedom of acting in ways that are unplanned, unscripted, unalienated, and (typically) pleasurable. SPONT develops a theory of the nature of spontaneous freedom and the role it does and should play in our aesthetic, moral, and political lives. Recognising the value of spontaneous freedom and its centrality to democratic progress requires overhauling widely accepted philosophical theories of the self and politics. It also provides novel insights into how best to regulate artificial intelligence and emerging digital technologies that rely on large data sets to predict and shape our choices. Finally, it will consolidate an emerging philosophical renaissance of non-rationalist theories of the self. SPONT contributes to literature on the relationship between freedom and the state, the political morality of algorithmic manipulation, and the nature and value of freedom. Project outputs will include a PI-authored monograph, an edited volume, and a range of individual and collaborative research articles.
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