Empiricism, Rationalism, Self-Determination

The tendency in contemporary academic Philosophy to classify the Empiricism vs. Rationalism debate as primarily Epistemological obscures its Moral significance, of which the pivotal thinkers were clearly more aware. Since, for an Empiricist, all experience begins with received sense-data, behavior can only be, as is implied in Hume's concept of it, reactive, i. e. inadequately caused, according to Spinoza, and heteronomous, in Kant's system. In contrast, Rationality, whether as conceived by either of those two, or by Aristotle, is potentially spontaneous, i. e. is the source of adequate causality, according to Spinoza, and is autonomous, in Kant's system. In other words, Empiricism is constrained by its methodology to Behaviorism, thus, perhaps unwittingly, committing any Political or Economic system on which it is based, e. g. Locke's and Smith's, to a 'freedom' that is only superficial. In contrast, Rationalism, as Spinoza and Kant each show, can accommodate the kind of Self-Determination that is entailed in Rousseau's concept of a General Will.