The concept of higher-order voltions was introduced by Harry Frankfurt, who used it to explain free will independently of determinism, of the thesis that what happens in the world is determined by predictable natural laws, which is however made unplausible by Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle and resulting quantum noise. But even if the world were governed by such laws, one could be free in the sense that higher-order volitions determined the primacy of first-order desires. This view is called compatibilism.
An example for a failure to follow higher-order volitions is the drug addict who takes drugs even though they would like to quit taking drugs. According to Frankfurt, the drug addict has established free will when their higher-order volition to stop wanting drugs determines the precedence of their changing, action-determining desires either to take drugs or not to take drugs.[1]
The philosopher John Locke already claimed that free will was the ability to stop before making a decision, to consider what would be best to do, and the ability to decide and act based on the outcome of that thinking, which could be seen as equivalent to forming a higher-order volition.[2] Locke concludes that when it comes to “chusing a remote [i.e., future] Good as an end to be pursued”, agents are “at Liberty in respect of willing” and that “in [the power to suspend the prosecution of one’s desires] lies the liberty Man has”, that the power to suspend is “the source of all liberty”.[2] Locke argues that if the will were determined by the perceived greater good, every agent would be consistently focused on the attainment of “the infinite eternal Joys of Heaven”,[2] which consequently would be the topmost higher-order voliton to win Pascal's wager, corresponding to the drug addict's desire to survive his drug addiction.