Determinism and free will can never be reconciled. Discuss.

by zboumrah (student)

AS and A Level Religious Studies & Philosophy

‘Determinism and free will can never be reconciled.’ Discuss.

In order to discuss the above statement, we must first understand the terms determinism and free will. Determinism is the philosophical idea that every event, including every human decision and action, is the inevitable and consequence of previous events and are ultimately determined by causes external to the will. Determinism can be divided into two branches; Hard determinists and Soft determinist. Free will, on the other hand, essentially is the human will to act freely without the constraint of necessity or fate. Free will and Determinism can be seen as complete opposites, thus agreeing with the statement. However some believe that the two can be combined.

Compatibilism is an attempt to reconcile both free will and determinism and suggests that it is possible to believe both without being logically inconsistent. This idea is very closely related to Soft determinism. John Locke was seen to believe in both ideas and he provided a brilliant way of understanding this idea through an example where a man who is fast asleep, is placed in a room where a person he longs to see and speak with is, and is fasten to the bed where it is beyond his power to get out. As he wakes up he realises he is in such good company and chooses willingly to stay, even though he has no choice as he is locked fast in, this choice can be seen as a free and voluntary decision. This perspective suggests that we believe in ourselves that we are free and we choose our decisions freely, however we are actually just walking along a determined pathway. This idea is summed up well by Locke: ‘Our idea of liberty reaches as far as that power, and no farther.’

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This brings up the question ‘so are we truly free?’ and there is no straight yes or no answer to that. Free will is our own free choice to make any decision we desire, but how do we come about making a choice? We turn to our conscience which chooses the most desirable choice for you. However, for us to be truly free, our conscience must have no bias, and not be influenced in any way, otherwise we are not, in essence, truly 100% free. Our conscience (i.e. our choice) is influenced by our surroundings, by authority figures like our parents or teachers, by people we look up to and idolise, and by our environment. For example, if a child wants to have a cookie, and his parents have promised him bad consequences if they find out he has taken one, even though he may really want the cookie, he will refrain from taking the cookie, suggesting he is not truly free to act as he desires. When making a choice our conscience takes all of these influences into consideration, so overall, the decision was heavily influenced by other people’s views and therefore means that the choice wasn’t a free one. This is where Determinists would agree as they believe decisions and events are determined by the events leading up to it (i.e. cause and effect).

Hard determinists would agree with the statement as they believe that free will cannot exist as they believe that every event is determined by the events of past and that it is a long chain, and any change would affect the whole chain. The problem with this view point is that it would therefore completely reject ethics. This is because it doesn’t believe in free will meaning that holding someone accountable for their actions is wrong as they have had no choice in committing the crime. To hold a person morally responsible requires for them to make a choice between two, or more, truly possible alternatives.

The only way of reconciling free will and determinism is through the idea of Compatibilism. However, some believe that a compatibilist’s view of free will is incorrect. Compatibilism defines free will as the freedom to act, whereas incompatibilists believe that free will is more than that and to say it is just the freedom to act is not sufficient. This suggests that both determinism and free will cannot be reconciled, which is more likely, as they are two very different, if not opposing ideas. However, Compatibilism is a good attempt to combine these two philosophical ideas.