Religious and cultural background may also influence this decision considering the fact that a Muslim woman would have to think carefully about her dress so as to be dressed modestly as her religion states she must. Even past experience may effect our judgement, in this case possibly someone telling you an article of clothing didn’t suit you would dissuade you from choosing that item. Other, possibly trivial, aspects such as the weather or having a certain piece of clothing clean would determine the choice made.
The philosopher Van Inwagen elaborated upon this initial idea of past events effecting current decisions:
‘My action today is the consequence of a causal circumstance in the remote past before I was born’
(Van Inwagen)
He believed that previous events even prior to birth could effect the decisions made in our life now.
Sigmund Freud first suggested the notion of psychological conditioning that would, again, condition our decisions and actions. He separated the human psyche into three parts; the Id, Ego and Super-Ego. The Id is our child hood desires to seek pleasure and avoid pain and demands immediate gratification, the Super-Ego is the ideals we would like to create in society, whilst the Ego moderates the two due to being governed by the ‘reality principle’. It is then that our motives and desires emerge subconsciously from the psyche, usually as a result of suppressed feelings which emerge later in life. Carl Jung furthered Freud’s theory stating that the choices that we are conscious of making (the individual consciousness) are affected by the individual, cultural and universal subconscious. The individual subconscious is a personal aspect that we are not aware of but effects our decision making, the cultural subconscious consists of cultural aspects that instruct you whether or not to do something, whereas the universal subconscious is an aspect of life which affects everyone across the world. The idea of genetic conditioning has also been approached. This was first suggested by Cesar Lombrosro who believed that you could determine who was a criminal by the way they looked. From his research Lombrosro was able to create a stereotype of a criminals face. Of course this theory has advanced extensively since this early discovery and it is now believed that our genes are responsible for shaping our behaviour:
‘Surely a world in which every aspect of human behaviour is hard-wired into our genes cannot comfortably exist with the concept of personal responsibility and free will’
(Frances S. Collins)
Therefore, if we are to believe that human behaviour is determined by our genes then humans cannot yet again be responsible for their actions as it is their nature.
However, all the previously mentioned factors which affect our choices do this subconsciously; therefore we are led to believe an action is free when actually it is not. For this reason C. Williams labelled the theories central to hard determinism as ‘pseudo-freedom’ specifically because it is a false freedom. Consequently, if human beings are not responsible for their actions how can they be blame or praise-worthy because of the results of their actions:
‘Either it is an accident that I choose to act as I do or it is not. If it is an accident, then it is merely a matter of chance that I did not choose otherwise; and if it is merely a matter of chance that I did not choose otherwise, it is surely irrational to hold me morally responsible for choosing as I did’
(A.J Ayer)
Due to this morality cannot be free, thus making sin an incoherent concept. How can a human being be labelled sinful if the act they committed was made through no decision of their own? An example of this presented by J. Hospers compares a kleptomaniac and a thief. In a world governed by hard determinism neither is blameworthy as neither person has a choice with regard to the act of theft. Even the thief who was conditioned by past cause, as mentioned previously.
To summarise, hard determinism focuses on the concept that human beings are not responsible for their actions as they do not decide them freely, rather they are determined for the individual by specific factors and past causes. Although we may believe that we are free to make our own decisions, whatever they may be, we are sadly misunderstood:
‘All events are totally predetermined by other events and so freedom of choice is an illusion’
(J. Mackie)
