Free Will and Determinism

International Baccalaureate Misc

Core Theme: What is a human being?

Analytic Perspective

Free will and Determinism

Background: the issue of freewill arises in the context of the analytic perspective on the question of what a human being is because of the initial definition of the human by Descartes as made up of immaterial mind and material body. While the body is determined by the laws of physics (e.g. we are determined to fall if we jump off a building) we also experience the sensation of being free to choose in other matters (e.g. we feel free to choose whether to jump off a building). The question has profound implications for ethics: normally the ability to choose freely is a precondition for taking moral responsibility for an action (e.g. isn't there a difference between choosing to jump and being pushed off that building?) Philosophers in the analytic tradition (and farther back in the essentialist tradition) have debated the issue. The following is a summary of the general idea of many of those arguments.

Arguments for Determinism

1. Theological argument: based on the notion of 'Predestination'.

We are not free because the future is known by an all-knowing God who has already ‘created’ our future.

2. Metaphysical argument: based on the idea that ‘every event must have a cause’. The events which are human actions are not exempted. If they have a cause, then they can be predicted. If they can be predicted, they are not free.

3. Scientific argument: based on new knowledge in various scientific fields.

Increasingly, genetics, psychology and neurology suggest that there are very strong influences on us to do and become certain things.

Arguments for Free Will

1. Libertarian argument: based on our experience of feeling free.

We feel that we are free, so even if we aren’t we should act as if we are.

2. Scientific argument: based on the Heisenburg Uncertainty Principle.

Because at the quantum level, we can never have certainty about both the location and momentum of a particle, there is an element of fundamental indeterminacy in nature.

3. Moral argument: based on the implications of determinism on morality.

If there were no free will, there could be no religions, law or morality.

4. William James’ argument: ...

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Arguments for Free Will

1. Libertarian argument: based on our experience of feeling free.

We feel that we are free, so even if we aren’t we should act as if we are.

2. Scientific argument: based on the Heisenburg Uncertainty Principle.

Because at the quantum level, we can never have certainty about both the location and momentum of a particle, there is an element of fundamental indeterminacy in nature.

3. Moral argument: based on the implications of determinism on morality.

If there were no free will, there could be no religions, law or morality.

4. William James’ argument: based on our feelings of remorse.

Given that we have all wished we had not done something, or that we had done something other than what we did, it seems reasonable to assume that we have free will.

(Popkin, Avrum, Stroll. Philosophy Made Simple. Second Edition. Doubleday, New York. 1981.)

Compatibilism

David Hume called the problem of free will the most contentious question of metaphysics and science. According to compatibilists, we do have free will. They propound a sense of the word 'free' according to which free will is compatible with determinism, even though determinism is the view that the history of the universe is fixed in such a way that nothing can happen otherwise than it does because everything that happens is necessitated by what has already gone before.

Compatibilists believe that to have free will, to be a free agent, to be free in choice and action, is simply to be free from constraints of certain sorts. Freedom is a matter of not being physically or psychologically forced or compelled to do what one does. Your character, personality, preferences, and general motivational set may be entirely determined by events for which you are in no way responsible (by your genetic inheritance, upbringing, subsequent experience, and so on). But you do not have to be in control of any of these things in order to have compatibilist freedom. They do not constrain or compel you, because compatibilist freedom is just a matter of being able to choose and act in the way one prefers or thinks best given how one is. As its name declares, it is compatible with determinism. It is compatible with determinism even though it follows from determinism that every aspect of your character, and everything you will ever do, was already inevitable before you were born.

If determinism does not count as a constraint or compulsion, what does? Compatibilists standardly take it that freedom can be limited by such things as imprisonment, by a gun at one's head, or a threat to the life of one's children, or a psychological obsession and so on.

It is arguable, however, that compatibilist freedom is something one continues to possess undiminished so long as one can choose or act in any way at all. One continues to possess it in any situation in which one is not actually panicked, or literally compelled to do what one does, in such a way that it is not clear that one can still be said to choose or act at all (as when one presses a button, because one's finger is actually forced down on the button).

All circumstances limit one's options in some way. It is true that some circumstances limit one's options much more drastically than others; but it does not follow that one is not free to choose in those circumstances. Only literal compulsion, panic, or uncontrollable impulse really removes one's freedom to choose, and to (try to) do what one most wants to do given one's character or personality. Even when one's finger is being forced down on the button, one can still act freely in resisting the pressure, and in many other ways.

Most of us are free to choose throughout our waking lives, according to the compatibilist conception of freedom. We are free to choose between the options that we perceive to be open to us. (Sometimes we would rather not face options, but are unable to avoid awareness of the fact that we do face them.) One has options even when one is in chains, or falling through space. Even if one is completely paralysed, one is still free in so far as one is free to choose to think about one thing rather than another.

Of course one may well not be able to do everything one wants - one may want to fly unassisted, vapourize every gun in the United States by an act of thought, or house all those who sleep on the streets of Calcutta by the end of the month. But few have supposed that free will, or free agency, is a matter of being able to do everything one wants. That is one possible view of what it is to be free; but according to the compatibilists, free will is simply a matter of having genuine options and opportunities for action, and being able to choose between them according to what one wants or thinks best.

It may be said that dogs and other animals can be free agents, according to this basic account of compatibilism. Compatibilists may reply that dogs can indeed be free agents. And yet we do not think that dogs can be free or morally responsible in the way we can be. So compatibilists need to say what the relevant difference is between dogs and ourselves.

Many suppose that it is our capacity for self-conscious thought that makes the crucial difference, because it makes it possible for us to be explicitly aware of ourselves as facing choices and engaging in processes of reasoning about what to do. This is not because being self-conscious can somehow liberate one from the facts of determinism: if determinism is true, one is determined to have whatever self-conscious thoughts one has, whatever their complexity. Nevertheless, many are inclined to think that a creature's explicit self-conscious awareness of itself as chooser and agent can constitute it as a free agent in a fundamental way that is unavailable to any unself- conscious agent.

Compatibilists can agree with this. They can acknowledge and incorporate the view that self-conscious awareness of oneself as facing choices can give rise to a kind of freedom that is unavailable to unself-conscious agents. They may add that human beings are sharply marked off from dogs by their capacity to act for reasons that they explicitly take to be moral reasons. In general, compatibilism has many variants. According to Harry Frankfurt's version, for example, one has free will if one wants to be moved to action by the motives that do in fact move one to action (Frankfurt ). On this view, freedom is a matter of having a personality that is harmonious in a certain way. Freedom in this sense is clearly compatible with determinism.

(http://www.rep.routledge.com/article/V014SECT1)