Freedom, Determinism and
Responsibility
Importance of issue of free will for
ethics: praise and blame involve responsibility, which involves free
will. Example: punishment as retribution
presupposes responsibility, and hence free will.
1.
Determinism, Simple Indeterminism, and Fatalism
Suppose that system S is in initial state IC. Then, if there
is a set of laws DL ruling the temporal evolution of S that, given IC, always
determine the same outcome, S is a deterministic system. In other words, if
given IC and DL there is only one possible outcome, then S is a deterministic
system. NOTE: If you adopt the view that if A causes
B then, given A, B couldn’t but occur, then a deterministic system is one in
which every state is caused by the previous one.
Note that
1.
In a deterministic system, every
state depends on the previous one.
2.
There is no mention of matter or of
spirit/soul in the definition; don’t fall for the idea that determinism somehow
presupposes matter or ‘mechanical’ laws, whatever that means. If you want to say that a spirit/soul, if
such a thing exists, is not deterministic you need an argument.
There are two basic positions on the
issue of free will and Determinsm: Incompatibilism
and Compatibilism.
2.
Incompatibilism: this is the view that free will and Determinism are incompatible, they
cannot coexist. In other words, I cannot be both a determinstic
system and have free will.
Here is the standard argument for
this view:
Criticism of (1) and (2):
Objection to (1):
"I could have done otherwise" is irrelevant because of cases of
over-determination. For example, I want an apple and so I pick one;
however I also have an implant that makes me want apples when I want fruit
(that is, I'm over-determined). Still, since my wish did not come from
the implant, one might say that I picked the apple freely. Nevertheless,
I could not have done otherwise because of the implant.
Possible reply: Insist that in cases of over-determination, there is only
the illusion of free will. In reality, one has no free will unless one really
had the power to do otherwise.
Objection to (2):
"I could have done otherwise" must be understood as elliptic for
"I would have done otherwise if I had so chosen," meaning that nobody
was forcing me. But this sense of "I could have done otherwise" is
compatible with Determinism. (This
objection contains the kernel of Compatibilism, of
which more later).
Possible reply: if Determinism true, then I could not have willed
differently, even if it might be true that if I had willed differently I would
have acted differently as nobody was forcing me to do what I did.
3.
Incompatibilism splits in two opposite camps: some incompatibilists, the hard
determinists, claim that we are deterministic systems and that consequently
we do not have free will. Others, the
Libertarians or Free Willists, claim that we have
free will, and consequently we are not deterministic systems.
Evidence in favor of Determinism:
NOTES:
In short, the Hard Determinist believes
that both Incompatibilism and Determinism are true,
and therefore concludes that there’s no free will.
Evidence in favor of Free Willism (Libertarianism):
First argument:
Problem: there's little evidence that introspection is always
reliable, as post-hypnotic suggestion shows. More generally, even
assuming that I'm unaware of being determined, it doesn't follow that I'm aware
of not being determined.
Second argument:
NOTE: Free willists
do not adopt Simple Indeterminism but Agent Causation. My free actions are not uncaused (random, as in
quantum mechanics), nor are they caused by my previous mental states. Instead,
they are caused by me, the agent. That is, I (the person) cause the changes in
the brain eventually resulting in my actions.
Thought Question:
What would be wrong in saying that I am a simple indeterministic
system, as such a system is defined above?
Problem: What is this mysterious
entity, the person, the self, which can cause changes in the brain without
being caused itself to do so? Note that it
cannot be the sum total of one's mental states. If you believe that your choices are fully
determined by your mental states just before you choose, then you’re a
determinist!
Thought Question:
Would appealing to a soul help? What do we know about
souls, if anything?
4.
Many philosophers reject both Hard Determinism and Free Willism
because they reject Incompatibilism, the idea that
free will and determinism are incompatible. These are the supporters of Compatibilism or Soft Determinism, who hold that we
are both fully determined can have
free and will.
Here is an argument for Compatibilism:
Criticism of (1): Absence of
external impediments or constraints is not enough to guarantee freedom of the
will. Voluntariness is a necessary but
not a sufficient condition for free will; a free choice is not only voluntary
but also presupposes that the agent could have chosen otherwise.
NOTE: It's crucial to understand that Compatibilists
are as much determinists as
Hard Determinists: they don't disagree on whether we are determined (they
think we are), but on whether this precludes having freedom of the will.
5
Many philosophers have argued that the type of free will we just considered is
a necessary but not a sufficient condition for a higher type of freedom of the
will. What is required, in addition, is
that
·
our will, our decisions, be attuned to
our values
·
these
values are obtained in the right way.
So, even if I do have free will but I choose
something I really think I should not choose, as it happens in cases of
weakness of the will, then I have not attained this higher level of freedom of
the will, which is a form of autonomy.
What
counts as ‘the right way’ in obtaining one’s values is a subject of discussion,
but to the extent that one's values are the result of
·
indoctrination
·
are
accepted without any critical evaluation
one cannot be autonomous. Note that although there is a need for the
social transmission of values through parents, school, etc., to the extent that
one accepts them uncritically, one cannot achieve autonomy.
Thought Question. We must transmit our values to the
next generation. However, we do not want to indoctrinate our children and turn
them into people who just parrot what they have been told by their parents,
their ministers, or their teachers. So,
we need to give them the intellectual tools that allow them to criticize and
possibly reject the beliefs we transmitted to them. Have you been given such tools? If not, why not? Is this course providing them to you?
NOTES:
o
A particularly interesting issue is that
of false consciousness, a traditional
Marxist notion, namely, a set of beliefs and/or values which contribute to keep
one in a position of unwarranted
inferiority. For example, in some societies
the woman, the paria, the racially oppressed, may
believe (wrongly) that their position is the result of some natural
inferiority, not of specific forms of exploitation; similarly, one might
believe in forms of individualism that keep one in a subordinate position in
society.
o
Some social philosophers, H.
Marcuse, for example, believe that the consumer society produces a peculiar
form of false consciousness by creating ‘false needs’ (the need for expensive
clothing, cars, big TV’s etc.). The satisfaction of false needs produces
euphoria (but not happiness), requires aggressive and competitive behavior
resulting in a sort of rat race, and favors powerful economic and political
groups at the expense of the welfare of most people.
Problem: how does one determine what a false need is? Perhaps one can
claim that a need which is not based on any rational
means of persuasion is a false one.
NOTE: If one accepts the theory of false needs, a liberal consumer society like
ours presents the particular problem that its members, suffering from false
consciousness, do not want to be emancipated.