Freewill: Some preliminary thoughts...

Freewill

Moral theory

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Information: The determinism and freewill debate is primarily about whether we live in a world in which every effect has a cause (determinism), or a world of flux and random events (Liberatrianism). This article reviews some of the key issues and ideas surrounding the determinist's position. A version of this article was originally published on the website www.faithnet.org.uk.

Determinism

'To say an action is caused is merely to bring it into a pattern of regularities. It is to say that given all the facts it could have been predicted.' (Ninian Smart)

Determinism is the belief that every event (x) is the sum of prior causes (y), and that given those causes it is possible to know what will occur as a result of them (or it is impossible on the basis of y, that x would not occur). As such, determinists can naturally be found all over the scientific world:

Newton's three laws of motion

An object in motion will remain in motion unless acted upon by a net force.
Force equals mass multiplied by acceleration.
To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Playing snooker

Cause and effect on a snooker table (source: www.bbc.com)

However, determinists want to argue that it is not just in science that we find predictable modes of behaviour, but in everything else too. To illustrate this, consider the following situation:

Selection of vegetables I invite a friend who is vegetarian round to dinner, give them a choice between a meat dish and a vegetarian dish, and they choose the latter. Now was their choice a free or determined one? In one sense it was a free choice, as no-one forced them to choose a vegetarian dish. Yet given the immediate facts, they were never really going to choose a meat dish. Now imagine that instead of choosing the vegetarian dish my friend chooses the meat dish. At this point, they appear to to have acted in an unpredictable way and of their own free choice. However, determinists would argue that even here, their behaviour was always going to be predictable.

Determinists would say:

In choosing the vegetarian option my friend is being consistent with their chosen mode of behaviour (i.e. being a vegetarian). So if we know they are still a vegetarian, we could have predicted what they would have chosen to eat.
In choosing the meat option, this could have been because they stopped being vegetarian, or they liked the smell of the meat dish being cooked, or they had been thinking about eating meat for some time, or they just decided that they wanted to see what eating meat was like etc. Whatever the reason, if we could see their thought processes prior to their decision to choose what to eat, determinists would say that their behaviour could have been predicted.

'From psychology we learn about reinforcement and conditioning, and about childhood experiences which have made us what we are. From biology we learn of genetic determinants of behaviour and of biochemical balances in the brain which determine everything from fleeting moods and emotions to our very sanity. From physics we learn to see ourselves, our society, our entire planet, as a tiny part of an inconceivably vast universe which is ruled throughout by immutable physical laws. Nowhere in this picture is there room for an individual human being who determines what shall take place in [their] own life without regard to the necessary relationships of cause and effect in the universe as a whole.' (William Hasker)

Now we need to make clear here a distinction between fatalism and determinism. Fatalists say that whatever happens is bound to happen, no matter what one decides to do. However, determinists argue that things happen because we choose to do them. Thus contrary to fatalism, although my previous choices and actions have led to me to be writing this article, it was not inevitable that this article would be written, unless I had actually begun to write it.

Of course, if we take the view that it is inevitable that I am going to do something based on the sum of my prior thoughts and actions, then the fatalist/determinist distinction might be said to be nothing more than a linguistic one.

Moral issues related to determinism

Man shooting someone If we say that our actions are based on what we have done and thought prior to doing them, then this has worrying implications with regard to moral questions. For instance, someone who shoots another person dead could point to the sum total of prior causes that led to this behaviour, and from that stake the claim that they had "No choice", suggesting that what they did was out of their control and that they are an innocent victim of circumstances. Yet this seems wrong. We believe people are responsible for their actions, and cannot be absolved from all blame simply because they might have had a bad upbringing, or were a little upset or depressed, or simply having a bad day.

The judicial system operates according to the principle that people can and do make their own choices, which they should also be held accountable for.

In response to this, determinists would point out that people do have a choice as to how they act. For instance, in the case above the murderer could have decided not to shoot someone, just as much as they decided to shoot them. Of course, whichever decision they make will still be the result of prior causes, which means that in essence they have had no choice how to act apart from these influences.

The determinist position also suggests it would be irrational for criminals (or anyone else), to ever feel guilty about their behaviour. For if we have no choice but to follow a certain path, then we cannot really be blamed for going down it. In fact, the person who commits crimes should feel more of a victim, that their actual victims! Yet something tells us that this is not quite right either. To feel guilty might be said to be an essential part of learning to do things better, or to be a better person. Remove a person's guilt, and you would appear to be hard pressed to find a reason for someone to become introspective about their behaviour.

Summary

The determinist's view of things is a logical and necessary basis for our scientific enterprise. For if the world were simply a random flux of events, then the scientific enterprise would be nothing, and we would not be able to trust our experience of things. Even though the laws of nature might display random properties at certain times (especially at the quantum level), we still believe that one things leads to another when we do certain things (and this is regularly confirmed by our experience of things). Yet on the other hand, determinism creates tremendous problems in the moral sphere. We believe people are (and should be) responsible for their own behaviour, yet the determinist's view of things implies they might not be.