Critically Assess The Claim That Free Will And Determinism Are Compatible.

This claim looks to answer the question that follows on from the acceptance of the truth of determinism, that is, whether or not free will can exist if determinism is true. Having accepted the truth of determinism it is now necessary to analyse the compatibility of free will and determinism. The debate can be split neatly into two opposing sides, compatibilists and incompatibilists. Compatibilists argue that both free will and determinism can be true and is defended most actively by soft determinists. On the other hand incompatibilism, argued by hard determinists and liberalists, rejects that there can be any overlap between the two. With hard determinism rejecting the existence of free will with the validity of determinism and liberalists rejecting the possibility of determinism as free will exists. Compatibilists argue that liberalists have understood determinism incorrectly and have the definition of freedom wrong however they do not go as far in agreeing with the hard determinist s definition of freedom. It is on the definition of freedom that much of the debate is hinged.

Clarence Darrow was one of the first very public figures who could be described as an incompatibilist. He used a hard deterministic argument to get Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb off the death sentence for murdering Bobby Franks. He argued that there was a chain of uncontrollable conditions and events that took place before the murder, throughout both Nathan and Richard`s lives, that lead to the occurrence of the murder, and thus that they were not totally responsible for it. These conditions and events, which were things such as their parents, school friends, and their social and economic environment, mostly took place or affected them when they were younger, and so they had very little control over them. He compared them to animals, which we do not hold responsible for their actions, and whose owners are held responsible instead for their actions. He compared the trial to the persecution of a mother pig that squashed her piglets - it would be foolish to kill the mother pig. Darrow used a variation of the consequence argument we are not responsible for the remote past. This viewpoint shows an incompatibalism between free will and determinism because we do not have control over events that take place early on in our lives that shape us into what we become, and have an unalterable influence over what we do. Our environment and those in it, as well as our upbringing, determines us - we do not have choice if it does or does not, and so are not free.

Darrow s argument does have flaws though it starts losing validity the older a person gets. He is right in saying that we are influenced by our upbringing and environment, but with age our independency increases we form our own opinions, make our own moral judgements and our own decisions. It seems farfetched to claim that even the most specific of actions, such as a murder, are the result of an event in the remote past, or a certain attribute of an upbringing. If this is true, then something such as an annual salary must also be down to our parents. We lose responsibility for all things, both good and bad, supposedly because of events in the remote past. A further problem is that it cannot be the fault of the parents either, as the way they brought their children up is determined by the way they were brought up, and so on thus, no one is responsible for the murder of Bobby Franks. This outcome is not a valid or helpful one. Darrow s argument that punishment as punishment is not admissible unless the offender has the free will to select his course is thus wrong, as these criticisms suggest, despite being partially determined by their upbringing and environment, that they still had the autonomy to make the decision to murder Bobby Franks, and are morally responsible for his murder. Nevertheless the idea of environmental determinism was taken seriously by numerous scientists, such as Ivan Pavlov who used beagles to experimentally show that a conditioned response could be learnt by animals. J. B. Watson then took it a little further and believed he had conditioned a response in a young boy called Albert. Thus believing he had shown humans were no different from other animals and were subject to exactly the same environmental influences, making our rational no longer a solid defence for free will. However, his experiment fell short of scientific accuracy, making his conclusion weak. B. F. Skinner then argued that humans were under similar schedules of reinforcement as his pigeons, who would respond to rewards and punishment and as such could be operant conditioned. Skinner thought this could be directly applied to humans and used slot machines as an example of occasional reward which encouraged people to use them. Nevertheless humans are unlike almost any other animal and we can respond rationally to rewards and punishers. In a sense then it is our unique intelligence and consciousness which means we are not tied down completely by our environmental conditioning and still have the ability to do freely what we want. Thus environmental determinism is not incompatible with free will. There are of course though many other forms of determinism are not necessarily compatible with free will.

Libertarians are also incompatabilists as they believe that free will exists and so determinism to some degree must be false. Van Inwagen is one of the main proponents of the liberalists thinking and defines free will as the power to act otherwise than one in fact does . Van Inwagen uses Mrs Thatcher as an example: commenting that at least sometimes she is in the following situation she is contemplating two incompatible courses of action A and B, and she can do action A, and she can do action B. In a sense then it is because of the very fact that she has to decide between the two, she has to deliberate, that we must have free will. It is not possible empirically to prove free will either way. However, he says we cannot but assume or believe we have free will because we cannot but deliberate. Charles Taylor illustrates this argument neatly with his locked room example you are in a locked room with two doors, even if you are determined to leave the room in only one way, one of the doors is locked and so you have to try both of them. You still need to go through the act of making a decision, as if you are free. Taylor wants to conclude from this that we better believe we are free. To deliberate, Van Inwagen argues, we have to believe in free will this is an epistemological argument. In a sense he is saying that it does not matter if we are determined as we must believe that we are free, but this would be inconsistent and so we must jettison one of the beliefs, as such determinism and free will are not compatible. This appears to be a weak argument as he does not prove its existence it could also simply be the case that our belief in free will is determined. Inwagen s argument can also be criticised by the same criticism of the Principle of Alternative Possibilities, the argument that we can only be morally responsible if it is the case that we could have done otherwise. The criticism is that you can be responsible for your actions even if you did not, but more importantly could not do otherwise. For example, if James invited Jelway to dinner but was planning on going to extraordinary lengths to force him to come had he said no, but Jelway said yes, it is not the case that Jelway could have done any different. This appears to be a strong criticism and as such we could conclude that in fact Inwagen s idea of deliberation is wrong as all we need to deliberate is ignorance of the future, which is consistent with determinism and means we can discard free will, even if we must keep an illusion of its existence.

The ambiguity of the definition of free will is highlighted in the compatibilist argument as they have to change the definition of free will for it to be compatible with their soft determinism. Thus, compatibilists define free will as the ability to do as one wants unconstrained. Van Inwagen has got his definition of free will wrong and yet for a compatibilist Margaret Thatcher is still free. It is, however, important to clarify what we mean by possibility. For Van Inwagen she has the possibility of doing A or B, for the compatibilist on the other hand there are three possible options: that which is physically possible, that which is metaphysically possible and that which is imaginatively possible. For libertarians it is the imaginative possibility that creates free will, as the ability to imagine any future means we can imagine anything freely. But for the compatibilist there is freedom of action, anything metaphysically possible. There are of course constraints, most often physical barriers and cognitive constraints but importantly not determined constraints if we could do otherwise, we can do otherwise.

John Lock, a supporter of compatibilism, used his locked room example to illustrate his argument for compatibilism. If we were to be knocked out and then locked in a room with someone we wanted to see in any case, we might necessarily want to stay in the room with that person once we came around. However, as we do not have the ability to leave, we are not free. In a sense then Locke argues for free action, what he talks about as liberty, but not free will. For Locke the question of free will is unintelligible, there are in fact only two sorts of things substances and powers. Liberty is a power according to Locke, as is will. Powers can only belong to substances it is unintelligible for a power to belong to another power. As such there is also an infinite regress, if our actions are free, it because something is making them free, but who makes the thing which makes us free free? It also does not make sense to will your wants, we cannot change what we prefer and so as such we do not have free will. Freedom is a power and will is a power, thus the will cannot have freedom as a power. However it could be criticised that Locke assumes a contradiction and we could also get around the problem of infinite regress with the introduction of self-causation. Nevertheless Locke s argument does support the incoherence of incompatabilism. Though it is important to note that the definition of free will that much of the argument depends on does not hold up if we accept that the Principle of Alternative Possibilities is false.

Hume can also be said to support compatibilism but uses empirical evidence. It is based on his theory of causation and once again takes a different conception of free will to account for his determinism. In summary it could be said that Hume would argue that it is only the nature of our actions that is determined, but we still have freedom in our reaction. For example, we might be determined to be hungry, but how we fill that hunger is up to us. Hume also argues that moral responsibility is compatible with determinism, perhaps criticising the Principle of Alternative Possibilities and its definition of free will and responsibility.

John Hick does not take any stance in the debate other than highlighting a performative contradiction of determinism. If you are determined, then it follows that what you believe is because you are determined to believe it. You are believed to believe in determinism, and despite using reason to argue for determinism, the fact that you also believe it because you are caused to believe it means a performative contradiction is unavoidable. This does not, however, prove determinism false, but it does suggest incompatibalism, as it means you are either determined to believe in determinism, or you are totally free and able to believe in determinism if you wish. If you are determined to believe in free will, you live under the illusion of freedom rather than actually experiencing it there is no solution where you can be both truly determined and truly free.

Ted Honderich in a way follows on from this line of thinking to argue that both incompatibilism and compatibilism are false because they each only contain a partial truth. He offers a middle ground, called attudinism. Called as such because both concepts of free will are two different sorts of attitude that form our opinions on moral responsibility and our life hopes. In one sense we hold people responsible for their actions, regardless of whether they have been determined and in fact we allocate praise or blame because we believe, in a libertarian sense, that people have free rational choices. It appears that Honderich is supporting compatibilism, which he is essentially doing, but with what he calls the process of affirmation and in accordance with life hopes. This involves abandoning the idea that we deserve the future, but will not prevent us from hoping for a good future nonetheless. In essence however, this argument inherits all the same problems as compatibilism.

In conclusion, it appears that we cannot critically accept that free will and determinism are compatible because much of the argument depends on a definition of free will which is not consistent with an incompatibilists definition. This is not to say however, that the incompatibilists are correct as both arguments have flaws in them, but more that debate cannot take place without a unification of the understanding of free will.