Free Will And Determinism Notes

Is free will compatible with determinism?

Compatabilists Incompatabilists

Free will is compatible with determinism Free will and determinism are incompatible

Soft determinists Hard Determinists Libertarians

Determinism Determinism Not Determinism Free Not free Free

Theory Free will Moral responsibility Hard Determinism NO NO Libertarians YES YES Soft Determinism NO YES

DETERMINISM

Scientific Determinism thesis Laplace There is a law of cause and effect Predictable causes have predictable effects e.g billiard balls Demon could know position and move of every particle in the universe, like a large snooker table If he knew the strength and direction of shot, he could accurately predict in advance whether it would sink the pot "We ought to regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its antecedent state and as the cause of the state that is to follow"

Laplace states that if we knew all placement of atoms in the world, and all physical laws, we could predict the universe's state in the next moment.

Complete descri ption of world + physical laws = complete descri ption of world at any point

Given knowledge of the initial states and the physical laws, we could predict the future accurately. But this is not just a statement about knowledge and prediction: given the way the world is and the physical laws, there is only one possible way the world progresses and, at any future time, there is only one possible way the world can be. BUT - the laws of nature are consistent with a number of possible futures - there are gaps which mean that the laws do not determine/yield a single possible future

BUT - what about quantum mechanics/chaos theory? (indeterministic laws of nature, laws with probabilistic components) Quantum mechanics theories an uncaused, or random event. Hard Determinist would argue that a random event is no more free than a causally determined event Quantum mechanics also suggests that we cannot know the position and movement of even a single particle (the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle) However, Einstein thought we would one day find the laws that govern quanta. The world Einstein looked at he thought was still one where every event was causally determined.

HARD DETERMINISM

Theory Free will Moral responsibility Hard Determinism NO NO

Everything in the world can be predicted in this way Including human behaviour (the theory of Universal Causation) (economics, biology, pyschology etc.) Paul Henri Thiry d'Hollbach - All human actions can be understood in terms of cause and effect

Daniel Dennett - Freedom of choice is an illusion We appear to have moral choices but we are unaware of the causes of our decisions e.g. John Locke - there is a sleeping man who wakes in a room, and decides not to leave the room. However the door is locked, and therefore he has not made a real free choice.

Clarence Darrow - "Punishment as punishment is not admissible unless the offender has the free will to select his course" Some examples to support this: Mary Bell (1968) Killed a toddler, but had a mother into S and M (She couldn't select her course, people argued she shouldn't be blamed Lepold and Loeb (1924) Killed a 14 y/o, but upbringing was blamed John Hospers - wrong people are like machines needing to be fixed "Someone commits a crime and is punished by the state; 'he deserved it,' we say self-righteously-as if we were moral and he immoral, when in fact we are lucky and he is unlucky-forgetting that there, but for the grace of God and a fortunate early environment, go we."

Therefore Hard Determinists see that no action can be blamed We need to fix people e.g. sending them to prison and rehabilitation, so they still need these things even if no one is to blame

NOT Fatalism - Fatalism is where you have no control Determinism is still cause and effects Determinism = things could not have happened other wise (i.e. outcome is guaranteed due to cause and effect Fatalism = the outcome is guaranteed despite what the inputs are (i.e. NO FREE WILL)

Honderich - claims the very idea of free will is meaningless, so it doesn't even make sense to claim that free will is incompatible with determinism!

PSYCHOLOGICAL BEHAVIOURISTS

John Watson - behaviour is affected by environmental manipulating (classical conditioning) Humans will respond in a certain way to certain stimuli Control stimuli = control response Stimuli normally induced fear... The environment affects behaviour e.g. Little Albert "Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I`ll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors."

Pavlov's Dog - conditioning can reinforce certain response and behaviour Can be both positive and negative BF Skinner - operant conditioning Behaviour is modified and developed through reward and punishment Disagreed with Watson - not just fear, more about incentives Positive reinforcement Modern economists have explained human behaviour in terms of our response to incentives (more credible than Watson!) THEOLOGICAL DETERMINISM (PREDESTINATION)

Theory Free will Moral responsibility Theological Determinism NO (unless God is outside time) NO (unless you think Original Sin, or God is outside time)

Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden First act of free will Used wrongly, so God punishes

Predestination - seen in Paul's letters to the Romans Augustine - "The potter has authority over the clay from the same lump to make one vessel for honour and another for contempt."

We need the Gift of God to be braved with salvation. God chooses.

John Calvin - Man is born with sin, incapable of coming to God on his own. Predestination saves people. Not all people are treated equally. "Eternal life is fore-ordained for some, and eternal damnation for others. Every man, therefore, being created for one or the others of these ends is predestined to life or death."

Predestination means no free will as far as ethical decision is concerned

God does not choose based on merit

We only do good/bad because of predestination Therefore no moral responsibility

Another form: God is outside time, so he can see all who will do good/bad and knows the fate of all, even though it is not predestined God = eternal, not sempiternal So he knows, but we are still free.

LIBERTARIANISM

Theory Free will Moral responsibility Libertarianism YES YES

We must accept that the world is mechanic and therefore predictable

However, laws of cause and effect DO NOT apply to human action (so doesn't take this law as far as Hard Determinism) e.g. A kleptomaniac may be inclined to steal, but has the choice not to.

Two parts to a person:

Personality = heteronomy Empirical, known through observation Moral self = autonomy Ethical concept, decision making, causally determined e.g. A youth in a ghetto may be likely to become a gangster because it is in his interests, however, his moral self may override this and he might become a policeman.

CA Campbell We experience a "moral effort" when deciding He claims this is enough to prove we have free will Campbell is appealing to everyday experience He thought that when deciding we feel there is an option we feel we ought to do versus an option we want to do. We do sometimes act against desires, so this must come from somewhere It is not our empirical personality So therefore is our free choice.

Decision making - We can only make a decision if: We do not already know what we are going to do It is in our power to do what we are thinking of doing Decisions = Choices = FREEDOM

Spinoza - We don't know the causes We assume we are the cause of our free choices e.g. A drunk may believe his words are free and not simply impulses So Libertarianism is evidence for believing we are free, not evidence that we are free

Critical evaluation - Is this good evidence for autonomy or free will? Does this actually give evidence against determinism? What about random actions? Libertarians have assumed the existence of a free will SOFT DETERMINISM (COMPATABILISM)

Theory Free will Moral responsibility Soft Determinism NO YES

Accepts that all our actions are determined, but sees the difference between Ghandi choosing to fast and a man being locked up without food. Both cases were determined and the men could not do otherwise But what determines Ghandi's actions is internal, whereas the man locked up as been externally caused to be without food.

Another example:

There are three men, Mr B, Mr S and Mr J Mr S hates Mr J Mr B places a special device in Mr S's mind secretly This device will activate if Mr S fails to kill Mr J Mr S cannot do otherwise, because if he doesn't the device will activate Mr S kills Mr J but the device never activated...

Henry Frankfurt - Mr S could not have done otherwise BUT - he decisively identified with wanting to kill Mr J So our intuitions still tell us we should hold him morally responsible

Therefore moral responsibility is compatible with determinism. We don't need free will to be morally accountable. If X does not save a drowning child because X cannot swin, he is not morally responsible However if he chooses not to because of his personality, a combination of his conditioning, an event in his childhood etc, then he is to be held responsible.

Hume was a soft determinist

He thought all things were necessary ("nothing exists without a cause of its existence"

He dismisses the idea that some things are uncaused or happen as the result of mere chance ("chance, when examined, is a mere negative word, and means not any real power which was anywhere a being in nature")

He also believe we are free ("By liberty we can only mean a power of acting or not acting, according to the determinations of the will"

He then says that we don't blame people for things they do ignorantly, and blame them less for things that are not premeditated.

He thinks any sense of moral blame can only come if something we do is the result of our character ("Actions are objects of our moral sentiment, so far only as they are indications of the internal character"

Therefore he thinks free will and moral responsibility require determinism

JEAN-PAUL SARTRE (EXISTENTIALISM AND HUMANISM) He was against determinism

Knife = defined by its essence Person = not yet defined before the fact it existed

So - existence precedes essence So we are radically free and can decide who we are Nothing that is essentially "us"

Radical freedom - Humans are the only creatures who are radically free to decide who/what we are

Man is condemned to be free, we have to make choices in life as to what we want to be because we are beings for themselves, unlike those beings that are not aware of their existence

So Sarte rejected determinism Saying that those people who do not (or refuse to) accept they are radically free are guilting of living in bad faith e.g. waiter Hates his job, sees he is stuck and it not his own fault. Sees there is nothing he can do But - the waiter has the choice to throw away his apron. He could just as easily decide to become a writer or something else. If he has to be a waiter, it's because of choices he made earlier in life If he refuses to recognise this choice then he lives in bad faith

Sartre thought people who live authentically: Recognise their radical freedom They don't role play - they life their lives Create themselves and their values

BUT - What about people's empirical selves? What about people who have lost limbs? What about people born into poverty? What about people who have had a car crash which wasn't their fault?

Sartre would say you are still free to choose how you respond to your predicament

However determinists would say Sartre is not arguing for radical freedom, he is only asserting it