Original Argument:
P1: Determinism and free will cannot coexist
P2: Within determinism choices are made for a person.
P3: Free will is the capacity to make one's own choices.
P4: Moral and legal responsibility are products of free will.
P5: In determinism there can be no personal moral and legal responsibility.
P6: Autonomy of decisions is dependent on free will
P7: Determinism can be the product of biological or physical mechanisms.
P8: The individual and the conscious mind are one and the same.
P9: Psychology demonstrates the presence of choice with “the Libet veto window” (Dennett, 2011, p. 8)
P10: The mind has the capacity to alter or veto predetermined decisions.
C: We have free will and moral and legal responsibility.
Diagram:
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Deductive Inference: If it can be shown that the mind has the capacity to alter specific decisions then it is true that humans have free will and, therefore, the ability to make moral and legal choices.
Inductive Inference: Various psychological studies into the mind demonstrate the presence of mechanisms that allow, at small intervals of time, for the individual to make judgments regarding whether or not to act on specific impulses. This provides evidence to suggest the existence of free will.
The question of whether or not we can have free will as it is required for moral and legal responsibility in the case that determinism is true demonstrates a fundamental concern. Free will is dependent on the ability of humans to make free and independent choices that are not predetermined by a higher order or causality. This presents the notion of determinism, in which all of an individual's choices have already been made for them and they have no freedom to choose which direction that their lives will take. For this reason, many believe that there is a strong antithetical relationship between determinism and free will. In looking at the presented arguments it is evident that there are a variety of factors associated with the conception of free will. The level of autonomy that an individual has regarding their own decisions is dependent upon the context in which the decision is made.
The idea of determinism therefore presents a fundamental issue to the idea of free will. Notions such as obligation, responsibility, and intent are all essentially relegated to being inconsequential in regards to a deterministic background. Through the argument presented in the text by Daniel Dennett in his paper “My Brain Made Me Do It” it is evident that the idea of determinism is difficult to deal with in relation to free will. While at first it might seem that there is a direct relation between the level of free will that an individual expresses and their level of responsibility, it is also indicated that there are different ways that free will can be understood. These conceptions are fundamentally tied in with how consciousness is understood within the philosophic construction of an individual's mind. The idea of consciousness as the ultimate determinate in a specific action is therefore called into question. Rather than viewing the consciousness as that which makes the decision of the specific action itself, it should be viewed as the thing that decides, in a small fraction of time, whether or not a specific impulse will be acted upon.
The construction of determinism presents the need to establish a causal factor that could potentially lead to the various outcomes that are being experienced. This demonstrates an underlying challenge to the purely deterministic approach that many have taken. Free will, on the other hand, is difficult due to the realities present in everyday life. The strength of the subconscious mind as well as the impulsiveness of human action demonstrate a variety of situations in which human will can be called into question without the need for an outside causal influence. These notions of mind demonstrate an underlying challenge that presents the essential elements of the problem of free will in regards to the physical nature of the brain. In looking more deeply into these processes it becomes evident that there is more complexity than the simple “a or b” questioning presented by the free will or determinism debate.
In looking at the research associated with the problem it is evident that there is a great deal of problematic uncertainty regarding the presentation of free will as well as determinism. Dennett ultimatum resolves this issue by demonstrating that there are levels of free will that can be expressed, and that reality is essentially a determinate of various indeterminate probabilities. “The truth is that you cannot control everything, whether determinism is true or indeterminism is true, but you can control some things and that is what matters” (Dennett, 2011, p. 5). Studies into the brain have demonstrated that the conscious mind is somewhat different than how these arguments have traditionally conceived it to be. Rather than being the source of decisions regarding every aspect the mind presents a simple choice over which to act or not act on an impulse. This demonstrates that, in a sense, people do have the free will to make decisions regarding the trajectory of their lives.
References
Dennett, D.C. (2011). My Brain Made Me Do It. European University Institute. Italy: European University Institute Badia Fiesolana.
