Assignment Title
Free Will and Determinism
Are human actions and behavior predetermined or are they self-caused by will? The debate about to what extent humans are free in making decisions and proceeding with their lives was one of the central problems of philosophy since its emergence. Many bright minds pondered on this problem offering different decisions to it. But what is the whole debate about? It would not be so important and acute if the problem stood by itself. However, the consequences of the decision to this issue strongly influence other questions and fields of philosophy. Particularly, the strongest implications are for the concept of moral responsibility. Regarding the issue, the views of the thinkers divided into three distinct camps. They are hard determinism, soft determinism, and libertarianism. I will explain each of these positions and argue for determinism.
The most basic division which can be applied to the issue of free will and determinism is actually the division into the camps of libertarians and determinists. The determinists consider that all events are caused by some preceding reasons. And while they are caused they are necessary, meaning that if the particular set of causes makes happen a specific outcome conditioned by these causes. No other event can possibly occur, according to the deterministic point of view, than the one which is predetermined by the causes from which this event follows. According to determinism, all in the universe works according to certain laws. There are laws which govern the movement of physical bodies, their interaction, the course of chemical reactions, etc. Similarly to physical laws, there are biological and psychological laws which regulate the behavior of animals and humans. There are certain factors and stimuli which determine the course of our inner processes as well as cause the choices and decisions we make. In this account, humans do not possess any freedom in deciding own actions because they are predetermined by the preceding factors and events. The libertarians consider the opposite point true. They stand that humans have free will and are able to make decisions which are not caused by anything at all. This free will is self-caused and does not depend on any preceding factors and events. In this sense, according to libertarianism, human lives are products of their free decisions and are not influenced by any environmental or childhood factors.
When looked at from the point of moral responsibility, there are two principal positions regarding determinism and libertarianism. When applying this division to determinism, it gets split into two distinct categories – hard determinism and soft determinism. Hard determinism and libertarianism both consider moral responsibility and determinism incompatible. In their regard, moral responsibility is viable in libertarianism and senseless in hard determinism. Soft determinism, in contrast, stands that the concepts of moral responsibility and determinism are compatible.
Hard determinism stands that people are not morally accountable for their actions. The argument goes the following way: if everything that happens is inevitable and predetermined by antecedent causes, then to acts are free. If no acts are free, then the individual could not have chosen not to do so. People are morally accountable only for the actions they chose to do (Campbell). But people cannot choose what to do meaning they are not morally accountable.
Soft determinism stands that the moral accountability and determinism are logically compatible. The reason is that there is an ambiguity in the meaning of the word "free" for the definitions of moral responsibility and determinism. They say that in these two contexts the word has a different meaning this is why the concepts actually are compatible. In determinism, “free” means cause-free or not predetermined while in moral responsibility “free” means freedom from constraints or compulsion. These notions are compatible because the person can be predetermined to commit a crime, but as long as she is not forced by someone else to do it, she is morally accountable for it. This position can be compared to the torrent of water which is at the same time predetermined but flows freely given that there are no dams or obstacles.
In libertarianism, people are fully responsible for their actions. The moral accountability of the actions is full since the decisions come from the free will which is not ultimately caused or influenced by any factors.
In my opinion, determinism is what actually described the world we live in. All experimental and empirical evidence conclude that there are solid and unbreakable laws behind any process in the universe. While the laws governing nature are to some extent known to humanity for a couple of centuries, in the last several decades, we uncovered the laws governing our behavior and even the formation of our desires. Libertarians often reject the deterministic arguments because they seem to mechanistic. They believe that the feeling of freedom in our choice can serve as an argument. This proof, however, is neither sound nor solid, it is based on the simple refusal of the objective facts. D’Holbach (p.102) answers such claims: “Choice by no means proves the free agency of man: he only deliberates when he does not yet know which to choose of the many objects that move him.” An even stronger and more devastating argument comes from David Hume (p.I), he states that in practice all of us, even libertarians, suppose that under all reactions and actions of other people lie some motives, as we expect certain acts in response to our actions. And while these conditions may be rejected in words, they are the basis of every human’s social life.
When choosing between hard and soft determinism, it is important not which position is right, but what practical conclusions follow from either of them. The concept of moral responsibility is valuable not for its ability to show who’s to blame but to figure out a way to deter crime. Considering that both systems are inclined to promote punishment only as a measure of deterrence not retribution, there is neither serious difference between them for the case nor the need for the concept of moral accountability.
References
Campbell, C.A. Has the self ‘free will’? In On selfhood and godhood.
D’Holbach, B. Chapter XI: Of the system of man’s free agency. In The system of nature.
Hume, D. Of liberty and necessity, Section VIII. In An enquiry concerning human understanding.
