The philosophical problem of Free Will and Determinism involves the following three positions: Hard
\nDeterminism, Soft Determinism, and Libertarianism. Explain these three competing accounts as they are
\nprovided by the authors included in our course readings. Which account offers the most plausible
\nresponse to the problem? Explain why.
\nAssignment 6
\nINSTRUCTIONS: This assignment consists of a short essay question. The main intent of this question is
\nto ensure that you have a sound grasp of the fundamentals of the material presented in this unit. To that
\nend, there is a 4 to 5 page (1250 words) limit for this question. I\u2019m not so concerned with whether you
\nagree with a particular author or not. The quality of your answer is based on your exposition of the
\ncompeting positions, your comparative analysis of those positions and, lastly, your argument in support of
\nthe position you defend.
\nAs with all the assignments in this course, this question is not designed to be a \u201cresearch\u201d question.
\nThere is no requirement to get material from external sources such as websites like Wikipedia. In fact,
\ndoing so can count against you. The point of your essay is to formulate the course material and develop
\nyour critical response. You can do this by working with the course material and developing your own
\nideas about the issue. The essay is simply your opportunity to set that out in paper.
\nSo, the material you need to successfully complete this assignment can be found in the online course
\nmaterials available through the course website. There may also be some reading material that is part of
\nthe hard copy course readings package. You can find this information on the course materials section of
\nthe course website.
\nQUESTION: (This question is worth 100 marks.)
\nThe philosophical problem of Free Will and Determinism involves the following three positions: Hard
\nDeterminism, Soft Determinism, and Libertarianism. Explain these three competing accounts as they are
\nprovided by the authors included in our course readings. Which account offers the most plausible
\nresponse to the problem? Explain why.<\/p>\n
Introduction to Philosophy PHIL 1200 Unit 6 1
\nUnit 6
\nDeterminism and the Problem of Free Will
\nOnly two possibilities exist: either one must believe in determinism and regard free will as a
\nsubjective illusion, or one must become a mystic and regard the discovery of natural laws as a
\nmeaningless intellectual game. Metaphysicians of the old schools have proclaimed one or the
\nother of these doctrines, but ordinary people have always accepted the dual nature of the world.
\n(Max Born)
\nThis unit is an introduction to one of the metaphysical puzzles that has existed in philosophy since its
\nbeginning. The problem of free will versus determinism arises because of a seeming contradiction
\nbetween two ideas that, considered individually, seem quite plausible. On the one hand, most of us
\nbelieve that human beings are free, at least within the limits imposed by natural physical laws (e.g.,
\nwe are not free to lift one ton), that people can change the way they live, can will themselves to selfimprovement,
\ncan use self-discipline, and so on. In short, we adhere to some never clearly stated
\nidea that we have freedom of the will or free will. The idea that people have free will is the theory
\nthat people have the power to make choices beyond the control of laws that govern how things must
\nact.
\nOn the other hand, science provides us with a picture that seems to preclude the possibility of
\nhuman freedom. As science acquires more information about natural processes, it seems more and
\nmore that these processes are inevitable. For example, most of us believe that given certain
\natmospheric conditions it must rain; given certain structural conditions in a bridge it must collapse;
\ngiven certain conditions in an automobile engine it cannot start, and so on. Given the information
\nprovided by science, it looks as though natural events are the necessary consequences of prior
\nevents. It appears, in short, that natural processes and events are determined. With a little
\nimagination, we can see that if this type of explanation is generalized over all events, including
\npeople\u2019s actions, whatever is happening today is inevitable. The view that all events are determined
\naccording to laws of some kind is called determinism. It seems to follow from determinism that no
\nperson can act in a way that is free from laws that determine how things must happen, given what
\nhas happened in the past.
\nIt is obvious that free will and determinism cannot both be true, since each is the denial of the
\nother. In the interests of logical consistency one of these positions must be rejected. There is
\nconsiderable evidence that many of our psychological states are causally determined according to
\npsychological and neurological laws. For example, if certain areas of the brain are damaged then
\ncertain skills will necessarily be lost, and if a person is not educated by either peers or self then he or
\nshe will necessarily be ignorant. Since many psychological and neurological laws are known, many
\npeople suppose that all psychological events are determined (including so-called free choices), and
\nthereby accept determinism. We might be willing to embrace determinism if it were not for the fact
\nthat we commonly believe our moral pronouncements to be valid. If our moral pronouncements are
\nincompatible with a deterministic view of events, we might prefer to reject determinism.
\nMany people find determinism too plausible to reject and have attempted to argue that determinism
\nis in fact compatible with our moral beliefs and practices. In other words, they attempt to show how a
\ndeterminist can quite sensibly use moral discourse in more or less the same way that a person
\nbelieving in free will would. In so doing they have attempted to show that one can adopt determinism
\nwithout giving up notions of moral responsibility.
\nLearning objectives
\nUpon completion of this unit, you will be able to:
\n1. describe determinism and indeterminism;
\n2. explain the distinction between soft determinism and hard determinism;
\n3. explain the distinction between contra-causal freedom and freedom from compulsion; and
\n2
\n4. describe the relevance of the determinism\/free will issue to the areas of ethics, theories of
\npunishment, and social responsibility.
\nAssigned reading\/viewing\/listening
\nThe assigned readings should be read in the following order:
\n1. Baron D\u2019Holbach. Chapter XI: Of the system of man\u2019s free agency. In The system of nature.
\nhttp:\/\/socserv2.mcmaster.ca\/~econ\/ugcm\/3ll3\/holbach\/volume1.pdf
\n2. C. A. Campbell. Has the self \u2018free will\u2019? In On selfhood and godhood
\nhttp:\/\/www.csun.edu\/~ds56723\/phil150\/campbell.pdf
\n3. David Hume. Of liberty and necessity, Section VIII. In An enquiry concerning human
\nunderstanding.
\nhttp:\/\/18th.eserver.org\/hume-enquiry.html
\n4. Edwards, Paul. 1992. Hard and soft determinism. In Argument and analysis: An introduction to
\nphilosophy, ed. Martin Curd, 367-371. St. Paul, MN: West Publishing Company
\nAvailable in your readings package
\n5. Nagel, Thomas. 1979. Moral luck. In Mortal questions, 24-38. Cambridge: Cambridge University
\nPress.
\nAvailable in your readings package
\n6. Goldman, Alvin I. 1968. Actions, predictions, and books of life. American Philosophical Quarterly
\n5: 135\u2013151.
\nAvailable in your readings package
\n7. Rowe, William L. 1987 Two concepts of freedom. In Proceedings and addresses of the
\nAmerican Philosophical Association 61: 43-64.
\nRequired viewing
\nExamined Life Videos: Do We Have Free Will?
\nLearning activities
\nDiscussion focus
\n\u2022 Our concern in this unit is not just a question of sociology but one
\nwhich we have a lot of predispositions about. This question will call for
\nprecise definition to get clarity and meaningful discussion of the
\nquestion going.
\nQuestion: What do we mean when we say our actions are free?
\nHow to proceed
\n1. Complete your readings.
\n2. View the video when it occurs in the instructional content.
\nIntroduction to Philosophy PHIL 1200 Unit 6 3
\n3. When you are finished the readings and viewing the video(s), do the self-test questions and
\ncheck your responses against the answers provided.
\n4. Participate in the online discussion. Remember, each unit has a particular focus for the
\ndiscussions.
\n5. Refer to the comprehensive glossary of key terms whenever you are confused about a technical
\nexpression.
\n6. If you require additional information, consult one or more of the Supplemental readings that are
\ndesigned to help you overcome any difficulties you may experience with the unit material.
\n7. Review the entire unit before and after you sketch a response to the assignment.
\n8. Complete the unit assignment and submit it online.
\nInstructional content
\nRequired viewing
\nExamined Life \u2013 Do We Have Free Will? [Length: 30 minutes]
\n\u00a91998. INTELECOM Intelligent Communications. All rights reserved. No alteration, duplication or downloading is permitted
\nwith authorization. Reproduced with permission from Distribution Access.
\nDeterminism
\nWhatever befalls you was ordained for you from eternity. (Marcus Aurelius)
\nAmong mortals there is no man free . . . he is slave to riches or else to fortune. (Euripides)
\nDeterminism is the theory that for everything that happens, there are conditions, such that given
\nthese conditions, nothing different could happen, or, that everything that happens is the inevitable
\nconsequence of antecedent causes. In short, determinism is the view that everything in the universe
\nis totally governed by causal laws and that everything in the universe behaves in a law-like way. This
\nview will be referred to as the principle of determinism. For example, if a bridge collapses, there
\nare conditions (e.g., metal fatigue, stress, etc.) such that if these conditions occur, then the bridge
\nmust collapse. These conditions are said to be sufficient conditions for an event to occur. Given
\nthese sufficient conditions, necessarily the event must occur.
\nMany of the explanations in science are deterministic causal explanations. When an event happens,
\nwe believe we have explained its happening when we can state those conditions that caused the
\nevent to happen. Accordingly, determinism entails that there are connections and interdependencies
\namong things and events that hold without exception. Much of science is concerned with the search
\nfor laws that describe such connections. It is easy to understand why, as science progresses and
\ndiscovers more laws that predict without exception, determinism becomes more and more plausible.
\nIt is by now commonplace to expect that the world outside us behaves in a law-like way, and few
\npeople suppose there is to be anything like free will in the natural world outside us. That is, trees and
\nclouds do not have free will.
\nMany philosophers have come to believe that people\u2019s actions (and decisions) are equally
\ndetermined according to laws (of nature, psychology, or of some other kind), and that, just as there is
\nno free will in the natural world, people do not have free will either. In other words, some
\nphilosophers believe that all human acts, including those that are said to involve choices, are in
\nreality subject to causal laws.
\nAs you will remember from unit 5, according to materialism all mental activity is to be explained in
\nterms of physical laws of the brain. It is obvious that a materialist philosopher rejects free will. They
\nhold that people, like all other physical things that can be explained in terms of physical laws, do not
\nhave free will. It is important to notice, however, that the argument from science for determinism
\ndoes not depend upon materialism. Remember that the scientific approach involves observation,
\nexperimenting, testing, postulating hidden causes, and so on. This in no way commits one to
\n4
\nmaterialism. For example, many dualists believe that people are completely determined by laws that
\nare to be discovered by scientific method.
\nArguments for determinism come from many quarters. According to some, the causes of human
\nbehaviour are unconscious immaterial causes. Other theories attempt to find laws of human
\nbehaviour in terms of sexual drives, economic drives, a social conscience, etc. Although much of the
\nevidence for Determinism comes from laws of natural events, the free will\/determinism debate is not
\njust another version of the materialist\/dualist debate. Determinists do not all share a common
\nontology (obviously since some determinists are dualists and others are not), rather they share the
\nview that there is a necessity that exists in reality between events such that free will is not a
\nreal possibility. Free will is taken to be impossible if the type of causal explanation in question is
\ntaken as correctly describing reality.
\nConsider that causal explanations entail that, for any event, there are conditions such that, if such
\nconditions obtain (exist in reality), that event must occur. The determinist claims that the free-will
\ntheorist holds the absurd view that all the conditions sufficient for a person\u2019s performing a particular
\nact could be present, and the person could still refrain from doing the act. This, claims the
\ndeterminist, is a contradiction, since it maintains that conditions might be sufficient to produce a
\ngiven effect, without that effect then occurring.
\nSo, if a determinist believes in the type of law we have been discussing, then he must reject ideas of
\nfree will, because they are incompatible with his position. Remember also that according to
\ndeterminism all things obey laws, including whatever underlies human action, and so one cannot be
\na determinist with respect to some events, and a nondeterminist or indeterminist with respect to
\nother events. Determinism is a universal thesis, intended as applying to all things. (As we shall see
\nshortly, some people are indeterminists with respect to the voluntary operation of the mind and
\nhence are not determinists).
\nIf we take determinism seriously, we are committed to the somewhat startling view that there is no
\npossibility that the world could have been the slightest bit different from the way it actually is. This
\nimplies that every event is ultimately unavoidable, and hence that it is false to claim that people are
\nfree in the sense of being beyond the complete \u201ccontrol\u201d of laws that determine how everything will in
\nfact happen. In other words, people, no less than robots and mousetraps, are ultimately determined
\nby laws such that they do as they must do. This view has a number of significant ramifications, one
\nof which is that the free-will solution to the problem of evil (see unit 2) is unacceptable. If our actions
\nare the necessary effects of prior causes, we could not possibly have freely chosen to do evil acts.
\nAt this point it is important not to fall into the fatalistic view that because the world is as it must be,
\none might as well give up trying because things cannot be changed. This is obviously false in one
\nsense, as things do change in accordance with the events that precede them. Indeed this is one of
\nthe seemingly paradoxical things about determinism: that as we discover more laws and hence more
\nevidence for determinism, we enhance our power to change our environment and ourselves. In order
\nto change the world we need to know which conditions are sufficient for an event of the desired type
\nto occur. Physical laws give us this information; knowledge of the laws is part of the means whereby
\nwe change our world to conform with our desires. Thus, according to determinism it is false to say
\nthat if determinism is true, then nothing a person does can make a difference to the way the world
\nturns out.
\nHowever, if all events are determined, then there is a sense in which a person cannot change the
\nway things are going to turn out. This is because he or she will not be able to change what actually
\nwill happen, nor what he or she actually will do. However, it is still false to assert that no matter what
\npeople do, it will make no difference to what will actually happen. So, do not be seduced into
\nadopting a fatalistic attitude towards life. As we have just shown, fatalism as a theory is false. What
\nyou do will make a great difference to your future and to your surrounding world. To see this you
\nneed only consider how your various acts affect your environment. Your acts will have the same
\neffect on the environment whether they are causally determined or freely chosen. The money you
\ndonate to the poor helps them just as much, whether you are causally determined to make the
\ndonations, or make them according to a free choice.
\nIntroduction to Philosophy PHIL 1200 Unit 6 5
\nDeterminism and prediction
\nMany people have argued that determinism must be false because we do not have complete
\nknowledge of the laws by which we could predict with accuracy when an event of a certain type will
\noccur. The argument runs as follows: If we cannot predict, then we do not have evidence that nature
\nobeys laws. We must be careful here not to confuse epistemological with metaphysical
\nconsiderations. It may very well be that we cannot know a certain thing, and hence cannot make
\npredictions from it. However, it in no way follows that the thing in question does not in fact obey laws.
\nFor example, quantum mechanics tells us that we cannot simultaneously know the velocity and
\nposition of an electron. However, we should not infer from this that electrons do not obey laws. This
\nis not to say that they do obey laws, but merely to point out that the epistemological considerations
\ndo not allow us to infer that they do not obey laws. It may be that our knowledge of the world is
\nlimited because our knowledge obeys certain laws. (The determinist claims this is the case.) Thus
\ndo not be too sanguine in supposing that epistemological considerations entail metaphysical
\ndistinctions without fail.
\nTo repeat, determinism is the view that for everything that happens, there are conditions such that
\ngiven these conditions, nothing else could have happened. It implies that given the conditions prior to
\ncurrent behaviour, we could not have chosen to do otherwise. (Including your decision to take this
\ncourse!) In short, we differ from robots only in degree of complexity (and perhaps ontology if one is a
\ndualistic determinist). We can causally affect the world, and increasingly so with more knowledge of
\nlaws, but we do not have wills that are free in the sense of not obeying laws, be they physical,
\npsychological, economic, sexual, etc.
\nDeterminism and statistical laws
\nIt has been supposed that since some physical events may be determined only by statistical laws,
\nthat there is an allowance for a \u201clooseness\u201d in what happens such that what a person does is not in
\nprinciple predictable, and hence that people\u2019s actions are not the inevitable result of antecedent
\nconditions. For example, if it is a statistical law that 75 percent of all people will commit murder in a
\ncertain type of environment E, then we cannot on this basis alone predict for any individual whether
\nhe or she will commit murder in situation E. Our laws do not enable us to predict what any specific
\nperson will do, but only what he or she will probably do.
\nSome have thought that this means that, for any individual, since we could not predict what he or she
\nwould do, that person could have acted differently. Notice, however, that this is an error, confusing
\nthe question of what is predictable with the question of what a person could have done. If
\ndeterminism is true, a person is determined to either murder or not murder in situation E, whether the
\nlaws are statistical or not.
\nMoral discourse
\nAnalysis of common moral discourse (the moral discourse that we use in our daily lives), reveals an
\nimplicit assumption that people have free will. (This is not true in all cases. As we shall see, since as
\nour views on human nature change, so do our views on morality.) For example, when we either
\npraise or blame a person for having committed a particular act, we suppose (unless we are
\nconsistent determinists) that they could have chosen to act differently. When we award medals for
\nacts of bravery, we do not at the same time hold that the honouree could not have helped but
\nperform the heroic act. In other words, we do not believe that the hero is like a robot in not being able
\nto have chosen to have acted differently. Also consider that when a criminal is sentenced to
\npunishment for having committed a morally wrong act, it is held that the criminal could have chosen
\nto have acted differently. We do not condemn the criminal and at the same time hold that the
\ncriminal acted in the way that he or she had to.
\nIn such cases, we do allow that factors of genetics and environment play an important role in
\nshaping people\u2019s behaviour. However, in those cases where it is perceived that such factors entirely
\ndetermine behaviour, we refrain from passing moral judgement. This is true of the criminally insane,
\nwho are not punished but are sent for treatment. It is also true in crimes of passion where it is
\naccepted as a law of human nature that when a person\u2019s passions are inflamed, they are not in
\ncontrol of themselves and therefore are not to be held morally accountable. It seems that, in general,
\nmoral discourse commits us to the reality of free will, and that in those cases where free will is seen
\n6
\nto be inoperable (as in those cases of the criminally insane and crimes of passion, for example), a
\nperson is not held morally responsible. In other words, the more law-like a person\u2019s behaviour is
\nperceived to be, the less we hold them responsible for their actions. If this is so, consider what this
\nentails when taken in conjunction with determinism. According to determinism, all human behaviour
\nis law-like.
\nThe implication of determinism for ethics
\nIf determinism is true, then it would seem that people do not in fact have free will, and hence that
\nthey are never morally responsible. Accordingly, it is either senseless or false to make moral
\nevaluations of people, just as it would be to morally evaluate a robot or a mousetrap. Hence notions
\nof determinism and moral responsibility are incompatible; both cannot be true.
\nThis has struck those philosophers who believe in free will (the libertarians, to whom we shall turn
\nshortly) as a reduction to the absurd (reductio ad absurdum) of determinism. Others (the hard
\ndeterminists) have decided so much the worse for moral discourse, and others (the soft
\ndeterminists) have searched for a middle ground, a way to show that moral discourse is compatible
\nwith determinism. We will now consider all three of these reactions to the free will\/determinism
\nproblem.
\nTo summarize, libertarians and hard determinists both believe that determinism and moral discourse
\nare incompatible. The libertarians believe in free will, thus rejecting determinism. The hard
\ndeterminists reject free will and moral discourse. The soft determinists reject free will but believe that
\nmoral discourse (or at least some part of it that is considered worth keeping) is compatible with
\ndeterminism. Hence the libertarians and the hard determinists are sometimes called
\n\u201cincompatibilists,\u201d and the soft determinists \u201ccompatibilists.\u201d
\nHard determinism
\nMen are deceived because they think themselves free . . . and the sole reason for thinking so
\nis that they are conscious of their own actions, and ignorant of the causes by which those
\nactions are determined. (Spinoza)
\nHard determinism is the view that determinism is true and that determinism is incompatible with moral
\ndiscourse, and so in the interests of consistency, moral discourse should be dropped from our
\nworldview. The argument is as follows:
\n1. Determinism is true. Everything that happens is the inevitable consequence of antecedent causes.
\n(This is the principle of determinism.)
\n2. If an act is determined then it is not free, the person could not have chosen not to do it. There
\nare no free acts.
\n3. A person is morally accountable only for free acts.
\n4. Therefore, people are not morally accountable.
\nAs discussed under determinism, scientific laws explain or describe how things are causally
\ndetermined to happen. As such, scientific laws serve as evidence that determinism is true. This, of
\ncourse, amounts to a considerable amount of evidence.
\nSoft determinism
\nFreedom in general may be defined as the absence of obstacles to the realization of desires.
\n(Bertrand Russell)
\nSoft determinists find hard determinism objectionable because it strikes them that moral evaluations
\nare no less justified or valid than is determinism itself. Although soft determinists believe in
\ndeterminism, they have not taken the step of jettisoning moral discourse, as have the hard
\ndeterminists. The soft determinists believe that much of moral discourse is in fact compatible with
\ndeterminism, and hence they try to show that determinists can sensibly be committed to moral
\njudgments. Soft determinists do admit that some notions in the common moral discourse will have to
\nbe dropped (some of it after all does depend upon ideas of free will), but they see no difficulty in
\nmaintaining both that determinism is true and that people are sometimes morally accountable for
\nIntroduction to Philosophy PHIL 1200 Unit 6 7
\ntheir actions. Referring back to the argument for hard determinism, we can see that the soft
\ndeterminist must reject one of the premises in order to reject the hard determinist\u2019s conclusion.
\nSoft determinists accept (1), as (1) is the principle of determinism. Since they are determinists, they
\ncannot reject (2), as rejecting (2) is incompatible with being a determinist. They in fact reject (3).
\nSoft determinists will agree that people are not free in the sense of \u201cfree\u201d used in (2), but they
\nmaintain that there is another sense of \u201cfree\u201d that will allow us to maintain determinism and the
\nreality of moral responsibility. For that reason soft determinism is called a compatibilist position. It is
\nan attempt to argue that the notions of determinism and moral responsibility are logically compatible.
\nAccording to soft determinism, \u201cfree\u201d is an ambiguous term. In one of its senses (meanings), our
\nmoral discourse can be said to be true at the same time as determinism is said to be true. (Hard
\ndeterminists and libertarians deny this, of course. They claim that if determinism is true, then talk of
\nmoral responsibility is senseless or false.) Let us now consider the two meanings of \u201cfree,\u201d keeping
\nin mind that understanding the distinction between these meanings is essential to understanding soft
\ndeterminism.
\nTwo senses of freedom
\nThis is one of man\u2019s oldest riddles. How can the independence of human volition be
\nharmonized with the fact that we are integral parts of a universe that is subject to the rigid
\norder of Nature\u2019s laws? (Arthur Eddington)
\nIn one sense, the libertarian sense, \u201cfree\u201d as used in \u201cfree will\u201d means free from causes, or selfcaused.
\nWe can refer to this type of freedom as contra-causal freedom, or categorical freedom.
\nIn this sense, choices are free if they are not caused according to any laws. The soft determinist, as
\na determinist, agrees with the hard determinist that there is no freedom in this sense, but claims that
\nthere is another sense of \u201cfree\u201d that is compatible with our practice of attributing moral responsibility.
\nPeople are only held morally responsible for an act if there is no external compulsion (or restraint)
\nthat causes them against their wishes to perform a certain act. For example, if a person has a gun
\nheld to their head and is forced to commit a crime, they are not considered culpable for that crime.
\nThey are said to have been forced against their desire or will to commit a crime. Taking such facts
\nas their cue, the soft determinists suggest that another sense of \u201cfree\u201d is free from external
\ncompulsion to perform acts in accordance with one\u2019s desires. This sense of \u201cfree\u201d is freedom from
\ncompulsion or constraint, or circumstantial freedom of self-realization, as opposed to \u201cfree\u201d in the
\nsense of being uncaused or self-caused. We might say that in the soft determinist\u2019s sense, a person
\ncan be free in the same way that an undammed stream is said to flow freely, or in which freely falling
\nbodies are bodies that meet with no impediments as they fall.
\nAccording to soft determinism there is a distinction between acts done according to one\u2019s desires (or
\nwill) and acts done against one\u2019s desires (or will). This distinction hinges on the idea of compulsion,
\nand it is felt to explain why we say that a person is morally responsible for some of her or his actions
\nbut not for others. According to soft determinism, lack of compulsion rather than lack of cause, is the
\nmark of a free act, and this type of freedom is all that moral accountability calls for.
\nThe morality of soft determinism
\nIt will again be asked: Why then are the wicked punished? For they act according to their own
\nnature and the divine decree. I reply that it is also in accordance with the divine decree that
\nthey should be punished: and if only those whom we imagine as sinning by virtue of their own
\nfreedom were to be punished, why do men try to exterminate poisonous serpents? For they sin
\nonly in accordance with their own nature, and cannot do otherwise.
\n(Baruch Spinoza)
\nSoft determinists reject the principle that to be morally accountable one must be free in the contracausal
\nsense of freedom. Their reply to the hard determinist and libertarian claim that a meaningful
\nor true use of moral discourse depends upon the reality of free will is that both hard determinists and
\nlibertarians hold a wrong-headed theory of morality. They claim that the important moral distinctions
\ncan be made at a different place. The soft determinists, as determinists, hold that events can be
\ncontrolled and predicted if we know the relevant laws (economic, psychological, physical . . .). Their
\n8
\nview is that it makes sense to reward and punish people only because rewards and punishments can
\ncause desires in individuals that will affect their subsequent behaviour. They claim that moral praise
\nand blame serve as rewards and punishments and so can influence behaviour. If we desire a world
\nwithout crime, and if punishment deters crime, then it makes sense to punish criminals. If we desire
\na world where people perform acts of altruism, then it makes sense to praise and reward acts of
\naltruism. With regard to the view that acts are free only if caused by a free will, it does not make
\nsense to punish or reward morally relevant acts, because by hypothesis such moral evaluation does
\nnot influence the subsequent behaviour of the free will. (After all, a free will is free from all causes.)
\nOn the libertarian view, an act is rewarded simply because it was a good act as a result of the free
\nwill, and an act is punished simply because it was a bad act as a result of the free will. The view
\nseems to be that a person is rewarded or punished simply because their wills have caused either a
\ngood or bad act, or perhaps for the fact that they may have enjoyed or endured what others did not.
\nIn other words, it is as though an imbalance has been created, such that justice seems to require
\neither reward or punishment, no matter what. The punishment is said to be retribution for having
\ncommitted a morally wrong act, and is enforced by our legal system.
\nThe soft determinist finds the use of punishment for such reasons to be barbaric, and to the extent that
\nour legal system is retributive, it too is barbaric. Punishment should only be dealt out in so far as it has a
\ndeterrent value; it should never be retributive. In other words, according to the soft determinist, people
\nare caused to behave a certain way, there is no free will, but punishment is appropriate (including moral
\nchastisement), because it serves as a deterrent to that individual and to others. This, claims the soft
\ndeterminist, is what moral discourse is really all about: we are not punishing others because their free will
\nmade them act badly; we are punishing them because of the deterrent value of punishment. Of course,
\npeople cannot help themselves when they act badly, but punishment can cause them to steer away from
\nbehaviour of a similar kind in the future, and it will serve as an example to others and thereby deter them
\nas well.
\nNotice that the soft determinist is not committed to the view that punishment is always effective. It is
\nwell known that some people do not respond to punishment. In such cases, the soft determinist
\nwould advocate some kind of medical or psychological treatment. It is not essential to a soft
\ndeterminist that people be punished, but simply that there is some attempt to reform them. Only
\nthose people for whom punishment or reward would make a difference in future behaviour (ours or
\ntheirs) should be held morally accountable according to soft determinism. The soft determinist
\nadmits that such a view is not compatible with all of our common moral discourse, but so much the
\nworse for moral discourse, as long as it is compatible with the major principles.
\nAs might be obvious, the free will\/determinism debate has important implications for the philosophy
\nof law. If the arguments for determinism are convincing, then we will be forced to reconsider the
\nwhole question of punishment as retribution in the legal system, in favour of the deterrent value of
\npunishment. In fact, during this century, most philosophers of law argue that the only grounds for
\npunishment lies in its deterrence value, and notions of retribution are viewed with a jaundiced eye.
\nLibertarianism
\nIf a man referred to his brother or his cat as \u201can ingenious mechanism,\u201d we should know that
\nhe was either a fool or a physiologist. No one in practice treats himself or his fellow man or his
\npet animals as machines; but scientists who have never made a study of Speculative
\nPhilosophy seem often to think it their duty to hold in theory what no one outside a lunatic
\nasylum would accept in practice. (C. D. Broad)
\nI can either will myself to sleep until 10:30 a.m. and get my ass beat, or I can will myself to get
\nup at 6:30 a.m. and become president. (Jimmy Carter)
\nLibertarianism is the view that people\u2019s decisions to perform morally accountable acts are acts of the
\nwill, and that acts of the will are not causally determined by upbringing, physiological, volitional
\nstates, etc. They are not the inevitable consequences of causes; they are said to be uncaused,
\nspontaneous, original, or self-caused. There are many fine distinctions to be made here. For
\nexample, it will no doubt strike you as obvious that being self-caused and being uncaused cannot be
\nthe same thing. However, for our purposes we will gloss over these distinctions. What is important
\nfor our purposes is that all these views amount to a rejection of determinism.
\nIntroduction to Philosophy PHIL 1200 Unit 6 9
\nAccording to libertarianism a person is solely responsible for his or her acts of the will. People are able
\nto choose whether they will act morally or immorally, and for these decisions they have no claim to
\nblame either biology, upbringing, economic situations, etc. The libertarian does not claim that this is
\ntrue of all states of a person, but that it must be true of those acts for which one is morally
\naccountable.
\nAccording to libertarianism law-like explanations are inappropriate when it comes to acts of the will.
\nSuch acts cannot be reduced to causes, and human behaviour and decision making is therefore not
\ncompletely subject to causal explanation. Acts of the will are not explained in terms of conditions
\nsuch that, given these conditions, an act of the will had to be a certain way (e.g., a choice of a certain
\ntype had to be made). Acts of will do not obey any laws, be they psychological, physical, economic,
\nsexual, etc.
\nMany people are inclined towards libertarianism because they think that the soft determinist
\ndistinction between acts done in accord with one\u2019s desires and acts done against one\u2019s desires does
\nnot warrant a relevant distinction between good and bad acts. If, as the determinist admits, even our
\ndesires are caused by factors beyond our control, how can we hold a person responsible for his acts
\nwhen they are merely a consequence of facts over which he has no control?
\nIt is important to understand that libertarians reject determinism because of what they think to be the
\nrequirements of morals. The libertarian, no less than the hard determinist, rejects the soft
\ndeterminist\u2019s compatibilist account of morality. The argument is that free will is central to our
\ncommon sense morality, and it is this morality to which our theories must remain faithful. We are not
\nat liberty to merely redefine \u201cfree\u201d and \u201cmoral responsibility,\u201d as does the soft determinist, in order to
\nallow determinists to sensibly use moral discourse. According to the libertarian and hard determinist,
\nwhat the soft determinist has done does not even come close to capturing what we mean by \u201cmoral
\nresponsibility,\u201d and therefore does not show that moral responsibility and determinism are
\ncompatible. Either we preserve ordinary moral discourse and accept libertarianism or, if we are
\ndeterminists, then we should renounce ordinary moral discourse. If we are determinists, then we
\nmight want to talk of behaviour modification by means of rewards and punishments, but we should
\nnot confuse the use of rewards and punishments with notions of morality.
\nWhen libertarians reject determinism, they must reject any deterministic theory of psychology.
\nLibertarians reject any theory of psychology that entails that all human behaviour obeys laws (be
\nthey dualistic, physiological, sexual, economic, etc.). Libertarians argue that all deterministic theories
\nof psychology are too mechanistic in their views of human psychology. As an example, take the
\nsimple deterministic model according to which people always act on the strongest desire; in other
\nwords, given the existence of a strongest desire, a person will inevitably act in accordance with that
\ndesire. The libertarian will argue that this is false, that many people often act against their strongest
\ndesire. Suppose that a person\u2019s strongest desire is to commit adultery. According to the determinist
\nthey must commit adultery (because of the laws governing human behaviour). The libertarian claims
\nthat this is not so, the person can, in spite of that strongest desire, still decide not to commit adultery.
\nThey could decide not to on account of the knowledge that adultery is wrong. In other words, they
\ncould resist the temptation because of a belief that adultery is wrong.
\nAt this point, the determinist will counter that in those cases where people do not act on their desire
\nto commit adultery, there must have been a stronger desire not to commit adultery, (or some
\nstronger desire to do something incompatible with committing adultery). The libertarian reply here is
\nthe obvious one that it begs the question to argue that one\u2019s strongest desire is the one that a person
\nacts on, and that a person always acts on their strongest desire. Libertarians argue that our moral
\nexperience shows us that we do not in fact believe that we are psychologically determined.
\nFor example, when we commit an act wrongly we believe that we could have chosen not to. The
\nevidence for this is that people generally feel guilt or shame after having done a morally wrong act. It
\nwould make no sense to feel guilty over having acted wrongly if we believe that we could not have
\nacted otherwise. Feeling guilt is a sign that we believe in our responsibility for our decision to commit
\na wrong act. We believe that we are free because we are able to imagine ourselves truly able to
\nperform any of a number of different acts at a given time. To believe of each and every one of our
\nactions that we could not have done otherwise given the same conditions, is quite a different thesis.
\nDo we really believe that we have no choice in how we behave, ask libertarians? Libertarians thinks
\nthat we disbelieve determinism, and further, they maintain that we are right to disbelieve it.
\n10
\nSometimes the libertarian argument takes the following form: We have evidence that we are free,
\nand this evidence is the fact that we feel free. The determinist will agree that we do feel free, but will
\ndisagree as to this being reliable evidence for our being free. After all, he might point out, feeling free
\nis simply the same as believing we are free, and so it is circular to suppose that the feeling is
\nevidence for the belief.
\nIn reply to such arguments that we feel free or that we believe that we really could have acted
\notherwise, the determinist argues that we have been misled into our belief because of the way that
\ndesires \u201ccompete\u201d against each other. The determinist points to the fact that we often desire to do
\ntwo or more incompatible things. When this occurs, there is nothing to be done until one or the other
\nof our desires becomes stronger than the others. At this point we act according to that strongest
\ndesire. In other words, we may have a desire to do the right thing, which is incompatible with our
\ndesire for something that can only be obtained by theft. In such a case one of the desires wins out
\nover the other, and in this case we either steal or refrain from stealing. If we refrain from stealing we
\nexplain this fact by referring to the fact that we know that stealing is wrong. This gives us the
\nimpression that we decided not to steal, whereas what really happens is that one of our desires, in
\naccordance with certain deterministic psychological laws, becomes a stronger desire, and so we act
\non that stronger desire. Thus, argue the determinists, the false belief that we are free arises because
\ndesires compete until one becomes strongest, and we misperceive what is going on.
\nPerhaps the most significant point that can be made against libertarianism is the empirical fact that
\nwhether we behave morally or not is to a very great extent a result of our upbringing, and even to a
\nvery great extent a result of our current physiological states (whether we have taken drugs, alcohol,
\nwhether we are sleepy, etc.). Of course, the libertarian will reply that we are free to knowingly avoid
\nsuch situations, and, even if such evidence shows that we cannot will ourselves to overcome the
\neffects of drugs, etc., it does not show that we have no free will.
\nThe determinist\u2019s reply is that if our behaviour is a result of our upbringing, then our so-called
\ndecisions are ultimately caused by environmental factors and therefore are not free acts of the will at
\nall. If moral character is a result of upbringing and training, and if such factors are not as a result of
\nfree choice, then we are not responsible for our moral character, and hence not morally responsible
\nfor our actions and decisions. The determinist thinks it irrational of the libertarian to ignore the fact
\nthat most of our criminals have led disadvantaged lives, and to suppose that their criminal behaviour
\nwas caused by their free decisions to become criminals, rather than by their having led
\ndisadvantaged lives. Sociologists believe that they can find the social factors that cause people to
\nbecome criminals, and that there is ample correlation between being raised in a disadvantaged
\nenvironment and becoming a criminal to warrant the claim that becoming a criminal or not is
\ndetermined by sociological laws. The libertarian would have to deny the significance of the
\ncorrelation, and claim that these people ultimately decided of their own free will to become criminals.
\nThis is a difficult point for the libertarian, who seems forced into saying that our decisions to do the
\nright or wrong thing are not totally determined by our upbringing.
\nLibertarianism and chance
\nThe claim that people are free in some kind of sense that puts them beyond the control of laws
\npresents certain philosophical difficulties. Suppose that some decisions are caused by acts of the
\nfree will, and hence are not completely determined by the desires and motives that we have as a
\nresult of our upbringing. It is not at all clear in what sense we can say about persons that they have
\ncontrolled their behaviour. It has been argued that if the will acts independently of motives and
\ndesires, it seems to be nothing other than a random happening, a mere matter of chance. It seems
\nto have nothing to do with individual character; it lacks direction. Why does it cause the person to act
\none way rather than another? It seems that the libertarian buys contra-causal freedom at the price of
\neither randomness, chance, or mysticism.
\nAt this point, determinists have argued that if a person\u2019s acts of will are a matter of chance or
\nrandomness, then a person cannot be held responsible for them. Being a matter of chance entails
\nthat an act was no more within a person\u2019s control than it would be if it was determined. Thus, if the
\nlibertarian is pushed into saying that acts of the will are chance or random events, he or she cannot
\ndefend the view that people are morally responsible.
\nIntroduction to Philosophy PHIL 1200 Unit 6 11
\nSecondly, if libertarianism entails that acts of the will are random, then libertarianism is false, as can
\nbe discovered empirically. Acts of the will in fact are not random, since people generally have
\nrelatively stable personalities and behave consistently. When a person acts out of character we look
\nfor other causes (perhaps intoxication, depression, fear, etc.), but never attribute out-of-character
\nbehaviour to a random act of the will.
\nThirdly, if acts of the will are a matter of chance, how can we ever hope to find an explanation for
\nwhy people act as they do? Saying that acts of the will are a matter of chance is admitting that the
\nbehaviour cannot in principle be explained. So if libertarianism entails randomness, then it entails
\nthat the behaviour of people is a complete mystery.
\nAccordingly, if libertarianism needs chance or randomness in its defence of free will, then either:
\n1. Libertarianism is obviously false.
\n2. People are not morally responsible.
\nor
\n3. The behaviour of people is inexplicable.
\nThe libertarian is obviously not committed to the view that people must behave in a way that can be
\nconsidered random in order to be morally responsible. With respect to freely made decisions, all the
\nlibertarian means by \u201cundetermined\u201d or \u201cindeterminate\u201d is that decisions are not subject to laws in the
\nsame way that other things are. If the determinist wants to use \u201cchance\u201d or \u201crandom\u201d in this same
\nway, then this is a somewhat misleading use of such terms. The libertarian does not mean to imply
\nthat some decisions are caused whether one wishes it or not, but merely that they are not causally
\ndetermined by other conditions. If we mean by \u201cchance\u201d or \u201crandom\u201d merely \u201cundetermined\u201d or
\n\u201cindeterminate,\u201d then all we say when we say that an act of the will must be random or a matter of
\nchance, if a person is to be held responsible, is that the act of the will was not determined according
\nto any laws. This, of course, is merely another way of stating what the libertarian and hard
\ndeterminist have always agreed upon, and so could hardly be considered to be a problem for
\nlibertarianism. It is merely a fallacious criticism that trades upon an ambiguous use of the words
\n\u201cchance\u201d and \u201crandom.\u201d
\nAgainst the argument that acts of the will are inexplicable if they are not determined, the libertarian
\nneed only give an account of acts of the will, such that they are in some way explicable even if they
\nare not explicable in terms of how they were causally determined. Up to now, we have assumed that
\nto explain something is to break it down into those conditions that causally determined its
\noccurrence. The libertarian is not taking issue with this type of explanation, but only with its supposed
\nscope. A defence of libertarianism depends upon a defence of explanations of human acts that do
\nnot give the conditions that determine an act\u2019s occurrence. Many philosophers have attempted to
\ngive an account of acts whereby desires and beliefs act in conjunction with a will. For example, a
\nperson wants to do something that is believed to be wrong, but it is an act of the will that makes the
\nfinal decision. This decision is not determined by any conditions, rather it is an act that was in the
\npower of the individual to do or to refrain from doing, and so the person responsible for whichever
\nway he or she finally decides to act. According to the libertarian we cannot give an explanation in
\nterms of how the person was determined to act, but this does not mean that the person\u2019s behaviour
\nwas inexplicable or in any way mysterious.
\nConsider the following case,
\n1. Tom desires to steal some money.
\n2. Tom believes that doing so would be wrong.
\n3. Tom refrains from stealing the money.
\nAccording to determinists an explanation of (3) would require an account of what determined Tom to
\nrefrain from taking the money: anything less would not serve as an adequate explanation. According
\nto the libertarians, though, it would be enough for an explanation of (3) to we say that, although Tom
\nwanted the money, he refrained from taking it because he knew that taking it would be wrong. It was
\nan act of Tom\u2019s will that he was able to overcome his temptation to take the money. It is here that
\nmuch of the work has to be done in way of a defence of libertarianism. A great deal of work has yet
\nto be done on such types of explanation, but they do show that libertarianism does not entail that the
\nacts of people are inexplicable and must remain a mystery. If we are committed determinists we
\nmight claim that we do not understand the libertarian explanation of Tom\u2019s behaviour. The libertarian
\ncan quite rightly reply that such a determinist is merely feigning that such libertarian explanations do
\n12
\nnot explain. Certainly we know perfectly well what the libertarian means by his explanation of Tom\u2019s
\nbehaviour. We may not believe it to be a true account, but we certainly have to acknowledge that it is
\nan account we can understand. All of us know what it is like to fight temptation, to do what is right
\nbecause it is right, to believe that we can choose to do whatever we want to or whatever we believe
\nis right. This means that the libertarian can explain human behaviour, contrary to what some
\ndeterminists might argue. The big question is whether or not the Libertarian account is true, not
\nwhether it makes sense.
\nUnit summary
\nIn this unit we have considered the positions of hard and soft determinism, and libertarianism. The
\nessential claim of libertarianism is that people are not determined by laws of any kind such that,
\ngiven certain conditions, a certain behaviour must follow as specified by those laws.
\nHard determinists reject common moral discourse as being incompatible with determinism, and soft
\ndeterminists try to show that common moral discourse is to some extent compatible with
\ndeterminism. This is done at the expense of not being entirely faithful to common moral discourse.
\nThe libertarian and hard determinist argue that the moral discourse of soft determinism is not
\nessentially moral at all, but is really a form of behaviour modification that operates on the principles
\nof reward and punishment. It is important therefore, to be clear on exactly what the various positions
\nmean by \u201cfree\u201d and \u201cmorally responsible.\u201d One way of assessing how well you understand these
\ndifficult distinctions is to study the course readings carefully. The selections were chosen to provide
\nyou with dedicated arguments from contrary positions.
\nAs already stated, how well you are able to understand these required readings will serve to let you
\nknow how well you understand the fundamental issues. Given that you do understand the issues,
\nthese readings will spark ideas of your own as to which position seems the most plausible.
\nAssignment
\nLook for assignment 6 located in the assignments section. Check the schedule for the due date.
\nGlossary
\nCompatibilism
\nContra-causal freedom
\nDeterminism
\nFreedom
\nFree will
\nHard determinism
\nIncompatibilism
\nIndeterminism
\nLaw
\nLibertarianism
\nMoral freedom
\nSoft determinism
\nSupplemental readings
\nCampbell, Neil. Ed. Freedom, Determinism, and Responsibility Readings in Metaphysics. Upper
\nSaddle River NJ: Prentice-Hall, 2003. A good collection of Readings.
\nDennett, Daniel C. Elbow Room: The Varieties of Free Will Worth Wanting. Cambridge, MA: MIT
\nPress, 1984. A contemporary look at the problem, by a prominent contemporary philosopher,
\nthat is both readable and fun.
\nHonderich, Ted. How Free are You? The determinism problem. 2nd Ed. Oxford: OUP, 2002. A more
\nadvanced discussion of the problem, although it is still accessible to the introductory reader.
\nTaylor, Richard. Metaphysics. 3d ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1983. A good introduction
\nto metaphysics, with a very readable section on the free will\/determinism debate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The philosophical problem of Free Will and Determinism involves the following three positions: Hard Determinism, Soft Determinism, and Libertarianism. Explain these three competing accounts as they are provided by the authors included in our course readings. Which account offers the Read More …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-241672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241672"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241672\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}