Essay on Freedom and Determinism

If we assume that freedom is incompatible with determinism, should we give up freedom or should we give up determinism?

To answer this question requires that the terms ‘freedom’ and ‘determinism’ be defined. Having done this, the question can be approached from numerous directions: scientific as well as metaphysical and moral considerations are raised which could be used to argue in favour of either option. This essay will examine the scientific arguments which surround freedom and determinism, as well as the philosophical arguments made for and against both concepts. The first section of the essay will characterise the debate and make provisional definitions of the terms in question; the second section will consider the scientific approaches made to the problem; and the third section will consider the philosophical approaches.

Firstly, definitions are required. The determinist thesis states that all events in the universe are causally determined by previous events. In a deterministic system, every event is determined to happen by the initial state of the system and the laws of the system; it is assumed that once the laws are set and the system’s initial conditions are decided, every following event in the system is also decided. On this assumption, it seems that humans are not free to choose how they act, but are determined by prior events over which they can have no control. The specific kind of freedom that is precluded by determinism is the freedom to act without recourse to prior events, not having one’s choices already determined and hence being able to act in a number of different ways in any given situation regardless of causes. This kind of freedom is known as liberty of indifference since it suggests we can be indifferent to the causal pressures acting on us and in effect be originators of causal chains – a free agent is effectively a prime mover. This is the definition of freedom that will be examined.

It is manifestly true that determinism and liberty of indifference are incompatible. As such, philosophers in this field tend to either reject liberty of indifference or reject the determinist thesis. Someone who rejects determinism and declares that humans are free agents is a libertarian; on the other hand, someone who rejects free agency is a determinist. Among determinists there is a distinction between ‘hard’ determinists, who claim that people genuinely lack freedom in every sense and are totally unaccountable for their actions, and ‘soft’ determinists who argue that certain kinds of freedom or responsibility are compatible with determinism.

The main argument against determinism in science is the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, which states that events at the level of microscopic particles are not determined to have a specific outcome but are actually probabilistic. For example, atomic decay is indeterminate and there is no apparent way of predicting when a given particle will decay. This is the accepted model of the universe in contemporary physics, and it seems to undermine the notion that all events could be decided in advance of their occurring. However, this model does not seem to endorse human freedom any more than determinism; unless the human mind can somehow consciously affect the outcome of microscopic particle interactions, and do so without recourse to prior events, we are still

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not free. Of course, quantum mechanics is only concerned with the smallest scales of reality, and at the macro scale we are familiar with the orderly progress of causal determinism still makes sense. For example, although atomic decay is inherently unpredictable, given a large enough number of particles the average rate of decay can be calculated – this is what is known as the half-life of an element. The human body operates on a scale high above quantum mechanical interactions, and so to establish whether humans are exempt from the deterministic laws that govern other large bodies requires a different kind of investigation.

The psychologist Benjamin Libet conducted experiments on human subjects to test exactly when it is that we become consciously aware of willing to do an action (Libet, 1999). His aim was to discover if we are consciously in control of the biological processes which lead to our actions, specifically those which lead to muscle movements. He found that readiness potential – the electrical build-up in the brain’s motor region which precedes a muscle movement – begins to increase 350-400ms before a person actually reports being aware of the intention to act. He concluded that human volitions, at least with regard to movement, are initiated unconsciously. He argues that this does not preclude conscious control over actions as long as we can prevent ourselves from doing things 50ms before they occur, so our freedom could be a kind of vetoing power. However, this hardly fits with our normal view of freedom – we do not see ourselves as unpredictable machines, waiting for volitions to appear and then deciding in less than a fifth of a second whether or not to go through with it. We have a distinct feeling that our own conscious mind and will are the actuators of our movements and the source of our thoughts.

One of the philosophical cases against freedom is raised by Daniel Wegner. He argues that our sense of having a free will is an illusion. He makes a distinction between the experience of consciously willing an action and the actual causation of the action. “The tendency to confuse them,” he says, “is the source of the illusion of conscious will” (Wegner, 2004). He builds on a Humean thesis which states that our experience of willing an action is mistakenly thought to be the cause of our deliberate actions because it always occurs in causal conjunction with them. We have a natural propensity to infer rational principles from empirical experiences, and the experience of two things always occurring in conjunction makes us assume there is a causal relation between them. However, this is not a rationally qualified inference, and Libet’s experiments suggest that our assumption that our deliberate actions are caused by our conscious volitions is a mistake.

There are strong reasons to be worried about the determinist thesis, however, since it seems to threaten the commonplace notions of personal accountability and self-control which are central to many of our moral practices such as blame and punishment. For this reason there are many thinkers who have argued against determinism in favour of human liberty of indifference. Jean-Paul Sartre, for example, argued that agents are consciously responsible for the constraints they place on themselves by failing to render past resolutions effective – for example, a person with a gambling addiction is fully responsible for whether or not they will fulfil their past resolutions to stop gambling. It is by our own conscious willing that we allow our circumstances to constrain us.

However, one might argue that determinism does not threaten ordinary moral concepts and practices. In fact, it is even possible to argue that determinism is necessary to make morality a realistic idea. To elaborate, if we imagine that people were in fact free agents who could act independently of causes, they would be inherently unpredictable. The ordinary practices of praise

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and condemnation – to the extent that they are meant to be reformative practices – would be ineffective at changing the way people behave. One could behave in any way they like regardless of the prevailing morals of their society or even the specific sanctions that had been personally brought against them in the past. Moreover, contrary to usual assumptions, it would make little sense to say that someone was responsible for an act if they were a free agent. Since their actions could arise spontaneously without being constrained by prior conditions, there is nothing in the agent’s character or inclinations that made them specifically the cause of the action. Any other free agent in the same situation could have done the same thing, and no locus of responsibility could be placed on any person in particular.

If we assume that determinism is true, on the other hand, the accepted moral practices would not only be more realistic, they could be made more effective. Finding that it was a specific part of an agent’s character or past experiences that gave rise to a transgression, we could reform their behaviour more precisely. Furthermore, removing some of the responsibility from agents themselves might make society more willing to find the wider causes of common transgressions and address moral questions more holistically instead of attempting to deal with each individual transgressor. So in truth, the determinist thesis does not threaten moral practices at all, but could actually enhance them, while the assumption that agents are free makes morality futile.

In conclusion, it is freedom – specifically, liberty of indifference, taken as real freedom from causal chains – that should be given up. On top of the weight of scientific evidence against human autonomy is the reassurance that ethics are not only preserved by determinism, but wholly undermined by the concept of free agency.

Works CitedLibet, B. (1999). Do We Have Free Will? Journal of Consciousness Studies , 47-57.

Wegner, D. M. (2004). Precis of The illusion of conscious will. Behavioural and Brain Sciences , 27, 1-46.

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