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An Inquiry into the Modern Prevailing Notions of the Freedom of the Will which is Supposed to be Essential to Moral Agency, Virtue and Vice, Reward and.
Table of contents
- On the Freedom of the Will - Wikipedia
- #410: Jonathan Edwards on Free Will
- Navigation menu
- Edited by Robert Kane
As already noted, if the laws of nature in a given world were probabilistic, then such a world would not be deterministic. Secondly, if there are entities within a world that are not fully governed by the laws of nature, then even if those laws are themselves deterministic, that world would not be deterministic. Some scientists suggest that certain parts of physics give us reason to doubt the truth of determinism. For example, the standard interpretation of Quantum Theory, the Copenhagen Interpretation, holds that the laws governing nature are indeterministic and probabilistic.
According to this interpretation, whether or not a small particle such as a quark swerves in a particular direction at a particular time is described properly only by probabilistic equations. Although the equations may predict the likelihood that a quark swerves to the left at a certain time, whether or not it actually swerves is indeterministic or random. There are also deterministic interpretations of Quantum Theory, such as the Many-Worlds Interpretation.
Fortunately, the outcome of the debate regarding whether Quantum Theory is most properly interpreted deterministically or indeterminstically, can be largely avoided for our current purposes. Even if systems of micro-particles such as quarks are indeterministic, it might be that systems involving larger physical objects such as cars, dogs, and people are deterministic. It is possible that the only indeterminism is on the scale of micro-particles and that macro-objects themselves obey deterministic laws.
If this is the case, then causal determinism as defined above is, strictly speaking, false, but it is "nearly" true. That is, we could replace determinism with "near determinism," the thesis that despite quantum indeterminacy, the behaviors of all large physical objects—including all our actions—obey deterministic laws [see Honderich , particularly chapter 6]. What would be the implications of the truth of either determinism or near determinism?
More specifically, what would be the implications for questions of free will? One way to think about the implications would be by asking the following the question: Could we still be free even if scientists were to discover that causal determinism or near determinism is true? The question at the end of the preceding section Could we have free will even if determinism is true? Compatibilists answer this question in the affirmative.
They believe that agents could have free will even if causal determinism is true or even if near determinism is true. In what follows, I will omit this qualification. In other words, the existence of free will in a possible world is compatible with that world being deterministic. For this reason, this position is known as "compatibilism," and its proponents are called "compatibilists.
According to "incompatibilists," the existence of free will is incompatible with the truth of determinism. If a given possible world is deterministic, then no agent in that world has free will for that very reason. There are at least two kinds of incompatibilists. Some incompatibilists think that determinism is true of the actual world, and thus no agent in the actual world possesses free will. Such incompatibilists are often called "hard determinists" [see Pereboom for a defense of hard determinism].
Other incompatibilists think that the actual world is not deterministic and that at least some of the agents in the actual world have free will. These incompatibilists are referred to as "libertarians" [see Kane , particularly chapters 3 and 4]. However, these two positions are not exhaustive. It is possible that one is an incompatibilist, thinks that the actual world is not deterministic, and yet still thinks that agents in the actual world do not have free will.
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While it is less clear what to call such a position perhaps "free will deniers" , it illustrates that hard determinism and libertarianism do not exhaust the ways to be an incompatibilist. Since all incompatibilists, whatever their stripe, agree that the falsity of determinism is a necessary condition for free will, and since compatibilists deny this assertion, the following sections speak simply of incompatibilists and compatibilists. It is also important to keep in mind that both compatibilism and incompatibilism are claims about possibility. According to the compatibilist, it is possible that an agent is both fully determined and yet free.
The incompatibilist, on the other hand, maintains that such a state of affairs is impossible. But neither position by itself is making a claim about whether or not agents actually do possess free will. Assume for the moment that incompatibilism is true. If the truth of determinism is a contingent matter, then whether or not agents are morally responsible will depend on whether or not the actual world is deterministic. Likewise, assume both that compatibilism is true and that causal determinism is true in the actual world. It does not follow from this that agents in the actual world actually possess free will.
Finally, there are free will pessimists [see Broad and G. Strawson ]. Pessimists agree with the incompatibilists that free will is not possible if determinism is true. However, unlike the incompatibilists, pessimists do not think that indeterminism helps. In fact, they claim, rather than helping support free will, indeterminism undermines it. Consider Allison contemplating taking her dog for a walk. According to the pessimist, if Allison is determined, she cannot be free. But if determinism is false, then there will be indeterminacy at some point prior to her action.
Let us assume that that indeterminacy is located in which reasons occur to Allison. But if Allison decides on the basis of whatever reasons she does have, then her volition is based upon something outside of her control. It is based instead on chance. Thus, pessimists think that the addition of indeterminism actually makes agents lack the kind of control needed for free will. While pessimism might seem to be the same position as that advocated by free will deniers, pessimism is a stronger claim. Pessimists, however, have a stronger position, thinking that free will is impossible.
Not only do agents lack free will, there is no way that they could have it [see G. The only way to preserve moral responsibility, for the pessimist, is thus to deny that free will is a necessary condition for moral responsibility. As pessimism shows us, even a resolution to the debate between compatibilists and incompatibilists will not by itself solve the debate about whether or not we actually have free will. Nevertheless, it is to this debate that we now turn.
Incompatibilists say that free will is incompatible with the truth of determinism. Not all arguments for incompatibilism can be considered here; let us focus on two major varieties. The first variety is built around the idea that having free will is a matter of having a choice about certain of our actions, and that having a choice is a matter of having genuine options or alternatives about what one does.
In other words, we lack the ability for self-determination. Let us consider a representative argument from each set.
- The Song Celestial Or Bhagavad Gîtâ (from the Mahâbhârata);
- The notion of free will and its ethical relevance for decision-making capacity.
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The most well-known and influential argument for incompatibilism from the first set of arguments is called the "Consequence Argument," and it has been championed by Carl Ginet and Peter van Inwagen [see Ginet and van Inwagen ]. The Consequence Argument is based on a fundamental distinction between the past and the future. First, consider an informal presentation of this argument. There seems to be a profound asymmetry between the past and the future based on the direction of the flow of time and the normal direction of causation.
The future is open in a way that the past is not. It looks as though there is nothing that Allison can now do about the fact that Booth killed Lincoln, given that Lincoln was assassinated by Booth in This point stands even if we admit the possibility of time travel.
On the Freedom of the Will - Wikipedia
For if time travel is possible, Allison can influence what the past became, but she cannot literally change the past. Consider the following argument:. So, at most the possibility of time travel allows for agents to have causal impact on the past, not for agents to change what has already become the past. The past thus appears to be fixed and unalterable. However, it seems that the same is not true of the future, for Allison can have an influence on the future through her volitions and subsequent actions.
#410: Jonathan Edwards on Free Will
For example, if she were to invent a time machine, then she could, at some point in the future, get in her time machine and travel to the past and try to prevent Lincoln from being assassinated. However, given that he was assassinated, we can infer that her attempts would all fail. On the other hand, she could refrain from using her time machine in this way. While Allison might deliberate about whether a past action was really the best action that she could have done, she deliberates about the future in a different way.
Allison can question whether her past actions were in fact the best, but she can both question what future acts would be best as well as which future acts she should perform. Thus, it looks like the future is open to Allison, or up to her, in a way that the past is not. In other words, when an agent like Allison is using her free will, what she is doing is selecting from a range of different options for the future, each of which is possible given the past and the laws of nature.
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For this reason, this view of free will is often called the "Garden of Forking Paths Model. The Consequence Argument builds upon this view of the fixed nature of the past to argue that if determinism is true, the future is not open in the way that the above reflections suggest. For if determinism is true, the future is as fixed as is the past. Remember from the above definition that determinism is the thesis the past P and the laws of nature L entail a unique future.
Edited by Robert Kane
Let " F " refer to any true proposition about the future. The Consequence argument depends on two modal operators, and two inference rules.
According to Alpha, if p is a necessary truth, then no one has, or ever had, any choice about whether p was true. Similarly, according to Beta, if no one has, or ever had, any choice about p being true, and no one has, or ever had, any choice that p entails q , then no one has, or ever had, any choice about whether q is true. To see the plausibility of Beta, consider the following application. Let p be the proposition "The earth was struck by a meteor weighing metric tons one billion years ago," and let q be the proposition "If the earth was struck by a meteor weighing metric tons one billion years ago, then thousands of species went extinct.
Beta thus looks extremely plausible. But if Beta is true, then we can construct an argument to show that if determinism is true, then I have no choice about anything, including my supposed free actions in the future. The argument begins with the definition of determinism given above:. The second premise in the Consequence Argument is called the "fixity of the past.
The final premise in the argument is the fixity of the laws of nature.