1.In roughly 900 words, please address the following prompt: Which theory of free will (hard determinist, compatibilist, libertarian) do you find most convincing? Be sure to engage at least two figu

: Are You Free? Freedom And Determinism

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4.2: Determinism

The determinist view of human freedom is typically based on the scientific model of the physical universe. Most modern cultures assume that the universe is governed by causal laws that can be discovered and that we can use to predict what will happen in the future. When you set your alarm clock, adjust the thermostat, turn off the light switch, bring an umbrella, turn the key in the ignition of your car, make plans for the evening after the Sun disappears—all of these actions and countless others are based on your general belief that everything that occurs in the physical world has a cause (or causes) and that by discovering these causal relationships between events, we can predict and influence what will happen in the future. Imagine your surprise if your auto mechanic informed you that there was no cause for your car’s difficulties, nor would any cause ever be discovered, so you might as well junk it. Time for a new mechanic, you would likely conclude! Similarly, when you take vitamins, eat a balanced diet, limit your alcohol intake, take prescribed antibiotics, and get enough sleep—all of these actions, and many others—you are acting on the belief that your physical body is also governed by causal relationships. Again, imagine your surprise if your physician informed you that although you may be feeling ill, there was nothing causing your sickness and so there was absolutely nothing that could be done to improve your health. It’s likely that you would seek a second opinion, don’t you think? Those who take a determinist view of personal freedom use these generally accepted areas of causal determinism as a framework for understanding the mainsprings of human action. Their reasoning can be summarized thus: Events in the physical universe consistently display well-defined causal connections. There are scientific exceptions to this precise causal determinism at subatomic levels, but it’s a scientific perspective generally accepted for the rest of the universe. Events in the biological realm also consistently display causal connections, though as we saw in the last chapter, the complex and intimate relationship between the mind and body makes this a much more complicated situation. Because humans are a part of the physical universe and the biological realm, it’s reasonable to assume that all of our actions (and the choices that initiated the actions) are also causally determined, eliminating the possibility of free choice.

4: Are You Free? Freedom And Determinism

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4.2: Determinism

Clarence Darrow convinced the clients to plead guilty to their crimes so that one person—the judge—would feel the full weight of responsibility for deciding whether to apply the death penalty. The judge chose life imprisonment over the death penalty, but he claimed that the determinist argument was not a factor in his decision; rather, it was “beyond the province of this court” to “predicate ultimate responsibility for human acts.” Do you agree that the court cannot decide why criminals act as they do? Just as your alarm clock lacks the possibility to choose freely whether it will sound the alarm, so you lack the power to choose freely, because everything that you think, feel, and do is caused by other factors beyond your control. This determinist view has enjoyed passionate support from a wide variety of individuals, including psychologists like B. F. Skinner and Sigmund Freud, and a number of prominent philosophers, including John Stuart Mill*. In his “On Causation and Necessity,” Mill summarized the determinist position: Given the motives which are present to an individual’s mind, and given likewise the character and disposition of the individual, the manner in which he will act might be unerringly inferred; that if we knew the person thoroughly, and knew all the inducements which are acting upon him, we could foretell his conduct with as much certainty as we can predict any physical event.... No one who believed that he knew thoroughly the circumstances of any case, and the characters of the different persons concerned, would hesitate to foretell how all of them would act. Whatever degree of doubt he may in fact feel, arises from the uncertainty whether he really knows the circumstances, or the character of some one or other of the persons, with the degree of accuracy required; but by no means from thinking that if he did know these things, there could be any uncertainty what the conduct would be. Determinism has worked its way into other aspects of our culture, such as the criminal justice system. For example, in the early part of the twentieth century, the dramatic case of Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold transfixed the United States. These two young men, who were from privileged families and who had attended the best schools, abducted and murdered a fourteen-year-old boy just to experience the thrill of killing someone. The country was outraged at such a cold-blooded and senseless killing, and public opinion favored giving them the death penalty. Hired to defend them, and save their lives, was the famed attorney, Clarence Darrow. In his famous summation, he passionately employed the hard determinist argument to convince the judge that the defendants were victims of circumstances beyond their control, not autonomous agents making free choices: We are all helpless.... This weary old world goes on, begetting, with birth and with living and with death; and all of it is blind from the beginning to the end. I do not know what it was that made these boys do this mad act, but I do know there is a reason for it. I know they did not beget themselves. I know that any one of an infinite number of causes reaching back to the beginning might be working out in these boys’ minds, whom you are asked to hang in malice and hatred and injustice.... Nature is strong and she is pitiless. She works in her own mysterious way, and we are her victims. We have not much to do with it ourselves. Nature takes this job in hand, and we play our parts. In the words of old Omar Khayyam, we are: But helpless pieces in the game He plays Upon this checkerboard of nights and days: Hither and thither moves, and checks, and slays, And one by one back in the closet lays. What had this boy to do with it? He was not his own father, he was not his own mother; he was not his own grandparents. All of this was handed to him. He did not surround himself with governesses and wealth. He did not make himself. And yet he is to be compelled to pay. Darrow’s argument moved the courtroom, and many other defense lawyers have used similar approaches in the decades since. However, most people don’t live their lives based on the assumption that all of their thoughts and actions are determined and, as a result, unfree. Most people act as if they—and others—have some degree of personal freedom, believing that it makes sense: to choose to improve yourself. to hold people morally responsible and educate them to be more enlightened. to seek to achieve spiritual transformation and enlightenment. to work to create a better world. to raise children to be thoughtful individuals who accept responsibility. to hold wrongdoers responsible and to punish and/or rehabilitate them. For the determinist, these commonly held ideals are based on an illusion of freedom. Yet even though determinism may rub against our deeply held beliefs, to truly understand the nature of human freedom we must approach the determinist argument with an open mind and subject it to philosophical analysis. Consider, then, one of the most compelling and entertaining defenses of determinism, presented by the French philosopher Paul Henri Thiry, Baron d’Holbach*, in his book The System of Nature, which his critics called “The Atheist’s Bible.” Read Baron d’Holbach, from The System of Nature The keystone of d’Holbach’s view is that we are inextricably “connected to universal nature” and so are subject to the “necessary and immutable laws that she imposes on all the beings she contains.” In other words, when we consider the natural order, it is clear that humans are woven into the fabric of the universe with countless threads. We fit into the natural world along with all other living beings. And because we assume that all other dimensions of the universe, both physical and biological, are subject to causal laws that necessarily define their natures and relationships, it only makes sense to include ourselves in this natural causal system. Why should humans alone be considered exceptions to immutable laws that govern every other aspect of the universe? We shouldn’t, according to d’Holbach, any more than we should believe that certain people are exempt from the law of gravity. D’Holbach acknowledges that humans don’t believe or act as if their thinking actions are causally determined, and he even cites the arguments for indeterminism that we have already explored. It’s true, he observes, that cultural beliefs like religion, morality, and criminal justice are founded on the concepts of personal freedom—it’s just that the foundation of these beliefs is wrong. Simply wanting something to be true doesn’t make it true. By operating as if we are free agents, we are similar to actors playing a role, perpetuating an illusion that everyone wants to believe. But what about our “will”? Isn’t that independent of the causal laws of the universe? Absolutely not, according to d’Holbach! Read Baron d’Holbach, from The System of Nature Writing 250 years ago, d’Holbach clearly did not have access to the latest in brain-mind research, but his logic is still clear. Our “will,” along with all of the other mental states of consciousness such as “motive,” “reflection,” and “reason,” are produced by the chemistry of the brain, and they are necessary products of the brain’s interaction with the environment. Certain sets of circumstances in the environment produce one sort of mental response; other sets of circumstances produce a different kind of mental response. In either case, there is not room for personal freedom: the particular mental states—will, motive, reflection, reason, and so on—are determined by necessary causal laws. D’Holbach goes on to provide an example to illustrate his reasoning. Read Baron d’Holbach, from The System of Nature D’Holbach’s analysis of this “thirst” example is in response to indeterminists who want to argue that this kind of example proves the existence of free will. The indeterminist’s reasoning is something like this: If you place a bowl of water before a thirsty animal like a dog, he will drink. His action is the result of inborn instinct, conditioned behavior, brain chemistry—not free will. However, if you present a cold drink to a thirsty human, and then tell her that the drink is poisoned, she will likely choose freely not to drink, overriding her instinct to quench her thirst. Far from proving the existence of free will, d’Holbach believes that the example simply strengthens his case for determinism. The impulse to drink and the impulse not to drink upon discovering that the water is poisoned are both driven by the same need—self-preservation. And it is this underlying need that causes the individual to drink or not to drink. D’Holbach’s model of human functioning is mechanical: Each action is the net result of the forces that are driving it. In the case of conflicting forces, it is the strongest ones that will win out. Most rational, well-adjusted people will be motivated to refrain from drinking the poisoned water because they don’t want to die. This is not a free choice, simply the outcome of their psychological state, undergirded by their brain chemistry. But people who are emotionally disturbed, who are not thinking clearly, or who are self-destructive may very well drink the poisoned water. Again, their decision is not freely made but rather is determined by their psychological state. That’s why d’Holbach is able to conclude that “the actions of fools are as necessary as the most prudent individuals.” In passages foreshadowing modern theories in psychology, anthropology, and philosophy, d’Holbach goes on to further develop his view that we are completely shaped by social forces beyond our control. Read Baron d’Holbach, from The System of Nature Humans, in other words, are simply malleable lumps of clay that are shaped and molded by their personal and cultural experiences. If any one of us had grown up in a different family or a different culture, we would be radically different because the shaping forces would be different—not because of any choices that we made. But what about situations in which we choose one of a number of options after careful thought and analysis—doesn’t this “prove” that personal freedom is possible? Definitely not, d’Holbach argues. We are compelled by “interior motives” to make that choice. Imagine that you are engaged in a conversation with d’Holbach, trying to convince him that you are free. “I could throw myself out of that window if I wanted to—it’s my choice!” you say. “That proves I’m free!” “Not really,” replies d’Holbach. “Your choice is completely determined. If you retain your rationality and sanity, then I can assure you that your forces of self-preservation will prevent you from throwing yourself out of the window. On the other hand, if you are irrational and emotionally disturbed, then these mental forces will compel you to defenestrate yourself. As a third possibility, you may be rational but so intent on proving me wrong that you are willing to sacrifice your life by hurling yourself out of the window. In any case, your action will be necessarily determined by whichever psychic forces are the strongest, not by a free choice on your part.” D’Holbach goes on to explore another common definition of free choice, namely, the absence of constraint. In other words, people often say an action is free if the action is not being compelled by outside forces, a philosophical position known as “compatibilism” that we will explore more fully in the next section. D’Holbach dismisses this distinction as irrelevant. It’s difficult not to be amused by d’Holbach’s use of Socrates’s death as an example to prove his point, an analysis so contrary to Socrates’s beliefs regarding the nature of free choice and personal responsibility that Socrates himself doubtless would have been fascinated by d’Holbach’s audacity! Socrates’s decision to accept the sentence of death rather than cease his teachings or be banished to another country is considered by many (including Socrates, in all likelihood) to be the paradigm of a thoughtful, principled, and free choice. For d’Holbach to use this archetypal moment as evidence to support his belief in causal determinism is dramatically ironic. Read Baron d’Holbach, from The System of Nature D’Holbach’s sophisticated analysis foreshadows important elements of the contemporary discussion regarding free choice. To begin with, d’Holbach distinguishes external constraints on our free choice from internal constraints. For the person behind bars and shackled in chains, freedom of choice is clearly circumscribed. He can’t stroll down to Ben & Jerry’s for an ice-cream cone, take a leisurely walk in the park, or make an appointment for a pedicure. Philosophers who are compatibilists argue that these external constraints are limiting his natural freedom of choice and, when they are removed—for example, on being released from prison—he is then able to make these free choices that are consistent with his own natural desires. D’Holbach disagrees. Whether in prison or out, the man’s actions are still causally determined in exactly the same way: It’s just that the context has changed. Again he uses an analogy from physics: We may suspend an object in midfall