Free will and determinism

1. Free will and determinism Michael Lacewing enquiries@alevelphilosophy.co.uk

2. Determinism defined • Syllabus: ‘the belief that a determinate set of conditions can only produce one possible outcome given fixed laws of nature’ • Universal causation: every event – everything that happens or occurs – has a cause • Even if we don’t know the cause, we don’t allow that something ‘just happened’ • Causal necessity: given the total set of conditions under which the cause occurs, only one effect is possible

3. Physical determinism • Everything that happens in the physical universe is causally determined by the state of the universe + laws of nature. • E.g. every decision is determined by the previous state of my brain • If we could know the position of every particle in the universe + the laws of nature, every future physical event could be predicted in principle. • E.g. every movement of your body

4. Actions as events • Our actions are events. • Therefore, they have causes. • Given the causes they have, no action is possible other than what we actually do. • If we couldn’t do any other action, then we do not have free will, e.g. to choose between doing different actions.

5. Psychological determinism • Comes in degrees • Strong: every psychological event is causally determined by previous events + laws of psychology • But (almost) no strict laws of psychology have been discovered • Weak: patterns of psychological events, including decisions, are determined by previous experiences • Many influences on our decisions are outside our control

6. Character determinism • Many traits of character are not chosen; but traits of character allow us to predict what people choose. • Not being able to predict what they do doesn’t make them more free. • Aren’t people most free when they act ‘in character’?

7. Prediction and freedom • Being able to predict what someone will do isn’t enough to show that they aren’t free. • Preferences • Character traits • It depends on whether the basis for prediction rules out the possibility the action can’t happen.

8. Actions, events and bodily movements • There is an important difference between how we explain what we do (actions) and things that just happen (natural events). • Compare explanations of crop circles – how and why • We also contrast actions with unintentional bodily movements • Compare pushing someone and accidentally falling into them • With actions, we cite reasons rather than causes.

9. Reasons and causes • Causes precede their effects in time. Reasons do not need to. • If I give money to charity because it helps the needy, ‘charity helps the needy’ is not something ‘occurs’ before I give money (it doesn’t occur in time at all). • Reasons can cite purposes – ‘in order to…’. But a causal explanation cannot cite a purpose.

10. Reasons and causes • Reasons can be ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Causes cannot. • Not anything can be a (good) reason to act in a certain way: ‘I hit him because his socks are purple’. Anything can be a cause of anything, logically speaking. • When we identify a cause, then the effect must exist. When we identify a reason, the action it is a reason for does not have to have occurred. • ‘The cigarette caused the fire’ v. ‘Keeping warm is a reason to start a fire’

11. Actions and bodily movements again • Actions are not bodily movements. • Bodily movements are identified physically, and can be given physical causal accounts. • Actions are identified by reasons. • What action a particular bodily movement serves depends on the context. • Raising one’s arm • Many different bodily movements may serve the same action • Paying a bill

12. Moral responsibility • Intuitively, we only blame someone if they could have refrained from acting as they did. • If you cannot save someone drowning, you are not morally responsible for not helping. • If determinism is true, can we have moral responsibility?

13. Ought implies can • If there is something that you ought to do, then you are able to do it. • So if you ought to have acted differently, then you could have acted differently. • If you could not have acted differently, it makes no sense to say that you ought to have acted differently.

14. Compatibilist defences of moral responsibility • Accept that ought implies can and argue that there is a relevant sense in which a person could have acted differently, even though determinism is true, and so they are morally responsible. • Argue that issues of determinism and ‘ought implies can’ are irrelevant to moral responsibility. • Reject the ‘ought implies can’ principle, so the fact that a person cannot do anything else does not mean that they are not morally responsible for it.