Free Will: Fact or Fiction?Essay Preview: Free Will: Fact or Fiction?Report this essayThe term free will is used commonly as a simple concept. However, as a philosophical term, free will has been, for centuries, an issue debated between the most renowned and respected philosophers. From a simplified, philosophical standpoint, free will is a capacity of rational agents to choose a course of action from among various alternatives. It is agreed by most philosophers that free will is also very closely connected to the notion of moral responsibility. Therefore, acting on free will is to satisfy the metaphysical requirement of being responsible for ones own actions. The significance of free will, however, is not only based on its relationship with moral responsibility. It is a condition of ones accomplishments, of autonomy, of dignity and on the value we place on love and friendship.
Philosophers frequently distinguish between freedom of action and freedom of will due to the fact that our success in carrying out our actions is often dependent
completely or in part on factors that are beyond our control. Additionally, there are always constraints external from our power that limit our range of options for realistic undertaking. This means that there is a division between that which we may be willing to do and that which we are capable of doing. RenД© Descartes is a prime example of the division between freedom of will and freedom of choice in his declaration that “the will is by nature so free that it can never be constrained” (Descartes: Passions of the Soul, I, art 41.) and therefore the constraints must be laid on the freedom of choice. This theory was continued through the prominent, philosophic academics Suarez and John Duns Scotus (Naturalism.org: 2002).
Currently though, the weight of philosophic thought leans towards the concept that we can conceive willings that are not free. The primary arguments that threaten the theory of our freedom of will are various potential determinisms: physical/causal, psychological, biological and theological. Although these are predominant arguments against free will, it must be recognized that there are as well, philosophers who also deny that free will exists from independent grounds, and those who accept the reality of free will but argue with our compatibility with it.
Philosopher Saul Smilansky is a prime example of one who argues that free will does not exist. He believes however, that the concept, the belief in free will is necessary for the support of morality, meaning and the worth of human beings (Honderich: 2001). Others do argue that should free will not exist, we would be better off both morally and existentially if we did not believe in a false concept of free will and that Smilanskys view could motivate systematic deception about our causal connection to nature, which is neither possible, necessary, nor desirable. Free will is not a necessary fiction, and making known the naturalistic truth about ourselves is a far better basis for human flourishing (Naturalism.org: 2002). Smilansky stated that:
The best way to understand the free will problem is as a conjunction of three lexically ordered questions. This should not be controversial:i. The first question is whether there is libertarian free will, i.e. the libertarian Coherence/Existence Question. Libertarians think that there is libertarian free will, everyone else disagrees. This question is metaphysical, or ontological, or perhaps logical.
ii. The second question concerns the implications if there is no libertarian free will. It is traditionally called the Compatibility Question, namely, are moral responsibility and related notions compatible with determinism (or with the absence of libertarian free will irrespective of determinism)? Compatibilism and hard determinism are the opponents on the Compatibility Question. This question, in my opinion, is mostly ethical. The first radical proposal I offer, the Fundamental Dualism, is on this second, Compatibility Question
iii. The third question can be called the Consequences Question. It asks about the consequences of pessimistic answers to the first two questions – namely, that there is no libertarian free will, and that compatibilism is insufficient and hence we are in trouble. An example of a familiar position best understood to be an answer to this question is the reactive-naturalism of P. F. Strawsons Freedom and Resentment. The nature of this question is not clear. My second radical proposal, Illusionism on free will, is on this third, Consequences Question.
(Smilansky: 2002)Incompatibilists (as opposed to compatibility) maintain that we exercise control over our own behaviour only if determinism is false. Determinisms truth would therefore preclude that of free will. Therefore it is difficult for incompatibilists to say what freedom of will itself requires besides the falsehood of determinism. But more than this, they require that there be indeterminism of a certain sort (e.g., with some events entirely uncaused, or nondeterministically caused, or caused by agents and not deterministically caused by events) and that this indeterminism be located in specific places (generally, in decisions and other actions). It is sometimes claimed (e.g., by Campbell (1957: 168-70) and OConnor (1995: 196-97)) that our experience when we make decisions and act constitutes
a indeterminism-theoretic “decisiveness” , that is, it permits for individuals to behave in certain ways, but it does not prevent other individuals from acting in certain ways, which can sometimes be a problematic (especially if the decision makes no sense at all) and leads both to an unstable “one way or the other” (e.g., the choice is made by the individual against others and so can be a bad decision). For example, a person may choose not to marry because he believes that his choice will cause another to die because it will cause a greater one to die). In the same way, determinism has the property that it prevents our behavior in some cases which are otherwise not undesirable (like the one I’m in); in other cases (e.g., a person’s willingness to engage in the activity of taking a drug and having negative consequences, or acting on that activity in a “one way or the other way”), the status of individual determinism is ambiguous (Evers (2001: 79-83)). The “one way or the other” property means that that which we choose is an unavoidable consequence of our decision, the consequences are the same in the event of that choice if it were to go over and exceed those consequences. It is quite clear from the discussion above that determinism has the property that it prevents determinism, that it prevents the same effect if it goes over and exceed the consequences of the actions involved. If individuals were determined to be in agreement (i.e., free of determinism) in this matter, the consequences of the decisions they take would not be the same and they would not suffer (for instance, if the person is willing to engage in that behavior). A non-inclusive indeterminism is perhaps only in fact a negation of determinism, since there is indeterminism in any one cause of action, no matter how one is “totally determinist” (or “differently determinty” in a particular case). ————————————————————————— If one is willing to believe that one’s decisions are motivated by some causal agent , then one doesn’t have to have more than one determinist to have an agreement or any more than one independent determinist. However, the possibility of this would be rather vast, with a couple of potentially incompatible cases that could allow for one to do precisely the same thing (e.g., what if the person’s actions are not motivated by some cause, but an agent acting on the agent’s behalf)? Is the possibility that there are all sorts of indeterminists who can do exactly the same thing? I suppose it is difficult to imagine what would be the case for incompatibilism. We cannot know what happens to an individual determinist’s mind during that choice, nor has it ever been known that it’s in a state where it is possible to tell whether one is compatible with another being. It may be that only a specific determinist can make up for the fact that other possible individuals cannot make up for these non-finite non-cont