o Free will and Determinism

o Hard determinism – freedom means being able to act with full control (but an
illusion as we don’t have this) the theory that all mental events including decisions
and all our actions are inevitable because they are necessitated by prior events
o Libertarianism –theory that in at least some of our decisions, human beings are not
determined completely. When we make a decision we could genuinely have done
otherwise in those same circumstances.
o Soft determinism – theory that determinism is correct but that human beings can
still act freely. Even if choice is inevitable, it is still a choice
o Compatibilism - theory that determinism and free will are compatible, there is no
contradiction.

o Hard determinism
o Free will is a causally determined act over which there is no control.
o Free choices are just the result of a multitude of events that led up to that choice
(deductive):
o Isaac Newton – everything in the world is subject to natural and physical laws of
cause and effect
o Science can predict reasonably well future events in accordance to laws of nature
o Everything is caused in the world, so if everything is known about the human mind
and body, then it would be discovered that all behaviour is caused and discover
these causes
o Therefore free will is an illusion – only think there’s free will due to lack of
knowledge of causal factors.
o Free will is an illusion:
o John Locke – the example of a man in a room which is locked. He thinks he has the
choice to stay in the room or leave, and he decides to stay. In actuality he didn’t
have the choice to leave the room, so free will is an illusion.
o This allows people to shirk responsibility for moral acts as they had no control over
actions/it is not their fault they acted in this way (no reward/punishment)

o Darrow’s defence
o Leopold and Loeb case (1924)
o Clarence Darrow defended Leopold and Loeb, who had been charged with murder
after deciding to commit the ‘perfect crime’.
o Darrow argued that the boys had diminished responsibility because they were
products of their upbringing. They could not possibly be blamed.
o "He did not make himself. And yet he is compelled to pay."
o "Punishment as punishment is not admissible unless the offender has the free will
to select this course."
o Darrow was successful and the boys were sentenced to life imprisonment as
opposed to facing the death penalty.

o P1: environment and upbringing is responsible for our actions

o P2: genes are responsible
o P3: he was exposed to crime novels
o C: Loeb is not responsible for his actions

o P1: no action is free if it is inevitable

o P2: all actions like all events are inevitable because they are necessitated by prior
events

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o C1: we do not act freely if none of our acts are free
o P3: we do not act freely
o P4: we can not be morally responsible for actions which are not done freely
o C2: we are not morally responsible for our actions
o Criticisms
o Christianity – the assumption that human beings are the same as material objects
and subject to laws of nature is wrong; humans have God-given souls that include
the faculties of free will and morality.
o Even if things are inevitable, you can be free
o People diverging from what they are trained to do is an example of freedom
o Eliminates possibility of moral responsibility.
o Hume – even if B consistently follows after A, it is not possible/logical to argue that
A causes B. Hard determinism is simply an interpretation of observations.

o Libertarianism/Incompatibilism
o Choices are completely free based on free will and not determined by anything
o Based on observation that because we can feel guilt for actions, we must have
chosen them freely
o Example of growing up in poverty and drugs etc, determinism would suggest that
this person would also end up in these conditions, but a person deciding to leave
has done so of their own conviction, therefore libertarianism.
o Hume - (An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding) – “by liberty then, we can
only mean power of acting or not acting, according to the determination of the
will”
o Moral actions are the result of character and values, so actions have moral
significance.
o Can be held morally responsible
o Sometimes when making a difficult moral choice, the wrong moral choice may be
chosen, making us responsible for consequences.
o The human personality can be affected by external factors and can limit choices,
but the moral self is an ethical concept and independent of personality, which
operates when making a moral choice and can overcome influences of personality
o Empirically backed through observation that sometimes it is difficult to make
certain choices due to conflict of self-interests and moral duty.

o Kant -‘Ought implies can’

o The human will is autonomous; it can be capable of acting from reason instead of
emotions
o The mind exercising reason makes humans free
o If we act from feelings we are slaves to passion, but if we act from logic and
reasoning we can transcend feelings and other causal determinants and act free.

o Heisenberg – uncertainty principle in physics, where events are random and not
necessarily caused (challenge to determinism)
o Honderich – this randomness only works on sub-atomic level, not on human
behaviour.

o Strengths
o Appeals to intuition; humans prefer to see selves as free individuals rather than
having no control.

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o Personal responsibilty underpins main systems of law and ethics.
o Hume’s criticism for determinism – therefore libertarianism is more logical.

o Criticisms
o Locke’s analogy – just because we feel free doesn’t mean we are.
o Past experiences, emotions and values have more of an influence on moral choices
than libertarianism suggests.

o Soft determinism/Compatibilism
o Soft determinism attempts to combine the opposing theories of libertarianism and
hard determinism; it seeks to bring accountability together with the sense that
choices are predetermined by prior choices. Soft determinism is sometimes referred
to as compatibilism.
o They say that freedom to act is doing what you want to do, without any external
interference or coercion, and completely voluntarily. They say that out own values,
desires and prior choices can determine how we act in certain situations, however
these 'causes' of our actions are so complex and numerous they are almost
completely random in their effects and may not determine a precise or specific
action. So they're determined, yet they are not free because there is no external
coercion involved.
o If someone is abused as a child, they're less likely to abuse their children because
they don't want the same impacts on their child that they had.
o "...whether your behaviour is free just depends on how it is caused. Your act is free
if it is caused by your own desires, rather than being caused by a mental disease, or
or by someone forcing you or tricking you, or the like" James Rachels
o Bridges the gap between hard determinism and libertarianism; the existence of
determinism does not rule out free will.
o The misconception that hard determinism and libertarianism are incompatible
comes from a considerable confusion over what we mean when we say we are free.
o Soft determinism – acting freely means not acting under compulsion or external
pressures.
o People act as free agents, but their actions can be caused by other factors.
o Soft determinists define freedom as the freedom to act according to one's nature
which is determined by external factors (e.g. heredity, education and background).
o Values, desires and prior experiences can determine how we act in situations but
we can choose to go against them and also their influences are random and
uncertain so do not necessarily coerce choices
o We may be compelled to act in a certain way but we are still free to choose.
o Actions are governed by causes, of which there are two types:
o Internal causes – lead to voluntary actions of free will; the result of wishes or
desires, e.g. choosing to leave country because have a desire to go abroad
o External causes – lead to involuntary acts of compulsion as are contrary to desires
and wishes, e.g. leaving country because forced out by government (deported)
o If no such thing as free will then this distinction and soft determinism wouldn’t
work

o John Locke
o To do X freely, you must have:
o A will
o Ability to do X or not do X according to your will

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o Hume
o Defines free will to be the “absence of constraint”, where constraints could be
psychological, physical, or logical
o Opposite of liberty (freedom) is not necessity (determinism) but constraint.
o Free will requires necessity (determinism) as without a cause human will would be
random.
o Causal determinants make an action predictable, but the internal cause that is free
will is enough to give freedom as long as it is not constrained (an internal constraint
may be drug addiction).

o Ayer (Freedom and Necessity) – “the fact that my action may…have a cause is…
irrelevant for it is not when my action has any cause at all, but only when it has a
special sort of cause, that it is reckoned not to be free”
o Can be held morally responsible.
o We assume we are free which means we could do otherwise
o But we assume that everything is governed by casual laws
o These are not compatible
o If determinism is not true, we are left with randomness not freedom

o Robert Kane – humans experience deep freedom only at times of struggle when they
feel pulled in to equally possible directions; in this situation we have to exercise our
minds and will to choose a self-determined path
o Self Forming Actions
o Occur at difficult times of life when we are torn between competing visions of what
we should do or become

o Campbell
o Free human acts are not caused in the same manner as other things
o They are not caused by the last in the chain of a series of events nor a matter of
chance
o Caused simply by the agent causation .i.e. just by you, not by the effect of your
character and circumstances

o Strength
o Most of us accept that certain elements of our lives are determined but that we
have ultimate free will.
o It provides a fair and logical case for separating internal and external causes.
o
o Criticisms
o Hard determinists would argue that soft determinism fails to understand the degree
of determinism in our lives.
o Libertarians would argue that soft determinism fails to understand the degree of
freedom in our lives.
o If our actions are caused not by the effects of character and circumstances, then
what?
o Difficult to decide what is or isn’t a determining factor – hard to do this due to
complexities of science/psychology
o Are you really free if your will has been made inevitable by factors outside your
control?

o Von Inwagen
o consequence argument
o If determinism is true, then our acts are the consequences of the laws of nature and
events in the remote past

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o

o Behaviourism
o B.F. Skinner
o Through social conditioning actions are determined
o E.g. operant conditioning (positive/negative reinforcers) and punishment
o Behaviour is a consequence of environmental histories of reinforcement
o No human responsibility as it is beyond us to act otherwise to how we do.

o PAVLOV AND WATSON

o The idea of classical conditioning as that you learn through association and Pavlov is
the person responsible for this idea.
o Pavlov was interested in the Dogs digestive system and realised that they learn that
they associate the bowl with food. Whenever they see the bowl, they understand
that there will be food in there for them and will start salivating. He introduced a
bell and the dog associated this with food.

o Some people
questioned the use of Pavlov’s theory as dogs are not humans. In the 1920’s, Watson decided
to test classical conditioning on ‘little Albert’ – a child from an orphanage.
o They introduced
little albert to a rat. Initially, he liked the rat, but once a loud noise from a metal bar was
introduced, he had associated the scary noise with the rat and he began to fear the rat.
o Watson
believed that this showed that fear is taught and he called this theory ‘Behaviourism’

o Predestination/Theological determinism
o God is omniscient and transcendent, therefore knows the past, present and future.
o This means God will know who ascends to heaven/goes to hell determined by their
actions in life.
o Whatever we do we cannot escape our fate and God’s judgement, so even if we try
to be good there is no chance of getting into heaven if God has not foreseen this –
no such thing as free will.
o St Paul – God has pre-destined certain souls to join Him in heaven.
o St Augustine – only those chosen by God have the chance of joining Him in heaven
o “the potter has authority over the clay”.

o Calvinism
o Man is inherently evil, so there is the illusion of free will because if there was free
will man would only reject God
o This means God has to predetermine who will be saved
o Are these the actions of an omnibenevolent God?
o These views mean that humans cannot be held morally responsible
o Sovereignty of God - we do not have free will as it makes god powerless
o T - total depravity of human beings
o U - unconditional election of god’s mercy alone
o L - limited government - only for the elect
o I - Irrisistable grace
o P - perseverance of the saints

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o Other points
o Traditional view is that God created humans as free autonomous agents, seen where
Eve decided to eat the apple – can choose to sin or do good
o Aquinas (Summa Theologica) – man is created free “man chooses not of necessity
but freely”
o Augustine uses the idea that god is a temporal and outside of time
o Bible verses show we are not free
o Exodus 9:12
o Romans 9:12-16