Determinism & the Problem of Free Will
The conventional notion of free will is that it means we can make choices in our lives and that these choices are up to us. For instance, nothing stops one from choosing a career in medicine or business. However, this becomes problematic when one’s precedent actions and experiences play a role in making these choices, disregarding his or her cognizance. The question that how much does our past has influence over the future or how strong is the connection between past and future is where this philosophical problem of free will arises. Philosophers attempt to explain how the past is connected to the future and what impact this connection has on our ability to make free choices.
Determinists posit that our future events are fixed by the past events. But it allows the fact that even if our future is determined by the past, we are not compelled to perform particular actions. In a deterministic world, we still make choices, it is only that our choices are determined by the particular past experiences. The German philosopher, Schopenhauer puts it succinctly, I quote: “We do not lose our sense of free will even if our actions are determined by the past. Some of the things we can do in the future might be ruled out by events in our past”. However, the hard-determinists postulate that believing in free will is a childish illusion by arguing for the law of causality. The past causes the future and this causal link determines what future looks like. By employing a philosophical principle, i.e. principle of sufficient reason, they claim that anything that happens does so for a definite reason. Their argument presents:
1) All events have causes.
2) All our actions are events.
3) All caused events are determined by the past.
4) Therefore, all our actions determined by the past.
5) If our actions are determined by the past, then we have no power to act other than we do indeed act.
6) If we have no power to act other than we in fact do act, then we have no free will.
7) Therefore, we have no free will.
It seems to be that the premises that one might find difficult are premise V and VI. Therefore, a powerful counterargument makes the case that: If hard determinism is true, then we have no free will. If we have no free will, then we are not responsible for our actions. We are responsible for our actions. Therefore: hard determinism is false.
Plausibly, if determinism is true, then the whole moral architecture of human society will collapse as no one will be responsible for their actions. Therefore, it poses a huge threat to the determinists of their position.
As a middle way between hard determinism and free will, indeterminism holds that all events are causally necessitated by events in the past but considers the possibility that the same can lead to different future states. It liberates us from the curse of decision determined by past events and postulates that our actions are ultimately dependent on indeterministic physical processes, and we don’t have to be afraid of our future fixed and predictable on the basis of past events. However, it can be protested, as Taylor did to the implications of indeterminism. He argues against the assumption that our actions become random events and nobody should be held responsible for something that happens randomly. And it comes back to the problem of moral responsibility.
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This entry was posted on June 20, 2011 at 10:49 pm and is filed under Ethics, Metaphysics. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.
