Introduction
Every day things happen to us; sometimes good, sometimes bad. This is something we’ve come to know and experience in our daily lives. The question, however, is not whether things happen to us, but rather how they happen and what causes them. This question has been on the minds of philosophers for a while now and no matter how much we’d like one solid answer to the question, there are a number of theories and philosophies that attempt to answer this question. Some philosophers believe that our future is determined by previous events, others strongly believe in free will and individual freedom while others believe that previous events and free will go hand in hand. In this paper, I will highlight the differences between all there three theories and take the side that states that both previous events and free will go hand in hand.
Determinism
Determinism is the philosophy that argues that all events, including those involving unconscious beings, inanimate objects, and even conscious beings like humans, are predetermined by past events –hence the term determinism (Hoefer, 2016). There are different kinds of determinism. However, the most common type of determinism is causal determinism which is also known as physical determinism. This type of determinism basically states that if one knew the physical state of the universe completely at any given moment as well as all the physical laws, one could perfectly predict the future (in principle) (Philosophy Terms, nd.). You could even predict the ‘free’ actions of humans (Philosophy Terms, nd.). Because of this, people tend to think that determinism denies us free will. The most central idea in this type of determinism is causality –in other words, cause-and-effect.
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Other kinds of determinism are predeterminism, fatalism, and theological determinism, among others. Predeterminism argues that an event is not merely caused by its immediate past, but rather than the events are predetermined since the beginning of time (Hoefer, 2016). Fatalism argues that we have unavoidable fate that is not necessarily caused by natural laws, thus giving room for fate and God as causes of our own fate. Theological determinism claims that God knows our fate and that it cannot be changed. All in all, determinism argues that there is an uncontrollable cause that leads to the current events that we are experiencing (Hoefer, 2016).
Libertarianism
Libertarianism on the other hand is a family of ideas that strongly value individual freedom. Libertarians believe that determinism is incompatible with free will. They believe agents have free will and deny that determinism is true (van der Vossen, 2019). This philosophy holds that free will requires the agent to have more than one choice to make or more than one possible course of action under a given set of circumstances. This philosophy holds liberty as its core value and advocates for individualism, autonomy, and political freedom (van der Vossen, 2019). Libertarians are divided into three major groups. Agent-causal libertarians believe that agents cause actions deterministically. Event-causal libertarians argue that free actions are in deterministically caused by prior events. Finally, non-causal libertarians believe that free actions are constituted by mental cognitions such as decisions (Clarke, 2003).
Compatibilism
Compatibilism, unlike libertarianism, purports that free will and determinism are compatible and can work together. Since free will is often taken as a required condition for moral responsibility, compatibilism is at times explained as the thesis to do with the compatibility of moral responsibility and determinism (McKenna & Coates, 2020). Compatibilists, like determinists, believe that the universe works with a law-like order and that the past does affect the future. However, like libertarians, they also believe that some human actions are truly free. Because of this, compatibilism is sometimes referred to as soft determinism (McKenna & Coates, 2020). This means that everything is actually determined but we can still call an action free if the determination comes from within us. For instance, someone was pushed from a diving board into the water, in the same instance, for example, the person jumped into the water rather than being pushed; in both cases, the individual ended up in the water. Compatibilism would argue that the action or event in question (ending up in water) was inevitable and would eventually happen, however, if the action of the agent is intrinsically determined (the person willingly jumped and was not pushed), then the action should be considered free. This shows that we do indeed have moral responsibility since the determination of some of our acts can only come from us.
Compatibilism and Determinism
A determinist, who believes that everything occurs as an inevitable result of the laws of nature, believes that we ultimately do what we would have done; that we are not the causal source for our actions since they have their own origin in the laws of nature (McKenna & Coates, 2020). Compatibilities, choose to believe that even with the truth of causal determinism, we still have the freedom to do otherwise and make a different choice (Hobart, 1934). For example, during the past elections, one had the choice to vote between Uhuru and Raila –this illustrates free will since the person in question had a choice between these two alternatives. Causal determinism then comes about when we consider that at the end of the day, a new president would have been chosen and that whoever has been chosen was meant to be chosen. In another example, consider someone who has just taken painkillers and later starts to feel the pain subside. Here, the results of subsiding pain are caused by the source action of taking pain medication. In this model of human agency, control is understood as the source of one’s actions. Therefore, taking painkillers has control over pain reduction since taking the medication is the ultimate source of pain easing up. If determinism were entirely true, then the person in question is not the ultimate source of the act of taking medication.
Compatibilism and Free Will
According to classical compatibilism, freedom is an agent’s ability to do what they want to do in the absence of obstacles that would otherwise stand in their way. According to this view, freedom has two components: a positive one and a negative one. The positive component, which is doing what one will, consists of nothing more than what is involved in the power of agency. The negative component, not stopping in the course of action, consists of acting unimpeded (McKenna & Coates, 2020). So, therefore, what is impeded action? In this view, the benchmark of impeded action is compelled or coerced action. This kind of action occurs when one is forced by an external source to act in a way that is contrary to what they would have willed. Therefore, in the view of classical compatibilism, free will is the ability to do what one wants (McKenna & Coates, 2020). We can then conclude that determinism is not utterly true since it does not state that we have been coerced or impeded to act –that is, we do not always carry out compelled actions, thus allowing us to have free will in our choice to act no matter the predetermined cause.
This, however, can pose a problem because to what extent are we really free and/or responsible? If have no choice but to do something, are we really experiencing free will? For example, if someone is mentally ill and decides to do something strange, are they really responsible for their actions? In a simpler example, how do we judge someone who becomes violent when drunk; is it the drinker or the drink that is responsible? On one hand, we can blame their actions on the alcohol, but on the other hand, these factors such as the alcohol, their body chemistry, and how much they had eaten before drinking are factors that are internal to the drinker. While drunk, the person in question may perform violent acts without being coerced to do so but since they are not really in a normal state of mind are they really acting out of a free will or are they acting violently out of being ‘forced’ by the state of their drunk mind?
Compatibilism versus Alternate Possibilities
According to the principle of alternate possibilities, an agent is only morally responsible for an action if they could have done something different. This is the problem of free will that has been highlighted in the previous paragraph. Harry Frankfurt challenges this notion by arguing that in some cases one may be morally responsible even if one had no choice (Frankfurt, 1969). These cases are known as Frankfurt cases. Here is a personal example. Recently, I went to a sleepover at my friend’s home. Duties for chores were divided and I was asked to help make the stew that we would eat. As I cooked, the owner of the home was present in the kitchen making comments like “oh, you don’t add carrots to your pigeon peas?” These comments only came when she sensed that I was going to act in a way opposite to what she really wanted or was used to. I ended up adding carrots to the stew on my own accord and by choice since I wasn’t forced. However, I also didn’t have a choice since she influenced my decision without out rightly telling me what to do. In this case, I had a moral responsibility for my actions but her presence made me feel like I had no other alternatives. Frankfurt would argue that I was responsible because I did what I wanted to do even when I could not have done otherwise.
Frankfurt's cases show that we are responsible for actions we have chosen and that the choice in itself has to come from within you rather than from outside (Frankfurt, 1969). For instance, in my example above, the homeowner did not tell me to add carrots (external factor) rather, I decided, by myself, to add carrots (internal factor). Critics have mentioned this as the downfall of compatibilism by asking if we can really separate internal factors from external ones (McKenna & Coates, 2020). For instance, a group of your friends who want to hang out instead of studying for tomorrow’s exam is an external factor; however, your choice to follow suit and conform to the pressure or your choice to forego the invite and study for exams is an internal factor. Critics in this case would argue that your choice of action or how you react to certain events is caused by your personality, which is shaped by your experiences, your friends and family, as well as your environment, which are all external factors.
Compatibilism and Control
If we are unable to separate internal and external factors, compatibilists argue that the answer is that actions are more or less free and their degree of freedom is dependent on how many internal factors are influencing us, versus how many external factors are influencing us, and how much control we have over what we do (Churchland, 2003). This argument was fueled by the views of the Canadian philosopher, Patricia Churchland (2003), who points out that as social beings, we can’t help but hold individuals accountable for the actions they have taken and we end up assigning either blame or praise for these actions. In her view, it is essential to think about how little control a person had over their action (Churchland, 2003). For example now during COVID times, we have been urged to cough or sneeze into our folded elbow to minimize contamination and curb the spread of the virus. If one cough or sneezes, they likely have no control over this action, therefore we cannot assign blame. However, if the individual coughed or sneezed directly into another’s bottle, we can assign blame because they had control over where to cough or sneeze. According to Churchland, asking “am I free?” is the wrong question. Rather, we should be asking “how much control do I have in this situation?” The more control we have, the more responsible we are (McKenna & Coates, 2020). This view allows us to keep the information we know about determinism and the laws that govern the universe while also making sense of subjective free will.
Conclusion
In conclusion, according to compatibilism, the universe does work under predetermined laws and causality; however, we still have freedom and free will by virtue that we ultimately have some degree of control over our actions. Despite going through situations where one has little to no control over their actions, we also learn to control our impulses and train our brains to establish control. For instance, as infants, when faced with hunger, we would cry almost uncontrollably but now as adults, when faced with hunger, we can control the impulse to eat and finish whatever task we have first and eat later. This means we can choose to develop stronger control levels over our behaviors and develop mastery over the mind –which is what we do when trying to break a bad habit such as smoking or trying to adopt a good one such as being grateful. All this shows that all our choices are determined by something, sometimes even internal factors, so we can’t make an undetermined choice.
References
- Churchland, P. (2003). The Big Questions: Do We Have Free Will? New Science.
- Clarke, R. (2003). Libertarian Accounts of Free Will. USA: Oxford University Press.
- Frankfurt, H. G. (1969). Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility. Journal of Philosophy, 66 (23), 8-29.
- Hobart, R. E. (1934). Free Will as involving Determination and is Inconceivable Without It. Mind, 43 (169), 1-27.
- Hoefer, C. (2016, March 21). Determinism. Retrieved July 3, 2020, from Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2016/entries/determinism-causal/
- McKenna, M., & Coates, D. J. (2020, June 21). Compatibilism. (E. N. Zalta, Ed.) Retrieved July 6, 2020, from Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2020/entries/compatibilism/
- Philosophy Terms. (nd.). Determinism. Retrieved July 4, 2020, from Philosophy Terms: https://philosophyterms.com/determinism/
- van der Vossen, B. (2019, March 21). Libertarianism. Retrieved July 4, 2020, from Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2019/entries/libertarianism/
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