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The Debate over Free Will:Hard Determinism and Responsibility - 鹤冲天 - 2005-12-1
The Debate over Free Will:
Hard Determinism and Responsibility
Yuxi Tian
Grade 2005
PREFACE
First of all, we should get a conception of freedom on philosophy. For many of philosophers, they distinguish freedom into two parts, circumstantial freedom, and metaphysical freedom. Circumstantial freedom is mostly considered as the freedom from external forces, obstacles and nature limitations that restrict or compel our actions, for short, freely freedom. In contrast, metaphysical freedom asserts this freedom as a power of the self to choose among genuine alternatives, i.e. free will.
1. HARD DETERMINISM
1.1 FREE, OR JUST BE DETERMINED?
How to understand this free will? At most time, I feel I am free, free to deliberate everything I can image, free to do anything what I want to under the law and the moral standard – I also can obey them if no better choice. Now, I want to sing a song, and I do so. It’s up to me. We surely have a free will as certain as we are alive.
But do I really free? No, the only conclusion is that I can do freely. Take an example, why I have just written that “I want to sing a song, and I do so” but not “I want to brush my teeth, and I do so”? I may answer that I wrote that intuitionally. In fact, for my purpose is merely to illustrate, what to say is trifling at all. But why I had such an intuition? I cannot answer it clearly enough, but I know it must have an antecedent event or some events. The hard determinists also hold this position that the past completely determines the future, and all actions (including human actions) are the product of causal necessity. The most basic argument as a deduction of this doctrine can be formulated as the following way:
1. Every events, without exception, is causally determined by prior events
2. Our human thoughts and actions are events
Therefore: human thoughts and actions are without exception, causally determined by prior events.
This theory can be defined more precisely. For every event e, there will be some antecedent state of nature, N, and a law of nature, L, such that given L; N will be followed by e. (Oxford Dictionary Of Philosophy, 2000, P. 147)
Then let us continue my example, though I felt so free that I thought I could have chosen differently just now. In fact, whenever I claim “I could have done otherwise,” according to the determinist, I simply mean, “I would have done otherwise if I had wanted to, i.e. if my inner states that determined my action had been different.” But for my given inner states, my behavior was just as inevitable as the past times. Just like a set of domino pieces, when we knock the first piece over, remain pieces would be over later as well.
It just resembles Edward Lorenz’ “Butterfly Effect”. “The Flap of a Butterfly's Wings in Brazil Set off a Tornado in Texas”. We can calculate that there is a clear causal chain from a butterfly to a terrible tornado, but that is neither the beginning nor the end. We are also able to image the events before the butterfly flap its wings or the matters after the tornado.
1.2 THE MORAL DILEMMA OF HARD DETERMINISM
Because of the denial of free will, hard determinism would fall into a conflict with moral responsibility. For instance, when a thief is brought to trial for a stealing, and he tell to the judge that he ought not to be accountable to his vice. He claim that when he was 3 years old, his father stole and escaped the law, he asserted therefore he was determined by his father’s vice. And if a robot commits a crime, the criminal should be the controller of the robot but the robot itself, so he is innocent at all.
But who should accountable to this vice? Certainly, it cannot be the thief’s father, because his father would say that when he was younger…and so on. the ultimate conclusion is that there never will be a responsible object. There means an absent of responsibility.
Moreover, if I surely do everything just by a causal chain, does not it mean anything what I have done and will have done determined? If so, why do I feel responsible to them? I was determined, thus all of my action, whether past or future, was determined by something. The responsibility shall therefore belong to things which determine us.
What can I do now? Everything was determined. Should not I wait for the ultimate result till I leave the world? I need not fight for anything, for the causal chain will give me something after all. If I was robbed, I should not resist or hate the robber, because it was determined, and so on. Not only the causal chain, but all rings of the chain are sure distinctly to us after the actions, and then we can accept all the results.
2. INDETERMINISM
Just do not discuss whether my conclusion is true or false for the present, because at this time, quantum mechanics is considered as it changes the situation. The Uncertainty Principle shows that “The more precisely the position is determined, the less precisely the momentum is known in this instant, and vice versa.”(Heisenberg, uncertainty paper, 1927)
That means another position is appeared, indeterminism, the view that, contrary to determinism, some events are not caused by anything, and also unpredictable. And the future is somewhat random as the dice.
Then assume that indeterminism is true; can it save our free will? The answer is still no. According Richard Taylor’s point, an uncaused motion of my body could hardly be considered a free action. The indeterminist implies that our thoughts and actions are random, but in contrast, to be free should means that we are the cause of our actions, and we produce them, initiate them.
But does it means determinism wholly wrong? Although I am not a master on physics, I still believe that I should point two features out.
1. If it is possible that the randomness of things which are only in a quantum mechanics’ level affect the visible world or the causal chains, how does it work?
2. From Heisenberg’s principle, I get a measurelessment of both position and momentum when I attempt to measure them. However, it is merely an uncertainty, for there must be a precisely reliable position and momentum, although we do not or cannot know of human knowledge.
However, even though the modern physics is able to avoid my two points, can indeterminism cast off from the moral dilemma; in other words, can simple indeterminism consist with personal responsibility? No, we all admit that no one can be held morally accountable when everything is destined. And what will happen if we think as indeterminism? It seems that if an action occurs at random, in that no antecedent events brought it about, and in that case, should anybody be accountable for its occurrence? For short, that just denotes whether determinism is true or not, responsibility is shown to be illusionary nonsense. In all, for indeterminism is simply to deny our actions are caused. If we want to explain how we can be responsible for our actions, it seems that we need to look for other options.
3. LIBERTARIANISM (AGENCY THEORY)
Then, what about libertarianism, a theory which agrees with that free will can be preserved under the determinism? Another way of explaining this theory is to say that there are two kinds of causes operating in the world. One is called event-causation, which is seems like determinism. The first event causes the second event, and a prior event necessarily causes a subsequent event, and so on. However, a libertarian insists that things are different when we deal with human beings (agents). They have the power to cause something themselves being subject to causal determination. A libertarian calls this kind of causation agent causation.
The key differences between event causation and agent causation are as follows: for any event that takes place, there is always at least one (or more) prior event that has caused to happen. The same is not true for agent causation. When an agent causes an action to take place, there are no prior causes that trigger this decision.
As a result, we can see that in some ways, this libertarianism is a mixture of determinism (actions are caused by agents) and indeterminism (agents are uncaused). That means libertarianism avoid the moral dilemma successfully, for it gains two advantages of the previous two theories.
But the word “mixture” does not simply mean it would gain advantages, but also something questionability. First of all, we can hardly answer why we distinguish so sharply between agent causation and event causation unless we accept the dualism, that the metaphysical world is so distinct from the visible world that we can see the difference precisely. This means the foundation of libertarianism is shakable and unreliable. Of course, the whole structure of libertarianism is also of doubtful value
Even the admitting of dualism is still not enough. Libertarians claim that every free act is based on a volition or an act of the will. But in this given sense, why did a particular volition come about at the precise time that it did and why was it directed to this or that outcome?
4. COMPATIBILISM
In this theory, as its name manifested, the causal chain is quite compatible with free will. It based on two points, (1) that the determinism is true, which means all behavior is determined; (2) that we have the sort of freedom necessary to be morally responsible for our actions. And then we could distinguish this theory into two chief positions: traditional compatibilism and Harry Frankfurt’s deep self-compatibilism.
The most difference between these two schools’ is the definition of free. According to traditional compatibilism, an action is free if (1) the action is caused by the will of the agent, and (2) the action is not forced – that means choosing freely. This old position bring a question out of animals: the bird flies in the sky by its own desire – for food or else – without any impediments. Can we say the bird has free will? The newer position solves this difficulty with further definition of emphasis on the ability of chosen, which the difference between animals and human beings is.
Generally speaking, this compatibilism looks good in appearance. It admits determinism upon metaphysics, and also can be accepted in common day sense, and most of all, it makes responsibility consist with determined world.
But I have to say that this study may be more reliable unless they had solved this category of situations. For instance, I decided to go to bookstore tomorrow afternoon, and according to this position, my decision is caused by my own desire, by my inner state. Namely, my tomorrow afternoon decision to go to a bookstore is determined to happen when I become aware now that there is an inner desire for a visit to the bookstore. That means when I make a decision to go to bookstore tomorrow night, it was not my power to decide indeed. The decision for tomorrow afternoon was determined by my own desire now, and then I am causally determined to go to the bookstore tomorrow afternoon. And in this situation, compatibilism is merely an empty promise.
5. HARD DETERMINISM AGAIN
5.1 WHY AGAIN?
After running through these theories of freedom, for all positions lead to difficulties, we nearly reach a result that the problem of free will is perhaps furthest from any comprehensive solution. But are all these difficulties in the same extent? Compared with other theories, we can find that what impeded hard determinism is merely free will and responsibility. What’s more, for that nothing was uncaused, means hard determinism is the simply one can justify itself in the ontological sense.
The defenders of free will and personal responsibility prefer to reject the argument for hard determinism. They did such two deductions as following
1. According to hard determinism, all actions are determined by the past, including human behavior.
Therefore:
2. We have no power to act other than we in fact do act.
3. If we have no power to act other tan we do indeed act, then we have no free will
4. If we have no free will, then we are not responsible for our actions
5. We are responsible for our actions
Therefore: Hard determinism is false.
Surely, if we hold this position as these deductions, the hard determinism is still cannot reconcile the conflict with responsibility - unless we can adjust our inward attitude of this problem.
5.2 THE DETERMINED, BUT CAN NOT BE KNOWN FULLY WORLD
First of all, I believe that we are not responsible for any actions if and only if we are determined and we know why we determined totally and precisely. But are we really able to know the total world? In fact, the world acts as pre-destined -- can’t be other than this world. Possibilities exist only in human mind, for the limitation of human understanding ability. Too many possibilities in our mind, that is why we always want to deliberate the future events.
Take dicing for example; when we are dicing, if I want to know what dot it will be shown if and only if I know the situation of all muscles of the banker when he shake the dice box, the inner space of dice box, the wear and tear of the dice, and some other circumstances which are capable to affect the outcome. But even that it is also not enough; I must depict the moving locus of dice based on all these conditions. It is so difficult that no one can afford it in time. And for this calculation must take a period of time, there may be some other circumstances out of what we just considered, affect the result in this period of time because they make effects indirectly.
In addition, certainly we can know something in advance by some chief prior conditions, for example, weather forecast, but sometimes the circumstances are too variety to judge whether it affect the result directly or not, even the weather forecast could not be exact for a long time (the “Butterfly Effect”, simply small change can make a huge difference).
Further more, the Uncertainty Principle, which I just mentioned in indeterminism, also supports this position. Because of the uncertain, we can not know the world totally, although it may be no affects to our daily life.
5.3 TO THE RESPONSIVE PROBLEM: A NEW ATTITUDE
Because of this uncertainty, we can consider that although we are surely determined, we are also accountable for our actions. All we were given a responsive sense by the somewhat unpredictable world. This responsibility sense exists because every our actions now must be causes of some actions come later, but we cannot know what will happen and what determined us exactly, so we need the responsibility to make out actions observe the law of the nature. It is also one of the causes which determined us.
Further, the responsibility senses cannot be all the same. Different people think in different way, for example, in Pythagoreans opinion that eating peas is as evil as stealing, which is quite irrational in our lens.
Let’s recall the moral dilemma then, at first, should the determined thief be culpable? Of course, he was obviously quibbling that his responsibility sense was determined by someone else. In fact how did he know his inner state was merely determined by that event so many years ago? Despite his father’s stealing affects his life from his childhood, why he stole in that particular time but not others? In contrast to robot, he has his own responsibility sense, not his father’s, and thus he should be accountable to his responsibility sense.
To the second problem, we shall see that whether you do this or do that, you must have a choice with the time going on. If someone was robbed, he can struggle with the robber, and he also can wait. However, to do something is certainly a choice, and no choice is a choice, too. We can consider the chief cause of his “no choice” is that he thought “I was determined, and everything is determined, I need not to do anything but wait”. In that sense, he was determined by his own belief and the wrong attitude to determinism.
CONCLUSION
Causal chains determine us so strictly that we can not avoid them anytime. When we turn back to see what had we done, we may discover that although so many choice we had thought over, our final decision is the only choice indeed. Frequently we can infer future by some obvious chief events, but for the limitation of our known of the whole circumstances in past, now and in the future, we cannot know them all. In that case, therefore, we must be accountable to every action we had done, doing and will do. In other words, hard determinism is somewhat like the air around us. Although we do not pay attention to it at most time, it does exist, and affect our life.
- Icarus - 2005-12-1
这是你写的?
- dsssm008 - 2005-12-1
是他写的。
我有点羡慕佩服兼嫉妒了。
只是半年……都是基地班，彼此的差异怎么就这么大呢？？
- Icarus - 2005-12-1
确实是强了!
- MagicLi - 2005-12-1
强啊，佩服中。
如果比较哲学基地班学生的水平都是这样，3年后的出国率一定很可观阿。
- skyhyatt - 2005-12-2
嗯,不过有些许语法错误
- 鹤冲天 - 2005-12-2
引用：Originally posted by skyhyatt at 2005-12-2 07:30 PM:
嗯,不过有些许语法错误
帮忙改改吧
- gbb - 2005-12-2
啥是基地班？？不好意思插一嘴：）
- 鹤冲天 - 2005-12-2
引用：Originally posted by MagicLi at 2005-12-1 11:58 PM:
强啊，佩服中。
如果比较哲学基地班学生的水平都是这样，3年后的出国率一定很可观阿。
过奖过奖
希望吧,我是有想法,不知形势何如
- dsssm008 - 2005-12-2
引用：Originally posted by gbb at 2005-12-2 11:06 PM:培养专门人才的地方，保研优惠
啥是基地班？？不好意思插一嘴：）