Free Will

Freedom Versus Determinism

• Are human beings free to make moral decisions and to act upon them?

• Are they determined by forces outside and within them?

• What you think are free decisions are actually not?

• Really a metaphysical question

• Important implications for responsibility in humans

Introduction

• Universal causation

• For every result, effect and event that occurs, a cause exists

• Would never be a debate over what human beings should do, just answers to what they will do

• What is the point of holding them responsible?

• Powerful implications

Determinism

• Theory that God is all-powerful and all-knowing, then He must have predestined everything that occurs

• Problems

• Is there such a being?

• Is he all-powerful and all-knowing?

• Most theories of salvation are limited if humans are not free to make choices between good and evil

Religious DEterminism

• Must accept determinism in science

• All about experiments, constancy, prediction of truth

• Led scientists to believe freedom doesn’t exist

• Especially applied to modern psychology

• Two types – physical and biological/genetic

Scientific Determinism

• From discoveries in physical science

• Newton theorized that everything in reality is basically material, or physical, in nature and is therefore completely determined by natural laws

• Problems

• Natural laws state probabilities, not certainties

• Modern physics has raised serious doubts about Newtonian physics

Physical Science and Physical Determinism

• Charles Darwin’s theory that species evolve by means of natural selection, survival of the fittest

• Nature determines human beings

• More sophisticated form of this theory states that human beings are totally determined by genetic makeup, with no control

Biological and Genetic Determinism

• Theories of George Hagel

• An absolute mind is trying to realize itself in perfection and manifest itself through history of the world, and that human beings therefore are completely determined by their past and present history and cultures

• Problems

• Difficult to prove the existence of an absolute mind, one that can exist without a body

• Other theories of history are just as plausible

Historical or Cultural Determinism

• Karl Marx

• Human beings are determined by economic class struggles that inevitably will lead to a classless society

• Problems

• Based on unproved assumptions, other economic theories equally plausible

• Other factors other than economics also exist

Economic or Social Determinism

• Freud – Humans are affected by unconscious drives and their attempts to repress them

• Problems

• Too generalized

• Skinner – Human beings are physical beings whose development is totally determined by external stimuli provided by physical and cultural environments

• Problems

• Based on materialistic view of human beings, which does not stand up to evidence or argument

• Too universal

Psychological Determinism – Freud and Skinner

• The belief that all events are fixed and predetermined so human beings cannot alter them in any way

• An example you have heard?

• People would never worry about stop signs, never take medication

• Saying everything has a cause not the same as everything is out of human control

Fatalism

• All events are caused, then freedom is incompatible with determinism

• Problems

• Language out of context

• Do not account for complexity of the nature of human beings

• Try to reduce to simplicity

• Human minds are open-ended and creative, humans create their experience of the world, active seekers

Hard Determinism

• Theory that all events are caused, but that some originate with human beings

• Does this even make sense? Don’t things ultimately come from outside of our control always?

• Does allow us to assign praise, blame, reward, punishment

Soft DEterminism

• Certain amount of chance and freedom in the world, not everything is caused

• Some desires for novelty and spontaneity in the world, allowing for freedom and creativity

• Argument is that remorse is an indication we are free

• Problems

• Based on wishful thinking

• What are uncaused events?

• Not a guarantee of human freedom, only chance

Indeterminism

Does Free Will Exist?A Debate.