Free Will and Determinism Revision Powerpoint

Key Words to be happy with Free will – autonomy, freedom to choose on the basis of reason Scientific worldview - every event has a cause eg cognitive science (the mind is like a computer) Determinism or necessity – everything is subject to the laws of cause and effect Hard determinism – free will is an illusion because the will is causally predetermined Compatibilism – free will is real even though the will is causally determined: freedom requires determinism. Libertarianism – free will is a metaphysical idea so freedom and determinism are incompatible.

Key assumptions Hard determinists assume free will means a causally determined act over which I have no control. Compatibilists assume freedom means “absence of constraint”. Libertarians assume freedom means “subject to reason alone”, outside of the scientific realm of cause and effect.

Honderich’s viewpoint Honderich is a hard determinist. Our wills are causally determined. Freedom means “without strict causal antecedents”. Free will is incompatible with determinism. Therefore we have no free will.

Hume’s viewpoint Note: Bowie* incorrectly labels Hume a libertarian. Hume is a compatibilist or soft determinist. Free will means “absence of constraint”. Constraints could be psychological (eg mental illness), physical (eg lack of strength) or logical (eg I can’t be in two places at once). Free will requires necessity (Hume’s word for determinism) for without a cause, our wills would be random. AJ Ayer is a modern compatibilist (see Freedom and Reason) *Ethical Studies 2nd edition page 93

Kant’s viewpoint Kant is a libertarian, and his key assumption is autonomy (self-rule or freedom with reason). Free will belongs to the realm of ideas (the noumenal world or world of things in themselves where concepts like space, time and causation exist). Moral acts can only be moral if they are free, coming from reason alone (a priori reason, meaning before experience). CA Campbell (1976) is a modern libertarian. He sees freedom at points of struggle with decisions, ie “it could have been otherwise”.

Problems with different viewpoints Honderich’s view seems to abandon hope for controlling our futures. Hume’s view seems to take a rather minimal view of freedom (isn’t freedom a power, as Hume himself suggests?). Key question: could I have done otherwise? Honderich says “no”. Kant’s view seems to divide human experience between the realm of reason, of pure ideas (called the noumenal world), and the realm of cause and effect (which he calls the phenomenal world).

AJ Ayer’s view Ayer (1910-1989) argues that determinism is misleading idea suggesting “one event is in the power of another” rather than just factually correlated. Caused does not mean forced. Laws of nature aren’t prescriptive in the way laws of the country are prescriptive....they don’t place eg the human will under obligations. They simply lay down established patterns in the nature of things. “The laws of mechanics do not compel the planets to move in their orbits; they simply describe planetary motion.” DJ O’Connor , Free Will (1971:73)

Behaviourism and psychology Freud and Laplace were hard determinists (will and conscience come from our upbringing) Skinner argues we are conditioned to behave by experiences (Pavlov’s dog). So we can condition new types of behaviour (eg advertising…where Skinner made a fortune in the USA). JB Watson argues that if we change people’s environment we can change their behaviour (genes and environment are important).

Some films you could mention A Clockwork Orange takes a hard determinist view: we are compelled by both internal and external constraints. Truman Show starts with Truman inhabiting a hard determinist world where everything is programmed. But Truman uses reason to work this out and break out of John Locke’s locked room (see textbook for Locke’s analogy). So in the end this is a Kantian, libertarian view.