source

The Indeterminist Argument Against Soft Determinism

The libertarian definition of freedom

Genuine freedom is contextual (always freedom with respect to something (call it X). Genuine freedom with respect to X requires three conditions:

• I can do X.
• I want to do X.
• I really can do something other than X.

The libertarian notes that the first and second conditions are often satisfied. I find I often can do what I want to do.

For the Soft Determinist (compatibilist), this is enough for freedom. In fact, the SD must deny the third condition (“I really can do something other than X”), since it’s incompatible with the thesis of determinism. As long as you maintain the thesis of determinism (the notion that everything that happens must happen), this third condition can never be satisfied, since if everything that happens must happen, my so-called ‘free’ choices must happen, too. My free choices are just like any other events in the world of universal causality: they can’t be otherwise.

For the libertarian, however, condition (3) is just as necessary as (1) and (2). For the libertarian, there is no real freedom if my so-called ‘free’ choices can’t be otherwise. This is the kernel of the indeterminist argument against SD.

So the libertarian notion of freedom depends on showing that the thesis of determinism is false or at least dubious.

There are both philosophical and scientific reasons to doubt the thesis of determinism.

Philosophical Reasons

The language of mechanical cause and effect simply does not apply in intentional contexts. Teleological explanations are necessary.

The thesis of determinism seems to contradict ordinary experience.

The thesis of determinism is compatible with all states of affairs.

Scientific Reasons

Chaos theory

Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle (commits the fallacy of composition: although people are composed of atoms, what’s true of atoms isn’t necessarily true of people)

So if these reasons are sound, condition (3) can be met.

So genuine freedom can exist.

Reasons and Causes

Most philosophers nowadays acknowledge the necessity of teleological explanations of human behavior. One standard argument for teleological explanation comes from Kant.

Kant says persons are like things in the sense that physical laws apply to their bodies; the indeterminist might even admit that psychological ‘laws’ govern some of people’s consciousness events. But persons are NOT like things because they can be conscious of the operation of these laws. (A thing is just subject to laws; it is not conscious of being subject to laws.) Even the hard determinist must admit this odd characteristic of persons. People can thus be aware of physical and psychological laws as observers, from the outside.These laws are viewed as things that can operate on me, but there is always a sense in which I view myself as apart from them, for example, right now, when I am reflecting about them.

When I think about how to behave, I consider reasons. I never think about causes, because insofar as I am an agent, they are never relevant. I have to make choices, and I choose on the basis of reasons. In other words, the model of physical causation does not fit at all when you try to apply it to human choices. Even if all human choices were determined, the HD model would still be completely inadequate to describe the perspective of the agent, which is what really matters for morality. The HD position is simply at odds with human experience because it continually asserts that as far as human experience is concerned, things are not what they seem. (What seems voluntary really isn’t, for example.)

Now, the fact that a statement is at odds with our experiences does not show it is false. Many truths are counter-intuitive, e.g., that the earth revolves around the sun. But we accept those truths because they have independent confirmation, through experiments and mathematics. Hard determinism doesn’t; in fact, it can’t have independent confirmation, since its assertions have no possible counter-examples. This makes it very suspicious.The indeterminist asks that you consider closely actual cases of human decision-making. Consider decisions in the realm of morality, for example. The indeterminist says you will find that there is undoubtedly a freedom to make or withhold moral effort, which exists no matter what a person’s past conditioning has been.

Consider the following example: Take two people A and B. Suppose A has had a wonderful childhood loving, supportive parents, no worries about money, good health, etc. Suppose B has had a terrible childhood his parents didn’t want him, beat him up, never enough money, etc. Suppose now that A and B are grown up. They have a mutual friend Z, who goes on vacation, and leaves a key to his apartment with A, and another key with B. Z has a watch that A and B both like very much; it occurs to both of them to steal it. Stealing it would be simple under the circumstances. Given their respective conditionings, what can we say about the relative strength of the temptation to steal the watch in A and in B? Probably, the temptation will be stronger for B. Another way of saying this is that the amount of moral effort required by B to resist the temptation will be greater than the amount required by A; for example, it might take 8 units of moral effort for B to resist the temptation, but only 2 unit of moral effort for A to resist the same temptation. Clearly, then, it will be easier for A to resist the temptation.

The indeterminist grants all this, but now comes to his major point: both A and B have to decide whether to expend the amount of moral effort required to resist the temptation. Both have to choose, and neither one’s conditioning determines how they will choose. This choice is a free choice. Conditioning does not determine how they will choose, it determines only the degree of difficulty of different moral tasks for different people. Either A or B can choose either way.

So when we say some people are at a disadvantage because of their conditioning, we mean that choosing rightly will be harder for them, but not impossible. More moral effort will be required by a person with unfortunate conditioning; however, we always suppose that a person is responsible for the amount of moral effort he puts forth, no matter what his conditioning. Perhaps it is more likely that B will not put forth the effort; but A can slip too.Thus, by looking at actual cases of decision-making, the indeterminist says that freedom to make or withhold effort (moral effort, or other kinds of discipline, e.g., saving money, physical training) is clearly not illusory, and the existence of responsibility for choice can’t be denied. Effort of the will is an illusion only if you deny your own experience.

The existentialist philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre illustrates a kind of indeterminism. Sartre argues that because people have self-reflective ability, they can be genuinely creative with respect to their character. They can decide to break with their past. For Sartre, in fact, there is a radical gulf between a person and his past, such that a person must continually re-create and redefine himself. Sartre thinks that far from being determined, people are so free it terrifies them. They usually can’t stand it, so they make up stories about how they are determined.

Further