Determinism vs.

Free Will

Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that you love your father. By which I mean, you want
him to be alive. And let’s also assume that you don’t have any attachments to your mother that
you might describe as... romantic. Well, guess who thought felt the same way about his parents?
Oedipus. According to ancient Greek legend, when Oedipus was born, a prophecy foretold that he
would kill his father and marry his mother. So his father left baby Oedipus in the wilderness,
assuming he would die, and the prophecy would then not come true. But instead, the abandoned
baby was discovered and raised by another family. As an adult, Oedipus learned of the prophecy
that he would kill his father and marry his mother. So, not knowing he was adopted, he left his
adoptive parents in order to avoid fulfilling that prophecy, figuring that if he wasn’t near them, it
couldn’t come true. Lo and behold, as he was trying to flee his fate, Oedipus killed a stranger in a
fit of rage, who turned out to be the father he had never met. He then proceeded to marry the
dead man’s widow, who was actually his mother, though he didn’t know it.
Needless to say, this is a fate that, needless to say, any of us would like to avoid. But for
philosophers, the whole point of the story of Oedipus is: there is no escaping fate.

Are we free?

I mean, on the one hand, most of us have the clear sense that we are. We feel free. We
feel like we make all sorts of decisions that lead to both beliefs and actions that are wholly of our
own choosing. Like, I could do that. I had oatmeal this morning because I felt like it. This view –
that humans are capable of entirely free actions – is known as libertarian free will. And to be
clear, libertarian free will is nothing like political libertarianism. Both views get their name from
the word liberty, but political libertarians are all about freedom from government intervention,
while people who accept libertarian free will could be anything from political libertarians to
socialists. They just think that, metaphysically, we can act freely. So a lot of us figure that our
thoughts and actions are free. But, most of us also believe that every effect has a cause, And
that everything that happens now, in the present, is the necessary result of events that occurred
in the past. This view is known as hard determinism. And many of the people watching this
probably think that they believe in both things; that many of your actions are free, and that the
world is governed by cause and effect.

But, it turns out, you can’t rationally hold both views. Because, traditionally, libertarians
have defined free actions according to what’s known as the Principle of Alternate Possibilities.
That might sound like the plot device for a sci-fi show, but this principle says that an action is
free only if the agent– that is, the person doing the thing – could have done otherwise. So, truly
free actions require options. Determinism, by contrast, doesn’t allow options. It holds that every
event is caused by a previous event. Which means that an agent can never have done anything
other than what they did, and therefore, they are never free. But let’s look at these two options
more closely. And also, let’s look at my breakfast. Libertarianism says that my decision to eat
oatmeal this morning wasn’t necessarily caused by anything that happened before it. Instead, it
could have been the result of non-physical events– specifically, my own thoughts – that
originated right at that point. I ate oatmeal because I decided to eat oatmeal! End of story. But
libertarianism runs counter to what we know about the workings of the physical world, with one
thing causing another. So libertarians need a way to account for their view. One way they do that
is by making a distinction between what’s known as event causation, and agent causation. Event
causation means that no physical event can occur without having been caused by a previous
physical event. So, many libertarians concede that the physical world itself is deterministic. Like,
a baseball is flying through the air because someone hit that ball with a bat. But many
libertarians also argue that there’s such a thing as agent causation, which says that an agent – a
being propelled by a mind –can start a whole chain of causality that wasn’t caused by anything
else. So, the person who hit the ball most likely did so because they just decided to do it.

By this logic, agents have the ability to affect the causal chain of the universe. They can
make stuff happen on their own. But, many philosophers find this idea untenable. Where would
these free decisions, the ones that launch entirely new causal chains, come from, they ask? Are
they simply random? What would compel an agent to make one decision, and not another? And if
you can answer those questions – if you can explain what would cause an agent to act –Then
well, you’ve just reinforced the position that actions are caused, rather than free. The fact is, it’s
pretty difficult to find arguments that support libertarian free will. The best argument in favor of
it seems to be that it just feels an awful lot like we’re free. And libertarians argue that we
shouldn’t discount the legitimacy of our own personal, subjective experiences –so if we feel so
free, we should seriously consider the possibility that we are. That point has a certain intuitive
appeal. But if you can’t come up with an argument to defend your feeling, then good
philosophical reasoning recommends that you reject it, or at least withhold judgment until you
can get some evidence together.

So now let’s see if the hard determinists can do any better. 18th century French
philosopher Baron D’Holbach said that none of our actions are actually free. D’Holbach believed
that everything that’s happening right now is the result of an unbroken chain of events.
Everything, he said, is the inevitable result of what came before. Including everything that we
do! Our actions are caused in the same way that, say, home runs are caused by bats hitting
balls, or tornadoes are caused by warm air systems hitting cool air systems in the right
conditions. This means that humans and our actions are just part of the physical world, bound by
its physical laws. This belief is often explained through a view known as reductionism.
Reductionism is the view that all parts of the world, and of our own experience, can be traced
back – or reduced down – to one singular thing. So, for example, you see your mind as being
capable of making free decisions. You think that what goes on in your head when you make a
choice is not at all like bats and balls. But, well, mental states are brain states, or at least they’re
tied directly to your brain. And brain states are biological. And biological states are physical
states. And the physical world – as we already said – is deterministic. There’s just no room for
free will in this picture. We think we’re free - but we’re not. And really, as scientific thinkers, why
would we assume that we are? Why would we think that we’re any different than everything else
in the universe? What would make us so special? Libertarians are right that it’s really hard to
disregard the feeling of freedom. If I didn’t choose to eat oatmeal this morning, why do I feel like
I did? And what made me do it? But hard determinists say that the difference between the
causes of human actionsand the causes of physical events – like a bat hitting a ball –is that our
actions have all sorts of invisible causes that happen in our brains. Specifically, when beliefs
team up with our desires and our temperament, they say, you get a deliberate human action.
Combine my belief that oatmeal is nutritious, with my desire for healthy nourishment, and the
temperament that predisposes me to enjoy warm, carby comfort foods, and ta-da! – you get
oatmealy breakfast! Now, you might argue that those particular beliefs, desires, and
temperamentsmight lead to any number of breakfast choices – cream of wheat, maybe, or some
granola. But, if you dig deep enough, you’d see that there are factors that rule out those options–
as well as every other option. Maybe I’m a little worried about one of my fillings coming loose, so
I’m shying away from the granola because it’s too crunchy. Or I just don’t think about cream of
wheat very often. I mean, they don’t have very good brand awareness anymore. What even is
cream of wheat exactly? And the oatmeal is sitting right there in front of me. Or maybe I think
briefly of making one of those quinoa breakfast bowls that are so hip right now. But my lazy
temperament, or my belief that I’m running late, pushes me to choose the 90-seconds-in-the-
microwave option. See how it works? All you have to do is change one factor– a belief, desire, or
temperament – and you’ll get a different outcome. Hard determinists argue that, just because we
can’t pinpoint the exact factors that led us to an action, we could, in theory isolate them –if we
knew enough about all the beliefs, desires, and temperaments swirling around in our brains.

So, in this view, what we call “decisions” are really just the inevitable results of a bunch of
mental stuff combining in just the right way. And maybe it feels free. But it’s not. But hold up!
Isn’t there some way out of this? Like, what if I have someone choose my breakfast for me? Or
what if I fall back on randomness, by, like, flipping a coin? After all, if I just flipped a coin, then it
wouldn’t look like that decision was made by beliefs, desires, and temperaments. But, well, no
such luck. Because even if I thought I chose randomly, my decision to flip the coin, or who I
asked to pick for me, was just as determined as everything else. And guess what! If you’re
getting angry right now about me telling you none of your choices are free, well, that anger was
determined! If you’re finding this whole topic confusing, or boring yep – still determined. You
think you can just freely choose to stop playing this video, but if you’re stillwatching me, good
news: that’s determined too! Determinists believe that you can’t help but feel and react the way
you’re reacting right now. You can think you’re choosing to act in ways that conform to the
character that you’ve selected and shaped for yourself, but even that “choice” is the result of all
sorts of already-determined factors about you and your place in the world.

Hard determinism is tough to refute. And it has some really uncomfortable implications. It
means the deeply held feeling most of us have that we actually make free decisions? Is just
wrong. And the whole concept of personal responsibility is thrown out the window, too. As
D’Holbach put it, we’re all just “cogs in a machine,” doing what we were always meant to do,
with no actual volition. Oedipus had to kill his dad and marry his mom. I had to eat the oatmeal.
And you? You just had to keep watching! You couldn’t turn away! Today we learned about
libertarian free will and it’s counterpoint, hard determinism. Next time, we’ll see if some middle
ground can be found between determinism and libertarianism. And I sure hope there can be.