I. What Determinism Claims
A. LaPlace’s Demon
1. A flawless, lightening fast calculator with a massive memory
2. Given the laws of physics & the position of every particle in the universe at time t, the demon could instantly calculate the position of every particle in the universe at time t+n.
3. This is possible only if the laws of physics are deterministic: Deterministic laws maintain that the state of a system at any time determine the state of that system at any later time. a. Newton’s laws are deterministic, as is all of “classical” physics (i.e. physics before quantum theory)
4. If determinism is true, then the position of every particle making up your brain and body 10 day (or ten years!) from now could have been predicted many centuries ago. a. So every thing you do and everything you say was determined (& in principle predictable) long before you were born.
II. An Objection … and the plan of the lectures on free will & determinism
A. Objection: Classical physics is indeed deterministic. But contemporary quantum physics is not deterministic. So, while it made sense to worry about determinism up until the early years of the 20 th century, it is no longer worth worrying about.
B. The Plan
1. Get clearer on why determinism would pose profound problems if it were true.
2. Argue that an entirely parallel set of problems arises even if determinism is false in the way that modern physics suggests.
III. Why determinism would pose profound problems if it were true
A. Choice is an illusion. We have no free will!
1. The metaphor of a puppet on strings would be a good one for human life. In our case the “strings” that control us are the laws of nature.
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a. Even our belief that we have free will and our conviction that choice is not an illusion is determined. i. If this course convinces you that you that choice is an illusion, that too is determined!
B. Moral responsibility presupposes free choice
1. When people’s behavior is not the result of their own choice we do not hold them morally responsible for their behavior. a. Examples i. Stich hitting the next student whose cell phone goes off vs. being thrown at the student by six anti-cell-phone terrorists. ii. The student who copies a paper from the web vs. the student who is hypnotized into “writing” a plagiarized paper.
2. We hold people responsible in the cases where we believe people had a choice. We don’t hold people responsible in the cases where we don’t think they had a choice.
C. Justifiable punishment (& justifiable reward!) for behavior presupposes moral responsibility.
1. Examples a. The two cell phone cases b. The two plagiarism cases c. The real hero vs. the accidental hero
IV. Compatibilism (a.k.a. “Soft Determinism”)
A. Compatibilists argue that (contrary to appearances) determinism and moral responsibility really are compatible.
1. Hume was a compatibilist.
B. Central to the compatibilist argument is a distinction between two kinds of behavior
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1. Behavior that is caused by one’s own desires, beliefs and decisions
2. Behavior that is NOT caused by one’s own desires, beliefs and decisions
C. Using this distinction, compatibilists distinguish two different kinds of (or conceptions of) freedom or (or free actions)
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Metaphysical Freedom
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Moral Freedom
1. Metaphysical Freedom: An action is Metaphysically Free if & only if it is NOT caused by any prior events or states of affairs i. All actions are caused by prior events.
2. Moral Freedom: a. If Determinism is true, then there is no Metaphysical Freedom
• An action or behavior is Morally Free if it is caused by the agent’s own beliefs, desires and decisions.
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An action or behavior is NOT Morally Free if it is NOT caused by the agent’s own beliefs, desires and decisions. a. An action can be Morally Free even if Determinism is true.
D. The central claim of Compatibilism is that the kind of freedom required for moral responsibility is Moral Freedom, not Metaphysical Freedom.
1. We are morally responsible for (and can reasonably be punished for) those acts that are caused by our own desires and decisions.
E. In defense of their view, compatibilists argue that Moral Freedom (the kind that is compatible with Determinism) is all that is required by common sense (and by the law) when we decide whether someone is morally responsible.
1. Example: Missing the Final Exam because
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You turned off the alarm & went back to bed, because you wanted to get more sleep.
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You are tied up and locked in a closet by robbers who have broken into your apartment. a. In the alarm clock case, we WOULD hold you responsible - because your behavior was caused by your desires
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b. In the tied-up-in-the-closet case, we WOULD NOT hold you responsible - because your behavior was not caused by your desires.
V. Critique of Compatibilism
A. If determinism is true then our desires, beliefs and decisions are determined by factors that are not under our control. Indeed, they were determined long before we were born.
1. It is not reasonable to hold a person responsible for action caused by his beliefs, desires & decisions if he has no choice about having those beliefs, desires & decisions.
2. An analogy:
A person who is given a drug that can cause a quite specific desire and decision (e.g. a decision to try to kill many people in a terrorist act) a. We would not hold the person responsible for his actions. b. Critics of compatibilism maintain that, if determinism is true, then all our desires and decisions are similar to those of the person who is given the drug, because they are all caused by factors that we did not chose and over which we have no control.
VI. Libertarianism: The Claim that Determinism is False
A. Terminological note: “Libertarianism” is also used as a label for a political view.
1. Metaphysical Libertarianism and political Libertarianism are not connected in any way. a. Indeed, John Hospers, a leading opponent of metaphysical Libertarianism was the first Libertarian (political) Party candidate for President of the USA.
B. Arguments for Libertarianism
1. William James’ “Moral Argument” a. “If a certain [view about] the nature of the world violates my moral demand,
I shall feel as free to throw it overboard as if it disappointed my demand for uniformity [in nature].” b. If determinism is correct, then all the horrible things that happen in the world had to happen. This is a very pessimistic view of the world. For in a
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deterministic world, “what ought to be is impossible.” c. To avoid this pessimistic conclusion, James rejects determinism.
2. The scientific argument: Modern physics maintains that the most basic laws of nature are not deterministic but probabilistic. a. Einstein said “God does not play dice” -- but apparently Einstein was wrong. b. A simple example of a non-deterministic phenomenon: radioactive decay
VII. Why the Falsity of Determinism Doesn’t Dissolve the Problem of Free Will
A. A universe in which there are random events is not one in which we have free will. Behavior caused by a random event is no more freely chosen than behavior completely determined by the laws of physics.
1. A puppet on a string that occasionally jerks randomly is no more comforting a metaphor than a puppet that is completely controlled by the strings.
B. We would not hold someone morally responsible for an act that was caused by a random event occurring in his brain.
C. If Free Will is incompatible with a deterministic universe
AND Free Will is ALSO incompatible with an indeterministic universe of the sort that modern physics describes, then many philosophers would conclude that there is no such thing as Free Will.
D. There is at least one other option:
1. Perhaps the we live in an indeterministic universe that is not completely described by modern physics because there are some events (e.g some human behaviors) which are not determined and not random either.
2. Whether coherent sense can be made of this option is an issue that actively debated in contemporary philosophy
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