The

Problem
METAPHYSICS of Free
Will
 WHAT IS FREEDOM?

“surface freedom” “free will”

 Being able to ‘do what  Being an agent
you want’ capable of influencing
 Being free to act, and the world
choose, as you will  Source of ones own
BUT: what if ‘what actions
you will’ is not under  Actions and choices
are “up-to-us”
your control?
 WHY IS FREEDOM
IMPORTANT?
 We ‘feel’ that we are free; that we are the originators of our own
actions
 We need to be free in order to be responsible for our actions; our
practices of praise and blame presuppose that we are free
 Greene Paper – neuroscience, moral and legal responsibility,
theories of punishment
 Roper v. Simmons, 2005, US Supreme Cour t, unconstitutional to
impose capital punishment for crimes committed under age 1 8
 Recent scientific advances in brain research indicate that the
adolescent brain has not yet fully developed, the decision -making
capacity and risk -taking behavior of adolescents are far dif ferent
from those of adults; thus adolescent of fenders are less culpable.
Roper v. Simmons: The Role of the Science Brief
 SOCIET Y AND FREE WILL

 psychological capacities to control our own lives, change our

habits and traits, overcome addictions, exercise willpower,
and consciously consider the sort of life we want to lead (and
to control our behavior accordingly).
 If people interpret free will to include these sorts of
capacities, then telling them that they don’t have free will
could have detrimental ef fects on their self -conception,
interpersonal relations, and moral behavior, as well as our
political debates and legal practices. It may make them more
fatalistic, less likely to exert those powers of rational
deliberation and willpower they do have, and less motivated to
improve themselves and their lives – Eddy Nahmias
 DETERMINISM: TYPES

Causal determinism*
Theological determinism
Psychological determinism
Sociological determinism
Biological determinism
Environmental determinism
 COMPATIBILIT Y?

 This raises two big questions

1. The determinist question - is determinism true or false?
2. The compatibility question - is free will compatible with
determinism?
 The combination of answers that can be
given form the standard positions in the
debate
POSITIONS IN THE ‘FREE WILL DEBATE’
D I A G R A M TA K E N F R O M H T T P : / / E N . W I K I P E D I A . O R G / W I K I / F R E E _ W I L L
 INCOMPATIBILISM

 Incompatibilists believe freedom is not compatible with

determinism; if determinism is true, then one cannot be held
truly free and responsible for one’s actions

 Incompatibilists may be divided into two groups …

 INCOMPATIBILISM: HARD
DETERMINISM

a) Free will is not compatible with determinism

b) Determinism is true
c) So, we do not have free will

HARD DETERMINISTS are incompatibilists who hold that

determinism is true
 INCOMPATIBILISM:
LIBERTARIANISM

 Libertarians believe
a) We do have free will
b) Free will is not compatible with determinism
c) Determinism is therefore false
 COMPATIBILISM

COMPATIBILISTS believe that freedom and

responsibility are in every significant
sense compatible with determinism; thus
there is no conflict between determinism
and free will
 SOFT DETERMINISTS are compatibilists who
believe determinism is true
 Classical Compatibilists: Hobbes, Hume, Mill
 Modern Compatibilists: Ayer, Dennett, Frankfurt
 HARD DETERMINISM

a) Free will is not compatible with

determinism
b) Determinism is true
c) Therefore, free will is an illusion

Support?
 HARD DETERMINISM

CONSEQUENCE ARGUMENT (informal)

If determinism is true, then our acts are the
consequences of the laws of nature and
events in the remote past. But it is not up to
us what went on before we were born, and
neither is it up to us what the laws of nature
are. Therefore the consequences of these
things (including our present acts) are not up
to us.
Peter van Inwagen, An Essay on Free Will (p. 56)
 HARD DETERMINISM

 Problems:
 How can the HD explain our behaviour of praising and blaming
agents for their actions, and ascribing responsibility?
 What happens to morality? If nobody can ever ‘do otherwise’
than they in fact do, then notions of responsibility, desert,
praise, and blame are redundant.
 SOFT DETERMINISM
(COMPATIBILISM)
a) Determinism is true
b) Free will exists
c) There is no tension between these claims
 If some people see a tension here, it is because they are
misunderstanding the notions of freedom and determinism,
of ‘free-choice’ and ‘causal necessity’
 CHALLENGE FOR THE
COMPATIBILIST:
 Incompatibilists say:
For our actions to be free, it must be the case that, when we act,
we could do otherwise than we actually do

This insistence on the ability to do otherwise is often referred to

as the “principle of alternate possibilities”
 COMPATIBILIST RESPONSES:

1. Interpret the CDO-condition of freedom as having a

hypothetical or conditional meaning, i.e.

To say one ‘could have done otherwise’ is to say that one would
have done otherwise had things been different (given a
different set of beliefs, desires, etc.)
[classical compatibilist response]
 COMPATIBILIST RESPONSES:

2. So what if I couldn’t ‘do otherwise’?

The ability to do otherwise is not in fact required for moral
responsibility, and so determinism is no threat to free will
3. The proper contrast to freedom is not determinism,
but constraint/coercion
As long as we are not constrained, coerced or forced in our
actions then we do what we will, and it doesn’t matter
whether our wills are determined or not
 COMPATIBILISM: PROBLEMS
 compatibilist freedom is only ‘surface’ freedom - it is not free
will in the full, proper sense

 Compatibilism is a “wretched subterfuge” (Kant), a “quagmire

of evasion” (William James)
 LIBERTARIAN (FREE WILL)
POSITION
 Libertarians believe
a) Free will is not compatible with determinism
b) Free will exists
c) Determinism is therefore false

Support?

Criticism?
 LIBERTARIAN (FREE WILL)
POSITION
 More serious problem:
 If determinism is false, then events are not subject to chain of
cause-and-effect
 So events occur randomly, by chance (indeterminism)
 If events occur by chance, then they are not under our control
 So, how can we be free and responsible?
 LIBERTARIAN (FREE WILL)
POSITION
 This is known as the “ Intelligibility Question” - how do we
make sense of a non-determined free will?

 3 common responses:
 Agent-causal theory (self-determination)
 Simple indeterminism
 Causal indeterminism