Essay on Freedom and Determinism

If we assume that freedom is incompatible with determinism, should

we give up freedom or should we give up determinism?

To answer this question requires that the terms ‘freedom’ and ‘determinism’ be defined. Having
done this, the question can be approached from numerous directions: scientific as well as
metaphysical and moral considerations are raised which could be used to argue in favour of either
option. This essay will examine the scientific arguments which surround freedom and determinism,
as well as the philosophical arguments made for and against both concepts. The first section of the
essay will characterise the debate and make provisional definitions of the terms in question; the
second section will consider the scientific approaches made to the problem; and the third section
will consider the philosophical approaches.

Firstly, definitions are required. The determinist thesis states that all events in the universe are
causally determined by previous events. In a deterministic system, every event is determined to
happen by the initial state of the system and the laws of the system; it is assumed that once the laws
are set and the system’s initial conditions are decided, every following event in the system is also
decided. On this assumption, it seems that humans are not free to choose how they act, but are
determined by prior events over which they can have no control. The specific kind of freedom that is
precluded by determinism is the freedom to act without recourse to prior events, not having one’s
choices already determined and hence being able to act in a number of different ways in any given
situation regardless of causes. This kind of freedom is known as liberty of indifference since it
suggests we can be indifferent to the causal pressures acting on us and in effect be originators of
causal chains – a free agent is effectively a prime mover. This is the definition of freedom that will be
examined.

It is manifestly true that determinism and liberty of indifference are incompatible. As such,
philosophers in this field tend to either reject liberty of indifference or reject the determinist thesis.
Someone who rejects determinism and declares that humans are free agents is a libertarian; on the
other hand, someone who rejects free agency is a determinist. Among determinists there is a
distinction between ‘hard’ determinists, who claim that people genuinely lack freedom in every
sense and are totally unaccountable for their actions, and ‘soft’ determinists who argue that certain
kinds of freedom or responsibility are compatible with determinism.

The main argument against determinism in science is the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum
mechanics, which states that events at the level of microscopic particles are not determined to have
a specific outcome but are actually probabilistic. For example, atomic decay is indeterminate and
there is no apparent way of predicting when a given particle will decay. This is the accepted model of
the universe in contemporary physics, and it seems to undermine the notion that all events could be
decided in advance of their occurring. However, this model does not seem to endorse human
freedom any more than determinism; unless the human mind can somehow consciously affect the
outcome of microscopic particle interactions, and do so without recourse to prior events, we are still

1
not free. Of course, quantum mechanics is only concerned with the smallest scales of reality, and at
the macro scale we are familiar with the orderly progress of causal determinism still makes sense.
For example, although atomic decay is inherently unpredictable, given a large enough number of
particles the average rate of decay can be calculated – this is what is known as the half-life of an
element. The human body operates on a scale high above quantum mechanical interactions, and so
to establish whether humans are exempt from the deterministic laws that govern other large bodies
requires a different kind of investigation.

The psychologist Benjamin Libet conducted experiments on human subjects to test exactly when it is
that we become consciously aware of willing to do an action[ CITATION Lib99 \l 2057 ]. His aim was
to discover if we are consciously in control of the biological processes which lead to our actions,
specifically those which lead to muscle movements. He found that readiness potential – the
electrical build-up in the brain’s motor region which precedes a muscle movement – begins to
increase 350-400ms before a person actually reports being aware of the intention to act. He
concluded that human volitions, at least with regard to movement, are initiated unconsciously. He
argues that this does not preclude conscious control over actions as long as we can prevent
ourselves from doing things 50ms before they occur, so our freedom could be a kind of vetoing
power. However, this hardly fits with our normal view of freedom – we do not see ourselves as
unpredictable machines, waiting for volitions to appear and then deciding in less than a fifth of a
second whether or not to go through with it. We have a distinct feeling that our own conscious mind
and will are the actuators of our movements and the source of our thoughts.

One of the philosophical cases against freedom is raised by Daniel Wegner. He argues that our sense
of having a free will is an illusion. He makes a distinction between the experience of consciously
willing an action and the actual causation of the action. “The tendency to confuse them,” he says, “is
the source of the illusion of conscious will”[ CITATION Weg04 \l 2057 ]. He builds on a Humean thesis
which states that our experience of willing an action is mistakenly thought to be the cause of our
deliberate actions because it always occurs in causal conjunction with them. We have a natural
propensity to infer rational principles from empirical experiences, and the experience of two things
always occurring in conjunction makes us assume there is a causal relation between them. However,
this is not a rationally qualified inference, and Libet’s experiments suggest that our assumption that
our deliberate actions are caused by our conscious volitions is a mistake.

There are strong reasons to be worried about the determinist thesis, however, since it seems to
threaten the commonplace notions of personal accountability and self-control which are central to
many of our moral practices such as blame and punishment. For this reason there are many thinkers
who have argued against determinism in favour of human liberty of indifference. Jean-Paul Sartre,
for example, argued that agents are consciously responsible for the constraints they place on
themselves by failing to render past resolutions effective – for example, a person with a gambling
addiction is fully responsible for whether or not they will fulfil their past resolutions to stop
gambling. It is by our own conscious willing that we allow our circumstances to constrain us.

However, one might argue that determinism does not threaten ordinary moral concepts and
practices. In fact, it is even possible to argue that determinism is necessary to make morality a
realistic idea. To elaborate, if we imagine that people were in fact free agents who could act
independently of causes, they would be inherently unpredictable. The ordinary practices of praise

2
and condemnation – to the extent that they are meant to be reformative practices – would be
ineffective at changing the way people behave. One could behave in any way they like regardless of
the prevailing morals of their society or even the specific sanctions that had been personally brought
against them in the past. Moreover, contrary to usual assumptions, it would make little sense to say
that someone was responsible for an act if they were a free agent. Since their actions could arise
spontaneously without being constrained by prior conditions, there is nothing in the agent’s
character or inclinations that made them specifically the cause of the action. Any other free agent in
the same situation could have done the same thing, and no locus of responsibility could be placed on
any person in particular.

If we assume that determinism is true, on the other hand, the accepted moral practices would not
only be more realistic, they could be made more effective. Finding that it was a specific part of an
agent’s character or past experiences that gave rise to a transgression, we could reform their
behaviour more precisely. Furthermore, removing some of the responsibility from agents
themselves might make society more willing to find the wider causes of common transgressions and
address moral questions more holistically instead of attempting to deal with each individual
transgressor. So in truth, the determinist thesis does not threaten moral practices at all, but could
actually enhance them, while the assumption that agents are free makes morality futile.

In conclusion, it is freedom – specifically, liberty of indifference, taken as real freedom from causal
chains – that should be given up. On top of the weight of scientific evidence against human
autonomy is the reassurance that ethics are not only preserved by determinism, but wholly
undermined by the concept of free agency.

Works Cited
Libet, B. (1999). Do We Have Free Will? Journal of Consciousness Studies , 47-57.

Wegner, D. M. (2004). Precis of The illusion of conscious will. Behavioural and Brain Sciences , 27, 1-
46.