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Ferdinand Du
Mr. Seamus Murphy
Philosophy
10 April 2020
The Nonexistence of Free Will and Implications for Morality
The conception of “free will” has been determined by many philosophers as the basic premise
of morality, law, social norms, etc. We naturally consider ourselves free agents who are able to
perform in a free way, who originate decisions when confronting multiple choices. This essay
explores the nonexistence of free will and how moral well-being can persist with the
nonexistence of free will.
To discuss whether free will exists, we need to define what free will is in the first place. The
concept of “free will” denotes a personal and private power, or ability, to think and make
decisions when confronting choices. Thus, to make an moral agent capable of making choices,
the reality of free will is subject to:
1. An “agent” is able to perform alternative ways, or at minimum not to act as he did,
and
2. To be consciously aware himself as the source, originator and performer of his
decisions and actions, while
3. choice is not completely affected by antecedent events [1]
Based on these definitions, the idea of free will and controlling oneself’s choices is inescapably
relevant to ethics, as moral responsibilities are “lisenced responses toward agent and necessary
conditions licensing the very responses to the agent” [1]. According to libertarians, based on the
fact that “agents have the absolute power to design and control their own actions” and are able to
choose the rightful act between the right and wrong, there is a metaphysical morality standard to
be followed by these agents. Thus if morality cannot be acted out by the “free” agents,
judgements concerning the virtues and vices will become a sham. This essay questions the reality
of “free will” and discusses the conditions and properties of morality under the absence of such
morality.
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Though free will has been discussed and defended by many philosophers, their arguments
defending it are not concrete enough to prove the metaphysical existence of free will. One of the
most common defenses is the claim that the denial of “free will” “destroys” the social fabrics and
causes depression. However, the contentions of these philosophers do not provide necessary
proof the free will as an actual existence and only claims the desirability of free will. No matter
how strong and valid the desirability of free will is, these philosophers fail to prove the
metaphysical existence of free will. Moreover, the notion of free will and morality does not
necessarily simultaneously rise and fall, if we jump out of the limitations of the traditional notion
of well beings defined based on free will of people. For example, Derk Perebooom has
speculated the possible paradigms of crime preventions and moral educations in the situation
where the absence of free will and hard determinism (the notion that humans act entirely based
on external factors) becomes the mainstream belief. He concludes that “severe punishments”
would likely be abolished, and rehabilitation programs and prevention acts that work mainly as
pre-existing “external factors” that intervene people’s future behaviors will be put into practice
[2]. Though the imagined social form remains a speculation without real-world case studies, the
speculation reminds us of a optimistic future “without free will”.
“Hard determinism” is an answer I wish to provide for the free will question, the notion which
holds that human behaviors are completely controlled by external factors. Determinism describes
the world in which a single future is complete, as it is set by natural laws set and incidents
happened in the past, an “unfolding of the given” [4]. In a world with such circumstances, actual-
sequence alternative possibilities would be nonexistent, invalidating the first premise of the free
will. William James has tried to solve the dilemma of “free will” in his discussion of
determinism:
“What does determinism profess? It professes that those parts of the universe already laid
down absolutely appoint and decree what the other parts shall be. The future has no
ambiguous possibilities hidden in its womb; the part we call the present is compatible
with only one totality. Any other future complement than the one fixed from eternity is
impossible. The whole is in each and every part and welds it with the rest into an absolute
unity, an iron block, in which there can be no equivocation or shadow of turning.” [1]
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According to James, the law of nature alters “the state of the world” at each time-slice, the
incidents happening at which determines the following instants. Only one possibility of the
future can be “added” to the present, as the “law of nature” processes the future solely on what
has happened, which devoid of any multiplicity of future instances. Given this idea, we might
establish a theory with proposition similar to Peter Van Inwagen’s method:
1. The “state of the world” is a complex of “instant affairs” that happen in a time slice
2. The complexes of “state of the world” can denoted using “at time T, the world is in
state S” [6]
Through this method, we may define “determinism” through these ideas:
1. At every time slice, a corresponding “state of the world” can be given. The complex
co-founded by the time slice and the state of the world can be denoted as ( T , S )
2. If ( T1 , S1 ) and ( T2 , S2 ) are two corresponding time slices and states of the world
and T1 happens before T2, S1 and laws of nature determine S2.
The key to this version of determinism is natural laws, to which actions of agents are objects.
The actions of agents are reducible completely to physical laws, and we consider ourselves as
something ontologically reducible to pure physical acts. This system of hard determinism
criticizes the first and second premises of free will, as mentioned before.
Some challenge hard determinism using agential causal theory, establishing an ontologically
robust substance of self as an agent, in order to escape the determinism defined by state of the
world and natural (physical) laws. It is admitted that Cartesian philosophy has a long history of
existence, but recent scientific theories have barely been able to provide any concrete proof to
the metaphysical existence while profoundly corroborating the dominance of physical laws
dominating human actions. Caruso has in his essay provided backgrounds about emergentism
attempted to justify the origin of the agent-self:
“an emergent individual……a new individual entity which comes into existence as a
result of a certain functional configuration of the material constituents of the brain and
nervous system…endowed, as we take it to be, with libertarian freedom, cause things
that could not be explained by the causal behavior of neurons.” [1]
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The argument implies that when the “neuron configuration” reach a certain complexity, a certain
immaterial substance emerges and serves as a conscious decision-making agent that avoids the
limitations of physical laws. This argument, however, is falsified by recent scientific experiment.
Benjamin Libet’s experiment on neuroscience proves that the free will “self” fails to function as
a “decision maker”. In his experiment, Libet asked the subjects to choose a random moment to
flick their wrists, while scanning their brain for their neuro activities. The “conscious will to
move”, as Libet identifies in the experiment, is also recorded voluntarily by the subjects. Libet
found in the experiment that the subjects’ brains perform a lot of unconscious brain activity,
namely electrical signals named as “readiness potential” called in the experiment, even before
any conscious mind activities are performed. Libet concludes that the conscious decision-making
activities as studied in the experiment are just superficial projections of unconscious activities of
brain organism. Libet’s experiment falsifies the first and second premises of free will, as
mentioned in the beginning of this essay.
Not mentioning the specific limitations of Libet’s experiment, cartesian and dualist theorists
are hardly able to offer scientific proof that a metaphysical decision maker entirely free of
neurological structure emerges from the complex neural network. With libertarians unable to
provide scientific proof of emergent decision making agent and recent experiments supporting
determinism based on physical laws, we have sufficient reason to imply that determinism is
much more possible to be answer of the free will problem.
With the notion of free will falsified, some philosophers argue for the total collapse of moral
well-being and legal systems under such condition. Many previous philosophers base their
arguments about morality on free will, as when an “agent” is the ultimate controller of him/
herself and are able to completely control their own decisions, capable of choosing between right
or wrong, they have necessary and sufficient condition to take account of their own moral
responsibilities. Nevertheless, the falsification of such necessary and sufficient condition does
not bring down moral well-beings along.
The premise of of moral well being is not limited to the ability to perform free will. If people
take their responsibilities on what they do, moral well being is arguably still able to save a place
for itself in the society. Moral responsibility is still valid without the existence of free will.
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According to the hard determinist theory I raised, a person’s action is determined by his/her own
properties and the natural laws. While the traditional “moral responsibility” based on the
metaphysical existence of free will becomes invalid, an alternative form of responsibility based
on the person’s own properties an be established, which maintains the social fabric with the
absence of free will. For example, when Martin Luther criticized the Roman Catholic Church, he
claimed “here I stand, I can do no other”. The connotation implied in his speech indicates that his
actions were entirely a casual consequent of who he was, and can be theorized using the “state of
the world” model as mentioned in this essay. Martin Luther probably stated his own states and
properties in the world inevitably lead to his actions of defiance against the Catholic Church, and
based on the reason he, a person with such properties, took full responsibilities for his own
properties and actions developed through these properties and external physical laws.
In conclusion, metaphysically, free will, though a notion that brings convenience for
philosophers, is a does not exist. Hard determinism is the metaphysical truth. Moral
responsibilities, however, are still valid with the absence of free will, as it can be established on
an individual’s properties instead of his/her choices under the free will, and the social fabric does
not collapse without the metaphysical existence of free will.
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Works Cited
1. Caruso, Gregg D. FreeWill and Consciousness: A Determinist Account of the Illusion of Free
Will.Lexington Books, 2012.

2. Pereboom, Derk. LivingWithout Freewill. Cambridge University Press, 2005.

3. Banks, William P., and Susan Pockett. The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness. Blackwell
Publishing,2007.

4. Mickelson, Kristin M. The Problem of Free Will and Determinism: An Abductive

Approach.Final Manuscript forthcoming in Social Philosophy & Policy (2019, volume36.1)

5. Galois, Andre. “Van Inwagen on Free Will and Determinism.” Philosophical Studies, vol. 32,
3Nov. 1976,

6. Inwagen, Peter van. “The Incompatibility of Free Will and Determinism.” Philosophical
Studies,18 Mar. 1974, d Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book VII, Chs. 1-10.