General Philosophy: Free Will

Do we have free will?

By Parin
Introduction
The modern debate on free will is generally centred around whether determinism is compatible with
free will and is motivated by concerns about moral responsibility because it is generally agreed that
having free will is a necessary condition in being deemed morally responsible. 1
Determinism and the distinction between freedoms
Before I proceed, it may be useful for me to define what determinism is and what are the two
interpretations of freedoms that I will use in this essay. As per van Inwagen 1983, I have interpreted
determinism to mean the thesis that the world is governed by a set of natural laws which is such that
any possible world that has the same laws as our world, and that is exactly like our world at any time
is exactly like our world at all other times. In other words, the events of our world are fully
determined in a cause-effect fashion by natural laws. Granted full knowledge of the laws, it would be
possible to predict the past as well as future events occurring in the universe.
When speaking of free will, two types of freedom could be referred to 2. They are:
1. Freedom of Indifference (referred to as FOI): Ability to choose an action among several
equally possible actions or to be able to do otherwise.
2. Freedom of Spontaneity (referred to as FOS): Ability to act from one’s choice or will.
Generally, by attributing either 1 or 2 as the source of moral responsibility, philosophers have tried to
use it as a way to show that said type of freedom is the necessary and sufficient condition for free will
to exist.
Free Will Argument
Hume argues3 that because the world is observed as being governed by natural laws and by the
inductive inference that such laws are uniform spatiotemporally, he argues for a law of necessity
where there are certain laws and motives which causally determine our actions and behaviours; our
perceived ‘free’ will is made up of ‘internal impressions that give rise to new motions or mental
perceptions’.
With regards to moral responsibility, Hume argues that the ‘moral sentiment’ of approval or
disapproval are due to the tight connection (and attributed causation 4) between criminal motives and
acts. For example, if someone had unintentionally caused harm to another person, they would be less
morally responsible than if they intentionally did so (criminal motive is what matters, Hume argues).
Thus, it seems that Hume argues that moral responsibility is not just compatible with, but dependent
on determinism whereas determinism is incompatible with free will.

1
Though there is a distinction between the questions of whether free will is compatible with
determinism and whether moral responsibility is compatible with determinism, in this essay we will
assume that free will as necessary for moral responsibility and thus use moral responsibility as a
metric to establish whether freedom exists in each circumstance (except for Hume).
2
From Paul Russell’s interpretation of Hume
3
in § 8 of his Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
4
Hume would argue that only conjunction can be established, not causation.
Such an incompatibility between free will and determinism can be represented by Van Inwagen’s
consequence argument, which I interpret as follows:
1. If determinism is true, then all human actions are causally determined by consequences of the
laws of nature and prior conditions.
2. Hence, I cannot do otherwise than I actually do, except by falsifying the laws of nature or
changing past conditions.
3. Both of the above are impossible
4. So, if I cannot do otherwise than I actually do, then I don’t have free will.
5. If determinism is true, we don’t have free will.

Hence, incompatibilists conclude from the above that free will does not exist. It is generally accepted
that the above argument is coherent, allowing for three types of responses to arise:
R1: Accept conclusion (Hard Determinists)
R2: Reject either (2) or (4) (Compatibilists)
R3: Reject (1) (Libertarian)
As I have already stated a version of the argument of the determinists (R1) above, I will describe and
evaluate R2 and R3 along with its arguments below.
Compatibilist Responses
Compatibilists argue that determinism does not contradict with the existence of a free will. One strong
motivation to argue for compatibility is that moral responsibility can only be attributed to individuals
assuming they are the ‘source’ of the decision (again implying freedom to choose to act differently).
They try to respond to the free will argument above in three ways:
i. Rejecting necessity of freedom of indifference
Firstly, they try to falsify premise (4) by arguing that free will does not necessitate FOI
(ability to do otherwise than I actually do), but instead only requires FOS (ability to freely
choose).
Harry Frankfurt (1969) used his ‘Demon’ thought experiment to illustrate this point. I
present a modified version of this:
Imagine that unbeknownst to K, a long-time smoker, doctors have inserted a device such
that whenever he intends to buy cigarettes at the shop (as per previously), the doctors
would notice his intentions and he would be unconsciously made to buy nicotine patches
instead. He feels as if this is his own decision. Note that K could not have done anything
but buy nicotine patches in this scenario, but he has been made to think he freely chooses
to buy patches instead. Compatibilists argue that he would be morally responsible for his
choice purely because he freely chose (or at least felt that way, as most of us do) to buy
the nicotine patches even though he had no FOI. This is then argued to show that one can
act freely without the ability to do otherwise, rendering (4) false and seemingly allowing
determinism to be compatible with a version of freedom (FOS).

Responses to Frankfurt’s Problem:

Opponents of compatibility argue that Frankfurt problems take for granted that moral
responsibility is unambiguously related to FOS and not FOI, without sufficiently
explaining the relation.
If there is a deterministic connection between K’s inclination and his final decision, then
he doesn’t have any other alternative, hence they argue that he is morally not responsible
for his actions due to his lack of FOI. I think that choosing to buy patches after being
 redirected from your original intention is not morally the same as intending to buy
patches from the start as Hume would say you still have ‘negative intentions’, based of
which moral responsibility is determined. Hence, it could be said that Frankfurt problems
don’t sufficiently prove that (4) is false so having FOS is insufficient for moral
responsibility, thus insufficient to constitute free will by itself (FOI needed).

ii. Insufficiency of freedom of indifference

Secondly, compatibilists argue that it is possible that even with FOI, it may be insufficient
to be deemed as freedom to which moral responsibility can be attached. An example of
this is in cases of coercion:

Say I lend you my car and then someone holds a knife to you and threatens to hurt you if
you don’t give them the keys. While you have the option to not give them the keys (free
to choose), we normally won’t hold you morally responsible (might encourage such a
decision) for such a decision as you were ‘compelled’.

Ayer says that the key distinction of compulsion as a cause is that it suspends your
deliberative process that you otherwise would have carried out- had there been no threat
you would have deliberated freely before deciding whether to give the keys over
(hopefully not). Hence, even with the option of doing otherwise, that doesn’t necessarily
entail freedom to choose and so not morally responsible for their decision. This should
disprove the sufficiency of (4) in leading to the conclusion that a lack of FOI is sufficient
for free will to not exist.

Response
However, the determinist can further on the coercion objection by stating that in fact,
coercion shows that in fact we are not morally responsible for any act or thought as we
are subject to many desires (like K is with cigarette addiction) and influences that drive
and manipulate our decisions. We have no other way but to act in accordance with the
direction our desires and external influences dictate to us- the knife-wielding thief is but
an extreme version of this. This line of argument will be continued in§ Ultimate
responsibility.

iii. Compatibility of spontaneity and determinism

Following from that conclusion, Ayer goes on to argue that if spontaneity itself is
sufficient for freedom and moral responsibility, it is compatible with determinism. His
argument is as follows:
To say I could have acted otherwise (4), is to say:
a. I would have chosen to act otherwise if possible
b. My acts currently are voluntary and not result of any mental compulsion (like
kleptomania)
c. Nobody coerced to act a certain way (no unusual external pressure)
If determinism is purely the ability to explain the causes of my actions, then I will be able
to choose freely in accordance with my preferences and explain them. For example, I can
tell you that my buying an ice cream now is caused by me having bought, eaten and liked
eating ice cream previously; I am aware of my motivations but that does not mean I
 cannot choose freely against it5.Thus, FOS and determinism are compatible and if FOS
entails free will, then that too is compatible with determinism.
Response
Firstly, my response to Frankfurt cases show that FOS is insufficient for moral
responsibility as even when ‘superficial’ FOS present but FOI absent, we can absolve
them of moral responsibility or at least, we can claim that it is unproven that moral
responsibility can exist without FOI.
Secondly, I reiterate the point that being conscious of our motivations and preferences
doesn’t automatically allow us to control them; going back to K, who may be perfectly
aware of his nicotine addiction, can’t but help himself from it. Further, we can draw
objections as to how far we are even the source of our actions (see § ultimate
responsibility).
Thus, we can see that while intuitively compelling, compatibilist responses suffer from
gaps in their explanation and are not very strong objections to incompatibilism.
Incompatibilist Responses
I will now describe and evaluate two arguments employed by the incompatibilists:

i. Ultimate responsibility/source-hood
This argument, adapted from Strawson, generally says that:
a. It is impossible for me to distinguish what I do from the actions that result from the
work of my mental and physical faculties.
b. The processing of my faculties is determined, so it can’t be that they are free action,
even though they are genuinely mine.
c. To be truly and ultimately responsible for an action, I must be responsible for all the
factors that give rise to that action.
d. Nothing can fully cause itself
e. Nothing is morally responsible for its actions; it is an illusion.
While the objection might be raised that this undermines the theoretical basis of
morality, I think that while it affords us a practical reason to believe in compatibilism
or doubt determinism, it gives us no true premise from which the conclusion that free
will and moral responsibility logically follows.
In fact, Hume argues that since morality is based moral sentimentalism (emotions),
the validity of moral responsibility can be shifted to emotions that arise in the
circumstance (in both victim, judge and criminal) that can’t be removed by invoking
deterministic arguments. So incompatibility and a theory of morality can coexist.
ii. No Forking Paths
This argument, brought up by van Inwagen (1983), argues that whenever we make a
choice, we only choose between several predetermined options. The allegory of the
traveller who can only choose between paths which are continuations of their current path
(actual past) and in accordance with the laws of nature (cannot reverse the past for
example). If determinism is true, there are then no forks in the road (only one straight
progression of events with no uncertainty). The actual future is the only possible future. If
5
Though it could be argued by the incompatibilist that I am mistaken, there is no possible world, given my
preferences and current state of mind that I would ever choose to not buy ice cream, so effectively I have no
FOI or FOS.
 determinism is false, they argue that, at most, we still only can choose between futures
consistent with our actual past. Thus, they argue that determinism if true is incompatible
with a free will and even if determinism is false, we cannot have an absolutely free will,
we are still constrained in our choices.

Responses
1. You could challenge the assumption that time is unidirectional, there are physical
theories that allow for time travel. (Not going to focus on this)
2. The argument adds nothing new to the compatibility debate, it merely denies what
compatibilists deny and states what incompatibilists argue for: that we cannot change
laws nor the past, so determinism is unavoidable. But it opens a new road for
libertarians to argue that (1) is false, thus rejecting the free will argument.

Libertarian Responses
I will briefly mention Kane’s version of the ultimate responsibility argument that argues for the
existence of free will.
Kane effectively rejects clause (b) in my UR argument. He argues that in our decision-making
process, there are moments of indecision (self-forming actions or SFAs) during which people
experience conflicting motivations and are undetermined. He doesn’t argue that every has an SFA, but
that they exist in certain circumstances. In such a scenario, it is where the existence of FOS and FOI
can be best seen and thus support the notion of moral responsibility and free will in those
circumstances, at least.
However, it doesn’t follow that a moment of uncertainty proves the existence of a free will. It will
suffice if I say that it is equally likely that the outcome of SFA is based on chance (when our
preferences are equalised, we can’t really say why we chose something, equally likely to be random
choice), which is not different from determinism as it still removes us from having the FOS or FOI.
An equally strong response to this libertarian argument is by referring to Strawson’s UR argument
where if we question hard enough(e.g. why have we little willpower to alter our character), we can
trace that the source of our actions lie in external/physical circumstances and ones that pre-date our
birth, hence we ourselves are never ultimately responsible for our actions and can’t be attributed
freedom.
Conclusion
It seems most plausible and logically coherent to believe in the incompatibilist’s account- that free
will and determinism cannot coexist. Unless we have reason to doubt the deterministic nature of the
world, it is hard to see how the free will argument can be shown to be false.
Citations
1. Russell, P. (2002-04-25). Freedom and Moral Sentiment: Hume's Way of Naturalizing
Responsibility. : Oxford University Press. Retrieved 6 Feb. 2020, from
https://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/0195152905.001.0001/acprof-
9780195152906.
2. O'Connor, Timothy and Franklin, Christopher, "Free Will", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
(Spring 2020 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), forthcoming URL =
https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2020/entries/freewill/

3. Harry Frankfurt, “Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility”, Journal of Philosophy, 66 (1969):
pp. 829-839. Reprinted in Gary Watson (ed.) Free Will, 2nd edition (OUP 2002), pp. 167-176; and in
Frankfurt, The Importance of What We Care About (Cambridge UP, 1988).
4. A. J. Ayer, “Freedom and Necessity”, in Ayer, Philosophical Essays (London: Macmillan,
1954), pp. 271–84. Reprinted in Gary Watson (ed.), Free Will, 1st edition (Oxford UP, 1982)
5. David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section VIII
6. Randolph Clarke (8 December 2005). Libertarian Accounts of Free Will. Oxford University Press. p.
91. ISBN 978-0-19-530642-2.