Free-Will and Determinism

Author(s): Gardner Williams

Source: The Journal of Philosophy , Dec. 18, 1941, Vol. 38, No. 26 (Dec. 18, 1941), pp.
701-712
Published by: Journal of Philosophy, Inc.

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 VOLUME XXXVIII, No. 26 DECEMBER 18, 1941

THE JOuRNAL OF PHILOSO

FREE-WILL AND DETERMINISM

I. THESIS TO BE DEFENDED

I SHALL contend that free-will and determinism are both true, and
that they are perfectly consistent, and that the spirit of man is
creative in spite of the truth of determinism, and that determinism
is not morally objectionable.

II. DETERMINISM

Determinism means that every force has natural causes and

natural effects, and also that the laws of natural causation are uni-
form and will remain so. The truth of these principles should be
readily admitted. It is, of course, possible to conceive of things
happening without any causes, as well as of a cause having now
one effect and now another. But it is difficult to believe that they
actually do this. Common experience and the investigations of
scientists indicate overwhelmingly that they do not do so.
Obviously the truth of determinism implies that all psycholog-
ical forces have causes and effects. In other words psychology
is a natural science. Its sequences are uniform and in large meas-
ure discoverable. The human will is not super-natural; it is a part
of nature and is a proper subject of scientific inquiry. It is an
operative factor in the causal nexus, and is completely determined
by natural causation.

III. FREE-WILL AND DETERMINISM ARE CONSISTENT

The human will always has both causes and effects. When it
has the effects it aims at it is free.' Its freedom consists in the fact
that it has these effects. Its determinism consists in the fact that
it is naturally caused in its entirety. It is simultaneously de-
termined and free. Both determinism and free-will are true. They
are perfectly consistent with each other. Freedom is voluntary
exertion which results in the effects desired. It is doing what we
wish to do. It is conduct which is successfully controlled by one's

1 See Santayana, G., The Realm of Spirit, Scribners, N. Y., 1940. Pp.
67-68.

701

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702 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY

own will or self so that satisfactory goals are actually achieved.

Freedom is success. It is self-determination. It is one form of
determinism. Self-determination is self-determinism.
In any free act, then, we do successfully what we prefer and will
to do. Also, in nearly every such case, we could have done some-
thing else freely if we had preferred to do that. Doing what we
want or prefer to do, is, I believe, the best definition of freedom.
And we are doubly free when we could have done something else
deliberately or freely if we had preferred to. These are the mean-
ings of freedom which are most frequently used. Freedom, in
these senses, occurs often and is important. We need it. It is
good that we have as much of it as we have. The more of it we can
get the better.
Another definition of freedom sometimes used is "an uncaused
act of will." This seems to me inept, partly because it is not the
usual meaning in ordinary discourse, partly because no act of will
ever is uncaused, and partly because there would be no advantage
to anybody if some act of will ever were uncaused. The important
thing is for a will to have the right effects. Whether it has any
causes or not does not matter so long as it is successful.
When a man prefers A to an alternative B, and does A, he is
free. That is, he has acted voluntarily. Freedom is successful
volition. If an external force had prevented him from doing A,
he would not have been free. Obviously his preference for A has
causes. And obviously these do not obstruct his will to do A. The
only things which can limit freedom directly are obstructions which
stand out in front of the act of will and thwart it and make it un-
successful. These obstacles may be either things in the outside
world which interfere with an individual 's success, or else con-
flicting desires within his own soul. The causes of an act of will
can not obstruct it. They construct it. The determinism of the
will can not negate its freedom. Freedom occurs after the causation
of the choice and of the will. It lies in the consummation of these
processes, not in their origins.
The only causation that can limit the will is the causation of
obstructions. Such causation does at times produce unfreedom.
The causes of obstacles operate indirectly to thwart the will. This
is an obstructive causation which stands in contrast with the con-
structive one just referred to. The total causation, constructive
and, if any, obstructive, determining the will and its outcome, is
what makes men slavish when they are slavish, and free when they
are free. Slavishness means disappointment and failure. Free-
dom means happiness and success. Sometimes one is caused and
sometimes the other. Neither occurs unless it is caused, that is, de-

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 FREE-WILL AND DETEERMINISM 703

termined. Determinism produces all the freedom that there is in

the world, as well as all the slavishness.
The man who is caused to prefer A, and does A successfully, and
thus is free, could have done B deliberately and freely if he had
preferred. He is thus doubly free. However he could not have
done B deliberately and freely, since he did not prefer. And the
causes did actually compel him to prefer A. He had no choice as
to what he should choose. This will make him seem unfree to some
who forget the definition of freedom. Freedom is successful vol-
untary action, and an act is doubly free when one could have done
something else deliberately and freely if he had preferred. If this
definition is accepted, the man who is compelled by various causes
to prefer A over B, and to do A successfully, is free. He could
not have done B deliberately and freely because he did not prefer
to. But this is no limitation of his freedom. No will of his is
thwarted.
We should bear in mind that he could have preferred B if he
had chosen (or wanted or preferred) to do so. In fact he did not
want to prefer B. Not being able to prefer B, when he does not
want to prefer B, is no limitation upon his freedom. Not being
able to do anything that one does not want to do, does not make one
unfree. And while his not wanting to prefer to do B is itself
caused (by the same causes which prevented him from preferring
B), and thus is done under causal compulsion, this imposes no ac-
tual limitation upon his freedom; for he could have wanted to prefer
to do B had he cared to. He did not really care to want to prefer
to do B. If one does not care to do a thing there is no unfreedom
in not being able to do it. Of course his not caring to want to prefer
to do B is due to the compulsion of various causes. But that does
not make him unfree. Etc., ad infinitum.
Nobody can do anything deliberately or freely which he does
not prefer to do or want to do or care about doing. Only a su-
perior external force can put a man through the motions of doing
such a thing; and then obviously his act is not free. Furthermore,
in a sense, he has not really performed it at all. His body carries
out the behavior, but this is not a genuine act of his soul or self
since it is not deliberate, volitional, or free. Only his willed acts
are the acts of his personality. Thus it was unnecessary to say that
"nobody can do anything deliberately or freely which he does not
prefer to do." The truth is that no man or self or personality can
do anything which he does not prefer.
However, in the ordinary usage of language, it is proper to say
that Hitler could have refrained from precipitating the war in Sep-
tember 1939 if he had preferred. We may even say that "he could

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 704 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY

have refrained from precipitating the war" without explicitly

stating the condition "if he had preferred," for this condition is
commonly understood as included in the meaning of the word
"could, " so that to express it in an added phrase is often redundant.
But the word "could" does not always include this extra mean-
ing. When it does not, and when the added conditional phrase is
not either understood or explicitly stated, we may assert truth-
fully that Hitler could not have refrained from precipitating the
war. He could not because he did not prefer to. No man can do
anything which he does not prefer. The causes (or influences)
which had operated on Hitler's life prevented him from preferring
peace. The compulsion of these causes produced the war indirectly
through their determination of his choice. But this compulsion
did not limit his freedom to do what he actually preferred, namely,
to start the war. He enjoyed free will. No obstacle thwarted his
will to fight. And he could have kept the peace if, but only if, he
had preferred. And since he did not prefer to keep the peace he
could not have done so.

IV. DEGREES OF FREEDOM

We should note that if a man preferred A to an alternative B

he might still have a weaker desire to do B. And if A were made
impossible by an external superior force which permitted or even
compelled him to do B, he would have a degree of freedom to the
extent that he actually wanted to do B. He is free to the extent
that he likes what he is doing. He is slavish so far as he is irked
by it. In such a case as this he would be partly slavish and partly
free.
Also, even if he chose to do A in preference to B, and did A, his
weaker desire to do B would be unfree, and he would then be part
slavish and part free. But his freedom would be greater than if
he turned to B after an external obstacle had kept him from A.
Actually all choices grow out of conflicts within the soul in which
some wills are repressed for the sake of others. Every choice
makes life partly slavish. And since conflict of desires within the
soul, that is, spiritual conflict, is a constant feature of human ex-
istence, man is never perfectly free. His powers are finite. In-
ternal obstacles conspire with external ones to prevent him from
doing all that he wishes to do. Nevertheless in every waking mo-
ment he has some choice and freedom. Even if he is bound hand
and foot he can choose whether to struggle or to lie quiet. And he
often achieves a high degree of freedom. This occurs when he is
deeply satisfied with what he is able to do.

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 FREE-WILL AND DETERMINISM 705

V. CONCLUSIONS REACHED UP TO THIS POINT

To summarize the discussion so far, the will is always determined

because it always has natural causes. It also always has natural
effects. But this does not always make it free. When it results
in collision with an insuperable obstacle, it is not free. When it
produces the results it aims at, it is free. Freedom is success. It
is triumphant volition.
Thus, obviously, there is a great deal of freedom in the world,
and every bit of it is completely determined.

VI. CHANCE

The word "chance" is used in both an objective and a subjective

meaning. Objective chance means indeterminism. This does not
exist. Subjective chance means that a man has either no knowl-
edge or else an incomplete knowledge about something. This is
occurring all the time.
If I meet a friend down town by chance, this means that I did
not know definitely about the meeting ahead of time. If he planned
it then it was not chance for him; but it still was chance for me
provided I did not discover his plan. Things which are done in-
tentionally and with foreknowledge are not chance-for the people
who have the knowledge.
But all chance occurrences have causes. When two men meet,
even if neither one expected it, there are causes of their meeting.
Indeterminism or objective chance does not occur and is not needed
in order to account for our actual experiences of chance and acci-
dent.

VII. THE STATUS OF CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE CAUSAL NExUS

While the will is a natural force with causes and effects, its
conscious aspect probably is not a force. As Santayana has indi-
cated, consciousness appears to be the light of the mind, not its
driving power. Consciousness is an emergent property of the in-
tegrated nervous system. The relations of body and consciousness
are approximately those of substance and attribute. The category
of substance-attribute is not perfectly adequate to explain all these
relations; but no better one is known. Consciousness is a quality
or aspect of the brain, and is present during most intelligent be-
havior. Sometimes we do intelligent things while we are thinking
of something else. And a good many of the mental processes involved
in reasoning and willing are subconscious. But probably conscious-
ness necessarily occurs at some stage in all intelligent volitional
conduct. Consciousness is a necessary aspect of an enlightened will.

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 706 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY

However it seems unlikely that consciousness can transmit any

energy. Consciousness is an emergent property or quality of the
nervous system. Abstract qualities such as color, cylindricality,
number, etc., are not dynamic. Consciousness is best understood
by analogy with these. It is a quality of the organism. The dy-
namic factors in every situation are the substances and forces which
have these qualities.
All the energy which goes into the selection and instigation of
deliberate, purposive, preferred conduct, whether rational or irra-
tional, is from the neurones. It is the neurones which carry the
impulses that energize the muscles and glands and thus determine
all behavior. When a biological organism selects a rational course
of action, say it chooses to do something which will very probably
sacrifice its own life for the general or social good, the actual se-
lection is made by various neural energies. There are forces in
the neurones which stimulate the muscles and glands involved in
every noble action, as also in every ignoble one. All the energy
involved is physical or biological. The energy necessary to insti-
gate the action was transmitted to the muscles and glands from the
neurones. This energy and its specific direction are caused, along
with the neural structure, by prior conditions in the organism,
and, indirectly, by heredity and environment. The rationality of
the action is a property peculiar to the nervous system taken as a
collective whole. Single neurones could not produce it. But sev-
eral billion of them, integrated as they are in the central nervous
system of a normal man, can and do. And when they do, as we have
noted, another property is also necessarily produced, namely, con-
sciousness.
Consciousness and intelligent behavior are such remarkable
things that many people have felt that no material organization
would be adequate to produce them. And it must be admitted that
man does not know exactly and in every detail how the nervous
system produces them. Nevertheless all that man knows about his
brain indicates that it does produce them.
There is an unfortunate tendency in the human mind to ascribe
any particularly remarkable phenomena to a special substance in-
vented just to account for these, and endowed by the human
imagination with the power to produce them. Men have invented
spirits to explain thunderstorms, and also to explain good luck
and bad luck. Vitalists have invented a vital substance to ex-
plain life. Bergson invented an e'lan vitale to explain novelty.
And soul substances have been invented to explain consciousness
and intelligent behavior. Actually the theory that experience and
rational action are rooted in the nervous system gives a better

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 FREE-WILL AND DETERMINISM 707

explanation of how these are produced than the imagined soul

substance can give. For some of the operations of nerve fibres and
synapses are understood. But nobody has any knowledge what-
ever of how a soul substance, if any, works. If there is such a
thing we know what it does, not how or why it does it.
The human mind should be regarded as comprising both the
nervous system and consciousness. And the rational will should
be regarded as having a conscious aspect and a neurological aspect
The conscious aspect can not push or pull the neural currents into
one path rather than another. And individual neurones taken
separately can not act intelligently or make anyone else do so.
But the joint operation of the integrated neurones does at times
select a course of intelligent behavior and push or pull the ener-
gies of the organism into that course, steering them away from the
paths of folly and defeat. The integrated neurones do give the
organism intelligent guidance; and, at the same time, they produce
the emergent property of conscious foresight and purpose and rea-
soning.
This is a double aspect theory. The integrated nervous system
is a substance which has two aspects, (1) rationally selected, ener-
getic behavior, and (2) rational ideational and volitional con-
sciousness.
The rational will is, then, basically a natural neurological force.
Psychological energy is a refinement of physical and biological
energy. Every act of will is caused by the nervous system of the
organism and, indirectly, by past influences upon that system.
These influences are hereditary and environmental, and can mostly
be traced back to biological and cultural evolution. These two evo-
lutions are due, in the last analysis, to the ultimate nature of things.

VIII. DETERMINISM AND THE CREATIVE HUMAN SPIRIT

Once upon a time men sought to refute determinism chiefly
with a view to relieving the Supreme Being of the responsibility
for man's sin. To-day it is more for the purpose of vindicating
man's power to master his destiny and to build the kind of society
he desires.2 Objections to determinism now are chiefly that it
seems to make man the slave of physical causation. Some thinkers
feel that if determinism were true man's state would be hopeless
since he would lack all power of spontaneity and creativity. His
life would apparently lose all moral and spiritual significance if
his will were dominated by inexorable physical law. But I think
that these objections are not well founded.
2 See Aronson, Moses J., "Roscoe Pound and the Resurgence of Juristic
Idealism," in Journal of Social Philosophy, Vol. VI (1940), pp. 63-67.

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 708 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY

The fact that man's soul is caused by physical things does not
deprive it of its essential spirituality. It is a genuine emergent
on a level above the physical and biological. It is not "reduced"
to the physical by the truth of determinism. Effects are not
necessarily similar to their causes, nor are emergent qualities of
integrations of substances necessarily similar to other aspects of
those substances. The reductive materialism, expressed in Feuer-
bach's phrase "We grow like what we eat," is repudiated by the
emergent naturalism which I accept.
Whenever man is triumphant, as he frequently is, he is no slave
of physical law even though he is caused by its operation. When-
ever he fails he is slavish. The issue of freedom versus unfreedom
is a matter of success versus failure; determinism versus inde-
terminism is irrelevant to it.
I believe that there is some warrant for discouragement about
man's future. Primitivism is rampant in several of our institu-
tions, dividing men into hostile nations and sects which do great
harm as each tries to win the world for itself. Primitivism is
naturally caused. All things which obstruct the good life are nat-
urally caused. But also natural (physical and biological) causes
have produced men of courage, intelligence, foresight, and vision,
whose work is creative and who actually do introduce novelty into
life. There is no contradiction whatever between causation itself,
or determinism, on the one hand, and human creativity and social
and cultural novelty on the other. The natural causes which have
produced man have made some men creative. For instance, when
certain persons, about 510 B.C. in Greece, invented democracy and
put it into practice, there were causes of this. At that time it was
genuinely novel. Its sponsors were creative. Like democracy,
every step in the accumulation of human culture is an invention
worked out by the intelligence of some man or men. And inven-
tions always have causes.
Granted determinism, man still has a chance to make society
better in the future by his own efforts. Neither victory nor defeat
is a foregone human conclusion at present. The future is all de-
termined, but we can not foretell much of it with any great ac-
curacy.
Man has a better chance of success in most instances if he
struggles and uses his head. But it is foolish to deny, whenever he
does this, that there are causes of his doing it. Man is utterly
dependent on the ultimate nature of things and on the lnatural
of its operation. His future is completely determined by it. His
past has been completely determined by it. He may well be duly
thankful to it for every blessing he has ever been able to win for

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 FREE-WILL AND DETERMINISM 709

himself, and for every one he will ever be able to win in the fu-
ture by his own hard work and reason. For it, the ultimate na-
ture of things or supreme being, has produced all his hard work
and reason. He may well hope and pray that nature will not crush
his major interests. Every evil and every good is ultimately
caused by it.
But even if ultimate nature causes man to do what he does, it
is still true that man himself does what he does. Part of ultimate
nature is in him. The rest, so far as it influences him, is related
to his behavior as the mechanics who build an auto engine are
related to the operation of the engine in the car. The mechanics
made the engine and the engine propels the car. It is a distortion
of ordinary meanings to say that the mechanics propel the car.
Similarly a grandfather has caused, indirectly, the existence of his
grandson. The boy nevertheless lives his own life. Whatever
traits have been inherited from the old man belong to the youngster
now.
Ultimate nature, working through biological and cultural evo-
lution, has produced man 's intelligence and will as well as his
efforts to live a better life. Also his intelligence, will, and efforts do
actually result, at times, in his living a better life. The fact that
the two evolutions have caused both his existence and that of all
his efforts, etc., constitutes no denial of the facts that these are
his own efforts, etc., and that they sometimes do produce a better
life. If X causes Y, Y may still be the cause of Z.

IX. THE INEXORABLE AND INFLFIBLE FUTURE

It is frequently asked, Why should man struggle to make life

better in the future if natural causation determines the whole fu-
ture anyhow in every detail? What is the use of exerting our-
selves? The answer is, natural causation determines future human
happiness largely by determining, that is, by producing, our strug-
gles. Determinism works through human effort and struggle.
External forces produce man's soul, and his soul (or self or per-
sonality), under fortunate circumstance, produces a good life.
True freedom is self-determinism or self-determination. The
highest freedom is found in conduct which is guided by the major
long run interests of the soul. When these are triumphant man's
life is good. These interests or desires themselves, together with
man 's struggles to further them, cause or determine all his triumphs.
And1 all struggles and all desires are caused by prior conditions.
If the causes of struggle do not occur, struggle can not occur.
If you really can not struggle, and thus miss some of the good

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710 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY

things of life, you can console yourself by reflecting that causes,

operating prior to your existence, have determined this. But if you
can struggle probably you had better do so, for by so doing you
are usually more likely to be successful. And if the proper causes
operate, such as your own grim determination to be successful, you
will struggle. And if you have such a determination that, of course,
is caused.
It is possible that some people who are determined not to
struggle are happier so. If you do not want to fight, and if the
consequences of your not fighting are satisfactory to you, and if
you will have no regrets, then, from your point of view, you ought
not to fight. But if these consequences are socially harmful, then,
from society's point of view, you ought to fight, even if you can not
and will not and are perfectly content not to.

X. DETERMINISM AND MORALITY

It may be urged that if determinism were true morality would

become unimportant, for an act would happen only because its
causes occurred, and never because it was good.
The truth is that this universe which we inhabit is not the
sort of a place in which the good is self-effectuating. If an act
is good, its goodness consists in the fact that it either contains or
causes intrinsic value. The fact that it does this can not be a cause
of its own occurrence. Nor can the intrinsic value which it con-
tains or produces cause its occurrence. An act happens only as a
result of various prior causes, none of which may properly be re-
garded as "its goodness."
Nor are the general principles of morality dynamic forces capa-
ble of producing virtue. These principles are abstract properties
of very complex human affairs and have no power in themselves.
They are, nevertheless, of utmost significance for man. While
they can not cause anything, man's idea of them can cause many
things. Man ought to study them; and he ought to put them into
practice. His ideas about good and evil often work out in society
with highly beneficent consequences.

XI. THE EFFICACY OF IDEAS

Remembering our discussion of the inefficacy of consciousness,

it may be asked how ideas can have good effects, or any effects at
all. The answer is that the term "idea" should be understood to
mean both the conscious aspect of a thought and its neurological
basis. When an idea has effects the basic neural aspect of it is what
is doing the work. Every idea has a neural aspect, and many ideas

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 FREE-WILL AND DETERMINISM 711

have results which are of tremendous importance for man. Ideas

are efficacious. Ideas control behavior. Herein lies the power both
of education and of other less creditable forms of propaganda.

XII. CAN THE WILL ALTER THE FUTURE?

Some will raise the problem as to whether the human will can
change future events. Can man alter the future?
Man's will does actually make the future different from what
it would have been if he had not exerted his will. Every cause
makes the future different from what it would have been if that
cause had not operated. But this is not really altering the future.
For the future never was, is, or will be, what it would have been if
some cause, which actually did occur, had not occurred. The future
never was, is, or will be the way it would have been if man had not
exerted his will. The future is now all determined by existing
causes even though it has not happened yet and does not exist at all.
It simply will exist. And human wills are among the causes of
what it will be. Human wills are some of the most important
causes of future happenings. The will helps to create the future.
It does not really change it at all.
Of course the will often makes the future different from what
some man thought it would be. Men frequently have false ideas of
what is determined for the future. But here obviously the future
itself is not changed by the will.

XIII. THE INFLUENCE OF FOREKNOWLEDGE ON HUMAN HAPPINESS

It is very unlikely that any man will ever be able to foresee the
entire future, or any considerable part of it, with either a high de-
gree of accuracy or a high degree of probability. We know some-
thing about things to come. But we do not know much and we shall
probably never know much about them until they come.
In general, the more we know about the future the better. Fore-
knowledge helps man to control his own destiny; that is, in part it
causes him to do this. Freedom, we have noted, is self-determina-
tion. True beliefs about things to come may enable man to attain
desired results; they may function as essential parts of the cause
of such attainment.
Some may feel that it is better not to know about the calamities
which are in store for us. Perhaps if we are destined to die young
we will be happier, while we live, if we do not know about it.
There is something in this theory. However, I believe that the net
human happiness will be greater if we secure all the knowledge we
possibly can about the future. The control which knowledge gives

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712 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY

is likely to produce more happiness than will be lost through our

finding out about impending and inevitable disaster. And any who
still dread to look far ahead may be consoled by reflecting on how
extremely limited our knowledge of the future is likely always to
remain.
GARDNER WILLIAMS.
UNIVERSITY oF TOLEDO.

BOOK REVIEW

God and Philosophy. :TIENNE GILSON. (Powell Lectures on Phi-

losophy at Indiana University, Fifth Series.) New Haven: Yale
University Press. London: Humphrey Milford, Oxford Uni-
versity Press. 1940. xviii + 147 pp. $2.00.

The four lectures which comprise this work were delivered at

Indiana University on the Powell Foundation during the academic
year 1939-1940. The published form of these lectures includes
an important Preface, which throws considerable light on Professor
Gilson's own "philosophical experience." It is common knowledge
that Professor Gilson was a student of Bergson, but the present
remarks remove any doubt as to the significance of this relationship.
Bergson, Professor Gilson declares, was his ". . . only living master
in philosophy" (p. xii). It may be of some importance in inter-
preting the author's discussion of the nature of philosophy (such
as that in the last chapter of The Unity of Philosophical Experience
and the last chapter of the present work) to keep this relationship
in mind.
The main purpose of the Preface is to make clear the place of
Thomas Aquinas in these four lectures. "If, in the following pages,
Thomas Aquinas appears a bit too much like the deus ex machina
of some abstract metaphysical drama, the ready objection will be
that I have spoken as a Thomist, measuring all the other philosophies
by the yardstick of Thomism. I beg at least to assure my readers
that if I have done this-which is but too possible-I have com-
mitted what appears to me personally as the one unforgivable sin
against the very essence of philosophy" (pp. xi-xii). "I am as
fond of my own intellectual freedom as anyone else, but I want to
be free to agree with somebody when I think that what he says is
right. Saint Thomas Aquinas never thought of anything like a
'Thomistic truth.' These words do not even make sense" (p. xvi).
The importance of these statements is all too clear in contemporary
discussions of Thomas Aquinas.

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