Freedom Versus

Determinism

Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

 The Meaning of
Determinism
• Determinism means the same thing as universal causation;
that is, for every effect, event, or occurrence in reality, a
cause or causes exists
– There is no such thing as an uncaused event

Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

 Determinism
• Determinism holds serious implications for morality:
– How can we tell people what they should or ought to do
if they are programmed or predetermined to act in the
ways they do?
– How can we praise, blame, reward, and punish if people
cannot help acting in the ways they do?

Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

 Types and Theories of
Determinism
• Religious determinism (predestination) is the theory
that if God is all-powerful and all-knowing, then He must
have predestined everything that occurs

Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

 Types and Theories of
Determinism
• Problems with religious determinism:
– How do you prove that there is such a being and, if He does
exist, that he is all-powerful and all-knowing and has
predestined everything
– Most theories of salvation require free will

Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

 Scientific Determinism
• Physical determinism arose from discoveries in the physical
sciences:
– Newton theorized that everything in reality is basically
material, or physical, in nature and is therefore
completely determined by natural laws, such as the law
of gravity

Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

 Scientific Determinism

• Problems with physical determinism:

– Natural law states probabilities, not certainties
– Modern physics has raised serious doubts about
Newtonian physics

Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

 Biological and Genetic
Determinism
• Charles Darwin’s theories – that species evolve by means
of natural selection and that only the fittest survive – led to
a belief that nature determines human beings
• Human beings are totally determined by their genetic
makeup, over which they have no control

Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

 Biological and Genetic
Determinism
• Problems:
– Biological and genetic determinism reduce human beings
strictly to the physical, disregarding the possibility of a
mental or spiritual side

Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

 Social-Cultural Determinism

• Historical or cultural determinism arose from the

theories of Georg Hegel
– Hegel maintained that an absolute mind is trying to
realize itself in perfection and manifest itself through
the history of the world
– Human beings, therefore, are completely determined by
their past and present history and cultures

Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

 Historical Determinism

• Problems:
– It is difficult to prove the existence of both an “absolute
mind” and a mind that can exist without a body
– Other theories of history are just as plausible, if not
more so

Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

 Economic Determinism
• Economic, or social, determinism arose from the theories of
Karl Marx
– Marx says that human beings are determined by economic
class struggles that inevitably will lead to a classless society
• Problems:
– The theory is based on unproved assumptions (other theories
are equally plausible)
– Other noneconomic influences exist

Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

Psychological Determinism

• Psychological determinism arose out of the work of Freud

and the behaviorists
– Freudian psychology maintains that human beings are
effected by their unconscious drives and their attempts
to repress them to the extent that their early childhood
determines the course of their adult lives
– The main criticism of this theory is that it is too
generalized to have any real basis in fact

Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

Psychological Determinism

• The type of psychological determinism espoused by the

behaviorists, particularly B. F. Skinner, maintains that
human beings are completely physical beings whose
development is totally determined by those external
stimuli provided by their physical and cultural
environments

Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

 Psychological Determinism

• Problems:
– It is based on a completely materialistic view of human
beings, which does not stand up to evidence or argument
– Like Freud’s theories, it goes too far in its claims, using
the validity of operant conditioning in some instances as
a basis for claiming its validity in all instances

Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

 Fatalism
• Fatalism is the belief that all events are irrevocably fixed
and predetermined so that human beings cannot alter them
in any way
– Sometimes events are outside of our control, but it does
not make sense to act as if all events were outside of
human control
– This is an impractical theory by which few people, if
any, really attempt to life their lives

Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

 Hard Determinism
• Hard determinism is the theory that
all events are caused but that some
events and causes originate with
human beings
• The hard determinist criticizes the soft
determinist by questioning how
human beings can be said to originate
any events when, if one traces causes
back far enough, they end up being
outside of the control of human beings

Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

 Soft Determinism

• Soft determinism maintains that there is universal

causation, but, unlike hard determinists, they believe that
some of this causation originates with human beings, thus
giving meaning to the phrase “human freedom”

Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

 Indeterminism
• Indeterminists maintain that there is a certain amount of
chance and freedom in the world and that not everything is
caused
– William James says that he desires that there by novelty
and spontaneity in the world, allowing human beings to
be free and creative
– James feels that our strivings for good over the bad and
our regrets over our bad deeds mean that we must be free

Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

 Indeterminism
• Problems:
– It seems to be based upon wishful thinking rather than
upon evidence or logical argument
– There is little evidence to suggest that uncaused events
exist
– If some events are totally uncaused, then they are not
caused by anything or anybody; therefore,
indeterminism is no guarantee of human freedom, only
of chance

Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

 Criticisms of Hard
Determinism and Arguments
for Freedom
• Hard determinists push language out of context
• Their arguments do not account for the complexity of the
nature of human beings
• Like the psychological egoist, they try to reduce what is in
fact really complex to something simple, and this
reductionism will not work

Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

Criticisms of Hard Determinism and
Arguments for Freedom

• Human minds and human perceptions are open ended

and creative – humans create their experience of the
world
– They are not mere passive receivers of sense
experience
– Humans are active seekers and creators

Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

Criticisms of Hard Determinism
and Arguments for Freedom

• Soft determinism seems to be the only tenable position

• Acceptance of this position allows us to assign moral
responsibility to human beings and to praise, blame,
reward, and punish them when and if it is justifiable to
do so

Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

Existentialist View

• Existentialism – mid20th century philosophical movement

• A person is whatever he or she make of oneself.
– No fixed nature
– One creates his/her own nature through free and responsible
choices and actions

• For Jean Paul Sartre, human are condemned to be free

– “Existence precedes essence.”

Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

Please watch

Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.