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Free Will or Determinism
Nathan Jacobson » Philosophical Moments from Caprica, Flash Forward, and Community.
Recently a number of philosophically arresting moments have managed to insert themselves into the television landscape. True to form, Ronald D. Moore and company continue to address contemporary political, philosophical, and religious questions in the alternate world of Caprica, territory he brilliantly charted in his groundbreaking Battlestar Galactica. If the pilot is any indication, Caprica promises to explore even more pointedly themes of religious and ethnic tolerance, terrorism, technology, and the nature of the soul. ABC's FlashForward, clearly aimed at continuing the legacy of Lost and retaining its audience, has somewhat disappointed so far, but has nonetheless woven several provocative existential questions into its narrative, including one powerful Sartrean moment in particular. On the comedic front, NBC's Community had the temerity to devote an episode to whether humanity is intrinsically good or evil, and did so superbly. I'll admit to being prone to vegging in front of the tube even when the viewing is less cerebral, but a couple of these moments had me off the couch cheering for the writers.
The Meme Machine (Oxford University Press: 2000), pp. 236-7.
Each illusory self is a construct of the memetic world in which it successfully competes. Each selfplex gives rise to ordinary human consciousness based on the false idea that there is someone inside who is in charge. The ways we behave, the choices we make, and the things we say are all a result of this complex structure: a set of memeplexes (including the powerful selfplex) running on a biologically constructed system. The driving force behind everything that happens is replicator power. Genes fight it out to get into the next generation, and in the process biological design comes about. Memes fight it out to get passed on into another brain or book or object, and in the process cultural and mental design comes about. There is no need for any other source of design power. There is no need to call on the creative 'power of consciousness', for consciousness has no power. There is no need to invent the idea of free will. Free will, like the self who 'has' it, is an illusion. Terrifying as thought seems, I suggest it is true.
"The Project of Natural Theology" in The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology (Blackwell: 2009), p. 12.
In contemporary particle physics, objects without mass are posited with primitive charges or spins, which are presumed to be the basic foundations for explaining more complex events. Posting a basic power, terrestrial or divine, is not, ipso facto, explanatorily empty. ... In the sciences, we may well claim that with respect to any explanation, further questions can be asked of it, but this is not the same thing as claiming that science does not or cannot posit basic powers and accounts that are not themselves explained by further powers or scientific accounts. If the sciences can allow that subatomic particles have basic powers, it is hard to see how we can rule out that intentional agents have basic powers.
Nathan Jacobson » Reflections on Invictus and Freedom
Central to the plot of Clint Eastwood's Invictus is William Ernest Henley's short poem of the same name. Though the role of the poem suffers from some historical revisionism in
the film, its role in the life of Nelson Mandela is worth consideration. The film recounts the remarkable story of Mandela's efforts at national reconciliation through his embrace of the South African rugby team, which at the time remained a symbol of Apartheid's ethnic segregation. In 1996, when I returned for the first time to South Africa, my childhood home, some old friends shared with me how meaningful it was when Mandela appeared at Ellis Park donning the Springbok green and gold. I'm gratified that this remarkable story of reconciliation has made it to the screen, especially while Morgan Freeman is still with us. He was born to play Mandela. During his long internment on Robben Island, Henley's poem adorned a wall of Mandela's cell, a constant reminder that though his freedom had been taken from him, he remained "the captain of his soul". The words of this poem, and their significance to Mandela, underscore a central point of contention in the debate about human free will. It seems to me that one problem with some arguments for compatibilism, the idea that determinism and human responsibility are compatible, is the conflating of freedom and free will. Mandela's story is a powerful reminder that there is freedom beyond freedom. That is, it matters whether we are captains or merely observers of our souls.
Thomas Reid, Essays on the Active Powers of the Human Mind (1788) Essay IV, Chapter I.
Taking square aim at Hume's "Of Liberty and Necessity", Thomas Reid roundly rejects the compatibility of necessity or determinism and moral responsibility and sketches a seminal conception of agent causation.
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section VIII, Part One (1748).
It is universally acknowledged that there is a great uniformity among
the actions of men, in all nations and ages, and that human nature
remains still the same, in its principles and operations. The same
motives always produce the same actions: The same events follow from
the same causes. Ambition, avarice, selflove, vanity, friendship,
generosity, public spirit: these passions, mixed in various degrees,
and distributed through society, have been, from the beginning j of the
world, and still are, the source of all the actions and enterprises,
which have ever been observed among mankind. Would you know the
sentiments, inclinations, and course of life of the Greeks and Romans?
Study well the temper and actions of the French and English: You cannot
be much mistaken in transferring to the former most of the observations
which you have made with regard to the latter. Mankind are so much the
same, in all times and places, that history informs us of nothing new
or strange in this particular. Its chief use is only to discover the
constant and universal principles of human nature, by showing men in
all varieties of circumstances and situations, and furnishing us with
materials from which we may form our observations and become acquainted
with the regular springs of human action and behaviour. These records
of wars, intrigues, factions, and revolutions, are so many collections
of experiments, by which the politician or moral philosopher fixes the
principles of his science, in the same manner as the physician or
natural philosopher becomes acquainted with the nature of plants,
minerals, and other external objects, by the experiments which he forms
concerning them. Nor are the earth, water, and other elements, examined
by Aristotle, and Hippocrates, more like to those which at present lie
under our observation than the men described by Polybius and Tacitus
are to those who now govern the world.
David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section VIII, Part 1 & 2. (1748).
It might reasonably be expected in questions which have been canvassed and disputed with great eagerness, since the first origin of science and philosophy, that the meaning of all the terms, at least, should have been agreed upon among the disputants; and our enquiries, in the course of two thousand years, been able to pass from words to the true and real subject of the controversy. For how easy may it seem to give exact definitions of the terms employed in reasoning, and make these definitions, not the mere sound of words, the object of future scrutiny and examination? But if we consider the matter more narrowly, we shall be apt to draw a quite opposite conclusion. From this circumstance alone, that a controversy has been long kept on foot, and remains still undecided, we may presume that there is some ambiguity in the expression, and that the disputants affix different ideas to the terms employed in the controversy. For as the faculties of the mind are supposed to be naturally alike in every individual; otherwise nothing could be more fruitless than to reason or dispute together; it were impossible, if men affix the same ideas to their terms, that they could so long form different opinions of the same subject; especially when they communicate their views, and each party turn themselves on all sides, in search of arguments which may give them the victory over their antagonists. It is true, if men attempt the discussion of questions which lie entirely beyond the reach of human capacity, such as those concerning the origin of worlds, or the economy of the intellectual system or region of spirits, they may long beat the air in their fruitless contests, and never arrive at any determinate conclusion. But if the question regard any subject of common life and experience, nothing, one would think, could preserve the dispute so long undecided but some ambiguous expressions, which keep the antagonists still at a distance, and hinder them from grappling with each other.
Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground (1864), Part I, Sect. VII, VIII.
Dostoevsky's unprecedented short story, Notes from Underground, is a philosophical treatise of striking originality, considered by many to be the first existentialist novel. In the early nineteenth century, with the remarkable successes of science in controlling nature, social and political theorists began to conceptualize human persons as just one more cog in the Newtonian "world machine". As such, it was thought, human society could likewise be controlled through social engineering, ensuring its proper functioning toward desired outcomes. In this excerpt, Dostoevsky voices his revulsion toward this mechanistic view of humans, renouncing the notion that humans can be relied upon to act in the predictable, law-like fashion that characterizes the physical world. On the contrary, we humans are radically free, often acting irrationally and self-destructively for no other reason than to assert our independence from custom, convention, and social pressure. The larger story, from which this excerpt is taken, recounts the inner dialogue of an isolated and contemptuous civil servant whose quest for vengeance against perceived slights leads him to alienate himself from all others. Though this "Underground Man" is of an especially unseemly sort, Dostoevsky takes it that his irrational rationalizations will resonate with the reader's own inner thoughts, and will thereby undercut the deterministic, materialistic view of man current in his day. Dostoevsky's protest on behalf of free will remains a powerful rebuke against the standard narratives of human events that defer only to a human psychology and instinct geared toward self-interest. ~ Nathan
Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein (Penguin Group: Feb 2009), 320 pages.
A groundbreaking discussion of how we can apply the new science of choice architecture to nudge people toward decisions that will improve their lives by making them healthier, wealthier, and more free. Yes, there is such a thing as common sense—and thank goodness for that. At least that's this reader's reaction to Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein's Nudge, an engaging and insightful tour through the evidence that most human beings don't make decisions in the way often characterized (some would say caricatured) in elementary economics textbooks, along with a rich array of suggestions for enabling many of us to make better choices, both for ourselves and for society. ~ Benjamin M. Friedman of The New York Times
Essays on the Powers of the Human Mind (1788), Chap. 1.
This moral liberty a man may have, though it do not extend to all his
actions, or even to all his voluntary actions. He does many things by
instinct, many things by the force of habit without any thought at all,
and consequently without will. In the first part of life, he has not
the power of self-government, any more than the brutes. That power over
the determinations of his own will, which belongs to him in ripe years,
is limited, as all his powers are; and it is perhaps beyond the reach
of his understanding to define its limits with precision. We can only
say, in general, that it extends to every action for which he is
accountable.
Nomy Arpaly (Princeton University Press: Jul 2006), 158 pages.
Perhaps everything we think, feel, and do is determined, and
humans — like stones or clouds — are slaves to the laws of nature. Would
that be a terrible state? Philosophers who take the incompatibilist
position think so, arguing that a deterministic world would be one
without moral responsibility and perhaps without true love, meaningful
art, and real rationality. But compatibilists and semicompatibilists
argue that determinism need not worry us. As long as our actions stem,
in an appropriate way, from us, or respond in some way to reasons, our
actions are meaningful and can be judged on their moral (or other)
merit. In this highly original work, Nomy Arpaly argues that a
deterministic world does not preclude moral responsibility,
rationality, and love — in short, meaningful lives — but that there would
still be something lamentable about a deterministic world. A person may
respond well to reasons, and her actions may faithfully reflect her
true self or values, but she may still feel that she is not free.
Arpaly argues that compatibilists and semicompatibilists are wrong to
dismiss this feeling — for which there are no philosophical
consolations — as philosophically irrelevant. On the way to this
bittersweet conclusion, Arpaly sets forth surprising theories about
acting for reasons, the widely accepted idea that "ought implies can,"
moral blame, and more.
Thomas Nagel on Free Will said...
The View from Nowehere (Oxford University Press: 1986), 111.
There is no room for agency in a world of neural impulses, chemical reactions, and bone an muscle movements.
Elbow Room: The Varieties of Free Will Worth Wanting (MIT Press: 1984), p. 77.
Whatever else we are, we are information-processing systems, and all information-processing systems rely on amplifiers of a sort. Relatively small causes are made to yield relatively large effects. ... Vast amounts of information arrive on the coattails of negligible amounts of energy, and then, thanks to the amplification powers of systems of switches, the information begins to do some work — evoking other information that was stored long ago, for instance transmuting it for the present occasion in a million small ways, and leading eventually to an action whose pedigree of efficient (or triggering) causation is so hopelessly inscrutable as to be invisible. We see the dramatic effects leaving; we don't see the causes entering; we are tempted by the hypothesis that there are no causes.