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The basic question:
Is the
world chaotic and unpredictable, or does it work according to physical laws that
we can understand on the basis of experimental evidence? Do things happen by
chance, or is everything determined by ‘causes’?
Ignorance?
Everything may be determined by its causes, but we
may not know what they are. Is freedom and chance therefore an illusion
generated by our ignorance of all the facts? I may think that I am free to
choose what to do, but if I could take into account everything that had ever
happened, then I would see that my choice was determined.
In
ethics, one distinction is clear:
- If we are free, we can be held responsible for what we do. We can be praised
or blamed. We act on the basis of values that we hold, which influence what we
want to happen in the future.
-
If we are totally conditioned, we have no choice, and it makes no sense to speak
of actions as morally right or wrong.
Is science deterministic?
-
Scientific laws
are formulated by a process of induction, based on experimental evidence and
observed facts.
-
They try to be the
best available interpretation of the evidence (but may not be the only possible
one).
-
They cannot claim
absolute, but only a degree of probability, proportional to the evidence upon
which they are based.
Newtonian Physics
saw the world as a mechanism, whose workings were understood in terms of the
laws of nature.
Hume thought of a ‘chance’ event as a
sign that we were unable to know all the forces operating upon it. As an
‘empiricist,’ he viewed everything as determined by physical laws. He said:
''tis commonly allowed by
philosophers that what the vulgar call chance is nothing but a secret and
conceal'd cause.'
(A
Treatise of Human Nature)
Laplace
held that, if one could know all the causes operating in the world, then, having
known one single event, it would be possible to demonstrate everything that had
taken place before it, and everything that would take place after it.
The scientific and empirical
approach presents us with the moral problem of free will and determinism.
There are two different senses in
which we can speak of determinism:
-
the theoretical
ability to account for every human choice
-
the view that
everything is part of a single chain of causation.
The first is relevant to questions
of morality, for it suggests that the action of choosing or willing is already
determined.
The second is mainly of interest to the philosopher of science.
Notice this distinction:
-
Freedom is the
ability of a creature to choose and then enable the thing chosen to happen.
- Free will is the
ability to want something to happen, even if it cannot
actually happen.
If there is no
freedom, there is no morality. If there is no free will, there is no sense of
moral responsibility.
(i.e. You may choose to do something, and subsequently do it – so you have a
measure of freedom But you
may not have been free to choose any
other course of action. If you’re a psychopath, you’re a psychopath!)
First you choose, then you’re determined?
Choosing to turn right precludes
everything that might have happened if you had chosen to turn left.
This allows individual freedom (the future is not entirely determined by the
past); but the laws of nature determine everything that happens once you have
made your choice.
But, is my choice is predictable? If
so, there is no free will, and what appears to be freedom is an illusion.
In general we can conclude that, if we accept that everything follows laws of
nature, then, even if we cannot prove
that everything is determined rather than a matter of chance or personal
freedom, we have to assume that it is.
If the mind part of the physical
world?
How do we account for the
experience of freedom? One way to deal with such questions is to opt for a
radical mind/body dualism.
Descartes (1596-1650)
argued that:
-
The
body was extended in space and time, and was therefore controlled by the laws of
nature.
-
The mind was not
extended in space, and was therefore free from the determination of physical
laws.
Human beings could think and act in
the world with apparent freedom, since their minds were not part of it - the
mental realm
was quite separate from the
physical.
Kant (1724-1804) distinguished between:
-
Phenomena (things as we experience them) and
-
Noumena
(things as they are in themselves)
He argued that the mind imposes the
concepts of space, time and causality on experience. Therefore we can say that
everything has a cause, because our
minds are so organised that they impose
the idea of causality.
For Kant, choices come from our desires, beliefs and motives. Once made, they
have inevitable consequences.
Thus from the standpoint of the choosing subject, there is freedom, but from the
standpoint of an observer, everything fits into a pattern of causal
determination.
By the 19th century, however, Determinism became the term used for the belief
that everything that happens was absolutely
determined by a chain of causes, and that the
mind, whatever role that played in action was itself determined.
Free Will?
This strong form of determinism creates problems in
terms of the relationship between mind and body. What is the human mind?
Can
it make a difference? If my mind is related to my brain, and the electrical
impulses in my brain are part of a closed mechanical system, then my freedom is
an illusion.
It is clear that
nobody is totally free:
1.
Physical limitations. There are some things that I am physically incapable of
doing.
2. Psychological
limitations. If psychology can predict choices, then I am determined by my
background and psychological make-up.
3.
Social limitations. We may be limited by the
financial, social and political structures under which we live.
In considering the moral
significance of an action, we need to assess the degree of freedom available to
the agent.
Another crucial question concerns
the nature of the mind:
Is my
mind such that I can experience the various things that influence me, recognise
that I have scope to choose how to act, and then act accordingly?
If I
stand back and see my mind as
part of a deterministic
universe,
it is difficult to see what sense can be made of the
idea of ‘Free Will’.
On
the other hand, I experience freedom to choose, and also experience the
result of having chosen a course of action.
How
then can I accept a view of the world that does not take such a basic human
experience into account?
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