Whence Freedom?

It is claimed that any significant choice which we make in life is fully determined by the person which we have become and the character traits we were born with. Our choices depend on the beliefs, desires and values which we possess but which we had no choice over.

“In that sense, your choice is not fundamentally free because you could not have become other than the person you are”.

[Baggini 2015,p72]

This even includes choices to cultivate certain values which we desire to have because we believe they are good, either for us or someone else. But where did that desire and belief come from? Sooner or later we track back to something over which we had no choice.

When you think through a decision, on what basis is that decision made?

“A combination of abilities and dispositions that you were born with and information and thinking skills that you acquired. In other words, a combination of hereditary factors and environment. There is no third place for anything else to come from. You were not responsible for how you emerged from the womb nor for the world you found yourself in. Once you became old enough and sufficiently self-aware to think for yourself, the key determinants in your personality were already set” [Hood 2011, p72]

In addition, it is our common experience that our desires can change dramatically and involuntarily at times of transition such as puberty or mid-life. It may be only much later that the nature of these unchosen desires are seen for what they are.

Self-forming actions

One attempt to get around this is to say that it is not necessary for all decisions to be undetermined but only that some do, so-called “Self Forming Actions”[Kane 1999]. For instance, a specific decision at a specific time may well be outside our control, however our propensities will have been formed by previous choices which can be considered as truly free. These actions form our character and our character causes our decisions.[91] [85 page 92]. Aristotle said something similar: “if a man is responsible for wicked acts that flow from his character, he must at some time in the past have been responsible for forming the wicked character from which these acts flow”[Aristotle].

While this fits in with the “training the autopilot” model, the problem about the origin of these Self-Forming Actions remains unanswered. For instance an example of a self-forming choice is given as: A business woman “is on her way to an important meeting when she observes an assault taking place in an alley. An inner struggle ensues between her conscience, to stop and call for help, and her career ambitions which tell her she cannot miss this meeting. She has to make an effort of will to overcome the temptation to go on. If she overcomes this temptation, it will be the result of her effort, but if she fails, it will be because she did not allow her effort to succeed. And this is due to the fact that, while she willed to overcome temptation, she also willed to fail, for quite different and incommensurate reasons. When we, like the woman, decide in such circumstances, and the indeterminate efforts we are making become determinate choices, we make one set of competing reasons or motives prevail over the others then and there by deciding.” There is no clear view of why the alleged self-forming choice is any more free than any other and is not the result of deterministic physics with some uncertainty due to random noise which tips the balance one way or another. Nor is it said what is meant by “willed” or “allowed” in this context. Making a decision is said to be the result of two networks pulling against each other. Which one wins might depend on noise or on will. This may lead to uncertainty but there is no mechanism for free choice.

Having your cake and eating it?

There are a number of ways in which people attempt to argue that we can have both a belief in a deterministic physicalist world view and also some form of freedom of choice and the responsibility which goes along with it.

These include:

Back to “Are we Free Agents?”

Onwards to “Implications of Free Will”