Psychology
Free Will and Determinism
Free will refers to the belief that individuals have the ability to make choices and decisions independent of external influences. Determinism, on the other hand, suggests that all events, including human actions, are determined by previous causes. In psychology, the debate between free will and determinism explores the extent to which individuals have control over their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.
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12 Key excerpts on "Free Will and Determinism"
eBook - ePub- Ian Fairholm(Author)
- 2012(Publication Date)
- Bloomsbury Academic(Publisher)
Chapter 8 Determinism and Free WillDo you have free will? Ask most people and they will probably say they do, or at least that they feel they do. In this chapter we will be addressing one of the trickiest and most long-lasting debates of all: whether humans are free to choose how they think and behave, or whether their thoughts and behaviours are determined by things beyond their control.This is a tricky debate, partly because it threatens something that nearly all of us experientially believe to be true – that our personal will determines the choices we make and the actions we perform. Many psychologists have questioned this notion and in this chapter we’ll address the basis for their arguments. But first we need to define some terminology.Definition of the problem – are we really free?We’ll start off by attempting to define free will, which is perhaps not as easy as it sounds. Free will is essentially the notion that humans respond freely, voluntarily and actively to events around them, that when they encounter or are presented with stimuli, choices or options they have the freedom to choose which to select, or in fact may choose not to select any of them at all. Ultimately it assumes that we’re free to select our own course of action, behave in unconstrained ways, make our own decisions and determine our own lives.One of the potential problems with this notion of pure free will is related to science. Science fundamentally looks for causes and as psychology attempts to promote itself as a science it needs to be able to identify causes for thoughts and behaviours. So what causes a person’s thoughts and behaviours? You might want to answer, ‘obviously the person causes them’, but that doesn’t help much because psychology acknowledges that people are complicated, so what aspect of the person actually does the choosing and what causes them to make a particular choice? Different psychologists tend to highlight different factors, as you might expect, and we’ll identify where the five main approaches covered in this book stand on this issue throughout the rest of the chapter.
- Phil Gorman(Author)
- 2020(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
Chapter 4 Free Will and DeterminismSpec check
Free Will and Determinism: hard determinism and soft determinism; biological, environmental and psychic determinism. The scientifc emphasis on causal explanations.AO1 (Knowledge and understanding): The Free Will and Determinism debate. What do we mean by Free Will and Determinism? What is the difference between hard and soft determinism? What do we mean by biological, environmental and psychic determinism?
Free will
Free willis a concept that many people might aspire to or already believe that they have. In many ways, it is what makes us an individual, distinct from others in that we are able to make our own choices and decide which option to take from a number of possibilities. There is a recognition that we do respond to biological drives and environmental pressure, however, it does not see these as truly governing our behaviour. Free will could be regarded as the essence of humanity in that it distinguishes us from animals as we are not simply responding to our instincts or to the demands of the situation in which we fnd ourselves. Consequently, this is closely related to the humanistic view of behaviour.Determinism
The belief that behaviour does not happen by choice but is instead governed by forces that are beyond our control. There are two versions of this concept: hard and soft determinism.Hard determinism
This is the view that we have no free will at all and that all behaviour is driven by uncontrollable forces. It is the view that all behaviour has a cause and as the cause can be put down to something that is (usually) testable then we can predict behaviour in the same way that we can predict the outcome of a science experiment. The forces that guide our behaviour can be biological (such as genes or hormones), environmental (such as work or school) or possibly even psychic (from our unconscious mind).Soft determinism
This is a compromise position between free will and hard determinism. This view suggests that we have a limited range of choices as most behaviour is decided by some forces but that it is still possible to make choices on a day-to-day basis. This is strongly related to the idea of cognitive mediating factors as seen in Bandura’s (1977) theory, which suggests that we can choose from the behavioural options presented to us.
No longer available |Learn more- (Author)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- College Publishing House(Publisher)
The standard argument against the existence of free will is very simple. Either determinism is true or indeterminism is true. These exhaust the logical possibilities and have led to two further contentions: If determinism is true, we are not free. If indeter-minism is true, our actions are random and our will lacks the control to be morally responsible. These contentions however are more problematic and have been some of the central issues around which recent debate has centered. Determinism Determinism is a broad term with a variety of meanings. Corresponding to each of these different meanings, there arises a different problem of free will. Causal (or nomological) determinism is the thesis that future events are necessitated by past and present events combined with the laws of nature. Such determinism is some-times illustrated by the thought experiment of Laplace's demon. Imagine an entity that knows all facts about the past and the present, and knows all natural laws that govern the universe. Such an entity may be able to use this knowledge to foresee the future, down to the smallest detail. Logical determinism is the notion that all propositions, whether about the past, present or future, are either true or false. The problem of free will, in this context, is the problem of how choices can be free, given that what one does in the future is already determined as true or false in the present. Theological determinism is the thesis that there is a god who determines all that humans will do, either by knowing their actions in advance, via some form of omniscience or by decreeing their actions in advance. The problem of free will, in this context, is the problem of how our actions can be free, if there is a being who has determined them for us ahead of time. Biological determinism is the idea that all behavior, belief, and desire are fixed by our genetic endowment. There are other theses on determinism, including cultural deter-minism and psychological determinism.
No longer available |Learn more- (Author)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Learning Press(Publisher)
An alternative approach is to see free will as a consequence of a combination of specific deterministic and indeterministic processes, not as a fundamental alternative to both determinism and indeterminism. The requirement for some level of indeterminism makes such theories incompatibilistic. Robert Kane has capitalized on the success of quantum mechanics and chaos theory to defend incompatibilist freedom in his The Significance of Free Will and other writings. Genetics Like physicists, biologists have frequently addressed questions related to free will. One of the most heated debates in biology is that of nature versus nurture, concerning the relative importance of genetics and biology as compared to culture and environment in human behavior. The view of most researchers is that many human behaviors can be explained in terms of humans' brains, genes, and evolutionary histories. This point of view raises the fear that such attribution makes it impossible to hold others responsible for their actions. Steven Pinker's view is that fear of determinism in the context of genetics and evolution is a mistake, that it is a confusion of explanation with exculpation . Responsibility doesn't require behavior to be uncaused, as long as behaviour responds to praise and blame. Moreover, it is not certain that environmental determination is any less threatening to free will than genetic determination. Neuroscience It has become possible to study the living brain, and researchers can now watch the brain's decision-making process at work. A seminal experiment in this field was conducted by Benjamin Libet in the 1980s, in which he asked each subject to choose a random moment to flick her wrist while he measured the associated activity in her brain (in particular, the build-up of electrical signal called the readiness potential).
eBook - PDF- James Deese(Author)
- 2019(Publication Date)
- Columbia University Press(Publisher)
Chapter Four Free Will, Voluntary Action, and Freedom W e use the word free, when applied to human actions, in three different but related senses. The terms free will, voluntary action, and freedom cover these senses. This chapter will describe each and show the relation between the first two and our conception of the third. First, however, I point to a fundamental difference between theories of determinism and theories of freedom. All concepts of freedom differ from concepts of deter-minism in that everyone recognizes that we are not nor should we be totally free. It is simple enough for a determinist to argue that all of our actions are controlled by our physical nature and the circumstances of our life. That argument is easy, almost cheap, because, in the absence of positive evidence, one can always pos-tulate hidden or unknown causes. The advocate of free will cannot so argue, for it is abundantly clear that many of our actions are caused. That fact has given rise to an important tradition in the history of psychology, the distinction between reflexive and vol-untary behavior. Finally, even the most extreme of the rational libertarians (I exclude the Marquis de Sade) recognizes that each of us must be under some kind of restraint, that we cannot be completely free to act and say what we please. The libertarian only wants lesser constraints placed upon actions than do most of us. 70 Free Will Theology and Freedom of the Will The entry in the eleventh edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica on the will is by the Reverend Henry Herbert Williams, then a Fellow in Philosophy at Hertford College, Oxford. It begins as follows: The Problem of Freedom provides in reality a common title under which are grouped difficulties and questions of varying and diver-gent interest and character.
eBook - PDFA Basic Theory of Everything
A Fundamental Theoretical Framework for Science and Philosophy
- Atle Ottesen Søvik(Author)
- 2022(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter(Publisher)
I argue that people are involved in their choices to varying degrees, and that agents do not disappear even if they get explained in a more fine-grained way. I continue to show how free will can be built grad- ually via how, over time, the self can be the cause of itself and of actions. This is a more detailed response to the regress problem. After a short discussion of responsibility in Section 8.5, I show how this theory responds to the problem of luck (Section 8.6), the question of weakness of the will (Section 8.7), and some other objections (Section 8.8). The problem of free will is related to many big questions and so cannot be fully defended in one chapter. At several points I must refer the reader either to other chapters or to further details in a book I have written about free will (Søvik, 2016). 8.2 Determinism and indeterminism We saw in the introduction that free will can be understood in many ways and that some defend a strong version of free will while others, like the compa- tibilists, defend a very limited version of free will. According to compatibilists you have free will even if every action you do was determined before you were born. If we are to have free will in a stronger sense than compatibilist free will, it requires that there is indeterminism in the world at the macro level where humans act. Indeterminism here means that there are several possibilities open when it comes to what the content of the future will be, whereas determin- ism means that the content of the future is already set. However, as I will argue 232 8 Free Will below, external indeterminism suffices for free will. That means that there do not have to be indeterministic processes at specific places in the brain, such as en- visioned by Robert Kane in his theory of free will (Kane, 1996, 2007), but only some indeterministic processes occurring somewhere in the world with effect at the macro level of human interaction.
eBook - PDFSelf And The Phenomenon Of Life: A Biologist Examines Life From Molecules To Humanity
A Biologist Examines Life from Molecules to Humanity
- Ramon Lim(Author)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- World Scientific(Publisher)
To be sure, whereas the entire physical world appears to be locked in a deterministic chain, we humans seem to be able to disobey this ironclad predestination. Is this self-deception? In the objective sense, free will is the unpredictable element in a person’s behavior as it appears to an observer. For example, a person can choose to act contrary to common sense, like giving away good food while going on starving. Looking at lower animals, a turkey can veer to the left or right unpredictably as you chase it for the Thanksgiving meal. 239 Self and Free Will Humans enjoy many freedoms they take for granted until they are taken away. No one is happy to be told what to eat, what to wear, what to like and dislike, what to think, and how to act. Under the ban-ner of freedom and liberty, countless people willingly face the firing squad or walk up to the gallows. What makes freedom so precious that some people value it above their own lives? Does freedom make biological sense? I shall start from the simple premise that all animals take actions, directly and indirectly, for the benefit of self — their survival and repro-ductive success. Free will makes these actions possible, and therefore is favored by evolution. In this context I define free will as the ability to initi-ate an action, in the absence of coercion, which entails a choice to act or not to act, and to elect which of the alternative courses of actions to take. In the subsequent sections I shall examine free will from multiple perspectives. One topic I try to omit is the connection between free will and moral (or social) obligation and legal responsibilities, as I hold such discussions futile and irrelevant. Instead, in the next chapter I shall expound the evolution-ary advantage of morality in the context of society as an expanded self . 11.2 When Is an Action Free? My opinion is that since being free is a subjective feeling, any attempt at an objective explanation is likely to be inadequate.
eBook - PDF- Jack Martin, Jeff Sugarman, Janice Thompson(Authors)
- 2012(Publication Date)
- SUNY Press(Publisher)
The principle Between Hard Determinism and Radical Freedom 47 that our actions are the result of free choice, unless proven otherwise, is a fundamental principle of Western law, governance, and interpersonal rela- tionships. In fact, this same principle, the assumption that we have the power to make free choices and to act on these choices, is basic to Western life in general. But do we really have freedom of choice? And exactly of what does this capability consist? It is one of the most revealing aspects of the entire historical and contemporary debate about freedom of choice and action that so much attention has been paid to the first of the questions with so little attention devoted to the latter. Consequently, before turning to a more detailed consideration of libertarianism, hard determinism, and compatibilism, it is worth taking a moment to consider exactly what freedom of choice involves. We already have defined freedom of choice as having a choice be- tween alternatives right up to the moment that a decision is made. Freedom of action can be defined as being able to do that which one chooses to do. Where freedom of choice is about decisions or choices, freedom of action is about actions. What is important here is to note that freedom of choice need not be linked to freedom of action or vice versa. You can have one without the other. For example, a person may decide to move his car, only to find it unexpectedly hemmed in by other cars in a crowded parking lot. Or he may unthinkingly swerve his car around a cyclist, rather than slowing to allow the cyclist to get clear of his path. Full agency in a psychological sense implies both freedom of choice and freedom of action. However, it is important to recognize that these two freedoms need not necessarily imply each other.
eBook - ePubBurrhus F. Skinner
The Shaping of Behaviour
- Frederick Toates(Author)
- 2009(Publication Date)
- Bloomsbury Academic(Publisher)
This might be true but it remains an act of faith. Further scientific insight might even support a notion of some autonomy and undermine determinism 1. If physics is a role model for psychology, then it is worth noting that the 20 th century saw a mind-boggling array of quirky phenomena and concepts emerge, which served to undermine all-embracing principles of determinism. It is important to distinguish between determinism and fatalism 2. Fatalism suggests that outcomes will be met in spite of our efforts and seems to imply a kind of purposive but bizarre form of supernatural intelligence. It is exemplified by the fear of some soldiers expressed as “if it has your number on it, it will get you”. Determinism presupposes no such process and includes the outcomes of our efforts in the deterministic sequences of events. A clear polarity is usually expressed in the terms of free will versus determinism. Skinner and Freud are well-known exponent of the latter position. Skinner offered us a stark and uncompromising choice: either subscribe to a scientifically-rooted determinism or attach your colours to a pre-scientific view. But is this the only choice available to us? As we shall discuss in a moment, some would reject Skinner’s clear dichotomy and would not equate a scientific understanding with strict determinism. In defense of determinism, Skinner 3 comments on the fact that, at present, it is difficult to predict the flight path of even a fly, let alone the behaviour of a human. He argues that difficulty of prediction “does not prove capriciousness” and goes on to note that the weather has proven very difficult to predict. However, given time, even apparently hopeless cases become manageable (thanks to computers and satellites, the weather is much more predictable now than it was when Skinner drew this analogy)
eBook - PDFFree Will and the Brain
Neuroscientific, Philosophical, and Legal Perspectives
- Walter Glannon(Author)
- 2015(Publication Date)
- Cambridge University Press(Publisher)
Introduction There is an intense debate about free will in current philosophy and neuroscience. Philosophical discussion often focuses on the metaphysical question of whether human agents can choose and act freely in light of causal determinism. Neuroscientific discussion focuses on the neural mechanisms underlying the will and what they imply about whether or to what extent it is free. If these mechanisms are part of a process in which they do all or most of the causal work in producing actions, then this seems to rule out free will. On this view, our behavior is controlled 27 not by what occurs at the mental level of beliefs, desires and intentions but instead by what occurs at the neural level (Farah 2005; cf. Walter 2001). The main question is whether the demonstration of neural activity is a sufficient condition to opt for neural determinism and the implica- tion that we lack free will. My approach in this chapter will be different. Rather than taking the concept of free will for granted and then projecting a definition of it onto the brain, I opt against such a ‘mapping strategy’. Instead, I focus on the epistemological presuppositions on which the application of the concept of free will to the brain is based. For that I will discuss at length epistemo- logical considerations like the distinction between observer- and brain- based concepts as well as intrinsic vs. extrinsic observer-related intru- sions. These imply that the current philosophical models and concepts of free will, including their mapping onto the brain, may be conceptual artifacts produced by the observer that as such are projected upon the brain. Hence, I designate free will as primarily an observer-based con- cept, as distinguished from empirically plausible concepts that then would need to be described as brain-based concepts.
eBook - PDFReason and Responsibility
Readings in Some Basic Problems of Philosophy
- Joel Feinberg, Russ Shafer-Landau(Authors)
- 2016(Publication Date)
- Cengage Learning EMEA(Publisher)
If free will is not compatible with determinism, it does not seem to be compat-ible with indeterminism either. These charges are powerful ones and defen-ders of free will over the centuries have made extraordinary claims attempting to respond to them. Free will does require indeterminism, these defenders have said. But it cannot merely be indeterminism or chance. Some “ extra fac-tors ” must be involved in free will that go be-yond ordinary scientific or causal understanding. Immanuel Kant, for example, insisted that we can ’ t explain free will in scientific and psycholog-ical terms. To account for it we have to appeal to the agency of what he called a “ noumenal self ” outside space and time that could not be studied in scientific terms. 4 Others have appealed to what Nobel physiologist John Eccles calls a “ transempirical power center, ” which would in-tervene in the brain, filling the causal gaps left by indeterminism or chance. 5 Still others have ap-pealed to a special kind of agent-causation — or, as Roderick Chisholm has called it, “ immanent causation ”— that cannot be explained in terms of the ordinary scientific modes of causation in terms of events or occurrences. Where all prior events, both physical and mental, leave a choice or action undetermined, the agent-or immanent cause determines it, but cannot be determined in turn because it is not an event. The agent-cause is, in Chisholm ’ s words, a “ prime mover unmoved. ” 6 470 PART V • Determinism, Free Will, and Responsibility Copyright 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.
eBook - PDFScience and the Pursuit of Wisdom
Studies in the Philosophy of Nicholas Maxwell
- Leemon McHenry(Author)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter(Publisher)
And this has serious implications for free will, implications that have nothing to do with determinism. 31 R. Double, The Non -Reality of Free Will (Oxford, Ox ford Unversity Press, 1991), p.102. 32 ibid , p103. 196 Mathew Iredale 5. The End of Determinism? The overall conclusion one can draw from these examples is that those philosophers who believe that science only contributes to the free will debate because of what it has to say about determinism are clearly mistaken and it is surely now high time to put aside the traditional formulation “Is free will compatible with determinism?” in favour of Maxwell’s formulation “Is free will compatible with what modern science tells us about the universe?”. Having said that, one should be careful not to regard science as the central issue in the free will debate. For Galen Strawson , for example, the central issue is the logical impossibility of absolute or ultimate responsibility 33 and for Richard Double it is that free will is not a logically coherent concept. 34 In other words, one should not abandon the traditional problem of free w ill and determinism in favour of a reformulation in terms of free will and science alone; due consideration must be given to those parts of the problem that are not dependent upon either determinism or science. There is no denying the central role that de terminism has played in the free will debate over the last two millennia 35 , and the significant role that it continues to play in the great majority of discussions about free will. Given this, can one seriously expect those involved in the free will debate to simply abandon the issue of determinism and instead focus their attention towards science? The obvious response to this, quite apart from the reasons already given, is that one can only hope so: after two thousand years of debate in terms of determinism , without a clear resolution, it is surely high time that we approached the problem from a different angle.
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