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Free Will

Glenn Mason-Riseborough (18/9/2000)

 

We are asking three questions:

1. Are Determinism and Free Will compatible?
2. Is Determinism (or some near equivalent) true?
3. Do we have Free Will?

 

Depending on how we answer these, we will need to give different explanatory stories.  The three basic alternatives are Hard Determinism, Soft Determinism and Libertarianism (also called Indeterminism).

 

	Compatibilism	Determinism (or near)	Free Will
Soft Determinism	True	True	True
Hard Determinism	False	True	False
Libertarianism	False	False	True

 

You are an Incompatibilist if you think that Free Will and Determinism cannot both be true together.  The Incompatibilist’s story of Free Will is simply that if all our actions are ultimately caused by events outside us (i.e. if determinism, D, is true), then none of our actions are free (NFW).  Following from this, there are two possible responses to the Free Will issue:

1. Be a Hard Determinist and deny Free Will (D → NFW)
2. Be a Libertarian and deny Determinism (NOT NFW → NOT D)

 

You are a Compatibilist if you think that we can have Free Will yet still accept Determinism.  The Soft Determinist accepts Compatibilism and Determinism, and also accepts that some of our actions are free.  The Soft Determinist must then give an explanatory story of what it means to be free, given Determinism.  We are looking at three forms of Soft Determinism:

1.      Could have done otherwise, had the agent wanted to (David Hume)

2.      Second-Order Desires (Gerald Dworkin, Harry Frankfurt)

3.      Weather Vane Analogy (Elliott Sober)

 

Questions:

1.      The challenge by the Hard Determinist: We think we are free to do what we want.  But how can we be free if what we do is the result of or determined by circumstances beyond our control?

 

2.      (a) Someone holds a gun to your head and makes you open a bank vault.  (b) Some light enters your eyes, neurons fire, sounds enter your ears, more neurons fire, some unstoppable physical event happens in your brain that causes you to pick up the keys and open the bank vault.  Is there a difference?  If yes, what is it?

 

3.      Which position do you take on the issue of Free Will?  That is, are you a Libertarian, a Hard Determinist, or a Soft Determinist?  Why?  If you are a Soft Determinist, which (if any) of the three accounts of Free Will above do you support?  Why?