There has been for some time a strong tendency by philosophers to suppose that the discovery that the bodies of physics, from atoms to planets, follow strict, predictable laws entails that humans must also. This has led to all sorts of theories of mind that either assume a deterministic foundation, or feel a need to explain or apologise for freewill. I have yet to see any argument conclusively showing that the discoveries of physics entail anything about human behaviour at all, besides showing certain limitations like our inability to levitate or walk through walls. Why our immediate awareness of our own freedom should be put into doubt is a puzzling issue, but since so many people seem to buy in to this doubt, I will respond to determinism by pointing out some of its fallacies, and by reminding the reader of what we already know about consciousness and freewill, namely that the former is the foundation of the latter.

There are two strains of determinism which I will distinguish at the outset, one I call the theory of total determination (TD), and the other the theory of mental determination (MD). TD either implies MD or, in some cases, dismisses the mental altogether. It holds that all events are strictly determined by those immediately antecedent. If one accepts this, then, since all events are strictly determined by their antecedents, the entire course of cosmic history was laid out at the Big Bang (if indeed this was the first cause, although the concept of a first cause is hard to make sense of on TD). While still a popular philosophical position, TD is losing scientific credibility due to the recognition of chaos as a real factor in the physical world.

“Chaos” gets defined in ways both compatible and incompatible with TD. The compatible interpretation is to take chaos as an instance of irresolvable unpredictability, which exists due to the impossibility of taking into account the multiplicity of influences and causes in a complex system. Call this epistemic chaos (EC). It is a problem for knowledge, but entails nothing metaphysical.

However, some versions of chaos theory have it that identical sets of initial conditions could yield different histories (even in the absence of agents). Call this physical chaos (PC). This undermines the physical determinacy (PD) supposition which underlies even most libertarian theories.[1] PD holds that all merely physical (i.e. lacking mental qualities) bodies are strictly determined by physical laws. My interpretation of PD is that “determined” in this case means “governed” in that, while nothing is dictated or set into motion by laws, behaviour is limited to what these laws allow. In the case of dead matter, this is the same as being dictated, simply because, once an entity is in motion, these laws are the only things affecting its interaction with other entities. In the case of a conscious being, things are very different.

 Some variety of determinism may be compatible with PC if all it holds is that every event must have a cause, since chaotic events are presumably caused, if not strictly determined. Yet it is hard to see how the exact same initial conditions could yield different results without the introduction of random (uncaused) events or agents (who are first causes). And since the deterministic way of thinking demands causal explanations for each event, how can it answer “why A rather than B, given all initial conditions were the same?” This question is key to showing the causal inefficacy of desires or “character”.

While PC is problematic for determinism, it is not particularly helpful to the proponent of freewill. The existence of chaotic events does not entail the existence of free deliberate action, and it is the latter which is required for freewill. The remainder of this paper will be dealing most directly with mental determinism, the idea that we are, in a sense, the causes of our own actions, but this is the sense in which a wound-up watch is the cause of its own ticking, or the way in which unconscious organisms are internally caused, but not free.

Where the ordinary paradigm of freedom is being able to do what one desires, according to MD, acting on desires is being caused to behave by desires (or “character”). Acting on the basis of reasons is just the same, though reasons are characterised semi-externally.[2] So though one is the cause of one’s own action, due the peculiar constitution of one’s personality (sounds essentialist), one could not have done otherwise.

The only conclusive way to prove or disprove this thesis is to rewind time and see what happens, but even then, the free act could be taken for a chaotic act.[3] Given the impossibility of such a material proof, I will argue against MD by reference to the ultimate arbiters in any philosophical debate: common sense and conceivability. My central thesis will be that freedom of the will is inseparable from the having of consciousness and that the majority of conscious activities are rendered mysterious and nonsensical in a deterministic picture.[4]

But first, I need to distinguish three types of freedom.

1) Any conscious agent possesses theoretical freedom (TF), or potential freedom in that this first bare awareness is the minimum requirement for action. It is by knowing that there is a world and that it is a certain way that one is able to interact with it.

2) For concrete freedom, or practical freedom (PF), one must be mobile, i.e. not paralysed, restrained, or under threat. One must also be capable of understanding the information one has acquired through being conscious. The more one knows, and the better it is understood, the more effective one’s action may be.[5] 3) Transcendental freedom (!F). This is the one that is completely missed by behaviourists and many sociologists. We are not only formed by and form our environment,[6] we are also capable of defining, correcting, improving, and training ourselves. While all animals are practically free, only language-users seem to have this ability. This is probably because only through language can one develop a self-image. Once possessed of this image, one becomes an object of one’s own consciousness, and therefore a potential object of action. The recognition of !F is especially important as evidence against the causal efficacy of desires, since we are in fact capable of altering our own desires. Some would attribute this to “higher order desires,” but in so doing the concept of a “desire” loses all its original force and meaning (as will be shown).

The term “freewill” captures all of these three, while “freedom” need only entail TF and PF.

            MD claims that I am the cause of my own action, but that I could not have done otherwise. “I” in this case must mean the organism that is identified by others as being the one who pulled the lever, cracked the egg, etc. “I” is simply my index for the “him” of others. But MD also makes reference to my subjective life. It admits subjectivity, and my awareness of my own desires. Indeed, if I was unaware of my desires I would find it difficult to act on them. This admits a vital point: knowledge empowers agency. The better I know myself, the more capable I will be of deciding what to do. For MD, this process of self-discovery and deliberation is all driven by some sort of inner necessity, like so many coiled springs. If this is so, then whether I discover anything about myself or not is entirely a function of the very things I’m looking for, my desires.[7] If I discover a desire it is the result of my desire to do so. This sounds safe enough. After all, why would I be inquiring if I didn’t want to know?

            But why should the “because” in “I did it because I wanted to” entail necessity? And in the above case, once I know what I want, how do I know what to do about it? The MD proponent might try to compare my desire to gravity and the actions I choose to the shortest route to the centre of gravity. But people do not take the shortest route to the fulfilment of desires. Perhaps they do what they perceive to be the easiest, lacking knowledge of a better way. But the description of a person who chooses the most seemingly efficient means of attaining their ends is the description, not of an animal driven by desire, but a rational being.

“Ah yes,” says the determinist, “but to be rational is to be determined by reasons.”

“Really,” I say, “I thought I was determined by desires.”

“No, in fact you are determined by your character. If you have a rational character, reason will dictate how you seek to fulfil your desires. If you have an impetuous character, you may never achieve your goals, since you will act without thinking.”

“Wait a minute, are you saying that my thinking about something has something to do with my acting upon it.”

“Of course”

“And what does the rational person do when they think about something?”
            “They choose their course of action on the basis of reasons.”

“How on earth do you reconcile choice with your determinism.”

“Oh, you choose, but, due to your character, you cannot choose what you choose.”

Ordinarily, when someone starts saying things like “you can’t choose what you choose,” we would just stop them right there for talking nonsense. If I don’t choose what I choose, I just don’t choose, period. Why should a choice of a choice be required to show freedom? The determinist here is not, it seems, really talking about choice, she is talking about some sort of process analogous to a stream trickling down one vein in the earth rather than another, due to the shape of the surface, the properties of the water, and gravity. Unless there had been a genuine possibility of doing something other than what I end up doing, I have not made a choice. And if I could not do otherwise, all research and deliberation is a futile (though inescapable, being caused by having a “deliberative character,” I suppose) and meaningless.

However, we know perfectly well that deliberation is not meaningless. How can the determinist who has been up all night trying to figure out what he is going to say to me the next time we argue earnestly deny that there was a point to his deliberation? On his account “What will I do tomorrow?” is a question of the same type as “What will the weather be like tomorrow?” But these are not of the same type. The answer to the first can be decided by the questioner. In fact, it can only be decided by the questioner. It is a question concerned with making plans. When someone plans, she is not guessing what her future action might be, she is deciding what it will be. She can fail to realise this plan for a number of reasons: obstacles, illness, fear or laziness (both of which I will be giving accounts of), or simply a change of mind. The question about the weather is of the “I wonder” type. Its answer awaits experience.

Why are the two cases, that of the person, and that of nature, so different? Why should all the universe run solely on the momentum of the big bang, and its conscious elements have the option of directing themselves?

I like to answer this question by reversing it. What is wrong with the rest of the universe that it demonstrates no freedom? Using the classic billiard ball example, why doesn’t the cue ball get out of the way when the stick is aiming at it? I would!

Well, first of all, the cue ball does not have its own power of locomotion, but more fundamentally, it knows nothing of a stick or itself or any other balls—it is not conscious.

I like to reverse this question to make an epistemological point: we have always been more justified believing in freedom than in determinism. Freedom is what we experience first. This is why the ancients attributed freedom to everything; first as living matter (animism), then as spirits; then, seeing the regularity in nature, and starting to doubt its independent power, as effects of the gods (polytheism); then, seeing the universality of laws (why should different gods follow the same rules) as the effects of one god (monotheism);  then as a deterministic system with God as a first cause (deism); and finally as a system with no will of any sort behind it (atheism). But since this last move freewill has been taken away from agents too, thereby denying the immediate awareness whose projection onto the non-conscious world motivated the whole mystical adventure in the first place.

Perhaps it is the association between theism and freewill which has made it unfashionable to affirm the latter. But if theism results from the projection of freedom and consciousness onto the non-conscious world, determinism results from the application of objective thinking to subjects. In its extreme form, this has led to denying consciousness itself (yes, people have actually used their intellect to prove that there is no such thing), but while this is obviously self-defeating, some seem to think that the denial of freedom is plausible.

            Part of the debate seems to be (or at least I am making it be) an issue of who has the burden of proof. It seems to me that whoever is denying the more intuitive position has to make the case.[8] As suggested by my glossed history of theism, freewill (or at least freedom) is the intuitive case. Indeed, PD has only been established by observation of regularity in the inanimate world. Nothing comparable has been achieved by sociology or psychology, despite all their efforts to objectify their subjects.

            My supposition is that the scientific mind has done the same thing that the animists did, and that all religions and totalistic ideologies do: it has interpreted all types as one type, its method as the only method, its sort of explanation as the only sort. That this is true of determinists is clear when they ask, “Where is this power of freedom? Show me,” as though it had to be some sort of entity or organ. This is what is demanded by their way of understanding, which is why they will never understand. It is like the believer in souls who asks the non-believer, “Well, where do you go when you die?” They are obviously missing the point.

            That some determinists would need freewill explained to them as some sort of organ is significant, it is a manifestation of the same mistake that brings them to see desires as causal entities and “character” as some sort of essence. They are buying into a mechanistic framework that equates finding the answer with finding the mechanism. As far as the freewill-determinism debate goes, such methodology is viciously circular.[9]          There is some validity to the concern about how unfree matter could end up constituting free agents, but there is just as much mystery in how unconscious matter could result in the existence of conscious beings. So? Obviously this cannot be used to show that consciousness does not exist, why would it entail anything about freedom?

            Consciousness cannot be denied because seeming to be conscious is being conscious. In fact, for anything to “seem” any way, someone must be conscious. That our actions seem to be free—that is, we are not aware of any necessitating cause, which is why we have to make decisions—is admitted by everybody. Why should a lack of an origin for freewill require that freewill be denied if it has been shown that the same lack poses no threat for consciousness. The fallacy in play here should be spotted a mile away by any second-year undergrad: appeal to ignorance. A lack of knowledge does not support any theory at all. The fact that science lacks an adequate explanation of the origins of freewill does not entail that there is no such thing as freewill any more than our inability to explain what came before the Big Bang entails that God created the universe.[10] If anything, it demonstrates the inadequacy of scientific explanation.        

It is no coincidence that I keep mentioning freewill and consciousness together, for as far as I can see, they are a unit. “Choice and consciousness are one and the same thing,” says Sartre.[11] On his account, consciousness is a rupture with the world, a break in the causal chain.[12] What distiguishes me from unconscious entities is that (using the chain metaphor) I see the links that come before me, and my input is required before anything follows from me. Nothing will “just follow,” I have to choose it. This is what makes sense of my pursuits and flights, and the importance I attach to my conduct.

            On a MD account, once I was aware that I could not do otherwise, it would be strange for me to continue to fret. But as Sartre points out, I must fret, for the fact of having to choose between many real options is inescapable. There is no way to live my life under the supposition of determination. How could I act as though action were not possible?

            Unfortunately, Sartre ends up sounding almost like a mental determinist when he begins to describe deliberation as revealing original choice, a mere discovery of an already-formed project.[13] He even describes voluntary and seemingly involuntary acts as equivalent expressions of this original project or “profound intention.” But if all conscious activities reflect this original choice, how was this choice made? Unconsciously? Sartre would have it that every act of a conscious being is free and chosen, even where one is not conscious of making the choice. This is where the determinist would say, “You see, even you admit the illusory nature of deliberation. If your project exists in advance of deliberation, and all roads lead to the same end, how can you choose? And how do you know that this ‘original choice’ is not a mechanism—what makes it a choice?” If this project exists in advance of recognition, is this not an essence prior to existence, which his ontology does not allow?

            Ignoring this slip-up,[14] one of Sartre’s most important insights is this: existence precedes essence. This is based in a simple epistemological point: we do not see a person’s character traits in advance of their manifestation in action, so we have no evidential grounds for positing their existence prior to this action. In fact, it would seem that “character” is just our way of describing the sort of things a person tends to do.[15] To assume that actions must have some sort of internal entity, like a desire (which is no sort of entity at all, the fallacy here is hypostatisation), forcing them out, is just to assume MD. Like most deterministic reasoning, it is circular.[16]

            What is this “character” that MD posits, from which actions supposedly flow? To an extent it does make sense to unify a person’s actions in this way. Most people do seem have a theme to their actions, and a degree of predictability (after all, a completely unpredictable person would simply be a maniac). The determinist wants to say that one’s character is formed by their environment, and the sum of one’s experience dictates one’s possibilities for action. But “character” simply covers the types of actions one tends to perform. It is established after the fact. Certainly there is a sense in which environment moulds character, but this just means certain experiences provide one with certain pieces of knowledge, which give one certain options. The fact that one learns what one’s options are from one’s environment does not entail that one’s environment dictates one’s actions. What makes these options what they are is precisely that they may be taken up or rejected—they are chosen between.

But one is not limited strictly to learned options. If this were the case there would be no advances in art, science, or social organisation. These all require that some individuals exercise genius: the bringing forth through creative intellect of a concept (and with it many options) which was not part of the social environment previously.

 Even if one were to accept an essentialist notion of “character” as some sort of internal mechanism which spews out actions, and an x-character produced x-type actions, how could character produce specific actions? Why does a generous person express their generosity on an occasion with one sort of gift rather than another? The same problem holds for specific expressions of character as for desires and expressions of desire. For these to dictate particular actions, they would have to come full of content and instructions, but such phenomena are in fact vague and empty, requiring either creative or deductive thought to fill them in.

This is where the causal efficacy of desires comes into question. The entire MD picture depends on an analogy with a machine.[17] Among the problems with the analogy is the fact that cogs of a machine are fixed in place and have a certain unalterable size and shape. If there are weights and counterweights involved, these can be measured. How is one supposed to measure the force of a desire? If I go for a banana rather than an apple, am I supposed to understand this as a case where my desire for the apple is expressible as “30du” (desire units) and my desire for the banana, “32du”? What about my desire for a night of hot bondage? Is this expressible in the same units as my appetite for fruit, or my yen to listen to a Shostakovich string quartet?

When I am confronted with a choice between working on my essay or getting laid, is it really reasonable to say that desire keeps me home with my nose in Being and Nothingness? This is patently absurd. The mental determinist may want to invoke “second-order desires” here, but what legitimate sense of “desire” applies to something I am vaguely aware of and which I don’t feel, especially when my heart and loins cry out to do otherwise? I may have an obligation or a plan, but surely these are different types of descriptions of myself than what I am talking about when I say I have a “desire”?

Some determinists say that to be rational is to be determined by reasons. These are as abstract as desires and not seemingly a candidate for any sort of causal interaction (PD is a theory about matter, MD is a long way from being able to explain how conceptual entities can have causal powers). Sartre says that reasons only motivate in light of an original project. But certain reasons, e.g. good arguments, should be taken up regardless. Their value is objective. The mental determinist may reply that reasons are rejected when things such as desire overwhelm the agent. This assumes that desires also have strong causal efficacy, and are able to interact with reasons in some sort of regular way. But how can a “desire,” which I take to be a complex concept involving certain bodily sensations, emotions, an object, a plan or at least a fantasy, etc., and a “reason” (or all the other things besides desires which could be counted as reasons, acknowledging that desires are often considered a type of reason), be the sorts of things that interact at all?

The picture this starts to paint is very classical and metaphorical. We have desires battling with reasons in some invisible mental realm. Invisible? I do feel a “struggle” when I seek to accomplish things, but “struggle” and “conflict” are states of being which, unlike external versions of conflict, do not require multiple parties. The only party involved is the person. This struggle is the phenomenon of indecision which is itself one of the brightest beacons of freedom we have. We are indecisive, procrastinatory, shy, and half-hearted precisely because reasons and desires do not suffice to cause behaviour.

            Failure to appreciate the imperative nature of a reason and so not act is called laziness. It is not a desire; what makes one lazy is that one has a desire which one does not act on, not because of a stronger desire to remain stationary, which could not be apprehended as a lack (as would be required for anything to be considered a desire),[18] since it is the condition one is already in (laziness supposes stagnation), but because of a choice, for any number of reasons, or none in particular, not to act on one’s desire. Fear is what happens when the gravity of consequences puts too much pressure/responsibility on the agent. The wrong choice would be so disastrous, or the right one too unfamiliar, that not choosing is a way of playing safe. Shyness absolutely cannot be a desire or a reason. It is fundamental to the concept of shyness that one wants to be social, but fails to act on this.

            TD will respond that the above states support its thesis because they are examples of situations where one is “not in control.” But fears can be conquered, one can go to the gym despite one’s laziness, and shyness can be confronted. In each case one “takes a plunge” and throws oneself forward despite one’s inhibitions. Confronting these things is an instance of intentional self-modification, and an example of !F.

            There is one final charge I will make unto the breach I have established in the deterministic fort. It is a thought experiment which purports to show that freedom and consciousness are inseparable concepts, and that it is absurd to think that an unrestrained person cannot choose how they will act on information possessed.

            Suppose a computer were developed that could predict the future with complete certainty (it will be shown that this is not possible, but precisely because MD is false). Against this supposition one may invoke EC, and say this is not possible, but given the outrageous suppositions allowed by other thought experiments, this is a weak objection. Besides, EC could not be a problem for an omniscient being, which I am assuming our supercomputer to be.[19] Furthermore, if TD is true, omniscience would entail trans-temporal omniscience. If MD and PD are true, so is TD. If MD is true, but not PD (because of PC), the computer should still produce accurate situational predictions about an individual, given all knowledge of his “character.”

            Now, suppose this computer produced a printout of predictions which located Andy at the Copper Mug at 7PM on Tuesday night. It also predicted that the scientists who run the computer will go to the Copper Mug and show Andy the printout, and he will say, “Isn’t it amazing what machines can do!” Events unfold as predicted and the scientists find Andy at the Copper Mug at 7PM on Tuesday, and show him the printout and he says, “Well, I’m not going to say that. So much for your computer.”

            The determinist will say, “Well, he couldn’t say that if the computer works,” and the chaos theorist might say, “See! Fluke!” but they are both ignoring the obvious. The reason Andy will not conform to the prediction is because he knows about it. There is no conceivable way that an unrestrained conscious being can have information without being able to act on its basis. Consciousness is freedom and knowledge supplies options. If the determinist will grant the supercomputer, but claim that Andy cannot defy its predictions, I have to ask, what’s stopping him? Will he just find himself mouthing the words and at a loss for why he says them? Will the universe collapse in some sort of Back to the Future metaphysical conundrum?

            There can be no accurate predictions of the future, because there is no future. Humans are free precisely because they are future-oriented. They take a non-existent state as their reason for acting, and as such are literally determined by nothing. They are able to do this because they are conscious; they know what is, and can imagine what could be.[20] Determinism is the result of a fallacious inference from microproperties to macroproperties, an example of the fallacy of composition. The bodies of physics are not conscious, but we are. Why should we suppose that this difference wouldn’t also apply to the case of freewill? Any theory that sets out to explain phenomena and ends up denying them is a failure.[21] This is why mental determinism fails as an explanation of human action.

Works Consulted

Clarke, Randolph. “Agent Causation and Event Causation in the Production of Free Action.” Pereboom, 273.

Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. Phenomenology of Perception. trans. Colin Smith. (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1962)

Miele, Frank. “A Quick & Dirty Guide to Chaos Theory.” Skeptic Vol.8 NO.3, 2000: 62-77.

Nadeau, Robert L. Mind, Machines, and Human Consciousness. (Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1991)

Pereboom, Derek. “Determinism al Dente.” Pereboom, 242.

Pereboom, Derek, ed. Free Will. (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1997)

Pigliucci, Massimo. “Chaos and Complexity: Should We Be Skeptical?” Skeptic Vol.8 NO.3, 2000: 62-77.

Ryle, Gilbert. The Concept of Mind. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1984)

Sartre, Jean-Paul. Being and Nothingness. trans. Hazel E. Barnes. (New York: Citadel Press, 1968)

Taylor, Richard. “Freedom and Determinism.” White, 163.

White, James E., ed. Introduction to Philosophy. (Saint Paul: West Publishing Company, 1989)