2. Freedom and Free Will
Surface Freedom/Liberty : being able to do
what you want.
A) Positive Freedom
B) Negative Freedom
Free Will: being free to choose what
you will.
Actions and choices are up to us.
Amit Kumar Gupta(2010A7PS004G) BITS PILANI
3. Why is Freedom so
important ?
We ‘feel’ that we are free; that we are the
originators of our own actions
We need to be free in order to be
responsible for our actions; our practices
of praise and blame presuppose that we
are free
Any example ?
Amit Kumar Gupta(2010A7PS004G) BITS PILANI
4. Determinism
“A metaphysical philosophical position
stating that for everything that happens
there are conditions such that, given
those conditions, nothing else could
happen”.
Human actions result from wants, wishes,
desires, motivations, feelings, etc. which
in turn are caused by specific antecedent
conditions that ensure their occurrence.
Amit Kumar Gupta(2010A7PS004G) BITS PILANI
5. …Determinism
The view that the state of the world at a
given time determines the state of the
world at the next moment.
No action is free if it must occur.
Every event that occurs, including human
action, is entirely the result of earlier
causes [event causation].
Amit Kumar Gupta(2010A7PS004G) BITS PILANI
6. This raises two big questions
A) The determinist question :Is determinism
true or false?
B) The compatibility question: Is free will
compatible with determinism?
The combination of answers that can be
given form the standard positions in the
debate
So, determinism and free will would appear to be in
tension with one another
Amit Kumar Gupta(2010A7PS004G) BITS PILANI
7. Incompatibilism
Freedom is not compatible with
determinism; if determinism is true, then
one cannot be held truly free and
responsible for one’s actions.
Can be divided into two groups:
A) Hard Determinism
B) Libertarianism
Amit Kumar Gupta(2010A7PS004G) BITS PILANI
8. Incompatibilism: Hard
Determinism
1) Free will is not compatible with
determinism
2) Determinism is true.
3) So, we do not have free will it is just an
illusion.
“If determinism is true, then our acts are the
consequences of the laws of nature and events in
the remote past. But it is not up to us what went on
before we were born, and neither is it up to us what
the laws of nature are. Therefore the
consequences of these things (including our
present acts) are not up to us”.---Peter van
Inwagen, An Essay on Free Will (p. 56)
Amit Kumar Gupta(2010A7PS004G) BITS PILANI
9. Hard Determinism
Any Problem ?
How can the HD explain our behavior of
praising and blaming agents for their
actions, and ascribing responsibility?
What happens to morality ? If nobody can
ever ‘do otherwise’than they in fact do,
then notions of responsibility, desert,
praise, and blame are redundant.
Amit Kumar Gupta(2010A7PS004G) BITS PILANI
10. Incompatibilism :
Libetarianism
1) Free will is not compatible with
determinism
2) Free will exists
3) Determinism is therefore false
Any Problem ?
Our sense of free will is just an illusion:
Schopenhauer’s “On the Freedom of
The Will”
Amit Kumar Gupta(2010A7PS004G) BITS PILANI
11. Compatibilism
Freedom and responsibility are in every
significant sense compatible with
determinism; thus there is no conflict
between determinism and free will.
If some people see a tension here, it is
because they are misunderstanding the
notions of freedom and determinism, of
‘free-choice’ and ‘causal necessity’
“SOFT DETERMINISTS” are compatibilists
who believe determinism is true
Amit Kumar Gupta(2010A7PS004G) BITS PILANI
12. …Compatibilism
1) Determinism is true
2) Free will exists
3) There is no tension between these
claims
Classical Compatibilists: Hobbes,
Hume, Mill
Modern Compatibilists: Ayer, Dennett,
Frankfurt
Amit Kumar Gupta(2010A7PS004G) BITS PILANI
13. …Compatibilism
Any Problem ?
Incompatibilists say:
For our actions to be free, it must be the
case that, when we act, we could do
otherwise than we actually do.
This insistence on the ability to do otherwise is
often referred to as the “principle of alternate
possibilities”
To say one ‘could have done otherwise’ is to
say that one would have done otherwise had
things been different (given a different set of
beliefs, desires, etc.)
Amit Kumar Gupta(2010A7PS004G) BITS PILANI
14. …Compatibilism
Compatibilist freedom is only ‘surface’
freedom - it is not free will in the full,
proper sense
Compatibilism is a
“wretched subterfuge” (Kant)
“quagmire of evasion” (William James)
Amit Kumar Gupta(2010A7PS004G) BITS PILANI
16. The Problem –Free Will
If determinism is false, then events are not
subject to chain of cause-and-effect.
So events occur randomly, by chance
(indeterminism).
If events occur by chance, then they are
not under our control.
So, how can we have FREE WILL ?
Amit Kumar Gupta(2010A7PS004G) BITS PILANI
