This document discusses the philosophical problem of free will. It presents different positions on whether free will is compatible with determinism. Compatibilists believe free will can exist even if determinism is true, while incompatibilists think they are incompatible. Hard determinists believe determinism is true and free will an illusion. Libertarians believe free will exists and determinism is false. The document outlines arguments for and against these positions, such as debates around causal determinism, alternative possibilities, compatibilist responses, and problems with indeterminism for libertarian views.

1. The
Problem
of Free
Will
METAPHYSICS

2. “surface freedom”
Being able to ‘do what
you want’
Being free to act, and
choose, as you will
BUT: what if ‘what
you will’ is not under
your control?
“free will”
Being an agent
capable of influencing
the world
Source of ones own
actions
Actions and choices
are “up-to-us”
WHAT IS FREEDOM?

3.  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
 Greene Paper – neuroscience, moral and legal responsibility,
theories of punishment
 Roper v. Simmons, 2005, US Supreme Court, unconstitutional to
impose capital punishment for crimes committed under age 18
 Recent scientific advances in brain research indicate that the
adolescent brain has not yet fully developed, the decision-making
capacity and risk-taking behavior of adolescents are far different
from those of adults; thus adolescent offenders are less culpable.
Roper v. Simmons: The Role of the Science Brief
WHY IS FREEDOM
IMPORTANT?

4.  psychological capacities to control our own lives, change our
habits and traits, overcome addictions, exercise willpower,
and consciously consider the sort of life we want to lead (and
to control our behavior accordingly).
 If people interpret free will to include these sorts of
capacities, then telling them that they don’t have free will
could have detrimental effects on their self-conception,
interpersonal relations, and moral behavior, as well as our
political debates and legal practices. It may make them more
fatalistic, less likely to exert those powers of rational
deliberation and willpower they do have, and less motivated to
improve themselves and their lives – Eddy Nahmias
SOCIETY AND FREE WILL

5.  In 1969 Harry Frankfurt defined what he called "The Principle
of Alternate Possibilities" or PAP.
 "a person is morally responsible for what he has done only if
he could have done otherwise.“
 “Although I came to class today, I could have decided not to”
 What does the world have to be like for this counterfactual to
be true?
PRINCIPLE OF ALTERNATIVE
POSSIBILITIES

6.  (Roughly): the view that the state of the world at a given time
determines the state of the world at the next moment
 Every event that occurs, including human action, is entirely
the result of earlier causes [event causation]
CAUSAL DETERMINISM

7.  We may regard the present state of the universe as the effect
of its past and the cause of its future. An intellect which at a
certain moment would know all forces that set nature in
motion, and all positions of all items of which nature is
composed, if this intellect were also vast enough to submit
these data to analysis, it would embrace in a single formula
the movements of the greatest bodies of the universe and
those of the tiniest atom; for such an intellect nothing would
be uncertain and the future just like the past would be
present before its eyes.
 —Pierre Simon Laplace, A Philosophical Essay on
Probabilities[3]
LAPLACE’S DEMON

8.  O set of physical magnitudes, each of which takes a
determinate value at every moment of time
 A history H is a map from R to tuples of values of the basic
magnitudes, where for any t in R the state H(t) gives a
snapshot of behavior of the basic magnitudes at time t.
 The world is Laplacian deterministic with respect to O just in
case for any pair of histories H1, H2 satisfying the laws of
physics, if H1(t) = H2(t) for some t, then H1(t) = H2(t) for all t.
 John Earman, Aspects of Determinism in Modern Physics
LAPLACIAN DETERMINISM

9. Neuroscientists Complete Fully Mechanistic
Explanation of Human Behavior
These neuroscientists have
shown that once specific
chemical reactions and neural
processes occur in a person’s
brain, they will inevitably cause
the person to make the specific
decision he or she makes.
As noted scholar Francis Crick
says, “Your sense of personal
identity and free will are in fact
no more than the behavior of a
vast assembly of nerve cells and
their associated molecules.…
You’re nothing but a pack of
neurons.” Said Paul Katz, one of
the lead researchers, “There is
certainly no room left for a soul
now. There is nothing left for a
soul to explain.”
February 20, 2049
By Eddy Nahmias
Neuroscientists at the
University of Chicago and
Georgia State University have
found evidence that explains
exactly how all human
decisions and actions are
entirely caused by
neurobiological activity. They
report that whenever we are
trying to decide what to do, the
decision we end up making is
completely caused by the
specific chemical reactions and
neural processes occurring in

10. Causal determinism*
Theological determinism
Psychological determinism
Sociological determinism
Biological determinism
Environmental determinism
DETERMINISM: TYPES

11.  This raises two big questions
1. The determinist question - is determinism true or false?
2. The compatibility question - is free will compatible with
determinism?
 The combination of answers that can be
given form the standard positions in the
debate
COMPATIBILITY?

12. POSITIONS IN THE ‘FREE WILL DEBATE’
DIAGRAM TAKEN FROM HTTP://EN.WIKIPEDIA .ORG/WIKI/FREE_WILL

13.  Incompatibilists believe freedom is not compatible with
determinism; if determinism is true, then one cannot be held
truly free and responsible for one’s actions
 Incompatibilists may be divided into two groups …
INCOMPATIBILISM

14. a) Free will is not compatible with determinism
b) Determinism is true
c) So, we do not have free will
HARD DETERMINISTS are incompatibilists who hold that
determinism is true
INCOMPATIBILISM: HARD
DETERMINISM

15.  Libertarians believe
a) We do have free will
b) Free will is not compatible with determinism
c) Determinism is therefore false
INCOMPATIBILISM:
LIBERTARIANISM

16. COMPATIBILISTS believe that freedom and
responsibility are in every significant
sense compatible with determinism; thus
there is no conflict between determinism
and free will
SOFT DETERMINISTS are compatibilists who
believe determinism is true
Classical Compatibilists: Hobbes, Hume, Mill
Modern Compatibilists: Ayer, Dennett, Frankfurt
COMPATIBILISM

17. a) Free will is not compatible with
determinism
b) Determinism is true
c) Therefore, free will is an illusion
Support?
HARD DETERMINISM

18. CONSEQUENCE ARGUMENT (informal)
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)
HARD DETERMINISM

19.  Problems:
 How can the HD explain our behaviour 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.
HARD DETERMINISM

20. a) Determinism is true
b) Free will exists
c) There is no tension between these claims
 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 DETERMINISM
(COMPATIBILISM)

21.  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”
CHALLENGE FOR THE
COMPATIBILIST:

22. 1. Interpret the CDO-condition of freedom as having a
hypothetical or conditional meaning, i.e.
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.)
[classical compatibilist response]
COMPATIBILIST RESPONSES:

23. 2. So what if I couldn’t ‘do otherwise’?
The ability to do otherwise is not in fact required for moral
responsibility, and so determinism is no threat to free will
3. The proper contrast to freedom is not determinism,
but constraint/coercion
As long as we are not constrained, coerced or forced in our
actions then we do what we will, and it doesn’t matter
whether our wills are determined or not
COMPATIBILIST RESPONSES:

24.  Donald is a Democrat and is likely to vote for the Democrats;
in fact, only in one particular circumstance will he not: that is,
if he thinks about the prospects of immediate American
defeat in Iraq just prior to voting. Ms White, a representative
of the Democratic Party, wants to ensure that Donald votes
Democratic, so she secretly plants a device in Donald's head
that, if activated, will force him to vote Democratic. Not
wishing to reveal her presence unnecessarily, Ms White plans
to activate the device only if Donald thinks about the Iraq
War prior to voting. As things happen, Donald does not think
about Iraq prior to voting, so Ms White thus sees no reason to
activate the device, and Donald votes Democratic of his own
accord. Apparently, Donald is responsible for voting
Democratic although, owing to Ms. White's device, he lacks
freedom to do otherwise.
FRANKFURT

25.  compatibilist freedom is only ‘surface’ freedom - it is not free
will in the full, proper sense
 Compatibilism is a “wretched subterfuge” (Kant), a “quagmire
of evasion” (William James)
COMPATIBILISM: PROBLEMS

26.  Libertarians believe
a) Free will is not compatible with determinism
b) Free will exists
c) Determinism is therefore false
Support?
Criticism?
LIBERTARIAN (FREE WILL)
POSITION

27. Would you be willing
to spend a day
letting randomness
govern your actions?
DOES INDETERMINISM HELP?

28.  More serious problem:
 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 be free and responsible?
LIBERTARIAN (FREE WILL)
POSITION

29.  This is known as the “Intelligibility Question” - how do we
make sense of a non-determined free will?
 3 common responses:
 Agent-causal theory (self-determination)
 Simple indeterminism
 Causal indeterminism
LIBERTARIAN (FREE WILL)
POSITION

30. Not only events can be causes; agents
themselves can be causes too (distinction
between event-causation and agent-
causation)
Agent-causation is not reducible to
causation by events (agent-causes are not
explainable by reference to other events)
A STAFF MOVES A STONE, AND IS MOVED BY A
HAND, WHICH IS MOVED BY A MAN - Aristotle,
Physics 256a
AGENT CAUSATION

31.  Problems:
 Many people, including many libertarians, find the notion of
‘agent-causation’ far too mysterious and problematic
 Requires agents to be the uncaused cause of their actions, to be
“prime movers unmoved”
 Problem of economy - positing a second, additional, category of
causation
AGENT CAUSATION

32. Determinists
 1. YES
 2. Depends …
Compatibilists (Soft
Determinists)
 2. YES
Hard Determinists
 2. NO
Libertarians
 1. NO (since FW exists)
 2. YES
1. IS DETERMINISM TRUE?
2. CAN THERE BE FREE WILL?