replied to your post “Hi!! I’ve been reading your princess tutu liveblog, and you talked…”
#if it’s free will you’re interested in i have a whole term paper’s worth of stuff for THAT If possible i’d totally love to read it!!! Free will is definetely something super interesting to talk about, and im also of the mind that “the universe is deterministic but that’s ok”!!
Absolutely! Under the cut is an entire actual paper, where I explain the difference between all the definitions of “determinism,” and explain why even if the most extreme form of determinism is true and there is no free will, it’s still okay to express emotional reactions and moral judgments.
Not gonna lie, it’s more than a little bit inspired by both PGSM and SMAS.
Free will is the cause of much philosophical anxiety. A universe in which everything is predetermined can either support or destroy the idea of free will, and if we don’t have free will, the wider implications are that no one can be morally responsible for their actions. If it is true that choice is an illusion, then accountability is no more than assigning blame to a passive object of its surroundings with no say over what it does, like yelling at a mountain for causing a landslide. The idea that a person has no control over their future is a daunting one, but it is difficult to argue against it in a universe with so many variables unknown to the subjective lens of the human eye.
There exist two general schools of thought regarding the ability of an individual to affect change: determinism (events are determined by previous events) and indeterminism (events are somehow not determined by previous events). In grand philosophical tradition, the definitions of these terms have yet to be agreed upon. Two metaphysicians, Michael Jubien and Peter Van Inwagen, disagree on exactly what makes an event “determined.”
According to Jubien, “determinism is the doctrine that every event and state of affairs is caused by a prior event or state of affairs” (114). Any given event has the chance of leading to multiple possible futures. To him, there is no limitation on how many alternative possible futures there are, so long as they follow logically from the previous events. Though each future has the possibility to occur, it is usually plausibility that determines which one becomes reality.
Van Inwagen instead advances a different definition of determinism. In his deterministic universe, every event or state leads to a single unique future; there are no alternative options. What appears to be free will or agent causation is actually an event that follows from the environment and prior events. To Jubien, alternate futures are possible but perhaps improbable; to Van Inwagen, all alternate futures are impossible. Though each event seems to present multiple paths, with enough knowledge of every circumstance related to the event, all of these possibilities will be discounted except for one. From a limited human perspective, it may appear that there are many different outcomes to every action, but from a cosmic objective standpoint, there is only one possible future. If a rock is balanced on a fence, it may look like it could tip one way or another, but taking into account the wind, the center of gravity of the rock, the exact surface friction of the fence, and the number of dust particles on each side of the rock, it would theoretically be possible to know exactly which side the rock would eventually fall.
Jubien’s determinism assumes that all events are causally linked; Therefore, in an indeterministic universe, some events are unlinked to previous events and arise spontaneously. It is virtually impossible to argue this point when discussing physical events, as all states must have a cause, seen or unseen, or else there would be no reason for the state to exist; what reason does a state have to change without an external force?
Van Inwagen’s definition of indeterminism is also a negation of his definition of determinism. In determinism, past events must necessarily culminate in one unique future; under indeterminism, it is not necessarily the case that an event will lead to one unique future. Therefore, Van Inwagen’s theory of indeterminism is actually similar to Jubien’s notion of determinism.
There is not much debate that all physical events are caused by previous events. Any situation that did not follow from a prior one would violate the laws of nature. Where this gets difficult is when applying this principle to mental events and agents. A rock may not be able to move without an external force, but an agent can presumably decide whether to knock the rock down on one side or the other. This phenomenon is called “agent causation,” a term often used interchangeably with “free will,” as they both imply that the agent has a power to choose one possible future over another.
Once again, academia splits into two camps. The compatibilist view suggests that determinism and free will can coexist without compromising each other. This could either be possible by accepting Jubien’s definition of determinism that all events are causally linked but there are multiple options, or by taking the approach that agents have a causal power of choice that is fundamentally different than that of deterministic physical events. In either case, an agent can have a stake in which path the future takes by making choices that impact the outside world. Because mental events are not similar to physical ones, a person’s decisions can have many outcomes, whereas a physical movement can have only one.
Other theorists, such as Van Inwagen, support an incompatibilist view and suggest that the concept of free will and determinism cannot be reconciled. Because all events lead to one unique future, even choices made by agents are inevitable effects of prior causes. One can imagine alternative futures, but only one of them is a possible future.
Derk Pereboom identifies as a determinist incompatibilist; in other words, all events are determined, and there is no such thing as agent causation. He seems to be operating under Van Inwagen’s version of determinism: “An agent is not morally responsible for the decision if it is ultimately produced by a source over which she has no control” (478). An agent’s mind is like the rock on the fence; there may appear to be multiple outcomes, but if all the variables could be accounted for, only one possible future arises. The agent’s “decision” is caused by the same infinite environmental conditions and prior events as the rock. Therefore, it is unjust to punish moral wrongs, because the perpetrator had no other choice. Pereboom goes on to compare a tendency for crime or poor decision-making to carrying a contagious disease; in both cases, it is justified to separate these innocent blameless people from society for the well-being of people. We can still show praise, but only in the same way that we can praise someone for natural talents. We can show blame, but only the way we blame the weather for adverse picnicking conditions. We cannot admonish or celebrate a choice that someone didn’t make, only view the circumstances as how they are and not how they could have been.
There are many human emotions (both positive and negative) that hinge upon moral responsibility, such as blame, praise, indignation, forgiveness, gratitude, love, and moral anger. It is true that it is possible to feel these things about events or items that are not agents. Because moral responsibility requires that an agent must have had a choice, moral anger has no justification anymore. The purpose of moral anger is that it “motivates us to resist oppression, injustice, and abuse” (488). Under hard incompatibilism, it is still possible to hold individuals accountable for their actions, but not morally responsible, like a driver accidentally backing into a mailbox without the intent of property damage.
I do find some value in Pereboom’s argument, but I do not wish to endorse it. It is true that society would need to reevaluate the ways in which responsibility and agency are acknowledged, to treat people as mere vessels for action without the moral component attached. However, I believe the recognition of wrongful behavior may lead a person to change their opinion, their environment, or their intent for actions in the future. These changes have been brought about as a response to someone else’s expression of indignation, which was caused by the perpetrator’s actions, which were caused by previous teachings and events. These events follow what may be considered a unique chain of sequences. Just because a person cannot be blamed for their past actions does not mean they cannot be held to a standard for future actions. Shaming the action of someone who has done wrong is not punishment for the action over which they have no control; it is a cause that may eventually lead to the effect of avoiding wrongdoing in the future. Even if we assume the most extreme restrictions on free will, that there is only one course of events that can possibly arise from the present set of causes, Pereboom neglects to take into account that some of these “prior causes” can be an expression of praise or blame.
Additionally, Pereboom’s comparison of agents to non-agents seems to undercut the matter entirely. He mentions a person can be grateful to a person the same way she can be grateful for perfect weather, in that it wasn’t their choice but you can be glad for it anyway. However, a person can be affected by words in a way that a cloud can’t. A cloud that hears “Don’t ruin my picnic!” will either rain or not rain, regardless. A person who hears “Don’t ruin my picnic!” will understand those words, and the understanding of those words may be a cause contributing to the unique future where she does not ruin another individual’s picnic.
Moral anger plays an important role in relationships because it shows when an action is ill-received, and the knowledge that the action was harmful can be as valuable as effecting physical change to the environment. Even if we cannot blame or praise someone for their moral actions, we should not let that stop us from expressing dislike for circumstances we find unfavorable. Harm is not something that should be tolerated merely because we have no choice; that’s why people continue to develop vaccines and build storm shelters. In the case of agents, I think that even if mental states and choices are determined, the things by which they are determined can come from us expressing moral anger. Our expression of anger is just another link in the causal chain, and it may lead to a future that is determined, but still has felt the effect of human change. I do not think I can claim that hard incompatibilism is false, but if we wish for a better deterministic future, it is better not to rid ourselves of moral judgment.
For your further reading pleasure:
Inwagen, Peter Van. Metaphysics. Boulder: Westview, 1993. Print.
Jubien, Michael. Contemporary Metaphysics: An Introduction. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 1997. Print.
Pereboom, Derk. “Living Without Free Will: The Case for Hard Incompatibilism.” The Oxford Handbook of Free Will. Ed. Robert Kane. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2001. Print.
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