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Essays, Opinion, & Commentary |
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TABLE OF CONTENTS Statement of
the Problem - Determinism
Man has a will -- a specific power with a distinctive activity. It reacts to the motives presented to it by the intellect. Motives are values which prompt the will to conative action; and usually the will seeks to attain the value which is perceived to possess the greatest amount of realizable good under the prevailing circumstances. The influence of motives brings up the problem of the freedom of the will. It would seem that the predominant motive must always prevail over the will and force it to act. If this were so, freedom of the will could hardly exist. Yet it is the universal conviction of mankind that man has a free will. On what grounds is this conviction based? Is it a rationally justified conviction? Or is it merely an illusion? The question is of paramount importance, because the entire structure of man's individual and social life rests upon the concept of the freedom of his will. If the human will is free, man is indeed the most privileged creature in the universe; but if it is not free, our entire educational, social, and moral system must be discarded or revised. The term "freedom" is used in different meanings. In order to avoid confusion of thought, it is imperative to clarify the concept of freedom as it applies to the will. In the widest sense, freedom is the absence of external coercion or restraint which hinders an appetency from expressing itself in external action. A man locked in a room or held by physical force, so that he cannot do as he pleases or is forced to do what he does not want to do, lacks external freedom; when the restraining force is removed, he has "freedom from coercion." This type of freedom applies to bodily movements and has nothing to do with the will. In the strict sense, freedom means the absence of an intrinsic necessity or determination in the performance of an act. Something is "intrinsically necessary," when it is determined by its very nature to be what it is and to act as it does. This type of "freedom applies to the will when we speak of "free will, and we mean that the will is free from intrinsic necessity or determination in at least some of its acts. Hence, when it is said that the will is "free," it is implied that the will is not necessitated by its nature to act in a determined manner, but is capable of choice even when all the conditions for acting are present. Those of us who are advocates of free will do not claim that the will is free in every respect. We admit that it is governed by intrinsic necessity or determination in seeking happiness. We also admit that the will in many circumstances acts impulsively and indeliberately. We admit further that certain mental states and conditions make it impossible for the will to exercise its freedom or impair its freedom to such an extent that responsibility is wholly or partially lacking. Such states as sleep, profound absent-mindedness, delirium, pronounced narcosis, hypnosis, marked emotional unbalance, insanity, and in general all disturbances of attention which hinder the intellect from giving proper consideration a motive. These factors, however, are extrinsic to the will itself. The conditions required for the exercise of free will are:
A normal state of attention is required. The will can desire only what the intellect proposes to it as good. Obviously, then, anything that interferes with the normal state of attention interferes with the proper judgment of the intellect and thereby with the proper act of the will. An objectively indifferent judgment of the intellect is required. In order that a free choice of the will be possible, the intellect must judge that a certain object or act or situation is good under one aspect but evil under another; if the object or act or situation were judged to be altogether good and therefore essential for happiness, the will would of necessity strive for it, and freedom of choice would be impossible. Given this objectively indifferent judgment, a conflict of motives arises, and that is a condition which is also required for the exercise of free will. The will cannot desire an evil as such; it can desire only a good. In order, then, that the will be able to exercise its freedom, it must choose between two or more goods which act as motives; in other words, there must a conflict of motives, before there can be a choice between them. The freedom of the will consists precisely in this that it has the power of self-determination in arbitrarily choosing between conflicting motives. The intellectual judgment which present an object or act or situation to the will as objectively indifferent, that is to say, as being something which is neither altogether good nor altogether evil, is termed the root of freedom. Since the will itself is subjectively indifferent toward the presented motives, the freedom of the will is sometimes termed the freedom of indifference. And since this subjective indifference enables the will to make an arbitrary choice between motives, the freedom of the will is also designated the freedom of choice. The will exercises its free choice in three distinct ways, and correspondingly we distinguish between three types of freedom in the acts of the will. First, there is the freedom of exercise or contradiction. The will can choose freely between willing and not willing, between acting and not acting. Since it is a question here of the will exercising or not exercising its power of choice, it is called freedom of exercise; and since exercising and not exercising are contradictory opposites, it is also called freedom of contradiction. A person, for example, can freely choose between studying and not studying, between eating a piece of candy or not eating a piece of candy. Second, there is the freedom of specification. From this point of view, the will can choose freely between one object and another object and therefore also between one act of the will and another act of the will; it specifies which kind of object or act shall be the goal of its choice. A person, for example, decides freely whether he shall study or take a stroll, whether he shall eat a piece of chocolate or a caramel. Third, there is the freedom of contrariety. The will possesses the freedom of choosing freely between a moral good and a moral evil. Good and evil are contrary opposites. A person, for example, can choose freely between telling the truth and telling a lie, between acting humanely and acting inhumanely. The freedom of contrariety can be reduced to one of the first two, since it is a choice either between acting or not acting or between one object and another object. From the above it should be clear that the freedom of the will does not consist in motiveless volition. The will cannot act without a motive of some kind, because it can desire an object or an experience only in so far as it is intellectually apprehended as good. Nor does it consist in causeless volition. The self or person possessing the will is the cause of the free act of the will. The will is not a thing apart, existing and acting independent of the person or self who is the abiding subject of the will. The motive is the moral cause, and the person or self is the efficient cause. It is permissible to say that the will is the cause of its own act, provided it be understood that the will and its act must ultimately be referred to the person or self as the agent operating through the will. Free will is defined as the ability of the will, all conditions for action being present, to decide whether to act or not to act and whether to act in this manner or in that manner. From a psychological standpoint, free will is the ability to choose arbitrarily between conflicting motives through the active interposition of the Ego. Many authors define it briefly as the power of self-determination. The essence of the freedom of the will, as just defined, consists in indetermination, so that the will, no matter what the strength of the conflicting motives or the nature of the antecedent external and internal conditions for action may be, is not determined to act by necessity. This doctrine is therefore designated as indeterminism or libertarianism. This indeterminism, however, is not absolute, because in the pursuit of happiness the will is, as stated before, determined. We advocate, then, a relative or moderate indeterminism. The doctrine opposed to free will is styled determinism or necessitarianism. Modern psychology has adopted the former term. According to this doctrine, the will is not intrinsically free, but is determined by the antecedent psychical and physical conditions and causes to act as it does; it is necessitated in its volition. Determinism appears in a variety of forms. Among the ancients, many held the view that the entire course of man's life is predetermined by an inexorable fate or destiny. Astrology is akin to this. Some Christian sects denied the existence of free will; the activity of creatures is only apparent, because God alone is active. In modern times, we find free will denied by materialists and pantheists. The materialists admit the existence of nothing but matter and material activities. Since matter is governed completely by the necessary laws controlling chemical, physical, and mechanical agencies, there is no place for a free-acting cause like free will. The will is determined in its volition by physical factors, such as the hereditary constitution of man and the environment in which he lives, and by psychical factors, such as images, feelings, emotions, and the preponderance of motives. If psychical factors are mentioned, they are usually considered to be mere refinements and complexes of material factors. The pantheists maintain that all reality is ultimately one, God or the Absolute. The world, man included, is but a phase in the eternal evolution of the Absolute, and this evolution takes place according to laws which operate with inevitable necessity. There is no freedom of action anywhere. Among the materialistic theories denying free will we must place the philosophical systems of
Among the pantheistic theories denying free will we must place the philosophical systems of
All the above are deterministic. Some modern philosophers and psychologists speak of the will as if they admitted its freedom of action. Analysis of their ideas and explanations, however, reveals that they interpret free will in a fashion which is either a perversion of the true concept of freedom or which makes the will so dependent on the conditioning factors as to preclude genuine indeterminacy. It is a case of what William James has described as soft determinism. What, then, is the true problem of free will? It is this: All the conditions and circumstances required for volition being given, is the will, when confronted by conflicting motives presented by the intellect in a normal state of attention and deliberation, compelled and determined to decide for one of the motives to the exclusion of the others? Or, on the contrary, everything given as just stated, is it within the ability of the will, through the active interposition of the Ego, to make an arbitrary choice between these conflicting motives, irrespective of their relative attraction, by simply determining itself to choose any one of the motives and thereby conferring a subjective preference on this one over the others? If the former alternative is verified, there is no freedom of the will. If the latter is verified, then the will is truly free in at least some of its acts. Commonsense philosophical realism, the perennial philosophy, including modern Contextual Realism as well as Thomism and Neo-Scholasticism, claim that the will is truly free, as specified, in some of its acts; that is all that is needed to disprove the universal determinism advocated by the determinists. The proofs for the truth of the freedom of the will are of three kinds:
These proofs will now be treated individually. As a preliminary observation, it must be stressed that the court of last appeal in matters of knowledge is consciousness; the testimony of our consciousness is the ultimate criterion of natural truth for man. If this criterion is rejected by a philosopher or psychologist, all knowledge must end in universal skepticism. Our consciousness gives indubitable testimony to the fact that our will is free in many of its acts. By means of an introspective analysis of the will in action, I am conscious that the will is not only capable of arbitrary choice between motives, but actually makes such an arbitrary choice. True, motives are present, and these motives attract the will to action; at the same time, however, I am conscious that these motives do not force the will to action, but leave it within the power of the will, notwithstanding the attractiveness of the motives, to act or not to act, to act this way or that way. The will settles the issue through an active interposition of the Ego, by deciding simply as it pleases. Everyday experience proves this contention conclusively. The idea presents itself to me to take a stroll; but I am also inclined to continue with the reading of this interesting book. Both are pleasant to me. What shall I do? I realize that it is entirely up to me "to make up my mind." Neither motive is compelling. I decide to take a stroll. Shall I go to the left or to the right? I have no particular preference; there is certainly no necessity to go in one direction rather than in the other. But which shall it be? Let it be to the right; "it makes no difference anyhow." And to the right I stroll. During this entire procedure I am conscious that in the final analysis everything I do depends upon my free decision; my will is not determined, except in so far as it determines itself to act. The fact of free decision is brought out very clearly in so-called indifferent acts. I lift my hand, for instance, about six inches above the table, palm upward. I can now deflect it one inch (or shall it be two inches? or three?) to the right or the left; I can also leave it as it is. I can crook my index finger (or shall it be the little finger? or the thumb?); I can also leave the hand as it is. What motive have I for doing any of these things? There is no motive in the actions themselves which prompts or necessitates me. The only motive I can discover is this: I merely want to; it is my will to do so; I can do as I like. The will acts simply because it decides to act rather than not act in the described manner, and there is nothing that compels it. The particular actions, taken for themselves, are indifferent; the decision lies completely and freely in the power of the will. Many actions are performed in this way. In particular, a number of mental processes reveal the free will in action. Attention. Attention, besides manifesting the existence of volition as a distinctive mental operation, also manifests the "free" of the will. Attention is often selective and preferential, due to a free decision on our part. In working out a problem, in preparing an address, in pursuing a discussion on some topic, etc., we are conscious of the fact that we ourselves direct the marshaling of our ideas, force some of them to dwell in our consciousness longer than others, divert the entire train of ideas into other channels, recall them for further consideration, dismiss them at our pleasure, and so forth. We can restrict our attention exclusively to motives of less agreeableness, if we so desire, and give these the preponderance. In fact, it lies in our power of the will to be or not to be attentive, and just how long and how intensively to be attentive. In all phases of voluntary attention we are conscious that we are the free cause of the operation. Deliberation. It is a fact of experience that we often deliberate on the merits of conflicting motives, ask counsel from others as to what course we should pursue, and so on. We are conscious that it lies in our power to deliberate or not to deliberate. If we decide to deliberate at all, it is in our power to carry on the deliberation for hours or days or months or only for minutes. We can interrupt and resume our deliberations as we please. No matter what the motives and their strength my be at the moment, we can withhold our decision and look for counter-motives. All the while we are conscious that this process of deliberation is freely inaugurated, freely continued, and freely terminated by the active interposition of the Ego; and this process is perceived to be totally different from the familiar impulsive character of many actions which occur in our life more less against our will. Motives are present, certainly, but our consciousness is witness to the fact that they do not compel our consent. Decision in Matters of Conduct. In the course of a temptation, we are irresistibly convinced that consent lies in our free power, to give or to withhold. We are very much attracted by the allurement of the temptation; to consent means to follow the line of least resistance. We resist, though the effort is very painful, and we know that thereby we are struggling against the preponderant motive, the motive of greatest attraction. It amounts to what William James has called "deliberately thrusting a thorn in one's flesh." The main point here, too, is the consciousness that it would be easy to yield and that the yielding would be a free decision of our will, just as resisting is a difficult matter and is the laborious result of a hard-fought volitional battle freely undertaken. No quibbling can shake our conviction that in such circumstances our will is truly free. It is important to realize that no experiment in scientific psychology has brought forth evidence that the human will is never free in its choices or decisions. And it is the burden of those denying free will to produce the evidence supporting their position. Simply to say, for instance, that the freedom of the human will is an "illusion," as some have done, is not to make an argument but simply to state a mere opinion, and an opinion for which conclusive evidence is unavailable. |
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