Our main question is, whether we have free will in whatever sense is required for moral responsibility.  (In this course, “free” always means, free in that sense.)  It seems obvious to us that we do have free will, and our entire culture—especially our legal system—is founded on that assumption.  But the assumption has been powerfully challenged by various Determinist arguments.

Skinner

    Skinner argues that lots of human behavior is the result of operant conditioning, even when that is unknown to the human who is doing the behaving.  Skinner assumes that behavior that results from conditioning is not free.  He actually believes that all behavior results from conditioning, hence that no human action is free, but he gives no argument for that.  And even if some, even much of human behavior is determined by conditioning, it simply doesn’t follow that all of it is.

Holbach

    Holbach hints at the “Scientific Determinist” argument (see below), but actually gives and emphasizes the “motive” argument for Motive Determinism:

            1.  Every action proceeds from a motive.

            2.  Where there is more than one motive, the act is determined by the strongest of the motives.

         \  3.  Every act is determined by a single motive.  [1,2]
But
            4.  A motive operates by coercing the will.

            5.  If one’s will is coerced, one’s act is not free.
            __________________________________________________

          \ 6.  No act is free.   [3,4,5]
 

    Several objections were made in class.

    Objection 1:  There need not be a single motive.  The will could be determined by a net combination of motives.  Reply:  OK, adjust (2)-(4) by talking of the strongest combination of motives.

    Objection 2:  Premise (1) isn’t true.  Some actions are entirely motiveless, done at random.   Reply:  If the action is random, it isn’t free either; it’s just something that happens.

    Objection 3:  Premise (4) isn’t true.  If the motive is your own motive, and you’re happy with it, you’re not being coerced into anything.  To act on your own motives, unimpeded by anything, is to act freely.   Reply:  But your motives are themselves determined by antecedent factors, not under your control.  So their being “your own” motives is irrelevant.  They’re there willy nilly, and they push you into action.

    (That’s as far as the discussion went in class.  But it’s only the opening moves; we’ll think harder.)

Scientific Determinism

    This is the Scientific Determinist argument:

            1.  Every physical (macro-)event has a determining cause.

            2.  A human action is (at least) a physical macro-event.

          \ 3.  Every human action has a determining cause.  [1,2]
But
            4.  If an action has a determining cause, it is not a free action.
            __________________________________________________

          \ 5.  No action is free.   [3,4]

    This argument is harder to resist than was the “motive” argument.  (1) is endorsed both by common sense and by physical science.  (2) seems undeniable.  (4) seems true because, if your action or “action” has a determining cause going back to before you thought of performing it—perhaps before you were even born—then despite what you may think, you could not have done otherwise.  Also, when we discover a determining cause of someone’s action, we cease to regard that person as morally responsible.  “I didn’t mean to squash the baby; my parachute didn’t open and I was in free fall” exculpates the speaker (unless it was her/his fault that the parachute didn’t open, but let’s put that kind of complication aside for now).

    Note in passing:  We sometimes think of our own actions as unfree, as determined by factors outside our control, even when in the relevant sense (and barring the success of one of the Determinist arguments) they’re not so determined and they are free.  If you hand over your wallet at gunpoint, that’s a choice you made, a rational choice to lose your money rather than risk your life.  (It’s not literally true to say that you “had no choice,” even though we do say such things all the time, meaning that we had no other reasonable option.)  (Notice that in saying this I am sharply disagreeing with both Ayer and Stace.)  A heavy smoker says he “can’t” stop smoking.  Of course he can, or could if he wanted; he just would (a lot) rather go on smoking and risking his health than suffer the effects of withdrawal and nicotine deprivation.  And so on.  Often these denials of responsibility are self-serving and/or self-deceptive; Jean-Paul Sartre calls this phenomenon “bad faith.”

Campbell

    Campbell thinks the Scientific Determinist argument is very nearly right.  What’s wrong with it is that we know its conclusion is false!

    How do we know that?  That is, how do we know that at least some of our actions are free?  From the inside.  Not always, but often, you can tell that whether or not to do a certain thing is entirely up to you—for example, whether to raise your left hand right now.  There’s nothing pushing on your left hand, one way or the other, no compulsion, no constraint, no urge, not even a slight hankering.  You just decide.  And when you do, you are the “sole author” of your action (which is, according to Campbell, what’s required for moral responsibility).

    Campbell says it’s important to concede to the Determinist that lots of our actions or “actions” are causally determined (and/or determined by character and Holbachian motive); the Libertarian should never deny that.  But some are not.  Some actions are free in the strongest sense, entirely up to us.  So both the “motive” argument and the Scientific Determinist argument must be rejected.

    How to reject the Scientific Determinist argument, then?  It is, so far as has been shown, valid.  So Campbell must deny one of its premises.  He does that by just running the argument in reverse, denying premise (1).  Of course every ordinary physical event is causally determined; but an autonomous human action is hardly an ordinary physical event.  A free action is generated from inside you, by you, by your own otherwise undetermined will.  The Determinist premise is false, because free human action is the great exception to it.

    (Campbell knows that Determinism has arguments in its favor.  On pp. 448-50 he addresses two such arguments and tries to rebut them.)

Compatibilism

    So far we have a standoff between the Scientific Determinist and the Libertarian.  The former accepts the Determinist premise (1) and from it deduces the nonexistence of free will; Campbell insists on the existence of free will and from that deduces the falsity of (1).  Most of us have some sympathy for each of these positions, and find the choice between them uncomfortable.

    But there is a third option, Ayer and Stace point out.  Premise (4) of the Scientific Determinist argument is open to question (as is premise (4) of the “motive” argument).  Both the Determinists and Campbell have agreed that Determinism and free will are incompatible: If your action is determined, it is not free, and equivalently, if it is free it cannot have been determined.  But Ayer and Stace argue that that’s not so; Determinism and free will are perfectly compatible.

    In fact, they say, free will requires causal determination.  Suppose some quantum event occurs and your body suddenly moves in an entirely uncaused way, at random.  (Whoops!  Sorry about that priceless Ming vase.)  That would hardly be a free action.  A free action, as Campbell says, is one of which you are the author, one which is caused, but caused by you.

    Campbell says it is not enough for “sole authorship” that your action be caused by your willing it.  Ayer and Stace say that is (pretty much) enough.  The action proceeds from your desires, deliberation, intention and decision, without external compulsion or constraint.  The important division, then, is not between caused actions and uncaused actions (assuming there were such a thing as an “uncaused action”); it is between actions caused in the wrong way, from sources external to you, and actions caused in the right way, by your own desires and will.

    Now it is generally assumed by all parties that an action is free only if the agent could have done otherwise.<1>   And Determinism seems to entail that no agent ever could have done otherwise; but Ayer says that is mistaken.  According to Ayer, all it normally means to say that you “could have done otherwise” is that:
        (1)  you could and/or would have done otherwise had you so desired or chosen,
        (2)  your act was voluntary in the sense of being caused by your own will, and
        (3) no one compelled you.
And often you are in this position, despite the truth of Determinism.

    (In class I argued that Ayer should not have included (3), because in cases of compulsion by another person, the victim still makes a voluntary choice.  Compulsion of the gunpoint kind is thus very different from a really determining cause that bypasses your will entirely, such as being pinned down by a 500-pound rock or being in free fall.)

    Well:  Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall get it in the neck from each of the warring opponents.  Die-hard Determinists and Libertarians alike agree that Compatibilists such as Ayer and Stace are mealy-mouthed wimps and are just not facing up to the issue.

    Objection 1:  Regarding “could have done otherwise,” Campbell explicitly addresses deflationary analyses such as Ayer’s (pp. 443-44), which he calls a “hypothetical substitute” for the “categorical” interpretation of “c.h.d.o.”  (Ayer’s analysis is “hypothetical” in that he says that “c.h.d.o.” means just could have, if so-and-so, while Campbell thinks it means, categorically and without qualification, could have, period.)  What’s wrong with that move, Campbell says, is [this is the answer to Exercise 2] that what would have been true if things had been different is irrelevant.  Sure, X could have done otherwise if he had chosen otherwise; big deal.  But “[t]he obvious question immediately arises: ‘But could X have chosen otherwise than he did?’” (Campbell’s italics).  If Determinism is true, X’s choice was itself determined, and X can’t be said to be responsible for it.

    Objection 2:  Given that our allegedly free actions are caused, why does it matter (as Ayer and Stace insist it does) which kind of cause an action has?  On p. 434 Ayer anticipates the question, “Do not all causes equally necessitate?”  Ayer replies that if all that means is, all causes cause, of course they do.  But if it’s suppose to mean (as the objector intends) that all causes coerce or compel, this is precisely what the Compatibilist denies.
    Even so, the objector continues, if the only difference between a free action and an act for which you are not responsible is nothing but a difference between the shapes of their causal histories, why does it or should it have the immense moral significance we attach to it?  When a causal chain bends one way, we pat you on the head and make you a sandwich; when it bends the other way we throw you in jail.  Isn’t that arbitrary and completely irrational?

    Objection 3:  If Determinism is true, then someone who knew the background conditions and the relevant laws of nature could predict infallibly what you were going to do, even before you had made up your mind to do it.  If (however improbably) the someone was you yourself, you would know what you were inevitably going to do before you could make up your mind.  But then what sense remains in the idea that you “make up your mind”?  You can’t be said to deliberate or decide if you already know what you’e going to end up doing.

    The debate continues (and continues and continues).  But I’ll leave it here and leave you something to say in your paper.  In closing, though, let me exhibit the debate’s structure a little more clearly, and remind you how our editors’ labels are to be applied.

The shape of the debate

    As I said in class, the basic problem is that there are three propositions, each of which seems true, but which are collectively inconsistent.

            (DET)  Every action has a determining cause.

            (INCOMP)  If an action has a determining cause, it is not a free action.

            (FREE)  Some of our actions are free.

Most of us would like to accept each of those, but we cannot, because as a matter of logic, the three propositions can’t all be true.  At least one must be rejected.  But which??

    The Hard Determinist rejects (FREE), on the strength of (DET) and (INCOMP).

    The Libertarian rejects (DET), on the strength of (FREE) and (INCOMP).

    The Compatibilist rejects (INCOMP), and is therefore free to hold (DET), (FREE) or both.  A Compatibilist who accepts (DET) is called a Soft Determinist.  I have never heard of a Compatibilist who did not also accept (FREE), so I will use the label “Soft Determinist” more strongly to mean a Compatibilist who accepts both (DET) and (FREE).

    Thus, the Hard Determinist and the Libertarian agree on (INCOMP).  The Libertarian and the Soft Determinist (in my sense) agree on (FREE).  The Soft Determinist and the Hard Determinist, of course, agree on (DET).
 

1 That assumption is forcefully challenged by Harry Frankfurt, in our textbook (“Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility”), but I shall not take up that issue here.