The Compatibility of Free Will and Determinism: An Exploration of Hume's Argument, Schemes and Mind Maps of Decision Making

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Free will &

determinism

With respect to three of these four quotations, you will be asked to do the following three things:

1. Identify the author of the quote.
2. Explain, clearly and in your own words, the argument of which the quote is a part. (You need explain only the particular argument of which the quote is a part, not the author’s whole argument.)
3. State and briefly evaluate at least one objection to that argument. The objection may be one discussed in class, or something that you have come up with on your own. You will have 50 minutes (the usual class period) to complete the exam. Accordingly, you will have just a bit more than 15 minutes, on average, to work on each question. If you are prepared for the exam, it might well take you less time than that. The midterm exam is in class, Thursday, March 4, the Thursday before spring break. That day, you will be given a blue book along with a sheet of paper which will include four quotes taken from the readings for this course. No optional readings will be used, and each of the quotes will be central to some part of the author’s argument. (I will choose them for their importance, not their obscurity.) The readings from which the quotes may be taken extend from the beginning of the semester until the readings for February 16, on the topic of free will and determinism.

11. Some evil exists.
    6. If something is wholly good, it always eliminates as much evil as it can.
12. If something is omnipotent, it can do anything.
13. God exists.
14. If God exists, then God is omnipotent.
15. If God exists, then God is wholly good. The argument from evil
16. If God exists, then God can do anything. (2,3)
17. If God exists, then God eliminates as much evil as God can. (5,6)
18. If God exists, then God eliminates all evil. (4,7)
19. If God exists, then there is no evil. (8)
20. There is no evil. (1,9) C. There is evil and there is no evil. (10,11)

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Because free will is a good, a wholly good being might wish for others to have free will. But it is impossible to both give free will to creatures and stop them from using that free will to do evil. (To do the latter would be to take away, to that extent, their free will.) Hence a wholly good creature might well not eliminate evil which it was within its power to eliminate, when doing so would be an infringement on the free will of the creature causing the evil. But this free will defense gives rise to some further questions, which Iʼd like to spend a bit of time discussing. “if God has made men such that in their free choices they sometimes prefer what is good and sometimes what is evil, why could he not have made men such that they always freely choose the good? If there is no logical impossibility in a man's freely choosing the good on one, or several occasions, there cannot be a logical impossibility in his freely choosing the good on every occasion. God was not, then, faced with a choice between making innocent automata and making beings who, in acting freely, would sometimes go wrong: there was open to him the obviously better possibility of making beings who would act freely but always go right.” The first is Mackie’s objection to the free will defense: MackieMackieʼʼs objection to the free will defenses objection to the free will defense 1 It is possible for all people to have free will and never cause evil. 2 If it is possible for the world to be a certain way, then God could have made it that way. C God could have made the world such that all people have free will and never cause evil. This objection could be summarized as follows:

11. Some evil exists.
    6. If something is wholly good, it always eliminates as much evil as it can.
12. If something is omnipotent, it can do anything.
13. God exists.
14. If God exists, then God is omnipotent.
15. If God exists, then God is wholly good. The argument from evil
16. If God exists, then God can do anything. (2,3)
17. If God exists, then God eliminates as much evil as God can. (5,6)
18. If God exists, then God eliminates all evil. (4,7)
19. If God exists, then there is no evil. (8)
20. There is no evil. (1,9) C. There is evil and there is no evil. (10,11)

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MackieMackieʼʼs objection to the free will defenses objection to the free will defense 1 It is possible for all people to have free will and never cause evil. 2 If it is possible for the world to be a certain way, then God could have made it that way. C God could have made the world such that all people have free will and never cause evil. It is obviously a crucial part of this objection that it is impossible for God to both give us free will and prevent any evil from occurring. But if Mackie’s argument is sound, this is simply a mistake. One response would be to deny premise 1. But, in the end, this does not seem very plausible. Surely God wished that we would not use our free will to bring about evil; was God, irrationally, wishing for something impossible to be the case? Intuitively, what one wants to say is that it is possible for everyone to always freely do the right thing, but impossible for God to make them freely do the right thing. This suggests that the free will defense’s best objection to Mackie’s argument is to reject premise 2, not premise 1.

A restricted understanding of omnipotence A being, B, is omnipotent if and only if it can bring about any state of affairs such that it is not impossible for B to bring that state of affairs about. Unrestricted omnipotence A being, B, is omnipotent if and only if it can bring about any state of affairs, whether possible or impossible. As noted above, we can then contrast the following two definitions of omnipotence. We have seen that responding to Mackieʼs objection to the free will defense seems to force us into the restricted view of omnipotence sketched above. One thing you may want to think about is how one might respond to the argument from evil if one had a more unrestricted view of what omnipotence implies. But, quite apart from this, the notion of omnipotence can, as Mackie says, seem to lead to a paradox. A reasonable argument can be made that the very idea of an omnipotent being is contradictory. If this were true, then this would, for obvious reasons, be a problem for traditional theistic views.

c One way to present this paradox is via the following question: Could God create a stone so large that God cannot lift it? Suppose we endorse some restricted view of omnipotence like the one given in the above definition. Then how should we respond to the dilemma? Yes No Then there is something that God cannot do, namely lift the stone. Then there is something that God cannot do, namely create such a stone. Suppose that one wants a less restricted notion of omnipotence, such that an omnipotent being can do absolutely anything -- including bringing about impossible states of affairs. Then how should we respond to the dilemma? It seems that, whichever way we think of omnipotence, this dilemma is fairly easily resolved. So it does not seem to present a very serious problem for the view that there is an omnipotent being. The same cannot be said for some further versions of the argument from evil. A restricted understanding of omnipotence A being, B, is omnipotent if and only if it can bring about any state of affairs such that it is not impossible for B to bring that state of affairs about. Unrestricted omnipotence A being, B, is omnipotent if and only if it can bring about any state of affairs, whether possible or impossible. But, quite apart from this, the notion of omnipotence can, as Mackie says, seem to lead to a paradox. A reasonable argument can be made that the very idea of an omnipotent being is contradictory. If this were true, then this would, for obvious reasons, be a problem for traditional theistic views.

c So what should the proponent of the free will defense say about the problem of natural evil? This is a difficult question. Here are some of the things one might say:

• Though earthquakes and the like are not caused by human free actions, our inability to avoid the harm caused by them is. In particular, the event of human beings removing themselves from the care of God - an event symbolized in the Judeao-Christian tradition by the story of the Garden of Eden - placed human beings in a world in which they were subject to natural forces which they were then unable to avoid. (This is the sort of story than van Inwagen develops in much more detail in the optional reading.)
• It is important that the world be governed by laws of nature; otherwise, it would be impossible to know the effects of our actions, and hence impossible to take responsibility for the outcomes of those actions. However, it is impossible to create a world governed by laws of nature which does not also include some natural events which cause suffering; so even an omnipotent being could not have created a law-governed world which was free of natural disasters.
• Though earthquakes and the like are not the result of human free actions, they are the result of the free actions of nonhuman agents, like fallen angels. So the free will defense applies to these events just as directly as to events caused by human choices. One might also adopt some combination of these ideas. Something you may want to think further about is this: suppose that we accept the free will defense as an explanation of the possibility of evil caused by human free action, and one of the above as an explanation of the possibility of evil not directly caused by human free action. Would this suffice to explain the fact that God does not, in the case of an individual instance of terrible evil , intervene to stop it? This is just an introduction to the theological problems raised by the existence of evil in the world. But let’s set this aside and return to the topic of freedom of the will, and its relationship to determinism.

c To answer understand this topic, we first need to get clear about what “determinism” means. Here is what van Inwagen says: The example of “rolling back history” as an illustration of what determinism implies. It is common to use “determinism” as name for the thesis that we have no free will. This is the source of much confusion. “Determinism” is the name of a thesis about the laws of nature, and that is all. It is not a thesis about free will, or about what we can predict, or anything else. This is just an introduction to the theological problems raised by the existence of evil in the world. But let’s set this aside and return to the topic of freedom of the will, and its relationship to determinism.

c Determinism Our question is whether determinism is compatible with free will. We now know what “determinism” means; but what does it mean to say that we have free will? Here no neat definition is possible, since there is disagreement about what, exactly, it takes for an action to be free. But we can offer some helpful paraphrases: to freely choose between A and B is to be able to do either of A and B; to freely choose between A and B is for both of A and B to be open to you. The question of the compatibility of free will and determinism is then: can it ever be the case that choices A and B are open to you, despite the fact that the laws of nature (and the prior state of the universe) are consistent only with you doing A? The incompatibilist says “No.” The compatibilist says “Yes.” Now that we have these views on the table, we can see a connection between these views about free will and the use of this notion made in the free will defense. Remember that the free will defense relies on the assumption that it is impossible for God to make you freely choose to do something. (If this were possible, then Mackie would be right, and God could have made us always freely choose to do good.) But now imagine that compatibilism is true, and that we can have free will in a deterministic universe. If that were the case, then it certainly seems as though God could have created a universe which is such that the initial conditions + the laws of nature determined that no one would ever choose to do evil. And, if compatibilism is true, it seems that such a universe could include beings with free will. For this reason, it seems that the free will defense works only if incompatibilism is true.

c Free will To freely choose between A and B is to be able to do either of A and B; to freely choose between A and B is for both of A and B to be open to you. Many people have a strong initial intuition that free will and determinism are incompatible, and hence that compatibilism must be false. van Inwagen provides an argument for this conclusion: the consequence argument. The question of the compatibility of free will and determinism is then: can it ever be the case that choices A and B are open to you, despite the fact that the laws of nature (and the prior state of the universe) are consistent only with you doing A? The incompatibilist says “No.” The compatibilist says “Yes.” Determinism

c The no choice principle Each of the additional principles in van Inwagen’s argument says that we have no choice about something. The first principle is: We have no choice about events which happened in the distant past. The second principle is: We have no choice about what the laws of nature are. Putting these principles together, we can construct an argument for the incompatibility of free will and determinism. Determinism Free will To freely choose between A and B is to be able to do either of A and B; to freely choose between A and B is for both of A and B to be open to you.

c To state the consequence argument, let ‘DINOSAUR’ stand for the state of the universe during some time when dinosaurs roamed the earth, and let ‘DECISION’ stand for my decision to not sing the Notre Dame fight song 10 minutes from now. The no choice principle If I have no choice about p, and no choice about whether if p, then q, I have no choice about q. We have no choice about events which happened in the distant past. Determinism The laws of nature + the state of the universe at a time determine a unique future. In particular, the laws determine that if DINOSAUR is the case, then so is DECISION. We have no choice about what the laws of nature imply. Determinism Free will To freely choose between A and B is to be able to do either of A and B; to freely choose between A and B is for both of A and B to be open to you.

c It is important to be clear about the nature of this argument. We begin by assuming the four principles at left, and from them derive that I have no choice about some future action. Since there is nothing special about DECISION, it seems clear that the argument generalizes to show that I have no choice about any of my future actions. So, if we assume these four principles, we can show of any particular action that it is unfree. Hence, if we assume these four principles, we can show that no action is ever free. If the first three principles are true -- the No Choice Principle + the claims that we have no choice about the laws of nature or the past -- then, what the argument shows is that if determinism is true, then we have no free will. The no choice principle If I have no choice about p, and no choice about whether if p, then q, I have no choice about q. We have no choice about events which happened in the distant past. Determinism The laws of nature + the state of the universe at a time determine a unique future. In particular, the laws determine that if DINOSAUR is the case, then so is DECISION. We have no choice about what the laws of nature imply. Determinism Free will To freely choose between A and B is to be able to do either of A and B; to freely choose between A and B is for both of A and B to be open to you.

c If the first three principles are true -- the No Choice Principle + the claims that we have no choice about the laws of nature or the past -- then, what the argument shows is that if determinism is true, then we have no free will. The no choice principle If I have no choice about p, and no choice about whether if p, then q, I have no choice about q. We have no choice about events which happened in the distant past. Determinism The laws of nature + the state of the universe at a time determine a unique future. In particular, the laws determine that if DINOSAUR is the case, then so is DECISION. We have no choice about what the laws of nature imply. So to demonstrate the incompatibility of free will and determinism, we assume the truth of determinism, and argue from there to the absence of free will. This is a style of argument called conditional proof. To prove the truth of a statement if p, then q we assume p as a premise, and argue from this premise, using only other true premises, to q as our conclusion. If we can construct a valid argument with p + some true statements as premises for q, it follows that the conditional statement if p, then q must be true. Here p = the truth of determinism, and q = the denial of the existence of free will. Determinism Free will To freely choose between A and B is to be able to do either of A and B; to freely choose between A and B is for both of A and B to be open to you.