How to Discuss Free Will:
metaphysically, morally, and mysteriously
There are three camps of philosophers who approach the topic of free will: compatibilist, incompatibilist, and impossibilist. What distinguishes these camps is their take on the theses of free will, determinism, and indeterminism. I intend to explain why free will is so problematic, which will add moral responsibility and several arguments to the discussion. But first, I define the terms. Since the folk meaning or ordinary-language usage of these concepts either does not exist or obscures their philosophical relevance (with the possible exception of free will and moral responsibility), I will save time and clarity by only discussing their generally accepted, precise definitions.
Unfortunately, there is not a single, uniformly agreed upon free-will thesis. For now it will suffice to give a common version. The free-will thesis is that we sometimes simultaneously have both the ability to perform a contemplated future act and the ability to refrain from performing that act. In other words, we have been in the position where, for something we did, we were at some point prior to our doing it able not to do it. Most would argue that the truth of this thesis would necessitate that we have causal control over our actions.
The thesis of determinism is the following: At any given time in world ‘w’, the total state of ‘w’ and all the laws of nature of ‘w’ together entail a unique future for ‘w’. Indeterminism simply negates determinism: the state and laws of world ‘w’ do not entail a unique future for ‘w’. It becomes complicated when people argue about indeterminism because it seems to suggest that ‘w’ is governed by something like chance, randomness, or probability, but the thesis does not commit to any one of these alternatives being true; it simply says that determinism is not true. It is also worth noting that one and only one of these two must be true of every possible world (this is a logical necessity).
The thesis of compatibilism is that the truth of determinism would be compatible with the truth of free will: there is at least one possible world where both determinism is true and someone has free will. Compatibilist arguments take two forms. They either posit an account of free will that is compatible with determinism (for reasons that will be apparent later, a compatibilist account of free will must differ from the thesis I gave above) or attack arguments for incompatibilism and impossibilism. The thesis of incompatibilism is the negation of compatibilism—the truth of determinism would entail the non-existence of free will, and vice versa: there is no possible world where both determinism is true and someone has free will. Incompatibilism allows for the existence of free will in an indeterministic world: there is at least one possible world where both indeterminism is true and someone has free will. A popular variation in this camp is libertarianism, which argues that, in addition to incompatibilism being true, the free-will thesis is true, which entails indeterminism. Libertarian incompatibilists do the most work to argue for their position because they argue that free will is real, determinism is false, free will and determinism are incompatible, and that whatever metaphysical model exists in place of determinism is compatible with free will.
Impossibilism does not necessarily have to do with determinism or indeterminism, although arguments for it sometimes involve those theses. The thesis of impossibilism is that it is metaphysically impossible for anyone to have free will: there is no possible world where anyone has free will. This could be because free will is incompatible with some necessarily true proposition (determinism could be presented as such), or because our concept of free will itself is incoherent. Most philosophers subscribe to compatibilism or incompatibilism, while almost no one claims to be an impossibilist. This is important because some arguments claiming to support incompatibilism actually, upon closer examination, argue for impossibilism, revealing the trickiness of such arguments and the care one must take in outlining one’s position.
The reason free will is so important, the reason there are so many positions regarding whether and how free will is possible, is that it is entangled with our notion of moral responsibility. This term cannot be found in dictionaries, and any attempt to construct a definition by combining its two components—“moral” and “responsibility”—runs into ordinary-language usage too ambiguous or broad to complete the task. In a nut shell, “x is morally responsible for p” means “it is x’s fault that p”. However, this is not satisfactory because this simply replaces one word with a synonym that might or might not have an equivalent meaning or usage. This circumvents defining the concept at all. I would like to be at least a little more thorough, and though I cannot go into full detail here, I hope to reveal the complicated nature of moral responsibility.
Aristotle was the first to put the concept to analysis, coming up with this description of an agent who can be morally responsible: someone who is able to make a decision that expresses their conception of what is good; in other words, a moral agent. (I will not go into defining what a “moral agent” is, for I do not have the space here. Let’s just agree that most adult humans are moral agents.) In order for an action to be praise-worthy or blame-worthy, rewardable or punishable, it must be voluntary. By this Aristotle meant that the action must have its origin in the agent (the action must be controlled causally by the agent), and that the agent must be aware of what they are doing to bring the action about. This is essentially the same as our concept of free will: voluntary action means it is an act of volition, or will, through a decision-making process under control of the agent. (Note: Aristotle’s analysis might only include the free-will thesis as defined above if we add the actual possibility for acting otherwise. The ability to act in more than one way in the same moment is not explicit in Aristotle’s definition.)
This analysis stood fairly unchanged over the millennia, though recently (in the last century) the concept has undergone rigorous analysis that seems to show that our folk concept of moral responsibility is too broad to be satisfactorily captured by a single, unified definition. Nevertheless, we use the term and it serves a purpose in our concepts. Furthermore, the concept is very important within our moral and legal systems, and thus exists despite possibly being inconsistent or resistant to analysis.
Roughly, then, I functionally define moral responsibility as the following:
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Alarmingly, these concepts logically clash in arguments. Let us begin by assuming that the determinism thesis is true for our universe. The Consequence Argument is a standard and valid argument for the incompatibility of determinism and free will. If the free-will and determinism theses are defined as above, and determinism is true, then the free-will thesis simply must be false. In An Essay on Free Will (1983) Peter van Inwagen put it this way:
Therefore, if determinism is true, it entails the impossibility of free will, and we can never be held morally responsible. The Mind Argument (so called because it has appeared in several issues of the journal Mind) uses the same logic to argue that free will is incompatible with indeterminism as well. It says:
Therefore, if indeterminism is true, it entails the impossibility of free will, and we can never be held morally responsible. This seems to cover all the metaphysical bases. Either determinism or indeterminism is true, and one of them must be true of every possible world, by definition. If free will is incompatible with both, then free will is metaphysically impossible. (This illustrates how an incompatibilist arguing for the incompatibility of determinism and free will can easily fall into the category of an impossibilist; these arguments are very similar, and use the same principle—lack of one’s causal control—to argue against free will.)
The Consequence and Mind arguments result in a mystery, for it seems like we sometimes exercise free will and can sometimes be held morally responsible for our actions. The solution I propose is quite simple, and has been proposed by most compatibilists (all who posit a new account of free will, as opposed to simply attacking incompatibilists or impossibilists). Free will, as defined, is not necessary for moral responsibility; however, some similar concept of freedom is necessary, and it might be that we need to distinguish such concepts and talk about different free wills. The creation of a new name for the free will that is necessary for moral responsibility, or a new one for what we discuss in terms of metaphysics, might be the best way to accomplish this.
The way philosophers tend to discuss these concepts simply takes us in a direction which forces free will into mystery, resisting the formulation of concepts that conform to our intuitions—that we do have free will, and we are not “able to do otherwise” in a metaphysical or physical sense. Both of these can be true, if free will as it is discussed in terms of metaphysics is distinguished from free will as it is necessary for moral responsibility.
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Unfortunately, there is not a single, uniformly agreed upon free-will thesis. For now it will suffice to give a common version. The free-will thesis is that we sometimes simultaneously have both the ability to perform a contemplated future act and the ability to refrain from performing that act. In other words, we have been in the position where, for something we did, we were at some point prior to our doing it able not to do it. Most would argue that the truth of this thesis would necessitate that we have causal control over our actions.
The thesis of determinism is the following: At any given time in world ‘w’, the total state of ‘w’ and all the laws of nature of ‘w’ together entail a unique future for ‘w’. Indeterminism simply negates determinism: the state and laws of world ‘w’ do not entail a unique future for ‘w’. It becomes complicated when people argue about indeterminism because it seems to suggest that ‘w’ is governed by something like chance, randomness, or probability, but the thesis does not commit to any one of these alternatives being true; it simply says that determinism is not true. It is also worth noting that one and only one of these two must be true of every possible world (this is a logical necessity).
The thesis of compatibilism is that the truth of determinism would be compatible with the truth of free will: there is at least one possible world where both determinism is true and someone has free will. Compatibilist arguments take two forms. They either posit an account of free will that is compatible with determinism (for reasons that will be apparent later, a compatibilist account of free will must differ from the thesis I gave above) or attack arguments for incompatibilism and impossibilism. The thesis of incompatibilism is the negation of compatibilism—the truth of determinism would entail the non-existence of free will, and vice versa: there is no possible world where both determinism is true and someone has free will. Incompatibilism allows for the existence of free will in an indeterministic world: there is at least one possible world where both indeterminism is true and someone has free will. A popular variation in this camp is libertarianism, which argues that, in addition to incompatibilism being true, the free-will thesis is true, which entails indeterminism. Libertarian incompatibilists do the most work to argue for their position because they argue that free will is real, determinism is false, free will and determinism are incompatible, and that whatever metaphysical model exists in place of determinism is compatible with free will.
Impossibilism does not necessarily have to do with determinism or indeterminism, although arguments for it sometimes involve those theses. The thesis of impossibilism is that it is metaphysically impossible for anyone to have free will: there is no possible world where anyone has free will. This could be because free will is incompatible with some necessarily true proposition (determinism could be presented as such), or because our concept of free will itself is incoherent. Most philosophers subscribe to compatibilism or incompatibilism, while almost no one claims to be an impossibilist. This is important because some arguments claiming to support incompatibilism actually, upon closer examination, argue for impossibilism, revealing the trickiness of such arguments and the care one must take in outlining one’s position.
The reason free will is so important, the reason there are so many positions regarding whether and how free will is possible, is that it is entangled with our notion of moral responsibility. This term cannot be found in dictionaries, and any attempt to construct a definition by combining its two components—“moral” and “responsibility”—runs into ordinary-language usage too ambiguous or broad to complete the task. In a nut shell, “x is morally responsible for p” means “it is x’s fault that p”. However, this is not satisfactory because this simply replaces one word with a synonym that might or might not have an equivalent meaning or usage. This circumvents defining the concept at all. I would like to be at least a little more thorough, and though I cannot go into full detail here, I hope to reveal the complicated nature of moral responsibility.
Aristotle was the first to put the concept to analysis, coming up with this description of an agent who can be morally responsible: someone who is able to make a decision that expresses their conception of what is good; in other words, a moral agent. (I will not go into defining what a “moral agent” is, for I do not have the space here. Let’s just agree that most adult humans are moral agents.) In order for an action to be praise-worthy or blame-worthy, rewardable or punishable, it must be voluntary. By this Aristotle meant that the action must have its origin in the agent (the action must be controlled causally by the agent), and that the agent must be aware of what they are doing to bring the action about. This is essentially the same as our concept of free will: voluntary action means it is an act of volition, or will, through a decision-making process under control of the agent. (Note: Aristotle’s analysis might only include the free-will thesis as defined above if we add the actual possibility for acting otherwise. The ability to act in more than one way in the same moment is not explicit in Aristotle’s definition.)
This analysis stood fairly unchanged over the millennia, though recently (in the last century) the concept has undergone rigorous analysis that seems to show that our folk concept of moral responsibility is too broad to be satisfactorily captured by a single, unified definition. Nevertheless, we use the term and it serves a purpose in our concepts. Furthermore, the concept is very important within our moral and legal systems, and thus exists despite possibly being inconsistent or resistant to analysis.
Roughly, then, I functionally define moral responsibility as the following:
- x is morally responsible for p =df x is a moral agent who freely wills p, p is a morally relevant action, and x can therefore be justifiably judged praise-worthy or blame-worthy, or rewarded or punished, for p. (Note: moral responsibility therefore requires free will!)
Alarmingly, these concepts logically clash in arguments. Let us begin by assuming that the determinism thesis is true for our universe. The Consequence Argument is a standard and valid argument for the incompatibility of determinism and free will. If the free-will and determinism theses are defined as above, and determinism is true, then the free-will thesis simply must be false. In An Essay on Free Will (1983) Peter van Inwagen put it this way:
- If determinism is true, then our acts are the consequence of laws of nature and [the state of the world] in the remote past. But it's 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. (56)
Therefore, if determinism is true, it entails the impossibility of free will, and we can never be held morally responsible. The Mind Argument (so called because it has appeared in several issues of the journal Mind) uses the same logic to argue that free will is incompatible with indeterminism as well. It says:
- If what one does does not follow deterministically from one’s previous states, then it is the result of an indeterministic process, and (necessarily) one is unable to determine the outcome of an indeterministic process. (van Inwagen, 2008, 338)
Therefore, if indeterminism is true, it entails the impossibility of free will, and we can never be held morally responsible. This seems to cover all the metaphysical bases. Either determinism or indeterminism is true, and one of them must be true of every possible world, by definition. If free will is incompatible with both, then free will is metaphysically impossible. (This illustrates how an incompatibilist arguing for the incompatibility of determinism and free will can easily fall into the category of an impossibilist; these arguments are very similar, and use the same principle—lack of one’s causal control—to argue against free will.)
The Consequence and Mind arguments result in a mystery, for it seems like we sometimes exercise free will and can sometimes be held morally responsible for our actions. The solution I propose is quite simple, and has been proposed by most compatibilists (all who posit a new account of free will, as opposed to simply attacking incompatibilists or impossibilists). Free will, as defined, is not necessary for moral responsibility; however, some similar concept of freedom is necessary, and it might be that we need to distinguish such concepts and talk about different free wills. The creation of a new name for the free will that is necessary for moral responsibility, or a new one for what we discuss in terms of metaphysics, might be the best way to accomplish this.
The way philosophers tend to discuss these concepts simply takes us in a direction which forces free will into mystery, resisting the formulation of concepts that conform to our intuitions—that we do have free will, and we are not “able to do otherwise” in a metaphysical or physical sense. Both of these can be true, if free will as it is discussed in terms of metaphysics is distinguished from free will as it is necessary for moral responsibility.
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Works Cited:
- van Inwagen, Peter. AN ESSAY ON FREE WILL. OXFORD: Clarendon Press, 1983. Philosopher's Index. EBSCO. Web. 21 Oct. 2010.
- van Inwagen, Peter. “How to Think about the Problem of Free Will.” Journal of Ethics: An International Philosophical Review 12.3-4 (2008): 327-341. Philosopher's Index. EBSCO. Web. 12 Oct. 2010.
