Having and Making Choices Does causality tie us down?

Explanation  We typically expect that there will be some explanation for things that happen.  If my car turns over but won’t start, I suspect there may no fuel getting to the cylinders, or there may be no spark, or there may be no air to ignite the fuel.  Each of these conditions would explain the car’s failure to start, by causing combustion not to occur in the cylinders.

More explanation  Of course when the car does start, I take it that all 3 of these conditions are met, and together they cause the engine to run.  Again, the explanation invokes causes that either make something happen or prevent it from happening.  We do something similar when it comes to explaining the choices we make.

Why did I do that?  The explanations we give for our (and other’s) actions often appeal to beliefs and desires: Why did I go downstairs? Because I wanted a beer, and I believed there was some in the downstairs fridge.  If my belief was true, then by doing what I did I managed to get what I wanted.  But if my beliefs and desires are caused by my history, then my going downstairs was also caused (determined, even) by that history.

So, did I have a choice?  At the moment, I did exactly what I wanted to do– but does that mean I freely chose to go downstairs?  After all, given my causal history, I was bound to have the desire and the belief that led me to go downstairs.  And if there’s always a causal explanation do as I did, it looks as though I’m just a complex mechanism, not really free at all.

An inconsistent triad 1. Everything we do has is determined by a cause. 2. When we’re caused to do something, we don’t act freely (after all, it’s impossible for us to do anything but what we actually do). 3. Sometimes we do act freely.

Labels  Accept 1 and 2? You’re a hard determinist.  2 and 3? You’re a libertarian.  1 and 3? You’re a soft determinist.  Reject 2? You’re a compatibilist. (Note that this last means that the soft determinist is a kind of compatibilist– a compatibilist who believes in determinism.)

A.J. Ayer ( )  A determinist and a compatibilist.  A prominent mid-20 th century figure in the logical positivist movement.  Directed the PhD work of my first philosophy Prof.

Ayer’s version of the puzzle  When I am said to have done something of my own free will it is implied that I could have acted otherwise.  (I)f human behaviour is entirely governed by causal laws, it is not clear how any action that is done could ever have been avoided.  It is commonly assumed that men (sic) are capable of acting freely.

So?  Science often seems to assume we can, at least in principle, fully explain what happens.  The fact that I don’t immediately know the causes of all my actions doesn’t show that they don’t have cause.  But perhaps real ‘freedom’ is marked by precisely this kind of limit.  “(M)ay it not be true that, in some cases…the reason… we can give no causal explanation is that no causal explanation is available…?” (415)

What about ‘Pure Chance’?  Suppose my trip downstairs has no (full) causal explanation.  How is this different from there simply being a chance that I would go downstairs, and a chance that I would not?  As it turns out, I did go downstairs.  But if that’s just the result of a ‘coin flip’, it’s not really freedom– and it’s useless as an account of moral responsibility.

Stuck between determinism and chance?  Is there nothing in-between simply doing as I’m causally determined to do, and doing something as a matter of pure chance?  What about character?  But doesn’t character itself result from causes (genes, upbringing & experience)?  Or, if character itself arises by chance, can I be responsible for what it makes me do?

A way out?  Re-define freedom? Pretty crude & unhelpful…  Re-consider what freedom is contrasted with:  Suppose freedom in regard to a choice doesn’t mean ‘uncaused’, but instead ‘unconstrained’.  Not every cause is a constraint.

Excuses  If someone else makes me do something, then I’m constrained (threats count here– the law recognizes this very clearly).  If I fall out a window, gravity and my lack of wings constrains me to fall.  If I don’t make any decision, but act out of a compulsion or habitual obedience to someone else, I’m constrained.  Am I sometimes free of all such constraints, despite being caused to do as I do? Are the ‘chains of causation’ constraints too?

Kinds of causes  “(I)t is not when my action has any cause at all, but only when it has a special sort of cause, that it is reckoned not to be free.”  But: don’t all causes necessitate?  Only if causation is necessitation– not in the sense that all causes are rightly said to constrain us.  Causation applies to a strict, regular sequence of events. Talk of ‘necessity’ here is just a kind of metaphor.

Could have done otherwise and ‘voluntary’  That I could have done otherwise is a matter of my doing something else had I chosen to.  Further, my doing something can be voluntary, as my falling (once out the window) or my compulsive acts are not.  Finally, no-one compels or constrains me.  All this still allows that what I did could be explained through causal laws.

Why did we think otherwise?  Confusing causal with logical ‘necessity’.  Muddled notion of ‘force’.  Animistic notion of ‘causality’.  All portray causes as far more intrusive and compelling than they really are.  Accepting the metaphor of cause as a ‘master’, imposing its demands on us, is the real mistake here.

On fatalism  But if determinism holds in general, the future is already settled. Isn’t this incompatible with freedom?  No. The fact that it’s settled doesn’t mean we don’t make a contribution to it’s turning out the way it does.  Fatalism moves from the claim that the future is settled, to the claim that nothing we could do would make any difference to it.  But this is a non-sequitur.

Walter T. Stace ( )  British civil servant and then philosopher.  Joined Princeton Department in  Wrote on philosophy of religion, defending a kind of mysticism while also being a strong empiricist.  Worries here about the impact of a loss of religious belief on ‘moral standards’ (though he thinks a ‘total collapse’ is very unlikely).

On Free Will  “(I)f there is no free will there can be no morality.”  Unless someone is capable of doing something other than what he actually did, it ‘does not make sense to tell him that he ought not to have done what he did…’  What is it, for people to ‘behave as if they and others were free’?

Huh?  “For when it comes to doing anything practical,…they invariably behave as if they and others were free. They inquire from you at dinner whether you will choose this dish or that dish…All of which is inconsistent with a disbelief in free will.” (420)  REALLY?

An incorrect definition?  Free will was defined as meaning indeterminism. “As soon as we see what the true definition is we shall find that the question whether the world is deterministic…or in a measure indeterministic… is wholly irrelevant to the problem.”  Key issue here is common usage (ordinary language philosophy)…

Going without food and other examples.  The desert.  Mahatma Ghandi.  The honest thief.  The hired thief.  The forced confession.  Going for lunch vs. being ordered out. When do we say we’re free? When what we do is up to us– when we could have done otherwise, if we chose.

Causation and Freedom “..whatever degree of determinism prevails in the world, human actions appear to be as much determined as anything else…Therefore, being uncaused or being undetermined by causes, must be an incorrect definition of free will.”

The difference between free and unfree?  “…the causes of those in the left-hand column are of a different kind from the causes of those in the right- hand column”(423)  “Free acts are all caused by desires or motives or by some sort of internal psychological states of the agent’s mind”  “Acts not freely done are those whose immediate causes are states of affairs external to the agent.”  What about internal compulsions? Mental breakdowns?

The Robbery  A borderline case, so close to literally being forced, we ignore its internal cause. (Does this work for cases of compulsion or mental breakdown?)  Conditionals come in; though the lie was caused, you could have told the truth if you had wanted to.  For the compulsive, the answer might be ‘no’… maybe this helps.

Moral Responsibility  Some claim determinism is incompatible with responsibility even if it’s compatible with what we call ‘freedom’.  But being determined is not, in general, an excuse.  Justifying punishment and reward is easy here: they deter (and correct) or encourage and support behaviour that we have good reasons to deter and to encourage.  “The only difference is that different kinds of things require different kinds of causes to make them do what they should.”(424)