Kristen Nelson

Nelson 1

J. Wood
Philosophy 1000
April 27, 2016
The Problem of Free-Will
To understand the problem of free will, we must first understand the philosophical
definition of free will. Free will is having the capacity to think, decide on, and act on ones own
accord. [www.dictionary.reference.com] Free will is intimately linked to concepts such as guilt,
praise, sin, blame, just punishment, and other judgments applying to actions one chooses freely.
[Bobzien, Susanne, 1998]
What is the problem of free will?
The problem of free will, also known as the dilemma of determinism, is that we dont
know if our actions are controlled by a causal chain of events, or by some other external
influence. Are we not free to make our own decisions?
Another way to look at this problem is to equalize an element of freedom with the evident
determinism in a world of causes and effects. If our choices are influenced by an endless chain of
causality, then determinism is true and we dont have free will. [www.io9.com]
Joe Campbell describes the problem as the free will dilemma. He views the core
problems to be: If determinism is correct, then no one has free will. If indeterminism is correct,
then no one has free will. Therefore, no one has free will. [Campbell, Joseph Keim, 2011]

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What are the implications if we truly dont have free will? How are we to be held
accountable for our actions? Why bother fretting over future decisions when the path is already
set out before us? And if there is no free will then what is the use of having moral standards?
The majority view, is that we can readily conceive willings that are not free. Indeed,
much of the debate about free will center around whether we human beings have it, yet virtually
no one doubts that we will to do this and that. The main perceived threats to our freedom of will
are various alleged determinisms: physical/causal; psychological; biological; theological.
For each variety of determinism, there are philosophers who deny its reality, either
because of the existence of free will or on independent grounds; accept its reality but argue for its
compatibility with free will; or accept its reality and deny its compatibility with free will. There
are also a few who say the truth of any variety of determinism is irrelevant because free will is
simply impossible.
If there is such a thing as free will, it has many dimensions. [O'Connor, Timothy, 2014]
Philosophy strives to illuminate our thought process and refine the abstractions we apply
to understand our reality. Its driven by questions. These questions cannot always be answered
indisputably. Or they are simply unanswerable altogether. If these questions cannot be answered,
we may still be able to build theories that help to unshroud the problem itself. Philosophy moves
between interpretation and comprehension. [Braungardt, Jurgen, Sept 22, 2013]

Determinism is the philosophical idea that every event or state of affairs, including every
human decision and action, is the inevitable and mandatory consequences which are completely
determined by preceding events. There is only one possible future, and it is entirely predictable
in principle.
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Determinism is a modern name for Democritus' ancient idea that causal deterministic
laws control the motion of atoms, and that everything - including the human mind is made up
merely of atoms in a void.
Libertarians believe that strict determinism and freedom are irreconcilable. Freedom
seems to require some form of indeterminism. Logical philosophers describe indeterminism as
simply the antithesis of determinism. If a single event is undetermined, then indeterminism
would be "true", they say, determinism is false, and this would sabotage the very possibility of
indubitable knowledge. It is a creed of thought that says humans are free from
physical determinism and all the other divergent forms of determinism.
Libertarians think the will is free when a choice can be made that is not determined or
necessitated by prior events. The will is free when alternative choices could have been made with
the same pre-existing states.
The first libertarian, Epicurus, contended that as atoms moved through the void, there
were occasions when they would "swerve" from their otherwise unwavering paths, thus initiating
new causal chains.

Libertarianism holds onto a concept of free will that demands that the means be able to
take more than one feasible course of action under a given set of occurrences. [Randolph, Clarke,
2008]
Free will permits us to say, "I could have chosen, and therefor done, otherwise."

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The

contemporary

parallel

of

the

Epicurean

swerve

is

quantum

mechanical indeterminacy, again a property of atoms. We now recognize that atoms do not
swerve on occasion, they move dubiously whenever they are in close contact with other atoms.
Everything in the corporeal universe is made up of atoms in inextinguishable perpetual
motion. Deterministic paths are only the case for very sizable objects, where the statistical laws
of atomic physics become nearly irrefutable dynamical laws. [The Information Philosopher]
Some philosophers who credit the idea of human freedom are uncomfortable with the
randomness inherent in quantum mechanics and the uncertainty principle. True fortuity is
problematic, even for many scientists, including the likes of Planck and Einstein, who discovered
the quantum world. And for philosophers in a religious tradition, chance has been thought to be
an atheistic opinion for millennia, since it challenges God's foreknowledge. Chance, they say, is
only the validation of humanoid ignorance.
Most philosophers have a strong aversion to the idea of chance.

Most libertarians have been mind/body dualists who, following Ren Descartes, account
for human freedom by an independent mind substance that somehow achieves to act in the
physical world. Some, especially Immanuel Kant, believed that our freedom only existed in a
transcendental or nominal world, leaving the physical world to be wholly deterministic.

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It is maintained by some philosophers that libertarian portrayals of free will
are incomprehensible. They say no logical idea can be allocated for the role
of indeterminism and serendipity.
However, numerous determinists are now willing to acknowledge that there is factual
indeterminism in the universe. Libertarians should concur with them that if in-deterministic
chance was the absolute cause of action that would not be self-determination with responsibility.
Determinists might also agree that if chance is not a direct cause of our activity, it would
do no harm. In which case, libertarians should be able to persuade determinists that if chance
imparts actual alternatives to be taken into consideration by the sufficiently determined will, it
yields real alternative feasibility for thought and action. It imparts freedom and creativity. [The
Information Philosopher]

References:

Braungardt, Jurgen, Sept 22, 2013

Bobzien, Susanne (1998). Determinism and freedom in Stoic philosophy. Oxford

University Press. Retrieved 2015-12-09. ...Aristotle and Epictetus: In the latter authors it
was the fact that nothing hindered us from doing or choosing something that made us
have control over them. In Alexander's account, the terms are understood differently:
what makes us have control over things is the fact that we are causally undetermined in
our decision and thus can freely decide between doing/choosing or not doing/choosing
them. www.wikipedia.org

Campbell, Joseph Keim, 2011 Free Will

Caouette, Justin, August 13, 2012 A Philosophers take on the Free Will Problem
www.aphilosopherstake.com

O'Connor, Timothy, "Free Will", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2014
Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL =
<http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2014/entries/freewill/>.

Podgorski, Daniel (October 16, 2015). "Free Will Twice Defined: On the Linguistic
Conflict of Compatibilism and Incompatibilism". The Gemsbok. Retrieved March
7, 2016. www.wikipedia.org

Randolph, Clarke (2008). "Incompatibilist (Nondeterministic) Theories of Free Will".

In Edward N. Zalta. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2008 ed.).
www.dictionary.reference.com
www.io9.com