AQA A Level RE (Ethics) - Free Will and Moral Responsibility

What is Free Will?

The freedom and ability to choose what to do

What are the sources of a person's moral awareness in telling right from wrong?

- Hume believes in a 'moral sense' - an innate faculty of sympathy
- We may learn it from our social context
- Religions present people with moral rules

What is Hard Determinism?

The view that because determinism is true, we have no free will

What is reductionism?

The view that, to understand a complex entity, one should analyse it to the smallest component parts of which it is made

What did Spinoza say about Free Will?

Everything in the world is totally determined by physical causes, and therefore there is no scope for human freedom. We merely consider ourselves to be free because we are ignorant of all the causes operating upon us.

What is Scientific Determinism?

A form of Hard Determinism that hold that all events are determined by antecedent events and states of affairs, so there can be no free will

What did Laplace argue?

An Omniscient intelligence (Laplace's demon) could compute the causal sequence of the universe and prove the point that everything is caused by other things.

What is Psychological Determinism?

A form of Hard Determinism - According to Skinner, all behaviour is the result of genetic and environmental conditions, and all human actions are conditioned by the good/bad consequences of previous decisions, so there can be no Free Will

What is Theological Determinism?

A form of Hard Determinism according to which the future is determined by God's foreknowledge, so there can be no free will

What did Calvin argue?

God's omniscience means that "some are eternally ordained to glory, through the sheer will of God, and the rest are ordained to eternal torment"

What are the strengths of Hard Determinism?

- it is logically correct, so is inescapable
- Religious logic shows that if there is a God, we still have no free will
- Backed up by scientific reasoning

What are the weaknesses of Hard Determinism?

- Can't be fully proven, lack of evidence. Libet's experiments in the 1980s argued that the brain can veto pre-conscious intentions
- Chomsky suggests that Skinner's PD application of experiments is superficial, amounting to "futile speculation"
- SD can be avoided if the laws of nature are probabilistic
- TD is rejected by anyone non-religious

What is Libertarianism?

The view that, despite restraints from genetics and the environment, human beings are free moral agents.

What do body-mind dualists argue?

The mind is a separate substance, able to act freely in the physical world by interacting with the brain.

What do some libertarians argue about some types of events?

There are two distinctive types of events, those that are caused, and those that are free, so human moral freedom is non-causal.

What do moderate libertarians argue?

They accept that deterministic processes affect human beings. Complete freedom would leave us unable to act. Human behaviour, however, is not caused by external events.

What is the most common argument for libertarianism?

The argument from "folk psychology" that we experience ourselves as free and have a sense of moral responsibility - brain complexity supports real freedom.

Why is Libertarianism forward-looking in comparison to determinism?

Whereas determinism looks back at unavoidable past causes, libertarians look to accomplish moral and other goals, and can deliberate rationally about their decisions.

What are the strengths of libertarianism?

- Assumptions are no more provable than that of hard determinism
- Argument against Skinner: those who insist that were are determined are merely making a determined statement, why should we listen to it?
- Positive approach to decision-making - rational deliberation about achieving moral good.

What are the weaknesses of Libertarianism?

- Unprovable whether the mind exists or not
- There is no evidence for free will
- The feeling of Freedom is dismissed by HD as blissful ignorance of the causes operating on us

What is compatibilism?

The view that human freedom and moral responsibility are compatible with determinism

What did Hume argue about Compatibilism?

- Philosophers have not defined Free Will and Determinism properly
- necessity is constant conjunction
- Liberty is power of acting according to the determination of the will
- All human affairs are interlinked
- Freedom requires D to give life order

What are the strengths of compatibilism?

- If the definitions are right, he seems to be correct
- Accepting of logic and behavioural theory
- Definitions seem sound and are backed up by logic

What are the weaknesses of compatibilism?

- Hume's idea of necessity and causation are too watered down modern scientists
- Hume's "wishes and desires" are the product of absolute causal forces for HD, so cannot in any way be free.
- For libertarians, the argument ignores the power of reason by which Hume arrives at it.

What does HD say about reward and punishment?

- Crime is a mental condition caused by a person's life
- Blame for social deviance lies in environment, we have flaws in our social conditioning (Skinner)
(Weak because deliberate social engineering is contradictory is D is assumed)

What does L say about reward and punishment?

- People are morally responsible for their actions
- Some people have varying degrees of moral responsibility, but those who commit crimes willingly should be punished
-Kant's "ought implies can" rule backs this up - criminal wants to universalise maxims that allow them to commit crime. We need to reverse such maxims (retribution)
- L fails is D is true

What does C say about reward and punishment?

- Action is free when caused by uncompelled wishes or desires
- Morally responsible because moral choices are not results of physical restraints or if they wanted to act as they did when having a choice not to do so
- People are blameworthy when choices come from character
- Punishment must be deterrence and reward for good behaviour

What are the weaknesses of C in regards to reward and punishment?

- Ignores notion of the feeling of the ordinary person that the punishment should fit the crime - fails victims
- Hume's view of freedom makes no sense to D or L