Free will and moral responsibility

Two main conditions of moral responsibility

• Free will - can only be held responsible for acts where you could have chosen to do otherwise

• Understanding between right and wrong - can only be held responsible if you didn't understand the consequences, or the nature, of the act you were committing.

  • People may not understand the difference between right and wrong due to having never known it (e.g. bad upbringing), temporarily forgetting it (e.g. drunk), or permanently losing it (e.g. brain damage).

Libertarianism

• The view that human beings have free will and are not determined

• Libertarians - St Augustine & Jean-Paul Sartre

St Augustine view on free will

• We must have free will because God created us free in order for us to make our own choices

• We have misused our free will since Adam and Eve, and as a result we all deserve to be punished in Hell. Heaven is not a reward that we deserve, but a sign of God's grace that he is willing to forgive and redeem.

St Augustine childhood mistake

• Despoiling neighbours pear tree

• This mistake is justified for eternal damnation

Jean Paul Sartre view on free will

• As an atheist existentialist he does not believe we were created by God with a particular purpose (en soi), and therefore exist for ourselves (pour-soi) and are radically free to live our lives as we please

• "Existence precedes essence" - we have no essence and therefore can decide our own meaning for ourselves.

• We should be fully accountable for our actions - however, since we are also free to choose our own moral values, he would not necessarily agree with punishment since there is no real standard to hold other people to

• Bad faith - the state of behaving as if your life is determined when in fact we are really free

  • Gives example of waiter who enjoys being waiter too much

Strengths of libertarianism

• We clearly experience the phenomenon of consciousness and would consider this to separate us from machines. This thought can be traced back to Descartes' famous realisation of the cogito, the thinking agent aware of itself as thinking. So if we can be sure of consciousness as a phenomenon connected in some way to the brain, we would expect that it would play an observable role in our behaviour.

• This is done by carefully distinguishing between personality and moral self. Personality is undoubtedly governed by universal causation and is for this reason predictable. The personality can limit some of my choices by making me more likely to choose some kinds of actions and not others.

• A youth brought up surrounded by violence and crime is more likely to decide on a career of violence and crime. But the libertarian points out that this is not inevitable. Even this youth has a moral self which is capable of counteracting the tendencies of their personality and causing them to do something else. This moral self is an ethical concept which comes into operation when we face moral choices. This is what distinguishes us from animals.

• We experience ourselves as freely making decisions and believe ourselves ano others to deserve praise and blame in the relevant situations. Why would we experience this if we were not really making those decisions? And why would we even have an experience of consciousness and choice if they did not impact our behaviour?

Weaknesses of libertarianism

• We know that it is possible to train a dog well or badly through the use or absence of reward and punishment. If a badly-trained dog bites someone we would not assume that the dog freely chose to behave violently but instead that it was a product of its environment. It is not clear why human beings, as a species similarly subject to heredity and environment, should be any different.

• Even most defenders of libertarianism would acknowledge that there are situations in which we are definitely not free. My freedom is diminished when I am held at gunpoint, or my drink is spiked, or I have experienced brain damage. But if this concession is made then where is the line drawn? Does the determinist give a good reason to treat brain damage as restrictive but brain structure and genetic predisposition as unrestrictive?

Hard determinism

The view that human beings are determined by forces beyond our control and do not have free will

Theological determinism

• Predestination; the view that we do not have free will as God's will has already preordained everything that will happen to us, include who can know and worship God, who will be saved and who will be damned.

• Associated with John Calvin

Psychological determinism

• A theory of psychology which argues that behaviours are learned through reward and punishment, and we are therefore determined by our environment and can be conditioned to act in a certain way.

• Associated with Pavlov, Watson, and Skinner.

Scientific determinism

• Universal causation - all events are pre-determined by the laws of physics and can be predicted if we understand the forces at play in a given situation.

• Associated with Isaac Newton.

Hard determinism supporting reward and punishment

• Theological determinists argue that God is still justified to punish us, since what God says is good is always good

• Behaviourists argue that punishment can be used to prevent bad behaviour and encourage good behaviour.

Hard determinism arguing against reward and punishment

If behaviour is pre-determined (as per psychological determinism) it is not fair to punish someone for behaviour that results from genes and upbringing

Strengths of hard determinism

• We are all a product of our genes, upbringing and surroundings. Determinists take this into account and to some extent the justice system does this also. It seems true that there is a prior cause for everything, including our actions and our choices, since our character is a product of other causes.

• Explaining crime does not mean excusing it, and the explanation seems to be important. Should someone who has been brought up by abusive parents be punished severely for abusing their own children? Or is it more humane to try and end the cycle of generational abuse by offering social support? It is sometimes important to acknowledge where freedom has been limited and seek to change the environmental and biological influences on criminals.

Weaknesses of hard determinism

• It puts us in doubt of praise and blame - how do we consider the morality of others if they are not morally responsible for their actions?

• We cannot be held morally responsible for our actions if they are casually determined and not a result of our own moral choice

• Means that we are mistaken to praise someone for being good and blame those who are bad. Murderers murder because they have the wrong genes, poor upbringing, poor parents or even poor teachers - does this mean anything can be excused?

Compatibilism

• Free will and determinism are mutually compatible

• Free will is present when we are not forced into an action/ choice

• Provided that we can choose to do 'the other' we are free

• Our choices/options can be impacted by internal and external factors, but we can still choose how to act due to our desire to act

Aristotle and compatibilism

• Our rational soul gives us our ability to choose whether or not to perform an action.

• We are free to perform virtuous acts or unvirtuous acts in order to develop our character

• "Our dispositions are not voluntary in the same sense that our actions are"

David Hume and compatibilism

• In order for us to be morally free there needs to be both liberty (freedom) and necessity (cause and effect which can be derived from induction)

  • Without necessity, there would be no regularity in human behaviour and therefore no room for moral laws

  • Without liberty, there would be no freedom to follow these moral laws

• Free choices and wishes have to stem from habits of the mind. If the world is not predictable, we cannot make free choices.

Strengths of compatibilism

• Escapes the unappealing extremes of both libertarianism and determinism. This midway position suggests that some of our actions are conditioned, while others have a collection of causes that they may properly be described as freely decided or willed. It accounts for the fact that some decisions seem to be freer than others.

• The distinction between internal and external causes explains why freedom and moral responsibility are not only compatible with determinism but actually require it.

Weaknesses of compatibilism

• Criticised by hard determinists for failing to realise the extent to which human freedom is limited and by libertarians for failing to recognise the true extent of freedom. Compatibilism is seen as philosophical fence-sitting or paradoxically accepting two contradictory accounts of behaviour and causation.

• Compatibilists have to try to agree on what is and what is not a determining factor and the complexities of genetics, psychology, and physics makes such a line difficult for them to draw. What compatibilists call 'complex' may just be unknowable. It is therefore difficult to establish a reliable system of reward and punishment as it is impossible to tell when someone is or is not acting freely.