Comprehensive Notes on Free Will, Determinism, and Ordinary Language Compatibilism

The Scientific Challenge and the Classical Argument Against Free Will

• Contemporary Scientific Claims Against Free Will:

  • Prominent scientists have asserted that scientific findings provide substantial reason to conclude that free will is entirely an illusion.
  • This claim runs counter to universal human phenomenology: ordinary experience suggests that human conduct from moment to moment is directed by freely made conscious decisions.

• The Classical Argument from Determinism:

  • The traditional argument against free will has persisted for centuries and is grounded on the premise of determinism.
  • Determinism Defined: The proposition that every physical event is completely caused by prior events in combination with the laws of nature. Alternatively formulated, every event has an antecedent cause that necessitates its occurrence in the one and only way that it could have happened.
  • Cosmological Ramifications: Under determinism, the entire subsequent history of the universe was fixed at the instant of the Big Bang, approximately $13\text{ billion years}$ ago. Every event was predetermined prior to its unfolding, encompassing all human choices prior to the existence of the solar system.

• The Ice Cream Parlor Example:

  • Consider a scenario where an individual waits in line at an ice cream parlor, deliberating between chocolate and vanilla, and ultimately chooses chocolate upon reaching the counter.
  • Causal Analysis under Determinism:
    • The immediate proximate causes of the choice are specific neural events occurring in the brain immediately prior to the decision.
    • Those neural events are themselves the physical effects of preceding physical events occurring moments earlier.
    • Tracing this deterministic causal sequence backward leads continuously through early life and infancy to the very first events of life.
    • The chain extends further to antecedent events occurring prior to conception, including events involving the individual's mother, father, and a bottle of Chianti.
  • Inference: Because the choice of chocolate was physically settled before the agent was born, human actions appear entirely devoid of free will under deterministic premises.

Modern Physics and the Epistemic Status of Determinism

• Determinism as an Empirical Hypothesis:

  • The foundational defect of the classical argument is its uncritical presupposition that determinism is true.
  • Determinism is neither a commonsense truism nor knowable via a priori intuition; it represents an empirical, controversial hypothesis regarding the physical universe that can only be substantiated through high-level physics.
  • Twentieth-century physics has established that there is currently no decisive evidence demonstrating determinism to be true; best-developed physical theories leave the issue unresolved.

• Transition from Classical Mechanics to Quantum Theory:

  • Newtonian Physics: Under classical Newtonian physics, universal determinism was widely accepted as fact.
  • Paradigm Shift: Late 19th- and early 20th-century physical discoveries uncovered critical breakdowns in Newtonian mechanics, prompting its replacement by quantum mechanics and relativity theory (relativity theory is not directly relevant to the free will debate).

• Deterministic Laws vs. Probabilistic Laws:

  • Deterministic Laws: Dictate that if a physical system is in state $S$, and experiment $E$ is performed upon it, outcome $O$ must occur with certainty.
  • Probabilistic Quantum Laws: Dictate that if a physical system is in state $S$, and experiment $E$ is performed, multiple outcomes are possible—such as outcome $O_1$ and outcome $O_2$—with exact probabilities, such as a $50\%$ chance of obtaining $O_1$ and a $50\%$ chance of obtaining $O_2$.
  • Explanatory Limits of Quantum Mechanics: If an experiment on state $S$ yields outcome $O_1$, quantum theory provides no causal explanation whatsoever as to why outcome $O_1$ emerged rather than outcome $O_2$. Within the framework of the theory, outcome $O_1$ may have occurred without any antecedent cause.

• The Foundational Einstein–Bohr Debate:

  • Albert Einstein's Determinist Stance:
    • Einstein rejected fundamental indeterminism, famously remarking that "God doesn't play dice with the universe."
    • He maintained that fundamental physical laws cannot be probabilistic; they must definitively state what will happen rather than what might happen.
    • Einstein hypothesized the existence of an underlying, hidden layer of reality beneath the quantum domain governed by deterministic laws that would account for why outcome $O_1$ occurs rather than $O_2$.
  • Werner Heisenberg and Niels Bohr's Indeterminist Stance:
    • Heisenberg and Bohr argued that the quantum level is the fundamental, bottom layer of physical reality.
    • They asserted that basic physical laws are irreducibly probabilistic, meaning certain physical occurrences have no deterministic prior cause and happen purely spontaneously.
  • Current Epistemic Resolution:
    • The conflict between determinism (Einstein) and indeterminism (Heisenberg and Bohr) remains unadjudicated.
    • Because quantum mechanics remains the premier model of the subatomic domain and the existence of a deeper deterministic layer is unknown, determinism remains an open question.
    • Consequently, the classical argument against free will collapses, as its core deterministic premise lacks evidentiary proof.

Common Usage as the Criterion for Defining Free Will

• The Practical Inconsistency of Deniers of Free Will:

  • Theorists in psychology and philosophy who deny the reality of free will maintain this denial solely within professional confines, study rooms, and lecture halls.
  • In practical affairs—even in trivial, day-to-day conduct—these deniers invariably act under the presumption that free will operates.

• Common Usage as the Standard of Correctness:

  • The correctness of any semantic definition is determined by ordinary, common usage rather than speculative philosophical criteria.
  • Investigating how the phrase "free will" is employed in everyday discourse reveals that indeterminism (the absence of causes) is not what ordinary persons mean when they assert an act was committed of free will.

Dialogue and Judicial Applications

• Courtroom Exchange Regarding Voluntariness and Duress:
  • Judge: Inquires whether the prisoner signed a confession of their own free will.
  • Prisoner: Responds that the confession was signed under physical duress—specifically, "I signed it because they beat me."
  • Philosophical Implications:
    • Ordinary persons recognize that a confession signed under the influence of physical violence is not free, whereas a confession signed absent external coercion is free.
    • If a philosopher on a jury were to argue that an uncoerced confession was not signed freely merely because brain states or psychological motives had prior causes, the philosopher would be committing an elementary conceptual error that misunderstands the common meaning of the term.

Causal Determinism, Compatibilism, and Moral Responsibility

• The Universal Causation of Human Action:

  • All human behaviors, whether categorized colloquially as free or unfree, possess antecedent causes.
  • Example of Mr. Gandhi: Mr. Gandhi's desire to secure Indian independence was immensely powerful and had real causes, stemming from biological peculiarities of his glands or brain, past experiences, heredity, and education—just as physical hunger has physiological causes.
  • Denying that free actions have natural causes constitutes special pleading unsupported by evidence.
  • Human actions are as fully determined by causes as any other natural phenomenon in the universe, regardless of whether physical reality contains quantum indeterminacies.

• The True Criterion of Free Action:

  • Because both free and unfree acts are caused, being uncaused or undetermined cannot serve as the criterion of free will.
  • The legitimate distinction between free and unfree actions resides in the source and nature of their causes:
    • Free Actions: Actions whose immediate causes are internal psychological states, desires, intentions, and motives within the agent's mind.
    • Unfree Actions: Actions whose causes stem from external forces, physical constraints, or direct coercion (such as beatings or duress).

• The Preservation of Moral Responsibility:

  • The assertion that determinism negates moral responsibility is groundless.
  • Wrongdoing and Excuses: An agent is not excused from moral culpability for a wrongful act simply because an observer, knowing the agent's character, could predict with absolute certainty beforehand that the agent would commit it.
  • Rewards and Merit: An agent is not denied an award, prize, or praise simply because an observer, knowing the agent's exceptional capabilities or virtue, was completely certain beforehand that the agent would succeed and win.