Transcript Responsibility & Free Will

Responsibility & Free Will
Section 4
The Future is Open
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Three Stances
In matters of determinism & free will, three
stances are possible:
(1) compatibilism (often held in the form of soft
determinism)
(2) hard determinism
(3) indeterminism.
Note: (2) & (3) are contrary forms of incompatibilism.
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Table of Stances
Hard
Determinism
Compatibilism,
(usually held in
the form of Soft
Determinism)
 Determinism is true  Determinism &
& incompatible
belief in free will
with belief in free
are compatible.
will.
 Given Soft
 Belief in free will is
Determinism, both
false, as is belief in
are true.
moral
 So free actions are
responsibility.
determined.
Indeterminism
(sometimes
known as
‘Libertarianism’)
 Determinism &
belief in free will
are incompatible.
 The former is false
& the latter is true.
 Free actions are not
determined.
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Compatibilism

The most cogent form of compatibilism represents
actions as being caused by the agent’s character.

But this theory turns on the agent’s choices & thus
fails to serve any determinism-friendly purpose.

For these reasons, & for others (see, for example,
Sec. 3, this Chapter), compatibilism should be
abandoned.
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Hard Determinism



Counter-intuitive.
Encounters general problems of determinism
such as implying that we can discover what
we’re going to do inferentially (rather than
by decision).
As a form of determinism, it precludes its
own rational adoption; hence there can be
no case for adopting it.
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To Consider


Consider the way in which determinism
precludes its own rational adoption.
If it is true, then it cannot be adopted.
What are the reasons for this?
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Indeterminism


Forms of indeterminism involving unconstrained
freedom are implausible.
Forms recognizing that free actions have necessary
causal conditions but denying that they have
sufficient causal conditions are more plausible.
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Free Will & Evolution

Mary Midgley well argues that the emergence
of powers of free agency can be facilitated by
the evolution of social creatures with plural
drives needing to integrate them into coherent
actions, as in the Darwinism of Darwin.
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Human Agents

While the behaviour of some animals may be
voluntary, the development of self-awareness &
language allows human agents to envisage
options for action, together with diverse values
or reasons for adopting them.
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Free Agency & Darwinism

Thus the kind of inheritance ascribed to
human beings by Darwin supplies a
precondition of free agency, as it also does
for the emergence of morality.
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Conclusion

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Affirming indeterminism on this basis doesn’t require us to
choose between versions that explain free action by
agents’ reasons (Lucas, Ward) & versions that appeal to
agent-causation (Reid).
Indeed, these versions seem compatible.
Aristotle’s view of voluntary action requires qualification,
but a qualified form of it is also compatible with these
kinds of indeterminism.
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To Consider

Appraise Midgley’s account of how Darwin’s
understanding of our evolutionary heritage
helps explain the emergence of free agency.
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Finally…

Let’s return to the exercise from Sec. 3 (this
Chapter, slide 16):
Consider whether to adopt
 compatibilism, or…
 kinds of determinism that reject belief in free
action, or…
 kinds of indeterminism that accept this belief.
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