Jun 235 min read

Is Free Will Real?-Determinism, Libertarianism and Compatibilism Explained .....

Updated: Aug 8

The age-old question- Does free will really exist? Now many philosophers throughout the ages have debated on this topic. Let us take an example. Imagine a scenario where a man puts a gun on your loved one's head and forces you to commit a crime. Despite your actions going against your beliefs and values and the fact that you would never do this otherwise, you are forced to rob a bank. And then when the police come to arrest you, you say 'But I had no choice!”. You cannot be blamed in this situation as you were not doing this of your own free will.

The concept of free will plays many vital roles in our lives. It forms the foundation of our legal systems, morality, and even our ideas of personhood. You cannot be blamed for something not in your control. But is this statement really true?

In the realm of philosophy, there are 3 stances related to free will-determinism. compatibilism and libertarianism.

Determinism states that all our actions are predetermined and controlled by factors external to our will and by extension philosophers use this to explain the fact that free will is an illusion. Now on the other end of the spectrum, people who believe in libertarianism say free will exists and humans are special and not governed by the laws of nature.

Both these stances are opposite akin to fire and water. But there exists a middle ground-compatibilism. Compatibilism believes that free will is compatible with determinism. It basically states that as long as no external factors are hindering a person’s ability to act according to their desires, free will and determinism can coexist.

Let us discuss each of them in turn.

Determinism

Determinism hinges on the fact that every action or effect has a cause. Just like the movement of the planets, the eruption of volcanoes and other natural factors, human behavior too can be predicted. For example, if I choose to eat an ice cream now, it is because I like ice cream. The reason for me liking ice cream could be my mother eating ice cream with me and spending time with me as a child. The emotional connection with my mother in these moments could lead to my subconscious relating ice cream to a positive experience. Now why my mother took me to have ice cream would have another cause.

That cause would in turn have another and so on and so forth. It is hard to say when, if ever, scientists will learn enough about what makes humans tick in order to predict everything we do. But regardless of when the causes of human behavior are discovered, determinism assures us that these causes exist ¹.

The implications of this are wide in both the moral and practical sense. Our judicial system for example. If all our actions are predetermined, and everything is bound to happen, can we really be held responsible for it? How can you punish someone for their actions if they had no role in deciding to do that action? If the concept of determinism is embraced that that would mean there would be no meaning to life.

Let us now dance with physics. Determinism does not seem to be possible due to Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. It shows that you cannot accurately know the position and momentum of the particle at the same time. The more accurate the position the more uncertain the momentum and vice versa.

Theoretically if we knew the positions and velocities of particles at a time we can accurately predict their velocities in the past and future- this is the lap-lase version of scientific determinism. According to the new quantum theory however, we can roughly predict half of what we would expect to in the lap-lase point of view.

The fact remains that even though we cannot make these calculations now it does not strip the possibility of being able to do so in the future. We do not know all there is to know in quantum theory and we are still learning. The possibility may arise that we be able to find out the past and future just from the position and velocity of some particles.

We cannot make these calculations currently, but it does not change the fact that the particles were arranged in such a way before my birth that it made it inevitable that I would come to like ice cream.

Simplified, this is the classical incompatibilist argument-

1. If someone acts of her own free will, then she could have done otherwise.

2. If determinism is true, no one can do otherwise than one actually does.

3. Therefore, if determinism is true, no one acts of her own free will²

Libertarianism

Determinism is absolutely wrong, you want to scream. Of course I have free will! If the choice is to either reject determinism or reject free will determinism can go in the dustbin. If this sounds like you, you’ll be pleased to know that those with similar ideals have created Libertarianism.

One way to explain this viewpoint would be that humans have souls, hence we transcend human boundaries. There are many meanings of ‘‘freedom’’ and many of them are compatible with determinism (as McKenna suggests).³

The inevitability of all their decisions and actions is (somewhat) degrading, dehumanizing, and demoralizing. It likens us to rats in mazes, our lives to games that have already been won or lost before we even start playing. ⁴

However, libertarians argue that free will exists as we have the power to make new chains of events that are not based on earlier events. This is known as agent causation. The focus on self-origination- The fact that these beliefs stem from a sense of self rather than external factors, is what some other libertarians stand for.

Additionally, we can also factor in the times when we act against our beliefs. For example when you are generally a kind person, but accumulated stress causes you to snap at someone. This action goes against your beliefs. By determinism, this belief is caused without your involvement, from external factors i.e. cause and effect.

But by acting against your beliefs you prove the libertarian point of view as snapping is a voluntary choice. While making a decision between two choices, you feel as if you are exerting effort. If you did not have free will, or the ability to make a choice, the effort would be meaningless. The exertion of effort supports the idea that we have free will.

Compatibilism

The definition of free will is the ability to act and make choices independent of outside influence.4 Compatibilists claim that if we act according to our desires and motivations ( even if they were caused by internal determinism) as long as there was no external coercion it would be acting out of free will.

From this point of view, people can be held morally responsible for their actions.

From Hume's view -If we mean by a free action the sort of action that is totally independent of prior motives, inclinations, and circumstances, then the idea of freedom is absurd. How—for what reason—would such actions even come about? Such a will that performed actions without any reasons or causes would be the same thing as random chance. ⁵

For example, if I were to want to walk as long as no one has restricted my actions I can walk, and hence I am free.

So to conclude whether free will is real or not, it is ultimately up to you to see which stance you follow and what you decide to define free will as.