On Free Will
Here I argue that contrary to the intuition, a person can be free without being able to do otherwise.
Suppose, for the sake of argument, that the universe is a causal soup. Whether it is deterministic or probabilistic. One where prior events partially or wholly determine current events, and current events determine future ones. At birth, we enter this causal order, without having chosen our genes, upbringing, or environment, which in turn become the causes of your desires, desires of your choices, and choices of your actions. On that account, it may well be appealing to argued that you have no authorship or choice. That you are determined. Since this causal chain, whether random or not, describes cause being imposed on you, rather than the other way round. Yet, I think such a deterministic accounmisses an important intricacy of causality. Namely You. At conception t(0), we are indeed just causal outputs of the universe from before (t-1). But from there on t(1) → t(∞), we too causally dictate the future events. The universe influences a person, but a person too influence the universe. What’s more important for my argument however, is that we ourselves become causes of our later states and circumstances. Our actions at t(1) influence the environment, that influences our actions at t(2), our actions at t(2) influence our actions at t(3), and so on and so forth. Under such a view, earlier actions increasingly come to make up a growing share of the causes behind our present, and to that end we increasingly become our own authors.
Consider Bob and Rob who both live in a deterministic universe. Bob is 20 years of age, whilst Rob is a newborn. In his lifetime, Bob has conceivably caused more outcomes. And some of those outcomes influence who he is. Perhaps his genes provoked him to take a liking to mu So, Bob tends to his liking, by listening to jazz records, trying different instruments, and eventually becoming a pianist. Being a pianist in turn shapes his life in all sorts of ways, be it in meeting love, becoming a rockstar, or else. Neither Bob nor Rob could act otherwise than they do. But when Bob sits at the piano, his actions flow from a self that his own earlier actions built, so they causally depend, in part, not only on the universe, but on him. Rob’s choices, by contrast, depend entirely on genes and surroundings he did not choose. It can be understood that Bob controls his actions to the degree that their causes trace back to his own earlier actions. A degree that is greater than zero for Bob and zero for Rob. And since freedom defined as control over one’s actions/choices, Bob is freer of the two.
The meat of my argument, then, is this. To be free is to control one’s choices/actions. To control something is for it to depend on me, and in a causal world, a choice can depend on me only by being caused by me. Since my past decisions make up a growing share of what causes my present ones, my control over each new decision grows, and with it my freedom.
To that end, a person can exercise control of one’s own future, and become progressively more free, even in the deterministic world where one cannot do otherwise.
This conception of free will is what I will call cumulative free will. To be clear, as a scientist I believe in inter-determinism. A school of thought that sees the probabilistic causal soup of the universe to determine our thoughts and actions. But I see its core argument unhelpful. Indeed the causal chain does not begin with Bob. But assuming that freedom must imply total control over the original cause, is an impossible standard to meet. In the causal system, to control the first cause, some earlier state of Bob must have caused it. But then that state would need to have been caused by an even earlier version of Bob too. And that one by an even earlier version. And so on indefinitely. It is a logically impossible standard for freedom to meet. And an impossible standard is not a standard. To that end, the conception of free will I introduce above can be viewed as an alternative.
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Summary of the premises:
- P1. Freedom is control over one’s choices.
- P2. To control a choice is for it to depend on me.
- P3. In a causal world, a choice can depend on me only by being caused by me.
- P4. My actions causally shape my later self and later actions.
- P5. So my earlier actions make up a growing share of the causes of my present ones.
- C1. So my control, and with it my freedom, grows over time. (Bob vs. Rob)
- C2. This holds even in a deterministic world, where I cannot do otherwise.
- C3. So the ability to do otherwise is not necessary for freedom.