phil 102 free will reid(1)

8/16/2019 Phil 102 Free Will Reid(1)

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The Problem of Free Will

This lecture will help youunderstand:

• The connection between

responsibility and free will• The Free Will Thesis

– Libertarianism

• Determinism

• Incompatibilism

• Reid’s defense of Libertarianism



Three Questions

1. In what sense and to what extent are

humans responsible for their actions?

2. In what sense and to what extent arehumans free?

3. How are these two questions related?



Moral Responsibility

• If John Doe had no choice but to murder X,

either because he was hypnotized or mad, or

because someone had planted an electrode in

his brain, then we would not be inclined to

blame or punish him.

• If Jane Doe had no choice but to save a group

of infants from drowning, we would not beinclined to praise her, in the same way that we

would not inclined to praise a robot.



Hypnotism



Moral Responsibility

• Moral responsibility requires that we think ofourselves as free. As objects in the world, weare determined; but as conscious, choosing

beings, we are free.



“Ought Implies Can”

– “It would not be a duty to pursue a certain effectof our will (whether it is thought of as completedor as continually approaching completion) if itwere not possible to do so in experience.” –Immanuel Kant

• In other words, if we blame someone becauseshe did something morally wrong, then this

only makes sense if it were within her powerto do the morally right thing, though shechose not to.



Free Will Thesis

• “An action is only a free action if the agent

could have done otherwise than perform the

action.”



• What does it mean to say that you “could have

done otherwise”?



Super Glue



• Psychological conviction that we are free does

not make it true. Perhaps that too is

determined!



Question 1:What is the free will thesis?

A. The thesis that freedom is the power to

act in accordance with one’s will

B. The thesis that free will is an illusionC. The thesis that an act is free if and only if

my act are not determined by the will

D. The thesis that an act is free if and only if

the agent could have done something else

instead



Determinism

• The view that the view that every event has a

cause, and thus everything that happens,

including human actions, simply proceeds

from previous events in accordance with the

laws of nature.

• Thus, for every event that happens, there are

previous events which are a sufficientcondition for the occurrence of that event.



Determinism Formula

Past events + Laws of nature = Current event



Implications

• There is no such thing as free will. Freedom is

an illusion, and people are not responsible for

their actions (though they can be held

responsible for social purposes).

• The future is already set in stone.



The Argument

P1 If determinism is true, then every humanaction is causally necessitated

P2 If every action is causally necessitated, no

one could have acted otherwiseP3 One only has free will if one could have acted

otherwise

P4 Determinism is true

C No one has free will



Forms of Determinism

• Logical (Stoics)• “nothing is ever possible except what actually happens,

therefore, it is never within man’s power to do anything

except what he actually does.”

• Theological (Calvin - ”predestination”)

• Physical (Einstein - ”God doesn’t play dice”)

• Biological (Darwin - ”heredity”)

• Psychological (Freud - ”the unconscious”)

• Social (Marx – “class struggle”)



Explaining Behavior

– Gene inheritance – Innate dispositions – Education – Laws – Friendships – Role models (or their lack) – System or rewards and punishments

Eventually, understand why the person committed a

certain action (e.g., murder) at a certain time.



Question 2:What is determinism?

A. The thesis what will be, must be.

B. The thesis that prior events in conjunction

with laws of nature are sufficient to

explain what is happening right now.

C. The thesis that a person if given the choice

of soup or salad he really has no choice

but to choose, for example, soup rather

than the salad

D. All of the above



Thomas Reid

(1710-1796)

Libertarianism

Reid



Moral Liberty

• “By liberty of a moral agent, I understand a

power over the determinations of his own

will” (IP 303).



Agent Causation

• “I grant, then, that an effect uncaused is a

contradiction, and that an event uncaused is

an absurdity. The question that remains is

whether a volition, undetermined by motives,

is an event uncaused. This I deny. The cause of

the volition is the man that willed it.” (“Letter

to James Gregory,” 88)



Causation in General

• Event causation

– E.g., the motion of the first billiard ball is the

event-cause of the motion of the second.

• Agent causation

– The kind of causation that occurs when an object

or agent, rather than an event, causes a change.

• Reid is a proponent of “agent causation”



Incompatibilism

P1. Free will is incompatible with

determinism.

P2. Human beings do possess free will.

C So, determinism is false.



3 Arguments

• Reid develops several arguments against

determinism, which he disdainfully refers to as

“the great and glorious doctrine of necessity”

(IP 326).

– 1) Natural Conviction

– 2) Morality

– 3) Pursuit of Ends.



1) “Natural Conviction”

• All human beings have a conviction of being aself-determining being. We have a naturalconviction that we are free. Without thisbelief we could not act.

• The activity of deliberating, of weighingreasons for and against various possibleactions, proceeds under the assumption thatwe have power; if we didn’t believe that, thenwe would not bother deliberating.



2) “Morality”

• Reid claims that none of our moral practices,

which includes the practice of holding

ourselves and others accountable for their

behavior, would make any sense if we did notbelieve ourselves and others to be endowed

with power over conduct.



“Brute animals”

• “Brute animals are incapable of moral

obligation because they have not that degree

of understanding which it implies. They have

not the conception of a rule of conduct and ofobligation to obey it, and therefore, though

they may be noxious, they cannot be criminal”

(IP 308).



Pigs on Trial?

• “We, in detestation and horror of the said crime,

and to the end that an example be made and justice

maintained, have said, judged, sentenced,

pronounced and appointed, that the said porker,now detained as a prisoner and confined in the said

abbey, shall be by the master of high works hanged

and strangled on a gibbet of wood near and

adjoinant to the gallows and place of execution.”(The Criminal Prosecution and Capital Punishment

of Animals. First published in 1906).



3) “Pursuit of ends”

• Reid claims that a person could not engage in

planned conduct if not endowed with power.

Since it’s obvious, he thinks, that we do

engage in planned conduct, it follows that wemust have power over our actions.



The Argument from Design

• According to the argument from design, God mustexist since the world is so complex, and yet so

orderly, that there must have been an all-powerful,

all-knowing being who designed it and made it

according to plan.

• Similarly, Reid argues, planned conduct is at once so

complicated and so orderly that there must have

been some author of it. Since it is obvious that wedevise our own plans, we must also be the ones who

implement them. Thus, we must be endowed with

power.



• “In a stately palace we see the wisdom of the architect. His

wisdom contrived it, and wisdom could do no more. The execution

required both a distinct conception of the plan and power to

operate according to the plan” (IP 309).



• “Every indication of wisdom, taken from the

effect, is equally an indication of power to

execute what wisdom planned. And, if we

have any evidence that the wisdom whichformed the plan is in the man, we have the

very same evidence, that the power which

executed it is in him also” (IP, 309)



Problem

•How can anything be the cause of its ownchanges? The idea that something can be self-

moved is entirely unlike anything found in

physics.



Common Sense!

• Reid’s response, as always, was that it is a

simple fact that men consider themselves the

causes of their own voluntary actions, and

that we should listen to common sense hereand not science.

– Dr. Samuel Johnson (author of Dictionary of the

English Language (1755)) famously said: “Sir, weknow our will is free, and there's an end to it!”

phil 102 free will reid(1)

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