‘Life is a combination of destiny and free will. Rain is destiny; whether you get wet or not is free will,’ once said by Shri Shri Ravi Shankar, an Indian spiritual leader.
The free will versus determinism debate always revolves around the extent to which our own behaviour is the very result of forces over which we have no control. It is also about whether people are able to decide for themselves how to act or behave in a certain way.
Determinism
The determinist approach proposes that all behaviour has a cause and is predictable. Free will is indeed an illusion, and our very behaviour is governed by internal or external forces over which we have no control whatsoever.
- External determinism. External (environmental) determinism sees the cause of behaviour as being outside the individual, such as say parental influence, the media, or even school. Approaches that do adopt this position include behaviourism and social learning theory. For example, Albert Bandura showed that children become aggressive through observation and imitation of their violent parents.
- Internal determinism. The other main supporters of determinism are those who adopt a biological perspective. For them, it is internal, not external, forces that are the determining factor. According to socio-biology evolution, it is about governing the behaviour of a species and the genetic inheritance of each individual within it. For example; John Bowlby states a child has an innate need to attach to one main attachment figure (also known as monotropy).
- Hard determinism. Hard determinism sees free will as an illusion and believes that every event and action does have a cause. Behaviourists are strong believers in hard determinism. Their most forthright and articulate spokesman has been B. F. Skinner. Concepts like ‘free will’ and ‘motivation’ are dismissed as illusions that do disguise the real causes of human behaviour. For the law-abiding, an accumulation of reinforcers has the opposite effect though. Having been rewarded for following rules set in the past the individual does so in the future. There is no moral evaluation or even mental calculation that is involved. All behaviour is totally under stimulus control.
- Soft determinism. Soft determinism does represent a middle ground, people do have a choice, but that choice is constrained and limited by external or internal factors. For example, being poor doesn’t necessarily make you steal, but it may make you more likely to take that very route through desperation. Soft determinism suggests that some behaviours are more constrained than others and that there is an element of free will in all behaviour that is entailed. However, a problem with determinism is that it is inconsistent with society’s ideas of responsibility and self-control that form the basis of our moral plus legal obligations.
An additional limitation concerns the facts that psychologists cannot predict a person’s behaviour with 100% accuracy due to the complex interaction of all the variables which can definitely influence behaviour.
Free will
Free will is the very idea that we are able to have some choice in how we act and assumes that we are free to choose our behaviour, in other words, we are actually self-determined.
For example, people can make up a free choice as to whether to commit a crime or not (unless they are a child or they are insane). This does not imply that behaviour is random, but we are definitely free from the causal influences of past events. According to free will, a person is responsible for their own actions.
One of the main assumptions of the humanistic approach is that humans have free will; not all behaviour is determined. Personal agency is the humanistic term for the exercise of free will. Now personal agency refers to the choices we make in life, the paths we go down and their very consequences.
For humanistic psychologists, such as Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers, freedom is not only a possibility but also necessary if we are to become fully functional human beings. Both do see self-actualisation as a unique human need and form of motivation setting us apart from all other species. There is thus a fine line to be drawn between the natural and the social sciences.
To take a simple example, when two chemicals do react there is no sense in imagining that they could behave in any other way than the way they actually do. However, when two people come together, they could agree, fall out, come to a compromise, start a fight, and so on. The permutations are endless and, in order to understand their behaviour, we would need to understand what each party to the relationship chooses to do in the way they conduct themselves.
Ranged against the deterministic psychologies of those who believe that what ‘is’ is inevitable are, therefore, those who believe that human beings have the ability to control their own destinies. However, there is also an intermediate position that goes back to the psychoanalytic psychology of Sigmund Freud.
At very first sight Freud seems to be a supporter of determinism in that he argued that our actions and our thoughts are controlled by the unconscious. However, the very goal of therapy was to help the patient overcome that force. Indeed, without the belief that people can change, therapy itself makes no sense at all.
First-hand experience of free will
Our everyday experiences give the impression that we do, in fact, possess free will. Using your senses, you are consciously aware of your surroundings and are able to make decisions based on what you have observed. This argument for free will appears self-evident based on your perception of yourself and your place in the world. However, to what extent can you rely on your senses and awareness to truly reflect on reality?
Let us consider a dream. At the time, the experience may be vivid and might immerse us in the illusion of reality, but when we are awake, we realise that we were being deceived into believing that what we experienced was real. This dream argument leads us to question whether our consciousness is giving us the correct impression of reality and whether we can take our experiential evidence of free will as proof of its existence.
Nonetheless, free will is taken as a form of truth in modern society. By making the right decisions, we can further ourselves. A wrong decision leads to consequences, most literally in the case of the judicial system, where crimes (except in the case of insanity) are considered as an exercise of free will, as it was a person who was able to choose either to commit or not to commit the crime.
Despite the factors around us influencing our behaviour, as determinism notes, we can still enjoy free will and be aware that the environmental factors are influencing, if not dictating our behaviour. For example, in a city, you may pass by countless advertisements. You will be well aware that advertisers are trying to influence your buying habits, but will certainly know that you have the free will to either succumb to or resist these messages. The humanistic approach in psychology, with its emphasis on the patient, supports the idea of free will over reductionist determinism.
Is free will predetermined then?
Yet, if we are so consciously sure of our ability to exercise free will, how can determinism override this idea? In some ways, determinism is problematic for us to consciously understand, and presents us with another problem: even if we make choices consciously using free will, what is to say that our free will itself is not predetermined?
Let’s get a religious take
From a religious point of view, there are many different variables that must be taken into account referring to determinism and free will. Any given person may show different beliefs whether it is monotheism, polytheism, atheism, or agnosticism. Beyond this, if a person believes in God, each person has different interpretations, such as: Who is God? What is God about? What is his role in humanity? We all have different responses to these questions and these responses will determine whether we believe in determinism or free will.
Preferences
Perhaps you have a preference. How did you get that preference? As a result of experiences, environmental stimuli your brain was subjected to in the past. You may have some innate traits due to the brain your DNA built at birth, which has an effect on your decision, but you did not choose your DNA. Your brain is built by DNA and then modified by all the events it has been exposed to since birth. From that is derived the output, the decision, or choice. In what sense did you make it? Your brain evaluated the pros and cons based on its memories of relevant experiences and knowledge and out popped the decision. All that complex reflection was your brain!
Way with God
Regardless of the decisions you make and the things you try to control, your life is pre-determined by God. This is the view that all events, including man’s behaviour, are caused (determined) by God. One of the more famous advocates of this view was the Puritan theologian Jonathan Edwards. He maintained that the concept of free will or self-determinism contradicted the sovereignty of God. If God is truly in control of all things, then no one could act contrary to his will, which is what self-determinism must hold. Hence, for God to be sovereign, he must cause every event, be it human or otherwise. Free will advocates believe that while everything else in the universe may be the expected consequence of exterior forces, human behaviour is distinctive and is determined by the agent, not by God, or the stars, or the laws of nature.
Of course, we are the results of our prior actions. And yes, our actions are determined by preceding events. It is difficult to understand that our being and our actions are entirely ’cause and effect’ and that we are unable to act otherwise.
Denial of consciousness
Determinism, however, is the belief that all events, including human choices, are determined or caused by another. Proponents of this view believe that human choices are the result of antecedent causes. Human beings are said to be responsible agents, but this fact seems to contradict the deterministic view of human action (the view that every event that is involved in an act is caused by some other event). If the deterministic view is correct, then it states that no one should be held responsible for their actions because they were caused by something other than themselves.
Determinism is a claim that states there is no such thing as consciousness. The nature of denial states that consciousness is not real if it has an identity. This statement sounds absurd. If consciousness is impossible, then it does not make sense to say that the determinist is conscious of the fact that it is impossible. Therefore, the argument is based on the assumption that in order to have a choice, one must be restricted by the laws of identity. It is a rebellion against reality.
If people do not have the right to choose, then there really is no such thing as morality. If there is no such thing as morality, then there is no such thing as right or wrong. This means that in reality there cannot be any moral judgements or punishments for doing wrong things.
Philosophical way forward
In philosophy, there is an ongoing argument between determinism and free will. Advocates from each side claim that they are righteous in their convictions. People need to be reminded that there is no objective way to prove either side of determinism. We also need to remind people not to ‘go to war’ over such concepts. If you accept determinism, then you have to also accept that some people will not accept determinism as a valid concept. If you accept free will, then you have to also accept that others have the right to ‘choose’ not to accept free will as a valid concept.
Either way, the truth is that neither side will be able to convince the other, since it is all very subjective. It is not always black and white, there is always a grey area. Determinism and free will are two subjective beliefs that cannot be defended by objective means. Read More
