Part I: Free will and determinism

Could advanced robots ever make decisions of their own free will? I suspect there will be many skeptical that robots ever could attain such powers. Robots are programmed. Human beings are not. Nonetheless, certain philosophers argue that the actions of human beings, just like robots, are determined or fixed by the laws of nature and distant past events.

Determinism is a metaphysical thesis about how events unfold over time. To put it crudely, things happen because of how things were in the distant past guided by the laws of nature. Imagine a mile long chain of dominoes. Once the first domino collides with and knocks over the second, the chain will continue to move until it knocks over the very last one. The reason why the last domino fell was because of the chain of falling dominos that led up to it. The falling of the dominos was neither random nor inexplicable. Once there was a sufficient amount of motion imparted to the first domino, the remaining were knocked over because of the laws of physics (i.e. gravity). If determinism holds true in our universe, it is thought that the actions of human beings are just like the dominoes; a necessary result of past chains of events and the laws of nature. And if our actions happened necessarily, then we couldn’t have done other that what we in fact did.

A thought experiment, devised by the 19^th century astronomer Pierre Simon-Laplace, further illustrates why determinism raises doubts about our sense of free will. Imagine a demon that knows everything about the initial state of the universe. It knows the location and all of the properties of every particle in the universe. Additionally, the demon knows exactly how all of the laws of nature operate. If determinism were true, the demon would be able to know the outcome of any future event, as every future event would be the eventual unfolding of the initial conditions evolving in accord with the laws of nature.

If our minds are made up of physical stuff (e.g. neurons, biochemical processes in the brain), as most scientists and philosophers now believe, then even our mental states are determined by the laws of nature and past events. If our mental states are determined, then the demon’s knowledge would include every decision that you and I will ever make, and every action that you and I will ever take. The demon could have predicted, say, your choice of career, a billion years ago, and you had no power to change the outcome.

It may still be unclear why the truth of determinism would be such a big deal. Philosophers, such as Peter van Inwagen, forcefully argue that there is a deep incompatibility between determinism and our having free will/moral responsibility. 

“If determinism is true, then our acts are the consequence of laws of nature and events in the remote past. But it's not up to us what went on before we were born, and neither is it up to us what the laws of nature are. Therefore, the consequences of these things (including our present acts) are not up to us.” (Van Inwagen 1983)

We think that we ought to hold people responsible for the actions that they were directly in control of. If none of our actions are not up to us, then how can we be held responsible for any of them? Assuming that determinism is true, one might be tempted to think we are in the same situation as the advanced robot. Instead of being determined by the programming and design of an intentional agent, human action would be determined by brain processes, the environment and situations we find ourselves in, and to some extent, our genes.

Why believe determinism is true? Many go to physicists to seek the answer, but even expert opinions vary. The answer is thought largely to depend on which interpretation of quantum mechanics turns out to be correct. One of the most plausible interpretations, in my view, results in a deterministic universe. With that said, the universe probably is deterministic but, as others have observed, I don’t think living in an indeterministic (or random) universe would suffice for having free will.

Determinism would seem to entail that we don’t have the ability to do otherwise. Our sense of choosing some other path for ourselves would be illusory. Some take the ability to do otherwise to be required for having free will. But many others, myself included, do not. Alternative conceptions of free will (e.g. compatibilist) make it possible to be morally responsible, whether or not determinism turns out to be true. The upshot is that determinism might not be a deal breaker after all. But it ultimately hinges on 1) whether alternative conceptions of free will are legitimate, 2) whether they give us moral responsibility, and 3) the extent to which they are supported by reason and evidence. 

In the next installment, I will give a rough sketch as to what a compatibilist view of free will ought to look like. I will contrast the view I propose with the compatibilist view that Dan Dennett defends, and argue that Dennett’s account amounts to a kind of pseudocompatibilism. 

References

Laplace, P. S. (2012). Pierre-Simon Laplace Philosophical Essay on Probabilities: Translated from the fifth French edition of 1825 With Notes by the Translator (Vol. 13). Springer Science & Business Media.

Van Inwagen, P. (1983). An essay on free will.