The Compatibility of Free Will and Determinism - Essay Example

? The Compatibility of Free Will and Determinism Introduction The truth of determinism and the truth of free will are often considered to be contradictory, antagonistic and mutually exclusive. It is thought that the existence determinism requires the lack of existence of free will and vice versa too. According to the compatibility approach, however, the existence of determinism and the existence of free will do not put them in war with each other. Neither determinism nor free will is infinite. Rather, both shapes human actions in particular ways although differently. Free Will, Soft Determinism, (In)compatibilism Some of the eternal normative questions such as that of morality too have shaped the major arguments of compatibilism. The problem is that without free will, it is believed that there cannot be any morality among the human beings. The issue is ultimately about human choice. The starting point of the debate is not that what the choice must be. On the other hand, the question here is about whether human beings have the choice of choice at all, especially in their crucial actions with regards to life struggles. Pippin proposes that “freedom is understood by Hegel to involve a certain sort of self-relation and a certain sort of relation to others; it is constituted by being in a certain self-regarding and a certain sort of ‘mutually recognizing’ state. This state of self-consciousness and socially mediated self-reflection, defined in a highly elaborate systematic way as a ‘rational’ self- and other-relation, counts as being free” (p. 194). It means that free will is not only constituted with relations to one’s self but also in relations to other as well. Free will, in other words, is constituted by a dialectical relationship between the individual and the society. Here, in Hegel, the conflict between free will and determinism progressively blurs. One of the most important questions that need to be addressed reflexively is the problems of whether determinism is inconsistent with free will. But, one could argue that there is no given inconsistency as such between determinism and free will based on his/her lived in experiences alone. If the actions of a person are completely determined by rational factors, we must be in a position to correctly predict that person’s future course of action as well. No determinists have ever come up with a mechanism to do so whatever determinism they preach in theory. According to Steward, “it appears that it is a matter of luck in some sense that we ever manage to decide things, but this luck does not appear to prevent those decisions we do manage to make from having been truly up to us. And this means that we must be cautious, in turn, about the demands we impose on the libertarian. In particular, we must not insist that the libertarian story entail that luck be entirely absent from the arena of action” (p. 169). The dialectics between chance and necessity of course have a crucial role in understanding the interactions between free will and determinism. God or the ultimate determinism must itself be seen as an expression of the free will of the universe. Pippin suggests that “treating Geist itself as a kind of norm; a collective institution whereby we (remaining the natural organisms we ontologically are) hold each other to a responsiveness to and directedness by reason, and thereby realize spirit as ‘freedom” (p. 204). It is the universal and human beings’ hold with it determines our free expression of the will. The free will does not exist independently. It materializes itself only in the given conditions. To argue that human beings are completely governed by their decisions is completely wrong. Even our own decisions do not determine our own behavior or a particular course of action. It is one of the strongest assertions of Steward is that “decisiveness is an executive virtue we do not all possess – so vacillation – even vacillation that is ultimately fatal to treasured aims - does not constitute the sort of behaviour we cannot make sense of at all. The crucial point which enables us to make sense of it, is that all actions, including decisions, are executive. We need to execute them. The default position with respect to each act-type we might choose to execute is inaction – inaction being what happens when we do not execute and which is therefore always in our power when the action is” (p. 178). Not only our actions, our inactions too could become the expression of our free will or the lack of free will. In Buddhist fashion, it is possible to argue that the middle path between crass determinism and loose free will is the only right path. If all the actions of human beings are under compulsions of what he or she lives off, how could then he or she could be blamed for the consequences of their actions. Here, even the very idea of punishment becomes irrelevant. Even one theoretically denies the existence of free will, in practice, he or she has to be abided by the call of free will. Simply speaking, although it is theoretically possible to deny the notion of the free will, it does not hold true in the concrete reality. Therefore, Steward has fiercefully argued that “inaction at a given moment may be possible for an agent, even where it is inconceivable (owing, say, to powerful motives) that that same agent will not act in a certain way within a certain time-frame. The crucial thing is that the details of action are up to us – in this case the „when?, but more generally also the „how? and sometimes the „where? – even when the „whether? is beyond our control” (p. 178). The idea is that when we decisively act upon given conditions the act remains an act of free will although the result could be not determined by the free will. Conclusion Although there are people who argue that it is metaphysically impossible to possess free will for human beings, we can see human beings actually exhibits the functioning of free will even in trivial day-to-day life issues. In the same way, we crucially differ from the natural order of things although we are part of the nature and critically depended upon it for the mere survival. It is important to note that it is possible for human beings to have free will while being ruled by the constraints of life. The possible is real too. Works Cited Pippin, Robert B. “Naturalness and Mindedness: Hegel’s Compatibilism”, European Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 7, No. 2, (1999). pp. 194-212. Steward, Helen. “The Truth in Compatibilism and the truth of Libertarianism. Philosophical Explorations, Vol. 12, No. 2, (2009). pp. 167-179. 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