Part 1. The “Free Will” debate
A brief overview of the popular debate on free choice
We conceive of ourselves as the authors of our own lives. We suppose that our decisions and actions are truly up to us. With this as our assumption, we hold ourselves (and others) responsible for our choices and actions, unless we have some good reason to think otherwise in a given case. This view of ourselves stands in tension with the belief, held by many philosophers, that all that happens in the world, including all human choices and actions, are determined (causally settled) by prior events. Some philosophers, called compatibilists, are of the view that prior causal determination is compatible with the reality of free choice. Other philosophers, called incompatibilists, deny this. Incompatibilists can be sorted into two groups, those who accept determinism and deny the reality of free choice and those who maintain the reality of free choice and deny the truth of determinism.
Free choice and moral responsibility
What is free choice?
A person is said to choose freely when his choice is "up to" him.
What does this mean?
This is understood to mean that he is the author of his own choice. Nothing determines (decides) what it will be except him at the moment of his choosing it.
Free choice is commonly associated with alternative possibilities. It is sometimes said that a person chooses freely if and only if he could have chosen otherwise.
What does this mean?
Intuitively, this means that alternative choices were truly available to him. It means that he had it in his power both to choose as he did or to choose something else. (Alternative understandings of could have done otherwise are also maintained).
Why do people believe in free choice?
We experience free choice. We cannot help but believe that we choose freely (when not doing philosophy). This belief is essential to our self understanding as persons.
What is moral responsibility?
To say that a person is morally responsible for his choices and actions is to say that he is worthy of either praise or blame with respect to them.
What does free choice have to do with moral responsibility?
Free choice is thought by many to be a necessary condition for moral responsibility. Why? One whose choosing is not up to him is not truly praise or blameworthy.
Determinism and indeterminism
What is Determinism?
The theory of universal causal determinism states that every event is causally settled (decided) by prior events. This is said to apply also to human choices.
A round about way to express this is to say that, in theory, if we knew all the facts of the world at a given time plus all the laws of nature, and we were very very smart, we could know all the facts of the world of any later point in time.
Why do people believe in determinism?
The belief, for some, has as its source the idea that everything that occurs has a sufficient causal explanation for its occurrence and, moreover, successes of the natural sciences which successfully predict events according to laws.
What is indeterminism?
Indeterminism is the view that events are not always causally decided prior events. It is the view that the future is left open (unsettled) by the past.
Why do people believe in indeterminism?
The world does not appear to be causally determined. Human choices and actions, for instance, as well as the movements of other animals, do not appear to be so. Moreover, at the level of quantum physics, events are not causally determined.
The issue
What would the truth of determinism mean for free choice (and moral responsibility)?
Is the truth of determinism compatible with free choice?
Intuitively no. One whose choice is decided by prior events is not the author of his choice. Moreover, he cannot choose other than he does.
But some disagree. Some define free choice differently than I have. According to their definition, a person chooses freely just in case nothing prevents him from choosing as he wishes (even if what he wishes is decided for him by prior events). What matters is that the person is not compelled against his will to choose as he chooses or do as he does. Moreover, it is sometimes claimed that a person could have done otherwise just in case he would have done otherwise had he wished to.
What about indeterminism? Is indeterminism by itself sufficient for free choice?
Some say yes. I cannot honestly understand why anyone would think this.
Others say no. An argument from Roderick Chisholm…
If a person's choice is determined by prior events, then it's not up to him and he is not responsible for it. And if it's determined by nothing at all, then again it's not up to him. More, then, is needed than indeterminism. The person's choice must be determined by the person (and mere indeterminism is insufficient for this).
The lay of the land
Compatibilism (soft determinism)
This is the view that determinism is compatible with free choice. The compatibilist believes both that determinism is true and that we choose freely. One who holds this view maintains an alternative understanding of free choice.
Incompatibilism
This is the view that determinism is not compatible with free choice.
Some incompatibilists believe that determinism is true and, accordingly, that there is no free choice. This view is sometimes called hard determinism.
Other incompatibilists believe in the reality of free choice and, so, that determinism is false. This view is called libertarianism.
Some libertarians believe that indeterminism is sufficient for free choice. Others believe that self-determination requires more than mere indeterminism.
Two ways to chart the options
Part 2. Free choice and Divine causation
We've taken some time to examine St. Thomas's understanding of the nature of God. What are the implications of this understanding for human freedom?
The term ‘knowledge’ does not have the same meaning when applied to God.
Our knowledge of the world comes from the world. We know the world by observing it and reasoning about what we observe. Our knowledge of the world is thus caused by the world. This cannot be the way it is for God. For, if God’s knowledge were caused by the world, then God would be caused by the world,* which is absurd.
*God is identical to his attributes, including his knowledge.
How does God know the world?
God’s knowledge is, firstly, of himself. He knows the world by knowing himself. He knows the world and everything about each thing in it, including you and all that you do, by knowing what he creates, i.e., by knowing his own activity.
Natural things stand between God’s knowledge and our knowledge.
He is like the painter of a painting and we are like the observers. He knows the painting as its author... because it came from him. We know it by looking at it.
God’s knowledge of natural things is the cause of those things as an idea in the mind of a painter is the cause of what he paints.
This fact has important, and perhaps troubling, implications.
God did not start the world and step away. The world and all that happens in it is radically dependent on God for its being at every moment. Creation is a continuous act.
Does this mean that our choices are necessitated? If so, does this mean that we cannot choose freely? What does St. Thomas say about this?
God gives genuine agency to created things. Some cause what they cause necessarily, others contingently. In the latter case what occurs does not occur by necessity. And yet it does. In an important sense, what is caused contingently is yet necessitated. God’s will is efficacious. It does not fail.
But God chooses to cause some effects by deficient causes (causes that produce their effects contingently).
The effects of such causes are contingent in the order of secondary causation.
But the same are necessary in the order of primary causation.
What can be said about human freedom?
Freedom of a certain kind is necessary for moral responsibility. This freedom is the power of authorship. One’s choice cannot be necessitated. Nor, is it enough that it is not necessitated. It must be up to the person.
St. Thomas accepts this condition and believes it safeguarded by the order of secondary causation. In that order, the choice is truly up to the agent.
"Free-will is the cause of its own movement… But it does not of necessity belong to liberty that what is free should be the first cause of itself… God, therefore, is the first cause… And just as by moving natural causes He does not prevent their acts being natural, so by moving voluntary causes He does not deprive their actions of being voluntary: but rather is He the cause of this very thing in them; for He operates in each thing according to its own nature." (1.83.1)
What do you think of this answer? There is much more to say about this.
