Transcript Determinism, Free Will, and Moral Responsibility   Traditional threats to free will: Fatalism (every event was meant). Predestination (every event is willed by God).

Determinism, Free Will, and
Moral Responsibility


Traditional threats to free will: Fatalism
(every event was meant).
Predestination (every event is willed by
God). Divine foreknowledge (every
event is eternally known by God).
Determinism: Every event is caused by
a sequence of antecedent events.
Does determinism make free
will an illusion?


Libertarianism: We
are free,
determinism is false.
Hard determinism:
“Free will” is an
illusion, our behavior
is determined by
genes and
environment.

Compatibilism (soft
determinism): Our
behavior is causally
determined but we are
responsible for what we
do. Our capacity to
restrain present impulse
to avoid predictable
harm does not depend
on escaping causal
determination.
Obstacles to Incompatibilism


Libertarianism (incompatibilist indeterminism):
Introduces a mysterious sort of agency that
transcends physical laws. Implies that there can be
no science of human behavior. Dualism (the belief
that the self is immaterial) is no longer a viable
position (no explanatory power, inconsistent with
evolutionary theory,….)
Hard determinism (incompatibilist determinism): By
regarding belief in free will as illusory, hard
determinism eliminates moral responsibility and
makes deliberation futile. But, the ability to
deliberate is an evolutionary advantage, not an
illusion.
The dilemma of determinism

Determinism seems
to imply a causal
nexus of necessity
such that every
event which occurs
implies and is
implied by every
other event.
(William James)


A man murders his wife.
To have regret for that
event implies having
regret for every event in
the history of the
universe. Regret all, or
regret nothing.
Aristotle on
independent causal
chains and chance
events.
The Evolution of Agency

The human brain is the
product of six million
years of evolution. The
complexity of our brains
provides us with the
unique capacity for
language. Linguistic
ability enables us to
anticipate future events
and to deliberate about
how to realize or avoid
possible outcomes.

A rational agent is a
utility maximizer. A UM
deliberates about
alternative outcomes,
assigns an expected
utility to each, and then
attempts to realize the
outcome with the
highest expected utility.
A UMs actions are
caused and free.
Compatibilist Deliberation
Free action: An
uncompelled action that
an agent chooses to
perform as the result of
a process of rational
deliberation. Free
choices are caused by a
process of deliberation.
Here I stand, I can do no
other.” Luther