Why the Notion of Determinism Scares us, and Why it Should Not

 

   
The goal of the following paper is to discredit the threat of determinism on our perception of self and its free will. Crucial to the analysis is the distinction between causal determination and compulsion/coercion in the evaluation of the preceding events/mental states that affect our actions. Beginning with the simpler theological and epistemological versions, and following through to the more sophisticated Newtonian-inspired modern version, I would argue that preceding conditions at best narrow our options yet do not determine our actions as to impair our free will.
By the theological version, the claim that God makes all happen insinuates that humans lack free will. Yet as worrisome as it might first appear, while granting religion the existence of a God, it is within the same mental framework that God is interested in the choices of man, in vice/virtue decisions that make humans blame and praiseworthy. It is therefore a simple worry to discard since if God exist, he must surly make all happen, besides the choices of man.
The epistemological is a less neurotic religious worry claiming that if God merely knows what our choices would be, we lack freedom. This is a worry rising mainly out of the confusion involving temporal order: if God knows before hand, how is my choice free? To calm down the worried disciple, we can point out a similar, less mysterious daily parallel. If I have been married for thirty years, chances are I could predict with great accuracy what course my wife would choose for Friday dinner at our favorite restaurant.


   Less obvious, I could extrapolate from that familiarity the most likely manner in which my wife would react to any imaginary dilemma. Yet here it is obvious that my temporally preceding prediction is irrelevant to my wifeÕs freedom. Same goes to worried believers with GodÕs insight.
Turning to the more challenging Newtonian-inspired determinism we must grant the fact that knowledge of all relevant preceding variables of an event in the natural world allows us to predict an event with great accuracy. Yet the leap from the natural inanimate world to the human realm can run into some difficulty. When a mid-Atlantic warm current meets a southbound cold current, none of the two has a choice as to their future route and temperature. As far fetching as our prediction might feel, given the uniform laws of physics, it is rather simple for us to know the outcome of the encounter; given that we know all the relevant variables. It is here that the situation differs from human action in the nature of the subject: while a current is a passive reaction of inanimate water to physical pressures, humans are a complex build-up of mental pressures, initial genetic makeup, and reactionary psychological makeup. In other words, physically push a man strongly and it is likely that he might fall, but ÔcalculateÕ the preceding meaningful events in his life and arrive at the foresight of his actions is a more ambitious undertaking, facing the crucial intangible variables of his inner workings.
It is here useful to introduce a strictly deterministic model such as Baron HollbachÕs determinism. His model proclaims human action as determined, and therefore predictable, by the juxtaposition of Initial Conditions and Laws of Nature. The former


   regards our initial genetic and psychological makeup, which coupled with the laws of nature shape our desires, in turn forcing a determined action. For Hollbach there is no ÔselfÕ judging our desires and managing our actions, but more of an automatic mechanism reacting stringently to the strongest desire.
This is an interesting challenge, since counter-intuitively, even our elaborate ÔjudgmentsÕ could be called a Ôsorting outÕ of our strongest desire, automatically traceable to our Initial conditions, directed by the Laws of Nature. That is, a potential offender might sense a strong desire to rape his neighbor and yet prevent acting upon that strong desire. While intuition calls this instance the embodiment of free will, Holbach could argue that it is merely a greater desire (i.e. to maintain the neighborÕs rights, to avoid jail, etc..) that took over, leaving the agent stripped of free will and even of moral praise/blame, since the greater desire that emerged as ruling over the action is a mere determined mix of initial conditions and laws of nature. As Holbach puts it, " reflection, experience, reason" are automatic conductors which " necessarily arrest or suspend the action of manÕs will" (p.52). While manÕs will is an involuntary reaction to IC and laws of nature.
It seems that Holbach almost grants freedom and then takes it away. He acknowledges desires, reflection, experience, reason as inner workings of the self, yet strips them of any sense of initial agency by deeming it an automatic reaction. A minor adjustment, introduced by Roderick Chisholm puts a new spin on the passive agent: the self. That exact gap between IC coupled with laws of nature and the ÔnecessaryÕ outcome


   gives us a hope of finding freedom. Here I would argue that while coercion impairs our freedom, causal determination (i.e. Initial conditions coupled with laws of nature) is just another factor contributing to the deliberations our ÔselfÕ goes through before releasing an action out of itÕs pool of often conflicting desires. Furthermore, as a definition of ÔselfÕ becomes relevant, I would argue that being that Ôautomatic mechanismÕ that sorts out the strongest complicated desire might very well be both the embodiment of the self, and of our freedom. That is, being complex organisms that carefully deliberate before acting upon their strongest desire (which could be counter-character or counter-initial-desire) is just about as free as we can, and would like to be.
Granting that our above mentioned potential rapist sorts out the strongest desire and acted upon it, we must look at the complexity of that Ôdesire.Õ If the initial desire, the sexual impulse, takes over, it could be easier for us to view the wretched person as an automatic, nearly ÔanimalisticÕ reactionary being. Yet if a subsequent desire takes charge in the form of Ôit would hurt me to see her in such mental and physical painÕ we become witnesses to a far more elaborate and ÔselfÕ-indicating phenomenon. While Holbach might return fire in the form of Ôjust another automatic outcome of prior conditioningÕ it could very well be that that complex deliberation is precisely the narrow space, which serves as the realm of the self playing itself out.
In other words, if we acknowledge that we are complex beings, made up of initial genetic makeup, shaped in turn by relevant events (conditioning), it is no surprise, and



    Furthermore, no threat to our ÔselfÕ and its freedom, that our desires and actions are affected and shaped by relevant events. That is simply the constitution of human nature
that allows us to consider many different factors before acting, and to act according to what we find "right". The fact that what we find "right" is shaped by our initial conditions and what we picked-up on the way (conditioning events) adds to our complexity, yet exposes both our ÔselfÕ and its freedom as the ÔdriversÕ of that complicated ÔtruckloadÕ. Consider the alternative, can an erratic being acting with disregard to its desires be human, or free?
To conclude, I have argued that the quest for freedom encounters problems as we focus on the Ôsorting out of strongest desireÕ process. Yet the problems are more a matter of perspective on the existence of a self than about the process. If, therefore, we acknowledge humans as consisting of Initial makeup (genetic, psychological) shaped broadly by events (family, experience), that in turn shape our desires upon which our actions are based, we find that ÔrankingÕ mechanism as the realm of the ÔselfÕ and its freedom. In other words, yes, we are greatly affected by often contradicting outer pressures. But it is precisely in our evaluation of our desires and in our assignment of differing worth to differing motives, that our elusive self peeps out and shouts
"freeedom."
In our ability to divert a strong desire to non-action by the input of a complex mental idea (such as feeling the pain of your victim) we repeatedly exhibit our difference from


   more instinctual ÔautomaticÕ animals. It is by our ability to incorporate new input and act upon it Ôcounter-characterÕ that we stress the existence of the ÔselfÕ. It is in that wonderful
quality of Ôsorting outÕ our strongest desire not merely instinctually, but by complex moral notions, that we expose our freedom. It is by adopting belief X and rejecting Y that we get to practice that freedom.


   Ohad Maiman