The Truth About Free Will. You’re Not Going To Like It
Let’s start with the problem of definition: “What is free will?” I think this definition accurately embodies what most people seem to think free will is: “The ability to make decisions that are neither determined by natural laws, fate, destiny or any supernatural being or entity.”
Already, we’re off to a bad start. Is it even possible to make choices that are not determined by natural causality, given that the brain is basically a biological mechanism?
In its most barebones form, the problem of free will boils down to this: the brain is a physical object and as such it obeys the same sort of cause and effect that governs everything else in the world above the subatomic level. In physical terms, it’s all about the firing of neurons much like the logic gates in a computer. To claim otherwise requires some sort of explanation under the rule “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”
Suffice it to say that so far no convincing evidence has been forthcoming.
And speaking of the subatomic level, before long, someone invokes quantum mechanics and offers that our decisions are not determined at all but that randomness plays a role.
However, if you stop to think about it, if you decide to do something, doing it because of a random quantum event leaves you just as imprisoned in causality as the idea that every thing we decide is simply due to antecedent physical events. That quantum event, if indeed it happens, simply becomes another physical cause.
It gets worse. Much worse.
Research by Dr. John-Dylan Haynes of the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Science in Leipzig, Germany revealed that our brain makes decisions before we become conscious of them, anywhere from a fraction of a second earlier to even up to ten seconds earlier.
This seems to make the so-called “conscious mind” something of a misnomer. It raises the specter of a mind under the mind, a preconscious mind making decisions over which we have no conscious control.
Our conscious mind, thus, becomes a passive observer of the results of deliberations going on in a kind of mental black box.
Please note: Even if there is a preconscious mind under our conscious mind, there’s no reason to suppose it is in any more free than the conscious mind. Whatever goes on there is also the result of neurons firing as the result of antecedent events.
I hope that by now you are seeing why free will is hands-down the most difficult problem in philosophy. Or, maybe I should say “distressing” rather than “difficult.” It is certainly intractable.
Some philosophers attempting to redeem free will can do little more than hail marys or end runs around the problem, arguing for example that if your decisions are yours and no one else’s and they are made under no relevant external constraint or duress, that is freedom enough to declare our will to be free.
This is not enough to satisfy skeptical philosophers. I would also call it a bad faith argument. An argument made by philosophers who in their heart know it’s not enough.
Alternatively, some nonphilosophers attempt a wholly specious argument that goes something like this: “Without free will, how can anyone be responsible for their actions? How can we justify praising the virtuous or blaming the wicked?”
I imagine most talented first-year philosophy students can see the problem there, which is that in asking those questions, the person is in fact presupposing free will, as if to argue “You must choose to believe in free will because we need to be able to talk about personal responsibility.” In philosophy, this is called begging the question. It’s a logical fallacy.
The logical person’s reply has to be that we will do what we will do, which is what we’ve always done.
I’ve been both an academic and informal student of philosophy my entire adult life, and I can do no better than that.
I don’t think anyone can.