Exotic Journeys: A Tourist's Guide to Philosophy
brought to you by Ron Yezzi
Emeritus Professor of Philosophy
Minnesota State University, Mankato
© Copyright 1986, 1993, 2015, 2020 by Ron Yezzi
Compatibility of Free Will and Determinism
Topics
Saint Augustine
David Hume
Soft Determinism
Some Objections and Possible Replies
Thought Excursions
Sources
(Author's Note: The account below is taken from Ron Yezzi, Philosophical Problems: God, Free Will, and Determinism (Mankato: G. Bruno & Co., 1993), pp. 105 -114.)
Since there seem to be so many good reasons supporting both sides of the issue, it should come as no surprise that some philosophers argue for the compatibility of free will and determinism. Saint Augustine, for example, combines free will with predestination and finds them compatible. David Hume also argues for compatibility, but in a different way; he departs from the traditional conception of free will laid down at the beginning (Free Will & Determinism Homepage) and produces a reinterpretation that does not conflict with determinism.
Saint Augustine
Biographical Sketch
Saint Augustine (354 - 430 C.E.), one of the greatest of Christian theologians, was born in northern Africa. He showed himself to be an excellent student and then became a teacher at Tagaste and Carthage in northern Africa, and then at Milan. During his twenties, he embraced Mannicheanism, the doctrine that the universe is governed by two equal but opposed forces, good and evil. After a gradual evolution of thought (along with the prayers and entreaties of his devoutly Christian mother), Augustine converted to Christianity in 387. He experienced considerable guilt and remorse over the pagan activities of his youth, as detailed in his Confessions. He returned to northern Africa―intending to live a monastic life of poverty, celibacy, study, and prayer. At the urging of the Bishop of Hippo, however, Augustine was ordained as a priest in 391 and served in the diocese there. In 396, he was himself chosen to be Bishop of Hippo, a post he held until his death. Augustine was prolific writer on numerous theological issues and an eager defender of the faith against various heresies.
The Confessions and the City of God are his best-known works.
Every event that happens occurs because of God's omnipotence and under the guidance of Divine Providence, according to Augustine. Thus he says,
. . . we worship that God who has appointed to the natures created by Him both the beginnings and the end of their existing and moving; who holds, knows, and disposes the causes of things; who hath created the virtue of seeds; who hath given to what creatures He would a rational soul, which is called mind; who hath bestowed the faculty and use of speech; who hath imparted the gift of foretelling future things to whatever spirits it seemed to Him good; who also Himself predicts future things, through whom He pleases, and through whom He will remove diseases; who, when the human race is to be corrected and chastised by wars, regulates also the beginnings, progress, and ends to these wars; who hath created and governs the most vehement and most violent fire of this world, in due relation and proportion to the other elements of immense nature; who is the governor of all the waters; who hath made the sun brightest of all material lights, and hath given him suitable power and motion; who hath not withdrawn, even from the inhabitants of the nether world, His dominion and power; who hath appointed to mortal natures their suitable seed and nourishment, dry or liquid; who establishes and makes fruitful the earth; who bountifully bestows its fruits on animals and on men; who knows and ordains, not only principal causes, but also subsequent causes; who hath granted also to human minds, which He hath created, the knowledge of the various arts for the help of life and nature; who hath appointed the union of male and female for the propagation of offspring; who hath favoured the societies of men with the gift of terrestrial fire for the simplest and most familiar purposes, to burn on the hearth and to give light.1
If we now add Augustine's insistence upon the need for grace to attain salvation, we arrive at his acceptance of predestination. He says,
But Almighty God, the supreme and supremely good Creator of all natures, who aids and rewards good wills, while He abandons and condemns the bad, and rules both, was not destitute of a plan by which He might people His city with the fixed number of citizens which His wisdom had foreordained even out of the condemned human race, discriminating them not now by merits, since the whole mass was condemned as if in a vitiated root, but the grace, and showing, not only in the case of the redeemed, but also in those who were not delivered, how much grace He has bestowed upon them. For every one acknowledges that he has been rescued from evil, not by deserved, but by gratuitous goodness, when he is singled out from the company of those with whom he might justly have borne a common punishment, and is allowed to go scathless. Why, then, should God not have created those who He foresaw would sin, since He was able to show in and by them both what their guilt merited, and what His grace bestowed, and since, under His creating and disposing hand, even the perverse disorder of the wicked could not pervert the right order of things?2
Augustine however does not find this acceptance of predestination inconsistent with human free will. He argues that God, being omniscient (all-knowing), possesses foreknowledge of what human beings will do of their own free will and is therefore able to fit their actions into the divine plan for the universe. So human beings sin of their own choosing and are properly deserving of punishment, although their choices are perfectly in accord with God's purposes. In the words of Augustine,
Therefore we are by no means compelled, either, retaining the prescience of God, to take away the freedom of the will, or, retaining the freedom of the will, to deny that He is prescient of future things, which is impious. But we embrace both. We faithfully and sincerely confess both. The former, that we may believe well; the latter, that we may live well. For he lives ill who does not believe well concerning God. Wherefore, be it far from us, in order to maintain our freedom, to deny the prescience of Him by whose help we are or shall be free. Consequently, it is not in vain that laws are enacted, and that reproaches, exhortations, praises, and vituperations are had recourse to; for these also He foreknew, and they are of great avail, even as great as He foreknew that they would be of. Prayers, also, are of avail to procure those things which He foreknew that He would grant to those who offered them; and with justice have rewards been appointed for good deeds, and punishments for sins. For a man does not therefore sin because God foreknew that he would sin [my emphasis]. Nay it cannot be doubted but that it is the man himself who sins when he does sin, because He, whose foreknowledge is infallible, foreknew not that fate, or fortune, or something else would sin, but that the man himself would sin, who, if he wills not, sins not. But if he shall not will to sin, even this did God foreknow.3
Note that the possession of free will entails moral responsibility for actions.
The similarities in the positions of Augustine and John Calvin are striking. Both believe that human beings are incapable of meriting salvation through their own actions and are therefore dependent upon God's gratuitous mercy. Both believe that all events are subject to God's power and Providence. Accordingly, both accept predestination. They differ however with respect to whether God's foreknowledge or will is the basis for predestination. For Calvin, we are predestined for eternal salvation or damnation solely upon the basis of God's will; for Augustine, we are predestined because of God's foreknowledge of the choices we will make and His will with respect to those choices. Thus, for Augustine, God knows from the beginning who are destined for eternal damnation because of their free choice of sin; and God knows who are destined for eternal life because God wills to give them grace and knows their choices with respect to that grace. This fundamental difference between them leads to Augustine's acceptance of free will and Calvin's denial of it.
We turn now to a very different attempt to establish the compatibility of free will and determinism.
David Hume
Biographical Sketch
David Hume (1711 -1776 C.E.), a Scottish philosopher, was an excellent student who never completed his studies at Edinburgh University, leaving at the ripe age of 15 to direct his own intensive studies. He held posts as a private secretary, a diplomat, a librarian, and undersecretary of state in Scotland.
According to Hume, "love of literary fame" was the ruling passion of his life―a passion not always satisfied. (In a brief autobiographical sketch, he recites his trials as an author.) By 1739, he had worked out and published his basic philosophical position in A Treatise of Human Nature. As Hume put it, "It fell dead-born from the press, without reaching such distinction as even to excite a murmur among the zealots." Much of his later philosophical work consisted of shorter, better written versions of what was covered in the Treatise. Turning from philosophy to history, he wrote a History of England and achieved the literary fame he sought.
Apparently, Hume was a sociable person known for his great humor and good will. His close friend, the economist-moralist Adam Smith, wrote: "Upon the whole, I have always considered him, both in his lifetime and since his death, as approaching as nearly to the idea of a perfectly wise and virtuous man as perhaps the nature of human frailty will permit."
Hume's philosophical positions―especially with respect to the nature of substances, the self, causation, the relation between facts and values, liberty and necessity, the failure of theology based upon the natural world, and inductive arguments―have been centers of attention and controversy for two centuries. (Hume would have been quite pleased at all this.) In addition to the Treatise already mentioned, his major philosophical works include An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, An Inquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, and Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.
David Hume thinks that people generally accept both free will and determinism, what he refers to as "liberty" and "necessity," in practice, if not in their more abstract speculation. Too often, unfortunately, they begin their speculation by "examining the faculties of the soul, the influence of the understanding, and the operations of the will." Instead, he thinks, they should begin with causation and necessity as it applies to physical bodies, "brute unintelligent matter,"―where people generally concede that determinism holds.
In this realm, "Our idea . . . of necessity and causation arises entirely from the uniformity observable in the operations of nature, where similar objects are constantly conjoined together, and the mind is determined by custom to infer the one from the appearance of the other. These two circumstances form the whole of that necessity which we ascribe to matter. Beyond the constant conjunction of similar objects, and the consequent inference from one to the other, we have no notion of any necessity or connexion."4 When we observe human nature and conduct with this idea of causation and necessity in view, we find that determinism holds for human actions as well as for brute matter. Hume points out that people generally count upon constancy in human nature, character, and conduct rather than presuming some capricious sort of free will. For example, in everyday affairs, no one can make plans or have expectations involving other people, unless one can count upon some constancy in their character and conduct based upon what one knows to be their strongest motives and their actions in the past. Likewise, we expect human nature to be relatively constant in all times and places. As Hume says, in An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding,
Should a traveller, returning from a far country, bring us an account of men, wholly different from any with whom we were ever acquainted; men, who were entirely divested or avarice, ambition, or revenge, who knew no pleasure but friendship, generosity, and public spirit, we should immediately, from these circumstances, detect the falsehood, and prove him a liar, with the same certainty as if he had stuffed his narration with stories of centaurs and dragons, miracles and prodigies.5
Moreover, learned pursuits such as history, political science, ethics, and literary criticism can possess no value without some constancy in human nature, character, and conduct. Hume concludes, therefore, that people generally accept determinism with respect to human actions.
Hume is well aware that, in details, people often differ according to their circumstances and that their conduct is sometimes either strange or contrary to their character; but he does not think that these facts affect the doctrine of necessity. The diversity of circumstances just increases the variety of maxims needed to account for human nature, character, and conduct. As for conduct either strange or contrary to character, unobserved causes rather than a capricious free will account for any anomalies:
Thus, for instance, in the human body, when the usual symptoms of health or sickness disappoint our expectation; when medicines operate not with their wonted powers; when irregular events follow from any particular cause; the philosopher and physician are not surprised at the matter, nor are ever tempted to deny, in general, the necessity and uniformity of those principles by which the animal economy is conducted. They know that a human body is a mighty complicated machine: That many secret powers lurk in it, which are altogether beyond our comprehension: That to us it must often appear very uncertain in its operations: And that therefore the irregular events, which outwardly discover themselves, can be no proof that the laws of Nature are not observed with the greatest regularity in its internal operations and government.
The philosopher, if he be consistent, must apply the same reasonings to the actions and volitions of intelligent agents. The most irregular and unexpected resolutions of men may frequently be accounted for by those who know every particular circumstance of their character and situation. A person of an obliging disposition gives a peevish answer: But he has the toothache, or has not dined. . . . Or even when an action, as sometimes happens, cannot be particularly accounted for, either by the person himself or by others; we know, in general, that the characters of men are, to a certain degree, inconstant and irregular. This is, in a manner, the constant character of human nature; though it be applicable, in a more particular manner, to some persons who have no fixed rule for their conduct, but proceed in a continued course of caprice and inconstancy. The internal principles and motives may operate in a uniform manner, notwithstanding these seeming irregularities; in the same manner as the winds, rain, clouds, and other variations of the weather are supposed to be governed by steady principles; though not easily discoverable by human sagacity and enquiry.6
Having argued firmly for general acceptance of determinism or necessity, Hume then argues firmly for general acceptance of free will. For Hume however, the traditional conception of free will is inadequate: (1) because it suggests capriciousness, and (2) because satisfaction of the third condition would require action contrary to character. Consequently, he presents a different conception of free will or liberty, one which is compatible with determinism:
By liberty, then, we can only mean a power of acting, or not acting, according to the determinations of the will; that is, if we choose to remain at rest, we may; if we choose to move, we also may. Now this hypothetical liberty is universally allowed to belong to every one who is not a prisoner and in chains. Here then is no subject of dispute.7
This conception is compatible because our actions are free in so far as they express our will, regardless of any deterministic conditions that produce a particular act of willing.
Hume goes on to argue that these doctrines of liberty and necessity are "absolutely essential" for moral responsibility. He says,
The only proper object of hatred or vengeance, is a person or creature endowed with thought and consciousness; and when any criminal or injurious actions excite that passion, it is only by their relation to the person, or connexion with him. Actions are, by their very nature, temporary and perishing; and where they proceed not from some cause in the character and disposition of the person who performed them, they can neither redound to his honour, if good; nor infamy, if evil. The actions themselves may be blameable; they may be contrary to all the rules of morality and religion: But the person is not answerable for them; and as they proceeded from nothing in him that is durable and constant, and leave nothing of that nature behind them, it is impossible he can, upon their account, become the object of punishment and vengeance. According to the principle, therefore, which denies necessity, and consequently causes, a man is as pure and untainted, after having committed the most horrid crime, as at the first moment of his birth, nor is his character anywise concerned in his actions, since they are not derived from it; and the wickedness of the one can never be used as a proof of the depravity of the other.8
Thus, without a character formed according to necessity, there is insufficient stability to attribute moral responsibility to a person's actions. More particularly, a capricious free will where a person is able to act in any way at any time is incompatible with moral responsibility. Liberty as the power of acting according to the determinations of the will, however, does not possess this capriciousness and thus preserves responsibility; it allows us to attach moral qualities to actions as well as moral approbation or dislike.
Hume's position, with variations, represents the standard argument of soft determinists. They preserve moral responsibility within a deterministic standpoint by reinterpreting free will so that it simply means that acts express one's nature or character. Perhaps the following example is helpful. Consider the cases of two persons who fatally injure pedestrians at traffic lights while driving their cars. Person 1 injures a pedestrian fatally because, while stopped for a red light, another driver traveling at 65 miles per hour smashes into the rear end of the stopped vehicle, forcing it into the crosswalk where the pedestrian is walking. Person 2 usually drives aggressively―that is, speeds, applies the brakes at the last possible instant, expects others to get out of the way, gets a thrill out of challenging pedestrians, enjoys the power of being "behind the wheel"―and fails to stop for the red light in time because of a misjudgment, thereby striking the pedestrian in the crosswalk. A soft determinist would argue that Person 2 acts freely because the actions in this situation represent one's nature and character―even if the aggressive driving is ultimately due to insecurities resulting from an absence of love from one's mother or father. Misjudgment is no excuse here because Person 2, presumably, is well aware that driving aggressively carries with it dangerous risks. This individual chose to drive dangerously in keeping with the person's character and is morally responsible for the death of the pedestrian. On the other hand, the soft determinist would absolve Person 1 of any responsibility for the pedestrian's death because it does not result from any choice following from the person's character. Put differently, a fatal injury in l's case is very remotely connected with the way nature and character lead the person to choose; but a fatal injury in 2's case is directly connected with the way nature and character lead the person to choose. For the soft determinist, as the role of our own deliberation increases prior to an action, as the action is more consistent with an established character pattern, as our capacity to envision the consequences of the action increase so also is there an increase in our freedom and moral responsibility.
Some Objections and Possible Replies
(Note About Objections and Possible Replies: You should look upon the objections and possible replies as opportunities for further thought rather than as definitive statements. Holders of the original position are not likely to be overwhelmed by the objections; and critics of the original position are not likely to be convinced by the possible replies. These objections and possible replies accomplish a proper goal if they push you to think more deeply about an issue, leading you to seek more clarity and justification in drawing your own conclusions.)
(1) Contra Augustine
Augustine merely trades in one incompatibility for another one and gains nothing. That is, he eliminates the incompatibility between predestination and free will by inadvertently introducing another incompatibility, namely, that between foreknowledge and free will. It is essential to an act of free will (according to the traditional conception) that it cannot be predicted or known prior to its expression; it must be a spontaneous act independent of any conditions present or known in advance. Therefore, God's foreknowledge which, according to Augustine, allows God to foresee what human beings will choose and plan accordingly is fundamentally incompatible with free will. For an act of free will to occur, neither God nor even the person making a choice can know ahead of time what that free choice will be.
A Possible Reply: Since God is omniscient, God knows what human beings will choose from the beginning of time. In so knowing though, God does not in any way interfere with the choices and thus they remain free.
(2) Contra Hume and Soft Determinism
The problem of free will and determinism is not going to be solved by playing games with words. If we act according to our wills but our wills function according to the prior deterministic conditions that mold our character, then we do not possess what we mean, and want, when we talk about "free will." A free will must be something more than a mere conduit for the deterministic conditions acting on us. If we accept the proposed reinterpretation of free will, we merely hide with words the real causes of our actions.
If a being acts freely when its actions represent its nature, then we should say that animals possess free will, too, and we should hold dogs morally responsible for their actions. It would be better to give up soft determinism than to hold on to such absurdities.
According to this reinterpretation of free will, we still can act in only one way, namely, according to the demands of our nature and character. We can never act otherwise than we actually do act. But how can we morally praise or blame persons when they take the sole course of action available to them? We cannot―because the notion of moral responsibility entails that persons are able to act otherwise than they do.
A Possible Reply: We do not want to maintain the existence of a mythical, capricious free will contrary to scientific evidence; on the other hand, we want to preserve the concept of moral responsibility so fundamental to human life. The reinterpretation of free will allows us to accomplish both these aims. It is not merely "playing games with words." The reinterpretation accords well with the ways in everyday life by which we discriminate the differing degrees of responsibility for action: the more actions express persons' nature and character and the less subject they are to external compulsion, the greater the freedom and responsibility present. The example of the two drivers illustrates the way this happens.
While their behavior expresses their nature, we do not attribute moral responsibility to dogs because they lack our much greater capacity to deliberate, envision consequences, conceive moral significance, and make choices. Their status is similar to that of infants and young children, where we do not assign moral responsibility. In contrast with infants and young children however, dogs never develop to the point where their status changes.
With regard to being able to act otherwise, human beings can do this―provided that they will to do so. The fact that the willing would require a different nature or character does not affect our judgment of the situation at all. If we act and act freely, we expect the act to express our nature or character; if we acted otherwise, it would not express our nature or character, being merely capricious and not really our own action.
Thought Excursions
2.60 Could one accept God's omnipotence, Divine Providence, and human nature as it is without accepting predestination? Augustine does not think so. What about you? And do you think that Augustine has an adequate way of making free will and predestination compatible, with his concept of God's foreknowledge? (Do not ignore the Objection and Possible Reply regarding his position in making your evaluation.)
2.601 If, because of foreknowledge, God knows that a person will reject the gift of grace, should God bother to grant the gift in the first place? Explain your answer. If you did not receive the gift of grace and were condemned eternally, would you think that God had cheated you? Why or why not?
2.61 Hume holds that there has to be necessity present in human actions because there has to be constancy in human nature, character, and conduct rather than a capricious free will. (You may want to think carefully about his reasons―including making plans or having expectations, considering a traveler's report from far away, and why some persons act contrary to their character.) He then substitutes "liberty," as "the power of acting, or not acting, in accordance with determinations of the will" for the traditional concept of free will―in order to establish compatibility between free will and determinism. How would you evaluate the success of his effort?
2.611 Hume must deal with the fact that persons in different cultures act differently and there is wide diversity in the actions and opinions of human beings―if he argues for constancy and uniformity in human nature according to the doctrine of necessity. What do you think he might say?
2.612 Hume argues that constancy in character, rather than a capricious free will, is necessary for the assignment of moral responsibility. (For him, a capricious free will would be just like recreating yourself each moment so that no past action, praiseworthy or blameworthy, attaches to you.) Would you agree with him?
2.62 "For the soft determinist, as the role of our own deliberation increases prior to an action, as the action is more consistent with an established character pattern, as our capacity to envision the consequences of the action increase so also is there an increase in our freedom and moral responsibility." Does the example of the two drivers whose vehicles strike pedestrians make a good case for soft determinism?
2.63 Evaluate the Objections to Hume's position and to soft determinism. Be sure to consider the Possible Replies in making your evaluation. Which is the stronger objection? Would you raise other objections besides those mentioned in the text? If so, what are they?
Sources
Footnotes
1. Aurelius Augustine, City of God, tr. by Marcus Dodds (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1871), Vol. I, pp. 297-298.
2. Ibid., Vol. II, pp. 45-46.
3. Ibid., Vol. I, pp. 196-197.
4. David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, in The Philosophical Works of David Hume (London: Adam Black, Charles Tait, and William Tait, 1826) Vol. IV, p. 97.
5. Ibid., pp. 98-99.
6. Ibid., pp. 102-103.
7. Ibid., p. 111.
8. Ibid., pp. 114-115.
(Note: The 1986 copyright was initially held by University Press of America, Ron Yezzi, Directing Human Actions: Perspectives on Basic Ethical Issues--but was then transferred to me.)