FREE WILL

(DRAFT November 2021)

§1.

What is the main question in the Free Will issue? Maybe it is “Do we have Free Will?”.

But then consider an example, call it E1, where Jack hands over his wallet to a robber at gunpoint. Then it is true that he did that “not of his own Free Will”. And it is also true that not all our doings are like this. All the many times that Jack does things not at gunpoint or any other form of coercion. Which means that it is not always true that we do things “not of our own Free Will”.

From which it follows that the, obvious, answer to “Do we have Free Will?” is ‘yes’. Meaning that at least sometimes we do things that are “of our own Free Will”. But that answer is so obvious that it can’t be the case that “Do we have Free Will?” is the main question in the Free Will issue.

§2.

OK, so maybe the question isn’t “Do we have Free Will?”. Maybe the question is deciding the truth of “if Determinism is true then there is no Free Will”. Let’s call this statement M1. So the question then is: “is M1 true?”.

And, at first sight, the answer would seem to be: yes. Because Determinism says that, given the antecedents to some outcome then it’s not true that the outcome “could have been otherwise”. But Free Will is that our doings could have been otherwise. Because when we have done something we think about our doing: it could have been otherwise. Let’s call this account of what Free Will is F1.

But is F1 really what Free Will is? Consider an example, call it E2. Suppose Mary loves football and it is announced that her favourite team are playing a match near where she lives and she has got nothing else planned for that day and she has got plenty of money to buy a ticket. These are all the antecedent factors and the outcome, the doing of Mary, is that she goes to the match. About this we would say about the outcome that it’s not true that it “could have been otherwise” and it was very strictly determined by the antecedent factors.

In fact we would even say: “she was bound to go”. And, suppose the bus to the football ground was cancelled and, despite this, she decided to walk all the way there. Then we might even say: “she was determined to be there”. Literally determined!

All of which means that the F1 account of what Free Will is, isn’t correct. Because according to it E2 is not Free Will. But in actual fact it is.

Example E2 suggests that any correct account of what Free Will is wouldn’t need it to be true that “it could have been otherwise”. And so M1 isn’t true.

Here’s another reason to think “could have been otherwise” isn’t what Free Will is. Suppose Mary wasn’t as much of an enthusiast for football as described in E2. She was quite indifferent. But she went to the match anyway. This would mean it was more true about her deciding to go that it “could have been otherwise”. But it wouldn’t make her deciding to go any more a case of Free Will, would it?

§3.

In response to all this we could say that the sense of “could have been otherwise” as described so far is too narrow. And that Free Will actually includes a slightly different sense of “could have been otherwise”, one that is meant in a more literal sense. This is the sense we get from introspection where we are deciding something and we can see that our decision could go in any one of a number of different ways. For example Jack has a couple of hours spare and he could go to the garden or he could go to the library. At that point he is aware of the fact that he could decide either way.

So let’s call the version of what Free Will is that uses this slightly different sense of “could have been otherwise”, F2. And the previous version is F1. So according to F1, E2 isn’t an example of Free Will. But according to F2, it is.

But then the problem with F2 is that it is too broad an account of what Free Will is. According to F2, Jack handing over his wallet in E1 is Free Will. Because even at gunpoint Jack could have decided to not hand over the wallet.

In fact F2 is so broad that it applies to all or decisions. We can always decide different. So if F2 was an accurate account of what Free Will is, then all our doings would be Free Will. But they aren’t. So that means that F2 isn’t an accurate account of what Free Will is either.

I could add another thing here, related to the point that F2 seems like something that is just always true. And this is that I can’t see how F2 could ever be false. What I mean is that I can’t imagine an example of absence of Free Will based on what F2 says that Free Will is.

It seems as if F2 is more an account of “doing something of your own will” than it is of “doing something of your own FREE will”. So E1 is an example where it is not true that you are “doing something of your own Free will”. But what would be an example where it was not true that you were “doing something of your own will” according to what F2 is saying? The only thing I can think is suppose your left arm just went up. But you didn’t do that, it just happened. As if something else was moving your arm, not you. But if that happened, then that’s not an example of you “raising your arm not of your own Free Will”. Or rather it is, but it is something more than that too.

§4.

The other thing I am thinking is: even if “could have been otherwise” in either of the two senses so far described WAS part of what Free Will is. Would it then be true that Determinism meant that there was none of this “could have been otherwise”? I am thinking: maybe not. In which case M1 would not be true.

So with F1 it seems as if the extent to which “could have been otherwise” applies to our doings has got nothing to do with Determinism. There’s some sense in which what “could have been otherwise” means in the context of humans doings is something different from what that same phrase means in the description of what Determinism is. So, yes, about our doings it is true that they “could have been otherwise” but the same phrase means something else when used in the statement of what Determinism is and in this latter case it is not true.

At the psychological level, by which I mean talking about decisions and doings and that sort of thing. At that level it could be the case that these things “could have been otherwise” even though at the material level (physics) it is not true that things “could have been otherwise”. Even though the material states of the psychological doings and those doings themselves are ‘identical’.

I can produce an example of this to explain although the context isn’t psychological in this. So consider if I flip a coin and it comes up heads. Then I will say: “it could have been otherwise; it could have come up tails”. This would be a true thing to say despite the fact that, according to physics and Determinism (as constituted by the laws of physics), about the coin coming up heads it’s not true that it “could have been otherwise”. And then when I think: how is it possible that, in this example, in one sense some thing “could have been otherwise” and in another sense it be not true that “it could have been otherwise”. Is it that, in the sense in which “it could have been otherwise” this just means “for all we know it could have been otherwise”. Because we can’t calculate all the physics of a coin flip which, if we could, then we would know which way it was going to come up.

I notice that my description of what Determinism is (in §2 above) comes from physics. So you have some particular arrangement of matter. And then you have the laws of physics (gravity and other forces etc) and then, given all of these factors, the subsequent arrangement of matter is determined and can be calculated. That’s how physicists can predict exactly what date an eclipse will happen or when a comet will reappear in the Solar System.

§5.

So the story so far is: Determinism says it’s not true that things “could have been otherwise”. But this isn’t a problem for Free Will because “could have been otherwise” is not included in what Free Will is. Or, if it is included, then its meaning in the Free will context isn’t the same as its meaning in saying what Determinism is. So there’s no problem.

So the question remains: so what is Free Will then?

It think that, broadly speaking, Free will is not about WHETHER (ie how strongly) antecedents determine the outcome but more about HOW they do. Free will doings are ones which are something like: “in accordance with what the person wants”.

So about F2. It’s not relevant for Free will that “our decision could go in any one of a number of different ways”. What matters is that the decision goes in the way that the agent wants. In the sense that the doing is “up to me” and not because of something else. My decision can be “up to me” and yet it still be the case that it is not true that “it could have been otherwise”.

You might think: if what I am going to decide couldn’t be otherwise then why am I deliberating? The best way to explain this is that your deliberation is part of your decision being the way it is. That’s why it needs to be done. It’s all part of the chain of causation.

§6.

(to be continued ...)