Free Will: Libertarianism and Compatibilism

There are two main challengers to Hard Determinism.

Libertarians include dualists who, like Descartes, believe the mind is a non-physical substance (spiritual) and is therfore not subject to laws of nature - it is essentially free.

The problem with this is how to account for the interaction of the physical body and the non-physical mind. If we want the mind to cause the body to behave in a particular way (eg pick up the pen), how does the mental message connect with the physical body? Through the brain? OK, but that doesn't help: the brain is still physical. Likewise, in reverse, how can bodily events (accidents) cause a mental event (pain)? Surely only two physical things or events can interact causally.

Also, there is plenty of evidence that mental events depend on the physical brain. If we damage our brains, we can lose certain mental abilities, even consciousness. Then there's the problem of God. Dualism claims the mind is non-physical, spiritiual, supernatural. This implies God, and God is omniscient, which means He must know what we are going to do in the future, which means it must already in some sense be determined, pre-destined. So there is a question mark over Dualism's ability to deliver genuine freedom.

Libertarians aren't all substance dualists, so the problems with Dualism don't affect all kinds of Libertarianism. But all kinds must put some constraints on our freedom to act, for two reasons. 1) We need to act consistently rather than totally randomly in order to have a unique character, personality, identity. 2) We need our actions to be determined, or at least influenced, by rational considerations - reasons for choosing A rather than B. You could argue that for any particular decision, there is always just one most rational option, so the more rational we are, the more we are determined (influenced) by the compulsions of rationality. Does this mean that very rational and intelligent people are in some ways less free than others?

One interesting attempt to produce a radically Libertarian philosophy was Jean-Paul Sartre's Existentionalism (1940s/50s). Our existence precedes our essence. Infact we have no essence, no essential characteristics. We choose our own natures. We are 100%responsible for our lives. We are nothingness, not confined or defined by human nature. But we suffer from "bad faith", the illusion that we are fixed, determined in various ways. We fear responsibility, we are made giddy by our freedom. Existensionalism, like all forms of Phenomenology, starts from the cogito (I think, therefore I am): what's most certain is that I exist, rather than that matter and the laws of nature exist. Our starting point should be our freedom, not physics.

The trouble with this is that most of us do feel that we have some kind of nature, some essence. When we introspect we find not only a sense of freedom but a sense of being a certain kind of person who makes decisions of certain kinds. Also, can we really ignore science and what it tells us about how we work, including our brains? If you have a brain disease, you don't go to an existentionalist.

One argument in favour of Libertarianism concerns gaps in causation. There is at least one gap in the causal chain - at the very beginning. If one, why not lots? Is the notion of uncaused events really so absurd? If not, why not free will?

Compatibilism is the other alternative to Hard Determinism. It is also known as Soft Determinism because it does not try to deny that our decisions are caused, but it claims that determinism and free will are compatible, they can co-exist. The basic idea is that for an action to be my action it has to have been caused by my desires or volitions. It is free in so far as it wasn't caused by anything outside me - I was not physically forced or constrained by another person or an outside force. I could have acted differently if my desires had been different, but they were my desires and so the action was my action, the result of my decision. My free choice, albeit one constrained by my desires, which were, of course, themselves connected to the causal chain. This accords with out common-sense notion of choice, and with our ideas about morality and moral responsibility. I must take responsible for the actions that were caused by my desires.

Problem is, what counts as constraint? Is being constrained by my desires, caused perhaps by factors of which I am unaware, really compatible with freedom? My actions derive from my desires which derive from my character which derives from my genes and upbringing, etc. Is that really freedom? It still doesn't really explain our choices - "explain" in the sense not of "accounting for" but in the sense of "justifying". We want rational explanations, not causal ones, based on our thinking not our bodily processes. A rational explanation would provide the right kind of constraint. We would do the same thing again because we would make the same rational choice again because it was the right choice in the first place. Being a rational person means not being wobbly in our decision-making, but also being free to make bad decisions too.

So it is not clear than Compatibilism gives us what we really want. We want a theory that can account for our sense that we can rationally over-ride our desires, etc. Harry Frankfurt has proposed a theory according to which our basic "first-order" desires (eg for a cigarette) can be controlled by our "second-order" desires (not to want to want a cigarette) - by our desires about our desires. We do not have to be wanton and give in to every passing whim. We can resist the doughnut! Frankfurt says this is what free will is. This is what you are: the controlling, censoring mechanism. This theory explains why you are willing to accept a degree of pain and boredom (revison?) in order to gratify your longer term higher-order desires and purposes. We can train ourselves to ignore desires that don't fit in with our higher order desires.

Trouble is, what makes these second-order desires more you than the first-order ones? Where do they come from? Are they not just as caused (genetics, culture) as the others? The theory makes it still a matter of luck whether you can resist temptation or not. It doesn't seem to help that much with the question of moral responsibility. If someone has limited second-order control over his or her basic desires, can s/he be blamed when s/he (dangerously) gratifies them? May be the theory helps to explain our psychology a little, but it doesn't solve the philosophical issues.

So, what are you? As a human - a machine or a person with autonomy, freedom? As a philosopher - a Hard Determinist, a Libertarian or a wishy-washy Soft Determinist? Me, I'm a marshmallow.