(Article
originally published in 2005 Journal of Consciousness Studies 12(1) 1-19,
with commentaries at 20-75:
journal web page: http://www.imprint.co.uk/jcs.html)
DAVID HODGSON
In my experience, plain persons (here meaning persons
who are neither philosophers or cognitive scientists) tend to accept something
like a libertarian position on free will, namely that free will exists and is
inconsistent with determinism. That
position is widely debunked by philosophers and cognitive scientists. My view at present is that something like
this plain person’s position is not only defensible but is likely to be closer
to the truth than opposing views. To
put this to the test, I have written a simple and straightforward outline of
what I hope is a philosophically and scientifically respectable version of the
plain person’s position on free will, and have offered it for demolition by
those who say such a view is untenable.
My account of free will is a robust
one, explicitly inconsistent with determinism and intended to support equally
robust views of personal responsibility for conduct. I see three broad areas of difficulty for this account.
(1) The randomness problem: how can there be an intelligible and
plausible alternative to determinism that is not mere randomness? Cf. Smart (1961).
(2) The moral luck problem: we are products of genes and environment, so
how can the way we are at any time and therefore the way we act be other than
due to things outside our control, that is, be other than just a matter of
luck? Cf. Strawson (1986, 1998, 2002).
(3) The supernaturalism problem: science has given us a successful and
comprehensive naturalistic account of how the world works, so is it not
unreasonable to propose that human beings are somehow outside this account and
outside the causal order apparently demonstrated by this account?
I address
these difficulties in this article.
I will proceed by asserting and explaining nine
propositions. I see the first five as
basic requirements for any intelligible account of indeterministic free will;
while the remainder are further explanations and elaborations of my own
particular account of free will and responsibility. All these propositions have some relevance to each of the three
problems I have identified; but propositions 3 to 5 are particularly relevant
to the randomness problem, propositions 5 and 7 to 9 are particularly relevant
to the moral luck problem, and propositions 5 and 6 are particularly relevant
to the supernaturalism problem.
1. The alternatives
requirement: there is a pre-choice
state such that the way the world is and the laws of nature leave open at least
two post-choice states.
This is a minimum requirement for
indeterministic free will. There must
be a time before an exercise of free will by the doing of an action (or the
making of some other choice or decision) when the action (or result of the
choice or decision) is not uniquely pre-determined by the way the world then is
and the laws of nature. There must be alternatives
available: they may be the alternatives
of two actions such as pushing button A and pushing button B; or of doing
something and not doing it; or of shaping an action in one way and shaping it
in another way. I say that the
alternatives may also be the alternatives of making one judgment as to what to
believe and making a different judgment, because I say that free will is
exercised in making decisions or appraisals of this kind as well as in doing
actions.
This requirement is intelligible, and
is not implausible having regard to what quantum mechanics (QM) tells us about
the world. Of course, there is the
difficulty that, according to QM, any indeterminism is mere randomness, and I
will return to this. And there is also
the difficulty that QM indeterminism may be at scales of mass, distance and
time such that it cannot account for macroscopic alternatives like doing or not
doing an act, or deciding a question one way or another.
This second difficulty does not affect
intelligibility, and the degree to which it affects plausibility is a matter of
controversy: I will not consider it in
detail here. However, there are
plausible suggestions as to how QM indeterminacy and indeterminism (perhaps
together with chaos theory) could give rise to macroscopic alternatives: see Stapp (1998), Penrose (1994), Eccles
(1994), and Jibu and Yasue (1995).
It is not part of this requirement that
the alternatives be equally open, or that there be a sudden jump from a single
pre-choice state to a single post-choice state. In some or even all cases, there could be a period of transition
in which the likelihood of all but one possibility is progressively reduced to
zero; and there may sometimes be extended processes of decision-making in which
the likelihood of the various possibilities fluctuates significantly: see Hodgson (1999).
2. The consciousness
requirement: the transition from the
pre-choice state to a single post-choice state is a conscious process,
involving the interdependent existence of a subject and contents of
consciousness.
This associates the exercise of free
will with consciousness, and adopts a view of consciousness as involving
the interdependent existence of a self or subject and contents of consciousness
(cf. Honderich 1987), with the subject taken as continuing as the same subject
throughout the process of transition from the pre-choice state to the
post-choice state. I will later argue
that the subject in fact continues longer than this; but I do not contend, and
my account does not require, that it be a ‘substance’ distinct from the brain
processes that support it, much less an immortal soul. My account is rather a dual-aspect account
of physical processes and conscious processes, with the subject being
considered as the bearer or experiencer of the contents of consciousness.
The contents of consciousness may be
generally described as experiences, but should not be considered as
limited to passive contents: it is
essential to an account of free will that subjects be considered as capable of
being active, and this activity must presumably be reflected in the
contents of consciousness. Again, this
is intelligible and plausible: indeed,
it is widely accepted that voluntary behaviour is active conscious behaviour.
However,
some have argued that experiments by Benjamin Libet (Libet et al 1983) demonstrate
that the real decisions are made pre-consciously, so that conscious free will
can be no more than an illusion. In
these experiments, participants were asked to press a button at any time they
wished and to note the time of deciding to do so; and neural preparations for
the action were recorded as occurring some tens of seconds before the time
noted by the participants as the time of deciding to push the button. But it should be recognised that these experiments
are applicable only to one kind of choice, namely that between doing and not
doing an action; and even in relation to that kind of choice, show no more than
that unconscious preparation is required before a person has immediately
available the alternatives of consciously doing or not doing an action; and
that is neither surprising nor inconsistent with conscious free will.
In specifying this requirement, I am not suggesting
that all our motivation is conscious:
plainly this is not the case.
Nor am I suggesting that consciousness is other than a matter of
degree: I am content to adopt the
‘dimmer-switch’ view of consciousness advocated by Susan Greenfield (1999).
And I do not think I am
succumbing to the myth of the homunculus in the Cartesian theatre (Dennett
1991, Part II). Daniel Dennett
convincingly refutes the idea that there is a central headquarters in the brain
where consciousness occurs; but my proposition does suppose that there is. I accept that the physical processes that
correlate with conscious mental processes occur over spatially extended regions
of the brain, but this by no means precludes the existence or causal efficacy
of conscious processes involving the interdependent existence of a subject and
contents of consciousness. In so far as
Dennett’s rejection of the Cartesian theatre suggests the contrary, this
depends on an assumption that causation must be local, as required by classical
relativistic physics, an assumption which has been decisively undermined by QM
(see Hodgson 1996, 2002a).
3. The grasping
requirement: in this conscious
transition process, the subject grasps the availability of alternatives and
knows-how to select one of them.
Again, this is a minimum
requirement for free will. For example,
if the choice between doing or refraining from doing an action is to be
considered an exercise of free will, the subject must to some minimum extent
grasp the possibility of either doing an action or not doing it, and must
know-how to do the action and also know-how to refrain from doing it. This again is intelligible and plausible.
Once we have learnt to
control our bodily movements, we are during consciousness generally aware that
we can make various movements or not make them, and we know-how to make them or
not make them. This requirement accords
with the Libet experiments mentioned above, namely that there must in general
be non-conscious preparation before the choice process starts: it is plausible that there could not be
conscious grasping of available alternatives unless this has been made possible
by some preparation that must be largely unconscious.
In previous writings I have
suggested that free will can also be exercised in the shaping of bodily
movements, as distinct from their initiation.
For example, when a pianist performs a well-learnt piece of music,
consciousness comes too late to direct fingers the right keys, but not too late
to make choices in the shaping of musical passages. In such a case, I suggest, the pianist grasps the possibility of
shaping the music in a particular way, and also is at least faintly aware of
the possibility of shaping it in another way or else not consciously shaping it
at all, and knows-how to select either alternative; and thereby can respond
consciously, and I would say freely, to sounds heard and emotions felt. This is part of the reason for the intense
concentration that musicians report to be a requirement for their
performances.
In those cases where we are
faced with a choice or decision to be made between two or more
explicitly-presented alternatives, whether they be alternative actions or
alternative beliefs or appraisals, this requirement will plainly be satisfied.
4. The reasons
requirement: in significant exercises
of free will, the subject experiences reasons on which a selection can be
based, reasons that are non-conclusive and thus can influence but not dictate
the selection.
I suggest that in
significant choices we are consciously aware of experiences, thoughts
(including thoughts in which we attend to beliefs), and/or feelings,
that provide reasons, generally inconclusive and often conflicting, for
one or more of the available alternatives.
As mentioned earlier, I do not suggest that all our motivation is
consciously experienced, much less that it is all consciously understood by
us: plainly, much of our motivation is
unconscious, and even the reasons of which we are conscious have a basis in
extensive non-conscious processing.
However, we do become consciously aware of feelings like pain or hunger,
and of ‘somatic markers’ (to use a phrase from Damasio 1996) associated with
different alternatives, and also of beliefs and experiences relevant to our
choices; and it seems that we are motivated by these feelings, beliefs and
experiences.
It is plain that such
feelings and other reasons are of diverse kinds, generally not measurable, and
generally incommensurable. There is,
for example, no common scale on which hunger for food can be measured against a
feeling of obligation to carry out a promised task. That is one reason why it is a mistake to suggest that we act
according to the preponderance of our desires:
desires are not like forces in Newtonian physics that are commensurable
and so can be combined to produce a resultant force. In general, the reasons experienced by a subject and relevant to
a decision to be made by the subject do not dictate a conclusion. As I put it in Hodgson (1999), the reasons
do not include a clincher; and as John Searle put it in Searle (2001),
there is a gap between the reasons and the conclusion. The only clincher is the choice itself.
I cannot exclude the
possibility that a choice between apparently incommensurable reasons is in fact
wholly determined by unconscious processes, which are identical with physical
processes that are in turn determined by measurable and commensurable physical
properties and laws of nature; but the existence of that possibility does not
justify disregard of this alternative account I am giving, or show that it is
not intelligible and plausible.
5. The selection
requirement: the subject makes an
effective non-random selection between the available alternatives, based on
these non-conclusive reasons, albeit not determined by rules or laws of nature.
This is a vital
proposition, one that is necessary to overcome the alleged dichotomy of determinism
and randomness. It is a proposition
which I’ve been advocating since 1991, following ideas of Nozick (1981) and
Putnam (1983) (see for example Hodgson 1991 Ch. 5, and particularly Hodgson
1999), but which is still generally overlooked. If it is true, it is of enormous significance, inter alia in that
it would show how different human beings are from computing machines as
presently understood, no matter how powerful such machines may be or
become. The contrary position, that
what is not wholly determined by initial conditions plus laws or rules must be
random, is widely assumed but rarely examined.
It is considered with some care in Strawson (1986), but my opposing
arguments remain unanswered.
It is convenient to
consider first those exercises of free will involved in deciding between
competing hypotheses or appraisals on the basis of inconclusive evidence. What is often overlooked is that, apart from
rules of reasoning such as those of mathematics, logic, and probability theory,
there are no known rules (that is, strict rules as distinct from non-conclusive
heuristics) governing good plausible reasoning. Of course, it is possible that plausible reasoning proceeds in
accordance with evolution-selected computation-like procedures that we do not
understand, and undoubtedly this is part of the story (I would say, that part
concerning the determination of alternatives, reasons and tendencies); but
there are powerful arguments for thinking that it is not the whole story, and
that there is an element of judgment in plausible reasoning that is not
accounted for by strict rules of any kind.
These arguments include the following:
(1) If choices were in fact determined by algorithms,
such as evolution-selected computation-like procedures, which as algorithms
need no help from conscious judgment and could indeed be hindered by conscious
interference, there could be no plausible explanation of why evolution selected
in favour of brains that, at considerable expense in terms of complexity and
energy-use, support conscious processes.
(2) In particular, there could in that event be no
plausible explanation (a) of why we have feelings like pain to motivate
us, when it would be absurd (even if possible) to use pain or any other
feelings to motivate a computer to proceed in accordance with its program; or
(b) of why are we so constituted that our conscious awareness is automatically
called into play when we are faced with a novel situation calling for decisive
action.
(3) Our rationality is well adapted to dealing with problems
remote from the evolutionary tests that faced our evolutionary ancestors, and
this makes it unlikely that it is no more than a matter of useful algorithmic
processes selected through those tests:
see Nagle (1986, p. 79).
(4) If we cannot rely on our plausible reasoning as
the conscious non-algorithmic process that we instinctively take it to be, then
any confidence that we could have in it would have to depend on the
circumstance that it comprises computation-like processes whose reliability is assured
by the evolutionary tests they have passed; yet any belief in this circumstance
and accordingly any justified confidence would itself depend on extensive
plausible reasoning, giving rise to a vicious circle: cf. Plantinga (1993, Ch. 12), Nagel (1997, Ch. 7).
(5) When we are conscious, our brain processes give
rise to qualia (experiences or potential experiences) of various types
and chunk them into unique particular global experiences of
particular subjects: these are what I
have called two tricks of consciousness, the qualia trick and the chunking
trick (Hodgson 2002b). If a particular
subject/experience combination produced by these tricks is to have a causal
role in what happens, otherwise than through its general properties
whose existence does not require this combination of tricks, then, because of
the uniqueness and particularity of the subject/experience, this role cannot be
one determined by generally applicable rules or laws of nature. Yet it seems clear that a particular gestalt
or global experience, for example an experience of a unique and unprecedented
work of art like Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon by the artist when
he created it or an early appraiser of the work, does have a role in aesthetic
judgments, a role that is part of rational appraisal yet which cannot be
rule-governed because there can be no general rules that engage with a
particular subject’s particular global experience of a unique unprecedented
object (see Hodgson 2001, 2002b).1
This
fifth argument applies to judgments as to what to believe as well as to
aesthetic appraisals. In deciding what
to believe on the basis of uncertain evidence, we seem to take into account our
assessments of whole particular gestalt experiences; yet these experiences
cannot, as unique and particular wholes, engage with general rules. For example, in deciding whether an
experience is an accurate experience of some aspect of the world or is some
kind of illusion or otherwise inaccurate, we take into account the particular
global experience, and have regard to its clarity, immediacy, vividness,
internal coherence, coherence with accepted beliefs, relevant similarities to
experiences accepted as real, and so on.
In such cases, I suggest, the outcome is not completely determined by
the pre-choice state plus rules or laws of nature, but by a process that
depends in part on a particular subject’s non-algorithmic response to a whole
particular experience. It is not
reasonable to think that the outcome in such cases is either merely random or
the result of some unique constraint that engages with the unique pre-choice
state and no other: it is more
plausible to think that it is the result of an indeterministic but non-random
selection.
Roger
Penrose (1994) has argued strongly for the view that human intelligence
involves understanding of a kind that computers lack. My contention is that our access to and
ability to use particular global experiences in a way that rules cannot
determine is an important part of what is required for this understanding.
Similar arguments apply
also to decisions about what to do, as well as about what to believe. What I suggest is that the ability of a
conscious subject to take into account whole particular gestalt experiences, and
to act upon judgments based on inconclusive reasons, has been selected by
evolution just because it is more conducive to actions favourable to survival
and reproduction than are purely algorithmic processes.
All
this is confirmed by the powerful and ineradicable feeling we have that we are
consciously making choices and making things happen by doing them. Suggestions, such as that by Crick (1994, p.
266), to the effect that we have this feeling just because we are not aware of
the unconscious processes that are actually efficacious, provide no reason why
any feeling of choosing or doing would be involved if this were the case. It would be as if I simply became aware of a
thought and a movement of my body in accordance with that thought, without
actually making a choice or doing an action. If this happened, surely I would not have
any feeling of choosing or doing:
rather, I would be puzzled by such an occurrence, in the same sort of
way that the talking hemisphere of a split brain patient is puzzled by bodily
movements initiated by the non-talking hemisphere
This
fifth proposition is probably the most crucial and difficult of my nine
propositions. It is difficult, because
we are so accustomed to looking for reductionist explanations, in particular explanations
in terms of law-governed processes, and because in all fields apart from those
involving questions about consciousness, reductionist explanations have been
spectacularly successful. But while
acceptance of this fifth proposition may go against the grain, I would argue
that nothing is more familiar to us than our non-algorithmic plausible
reasoning, which we can understand, to some extent at least, without making the
reductionist assumption that it is no more than a small part of a wholly algorithmic
iceberg that somehow gives rise to the misleading illusion that the processes
of its conscious tip are rational but non-algorithmic.
Indeed, unless and until
there were to be some other explanation of why we have conscious experiences
and of what is their causal role, and also a satisfactory account of plausible
reasoning in terms of algorithms, an account that altogether dispenses with
judgments based on feelings and particular gestalts, I believe acceptance of
this fifth proposition is more reasonable than its rejection.
Before leaving this
proposition, I should note one significant attempt to give an evolutionary
explanation of conscious experiences and their causal role, notwithstanding an
assumption that they are constituted by and/or wholly depend upon computational
algorithms carried out by our brains (see for example Dennett 2003). This is to the effect that there have been
evolutionary advantages for human beings and their close evolutionary ancestors
in being able to monitor and communicate some of their own mental
processes. Because these processes are
too complex at the level of the computational algorithms (or any more basic
level) to be grasped for monitoring or communication, evolutionary selection
has developed brains able to produce simplified ‘user-friendly’ accounts of
these processes, in terms of the existence of an integrated conscious subject
or self that has conscious experiences, has goals and purposes, and chooses
between available alternatives. These
accounts are not exactly false, on this approach, because at the level at which
our brains can grasp their own processes for monitoring and communication, they
give about the best available approximation to the truth; but they are not
exactly true either, in that they tend to suggest that the brain’s processes
are other than the working out of computational algorithms, and to that extent
they are false or at least misleading.
To anyone who strongly
adheres to the view that our mental processes must be algorithmic, this
approach may seem attractive. However,
I think it has far too high a cost. A
person’s agonising pain would be treated as an account of the person’s complex
of dispositions to act in certain ways, produced by the person’s brain and
thereby enabling the person to monitor and communicate relevant brain
processes: it would have no other
causal role, and in particular no efficacy in contributing to conduct by virtue
of its subjective feel. Such a pain
would be ‘felt’ no less by a Turing machine carrying out the same algorithms
and thus producing the same account; whereas the brains of animals that do not
monitor and/or communicate their mental processes would not produce such
accounts, so that presumably those animals would not ‘feel’ pain even in this
sense. I think pain has a reality, both
as a feeling and as a motivator, that this approach denies; and I strongly
disagree with the view (going back to Descartes) that no non-human animals feel
any pain.
6.
Naturalism: there is nothing
supernatural and no violation of physical law involved in such selections.
A standard complaint about
libertarianism is that it introduces a supernatural element in order to account
for ‘contra-causal freedom’, and that it involves violation of physical
law. However, as mentioned earlier, QM
and chaos theory make it possible for there to be macroscopic alternatives for
selection, and QM shows that causation can operate non-locally so that
spatially extended conscious processes could be globally efficacious.
Even when these points are
accepted, it is still argued that, unless in every case one of the alternatives
that are possible according to QM occurs at random within the probability
parameters established by the laws of QM, then physical law would be violated,
in the sense that the statistical predictions of QM would be falsified. However, it is reasonable to think that the
felt strength of reasons has some relationship to QM probabilities, so that
selections are likely to approximate to QM statistics; and having regard to the
uniqueness and complexity of pre-choice states, a demonstrated violation of QM
statistical predictions is unlikely in the extreme (see Hodgson 1999).
More importantly, QM has
not yet been applied to conscious systems, and it is an open question how its
statistical predictions apply to such systems.
The qualia trick and the chunking trick give rise to particular
experiences of particular subjects; and if these whole particular experiences
of particular subjects have an irreducible causal role in what happens, then,
because of the uniqueness and particularity of the experiences and subjects,
that causal role cannot be fully accounted for by any system of physical laws
of general application, even those of QM.
Indeed, my suggestion is that the capacity to respond to particular
gestalts, to which rules cannot apply, has been selected by evolution just
because this capacity is conducive to satisfactory choices and in that sense
makes satisfactory choices more likely than they would be if choices occurred
at random in accordance with QM statistics; so that, if it were possible to
calculate them, the statistics of free choices would not be the same as if free
will did not exist. This would not be a
violation of physical law, but a limitation on the law’s applicability.
And this is not
an appeal to the supernatural, but a recognition that the natural is not as
narrow and limited as it is sometimes supposed to be; in particular, that it is
not limited to the mechanistic development of systems in accordance with
physical laws and randomness. I have
previously argued (Hodgson 2001) that laws of nature may be of different kinds,
in particular that there may, in addition to laws that constrain outcomes
(C-laws), be laws that empower systems to direct or select outcomes (E-laws) and
laws that guide systems in such selections (G-laws). I there suggested that E-laws provide systems such as human
beings with both the capacity to make selections and the reasons on the basis
of which selections are made; and that G-laws include moral principles that
affect such selections.
On that approach, exercise
of a capacity to select is not contra-causal, but in accordance with a wider
concept of causation. And I do not
suggest that the capacity to select appeared suddenly in human beings. Rather, I suggest it emerged very gradually
in evolution along with the gradual emergence of consciousness. I believe that even primitive consciousness
involves qualia and chunking, and may also involve the capacity to select. In primitive conscious systems, this might
be exercised in such things as selecting in particular circumstances between
getting food and avoiding predators.
But I would not regard such capacity to select as amounting to free will
unless and until combined with the self-conscious rationality of human beings.
7. Capacity to
select: although differences between
persons affect alternatives, reasons and tendencies, they do not otherwise
affect capacity to select, which is the same for all persons.
It follows from the above that
a person exercising free will does so subject to considerable pre-choice
limitations. The person has no
alternatives apart from those made available by the pre-choice state and
grasped by the person in the process of selection. The person has no reasons apart from those presented by the
pre-choice state, generally based on non-conscious processes; and those same
processes largely determine how the reasons feel and appeal to the person, and
also give rise to tendencies to act in various ways. Another aspect of the pre-choice state, for which the person can
have no responsibility, is that the person has the capacity to make a selection
between the alternatives on the basis of the reasons. But I suggest that nothing in the pre-choice state pre-determines
the result of exercise of that capacity.
The totality of ‘the way a
person is’, prior to the selection being made, is inconclusive as between the
available alternatives: it gives rise
to reasons and tendencies to act in one or other of the ways that are open, but
does not pre-determine the outcome.
Thus the person’s selection is influenced by the reasons and the
tendencies, but not pre-determined by them.
Indeed, it is reasonable to think that ‘the way a person is’, prior to
the selection, does not affect the selection otherwise than through
providing the alternatives, the reasons, the tendencies, and through the
existence and exercise of the capacity to select. Different persons have different characters, and act differently
because of these different characters.
However, I am suggesting that this is because of the differences that
pre-choice states make to alternatives, reasons, and tendencies, not because of
any differences in the persons’ capacity to select. In relation this capacity, each person is entirely the same,
unaffected by differences in pre-choice states, whether due to genes,
environment, prior selections, or all three; and in relation to its exercise,
to the extent that each person can notionally be considered apart from
differences affecting alternatives, reasons and tendencies, each person is
entirely the same.
Thomas Clark (1999, p. 286)
has suggested that this approach makes the choosing subject an abstract entity
devoid of character and motives. The
reverse is the truth. The subject is
the unique totality of all its properties, and it is precisely because this
unique totality together with particular experiences enters into the causal
process that outcomes are not predetermined by constituent properties which it
may share in varying degrees with other entities and with which general laws
can engage.
We
can’t help having capacity to select, and nothing we can do at the time of
selection can make us responsible for our particular characteristics that
affect alternatives, reasons, and tendencies; but our particular
characteristics do not otherwise affect the way we exercise our capacity
to select. We do this by choosing which
alternative occurs, thus providing the clincher; and there is an element (by
which I do not mean a distinct or severable element) of this process
that is entirely up to us, unaffected by any differences between different
persons. And as asserted by the fifth
proposition, this does not mean that the selection, or any part of it, is
random or otherwise not rational.
8. Moral
principles: to greater or lesser
extents, persons grasp moral requirements that should guide selections.
It could be argued that,
even if persons have the capacity to make selections, that does not make it
fair to treat them well or badly because of selections they make, because this
would pre-suppose some objectively valid and binding standards of behaviour,
and an ability in persons generally to know these standards. But I suggest it is intelligible and
plausible to say that there are such standards and that persons can to greater
and lesser extents grasp them. I
mentioned earlier my proposal in Hodgson (2001) for a classification of laws of
nature so as to include G-laws, which guide systems in making selections from
alternatives open to them.
As suggested there, the grasping of G-laws could begin with
the emergence in evolution of conscious systems, having some marginal capacity
and reason to select and bring about one future state of itself, among those
left open by the C-laws, in circumstances where there was fuzziness or conflict
in the disposition or motivation of such a system as to what state should
occur. For example, suppose that such a
system felt, in a primitive way, something like what we would feel as
motivation to minimise the pain of an injury, and also something like what we
would feel as motivation to satisfy hunger; and that it felt it could follow
one feeling or the other, but that following one would preclude following the
other (getting the food would exacerbate the pain). The system, having these conflicting feelings, and feeling itself
motivated by them towards differing future states of itself, both of which were
open to selection by it, could I suggest also feel something like a requirement
to resolve them ‘rightly’, and to bring about one state of itself (that is, to
act) in accordance with that resolution.
This
suggests the most basic G-law, which would to some degree guide and be felt by
even such a primitive conscious system, a law which I call ‘act rightly’:
Act so as
‘rightly’ to resolve fuzziness or conflicts of motivation.
I use ‘rightly’ at this
stage without any moral implications, so that the law here simply means, do
whichever of the conflicting possibilities is apt or fitting or appropriate or ‘to
be done’. I say this law would be felt,
because its guidance would, to some extent at least, take effect through its
influence being felt and acted upon by the system itself. In more complex conscious systems, the basic
G-law could come to separate out into two distinct aspects or sub-laws, which I
call ‘decide rightly’ and ‘carry out’:
Decide what act
would rightly resolve fuzziness or conflicts of motivation; and
Carry out that
decision.
And in such systems,
selections could be assisted by further G-laws and/or by principles associated
with them. In particular, these systems
could feel and apply a G-law, which I call ‘find out’:
Optimise the
reasons (including information and feelings) on the basis of which to act.
In moderately primitive
conscious systems, this could be felt as requiring attention to relevant
information-and-feelings, as delivered by the senses and emotions. In more elaborate conscious systems, it
could be felt as requiring such things as exploration of relevant
information-and-feelings, verification by checking, looking for coherence and
consistency, attending to analogies, and seeking an understanding of issues
facing the system.
In conscious systems without the self-conscious rationality
of human beings, the application of G-laws would not be a matter of morality,
although analogies with human moral issues could be drawn. For example, some conflicts of motivation
could be analogous to human moral conflicts, such as a conflict between an animal’s
motivation to minimise its own pain and its motivation to protect its
offspring; and some actions by animals may display ‘virtues’ of courage and
determination in carrying out decisions as to what act would be ‘right’. However, in systems with self-conscious
rationality, G-laws could have central moral significance. The basic G-law ‘act rightly’, as it applies
to these systems, could be the fundamental moral prescription. Moral laws such as ‘do no harm’, ‘be fair’,
‘be honest’, ‘fulfil commitments’, and ‘do good’ could be further G-laws felt
by these systems. Plainly, these
further moral laws can conflict with each other, and they can also conflict
with a system’s basic motivating feelings.
In such cases, the basic G-law would require the conscious systems to
resolve conflicts rightly, having regard to all relevant G-laws.
Another G-law that a rational self-conscious system could
feel is the following moral law, which I call ‘improve oneself’:
Enhance one’s
own ability to find out, decide rightly, carry out, and do good.
This law would require the
cultivation of virtues associated with the seeking of truth, particularly in so
far as the truth was relevant to one’s own actions; and of virtues associated
with readiness, willingness, and ability to put decisions rightly made into
effect, and also to enlarge one’s opportunities to do good.
Thus, in systems with self-conscious rationality, the
G-laws, which I conjecture are laws of nature that are to some degree felt by
all conscious systems, could come to be felt as being or including a system of
guiding moral laws, which are truly existing features of the universe,
ascertainable, and to be respected by us whether we like it or not. Although such a view is very unfashionable
today in some circles, some such view is required if, for example, an opinion
that it is wrong to torture children for amusement is to be considered a matter
of truth rather than merely something we have been programmed to believe
by evolution and education. And there
is no greater problem with saying that the truth of such moral rules can be
supported by plausible reasoning than, for example, with saying that the truth
of factual inductive conclusions can be supported by plausible reasoning. There could be disagreement as to what it is
that G-laws require in particular circumstances, and as to what, among rules
which people claim to be moral laws, are G-laws or rightly derived from G-laws
and what are merely fallible human inventions; although I don’t think there
would be much room for disagreement about the G-laws I have identified, most or
all of which are I suggest to some extent grasped by all persons of reasonable
mental capacity and sanity.
9. Ultimate
responsibility: accordingly, there is
some ultimate responsibility for selections, and thereby for subsequent pre-choice
states.
On this account, then,
persons generally have alternatives open to them in their conscious behaviour,
and feel reasons for selecting among these alternatives, including reasons
associated with their grasp of moral principles such as those discussed
above. ‘The way a person is’ provides
alternatives, reasons (including the grasp of moral principles), tendencies,
and capacity to select, but does not otherwise influence the selection. Thus I suggest that, in making selections,
persons do have some ultimate responsibility, with degrees of
responsibility affected by how hard it is, by reason of the pre-choice state,
to make the right selection. And I do
accept that these degrees of responsibility may vary widely, so that, for
example, environmental disadvantages such as abuse in childhood may enormously
reduce responsibility and blameworthiness for later conduct.
I earlier suggested that
subjects continue throughout processes of selection; and now I suggest that it
is reasonable to see this continuance as indicative of a more extensive
continuance, throughout longer periods of deliberation on problems, and indeed
throughout a whole integrated life-history that can be regarded as a
progressive and continuous addressing of life’s challenges (Hodgson 1999,
2001). A conscious system comes into
existence at or prior to the birth of a human being and continues as a system
with the same subject, at least until this continuance is interrupted or
terminated by significant brain injury or mental illness, or death. Thus there can be justice in treating a
person differently according to what that person has done in the past, not just
because the person has some ultimate responsibility for what was done, but also
because the person is in a substantial sense the same person both at the
time of the action and at the time of the subsequent treatment.
Furthermore, since prior
selections, for which a subject has some ultimate responsibility, can in turn
affect later pre-choice states of the same subject, the subject has some
ultimate responsibility also for those later pre-choice states and thereby
additional responsibility for what is done at later times.
II THREE QUESTIONS
I will conclude this essay by considering three
questions about the account of free will given in my nine propositions.
1. Does this
account involve agent causation?
One
prominent version of indeterministic free will embraces a distinction between
what is called event causation and what is called agent causation. The former is causation by events or
happenings in the world, which is the causation dealt with by the physical
sciences; and the latter is causation by agents rather than events, which is
the causation supposed to be involved in exercises of free will.
In one
sense my account of free will involves causation by agents, in that I suggest
that a subject or agent persists throughout a process of selection (indeed,
generally throughout a life) and actually makes the selection on the basis of
inconclusive reasons: as I have put it,
in selection the agent provides the clincher that finally determines which
alternative out of those open actually occurs. However, I do not draw a sharp distinction between causation by
events and causation by agents.
For one thing, I do not say
that causal processes not involving subjects or agents must be analysed in
terms of events: analysis in terms of
things or processes or states of affairs may be equally or more appropriate for
certain purposes. I do not think it is
helpful to debate whether the world really is made up of things or
events or processes or states of affairs, or whether causation is really
causation by things or events or processes or states of affairs. There are things and events and processes
and states of affairs, and consideration of questions of causation may involve
any one or more of these categories:
none I suggest needs to be considered as being more basic than the
others.
More importantly, I suggest
that events do have an important role in exercises of free will. Events have a role at least in limiting
available alternatives and in providing reasons and tendencies; and the
selection itself can be regarded as an event.
The causation of the selection might be considered as being partly by
other events and partly by the activity of the conscious subject or agent
exercising its capacity to select; but even that analysis could be misleading,
in that I regard the selection process as a global process, not divisible into
distinct parts. So rather than distinguishing
causation by events and causation by agents, I prefer to distinguish physical
causation, which is that aspect of causation capable of being fully
understood in terms of the operation of laws of nature and randomness, and volitional
causation, in which the conscious activity of a subject or agent makes a
contribution that can’t be fully understood in that way.2
On my account, then, the
nature and degree of responsibility of an agent for the agent’s conduct can be
a matter for rational consideration; whereas on the standard ‘agent causation’
account, causation by agents seems to be mysterious, absolute, and incapable of
further explanation.
2. Does this
account deal with the randomness problem and the moral luck problem?
I mentioned earlier the randomness
problem, the problem of making intelligible an alternative to determinism that
is not mere randomness, and the problem of giving an intelligible answer to the
moral luck argument.
The substantial answer to the
randomness problem is that given in the discussion of the fifth proposition:
but to see if the problem is really answered, it is useful to look at two
elaborations of the problem given by Peter van Inwagen (2002).
In the first, van Inwagen supposes that
God repeats many times a person’s pre-choice state, and that (as required by
libertarianism) on some occasions the decision goes one way and on others it
goes another way. He supposes that, as
the repetitions continue, the statistics of the choices appear consistent with
a certain probability for each decision.
He suggests that free choice is thus indistinguishable from random
occurrences within probability parameters.
But as
stated above, on my account of free will the statistics of many choices would
not necessarily be the same as the statistics suggested by the laws of QM as
applied to the pre-choice state that is repeated in this way, because the QM
statistics would not take into account the subject’s particular gestalt
experiences that are part of the pre-choice state. The subject’s selected response to the particular experiences is,
for evolutionary reasons, more likely to be conducive to survival and
reproduction than random occurrences within QM probability parameters,
In the
second, van Inwagen supposes a choice between upholding public morality and
betraying a friend on the one hand, and keeping silent on the other hand, in
which the pre-choice state gives only just over 0.5 probability of keeping
silent. Van Inwagen asks whether a
person, knowing this probability, could in good conscience promise the friend
to keep silent, when there is over 0.4 probability that the promise will not be
kept.
On my
account of free will, the probability given by the pre-choice state is at best
a QM probability that does not take into account all relevant factors,
including the particular gestalts of the pre-choice state; and in any event,
the person will be able to freely choose what to do when the time comes. Furthermore, plainly the making of the
promise will affect the pre-choice state, presumably making it more likely that
what is promised will be done. But
finally, if a person concluded that, even if the promise were made, he or she
could not be confident of keeping the promise, that would be a strong reason
for saying that the promise could not in good conscience be made. In this respect, libertarianism is in no
worse case than competing views.
Turning
to the moral luck argument, Galen Strawson elaborates on this argument in
Strawson (2002), building on two premisses:
(1) We act as we do because of the way we are.
(2) We cannot be responsible (in the sense of ultimately
responsible, the buck stopping with us) for the way we act unless we are
responsible for the way we are.
And he goes on to argue that we cannot be responsible
for the way we are when we first make decisions in life, so we cannot be
responsible for actions based on those decisions, or for how those decisions
and actions affect the way we are later on; and so on. Thus, we can never become responsible for
the way we are later in life, or responsible for the way we act later in life.
He
suggests that there can be no argument with his first premiss, and, relying
partly on the first premiss, argues powerfully in support of the second
premiss.
What I
say to this is that it is necessary to bring out an ambiguity in the word
‘because’ in first premiss. It could
mean that the way we are plus our circumstances plus the laws of nature
pre-determine the way we act in those circumstances; and if it means that and
is true, then it is hard to argue with the second premiss. However, on my account of free will,
‘because’ in the first premiss means that the way we are plus our circumstances
plus laws of nature provide alternatives, inconclusive reasons, and tendencies,
and also the capacity to select between the alternatives on the basis of the
reasons; and what we do is what we select in exercise of that capacity, the
selection not being influenced by any differentiating features of the way we
are otherwise than through the alternatives, reasons, and
tendencies. If the first premiss is
true on that interpretation of ‘because’, the second premiss is untrue; and the
Strawson argument collapses.3
3. Is this
account believable?
As
noted earlier, there is a question mark over the first proposition in terms of
the availability of macroscopic alternatives.
The fifth proposition is difficult, but in my contention difficult
mainly because of ingrained habits of thought; and for reasons I have given I
believe it is reasonable to accept it at the present time. The eighth proposition is highly
unfashionable; but I think that at least some moral opinions are matters of
fact and truth rather than mere evolutionary artefacts, and thus that it is
reasonable to accept my eighth proposition.
Reductionist science has
had enormous success in accounting for many aspects of the universe, but very
little success in explaining consciousness and its role in the way events
unfold in the world. I think it is
reasonable to believe that consciousness does have an important and irreducible
causal role, and I suggest that something like this version of free will is
required to account for this role.
So all in all, I say my
account is believable, indeed at present more so than any alternative.
FOOTNOTES
1. This argument,
introduced in the first of these two articles and developed in the second of
them, is I think an original and just possibly even an important argument. It is one of very few attempts to give a
positive and non-mysterious account of why and how conscious processes can
contribute to rational decision-making in a way not available to law-governed
machines. I would refer readers to
those articles, particularly the second of them, for a full exposition of this
argument.
2. My view may
be closer to the standard agent-causation view than is that of Robert Kane
(1996), and it may be that Kane does not accept my fifth proposition. I think the criticism of Kane by Dennett
(2003, Ch. 4) in fact, rightly or wrongly, assumes that Kane does not accept
this proposition.
3. In his
recent impressive exposition of a compatibilist view of free will and
responsibility, Dennett (2003) does not refer to Galen Strawson or the moral
luck argument. He does set out a
related argument, along the following lines:
what we do is wholly determined by events in the distant past and laws
of nature; those events and laws are not ‘up to us’; therefore what we do is
not up to us. He claims (pp. 126-36)
that this argument commits the same fallacy as an argument that there couldn’t
be mammals: if there have been any
mammals, there have been only a finite number of them; every mammal has a
mammal for a mother; therefore if there have been any mammals, there have been
an infinite number of them. However,
the fallacy in this argument is that there is an indeterminate boundary between
mammal-like reptiles and reptile-like mammals; and while it may be said that
there is a similar indeterminate boundary between actions in our early lives
that are in no sense ‘up to us’ and actions in our later lives that are in some
sense up to us, this does not deal with Strawson’s premisses (1) and (2) and
thus does not answer Strawson’s moral luck argument. I suggest that something like my propositions 5 and 7 to 9 is
required to answer that argument.
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