Freewill and Determinism Plato Sartre Socrates Stace Richard Taylor William James John Hospers

Free Will and Determinism

What is free will, according to philosophic interpretations? What is determinism -- and how is it different from free will? What do philosophers say about free will and determinism? These questions will be answered in this paper, along with issues that dovetail and provide additional clarification and understanding.

Trinity University's C. Mackenzie Brown, professor of religion, explains one definition: an action is "free" if and only if it's cause is internal to the agent, not external. But, Brown argues, a sneeze has an internal cause, but it's not a free action. So perhaps an action is free only it if is caused by the agent's beliefs and desires" (Brown, 2001). As for determinism: "everything has a sufficient cause," he succinctly states; and a "sufficient cause" is one which is sufficient to ensure that the event in question will indeed take place.

Jean Paul Sartre believed that there is "an internal relation existing between what is free and what is transcended by freedom and is not free" (Cox, 2006, p. 64). His quote here requires some deep thought: "Human reality is a perpetual surpassing towards a coincidence with itself which is never given" (Cox, 64). What does that mean? His reasoning is based on his belief that to be free will, it has to be "for-itself" and not "in-itself"; that is, each person's free will is part of a person being "towards the future," Cox explains. "Man is, before all else, something which propels itself towards a future and is aware that it is doing so" (Existentialism and Humanism, Sartre, p. 28) (quoted by Cox, 64). According to Matthew Eshleman's essay, Sartre believed because freedom has such an "unlimited nature" it is impossible to "judge individual agents or groups to be more or less free than any other (Eshleman, 2010, p. 43). So if it's impossible to know who is living by free will and who isn't -- because of the "unlimited nature of freedom," how does Sartre justify his belief that "…humans generally believe themselves to be much less free than they really are"? (Eshleman, 43). Later in his work Sartre abandoned "all claims to the unlimited nature of freedom," Eshleman writes. Clearly, confusion can arise when trying to decipher Sartre's views.

Walter Terence Stace makes an argument that free will and determinism are "compatible positions," according to Dr. Ned Beach, philosophy instructor at the University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire. Stace believes free will "in a weak sense" is consistent with determinism. What is a "weak sense"? Beach references Stace's example: if Gandhi went on a hunger strike for ethical reasons, the typical way to describe it is that he did that of free will (using the weak sense of "freedom"). At the same time, Stace would probably admit that Gandhi's act was not really "free" in the "strong sense" because there were internal causes to the strike (Gandhi's "…habits, tendencies…" and political motivations) (Beach, 2007, pp. 2-3). In his book Religion and the Modern Mind, Stace writes:

"…If there is no free will there can be no morality. Morality is concerned with what men ought and ought not to do" (Stace, 1980, 413). As to determinism, he writes, "If human actions and volitions were uncaused, it would be useless either to punish or reward… for nothing that you could do would in any way influence them. Thus moral responsibility would entirely disappear… [and] if there were no determinism of human beings at all, their actions would be completely unpredictable and capricious, and therefore irresponsible" (Stace, p. 418).

Richard Taylor doesn't accept "compatibilism" (that free will and determinism are compatible) because accepting that "only camouflages the problem of free will" and pushes the "puzzle" one step backwards, Beach explains. If an action is "free," in the weak sense, any drug addict, zombie, or idiot could then be "free"; moreover, determinism for Taylor is a metaphysical concept and can't be understood as "cause" or "effect" and is "an emergent phenomenon, so mysterious in its inner workings" that humans cannot "grasp it" (Beach, p. 4).

Plato's view of free will: true freedom is not necessarily being free "…to do whatever is wanted" because that "would only lead to slavery" (Campos, 2010). The first step that leads toward freedom is "having control over the senses and by electing the mind as the ruler of one's life… [and it is not possible] to talk about freedom until body and mind are under control," Campos explains (based on The Republic). Individuals can't be free with their human instincts dictate what they will do and when their emotions take over and make the decision for the person as to whether he or she is happy or miserable (Campos, p. 1).

Plato makes a big deal out of people having control over their own senses and mind because "…allowing them to do whatever they want when they are not virtuous enough to know the difference between good and evil, is a worse form of slavery, for these people will become slaves of their own body and instincts" (Campos, p. 2).