Libertarianism and a Counterfactual Account of Freedom

POLYMATH: AN INTERDISCIPLINARY ARTS AND SCIENCES JOURNAL Libertarianism and a Counterfactual Account of Freedom Felipe Pereira Seton Hall University The question of free will frequently consists of a debate between two views: Hard Determinism and Libertarianism. Science often promotes the first. Yet, first-hand experience seems to support the latter. The impulse to rely blindly on the authority of some voices in the scientific community and reject Libertarianism, however, is a mistake. Despite its appeal, Hard Determinism relies on problematic assumptions about cause-effect relations, which provide reason to believe that its counterpart, Libertarianism, is a plausible, defensible account of free will—or so will I argue. With that aim, this paper will be divided into three sections. Section one will present the thesis of Hard Determinism. Section two will present, in contrast, the thesis of Libertarianism. And section three will describe how a counterfactual account of causation undermines Hard Determinism and provides support for the Libertarian thesis. Hard Determinism We ought first to define Hard Determinism. Hard Determinism is the view that laws of nature determine human behavior and that there is no free will.1 Still, for the sake of clarity, it may be worthwhile to break down this definition into its three comprising parts: deterministic laws of nature, human behavior, and free will. The first part alludes to the conceptual context in which modern Hard Determinism took shape—the context of Newtonian mechanistic physics: In Newton’s universe, space and time establish the stage, and everything else takes place in an orderly, explainable fashion. The “everything else” boils down to two things, matter and force . Matter is composed of material particles that are always the same in mass and shape. Masses affect one another by means of forces. The primary force operating is gravity, and the resulting 1. See John W. Carroll and Ned Markosian, An Introduction to Metaphysics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010). 51-53. 30 PEREIRA “LIBERTARIANISM” motion takes place in absolute space over absolute time. All of this process is governed, of course, by set natural laws . All motion in the universe, no matter where it takes place, conforms to identifiable laws of nature.2 Nature, in this scheme, would work much like a game of billiards: the movement of ball x is determined by the force and direction established by the push of a cue stick. Not only is the trajectory of ball x determined by this push of the cue stick, but also the trajectory of any billiard ball y that x may hit. The trajectory of a billiard ball z too is determined by the same initial push provided that y hit z as consequence of being hit by x. The behavior of these billiard balls are determined as such, a Newtonian would argue, simply because that is how gravity and the laws of motion work. Following this analogy, any given object in nature is “pushed” in space by external forces and matter in a fixed, established, determined way, in line with a set of natural laws. It is, then, fair to say that natural laws determine the future behavior of objects in nature. That is, natural laws are deterministic. This view is what one might call Natural Determinism. Under the premise of Natural Determinism, objects within nature always have only one, inevitable, physically possible behavior, even if it appears to us they might have many. If you throw a coin in the air, you may think there are two physically possible future behaviors for the coin: either it will land heads, or it will land tails. The natural determinist says that this is a mistake, for the current, actual condition of an object within nature exhausts the physically possible future conditions of said object to a single, inevitable future condition.3 Thus, the coin is bound to land in a given way. We simply do not know which one. Now, consider the second part of our definition of Hard Determinism (i.e., human behavior). One is likely to agree that humans are also part of nature—let us, for the moment, take this belief for granted. If this is the case, human behavior, just as the behavior of any given object in nature, is nothing but an effect determined by its prior conditions; it is always limited to one, inevitable physical possibility. To illustrate this view, take, as an example, a simple scenario. I go to the supermarket. I find myself by the dairy products section, where I take a moment to consider whether I should or should not buy some yogurt. I do 2. See Thomas I. White, Discovering Philosophy, 2nd ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2008), 344-47. 3. See T. J. Mawson, Free Will: A Guide for the Perplexed (London: Continuum, 2011), 12. 31 POLYMATH: AN INTERDISCIPLINARY ARTS AND SCIENCES JOURNAL not have much money, but I really enjoy yogurt. After some deliberation, I choose to buy the yogurt. According to the hard determinist, my buying of the yogurt is an inevitable consequence of a long causal chain. Since the very beginning (whatever that means), all atoms in my body, all electric charges, neurons, muscles, and hormones, all elements that constitute the universe around me, have interacted in such a way that led me to this moment. Everything that exists and has ever existed would have been part of a deterministic chain of causation that culminated in my inevitable “choosing” to buy yogurt. The possibility of me not buying yogurt, the hard determinist might say, would never have been a physical possibility, for I was predetermined by my prior conditions and the workings of the laws of nature to buy that yogurt, whether I knew that or not. Consider, then, the third notion from our definition of Hard Determinism (i.e., free will). Let us define free will as the capacity to do otherwise. Put differently, free will is the capacity to will into existence one out of two or more physical possibilities. If this is the case, and our assessment of deterministic laws of nature and human behavior is true, then no such thing as free will exists. Here, the argument sustaining Hard Determinism takes full shape: P1: Nature is governed by deterministic laws. P2: Human behavior is part of nature. C1: Therefore, human behavior is governed by deterministic laws. P3: If human behavior is governed by deterministic laws, then there is no free will. C2: Therefore, there is no free will. Libertarianism This second conclusion of Hard Determinism seems to directly contradict our general experience of reality. It appears to all—and I assume this a common belief—that we do possess the capacity to choose freely, to will a behavior out of many possibilities into existence. This belief, in fact, is the basis of Libertarianism. In contrast to Hard Determinism, Libertarianism is the view that there are some actions that are not caused by physical events, but instead are caused by agents, and that there is free will.4 In other words, while there are some behaviors (e.g., 4. See Carroll and Markosian, An Introduction to Metaphysics, 69-71. 32 PEREIRA “LIBERTARIANISM” muscular reflexes) we cannot control, most versions of Libertarianism postulate the existence of an immaterial substance that wills one’s decisions, one’s conscious, voluntary behavior, into existence unaffected by the laws of nature. This substance is called the “agent,” or what we usually call the “I.” Since on this view some instances of human behavior are not part of nature in the sense of being part of the outcome of a deterministic chain of causation dictated by the laws of nature, Libertarians reject P2 and thus deem the hard determinist’s argument unsound. Let us, then, flesh out this view. When I chose to buy the yogurt, I stretched my arm to grab it from the shelf. I moved my hand because a brain event sent a signal to my muscles telling them to move in the relevant way. Now, the Libertarian might say that this brain event could have been caused by a previous event, but not necessarily so. Instead, it might have been caused by an agent. An agent might have either initiated or interfered with the causal chain of events that led to my stretching my arm and moving my hand in order to grab a yogurt from the shelf. Here is what this means. Perhaps, had I done nothing about it, just passively letting the causal chain of events unfold, I might in fact have necessarily bought the yogurt. But that was not the case. At the moment of deliberation, when I considered whether I should or should not buy that yogurt, I “overrode” the chain of events, so to speak. I, the agent, being outside this chain, interrupted it and found myself capable of initiating a new causal chain: either a chain of events qualitatively identical to the one that would have taken place had the agent not interfered with it, or a chain of events that moves astray from it. In other words, the case was that the totality of events, of my past experiences and conditions, was not the cause that brought about my buying the yogurt; I was the cause: I superadded to all of this causal commerce, to all of this event causation, at the moment of choice.5 A Counterfactual Account of Freedom The Libertarian analysis of human behavior is, I believe, a plausible response to Hard Determinism. There may be several points of contention to the argument promoted by Hard Determinism that might incline someone towards Libertarianism.

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