Determinism and Character

DETERMINISM AND CHARACTER IDavid Gallop "She can't help herself, I'm afraid. It's her character, you see." Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment, Part I, chap. n. People who are impressed by the discoveries of the natural and social sciences are sometimes inclined to think that all human actions, like other events in nature, are inexorably determined. For these discoveries suggest to them that personality is wholly determined by factors of heredity, physique or environment; and therefore that particular actions, since they are in turn only the expressions of personality or character, must likewise be completely determined. The consequences for morality are well known and paradoxical. A man's faults and assets lie not in himself, but in his glands or his school teachers. As there is not much he can do about those things, why should he be commended for his achievements or blamed for his misdeeds? With the starting point of this argument, the contention that character is wholly determined by factors of these types, the present discussion is not concerned. Let it be assumed that character is determined by these or by factors of any other kind that may prove to be relevant. Does this impugu the notion of a free action, hence the moral commendation or criticism of any action whatever? What truth is there in the thesis that all a man's actions must needs express his character, the thesis of "character determinism," whose lapidary formulation is Heracleitus ' ethos anthropo(i) daimon? At first sight it would seem absurd to take this literally. Not all actions could be the expression of character. For much of our less interesting behaviour, such as the cleaning of teeth or the tying of shoelaces , is not readily ascribable to any recoguized character traits at all. In this respect it differs from the behaviour of fictional characters, DETERMINISM AND CHARACTER 153 whose creators tend to "select" from their imagined lives only those actions that can be seen as typifying the character they wish to depict.' Anyone who asserts, therefore, that each particular action of our daily lives is determined by our characters, might reasonably be asked to specify the character trait of which each particular action is the expression . In reply he conld, of course, always posit ad hoc propensities for explaining every piece of conduct. He could say, for example, that each act of teeth-cleaning manifested a virtus dentiiriciosa. In this way he could always save the thesis of character determinism, but only at the cost of turning it into a tautology. Alternatively he could refuse to regard these uninteresting pieces of behaviour as "real actions" at all. But if so, we might ask him how those "real actions" that are (on his view) determined by character should be defined. Moreover, people sometimes act out of character. Once again, it could always be insisted that an abnormal piece of conduct was the expression of some special ad hoc character trait. In practice, however, no need for such hypotheses is felt. If we want to explain a man's departure from his usual mode of behaviour, we look for special circumstances attending the exception. For example, quarrelsome behaviour on the part of a normally good-tempered man might be put down to extreme fatigue. But these objections will leave the determinist unmoved. For, he will say, the area that they leave open for the exercise of free will is quite unimportant. Teeth-cleaning and shoe-lace tying are not the kinds of thing that we ordinarily want to commend or censure. As for actions out of character, they are usually felt to be less commendable or less blameworthy just because they are explainable by special circumstances. We make more allowances for the lapses of a good-tempered man who is not himself than for the rudeness of an irritable one who is. Evidence of good character commonly supports a plea in mitigation of an offence. It is, in fact, just in the case of trivial or untypical actions that we feel least need of the moral concepts to the use of which determinism is a challenge. Therefore it is not much good invoking these cases in order to "make...