Philosophical Inquiries: An Introduction to Problems of Philosophy

Fallacies Regarding Free Will

74 Philosophical controversy regarding the freedom of the will has been astir since the dawn of the subject. The freedom at issue calls for an agent’s being in conscious control of what they do in ways that are at odds with the prospect that their thoughts and intentions could be bypassed in an adequate explanation of their actions. The contradictory position—determinism—holds instead that agent control is an illusion and that the processes of nature settle matters of action without regard to the substance of the agent’s mental operations. Despite the elaborate controversies that have prevailed on this topic over the centuries, several fallacies and flaws of thought have been able to gain a tenacious and seemingly permanent hold on the way in which people address the issues. It is constructive to consider some salient examples. fallacy number one The first fallacy inheres in an idea that Daniel Dennett has articulated as follows: 6 fallacies regarding free Will rescher phil inq text.indd 74 3/1/10 3:15 PM fallacIes reGarDInG free WIll 75 If determinism is true, then our every deed and decision is the inexorable outcome, it seems, of the sum of physical forces acting at the moment; which in turn is the inexorable outcome of the forces acting an instant before, and so on to the beginning of time. . . . [Thus]—If determinism is true, then our acts are the consequences of the laws of nature and events in the remote past. But it is not up to us what went on before we were born, and neither is it up to us what the laws of nature are. Therefore the consequences of these things (including our present acts) are not up to us.1 It is exactly in this transit from “and so on” to “the beginning of time” that constitutes what I shall call the Zenonic fallacy. It overlooks the prospect of backwards convergence as illustrated in the following diagram: Here ti+1 stands halfway between ti and X. Consider an occurrence O at t0, putatively the product of a free decision at X. To explain it in terms of what precedes, we certainly do not need to go back to “the beginning of time.” The failing at issue here is substantially that of Zeno’s notorious paradox of Achilles and the tortoise. Both alike involve a fallacy in overlooking the circumstance that, thanks to convergence, an infinity of steps can be taken in a finite distance, provided merely that the steps get progressively shorter. Once it is granted that, even if a cause must precede its effect, there is no specificative timespan, however small, by which it need do so, the causal regression argument against free will looses all of its traction. With Zeno, Achilles never catches the tortoise because his progress must go on and on before the endpoint is reached. In the present reasoning, explanation will never reach an initiating choice point because the regress goes on and on. But in both cases, the idea of a convergence that terminated the infinite process at issue after a finite timespan is simply ignored. X O t₂ t₃ t₁ t₀ rescher phil inq text.indd 75 3/1/10 3:15 PM 76 fallacIes reGarDInG free WIll Such a perspective leaves the principle of causality wholly compatible with freedom because that act and all its causal antecedents remain causally explicable. fallacy number two Human choices are generally predictable and predictability is at odds with free will. The reality of it is that predictability is simply no problem. If I offer you the choice between a hundred dollar bill and a needless root canal operation, there is no difficulty in predicting which you will choose. But your choice is nevertheless perfectly free. What matters for freedom is not predictability as such, but rather the basis of prediction. If and when the prediction rests on the agent’s tastes, dispositions, preferences, and so forth, then that decision is free. “But we do not choose our tastes, dispositions, and so on.” Perfectly true, but also quite beside the point. The objection rests on an erroneous premise: “Choices are free only if their motives are freely chosen.” But this requirement is inappropriate and immaterial. For by their very nature, motives, tastes, and so forth are not themselves objects of choice at all. Nor are they somehow forced on the agent by constituents from...