Reality: Fundamental Topics is Metaphysics

Chapter XVI: Freedom and Determinism

I The term “libertarianism” has two primary meanings in philosophy. in political philosophy libertarianism, a view associated with Locke, and with people like Ayn Rand (1905–82) and Robert nozick in the twentieth century, is the theory that there ought to be only minimal states, whose functions would be limited to protecting property rights (conceiving one’s life and body, as Locke does, as part of one’s property). in the philosophy of mind and action, however, libertarianism is the view that human persons perform actions that are both free and undetermined. the latter terminological usage seems unfortunate, since it leaves without a name the view that human persons perform actions that are free whether or not those actions are also determined. A few philosophers simply appropriate libertarianism for this idea. However, this seems to lead to some confusion, and as indicated, libertarianism as the conjunction of freedom and indeterminism for actions is already centrally and firmly in place. We clearly need a term for this fundamental notion that virtually everyone takes to be grounded in everyday experience: that we can and do perform free actions, which issue from us, that are within our power to do or not do as we may choose or prefer, actions that we do for reasons (more or less) consciously and deliberately. Some use the ungainly term “free will-ism” for this theory. i prefer to use a slightly more euphonious term. i will call the theory that we sometimes act freely “libertism.” C H A P t e R X V i Freedom and Determinism 260 ReALitY: Fundamental topics in Metaphysics incompatibilism is the thesis that determinism and libertism are logically incompatible, or (a way of expressing the view that will imply but not be implied by the latter) it is the view that, if determinism were true, it would follow from that fact alone that libertism was false; and that if libertism were true, it would follow from that fact alone that determinism was false. Obviously, then, we need to proceed to indicate what is meant by determinism, and to say more than has already been said about libertism. it is to be remarked right away that some people, including both philosophers and non-philosophers, have meant by these two theories something such that it would indeed follow immediately, and in fact trivially, that the one was inconsistent with the other. Some people have said that they understand the idea that we act freely as implying, if true, that some events occur without any cause or explanation whatever: that this was part of the meaning of “free will” or “free act” for them. Similarly, some have meant by determinism a theory which, by definition, would include the idea that there are no free choices, no capacities for a person doing otherwise than as they do. Clearly, if these two theories were understood in these ways, this would establish the truth of incompatibilism very quickly, and, as i have said, trivially. i think, however, that neither of these concepts or definitions of determinism and free acts or free will is in fact what most people who have thought about either have in mind. First, people have usually meant by determinism something that does not explicitly say anything about free action or free will, or, for that matter, anything about human beings or rational agents of any kind. determinism is a thesis about the structure of the universe (or some isolated part of it), and the world could have been a deterministic one whether there were any human beings, or thinking beings of any kind, in it. determinism involves the idea of a natural law, or law of nature. For now it is sufficient to note that the kind of natural law relevant for determinism is an exceptionless general law, a principle or general truth asserting that, whenever an instance of one set of circumstances obtains, then a certain event, state, or process occurs. this provides a necessary condition of being a deterministic natural law. enlarging conditions until there is reached a set of conditions which will be jointly sufficient for being a deterministic natural law is more complicated, and remains still in some respects controversial. there are probably more theses than one that can be erected on the base identified so far, and which might all with some plausibility be called determinism. Certainly, many contemporary philosophers would assert Freedom and determinism...