The Free Will Debate

 

The Free Will Debate: Does free will exist, or are human actions determined by factors outside of our control? Bertrand Russell concludes the question is scientifically currently (1935) without answer: “Both free will and philosophical determinism are absolute metaphysical doctrines, which go beyond what is, for the moment, scientifically ascertainable.“

Full excerpt Russell and the Free Will Debate 

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“Believers in free will think that virtue can be inculcated by a good upbringing, and that religious education is very useful to morals. They believe that sermons do good, and that moral exhortation may be beneficial. Now it is obvious that, if virtuous volitions are uncaused, we cannot do anything whatever to promote them. To the extent to which a man believes that it is in his power, or in any man’s power, to promote desirable behaviour in others, to that extent he believes in psychological causation and not in free will. In practice, the whole of our dealings with each other are based upon the assumption that men’s actions result from antecedent circumstances. Political propaganda, the criminal law, the writing of books urging this or that line of action, would all lose their raison d’etre if they had no effect upon what people do.

The implications of the free-will doctrine are not realized by those who hold it. We say “Why did you do it?” and expect the answer to mention beliefs and desires which caused action. When a man does not himself know why he acted as he did, we may search his unconscious for a cause, but it never occurs to us that there may have been no cause. It is said that introspection makes us immediately aware of free will. In so far as this is taken in a sense which precludes causation, it is a mere mistake. What we know is that, when we have made a choice, we could have chosen otherwise — if we had wanted to do so. But we cannot know by mere introspection whether there were or were not causes of our wanting to do what we did. In the case of actions which are very rational, we may know their causes. When we take legal or medical or financial advice and act upon it, we know that the advice is the cause of our action. But in general the causes of acts are not to be discovered by introspection ; they are to be discovered, like those of other events, by observing their antecedents and discovering some law of sequence.“

— Bertrand Russell, Religion and Science (1935), Ch. VI: Determinism, pp. 164-5

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Background: Free Will Debate 

The question of whether free will exists or not and its subsequent questions and moral implications are some of the longest running debates of philosophy and religion. Free will in Western philosophy is generally conceived as the ability to act outside of external influences or wishes. Free will is on the whole understood to be the capacity to make choices undetermined by past events. 

Determinism suggests that only one course of events is possible, which is inconsistent with a libertarian model of free will. Free will is closely linked to our cultural, political and religious understandings of moral responsibility, praise, culpability, sin, and judgements which apply only to actions that are seen as freely chosen. Free will is also closely connected with the concepts of advice, persuasion, deliberation, and prohibition. Traditionally, only actions that are freely willed are seen as deserving credit or blame.  

Defining ‘free will' in both philosophy and science has proved difficult. Any definition often revolves around the meaning of phrases like “ability to do otherwise“ or “alternative possibilities“. This emphasis upon words led some philosophers such a Ludwig Wittgenstein to claim the problem is fundamentally linguistic in nature and thus pseudo-philosophical. In response, others point out the complexity of decision making and the importance of nuances in the terminology.

The 19th-century philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche was known as a harsh critic of Judeo-Christian morality and religions in general. One of the arguments he raised against the truthfulness of religious doctrines is that they are based upon the concept of free will (a false premise), which, in his opinion, does not exist. To Nietzsche, while everything in this world is an expression of “will“ that type of will is in fact, a Will to Power. He held what is understood by Western cultures as “freedom of will“ was invented primarily by Judeo-Christian priests in order to master the process of human thinking and control the weak – and nothing more.

— The Antichrist, 26 & 38

Karl Marx argued that History itself is pre-determined and all are inevitably proceeding towards the final state of communism. Still Marx believed human beings to be essentially different from other animals. “Men can be distinguished from animals by consciousness, by religion or anything else you like.“

Contemporary philosophers such as the late Daniel Dennett (d. 2024) considered the language used by neuroscience researchers crucial in providing answers. He explained that “free will“ means many different things to different people (e.g. some notions of free will believe that free will is compatible with hard determinism, some not). Dennett insisted that many important and common conceptions of “free will“ are compatible with the emerging evidence from neuroscience. Neuroscientist and author Sam Harris maintains that we are mistaken in believing the intuitive idea that intention initiates actions. Harris is critical of the idea that free will is “intuitive“ and that “careful introspection“ can cast doubt on free will.

Sam Harris argues:

“Thoughts simply arise in the brain. What else could they do? The truth about us is even stranger than we may suppose: The illusion of free will is itself an illusion.“

Bertrand Russell himself held that any human activity which is understood as “free will“ is likely the emergent result of a set of rigid, deterministic laws but which are at present too complex for both philosophy and science to appreciate and comprehend. Stating in Religion and Science p. 167:

“It may seem as though, in the present chapter, I had been guilty of an inconsistency in arguing first against determinism and then against free will. But in fact both free will and philosophical determinism are absolute metaphysical doctrines, which go beyond what is, for the moment, scientifically ascertainable.“

Image: Bertrand Russell in his private study at his home in Penrhyndeudreath, Gwynedd, United Kingdom, night of 13 January 1962.