PHL101Y1 Chapter 1: Freedom and Necessity
Freedom and Necessity
Author: Alfred Jules Ayer (Britain, 1910)
AGAINST FREE WILL
Defending the view that free will and moral responsibility are compatible with causal
determinism
Moralists vs. determinist
Free will means you could have acted otherwise.
When you do not have free will you do not need to be held responsible
If human behaviour is governed by causal laws, no actions could have been avoided and thus
humans do not need to be morally responsible
Common assumption: men both have free will and causal laws
Humans believing in their own free will is necessary to make them morally responsible
The fact that someone feels free is not proof that they really are
All it proves is that the agent does not know what makes him act a certain way
It might be true that if we had known more about the circumstances then we could find a causal
explanation. It could also be true that there just wasn’t one at all and that the agent was really
free.
If a man is acting accidentally then he should not be held morally responsible for those actions.
Moralists believe that your choices depend on your character
oAlthough this clearly also means that there is a causal connection between what people
do and what they have done in the past
Some people claim it also has to do with the strength of ones will
To say you act in character means your behaviour is coherent and predictable
This would mean that the admission of moral responsibility presupposes your actions
"not only that a man can be acting freely when his action is causally determined, but even that
his action must be causally determined for it to be possible for him to be acting freely"
Although the definition of free has many understandings
Freedom does not come from the awareness of a lack of freedom
Freedom as the consciousness of necessity - they think they will somehow be able to master it
Freedom should be contrasted with constraint
"The fact that my action is causally determined it does not necessarily follow that I am
constrained to do it: and this is equivalent to saying that it does not necessarily follow that I am
not free"
oConstrained: when no reasonable person would be expected to choose the other
alternative
oEx. A habit so strong that I no longer go through the process of deciding to do
something, a gun to a head, etc.
But if your actions can be explained by your history how is this different from being constrained
to do something
Isn't it arbitrary to say that a person is free when they are constrained in one fashion(history)
but not in another (force).
FOR FREE WILL
These are necessary and sufficient conditions
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Defending the view that free will and moral responsibility are compatible with causal determinism. Free will means you could have acted otherwise. When you do not have free will you do not need to be held responsible. If human behaviour is governed by causal laws, no actions could have been avoided and thus humans do not need to be morally responsible. Common assumption: men both have free will and causal laws. Humans believing in their own free will is necessary to make them morally responsible. The fact that someone feels free is not proof that they really are. All it proves is that the agent does not know what makes him act a certain way. It might be true that if we had known more about the circumstances then we could find a causal explanation. It could also be true that there just wasn"t one at all and that the agent was really free.
