Chapter 8: Free Will
I. People and Types
In a class that I took in college called Philosophy of Human Nature, with Professor Allard, I had to write three papers. One of those papers was on the subject of “free will”. When I was ready to write the paper, I took my typewriter out of its case and sat it on the chair, which faced my bed. I sat on the end of the bed, and I prepared to type.
The assignment called for a three to five page paper. I will confess, with some cynicism, that I imagined my classmates adjusting their papers to wide margins and double-spaced text so they could get to 3 pages with as few words as possible.
I suffered from the opposite disposition. I used narrow margins, single-spaced paragraphs, and elite type (12 characters per inch instead of 10) in the hopes that I could keep the last word from leaking onto the sixth page. I did allow myself the luxury of a blank line between paragraphs. Otherwise, I feared the teacher would hand my paper back as being too difficult to read.
For this paper, I had no idea what I was going to write. The question of free will presented a genuine problem for me.
This was not just another philosophical issue. This one touched me emotionally. I approached the idea that I do not have free will with the same sense of loss that I think others may suffer from the thought that there is no God. If there was no free will, then I was just a machine — a billiard ball bouncing around a cosmic billiard table. I did not want to be a cosmic billiard ball. Yet, reason seemed to demand that this was the case.
I could have just as easily have titled the paper, “Does my life matter?”
II. Metapaper
I sat down and started typing my paper by asking myself if typing this paper exhibited any evidence of free will.
What was happening as I typed?
A muscle in my little finger on my left hand contracted. This caused the finger to move down, pushing the typewriter key. This pushed the striker containing the same letter as the key I was pressing to pop forward and strike a ribbon containing some sort of black stuff, and smushed black stuff onto the white paper. The black stuff had the form of the letter A. Another set of muscle contractions on the right hand caused me to smush more black stuff onto the paper, this having the form of the letter “N”.
I then followed the muscle twitches in my fingers in the other direction. These muscle contractions were, in turn, caused by electrical signals that traveled down the neurons in my arm, hand, and finger from my brain. Within my brain, signals passed and bypassed each other as they traveled the maze of neurons within my skull; those responsible for pressing the keys to write the paper “leaked out”, as it were, from the churning web of biochemical impulses contained within my brain. However, they did not “leak out” randomly; this mass of tissue allowed just those signals to leak out that were useful in reaching a particular goal — a well written paper.
Well, that was the goal.
Those signals themselves were the result of events that happened in class. Sound waves from Dr. Allard’s vocal cords caused the air to vibrate. These vibrations traveled to my ear where they caused my eardrum to vibrate as well. These vibrations moved hairs in the inner ear, which went set off these neural impulses, which mixed with the neural impulses already going on within. Over time, this interaction of impulses resulted in me sitting at the foot of my bed pressing keys on my typewriter.
Where, in this entire chain of events, was there room for anything that could even remotely be associated with “free will”?
Was there some atom, floating around a neuron somewhere, that suddenly shot forward for no reason, in violation of all of the laws of physics, in order to alter the course of a signal somewhere in my brain? If this is what happened, how did that atom “know” that this sudden movement at this particular time would have just the right effect to bring about a different sort of behavior?
The whole idea that the movement of matter through space could be altered in this way — and altered, not accidentally, but in a manner consistent with planning — seemed unlikely at best. Nothing short of wishful thinking could provide even a hint of a suggestion that something like this was not only possible, but the best explanation for my sitting and writing that paper.
So, there was no free will. There was only a set of molecules propelled through space by the known forces of physics causally linking the vibrations within Dr. Allard’s vocal cords to activities going on in my brain to produce the result of my sitting at the foot of the bed smushing little letter-shaped patterns of black stuff onto white paper.
III. The Collider and the Typewriter
I returned to my habit of imagining science fiction plots to examine the principles I was thinking about. In this case, I imagined a group of scientists performing research at a super collider. A collider is where scientists accelerate small particles to super high speeds, smash them into things, and measure the particles that get blown off from the collision. In this case, the scientists are concerned about this streak where some particle took an unexplained turn to the right. None of the known laws of physics accounted for this hypothetical observation, so the scientists begin to hypothesize about what could have caused this.
One option is that there is a fifth, previously unknown physical force acting upon the particle. With enough data, the scientists could start comparing theories about how this force functions and come up with a formula that will make its set of predictions more complete. But this would have no relevance to anything like “free will” than the previous four forces. It will be nothing more than just another component of our determined universe.
Another option is that the particle turned right for no reason whatsoever, it just happened — without reason or cause. Yet, again, such an account will be as far removed from the concept of “will” than if my arm were to inexplicably raise, flap around in the air for a few minutes, and drop back down onto the table. I would respond to such an event by saying, “I did not do that.” That action did not come from my will. I am not responsible.
The third option is that the particle “decided” to turn right. Perhaps it wanted to avoid a collision with another subatomic particle on its left. Perhaps it wanted to follow in the path of Uncle Neutrino who, it believes, also went right. This is the type of motion that would be required before the scientists could start to think that they have found evidence of genuine “force of will”.
How does this “force of will” operate so that the particle can decide to turn right? What type of observations could these scientists make to rule out the first two possibilities and to leave, instead, this option of “force of will” as the best explanation for the particle’s turning right?
I looked at my own actions with the same question in mind. What would I be looking for if I were to determine that there was something else happening in my brain other than some causal chain or random event?
A. Decision Making, An Example
For example, one of the decisions that I had made was to use a 0.5” margin for my paper. I made this decision because I had a desire not to exceed the 5 page upper limit that Dr. Allard had set, a belief that my paper might be too long, and a belief that by using narrower margins I would be able to fit more words into five pages.
I could not see anything in this that was odd — that would require something outside of the normal chain of cause and event. My beliefs and my desires were descriptions of the way my brain was wired to govern the movement of pulses among a network of neurons. Those signals, eventually, caused the signals to go down the nerves to my arm that moved the hand to move the margin tab on the typewriter.
What about the possibility that I could have done something else?
I could have used a 0.8” margin. That would have given me a little extra room without being so conspicuous, if I had wanted to be less conspicuous.
…if I had wanted to be less conspicuous.
There is nothing in this description that would have prevented me from using a 0.8” margin if I had wanted to. The fact is, I did not want to.
The phrase “if I had wanted to” was the key phrase here. If my brain was wired in such a way that I had a desire to use a 0.8” margin, then I would have used a 0.8” margin. However, aversion to violating the limit on page length was stronger than my aversion to violating the convention on margins.
Why?
Because Dr. Allard did not explicitly state what he would accept in terms of margins, but he did explicitly state a page length. This made the limit on page length more inviolable. We find our causal link, once again, going back to the vibrations caused by Dr. Allard’s vocal cords striking my eardrum.
In recognizing this, I could still find nothing in the concept of “could have done otherwise if I had wanted to” that requires injecting anything like “free will” into the explanation of my behavior.
B. The Loss of Free Will
Up to this point, my anxiety over the absence of free will was primarily tied to this question, “Could I have done otherwise?” Am I forced to travel along a particular track, with no option to change course left or right except as the track itself turned left or right?
That did not sound like fun.
In writing the paper, I came to the realization that determinism really places only one limit on my intentional actions. I could not possibly have done those things that I would have chosen not to do even if I had a classical power of “free will”. The things that I did choose were still, in fact, my choices, based on what I wanted and what I cared about.
Classical “free will” really identifies a rather useless power, and one that can be dismissed without regret. As it turns out, I could not have possibly done the things I did not want to do anyway. However, as it turns out, if I had wanted to do any of those other things, I could have.
Who could ask for anything more?
IV. Real Alternatives
Even here, I have heard the defenders of “free will” say that it makes no sense to say that a person has a choice if, in fact, his decision is determined. Being determined by the agent’s own beliefs and desires does not satisfy them. They assert that the other options available must be “real options” in order to make sense.
I thought back to a simple little program that I had bought for my first computer — a program to play chess. That chess program made choices. It had to decide which piece to move and where to move it.
That decision was determined. If I opened with a particular move, the computer always opened with the same counter move. It was a very simple program.
And, yet, at the point where the computer was figuring out its move, it would “imagine” moving each piece, look at and evaluate the results, and then pick the move that promised the consequence of the highest value. More specifically, the program was written in such a way that, in its computer brain, it would hypothetically move a piece, run through a subroutine where it evaluated the consequences of that move, then move a different piece, run through a subroutine to determine its consequences, and so on.
With respect to the computer program, at the point that it is evaluating the different option, every legal move is a viable option to look at. The computer program would not work if it immediately ignored all of the options and looked only at the one option it was ultimately going to take. It would have no way of knowing what that option was.
This is no less true of me than it was for the computer. I, too, look at the board and imagine moving the rook, then imagine moving the pawn, evaluate possible outcomes, and decide in favor of the move that has the outcome with the highest perceived value. It is just as true of me, as it is of the computer, that if my calculations revealed some other move with a highest value, then I would have taken that move instead.
Even the choices that I made in writing my philosophy paper followed this model. I looked at the options for the size of the margin. If those calculations had shown that having a 0.8” margin had the highest value, then I would have chosen the 0.8” margin. As it was, the “0.5 inch margin move” had the highest value, and that is the option that I took.
If the chess-playing computer does not need classical free will to examine several competing options and select the one with the highest value, then neither do I. By Occam’s Razor, I have no use for such a power, and I can eliminate it from my ontology.
V. The Desire to Desire
The next question is: Where did my desire for a 0.5” margin come from?
We could say that it sprang into existence from nothing — that, “poof”, one day the brain acquired a form that can best be described as “having a desire for 0.5” margins. (Or, more precisely, “a desire to fit as many words on a page as possible”). However, this is no more evidence of a free will than the previous example of my hand flapping around on its own for a while.
Or, the desire was caused. Certain events interacting on the brain caused it to acquire a certain structure which, in part, can be best described as “a desire to fit as many words on a page as possible”. We can describe the formation of the desire in terms of the individual’s personal history and experiences, with perhaps some genetic influences (e.g., perhaps a desire to please others) thrown in for flavoring.
In the case of my desire to fit as many words as possible into a five page paper, such a history would include the facts relevant to my interest in writing and in exploring issues such as the one I was writing about. It would include an aversion to disobeying explicit instructions, and a much weaker aversion to disobeying conventions. Again, there is nothing in the account that requires that I step outside the standard explanations of cause and effect.
This might prompt an opponent to say, “So, you do not have any choice over the desires that you have. These are just thrown at you and, based on those desires, you behave a particular way.”
To me, that did not seem entirely right. Just because our desires are determined, this does not rule out the possibility that our desires can be determined, in part, by our other desires.
Let us assume that we could choose a desire. On what basis would we make that choice? Would the selection of desire A over desire B be random? Once again, we enter into some sort of hand-flopping analogy that has nothing to do with genuine free will.
If, instead, we are talking about an actual ability to choose desire A over desire B, then we must have a reason for preferring desire A over desire B. That is to say, the choice is made on the basis of having a second order desire for desire A, and a belief that desire A would be useful in fulfilling other desires.
Or, perhaps, we have a desire for A that is in conflict with a desire for B, and this conflict generates a third set of symptoms (frustration, indecision, anxiety), to which we have an aversion. The desire to be rid of these symptoms, though not a second-order desire, still recommends that the agent modify the existing desire for A and desire for B in a way that removes the conflict and its symptoms.
Then the question comes up: Can we change our desires?
Actually, we do choose our desires, from time to time. People often try to learn to “appreciate” a particular type of music, and can do so if they listen to it enough. If we learn to associate cigarette smoking with some unpleasant mental images, we can lower our desire for cigarettes. We reward ourselves with the option to buy some new clothes if we meet our goal of losing weight, so that the reward will reinforce our desire to lose weight.
There are a great many ways in which we choose our desires, but we do so on the basis of second-order desires concerning what desires we want to have, or on the usefulness of particular desires. Again, there is nothing within this that creates a problem for the idea that choice sits squarely within the confines of standard cause and effect.
Nor is there anything in this that goes against the claim that a person “could have done otherwise if he wanted to” or even the claim that a person “could have wanted to do otherwise.”
VI. No Regrets
Before I started my paper, I had a sense that if determinism were true then my life and my choices were somehow less significant. I had been living my life as if there were free will, there was no free will, so I had been living a lie. I feared that after discovering this error, I would somehow have to face my life differently.
To write the paper, I looked at the decisions that I had been making and tried to find within them some evidence of free will. Like the scientists looking at an image created by a high-speed collision of particles and trying to determine why one of them swerved right, I looked at my choices and tried to determine if free will was a part of any explanation.
I found out that there was noting in those past actions that ever contained free will, or contained even a presumption that I had free will. I made my choices according to what I wanted to do at the time. I set a 0.5” margin on my paper because I wanted to fit extra words onto my paper. If I had wanted to do something else, I would have. If I had wanted to write a short paper and format the margins and line spacing in such a way that only a few words would have filled up three pages, I could have done so. Nothing was different. Nothing was lost.
The only thing that determinism implies is that I could not have done the things that, if I had free will, I would not have chosen to do. I had always thought that was true, even when I thought I had free will. Again, nothing was different. Nothing was lost.
For those who say that we do have free will, if they mean that we have some power not included in the description above, what could it possibly be?
A. Selfishness
The thesis that I am defending here is not consistent with the idea that everybody is always selfish.
In Chapter 2, I wrote an argument against the thesis that everybody is selfish, pointing out that individuals can have desires like a desire that their child is healthy and happy. Such a person will seek their child’s health and happiness for no other reason than that they want their child to be healthy and happy. To help others for no reason other than one wants to cannot be sensibly called ‘selfish’.
B. Intuitions
The previous section shows that our intuitions against the sheriff turning over innocent prisoners to angry mobs makes sense.
Yet, as I argued in Chapter 7, I do not think that making sense of our intuitions is a significant goal. A person seeking to match moral intuitions in the early 1800s would have sought for a moral theory that would have proved the legitimacy of slavery. An individual seeking to match moral intuitions in the 1100s would have sought out a theory that justified the crusades. Seeking to justify our intuitions is not such an obviously good idea.
The intuitive reaction to the sheriff’s handing over an innocent person to an angry mob happens to be justified. But it is the intuitions that need justification against some sort of theory. It is not the case that the theory needs to be justified by accounting for our intuitions.
VII. The Utilitarian Sheriff Revisited
As far as the historical timeline goes, I wrote this paper before I took my course in moral theory, where I had confronted the problem of the utilitarian sheriff. Therefore, I had these ideas in my mind as I considered that case.
The free will paper lead me to the conclusion that there is no free will. People always act to fulfill their desires, given their beliefs. They always seek to fulfill their desires, though sometimes false beliefs get in the way.
So, our utilitarian sheriff will do what he wants, and nothing else.
The utilitarian says that the sheriff should do that which maximizes utility. This caused me to ask, “How is that possible?”
The answer seems to be that the sheriff must want one thing, and only one thing — to maximize utility. He would have to have no preference for the taste of sausage over pepperoni on his pizza (or visa versa). If he had a preference for the taste of sausage, then there will be circumstances in which this will compete with, and at times outweigh, his desire to maximize utility. In these circumstances, he would not act to maximize utility, but act to obtain sausage instead of pepperoni. Only the person with perfect knowledge and an uncompromising desire to do the act-utilitarian best act can be an act-utilitarian in practice.
Accordingly, act-utilitarianism prohibits a desire for sex, an interest in sports, and even an aversion to pain. If any of these other desires existed, there will inevitably be circumstances where they compete with and even outweigh the desire for maximum utility.
As I said in the previous chapter, act-utilitarianism is not an ethical theory for humans. It is an ethical theory for some alien utility-maximizing non-human entity that merely looks human.
So, let’s abandon this alien morality and look at what we can recommend for a human sheriff. We are talking about an entity that cannot always do that act which brings the greatest good for the greatest number. We are talking about an entity that will not pursue the greatest good for the greatest number in at least some cases when another desire competes against it.
Now, let’s look at the possibility that our utilitarian sheriff has an aversion to turning innocent people over to angry mobs.
First, let’s ask if this is a good desire for our sheriff to have. There are good arguments that this is the case.
A sheriff with such an aversion will allow citizens to be comfortable in the fact that remaining innocent is useful; that as long as they pursue this end their odds of being punished are diminished. The people would also know that they live in a society that does not reward those who hold society hostage — those who benefit by creating a situation in which they threaten more harm if their demands are not met than would be suffered if their demands are met. In such a society, people can live their lives with a lot more security.
If the sheriff actually had an aversion to turning innocent people over to angry mobs, then we can be confident that he will not do so even under circumstances that maximize utility. This greatly ensures the security that the people have reason to seek.
VIII. Desire vs. Rule Utilitarianism
Returning once again to our utilitarian sheriff, one of the ways that utilitarians have sought to handle problems such as this is by switching from regular (act) utilitarianism to rule utilitarianism.
Act utilitarianism says that the right act is that act which does the greatest good for the greatest number. Rule utilitarianism says that the right act is that act that is in accordance with the best rules, and the best rules are those that bring about the greatest good for the greatest number. The rule against turning over innocent prisoners to angry mobs would be an example of such a rule.
The problem is: what should a person do when an act that does the greatest good for the greatest number violates a rule? Of course, rule utilitarianism says go with the rule, but can it provide a reason to ignore the utility of the act?
The rule utilitarian admits that consequences are the measure of value. The act-utilitarian best act has the best consequences. Yet, the rule-utilitarian states that following the rule is more important than producing the best consequences. If consequences are all that is important, than why is acting according to a rule better than producing the best consequences?
There is a principle in ethics that says that ‘ought’ implies ‘can’; it makes no sense to say that a person ought to do something that he cannot do. Ought I to cure my aunt’s diabetes with the snap of my fingers? To say that I ought to is to say that, somehow, I can do so. But I can’t do so. Therefore, it is not the case that I ought to do so.
Now, what if the rules that the rule-utilitarian was talking about were wired into the brain in a way that did not allow for exceptions? Now, what happens when the utilitarian act violates the rule?
To say that we ought to do the act-utilitarian best act implies that we can do the act-utilitarian best act. However, if the rules wired into the brain in such a way that we cannot break them, then, when the act-utilitarian best act violates the rules, it is not the case that we can perform the act. Therefore, it is not the case that we ought to do the act-utilitarian best act.
It seemed to make sense to think of desires as rules wired into the brain in such a way that they determine our actions. These are rules that we cannot violate.
Can this gain us all of the benefits of rule-utilitarianism without the objections that it ultimately collapses into act-utilitarianism? I needed to learn a lot more about desires, and about rules, before I could really look seriously at that option.
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