Philosophy and Ideas
I find it helpful to see the issue of free will as involving not one problem but three. These are: (1) that exercising the will feels like acting outside nature, (2) that free will seems incompatible with determinism, and (3) that attributing blame is unjust as behaviour is mainly outside individual control. My conclusion is that the first two problems can be dismissed, while the third is true in part.
When we make conscious choices, it may feel that our will alone makes a choice outside nature and moves the body. The will was traditionally regarded as a non-material spirit, and the traditional problem was explaining how a spirit interacted with the world.
This problem can be resolved by a naturalistic approach which sees all conscious experiences, including the experience of volition, as reflecting brain activity. Complex non-conscious brain processes continually make decisions and control the body, while consciousness presents a stylised model of some of these processes. Conscious choices do matter, they affect what we do. But what we think of as a conscious choice is a representation of the brain working out what to do.[i] Despite how volition feels, it reflects brain processes and therefore is part of nature.
The second problem arises as physics suggests that atoms, particles and fields behave in highly predicable ways so that the universe unfolds mechanically. At the atomic level, identical starting points will, subject to quantum effects, give identical results. If the universe is nearly deterministic, how can people make choices?
The answer is that our everyday world of objects and concepts, although grounded in the near-deterministic behaviour of atoms, is not best understood by considering atoms. We are surrounded by emergent properties at the macro level that need to be considered on their own terms.[ii] Take the example of throwing a dice: theoretically the course of each atom could be traced to predict how the dice will fall, but such calculations are far beyond us; instead, we view the dice as having a one sixth chance of landing on each side, so that chance arises as an emergent property in a deterministic world. Our conception of choice-making is a similarly appropriate emergent property: we cannot predict how people behave from the movement of atoms, but there is an emergent reality about them as makers of choices. It is as appropriate to think of a person as making choices as it is to think of a table as solid or as a dice as falling randomly. And the solid table, the random dice and the choosing person are all compatible with determinism.
The third problem concerns how we hold ourselves and others morally responsible for our actions. Our blaming and praising assumes that what we do is more under our control than it really is. Powers of self-control are limited, and it becomes harder to do the right things if you are unlucky with your genes, your life history and your circumstances. We have evolved instincts to quickly attribute reactive attitudes of blame and praise, but on reflection these seem unjust as they do not sufficiently recognise limitations of free will.
My response is to agree that our instinctive reactive attitudes should be criticised using reason to make them more fair and more useful. Blaming and praising should recognise the constraints individuals face, should be less judgemental and retributive, and should be more directed at achieving good outcomes.
Some take the view that the concept of free choices should be abandoned. I do not agree. We have a degree of control over particular choices and how we arrange our lives – physical determinism does not imply psychological determinism. Thinking of ourselves and others as responsible is central to how we successfully manage our lives and interact socially. We should think of people as making choices, but tempered by awareness of the limits of individual control, the extent of moral luck and the risks of making unjust and unhelpful judgements.
The phrase ‘free will’ is not ideal as it assumes the pre-scientific idea of choices being made outside nature. Instead, I see the central question being whether people really make choices, and that reflecting on this question has produced three distinct philosophical problems. On the first problem, the feeling that volition is outside nature, I concluded that our conscious experience reflects brain processes and is therefore part of nature. On the second issue, determinism, I concluded that our conception of choice-making is a bona fide emergent property compatible with near-determinism at the atomic level. Finally, on moral responsibility I concluded that we genuinely make choices, but have less control than our instinctive reactive attitudes assume.
Notes
[i] Seth, Anil. Being You: A New Science of Consciousness (2021). Chapter 11.
[ii] Carroll, Sean. The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning and the Universe Itself. (2016). Chapter 44.