Determinism Made Me Do It
Topic: Determinism
by Rebecca, 2020 Cohort
Determinism is the philosophical idea that every event state of affairs, including every human decision and action, is the inevitable and necessary consequence of antecedent states of affairs, plus the laws of nature. In practice, it is the view that your every decision (including what you had for breakfast this morning!) was not made by “you” acting as an independent agent. Instead, it was determined by your genetic make-up, past experiences, and previous events.
Accordingly, it seems your decision was both inevitable and predictable. This illustrates the first major obstacle encountered by determinism: the problem of free-will. The human perception is that we control our decisions. Determinism means this phenomenological intuition is groundless- we do not choose what we do, our decisions are a necessarily result of causal
Accepting this notion creates a second problem. Determinism means that every action is determined by states of the universe beyond our control. This is discordant with society’s conception of moral responsibility, in which condemnation for an action is provoked by the perception that a person chose freely to commit a wrongful act. It is this assumption on which our punitive legal system operates. This is also why consideration is given to whether the person who commits the act is a minor, under the influence of medication, or was coerced. These factors are given to effect whether the actor is truly responsible for their act.
Philosophers have used several methods to resolve this dilemma. Philosophers such as Galen Strawson deny free-will and moral responsibility exist. This is intuitively problematic because it seems perverse to our experience of free-will, and our desire to hold others accountable for their actions. The second option is to deny determinism because of the existence of chance. Supposing the universe is governed by chance, the laws of nature are unpredictable to the extent that nothing is determined. This theory has gained credence since the birth of quantum mechanics. However, this proposal arguably still means free-will does not exist. If everything is determined by chance, free-will still has no role. Alternatively, many prominent philosophers (Spinoza, Reid, Kant) argue that determinism and free-will can co-exist. Locke argue that determinism does not take away from our ability to choose to do otherwise. Accordingly, assuming the ability to do otherwise is sufficient to confer blame, this view sustains society’s perception of moral responsibility. Others, including Hobbes, deny that freedom requires the ability to do otherwise. This strain of determinism defines freedom negatively as the lack of any impediments, as opposed to a positive attribute requiring choice. Similarly, Frankfurt argues that moral responsibility can still exist eve without the ability to do otherwise. All these theories to some extent challenge our perception of free will and responsibility.
Arguably, the future of determinism lies (at least partly) in new discoveries in quantum physics, general relativity, and neuroscience. Contemporary understanding of the mechanics of our universe will continue to shape our appreciation of how the world works, and humans’ decision-making role within it.
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