Unraveling the Mystery of Free Will

Introduction

Free will theory indicates a person has free exercise of will on their course of action. This is opposite to determinism that recognises uncontrollable forces behind a human action. This essay will discuss the two sides of the debate by referring to the theories of compatibilists and incompatibilists, kinds of determinism and principle of criminology. Additionally, those seeking further support may consider criminology dissertation help to enhance their understanding and analysis of these complex theories.

Is the debate necessary when it is possible to determine their compatibility?

Incompatibilists observe that position of free will and determinism is intuitive or commonsensical. This forces that compatibilists to demonstrate that determinism is or the problem of problem of determinism is not really a problem. Compatibilists attempt to prove that determinism is not a problem. This somehow shows presence of free will, which in turn shows as if determinism is the only facts that could threaten free will. An alternative argument may be that these elements lack authority. Issue of presence of free will must not at all depend on or start with determinism or the problem of it. Incompatibilism is not specifically intuitive, as most of the people are rather pressurised to talk into it, which in turn arguable proves compatibilism to be true. Even if compatibilism were true and determinism is not a problem, it cannot dissolve the issue of free will (Nahmias, 2011). There are environment where free will would be challenged in areas such science, including neuroscience and psychology where determinism does not have a role to play. This science poses a threat to free will that common persons find their free will intuitively threatened. Arguable the intuitiveness of the position about free will and determinism as observed by incompatibilism may be that “determinism is often and easily misunderstood to involve these distinct threats to free will”. These threats may stem from that fact that rational, conscious mental activity of human is often bypassed in process of decisions making and conduct (Nahmias, 2011). Observantly, the debate around these two elements is around two conditions of human decision making process. Firstly that human’s behaviour is caused by forces beyond his control. Secondly, that human has the ability to decide to act in a certain way or otherwise. Determinism supporters determine that outside factors such as family environment and internal factors such as hormones determine human’s behaviour. Free will supporters will reject this approach and assert that a person is aware of these external and internal factors, but they do have a free will to choose their action (Aslam, 2017). The next paragraph will elaborate on this and will attempt to identify any areas where they could be compatible.

The debate could also be related with criminology where particularly determining whether free will or determinism causes a crime. The Classical School of thoughts states that a person can control his behaviours, where he exercises his free will to select a choice, being fully aware of any legal responsibility accrued to this choice, whether to commit a crime or not after measuring efforts against associated rewards and costs. A crime is committed after an intended and well planned action. This is opposite to the principle of determinism, which is reflected in the Positivist School, where it states that the person may be inherently inclined to crime. His behaviour is a reflex to genetic predisposition or is coerced because of his social and environmental conditions. For example, most of the antisocial behaviours are mostly transmitted within families. As such, a criminal behaviour could be considered pre determined (Delaney, 2008). The discussion so far presents a picture that Determinism is one of the factors that could block free exercise of one’s will. Does this hold true in every sense in that will it deprive a person of free will?

The determinist approach proposes that all behaviour has a cause and is thus predictable. Hard determinism that leads to incompatibilism projects free will as an illusion, accordingly holding that every action has a cause. But, this claim that free will is impossible cannot be true and in fact lies the very mistake with lack of good reasoning to observe that we as morally responsible agents with free exercise of will find ourselves incompatible with determinism (Vihvelin, 2013). This is totally opposite o the argument presented by soft compatibilist theory of free will, which holds that free will is compatible with determinism as well as indeterminism (Repetti, 2010). Soft determinists hold the view that a free act is merely “a matter of doing what one wants or wills to do, even though one has been caused to do so.” There is a consonance between a choice and inner state of the person. The will is the immediate cause, but traceable to prior causes and eventually to the immediate antecedent, thus proving that the choice is determined (Walls, 2009). This is the compatibilism theory that presents that free will and determinism could be compatible. However, there is a sense of moral responsibility and legal recompense attributing to the challenge caused by hard determinism and biological determinism. It is a challenged to evidentially reconcile free will and predetermined actions of a person, in situations such as when genetic coding assumes to determine a course of action, and the person does not have liberty to do otherwise. This apparently presumes an irreconcilable situation between free will and determinism (Willmott, 2016).

Compatibility

Free will and determinism can be arguably compatible. Free will is the ability to do otherwise even when the interpretation is not just conditionally or dispositionally, but modally. This derivation draws from the between physical and agential possibility. A deterministic world physically permits only a single future sequence of events for each state of the world. However, in respect to an agent and his environment, there could be more than. This allows different actions “agentially possible”. This is the agential perspective that should take human behaviour at face value regarding the ability of an agent. This presents a defence of free will against deterministic approach and observes that free will is not a physical phenomenon, and is at a par with higher‐level phenomena like agency and intentionality (List, 2014). Compatibility between the two elements of free will and determinism could also be drawn from study of criminology. A person in his exercise of free will behaves differently in same circumstances. He has a real choice, which denies the defence of his causation of action due to the environment and internal genetic construction. This does not take away the consideration of effect of personal experience and inherent personality construct. An individual decision manifests specific action of genes that code the aspects of human culture and behaviours. As such, freedom or free will cannot be ruled as being absolute. There may be controllable as well as uncontrollable behaviour, but of course he could undertake such changes that could impact the controlling conditions. Criminology, thus, presents a holistic approach to understand genetic predisposition, personality and also social learning experiences on order to determine causation of a crime (Delaney, 2008). In a debate presented by crime motivation theories, the question, on one hand, was to examine whether some criminals are born with inclination towards a criminal behaviour and whether such inclination is genetically inherited. On the other hand, the question was to examine whether the inclination is by virtue of upbringing and surroundings. According to the Nature argument, different personalities come from chemical build up and brain functionality, which may evidently lead to absence of emotion or empathy, and build tendency towards hyperactivity or hot temperament. Teenagers are sometime identified with such tendency and physiological brain abnormalities. It may be that inherited gene causes this abnormality. Alternative argument could be that it could not be the sole reason for their act of wrongdoings. Specific factor like an unhappy childhood could trigger evil behaviours. On the opposite stand, the Nurture argument identifies brutalised or may be underprivileged environment significantly affect one’s personality. It does not naturally force a person’s inclination towards immoral acts. Social upbringing may also significantly impact his values and attitudes towards wrongdoings. For instance, children in a family with no moral values become more prone to becoming delinquents than those in a family with higher moral values (Costa, 2014). In both the positions and debates of Nature Argument and Nurture Argument, there a one common factor of social upbringing that could trigger criminal behaviour in a person, which gives a compatibility opportunity between free will and determinism. This finds support in the argument that most of behaviours are not influenced by either nature or nurture, but by both. Behaviours are polygenic, which means complicated genetic architecture of multiple segregating genes with pleiotropic effects and complicate epistatic interections. This means each of these many genes could affect multiple characters, and the genes affected each other are dependent on each other (David J Hosken, 2019).

Conclusion

It could be observed that there are constant non-agreeable factors, which triggers a never ending debate between the elements of free will versus determinism behind a human behaviour or his decision. The debate will continue unless the determinants that find them compatible are recognised. They act as two tests determining eventualities or consequences of a person action. Unless both are treated as means to an end, there would be debates just for the sake of it.

Bibliography

Aslam, M., 2017. Freedom and determinism in erich fromm. ACADEMICIA: An International Multidisciplinary Research Journal , 7(5), pp.23-28.

Costa, C.L.G.a.E.T., 2014. A Biosocial Review on Childhood Antisocial Behavior. In J.C.B.a.B.B.B. Kevin M. Beaver, ed. The nurture versus biosocial debate in criminology: On the origins of criminal behavior and criminality. SAGE Publications.

David J Hosken, J.H.a.N.W., 2019. Nature, Nurture and Nature-by-Nurture-Killing the Dichotomy. In J.H.a.N.W. David J. Hosken, ed. Genes and behaviour: beyond nature-nurture. John Wiley & Sons.

Delaney, D., 2008. Criminal Behaviour: Free will versus Determinism. Australasian Journal Of Correctional Staff Development .

List, C., 2014. Free will, determinism, and the possibility of doing otherwise. Noûs , 48(1), pp.156-78.

Nahmias, E., 2011. Intuitions about free will, determinism, and bypassing. In R. Kane, ed. The Oxford Handbook of Free Will: Second Edition. Oxford University Press.

Repetti, R., 2010. The counterfactual theory of free will: A genuinely deterministic form of soft determinism. LAP Lambert Academic Publishing.

Vihvelin, K., 2013. Causes, laws, and free will: Why determinism doesn't matter. Oxford University Press.

Walls, S.R.B.a.J.L., 2009. CS Lewis & Francis Schaeffer: lessons for a new century from the most influential apologists of our time. InterVarsity Press.

Willmott, C., 2016. Biological determinism, free will and moral responsibility: insights from genetics and neuroscience. Springer.

Take a deeper dive into The Visual Identity of Cities with our additional resources.