FREE ESSAY ON DERMOTT O'FLANAGAN PHILOSOPHY

DERMOTT O'FLANAGAN PHILOSOPHY

Dermott O'Flanagan
Philosophy Paper 3
Incompatibilism: The Only Way to Go
Is man free? If everything is determined by antecedent conditions, how can we consider
man's actions to be free? Is the belief that everything is determined incompatible with
the concept of freedom? If all actions are determined, how can one be held morally
responsible? The three possible positions, which may be taken in regard to these
question, libertarianism, compatibilism (soft determinism), incompatibilism (hard
determinism) lead to very different notions of moral responsibility. It is my belief that
the incompatibilist argument as described by Van Inwagen defeats the compatibilist's
notion of freedom. Incompatibilism is the most convincing of the three theories proposed
regarding the relationship between free will and determinism.
Determinism is the idea that at any instant exactly one possible future exists.
Determinism is a thesis about propositions, and by definition a proposition has a certain
truth-value which we can express. The belief that I am walking has at its core the
proposition that I am walking. In opposition to determinism, the indeterminist stases
that not all events are the result of prior conditions, there is perhaps one tenth of one
percent of our actions that can be truly spontaneous. This incompatibilist philosopher's
hold is enough to justify indeterminism. Libertarianism, in contrast, is the denial of
the belief that all human actions are caused by an individual's character. It holds that
a free act is not an uncaused act as determinism believes it to be, but rather an act
caused "by the self as distinct from the character of an individual". (Campbell) 
Free will is perhaps best defined as the possibility of being capable of doing more than
one action. We say someone has free will if, when presented with two distinct paths, of
which they can only choose one, they are equally capable of acting in either way. For
example, a man is offered a drink and can drink the beverage, or alternatively can not
drink the beverage, if we hold this to be true and the man is in situations similar to
this on a regular basis we say he has 'free will'. In contrast to determinism free will
is a thesis about agents. I shall argue therefor that free will is incompatible with
determinism. 
Incompatibilist philosophers hold that because the world is determined we are incapable
of having free will. Van Inwagen's argument for determinism is still the most convincing
of arguments in the debate of free will. 
-  P, all facts about universe before people were present.
-  Neither I nor anyone else had any choice about control over P.
-  If P then necessarily Q so only one possible future is conceivable.
-  Necessarily Q must have come about and no one had any control over Q. 
So incompatibilism holds that our voluntary actions are based on our character, thus we
do not really have free will as our character is controlled by our past.
Incompatibilist philosophers easily defeat the idea of indeterminism. If John could be
described as a calm, thoughtful, and a peaceful man but one night goes out has a few
beers and gets in a fight, we might initially say that the tendency to fight is not a
trait of his. All determinists agree that we need to have deeper analysis of John's
personality. There is perhaps something in his persona that leads him to this seemingly
uncharacteristic action. Put simply determinist thinkers including incompatibilists
maintain that just because we have not discovered the cause of a particular event does
not mean it has no cause. In fact if we look back through history our knowledge of
determined events increases as scientific knowledge increases. Therefor we have disproved
the idea of indeterminism, as we cannot say an event has no cause, only that we have not
found the cause of that particular event. It is always conceivable that under further
inquiry we will reveal that an event was actually caused.
The libertarian argument is also a rather weak one when compared to incompatibilism.
Campbell who is the foremost libertarian of the twentieth century claims that we are on
occasion exercising free will. "Freedom exists only in those situations of moral
temptation where the self decides to act in accordance with our concept of duty or to
follow our inclinations". He bases his concept of freedom in the distinction between
man's 'self' and his character. Libertarians believe that our character determines our
desires, but our character does not determine the decision itself when we must decide
between following our inclinations or acting in accordance with our sense of duty
(Campbell). This act of decision can oppose and transcend one's formed character.
Therefor character and the self are not identical. The determinist response to the
libertarian distinction of character and 'self' is rather simple. A man's character is
composed of all his beliefs, values, and attitudes. All mental processes, including the
decision to change his character, are part of his character. In this sense the character
encompasses the 'self'. There is no reason for libertarianists to create a separate
'self' to explain how we can have second order thinking about our decisions. The idea of
libertarians finds no support or justification as it is can be easily explained within a
determinist framework.
Compatibilist philosophers believe that determinism is compatible with freedom because
freedom is merely voluntary action in accordance with the beliefs and desires that arise
from a person's character. In this way compatibilist philosophers have changed the
dilemma of free will to a definitional problem. Compatibilist say that given event D we
will come to decision Y, but we are capable of choosing either X or Z. They go on further
to say that we will never choose X or Z because it is not in keeping with our character.
The redefinition of freedom leads to an idea that is too weak to stand up to
incompatibilist criticisms.
The problem is that our character has been determined for us through our interaction with
our environment and society from the earliest years. Before we are capable of thinking of
such notions as free will, we have been set on a certain path. 
Our behavior although voluntary is due to certain unconscious forces that make it
inevitable that we behave in certain manners. Take the example of the gambler that
Hospers uses, a man is addicted to gambling, spends all his money, sells his property,
neglects his children, and sells drugs all in order to get money for the sole purpose of
gambling. This man may deliberate about these acts and think he is acting freely, since
he consciously decides the course of his own acts. The gambler is thus unaware of the
unconscious factors that cause him to gamble. He is a victim of character and thus fails
to exhibit free will.
One of the arguments that critics of incompatibilism raise is that "the principle that no
one has any choice about the occurrence of an undetermined event" (Van Inwagen). The idea
here is that:
-  For any time, t, and any undetermined event occurring at t: it is not possible for it
to have been in anyone's power to determine whether that event or some alternative event
instead would have occurred. 
-  So it follows that for any time t and any undetermined action occurring at t: it is
not possible for it to have been in the agent's power to determine whether that action or
some alternative action instead would occur at t.
-  Therefor, it is not possible for a free action to be undetermined.
It is impossible for this conclusion and incompatibilism both to be true. The above
argument being valid means that either incompatibilism is wrong or there is a fault in
the arguments' premise. The fault of this argument comes from the idea that it is within
a person's power to determine whether undetermined event X occurs as opposed to some
alternative undetermined event. The notion that the persons' intentions, desires and
beliefs can influence a free action explains in terms of reason why the person takes the
undetermined action X. The fault is the assumption that only a determined event can have
such an explanation, this is true of all events. 
The second argument against incompatibilism, to which I will respond, does not assume
that reasons and explanations are deterministic but claims that where we have an
undetermined action we do not have an agent in control of determining what his action is
to be. We do not have an action that the agent chooses, freely or otherwise. Ayer and
Smart both argue against incompatibilism in this fashion. They both hold that:
-  Incompatibilism entails that an action can't be both free and determined.
-  If an action is not determined by the state of the world then it has no explanation in
terms of causal relationships.
-  But some free actions do have explanations in terms of their history.
-  Therefor incompatibilism is wrong.
This argument assumes that if an action is not a purely chance or random event, if it is
influenced by or has an explanation in terms of the agent's reasons or motives for doing
it, then it is determined. A.J. Ayer (1946) put this argument in the following form:
Either it is an accident that I chose to act as I do or it is not. If it is an accident,
then it is merely a matter of chance that I did not choose to do otherwise; and if it is
merely a matter of chance that I did not choose otherwise, it is surely irrational to
hold me morally responsible for choosing as I did. But if it is not an accident, then
presumably there is some causal explanation of my choice: and in that case we are led
back to determinism.
If we look back on the bulleted argument above premises 1 and 3 are beyond doubt as the
first is merely a definition of incompatibilism, while the third must be true when we
examine our experiences. We regularly give explanations of our own actions, "I am doing
this paper because it counts for a grade and I hope for an A". It is the second premise
in this argument that is faulty. Ayer incorrectly assumes that either an action is
determined or it is a purely chance event. 
Van Inwagen in his response to compatibilist theory say that their definition of freedom
is imply a poor analysis and should be rejected. Incompatibilism is the strongest
position to hold on the deterministic and free will dilemma. It is the only complete
argument that has a strong analytically formatted argument. Compatibilism has support in
numbers but philosophers have never given a strong support for its belief. Free will can
simply not be acceptable if we also say that the world is determined.