A PSYCHOLOGICAL SOLUTION TO THE “FREE WILL” VS “DETERMINISM” DEBATE
Christopher Ebbe, Ph.D. 1-12
ABSTRACT: The supposed conflict between views of reality favoring free will or determinism in human behavior is examined and a psychological (phenomenological) solution is offered that acknowledges both without conflict.
KEY WORDS: free will, determinism
The question of whether human beings have free will or act in ways that are determined in such a way that our choices are controlled or meaningless has been debated endlessly, and philosophers and scientists have been unable (as far as I know) to satisfactorily determine which is correct or to reconcile the two views. Almost all human beings believe and “feel that” in most of their daily lives they make choices and that therefore they are determining their own behavior rather than being determined from outside (or from the past). The opposing argument looks at the elements that go into and lead to our choices and claims that if all of those elements were known, then all behavior could be predicted, and that therefore our behavior is determined (or even pre-determined). (One could consider the possibility that instead of behavior being determined by everything that has led up to this moment, our behavior might be determined moment-to-moment by external divine or evil forces that direct our behavior, but even though this seems to be a constant fear of human beings, to my knowledge this has not been seriously proposed, even by persons of religious belief.)
People cannot accept that their behavior is determined because their experience of deciding on courses of action is so real to them and because they are averse to being controlled. On the other hand, we “believe in” science, which in its present day incarnation observes, defines, and experiments in order to understand and to be able to predict what will happen next, and following this scientific pattern of thought, human actions “should” be predictable, too.
The laws of electricity are well understood (at least in a macro sense), so we are able to predict with confidence (even certainty) that when we hook up certain wires to certain voltages generated by certain generators, we know how much current will flow through those wires. We do not think that the electrons that make up the current flow have any choice in the matter. Nor do we believe that rocks have free will, since we do not view them as making choices or determining their own behavior, except in the sense that their characteristics (shape, density, crystalline structure, etc.) will determine what happens to them when a given force or surrounding context (rain, etc.) is imposed upon them. Most people would probably acknowledge that animals, too (at least mammals), make choices among behavioral options. (In current quantum speculations, strange things seem possible, for example, that electrons might make choices, and some are “solving” the free will problem by surmising that electrons, rocks, and everything else, including human beings, have a certain type of “will.” This view seems like a sort of anthropomorphism and is not necessary to solve the free will-determinism problem satisfactorily.)
As with many human discussions and attempts to understand, the keys to understanding the free will/determinism issue lie in definitions. We must clearly define what we mean by “free will,” “choice,” and “determinism.”
FREE WILL
For most people, “free will” would be defined by contrast with determinism, as “being able to make a choice without that choice being controlled, determined, or forced upon the chooser.” In most cases, this implies having more than one possible option, but this is not always the case. If we have only one reasonable choice but that choice is one that we like, then we don’t waste time feeling controlled. As we will see below, there are many internal and external factors that influence our decisions, but as long as we do not view them as being directed by some external entity, we do not think of them as “determining” our choices.CHOICE
We have the experience of prioritizing and choosing goals and then making choices of behaviors to enact, that we hope will enable us to reach the chosen goal. This action choice process involves, basically, imagining various possible courses of action, weighing the advantages and disadvantages of each, and choosing one to enact, usually the one that has the greatest possible advantages and the least possible disadvantages for us. Sometimes this process is lengthy and involves serious cogitation, and sometimes it is almost instantaneous and is done with little conscious focus. In some highly constrained and unusual circumstances there is only one acceptable choice (run from the tiger, even though one is unlikely to escape), but when people say “I had no choice” they usually are saying it to justify to others their behavioral choice when in fact they did have other choices that they did not prefer.Choice arises because we can have many desires simultaneously and because our brains are able to envision not just one course of action that we believe would lead to our goal but several or many, depending on the circumstances. These various options each have different advantages and disadvantages, but our brains do not automatically calculate these net advantages and disadvantages, and hence we “think about” them in order to decide (except in those very constrained circumstances in which more fundamental action processes take precedence, such as running from the tiger).
There are several implications of choice. (1) “Having choice” certainly means “having the experience of choosing,” since people would not usually think of unconscious choices or choices that did not involve thought or consideration as “real” choices. (2) “Choice” implies “having options to choose among,” but even if all of our options are undesirable, we still can make choices, and even if we have only one option, we still have options regarding how we responds to the situation (our attitude about the choice, etc.). (3) “Having choice” implies “having choice that is not determined for us” (although as just noted, we still have choices with regard to how to respond to being “forced” to do something). (4) “Having choice” does not imply “having choice that is free from any influences,” since every choice that we make results in part from various influences, both internal and external.
The discussion to follow will focus on that aspect of choice that is “having the experience of choosing.” We will see that we can have the experience of having choice, even if our choices are “determined” (unless for some reason we are obsessed, unnecessarily, with being controlled or determined). (This is our first hint that “free will” and “determinism” are not necessarily incompatible.)
WHAT “DETERMINES” THE BEHAVIORAL CHOICES THAT WE MAKE?
The first insight that is needed for our solution to the free will/determinism question is the recognition that outside forces and factors and internal forces and factors both play a role in our decisions and choices. The reward and punishment systems that are set up by parents and by societal institutions do shape our behavior. We tend to try to please our parents, or at least not to displease them. We tend to avoid acts that are illegal, in order to avoid punishment, and we tend to choose jobs that offer the most pay. For the most part we do not think of these factors as “determining” our behavior. We view them as factors in our still supposedly free decisions, and we usually choose options that get us what we want while avoiding problems and punishments. Only if we disagree strongly with aspects of these reward-punishment systems (e.g., apartheid) do we resent them and begin to feel that they are unfairly “making us” do things we don’t want to do or keeping us from doing things that we want to do. If we have what we feel to be sufficient leeway or wiggle room within these systems to get what we want and satisfy our needs, we don’t think of them as determining our behavior.Environmental conditions also influence our choices in similar ways. If water is scarce where we live, then we are sensitive to where it can be had, to protecting it (from others), and to conserving it, and we may spend considerable money obtaining it. We don’t say that we are “forced” to do these things, however, or that the environment is “determining” our behavior. We see these factors as simply what we have to cope with—factors that we take into account in deciding how to spend our money and where to live. The same applies to the weather and other environmental factors.
Internal factors exert just as much influence on us. Our values and standards limit the behaviors that we find acceptable to do. If we love our parents and believe that theft is “wrong,” then we are much less likely to steal from our parents than if we hate our parents and have no scruples about theft, because to steal from our parents would violate our standards and challenge the truth of our belief that we love them.
How we feel at any moment influences our behavioral choices, by pointing us toward certain goals. If we feel lonely, we are more likely to take steps to reduce that feeling, by calling someone or joining someone for an activity. If we are angry, we are more likely to speak angrily, damage something, or attack the source of our anger than if we were not angry.
As a species, we are “driven” by sexual awareness and interest, but it is a part of our “nature,” and therefore we do not feel that we are “determined” by our sexual nature, even though it does determine or shape a fair amount of our behavior and choices. Similarly, we don’t say that hunger is “determining” whether we seek to obtain food or “making us” seek food or that taste is “determining” our choices of food, but clearly they are. Almost all decisions (choices) are multi-factorial, though. If I choose to eat French fries, in defiance of the likely health effects, then that is my choice. If I choose not to eat French fries (and forego the pleasure) because of the likely health effects, then that is my choice, too. However, my sense of what is in my best interest (at least at the moment) does determine my decisions.
It is almost impossible for us to act against what we believe to be in our best interest. You can experiment with this yourself. The next time you decide on a route to take from work to home, given the traffic conditions, weather, etc., instead “force yourself” to go a different way, and see how it feels to enact a less preferred choice. The same applies to choosing what to eat or where to live. We are built to do what we believe to be in our best interest (even though we usually mistakenly call it “what we want to do”). Giving to charity is not a sacrifice, even if it requires reducing one’s standard of living, because one has decided that the picture in our minds of giving and doing with less is more desirable than the picture of not giving and having more. We think therefore that the giving is in our best interest. Even giving up one’s life for another is determined by what we view to be in our best interest. When a person says to the hangman “take me instead of so-and-so,” he only does this if he believes it to be the best thing to do—putting his values and his perceptions of so-and-so ahead of his own continued existence. He “thinks” that acting in this way is in his best interest, because in that moment possibly dying is more desirable than continuing to live after the other person has been dispatched. We are programmed to fight to live, but continued existence is not always our highest value.
So, what we view as being in our best interest does determine our choices, even though we don’t resent it or call it “determinism.” We are biologically set up to value certain things (satisfying essential needs, experiencing pleasure, avoiding pain, maintaining body integrity, etc.), and we cannot go against these inbred inclinations, but we don’t call this being determined. Clearly our history (what we have experienced and what we believe to be true), our values, and our current emotions all influence our decisions, but we do not view these as “determining” our behavior; we see them as simply “how things are” and take them as factors to be considered when we make our behavioral choices.
It should be noted that we are not conscious of all of the factors that influence our behavior. There is a fair amount (or possibly even a great deal) that is unconscious to us but that does influence us. Some of this is simply because our calculations about what to do take place so quickly that we are not aware of all that is happening, and some of these influences are things that we do not want to be aware of (choosing to have an affair by being unaware of how it might damage our current relationship). Some of it is material (old learning, “forgotten” experiences) that has an influence but is no longer accessible to consciousness, from the passage of time and lack of renewal (practice) of these neural connections.
Some have suggested that human behavior has a randomness, just as quantum electrons seem to have, and that this random quality “proves” that behavior is not determined. Since human behavior is driven by needs and wants, and every human behavior is motivated, it seems hard to call it random in any sense. Even behavior that occurs in response to boredom is motivated (by relief of boredom). Just because an individual does not understand the reasons for his behavior does not mean that it is random.
In rebellion against their notions of determinism, some people assert defiantly that they can do anything they want to do. This must be understood, however, with emphasis on the “anything they want to do” rather than on just the “anything.” As demonstrated above, we are not evolved or wired up to do things that are against our best interest, so we cannot do just anything. Even if someone acted in a way that was self-damaging to prove that he could do something against his best interest, he would actually be doing something that he did see as being in his best interest (defying determinism) even though it also produced some ill effects. We can only do things that we want to do, unless we are very limited by outside (or even worse, inside) constraints only to options that are all “bad” (the least of the evils).
In a sense, determinism could be viewed largely as an expression of the fact that we are human! As humans, we are fated (determined?) to execute the “desire-hope-choice-goal effort-gratification” cycle endlessly from birth to death. We have no choice in the matter, as that is simply who we are (but note that we almost never rail against our fate—we are simply “living”). “Choice” is the part of that cycle in which we use our brains to prioritize goals and imagine different behavioral paths that might lead to those goals and then select one of them to enact. Making that choice (whether it is determined or not) involves being influenced by all that we are at that moment and all that we have “learned” in our lifetimes (all that is encoded in our brains from experience) in our lifetimes, as described above.
The key fact to note from this section is that the behavioral choices of human beings are influenced by a number of factors, both internal and external, but we do not usually feel or view our behavior as therefore being “determined” (unless severe constraints are placed on our options by those influences). We do make choices, but options that are acceptable to us are much more limited than we pretend when we say that we are “free” to do whatever we wish, since external limits (we might wish to jump over a canyon to make it back to civilization, but we cannot) and internal limits (we always choose to do what we currently view to be in our best interest) severely limit the options that we can actually choose. If we felt that these internal and external influences were controlling us or determining our choices, then we would resent and resist them, but we do not view them in this way. Acknowledging all of the influences on our choices, we could even imagine that if all of the influences on our choices were known to us, we might be able to predict every choice that we make (which would be an experimental definition of determinism).
DETERMINISM PROPERLY UNDERSTOOD
In a scientific sense, “determinism” means the condition in which the behavior of an organism can be predicted accurately (known in advance) from knowing the complete, current status of the organism (current emotions, current needs, current health, etc.) and knowing all of the influences (past experience and learning, self-concept, values, attachments, environment, etc.) that can affect each behavioral choice.As noted above, determinism could also be viewed as control of our behavior moment-to-moment by outside divine or evil forces, but most people who consider themselves to be sane do not take this seriously. Our aversion to being controlled, however, is the source of our antipathy to the notion of determinism, and our lifelong ability or even tendency to imagine being determined has given the free will/determinism debate its long life. If we could be certain that we were not being controlled or determined from outside and that being controlled or determined from outside could not actually happen to us, then we would become unconcerned about determinism and would probably consider it to be a curiosity.
The most frequent objection to the notion of our behavior being determined is the image that we have of our determined selves being like robots, either (1) acting with no thoughts and no feelings or (2) having thoughts and feelings but being “forced” or directed to act in certain ways by an outside or unconscious force. We really can’t accurately imagine choosing behaviors without thought and feelings, since this would not involve consciousness and would therefore not be possible for human beings, and we abhor the latter (being “trapped” in a body that we are not controlling), so we insist on believing that we have free will! (We are determined to have free will!) In terms of the argument, though, we know clearly from our experience that neither of these conditions applies. We do have thoughts and feelings (and feel that we make choices), and we are not “trapped” in a body that is being controlled from outside (or being controlled completely unconsciously). In fact, we consider actually believing that one is being controlled from outside as an aspect of mental disorder, even though all of us can imagine it and find it extremely distasteful.
Our resistance to viewing our behavior as being “determined” is based in abhorrence of being “forced” to do things that we do not want to do, so constraints on our behavior are key to the undesirable image that determinism has. This emotional resistance probably has its origins in feeling forced so often as young children to do what we don’t want to do. Any time that we sense a repetition of being forced to do things, it arouses our resentment of being forced to do things as a child. As should be clear from the illustrations above, though, our behavior is influenced (and therefore in part determined) by many external and internal factors that we do not resent but view as simply current reality factors that we must deal with in making our choices.
The only times that we are forced to do things we don’t want to do as adults are circumstances in which our options have been severely narrowed, as when a policeman intends to arrest one or when the boss threatens to fire one if one does not carry out an order. These are clearly not what we mean or fear as “determinism.” There certainly are circumstances in which we have options but find none of them desirable, but we are then unhappy about our options, and we do not think of it as being determined. It should be noted that even in circumstances in which we dislike all of our options, we still make choices among those options and make the best of the situation (by cooperating with the police or choosing whether to follow the order given us by the boss).
If determinism is not being controlled from outside or “forced” to do things that we don’t want to do (it makes no sense to us to think of being forced to do things we want to do), then we are left only with the more scientific view of determinism as “being predictable”—i.e., that if someone knew everything about us, then she could perhaps predict all of our behavior in advance. Thinking about this is distasteful to us, perhaps again because of childhood experiences and because we imagine that such a person could theoretically take advantage of us or shape our behavior to her purposes by altering certain factors that are certain to produce in us the behavior she desires. (Mothers may have taken on this “manipulative” and “all knowing” role in our dim understanding of things as infants and children.)
“Knowing everything about us” so that our behavior could be predicted would include knowing our entire life experience, since we know that everything we have learned and all of the emotional conditioning that we have undergone have an influence on our decisions. It would include knowing the state of all of the neurons in our brains, as well as the state of all the cells of our bodies, since how our brains and bodies are functioning affects how we evaluate various behavioral options.
Some of the influences on our choices have been mentioned above, but to look at it comprehensively and in a conceptual manner, here is a description of how one could predict a person’s behavior. The following would have to be known:
current need state (survival needs, conscious motives, and degrees of motivation with regard to fundamental motives)
current goals
current emotional state
self-concept (what one knows about oneself)
self-esteem (how one feels about oneself and what one feels that one
deserves)
knowledge and understanding
skills (including physical, cognitive, and emotional skills)
expectations (beliefs/predictions about the results of
various possible behaviors)
chained reinforcers (that symbolize and substitute for
actual needs/goals when these are not available)
values (an overt statement of the behaviors and outcomes that we
value over other behaviors and outcomes)
emotional valences (the immediate, conditioned emotional
responses that we have to our perceptions)
And, since every human conceptual system is incomplete, even knowing all of these things about a person would lead to somewhat incomplete data and to inaccurate predictions.
It should be clear that neither the biological state of all of our neurons and other cells nor all of the above conceptual information about the self could possibly be known, by anyone, ever. Even if some of it could be accumulated, much of it cannot be, and even if it could all be gotten together, that information would only be good for that instant in time, since these things are always changing. Thus it would all have to be re-accumulated for the next instant in time, and so on and so on. This amount of information is so stupendous that we can probably say with confidence that no other intelligence in the universe could be capable of such knowledge, either (leaving aside the stupendous additional problems of getting the information). Thus, even though we can conceptualize what we would need to know in order to predict someone’s behavior, neither we nor anyone or anything else could ever know and effectively utilize all of that information. From what we now believe about the Heisenberg principle (that measuring something often subtly changes it), even if there were a being or force that could “handle” all of the information needed to predict our behavior, the very process of coming to know it might alter the information in such a way as to make the total picture incorrect. Our fear of such control from outside, again, probably persists in us because of our many experiences as children of being controlled.
Thus, we need have no fear of determinism serving the purposes of some alien or evil force or making us feel as if we are being controlled. Determinism is an interesting concept, and clearly from the discussion here of factors that do influence our decisions and our behavior, we can understand some of why we choose what we choose, but determinism is just that—a concept that can never be actualized as a means of controlling our every move.
Even though complete prediction is not feasible, we can see that the more we know of the conceptual factors above (need state, etc.), the better we might be able to predict a person’s behavior (our own or someone else’s). You have only to look at how good you are at doing this and how good experts are (potential spouses, psychologists, politicians, economists) to see that the degree of successful prediction will always be slight!
A peculiar reaction to the thought of being determined is the impulse to cease behaving or to stop trying. People think “If my behavior is determined and I have nothing to say about it, then I will just give up and stop trying.” This may be based on resentment of being controlled, or it may be based in the assumption that if one is controlled then one may never reach one’s goals (perhaps presuming that others will inevitably interfere). Our historical anger at being controlled might prompt us to consider also the rebellious response of lying down on the floor and either kicking or refusing to move.
The reaction of giving up or tantruming is illogical, of course, since if one assumes that one’s behavior is determined in advance, then whether one continues to try or not, whatever one does is still determined. Our experience with life shows clearly that one’s situation will be better if one continues to try than if one gives up, even if everything that happens is determined or known to another person or to a higher being in advance. (Perhaps this choice—to try or not to try—is the final demonstration of our ability to choose, even if things are determined, paradoxical as this seems to us!)
Another possibility is that if we feel determined or controlled, we believe that difficult circumstances are almost sure to arise, whereas if the future seems “open” and undetermined, then there is the possibility that there will be no problems and that everything will turn out all right. We therefore would have more hope if we did not feel controlled or determined.
It should be noted that these reactions (disliking the idea of determinism, feeling like giving up if we are controlled from outside, wanting to rebel, etc.) are all psychological reactions and are not particularly logical, since we are not in fact controlled from outside. They are, though, examples of existential issues that all human beings experience and that have no real solutions.
The basic conflict that people experience when considering free will and determinism is that choosing feels as if it involves unforced choice, and this feeling seems incompatible with the possibility that the option that we choose could be inevitable or predictable. The solution is the recognition (and acceptance) of the fact that as human beings we do not know enough about ourselves to step aside from ourselves and be able to predict what we will choose. We are not smart enough to know in advance what we are going to do. No other being, person, or force could know enough about us to do that prediction, either, for each of the moments of our existence, so determinism is a concept that can help us to understand ourselves better (to better understand the influences on our choices), but it does not represent an action or a separate force that will affect us.
SUMMARY
We do make choices, and this process of setting a goal and then imagining various possible goal-related actions and selecting one of them is real and often does result in our actual behavior. (We also acknowledge that there are unconscious influences as well as conscious ones on our choices.)We do make choices, but options that are acceptable to us are much more limited than we pretend when we say that we are “free” to do whatever we wish, since external limits (we might wish to jump over a canyon to make it back to civilization, but we cannot) and internal limits (we always choose to do what we currently view to be in our best interest) severely limit the options that we can actually choose.
Many factors result in the particular behavioral choices that we make, including our life experiences, what we have learned, our physical and mental capacities, what we believe about ourselves and about others, how we feel at the moment, our needs at the moment, our emotions at the moment, and how we conceptualize our goals. Some of these influences are unconscious (out of our awareness).
We cannot do just anything, since we are constrained by our human nature to do what we believe at the moment to be most in our best interest.
We do not think of these external and internal factors that influence our choices as “determining” our behavior (except in cases of high constraint), even though they are in fact leading to and influencing and in that sense “determining” our choices.
One can imagine that if all of the influences on our choices were known to us, we might be able to predict every choice that we make (which would be an experimental definition of determinism).
Neither being forced to do things we don’t want to do nor having our choices restricted only to undesirable ones are determinism.
Since determinism does not mean that we are robots controlled from outside and cannot mean that we have no choice in our behavior (we do experience choosing, even if the outcome is determined), the only meaningful way of understanding determinism is as the process of predicting accurately all of our behaviors.
We can identify the knowledge that would be needed to accurately predict our own behavior or that of another person, but we are not capable of accumulating or simultaneously knowing all of this information, and even if we were, it would be usable for prediction only in the current instant, and the same accumulation of information would be needed for the next instant, etc., etc., thus making determinism a concept that can never be actualized.
Determinism is so distasteful to us because it involves the imaginary spectre of being influenced by forces or influences that we cannot perceive or comprehend, to a degree that makes it feel as if we are being “forced” to act in certain ways instead of determining for ourselves what to do in our current best interest. This “being determined” seems to us to make our choices and efforts pointless and ineffectual (although this conclusion is illogical). If we know about the influences involved and they are not embodied (not being exercised by some other person or force that we conceive of), then we don’t think of them as part of being determined.
Our experiences as children of being forced to do things against our will and having superior beings predict our behavior somewhat accurately is largely responsible for our abhorrence of the idea of determinism.
The psychological response of “giving up” in the face of being determined is self-defeating, since one’s life will be better if one goes on trying one’s best, even if everything one does is determined.
The resolution of the “free will vs. determinism” concern is that (1) both are “true,” and (2) they are not incompatible. We do make conscious choices that often determine our behavior, and determinism as accurate prediction of behavior is a meaningful though unrealizable concept. Determinism does not involve a person or other anthropomorphic force that controls us, even though that is a bogeyman that stays with us for life in the background of our consciousness.
In order not to continue to be bothered by an apparent conflict between the notions of free will and determinism, we must (1) acknowledge that there are many influences on our choices of behavior, from the past and present and from outside of us as well as within us, and realize that despite these influences, we still make choices among possible alternative behaviors; (2) acknowledge that our choices of behavior are not completely “free,” since there are these many influences on our choices; (3) accept that the degree of freedom that we have in making choices is acceptable and need not motivate unhappiness or rebellion; and (4) accept that the only meaningful definition of determinism (the process or ability to predict accurately all of our behaviors) can never be enacted and therefore need not be a source of fear for adults.
The basic conflict that people experience when considering free will and determinism is that choosing feels as if it involves unforced choice, while that feeling seems incompatible with the possibility that the option that we choose could be inevitable or predictable. The solution is the recognition (and acceptance) of the fact that as human beings we do not know enough about ourselves to step aside from ourselves and be able to predict what we will choose or what we will do. No other being, person, or force could know enough about us to do that prediction, either, for each of the moments of our existence, so determinism is a concept that can help us to understand ourselves better (to better understand the influences on our choices), but it does not represent an action or a separate force that will affect us. If we could accept that “determinism” is a concept and not a force, then the free will/determinism conundrum would not be given much further thought.
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