12/28 added 1.4 In the series of ordinary acts which fill up our day, such as rising, meals, errands, work, etc., we may just go about our business, more or less on automatic pilot. There is nothing to arouse special attention so we flow smoothly along the channel of least resistance.
12/28 added to Libet story 1.3
revised 12/27 added 1.4
revised 12/25

Topic 1.0  Freedom of Indifferent Choice

Most of us believe in moments of indifference when we are able to free ourselves of  prior consideration or inclination allowing room for the exercise of free choice. If, on the other hand, our choice is predetermined how can it be free?

Freedom of Indifferent Choice
The Freedom of Indifference is when the human agent has the ability to make decisions without them being caused by any prior conditions.

Our justice system has a demanding notion of impartiality, requiring jurors to be independent not only from the dictates of others but also from their own preconceptions and biases. It requires jurors to achieve an appropriate state of indifference and decide the case solely upon evidence presented in open court.

Media outlets such as newspapers, magazines, television and the internet regularly report the results of current scientific research. Often these research reports portray human behavior as compelled by various natural causes such as genetics, hormones, or brain chemical imbalances.

These popular research reports are cultivating a new faith in Scientific Determinism that is replacing the old faith in Divine Determinism. God's will is being replaced by the will and power of nature. Nothing else has changed.

Divine Determinism
God is the ultimate cause behind everything.
God has preordained all that will ever occur.

Physical Determinism
All physical processes are determined by natural laws.
All human thinking and action are physical processes.
All human thinking and action are determined by natural laws.

Science considers belief in indifferent choice an illusion because every action (effect) must have a preceding cause. And this cause of action also has a cause which is  linked in an endless chain of phenomenal cause and effect.  An example of the chain sequence of cause and effect is how a moving billiard ball strikes several more billiard balls, which then strike other billiard balls in turn. If our actions are compelled by physical causes we would not be free. To say that the will is free would mean that it is not subject to the Law of Causality. In that case every act of will would be an absolute beginning (a first cause) and not a link in a chain of events.

Many consider the Question of Free Will resolved in favor of various types of determined behavior so they lack any interest in seriously examining the issue. Modern science studies and defines the various factors that determine us while ignoring the important question of freedom.

It does seem obvious that for each time we act a definite reason would exist to explain why, out of several possible actions, we carried out just one and no other. But to properly consider the question of freedom calls for a deeper look at these causes of action and how they come about than is normally done.


1.0 Exercise  Freedom Of Indifferent Choice or compelled by a predetermined reason?

Perform action A or B:

A. Move your left thumb  B. Move your right thumb

Is there a reason why you carried out one action rather than the other? Carry out the exercise several times and compare the results.

Topic 1.2  Freedom Of Choice

It makes sense that there must always be some reason for a choice to occur. What matters is whether the choice is determined by myself or by something else.

Self-Determinism
Self-determinism is the belief that the human being can determine their own action freely, not conditioned by past thought, feeling, emotion, past actions or whatever…

Illusion Of Freedom
Through the passage of time we are conditioned to strive in conditioned ways according to characteristics given to us from various determining factors. As we grow up we become conscious of ourselves striving to the best of our ability to continue the momentum of the patterns of behavior established by nature and our life circumstances. We are convinced we stay the course according to our own will to continue. We believe we are free because we are conscious of our actions and desires but ignorant of their causes.

Rather than a self determined will we find a mass of conflicting passions. Ovid once said, “I see the better, and approve it, but I pursue the worse.”

We believe we are free because there are some things we desire less strongly and other desires we can modify by occupying our mind with something else. The story of the reluctant thief is an example. There was a thief who, while stealing, remembered the face of his dying mother. He had promised her on her death bed that he would give up thievery and lead an honest life. This stopped his stealing some of the time but didn’t at other times.

Voluntary Act
What distinguishes a voluntary act from a non-voluntary act? Of course the child is unfree when it desires milk and the drunk who says things he later regrets. They are unaware of the causes that compel them. The important question is whether a motive of action which we recognize; turn our attention upon and see through, will compel behavior the same as the biological process which causes a child to cry for milk.

There is a profound difference between knowing why I am acting and not knowing it. Compare the act of a medic on the field of battle, the scientific researcher in the laboratory, and the statesman in the most complicated diplomatic negotiations with a child when it desires milk.

The error made by a one-sided determinism is in overlooking the fact that in addition to being conscious of our action and desires, we may become conscious of the compelling determinant in time to postpone an action long enough to reflect or deliberate upon the consequences.

Libet Experiment
An experiment conducted by neuroscientist Benjamin Libet in the 1980s found that unconscious brain activity occurs approximately half a second before the subject consciously acts. Motives compel on an unconscious level and only afterward are translated into a conscious action. Which means your conscious experience of making a decision - the experience associated with free will - is just a kind of add-on, an after-thought that only happens once the brain has already set about its business. It is as if, after years of driving around in your car, you discover that the steering-wheel is not attached to anything, and the car has been steering by itself.

But it was also found that the unconscious impulses to act could be denied by the conscious efforts of the subject. The individual retains the power to veto the carrying out of the unconscious impulses. It could be put this way; self awareness is a means to do or not do the thing that we were going to do next. This study suggests that our will is not free initially. Freedom then would not be a natural state, but something that could be developed.

1.3 Exercise  Free To Act From Your Own Nature or compelled by the necessity of an external cause?

Here is a riddle for quiet contemplation.

What am I?

The question ‘What am I’ is concerned with what a human being consists of and how he works, with the origin of the sense of ‘self’, and the control of actions.

Topic 1.4  Freedom From  External Impulses

An act of will depends on two main factors, the motives and the character.

Motive: the idea or aim of the action
Character: the distinguishing qualities and attributes of a person

If we consider a group of human beings as all alike, then their will appears determined by external causes, namely by the circumstances they encounter.

Empty Bucket Metaphor
Genes determine the size of the bucket and the environment determines how much is poured into it.

This metaphor depicts human beings as empty buckets of different sizes waiting to be filled with experience. A persons genetic inheritance sets the boundaries that determine their abilities, capacities, and limitations. These are permanent and unchangeable. If the environment provides all the necessary resources then every bucket is filled to capacity. If the environment is poor, then none of the buckets will have much in it at all. Each person has a genetic capacity for a given trait. Jack’s intelligence bucket may be filled with what he learns in school, but his fixed learning limit is determined by the size of the bucket.

Freedom From Being Determined From Without
Through the development of character a human being may free themselves from external impulses to act and instead be determined from within.

In the series of ordinary acts which fill up our day, such as rising, meals, errands, work, etc., we may just go about our business, more or less on automatic pilot. There is nothing to arouse special attention so we flow smoothly along the channel of least resistance.

An exception to this is the unique way in which we react to motives called character. With the development of character a human being appears to be determined from within and not from without. While our early character development may come largely from the efforts of family, teachers, and religious leaders at some point we begin to mold our own character through our own efforts. For example children rebel against parents and individualists rebel against social norms.

Our capacity for freewill implies that we can, in opposition to external "nature and nurture" forces, freely pursue goals and values within, independent of external influences. When presented with an idea or metal picture to act it becomes a motive of action only if your unique character is such that this idea arouses a desire in you.

Character Determinism
Whether we act upon an idea or not is determined by the necessary expression of our character.

When presented with something to do we may say, “It's just not in my character to behave that way.” We have feelings of approval or disapproval as we consider ideas to act upon according to our character. Even after developing our own unique moral character can we consider ourselves free if our action is determined by the necessity of our character? If we act because we cannot help doing so because our existing moral character demands it, then doubt is raised about our freedom.

Is a free morality possible unfettered even by moral character? It lies with our self to decide whether we shall let our character dictate our actions or whether we shall by effort oppose its dictates. In order to do this we will need to be fully conscious of the motives and have clear knowledge of them before following them.

1.4 Exercise

ORIGINAL PHILOSOPHY OF FREEDOM TEXT

1.1)
It is one of the sad signs of the superficiality of present-day thought that a book which attempts to develop a new faith out of the results of recent scientific research, has nothing more to say on this question than these words:

"With the question of the freedom of the human will we are not concerned. The alleged freedom of indifferent choice has been recognized as an empty illusion by every philosophy worthy of the name. The moral valuation of human action and character remains untouched by this problem.."

It is not because I consider that the book in which it occurs has any special importance that I quote this passage, but because it seems to me to express the view to which the thinking of most of our contemporaries manages to rise in this matter. Everyone who claims to have grown beyond the kindergarten stage of science appears to know nowadays that freedom cannot consist in choosing, at one's pleasure, one or other of two possible courses of action. There is always, so we are told, a perfectly definite reason why, out of several possible actions, we carry out just one and no other.

1.2)
[2] This seems obvious. Nevertheless, down to the present day, the main attacks of the opponents of freedom are directed only against freedom of choice. Even Herbert Spencer, whose doctrines are gaining ground daily, says,

“That everyone is at liberty to desire or not to desire, which is the real proposition involved in the dogma of free will, is negated as much by the analysis of consciousness, as by the contents of the preceding chapter..

1.3)
Others, too, start from the same point of view in combating the concept of free will. The germs of all the relevant arguments are to be found as early as Spinoza. All that he brought forward in clear and simple language against the idea of freedom has since been repeated times without number, but as a rule enveloped in the most hair-splitting theoretical doctrines, so that it is difficult to recognize the straightforward train of thought which is all that matters. Spinoza writes in a letter of October or November, 1674, “I call a thing free which exists and acts from the pure necessity of its nature, and I call that unfree, of which the being and action are precisely and fixedly determined by something else. Thus, for example, God, though necessary, is free because he exists only through the necessity of his own nature. Similarly, God cognizes himself and all else freely, because it follows solely from the necessity of his nature that he cognizes all. You see, therefore, that for me freedom consists not in free decision, but in free necessity..

[3] “But let us come down to created things which are all determined by external causes to exist and to act in a fixed and definite manner. To perceive this more clearly, let us imagine a perfectly simple case. A stone, for example, receives from an external cause acting upon it a certain quantity of motion, by reason of which it necessarily continues to move, after the impact of the external cause has ceased. The continued motion of the stone is due to compulsion, not to the necessity of its own nature, because it requires to be defined by the thrust of an external cause. What is true here for the stone is true also for every other particular thing, however complicated and many-sided it may be, namely, that everything is necessarily determined by external causes to exist and to act in a fixed and definite manner.

[4] “Now, please, suppose that this stone during its motion thinks and knows that it is striving to the best of its ability to continue in motion. This stone, which is conscious only of its striving and is by no means indifferent, will believe that it is absolutely free, and that it continues in motion for no other reason than its own will to continue. But this is just the human freedom that everybody claims to possess and which consists in nothing but this, that men are conscious of their desires, but ignorant of the causes by which they are determined. Thus the child believes that he desires milk of his own free will, the angry boy regards his desire for vengeance as free, and the coward his desire for flight. Again, the drunken man believes that he says of his own free will what, sober again, he would fain have left unsaid, and as this prejudice is innate in all men, it is difficult to free oneself from it. For, although experience teaches us often enough that man least of all can temper his desires, and that, moved by conflicting passions, he sees the better and pursues the worse, yet he considers himself free because there are some things which he desires less strongly, and some desires which he can easily inhibit through the recollection of something else which it is often possible to recall.

[5] Because this view is so clearly and definitely expressed it is easy to detect the fundamental error that it contains. The same necessity by which a stone makes a definite movement as the result of an impact, is said to compel a man to carry out an action when impelled thereto by any reason. It is only because man is conscious of his action that he thinks himself to be its originator. But in doing so he overlooks the fact that he is driven by a cause which he cannot help obeying. The error in this train of thought is soon discovered. Spinoza, and all who think like him, overlook the fact that man not only is conscious of his action, but also may become conscious of the causes which guide him. Nobody will deny that the child is unfree when he desires milk, or the drunken man when he says things which he later regrets. Neither knows anything of the causes, working in the depths of their organisms, which exercise irresistible control over them. But is it justifiable to lump together actions of this kind with those in which a man is conscious not only of his actions but also of the reasons which cause him to act? Are the actions of men really all of one kind? Should the act of a soldier on the field of battle, of the scientific researcher in his laboratory, of the statesman in the most complicated diplomatic negotiations, be placed scientifically on the same level with that of the child when it desires milk: It is no doubt true that it is best to seek the solution of a problem where the conditions are simplest. But inability to discriminate has before now caused endless confusion. There is, after all, a profound difference between knowing why I am acting and not knowing it. At first sight this seems a self-evident truth. And yet the opponents of freedom never ask themselves whether a motive of action which I recognize and see through, is to be regarded as compulsory for me in the same sense as the organic process which causes the child to cry for milk.

1.4)
[6] Eduard von Hartmann asserts that the human will depends on two chief factors, the motives and the character. If one regards men as all alike, or at any rate the differences between them as negligible, then their will appears as determined from without, that is to say, by the circumstances which come to meet them. But if one bears in mind that a man adopts an idea, or mental picture, as the motive of his action only if his character is such that this mental picture arouses a desire in him, then he appears as determined from within and not from without. Now because, in accordance with his character, he must first adopt as a motive a mental picture given to him from without, a man believes he is free, that is, independent of external impulses. The truth, however, according to Eduard von Hartmann, is that,

“even though we ourselves first adopt a mental picture as a motive, we do so not arbitrarily, but according to the necessity of our characterological disposition, that is, we are anything but free."

Here again the difference between motives which I allow to influence me only after I have permeated them with my consciousness, and those which I follow without any clear knowledge of them, is absolutely ignored.