_A Short Essay on the Freedom of the Will_

         by Bryan Caplan

1. Free will, what

At the outset, it is necessary to gt a clear understanding of what
exactly "free will" is. A being has free will if given all other
causal factors in the universe (genetic and environmental, physical and
chemical are two popular current pairings) it nevertheless possesses the
ability to choose more than one thing.  The word "freedom" has many
other uses -- political freedom being the foremost among these -- but
the kind of freedom that I am talking about could be exercised even if a
person lay encased in chains, or had a gun aimed at his head.  It is
the freedom of the mind from causal determination, not the freedom from
physical constraints or threats of violence.

2. The Objection from the Law of Causality

Now there are some immediate objections to the idea of free will.  To
begin with, it seems to violate the law of causality: "Every effect must
have a cause; the same cause always produces the same effects."  The
reply here is fairly simple: it simply denies that a free choice is an
_effect_ of anything else.  Since a choice is not an effect, the law of
causality is simply irrelevant here.

Another formulation of the law of causality says that "Every _change_
must have a cause."  Now this does indeed conflict with my notion of
free will.  And hence I ask: why should we believe that every change has
a cause?  I simply deny that this is so.  I observe uncaused changes
during my every waking moment, whenever I contemplate my own choices.
Why should I discard this observation in favor of one formulation of the
law of causality, however plausible?

3. The Quantum Confusion   

A further confusion identitifies free will with randomness, probabilism,
and (of course) quantum mechanics.  But I say that free will and
randomness have nothing whatever to do with each other; indeed, a
probabilistic theory of choice is just as contrary to the freedom of the
will as a fully deterministic one.  The argument here is extremely
simple.  Imagine that my action is determined by the roll of a six-sided
die; if it comes up six, I raise my arm.  Now suppose that _all six_
faces have a six on them. Now it is clear that in this case I have no
free will.  But suppose we put six different faces on the die, each
one determining a different action.  Am I any freer than before?  On te
contrary, I am fully a puppet dangling from the proverbial strings.  The
point is simply that if my actions are determined by any outside
process, then I am as fully unfree whether those processes are
deterministic or have a random element in them.  To uphold free will
then, we must deny than either of these theories describes the etiology
of the mind.

4. Choices, Actions, Causality
  
To face a final preliminary issue -- what is the relationship between
causality and free will?  To put the question more clearly: in some
sense, causality is necessary for free will, because an essential part
of free will is the idea that I _cause_ my actions.  The answer is that
we must distinguish actions and choices.  Actions are effects of a cause
known as the free will.  Free will causes actions by making choices.
But choices are not effects.


5. What We Choose

I move now to my substantive notion of free will.  I claim that we
choose a large number of things.  To begin with, we choose our beliefs.
Secondly, we choose many of our bodily movements.  Thirdly, we choose
many of our mental processes (by analogy, mental movements) such as
whether we will think and what we will think about.  A more precise
breakdown would be difficult, but fortunately everyone already has a
pretty clear idea of the boundaries: the pumping of the heart is
involuntary, whereas speaking is; accepting a belief is voluntary, but
having an emotion is not; thinking about free will is voluntary, but
seeing what is in front of my face when my eyes are open is not.  The
thoughtful reader will surely see that even these boundaries have
exceptions and irregularities: supposedly some people can control their
heart beat with training, and sometimes thoughts spring into our minds
involuntarily.  Philosopher Mike Huemer hinted as a provactive
distinction:  "A choice is something one _does_, whereas the involuntary
is something that _happens_ to one."

6. Four Arguments for the Existence of Free Will

I believe that the main objection most people have to free will is just
that it conflicts with the law of causality.  I have addressed this
problem above: on one interpretation, there is no conflict, because free
will is not an _effect_; on a second interpretation, there is a
conflict, but there is no reason to believe that the second formulation
is even true.

This section will go further and offer four positive arguments for the
existence of free will, deriving from an earlier paper of mine on John
Searle's philosophy of mind.

A. The Argument from Observation

First, there is the simple fact of observation.  I 
observe that I choose freely, at least sometimes; and if 
you introspect, you will see it too.  There is no reason to 
assume that these observations are illusory, any more than 
there is reason to assume that vision or hearing is illusory.  
I frequently hear scientists declare that real science (as 
opposed to bogus Aristotelian science) rests on 
observation; that is, they take the observed facts as a 
given, and work from there.  The insistence that free will 
does not exist has more in common with the worst a priori 
scholasticism than with modern science.  The latter 
demanded that the facts fit the theory, while the essence 
of science is supposed to be that we make our theories fit 
the observed facts.  

I would like to see a single argument 
for rejecting introspective evidence in favor of the other 
senses, because any argument against the validity of 
introspection might be applied, ipso facto, to sight, 
hearing, touch, taste, and smell.  In other words, I maintain that
introspective evidence is just as good (and no more subjective) than 
any other sort of empirical evidence.  And it is not the place of
science to determine that our perceptions are fundamentally in error, 
but rather to develop a consistent explanation of _all_ of our
observations.  Of course, if an experiment comes out one way 1000 times,
and a different way once, then the scientist will rationally conclude
that there was problem a problem in the experiment.  But our observation
of our mental freedom is not an occasional fluke, but an empirical fact
as repeatedly and continuously confirmed as the existence of the
external world itself.

B. The Reductio Ad Absurdum to Skepticism

My second argument consists in a reductio ab absurdum.  I shall
begin with the assumption of determinism, and show that it leads to
the self-contradictory position of abject skepticism.

Now it is a fact that people disagree on 
many questions; this leads us to wonder if on any given 
issue we are correct.  How is the determinist to come to grips with
this? If the content of my mind is 
determined entirely on the level of micro-particles, how 
would I ever double-check my views? I would be 
determined to believe them; and if arguments convinced 
me, then they would be determined to convince me.  The crucial
point is that my views -- correct and incorrect alike --
would be the result of inexorable causal forces.
And these forces determine people to error just as inexorably as
they determine them to truth.  Of course, I might be 
correct by coincidence.  But knowledge is _justified_ true 
belief; and when we are pre-determined to believe 
whatever we happen to believe no matter what, it is hard 
to see what the justification of our beliefs is.  

Put succinctly, if we have knowledge we must accept beliefs 
only because we understand them to be true; but if 
determinism is correct, then we automatically accept 
whatever beliefs that our constituent micro-particles 
impose on us, since as Searle says, scientific explanation 
works from the bottom up.  It might be the case that those 
micro-particles coincidentally make me believe true 
things, but the truth would not be the ultimate causal agent 
acting upon me.  

Determinism, then, leads to skepticism, the denial of the
possibility of justified true belief.  This is a 
controversial issue, but I hold that skepticism is 
necessarily false.  For suppose we affirm skepticism.  Then 
we may wonder if we know that skepticism is true.  If we do 
know it, then at least one item of objective knowledge 
exists, which contradicts the premise.  But if we don't know 
that skepticism is true either, why should we accept it?  To 
recap: Determinism implies skepticism; Skepticism is 
necessarily false; Hence determinism is false.

C. Moore's Proof of the External World Extended

Third, I bring G.E. Moore to my defense.  In his "Proof of 
the External World," Moore refuted skepticism about 
physical objects merely by saying, "Here is a hand, and here 
is another hand."  Critics accused Moore of begging the 
question; and the critical reader of this paper might object 
that I am merely repeating my first argument.  Both of 
these complaints simply miss Moore's point, which was this:  

In order for any argument to work, it is necessary that the 
initial plausibility of its premises have greater initial 
plausibility than those of the denial of its conclusion.  Since no 
premise has greater initial plausibility than "This is a 
hand," said Moore, it is in principle impossible for that 
claim to be overturned.  I think that the same is true of the 
existence of free will.  Nothing has greater initial 
plausibility than the premise "I have free will"; no scientific 
or philosophical argument will ever have greater initial 
plausibility.  So how is it even coherent to argue against 
free will?  Any valid argument showing that free will does not
exist serves merely as a reductio ad absurdum of that arguments'
premises, not a disproof of the freedom of the will.
 
As A side note, it is interesting that John Searle , a 
reluctant opponent of the doctrine of free will,
says that he continues to 
believe in free will no matter how many arguments against 
it that he hears.  This shows quite well that Searle finds the 
initial plausibility of "Searle has free will" to be greater 
than that of his arguments against free will; for if the 
arguments against free will were really that powerful, 
Searle would do what we usually do when overwhelmed by 
convincing arguments: Namely, change his mind.  Since he 
can't change his mind, the initial plausibility of his free will 
must exceed the plausibility of the apparently conflicting 
scientific arguments.  Given this, he should re-examine the 
propositions of science and his philosophy of mind and see 
if they are really harder to doubt than the existence of 
free will.

D.  A Thought Experiment Showing the Freedom of the Will

Fourth, try the following thought experiment.  Our 
brilliant neurophysiologists come up with an equation that 
they claim will predict all of our behavior.  The equation is 
so good that it even incorporates our reaction to the 
equation, our reaction to knowing that it incorporates our 
reaction, and so on indefinitely.  Suppose that the equation 
says that the next thing that you will do is raise your arm.  
Do you seriously believe that you couldn't falsify this 
prediction by failing to raise your arm?  But if you can 
falsify any prediction about your arm, and if the prediction 
is derived perfectly from a comprehensive knowledge of 
your body's constituent micro-particles, then your mind 
must be free.

In a crucial sense, then, the denial of free will is predicated
on our ignorance of the very causal laws that supposedly show that
free will is impossible.  For once these allegedly binding laws of
nature were compiled and capable of making falsifiable empirical
predictions, it would be child's play to falsify them forthwith.
Surely if human behavior were unfree, then science could in theory
at least predict when I am going to raise my hand.  And why should
the equations be unable to compensate for the subject's knowledge
of the prediction?  And yet, it is very hard to believe that upon
the proclamation of these alleged causal laws, that I would find
it any harder to falsify them than I would find it to falsify e.g.   
the reader's prediction about when I will raise my hand.

Nor would it help if these scientific laws were probabilistic rather
than deterministic.  It is child's play to falsify the prediction
that I will raise my right hand now with certainty.  Is it any
harder to falsify the claim that I will now raise by right hand with
probability .3?   Simply by deciding not to raise it, couldn't I
instantly make the probability equal to zero?

7. Some Objections to and Misconceptions about the Freedom of the Will 

A. Are some choices more difficult than others?

There is a rather common view which admits that the will is free in
some of the cases I assert, but denies that it is free in other cases.
For example, it may be conceded that the normal person is free to
use or not use alcohol; but certain people are not free to not use it.
The choice is "too hard" for them to make.  There are many variations
on this theme, and I have a common objection to all of them.

Now the underlying image here seems to be that the will is kind of
like a muscle.  Just as the ability to lift weights depends on the
strength of the lifter and the heaviness of the weights, the ability
to make a choice depends on the will power of the willer and the
difficulty of the choice.  People make choices only within fairly
narrow bounds; beyond these, apparently, they are fully determined.

My objection to this is basically that it just contradicts experience.
Imagine that there were a button in front of you, the pressing of
which would instantly exterminate all human life.  You would not
(I hope) want to press this button.  But can you really say that you
do not feel just as _free_ to do so as you would to dial a phone number?
Suppose someone pointed a gun at you and told you to push the button.
Would you not be free to refrain?  But if you are free in these extreme
cases, how could you be unfree to refrain from drinking alcohol or
taking any number of choices which appear to be much "easier"?

The essential confusion, I think, it between the emotional experience
of a choice vs. the choice itself.  The emotions associated with a
choice may range from incredibly pleasant to incredibly unpleasant.
Pleasant choices are "easier" not in the sense that they are more free
than other choices, but in the sense that we are more inclined to freely
choose it because it is pleasant.  To talk of the difficulty of a choice
can be very misleading, because it conjures up the image of there being
some definite probability of succeeding at making a choice despite
genuinely trying; but this just brings us back to the probabilistic
misinterpretation of free will which I have already shown is just
as contrary to the freedom of the will as all-out determinism.

B. Is Choice Limited to a Select Few?  

A variant on the above doctrine affirms that certain people (such as
fellow philosophers) have free will, but that the mass of people don't.
Free will is appararently a byproduct of intelligence and education.
Generalizing from introspection to the whole human race is simply
mistaken; the sensible induction extends only to a narrow elite of
one's fellows.

I answer that the broadest induction is indeed justified.  
Almost all humans use the language and concepts of free will.
They blame and praise each other for their actions in a way suggesting
moral responsibility.  And most plausibly, they do so because they
are generalizing to other people from _their_ own experience of freedom.
To suggest that they are merely aping the vocabulary of philosophers
is quite absurd; it is philosophers who picked up the concepts of
free choice from ordinary language, not the other way around.
Actually, it could easily be argued that the experience of free will
permeates the lives of ordinary people to a greater extent than
it does intellectuals.  An intellectual might buy the murderers
excuse that his life in the slums drove him to brutality, but the
non-murderers who grew up in the same slums are likely to think of
his action as a willful choice to do evil.

C. The Objection from Regularity

One fairly common objection to the doctrine of free will is that
different groups behave consistently differently than one another on
matters that I say are free.  But if they are really free, how could
these systematic differences be explained?

The explanation, of course, is simply that members of some groups
make different _choices_ than members of other groups _on average_.
There is nothing amazing about this.  The typical criminal makes
a long series of brutal choices over his life; there is a systematic
pattern to his choices.  Does this show that each of his actions was
not a choice?  But if there is no conflict between an _individual_
making systematically different choices than other people and the 
doctrine of free will, why should there be any more of a conflict
etween a _group_ of individuals making systematically different
choices and the doctrine of free will? 

D.  The Objection from Inexplicability

Another objection to the doctrine of free will is that it renders
a persons choices inexplicable.  And in a sense, this is correct:
a choice is necessarily, by definition, impervious to a causal
explanation.  If there were a causal explanation, then the agent 
would have been determined to take his actions, and then they would
not have been free.

But there is really no paradox here, anyway.  Of course it is possible
to "explain" a choice, in the sense of describing the actor's 
motives, goals, impulses, and so on.  But we must remember that 
these were simply the factors that the agent chose to go along with;
we are explaining which factors out of the cosmos of possibilities
that the actor drew upon when making his choice.

8. Conclusion.

In a way, it is strange to even write about the freedom of the will.
The issue is not one of abstract concepts or a priori reasoning, but
simply a matter of empirical fact.  The most telling proof for the
existence of free will is that we all observe it during our every
waking moment.  The only basis for the denial stems from the
arbitrary exclusion of introspection as a valid source of empirical
knowledge, coupled with one unpersuasive interpretation of the law of
causality.  And while I do not choose to address the related issues
at length within the confines of this essay, they cannot be overlooked.
Free will is perhaps more than any other the distinctively human
attribute which sets us apart from everything else.  The denial of
our freedom leads to the denial of virtue and vice, individual 
responsibility, and the value of political freedom.  And
ultimately, this denial of our free will leads to the 
dehumanization of us all.