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DETERMINISM OR FREE-WILL?
Printed and Published by
THE PIONEER PRESS
(G. W. FOOTE & CO., LTD.),
61 Farringdon Street, London, E.C. 4.
Determinism
OR
Free-Will?
BY
CHAPMAN COHEN.
New Edition. Revised and Enlarged.
LONDON:
THE PIONEER PRESS,
61 FARRINGDON STREET, E.C. 4.
1919.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I.--THE QUESTION STATED 9
II.--"FREEDOM" AND "WILL" 23
III.--CONSCIOUSNESS, DELIBERATION, AND CHOICE 36
IV.--SOME ALLEGED CONSEQUENCES OF DETERMINISM 50
V.--PROFESSOR JAMES ON THE "DILEMMA OF DETERMINISM" 63
VI.--THE NATURE AND IMPLICATIONS OF RESPONSIBILITY 76
VII.--DETERMINISM AND CHARACTER 92
VIII.--A PROBLEM IN DETERMINISM 101
IX.--ENVIRONMENT 117
PREFACE TO NEW EDITION.
The demand for a new edition of _Determinism or Free-Will_ is gratifying
as affording evidence of the existence of a public, apart from the class
catered for by more expensive publications, interested in philosophic
questions[1]. It was, indeed, in the conviction that such a public
existed that the book was written. Capacity, in spite of a popular
impression to the contrary, has no very close relation to cash, nor is
interest in philosophic questions indicated solely by the ability to
spend a half-guinea or guinea on a work that might well have been
published at three or four shillings. There exists a fairly large public
of sufficient capacity and education intelligently to discuss the deeper
aspects of life, but which has neither time nor patience to give to the
study of bulky works that so often leave a subject more obscure at the
end than it was at the beginning.
[1] When the Mss. of this work was submitted to a
well-known firm of publishers, the reply came in
the form of an offer to publish the work provided
it could be expanded so as to admit of its
publication at 7/6. It would have been quite easy
to have done this; the difficulty is to compress,
and the less a subject is understood the easier it
is to write at length on it. But the offer, though
financially tempting, would have defeated the
purpose for which the work was written, and so was
declined.
Nor does there appear any adequate reason why it should be otherwise. A
sane philosophy must base itself on the common things of life, and must
deal with the common experience of all men. The man who cannot find
material for philosophic study by reflecting on those which are near at
hand is not likely to achieve success by travelling all over the globe.
He will only succeed in presenting to his readers a more elaborately
acquired and a more expensively gained confusion. Nor is there any
reason why philosophy should be discussed only in the jargon of the
schools, except to keep it, like the religious mysteries, the property
of the initiated few. We all talk philosophy, as we all talk prose, and
doubtless many are as surprised as was M. Jourdain, when the fact is
pointed out to them.
So whatever merit this little work has is chiefly due to the avoidance,
so far as possible, of a stereotyped phraseology, and to the elimination
of irrelevant matter that has gathered round the subject. The present
writer has long had the conviction that the great need in the discussion
of ethical and psychological questions is their restatement in the
simplest possible terms. The most difficult thing that faces the
newcomer to these questions is to find out what they are really all
about. Writer follows writer, each apparently more concerned to discuss
what others have said than to deal with a straightforward discussion of
the subject itself. Imposing as this method may be, it is fatal to
enlightenment. For the longer the discussion continues the farther away
from the original question it seems to get. One has heard of "The
Religion of Philosophy," and its acquisition of obscurity in thought and
prolixity in language seems to have gone some distance towards earning
the title.
Being neither anxious to parade the extent of my reading, nor greatly
overawed by the large number of eminent men who have written on the
subject, I decided that what was needed was a plain statement of the
problem itself. My concern, therefore, has been to keep out all that has
not a direct bearing on the essential question, and only to deal with
other writers so far as a discussion of what they say may help to make
plain the point at issue. If the result does not carry conviction it at
least makes clear the ground of disagreement. And that is certainly
something gained.
Moreover, there is a real need for a clearing away of all the verbal
lumber that has been allowed to gather round subjects concerning which
intelligent men and women will think even though they may be unable to
reach reliable or satisfactory conclusions. And I have good grounds for
believing that so far this little work has achieved the purpose for
which it was written. If I may say it without being accused of conceit,
it has made the subject clear to many who before found it
incomprehensible. And, really, philosophy would not be so very obscure,
if it were not for the philosophers. We may not always be able to find
answers to our questions, but we ought always to understand what the
questions are about. That it is not always the case is largely due to
those who mistake obscurity for profundity, and in their haste to rise
from the ground lose altogether their touch with the earth.
C. C.
DETERMINISM OR FREE-WILL?
I.
THE QUESTION STATED.
At the tail end of a lengthy series of writers, from Augustine to
Martineau, and from Spinoza to William James, one might well be excused
the assumption that nothing new remains to be said on so well-worn a
topic as that of Free-Will. Against this, however, lies the feeling that
in the case of any subject which continuously absorbs attention some
service to the cause of truth is rendered by a re-statement of the
problem in contemporary language, with such modifications in terminology
as may be necessary, and with such illustrations from current positive
knowledge as may serve to make the issue clear to a new generation. In
the course of time new words are created, while old ones change their
meanings and implications. This results not only in the terminology of a
few generations back taking on the character of a dead language to the
average contemporary reader, but may occasion the not unusual spectacle
of disputants using words with such widely different meanings that even
a clear comprehension of the question at issue becomes impossible.
So much may be assumed without directly controverting or endorsing
Professor Paulsen's opinion that the "Free-Will problem is one which
arose under certain conditions and has disappeared with the
disappearance of those conditions;" or the opposite opinion of Professor
William James that there is no other subject on which an inventive
genius has a better chance of breaking new ground. If mankind--even
educated mankind--were composed of individuals whose brains functioned
with the accuracy of the most approved text-books of logic, Professor
Paulsen's opinion would be self-evidently true. Granting that the
conditions which gave rise to the belief in Free-Will have disappeared,
the belief itself should have disappeared likewise. Professor Paulsen's
own case proves that he is either wrong in thinking that these
conditions have disappeared, or in assuming that, this being the case,
the belief has also died out.
The truth is that beliefs do not always, or even usually, die with the
conditions that gave them birth. Society always has on hand a plentiful
stock of beliefs that are, like so many intellectual vagrants, without
visible means of support. Human history would not present the clash and
conflict of opinion it does were it otherwise. Indeed, if a belief is in
possession its ejection is the most difficult of all operations.
Possession is here not merely nine points of the law, it is often all
the law that is acknowledged. Beliefs once established acquire an
independent vitality of their own, and may defy all destructive efforts
for generations. One may, therefore, agree with the first half of
Professor Paulsen's statement without endorsing the concluding portion.
The problem has not, so far as the generality of civilized mankind is
concerned, disappeared. The originating conditions have gone, but the
belief remains, and its real nature and value can only be rightly
estimated by a mental reconstruction of the conditions that gave it
birth. As Spencer has reminded us, the pedigree of a belief is as
important as is the pedigree of a horse. We cannot be really certain
whether a belief is with us because of its social value, or because of
sheer unreasoning conservatism, until we know something of its history.
In any case we understand better both it and the human nature that gives
it hospitality by knowing its ancestry. And of this truth no subject
could better offer an illustration than the one under discussion.
Reserving this point for a moment, let us ask, "What is the essential
issue between the believers in Free-Will and the upholders of the
doctrine of Determinism?" One may put the Deterministic position in a
few words. Essentially it is a thorough-going application of the
principle of causation to human nature. What Copernicus and Kepler did
for the world of astronomy, Determinism aims at doing for the world of
psychological phenomena. Human nature, it asserts, is part and parcel of
nature as a whole, and bears to it the same relation that a part does to
the whole. When the Determinist refers to the "Order of Nature" he
includes all, and asserts that an accurate analysis of human nature will
be found to exemplify the same principle of causation that is seen to
obtain elsewhere. True, mental phenomena have laws of their own, as
chemistry and biology have their own peculiar laws, but these are
additional, not contradictory to other natural laws. Any exception to
this is apparent, not real. Man's nature, physical, biological,
psychological, and sociological, is to be studied as we study other
natural phenomena, and the closer our study the clearer the recognition
that its manifestations are dependent upon processes with which no one
dreams of associating the conception of "freedom." Determinism asserts
that if we knew the quality and inclination of all the forces bearing
upon human nature, in the same way that we know the forces determining
the motions of a planet, then the forecasting of conduct would become a
mere problem in moral mathematics. That we cannot do this, nor may ever
be able to do it, is due to the enormous and ever-changing complexity of
the forces that determine conduct. But this ought not to blind us to the
general truth of the principle involved. To some extent we do forecast
human conduct; that we cannot always do so, or cannot do so completely,
only proves weakness or ignorance. The Determinist claims, therefore,
that his view of human nature is thoroughly scientific, and that he is
only applying here principles that have borne such excellent fruit
elsewhere; and, finally, that unless this view of human nature be
accepted the scientific cultivation of character becomes an
impossibility.
So far the Determinist. The believer in Free-Will--for the future it
will be briefer and more convenient to use the term "Volitionist" or
"Indeterminist"--does not on his part deny the influence on the human
organism of those forces on which the Determinist lays stress. What he
denies is that any of them singly, or all of them collectively, can ever
furnish an adequate and exhaustive account of human action. He affirms
that after analysis has done its utmost there remains an unexplained
residuum beyond the reach of the instruments or the methods of positive
science. He denies that conduct--even theoretically--admits of
explanation and prediction in the same way that explanation and
prediction apply to natural phenomena as a whole. It is admitted that
circumstances may influence conduct, but only in the way that a cheque
for five pounds enables one to become possessed of a certain quantity of
bullion--provided the cheque is honoured by the bank. So the "Will" may
honour or respond to certain circumstances or it may not. In other
words, the deterministic influence of circumstances is contingent, not
necessary. Circumstances determine conduct only when a "free" volition
assents to their operation. So against the proposition that conduct is
ultimately the conditioned expression of one aspect of the cosmic order,
there is the counter-proposition that intentional action is the
unconditioned expression of absolutely free beings, and is what it is
because of the selective action of an undetermined will.
Further, against all deterministic analysis the Volitionist stubbornly
opposes the testimony of consciousness, and the necessity for the belief
in Free-Will as a moral postulate. Thus, even when the deterministic
analysis of an action--from its source in some external stimuli, to the
final neural discharge that secures its performance is complete, it is
still urged that no possible analysis can override man's conviction of
"freedom." The existence of this conviction is, of course, indisputable,
and it forms the bed-rock of all forms of anti-determinism. But the
scientific or logical value of a conviction, as such, is surely open to
question. Equally strong convictions were once held concerning the
flatness of the earth's surface, the existence of witches, and a hundred
and one other matters. Besides, a belief or a conviction is not a basal
fact in human nature, it is the last stage of a process, and can
therefore prove nothing save the fact of its own existence. Human nature
at any stage of its existence is an evolution from past human nature,
and many prevalent beliefs are as reminiscent in their character as our
rudimentary tails are reminiscent of a simian ancestry. I hope later to
make it clear that the much talked of testimony of consciousness is
quite irrelevant to the question at issue; and also that the assumed
necessity for the conception of "freedom" as a moral postulate is really
due to a misconception of both the nature of morality and of voluntary
action.
Ultimately the question, as already indicated, resolves itself into one
of how far we are justified in applying the principle of causation. The
Determinist denies any limit to its theoretical application. The
Volitionist insists on placing man in a distinct and unique category.
But this conception of causation is in itself of the nature of a growth,
and a study of its development may well throw light on the present
question.
A conception of causation in some form or other could hardly have been
altogether absent from the most primitive races of mankind. Some
experiences are so uniform, so persistent, and so universal that they
would inevitably be connected in terms of cause and effect.
Nevertheless, the primitive mind was so dominated by volitional
conception of nature that a sense of necessary connection between events
could only have been of a weak character. Experience may have shown that
certain physical phenomena succeeded each other in a certain order, but
the belief that these phenomena embodied the action of supernormal
conscious forces would break in upon that sense of inevitability which
is the very essence of scientific causation. Modern thought fixes its
attention upon a given series of events and declines to go further. With
us the order is inevitable. With primitive man the order, even when
perceived, is conditional upon the non-interference of assumed
supernormal intelligences. Each phenomenon, or each group of phenomena,
thus possesses to the primitive mind precisely that quality of "freedom"
which is now claimed for the human will.
How difficult is the task of establishing causal connections between
physical phenomena the whole history of science bears witness. To
establish causal connections between external conditions and subjective
states, where the forces are more numerous and immensely more complex in
their combinations, is a task of infinitely greater difficulty. Amongst
savages it would never be attempted. Feelings arise without any
traceable connection with surrounding conditions, nor does a recurrence
of the same external circumstances produce exactly the same result. A
circumstance that produces anger one day may give rise to laughter on
another occasion. Something that produces a striking effect on one
person leaves another quite unaffected. Numerous feelings arise in
consciousness that have all the superficial signs of being
self-generated. The phenomena are too diverse in character, and the
connections too complex and obscure, for uninstructed man to reach a
deterministic conclusion. The conclusion is inevitable; man himself is
the absolute cause of his own actions; he is veritably master of his own
fate, subject only to the malign and magical influence of other
extra-human personalities.
Primitive thinking about man is thus quite in line with primitive
thinking about other things. In a way man's earliest philosophy of
things is more coherent and more rigorously logical than that of modern
times. The same principle is applied all round. All force is conceived
as vital force; "souls" or "wills" govern all. The division between
animate and inanimate things is of the vaguest possible character; that
between man and animals can hardly be said to exist. Only very gradually
do the distinctions between animate and inanimate, voluntary and
involuntary actions, which are taken for granted by the modern mind,
arise. And it is easy to conceive that in the growth of these
distinctions, modes of thinking characteristic of primitive man, would
linger longest in the always obscure field of psychology. Broadly,
however, the growth of knowledge has consisted, as Huxley pointed out,
in the substitution of a mechanical for a volitional interpretation of
things. In one department after another purposeful action yields to
inevitable causation. In physics, chemistry, geology, astronomy, and
kindred sciences this process is now complete. The volitional
interpretation still betrays a feeble vitality in biology; but even here
the signs of an early demise are unmistakable. Its last stronghold is in
psychology, and this because it is at once the newest of the sciences to
be placed upon a positive basis, and also the most obscure in its
ramifications. Yet there can be no reasonable doubt that the same
principle which has been found to hold good in other directions will
sooner or later be shown to obtain here also. Science is by its very
nature progressive; and its progress is manifested by the degree to
which phenomena hitherto unrelated are brought under constantly
enlarging and more comprehensive generalisations. Men were once
satisfied to explain the "wetness" of water as due to a spirit of
"aquosity," the movement of the blood as due to a "certain spirit"
dwelling in the veins and arteries. These were not statements of
knowledge, but verbose confessions of ignorance. To this same class of
belief belongs the "Free-Will" of the anti-determinist. It is the living
representative of that immense family of souls and spirits with which
early animistic thought peopled the universe. The surviving member of a
once numerous family, it carries with it the promise of the same fate
that has already overtaken its predecessors.
The origin of the belief in free-will once understood, the reasons for
its perpetuation are not difficult to discover. First comes the
obscurity of the processes underlying human action. This alone would
secure a certain vitality for a belief that has always made the
impossibility of explaining the origin, sequence, and relation of mental
states its principal defence. Beyond offering as evidence the
questionable affirmation of consciousness volitionists have been
unanimous in resting their case upon their adversary's want of
knowledge. And it is further characteristic that while holding to a
theory on behalf of which not a single shred of positive evidence has
ever been produced, they yet demand the most rigorous and the most
complete demonstration of determinism before they will accept it as
true; this despite the presumptive evidence in its favour arising from
the fact of its harmony with our knowledge in other directions.
Secondly, the human mind does not at any time commence its philosophic
speculations _de novo_. It necessarily builds upon the materials
accumulated by previous generations; and usually retains the form in
which previous thinking has been cast, even when the contents undergo
marked modifications. Thus the ghost-soul of the savage, a veritable
material copy of the body, by centuries of philosophizing gets refined
into the distinct "spiritual" substance of the metaphysician. And this,
not because the notion of a "soul" was derived from current knowledge or
thinking, but because it was one of the inherited forms of thought to
which philosophy had to accommodate itself. The result of this pressure
of the past upon contemporary thinking is that a large proportion of
mental activity is in each generation devoted to reconciling past
theories of things with current knowledge. In our own time the number
of volumes written to reconcile the theory of evolution with already
existing religious views is a striking example of this phenomenon. And
beyond the philosophic few there lies the mass of the people with whom
an established opinion of any kind takes on something of a sacred
character. Unfortunately, too, many writers work with an eye to the
prejudices of this class, which prejudices are in turn strengthened by
the tacit support of men of ability, or at least by their not openly
controverting them. It is, however, of the greatest significance that
since the opening of the modern scientific period, wherever qualified
thinkers have deliberately based their conclusions upon contemporary
knowledge the theory of determinism has been generally upheld.
A third cause of the persistence of the belief in "Free-Will" is its
association with theology. For at least four centuries, whenever the
discussion of the subject has assumed an acute form, it has been due to
theological requirements rather than to ethical or psychological
considerations. True, many other reasons have been advanced, but these
have been little more than cloaks for the theological interest. Apart
from theology there does not seem any valid reason why the principle of
determinism should rouse more opposition in connection with human
character than it does in connection with the course of physical nature.
Or if it be pointed out that the establishment of the principle of
universal causation, as applied to nature at large, was not established
without opposition, then the reply is that here again it was the
religious interest that dictated the opposition. It was felt that the
reduction of all physical phenomena to a mechanical sequence was
derogatory to the majesty of God, excluded the deity from his own
universe, and generally weakened the force of religious beliefs. And, as
a mere matter of historic fact, the establishment of the scientific
conception of nature did have, with the bulk of mankind, precisely the
consequences predicted. And when in the course of events theological
considerations were banished from one department of science after
another, it was only natural that theologians should fight with the
greater tenacity to maintain a footing in the region of human nature.
Although the subject is in origin pre-Christian, it was in connection
with Christian theology that it assumed an important place in European
thinking. The development of monotheism gave the problem a sharper point
and a deeper meaning. The issue here was a simple one. Given the belief
in God as sole creator and governor of the world, and he may conceivably
be related to mankind in one of two ways. Either he induces man to carry
out his will by an appeal to human reason and emotion, or he has so
arranged matters that certain events will inevitably come to pass at a
certain time, human effort being one of the contributory agencies to
that end. The first supposition leaves man "free"--at least in his
relation to deity. The second leads straight to the Christian doctrine
of predestination. Either supposition has, from the theological point of
view, its disadvantages. The first leaves man free as against God, but
it limits the power of deity by creating an autonomous force that may
act contrary to the divine will. The second opens up the question of
the divine wisdom and goodness, and by making God responsible for evil
conflicts with the demands of the moral sense. Evil and goodness are
made parts of the divine plan, and as man must fit in with the general
pre-arranged scheme, personal merit and demerit disappear. These
considerations explain why in the course of the Free-Will controversy
official Christianity has ranged itself now on one side and now on the
other. It has championed Determinism or Indeterminism as the occasion
served its interest. To-day, owing to easily discoverable reasons,
Christian writers are, in the main, markedly anti-deterministic.
The first clear statement of the Christian position, if we omit the
Pauline teaching that we are all as clay in the hands of the potter,
appears in the writings of Augustine. In opposition to the Pelagians,
Augustine maintained a doctrine of absolute predestination. No room was
allowed for human self-determination to anyone but the first man. Adam
was created and endowed with free-will, and chose evil--a curious
verification of Voltaire's definition of Free-Will as a capacity by
means of which man gets himself damned. And as in Adam there were
contained, potentially, all future generations, all are pre-destined to
eternal damnation except such as are saved through the free gift of
divine grace. This theory of Augustine's, carried to the point of
asserting the damnation of infants, was modified in several respects by
that great medieval Christian teacher, Thomas Aquinas, who held that
while the will might be "free" from external restraint, it was
determined by our reason, but was reinstated in full force by John
Calvin. He denied that the goodness or badness of man had anything
whatever to do with the bestowal or withholding of grace. God dooms men
either to heaven or hell, for no other reason than that he chooses to do
so. Most of the leading Protestants of the early Reformation period were
strongly opposed to "free-will." For instance, Zwingli asserted that God
was the "author, mover, and impeller to sin." Still more emphatic was
Luther. The will of man he compared to a horse, "If mounted by God it
wills and wends whithersoever God may will; if mounted by Satan it wills
and wends whithersoever Satan may will; neither hath it any liberty of
choice to which of the riders it shall run, or which it shall choose;
but the riders themselves contend for its acquisition and possession."
Among the most powerful essays ever written in defence of Determinism
was Jonathan Edwards's, the famous Protestant divine, "Inquiry into the
Modern Prevailing Notions respecting that Freedom of Will which is
supposed to be essential to moral agency, virtue and vice, reward and
punishment, praise and blame," and to which I shall have occasion to
refer later. Finally, the explicit declarations of the Westminster
Confession of Faith and the Articles of the Church of England, that
man's will,--in the absence of grace,--cannot accomplish good works,
throw a curious light on the theological opponents of Determinism who
denounce it as anti-Christian and immoral.
II.
"FREEDOM" AND "WILL."
To David Hume the dispute between the advocates of "Free-Will" and the
advocates of "Necessity" was almost entirely a matter of words. The
essence of the question, he thought, both sides were agreed on, and
consequently expressed the opinion that "a few intelligible definitions
would immediately have put an end to the whole controversy." That Hume
was over sanguine is shown by the controversy being still with us. Yet
his recommendation as to intelligible definitions, while pertinent to
all controversy, is specially so with regard to such a subject as that
of "Free-Will." For much of the anti-Determinist case actually rests
upon giving a misleading significance to certain phrases, while applying
others in a direction where they have no legitimate application.
Consider, for instance, the controversial significance of such a phrase
as "Liberty _versus_ Necessity"--the older name for Determinism. We all
love liberty, we all resent compulsion, and, as Mill pointed out, he who
announces himself as a champion of Liberty has gained the sympathies of
his hearers before he has commenced to argue his case. Such words play
the same part that "catchy" election cries do in securing votes. Such
phrases as "Power of Choice," "Sense of Responsibility," "Testimony of
Consciousness," "Consciousness of Freedom," are all expressions that,
while helpful and legitimate when used with due care and understanding,
as usually employed serve only to confuse the issue and prevent
comprehension.
Not that the dispute between the Volitionist and the Determinist is a
merely verbal one. The controversy carries with it a significance of the
deepest kind. Fundamentally the issue expresses the antagonism of two
culture stages, an antagonism which finds expression in many other
directions. We are in fact concerned with what Tylor well calls the
deepest of all distinctions in human thought, the distinction that
separates Animism from Materialism. Much as philosophic ingenuity may do
in the way of inventing defences against the application of the
principle of causation to human action, the deeper our analysis of the
controversy, the more clearly is it seen that we are dealing with an
attenuated form of that primitive animism which once characterised all
human thinking. The persistence of types is a phenomenon that occurs as
frequently in the world of mind as it does in the world of biology. Or
just as when a country is overrun by a superior civilisation, primitive
customs are found lingering in remote districts, so unscientific modes
of thinking linger in relation to the more obscure mental processes in
spite of the conquests of science in other directions.
It is well to bear these considerations in mind, even while admitting
that a great deal of the dispute does turn upon the fitness of the
language employed, and the accuracy with which it is used. And if
intelligible definition may not, as Hume hoped, end the controversy, it
will at least have the merit of making the issue plain.
What is it that people have in their minds when they speak of the
"Freedom of the Will"? Curiously enough, the advocates of "free-will"
seldom condescend to favour us with anything so commonplace as a
definition, or if they do it tells us little. We are consequently
compelled to dig out the meanings of their cardinal terms from the
arguments used. Now the whole of the argument for "free-will" makes the
word "free" or "freedom" the equivalent to _an absence of determining
conditions_; either this, or the case for "free-will" is surrendered.
For if a man's decisions are in any way influenced--"influenced" is here
only another word for "determined"--Determinism is admitted. I need not
argue whether decisions are wholly or partly determined, the real and
only question being whether they are determined at all. What is called
by some a limited free-will is really only another name for unlimited
nonsense.
"Freedom," as used by the Volitionist, being an equivalent for "absence
of determining conditions," let us ask next what this means. Here I am
brought to a dead halt. I do not know what it means. I cannot even
conceive it as meaning anything at all. At any rate, I am quite certain
that it is outside the region of scientific thought and nomenclature.
Scientifically, atoms of matter are not _free_ to move in any direction,
the planets are not _free_ to move in any shaped orbit, the blood is not
_free_ to circulate, the muscles are not _free_ to contract, the brain
is not _free_ to function. In all these cases what takes place is the
result of all converging circumstances and conditions. Given these and
the result follows. Scientifically, the thing that occurs is the only
thing possible. If the word "free" is used in science, it is as a figure
of speech, as when one speaks of a free gas, or of the blood not being
free to circulate owing to the existence of a constricted artery. But in
either case all that is meant is that a change in the nature of the
conditions gives rise to a corresponding change of result. The
determination of the gas or the blood to behave in a definite way is as
great in any case. From the point of view of science, then, to speak of
an absence of determining conditions is the most complete nonsense. All
science is a search for the conditions that determine phenomena. Save as
a metaphor, "freedom" has no place whatever in positive science.
Are we then to discard the use of such a word as "freedom" altogether?
By no means. Properly applied, the word is intelligible and useful
enough. When, for instance, we speak of a free man, a free state, a free
country, or free trade, we are using the word "free" in a legitimate
manner, and can give to it a precise significance. A free state is one
in which the people composing it pursue their way uncoerced by other
states. A free man is one who is at liberty to exert bodily action or
express his opinions. We do not mean that in the first instance the
people are not governed by laws, or that physical conditions are without
influence on them; nor do we mean, in the second instance, that the
actions and opinions of the free man are not the result of heredity,
bodily structure, education, social position, etc. The obvious meaning
of "freedom" in each of these cases is an absence of external and
non-essential coercion. It does not touch the question of why we act as
we do, or of why we please to act in this or that manner. As Jonathan
Edwards puts it: "The plain, obvious meaning of the words 'freedom' and
'liberty' is power and opportunity, or advantage that any one has to do
as he pleases." Or as Hume put it more elaborately:--
"What is meant by liberty when applied to voluntary actions? We
cannot surely mean that actions have so little connection with
motives, inclinations, and circumstances that one does not
follow with a certain degree of uniformity from the other. For
these are plain and acknowledged matters of fact. By liberty,
then, we can only mean a power of acting or not acting,
according to the determination of the will--that is, if we
choose to remain at rest we may; and if we choose to move, we
also may."
The ultimate significance of "liberty" or "freedom" is thus
sociological. Here it expresses a fact; in positive science it is a mere
metaphor, and, as experience shows, a misleading one. Its use in
philosophy dates from the time of the Greeks, and when they spoke of a
free man they were borrowing an illustration from their social life.
There were slaves and there were free men, and in speaking of a free man
people were not so likely as they were at a later date to be misled by
a metaphor. Unfortunately, its use in philosophy has continued, while
its limitations have been ignored. To ask if a man is free is an
intelligible question. To ask whether actions are free from the
determining associations of organization and environment admits of but
one intelligible reply. Personally, I agree with Professor Bain that the
term "is brought in by main force, into a phenomenon to which it is
altogether incommensurable," and it would be well if it could be
excluded altogether from serious discussion[2].
[2] "The subjective sense of freedom, sometimes
alleged against Determinism, has no bearing on the
question whatever. The view that it has a bearing
rests upon the belief that causes compel their
effects, or that nature enforces obedience to its
laws as governments do. These are mere
anthropomorphic superstitions, due to assimilation
of causes with volitions, and of natural laws with
human edicts. We feel that our will is not
compelled, but that only means that it is not
other than we choose it to be. It is one of the
demerits of the traditional theory of causality
that it has created an artificial opposition
between determinism and the freedom of which we
are introspectively conscious." (Bertrand Russell,
_Mysticism and Logic_, p. 206.)
So also Wundt: "Freedom and constraint are
reciprocal concepts; they are both necessarily
connected with consciousness; outside of
consciousness they are both imaginary concepts,
which only a mythologising imagination could relate
to things." (_Human and Animal Psychology_, p.
426.)
Now let us take that equally confusing word "will." Unfortunately, few
of those who champion the freedom of the will think it worth while to
trouble their readers with a clear definition of what they mean by it.
The orthodox definition of the will as "a faculty of the soul" tells us
nothing. It is explaining something the existence of which is
questioned by reference to something else the existence of which is
unknown. Or the definition is volunteered, "Will is the power to
decide," a description which only tells us that to will is to will.
Professor James tells us that "Desire, wish, will, are states of mind
which every one knows, and which no definition can make plainer." This
may be true of desire and wish; it certainly is not true of "will."
There is no question as to "will" being a state of mind, but as to every
one knowing its character, and above all possessing the knowledge
enabling him to discriminate between "will" and "desire" and "wish,"
this is highly questionable. One may also be permitted the opinion that
if advocates of "free-will" were to seriously set themselves the task of
discovering what they do mean by "will," and also in what way it may be
differentiated from other mental states, the number of the champions of
that curious doctrine would rapidly diminish.
What is it that constitutes an act of volition, or supplies us with the
fact of will? The larger part of our bodily movements do not come under
the heading of volition at all. The primary bodily movements are reflex,
instinctive, emotional, the action following without any interposition
of consciousness. Of course, an action that is performed quite
automatically at one time may be voluntarily performed at another time.
I may close my eyelid deliberately, or it may be because of the approach
of some foreign object. Or an action, if it be performed frequently,
tends to become automatic. To come within the category of a voluntary
action, it must be performed consciously, and there is also present
some consciousness of an end to be realized. Every voluntary action is
thus really dependent upon memory. A newly-born child has no volitions,
only reflexes. It is only when experience has supplied us with an idea
of what _may_ be done that we _will_ it shall be done. This
consideration alone is enough to shatter the case for the supposed
freedom of the will.[3]
[3] The essential issue is again confused by the
language employed. If all volitional action is
action performed with the view to an end, a quite
correct and completely adequate word would be
"intentional"! If we were to speak of an
"intentional" action instead of a voluntary one,
the nature of the act would be clear, the factors
of experience, memory, consciousness of an end,
would be indicated, and the misleading
associations of "willing" avoided. It is
difficult, however, to introduce a new
terminology, and so I must beg the reader, in the
interests of clarity, to bear in mind that
whenever "voluntary action" is referred to, it is
"intentional" action that is connoted by the
phrase.
If we analyze any simple act of volition what has just been said will be
made quite clear. I am sitting in a room and _will_ to open a window; it
may be to get fresh air, to look out, or for some other reason. Assume
that the first is the correct reason, the room being close and "stuffy."
First of all, then, I become aware of a more or less unpleasant feeling;
my experience tells me this is because the air in the room needs
purifying. Experience also tells me that by opening a window the desired
result will be obtained. Finally, I open the window and experience a
feeling of relief and satisfaction. Now had the room been without a
window, and the door bolted from the outside, or had the window been too
heavy for me to raise, no "volition" would have arisen. I should still
have had the desire for fresh air, but not seeing any means by which
this could be obtained, I should have had no _motive_ for action, and
should have remained perfectly passive. In order that my desire may
operate as a motive there must be not only a consciousness of a need,
but also a mental representation of the means by which that need is to
be gratified. I _will_ to do a thing, when allied to the desire for that
thing there is a conception of _how_ it is to be done, of the means to
be employed. Without this I have no motive, only a desire; without a
consciousness of the nature of the desire, there is nothing but pure
feeling. "Willing terminates with the prevalence of the idea...."
"Attention with effort is all that any case of volition implies." (Prof.
W. James, _Princip. of Psychology_, II. 560-1.)
The stages of the process are, feeling rising into consciousness as
desire, the perception of the means to realize an end which raises the
desire from the statical to the dynamic stage of motive, and finally a
voluntary or intentional action. Now at no stage of this process is
there room for the intervention of any power or faculty not expressed in
a strictly sequential process. Of course, the action I have taken as an
example is an exceedingly simple one, but the more complex actions only
offer greater difficulties of analysis without leading to any different
result. This will be seen more clearly when we come to deal with
"choice" and "deliberation." From the moment that a certain stimulus
creates a desire in an organism, to the time that desire expresses
itself in action, there is no gap in the chain through which a
"Free-Will" may manifest its being. The physiologist points out that at
the basis of all our feelings and ideas there lie certain neural
processes. The psychologist takes up the story and from the dawn of
desire to action finds no break--or at least none that future knowledge
may not reasonably hope to make good. Want of knowledge may at present
prevent our tracing all the details of the process, but this is surely a
very inadequate ground on which to affirm the existence of a power at
variance with our knowledge of nature in other directions.[4]
[4] Whether we work backward or forward the result
is the same. Strip off from the mind all feelings,
desires, all consciousness of ends and means to
ends, and what there is left is not a "will" ready
to throw the weight of its preference in this or
that direction, but a complete blank.
Now in thus tracing the course of a voluntary action are we doing any
more than observing the action of desire in consciousness? If, yes, the
writer is quite unaware of the fact. If I remove all feeling, all
desire, all motive, "the will" disappears. Excite feeling, generate
desire, and there is the occasion for a voluntary action. Multiply the
number of desires and the operation of "will" becomes evident. Thus when
a writer like Professor Hyslop says, "If two motives offer different
attractions to the will," the reply is that the "will" is not one thing,
and motives other things, but two aspects of one fact. The "will" is not
something that decides or chooses between motives; the "will" is nothing
more than the name given to that motive or cluster of motives which is
sufficiently strong to overcome resistance and to express itself in
action. I emphasize the expression "overcome resistance" because without
competing motives and a sense of resistance we have no clear
consciousness of volition. Where only one desire is present in
consciousness, or where it is of overwhelming strength, feeling is
succeeded by action without any recognizable hiatus. It is the sense of
conflict, the break, that is essential to creating a lively sense of
volition, and also, as shall see later, to the sense of choice and
deliberation. But in speaking of an action as the expression of motives,
or as an expression of "will," both statements are identical so far as
the fact is concerned. We have not desires, motives, and "will," there
is simply a desire or desires that assume the quality of a motive by
being strong enough to result in action. As Spencer has put it, "Will is
no more an existence apart from the predominant feeling than a king is
an existence apart from the man occupying the throne."
All that is to be found in any act of "will" is a desire accompanied by
the consciousness of an end. To put the same thing in another way, we
have a desire, the consciousness of an end and the means of realizing
it, and, finally, action. To the physiological and psychological
processes that culminate in action we give the name of motive. Properly
speaking a motive that does not issue in action--or inhibition--is not a
motive at all, it is a mere desire. And apart from the presence of
desire, or of desires, "will" does not exist. It is a pure abstraction,
valuable enough as an abstraction, but having no more real existence
apart from particular motives, than "tree" is a real existence apart
from particular trees. Physiologically, says Dr. Maudsley:--
"We cannot choose but reject _the_ will.... As physiologists we
have to deal with volition as a function of the supreme centres,
following reflection, varying in quantity and quality as its
cause varies, strengthened by education and exercise, enfeebled
by disuse, decaying with decay of structure.... We have to deal
with will not as a single undecomposable faculty unaffected by
bodily conditions, but as a result of organic changes in the
supreme centres, affected as certainly and as seriously by
disorders of them as our motor faculties are by disorders of
their centres."
And, says Professor Sully, referring to _the_ will:--
"Modern scientific psychology knows nothing of such an entity.
As a science of phenomena and their laws, it confines itself to
a consideration of the processes of volition, and wholly
discards the hypothesis of a substantial will as unnecessary and
unscientific."
Neither physiology nor psychology, neither a sane science nor a sound
philosophy, knows anything of, or can find use for, an autonomous
"will." "Will" as the final term of a discoverable series may be
admitted; "will" as a self-directing force, deciding whether particular
desires shall or shall not prevail, answers to nothing conformable to
our knowledge of man, and is plainly but the ghost of the wills and
souls of our savage ancestors. If instead of speaking of the freedom of
the will, we spoke of uncaused volitions, the position of the
volitionist would be clear, and its indefensible character plain to all.
But by giving the abstraction "will" a concrete existence, and by taking
from sociology a word such as "freedom" and using it in a sphere in
which it has no legitimate application, the issue is confused, and a
scientifically absurd theory given an air of plausibility. The dispute
between the Determinist and the Indeterminist is certainly not one of
words only, but it is one in which the cardinal terms employed need the
most careful examination if we are to clear away from the subject the
verbal fog created by theologians and metaphysicians.
III.
CONSCIOUSNESS, DELIBERATION, AND CHOICE.