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Essay: Psychological Determinism is Directly Opposed to Freedom and Moral Responsibility

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  • Published: 1 April 2019*
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Psychological Determinism is Directly Opposed to Freedom and Moral Responsibility

Psychological determinism—first conceived by David Hume as the Doctrine of Necessity—holds that antecedent conditions, in conjunction with the laws of nature, control all human psychology and action. In theory, this notion means that all our actions have been predetermined by causal conditions, arguably before we were even born. If all our actions are predetermined, with only one valid future at any given moment, does this mean that we do not have free will? Moreover, if psychological determinism is true, how can we take moral responsibility for our actions? The answer to these questions depends on a variety of factors—the definition of freedom, moral responsibility, control, agency, determination, and event, among others. Here, I will work to untangle these concepts to prove the following conclusion. I believe that an innate consequence of psychological determinism is that we do not have freedom due to the inability to control our actions. If psychological determinism is true, then we are not free due to the fixed past conditions, no alternative choices, and the ultimate source of action being outside of the agent. In this paper, I will first further elaborate on the premises of Hume’s argument to deconstruct and build my own argument against it. Then, I will introduce an objection to my argument from a critic. Lastly, I will respond to this objection to prove that my initial argument still holds.

Hume’s main premise in his argument for psychological determinism is that there is “great uniformity among the actions of men” and that “human nature remains the same.” Therefore, if human nature remains the same, he concludes that everything you think and feel is predetermined by prior conditions. Further, he tries to convince us that we already believe in the uniformity in human nature. Specifically, Hume argues that we would not believe a person who told us they knew of a group of people that acted with a completely different human nature. The fact that we don’t believe, he argues, is proof that we already believe in psychological determinism. However, the aim of this paper is not to debate the plausibility of determinism, rather to prove that it is incompatible with freedom.

The classical incompatibilist argument, first argued by Kant, relies on the premise that time is unidirectional—we are unable to change the events of the past. While some thought has been put into the Theory of Relativity and wormholes, practically, this premise holds firm. Furthermore, if we take psychological determinism to be true, the action you are about to perform is determined by antecedent conditions, in conjunction with the laws of nature. These antecedent conditions belong to the past. Since we are unable to control the past, we cannot control the action we are about the perform. Therefore, if you have no control over the action you are about the perform, you have no freedom. The suppressed premise here is that freedom requires that you have control over your action. This notion paints humans as little more than robots, simply following some unseen code that relies on the laws of psychology and antecedent conditions. If psychological determinism is true, I agree with Kant that it would implicitly imply that we have no control over our actions.

To further bolster the incompatibility between psychological determinism and freedom, I will use an example that illustrates Harry Frankfurt’s principle of Alternative Possibilities (PAP). First, this argument relies on the notion that any action is only performed with free will iff the agent has control over the action. Further, when I am deciding on what to eat for dinner, I only have control in this decision if I have the ability to choose between and act upon alternative options for dinner. If I have these alternative possibilities, then I could have acted upon and chosen a different course of action. For example, if I had chose to have pupusas for dinner, but also could have had empanadas. However, if psychological determinism is true, then there is only ever one possible future given my fixed prior conditions and the unchanging laws of nature. Therefore, if I only ever had the option that I chose (pupusas), then I would have never had empanadas for dinner. I could have never actually chosen to do any alternative pathway. Finally, if I never actually had the option to choose an alternative course of action, then I never had control over this action, and, consequently, never had free will.

Hume objects to both of these notions that freedom is incompatible with psychological determinism. Rather, he offers a conception of freedom that is compatible with psychological determinism. However, Hume tries to convince us that our definition of freedom must be compatible with psychological determinism, or else we risk defining all our actions as not free. Additionally, he has an intuition that humans must act with a degree of freedom. This argument starts by noting the difference between “free” and “not free” to differentiate between actions. Then, he argues that our free actions being determined by motives is acknowledged by all. If we define our actions that are determined by movies to be excluded from free actions, then we will have no free actions. Therefore, we must define freedom to be compatible with all our actions being determined.

Hume offers both a simple and complex notion of freedom. Here, I will focus on analyzing his complex notion of freedom. Hume argues that an action is free when two conditions are true. First, when the action is produced from a choice or act of will, and, second, when action flows from the person’s character. The closer the action is to a person’s character, the freer the action is, and, consequently, the more moral responsibility the person has for that action. Hume argues that our notion of punishment is consistent with our character determining our choices. When we punish someone for an action, we are saying that their flawed character caused them to act in a morally responsible way that allowed them to freely, to some extent, perform the punishable action. By punishing them, we are assuming that we will change the offender’s choices. The offender's choices are changed by reforming the offender's character. Thus, punishment assumes that our character motivates our choices. Finally, if our choices are not reflected by our character, then Hume argues that there is no way to hold someone morally responsible for their actions. There is nothing that is “durable and constant” that would make a person answerable for their actions. If a person’s character does not cause a person’s choices to some extent, then “a man [or woman] is as pure and untainted, after having committed the most horrid crime, as at the first moment of his birth.”

However, this argument is flawed in that it presupposes that a person’s character means that they are the ultimate source of their actions. As stated previously, my action to have pupusas for dinner is only from free will if I have control over that action. In order to have control over this action, I need to be the ultimate source of the action. If I am the ultimate source of my action, then there must be some condition necessary for me to choose pupusas for dinner that originates with myself. Further, if psychological determinism is true, then the future is completely determined by antecedent condition, in conjunction with the laws of nature. However, this means that for any condition that made me choose pupusas for dinner, there are other conditions independent of myself from my past that made me choose pupusas for dinner. Thus, I am not the ultimate source of my action. My action is controlled by conditions from the past. I argue that this holds true even if the person’s character is that condition. Therefore, if psychological determinism is true, then no one is ever the ultimate source of their actions, and no one ever performs an action from their own free will.

If psychological determinism is true, then there is no way you can have control over your actions. Rather, by definition, your actions are controlled for you by previous conditions and the laws of nature. In order to have free will, you must be able to control your action. This includes being able to choose, and act upon, alternative pathways, as well as being the ultimate source of your choice. Hume’s conception of freedom relies on someone making a choice that flows from their character. However, if determinism is true, then you the prior conditions that have shaped and controlled your character. You are still not the ultimate source of your action, it has been predetermined for you by antecedent conditions and the laws of nature. Therefore, there is no way to have ultimate control and freedom over your action if psychological determinism is true.

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