Tyler Belle
Philosophy 3000
(Summer)
Metaphysics
Dr. Vadim Batitsky
13 July 2018
Incompatibilism between the thesis of determinism and free will
The thesis of determinism and the thesis of free will are only shown to be proven true when examined independently. When the two thesis are believed to be fully true, it would not be possible for the other thesis to be true. The term incompatibilism is used to describe the lack of a mutual relationship between both theses, examples show that one person would not be able to fully agree with both of these theses at one given time. In order to fully understand why these theses cannot exist with one another, you must first understand the components of each thesis. The thesis of determinism is primarily defined as believing that everything that occurs is uniquely determined to happen as it does by past occurrences while the thesis of free will is defined as the decision to choose an action out of one more equal options that you are actually physically able to act on.
The thesis of determinism uses reasoning that recognizes the success of science in discovering lawful explanations for events that take place in the natural world. Determinist also believe that the universe is a certain way because at some point in the past it showed to be that way. Using an example from the text, if you place water in an ice tray and place it in the freezer at a temperature of 32 degrees Fahrenheit for a sufficient amount of time, the water will freeze into ice. The law of nature proves that water molecules cannot remain liquid at sufficiently low temperatures unless the law of nature was compromised for example, maybe the water was mixed with anti-freeze or you did not leave the water in the freezer long enough. This proves that past states of the water and freezer before now show that the water will always turn to ice as long as you are using pure water in a freezer for a sufficient time period. A determinist will use the scientific history of water’s freezing point to show that what has happened then in regards to water in this situation will continue to happen in the future. The two main important factors in the determinist theory is the past history and the laws of nature. The outcome will continue to reflect one of the past as long as the laws of nature in the situation is not compromised. This use of scientific explanation is also known as the deductive-nomological account of explanation which addresses why somethings happen in the universe by expressing the laws of nature and prior conditions.
The thesis of free will takes a completely different direction then determinism because the thesis of free will says that, you are voluntarily choosing your action from other possible choices that you are able in all aspects to execute. There are two components of free will and that is alternative course of action and power or ability. Alternative course of action is making sure that whatever your other options are when you are faced with the choice of free will is equally to the other actions. Power or ability is what we commonly referred to as what we should have done or what we can do. If we couldn’t have made any other choice or we were not able to physically do something else. Sometimes we associate free will with freedom or liberation in a positive manner, however, free will can also be the ability to do something that you shouldn’t do because it is morally wrong but you chose to still do it. So it is important to understand that because you are faced with something you “cannot” do meaning that it is maybe illegal or wrong, does not mean that you literally cannot make a free will decision to do it. An example from the text is, if your friend expresses to you that she intends to rob a bank, you will immediately respond that she “cannot” do that. You’re referring to her moral interest; she shouldn’t do that but you are not necessarily taking away that she physically can rob a bank. So when you are studying free will and you are trying to identify the power or ability of someone to do something you cannot say that someone did not have free will because they morally cannot do something, you can only review their free will on the basis of if they have the option available and if they are physically able to complete that action. We can sometimes get confused into thinking that we have free will because we have freedom and liberal rights by law to make decisions as long as they are not illegal. When in reality free will is not discussing liberation, morality or legality.
The thesis of incompatibilism suggest that the thesis of determinism and free will cannot exist at the same time. Meaning that one could not possible believe in determinism and free will can be true. The argument for incompatibilism is that if someone is acting on free will, they are performing an action against another equal option that they are able to do. Now let’s say we add determinism into this example, the person who is performing the action would have another option only if he could control the factors of the action or event. However according to the thesis of determinism, the factors cannot be controlled because they are determined by the past and laws of nature. Since no one can control the factors, he could not choose another option which means that he is not free and does not have free will which concludes that where determinism is, free will cannot exist. These two ideas are completely different which supports the conclusion that the thesis of free will and determinism cannot be accepted together, they must be accepted independently That would make the thesis of free will and determinism incompatible.
According to what we know about determinism, only one possible future can can exist with the actual past. However, this is completely different than free will because the thesis of free will shows that there is an uncertainty depending on what action you choose. The future outcome of a decision is strictly based on which direction you go as long as it is available and you are able to choose the option. The preciseness of a physically possible future is supported by the proven scientific past that has been discovered and is proven to only produce one result and this is used to give the precise formulation of determinism.
In conclusion, the thesis of determination and the thesis of free will cannot be accepted together because of their incompatibilism. The thesis of determinism is supports the idea that the laws of nature and past will determine future occurrences while the thesis of free will is fulfilled only when you are equally presented with another option that you are able to act on. We can prove that these theses are true determinism is also supported by deductive-nomological account of explanation which is a scientific reasoning to explain the laws of nature and history while free will is justified as true because most of us do believe that we ultimately make our own decisions by using deliberations based on our knowledge or emotions.