Free Will and Morality

Morality is supposed to provide a code of conduct – an account of how to live – that pays careful attention to how my actions affect other people. Such codes always contain at least some ‘perfect duties,’ i.e., those negative commands that tell us what not to do. Generally, if we violate those commands, we are held responsible for our actions and are frowned upon, scorned, and even punished. However, there are exceptions: if I was forced to do something bad I am not responsible because it was not me acting but rather that someone or something who forced me to act in that way. But this exception is premised upon the idea that I am otherwise generally responsible for my actions because they are a product of my free choice: I could have done something else, but I freely chose to do something that violates the moral code and so I am responsible for the consequences.

 

Insofar as the very idea of morality is premised upon the assumption that we are free, the debate over the nature and existence of the free will is crucial to moral theory: if we are not free, then we cannot be held responsible for our actions, and morality then makes no sense. So the first thing that must be determined is what the free will, and the second thing that must be determined is whether such a thing exists. (A third thing would be the extent of the free will: do I will the end at which all my actions ultimately end or merely the means to the end?)

 

Most discussion over the nature of the free will centers on how such a thing is possible in a natural world in which everything is assumed to be determined by antecedent causes. (Indeed, no one disputes that all nonrational physical objects are fully determined in this fashion.) So the question is, Is free will compatible with a determinist account of the world? If not, then the free will must be a nonnatural faculty, which is something many today are not willing to accept.

 

In this debate, there are two general possible positions: incompatibilism and compatibilism. The incompatibilist argues that a free will in incompatible with talk of antecedent causes – if anything prior to the act of willing caused (determined) that act, then it is not free. Thus, in willing freely, I can, as it were, act without concern for what would determine me if I were a regular animal. Hume calls this idea “the liberty of indifference” insofar as it claims that my freedom is a matter of being ‘indifferent’ to antecedent causes – meaning that I am able in some way able to negate them so that they do not determine me. The compatibilist, on the other hand, argues that the notion of free will is compatible with determinism, since what is at issue in free willing is not the ability to negate causes but rather a different kind of cause. According to the compatibilist, there are, for the rational being, both external causes and internal causes. An internal cause means that the source of what I do comes from within me – it is internal – and so I am not compelled by someone or something outside of me. This is called the ‘liberty of spontaneity’ by Hume, insofar as I am able to act ‘spontaneously,’ meaning that I am able to do what I want – based on whatever I happen to desire at that moment – and am not compelled by something prior to me.

 

Hume argues that the liberty of indifference makes morality impossible: if it is a denial of causes, then my action has no cause but is in fact random. I cannot be held responsible for an action that I did not cause and that is simply random. Therefore, I must be the cause. But what is there within me that could cause me to do something? Hume would say that what is in me is my will – and so liberty (freedom of action) is simply being able to act in accord with what I will/desire. Insofar as I am then the cause of what I do, I can be held responsible for it: there is a positive condition (I am the cause of the action) and a negative condition (and nothing external to me made me do it), and we are morally responsible only when both conditions are met.

 

To an incompatibilist, such as Kant or Beauvoir or Augustine or Aquinas (though Aquinas is tricky here), the notion of spontaneous liberty makes no sense, insofar as I am not in control of my willings and desires if they were in fact shaped by forces outside of me. For instance, I might desire to never lie, but if this is because I was subjected to a regimented, controlled upbringing in which I was electro-shocked every time I lied, I might well desire not to lie, and the cause of this has been internalized, but it makes no sense to say that I act freely when I act on such a desire. Kant said that such a notion of freedom could apply to clock: it moves according to a mechanism internal to it that is at present untouched by anything outside of it … although of course this is only because it was built this way and at some previous point wound up. It makes no sense to say that it is free. Therefore, to say that I am a cause of my actions in any meaningful sense must therefore mean that nothing internal or external – no inner force such as passion and not outer force such as a threat of violence – compels me.

 

Yet Hume has a stronger argument, one that should make us think twice before accepting the ‘indifferent’ free will. (And a quick note here: the ‘indifference’ here is metaphysical, meaning that it says something about the nature of necessity and what is – the will is able to act in such a way that antecedent causes make no difference; in class I have also used the phrase ‘liberty of indifference’ in a moral sense – the liberty that we find in Hobbes is premised on the idea that I am naturally indifferent to others when I exercise my liberty.) This stronger argument is based on the supposed existence of the moral sentiment and our ability to exercise it when viewing character traits from a common point of view. According to Hume, we can never actually see a character trait – a personality; rather, we only see actions. However, we frequently judge the character of others. So how is this possible? Hume argues that it makes sense only if we assume a few things: First, I can take a set of actions and I can, from them, infer the kind of character who would perform them. Second, I can assume that this character is responsible for them. Third, I can assume that characters don’t suddenly change – they don’t suddenly become indifferent to who and what they have become over the course of time. If characters were not both steady and also the cause of the actions of the person, then moral discourse and morality as we know it would not be possible. In fact, when we hold a personal morally responsible, we are in essence saying that the person’s character produced the action, and we hold people responsible for their characters.

 

This then leads to the question of my character: Who am I, and how can I be held responsible for who I am? The incompatibilist would say that if my character was shaped by my physiology and my environment, then it makes no sense to suddenly hold me responsible for it when I am an adult. Doing this would only make sense if it were actually possible for me to change it: in other words, only if I could transform myself from what I was once in something different (something that I am not yet but could be) would it make sense to say that I am the author of – and so responsible for – my character.

 

So where does Aquinas stand in all of this? He is supposed to stand on the side of the incompatibilists. However, he can often sound like he is closer to Hume. Yes, there are obvious differences, insofar as Hume believes that reason cannot prescribe the end – the good – to a person. Reason is all about the means, and it is the will that moves me and that sends me out into the world after things and away from things. Reason doesn’t, as it were, go out in advance of the world and find things that the will might like; rather, the will tells reason what it wants and then reason hurries off to do its bidding. If we then ask, From where does the will get its sense of what it wants?, it seems that the only source is the passions. Contrary to such a view, Aquinas claims that reason can go in advance of the will and seek out the way of life that it should want. The will then measures – and so accepts or rejects – what reasons presents. However, this sounds odd: Would not our reason have already measured what it found as good against the true good, and so would it not have already accepted this possible good as the means to the true good before submitting it to reason? It sounds as if either the will really just is deliberative, practical reason (which is what both Aristotle and Kant would say), or that the will really has no work to do. I mean, c’mon, what lame will would reject its own good?

 

The answer that should suggest itself, based on our reading of Aquinas, is this: a will that has been overwhelmed by a passion would reject what reason offers. But if passion can overwhelm the will in the face of what reason suggests, then is it really free in the incompatiblist’s sense of freedom? Augustine, as we will see tomorrow, will say no, such a will is not free. And, in fact, Augustine posits a ‘lame’ will: our will could, when offered the good, perversely choose to not go after it. Indeed, later in life Augustine claimed that the free will is really only the capacity to sin, since we are by nature designed to want the good.