Roger Farnworth (C101/6) appears to me to be arguing from the premise "all human actions are determined by preceding causes" to the conclusion "all human actions are determined by preceding causes". Such an argument is a tautology and, although logically unassailable, is not particularly useful.
Consider four conversations as follows:
A: I have this wonderful theory called the law of gravity. It explains how things move.
B:
That is interesting. Now watch this experiment. I sprinkle some iron filings on a piece of paper and then hold a magnet above them. See the filings jump up to attach themselves to the magnet.A: According to my theory the gravitational attraction of the Earth beneath the piece of paper is far greater than that of the magnet above them and so the filings should remain on the paper. Therefore that is what is happening and what we think we see is merely a delusion on our part.
B: But I thought that theory had to be tested against experience and that where they do not match then it is the theory, not the experience, that needs to be reconsidered.
C: I have this wonderful theory called determinism. It explains how things happen.
D: That is interesting. Now watch this experiment. Sometimes I choose to walk around the sunny side of the water tower and sometimes I choose to walk around the shady side.
C: According to my theory the question of whether you go round the sunny side or the shady side is fully determined by preceding causes (even if neither you nor I know what they are) over which you have no control. Therefore that is what is happening and what you think of as choice is merely a delusion on your part.
D: But I thought that theory had to be tested against experience and that where they do not match then it is the theory, not the experience, that needs to be reconsidered.
E: I have this wonderful experience I call seeing colour. I see red and blue and yellow.
F: Colour does not exist. Photons exist. As there is an evolutionary advantage in distinguishing between the wavelengths of different photons your brain has developed a method of doing so. This is what you call colour, but it is an illusion inside your head.
E: But when I look at a painting or a flower I do not see photons or wavelengths. What I see is colour. No doubt it would be possible to devise a machine that could detect photons and distinguish their wavelengths but it would not experience colour as I do. Seeing colour is part of what it is to be me, a human being. Your sterile reductionism would be unable to distinguish between me and that machine.
G: I have this wonderful experience I call exercising free will. See, here is a water tower. I am going to exercise my free will in deciding whether to go round the sunny side or the shady side.
H: Free Will does not exist. Causes and effects exist. If you think you have a choice whether to go round the sunny side or the shady side then you delude yourself. It is already decided by causes over which you have no control.
G: But what I experience is the exercise of choice. Even after I have made my choice I still genuinely believe that I could have chosen the alternative had I wanted to do so. Your sterile reductionism would have me an automaton unthinkingly carrying out instructions dictated to me by causes over which I have no control but that is not what I experience. This experience that I have the power to make choices is an essential part of what it is to be me, a human being.
My point is that in comparing determinism with free will we are not comparing like with like. Determinism is like the law of gravity: an hypothesis about how the world works. Free will is like seeing colour: part of our experience of what it is to be a human being. The distinction corresponds to what we know about how the brain works. The right hand side of the brain takes our experiences; the left hand side has a repertoire of models. They have a sort of dialogue to find which model will fit the experience.
One way of viewing the history of civilisation might be as a progressive expansion in the number, variety and complexity of these left hand side models to deal not just with physical objects but also with scientific and philosophical ideas. No model has any metaphysical basis and all are, at best, no more than approximations to a more profound reality to which we do not at present, and may never, have access. Sometimes a model is abandoned because a better one has come along to replace it (Ptolemaic/Copernican cosmologies), sometimes one that has worked well in the past can be modified or redefined to fit better with observation (Newton/Einstein Law of Gravity), sometimes a model will linger on despite a poor match with experience because nothing better has come along to replace it or because it meets psychological needs (religion). All such models are simplifications (the mind cannot take in the full complexity of the universe) and provisional (something better may come along). They must constantly be tested against experience.
Determinism is one of these models. Like the law of gravity it has no metaphysical basis and we do not know what it is or why it is the way it is. We should not make excessive claims for either: gravity will not "explain" magnetism and determinism will not "explain" free will. Nor should we neglect the possibility that either may one day be superseded by a more profound understanding. The reasons for continuing to use determinism, at least in the physical sciences - those which attempt to answer the question: "How am I to make sense of my experience of a world out there over which will (whatever that may be) has no control?", are that it has a good track record of success and that if we do not use it we have nothing else. There is no certainty that it will provide an answer, but if we do use it there is the possibility of an answer and if we do not there is no such possibility.
When we move to intellectual disciplines which have to take account of human decisions the picture is less clear. Economics and sociology are rather like quantum physics to the extent that they make no attempt to apply determinism to saying how a specific individual will behave. Instead they apply it to averages and probabilities of mass populations, but why should it work for these but not for the individual? When I was a history undergraduate I wrote essays setting out the reasons why X chose Y and not Z, but I sometimes wondered whether, if X had chosen Z instead of Y, would I not have found an equally convincing set of reasons? Similarly, when Roger finds, in retrospect, reasons why he went round the sunny side of the water tower he should ponder whether, if he had gone round the shady side, would he not have found reasons for that too? History is never going to repeat itself and nobody is going to present reasons to show why what did actually happen should not have happened or why what did not happen should have happened. In finding chains of cause and effect retrospectively we are never going to be in a position to say to what extent we are discovering a profound causality that was there at the time, and to what extent we are imposing, with the benefit of hindsight, a pattern of causality which give us a reassuring (but possibly illusory) feeling that we have a mental grasp on what would otherwise be an inexplicable sequence of events.
Free will is not a model or an hypothesis. It is an experience which, like sight or hearing, is an integral part of what it is to be a human being. To deny it when answering the question "What is it to be a human being?" is to throw the baby out with the bath water. Accepting that we have sight makes art possible; accepting that we have hearing makes music possible; accepting that we have free will makes ethics possible. It is in the field of ethics that the poverty of determinism is most apparent.
To the determinist there is no merit in the good man who does a virtuous deed, nor does any blame attach to the bad man who does an evil deed. Each is a passive link in a chain of cause and effect, bound to do whatever he does by causes over which he has no control. Indeed, for the determinist words like good and bad, virtue and evil have no meaning and the possibility of ethics does not exist. That Roger has not thought through the full implications of his position is evident from his final paragraph. For the determinist, there can be no "more" or "less" compassion because the amount of compassion is already determined. For the determinist, philosophy cannot "change" (radically or otherwise) the way we live because the way we live is already determined. In each case the causes that do the determining have to be impersonal and independent of human will because the determinist does not accept that humans have any will.
I am no more able to offer a metaphysical basis for free will than I can for determinism. All I can say is that a determinism that denies free will has nothing to offer humanity but a bleak prospect of being puppets passively acting out parts already dictated for them by impersonal causes and effects over which they have no control. Free will corresponds to actual human experience and, once accepted, it allows the possibility of choice. Of course, choice brings with it responsibility and that is why we need ethics, but choice also opens up the prospect (not available to determinist puppets) of changing the way we live and of living a fuller and better life. It is the distinction that separates human beings from puppets.
Malcolm Burn