Criticisms
There appear to be three possibilities with regard to free will:
- we are determined, therefore we are not free (determinism)
- we are free, and therefore not determined (libertarianism)
- we are determined, and yet free (compatibilism).
Determinists and Libertarians agree that free will is not compatible with determinism. There is an appeal to common sense here - if what we do is determined by things out of our control, then we have not acted freely. This is a criticism of compatibilism.
Determinists claim we are determined. One response from libertarians is to attack each of the determinists' claims.
- The laws of physics have been found to be unreliable - modern physics does not hold to the 'universal laws' of Newton in the same way that it used to (they are no longer seen as universal). There is an inherent unpredictability in the physical universe.
- The 'laws' of psychology can make predictions, but they cannot say what will happen, as the individual is free to choose.
- Our genes produce tendencies towards certain behaviour - although our eye colour may be determined, our moral choices are not.
- The principal of universal causation applies to the physical world. Who I am is not caused by the physical world - I am who I am independently of anything that happens in the world.
Compatibilists attack libertarians simply by using the determinist arguments - something must have caused me to make the choices I make; whatever that was must have been caused by something else. Compatibilists attack determinists because there is clearly a difference between the actions I take under duress (I fall because gravity pulls me) and the actions I choose (I choose to eat a burger - no one forces me to). Although both are necessarily caused, one is caused by my personality (I love burgers and have no self-control) and one is caused by external laws. My love of burgers and lack of self-control must ahve causes that are, eventually, external. However, there is a difference between internal and external causes.
