In Defence of Free Will

With other Philosophical Essays

C A Campbell

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781317852254
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Filosofía
• Subtopic: Historia y teoría filosóficas

First published in 2002. This is Volume IV of seventeen in the Library of Philosophy series on Metaphysics. Written in 1968, this is a collection of essays on the topic of looking at the key question of not whether linguistic analysis has a valuable function in philosophy-that has already been settled, but rather as to the precise nature and extent of its profitable employment in solving specific problems.

Part I

Philosophy of Morals

I

Is ‘Free Will’ a Pseudo-Problem?

I

In the days when the Verifiability Principle was accepted by its devotees as a secure philosophical truth, one could understand, though one might not agree with, the sweeping claim that many of the traditional problems of philosophy had been shown to be mere ‘pseudo-problems’. It was easy to see how, given the Principle’s validity, most of the leading questions which agitated our forefathers in metaphysics, in ethics, and in theology, automatically become nonsensical questions. What is perplexing, however, is that despite the pretty generally acknowledged deterioration in the Principle’s status to that of a convenient methodological postulate, the attitude to these same questions seems to have changed but little. To admit that the Verifiability Principle is not an assured truth entails the admission that a problem can no longer be dismissed as meaningless simply on the ground that it cannot be stated in a way which satisfies the Principle. Whether or not a problem is meaningless is now something that can only be decided after critical examination of the particular case on its own individual merits. But the old antipathies seem in large measure to have survived the disappearance of their logical basis. One gets the impression that for at least many thinkers with Positivist sympathies the ‘liquidation’ of a large, if unspecified, group of traditional philosophic problems is still established fact. If that impression is mistaken, well and good. One may then hope for an early recrudescence of interest in certain problems that have too long suffered the consequences of an unhappy tabu. If the impression is correct, a real service would be done to philosophy if it were plainly stated which of the traditional problems are still regarded as pseudo-problems, and what are the reasons, old or new, for passing this sentence upon them. The smoke of old battles, perhaps understandably, darkens the philosophic air, to the considerable inconvenience of all concerned.

Fortunately, however, the obscurity complained of is not totally unrelieved. We do know of one traditional problem that is definitely on the black list of the avant garde—the problem of ‘Free Will’: and we do have pretty adequate information about the reasons which have led to its being placed theron. This, so far as it goes, is satisfactory. A plain obligation now lies upon philosophers who still believe that ‘Free Will’ is a genuine problem to explain just where, in their opinion, the case for the prosecution breaks down. To discharge this obligation is the main purpose of the present paper.

There will be a clear advantage in making our start from the locus classicus of the ‘pseudo-problem’ theory, if locus classicus there be. And I think that there must be something of the sort. At any rate, the casual, and indeed slightly bored, tones in which so many contemporary philosophers allude to the traditional problem, and their contentment to indicate in only a sketchy manner the reasons why it no longer exists, strongly suggest that somewhere the matter has in their eyes been already effectively settled. At least one important ‘document in the case’ is, I suspect, Chapter VII of Moritz Schlick’s Problems of Ethics, first published in 1931. This chapter, the title of which is ‘When is a Man Responsible?’ and the first section of which bears the heading ‘The Pseudo-problem of Freedom of the Will’, presents in concentrated form, but with some show of systematic argument, most of the considerations upon which later writers appear to rely. It will be worth our while, therefore, to try to see just why Professor Schlick is so sure (and he is very sure indeed) that ‘Free Will’, as traditionally formulated, is a pseudo-problem, begotten by mere confusion of mind.

II

I shall first summarize, as faithfully as I can, what I take to be the distinctive points in Schlick’s argument.

The traditional formulation of the problem, Schlick points out, is based on the assumption that to have ‘free will’ entails having a will that is, at least sometimes, exempt from causal law. It is traditionally supposed, quite rightly, that moral responsibility implies freedom in some sense: and it is supposed, also quite rightly, that this sense is one which is incompatible with compulsion. But because it is further supposed, quite wrongly, that to be subject to causal or natural law is to be subject to compulsion, the inference is drawn that the free will implied in moral responsibility is incompatible with causal continuity. The ultimate root of the error, Schlick contends, lies in a failure to distinguish between two different kinds of Law, one of which does indeed ‘compel’, but the other of which does not.¹ There are, first, prescriptive laws, such as the laws imposed by civil authority, which presume contrary desires on the part of those to whom they are applied; and these may fairly be said to exercise ‘compulsion’. And there are, secondly, descriptive laws, such as the laws which the sciences seek to formulate; and these merely state what does as a matter of fact always happen. It is perfectly clear that the relation of the latter, the natural, causal laws, to human willing is radically different from the ‘compulsive’ relation of prescriptive laws to human willing, and that it is really an absurdity to talk of a species of natural law like, say, psychological laws, compelling us to act in this or that way. The term ‘compulsion’ is totally inept where, as in this case, there are no contrary desires. But the traditional discussions of Free Will, confusing descriptive with prescriptive laws, fallaciously assume ‘compulsion’ to be ingredient in Law as such, and it is contended accordingly that moral freedom, since it certainly implies absence of compulsion, implies also exemption from causal law.

It follows that the problem of Free Will, as traditionally stated, is a mere pseudo-problem. The statement of it in terms of exemption from causal law rests on the assumption that causal law involves ‘compulsion’. And this assumption is demonstrably false. Expose the muddle from which it arises and the so-called ‘problem’ in its traditional form disappears.

But is it quite certain that the freedom which moral responsibility implies is no more than ‘the absence of compulsion’? This is the premise upon which Schlick’s argument proceeds, but Schlick is himself well aware that it stands in need of confirmation from an analysis of the notion of moral responsibility. Otherwise it might be maintained that although ‘the absence of compulsion’ has been shown not to entail a contra-causal type of freedom, there is nevertheless some other condition of moral responsibility that does entail it. Accordingly Schlick embarks now upon a formal analysis of the nature and conditions of moral responsibility designed to show that the only freedom implied by moral responsibility is freedom from compulsion. It was a trifle ambitious, however, even for a master of compression like Professor Schlick to hope to deal satisfactorily in half a dozen very brief pages with a topic which has been so extensively debated in the literature of moral philosophy: and I cannot pretend that I find what he has to say free from obscurity. But to the best of my belief what follows does reproduce the gist of Schlick’s analysis.

What precisely, Schlick asks, does the term ‘moral responsibility’ mean in our ordinary linguistic usage?² He begins his answer by insisting upon the close connection for ordinary usage between ‘moral responsibility’ and punishment (strictly speaking, punishment and reward: but for convenience Schlick virtually confines the discussion to punishment, and we shall do the same). The connection, as Schlick sees it, is this. In ordinary practice our concern with the responsibility for an act (he tells us) is with a view to determining who is to be punished for it. Now punishment is (I quote) ‘an educative measure’. It is ‘a means to the formation of motives, which are in part to prevent the wrong-doer from repeating the act (reformation), and in part to prevent others from committing a similar act (intimidation)’.³ When we ask, then, ‘Who in a given case is to be punished?’—which is the same as the question ‘Who is responsible?’—what we are really wanting to discover is some agent in the situation upon whose motives we can bring to bear the appropriate educative influences, so that in similar situations in future his strongest motive will impel him to refrain from, rather than to repeat, the act. ‘The question of who is responsible’ Schlick sums up, ‘is ... a matter only of knowing who is to be punished or rewarded, in order that punishment and reward function as such—be able to achieve their goal’.⁴ It is not a matter, he expressly declares, of trying to ascertain what may be called the ‘original instigator’ of the act. That might be a great-grand-parent, from the consequence of whose behaviour vicious tendencies have been inherited by a living person. Such ‘remote causes’ as this are irrelevant to questions of punishment (and so to questions of moral responsibility), ‘for in the first place their actual contribution cannot be determined, and in the second place they are generally out of reach’.⁵

It is a matter for regret that Schlick has not rounded off his discussion, as one had hoped and expected he would, by formulating a precise definition of moral responsibility in terms of what he has been saying. I think, however, that the conclusion to which his argument leads could be not unfairly expressed in some such way as this: ‘We say that a man is morally responsible for an act if his motives for bringing about the act are such as we can affect favourably in respect of his future behaviour by the educative influences of reward and punishment’.

Given the truth of this analysis of moral responsibility, Schlick’s contention follows logically enough that the only freedom that is required for moral responsibility is freedom from compulsion. For what are the cases in which a man’s motives are not capable of being favourably affected by reward and punishment?—the cases in which, that is, according to Schlick’s analysis, we do not deem him morally responsible? The only such cases, it would seem, are those in which a man is subjected to some form of external constraint which prevents him from acting according to his ‘natural desires’. For example, if a man is compelled by a pistol at his breast to do a certain act, or induced to do it by an externally administered narcotic, he is not ‘morally responsible’; or not, at any rate, in so far as punishment would be impotent to affect his motives in respect of his future behaviour. External constraint in one form or another seems to be the sole circumstance which absolves a man from moral responsibility. Hence we may say that freedom from external constraint is the only sort of freedom which an agent must possess in order to be morally responsible. The ‘contra-causal’ sort of freedom which so many philosophers and others have supposed to be required is shown by a true analysis of moral responsibility to be irrelevant.

This completes the argument that ‘Free Will’, as traditionally formulated, is a pseudo-problem. The only freedom implied by moral responsibility is freedom from compulsion; and as we have rid ourselves of the myth that subjection to causal law is a form of compulsion, we can see that the only compulsion which absolves from moral responsibility is the external constraint which prevents us from translating our desires into action. The true meaning of the question ‘Have we free will?’ thus becomes simply ‘Can we translate our desires into action?’ And this question does not constitute a ‘problem’ at all, for the answer to it is not in doubt. The obvious answer is ‘Sometimes we can, sometimes we can’t, according to the specific circumstances of the case’.

III

Here, then, in substance is Schlick’s theory. Let us now examine it.

In the first place, it is surely quite unplausible to suggest that the common assumption that moral freedom postulates some breach of causal continuity arises from a confusion of two different types of law. Schlick’s distinction between descriptive and prescriptive law is, of course, sound. It was no doubt worth pointing out too, that descriptive laws cannot be said to ‘compel’ human behaviour in the same way as prescriptive laws do. But it seems to me evident that the usual reason why it is held that moral freedom implies some breach of causal continuity, is not a belief that causal laws ‘compel’ as civil laws ‘compel’, but simply the belief that the admission of unbroken causal continuity entails a further admission which is directly incompatible with moral responsibility; viz. the admission that no man could have acted otherwise than he in fact did. Now it may, of course, be an error thus to assume that a man is not morally responsible for an act, a fit subject for moral praise and blame in respect of it, unless he could have acted otherwise than he did. Or, if this is not an error, it may still be an error to assume that a man could not have acted otherwise than he did, in the sense of the phrase that is crucial for moral responsibility, without there occurring some breach of causal continuity. Into these matters we shall have to enter very fully at a later stage. But the relevant point at the moment is that these (not prima facie absurd) assumptions about the conditions of moral responsibility have very commonly, indeed normally, been made, and that they are entirely adequate to explain why the problem of Free Will finds its usual formulation in terms of partial exemption from causal law. Schlick’s distinction between prescriptive and descriptive laws has no bearing at all upon the truth or falsity of these assumptions. Yet if these assumptions are accepted, it is (I suggest) really inevitable that the Free Will problem should be formulated in the way to which Schlick takes exception. Recognition of the distinction upon which Schlick and his followers lay so much stress can make not a jot of difference.

As we have seen, however, Schlick does later proceed to the much more important business of disputing these common assumptions about the conditions of moral responsibility. He offers us an analysis of moral responsibility which flatly contradicts these assumptions; an analysis according to which the only freedom demanded by morality is a freedom which is compatible with Determinism. If this analysis can be sustained, there is certainly no problem of ‘Free Will’ in the traditional sense.

But it seems a simple matter to show that Schlick’s analysis is untenable. Let us test it by Schlick’s own claim that it gives us what we mean by ‘moral responsibility’ in ordinary linguistic usage.

We do not ordinarily consider the lower animals to be morally responsible. But ought we not to do so if Schlick is right about what we mean by moral responsibility? It is quite possible, by punishing the dog who absconds with the succulent chops designed for its master’s luncheon, favourably to influence its motives in respect of its future behaviour in like circumstances. If moral responsibility is to be linked with punishment as Schlick links it, and punishment conceived as a form of education, we should surely hold the dog morally responsible? The plain fact, of course, is that we don’t. We don’t, because we suppose that the dog ‘couldn’t help it’: that its action (unlike what we usually believe to be true of human beings) was simply a link in a continuous chain of causes and effects. In other words, we do commonly demand the contra-causal sort of freedom as a condition of moral responsibility.

Again, we do ordinarily consider it proper, in certain circumstances, to speak of a person no longer living as morally responsible for some present situation. But ought we to do so if we accept Schlick’s essentially ‘forward-looking’ interpretation of punishment and responsibility? Clearly we cannot now favourably affect the dead man’s motives. No doubt they could at one time have been favourably affected. But that cannot be relevant to our judgment of responsibility if, as Schlick insists, the question of who is responsible ‘is a matter only of knowing who is to be punished or rewarded’. Indeed he expressly tells us, as we saw earlier, that in asking this question we are not concerned with a ‘great-grand-parent’ who may have been the ‘original instigator’, because, for one reason, this ‘remote cause’ is ‘out of reach’. We cannot bring the appropriate educative influence to bear upon it. But the plain fact, of course, is that we do frequently assign moral responsibility for present situations to persons who have long been inaccessible to any punitive action on our part. And Schlick’s position is still more paradoxical in respect of our apportionment of responsibility for occurrences in the distant past. Since in these cases there is no agent whatsoever whom we can favourably influence by punishment, the question of moral responsibility here should have no meaning for us. But of course it has. Historical writings are studded with examples.

Possibly the criticism just made may seem to some to result from taking Schlick’s analysis too much au pied de la lettre. The absurd consequences deduced, it may be said, would not follow if we interpreted Schlick as meaning that a man is morally responsible where his motive is such as can in principle be favourably affected by reward or punishment—whether or not we who pass the judgment are in a position to take such action. But with every desire to be fair to Schlick, I cannot see how he could accept this modification and still retain the essence of his theory. For the essence of his theory seems to be that moral responsibility has its whole meaning and importance for us in relation to our potential control of future conduct in the interests of society. (I agree that it is hard to believe that anybody really thinks this. But it is perhaps less hard to believe to-day than it has ever been before in the history of modern ethics.)

Again, we ordinarily consider that, in certain circumstances, the degree of a man’s moral responsibility for an act is affected by considerations of his inherited nature, or of his environment, or of both. It is our normal habit to ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Part I: Philosophy of Morals
• Part II: Philosophy of Knowledge
• Index